 I'm going to make sure everybody's muted. Bye for now. Okay. I don't see the go-to here on my screen. Don't we have to do that exam first and open the... Let me watch the other meeting. Okay. It is 5.30. I'd like to call to order this meeting of the board of directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District. Would the secretary please call the roll? President Hill. Here. Vice President Ackman. Here. Director Fultz. Here. Director Maygood. Here. Director Smalley. Here. Okay. We will be going into closed session tonight. Are there any changes to the closed session agenda? Thank you. Are there any oral communications from the public regarding items in the closed session? This portion of the agenda is reserved for oral communications by the public for items which are on the closed session portion of the agenda. Any person may address the board of directors at this time on closed session items. Normally presentations must not exceed three minutes of length. Individuals may speak only once during the oral communications. No actions may be taken by the board of directors on any oral communications presented. However, the board of directors may request that you better be placed on a future agenda. Please state your name and town. I'm Bruce Holloway from Boulder Creek. I just want to address the general manager's performance evaluation. The last financial report that I remember seeing in a board packet was as of October 31st. So when I looked at the packet for this meeting, I was wondering whether there would be a report for November or maybe a report for November and December. So at this point, there have been four full months since the last financial information as far as I can recall. And there is no financial report of any kind on this agenda. So I don't think that's adequate. I don't think that's acceptable. When I started following this board in 2011, the finance manager was Karen Alvarez and there was a steady drum beat every meeting. So when it was the first meeting of the month, there would be a financial report, not for the previous month, but for the month before that. So in March, the board would be looking at January financial figures. That would be at the first meeting. Then at the second meeting, there would be all of the investments. So brokerage statements, bank statements, county investment pool, life, all of those things report at the end of the month. And so they may come in mail, might take a week or so, but those could all be assembled for the second board meeting of the month. And there was a regular journey, as I said. So you're pretty far away from that at this point. And also I remember in 2013, there was a period of time when three of the top positions at the district were vacant, those three people retired. That was the environmental analyst, the district secretary and the finance manager. And for most of 2013, at least two of those three positions were vacant. The district manager was performing the district secretary function and so on. And then eventually, new people were hired and things got better. Also at the end of 2014, the district manager retired. So that was an additional, that's similar to the situation that you're in. So I understand that there are challenges, but I think it's just inadequate and unacceptable. I think you really want to tell the general manager not to come to a board meeting without some kind of financial information. Just those assets, those liquid assets, all that is just scanning some documents. I think that should be a minimum requirement. And I have other things to say. Thank you. I'm Nicole Loner-Barridge. I'm with Brackenbrae Country Club. We are supposedly working on a consolidation project. And I'm not exactly sure what's gonna be discussed in this closed session. I'm one one to find out whether any stakeholders have been asked to provide feedback on our experiences with the interim leadership. There has not been a consolidation meeting since the district manager retired. We, Brackenbrae initiated a meeting after Cal alias expressed concerns about there has been no progress in utilizing our FEMA dollars. In that meeting, we were met with a very uncomfortable interaction and basically given an ultimatum that we need to accept. We have a process in Brackenbrae. It's a governing process. I am definitely the person in charge of this project, but I have to report to my board and to the membership to vote on things. Just recently received a pre-consolidation agreement draft. We have concerns because we don't know the context in which this is being brought to the table when we have the letter of intent. That went through many rounds of drafting and discussion with this board and then signed off by this board, by the district manager, by our president, by myself. And I kind of anticipated this pre-consolidation agreement because I was told that the meeting that we had, that the scope was gonna be scaled down to basically one set of the project that we've been working on for the last two and a half years. I asked for an engineering report that was prepared by Sanders in August of 2022. And what was met by that was an email telling me how I needed to communicate protocol-wise. I did not ask staff to do any calculations. I didn't ask them to draft anything. I didn't ask them to do anything. I just needed information in order for me to communicate with FEMA about why the diameter of the plight for scale the way that they were. I feel that I'm in a position now that I'm trying to seek other options for our money and we're basically into two extensions on the FEMA dollars and we're really concerned about what's happening. Also on a side note, a part of the letter of the intent was that if we needed emergency water, SLB would meet us and help us through that process. And I realized I'm running out of time, but the receiver basically put us on notice right before Thanksgiving that they were gonna cut us off if we didn't accept $26 a unit. I reached out to Rick before he left before that actually happened. He recommended that we stay with our current situation because we weren't sure about the water pressure. As soon as he left, the receiver gave us this ultimatum. We contacted the acting manager at that time and then the interim, it's been four months. And we're paying this extreme cost. And what was told to us originally for cost has sixfold, I'm sorry, we're out of time. But it's very disheartening because I feel like we've had a very proactive working relationship and I'm really not sure how to communicate our concerns because there's no one above the interim general manager to understand what's going on. Thank you for your comments. Can you answer the first question? Whether there was any solicitation to any of the stakeholders regarding the performance? Not off the top of my head. We will investigate that. Okay. At this point, that's adjourned to a closed session. And Scott, you'll have us off the, yes, I know. I do not see a panelist left here though. Yeah, you're not a panelist, you're, you're. Okay, so I'm, don't turn me on. What's that as a panelist yet? Do you go through the meeting link? Are you getting an email? Yeah, well, maybe let Mark help you if he can see the people that are online. He can tell you if somebody's got their hand raised. Can you get that Mark? Yeah, please, I can monitor that. Thank you. I want to monitor. Okay. We are back to the open session. Reconvening the meeting. Holly, will you call the roll again? President Hill. Present. Vice President Ackman here. Director Falls. Here. Director Mayhut. Here. Director Smalley. Here. Okay, a report of actions taken in closed session. There were no actions taken. We pause the closed session and we'll resume closed session after we finish the open session. So that's where we are with regards to the closed session. Changes to the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? No, Mr. President. Oral communications. Personal portion of the agenda is reserved for all communications by the public. Any subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district and it's not on the agenda. Any person may address the board of directors at this time. Normally presentations must not exceed three minutes in length and individuals may only speak once. Please understand that the Brown Act limits what the board can do regarding issues not on the agenda. No action or discussion may occur on issues outside of those already listed on today's agenda. Any director may request that a matter raised during oral communications be placed on a future agenda. Mr. Holloway. I'm Bruce Holloway from Boulder Creek. I wanna say that I think the committee structure is broken. It's dysfunctional. It's non-operational. Pretty much every item on this agenda could have been addressed by our community. I was looking at the first three changed to the board policy manual. That sounds like administration. RGS contract amendment. That sounds like finance. Peabind pipeline replacement sounds like engineering to me. And none of the committees met last month. So there were meetings in January, which were pretty much content free, except the citizen committee members introduced themselves and then the remains of members of the structural of when they were gonna meet. And I think I only went to the finance committee meeting, but I remember discussing the February 14th meeting in particular, because it was one day before the board meeting. And I thought it was kind of useless to have an advisory committee meeting one day before a board meeting when you can't even get anything in the packet at that point to say what the committee concluded. I wasn't really thinking about Valentine's Day, but I guess the way things work around here is that staff runs the committees. Two board members cannot compel staff to do anything. Three board members can get anything to happen. You can hire and fire and change policy and do anything with three. But with two, you can't even get staff to show up. They might just decide to take a holiday on a day when there's a committee meeting scheduled. And so the staff runs the committees. The committees can only need it, it's okay with staff. And I think that's pretty useless. I think the staff needs to be responsible for the board. The board is a whole. And the committees don't really seem to do much. It's hit and miss. Sometimes issues just completely bypass the committees. Don't ask me why, or I mean, I guess it's the general manager makes those decisions. Other times, discussions get pulled up in the committee for months and the other three board members don't get any input into whatever that policy is. I don't think that's the way county water districts were intended to organize. I think when county water districts were created, the idea was to have five board members and have everybody contribute. Everybody has a deliberative body. There should be a deliberative process where everyone gets to contribute to every decision. So I think the communities have outlived their usefulness. They were conceived in STEM, by the way, because when they were first established, there were three board members on each committee, which would violate the state law. That went on for years. But at this point, I think it's time to retire all the committees. I think it'd be better to have board meetings and have all board members participate. Thank you. Thank you. Are there members of the public that wish to speak? Yes. My name is Karen Brown, North of Boulder Creek. And I made a wonderful chart to show all of you. Since we know how you love these charts, to show just how much water I have used on a yearly basis, how much you're charging me. So we're all corresponds with each year and how much the charges are. And as you can see, my water usage is pretty much across the board the same. Yet my increase of the rate, which is in red, and as you can see in 2019, I had a leak and I dearly paid for that. The rate keeps increasing, increasing, increasing. This is only a nine-year rate bar. But these bars are real, actual numbers, not as soon as you pay $114,000. For the exact same presentation that they gave SoCal Creek. And to be disrespectful on top of it, shameful. And you made a wonderful point about how we weren't using enough water. So you had to raise the rates so that we could cover all that. Well, that was done to us in 2017. Our rates were raised because we weren't using enough water. And the rates just keep going up and up and up. Thank you so much. