 I want to welcome you all here tonight glad to see so many of you I I want to start the evening off on a I don't want to start in this way I I feel like we need to have a moment of silence for the people who died in the boat accident off of Santa Barbara there was person from SoCal Creek water someone who had worked for the city of Santa Cruz and there were other others from this general area so if I could ask for a moment of silence on their behalf thank you we have Rick Moran here President Henry here Lou Harris here and Steve Swan is absent excused can we excuse him director Moran yes president Henry yes director Paul's yes director Ferris are there any additions or deletions to the agenda staff has none okay oral communications at this time you may talk about anything that's not on the agenda if it's on the agenda you have to wait for the item to come up and the way that's going to work when items come up board will talk go to the public or comment back to the board to decide what they're going to do how many people want to talk about something that's not on the agenda tonight okay I only see that okay you get five minutes okay what the seat for us up for election like when is it up for election what is because I saw that is it that one of the board seats is up for election that was last that was a last board meeting that's up this is our new board member here Rick Moran yes sir yeah you I have a question this is my second meeting to attend and I figured out that the board meets every two weeks it's the first and first and the third Thursday so twice the month right twice a month sometimes there could be more than my question is why so frequently since there's a paid staff that's professional professional department heads why does the board need to meet so frequently what let me explain it to you the this is how it works if you could see a flow chart I looked at the the board is the top of the flow chart yeah but you don't do any of the work if you don't find work at the top we have two employees the district manager and the attorney and then the district manager is in charge of all the employees what the board does is free policy and we have a fiscal responsibility that's our two main things so it's a typical board responsibility which anywhere else would meet no more than once a month I'm honored to see if there was a like in my laws or something what well we have our board policy manual it says we meet twice a month there's wonder if that's the smartest thing to do given the amount of work it takes to conduct a meeting and to support a meeting you're out of order you're right okay let's know a nun done this back and forth you know I can't argue with you about if this is policy this is what we do we have a lot of things we need to do so okay no Elaine Elaine Fresco felt I just have a good question and what are your plans about replacing Jim netleson we're working on it so will you be advertising or yes we're moving forward we're doing contact me offline I can give you more we are moving forward any more good evening president Henry I probably have repeated this several times but so this will be a repeated message as you know members of the council of the board or members of the Santa Marta Rita ground water agency we have two members they're your regular members at those bees on the last Thursday of every month in the Scotts Valley I would like to have some kind of semblance of summary a summary of what is going on with that regional water agency in terms of policies fiscal impacts capital facilities some kind of status report reporting to the capital facilities engineering subcommittee so we can be a prize of what's going on the status or we're aware as members of Santa Lorenzo Valley Water District what the impacts are what the future policy directions are thank you I think that's a great thing that I'll tell you one thing Santa Marta Rita right now isn't doing a whole lot they're having some kind of workshops but they aren't doing a whole lot but we hope to give you more information in the future yes yes I'm a little disappointed in the number of administration committee meetings that have been canceled this year we've been meeting since March seven meetings and we canceled three this last one was canceled the day before the meeting and I see the board agenda and there's a couple items on this agenda that we probably could have had somebody to put on so we have a little disappointment that we've missed so many meetings and women have the chance to address or give feedback on in particular strategic yes you with the back row with the white hair yeah I'm telling you Santa Cruz I live up in the hills there on Boulder Brook Drive when I was very small pessebrox apple orchard no water well our water is a slew so forth trustee for the new be granted there's course your local family trust it's the property with the road that goes up to the diversion plant I submitted a letter sent a letter to the board and I'm spoken with Rick there's some things that the trust would like to see taken care of and I'm hoping that I can work with some people particularly your environmental committee and then there's another issue that's home and securities providing security more security for a facility up there the county hasn't really done anything that I can tell the supervisors and also the other emergency response folks in the county back all of them they all kind of pointed finger well what's what's the water district going to do what I'd like to do is work with your environmental person maybe mr. Boots isn't talk about the issues up there and sorted out the other thing also is access talking to Rick and we can't find any kind of an agreement that's written or hand shaken or anything about the access road that goes up to that facility and we don't know where the where the property lines are and I've asked County to survey the road down there and survey the area up there of course I got an expected dismissal of the idea however because it's a homeless security issue there are tens of millions of dollars in grants for the state and the nation in order to secure our infrastructures I think we need to do a much better job up there just my opinion but between between your staff in the future and we can get to other county involvement and get some money and secure that area up to the way it should be done anybody look there with a tank and some chemicals and plug it into the system up there and hard to beat so far up there there's no one let her see what's going on in this takeoff not saying that the hardcore black ops can't do that but we have so much crazy in the state today in the United States angry people so I'd like to tighten up that business also because I'm on the road at the end of the block the trust is we can secure that area that had been in the past there was a conflict it looked like an inverse takeover the land and so forth so that's history very well I could work with you as Tony I'll be contacting you and hopefully we'll sort all this business out make things more secure up there but I do I want to leave a list of the environmental factors that the trust is required this will be in perpetuity and it's all about corridors the environmental typical stuff that can be conservancy and thank you for your time you could please give your list to the secretary anybody else have something to say that's not on the agenda all right let's move ahead here so first item is board policy manual okay we're ready to move ahead recommend that the board previews and memo discuss the possible action for updating the 2019 board policy this was at the request of director folks as you know this is the board policy manual when board members are free to make suggestions to the other board members policy changes that may be appropriate from time to time there's three changes that I'm proposing this point some clarification around the board calendar in terms of the fact that we don't always hold meetings on the first and third Thursdays are some months where we don't second change is to reduce the reduce or clarify but for special meetings a $25 stipend instead of potentially the hundred dollars stipend that we might be getting now and that's for a couple reasons one of the special meetings are supposed to be typically one topic or very small topics in the past they've morphed into being more regular meetings where I think that hundred dollars stipend may have made sense but I think what we're trying to do is make special meetings special and they should be relatively short for that and the third change is in response to the recent legal troubles that we had with regard to conflict of interest issues and basically what I'm recommending is that the board would go through a more transparent and more fully disclosed process prior to taking on any defense of a director where conflict of interest is involved if it's not involved these additional processes don't take effect but if it is then there's a greater level of disclosure required and this is in line with the recent augmentation of our conflict of interest requirements that we passed requiring us only state we have a conflict but also what that conflict is so those are the three primary changes there's any questions I'd be happy to answer otherwise any comment I have a suggestion a proposed change to section 15 meeting stipends since we're already in that section I propose which is actually a proposal made by the board president sometime back at a board meeting and that is that we change the stipend for the directors from a hundred dollars a meeting to a fifty dollars a meeting because I think it's just as important for us to show we can cut costs as well as ask district staff to do the same did you have anything you want to say well I appreciate director Ferris's point of view on that I agree to some degree I don't know if we need to do 50% reduction but we should we've I think this board has asked the water district to consider a 5% reduction for their budgets I think we should at least do that but I'm I have no problem with reducing the stipend for special meetings from a hundred dollars to twenty five dollars and I have no problem with reducing the overall stipend from a hundred dollars okay well I have other issues here to me this should have gone to the admin committee should have been talked about in admin committee because there's a couple of things here in the board policy that I don't care for now in the past when we passed this board policy director Foltz was on the admin committee and I was I wasn't exactly okay with him coming up with the plan but it pretty much went on went for it except I did have issues on a number of items and they were changed but we do have an admin committee and director Foltz and I are on the admin committee and I think this should have gone to the admin committee and not just come here to the board I mean I've got a couple of things here I would like to see changed and I didn't even know about this until you requested it to be on the agenda yes you okay so my understanding is that items need to be referred to the committees by the board that is it is not an appropriate path to take or a board member to just say I want an item on the admin committee because what that does is that bypasses the full board and their involvement in the process this is not being drawn to the to the board saying take it or leave it or we have to vote on it tonight we as a board can always refer something to committee through it to be processed discussed debated attitude deleted from whatever so I'm not sure what you meant but if we want to make it so that board members can take things directly to committee I think we need to clarify that in the bylaws because that's not clear in there right now okay you're the board chair you make up the agenda and I don't really remember anything coming from the board about some of the things that we've talked about it having the staff will bring things to the committee as we have operating the past but for things that come from individual board members it's not clear that we have the authority to do that if you wish to change the board policy to make that clearer I'd be happy to do that but there are some things I think where the board needs to be involved in a decision about whether or not to refer something for example a strategic plan being brought tonight is the same thing it's not meant to be voted on tonight necessarily there's a process we may decide to go through and one of those options may be to refer to committee so if your desire is to refer this