 Thank you very much. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I'm a resident of Aptos. And I have brought this legal action that you are to discuss before you in closed session because I was so compelled by your action. And what I see as a real potential danger to my community's water service. Director Daniels, I would appreciate your attention. I'll give them all the attention you need. Thank you. So I will now give you a copy for your district and a copy for each of you. A letter asking you to, again, reconsider and rescind your action on resolutions 1830 and 1831. I'm also asking you to consider preliminary injunction on any further action for the project. And that includes the Twin Legs Church pilot recharge well, which also is now being called the Twin Legs Church groundwater recharge and seawater intrusion project. I ask this because I really feel that the response to comment, especially those comments submitted to your board by significant agencies, was clearly deficient in addressing the real concerns that they brought up and the deficiencies in the draft EIR. Director Lather, I especially take issue with you, obviously not being aware that this document, the response to comment was a completely different document than the draft EIR that the district did make available in the public libraries. But this was not. And it had to be explained to you on December 18th what this was. That tells me you had not read it. Your board is the decision-making agency for the lead agency. By law, you may have others do the work in compiling this information for you. But before you can certify an EIR, you have to demonstrate to the public that you have had an open mind, that you have read everything, and that you feel it reflects your opinions. Director Lather, you had not read this. You didn't even know what it was. So it is fitting that this follows an ethics training where you have been asked to have an open mind when the public comes to you, that you are transparent, and that you are not prejudicial in your determinations regarding projects. And it has been very clear to me and members of the public that all along the district has had in mind to do the Pure Water Soak Health Project, both by your actions and the very large expenditures that you've given it and the hyper-focus that you've given it. So with that, I want to give copies of a letter, one for council, one for each of you. And this is exhausting my administrative remedy. I do plan tasks for preliminary injunction. Sorry. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak before the closed session? Hi. My name is Joanne Katzen, and I haven't come before you before, but I have come to a few meetings. And I will just have to say that speaking as a resident of Aptus, a long time, 30 years, and somebody who actually taught school for 30 years, I'm not really happy with the way this board operates. And I've watched a lot of boards. I've been watching board of supervisors, for example. And I think there is a lack of transparency. I can't give you all the specifics, because as I said, I haven't come to as many meetings as I probably should have. But I do feel there is something wrong with the way you operate. I have not seen all the materials. No. That's true. But I have felt all along that you were going to say, would you going to say, no matter what the public has to say about it? And I would have liked to have seen a number of meetings help, maybe in different neighborhoods, maybe in more communities, maybe on Saturdays, maybe when people can attend. It's super difficult. A lot of us, even though I am retired now, a lot of people have trouble getting to meetings. And in varying the time and the dates of them would help. But I have really not felt that this board is very concerned with what people think. And I've been around there a year. So I have sent my email already. So I don't want to reread it. I already sent it my feelings about this project and the fast track to approval that I've seen it on. So that's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Lowell Webb is my name. I just got here, so I haven't heard the other comments and what's going on. These are comments related to the closed session item that's coming up for us? Yes, they are. It's a matter of you have the second highest water rates already in California. You can't seem to get along with Santa Cruz whether that Santa Cruz's fault or your fault doesn't make any difference. We've got to. That's a solution. Hopefully, Lafkoe will get in the middle of it. We'll see what happens with that. I'm reminded of what you folks want to do to my aquifer. And that is a matter of we'll just tell you what we used to say on the army when I was there. When you didn't like somebody, you told them, hope to shit in your mess kit. That's what you're doing. Thank you. OK, anyone else? OK, so now we are going to close the doors and everyone needs to leave during the closed session. OK, everybody ready? All right, welcome now to the regular meeting agenda, starting here at 745 for SoCal Creek Water District. Roll call would show all of the directors present. First item is a public hearing related to a waiver request. Oh, yeah, sorry, reporting from closed session. We did conference with our legal counsel and no action was taken. Sorry, thanks for reminding. Good evening. Item 2.1 is a request from the city of Capitola to waive the district's requirement for a performance bond. The city of Capitola is rebuilding the Capitola library at the corner of Clairs and Warf Road. And the district has a water main that traverses through the parking lot and the new design of the building and coaches over that. And so they have designed a relocation of the water main and their contractor and their bid documents include that work. And the city's bid documents also include the requirement that the contractor provide a performance bond. So we've been asked by the city to consider waiving the district's request for a performance bond. And so we've presented that here for you tonight. If there's any questions, I can answer those for you. So have we done this in the past? Something similar? Well, we've had a request by a public entity for it before. That's the only question. And what's our liability if we do waive it? Well, the only liability is that they don't complete it. And so we don't accept it. That's the basic. That's the faithful performance bond is they don't complete the project. And we go ahead and do it. But they're going to have to complete it if they want to put a library in. So it's pretty good. There's a big wedge. OK. And also, this is work that would be needed to be done right away. So it's not like they're going to wait till the very end of the project to get this work done. I think it's pretty likely that it'll be successful here. Any other questions from the board? We'll open the public hearing. If there anyone has any items to comment on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to close the public hearing. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And any other further questions or emotions? I'd like to make the motion to grant the variance. I'll second it. OK. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Great. Thank you, Josh. Next is the consent agenda. Is there anyone that wishes to take anything off? Not a resolution the way we are, I don't think. There's not a resolution. I don't think it required a roll call. Anyway, consent agenda items. Anybody need to remove anything? Any member of the public? Seeing none. I move we adopt all consent agenda items. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, that carries. Thank you. Now it's time for roll communications on items that are not on tonight's agenda. So if anybody wishes to address us on those items and something not on tonight's agenda, this would be the time. I'm Jimmy Canazaro, right here. Yeah, I'd like to ask a couple of questions about is the rate schedule that we have here? Can you use the mic, please? Yes. My first question is with the amount of rain that we've had, are we going to drop out of the emergency stage three? Go on with the rest of your comments, and then we'll see if the board can. Oh, OK. OK, so you can't answer that question yet or no? We'll not. Why don't you finish your comments? OK. And we can address them afterwards. Because if we are going to stay in stage three, I'm noticing that stage three rates, which would start next month if this gets through, our rate would be $8.64 instead of what you have on your proposed 3-1 of 6.43. So my question is, is our rates going to be the 8.64 starting next month of stage three? And then that brings me to your other part of the frequently asked questions about how much will the rates be on this proposed? And it says that it'll be 9% each year. Well, 9%, and then it'll increase our bill only $5. So if we go to a stage three, this whole paragraph of how it's going to affect our bill doesn't work unless I'm missing something. I called the district today, asked these questions, and I guess you guys were pretty busy. You weren't able to get back with me. So that's why I'm here asking this kind of a question. So the 9% increase that this publication that you've sent out of 9% is actually going to be more like 15% for the first year. But this doesn't show what it's going to be by the end of 2023, which is going to be an enormous amount of increase. So basically, are we going to stay in the stage three? Because looking at my records from my bills for the last three years, this is February 16th of 2016. And on here, it has all the rates that you guys passed, but not once since this was enacted, we ever was paying the regular rate. They were all stage three rates. So stage three rates has always continued from this notification now to this next notification. So it seems like we will never get out of stage three. And when would you pull us out of stage three? Thank you. I will let everybody speak, and then maybe I'll ask staff if they have some of those answers for you. OK. Next. I wanted to speak about the West Annex site. I know I thought it might be appropriate to do that now, since I know your other issues are moving forward on the Shanta Clara site. So my name is Jane Paradise, and I live on Rosedale Avenue next to the West Annex site, right where the district headquarters are. And my attorney, Pam Silkwood, who also represents the Soquel Village neighborhood as well, she sent in a letter to the board, which is part of the board packet tonight and included in that is thanking the board for their sound decision making on December 18, 2018. For your sound decision making to choose appropriately zoned industrial site locations, such as the Shanta Clara