 That's a huge... There's Cisco this year. Yeah. It's really... It's kind of a amazing meeting. It's like everybody... It's self-bigger. Yeah. You know, one of those people... I have not. 26,000. It's really... I didn't see Brown. It being after six o'clock, let's call our board meeting to order. Roll call would show all directors are present in the county for. We have no public hearing tonight. But we have a consent agenda. Lots of things. Any polls from the board? 3.12. 1-2. Okay. What's on tap? Anything, Bruce? 3.4. Production reports. 3.4. I think I wanted 3.14, but I'm just checking to make sure. Oh, yeah. About the treatment. Is that 3.14? Yeah. Staff would like 3.15. Anyone in the public wish to pull any items? Good evening, Becky Stonebrook. I'd like to pull item 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9, please. Anyone else? I'll move. We approve the remaining. Oh, there's somebody else coming. Sorry, I didn't see you. Colonel Maxwell, I'd like to call 3.15. That's already been pulled. They're all pulled? Not all of them. I thought I heard him say all of them were pulled. No, no. Many of them have been pulled. That one in particular has been pulled. What does that mean? It has been pulled. We're going to discuss it. You're not going to discuss it? We are going to discuss it. It's been pulled, so we can discuss it. Okay. And 3.8, Becky asked about as well. Yes. Okay. And 3.4. That's already been pulled. That will be pulled for comment and observation as well. Okay. And 3.11, the water resources, that will be considered. If you want to pull that one, we can. It hasn't been already. Thank you. I hope you'll do that. Okay. Okay. And I have, as long as it brought me up, I have a repeat of a freedom of information at public records request that I have made before, that I filed. Why don't you wait till the open center? I have an appropriate time. And you've evaded responding with it. And it's asked for you to tell me what you've been paying lawyers, including Mr. Basso. Why do you hide that? Sir. It's not time yet. Later. Okay. I think there was a motion to. I was trying to. Yes. The remaining consent items. Okay. All second. We have a motion to second. All in favor of the remaining consent items. Hi. Hi. That's unanimous. I don't know what they are. Okay. So I think the first one was 3.4. Yeah. And I pulled this and I think. Remember the public did as well. I just wanted to. Make note that. There is a bit of a rebound going on in November. In the water use, although. There also. Is. Indicators that. When you look at the production versus weather index that the weather was a bit higher. Higher weather index. For. For November. I guess it's October is the last data. No November. November. November. Yeah. And it's gone up a little bit. Yeah. So it's just something to keep an eye on. Okay. And any public comment on this item. Mr Maxwell. You wanted three. 3.4. It's up. What I see in production reports. I'm not sure that's complete. And I'd like to be able to come into your office. And I'd like to be able to come into your offices and have that explained further to myself and a couple other people who are more than curious about it and also pay water bills here. What employee might be available to meet with us to discuss the data and where it's from. Go into the front desk and ask for someone to help you on that item. Well, would there be someone would that be. Mr do for perhaps to compile that information. I'm not even sure myself but you show up. They know about it now. And I'll call in advance. Okay. Anyone else. Okay. So we're finished with that one. I presume we're going to wait till the end to approve all the remaining. So the next one is three seven I think three seven eight and nine. Yes. Thank you. Just a minute. I thought you'd take longer with that. Apologize. I'm sorry. Can we move to 3.8? I have that piece. I'm not finding that what I want to look at for 3.7. But the main things that I see in 3.7 and 3.8 and I have page 66 here. Becky Steinburner from Aptos is on page 66. And this is 3.8. What I see is that Barry Swanson builder and top shelf ink Aptos Ventures LLC. Those are all Aptos Village project developers. It appears that they were given a lower rate for their service, service capacities. When other people for the same size of connection, the same number of connection are paying 16,000. And this is in a fiscal year 2018 2019. They're paying $16,643. The Aptos Village developers were paying about a little over $5,000 less, $11,200 for the same size connection. I'd like that explained. And I'm remembering now item 3.7 had to do with, I believe, water demand offset. I'm sorry. 3.7 had to do with property that's not used anymore. Thank you. I want to talk about that too. So shall we finish discussing 3.8 and then I can go back to 3.7? Well, 3.7 I think it was because we actually did that estimation years before and that's when they actually paid it. Because what I want to say about item 3.7, the excess property is I'm curious why the district is hanging on to the 180 acres up on I think it's Glenwood Drive. It seems that you could sell that and get some money. And I'm curious why year after year I keep seeing you hang on to it. I think your rate pairs are curious too. Thank you. Can I take a moment? 