to committee I support that that's my design yes it's my understanding that individual board members could refer items to the to the agenda for the administration committee I've seen it happen in that committee so I disagree I think it's totally appropriate for a board member to say you know here's an item that that somebody's requested be on the board of directors meeting agenda but you know what no that's more appropriate to refer that back to the administration committee we've talked about the strategic plan I think in our last meeting or meeting before that in the administration committee and now all of a sudden this draft that nobody's heard of pops up on this on this meeting tonight so I don't want to get into that because that's a later agenda yes I disagree with your assessment that individual board members can't refer something to an administration agenda if I may respond to that I think there are I think they're a great so first of all it is not clear to me and so if that is your understanding then absolutely that should be something we clear up and as part of the referral to the committee we should take a look at that I also think there are some things that are substantive to the board the policy manual the strategic plan they really need to come to the board first before it gets referred out to a committee potentially because of the fact that these are board ownership documents and so that's mine that's my belief I think that if I were to have taken something like the strategic plan directly to the board I could have been criticized for bypassing the board right so I mean that's that that so either way criticism to come my assessment this is that this should come to the board the board should decide what to do and the board wishes to refer it to committee let's do that I have to say that I feel that I've been bypassed in this as a board member as a committee member that's why I feel how could you be bypassed with something that comes to the board for a referral this is not something that we're voting on necessarily tonight we don't know is was that clear we are going to vote it's always clear that anything that comes to the board agenda isn't necessarily voted on well that's true but of course that's clear but it's not so so let's clear it up I think director Fultz has spoken that these are suggestions that he has that he'd like to see to the board policy and if it needs to be referred back with those suggestions referred back to the administration committee then let's do that I think Lois is in agreement with that and if that's the proper place for it to be then it can go through there get its hearing and they can come back to us with their recommendations okay so yes you'd like to speak thank you I have one point clarification first when a board member has something they want to bring up doesn't it go Lois to you yes and to define how it shows on this anything a board member asks that's district business to be on the agenda I must put it on the agenda thank you okay and my suggestion is that in future when these things come up that it be stated as you know request to refer to committee for a board policy adjustment and I'd like to thank you very much for the things you said related to that because I totally agree this needs to go to committee we need to have more public places for public input before something appears on the agenda as something that we all think you're going to vote on Peter I had a couple substantive comments on one of the changes and I don't know looks like this is going to get referred to committee if it's time to make those or should I send a committee or how should that be done well we haven't decided what we're doing yeah should I wait no because you get to say what you're going to say these are both on the I don't know that you can't talk about the strategic no it's a couple points and I think the transparency and consideration is great it's all good I don't know and I don't know to check with the genome or counsel about this I don't know if it's appropriate to discuss the things in public because of potential litigation under the Brown Act you have public discussion of this I don't know if that's appropriate just something should be looked at and the second thing was on section capital B small B you have so you set forth what the board needs to do before agreeing to defend the director against the conflict and you say you need to find a couple things make determinations but B says that the board finds there's no evidence that there's that there was fraud or the rest of languages malicious yeah and that's an inappropriate standard needs to be like A and C when you make a determination that it doesn't appear that there was fraud rather than no evidence to be one person's claim and then wouldn't be appropriate to deny the defense of that because one person has a problem with it the board has to actually make a determination that it doesn't appear that there's broader malicious intent I agree very much that this needs to go to admin it's it all come the item that Peter was just I mean the other two items are fairly the first and second items fairly in on and he could pass those tonight but the one on director the liabilities huge and of course this is one specific set of cases that came before the district you know in addition to what Peter said you know the obligation to defend is not dependent on whether there's insurance coverage and that needs to be discussed in this process that appears in here you want to go out and ask about what the coverage determination is so this should it should go to admin for some discussion as to the appropriateness if you want to refer the whole thing and discuss the other two great you should figure out a time to for the board to discuss this when Gina is present in person so for no other reason than that wait until okay times that are here is here so that that can be a full you know easy intelligible discussion with Gina and if I were a director on this and I was on the board and I was being asked to make certain findings I would be scared to that I would make a decision that would be not smart for me to make in that and it seems to me that I get a feeling that what the board is is proposing if they implement this thing is that you have to find that the board has to find some evidence find guilt and they're in some sense sort of analyzing the case before you decide how to handle it and at least this question that I'm bringing up should which maybe erroneous should have an attorney explaining the background behind this and we don't have an attorney here tonight that I know of that is prepared to give the background on this but it's kind of hard it's hard to do that from that distance so and of course the same thing about you know having it go to the appropriate community and the committees have well enough to find charters that they don't have to go to the board for everything that comes to them that the board has never acted in that manner I think that's a great hearing in this discussion Virgil I guess I'm kind of impressed by the number of people that say this needs to go to the admin committee for discussion and then they proceed to discuss it here isn't that you know kind of okay fine I go to the admin committee that that's a good use of the admin committee I agree that but having a director and this is this is probably going to be something you need to ask counsel asking a director who's not on the admin committee to discuss to have something discussed by the admin committee might be considered a serial communication of a quorum of the board of directors and that may not be a good idea under the browning don't know council's call thank you the subject that hand from the agenda is changes to the policy manual as proposed and the agenda packet we're in now we're talking about whether or not you go back to committee we either need to send it back to committee or start talking about the changes only we're way off topic here in my opinion this is very similar I don't think this is as complicated as where it should be I think Bob Fultz and excuse me director Fultz and Ferris are onto something here there's no reason why you can take a strategic plan which is a living document this is policy manual it's a living document it can be changed in committee referred back to committee by the total board it's any incremental amendments can be changed during the year those sections that are amended can be brought forward to the board for a deliberation and a decision doesn't mean the whole policy manual changes granted the language has to be there describing that process so I think we're making this more complicated than it really is thank you anybody else so okay at the risk of the conversation more I'm looking actually at the policy manual there is nothing there's no language in here that states a board member can submit something directly to a committee if we wish to have that that is a good thing perhaps it's a good thing to do then we need to make sure it's in here it's also ambiguous as to how agenda items get on the agenda submitted by a board member I would very much appreciate it if I'm going to be criticized for how that happened that we actually take the opportunity to clarify that so that everybody understands how that should be if it's not specifically stated I'm not sure what the problem is here and I'm looking right at the document right now what does this board wish to do go to committee or I recommend that we put it back to committee all second I guess I should have changed that to motion we don't have to be yeah we don't have to be there I'm here I would I would recommend in this instance to make that a motion and vote on it it's not always necessary to be that formal to send something to a committee but since it's an item before the board and that's the decision that it seems like the board declined to make I just recommend formalizing it with a motion okay you gonna make a motion I hope that we take the discussion of the changes to the the board policy manual back to the admin committee and I will say we're so okay I would recommend that we set a time limit for this that are two administration meetings committee meetings one however long it and that the particular points that you raised Bob be part of that discussion and this is council that sounded like a substituted motion no just discussing the motion okay I would like to amend my motion include my recommendation to change the stipend section from $100 per board meeting to 50 well why count if we're gonna do that there's two things I want to change this is just getting our admin committee let's just go to admin committee and talk in admin committee about the board policy I would draw my change back to the original motion director Iran yes just send it back to the president Henry yes director polls yes director Paris I item B the revised fall creek fish ladder yes this is an item in regards to fall creek fish ladder I'm asking the board to review the contract with waterways consulting and approved for fish ladder improvements designed to meet a 12-inch drop in the fish ladder across the chambers approved by the California Fish and Wildlife we've been working on a fall creek fish ladder for some time located in the Felton system we have vertical drops that are currently approximately 18 to 24 inches out of compliance for some time now we've been working the fishery agencies on updating fall creek fish ladder bringing it into compliance and we've been working on as required by the cow for the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Marine Fisheries a six inch drop jump across the fish ladder we requested a variance the change from the six inches to 12 inches we've received you have in your packet we received the variance from the fishing California fishing game and the National Marine Fisheries a design variance we need to go back to our consultant who's into design of the fish ladder change the criteria back to a 12-inch jump and then we will submit for permits for rehab of the fish ladder we designed the fish ladder to meet the 12-inch jumps looking at working on this project for several years to get permitting several issues this should be the last optical optical and we're looking at hopefully meeting a spring summer 2020 on the construction so this is just I'm asking you to approve the waterways contract to move ahead and finish the design and this will reduce our costs it will probably yeah substantially reduce our costs because a 12-inch jump it's just like stairs required like four