industrial site and the city of Santa Cruz wastewater site. And for the Pure Water Soquel project, and we support you not selecting the West Annex property, because unlike the other industrial site locations, the West Annex site does have residences on all sides. And your decision to choose industrial zoned sites is environmentally sound and consistent with the Santa Cruz County general plan policies and zone code provisions. However, the West Annex property is not only zone residential, but also it's within the general plan. It is designated as urban load density residential, which would mean that anything at West Annex should be compatible with urban load density residential. The wastewater recycling treatment plant, Pure Water Soquel, its scale and operations of use are expressly industrial and that defined by the Santa Cruz County code section. It's clearly incompatible with the residential character of the West Annex neighborhood, and it's not allowed under the Santa Cruz County general plan, even if it constitutes a public facility. So the Santa Cruz County code section, it actually has an industrial uses chart. And within that industrial use chart, they do list community facilities, such as utilities and public structures and uses. It also lists, under heavy industrial uses, it also lists using hazardous chemicals and the storage of hazardous chemicals. And so there's been some confusion about that term, industrial, and for several years our West Annex site neighbors have used that word, and it's not our opinion, it's a definition. It's the legal definition that Santa Cruz County has within their own land use policies and definitions, and we thank those board members and district staff members that understand that and respect that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Becky Steinbrenner, our resident of Aptos. I want to make your board aware that the Water for Santa Cruz County group will hold a third and final workshop instructing your rate payers how to correctly protest the rates that you are putting forth in a Prop 218 vote. Many people are not aware that they have this opportunity or that, or how to take such action. And so on February 12th at 7 p.m. at the Aptos Library, we will again be instructing your rate payers how to correctly file protest. I do have questions about the information that you did send out to your rate payers. I think it is incomplete by the requirements for Prop 218 as I read in information from the guide from the community water center on the website. It says by law, you must include the amount of the rate increase, which you do, but as Mr. Canazaro points out, it's very confusing as to whether the stage three higher rates, which look like that's what you're basing your rate increases on will continue. Number two, why the increase is needed? That is quite nebulous in the information that your district sends out because it says you will use it to do work for supplemental supply and groundwater recharge when in fact I know having attended your November 6th meeting where Raftalus presented that the rate increase was based on two scenarios. A, you're getting a grant funding for the Pure Water Soquel Project. B, you do not get the grant funding. Your board chose B, not getting the grant funding because you felt it would be easier to reduce the rates for your customers in the event you get the grant, rather than having to go back to them for more if you did not get the grant. That is in your November 6th rate report from Raftalus, item 6-2 I think it is, in your November 6th agenda packet. That was not declared in the information you sent to your customers, which leads me to number three, how the provider calculated the amount of the needed increase, that information is not in any information that you sent out to your rate payers. And finally, when and where the water provider will hold a public hearing on the proposed rate increase, that is thankfully given on the very last page. And I wanna just point out that that will be your next meeting, February 19th. And I encourage transparency here with your rate payers that they have the ability to protest and how to do it correctly. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Not so eloquent as a lot of these folks, but I wanna know why the hell you folks think you have to do this pure water thing. There appears to be ways that it can be done more cheaply and maybe take your hat in your hand and talk to Santa Cruz and see where you are, look in the locker, look into some of the other things. Is it a matter of ego? You don't wanna talk to them? You don't wanna put it with them? What the heck's going on? Be most interested in hearing it. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing none, I just wondered if anybody's willing to address the stage three question. And I don't know about the detail, perhaps Leslie can connect with him later to give more detail on that, but as far as that one at least. Sure, I can take a shot at addressing a couple of things. And I think the gentleman, the last gentleman, there's also an email that was sent out recently that maybe we can... Oh, I'll take care of that. But regarding the rates, well, I'm not sure about the gentleman's calculations. Also, he's assuming that the rates will be approved, so I'm not gonna make that assumption. That's for the board to make based on further input by our customers and members of the public. Regarding the rain, that's a common misconception that the rain solves the issue. A lot of people have that. That is what we're in is a long-term overdraft. The rains are not gonna solve this issue. The issue will be solved by a supplemental supply of some sort. The rates in stage three as the general manager and working with our consultants would probably, based on the recommend continuing, of course, it'll be a board's decision, a stage three curtailment because of the nature of seawater intrusion continuing to pollute our aquifers. Climate change, the Denmark study recently showing that it's worse than we could have even hoped for. The gentleman who came in last week and a couple weeks months ago and showed his well just got hit. So stage curtailment is based on the situation of seawater intrusion that we're seeing occurring and I believe that's one of the reasons the board approved it. However, with that being said, the rates are designed for the board to be allowed to continue in stage three curtailment but not have to apply the stage three rates unless they see additional burden being placed on the district. Okay, and then perhaps I'm just gonna ask that staff connect with Mr. Kanazaro and give him the more detailed, okay, that he requested. Okay, any, yes. There was some question about us ever talking to the city and of course, I know the staff does that all the time both myself and Dr. Jaffe were last night down at the Santa Cruz City Water Commission. In fact, I presented to them some information about what we're doing with respect to, you know, the aquifer storage and retrieval plan that they have. And so yes, we talk to them all the time. Yep, I met with several city council members. I have, the staff is constantly meeting with the city of Santa Cruz and I wanted to read a couple of things. One was just since this question keeps coming up and whether it's water for Santa Cruz or anyone else that has ideas that, you know, we're just trying to avoid it or we just, if we have water to get from the city of Santa Cruz, that has to come from the city of Santa Cruz. And so I think some of the information that's gotten out there or misinformation, recently the director of the water department at the city of Santa Cruz, Rosemary Menard made it, wrote some things that were extremely clear. And I'm gonna read them. So she's assuming initially that people didn't intentionally try to misrepresent what she said, but here's what she said. To clarify, I did say that our demand has dropped, but I did not say that we were no longer, we no longer need a supplemental supply project. I did say that we are working on adding more robust treatment process to the work we're doing to rehabilitate the Graham Hill water treatment plant and that I thought are doing so would allow us to access somewhat more water than we currently can because of greater ability to treat water with higher levels of turbidity than we can deal with currently. I did not say that we would expect to have more water available to transfer. In fact, I said just the opposite. I said there is not enough surface water to reliably meet both the city of Santa Cruz's needs and the needs that Soquel Creek has to protect the aquifer in their service area from seawater intrusion. I don't recall saying anything at all about city water being less expensive than the Pure Water Project. If I did mention cost under no circumstances, what I have said that transfer water would be cheaper than Pure Water Soquel because in fact, I don't believe that would be the case. And I particularly don't believe that would be the case if Soquel gets the $50 million grant it is applying for. I did say that based on modeling results I've seen so far, it is not clear that the city could plan on getting much in the way of water back from an in lieu transfer at least in the near term. It isn't clear to me why you're characterizing this as a game changer since the question of how much water we would get back from an in lieu project with Soquel has been unresolved since the Wasak process. The underlying issue is what is it going to take to protect the basin from seawater intrusion? Due to the critical importance of effectively solving the problem, the city and the Mid County Groundwater Agency partners would need to prioritize basin sustainability over any other purposes until the seawater intrusion threat has been effectively dealt with. And she's, I think, getting a little tired of her miscommunication and so she said to the extent that you or others in your group choose to characterize what the opportunities for water transfers are in any manner that doesn't align with the statements above, please know that from my perspective, at least you are purposely misrepresenting the facts. So we hear this almost every meeting and I just wanted to make it clear that since she's the water director of the city of Santa Cruz, I think she did a good job of making that abundantly clear. The only other thing I just noticed in the last newsletter from the California Water Agencies, this is the State Water Resources Control Board. They have three goals in the recent amendments. One is to increase the use of recycled water from 714,000 acre feet a year to 1.5 million, so doubling in a five-year period. Two, reuse all dry weather direct discharge