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that wish to speak? Do we have any? I see nobody online. Okay, we see no one online. Okay, moving on. Unfinished business. Change to monthly board of directors meetings. Brian, this was your proposal. Would you like to share? Thank you, president. So, pretty simple ask, I guess, staff is recommending that we move to monthly rather than bi-monthly meetings. And to paint a little bit of a picture here, if you can imagine, for instance, now, tomorrow our agenda items are due for the March 21st meeting. Means they're due to me to review because I moved up our due date by a whole week when we review. It used to be the Friday before the Thursday, so a little less than a week ahead of time. And Holly would have everything ready by Monday, I guess, and then they would be published. But now we've pushed that back and so you can imagine the cycle gets sometimes it's a little daunting is that we're finishing up reports this week as we're ready for a board meeting, readying for the board meeting as well. So I think for staff to be able to have more time to be working on the actual work that needs to get done and maybe reducing the reporting cycle is certainly, I know that it's unanimous among staff to have that. I also, I guess I could point out that I know if as each of you retire and so forth from the board is making it an attractive option for other board members that may wanna come along and see that it's a monthly cycle rather than by monthly. I realize that of course means we're putting, there is pressure on staff and I have advised them already is that puts the pressure on us is we have to be thinking five, six weeks out now for a deadline if we want something to be on the street such as such a date, we really have to be thinking far in advance. And also it does put a little bit more pressure on you folks as the board to be efficient about how you're grinding through an agenda. So just saying because now there's a meeting every month rather than every two weeks, roughly. So I think with that what you are being asked to do is to close a doctor resolution, which allows that change to be made to the board policy manual along with one correction is that the address we still have in the board policy manual that we're meeting down the street at the maintenance building when in fact we're meeting here. So that change is also being made. So with that, I will answer any questions. Jeff, do you want to go ahead, okay. So I, first of all, I appreciate the proposal and I guess the one thing I want to say is I think it's entirely possible to move to a monthly cadence, but I do think that it's challenging when things come up urgently. And there have been a couple of times where we've been in situations where whether it was a financial and we had to get a contract through and so we absolutely had to have the meeting in order to do that or there was other business that had to happen. I think there's opportunity to set special meetings when those things come up. But I also am aware that there are limitations to certain items. Some things have to be done in a regular general session meeting as opposed to a special meeting. And so I don't know if that'll create any challenges. But I have served as staff to six different public agency boards and we've never met more than that and not one board that I have ever been on has met more than once a month. So I know it's possible to move to the schedule and I would think that the one thing that we might do to accommodate taking on more content in our one monthly meeting if we were to make this move is to maybe change the meeting times a little bit so that instead of meeting at 5.30 for the closed session, maybe we start at five, do that five to six, start the general session meeting a little earlier that way if we have to go later we've got a little bit more runway to do that without. I've never been a fan when I was in the work environment of having a meeting just because it was on the calendar and just because it was regularly scheduled. However, we have an interim general manager right now who's been with us for three months. We have an interim finance manager right now. The lack or the more limited communication that we get is more than with meeting monthly instead of twice a month has me concern afflicted between those two viewpoints. So can the staff get the necessary? Can we put somebody on mute please? CTV, can you please mute? Can the staff get the necessary input in the timely matter? But then I asked myself to converse can the board get the necessary information that we need as the overseers of the meeting the district in the role if we're meeting less frequently during the time period when we have interim general manager interim finance manager, given the staffing transitions that we've had as of late. So it's not a question that I'm asking. It's just a general feel that I have at this point and I'm weighing between those two. So, okay, so I'm kind of going back and forth. Gail? Yeah, I guess, like Mark, I'm a little bit ambivalent about this. I think that in theory, Jamie is absolutely right that you should be able to get by by a single board meeting a month, but we have a disaster from Valley that tends to make us have to meet to approve contracts and things like this. I mean, I remember after the fire, Lois was living with me because she was out of her home and we're in Menlo Park and you were having meetings every few days. So this, I think that that's a reason why we have them more often than say, Scott's Valley or so Cal. I think that Mark is right that it is incumbent on the staff if we go to one meeting a month that there's better communication and more communication sometimes by just kind of emails letting us know that this is what's up, right? Not that we would respond or do anything to violate the Brown Act, but we would know what is going on. I think the other thing that has to happen is it means that, well, let me put it the other way. I think sometimes in the past, there's been a tendency to depend on the fact that we were gonna meet every couple of weeks to not always create the best crafted memos or the best crafted work that was likely to get through on the first pass. And so I think what that also would require is that the staff, there may be fewer meetings, but it means that the quality and the material that comes to the board is gonna be pretty high so that we don't end up bouncing it back and then, because you can't afford to bounce it back and wait another month. So I think in terms of the time saved to the staff, I don't think you wanna think that it's gonna get your load in half. I think that it requires something else, but I do tend to, I guess I tend to defer to the wishes of the staff on this, but given that some of our senior staff are interim, it's not quite as compelling as it might've been. And especially since Heather is not full-time to see how things operate around here. So I guess all you're hearing from me is deep ambivalence about this both ways. I have a question and then a number of comments. So in the last agenda, the reason for doing this had to do with a potential board resignation, I believe, is that no longer the case? Cause I didn't see it in here. No, it would be the case if we made, my issue is that I can't continue to serve as a board member if I have to miss every other meeting because I have a professional obligation. So I'm willing to resign my seat in order to let somebody who can be present for every meeting fill that spot. If we were to go to one meeting a month, I would no longer have a conflict and therefore would not have the same issue. So I'm sort of in this, we'll see what happens with this. Yeah, I mean, in the last agenda, that seemed to be the driving force for it. This agenda, that seems to be not a consideration. Well, I was- And so I just wanted to get that clear because the discussion around policy of doing something for a particular board member as it was implied in the last agenda is different than this discussion. Could I respond to that, Jeff? I mean, I appreciate what you're saying and I agree with it. And I want to be clear for you and the public. I didn't ask the staff to make this consideration. I made my concerns about my ability to serve effectively known to staff and let them know that my solution to that was that I felt that I needed to resign staff. And, you know, having thought through whether or not this made sense for them for this reason and obviously a series of other reasons, which frankly, as a staff to public agencies, I do agree with the logic. I mean, having a meeting every two weeks and having to meet the Brown Act conditions of noticing that meeting at least 72 hours in advance. So you can't get that information into a meeting that happens the day before. You know, it's really challenging because it's a big cycle to be managing on a basically weekly basis. They get a week off and then they start again. They get a week off and then they start again. And that takes up a huge amount of staff time that could be used to do other things. You know, so we have to ask ourselves as a board, is it more important that staff be spending their time preparing stuff for us every two weeks? Or would we as a district gain more efficiencies if staff didn't have to serve us every two weeks, could do their job for at least three weeks a month and only have to do board preparation and work with us one week a month? That's the question that I think really should be asked less about whether or not a board member can serve every meeting. And that's what I think is, have, you know, in this memo being asked here. That's fair because I don't know that that same accommodation would be applied to every board member that might have similar issues because, you know, a couple of us are still working. And I'm expecting new board members will also probably be working as well. Yeah, I have a number of thoughts and comments around this. I don't look at this necessarily as a zero sub game. There are tools available to simplify and accelerate board preparation. We choose not to use any of those. And those tools are tools that other organizations use that can, I think, simplify the job that the staff has to go through in order to do this. We're not taking advantage of that technology and