extra chambers to get it down to a six inch jump so now you've got the jumps and basically modifying the existing jumps that we have I think installing one jump and re-alignment of the actual intake structure of the screen it takes so this will be considered considered less project than we have a considerable reduction in cost the cost of this I didn't see the exhibit be I'm sorry I didn't see the exhibit be I apologize I did I should be I should be I should be I thought it was $12,000 so I saw 15 something like that it's not a large contract I thought it would be in here but it doesn't appear that it is but this contract and I apologize well yeah I thought I saw one too just for this consultant it's near $16,000 yeah I didn't see the exhibit which was referring to the cost page 43 C on page 43 second paragraph 15790 yeah yeah sorry I was referring to an exhibit for cost which usually might have more detail I didn't see that that's all the places shown the majority of work has already been done by waterways so it's the advantage of the district in the back of waterways for a modification more questions so thank you most not only is this going to be cheaper than we thought it was going to be but it suits the fish's needs as well so the fish population is doing well below the fish ladder and it's doing well above the fish ladder Wall Creek is a special place for Saminoid habitat and we're taking care of it this was one of the first things that was on the environmental committee when I got on that committee and I'm glad to see that it's coming to a place where actual construction is going to take place so I definitely support moving forward with this I've been working on this since 2013 it's been a long process I'll talk to you Lou, did you have anything you want to say? no, I've got a few well I'd like those little fishies to get rid of I'd like to see them get back the way they were when I first moved here in 71 it was fabulous so any comments from the audience? Mark I have an environmental background as well UC Davis this looks like a great step forward, finally my concern is the engineering changes in the contract that are going through the process once we complete do we have any estimate of where they're located in the fall creek tributary does anyone have their fingertips? or the changes are located? no, any changes that are in the engineering drawings or construction is there a process in the contract that will allow for changes in the contract that they find for example there are difficult areas that have extreme debris problems this will be just to the actual structure itself and not in the stream bed upstream or downstream this will be construction of the actual fish ladder itself this is for the design only design only once that design is completed it will wind up at the engineering committee too and there will be updates to the engineering committee well done, thank you so can I get anybody else in the audience any motion on this we need to take some action so I'll take a motion that we approve the recommendation and go forward with this contract okay we have a motion and a second just a point of clarification from council for contracts because the board policy manual requires the board president to sign where it's contemplated is here that the district manager should sign part of the motion would be to authorize the district manager to sign the contract I will amend my motion to include that language I'll call the question Director Moran yes President Henry yes Director Falls motion passed alright item C schedule rate increase yes 2017 the district conducted a rate study which resulted in the approved 5 year rate increase this occurs within a November billing of each year ending the fiscal year 2021-22 the additional revenues produced are for needed infrastructure and capital improvement projects and increased in the district reserve funds in addition the restructuring led to more consumption based water rates first fixed based provision the increase in fiscal year 2019-20 is 6% fiscal year 2021 fiscal year 2021-22 will each have a 5% increase in August 2019 the district pledged net revenues to secure the $14,500,000 in funding for capital improvements market conditions and a healthier projected financial future of the district maintenance favorable financing possible additional information on the rate study rate increase in recent yet financing can be found on the district's website with that I have no recommendation and I know other directors will have paper up here it was indeed what I'm proposing is that we freeze the volumetric rates for fiscal year 2020 which would leave them at 10.83 per unit instead of going up to 11.48 according to the forecast that I have that would result in about 247,000 dollars lower revenue for the forecast we saved about 150,000 on the budget that we went through with our cost analysis and I have always stated publicly that the excess that we would achieve would be balanced between our unfunded liabilities infrastructure requirements and great impact and at this point I'd like to make that suggestion I would like to know how that affects our loan will it affect our loan well just real quick the staff is not prepared tonight to look at finances and rate reductions and possibly this would be something we didn't want to send to the finance committee for further review and our abilities to pay back our loans the finance manager I know when we did the budget process we looked at the forecast without the rate increases and it showed that that's not financially feasible this is kind of a hybrid of that so I have to go look at that and then confirm with council on what that means because at that point it was forecasted with the rate increases and the net revenues were pushed so my question is we passed the budget based on the rate increase right so that also it might affect the loan it might affect the budget so if we saved 100 and some thousand but we then cut 200,000 or 100,000 in the hole we have to find more cost reduction or deal with it as a part of the plan in this fiscal year I would have concerns about more reductions in this fiscal year that we've already found in the budget process I would say you refer this to the finance committee where you can look at the numbers and have a chance we're not sitting here being able to recommend for the cuts of the budget for this fiscal year will we have time to do that the next meeting for finance is October probably not I'll leave it up to the board's decision on what they want to do I'm happy to take it to the finance committee we just need to do it faster than the next schedule I'll just interject one question I have I know we've tried to increase our reserves as well that's important to me and I wonder what effect this would have on our goal of building our reserves so the questions the lowest we've had about whether it affects the loan the reserves and whether the budget those are the three questions that I had as well so I need a comment so according to the last meeting our current coverage ratio is about 2.5 right now and the covenant that we signed up for requires 1.25 if we look at and I went back and looked at the trust agreements that we saw there is an explicit paragraph in the agreement I'll send this on it says that contemplates that surplus could be returned to the rate payers and as far as I could tell there's no specific obligation around rates in fact it does talk about things that might change going forward so and that yes it would be for the budget point of view reducing what went into reserves historically I also took a look at our coverage ratio since 2009 from the last annual report and we've met a 1.25 coverage ratio four times out of 10 years so we're actually doing quite well now we went from 1.33 which is barely over to 2.3 last year I'm not sure what it will be this year but the budget says 2.5 so I think it would be great to go to the budget committee and I just want to make sure we do it in a time frame that can still get it back to the board in time to vote on it before the rate increase would go into effect Lou do you have anything to say yes I do I would recommend that we follow the district manager's recommendation that we take no action on the rate increase for this year partly because of the loan and the potential impact there but more largely because of the potential impact with infrastructure I am very concerned we have momentum now I have a report to give you at the end of the board meeting regarding our project which is a major part of our infrastructure and I do not want to have availability of funds as something that slows us down now that we have some positive momentum I think this present board has made great strides in reducing costs and changing the direction of funding and the sharpness that people look at in budgets and it's a slow move but it's a move and I appreciate that and whether it's faster or stays on track with what we already talked about is maybe something that the finance committee has done but I appreciate what this board has done as far as reducing costs I am having time to do this I actually voted no on the rate increase but anybody who was at that meeting would have heard me say I know the district needs the rate increase however I had a problem with trust of the previous manager district manager and that's why I believed no not because I didn't believe the district needed the money and when I was running for the board I never ever promised anyone that we would cut rates I would love to cut rates you know who wouldn't but you know I come from Southern California I got a cousin who's on a water board down there those people pay virtually nothing for their water but there's hundreds of thousands of them they have so many customers your customer base makes a difference about what you're going to pay and I look at their bills and it's like oh gosh and of course I was on the Long Pico water board we had 500 customers and we had two treatment plants we had wells and tanks and staff and can you just imagine what that cost people in Long Pico cost a whole lot of money and of course SLP has a whole lot more people than Long Pico had but it's kind of a part of it is how many customers do you have to spread this out and I really wish we could lower rates I know there's people that heard older people who can't pay the bills and I wish there was some way to help them pay the bills but I can't go for this right reduction right now I don't think this will impact them like I said I think that what we would probably see as a reduction of the money that goes to reserve by some amount but the infrastructure is absolutely moving forward and that's not any intention in my part to change that relative to infrastructure to deferred maintenance and all the rest of it and even deferred meter installations that sort of thing we have a very large unknown set of numbers out there that I know we're working on trying to get better numbers for and once those numbers are in along with the inventory for the infrastructure which will tell us what shape our infrastructure is in and over what time period we need to replace things we're going to have a very difficult conversation with our rate payers because that's going to mean I think the numbers are going to come in and we're all going to be you know really surprised by how big those are going to be and so in the meantime I think our rate payers after having approximately a 40% or so increase need a little relief especially those that are on fixed income and about 30% of our population that lives on $50,000 or less a year and so you know this is sort of a shared sacrifice situation and I think it's incumbent upon us to do everything we can to support those people that struggle every month with paying this bill I would like to make another comment here about reserves I really believe in reserves I worked for a credit union for 30 years and I remember one time the federal examiner said to me hey you've got a lot of reserves why don't you give some of this money back to your members and I said we give them lower rates on loans higher interest on their savings IRS certificates we do all of that and I'm saving these reserves for rainy day a rainy day came in 2008 the finances of this country went that credit union survived and is still surviving today because there were plenty of reserves for a rainy day and let me tell you we're going to have rainy days here we're going to have earthquakes we're going to have droughts and I sure hope we don't have a fire we need I can't just say