 I would like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call, please. Chairman Galvin. Here. Vice Chair Noni. Here. Board Member Bannonfort. Board Member Bannister. Here. Board Member Dowd. Here. Board Member Grable. Here. Board Member Watts. Here. Thank you. Any statements of abstention by board members? No. 3. None. We will move on to item number 3. It gives me great pleasure to see this on the agenda. 25 years of service to the Board of Public Utilities is an unbelievable accomplishment and I think it's fair to say one that will not be repeated. We are happy to have Council Member Ernesto Olivares with us today. Ernesto, thanks for joining us. If you would like to make a few comments and I think you have presentation for Board Member Dowd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon. As we all know, Board Member Dick Dowd's 25 years of service, leadership, courage, and care for the future generations of our community deserves recognition today. In preparation for today's award, I asked staff to provide me with some background on Dick's service to our community over the past 25 years, since I've only worked with him for the past 11. We all know Dick's contributions to Santa Rosa are many, so in interest of time, I will only cover some of the background that I was provided. So if you'll indulge me, let's see, under leadership. Over his 25-year tenure, Dick served as Chair for 16 years from 1997 to 2013, leaving Santa Rosa water through some daunting challenges, some of which we won't speak about again. As Chair, he championed the construction of the Geysers Recharge Pipeline Project, a creative weather-independent solution that beneficially reuses two-thirds of our community's recycled water each year. So moving on. Under partnerships, Dick has also fostered strong working relationships with our water wholesaler, Sonoma Water, and the Laguna Treatment Plant's regional partners by providing guidance and collaboration for resilient and reliable water supply. Dick has always been willing to roll up his sleeves, both figuratively and literally, to support Santa Rosa water. He even volunteered his time to work alongside staff to transform the landscape at our administration building into a water-smart landscape, even bringing his own pair of worn gloves. And let's see. You've done a lot here, Dick, I'll tell you. Advocacy and stewardship. Dick continues to be an advocate and steward of our communities, of our community, recognizing the importance and responsibility of his role on the board. Over his tenure, he has demonstrated his ability to make the difficult decisions to proactively invest in our community's water infrastructure to ensure the city continues to provide safe and reliable water distribution, wastewater collection, treatment, and beneficial reuse for current and future generations. I think I'll leave that alone. But Dick, thank you. It is with great pleasure that we recognize your 25 years of service, and also, as you're my appointee to the Water Board, I am greatly appreciative of all the work that you've done. The information you've provided me, the support you've provided me as a council member to get my job done as well. So congratulations for myself and the entire council and the entire community for your 25 years of service. Well, thank you for this significant honor, and it's been my pleasure to work with my colleagues over the 25 years on the Board of Public Utilities and with the City Council and the staff and consultants and our community. There have been its challenges. Councilmember Alvaro mentioned, and it's a big caps in my life, and that was finding a solution to our removing the cease and desist order. When I joined the BPU in 1994, one of the Sonoma County Superior Court judges denied the adequacy of the first EIR that had been processed for some solution to the cease and desist order. So we started all over again, and that took us, the spill was the winter of 1984-85 due to a very heavy wet winter, and there was a raw sewage spill coming from the Laguna Treatment Plant, and that's what started the process. So 84-85, and the pipeline which finally became the solution selected by the BPU and the City Council became active in 2003, so almost 20 years to get there, and there were dozens of long, long meetings with the public, and the most amazing thing, and I've always referred to the GEISIS project pipeline project as accidental genius, because none of us either on the BPU or the City Council at that time expected that that would be a solution, and most of the alternatives that we selected to evaluate the lead agency, the Corps of Engineers, said you have to have one that's a zero discharge to the Russian River, and we asked our consultants what those might be, and they said, well, there's two, pipeline to the ocean and a pipeline to the geysers, so we then asked the next obvious question, well, what are those going to cost to study? Within the back of our minds, we were saying, we're not going there anyway, so they said the ocean outfall study would be two million, and the geysers pipeline would be one million, so we said no brainer, we'll pick the geysers pipeline, or when we had the alternative study for that particular solution, Unical, who was then the lead agency or company at the geysers, came to the podium and said they would put $50 million of their money into receiving the water from us because they desperately needed it to maintain, if not lose, entirely the geothermal production. Then result of that is that the light salt went off on the BPU and the city council and said, my God, we really do need to study this, and as it has worked out while it was difficult, 41 miles of pipeline to Russian River under crossings, et cetera, et cetera, pump stations, it has been a phenomenal success, the production in the steam field has actually increased due to the roughly 15 million gallons a day that we send up there, and winds are also jumped on board the pipelines as some of their water is going up there, but we not only have we really pretty well put aside most of the concern about raw sewage spills from our Laguna treatment plant that the subregional system operates, Santa Rosa does for the system, but we also have increased our renewable energy supply, so we reduce some carbon greenhouse gases, we've created a stimulus to the account, the economy of our county, and we've created jobs up there, and so all of those things together, it's made it a tremendous success for one that I know I'm very, very proud of that process and the decision made, but it would not have happened without my colleagues on the BPU, without the City Council also supporting it, and the community at large, so while it was a $225 million project, 25 million of that happened to be EIRs, we made it and it's worked, and we haven't had too much problem with it until the Kincaid fire, which you're going to hear about in a little bit later in today's agenda, because the fire did destroy some of the things on the route up from the Alexander Valley, so that's the story I've enjoyed the 25 years and my relationship with the community and the board and the City Council during that time. I do want to say that in full disclosure, I was asked to submit my application for the currently vacant seat on the City Council. I completed doing that early this week and was notified by the deputy city clerk that my application was complete, and so we'll be going through that process. There's obviously no guarantee that I will be the one selected by the City Council, and it will be an interesting process, I'm sure, but the main reason that I applied was that I think that with the things that we have going on in our community, namely homelessness, the need to replace a lot of infrastructure, possibility of microgrids, that some of my talents may be able to assist the already significant talents that the other members of the Council have, and so I'm looking forward to going through that process. Thank you for this award and for all of you being here. Suffice to say, even though we'd hate to lose you, you would be an excellent asset on the City Council, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that process goes favorably for you. Entertain any other comments by board members if you have any, otherwise, Kate, board member Grable? Yeah, I want to express my gratitude as well, not just for the service and what I've learned from you on the board, but the lesson in perspective and scaling. Some of you have heard this story before, but when the Geysers Pipeline EIR and the process was happening, I