that has been a decision that prior staff didn't want to do that. I would strongly recommend looking into that. Do you elaborate, Bob? I don't know what you're, it's kind of cryptic. What are you doing? Yeah, I mean, there's tons of, there's at least a half a dozen different SaaS companies providing board preparation software including Civic Plus who provides our website. And so, and in addition to simplifying the process of doing that, this also allows for a more collaborative process in the part of staff and allows you even to share that agenda more quickly with the public once it's ready to go. This was suggested to the prior district manager years ago and was at that point in time, we weren't gonna do it. Echoing your comment about staff reports and that sort of thing. I think there is dramatic improvements that could be made in how information is communicated to the board and to the public through the use of what is commonly used for project management and program management techniques in terms of single slide, heavy on graphics, heavy on bullet points and some supporting material as necessary. We do not do a great job in my opinion of providing a lot of the quantitative justification for items or frequently I have to ask what are the other bids that were provided so we can take a look at the numbers. We used to do one meeting a month. I don't, I mean, I've been involved in this long enough now I have enough history to know what happened when that was going on. It was a complete and utter disaster. The board became what I would call disconnected from its oversight responsibilities. And I am already concerned about the fact that we are withdrawing information from the board relative to cadence and quantity and even the committees. It's still early days, but it's enough to raise some concerns for me. And moving to one board meeting a month and there was even the notion of well, you know, another organization does once a quarter. We can't do an effective job of oversight without a more serious discussion about what's the implication of moving to one board meeting a month relative to the information that's not only made available to us, but to the public. Because to me, it's all about transparency and what we're doing as an organization. Look, this is a very small community focused agency. We're not a huge city, we're not a huge county. We are very close to our community or at least we should be because those are the people that we serve. And when people come to the meeting frequently we know who those people are because we see them every day or we've worked with them over the years. I am concerned about where we seem to be wanting to take this agency. And it's even indicated in today's agenda, which is all about consent items. And so there's not really, if you follow the consent, there's not really an opportunity to discuss that or to ask questions in public so that the community can hear what we're talking about. We seem to be moving more and more to doing that kind of thing. My concern is these monthly meetings might ultimately, why not just being a collection of consent items? So this, I don't think is particularly well thought out. I don't think it is doesn't come with any assurances about what information the board and community is going to get outside of, I guess now, quarterly staff reports and monthly meetings. The meetings are certainly going to be longer. That was one of the other complaints is that when it was monthly meetings they would go on for hours. I mean, it'd be four hour meetings. Now you can get around that by doing consent but then you're not doing transparency. So I think this is just, I think this needs a lot of work if we wanted to move to something like this. That kind of work could be something that we could discuss in committee if we wanted to do that. But at this point in time, I'm a hard pass on this right now given where this proposal is given where we've already made other decisions. I am feeling like I am no longer really confident in my ability to do oversight at this point if we move to this once a month meeting. Okay, so I think I'm the only one that hasn't spoken yet. Yeah. Yes. And I'm not hearing a lot of support for this among. I think we're discussing. Let's not pre-suppose the conclusion here. I think that we've had, let's continue to discuss. The one thing I would like to see if we do do this as a earlier comment mentioned, our committees seem to be really not very functional at this point. And I think if we did move forward with this, we would need to actually jost up the committees with more activities, more meetings and get more input from the committees before the work on the committees to help the staff with making sure that we get the information that we need. But you have a question? Yeah. Good idea. But you don't do this without, and then say, so this is like, okay, we'll give you this, but that on the come from the rest. No, they can't be separate. They would have to be done in conjunction. Yes. And that's not what's in front of us right now. I understand that. But then we don't have a motion yet. So, great. We don't have to approve exactly what is being proposed here. We can amend it, so. But I don't know if Jeff has concluded yet with what he was thinking. I wanna hear the rest of your thoughts if there are any of this at this point, so. So, I don't think I have anything to add beyond what's been said so far. There's points on both sides and I don't have anything else to add. Okay. I do wanna comment further. I wanna disagree on one point that Bob is making on the consent aspects. Yes, there are several items that are on the consent agenda that I wanna talk about. I have the opportunity to do that. And normally those items, I think would have been part of the new business aspects. There, we can talk about it. I think given time, Brian would see what is not gonna get through on the consent agenda given our questions on things like that. So. I understand your point, but it's a philosophy. The philosophy is we're coming in with all sorts of consent items rather than working with the board. My priority could determine what should be on the consent. And that to me is a issue. May I? Jeff? Yes, please. I don't know. I'm confused by the question that Bob is setting up here because first of all, again, as I've said, I have extensive experience with public agency boards. It is very common for contracts and other performer business to be handled on consent. And it is very fair what Mark is saying that over time, new general managers and new staff sort of learn, like, oh, that's gonna be a hot button issue. Let's make sure that we move that into the general. But I don't know how he would work with individual board members to prioritize each and every item on the agenda in advance of the agenda, right? So this is a bit of an iterative process, but it's still a public process. Items that are on consent are only there for the efficiency of the meeting, meaning that if the board says, yeah, those contracts all look fine, great, go forward. We're not gonna sit here and go through each individual one. We can, as a board, make the choice to pass those items that way. Conversely, as the board members, if any individual board member has a question about an item on consent, or if any individual member of the public comes into a meeting with a question about an item on consent, they pull that item and we have to discuss it. So I don't understand why there's an issue with items on consent because they're still fully public and they're still available for any board member or member of the public to choose to discuss should they want to. And if we, on the rare occasion, say we don't wanna discuss any of those contracts, great on us, we get to pass them all without wasting everybody's time and have a more efficient meeting. So I don't take issue with things on consent and I appreciate it. I guess I would just echo what Jamie said is I think that using greater use of the consent agenda is totally appropriate because we can all put it off. And we actually allow something that's unusual that we allow members of the public to pull things off the consent agenda that's not required. So there's really, there's the idea that somehow the business reducing transparency, I think is just wrong. It's still there, it's still on the agenda, people can still pull them off, but it can lead to much greater efficiency of the meetings. And one thing that could also happen is that it can put more emphasis on taking things to committees and getting them sort of vetted. I think Jeff was kind of alluding to this. Is that it, we time the meeting and the committee meetings so they're like two weeks ahead of whatever the board is, then the staff gets a chance to run it by the relevant committee and then it comes hopefully to the board in a way that it's ready to go. I mean, in an ideal world, you would not need to pull anything off the consent agenda, right? It would, everything would be pretty clear. And I think partly when I'm Bob and your face is all screwed up and I know why is because you and I have a fundamental disagreement about the nature of board meetings. You see them as, well, let me say how I see them. I see them as a way to do the district's business and we allow the public to watch us do the district business, but it is not the goal of board meetings to educate the public, all right? I mean, that's a huge task and that is not the goal of a board meeting. It is for oversight and doing the district's business and for allowing whoever wants to watch it, they are our guest to do that. And so that's why you and I have a fundamental, you're always appealing to transparency and we have to discuss every item. As far as I'm concerned, if an item is well-prepared, the staff has done their job and they've convinced us, our job as oversight is not to talk about everything just for the sake of talking about it, it's our job to just say, okay, you've done your job, great. Onward. Passboards have gotten into serious trouble by doing what is being advocated here. And by the way, if the public can in fact pull something off the consent agenda, I would suggest that we modify the language around that. And letting people do it. Well, but right now it's just, it direct doesn't say that, yes. I agree. It's just direct. I know, it doesn't say it, but that our practice has been we've allowed it. Hey guys, it's not a practice, it's the law and we can ask Barbara to weigh in on this. The public must have the right to comment on any item on the agenda according to the provisions of the Brown Act. And therefore it does not matter that we state on our agenda that directors, because that's stage direction to the directors to say if you wanna comment on an item on agenda, you can call it. And I agree with you. We can add the language that says, I'm speaking, thank you. That we can add the language that says that the public should have the opportunity to do so as well to make it more clear to the public. But the fact of the matter is legally, the public has the right to comment on anything on the agenda, including consent. If I may go back to being able to speak before I was interrupted. Board meetings are not something that most people in the community are very familiar with. The arcane ends and out of what happens in board meetings is something that most people will never become very familiar with. And