oh we don't need as much in reserves I don't believe that at all I don't we need more than enough not just enough or a little less than enough yes I agree with you we need a lot more reserves than we have and we're going to build those up over a period of time but we have built up those reserves and from where they had been after they got ran down quite a bit and I got to tell you the reserves that we're adding even now we're going to be adding more later next year year after year after over a multi-year period we're not going to get there to where we need to be in one year but in the meantime we can help some of the people in this valley that are struggling can we put the blue go ahead well staff put together the budget we went through a budget process this year we went through several community meetings we went through several board meetings three increases listed in closed budgets this board adopted that budget I say we move ahead and we execute that budget we're seeing it coming back several months after we just adopted a budget now we're going to be more cuts and low in budget and I don't see any other where in that budget to where we can start making cuts not less but we're going to be looking at staffing and that's where I feel this is going with that that's why we just put together this budget and all of a sudden we want to reduce it well why didn't we do this then and work through we had the whole process going through the public public meetings and now they come back and I was under the impression this was just more informational to make people aware that the rate increase is coming we just canceled the budget and finance meeting that was supposed to be on September 3rd so I mean if there were requests and we were going to look at numbers and run some different ideas that would have been the appropriate meeting to kind of start some of this I wasn't expecting the path we've gone down from this budget so Louie you wanted to say something yeah I'd like to address what Bob said he makes a very good point that he's thinking of the rate payers and I have frequently said that I consider myself to be my top priority is rate payers my priority is division staff or district staff and then it goes down from there so you may wonder why am I supporting a rate increase it's because I believe that the public is behind what we're doing with infrastructure and I would like to hear from them when we open it up because I think that the two biggest inputs for this issue are district staff and the public and what's that saying I may be paranoid but that doesn't mean I'm not right you know I'm worried about infrastructure and I'm worried about momentum and I'm worried about getting this done because eventually there will be a natural disaster and we're going to pay dearly if we don't have a significant portion of our infrastructure fixed because it'll be a lot worse than it would have been if we don't do what we can do so I that's it so I'm going to go with the baseball hi my name is Rebecca I'm a homeowner and I appreciate your regard for rate payers I really do and I also think that I feel very concerned about infrastructure I also feel very concerned about cuts to environmental programs if we don't have environmental programs we don't have water so we don't live in Southern California it's true we live here for a reason it's incredibly beautiful I have children I'm raising them here in the valley I want them they're natural resources the beauty of these mountains to be protected I believe water is sacred and I don't think that I think paying for it is a way to give back and to protect the places that give us life fundamentally life so I'm going to share with you Mr. Foltz what your agenda is in pushing for a rate decrease for a not rate increase when it seems like the infrastructure there is momentum the people that my community cares dearly about environmental issues about how we protect our lands about how we protect the water it seems like there's an urgency with which you're trying to not have a rate increase in what the budget is there is a timing to everything and so I feel a little bit scared about trying to jam the not rate increase into a schedule on a budget that's already been planned out for the rest of the year I think there's other ideas that are possible for people who are really struggling if you guys have a program or something that has tiers I don't know maybe you do that has tiers for people that they can apply if they don't have enough income if they're struggling they can prove they don't have enough income other people who do have enough income can commit to paying one more cent per unit to cover that I think that would work here in Val we all live together we're all drinking out of the same stream we recognize that so I think there's other ideas and possibilities beside what you're proposing thank you thank you because you cut a lot of programs especially in the environment and I just say oh we have enough money we don't need the rate increase so which is it we can draw down the reserves now we can draw down the reserves but before we had to cut all these programs what is going on are you trying to starve the district why good question Mark did you have your head hi Mark I've been watching this debate going on from both sides now both the fiscal conservatives the environment and the infrastructure for what 13 years now of the sort of all elections and there's a balance that we need to look for it includes making sure that people in the low and moderate income groups have some ability to pay their monthly payment I don't know if you've driven around like I have there are a lot of homes for sale you're having a out migration occurring right under your nose it's too expensive to live here for many people sure we have the new silicon valley you know millionaires moving here and buying it probably but there are a small fraction of what the actual population is here most of us live on very fixed or moderate low incomes there was a program that was proposed by the state of california where they were going to allow 600 million dollars applied to each of the water districts through a grant program and that was supposed to be applied to people that were making less than $30,000 a year of what the poverty rate is here that program was never acted upon the other issue is infrastructure we can continue building our infrastructure fixing tanks fixing leaks but it doesn't have to be at the gang fast velocity that we're pursuing I know that we're trying to catch up but there's this perception that the loan is going away it's not going away we already have the money it's what 14 and a half million dollars we already have present value dollars here to take care of the current physical difficulties that we have put money into reserves without actually increasing water rates we're not saying reduced water rates we are suggesting at least I am that we stabilize water rates through some of the calculus that Bob is talking about in terms of the volumetric calculation so I think everyone's frantic and kind of grasping theories and solutions that are very emotional we need to send the budget back to the finance go through the calculations and find where we can make some savings and cuts and I agree with the proposal that director Bob Fultz is proposing and I hope the rest of you will vote for that we can find savings we don't have to continue raising our rates 6% per year a total of 67% we are getting more expensive than Soquel Water District the city of Scotts Valley and city of Santa Cruz we are becoming the most expensive place to live and who's going to be suffering it's the middle class you're cutting your own whatever we need to send a message we voted you in with a particular message to bring to the public to reform our rates that was one of your political campaigns I don't care what Rick is committed to in terms of budget I want to know what we can accomplish in the next 5 to 10 years that's financially feasible with the highest priority which we've got in the capital facilities plan process so I think we can do it I just think we need to put our thinking caps on take it back, do the calculus work with the finance people thank you I can't see who's pauser up so Peter, I can see just a procedural question was Mr. Fultz's suggestion in the board packet I didn't see it it was an informational item and if it's not it's not proper for discussion tonight because it's got to be public notice that this is going to be discussed it is on the agenda just as a rate increase discussion by the board regarding the schedule right but there's nothing in there about what he suggested as Rick Rodgers is pointing out he thought and he's the he works here he thought it was an informational item you have to know that by the public this is going to be up you cannot discuss this any further in my humble opinion well, Gina there's no public notice of this it is illegal there's no public notice that this was going to be discussed tonight it's right on the agenda not specific can we ask Gina yes, Lois just did but she doesn't answer Gina I believe the discussion is within the scope of the agenda item but the specific action that was sort of there is no specific action that could be taken tonight that would effectuate what Director Fultz proposed if that is the result of the discussion of the board's desire to go in that direction it would have to come back with a specific agenda item right thank you, yes hi, I'm Jeremy Martin I live in Felton and Bob seems to be a perfectly same person the proposal sounds insane to me from a management standpoint you've got a budget the district manager was just talking about having a favorable loan rate based on the numbers that you gave them and now all of a sudden right before the rate increase you're suggesting a complete change to what all of this was based on and that just seems utterly senseless I think that it's great about rate payers but bring that suggestion up a year from now when it comes around again not right now when the increase is just it's about to happen and the district has done their work it just seems like a huge waste of staff time to ask them to go back and try to renegotiate a loan or something it just doesn't sound like a smart way to run things thank you yes sir I'm a local contractor that's lifted over 900 houses since the earthquake I know a little bit about the infrastructure there's band-aids on top of band-aids on top of band-aids I know pipes that go under people's houses two inch pipes it's a wreck if you have five good lines that need to be put they're not getting any cheaper next year or the next year or the next year if we want the money now if we want to pay more money for water nobody wants to pay more money for anything but the longer we wait the more expensive it's going to become and the more the system will decay thank you I appreciate the service that our water district gives us and I appreciate the attempts to keep the costs down however I don't think the water district is a charity organization if we aren't allowed to have tiered rates which I understand to law then we need to have some organization either part of the water district or separate from the water district for us to help our neighbors pay their water bills it's not the water bills they're making it expensive here it's the food it's gas it's everything else our expenses are increasing with PG&A so why make it the water district's problem that people can't afford their rates we can't afford to not have water we can't afford to not have infrastructure that can withstand drought and we really need to get on top of what's happening with the Santa Margarita aquifer and also the Ben Lohman side of our watershed here we need to protect our watershed first before we start giving money back I think the budget was well thought out it sounds like there was an awful lot of planning that went into that I trust our director here Rick and that's all I have to say Happy History of what's been going on here for about the last year I was at every budget meeting I was at every board meeting that discussed the budget and it was pretty ugly at times because there is a culture of raising rates don't cut anything your budget resolution lies in raising the rates that culture is what got us here now when you try it's terrible when you try to correct that your suggestions about the various programs and get the valley churches involved and all that that has been discussed multiple times and it all comes up with a big no mostly because of legitimate