was a volunteer, a much younger volunteer with the Madrone Audubon Society, doing species richness and biodiversity studies on the Mayakumas Mountain Sanctuary, and there was a lot of uproar about the impacts of the pipeline and the pump stations on some of the sensitive habitat and very sensitive and endangered species. What I didn't know at the time was that a few years later, I'd be on this board with Mr. Dowd and learning from him and also learning the greatest lesson of all that, which is that now that is one of the greatest examples of climate resiliency, energy efficiency, water conservation, river and waterway stewardship, an incredible sort of simultaneity of community and environmental benefits, and above all, the climate impact of that single strategy is something that is a lesson worldwide. And I know that because the former president of Iceland congratulated us and once he found out about it, was at a climate summit with him last year, and he said, this is amazing, what you've done, and I mentioned your name. I said, well, if you ever see Dick Dowd, you should thank him. And so gratitude for that lesson in scaling and as much as we like to worry about these little things and kind of parcel by parcel impacts that are important, the magnitude of that impact and the entirety of it is just overwhelming and really, really amazing. So thank you. Thank you, Board Member Vanister. I would just like to chime in thanking you, Dick, for your 25 years on behalf of the whole community because I don't know if you want to know if you added up all the hours in those 25 years, it's a lot. And you do that all without any compensation just because you want to make things better for the community you live in. And that's really to be admired. So thank you. And I would also agree with Chairman Galvin that probably no one else will get to 25 years. I mean, I know I won't. But Chris here might be young enough that he might have a shot, so we'll see. Anyway, thank you. Vice Chair Arnone. I guess I just want to comment that I think Dick, you exemplify the benefit of having boards and commissions that are made up of people that are deeply enmeshed in the community. I mean, I knew you before I knew you were the BPU and as a member of the community that contributed professionally and into the social well-being of the community, not to mention the work you've done in this agency, but I just think you exemplify the benefit of having volunteers from the community participate in city government and making these incredibly important infrastructure decisions and the result paid off. And thank you very much for your service. Member Watts. 25 years, jeez. I didn't know anyone could last that long on the board, but I think that everyone has said what an asset you've been to this board and to the community. And I think that each and every one of us has learned so much from you. I still learn from you every single meeting. And when there's something on the agenda that is overwhelming, I know that you're going to bring a perspective that no one else has. And it's just been an honor to work with you. And I know that you'll continue working whether on the BPU or city council or wherever it is for the city as long as you want to. And I think everyone in the city is blessed to have had you be a part of this. So thank you. Lastly, I will echo everything that my fellow board members have said. Dick, it's been a pleasure working with you for the last 16 years. I hope it lasts longer. But if you move to Tuesday nights meetings, that'll be okay too. So much congratulations for all that you've done for the community. And with that, we're going to have a brief recess. We have a cake. So please feel free to join us at the table there. Okay. When everyone's ready, we will reconvene. Thank you all for being here and participating in our little celebration. Thank you. We'll reconvene now. There are no minutes to approve. We're going to hold off on those. So we'll move right to the staff briefing. Section item 5.1 is a geysers update. Deputy Director Schwall, welcome. Thank you, Chairman Galvin, members of the board. I will be talking today about our progress up at the geysers pipeline as it recovers from the Kincaid fire. So as you may recall, eight power poles were destroyed in the fire, which provide those eight poles were providing power down to the pump stations, which are up on the hillside. So from that point on, of course, there's no power to the pump stations and no water deliveries. Over the ensuing six weeks, Calpine did an excellent job. I really wanted to call out our partners, Calpine Corp for the work they did, and very aggressively looking for solutions to our shared predicament with the reservoirs of the geysers pipeline, they were able to find, procure, receive, and install those eight power poles very quickly and rewire them as well. They also had a real challenge in routing the power from their power plants to these, to this line due to PG&E services that were out of service that they would normally have used. So it was an engineering challenge on their part to provide the power in a timely manner. I also want to call out our city staff for the work they did in ensuring that any potential damage that the fire had done was discovered and mitigated prior to the power being put back on. As I reported, there was no damage, but they did a tremendous job checking every piece of equipment, every piece of electronics, wiping down all the circuitry and the contacts to make sure that no soot and grime from the fire would interfere with the, with the power. And with that, I really would like to call out individually the members of the geyser staff and acknowledge their, their fantastic work. Beginning with the geysers operations and maintenance coordinator Mike Sherman, water systems technicians Art Blass, Darryl Clark, and Mike Pinaris, senior maintenance workers Jason Lugini and Martin Peterson, and utility technician Tammy DeVall. The whole crew did a really outstanding job so that when Calpine said, yes, you, you have power, let's, let's try it. You know, our staff is there ready for them, coordinated the work. You know, one of the real simple things that we didn't, you know, that I wouldn't think about is everything's being rewired. So, you know, before we say, you know, turn the switch on, they got to make sure that the polarity is corrected. The pumps will drive in the correct direction. You know, simple, you know, simple, but tremendously important steps like that need to need to occur in proper sequence so that startups can be successful. So I'm very, very proud of our crew for the work they did to get us back online within only six weeks. I don't remember if I mentioned, but PG&E had given us a timeline of January 22nd of when they could provide power to us. So we saved, you know, we saved six weeks, you know, easily by being between Calpine's work and our own. Those six weeks. I think we deserve a round of applause for you and your staff. Thank you. The, those six weeks did have an impact though. We, as I mentioned, of course, we were not able to pump that 15 million gallons a day or so up to the geysers. And so we needed to store it. We were from, well, let me start here. The storage curve here will show the where we were when we started our water year. So October 1st is on the left. The red line at the bottom, toward the bottom, shows our storage curve at about 350 million gallons up to October 23rd. So you can see the trend is flat. The, we were not adding any more storage to our, any more water to our storage. We were reusing through the geysers pumping and irrigation. We were reusing everything that came to the plant. October 23rd, though, of course, was when the power was shut off and the King Cade fire started shortly after that. So over the next six weeks, we were no longer able to use that water. Irrigation was happening for a while, but that was, you know, late October, early November, and the days are short and the days are cool. And there's just not much irrigation demand. And so the rest had to be stored. So you can see that over the six weeks from October 23rd to December 6th, we went from 350 million gallons to roughly 700 million gallons in storage. At this point, we're looking ahead to see what our storage can expect to look like in the future. And projecting with average December flows and January flows and February flows from where we are now, we can see that if we have a normal winter, we will very likely be discharging sometime in February when we approach our maximum operational limit. Besides managing