of treated wastewater to enclose bays, estuaries, coastal lagoons and ocean waters that can be viably put to beneficial use. So they're trying to stop putting out water that's already been treated, energy went into, treated to secondary standards and just wasting it by putting it out into the ocean. Three, maximize the use of recycled water in areas where groundwater supplies are in a state of overdraft to the extent that, so anyway, that's exactly what we're trying to do. So those are priorities for the state that I wanted to make clear. I think it's clear what the state wants, it's clear what the city has made clear what their position is and our goal has continuously been to protect the groundwater. So I'll leave it at that. Couple things I want to do. There are a lot of people out there wandering the streets telling people that it's almost like saying you can go down to the store and buy a cup of coffee for two pennies and you might want to believe that. That sounds good to me. And there are people going out saying you can get this water for real cheap, real easy. In fact, some people I think are confused because the city did a special deal with us to do this pilot that we're currently doing. It's going to be this winter and next winter and we're getting the water for $300 an acre foot, which is way under the price of what anyone in Santa Cruz is paying for the water. And there is this law called Prop 218, it's under which we're doing our new rates. It's a state law and it requires that if you are paying $10 for your water supply and your neighbor is paying $20 for their water supply, that's not fair and that's illegal. In fact, currently, I've heard there's some North Coast water users are suing the city because we're getting North Coast water for this real cheap price and they're paying 10 times as much or something. And so if this wasn't just a pilot, a two year pilot, they would probably lose because that is illegal according to 218. So I think that's why they're confused. They see us getting this water for real cheap because of this special pilot that we're doing with them. But that's not gonna last. If this were permanent, we'd have to be paying the same price that their residents are, which is more like $7,000 or something. So I mean, it's not gonna be cheap. They can't make it be cheap because that way we would be getting a special break that their own customers aren't getting and that's illegal. Anyone else from the wood? You know the old communications? Yeah, well, I just wanna respond. I would be foolish and any other director would be foolish not to work with the city to the maximum extent possible and towards that goal I have contacted city council members as Dr. Daniel said, we were both at the water commission meeting last night. I stood up and said, I'm here because I wanna encourage more cooperation between the city and the district. So it's a mischaracterization saying that we're not working with the city as we are to the maximum extent possible. Anyone else? And last night I actually stood up and told them, which I've told this board at the last meeting, I have evidence why I think it shows that there's no way the city can do their aquifer storage and retrieval plan. I send water over from the river in wet years and then bring it back to them in dry years. They can't do that except that we have our purification facility. If they do that without a purification facility, they take out, we take out a billion gallons for our customers. They take out 1.2 billion gallons. They say they need for their customers with nothing going in from rainwater and nothing coming over the hill from excess river water. That's gonna damage the basin. And in fact, the city's first studies of this have shown just that. Okay. So, yep, go ahead. Yes, yeah. It's not about that subject. That's fine. It's just oral communications. I just wanted to now, I wanted to let everybody know that there's gonna be an information session on this coming Monday, the 11th, on groundwater enrichment. It's being led by the staff who are working on the groundwater modeling. And the reason, it might be interesting, every time I've heard anything about the modeling, it's more and more information has been refined and updated. So it'd probably be a worthwhile session. It's from five to seven. And you can access it by webinar or at the Community Foundation. And it touches on the report. I'll just say briefly, the surface water, the surface water subcommittee of the GSA. The GSP advisory committee. One of those acronyms. It met this past week and they discussed the modeling of the Soquel Creek bed. And it was some very new information that has never really been available before. It's tied together, so it was very worthwhile. But that was just a working group. So I think some of that information will be provided at this Monday meeting. And you don't have to go to the Community Foundation to do it. And I just had another... I'll just go for it here really quickly. Saturdays, February 2nd, San Francisco Chronicle reported on a big, I have it online too. You can send a URL to that one. But a big coho revival. They've had one of the best, the sixth best year since 1966 in the number of coho salmon spawning. 628 fish, which is a small fraction of what they consider to be sustainable. But the County of Marin and a number of environmental groups have worked together to restore the Vagonitas Creek, restricting development, all kinds of things. And it's finally starting to pay off. And it's the kind of thing that probably we as a County have to address here for ever going to have a revival of the coho fisheries on the San Lorenzo River and in Soquel Creek too. They found fish and they found coho up in North County on Lagunas Creek. So it's different, but very few. Just nothing like this fishery here. So it's a really interesting article. So it'll be on the record. I think that's, I'll just leave it at that. And we have another newspaper clipping here. This is, this is dated because it's from Monday Sentinel. And I double check the information because I'm not gonna say anymore. But that as of 4pm Sunday, to my surprise, the season, the rainfall that's reported is a season to date of four, a little bit over 14 inches. And the normal season to date is almost 18 inches. So even now that's changed in the past few days. Now they're above normal by about 10%. But at the water commission meeting, they showed the cumulative rainfall and all it takes is a few days without rain to get back to normal. So it, my perception is that it's been incredibly rainy. There's lots of water that's going into the basin, but that's not the case. This is, I think the drought probably just recalibrated me into not expecting what's normal. And as Dr. Daniels points out, when you have this intense rain, it doesn't recharge, it runs off. So, surprising information. If before seeing this, if I was asked whether or not we're above normal rainfall, I would have thought we're quite a bit above, but we're not. Thank you. All right, we're good. All right, so now we will go to item 6.1. Conditional and unconditional. We'll serve others because there were no reports tonight. Okay, there are nine we'll serves for the board to consider. Several ADUs and a 13 unit town home development that is proposed off Soquel Drive among some other single family homes. Questions? You guys, any questions? You have questions, Carla? Yeah, it's another dumb question, but I was wondering like the go green, like some of the houses, they got a reduction because they committed to some go green. Why, do you know, did they ever discuss why they don't do the go green water savings? Or did they just? So why some of the others don't? Yeah, I was just, because you save money by doing it, I was just wondering. I don't think I can answer for other people's decisions, but. They don't discuss it at all. Well. There are strokes, different folks. I've said it in a few of those meetings. Doesn't fit everybody, but it has been a relatively popular program. It would seem so, it's fairly significant. It's one of the things I've suggested several times is we take the go green program, which hasn't changed a lot in years and make some of the bottom layers mandatory. We shouldn't let people put in, you know, medium flow toilets. They should be using low flow toilets, et cetera. And some of the green credits should be standard. So that's my opinion. Yes, some other cities have something like that. Something like that. We could bring that back, actually. I would like that. I think we should. Okay, I'll add it to the special assignments. Thank you. And any other questions? All right. So any members of the public on this item? Seeing none. What's the board's pleasure? Any board actions? Motions. Motion. I'd move to deny them all. And because you still were worried about the fact that the AMIs won't get in kick in in time. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think the last time staff presented that, they made me feel like that by the time these get built, that we'll be having an effect. But so that was. I know, I'm aware that they're working on it. The staff is working on it right now. They were in my neighborhood looking for the water meters to dig up, locating. Oh, people buried on, you know, landscape don't have, they're already reading meters. Yeah. So, but they are looking, they have to excavate those. Installing, you know, and they're doing it. Yeah, right. So anyway, so do you want a motion? I'll move to approve them all. Okay. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. No. Okay. Motion passes. We will now go to item 6.2, related to state water resource control board, Prop 1 groundwater grant. Yes, item before you on 6.2 is a procedural item for the grant application that we're submitting under the Prop 1 groundwater program. As directed by the board, staff continues to seek grant and low interest loans and other additional outside funding to help offset the project costs and make the project more affordable for local ratepayers. So just as a recap, as you know, just in June, the board did adopt Resolution 1813, authorizing the district to apply for round two funding under the Prop 1 program. We were invited back to apply and submit a full application and as part of that full application, they do require the proposal to have a resolution. So the resolution, draft resolution is attached and I'm here to answer any questions. Questions? I just, a minor point. I just noticed in the write up, it talked about $900 million in bonds to prevent and clean up contamination of groundwater and in the resolution it's $800 million. So I don't know which one of those figures is correct, but I want to make sure that the... It should be $800 million. Okay. Okay. No other questions? Any members of the public? Thank you, Becky Steinbrunner. I just want to protest your taking this action to support Pure Water SoCal project. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. This will be a roll call. I make a motion. Someone makes a motion. I make a motion. I second the motion. Bruce and Bruce. Okay. Roll call vote. Director Lither. Yes. Vice President Daniels. Yes. Director Jaffe. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Lehu. Yes. Thank you. That passes unanimously and then we will go to item 6.3, scopes of work for two different entities. Yes. Item 6.3 are two scope of works that were being presented to the board as contract amendments for two existing consultants. One is for environmental science associates or ESA who did perform all the environmental review in preparation of the environmental impact report. The ask and contract modification four includes additional work that was performed in order to get the document prepared, the additional work related to the response to comments, the document preparation, some additional outreach in the items that are within that contract. The second item within their contract amendment also includes about $10,000 to help support the litigation that's now before the project. The other scope of work includes legal assistance from Best Best and Krieger who the district has retained for CEQA special attorney services, that scope of work includes two items. One was for legal assistance during the past process that we just completed in December for the EIR preparation certification and project approval. And now that there is a legal challenge before this contract amendment includes $175,000 for that effort to provide services for that. And I'm here to answer any questions. Okay, questions? Okay, so any members of the public? Actually, I didn't have one, sorry, though slow. Some are, I don't think I've seen this before, but ESA actually said that the required level of effort for one of their tasks, for two of their tasks, that's 3.1 and 3.5, the approach and significant thresholds was less than anticipated. So they've modified the budget modification, corrects the overages and makes use of the areas? Yes. I'm impressed. That's pretty rare, I think that a consultant will... Give money back. Give money back, yeah. That's the whole point of a not to exceed, you know, they actually have to bill for what they're doing. Okay, any comment from the public? Becky Steinbruner, again protesting your action to move the Pure Water SoCal project forward. And also to again ask you to reconsider and rescind your actions that it looks like we'll bring $175,000 debt in legal to fight it legally when you could cure and correct the problem instead. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I'll make all three motions. All second. We moved and seconded, all in favor? Aye. Aye, opposed? That carries unanimously. So then our next item, oh, come on, computer. There we go, is scope of work for Brown and Calvo. Item 6.4. Somehow I'm sitting in the wrong spot tonight. Thank you. I do have just a couple of slides here on item 6.4 to walk the board through this item, which is a contract amendment and some of the new design work and efforts for the Pure Water SoCal project. I also did wanna let the board know that we do have Anup Shah, who is our program manager out in the audience. So if there are questions, please also available. Suggest to reiterate on December 18th, 2018, the district board did approve the Pure Water SoCal project and passed the motion that stated that we would prioritize the project development and siding for tertiary treatment at the Santa Cruz wastewater treatment facility and the advanced water purification treatment at Chanticleer site, while also coordinating with the city of Santa Cruz on the potential to site the full advanced water purification treatment at the Santa Cruz wastewater treatment plant provided no delay occurs to the project schedule and that we would still proceed with the recharge well cited at Twin Lakes Church, Monterey Avenue, and Willow Brook Lane. In order for us to stay on schedule, we also are always embracing the key values of what the project is intended to do. It is intended to prevent seawater intrusion from moving further inland and contaminating our drinking water supply and also to be cost conscious, meaning that we are really wanting to make sure that we're using the best use of our rate payer funds. We do wanna maximize grant opportunity and outside sources of funding. And we also wanna try and avoid any increase in costs with delays or uncertainties. As we know, the cost of inflation and as we delay the schedule, it just adds more cost to the overall project. So since the December 18th board approval, we have been working diligently on some of the actions to make the project go forward based on that direction. And one was continued coordination efforts with the city of Santa Cruz. I did just wanna take a moment and recognize that I know that the board has been doing a lot of outreach to the city council and others. So we do really appreciate that effort. On a staff level, we have been meeting quite a bit as well. So we have had three staff meetings already. We're gonna do another one this week really to talk more about the operational considerations, permitting questions that have come up that will identify, I think, some of the opportunities and constraints at that site. In addition, our goal, though, is to kind of come to an agreement with the siting of the facility in this near spring term. For the Chanticleer site, which is the other site that the board had approved us to go forward with design, we have done a lot of input gathering from the community. There was a lot of direction and suggestions that Soquel Creek Water District needed to do a little bit more outreach and education in the Live Oak area since the Live Oak community is not a part of our customer base or within our district boundaries. So in the last two months, we have, I think, had over 15 different meetings. Many write directly around the site. Others just community groups and other representatives. And the outreach has been pretty favorable in terms of really appreciating that we are starting to go out there and educate people about the project and explain to them what the purpose of the project is and what it does serve and benefit. I think, Ron, if you wanna hit on that kind of the Live Oak confusion. Yeah, I think in our outreach presentations, one of the things we've seen at the aha moment for many of the people are, they ask, why put a facility, a purification facility in Live Oak when it seems like the problem is more Mid County. And when we say, well, actually, Live Oak is part of the Mid County Groundwater Agency and Live Oak was its own well-filled, had its own well-filled before Santa Cruz took it over. So they actually pump a fair amount of water. I'm gonna estimate around 500 acre feet. I need to verify that, but that's about one third of the shortage that we're looking for. That's correct. That's correct. Okay, thank you. And it's also at a point of an area, Live Oak is in a point of location of, the seawater intrusion's already occurred onshore and where it hasn't, we know it's right onshore. So when we reach out to them and say, we understand that feeling, that the first resistance, so to speak. But then when we say that, you do see, you know, you let physically see heads turn and go, oh, I didn't realize that. So then we, you know, pose a problem. Do you wanna, are the question, do you wanna potentially be part of the solution, you know, and help in that way? So that's been key to, I think a lot of progress we've made in that area. I think the other point we would make as we've been going out to the community is, a lot of people are still trying to get a better understanding of what is going on on that site. Our project is not the only thing that is interested in developing that corner of Chanticleer and Soquel Avenue. In addition to the purification facility, the Regional Transportation Commission has cited that location to have a bike pedestrian over crossing. So there would be the opportunity for shared use there for community benefits. We have included that area. We've been working with the Regional Transportation Commission on keeping that front area for that project. That project, very similar to Soquel Creek's, their EIR, which has been years in the making, has been approved, and they are now going into full design for that bike pedestrian crossing. So it's been a good opportunity. I think, yes, we need to do more, and we will continue to do more, but I think we're on a good track on that site. Yeah, a lot of excitement that we're very accommodating about the bike ramp that would come down the whole frontage part of Soquel Drive. As far as public outreach, and I had mentioned this before, but I think it's also important, gonna be important to include the city of Santa Cruz, because I think, especially with what Dr. Daniels was talking about with any kind of transfer back to them or to keep them from pumping too much or even to preserve more water in the river if needed for the fish, he's gonna have to have some sort of regular, reliable supply to keep water above protective levels like pure water set up. Yeah, and along those lines, we've been in conversations with the city about a joint outreach effort that encompasses that, maybe even with the MGA, or at least Santa Cruz and Soquel, covering both things. And then the last point, I think we kind of hit on it on 6.2, but that really was just to pass the resolution. Staff has been working quite a bit with our team to put together the grant package. A full grant application is a heavy lift. There's a lot of information that has to be presented. And really, a lot of the information has to be about the project background and project setting in addition to what the Pure Water Soquel project is. And in spending, you know, numerous hours on, you know, explaining the problem, it's very easy for us. And I just kind of wanted to reiterate, in doing this grant package preparation, the seawater intrusion problem is such a big concern. The way that the grant is is to prevent seawater intrusion. This project does address that. And it does ask us, do we have to identify, do we meet other state mandates? So, you know, meeting SIGMA and having, you know, a groundwater sustainability plan that has a project that can achieve those goals, it meets the statewide goals that you just mentioned earlier, President LaHue. So there are a lot of nexuses related to the project in the Prop 1 grant program. I'll add two