concerns by staff if you are and we're not talking about construction and infrastructure issues here that's wrong, that's a red herring we've got $14.5 million being held by the county for the next three years for us to accelerate an incredible lack of foresight that's happened over 20 years we have committed the rest the rate payers to pay back that $14.5 million for the next 30 years because it was very advantageous to do it right now and get us out of this hole the hole is real the solution is real don't conflate the two and the problem is if you are not going to discuss affordability here you can't discuss rate increases it's a part of the California Water Code thank you I'm actually here in another budget matter but I did hear Mr. Rogers say that this was already approved and the budget that was already discussed so what I'm concerned is that I've been here for a lengthy process on this agenda item when I'm actually waiting to speak on another one and my concern is that every time you want to take action on something that's already approved in your budget there's a huge discussion whether you're going to actually change the budget I think you're going to end up in a world pool going nowhere you don't have to meet before you can change the budget it might be substantial changes circumstances that were unanticipated at the time the budget was made something of that nature that you have to meet that threshold before you use every single meeting and every single budget item as an opportunity to refight the budget if you lost it at the budget fight because I'm sure you had these fights when the budget was made unless there's something unusual and unanticipated to bring this up at this stage I think is irresponsible and disrespectful of the staff they've gone through this process they've done the cuts they've put the budget together and now a month before these things these rate increases want to happen you want to bring up suspending them why didn't you bring this up last month or the month before Bob which doesn't make any sense to me at all to bring this up at this last minute unless you're just trying to do an end run around something and I just think it's disrespectful of what's gone in to this process and the budget that you already have that relies on this rate increase the time to address not doing this rate increase is not now, is not a month before these things are going to go into effect a month, two, three, four months ago and because we've got other things to do so I'm sorry you get to talk once and we have to move over so yeah, well I'm not going to let him talk again either so what's the disposition of this? the disposition as we discussed it that's all we get to do so we're going to refer to the budget you can't do anything with it well I'm not going to refer it to the budget can't take it but I will put it now I'll ask that we put on the next meeting as an action unless Rick you don't want that to happen I don't want it to happen we also have somebody that's missing it's one and he may have some of it on as well but if Rick it's not something that you want to do then I won't it's not something I want to do okay we're moving on okay we're going to go to item D which is Board Member Committee of Assignments we have we need to make some changes to Board Committee Assignments we have a new Director did I even tell the people that you were here tonight? they know anyway we need somebody let's see we have Lu on environmental and it would seem that you ought to be on environmental too because that's your strength is that okay with you? okay so we also have Director Colts well we can only have two Board Members and my understanding is that he I would absolutely defer to okay so then we have the Engineering Committee which is Steve Swan and Lou Ferriss and Steve Swan is asked to come off of that so I was thinking perhaps you would be on the Engineering Committee can you do that? when I was actually the Environmental Committee came on it was the Environmental Engineering Committee who knows it may become one again who knows and okay I don't think there's going to be changes to admin and fine-announce unless Bob wants a change okay which means Bob and I are admin and fine-announce then there's Santa Margarita so we want to make change there I'm on Santa Margarita and Steve Swan is on Santa Margarita he wants to be off his job has just taken so much of his time he can't do this so we want to put Lou on Santa Margarita as the second member to be you and me Lou and then as an alternate Rick Moran will that work? to my understanding of that is I can go but I can't speak you can go and it's a good idea to go so you know what's going on but you can't say you know if Lou is not there then he can speak but Lou and I show up to everything right so you might not ever get to exercise your lips so anyway are these changes agreeable to everybody? yep to the board so what what I didn't see a paw oh I think Lou will be great on Santa Margarita I think that's a really good decision the others are reasonable decisions as well I'm reasonable I can say that sorry sorry that wasn't a change alright so the committees have been do we have to vote on that or just in agreement you get to a point I can appoint and somebody can say for that everybody agree okay you don't need a motion on that do you just let Lou's appointment on committees hello can we lose her I'm here can you hear me we don't need a motion on committee appointments do we this should be confirmed with a motion of the board okay anybody want to make a motion I will make a motion that um director Moran joined again the engineering committee as well as the environmental committee that I take responsibility for the second seat for the swing one and then director Moran be the ultimate for the swing one I'll second that do you want to call the question director Moran yes president Henry yes yes director Paris yes okay moving right along here new business item a draft strategic plan from director folks discussion and possible action so again I think we might be able to accelerate some of the conversation because this is the same situation as the last one it's not clear the process by which agenda items get in here but I want to really recall the board meeting in March 21st where we discussed the strategic plan and at which point I volunteered to bring back a draft to the board for disposition and that seemed acceptable to a majority of the board members at that time the alternative that was proposed was that the board spend 10,000 perhaps more on a consultant and given that this is a document that I think needs to be owned by the board it didn't seem to be a good use of money to do that I had several goals in writing this to achieve greater focus to simplify, to shorten to put more emphasis on policy to make it an easier read and to make it board ownership the current draft is which I don't believe was ever passed in 2016 is about 50 pages and what I'm proposing is about 13 or 14 pages the process that I went through was to make sure that we were covering the topics that were in here to the extent that we wanted to do that to add to that topics that we had discussed during the campaign promises that we had made that we were going to do move more into strategic rather than tactical add to it policies that we had already enacted as a board as we were moving through the process the first eight months and then other topics that I think we had learned about during our time on the job so in that regard I don't think the content of this will be surprising the format is definitely different the manner in which the information was put together is different it did not have the progress bars that should be in a separate document in my opinion my expectation for this is that the board was going to decide to do something and that would range everywhere from we don't want it, we want to go back to a consultant to we refer it to a committee or we decide we're going to have a different approach through an ad hoc committee the board or something like that but also not my expectation that this would be voting on necessarily tonight that happened great but that wasn't the expectation so that's kind of a summary of the approach I took, the objectives we were trying to reach and how we got to this point based on the March 21st meeting happy to answer any questions I must have been unconscious the night that we say we decided we're going to have you write this because I don't think it's a board member's job to write policy I think it's the board's job to decide on policy and have workshops and I thought we were going to have workshops and I I guess maybe I wasn't paying attention and there are several things the difference is okay a consultant did the the strategic plan before and one of the first things he says and I think it's on 78 page 78 he said this strategic plan was a preparation effort involving many individuals directors public staff and consultants and I feel like you gave us a draft you changed the mission statement which I really don't like you used the phrase ruthlessly efficient and I'm for being efficient but if you look up what ruthlessly means it's a very ugly word in my mind no place in the strategic plan the other thing is I want to go back to our board policy manual on page 26 of the agenda packet says during the first regular meeting after January 1st of each year of course we missed that each committee shall review the district's current strategic plan now whether it was voted on or not I have no idea but there is a plan and identify strategic plan elements pertaining to said committee the committee's findings regarding each strategic plan review shall be reported back to the board at the next available regular board meeting for discussion and to allow the board to provide direction back to the committees regarding completion of identified strategic plan elements that's part of our board policy that never happened nobody was involved in in the draft I understand it's a draft but no one was involved in that I had a problem with it I'm sorry it's the same thing as the previous thing which is I volunteered to do something it is entirely up to the board as to what you want to do with it in terms of the content or the process or what have you any board member on this board is free to bring anything to the board that they wish to have discussed that is in my opinion a core cultural thing this board should have and if the reaction to that especially when the board member submitting in this case me is saying hey it's a draft let's either dispose of it say we don't want it we want to go back and do something else by feelings either way but to basically say that somehow this is being done incorrectly that's just not right a board member has the ability to bring whatever the board member wants to the board that's true but also you absolutely in writing your draft didn't go along with board policy we can do anything we want as a board that policy as far as I know and I've served in a committee for three years has never been followed right with respect with respect to the process with respect to the process and so I I get I mean I'm I'm actually flabbergasted a little bit it's sort of like the discussion that we had was this is okay to do Dave heads up it's sort of like goes unpunished here I told you two times recently that I didn't like the idea of one board member doing this I'm not doing this this is something brought to the board for discussion that is the process by which we do things but the discussion isn't gee this is something that we should discuss in a policy level bereft of the personalities it's where you shouldn't have done this well as a board member I can absolutely do this and you did it and I have on myself okay do you want to say anything I need a way for us to be able to discuss these issues like the strategic plan okay so if this is a way for us to do that outside of committees because I can't involve the administration committee so if it's a way to feel out the board on how it feels about making changes to the strategic plan then I see this is a legitimate way of doing that and that's what I feel like I'm going to do here is make some suggestions to what I think is going on here and then it can the committee can take it and have it recognized some of the interests that various board members had and try to craft something alright I appreciate Director Fultz's willingness to take on something that we have previously paid a lot of money for and I'll just stop there I appreciate that