the water, we continue to manage the impacts of the fire on the hill. Our staff has been working with the county's watershed task force to monitor, to identify and monitor high-risk areas for erosion and slides. We're working closely with the county. The county is contracted with three other entities to provide erosion control and monitoring of the hill sites. It'll be, you know, an ongoing project throughout this winter, certainly, but really years from now as well, we'll be needing to monitor the damage from the fires and the cuts that were made by bulldozers to create fire breaks as well. We have been in communications with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, alerting them to where we are in the process or where we are in terms of storied status, what we're projecting our performance to be in the future, and the mitigation that we're undertaking to minimize the amount of storage that we're needing to contain and potentially discharge. One of the programs that we have initiated is the indoor water, sorry, indoor winter water smart campaign, and that is, has launched and in a moment, sustainability coordinator Claire Nordley will be talking to you about that, and with that, I'd entertain any questions. Any board member questions or comments? Board member Dowd? If you would, could you kind of highlight the communication back and forth with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, just so that we can see what kind of latitude they're going to be receptive to? Well, we started off with a letter to the board and we've had personal communications with them as well. They understand where we're at. Now we are, of course, permitted to discharge, but we are just demonstrating good faith efforts and best efforts to minimize the discharge, and so they are encouraging with that. They're happy we're doing that. They're very interested in the indoor conservation efforts as well. One of the things, obviously, it's going to be the items that are coming up at the indoor winter water smart campaign. I think it's absolutely the right thing to work towards, but I think it's going to take a lot of education to our community, have them understand that this is a situation we find ourselves in, that we do have to be cautious about controlling the amount of water we use indoor for the next three months or so. It will. Thank you. Vice Chair Arnone? So I think we know that a lot of city facilities were also impacted by the fire and by the PSP that went on, and in particular, I know within the city of Santa Rosa, we lost power to almost half of our pump stations, but because of advanced planning and generators and those kinds of things, we were able to keep the water flowing throughout all the PSPs. Now I'm sure there's a technical reason for this, but could you explain to me why we can't do the same thing with our pump stations going to the geyser so that we're dependent upon power poles instead of being able to generate the power necessary to keep them running in the event of a power interruption? Well, technically, we could do it. It can be done, right? You can, you know, all you need is really, really big generators. But I thought, yeah, it's bigger by orders of magnitude than what kept our water running here in the city. Yes, right, exactly. And because we're lifting a lot of water, you know, it's a big distance and water is very heavy. So there's, in fact, in fact, generation, standby generators was one of the was one of the solutions that Calpine had explored early on. And they flew out, electrical engineers from Dallas to kind of survey the situation and see what the options were. And at least on a temporary basis, it wasn't feasible to get generators up that hill and get them hooked up and make them run. Thank you. Any other board member comments or questions? Oh, board member Gravel. Yeah, speaking of which, in terms of getting stuff up there and whatnot, what's the access like right now in terms of debris flows and the risk assessment and the bars and all that, I mean, is it pretty precarious? No, actually, the road is open. It's the same access as it has been. There's certainly more activity up there, kind of big equipment. At least there has been up there. I really can't speak for the last few weeks, but initially there was a, you know, you know, clean up equipment, you know, equipment up there cutting down trees, hoists and all that. So there was some problems there. But in terms of debris on the road, no, that isn't a problem. They're still cleaning. The ditches have been cleaned. Culverts have been replaced. So it's, right now, it's looking pretty good. But in terms of the debris flows in that hazard and risk assessment, you know, the USGS map, I know there's some high risk in there. Is it precarious though in terms of our equipment and the access? I mean, that much heavy equipment and stress on the road, not to mention the erosion concerns. I know it wears me having done work in this field, but is it something that's imminent or is it under control for the most part? I would call it under control. It needs to be monitored. There's no, there are, there's, you know, some areas are more of greater concern than others and need to be watched more closely. But no, we're not, you know, the road itself is still stable and is expected to stay stable. I think some of the concerns for the pipeline have to do with more about where bulldozers have cut lanes directly up into the hillside. And so, you know, causing potential for erosion near our, near our pipeline. Assistant City Manager Nett. Thank you. And I do want to express appreciation for the work that you and the crew did in this. I know that the solution set that you presented to us is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem solving and working the situation that you and the team did. You had a number of different things. You were contemplating an effort to try to get this back up and running. And really, I'm very impressed with the method that you took systematically looking at all the different approaches and to get this system back up and operating by December the 6th was truly a feat and really, really wanted to appreciate your efforts in making that happen. Thank you very much. Well said. We have one speaker card, Brenda Edelman. Russian River Worship Protection Committee, Brenda Edelman. First, I just want to congratulate Mr. Dowd on his 25 years of service. And while we didn't always agree on things, I appreciated working with him and found him to be very easy to work with and very considerate of other people's points of view. As far as this situation goes with the geysers, there's just one factor that I want to mention. And I never thought I'd say this, but uh, February is the month we had these horrible floods last year. And I'm just wondering now if it might be better to start a low discharge for a while to get the ponds down a little bit so you don't have huge amounts, if we should have a flood, big floods in February and March, that it wouldn't make the flooding worse. So I'm just throwing that out there as something to be considered because people on the lower river had a really difficult time earlier this year. And it was a big mess for a long time and some people are still suffering. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Anything further, Deputy Director? No, that's all I have. Thank you. Great. Thanks for your report. We'll move to item 5.2, which is the Winter Water Conservation Campaign. Director Burke? Sure. We have Claire Nordley, who is our new sustainability coordinator over Water Use Efficiency. And this will be the first time she'll be in front of the BPU presenting, and she's going to talk about the indoor conservation campaign that we just launched two days ago. Welcome, Ms. Nordley. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction, Jennifer. I am Claire Nordley, Sustainability Coordinator, and I'm going to be talking about our Winter Water Smart Campaign. So this is a multimedia campaign. Like Jennifer mentioned, it started this month, and it runs through March of 2020. Our target audience is Santa Rosa Water residential customers. It's not to say that we're not focusing on our commercial, industrial, institutional customers, but simply we found that in past water shortages and in droughts, our residential customers respond very quickly to our request for conservation. We're also specifically targeting our regional partners. I spoke this morning at our subregional TAC meeting to talk over with our regional partners that we need their help to help conserve. And of course, we're always focusing on both our English and Spanish language customers. So the three key messages that we're focusing on for this campaign all relate to easy, low cost, low or no cost options for our customers. Specifically, the first one is scheduling a Water Smart Checkup. That's when one of our trained representatives or technicians go into a home. They measure the flow rates of fixtures inside a home. They check for leaks and provide a customized report at the end of that detailing recommendations and rebate options for customers. The second key message is to find and fix leaks. Of course, no one wants to have a leak in their home, so that message really resonates with customers. And then the third key message is to replace inefficient fixtures. We do have free shower heads and free faucet aerators at two city locations, so we encourage our customers to go and pick those up. So the ways in which we're outreaching to our customers, through our website, through social media, print media, radio and workshop, and a workshop that's coming up, which will go into more detail. And then of course, like I said, all of our outreach is both in English and in Spanish. So for our web, our srcity.org slash Water Smart is our hub and portal for customers to learn more about the conservation programs that we have. They can also sign up online to receive an audit. They have online request form. We're also doing weekly social media posts on Facebook and Nextdoor. You can see an example here of a video that we posted about how to fix leaks in your home. We're posting links to videos, images. We're talking about rebates in these posts. We also have print media that's going out. We have three bill inserts. The first one was released earlier this week. You can see it up there on the screen, really emphasizing that first key message to schedule the Water Smart checkup. The second two bill inserts will be going out in future months, up until March, and those are focusing on the second two key messages. We've also got a newsletter, The City Connections, and there will be an article in there about winter conservation requested. And then we sent out a press release earlier on Tuesday, which you all should have received, again, reminding people about conservation and directing people to the Sonoma Marin Savin Water Partnership website to emphasize that this is a regional campaign. We're also doing a radio campaign. So we have partnered with One Country Radio, five different stations, one of which is Spanish only. It's going out to English and Spanish customers over 95,000 listeners per week. And I just wanted to include this sweet picture of one of our staff who recorded one of the radio ads, and I just thought it was a nice tribute to the fact that our staff did do the actual ads themselves. So thank you to them. And then finally, we're going to be doing a free indoor workshop taking place on February 11th and encourage customers to sign up for that for free on our website. And that's going to be sort of a hands-on actual demonstration of how to find and fix leaks at your house, including toilet leaks, how to install a faucet aerator, how to do an actual water survey at your own house. Of course, we'll be given away, you know, shower heads and aerators and diatabs. So encourage all of our customers to get out there and join this workshop. And so finally, I just wanted to remind people to stay connected. We are posting on Facebook. We have our website, which is really our portal for customers to get more information about conservation. And I encourage all of you to talk to customers about winter conservation. Can I take any questions? Thank you, Ms. Norley. Board member questions, comments? Board member Dowden? I will have to concur with Ms. Edelman. First, we didn't always agree, but we always had a good relationship. And I recall back when she got a 25-year plaque for coming to the meetings, as she did for all that 25 years that she did. So it's good to see you again today. But I also think she has a good idea that we ought to at least explore amongst ourselves, staff, et cetera, and maybe the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, that a little bit of release now may be a better solution than a whole bunch later if we have a wet winter. So it's a matter of trying to out-guess what the weather is going to do, certainly, but also look at the other options that we might have. And I think her suggestion is valid in the sense that we ought to at least look at it. Board member Watts? Thank you. I had a quick question around messaging during the winter months when we have had some rain in conservation and how the messaging is maybe framed because of that. And the average person might not understand the need to conserve when we're seeing regular rain in the last few weeks, just what the messaging is going to be for that. Yeah, it's a good point. We made sure that we wanted to tell our customers why we wanted them to conserve. So, for example, the press release really goes into the fact that the King Cade Fire happened, impacted our infrastructure, and therefore we need conservation during these specific months. So we wanted customers to understand that why, and we did include that in the press release to hopefully get that message out there that, of course, we need conservation all year round, and conservation is important, but it's especially important right now because of this infrastructure issue. I think just finding ways on snippets of how to condense that information down for people who don't necessarily read the full press releases will be important moving forward, which I'm sure you guys know since you have staff that have done this for many years, but just want to bring that up. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. If I could just add, I think we do recognize that it's a bit of a challenging story to tell. So we are focusing on ways that folks can easily make changes, but we also are tying into reminders to folks that, you know, this is also an important time to be efficient because it affects your bill. So we're targeting it in two different ways, not only making sure that they understand the reasoning, but also it's really always a very good time to be efficient during the wintertime because that helps affect your sewer bill. Vice Chair Arnone. Are we establishing any kind of quantitative goals for this program, or are there ways to track the effectiveness of the program? That's probably the second part is not that easy, but do we have an internal goal of what we're trying to achieve in terms of the quantity of reduction of use that we're seeking? We don't have a specific goal for number of gallons to reduce. Of course, the more we can do, the better. We could certainly look at water usage, you know, and see if there is a decrease. So that could be a way of tracking our success after the fact. Okay. Thanks. I'm excited to see this program roll out and I hope it's a great success. The only issue I guess I have is this free indoor workshop. It's too bad it's not going to be sooner than February. It would be nice to get that out there to the public earlier, but I'm assuming that there's a variety of reasons why that hasn't happened, but that's just a concern that I wanted to express to you. Great. Thank you. Yeah, and customers certainly could come to one of our offices and pick up a leak kit. We provide information about how to fix leaks, the shower heads, faucet aerators, dye tabs, a flow bag at city locations. So if they wanted to sort of get a jump start on saving water, they could certainly come to one of our offices and get that material. We wanted to be able to put it in February to give customers enough time to sign up and for us to advertise appropriately and get enough of a response. Understood. Great. Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments? Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. We have just one item on the consent calendar which is a resolution for the approval of additional contract contingencies. I'll move adoption of the consent calendar. I would second that. Motion by Vice Chair Arnone seconded by board member Dowd to approve item 6.1. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously with one absence. We'll move now to item 7.1 which is a report item on the professional services agreement with EKI. So we have Colin Klose, our senior water resources planner who's going to give this presentation. Welcome Mr. Klose. Thank you very much Chairman Galvin and members of the board. There's a little technical glitch so I'm going to ask Gina to help me get my presentation up. The mouse is misbehaving a little bit. Great. So the item that I will be presenting to you today is a professional services agreement with EKI water and environment for some very specific help with our 2020 urban water management plan effort. So what I will do is I will go ahead and provide a little bit of background about the regulation, talk about the development of urban water management plans, the scope of work that we're asking for in this contract, a letter agreement for sharing costs because this contract will provide work for Santa Rosa and eight other water retailers in our area and then let you know our recommendation. The California Urban Water Management Planning Act was adopted in 1983. It applies to urban water retailers who either have more than 3,000 connections or deliver 3,000 acre feet or more per year. Santa Rosa has more than 52,000 connections. We deliver in the neighborhood of 15 to 16,000 acre feet a year so clearly this applies to us as well as many of the retailers in our area. The act calls on agencies to assess their water supply and their resiliency and to look out 20 years to see if they are planning for adequate water supplies for the future for population growth, development, changing water supply scenarios. And to that end we look at current and future demands as well as look at normal years and dry years. So there's a lot of foresight that needs to be put into this, a lot of analysis. These are due every five years so the 2020 plan is coming due but it'll be turned in in 21 so they're actually due in years ending in 1 and 6. So the 2020 plan will be turned in about mid 2021. We submit these to the Department of Water Resources but first we ask you to give a recommendation to council and we go to council and we ask council to actually formally adopt it and then we submit that to the Department of Water Resources. And as you can guess why it certainly is around ensuring long-term water supply resiliency and also the state has made it clear that only those who comply with this regulation will be eligible for grants and drought assistance in the future. So if we need those things then we need to make sure we're complying for those reasons as well. The law describes the contents of these urban water management plans as well as how they need to be adopted and implemented. So the core elements of these we have to describe our system, our facilities and our service area, our water use history, current water use, future water use looking out 20 years, the conservation targets that the state has set and how we're complying with those. Look at our water supply portfolio and describe that fully as well as how reliable that portfolio is now and into the future and talk about water shortage and contingency planning as well. So those are the key elements. In 2020 we will have some new requirements. As you recall we had a historic drought 2013 to 2016 and in 2018 the legislature adopted some new, adopted two bills, some new legislation. Some of that applies to the urban water management plans and so new elements include demonstrating that we're complying with new water loss standards. We've been in compliance for the last three years auditing our distribution system, documenting how much is leaking from our system and how we're working to improve controls on that water leakage. So we're in compliance there, we'll just need to document that. We'll need to assess the resiliency of our water supply for a five-year drought. Previously it was a three-year dry period, so now it's expanded to five years. We'll need to align our water shortage contingency plan with standardized stages. In the past each area was able to set their own water contingency plan and stage one in one area might mean something different than a stage one water shortage in another area. The state wants those to be uniform so that stage one, two, three, etc. essentially means the same thing in each area, but each locality will have its own plan for how to address that issue, but 10 percent water shortage will be the stage one in all areas, that sort of thing. So there's some consistency across the state. And then in 2024 we'll have to submit a supplemental piece, a description of how we're going to meet a new target. That 2018 legislation included a process that is now going through a lot of rulemaking around how we're going to set a new water conservation target and how we're going to achieve that by 2027. So we'll set that target near the end of 2023 and submit it to the state in early 2024, and then we'll need to develop a narrative that says, yep, here's our target, here's how we're going to achieve it by 2027. So those are new elements that we haven't seen in the past. So the development of our urban water management plan is clearly guided by the legislation, by the regulations, but also by our general plan policies. So we have a policy in our general plan that says we're going to evaluate the city's long-term water supply strategies and as needed we're also going to consider whether we need to develop new sources of water supply, improve water conservation, and recycled water use, and potentially if we need to look at implementing appropriate growth measures, those are all as needed. So that also informs our efforts with urban water management planning. I also wanted to mention that this is a team effort. It is led by water supply planning, so that section, that's the lead section for that effort, but we rely heavily on water use efficiency and energy and sustainability to also contribute to the success of this effort. So looking at climate change, the nexus between water use and energy use, looking at our water use efficiency programs and how effective they are. So we work with all those folks as well as with our consultant. Specifically to that, in the development of our urban water management plan, both in 2010 and 2015, a section of those plans, there's a considerable amount of analysis that needs to happen. And so two key areas, we did as a regional effort, so we worked with nine other water contractors and we are proposing to do the same thing again this time. So Santa Rosa, Cotati, Ronit Park, Petaluma, Sonoma, Windsor, Marin Municipal, North Marin, and Valley of the Moon water districts. Working together to hire one consultant who will use a consistent methodology to do some analysis around our demand projections and our water conservation programs. Santa Rosa would be the lead on that contract and the cost would be split among all of those water contractors. And again, this was very successful in 2010 and 2015. All of those agencies were interested in working together again for this effort. So the scope of work would include looking at the demand analysis for each agency, again, historic, current, and future. Just want to point out the law asks us to look out 20 years. Our region looks out 25. All of these agencies, including Santa Rosa, see a real value to doing an additional five-year period. So we'll be looking out to 2045 in our urban water management plan, not simply 2040 as the law requires. And again, looking at normal single dry and five-year drought scenarios. Look at regional water conservation measures. We're also asking the consultant to analyze each agency's programs, how effective they are, what they cost, and then develop an individual report for each agency that also includes the passive savings from plumbing code updates. So that's the scope of work. And what we did was, of course, held a competitive bid process, and we requested, put out a request for proposals for about a three week period. I directly contacted 40 qualified vendors. We received four proposals. So we had a nice pool of very highly qualified firms to look at. Panel was put in place. That included myself as the chair and representatives from Windsor, Petaluma, Marin Municipal, and North Marin. Each of us analyzed those proposals individually and ranked them and scored them, and then we came for a half-day workshop that I facilitated where we looked in great detail about who was really the most responsive to our needs. And it was very clear unanimously that EKI Environment and Water was the top responder in a wide variety of ways. I also contacted their four references and received glowing reports from folks that they have worked with on similar projects. So we feel very confident in moving forward with this agency. So before you today is the professional services agreement with Santa Rosa administering that contract for an amount not to exceed $249,529. That includes 