things. One, the state sees this as a pollution prevention environmental project, and that's why the money, that's what it was allocated for, Superfund site. So that's the level at which they put equate seawater intrusion to, and for that we're thankful. And also, just a quick shout out, I know for at least eight hours, Melanie was in the office on Saturday, working on the behalf of the customers to churn this out, so thank you. So to get into the meat of item 6.4, really the next effort that the district and the project team is gonna undertake is the preliminary design efforts. We are proposing that we have Brown and Caldwell initiate basis of design reports, which are basically the preliminary design package in basis of criteria for the projects. Specifically, we're asking at this point for the basis of design work to go forward on the treatment facilities, as well as the conveyance and alignments. Because of the board action on December 18th to go forward with Chanticleer, as well as coordinate with the city of Santa Cruz. Staff's recommendation is that we proceed with basis of design development for the two options. One would be a split facility at Chanticleer with purification and tertiary at Santa Cruz. The second one would be for the full scope to be purification down at the Santa Cruz wastewater treatment plant. The basis of design report is an important step because that really helps keep us on schedule. The design permitting, construction and project implementation is a very tight schedule. We have about 46 to 48 months to complete all of this so that we still meet the goal of having a project come online in December 2022. So four months of the basis of design report development, we are hoping we'll feed into the site confirmation where we will be doing the project. And then that final basis of design report can initiate the next step, which we are going forward with procurement. We really do wanna hire a design team to go out and do the additional design work. And that basis of design report serves as a way to help initiate a design firm to come on and do the next steps. So for Brown and Caldwell to help the project team right now, as you know, this is pretty much at the staff level, the project team of Pure Water Soquel, Taj, myself and assistance from Ron, we are asking for Brown and Caldwell to come and basically help us develop those basis of design reports, provide program management and support, which would include cost validation. Currently we have the cost estimates that we've been using are from the Corolla Feasibility Study class four. As we go forward with each step in design, we're able to do cost validation to get us to a better cost estimate as we go forward. And that would also include QA, QC, and the development of some procurement documents such as the request for qualifications. Another important step that we'd like to initiate now, this is sometimes stuff, items that Soquel Creek Water District staff would do, but just to kind of ease and facilitate a more cohesive team, we are asking Brown and Caldwell to also oversee this as the program manager and hire consultants or sub consultants to initiate some field work in coordination that would feed into that 30% design work. We do have an optional item that staff is recommending that we can also put in here, which would begin to initiate the 30% design. We are hoping that through this process, through the spring, that before the end of the fiscal year, we will have a site selected and we would be able to start that 30% design work. So we could initiate that work and then pass it on and then in the next fiscal year, we could complete that. So tonight, we are asking that the board consider a amending Brown and Caldwell scope for staff's recommendation to do two basis of design reports in parallel to keep us on track and then allocate the money out of OCR and then authorize Ron as the general manager to assign those purchase orders. Questions? Yeah. So I follow things up to the the initiation of the field work coordination and to the 30% design. So you talked a bit about the need to initiate the field work coordination at that time. It's July of 2019. And it seems like this is dependent on having a decision by that point on where to site the advanced water purification facility. It does not necessarily need to be prior to it. It can be right after or within it. We are hoping that by May, that is when we talk about coordinating with the city. That is the date, time work of where we're trying to figure out where we would be sited. And so that still gives us a couple of months before the end of the fiscal year to initiate some work that can be done instead of waiting to July 1st. So once the site was completed, we can go ahead and do some more site work and some more analysis on the sites that go beyond what we would be gathering under a basis of design report. Is that correct? Maybe you can come here and just, so it's July 2019 is when that part is proposed to begin. Right, so a lot of the background data that will support the design development includes surveying, geotechnical boring, things like that. It requires coordination with a lot of agencies. And what we are proposing is we begin that process right now, coordinate everything that we can and be ready to actually drill holes wherever geotechnical boring are needed or have the surveyors go out on the street. All of that work we can tee up for the July 1st of the next fiscal year. In this fiscal year, we just want to line up everything. So as soon as the next fiscal year comes around, we can execute that work. Well, and usually it takes two to three months to get everything lined up to even collect any fieldwork data. And I may be going here in a little bit more details, but when we think about the conveyance infrastructure coming from Santa Cruz to Santa Clara or Vesta next site, we have a couple of stream crossings. And those would require special engineering. So we want to collect that data and get be ready for it. So that's where this preparation comes in advance prior to actually executing the work. And what if the advanced water purification facility is at the wastewater treatment facility? We still got to follow the same route for the pipeline. So a lot of the surveying and geotechnical boring irrespective of where the facilities are. I think the pipeline route would follow the same route. You're talking about on the pipeline, this word? Correct. Not so much at the facility itself. That's right. And I think just similar to what you recognized in the previous agenda item, we could have this money aside. We would use it as needed. So if we don't need to do that kind of effort on a facility site, then that money wouldn't be spent. That is correct. And another element of field work or data collection is source water control program or understanding what is the water coming in at City of Santa Cruz. That's what the regulatory agencies would require. So as part of this effort, we would initiate those fieldwork efforts to collect some sampling at City of Santa Cruz for the source water programs. All of this is just getting ready for the next phase of work. I'm going to look at it and see the source water in the write-up. Okay. And then so just so I've got it right, this fieldwork needs to be lined up several months in advance, two, three months in advance. And the fieldwork on the pipeline route is something that can be done regardless of where the facility is. And you would hold off on any work at facility sites until that decision is made. That's precisely the point. And I think if I may add a little bit more, our focus emphasis so far is just to do as much work, just enough work that we can be doing to stay on schedule, basis of design reports on parallel tracks. We will hold off even advancing on 30% design, which is the next logical step until that decision is made. So this optional task is there only if the decision is made in time, then we do want to start on that decision. Otherwise we will be holding off on 30% design. And just to clarify, keeping on schedule, not only is just, if we have to keep everything going so we can still be eligible for the grant. Yeah, I think what they've designed is an approach that looks toward the customer in the sense of it maximizes our, minimizes our risk and maximizes our potential for reward for the grant and continues to best approach to minimize the incurring seawater pollution. So it does twofold things. Other questions, Rachelle? It is a quick one. So is the $2 million, basically just about $2 million from OCR, is that reimbursable if we were to get a grant? Yes. Good question. Rachelle? I had a question about the conveyance facilities because that's really a big deal. Are you, have you already selected a route or is this part of the process to select a route? No, so there is, as part of our current authorization, what we are working towards as part of that effort, there was an alignment study that was done that's funded through Prop 1 planning grant that the district has received. And part of that analysis, there has been a recommendation of a route. There are other routes that are still under consideration, but if Chanticleer site is the selected site, for example, the reason why there hasn't been a firm recommendation because we are still discussing the site selection, if it's everything at city of Santa Cruz wastewater treatment facility, then the route would be, all three routes are under consideration. But if it's at Chanticleer, then along the Soquel Drive, that's the preferred route. Then I would like there to be some potholing of utilities as well as desktop, because I did see, in here it just says desktop. I didn't see, and I could have missed it because there were a lot of... So excellent question. So part of the utility investigations, what we want to do is a geotechnical investigation of the facility that we're serving. It might be better suited, and this is a longer-term discussion, if we can offload some of that potholing exercise to the design builder who would be constructing the facility. If they discover a lot of the utilities, they may go subsurface construction rather than open trench to avoid a lot of the concern of, whether it's utilities or other areas that may not be suitable for open construction aspect. But yes, part of this desktop is to do that GIS, to see where the utilities are, and if needed, starting July 1st, we will do the potholing type exercise. I would, yeah. I would love to discuss this with you offline. Absolutely. Anyone else? Any members? Go ahead, I still have a question. So the route for the pipeline is not dependent on where the advanced purification facility is. It's gonna be optimized. So, but