and I'd like to be able to discuss these issues without it necessarily I don't think Bob expects it to be finalized in any way alright okay Lou did you have anything to say I do but first I would ask that you bear with me this may take a few minutes first point I'd like to make is I believe this should go back to the admin committee for review having said that I would like to point out something that I did a couple of months ago and that is I took it upon myself and in talking with Larry Ford and both of us expressing our opinion about the urgency of fire prevention planning to take it to brick and start having meetings together even though the person who should have been there was actually, I don't know the actual question was about the revocation and pushed that point thanks to Larry to the point where we were ready to make a recommendation to the board to do something in the height of the fire season but I have to acknowledge that I feel like I was I'm rationalizing something that I probably exceeded my authority in doing out of the hands of the board and out of the committee hands and just running with the ball. I felt it was justified, but I acknowledged that I walked a pretty thin line in doing that. And if something were to come back in me based on that, then I deserved it. Having said that, I view what Bob did in a similar light. We decided months ago not to proceed the way we had done in the past with the same consultant burlives to simply update the strategic plan for the third time. And I'm glad that we did that, but I am just appalled at what we have as a result of that consulting fee. I mean, 47 pages of strategic plan. I have never in my life, and I've audited 500 companies and looked at 500 strategic plans and never seen one over seven pages. It's an abomination. It's a confusing morass of elements, board objectives, accomplishments, strategic goals, progress charts, status items, control programs, all spending nine categories. And it confuses strategic plan with objectives, with accomplishments, with everything. It's an unworkable document and needs to change. So I actually give him kudos for taking it and running with the ball. And I have read what he has done. I applaud the fact he's reduced it from 47 pages to a more workable 13 pages. I think it should be even shorter, but that's just my experience with strategic planning. But I think we need to get that done. We need to get it done quickly so it can guide us in the future. But having said that, I think that we kind of, he probably did the same thing I did. In his zeal, he rationalized what he was doing. I don't speak for you, but I applaud the effort and I think it is a good start to what hopefully will be a viable and dynamic strategic plan that we can use to guide ourselves in the future. But I don't wanna just stop the progress that he has made. One last point is I really am disappointed to see the amount of social media blasts directed at how we did it. I understand and I agree with the fact that it was taken out of committee, but we need to help him to create a workable strategic plan. So instead of just sending out social media blasts, talk to him. That's what I do, and talk to me if you don't wanna talk to him. I don't care, but I still, I think it is important to advance the strategic plan as it is to advance our infrastructure. That's what I think. Okay, are we done as board talking here? Yes, sir. For now. Okay, so Elaine. I just wanna reply to one thing you said. How can we talk to him if we have no ideas being done? I did not know until this was set up and I thought we were voting on it. Can I say something? Yeah, as long as you don't get into the situation. But when you did know, or at least some of you in the audience, use social media instead of going to the source. And I don't understand it. If the objective is to make a good product, trying to create emotional upswell is not the solution. The solution is to change this to something that does work. That's smiling. Yeah, and I guess my assumption was that this would have been addressed in the committees. And it should have been, in my opinion. And so I think you were bypassed. Virgin. Yeah, hi, I'm a strategic planning consultant. I heard. Also, what the city used to do, community planning. So I have a lot of experience in doing this kind of planning. Maybe that plan that you referenced before wasn't, I don't know, I read through it in the details. But one of the reasons that planning in public is longer and more, there's more to it, is because you have to hear from the public. And so that process of listening to the public is time-intensive and it adds pages to the document. I agree that strategic planning has shifted over the past 20 years so that it's much more, it's shorter now. That's the way it's gone. However, I would be happy to meet with Bob and talk to you about strategic planning and how public agencies do strategic planning because I really believe in it. I know that it works. I have seen this transform communities. And when it's done right and when you're talking to one another and that's what, you know, and I agree we have to talk to one another that you can reduce some of the conflict and it's a mechanism for doing that. So we don't need to be in our camps. We can actually work together and come up with something. But it's disconcerting for someone who lives in Felton. It's a customer of the water district but also does this as a profession to see one person just change the mission. It's disconcerting. It's a little scary like, oh my God, what is one person on the board doing? So that's maybe some of the reaction that came up. Bob, I appreciate what you did here in trying to jump start the process. I think because I know we talked about this in the admin committee a couple of months ago, I think we were there a little. I think the best step would have been to take this draft and bring it back to the admin committee. Again, I'll get back to the point that out of seven meetings we had three canceled including this one that was just a, should have been yesterday and we could have easily discussed your draft in the admin committee a couple of days ago yesterday and we could have avoided this. I was under the impression as a member of the admin committee that from that discussion we had a couple of months ago that we would be going through this. And so yeah, I'm surprised that this just showed up on the agenda tonight and it just wasn't brought back to the committee expressly. I don't feel like there's really any purpose for the admin committee at this point because I really just seem to be coming to the board. Yes, sir. I'm a president student at San Jose High School and when I saw that the current overgo for the stretch to the plan said they'll take down the warning of preserving the watershed that can certainly extremely deeply since I will have to live in this watershed my entire life. So when you take that apart it makes me feel like it will not be protected. It will not be protected than where our water comes from and I don't know about the rest of you but I like to drink new water. I think you give your future generations. Yes. So I think that in draft during the plan, I would say that we need to preserve future generations because in 10, 20 years they can may not be your problem but it will be definitely my problem. And I personally want a safe watershed that will help the ecosystem and along all the other problems that we are having with the watershed. Thank you. Chris Steny Boulder Creek. I don't know whether or not the board has followed the policy manual in the past but I do know that you recently rewrote it because I was here when you discussed it and when you passed it. So it seems like if you're gonna rewrite it you should follow it. So that's that comment. I'm gonna follow the lead of this lady back here in volunteering my professional services. I charge people a lot of money over in the Silicon Valley to do editing and proofreading and stuff like that. I think that it's important because there have been court cases that were decided on the basis of a comma and I have noticed when we were going over the policy manual that there was a lack of rigor shall we say in some of the wording. So I'm gonna volunteer to help you with that if you would like and with this document as well. Then after that I'd like to address a couple of actual substantive pieces in here. There's a, on page 67 there's a suggestion to work with state and federal legislators for regulatory relief. You may be able to work on that through an organization like the AWACA but I have to tell you that working as a small district independently having been a long time political activist making those sorts of changes takes years and it takes a lot of dedication. I don't think we have the staff to do that so it would be up to the board members to do it or you would have to have some sort of grassroots support or you'd have to get very involved with some organization like the AWACA to get them to do it. It's very lengthy, it's not inexpensive. So I think that that is not a bad goal but it's a little unrealistic without being willing to devote some resources to it. Excuse me, where are you on the 67? Down near the bottom it's, where are you going to tour the list? There's a, yes. There's a small paragraph at the bottom of the page and then it's right above that. Is it 67 out of others? No, it's page 67. It's the left hand side 67, right? So there's several numbers on it, 67 is the run-in. That's the entire document. We're running right. Right. I see where you're going to talk. On page 68, under goals number six it talks about direct pay. As a rate payer I would have some, I can't tell you how many organizations that I do business with have been hacked already in my lifetime. I would be very concerned about direct pay and security for a small board like this. So I would wanna know more about that. Underneath that it says supplemental funding. I have the same question about that. Do we have staffing available to look for this outside funding? Other than that, it sounds like magical thinking to me if we don't and if we haven't dedicated some resources to finding that funding. And then finally on page 68 you have talked about wanting to save money. That's fine, I understand that. But you're talking about doing an inventory, a district inventory that was already done by the previous board. So that seems wasteful. On number seven, you're talking about a catch up program, increase the debt and ensuring a conservative debt coverage ratio is determined by district revenues. That was a little confusing to me. I didn't understand how you were balancing all of those things. And as the gentleman behind me already said, I took the words right out of my mouth. Things that get more expensive if you wait on them. So I think I agree with Director Ferris that kind of time is of the essence. And then number nine, complete Lompeco projects as soon as possible. So why are we talking about possibly delaying some projects and then accelerating Lompeco projects? Living not in Lompeco, what am I, chopped liver? We were paying for 10 years to get things done. Yeah. And nothing was done for the first three years? I don't believe that that's true. Because in the first two years, Lompeco wasn't using their own water. So there was stuff done. We were paying for our own water. Yeah, but you weren't using your own water because there needed to be repairs to the Lompeco district. That was done over two years. I'm not gonna talk to you about that because you don't know what you're talking about. Pardon me. Thanks very much because I actually did talk to the former district manager about this and I think I do know something about it. The former district manager here. Yes. Oh, it does look good again. I was on that board the whole time and all this was going on. And Rick Rogers. Rick Rogers and I know more about this and maybe Ed right there than anybody in this room. Oh, I'm sorry, James. I'm, you won't be able to say off topic. Anyway, it's okay. All right, yes. You, but I keep forgetting your name. Hi, my name is Mary Springer. Hi. Oh, Springer. Just to get us back on topic a bit, I really believe that Bob meant well in what he was doing and was trying to find the correct process for reviewing the strategic plan. And perhaps it just, to clarify that a little bit, I believe the correct process would have been to bring to the board just the statement. I would like to review the strategic plan. Can we do others care? These are the reasons and some of