so yes, because of the fact that this is a local community-based organization, yeah, I do have a very different philosophy. I believe that it is absolutely incumbent upon us as part of our oversight to make sure that our community understands the business of the district and the elements of what we're trying to accomplish. Otherwise, you get into the kinds of situations that the board got into in the past in 2013 and 2014, particularly around the Taj Mahal project, where the board got completely disconnected from the community, thought that that was, hey, perfectly what the community wanted, and turned out to not be that way at all because of the fact that a lot of stuff were just going through without a lot of transparency and a lot of disclosure. Some of you weren't around for that, I understand that, but I can tell you from my experience, it was a very ugly time. And it was not fun for the board members either. So yes, I do have a different philosophy in that because of my experience working within this community, being here for as long as I have and understanding that the community wants us to do their business, but if we don't stay close to them and we get sideways from them, that's when bad things happen. Okay, let me bring this back, Senator, to where we are. We are still on the issue of changing to monthly meetings. And we, I won't say we sidetracked, but we took a detour here for a while on how the consent agenda is put together. I believe we've discussed the proposed change to monthly board of directors in some depth. Is there a motion from a board member regarding that? I will move the recommendation that the board adopt the attached resolution. I'm modifying the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board of Directors policy manual to allow changing the board meeting schedule from bi-monthly to once per month. The recommended motion is that the board adopt the attached resolution, well, you can read it here. I second. Okay. Ali, will you, I want to order comments from the public. I thought this meeting is for an opportunity for us to educate you. In common, in Harleys, bi-monthly meetings, every two months. Semi-monthly meetings. Semi-monthly means every two months, bi-monthly means bi-weekly, every two weeks. Are you correcting me? Yeah, grammatically. I object to being interrupted. The clock is running. I think every time a board member interrupts a member of public, the clock should be reset and the board chair should admonish the board member. That's unacceptable. Fine, please raise up Mr. Halloway's clock to three minutes. CTV. Thank you. So I don't agree. I think bi-monthly means every two months. Semi means a half a month. Director Mayhood, I think he used to turn bounce back. Bounce back. There might be an item on the agenda and then the board would discuss it and it would bounce back. Now, I don't, I can't really think of many times that I've seen that happen, but in a way that's what should happen. You're supposed to have a discussion and if it turns out that the staff recommendation is not really what you think should happen, then it does need to bounce back. Now, if it's a trivial change, maybe it can be incorporated in your motion, but sometimes it takes revisiting the whole thing and redraft it with the whole proposal so that everybody can understand. So I think you have to be open to bouncing back, otherwise you're just a rubber stamp board that's not doing any oversight. You're just gonna say whatever staff says is fine to you. I do think the committees are dysfunctional, non-functional. So I think you need to be way better off getting rid of all the committees and having sticking to two board meetings a month. That way you're all gonna be. You've given us that already tonight, so. Well, I'm going further and saying, along with maintaining semi-monthly board meetings, then all of you will be interacting together and we will be getting the best of this board rather than having issues to watch to some committee where the minority is discussing it and then the others never hear the discussion and can't contribute to it either. And I'm sure I've got another thought, but I'm not gonna be one of them, please. So. Thank you for your input. Is anyone else from the public comment? We don't have two online. Two online, thank you. Who want to speak? Cynthia. Cynthia Denzone. This is Cynthia from Felton. I would like to say that I think going to the monthly meetings would be fine if the committees are actually functioning as they should, but I've heard comments from committee members that with no meetings, so many meetings canceled, they were not able to do the work they expected to have done and they've gotten discouraged about serving on the committees if they're not going to be functional. So I urge you to rethink what's happening with the committees. I think they give members of the public a few members much more access to the information and those members of the public can then spread that understanding to other people in the public without all of that time being taken during regular board meetings. They will still be reporting to the board meetings. So I think the information will get there, but much of the work of the nitty gritty details of could be taken care of in the committees. Thank you very much for your service. Thank you for your input. Who else do we have here? Alina Lang. Alina, please. Hi, Alina Lang, Boulder Creek. And when I saw this on the agenda, it really made me tune in because I was super excited to go to once a month because I thought the staff really just needs to be able to do the work that they need to be able to do and not spending so much time prepping for these board meetings, but hearing that like this is going to be kicked back to the committees, you know, I think it sounds really great on paper, but having that actually be implemented, I agree with some of the comments that Cynthia was talking about is maybe that these committees aren't functioning as properly as they could and they are canceled a lot. I mean, I served for three years. They're canceled and rescheduled. A lot of people can't make it and it kind of hurts the flow of the conversation. So I am worried about that. And then I give a lot of pause the fact that I just heard that this is mainly being considered to accommodate another board member schedule, especially when other people were, you know, willing and ready to be able to do these twice a month meetings and take that off. So that's also given me some pause, but I guess like I would go with what staff wants, but it's, I don't know, I'm kind of back and forth on this is all that's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you, Elena. Jeff, could I ask if Brian would respond to some of the comments that he's heard before I cast my vote, you know, in particular the role of the committees since you've heard some input both from people on the board and from the public. The role of the committees. Sure, I mean, I mean, in other words, how do you, do you see anything changing or if we go to one board meeting a month, what do you think that would do with regard to how you want to deal with committees? I, you know, it would make committees in some way, some cases more important that we're utilizing them. But to be honest, four, three committee meetings and a board meeting a month, that's still four meetings a month. It is, it is a lot. And there are times when, if we don't absolutely need the committee, it's like I'm the first to say I don't need the meeting, but if we can utilize that to leverage these meetings, in other words, if things go through the committee, business and finance, et cetera, et cetera, that we can use that as a base. And that, again, you know, I know that you were talking in parallel about consent agendas. And I'll tell you the world I came from, almost everything on this agenda tonight would be on consent. And also this was a city that changed to a lot of agenda items. There might have been 25 items on a consent, but in contracts of $1 million. But the whole idea is when I say efficiency, it's like, yes, you can't forward a debate every single item, but if something does need to get, is going to require more debate and you know, it's a lot, but in issues, yes, bring it to committee. And we have actually, all committees are go for this upcoming month. We just went through the right study. So focus is back now on getting other business taken care of. But if it's a routine item, I don't even see the reason to bring it to a committee. If it's a contract changer, or it's not really worth the airtime, there's more things that have to do with, anyway, bigger issues that do require some discussion and input. So, yes, I mean, I think all of these, all meetings, you know, that there is the value in being able to take care of the business at hand, and but also make sure that you are stopping along the way to get the input you need. I mean, I know that some places actually combine their committees. They have one oversight committee. And it's like, so there's one committee. So that's nice. There's two meetings a month, but maybe longer meetings. But again, that's kind of where I'm at with it. It's like, I think that we could process more information here at the same time, but do it in a way that I don't think you're skipping out on any transparency or anything. You know, it gives you more time to talk about the issues that are important. And some items are routine. And it's just usually what I, my instructions have been, it's like if your item is going on the consent, make sure it's all sewn up and tight because you're expecting it just to stand on the paper alone. Thank you. Bob, as the small community that we are, committees have historically been used as ways to help people become introverts in the district with the possibility of serving on the board. I know that there's at least all of this. All of us have served on committees. That's served on committees before we are on the board. To me, there are an value in that combined with the fact that in 2018, we expanded the committees from just one public person to more up to three. Allows for more public participation and hopefully more people that might be interested in that. Yeah, that to me is why the committees are invaluable. And because we don't have a ton of people, we're not a densely populated area, but a ton of people that might be interested in public service and get their training and how to do that elsewhere. So I'm, hopefully the committees will be re-energized on this. Can I say something? So. Oh, go ahead. Were you gonna? Do we have any further comments before we take a vote? I have a further comment. You have comment, thank you. Yeah, actually, and if I can take it just to point personal privilege, I wanna apologize to Mr. Holloway. I shouldn't have interrupted you and I thought I was correcting a simple misunderstanding and I was revealing my own simple misunderstanding. So I'm sorry for that. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Can we reread the motion so that we're all clear on it? And then have a vote. Sorry, I don't have that in front of me. The board adopts the attached resolution to modify the district's policy manual to allow changing the frequency of regularly scheduled board of directors meetings from bi-monthly to once per month. President Hill. Yes. Vice President Ackman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. Oops. I've never. Director Mayhead. Yes. Yes. Director Smolling. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Okay, moving on to no business. Staff like to present the Ref-Telus Contract Amendment. Yes. Thank you, President. As you know, we have Heather who's our interim finance director of finance. And so RGS, Regional Government Services, is how we contract for her services. That's the agency that provides her services. When I came on board, Heather told me that she was basically the understanding that she would do eight hours a week because she had other clients. I doubled that to 16 hours a week, meaning basically I needed all of her as much of her time as she would give us. If we were to hire even a new director of finance today, I would still expect two to three months of overlap with Heather sort of helping to fill in the gaps and educate and also just making sure that we've sewn up the whole finance gap that we have. The likelihood is that maybe we may not have director of finance maybe for another month or two. Hopefully we have somebody on board that we're looking at, but the idea was we looked at their contract and decided to project the burn rate that we have right now out to the end of September. And consider that as the number of hours we think we need to keep her on board. The other thing we did is we're asking to just extend the term, which would now expire in June and take it out to September. So there's budget right now. I just basically checking that box with that contract is available that we can use those services and keep moving along. So obviously if we don't need their services, we don't need to keep using them. In the meantime, we're doing our best to find a new director of finance. So one quick clarification point. This money only gets spent if she does put in the hours. Correct. So we're authorizing an extension of the hours over time. But if in two or three months, we've got a new finance director and there's been some overlap on this gets cut off. Exactly. Or we could propose maybe that RGS provides a lot of different people with different expertise. So maybe we say, hey, we still want to use for something else. But of course then it would come back to the board. But so this is an upper limit here based on how much we use her rather than a firm expenditure. Correct. Well, let me clarify that for me anyway. We can terminate it anytime for convenience. To terminate the contract. That is, there's no requirement that we keep it through September, end of September. And there's no requirement that we spend any amount of money. Correct. Okay. What is the hourly rate? I don't, their contract, it's in the, I didn't see the original contract attached. So I didn't take the time to go find it. The contract. It gave us a varying billing rates. I think what is the billing rate for, I mean, we're using- For Heather. RGS for Heather, correct? Yes. And nothing else at this point. What would her rate be? I believe it's 150 an hour, but I can't without actually looking at the contract. I wouldn't want to say for sure, right? So these are the kinds of questions that do come up as part of at least my review of items like this. I want to make sure that we're not getting locked in. And this is for the future. I'm not getting locked into something, but there is actually an explicit termination for convenience. And just a refresh on what the contract was so that we're not having to go back and try to find it, right? As a board member, that's not my job. Okay. So I understand why we need to do this. My question is about the recruitment for the permanent role. And sort of one, where is that at? And are we getting candidates that we are even interested in looking at? And then two, if we're not, if we're not getting any movement on that, have we considered, I don't know, doing some really different creative things with this job? And I understand that I don't know what the limitations would be if this is a union role and what conversations we might have to have. But like, if it's possible for Heather to do this job in 16 hours, could we seek a fractional finance director? So that rather than looking for someone on a full-time basis, we're hiring somebody who's not doing full-time work, but they're making the higher rate, which might make the job more attractive to potential candidates. I mean, I'm just like, what creative things could we do to fill this role permanently? Right, so I got to answer your questions sequentially. We did have a candidate. We were actually set to bring her in the office and do a round of in-person interviews, but she dropped out for personal reasons. So my first approach is that also looking at what other, how we can continue to get the word out even better than we're doing. I know feedback is that it's hard. Financial roles like that are hard to fill since Enron, basically, since he had this big financial blow-ups is that they are hard to come by. But that doesn't mean I'm optimistic about that. The other thing is, if you notice the last agenda, there was, I was going to offer, change the title of the role, but still offer the same amount. And I realized that by talking with HRs, I actually, if I just take it and call it director of finance now, instead of director of finance and business services, doesn't need to come back for board approval. So that's the way the direction I'm going because I'm basically just saying right now that position or formerly that position was also managing the front office and the meter readers. And I don't see the necessity in that. So I'm already taking that one step of sort of taking away some of the managerial responsibilities and really I'm looking for a finance person. I would say that right now, having Heather for 16 hours a week, although she's magnificent, although 16 hours a week and gets a lot done, is we need a full-time finance person for now. I'm not sure that that I would go and reduce the hours, but I am willing to look at creative ways, first creative ways to recruit that person, but then I am open to some creativity in terms of how that role gets shaped for sure. So, can I, one question or comment, Jeff? Yes, go ahead. Can you tell me or do we have a recruiter that we're working through for this role? Are we hiring for it directly? We have not yet gone to a recruiter, but I'm ready to. Let's just say. Sure, and maybe that's something that we need to talk about, but just as a, like, this job should be on, are you familiar with CalOps? Yes. We're not advertising this job there that I can see. It should be on the, there's a couple of other ones, though, like the other government one. CalOps is actually as someone that's used at services, actually it's less used, but I agree it should be there too, but there's the other, I forget what the parallel one is now that it is on. I will say CalOps for Bay Area public agency workers is used more heavily outside of the Bay Area. I agree with you, but it started in the Bay Area and it tends to cater to Bay Area agencies, and therefore more local employees might see it if we advertise on CalOps. It's just a secret. NeoGov is what I'm thinking of. And actually NeoGov is kind of even in the area, it's taken over where CalOps used to be because it's more online friendly to how you can actually fill out your application. But anyway, I'm aware of that and it's, all of any positions like that, the two open positions now definitely got my sights on wanting to fill them. Okay, other comments? I would have said more or less what Jamie did with less expertise, which is that I just hope that we think imaginatively about some of these staffing issues. And I don't have any questions about extending this contract. I think it's the obvious thing to do, but I guess in my mind, I also, if we can't attract a really good candidate, perhaps we would be better off with having somebody that's a 50% time finance person in this continuing on and then hiring somebody or promoting from within for the business services part of the job, which I think you're absolutely right. Those are two totally different skill sets, mentality, everything and to go on those together into a single job never really made sense. So I applaud your efforts in doing that. That's all right. Okay, do we have any more board comments on this? Any comments from the public on the RGS contract amendment? Yes, Karen Brown, North of Boulder Creek, on page 40 of your little packet here, you all want to turn to that, where it talks about the additional contracted amount of 88,300 was calculated utilizing the, September 30, 2024, know that only actually the hours used will be built. So it sounds to me like we could save $88,000 if we do not have this group come in and do your finances. Their time is up. We need to hire a finance manager and not include this group. That's going to charge us $88,000 in the meantime. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Holloway. I've been a contractor before and I usually had deliverables. I needed to produce financial deliverables. And this seems like it's just an hourly contract. We're not getting financial reports. I think, I mean, I infer that the contractor is writing the district, the general manager's paycheck. So his paycheck is getting paid. All the other staff members get it paid. I think the contractor is probably writing a check to pay herself, her firm. Those checks are continuing to get paid. There was a big one payment that was due last Friday. And I guess I'm going to assume that that really did get paid. But there are no reports to explain all this, but to show this. So I guess there is only a certain amount that you can do it, 16 hours a week. But I guess I just see if there's no deliverables or other reports coming up. I think if everybody's getting paid, if the finance contractor's getting paid and the general manager's getting paid, I think there should be reports. I just think it's a little enough to add. So that's that promise me. In your discussion, I heard there was talk about camels. There was talk about promoting somebody on staff to do business services. And I guess I feel like you're kind of getting outside of the description of the subcontract. It's really only about a contract. It's not about reorganizing your business services department. I do think it makes sense to ask a question. Like, why don't we get a new finance director? I think that's a reasonable question. But when you get a field and you're talking about who's the recruiter and things like that, I think you really, I think you have a little bit of a problem with the product. I think you need to be more careful. Now, this isn't the first time I've seen discussions that kind of range off in the ways. But I think you should be careful. Thank you. And this is for the manager. Just tonight, couple ideas. The CSDA is a good spot to advertise. Aqua is a good one. And then just for creative ideas, public CPAs will maybe act in as a treasurer. That's essentially what we have in this contract. So we can record your comments. Can we have your name on the community? Yeah, my name is Phil Witt, W-I-T-T, I think. Okay, thank you. Do we have a motion here? Yes, I'll make the motion that the board directs the interim general manager to execute an amendment to the management and administrative services agreement with regional government services, increasing the not to exceed amount from 30,000 to 118,300 and revise the expiration date from June 30th, 2024 to September 30th, 2024 and authorize the interim general manager to execute extensions and or non-substantive modifications to the agreement as necessary. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any more comments or discussion on this? Seeing none, Holly, can you call the... Vice President Hill? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayfield? Yes. Director Smolling? Yes. Motion passes. Okay, I'm not sure I have the most up-to-date here yet. I don't think you do. No, I don't. Okay. Next item is the P-Vine Pipeline Replacement Contract Award. Thank you, President. Yes, thank you, President. So Carly's gonna present this item for you tonight. Thank you. Great, thank you. Tonight we're discussing the replacement of the P-Vine Pipeline, which was lost in the 2020 CDU fires. The P-Vine Pipeline was originally approximately 1.3 miles running from P-Vine Creek to Forman Creek and then to our treatment plant. On November 2nd, the Board of Directors voted to replace the pipeline in kind with above ground HDPE piping. The original pipeline plans will be used and updated to further this project and bringing on an environmental consultant early in the process will allow for streamlining of the permitting and environmental analysis. Staff released a request for proposals on January 8th and the request for proposals closed on February 20th with four proposals received. After staff review, Panorama Environmental was selected for award. So tonight staffs recommending the Board of Directors authorized the expenditure of approximately $99,000 for environmental consulting services on the P-Vine Pipeline project. Staff is prepared to answer questions. So I'm looking at the schedule here. This construction isn't happening this year. I mean, I thought that was the whole purpose behind doing what we did was to get it installed this year. It's still possible at this point just with us approaching construction window being in the winter, it's kind of likely, right? Okay, so this is a 2025 construction project. So they've got to do it now, got to do it now, got to do it now that we got into in November really wasn't got to do it now, got to do it now. I'm really disappointed by this, but I understand it is what it is. And we're looking at, I think it's 36 weeks for the entire project. So that pushes us easily into December and maybe longer if there's any delays or anything like that. And I would like to add in that it does depend on which route we end up going with the environmental analysis, but looking at the cultural aspects that are required by FEMA for FEMA reimbursement, that's 18 weeks there. Yeah, I mean, I don't think we're going to get around that. Yeah, I mean, again, it is what it is, I understand that, but I really feel like we were rushed last November and I'm disappointed in that. But, you know, I mean, I looked at the proposal and it seems reasonable. And I hope they can get started right away so it doesn't get any further and we can get it installed in 2025. When we started into a review on a previous environmental assessment on the conjunctive use, project description that we started with got amended significantly. I'm not seeing a project description in the request for proposal, project description laying out. Here's what we're going to do, here's how we're going to do it, here's the means and methods that we're going to use for that, which I think gives not only the environmental assessment team in this case, Panorama, the framework on what the project is, but then also whatever other agencies outside. So when and how does that detail being, well, we talked in there about tree removal in the RFP. And to me, removal is cut them down, take them away. But I thought in previous discussions, we've talked about the trees just need to be felled and left in place. You know, those kind of details, I think need to be written for what we're going to do. When does that project description get developed? How does that get? Well, you are correct on the tree removal. Tree removal maybe wasn't the right term there because of the conditions on the pipeline trail, there's not a possibility of removing the trees. So they will need to be locked and scattered. And I know that we've talked about that. I'm not focused on what we're doing with the trees. I'm focused on the project description, or cost estimate that we had from our district manager included helicopter lists, or we're using helicopters. Things like that, I think affect the environment and affect then what the environmental assessment team is looking at. So that overall project description of how are we doing this? Are we cutting the benches in by hand? Are we taking equipment in there to cut the benches? Everything like that. When does that get developed and written? So hopefully it's in concurrence with the environmental consultant beginning that cultural and biological surveys along the alignment. So because we're using the original alignment and replacing in kind, we have a really good idea of where this impact could potentially occur. So we can start the cultural, which is looking like it's going to take the longest out of the whole process and the biological surveys. Unfortunately, first we need to do all the tree work and then those two things can begin as well as the survey to begin design and the actual details of the project itself. Right, and I understand that, yes, they can start those and we know where the pipe is gonna go, but how are we gonna do it? Is what I'm seeking for us to put together this project? What is the project? You mean a functional description, a requirements description? Well, let me take that question then. Okay, good. It's just, the idea is if you're looking at critical passes, kicking off the environmental does make sense now. And we are just, we're asking to engage the environmental consultant now in the process to start the cultural because that's has a long timeline. A lot of it's just notification of the tribes that, hey, we're gonna be working in this area if you have anything. And so, and it'll help shape some of the details, but as Carly mentioned, we are replacing in time, we already have our marching orders there. We also know where it's going. The methods, we have the old plants, we, but of course we're not gonna use the same methods they did 40 years ago. I'm sure they have better stuff there, but we're talking about connections and mounts and stuff like that. So some of the details will come out that, but it's never hurts to bounce them off in the environmental first. And if there's one's less impactful or it's gonna get us through the quicker. My hope is we're replacing in time, we're replacing it the structure that we lost in a fire. And my hope is that we can get through this without a lot of environmental scrutiny because it is its existing infrastructure, but we were hoping the same thing when we started down the path for the conjunctive use because it was something that we were already doing under our emergency act. Am I right, Carly? Originally, that's not the case because we started that project much earlier before the fires. So we weren't operating in that capacity at that point. And when we began that, it was based in a grant which was focused on increasing in-stream flow. So it has just kind of shifted from an in-stream flow project to an operational project, which has changed everything. But we were hoping that that was gonna be simpler than what it was based on the use. Instead, we've gone from now to a much more significant environmental review on that project. I don't know if I'd compare the two, though. I agree, but what I'm trying to get to is develop the project description on how we're gonna do this work. Yes, because we've talked about it here. We've talked about it in engineering committee meetings. We have kind of bits and pieces of this between the cost estimate, between fair and the relatives report, between, oh yeah, we're gonna use CCC cruise. Get all of that, it's two pages, three pages of a description on how we're gonna do this. Together, early on in the process. That is the idea. I mean, it's just that we wanna engage the environmental consultant. I think they should help be writing it. Well, yes, but that's, we're kicking it off because there is more to this whole story that that's the first step. And we do need to kind of, and I do see there is a certain sense of urgency and just that we wanna make sure that we can engage the CCC because if not, if we don't engage them, then they're gonna run off and they're gonna be busy somewhere else. And then we get into fire season, they might get called away to a fire and we can't use them at all. And do we need to complete the environmental assessment before we take the trees down? Yes. Okay, all right. The CCCs need some form of environmental analysis. We even had a discussion in-house about that. We could do that without having it reimbursable by FEMA, but if we wait and then it's the case, it's like, okay, we're gonna wait, we're gonna do the environmental assessment and then we're gonna make sure that everything we do is eligible by FEMA. Or we could take the trees out and then lose, I don't know if it was like $80,000 that we wouldn't be able to get, wouldn't be reimbursable at 90%. And I wasn't clear on the budget aspect of what I saw in the consultant's budget summary. If we go the path of the statutory exemption, is our cost more like $39,000 from what they're showing here versus the $99,000 that the memo is asking us to approve? That's correct. Okay, and when do we decide or if we do the statutory exemption aspect and it's not successful, is that the- I don't think that's the approach at this time. It's more engaging the consultant and getting their feedback and then pulling also our legal and most likely to determine which route to go. But giving them our knowledge of the project, the background of the project, getting them up to speed and then allowing them to help us make that so most likely it is the full ISM and D then. Potentially. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. These are the questions I have at this point. Tammy? I understand the need for this. It's unfortunate about the timing but these things always cost more time. So I'm prepared to move forward. Oh, I have- Gail? I don't really have any questions. I mean, they were considerably less expensive and we've had good experience with Panorama and I imagine one of the reasons they were cheaper is because they kind of know us and we're very helpful during the fire. So I think this is kind of an obvious choice and I'm in favor of it. What, am I wrong? I have one following question. Go ahead. Was Panorama the least expensive of the four? They were. Okay. All right. I didn't- Yeah. I missed that. By a lot. Yeah, that's pretty significant. Okay. Because it's not explicitly listed in here. Okay. That's one of those things that I keep asking about. Yes. Obviously. Comments from the public on this budget? Yes. Karen Brown, North of Old Creek. Page 118 and 119, it states, how they're going to replace this line and they're not going to bury it because it's far too difficult for them to traverse this terrain. Are we aware that they are not going to bury this line that's not going to be subjected to maybe another fire? What kind of things are we going to implement to protect this water line? So it does not burn up in a future fire. Thank you. Thank you for your remarks. I think it's worthwhile of saying that that was decided November 2nd. Yes. We did discuss that. That was discussed. It was the board's decision. I dissented that we would restore it above ground with plastic pipe. And I think there was a comment that Rick said, something along the lines of, if we can find a way to protect it, we will, but there was no firm commitment around that. Point of privilege though. This contract doesn't have anything to do with the actual replacement of the pipe. This is an environmental services contract. And so that is really a very separate discussion. I think she was just referring to something that the environmental services contractor wrote about the project that they would be overseeing. Making it subject to be able to be discussed. That's background. Okay. I think we've had comments. All the comments. I see nobody online. I see nobody online. Okay. I think they're participating. I'd like to make the motion then that the board directs the interim general manager to enter into a professional services agreement with Panorama Environmental in an amount not to exceed $99,693 for environmental consulting services on the Peavine Pipeline Replacement Project and authorize the interim general manager to execute extensions and or non-substantive modifications to the agreement as necessary. Second. I'm seconding. President Hill. Yes. Vice President Ackman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. Director Mayhood. Yes. Director Smalley. Yes. Motion passes. Okay. We're now to the consent agenda. Is anyone requesting that any of those items be pulled? Yes. Thank you. Yes. Bob. Go ahead, Bob. Which? McGraw contract. Fall Creek Fish Ladders. Raftel is contract amendment. The one for Sandus. So that's items B, C, D and E. Yes. Between Bob and I. Thank you. Okay, give you just the tip on procedure now. I'm sorry? Can I give you a tip on procedure now? You wanna go to the public for the remaining items and then take a vote to pass the remaining. Yes. Does anyone have any objection if we go through the ones that are not being called? What he means is we should see if the public want to comment on any items on consent that are not being pulled by members. Does the public have any comments on the items that are on the consent agenda? That are not currently proposed to be pulled by members. Yes, they're not currently being pulled. Seeing none. Anything online? Anything online? Nope. Nope. So then you vote to approve that. You can approve everything else on. I'm sorry? We can approve everything else on the consent agenda. So we'll approve everything that is not been pulled and I guess we have to start discussing the items that have been pulled. Okay, first we have to take a vote. No, you just take a vote. Take a vote. Yeah, we take a vote because sometimes there'll be resolutions that have to be so we have to vote on the consent agenda. So we'll take a vote on the consent agenda on those items that have not been pulled. Are you moving the consent agenda? Second. President Hill? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayhead? Yes. Director Smolley? Yes. Go to the first item that was pulled. Okay, let me take a look at this because I somehow want to copy it as I please. So this is the first one, yeah, McGraw. Okay, so the McGraw-Hill 2024 contract, Olympia Conservation Era, not quite that big, but Martin Jody's not quite that big. Yeah, I mean, my question about this has to go with whether or not this went out to Ben and because this seems to be sort of a rolling thing that she's done every year now for quite a while. And typically what I like to see is that at some point these have to go to Ben to find out if we are in fact getting the best dollar. We may very well be, I don't know, but I don't like situations where the same person or the same company gets the contract over and over again without having to go through that. I think that's just not a good way to do business. So did we go to a bid for this or just kind of just rolling it over? We did not go to a bid for this, but this work is continuation of monitoring, restoration and management of the Olympia Conservation Area, which Jody was part of the implementation and has been managing over the years. We definitely could go out to bid for this work. All this is put into reports, all the work she's done over the years as well as what she plans to do, but she does lay out what she plans to do for the area to maintain it, which then meets our permitting for the conservation area itself. And is this tied up in any way with the overall long-term that's been going on for years and years and years the Habitat Conservation Plan? It is. Okay, this might be something for the environmental committee to take a closer look at how to do this. I am concerned that this is turning into an annuity for a particular person as opposed to it being something that is a competitive process for winning the district's business. I'm not saying that Jody is doing a bad job. I'm not saying any of that. I'm just saying that there's business requirements as part of our oversight that we need to make sure that we're doing. That's my opinion. It may be a different opinion from the rest of the board. So I would like to see this referred to the environmental committee, engineering environmental committee for a further discussion about how to take care of this for next year since I'm assuming this is for one year or two years. I can staff. How much money are we talking about here? It's about $30,000. For two years. For two years. $30,000 for two years. Staff got a comment here. I think I want to point out that there's not that many people that are even qualified to do it, Jody Davis. And I'll take this one on the chin for Carly because I allowed her to go ahead with this contract. I understand the need that you typically want at some point you want to wash, rinse and repeat and make everybody come back to the line and collect RFPs, et cetera to move this along. And like, I think there's two contractors that even meet these criteria. So, and having the familiarity she has, we are pretty much, yes, we are asking that it's justified based on sole, sole source. Can I ask one other question? Is there a point in time where this ends? I mean, let's say the HCP is at some point actually going to be delivered and ending, right? Some time here, hopefully the next year. Does this end at some point as well? So it doesn't end, but what happens is because it's a conservation bank we're paying into it, it'll become self-funding as interest builds. So every project we do that affects sandhills, we put X amount of money depending on the size of the project into a bank that then gains interest and we get paid out that interest annually. So this last year we got paid, I think $11,000 approximately, towards this work. So every year we get a payout, it kind of pays for the work that's being done at the conservation area. So the idea is that it's going to perpetuate itself. Moving forward. I, okay, I understand that. Hopefully the interest is higher. That we're making now, not the last year. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I put that out there because this with Jody McGraw is, I don't think any of them have been, and I'm not even sure if the HCP was, but certainly nothing has been built since then and that's going back at least seven or eight years if I recall correctly. Okay, great, thank you. And if I can add one other comment on that item. On page 134, as part of the agreement, section two says that the agreement will terminate on March 6th, 2024. And I don't think you want to terminate yesterday. That was copy-paste, I don't think so. So get that through. I think that 2026 is what you're looking at there. Okay, all right. Anyone else have any comments on that particular item? I guess I just want to say to defend the staff on this. I think nitpicking about something at this scale, we're going to cause the staff to spend more time and salary to go out and try to beat her bid by a few thousand dollars. She's an expert at this. There aren't very many people that do it. If you look at what she actually charges per hour for somebody at her skill set, I think she's probably undercharging her by at least 50%. And certainly the staff, things that the people she has working is charged cheaply. So I just think, Bob, this is just penny-wise pound foolish to worry about this kind of thing. Thank you for your opinion. Okay, so procedural question here. Shouldn't we vote on each one of these as we go through? Yeah, that would be the process. Okay, comments from the public? So we would need to move. Yes, do we have any comments from the public? Yes, please. On page 154 of your packet, it talks about an extra repair to a bridge and retaining wall. $76,400. Point of order. That's the next item. Next item. Thank you. I'll be back. Thank you. Okay, do we have a motion? Wait, do we have any comments online? Any comments online? No. Thank you. Okay, can we have a motion here for the McGraw contract? I'll move the board to direct the interim general manager to enter an agreement with Judi McGraw consulting an amount not to exceed $29,889 for purpose of restoration management and monitoring in the Olympia conservation area. Second. Second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How long do we have to call the vote? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I took my hearing made out and came out of my phone. So, President Hill. Yes. Yes. Vice President Ackman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. Sorry to say no. Yes. Yes. Director Mayhut. Yes. Director Smalley. Yes. Motion passed. Okay. Moving on to the Fall Creek Fish Ladder Change Orders. Yes, I had a question about the retaining wall repair and this does sort of veer a little bit into policy and how we work together with other agencies. But I first wanted to make sure that I understood is what we replaced on our dime, does that belong to us? Is that our asset that we are responsible for maintaining? You want to take the first step? Yeah, we have an encroachment permit which allows us to run our water line on the County's Bridge. And we are required to maintain our water line, not the bridge. Okay, but I don't, I guess I don't understand this one because it seems like we did more than just repair our water line. Correct. So what was the nature of the conversation around us taking that on to the tune of, I mean, the asset here is something. The County repaired and maintained the bridge and they indicated that we had to repair the wall as part of our project. How did our water pipe affect the wall? Our water pipe penetrates the wall when it goes from underneath the bridge to underneath the pathway on the Farmer Street side. So there's a detail in the plans. We have a couple steel plates that get bolted together and then they were to cut a hole in the existing retaining wall. When we dug down and looked at the wood, you could just grab it and crawl it with your hand because it was rotten. Okay. We reached out to the County and said, you guys need to fix your retaining wall. And they said, no, you need to fix it as part of your project. So the, so then the extension of that is the fact that our water pipe goes through that retaining wall caused the rot and damaged the