if the advanced water purification facility is yet the Chanticleer or West Annex, then their brine has to be brought back to the wastewater treatment facility. So does that affect the trench size or the cost of trenching or the project? Yeah. So far, this investigations, what we are talking about are more associated utility conflicts, whether they're the areas where pipeline should not be going, as far as the actual width of the trench and depth of the trench to whether do two parallel pipes or just one pipe, whether it's a brine line coming back and tertiary water going forward. That will all be in the next phase, 30% design where we will start sizing. So all these investigations that we are talking about, they are independent again of whether it's one pipe or two pipes. Okay. The brine line is not gonna go all the way back to the treatment plan. It's gonna go to some other like sewer location, right? It doesn't have to go all the way back. Right? There are some operational considerations that we've been coordinating with sanitation as well as public works in terms of how we handle that. Currently within the EIR, we have a scenario that it would go all the way back. If we don't want to do that and we want to investigate putting it into the sewer as a discharger, we'd have to go through that process. Okay. Bruce? The schedule that's put in here is, because I see there's different options. There's a look at one location, look at two, look at three. What is the schedule for? Because I, in fact for the other part of that question is are there different schedules if you're doing one or two or three? This schedule is for two. It'd be very, very tight if we were to try to do more than that just because of the level of effort to put these bases of designs together. And really, if we want to try to maximize our resources, we'd rather try and focus on the two. The two locations that the board had kind of directed us to do Chanticleer and Santa Cruz wastewater treatment plan. Okay. And if we were to just do one, it would certainly change the cost, but does it change the scheduling? Would it be faster to do one as opposed to do two? Well, I would say that totally depends on what site we end up. If we choose the wrong site, then it's much slower. If we choose correct site, or the site that's ultimately selected. So then you think we should do all three since we don't know anything about anything? That, we bannered that around you. I think at this point, I think because of the efforts that we've been doing over the last two months to identify and coordinate with Santa Cruz as well as the efforts for outreaching with Chanticleer, I think these are two strong sites. And I think it would put our best foot forward in working with BC and their team to do the two BODRs at this time. It is an extra lift. It was, you know, when we talk about the initial cost estimates that we had identified going forward with the project, it is a little bit extra cost that we're putting in right now on the forefront. But I think because we still have these options on the table, we're working towards a resolution and we're assuming we come to a conclusion that we're still in the next couple of months. I think it's a good investment for the district and our rate payers in the long run. Yeah, I would just add that exactly what Melanie said. This seems like the best way forward. If we see that that's not progressing in the manner that the board would like, we could stop and change gears and change sites, that sort of thing. But we feel hopeful. Updates would be important. Absolutely. And is there, and along those lines, is there any optimal phasing of this to pursue the parts of this that could, you know, only go towards one site and put in the two site portions later and still meet schedule? Something along the same lines, I would probably suggest this, that in terms of the level of coordination required for having a full advance water purification facility down at Santa Cruz, that's a completely different ball game, maybe two story building at Santa Cruz, different coordination versus a split facility where it's only tertiary. I would highly encourage that we start parallel on both paths. If the decision is made soon enough that, yes, it's a split facility or full facility, whatever that decision, at that point, staff can direct us to stop the other effort and peel off. So you're not spending or burning effort on both fronts. So I think that would probably be the best way to keep things moving and as soon as the decision is made, you just pause the other effort. Yes. If we do put the facility down at the wastewater treatment facility, the purification down there, is there also room then, if the city decides they wanna do purification for them to also put their facility at that same location? It's going to be tight, but it's a city's decision and I think right now, as we are considering cities doing their own evaluation of what it means for them at their facility from operational requirements, space constraints, future plans. So I think a lot of that is gonna come from them. Right now, as it seems, it would become extremely tight if we put the full facility and then they have to expand on their own. They may have to take some of their other administrative buildings and things like that, metal structures offsite to make room for a future advanced water purification. So they're still thinking about them and made a decision? They haven't made a decision yet. And Melanie, you may have more information on this. Yeah, I think we know that their Wasak process is still underway. They're out until the end of 2020 for their decision. Most of their emphasis and priority currently is with the water transfers. They, in December, identified to keep and continue recycled water on the table and they did table any other effort at this time on desalination. So they currently have surface water maximization and recycled water in their portfolio. Some of the issues on a staff to staff level when we're coordinating and we're meeting, we are talking about the benefits of recycled water for both of us, some of the statewide goals, potential bills that may come up, reducing ocean discharge. What does that mean to their facility? Some of the operational considerations in terms of certification and classification changes of that plant, we're working with the state permitting agencies. At this point, a lot of the key issues aren't necessarily preferences of their agency or ours. They're gonna be really driven by regulatory and permitting answers. And that's what we're trying to get into. Very complicated. Very complicated. With the ocean discharge, there's an advance to the city of decreasing their discharge to the ocean? Yes, so a couple of years ago, Senator Hertzberg presented a bill, it didn't go forward, but it was proposed to be a state mandate to reduce ocean discharge with treated effluent. His was pretty aggressive. He wanted to try to reach 100% zero waste discharge by a certain year and it was unfunded. There really wasn't a lot behind it and so he took it off. There's been word now because of the statewide goals that have been put in the recycled water policy that a new bill may be on the horizon. We don't know, we're gonna wait and see, but if it does, that may have more benefit to the city to increase their tertiary treatment. But again, I don't wanna speak for them, but that might be the case. And I would add, it's not just to the city. They do pay the, I think, 56 or something like that percent, but it's to the entire county because if that rule does come, legislation comes down as proposed and predicted, you know, it's gonna impact everybody who sends effluent there. So city majority, but live oak, mid-county, all the way down. It's a private golf court. Yeah, it's a private court for everybody. Hey. Yes, Bob? I thought, we forgot to bring the board's attention, but page 209, which was in the original packet. Oh, right. It was removed because it was, sorry, I was supposed to remember that too. Oh, thank you. There's one page that was in the original thing that went out that was not just a draft that it was removed. And then we should probably allow public comment. Yeah, thank you, Doug. Thank you, Noop. Thank you, Noop. Any one from the public wish to comment on this item? Thank you, Becky Steinbruner. I feel like you guys are making this up as you go. And that really reinforces how weak the EIR was and is. And to be talking about, not sure where their conveyance system is, the effects of it, there are a couple of stream crossings. Let's try 18 stream crossings, 18 stream crossings and two jurisdictional waters. This will cross. Trying to figure out the brine route. This was all supposed to be done in the EIR. How can you certify an EIR as complete? And you're sitting here talking about how to build the project and it's all still conceptual. This is ridiculous. Are you aware that on November 1st, Mr. Duncan and these people over here met with your consultants and had a big meeting in an exclusive hotel in San Jose and they were all talking about this? Long before you approved the project and the EIR, is that having an open mind in your decision making? Like what you've just heard from Mr. Basso tonight in your ethics training? I also want to point out that the injection wells are not in the live oak area. They are not in the area of the pleasure point area that have shown increased salinity. They're an apcos. That's not where the problem is. And in fact in the draft EIR it states that those water, groundwater levels have actually risen and recovered in recent years. But that's where you're putting the injection wells. It makes no sense. And you started the project with the Twin Lakes project long before you approved the main project. And that project had a faulty initial study and mitigated negative declaration. You had to go back and correct it. You said it was gravity feed. What is going on here? It's like you're making it up, rushing forward just to get this pot of money from the state and the federal people. And I'm warning you, I've seen what happens. When I went to a regional water quality control board meeting there was a huge outpouring of complaint from the public from a plant in Cambria, just like this one that got shoved through on a fast track. And I've seen Mr. Waite from IDE Technologies, your design build operate person that I think is circling the pot here. This is disgusting to me that you're moving forward, making it up as you go and the public is going to suffer. And now you're asking your rate payers for an additional almost $2 million for additional work that you're making up as you go. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? I protest the project. All right, seeing none, then we'll come back to the board. Okay, let me tell you what I think, my own opinion, I think we should make some decisions and move on, not have things going in parallel. Let's do 16 designs in parallel, just in case one of them doesn't work. We can do several others. We should make some decisions and stick with them and go on. So I think we should only do one of these BODRs. And I think it should be Chanticleer because I think the city one is just too specular to put anything into. The schedule that we have here, I hope I got the right one, but it shows a decision having to be made by May 1st. Is that correct? That's still, that's correct. Okay, so a decision has to be made as to the site on May 1st. Well, when I went to this water commission yesterday, they were talking about the fact, and I've heard this from several of the other water commissioners, that their schedule is, let's see, what was it? In February, yes, April 1st, which is the next commission meeting. That'll be a meeting, a joint meeting with the commission and with the WASAC people. Hopefully to get them to swallow all this stuff that they're probably not gonna like. And then on the 23rd, they're having a joint meeting with the council to talk about things. And then it'll be sometime in May when they're gonna actually talk about maybe even giving us some water, which we don't have still yet. We don't have a contract for water. And so any, yeah, no, we have no contract for any water at all, even secondary. No, I know, but that's the way you're talking about it. Any water? Yeah. I don't know what it can do or tertiary. Tertiary, yes. You have room over there though. And so it means, with this, that them actually getting to even talk about letting us build down there is probably gonna be even further out than that. And so how are we gonna get this decision from them by May 1st? We won't. We've already heard from at least one contractor that he may not want to even bid on this if it's down in the city. Why? Because of the politics. The opponents are gonna go crazy over this. We know most of the opponents, they're down in the city. They love the WASAC process. They love the aquifer storage and retrieval and send it over here and send it back. And if we actually start building a wastewater treatment polishing facility, the purification facility down there in the city, that'll just set them off. So we're just asking for it. They're putting a kick me sign on my back. On page 200, it talks about this one can only, we can only do that option if we get a lot of work with the wastewater treatment staff to help design this thing. And is that gonna happen between now and May 1st? You tell me, I don't think so. And we're gonna spend over $300,000 to do this option. And it probably is gonna die on the vine. I just think we shouldn't do it. We should decide right now today that's not working out, that they're not even gonna consider it in that timeframe. And so we should just go ahead and write that one off. We said we would continue that and do it in parallel until it met the schedule. And I think it has already failed the schedule. My feelings. Is that true? No. Yeah, what is it? I'll start that. I mean, I think in earnest that staff has been coordinating and trying to meet this May 1st. I think that as Dr. Daniels has mentioned, there's a lot of other items that play into whether or not we can successfully come to an agreement to do the full purification facility there. I think that within Brown and Caldwell scope as well as identified in the staff memo, we are assuming that timely coordination can occur and that we aren't waiting on things and that is a risk that we have to do. We have budgeted and timed kind of for deliverables to this but schedule slippage could occur on that BODR versus the other one because of there's more people at play. Well, it's all fine to have a schedule for deliverables but if you get no agreement on the other side that they're actually gonna deliver anything in that timeframe, then it's hyper speculation and we're spending $300,000 based on input that we just haven't gotten from the city. Instead, they have a different schedule entirely. I have talked to several of the council members and they have exactly the same schedule. April 1st, end of April and then into May they'll talk about what they're doing but I think it's just a waste to do this. I can certainly understand. We're fooling ourselves. One of the perspectives was that, well, we don't own the second site or the Santa Clara site but also trying to some degree and maybe this isn't the right approach but honor Santa Cruz when it does get to its solution, what is the option that they would like and if it was down there and we started on the other on just Santa Clara so that was part of the thinking of the dual track. It optimized potential, minimized risk, grand opportunity but also it looked towards Santa Cruz saying, hey, this is a nod. We're trying to honor what you may want. Right now we think they don't want the facility on there. They may say, you know, after their evaluations then they may say this, we want it down there so that's what we were trying to honor and they may not but if you look at the history, I mean the schedule was it was going to come to the water commission yesterday and now it's talking about two months later. If anything, they're gonna get later and later and later, that's their history and we're spending $300,000 betting on them actually accelerating the schedule, not falling behind and in fact, not even meeting what their current schedule is which is they wouldn't even consider this until well into May. Can I add an idea? Just I do think it's, we don't have any, we don't own a property at the Santa Clara site either right now so there's risks with not including the other site but also is there, this is more of a logistical question so at this point on February 5th, could we do another month's worth of negotiation before we start the BODR or has that got to start tomorrow? To keep on schedule. So we are already feeling nervous about just having three months to finish three BODRs in parallel. My preference as a consultant to do just one BODR on, right now we need to, if we are thinking about delivering the program, staff had requested on our board's direction of evaluating different options and that's where the three BODRs come in picture but I think keeping two, if the negotiations go pretty well and continue to look in the direction that they will make decisions, that they will make decisions in a timely way, then it only makes sense otherwise stick with one. Yeah, we would do what is desired from the board and staff's direction but yeah, it's getting tight, the timeline is getting tight. I mean, I just wondered if we could get to a point where it was, you know, give us a little bit more time to see how realistic it is and also investigate property, make sure we maybe have a good chance at that before we- Can I- You know what I'm saying? I'm proposing that still with staff's recommendation to authorize the two BODRs and within this month, you know, maybe we do, we check in again with the board and let you guys know where efforts are in coordination with the city again, you know, we're trying to have weekly meetings with them. The level of effort or the percent complete of the BODR for purification, maybe there's an off ramp. You know, we've been talking a lot about off ramps. There could be an off ramp that we don't complete two BODRs. We would complete whichever one if there becomes kind of, I think what Ron said, one that kind of rises to the top. I think given that up until December 18th, we have been coordinating I think a lot with the city on getting the source water agreement and site access agreement and their preference from both the water department and public works was, and it was stated I think in their comment letter in the draft DIR for a tertiary facility. I think the ask that we have and we've been doing our most due diligence on from the board's direction was to coordinate to see if we can do the full thing there as long as it doesn't delay the project. And so that off ramp on that second BODR may afford us not losing time, but not necessarily spending that full amount that Dr. Daniels had mentioned. We don't spend the full amount. We just, you know, as soon as we keep, maybe within a couple of weeks, we say, okay, this is really looking like it would delay the whole thing. So that was our caveat. So we approve the whole thing, but with the understanding that we could offer a lot of that option if we Does that work? Yeah, and I think that would be proven sooner. We make that decision the better off we are. And I think, yeah, that would be the wise decision. So the way this was proposed was that having the facility, the advanced water purification facility in Santa Cruz wouldn't slow us down, but that's nebulous. That's very nebulous. So now it's becoming clearer on what we're talking about. But Tom brought up the question about as a risk reduction, having two sites that has an advantage. So it's hard for me to assess the Chanticleer site to know whether that's, nothing's 100%, is it 95%, is it 90%, I'd feel more comfortable if I had an assessment of Chanticleer as being a definite. I'd feel more comfortable with dropping Santa Cruz if I knew that. So is there anything that you can tell me about that? Take a stab at that one. You know, I mean, chime in, team. I would say high probability, but there's also ongoing negotiations, which it's nice to have leverage. So that leverage gives you leverage, which is basically dollars. So there's some offset there. That's one thing I'll say about keeping two. I mean, you have three sites in the running. If you wanted to switch gears, that's always an option. But in the two that we're talking about, so having Santa Cruz in there probably gives us some negotiation options on that property that we wouldn't otherwise have. So there's a dollar factor there. And then as far as probability, I think it's pretty high probability, yes. I go back to my one concern is if Santa Cruz would want the facility down there, then versus Santa Cruz tertiary, then we see them as partners all the way. You know, with the affluent and everything. So those are, I don't know if that answers your question, but a couple of things popping around a little bit. A bit, and is there a way that we can accelerate determination of how viable Santa Cruz is? I mean, you've been talking with at the staff level. That's a good question. Yeah, we have. I mean, you guys have been on the treadmill on that one, what's your assessment? Yeah, I think with our weekly meetings that we're