the items I'd like to consider. And what is the process we want to use to review the strategic plan? Instead, you know, as the public, we see this, what appears to be a finished document that is only to be reviewed. And I've done that sometimes. You hand people a finished document. That becomes what everybody's working from. Okay, that's not what should be done here. What should be done here is a complete process. That is an expensive process. That's why a consultant was brought in. But it needs to have all of the stakeholders at the table to do something that significant. I personally was horrified with some of what I saw in this. I saw a lack of concern for environmental issues and a focus on there being only one measure of success that is true in a business climate. As you and I have discussed before when we were on the school board together, a public agency has different requirements. A public agency is responsible not just for one measurement of the bottom line, but for responsibility of openness, inclusion, in this case, environmental protection, and protecting this watershed for future generations. So let's talk about, if we want to review the strategic plan, what is the process that should be used to do it? Yeah, Peter? Thank you. Can I get Peter Gilboe and Boulder Creek again? Didn't want to cut off Barbara's applause. No. There was been. I have a short matter that a number of people have signed I'm going to read it into the record here. This draft revision, as we all know, was created by one board member without public involvement and recommends radical changes to the district's vision and operations. For example, the current mission is to quote, provide customers and future generations reliable, safe, high water quality at an equitable price, close quote. The new draft version would drop future generations from the mission and replace equitable price with quote, lowest possible sustainable place, close quote. The current mission is to quote, manage and protect the environmental health of the aquifers and watershed, close quote. The new draft version would drop the obligation to manage and protect the environmental health of the watershed and instead only protect the land and aquifer upon which the district's water sources depend and facilities reside. This change could have dramatic implications of ownership of lands by the district and loss of control over the conservation of those lands. We strongly believe that any revision to the district's mission should occur only after ample opportunity for public input and review. This is particularly the case when the board is considering a profound departure from the district's historic mission to manage and protect our watershed for future generations. We therefore urge the board to table the draft proposal and not consider it at the board level until it has solicited public comments. Specifically, we recommend the following and I'm gonna read the names of the people who signed this at the end. One, clearly identify any proposed changes and provide reasons the board is considering those changes. Two, hold public meetings for discussion regarding the mission and strategic plan. Three, survey the water district customers asking for public comment on their highest priorities for the district. Four, promote through mailings, social media and the website that the district is soliciting public comments for shaping the district's mission and strategic plan. In addition, the current plan guides the agency through 2021. That plan included the skills of an experienced outside consultant and involvement from the public, staff, board committees and the full board of directors. We would like to know why the board feels that a significant revision is needed at this time. Why it is not following established planning processes and what changes, what specific changes to district operations where management of woodshed lands and facilities are anticipated and would be allowed by this new mission statement. This was signed by the following district customers in alphabetical order. Chuck Bowman, Elva Boland, Cynthia Zenzel, Jerry and Sheila Delaney, Peter Gellblum, Jenny Gilmez, Alexis Crostu, Nancy Macy, Roberta McPherson, Jim Mosher, Debbie Rice, Barbara Spinger, Lee Summers, Lea Watson and Donna Zeal. That's the end of the letter. I have just a couple of things on my own. They're not part of the letter. Bob mentioned campaign promises. I'll send it to you. This is all mine. I think in fact, if this were to come into place, it would be a betrayal of the electorate. The three people who were elected in the last election, very specifically, repeatedly and against objection, said we are environmentalists. We are gonna protect the environment. Don't worry, don't listen to those other guys who I've worked with who said they're the environmentalists. These guys are not. These guys kept saying yes we are. Rick, who I'm very impressed with tonight by the way, I read, got onto the board primarily, almost exclusively because of his work with the environmental committee and his concern for the environment. And I would hope that you in particular, Rick, would object to this playing down of the environmental obligations of this world. Thank you. First of all, I disagree with almost everything he said. Mostly because it's argument by distraction, okay? That's not a legitimate form of discourse. If you look at what Bob has presented, he has consistently said it's simply a draft. A draft starts with one person. He's asked for you to toss it out. Let's see what happens if we do. But more importantly, his mission statement is a better mission statement than the old mission statement in my opinion. If you don't care about it. And thank you for letting me talk. Please come and interfere. Sorry about that. One of, okay, I'm a humble tutor for English as a second language. I understand English pretty well. I understand the nuance. What Bob did here was remove the nuance so that it was unambiguous. It still kept in the environmental thing. You'll notice here, you'll notice that he gives you a single statement for the mission. He distilled most of the introduction to the California Water Code into a single sentence. I know nobody's here read the Water Code. It's real thrilling. But the important point is, I think that he supplemented that statement with several bullet points that were headed by must. Not should, not maybe, but must. And the environmental concern is clearly marked there for anybody that understands English or is prepared to help me understand English. Thank you. Please send this back to Edmund. You have one person here today who's spoken about this. There are two other public members on that committee. I know one has thought a lot about strategic planning and the other is an eager learner in this process. You have two public members here tonight who have offered to help with this process. Have it go back there. This is the start of doing this the right way. The draft exists. It can't be, you know, a belt can't be unrun so that Bob's opinions on this are here tonight. But the starting point shouldn't be one director's opinion on this. It should be an amalgamation of the board, the committee, the public, to somehow come together on something that the community agrees on. And that's the place to start. Is in the Edmund committee. I'll be doing it. I just want to thank you, Chairperson Henry, because you started this discussion saying you didn't like the myth of post-mission statement and I'm here because I like the one we currently have just the way it is. I think that's what we said at the beginning of this discussion item. I think this is a huge change. I don't want to quibble about your process. I'm sure Mr. Holtz, you know, had the best of intentions and thought he was being helpful. But I don't know if he was aware of what a red button item is, change of misinformation statement. And it's a very important thing to me that's why I'm here and why I think there was a flash point on social media because a lot of people were concerned about the proposed changes and felt like it was going to be sort of rubber stamp approval of this, you know, submission, that's what our concern were and that's why we're here or I am anyway. So I think it's a fundamental change in philosophy that proposed changes to the mission statement. I just want to point out three points but I do want to, I'm going to give my four points but I also want to emphasize if you have any intention of changing that mission statement, you need to have extensive public hearings on it like Mr. Goldblum recommended because people really care about that mission statement. So one, you move from lowest price to equitable price. I think that's a significant change in values. Equitable sounds fair to me. Lowest is not the same as fair. Removal of the watershed, we're all concerned about that. Why? We're afraid of what that means. We're concerned about our watershed. I recently wrote to the board about the fish monitoring asking for us to support that. I quoted that whole section of the mission statement. I actually was concerned. This is an end run around that issue because of you're going to change a mission statement so you don't have to be so concerned about fish monitoring. You know, I went that way and I think that without the public hearings so we have some clarity, you can have people run in the wrong direction if that's the wrong direction that you weren't intending that but that's how I was concerned about it. Failure to define sustainable. You want lowest price sustainable. Who's the sustainable to? The fish, the budget, the customer, all of the above that needs to be spelled out who you're being sustainable to because I want it to be all of the above. And how the whole thing is written where the other concerns are secondary. There's certainly a hierarchy with the highest value placed on the lowest money. And that is not, that's a fundamental change in philosophy. The original and mission statement we currently have seeks to find balance and I recognize that balance is hard to find. It's a tough job for you to do but I wouldn't tie your hands to the lowest price because there's a lot more considerations than lowest prices. The person who spoke about public trust. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Any other comments out there? No? Okay. Back to the board. So, going to committee. Well, if that's the, if that's the pleasure of the board. I mean, that's fine. You know, again, the whole process by which these things happen is not particularly clear in our work policy. I mean, I forget who made the comment about the board policy and there being a little bit lack of readers. No question about it. That is something by the way that the admin committee tried to work on for two years and unfortunately was not able to reach a conclusion. I was only one member on that board this evening. There were two board members and for some reason that document never really changed a whole lot and I think it's because these kinds of documents without a starting point, it's very difficult to move through that in a process that's going to reach a conclusion. Let's be very clear. This document was never approved. At least I can't find the approval. Maybe it was, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the minutes. This was something that had been worked on at least for a year before this and 2016 was two years before the 2018 election and nothing really of substance took place during that time. I don't even recall that it was at the, that we really did much of this in the admin committee then either and I happened to be in the committee during that time. So, you know, for me, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results and you know, I understand the politics behind it. I understand that the folks that are in this room are not people that supported us during the last election. I understand all of that. I understand that there is a huge push in this room for the board to change nothing and in fact, what at least I ran on was a change platform. That the real cost of this district has been 30 years of essential board level neglect of infrastructure and other critical resources that at some point in time, our customers, not just the people in this room but the people that are in the valley, if that water doesn't come out of the tap, that's what the pitchforks come out for, the torches and pitchforks come out for. And I think it's important for this board, in my opinion, to really decide what we're going to focus on and how we're