3.9, can you tell me the subject matter? I'm sorry. My packet got really mixed up. 3.9, what is the topic? Water demand offset fee fund. Thank you. The water demand offset fees, I did not see any water demand offset fees paid and these are for Aptos Village project developers, none. And I'm wondering why that is when other developers, other homeowners are paying that. And I want to commend you on presenting this good information. I've never seen this level of transparent reporting on your board. I've seen the excess property but never this very good information. So I think it goes from 2010 to 2018 and there's no water demand offset money listed for any of the Aptos Village project developers as I recognize them. So I would like some discussion about that please. Thank you very much and thank you for your patience. What I see starts in your 2014, so that's why. Okay, so. That was just informational. Yeah. All right. So 3.9, so what's next? 3.8, we're still on 3.8. No. Oh, you want to do 3.8? Okay. Sure. That's fine. On 3.8, I'm looking at Attachment 1, Consent Agenda, apparently your page, it's opposite 234, so it must be page 233. And the customer name again, Barry Swenson Builder, Barry Swenson Builder again, Swenson Builder, Swenson Builder, Swenson Builder and so forth. I challenge again, and I'm very suspicious that Mr. Swenson at all have not gotten some kind of favored treatment. I'm also distressed that you've approved continuously whatever they seem to want. And again, I'd like to stop in the offices. I'll come with a more precise question, but I want to know why they're not paying more, and shouldn't they be? In addition to that, what amount was charged, if any, to the Twin Lakes Church for the favored treatment it got, apparently, at the behest of Mr. Duncan? It has nothing to do with water demand offsets. Well, wasn't there supposed to water demand offsets to give them favored opportunity to add more consumption at Twin Lakes? Twin Lakes was not allowed to increase its consumption? It did some building and adding there for that purpose. Would that show up at the district's office? Fine. I'll submit a public records request regarding that as well. I notice that you don't have public comment listed today. It says public none. Public comment. When will that be, please? It's after the consent agenda. All right. Thank you. It's just after 318. It's a full point of. I wasn't sure how to interpret that. I thought you were trying to hide from the public. Yeah. Okay. Good evening. Stop asked Item 3.15 to be pulled in order to make a correction on Attachment 3 of 3.15. There's a line item right below the schedule as presented, which actually has data from the 2019 presentation. So staff asked to strike that language and replace it with language that's contained in the other two Attached Sorry Schedules Attachment 1 and 2 reflecting the 2019, or excuse me, 2020 Sorry Schedule data. And again, as a reminder, these Sorry Schedules are reflective of bargained agreements that are currently in effect. Change noted. I think we also need to do 311. That's one more of that pulled. Anyone? Guess not. All right. We move on 312. Yeah. I had a couple of things on that. What's on tap. That's the second on 315. Oh. Have we gotten there yet? 312. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, Tracy came up for 315. Yeah, she did. Why don't you finish talking about that? Well, there has to be a motion, right? I assume we were going to do all of them at the end. Okay. That's fine. All the rest have been informational. Yes. Correct. So just what's on tap a couple of things on, this is on page 83 of the agenda on the very first page that says we are pleased to announce that we has been awarded. So that should be have. And I thought it might. Just a little note there. I don't know if anybody knows, but then we're, they're mentioning the state demonstrating a strong support, but I don't know. They were really enthusiastically saying that this fits with their overall long-term water plan for the state of California. So I don't know if a little word about how that fit in might be worth. I think there's a little enough room for another little sentence there. Sure. That's all on that page. I didn't know when we were talking about leaks, whether you wanted to mention anything about AMI and being able to, that soon we'll be able to pick up leaks more quickly too. We could mention it. We're planning on a bigger AMI article in 2020. But maybe just look for this coming, just a quick little sentence to just say that that might, that's coming up. And then, let's see. That was the second page. Third page, which is page 85. On the end of the little water harvest festival one, it said performances by Zoonzoon, Earthcapades, and Rocksteady, juggling, and face paint. Okay. So I didn't know, is Rocksteady a juggling thing, or is that a separate thing? It is a performance. That's the name of the performance. Maybe a comma after juggling would make that clearer to me. Okay. And then the last thing is just on that multi-benefits of the intertide in that left-hand column, second pair near the bottom. There's a sentence that says, the surface water availability is generally anticipated between November 1st, April 30th. However, it is weather dependent. So it should say it is weather dependent. And then lastly, it's not a correction. It's just, I wanted, you know, to be a top workplace in 2019 is really, I just wanted to mention that I really appreciate our general manager and all the managers that work under you. It's a great team. You don't get that without some good stuff coming from the top. So thank you. Power organization. Thank you. Any other comments on what's on top? Well, I have a few things. I'm back to the first page. In the first paragraph, the end of the first paragraph, there's a voted to approve TH grant. I think it's the grant. Oh yeah, I missed that one. And down in the second paragraph, there's a sentence that says, in addition, the state water resource control board also approve. In addition, and also are redundant. So you can get rid of one of them. I get rid of the also. In addition, the state water resource is going to approve the $36 million. Right? Good. Good. Pick up. Okay. So that's all on that page. Oh, and the in addition, there should be a comma after it. In addition, comma, this data and so forth. Okay. Okay. Now in the next page, down the question corner, the first green sentence down there under question corner, it mentions an increase in a month because of rates is $86. And I thought it was something like 156 or something. This is for 5-8 inch meters. I believe 86 is correct. Is it? Okay. Okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure that's the right number. And over on the next column of the green, I think for grants, talking about grants and reducing lowered rates, rather than just say which could lower rates, I would say would or should or something like that, a little more positive. I mean, could sounds like it's very speculative, but I think it would or it should. It's better. It really tells the truth better. Okay. On the next page under Water