doing with the city of Santa Cruz at this time to evaluate the opportunities and constraints, a lot of the things I think we would be doing is we would be initiating that contract document anyways, would be to work and peel these back. So early consultation with the regulatory agencies are answering a lot of the questions that the city of Santa Cruz had and are allowing us to kind of really evaluate the viability of the purification there just from that standpoint. Then from the standpoint of meeting the schedule of their process, meeting kind of the issues just related to the wastewater treatment plan and their full master plan. I think that probably within a month or a month and a half we definitely can come back and provide an update. And that was just kind of what Anup and I were talking about earlier today. And I would add just another sort of additional information here is as we contemplate two parallel BODRs, we as a team will be reaching out to city of Santa Cruz facility staff to get their input for basis of design report. So here come in this meeting just with the mindset of what if it was just the tertiary facility, here's another what if it's a full advanced water purification facility and there's a lot of demand on their time as well. So it's probably in their best interest as well from their staff's time and input standpoint it's just one facility. And my hunch is that that decision is gonna be happening from Santa Cruz much sooner than what we think at least the staff's preference. In some wine, through certain conversation with the facility, they had indicated their preference for tertiary facility and they felt it was the board's direction to start evaluating the full advanced water purification facility. And it's based on the board's action. Now they're going back and contemplating can we actually accommodate the full facility? So if you think about their preference, their preference was for a tertiary facility. Now based on that December 18th motion, they're like, okay, do we need to go back and re-evaluate so some of that uncertainty is bred by our preference. My hunch is that probably by end of February, we should have a pretty clear picture on where Santa Cruz is leading in terms of facility discussion. Hoping so it's just a speculation at this point. There's nothing gonna be sure right now. Bruce has another comment. Well, I think if you look at all three sites, the only one that even has tinges of being secure is West Annex. So if we wanna do two BODRs, in fact, doing West Annex and Chanticleer, they're both the same design. They're both single story as opposed to the other which has to be two stories is do those two. Cause we already own West Annex, we could put it there, it's been through the IR so it's approved and that's it. That is the safest one we have in terms of safety and security for us. So if you wanna do two, that's the two you should do. That's the change if we did it that way, is that correct? I mean, it's a matter of keeping it safe. And the notion of spending $300,000 for this other one, that's $25 per customer. And how many of our customers are gonna wanna spend $25 for this wasted investigation? Cause it really will be wasted. Dr. Denise, if I may recommend in that case, I would say the difference between the split facility between Chanticleer and West Annex, as you rightly pointed out, advanced water purification is very similar, green, undeveloped site. The component at the Santa Cruz for tertiary remains the same. So what we can do is we can focus on just that tertiary facility development, not advance so much on the advanced water purification as soon as a decision is made on the Chanticleer site, once we, then we decide which, you know. Which of those two? So if you were to go in that direction, I would say just stick with the Chanticleer site, that BODR, not even worry about West Annex, and think about maybe a month from now, whether to authorize. That's what I was gonna suggest. You have to tie it down, yes. I was gonna suggest and make a motion that we approve the two BODRs, as suggested in the possible board actions, but then we bring it back on March 5th with an update so that we don't spend too much money going down the wrong road. And I think we try and have an idea by that time how realistic either of them are and have more information on how secure the Chanticleer site is. Does that sound good? Yep, that sounds good. That's my motion, that we get an update. I'll second it, but we need public. We already did. Oh, we did, I forgot. It's been so long. It's been so long. I'm tired too. Yeah. We did. Yeah. We have to have our own, they're the motions up on the board. No, my motion was to, as suggested by staff, is to do the two BODRs, which with Chanticleer and Santa Cruz, basically, and all the other two motions, okay? Prove the amount of money and the general manager get signed the purchase order, but that we get an update on March 5th. March, the first of March. And that we minimize the, try and focus the expense on the things that would have to be done in either case. Okay. That tertiary, Santa Cruz, okay? So spending more money, not as much money, perhaps, if we try and minimize that, right? And is it five million per year still a reasonable inflation rate for a project like this? So that's $400,000 a month. So if this were to save us a month, it would be a break even. Yeah, and then the water intrusion. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the other question to ask yourself is, how much more information are we gonna get from the city in terms of a decision in one month? That's gonna, I think we have to, I think we have to do due diligence. I think we have to waste money is what I think that means. I understand that you can vote no. I'm voting no. I haven't, we haven't heard from. Well, we've got a motion and a second. Any other comment? I think you can do the basic and get valuable information that won't be wasted because we have to do a pipeline from the city to somewhere anyway. And we have to cite a treatment facility at both sides or at one of the sides. And we have an idea of what we need for that. And I mean, I'm like, I hate people who come up with the what ifs, but you know, there's even if they decide at the city they only wanna give a secondary this information would still be valuable. I think it's okay. If you want to, if you want to, otherwise we can vote. Yeah, I'll just say real quickly. Yeah, it does sound rather nebulous here. It sounds like we can make these decisions. These are the kinds of decisions that get made by water districts all the time. There is a raw sewage pipe going from our district over to the wastewater treatment plant. So we know how to get transport dangerous substances and water pipes. And so the root back here will be far less risky than what we're already doing. And the district is qualified to make those kinds of decisions. Though it's not a nebula. This is we're making some critical decisions, but they are not decisions that haven't been made by the district in many, many years and decades. That's a good point. I just want to say it's worth having this discussion, continue this discussion. And I think I approve of the, you know, having a one month revisit and assessment to see where we are after that. So I would approve it. Prove this project with. And I'll say. With that stipulation. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed? With coming. I'm sure. With coming back in March with an update. Okay. And then we'll delay it another month. And we'll delay it another month. And we'll delay it another month. Okay. Well, let's not be negative here. I think we have to, we can, we can make progress. All right. So let's move on to, um, Lafko. Thank you. So. Yes. Lafko, by the way, you know, I'm willing to apply again. I just wanted to make that clear. If somebody else wants to do it, I'm okay too, but I'm fine. I've served for four and that's just when the term came up. But if someone else wants to, that's okay too. Yeah. So we were just bringing this back and, um, there's three motions on the table. Number one, the easy one is, do you want to do it by mail or by a meeting in person? I assume mail is works for you. But you let us know. That's number one. Number two, nominate a board member. Um, uh, I think Dr. Lee Hughes said, I think Rochelle expressed some interest last time. That's one of the reasons we were bringing it back. And then number three is, uh, tell us to submit the form and we'll do it. All right. Thoughts? I did talk to my, my new boss and she's supportive. I would have to take my personal leave to do it. And I told her it would be one Wednesday a month. In the morning. And, um, she said that she thought it was a good opportunity if I wanted to do it. And so you're, and she's currently the alternate. So then that would vacate that seat. And so someone else would. Yeah. I would just come up. Yeah. And I'm asking Emma, because we were some question about that. Emma, what'd you find out? Yeah. So you're, if you decided to run and then we're elected, your seat would become available, which would then trigger another law collection to fill your seat. Right. So do you want to do it? I would, I would love to. I, I'm very interested in the study on the sewer agencies. And I have a lot of knowledge and experience and understanding and I think I could add value, but I thought I could do that as an alternate. Yeah. So I'll make the motion number one to do it by mail. Got it. And number two, I'll, I'll not make the motion to nominate Rachelle for the seat. And direct to staff number three to submit in nomination form. Do you want to vote on all three of them? Yeah, we can and I'll second it. Public contact. Yep. Anyone want to comment on this item? Seeing none. I seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Okay. And then the, should I just jump in? Yep. Got one more thing. So the second memo that Emma also wrote and I'm presenting, it's just the election of represented on the treasury oversight commission. And do you want to direct staff to submit a letter to support Chief John Stipes of the Zanny Fire Protection or to fill the special district alternate member seat or take no action? Very simple. We're glad to submit a letter. No, Mr. Stipes. I do not either. Feedback. In the past, you've taken no action on these items. Okay. I'm in favor of taking no action when I don't have any pro or con on the person. Yeah. And we don't have any information. Agreed. Yeah. Okay. So, Oh, shoot. I think we had a couple of written communications. Any questions, comments on that? Any public comment on that? Here we have one more. Seeing none, then I think we're good. Adjournment until February 19th.