retaining wall to the point where we have to repair that. I don't believe so. Okay. But that's what they claim. So basically this is sort of your normal back and forth between agencies here and hopefully this kind of building goodwill between the agencies will be extended in other areas. That would be great. I would appreciate that from the County. Yeah, that would be really nice. Yeah. So. Good luck. Okay. I just, what do I want to add? I have a lot of opinions about it, but because he's monitoring our deviants from the Brown Act, I just leave it for another topic, another day. I bring it to the board. No, I understand. I just want to make, I just wanted to understand that how this all came about and whether or not we were in fact responsible for that damage to the retaining wall. It sounds like we weren't, but we're going to pay for it. Got it. Okay. Thanks. Then I want to comment on that also. Good job on doing this on a time and materials basis instead of accepting the general contractors lump sum bid for 76,000 on their lump sum bid. And they end up doing it on time and materials for just over 18,000. So good. Thank you for that. Okay. Do we have any comments from the public on this particular project? Any more comments from the board? Can we have a motion? Yes. I want to make a motion to the board to approve the contract change orders, eight and nine for payment to Sibleyne Reed construction for the Folk Creek Fish Shot and Rehabilitation Project in sum of $22,226. They're by increasing the not to exceed contract amount from 2,489,347 to 2,511 and $573. Second. Okay. President Hentz now. Yes. Did we already have public comment? Did I miss that? Yeah, I did ask for public comment on this one. Vice President Ackerman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. Director Mayhead. Yes. Director Smolley. Yes. Okay. Refresh my memory, Bob. Did you pull the RAF tell us? I did. I did. And I'll be brief on that. I believe that the RAF tell us folks that the district a very significant disservice in a number of very key areas. They should actually be giving us a bit of a refund, not getting an additional $15,000. And mainly I wanted to pull it so I could make sure I voted no on it to express my disappointment and disapproval of the work that they did. Cal. Can I just, one thing I wasn't clear on in the memo. It is true that they did more meetings between the committee and the board than was in the contract. And so I can see that there might be some changes there, but I wasn't clear in the memo was you said you anticipate that there's X, Y and Z going on. And so what I'm worried about is that we're gonna get hit by another request later on. And they have not produced some of the things we asked for. For example, one of the things that was in the contract is that there would be example layouts for bills. And so they're supposed to do some of these things. And I just wanna make sure that the staff has actually checked that they have done what they said they were gonna do. Because I think Bob is right that their performance so far has been, was often kind of minimal. And to be fair, it was at a confusing time when Kendra and Rick were leaving and I was sick for a lot of the summer as chair of the budget and finance committee so that they ended up sometimes having to redo things when we kind of reconsidered. So it's not so much that I'm objecting to the extra 15,000 if it's for these extra meetings and things that they had to do. But I just wanna make sure that they're actually living up to the contract that we had and that we're not gonna get hit by another bill for 15 or 30,000 down the road. Okay, so I don't know if there's a question for me but I guess we can certainly go back and check. I know that a lot of these items, they're actually, they had verbal agreements with Kendra before my time. But I know leading up to the actual vote and the 45 day period, et cetera, I had them doing a lot of additional analysis to look at some of the numbers different ways and I definitely was giving them a lot of additional work to look at. There's another item that'll be coming to the committee about intertire rates, et cetera. And I asked them as long as they're on the path of doing this, that they cook those up for us too. So, I'll just say that the additional work hand that there is a little bit of hand holding if we need it for the, as we go into actually implementing the rate increase, there may be some questions and they've been responsive to me at least. I feel like I get my questions answered quickly. And so, I have one comment on this, which is bad on us for accepting a contract where they said there was only gonna be one board meeting that they were gonna have to attend. Actually, that was... Go ahead. That's what I was a little bit confused about was in the memo that I don't think, I think that we actually in the proposal that we ended up approving, there were more meetings than that. Yeah, I cannot conceive that. Yeah, there were more meetings than that. So, I think that what you, what was in the memo is not correct. And we need to go back to the original contract that was negotiated about how many, because I know there were discussions of at least one going to the budget and finance and at least one or two with the board. So, there's no way that it was only one. I don't, with Jeff, I agree. I can't remember if it was two, three, or four, but it was one. Exactly. I don't know if I implied that it was more than one, but just, I know that they didn't expect as many meetings as they did. You said that in their letter. Four more meetings instead of one. That's just not right. Yeah. Because we knew, given the nature of the district and everything else, that this was gonna be more interactive than maybe they were normally used to. And so, that was part of the negotiation that we had with them. And so, that's what I'm trying to say, Brian, is you need to go back and actually look at the contract that we signed with them, not what they say they agreed to or not what they say Kendra let them do, because I think that there were some deliverables, like I said, that never, that I've not seen, including one of them having to do with how the bill should be set up, which I thought was a pretty important thing. And the other was also making sure that we had the model in such a way that it can be easily used. And I guess we pretty much have that because we have Excel, but I don't know if that was the final version or what, but I would just feel a lot better if you checked on that. Like I'm saying, I don't object to the extra 15 at this point because I know we did have more meetings than they thought and you've now described some things that they've really helped with that are important, like going in and calculating what we should be charging for bulk rates for other districts. Okay, so Mark, I wasn't gonna ask the question, but since other questions have been asked on this one, did we request a breakdown for the $15,000 change order? Similar to their original fee structure schedule that we see on page 184 in this, that was part of their original agreement. Or is it 15,000 based on this letter that we have and that's what we got? I just based it on the letter. But for the amount of money, I can kind of do the math in my head and just get an idea of like, did they spend more time on it? I would say yes, and roughly how many staff hours that equates to that. So I've got to suggest here that we've had enough questions that we take this item and give it back to staff and have them address some of these questions before we- I'll just be reading my mind, Jeff. Before we vote on paying this. That's fine with me. Yeah, and just FYI, if it comes back as a consent thing, I'll have to pull it again. So we're just going to give this item back to staff for additional work. Okay, the next item is amended and restated agreement with Santa's civil engineers. And that's one that I requested Devon. The change order that Santa's is asking for is 47,500. And yes, Santa's has done other good work for us in the past. Did we sole source to them on this one? Or the, where the? Go ahead. So they're under contract for construction management for the L2DL pipeline project. So this is for the L2DL pipeline project. So this is part of the L2DL? Okay. Yeah, so it's going to be a change order. We had an issue with the contract because the term had expired. So that's why we have the amended and restated agreement, which gives us additional time on the term. Right. And then they're going to start working on the Highway 9 portion of a relocating of our main, which is a change from the original scope that we've approved for the contractor. So now this will give us the construction management for the daily site observations, the labor compliance, certified payroll monitoring. I'm aware of what was- And the horror percentage geotechnical testing. Okay. So Santa's is already doing work on Altevia. Anderson Pacific is already doing work on Altevia. You're moving the same team down onto Highway 9. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. The construction management change order is almost 16% of your contractors amount. More than the 8% to 10% that I like to see on the contracts, but but, okay. All right. And we don't have the capacity to cover this with our internal. All right. Okay. Because they're occupied on other projects. Correct. Hopefully. Okay. All right. Oh, and the memo on page 189 referred to being discussed at the E&E committee meeting. It was- That's a typo. It should be the board director. Approved by the board for that construction contract for that 302,000. Okay. All right. Okay. Enough on my questions. Are you going to move it? Not seeing any other questions here. Any comments from the public on this one? Nope. Mark, you want to make a motion? As soon as I can find it. Yeah. It's a long one. Board directs the interim general manager to execute an amended and restated agreement for professional services with Santa's civil engineers for additional construction management services for the Alta via pipeline project. And as written, I don't see an amount here in the motion. You would want that? I would think that that should be in here. So I will amend what I just said with Santa's civil engineers and server planners for additional construction in the amount of 47,500 and authorize the interim general manager to execute extensions and or non-substantive modifications to the agreement as necessary. Second. I'm seconding. President Hill. Yes. Vice President Ackerman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. Director Mayhood. Yes. Director Smalley. Yes. Okay. I think that's all of the items on the Consent Agenda that have been pulled. District reports we have none. Four letters received or email received which has been, which have been according to our board policy referred to staff for action or communication with the individuals who have sent the letters to us. And information material, SDRMA, which is the special district. Risk management agency. Yeah. They have a director of vacancy. And if we want to recommend anyone for that, we should discuss that at some future date. If somebody wants to reply, they can let us know and then you can endorse them. Yes, that's true. If someone wants to apply. Okay. I see nothing else on the agenda. We are adjourned and we will be going back into closed session after a brief.