Harvest Festival, I think it's a little, the sentence that says this year was held in memory and celebration of Vahe. And it says who we tragically lost on the dive board vote. And of course, we didn't lose her on the dive board. We lost her, but it was, we lost her because of the dive boat fire or something. So that needs to be cleaned up so it's a little clear. She was lost to us. We didn't actually lose her ourselves, but something like that. And over in the next column under the Bob Basso section, it says what was your most, what was your most noteworthy was at Soquel Creek? I think that second was should just be struck. And it'll say what was your most noteworthy treatment achievement at Soquel Creek? Let's see. Any last page? Okay. So moving on. Let's see. Sure. Go ahead. Thank you. Both we will take a Steinbrunner resident of Aptos. Regarding the what's on tap, I would like to point out that on the question corner, it really should be more clearly spelled out that the tier two is to support pure water. Soquel because that's what it says in your. Your raff tell us information that was presented on February 19th at the rate hearing. And it is, in fact what is in your packet tonight, in item 6.6. where you will discuss possibly reducing rates because of the Pure Water SoCal grants and low-cost loans that you've received. On the next page, the multiple benefits of intertie with Santa Cruz, I want to clarify, is it only Service Area 1 that will be included in this? I had heard you discuss earlier that you would also include parts of Service Area 2. So I want to clarify that. And I think it would be good, since this has not gone to press yet, that you updated that the water transfers actually have begun, December 6th, that they're in progress. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, anyone in the public? That's anyone else? On that particular item. On the What's on Tap newsletter. And President Daniels, I'd just like to make a correction for the record. RAF tell us did not base the rates on Pure Water SoCal. As stated in the report, it's based on a water supply project, the cost, which is based upon, but it could have been any water supply project. Okay. What's on Tap? Did Steinbrenner come back and correct what was just said by your staff? She has spoken and that's it. No, but she hadn't heard the misstatement. She has spoken? She gets one chance? I bring her back. I give her half of my time easily. You don't give her the facts before the record here. I think your newsletter should include the fact that there are alternatives that you've not considered to be accurate in your statements. And you should compliment the Steinbrenner for her attempts to have you comply with the environmental laws of California and also they belong in the record here. And you should put in that we're going to correct our attitudes and correct our performance here and we're going to consider what Ms. Steinbrenner has asked to be required to consider. And that is the law for alternatives and Mr. McGillvry's alternatives. So we don't have to spend $130 million. We can accomplish for $23 or $19 million the same water resources acquisition. I think that belongs in at least a column and you should give Ms. Steinbrenner an opportunity to write at least half a page of her perspective because it's very timely and would be intellectually and administratively government honest for you to give her space in this publication. I'm serious. You owe that in the interest of integrity. We would consider all possible viable alternatives. None of those are alternatives. Those are speculation. Okay, so we're going to move on. I think the next one is 315 isn't it 314 right. And I just wanted to have a question about when it said what mitigation that some of these some of these issues, for example, we'll take the last one on page 88 one emergency issue was identified at one site. The emergency issue has since been mitigated. Well, in relation to trees that usually mean the limb or the tree is trimmed in such a way that if it's deemed an emergency it may be falling over. It's taken out or reduced in such a manner so it doesn't create that. And is that part of the trees that were planted at the tannery? Not trees. We probably we don't have the benefit of Christine here. She's out ill. So I'm tannery. Yeah, tannery. It's it's the trees that are against the backside, some of which are coming over from the neighbors. Yeah, but not not that we planted they were existing trees. Yeah, that better in danger. The arborist has said that immediate threat imminent danger threat. That was just that was my question. What does that mean? Mitigation that just like snip, snip, snip or chop, chop, chop. I think in this case it was it was chop basically hedging them back. Okay, they come from the neighbor side of the fence and they're overlapping some of the I think some of the wiring and where the and where the pump house is. Yeah, I can get you a more definitive description if you like the moment it's a threat to health or structure so that sort of thing. Well, yeah, and also that's the kind of thing that came up at that one. I went to recently about fire, the fire hazards. Yeah, not only he and genie is obsessed with the tree cover, but water districts are too. Anyone else on 314. Okay, move on to 315. We already have that. Well, we did that right. Okay, so we need to prove we need to prove these things. So I hear a motion to approve the motion to approve. Okay. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion second all in favor. I post that unanimous. Okay, so now we move on to oral communications. Anyone wish to address us? Please come up. Good evening and happy holidays. Thank you. I'm about to be shopping in here, but I did drop off a couple of papers at the office yesterday. I hope you got them. It's a copy of two bills. One that has three businesses in it. And if you have that copy, you can see their water bill is $78 for the month. One is a beauty shop. The other bill has four people living in it, all adults, $190.80. I looked at this other bill and I see that there's no charge for the secretary on that particular building. I really think it's unfair that just residents are being charged that second tier. I'm also disciplined. I talked to another friend today, saw her bill. She's also in the Soquel district. Her bill was $80. She has four people living in her house. They shower. They have a dishwasher. And something's wrong with the structure of tier two. I mean, we're not charging everybody the same thing. And I am disappointed in the fact that you did get the, I know the grant's a one-time thing, and I think that's great. And you got the other funding, which is good. I wish you would have waited before you went to that second tier until you found out the results of this. But you did mention in the last meeting I came to that you thought it was too high. I'm back here again to say I'd like to hear something about that second tier. It is ridiculous. I've had a bill go from $80 to $190. And that is just not justified. And it's not fair for everybody. If we're all going to get to charge the same thing, then I won't complain. But I don't like to see somebody's bill at $80 and a friend at $80, and I'm paying $190. Last month it was over $200. So I really wish you'd go back. I think you mentioned it, and I appreciate the fact that you did bring it up at the last meeting that you thought it was too high. I think $30 is just ridiculous. But I thank you for listening to me, and I hope you can really consider working on that second tier. And again, happy holidays. Thank you. Good evening. Becky Steinbruner, resident of Aptos. I want to thank Ms. Miller for again coming to you as a rate payer and asking that you really examine this tier two restructuring that you've done. It is unfair, and it's really causing many people severe economic hardship. I hear it every day out there, and I'm not a rate payer. And Dr. Jaffee, I want to thank you for asking that staff bring it back to the agenda. I see noted that it will not come back on your agenda until next year in the spring. But I also note again, item 6.6 on your agenda today to pay Raftalis money to re-examine this whole issue. What I'd also like to submit for the record is the letter that I wrote and was printed in the Aptos Times, the December 1st, 2019 edition describing the reasons behind the legal action that I've taken against the district and the Peerwater SoCal project. I'd like to submit that for the record so it does indeed get placed in the record and want to, I'll speak more about that before the close session. But I'm very grateful to the Times. They approached me, and I'm grateful to them for asking that there be a balanced story presented to the public. And finally, in the spirit of the season, I just want to thank you for your good staff. I want to thank Ms. Olin for always having a copy of the agenda printed out for me because I have a lot of difficulty reading large documents on the screen. I used to have to contact her every week, and I don't do that. I just go, and it's always there, and so Ms. Olin, I want to thank you. That's very kind of you. You have good people working for you, and I appreciate them. The staff, when I come in, are always very pleasant and always very attentive and respectful, and I'm always very happy for that. And I'm going to miss Vi a lot. She was a gem, as we all know. And at a time when many people, many other staff would walk past, and I had arrived after hours, and I was under a time deadline to get something in to pick something up. Vi would see me waiting at the back door, and she would always stop and come and help me. One time I remember she was driving out of the parking lot with her two kids in the car, and she stopped and came over and talked with me and found out that I had been late in getting because of traffic to pick up a document, and I stayed with her kids in the car, and she went in and got the document I needed. She was a gem, and we're all going to miss her a lot. Thank you. Anyone else? Colonel Terry Maxwell, a rate payer and a customer, and I would agree with the compliments of many of your staff that Miss Steinbrenner makes reference to. They're competent, they give your customers their money's worth, and they go beyond. I can't say that about my interactions with your management and your board. I wish that I could. I'd so much rather just say complimentary things. But the mismanagement that's gone on here by the Soquel Creek Water District, which people have lived here 30 years longer than I have, tell me was endemic long ago. But certainly for the last 25 years, your management, your board decisions have been negligent, have been careless, and perhaps more than compromised to help people like Swenson and other clients, coincidentally of Mr. Basso's friends and associates or buddies. And incidentally, a judge Gallagher ruled against Miss Steinbrenner twice. He had a terrible conflict of interest, having worked for you for 23 years. And Mr. Basso and his partner, plus Mr. Basso negligently, unethically, wrongfully, sought a sanction against Miss Steinbrenner of $6,500 in front of Judge Smalls, who also bent over backwards, I watched it, to accommodate Mr. Basso. That's what Mr. Basso does as an attorney. He helps judges get elected and then those judges accommodate him in ways he wants that are provably, in the opinion of many people I've talked to in this county, unjust and wrongful and unfair. An example is the way Miss Steinbrenner was treated by your lawyer and you all. She's trying to get you to comply with the Environmental Quality Act to protect every one of us in California, and especially children now and in the future in this county. And you've neglected to do that. You've wobbled as badly as the Republicans defending Trump. Now, I submitted a public records request three times. Here's my fourth time. I'd like this in the public record. Principally, I'm asking for the billing records of Mr. Basso's fees and what he's done for you, not that long ago back in 2016. I've asked for the same information regarding Best Krieger and Best. If you don't comply with the California Public Records Act this time, I will take it to the attorney general. Don't compel me to do that. In addition, I've got a public statement here for the record as well. If you put that on the public record. And that relates to the fact that