going to achieve those goals and that's what I attempted to do in this draft. If the board wishes to send this to admin committee, that's great. If it wishes to form a board committee, that specifically that's great. It's entirely up to the board to decide what to do. And I hope that this gives us a place where we can have a good discussion because that was absolutely intent of how do we get this into a process where we can start having a discussion about it. What I heard here was to take it to committee. I heard at least two board members say that. I wouldn't be opposed to that but if I could say something else. I like what I heard here tonight. If this wasn't brought up, we wouldn't have heard this, all right? Maybe some people were brought to a state of alarm that they didn't need to be. But I don't think that was anybody's intent. We heard some things that need to be heard and I don't know how else we're going to hear that in a large group that we can all interchange with, okay? So thanks for the input on this and it needs to go to whether it's the environmental committee, there's parts of it that, when you talk about the mission statement, I certainly need to be part of. One thing that needs to be clear about mission statements is this is not the first mission statement that the water district has had. There's been many water district mission statements. So changing the mission statement is changing to the times. So we should not fall in love with something that was written 20 years ago, okay? So I'm quite willing to change the mission statement to reflect current conditions. Food, did you want to say anything? I already said thank you. Okay. So I think this needs to go back to committees. We want to start in the admin committee or do you want to split it up on the different committees and have multiple committees? If we follow the board policy, we give it to all the committees. We should follow the board policy. You should follow the board policy manual, which means it goes to all the committees. I'm sorry, I've taken it away from the audience. Would that be in any way a brown act issue if we're looking at the entire document, set of documents in each committee that means it was sure. 100%. Well, it's a good idea for a possible alternative. Maybe deconstruct your draft here to have the admin committee help create the general outline of the strategic plan and then start having a board workshop so where then you're able to get all board members' inputs on some of the different sections to then help get a little bit more of a cohesive plan for what is to go in. The other thing is if we aren't going to follow the board policy manual on what it says for the strategic plan, then we should throw it out. Absolutely, and I think the board policy manual and the admin committee, I think it's a great suggestion, Stephanie. I think that was something that was talked about in the March meeting. I thought that was our plan. We're looking at an outwork shop. That was to be a workshop. Right? Yes, maybe get a general outline of some of the key, the key sections of a strategic plan. Start to brainstorm maybe some of the key areas that we want to change and then start to come to the workshop so we can have a little bit more of a constructive workshop from the get-go. Yeah. I do have a comment. Okay, yeah, I have a comment. Are those workshops like community-based? I would like to get Gina's input on this because I think that's a good suggestion, Stephanie, but I'm concerned that that puts us right up against, again, the Brown Act, because if you're having all directors inputting, you know, I think that would be a problem. It would be a formal, it'd be a formal, right, corporate meeting. That's all we used to do. A formal board meeting? Yeah, it's a formal board. Yeah, it's a special board workshop. Typically they'd be at like Highlands Park, the senior center there, so that that way you're able to get the open communication. Yeah, more people involved too. Yeah, so there wouldn't be a Brown Act problem. There might still be a problem. And the dynamics of how that meeting unfolds, might be interesting today. Yes, exactly. That is why there's usually, a lot of times there is some sort of a facilitator. I mean, it's like you said, is these are usually a very long process because there is, you know, whenever you're having a public, something like that, it does take a long time. A neutral facilitator to take input from the board, staff, and the public. And there's, I think, we're going to get into a discussion. That was also talked about at the 31 meeting as well. Right, that was talked about at the meeting, was decided at that point. No, maybe Alice's time. Well, no, I don't know that, I think the only no that was decided in 321 was the not spending the money in the consultant. Not the spending the money in the consultant. Yeah, I don't believe that there was a no for a facilitator because the notion was that would be a lot less expensive and may even be free or maybe even less expensive depending on what volunteer help we have. But I think when you go to the workshop, you need a new crew for so much interview. Wow. I'm not a neutral anymore. That's right, yeah. I did volunteer at one point. They'll pull this process. I would like to see the board vote on a neutral person as the facilitator. Because I do not want, I would be very much against using thorough eyes or whatever his name is. Well, I agree that night back in. There's a lot of people out there do, but now you are talking about a cost. I know we can get somebody. Well, I'm not sure we can get somebody from the audience. No, no, I think we can. I think everybody said it would be like a grand or two and there are local resources. There are local resources and we would have to find a facilitator. I still would like to have it put on that. I would like that first video. I think it will keep it more neutral and everybody will be able to voice their concerns and so forth and the facilitator will keep it moving. That's part of the process. They don't get bogged down on any one issue. Which is obviously true. Well, it has a potential to happen. And then they build it. They'll build your strategic plan out of an outline. It asks more direction for me to find a facilitator with a reasonable amount to just pull a meeting together and work a meeting, not really to present as strategic plans, I would do so. There are a lot of people in the community that do that kind of thing. But if I was right, we would need to basically agree on who that person is going to be with that. I mean, I'm just opposed to, I mean, it's fine for a facilitator meeting, but I am opposed to spending a great pair of money on a consultant to do this. The experience, I mean, I agree with the plan was just not usable at all. That's the plan that they put together now. And that's what the board put together in time. I mean, this board will put something else together. That was put together by the board. But no print. For an eyeshore. Well, we had more direction and went through the board. I mean, it was a work, it was an ongoing... It was in one of our workshops. And it was put together from poster boards and brainstorming. And it grew. And it does grow with public participation. There's a lot that goes on when you enjoy it and when you have the public. And now it's just up to the board. And I understand it more condensed. I would think it's appropriate. And there's ways to do that. So did I hear that the direction is to send it to the admin committee using Stephanie's suggestion to put together an outline? Or for the committee to do the whole thing? Because I need to know what that direction is. This is one of the reasons why I don't like to bypass the board because I don't know what the board wants to do. Right, as the admin committee. So I'm just saying, which way do we want to go on this? You go to committee, get some feedback, have a workshop, or come to the whole board somehow. Let's put that in the policy manual so it's a little bit because it's not clear right now. No, the policy manual says that it goes to all committees. We can't without why we're in the planning. So just for this issue, for this strategic plan, is part of Stephanie's proposal. Is that encompass what Rick is talking about as well, is getting a facilitator? I would think that we do the admin committee and put together the process and then bring it back to the whole board for approval. And it might say, we're gonna do it this, this, this way. We're gonna have a facilitator come in, we're gonna hold X amount of meetings, and then have the board approve that, and then go. So the first step is to do what Stephanie? Well, I think she needs to go to admin. Go to admin. And get the structure outline. And come back with the outline. And then possibly have a facilitator. Or that process, someone may volunteer. Well, let me have some names and some resumes by that point when we come back to the whole board. And by the way, I mean, as with anything, the committee is input. And so the board may take that input and modify even more. That's correct. Right, that's correct. So that's, but I believe what I've heard, I think it makes sense is that to take the process to the admin committee, which is sort of what I was expecting to happen. What I'm hearing is we would simply work on the structure. That's correct. Not on the content. Right, I would recommend taking your headings, and do a line item of each one of these that you have. Which people will get overview of the topics. And then we come back to the board for that approval. Then we start showing in. Right. And then we would also make recommendations, perhaps, about what that process may look like relative to the workshops. Correct. And the facilitator, and we can get some resumes. Does that work? Yeah, first up, admin committee. Yeah, I support that. Okay. We should be able to come back from the admin committee with an outline. If you would expect that to be possible. I just want to jump in here because I don't typically attend admin committee meetings. And so I may not have another chance to provide this input. But it would not be a Brown Act issue or a Brown Act problem to send the entire policy or parts of the policy to all the committees at the same time. As long as the members of the committee, of the various committees, don't cross discuss the issue. That's where you would have a problem is if the majority of the board and the different committees started talking to each other about the policy. I think that's just, I mean, I appreciate that. I mean, my own personal opinion, that just gets us into a real problem. Yeah, unrealistic to do that. Right. I think staff has enough direction. Do we need a motion on that to send it to admin committee and then come back to the board with an outline? And I'll work out some logistics with Gina. Gina, does this need a motion? It doesn't really need a motion. I recommended it for the last item because I thought some clarity regarding the direction would be helpful, but it doesn't need a motion in order to send it to committee. Okay. That's, send it to committee? Yeah. We're gonna send it to committee for an outline. To the admin. Admin. Okay, there's one last item on the agenda. It's the annual reimbursement to district employee. He's the very last. Yes, and the director finances here and she will discuss this memo with you all. So this is an affirmative government code where annually you report all employees and board members that have been compensated for $100 or more throughout the year so that the public can have a chance to review it. In theory, everyone already has a chance to review because this would have shown up on every single bill list that we had. And so this is just the form of the report to keep us in line with the WPAC. Great summary. So, are there any questions? We have to, don't we have to move in? Motion to accept, I mean, could you ask me a motion to accept, I guess? So I would move that we accept the annual disclosure of report and employee reimbursements for fiscal year 18, 19. Sorry, Rick, I'll pass it all over to you. Look. Well, normally you speak on me. I second the motion. I did. He said he was just going to pass it to me. I passed it to the director of finance. Sorry. Did he come to comment? I don't think that he did. Any public comment? And did we just have a motion? Yes. Motion to accept. So you're going to call the question. Director Moran? Yes. President Henry? Yes. Director Coles? Yes. Director Ferris? Aye. Okay. No one objects meeting adjourned.