10% contingency that would only be triggered if there is additional work and all of the agencies agree that it's necessary. The schedule for the consultant is January to December. We've got a little bit of wiggle room at the end there just because sometimes cleaning up the tail end of contracts requires a little extra time. So the contract would terminate in March 2021. We did bring this item before the BPU Contract Review Subcommittee on November 6th, and we received a unanimous recommendation, full support to award this PSA, this professional services agreement, to authorize the board chair to sign it, and also to authorize the director of Santa Rosa Water to sign this letter agreement with the eight other agencies around splitting the cost in a fair way. So to that end, the cost share methodology is taking the base cost, splitting it in half in each agency paying its fair share, and then prorating the remaining portion according to the number of connections. So larger agencies like ours would pay more, smaller agencies like Katadi would pay less. There's also an optional upgrade to do a deep analysis and geospatial analysis, a market penetration analysis for up to five programs per agency, and so some agencies have opted to add that additional upgrade. The city's share of this with contingency would be $52,557. So you can see that of that $259,000, we're a small portion of that. The way the other agencies would pay, they would pay half up front. I'll send an invoice if you approve the contract and approve the letter agreement. They'll pay half at the start of the contract, and then half once the work is all completed. That reduces all the administrative costs and hassles on their part. We manage the month-to-month invoices with the contractor, but with our partner agencies, we minimize the amount that they need to deal with. We took this letter agreement to the technical advisory committee. That's a committee that's formed under the restructured water agreement that advises the Sonoma County Water Agency, and so we brought that to the technical advisory committee that included all of the partners that are involved in this effort, and there was unanimous approval of the letter agreement. So in case you're interested and you're a numbers person, I wanted to show you how this works out. Again, if you look at the third column, $101,000 is split evenly among all of the agencies. The $201,000 is split based on the number of service connections. Then we get the cost of the base report only, and then three agencies, ourself, Marin Municipal and North Marin, have opted to do this optional upgrade, this real deep dive into the data for five programs, and then there's a total cost of $226,845, and contingency is distributed according to each agency's share, and so the not-to-exceed amount is $249,529. Again, contingency would only be used if it is agreed upon that there is extra work needed, and my understanding is we've not had to use that in the past, but it's there as a just-in-case. So with that, I'd like to make the recommendation. It is recommended by the Contract Review Subcommittee and the Water Department that the Board of Public Utilities by Motion award the Professional Services Agreement, authorize the Chair to sign that agreement, and authorize the Director of Santa Rosa Water to sign the letter agreement for cost split. And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions that you might have. Thank you, Mr. Close. Any questions from the Board? Board Member Down? I absolutely support and as a member of the Contract Review Subcommittee, along with Chairman Gallivan and Board Member Battenford, we all agreed that this should move forward. The one item that catches my attention when I went through this presentation is restrictions that might be put in place for growth in order to keep our water use in the region down. And I just want to make sure that we recognize, yes, we have a general plan that we have to work with, but we also have a very significant problem with homelessness in this area, affordable housing, and the other things that have gone with it, that we really need as a region and our community to address. So I don't want this to get in the way of some of those solutions that may come up. I'd be happy to address that. The good news is what we saw in our 2015 Urban Water Management Plan and what we're seeing with declining demand on our system for water and how even post drought we're holding very steady in our water reductions by our community, we really are not anticipating that there will be any impingement on necessary development and growth that's appropriate to the policy and procedures of the general plan and the goals of the City Council. So that's the good news. I think the general policy, general plan policy is there in case that ever were an issue to support doing whatever it is that might need to be done, but we really do not anticipate that we have any issues in that arena. Thank you. Board Member Grable? Yeah, I had a similar concern as Board Member Dow, not just from the kind of the growth that we know we need, especially in infill and density, but also in terms of the budget and the fact that as water conservation gets better, I know sometimes it's this punishing people for good behavior thing where we raise rates because people aren't using as much water and the only thing that can balance that from a budgetary perspective is actually increasing deliveries, which means more units where you have at least a baseline, more repairs essentially, and instead of the fluctuation of demand and or technology and conservation and appliances, you know, fixtures all those things that they just keep getting better and better, which is not necessarily great for our budget and it's not necessarily great for our repairs if we're raising rates on them because they were conserving more and better and with better technology. So I would second what Board Member Dow said on those terms as well in terms of our budget, making sure that we have infill growth, lots of high density buildings with more deliveries that will then obviously make our budget solvent as well. Yeah, thank you for that comment. I know that with the downtown station area specific plan that that's some of that strategy as well is increasing density, allowing for a very vibrant downtown core and also making sure that we have the infrastructure to support that. So our staff are involved in a lot of ways in that effort as well. Kind of speaking to that question that you've brought forward as well as housing. I noted in looking through the letter agreement, there's a provision in there that says the agreement was to be signed by December 2nd. What's the status of the signatures for the other participants? We're in excellent condition. So what we have today, should you decide to authorize Director Burke to sign, we have signatures from all of the other entities in place already and we also have a fully signed ready to be executed contract with the contractor that's been reviewed by legal. The letter agreement also has been reviewed by legal. So we're in very good shape with that. Thank you. The partners were really very good about following through on that agreement. Great. If there are no other questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion. I support the recommendation before us. I'll second. Motion by Board Member Dowd, seconded by Vice Chair Arnone to approve item 7.1. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Madam Carries on unanimously with one absence. Thank you, Mr. Close. Item 7.2 is a report on the proprietary specification for electrical and mechanical equipment at various water department facilities. Director Burke. Thank you. So we have Mark Kazary who's a supervising engineer with the TPW capital projects team who's going to be doing this presentation. Welcome, Mr. Kazary. Thank you very much, Chair Galvan and members of the board. So I'm here today to seek approval by resolution for a proprietary specification for some equipment at water department facilities. We have the three CIP projects planned for 2020 that include some proprietary specification of equipment. Pump Station 15 consists of replacement of mechanical and electrical equipment upgrades for maintaining this aging facility. And the other two projects repair water department facilities, specifically sewer lift stations that were damaged during the 2017 Tubbs Fire. So this is a map showing project locations and of the three CIP projects, there are specifically four facilities where this proprietary equipment will be installed. There are three sewer lift stations in the Fountain Grove neighborhood and there's one portable water pump station, Station 15 and that's located in Oakmont. These facilities are critical to water and sewer operations and are necessary for meeting state and federal regulations for maintenance of our system. The equipment summarized in the resolution before you consists of mainly water and sewer pumping equipment, programmable logic controllers which you can think of as computers or central processing units that operate the stations based on given input, standby electrical generators as well as flow monitoring and communications equipment. It's important to know that we're not requiring proprietary specification for all equipment, rather key components necessary for maintaining the compatibility and the reliability of these stations. Public contracting code section 3400 requires that for specifying a brand name or trade product in the repair or construction of a public works project, that specification must be followed by the words or equal so that bidders may furnish equal products or services at a lower cost to the taxpayer. Now this requirement is intended to promote competition and innovation within the manufacturing and construction industries but also to provide for a competitive bidding environment on public works projects. However there are a number of exceptions to this requirement and what applies today is in order to match existing equipment at our water department facilities. As you know as a Charter City we also have the authority to regulate some of our own code and the Santa Rosa City code 3-44.080 allows for exception to the or equal as well. In this case if there's no more than one contractor available for to meet the specifications or quality considerations or other valid considerations. So our primary reason for proprietary specification is to match equipment at use at our water department facilities and this is important for a number of reasons. Utilizing other brands to to correspond with the equipment that we have at our facilities right now would require additional system integration sometimes new software as well as new training inflating the overall cost of the project. For example PLCs are utilized at 63 of our sewer and water facilities and staff are factory trained by Tesco for maintenance and repairs. There are also several other valid reasons for for specifying proprietary equipment in these cases and equipment quality is one of them. Operations staff have reported a high degree of reliability and consistency with the equipment shown in the resolution. In some cases equipment claimed to be equal has failed to perform where emergency repairs were needed. Utilizing a consistent inventory of equipment will also minimize equipment downtime saving city resources in the form of personnel time and maintenance cost. This also will result in greater reliability a greater service provided to our community. We can also then optimize maintenance and training protocols as well as our standard operating procedures which results in greater safety and I think this should be foremost is safety a lot of this equipment is dangerous it operates at high voltages and high current draws it includes fast moving parts and fast rotating parts and has dangerous fluids under pressure like diesel hydraulic fluids oils and greases. We also looked at the availability and storage of spare parts when evaluating the equipment that we are seeking proprietary specification. It's important to note that we also considered closely the cost implications associated with proprietary specification. First we carefully analyzed engineer's estimates construction bid tabs and we work closely with two separate engineering consulting firms to develop an understanding of what the costs were associated with the equipment that we're seeking proprietary specification. Additionally we looked at it on a total cost project basis. Again with our three CIP projects the total cost is approximately $6.4 million and of that our proprietary equipment only represents about 14 percent. It's important to note as well that our construction contracts will remain openly and competitively bid through a public process and so it is our recommendation the recommendation by the Transportation and Public Works Department as well as the Water Department that the Board of Public Utilities by resolution approve a proprietary specification for electrical and mechanical equipment at various water department facilities for three CIP projects and with that I'd be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you Mr. Kazary any board questions or comments? If not we have a resolution before us. I would move that the board adopt the recommendation that we approve a proprietary specification for electrical and mechanical equipment at various water department facilities for the three CIP projects noted. Second. Motion by Board Member Bannister seconded by Board Member Grable all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Very good passes unanimously thank you very much Mr. Kazary. Thank you. Item eight is public comments on non-agenda matters. Oh excuse me Pat Mitchell need to push the button right in front of you. Got it okay we're on. All right it's always interesting to come to these meetings and find out how much work goes on and how involved it all is and how complicated. My name is Pat Mitchell and I'm here today to add to and deepen your awareness of the recycled water storage problem. I live on Walker Avenue across the street from the location of the proposed compost facility. You should all have a copy of this address okay good thank you. On December 15th last Sunday 15 of my neighbors met with county board of supervisors Linda Hopkins to discuss the negative impact of building a compost facility next to the Laguna treatment plant. We have 38 residences on Walker Avenue alone not counting the many residents nearby on Lonoh. The plan for the proposed facility is that toxic runoff from the rotting compost would be piped into the Laguna plant. Presently you have 400 million gallons of additional recycled water. What will happen if you add compost runoff to those numbers? The Laguna treatment plant has a history of spills into the Laguna during floods. The record is not good. You would be polluting the Laguna, the groundwater, and making the residents well water undrinkable. With global warming we can expect more severe flooding. This situation will get worse not better. The Laguna treatment plant is at the lowest point in the county. It is not an appropriate location for a county compost facility and for many other additional reasons that I haven't listed here. The Board of Public Utilities has the responsibility for managing the Laguna treatment plant and can write a letter to zero waste management and to the City Council of Santa Rosa recommending and urging them to find another location for the compost facility. The airport is a commercial area with a lot of land that could be used for a compost facility. Clearly the location adjacent to the Laguna treatment plant is inappropriate and a looming environmental disaster. Please think about the future. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell. Director Burke. Thank you, Chair Galvin. And as the Board is well aware, we have been working with zero-waste Sonoma as well as renewable Sonoma to explore the options as to whether or not locating a regional processing facility next to the treatment plant would be something that we should consider. There are a lot of benefits to having that particular processing facility next to our treatment plant and a lot of synergies, so we're continuing to explore that option. This will be a very public process with a lot of opportunities to provide comments, including once we make a determination on which would be the preferred site location, a very robust CEQA process that we'll have to go through as well as a land use process as well. So many opportunities to provide comment, answer questions, and consider all of the possible different things that we have to consider as we're going through this process. Thank you. That concludes public comments. We have no referrals. We have one written communication which you received regarding the monthly rate revenue report. Any subcommittee reports? Any board member reports? Vice Chair Arnani? I just want to report that I attended the mayor's lunch yesterday in place of our chair who was unavailable and heard from the mayor sweat home about the issues in the uppermost mind of the council