Mr. Basso got accommodations from Judge Smalls and Judge Gallagher that are downright unethical, unprincipled and wrongful. Why do you participate this way? Why can't you just comply with the law, treat Miss Steinbrenner with the dignity she deserves, and why do you demonstrate such negligence, paying Best, Best and Krieger hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lawsuit against a lady by herself asking you to comply with the law. Mr. Basso could have saved you all that money and the embarrassment is going to come by telling you to comply with the law. That was unethical for him not to do so. Thank you. I, for one, reject your vile and incorrect comments about our attorney, Mr. Basso. I have to mention slanderous. Okay, moving on. Anyone else? I'd actually like to, this brings up a point. I'll make a joke of it, but then I'll make the serious point. On our agenda tonight is compensation for being a director. And I wonder how much compensation we get for being yelled at, slandered, et cetera. That's the joke, because I don't expect any. But when there's a tax made, slanderous attacks, and I don't want my answer now from our new attorney, but I'd like an answer when it's been researched. What do we have to allow? Absolutely. Because the meetings have become, and I think it's because they're televised and members of the public think that they can get their message out to people because they're televised. I'm not sure that's why, but I'd just like to know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Yeah, I'll work with Ron and staff and we'll get you that information. Thank you. Yes, I came here tonight to honor a great man who's done a great service for this entire community for the last 50 years, and I'm appalled at the way he's being treated. He is the most ethical, upstanding citizen in this community. No one is better than he is. And he does, he, I can't believe what's being said about him tonight, and I find it incredibly objectionable and disgusting. Thank you. Next, anyone else? He's not alone. I mean, we all get called that too, so. Anyone else? Then I think we're moving on. Any board comment? I would like to mention that, you know, there's been reports of people having 200, 300, blah, blah, blah, $100 raises, and that cannot happen without people using more water this year than they used last year. Whether the number is 86 that was in the what's on tap or 156, you can't get a 200, 300, $400 increase in your rates without using a lot more water. It's just impossible. So a lot of people are complaining about it and they need to look at their own situations. It may be a leak. They don't know about. We have services to help them, you know, and they need to call on us to find those because, indeed, you know, $200 raise or $300 raise is obnoxious. And you'd like to find it and fix it and not have it again. So please call on us to help. I do have one thing. Please. I noticed that two of the ex directors are here, Jack, BB and Dan Cregan. Thank you for coming. I assume it's to honor Bob and I apologize for you having to put up with the public comments that are slanderous. Okay, so the other thing is that you have to compare apples with apples. I mean, tell me what one bill was and what another bill was. You're not talking about how much water was used. So one family of four used $86 worth of water and another household of four used 200. I mean, that's that's the real comparison, not how many people are in the house. Okay, so we move on after that to management update 5.1. Sure. I don't have anything additional to add to the conservation customer service field. Are there any questions? Couple just you had mentioned that you talked about Valley and they had some lessons learned about their experience. And also, I just wondered if we're finding any leaks more quickly now that we're starting to use that system in part of the district. We're finding leaks really quickly. We're checking the leaks, leak reports and notifications every morning and then following up on those that same day. Oh, excellent. Not on the weekends. We're not working Saturday and Sunday, but still. And then once a month for sure. Yeah, and we have about 4,000 services now that are reading to the AMI system. Great. And did Scotts Valley have anything helpful to add? They did mainly related to the portal. They tried to roll out their free customer portal through their meter manufacturer who's different than ours. And there were some limitations with that and they ended up pulling it back because they didn't feel that it met their needs. And so their advice was, you only really want to do that once because otherwise it confuses people. They think they've already set up a log in and and then now they have to do it again. And so that was one of the big tips. Work out the bugs and make sure you stick with it. And then they used a different system and now they're using WaterSmart. Correct. We're going to look at WaterSmart and some other products that are out there. Thanks. Just a question. I noticed that you're verifying that the leaks are indeed happening. What's the status on that? Are we finding that there's false reports of leaks? Sometimes it's like people leave water on and maybe they've turned it off. The meters are more sensitive than I think what we've seen with the drive-by metering system. And so especially for like multi-family complexes where there is more commonly 24-hour continuous usage, that's what the leaks are based on. So it's much harder to verify that there's an actual leak in those cases without doing a full water shutoff. But for single-family homes, I think we're seeing if there's a leak alarm, then there's a leak going on. And probably I would say 95% of the cases. And I think you've also shared with me that there have been several instances of water hoses just being left on. So it's not a leak per se, but it's still... We've probably found in the last few months 10 people that have had a hose running that was left on. Imagine they're going to let them know that it was happening. Oh yeah, we're shutting it off and letting people know. And if it's of a significant threshold and nobody's home, then we turn the water surface off, leave the