members including filling a vacancy that is taking up a lot of time and energy, but it was a good meeting and shared some important information about what the VPU is doing with the other members of the chairs of the boards and commissions. I appreciate you being able at the last minute to attend that lunch, and I would have much rather been there than on a five and a half hour conference call, but that's the way it goes. Director's report. Thank you, Chair. I did have a number of things that I wanted to provide an update to the board as we're winding up on 2019. I thought it would be nice to highlight just a couple things that we normally don't bring to the board. First is just an update on our safety and training team, and through this year, through November of this year, our safety and training team has had 3,003 instances of in-person or online training, and this is roughly 12 training classes on average per person and is a 67% increase in the amount of training in the last five years, and it really has been a dedicated effort by our two people. We only have two people on this team to really look at how they could more efficiently provide training, looking at online options, as well as different ways that they can use different types of modules to complete really necessary training for an operational department, and so considering how small this team is and all of their other assignments, including being the lead in responding to helping us develop our emergency response plans, especially helping to outline how we respond in the PSPSs and the number that we had this year, it really is a very impressive accomplishment that this team has done, so I thought I'd share that with the board. I also wanted to let the board know that on Tuesday we had a very high-level briefing to the council on some Tubbsfire-related projects, in particular, Assistant City Manager Nutt, as well as Deputy Director Zanino, gave an update to the council highlighting the number of hazard mitigation projects that the city has been working on as a whole. In particular, I believe the board was notified but just wanted to remind the board that water has received approval to begin work on one particular grant, and we're going to be getting about $3.4 million to be able to work on hardening our generators and making improvements at our water and wastewater facilities, so this is really great news. They also provided an update on the public assistance projects, and of those 29 public assistance projects citywide, 27 have funding, and we're still working with FEMA on two of those to get obligated, one of which is a water department project, so we're still working on that, so it really was just a way to make sure the council's aware, and I know periodically we've updated the board specifically on water department projects, but it is a lot of work and a heavy lift, and many, many hours that many staff are spending on these projects, and so just a good amount of work and wanted to make sure the board was aware. Last month, we had some great news. On November 22, our trucked waste program at the Laguna Treatment Plant surpassed $2 million in build revenue, so that's a great accomplishment, and we are on pace to have over 10,000 truckloads before the end of the year, so really is a great service that we're providing to the community, and we're seeing some additional revenue to the Regional Treatment Plant. And then last, it's a little bittersweet, but I wanted to recognize one of our staff in the audience, if you'd be so kind to at least identify that he's here. Our Utilities and Mechanical Superintendent Terry Schimel is retiring after 29 years of service. Terry joined the maintenance section at the Laguna Treatment Plant as a millwright in 1991, and worked his way to eventually lead the section as a mechanical superintendent 11 years ago. For his entire career, Terry has been a key component of the team that keeps the Laguna Treatment Plant, compost facility, and the reclamation facilities working to a high standard. He has been instrumental and coordinated several important construction projects over the years, including the $10 million combined heat and power facility and the more recent high strength waste facility. While it is natural to focus on operations of a plant, successful operations are only possible with a great maintenance program. And so I do want to congratulate Terry and wish him all the best on his retirement, and convene all of our appreciation for his 29 years providing great maintenance services to our regional system. Thank you so much, Terry. Congratulations, and good luck on your retirement. Anything further? And I just wanted to just really express my appreciation. This has been a great first year as the director for six months. It's been an absolute pleasure to work with such a great team and such a great board. I really appreciate your leadership and guidance, and I want to wish you all a very happy holidays, and also let you know we won't be meeting on January 2nd. Vice-Chair Anoni. I wonder if Director Burke could... I know that we recently received some recognition concerning the work on the Tubbs Fire from the Engineering Association, and I wonder if you might be able to share that accomplishment. Sure. You're going to tax my memory just a little bit, but so I want to say we received the 2019 Public Infrastructure Owner of the Year. I believe that's the name of the award. Great. Really was very, very just a great accomplishment recognizing all of the work that the Water Department and the Transportation and Public Works CIP group did to resolve the water contamination issue, really an unprecedented issue that no one had ever experienced before, figuring out a very, you know, really getting an understanding and a handle on what the cause was and identifying a creative solution to restore water quality in our community. So I think the award was really well deserved, and there was a team of folks that attended and were part or some could attend when we got the recognition. It was really lovely, and in particular, I know there's some folks in the audience. We have Deputy Directors Emma Walton, Jo Chavone, Laurier Bannack, I don't know where she went, as well as Elise Howard, and we had our water quality supervisor and our water superintendent, both of which unfortunately are no longer with the team, as well as our lab, really just was a huge effort, and so I think a really well deserved honor for the Water Department. So thank you for bringing that up. Member Grable. Well, I'd like to add that Director Burke was also a very important member of that team, and she didn't mention herself, but I was. So true. Yeah, I want to second the comments of Vice Chair Arnone on gratitude and just taking a moment to congratulate yourselves and feel proud of the work that you didn't necessarily choose to do at that level of intensity and sort of emergency response. Now it seems three years in a row, fires, floods, PSPS, it seems to be pretty unrelenting, and I just want to express my personal gratitude. I don't think anyone really, you know, outside of the staff knows exactly how much you put in and over and above in the after hours, and when you get a deadline, you know, when you when you get something done like the like what happened up at the geysers in such a short amount of time, I don't think most folks and I probably don't really understand the depth of it, but it sounds amazing to me, and I'm sure that just a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into that. What I would say is that if this is if this is how it's going to be, like take, you know, take time to really own and be proud of what you've done, but also like, you know, be kind to yourself and take some time to really rest when we can between these events and take care of yourselves and your family and each other and, you know, just feel good about what you've done and feel good about taking a break, you know. So I just wanted to say that and say thank you. Thank you for your comments. I think Board Member Dowd wanted to make one other statement. My point is that I made this announcement under item number three, but I would like it to show up in the minutes officially underneath Board Member Reports that I have reported that I submitted an application for the vacancy on the City Council and received notice that it was deemed complete and has been accepted. Thank you. Any further? With that I'll wish all of you and your families a happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, and we'll see you on January the 16th. We're adjourned.