door hanger, and then follow it back up. And with these false positives, are you exploring ways to decrease it by changing the algorithm in some way, or is there flexibility in that? Yeah, we haven't quite got there yet, but we will be taking a look at that, especially for the multifamily. You can turn off the leak alarm, but there's some risks in doing that. Sure. But can you say the leak alarm goes off when these things happen instead of those things? Yeah, you can actually reprogram each meter. So we could change the factor on that, and that would change the leak detection capability. Anything else? With the weekend issue, at some point we could use emails and text numbers for people and even let them know on weekends. It wouldn't be so as complete as having a person show up, but at least they'd have some warning that there might be a problem. Yeah, once we get a customer portal in place, people can sign up for text alerts or email alerts, and that'll be an automatic feature. I'd like to have that savings there as well as we can. Yeah, definitely. Anything? Okay. Engineering's next. Good evening. There's a couple items here that you haven't seen before, and the one, the third bullet, it talks about a trench failure in La Selva Beach that the county public works has come to us and said, we'd like you to fix that. And it's a big, it's a big 3000 linear feet of water main trench that was installed in 81. And you know, the roads out there aren't the best to begin with. And so it's, but anyways, they've requested us and we are required to fix it. So we're working on a strategy to do that and we'll have to bring that to you for bidding and approval. And so we are planning to put a PG&E service out at the Canyondale Soul Tank. That's our one site that doesn't have power. And top of the list there is startup at Granite Way. Well, next week, we get our PG&E meter for that tomorrow. And any questions or comments on any of the other items? Thank you. Thank you. O&M. Yeah, she's not here, but we're more than willing. I guess we can talk. The second bullet does acknowledge that the city called us or we called a meeting with the city. And we were able to open the intertie on December 6th due to the weather change in the weather. And Christine points out that we're bringing in just under a million gallons a day there. Okay. Any issues with that turn on? No, not at this time. Okay. Well, yes, there were some. They had to throttle the intertie so that it was peaky and getting up to 1,700 gallons a minute. It quickly settles down, but the city asked us to kind of get that a little more predictable. And so they throttled it down to a more manageable. And it prevents starting and stopping so it stays on for a longer duration. It was typically running about 12 to 13 hours over the course of a day. And I believe this time we don't actually have a boundary, do we? No. So, but still very much of it goes to area one and then a little bit spills over to area two and then maybe a touch to three and et cetera. Yeah, I won't go to three because there's a pump station there that would need to be activated for that. We did notify service area one and two customers. Okay. But that amount of water wouldn't necessarily make it for far end to two. That's right. Any other questions? Thank you for that one as well. Special projects? Yeah, Melanie's not able to be with us tonight. I was invited to a program that has some of the leaders in the state on recycle water from Berkeley, Stanford, the state itself. And so she's attending that two-day event to provide input. They wanted to know about Surewater Soquel and its successes and things they can take from that to help further the state alone. Right. Any other, it says items will be presented? Nothing else to report. Okay. Special project finance report. I don't necessarily have anything to add, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Questions? I guess not. Thank you. We'll see you later though. Human resources? I can just answer any questions. Nothing to add. Any questions? Looks like not. And general manager. Yeah. I'll just report out that I'm very appreciative and grateful to work with this organization. The leadership of the board, each and one of you bring your own perspective. You donate so much time and effort to it and to the management staff and to the organization as an entire entity. It's a privilege to be in this seat and to work with all of you all. I will add, since I know it's going to get, you know, in a bigger flair about Bob Basso, I remember, and since Jack and Dan are here, Laura Brown, you know, a previous general manager for Soquel Creek Water District, walking in her office one day and she was just smiling. I said, you know, I said, what's up? And she goes, that Bob Basso, he is the most ethical guy I know, you know, and that always stuck in my mind. And I know she had great respect for you, Bob, and we'll get to you in a minute. But that comment in particular, just I wanted to share that. Okay. So any public comment on this management update? Thank you. Becky Steinbrunner, resident of Aptas. I want to thank Mr. Dufour for the engineering report. I have written regarding the Granite Way well and the aesthetics of that site. I have written your board and I never got a response. It is in the view of many who have to pass by it very unsightly. And I don't see any indication that there will be landscaping to soften the fence, the very high fence all around it. This week there were some low growing succulents put in on the corner of Trout Gulch and Cathedral, but nothing to really soften the structure. This is nothing at all like what I was given back in 2015 when the Aptas Village project design was modified and the well site was moved to this location. Mr. Dufour at that time sent me pictures and talked about how it would fit in with the character of the neighborhood. This does not fit in with the character of the neighborhood. Unless, as I put in my letter jokingly, you want to call this the jail associated with the nearby Mid County Safety Center for the sheriff. But I really hope that you will put some vines or something there because it is very unsightly. I also want to commend you on initiating the surface water transfer pilot project. I wonder why there was not similar fanfare in public media about it this year as there was last year. I would like to see you emphasize that more publicly because it is part of your community water plan and people do want to know what is happening. I think it is a great example of you cooperating with the City of Santa Cruz and I would like to see it highlighted and made more public in the media. I am happy to hear, Chairman Daniels, that it will indeed include Service Area 2 because that was not stated in what is on tap as I pointed out to you earlier. And finally, I want to just point out that in your finance report, it talks about the next scheduled rate increase beginning January 1st and becoming effective in February. And that was, I did not see that in your what is on tap either. The people are going to be unhappy. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay, no one? District Council, oral report please. Yes, I think probably two meetings ago or maybe three, I mentioned this case called Wild versus Dunn's Mirror. And in my understanding, that was a case which held that you could have a referendum on Prop 218 rates. And at the time what I had read said it was not being taken by the Supreme Court, that was wrong. Supreme Court has taken that case. It's been brief, they haven't said oral argument. And that was a third district case out of Sacramento. The interesting thing is that since that case, the third district has had another case, Amador County Water Agency, in which they've taken the opposite position that Prop 218 does not allow referendum. And the notation in that case is we previously held the other way. They don't really say what that means, but it's indication that perhaps they're having second thoughts. And hopefully the Supreme Court will say the same thing. That is, you can have an initiative on Prop 218, but not referendum. So to wait and see, now Joss gets to watch. Good that it's clear now. Okay, now we move on to our administrative business. There is no conditional or unconditional will serves. We're at 6.1 and we now go to 6.2. A resolution honoring Robert Barbasso. Yeah, Tracy, before you jump in, let me just, the way staff might recommend that this could go tonight is that Tracy will say a few words and... I already... Okay, great, thank you. You've got to work that. We're good. Well, I get the great pleasure tonight of handing you the memo For the resolution in honor of Bob Basso. I know we all have wonderful things to say, but I'm gonna pass this one over to the board Okay, thank you So I'm going to read our item on this all these where as is resolution of the Board of Directors of the Soco Creek Water District and appreciation appreciation of Robert Bob Basso District Council General Council 1969 to 2019 50 years The Board of Directors of Soco Creek Water District as December 17th 2019 meeting made the following findings recitals Whereas Robert Bob Basso began representing the legal interests of the Soco Creek Water District in 1969 after serving as captain in the US Army Intelligence Bob earned his law degree from the University of California Berkeley Boat Hall School of Law in 1964 and is admitted to the State Bar in 1965 and Whereas now in 2019 after 50 years of sound high quality legal representation Bob is retiring as the district's general counsel and Whereas Bob is easily the area's most well-versed legal expert on county water issues Having served as general counsel for the Soco Creek Water District for 50 years Representing other county water districts and serving many long-established Santa Cruz businesses and individual clients on water law and land lease matters and Whereas Bob Is a recognized leader in the state of California water agency legal affairs community having served for many years as a member of the Association of California Water Agency's Legal Affairs Committee representing district concerns and staying on the pulse of water issues statewide And whereas Bob is respected as an attorney with heart and compassion Who consistently gives back to his community whether it's his involvement with Habitat for Humanity the Santa Cruz boys and girls club Or as a lecture in economics at UC Santa Cruz teaching law in the business environment to economics and legal studies students and Whereas Bob's ability to communicate issues from a legally sound perspective in a way that is sensible and easily understood Has been a gift to the board indeed staff and district customers and the public and Whereas Bob is recognized by the board and staff for being extremely responsive and accessible even when he's on vacation And whereas Bob has unsurpassed quick wit and a rise sense of humor that always brings a smile to the face of those He works with and a well-timed levity to challenging matters and Whereas Bob is flexible yet rigid when it's necessary He is balanced and never short of creative bright ideas and now there Be let it be resolved by the board of directors of the Soquel Creek water district They we all join in in extending our sincere appreciation for Robert Bob Bossos remarkable 50 years of legal President Representation to the district and for the innumerable contributions and legacy. He will be leaving with the district Past and adopted by the board of directors This 17th say of December by the following vote We have a motion in second all in favor We're going to do a couple photos and then we have a little slide Yeah, if we want to go ahead and queue up this live presentation now I think that'd be great and then I know Tosh has something very very special On behalf of all of the district that My wife's here, where will this go in the house? This represents how flexible but firm you are I Will say something and or do you want to go why don't you go first Dan? Good evening members of the board my name's Dan Kriggy and I stood around here a long time over the years I think I've spent more Tuesday nights with Bob Bossel than anybody else in the world other than Suzanne After about 40 years. We had a lot of Tuesday nights together When I came here, I came from a water district. I was working well just had an extremely Fine attorney. He was well-known nationwide and at least statewide and nationwide and did a lot of writings and things And when I came here I on the board I watched Mr. Bossel and I thought to myself on what he what he's going to do, you know Hardly out of out of college and how he got a lot of agreement anyway He got the job here and over the years I watched him and the way he he really took over as not just the attorney for this district, but kind of a guiding hand and I think that Most water districts most agencies most government agencies don't have that kind of thing And I go back to Bob Bossel and then Laura Brown and then Ron as managers I think they could attest maybe they don't even realize it But Bob always had this guiding hand where he did it with humor And but he did it also where we knew that yeah He was probably right and we should follow his direction and he never pushed anything other than when he had to say that's it they do the line but overall I think it is basic in Integrity and his ability to work with people just made everybody like him and I for one really have had a Great honor just to be working with him for so many years, and I wish you real well Bob And I just want to add that you know it's one thing to to know your stuff and to be Have that integrity and to really know the law and to know the water system, but to also Be a joy to work with and really care about the district And that's shown all the time that you really care about what happens, you know, so thank you I'd like to follow up by mentioning that we've often considered him the sixth member of the board He almost votes sometimes we have to stifle him to not vote, but Because he often knows as much as sometimes better than us And so it's great to have that resource here, and we all appreciate that. Thank you Jack Do you want to say some things? What more can I say? It's been a privilege and an honor to have served on the board and have Bob Basel as our legal counsel I think I have a unknown fact that the board and probably the members of the board of the Audience don't remember, but mr. Basel is also an engineer And he served as the Additional head engineer to the district and I can say good luck to your Bob and thanks again for everything Please Sorry, I wasn't planning on speaking my name is Tracy Basel Nielsen. This is my father He's gonna cry 50 years is a long time that was before I was born and I remember This is my first time being here at a Soco Creek Water District meeting welcome But I remember my dad going to a lot of them growing up and I remember Seeing him come home for a quick bite and then taking off for a meeting My dad always always put his family first and I feel like People here also were part of his family and he enjoyed his time here so much and we are so proud of him And congratulations. Love you Though I feel that us here on the board feel like he always put us first. I mean he puts everybody first My name is Becky Steinbrenner We have not always had the the most friendly relationship, but it's been very respectful And I want to thank you and I have worked in this past year quite a lot with mr. John Cole Who is a rate payer that took the district to court and won? And John Cole always has the highest opinion of you and has counseled me that way. He said I Like Bob you can work with Bob. He'll work with you and you demonstrated that over the time this year that I have had experiences with the district in legal matters and Most favorably I remember that the time when we had the one and only telephone conference in your office and you were really nice to work with and And you you put me at ease you were fair you were firm and It what it turned out to be a very good experience because of your your knowledge your willingness to work with people and I appreciate that very much and we'll continue. Thank you very much. Good luck to you And I hope you get to have some good gardening moments Thank you anyone else Well, we're gonna take a little break then because we've got a little bit of refreshment back here in honor of mr. Basso Yeah, let's get a picture with the board and then Bob and then Dan if you could get up there and there's Jack still here We have a slingshot Just for I Did you see all of them thing? Yeah I think we're back on the air next item is 6.3 review and appointment of board members to various standing committees and boards yes there's a mistake right there the public outreach committee is Tom not me okay public outreach right okay thank you for catching that so what we got in front of you tonight are the committees or boards that that you can point each other to what we try to do in the memo and Emma had a lot of help in putting this together thank you is list out all the committees or boards that are available to you not that some of them need to be elected on now but we wanted you to have the full breath so you didn't like say I want to be on that later you know have regret or whatever so just to start from a high level so there's three standing committees those are laid out pretty and there they need to be action taken on those tonight if you want to change then you also have the Santa Cruz-Mid County groundwater agency which dr. LeHue and dr. Daniels are on it's dr. LeHue that's a term will be up in March so it's not it's still got a little wasted yeah so it's not in March now it's not it's not up now but we wanted to put that I mean you could vote extending it whether you know it or not yeah and by the way those meetings are not going to be every other month they're not going to court right yeah we're gonna that's correct thank you for for staying that so it'd be less of a load zone five which director Christensen is now on and I believe that one is is up tonight is that right oh it's up next year okay okay no term limits and then then of course there's a laugh co worth doctor I mean director Lathar was recently appointed to so that one still has to run its course I believe so anyway with that I think what you focus on tonight are the three standing committees and any other committees that you'd recommend are boards the MGA might want to go ahead and take care of that even even though it doesn't change if you do change until March well any preferences I'm hoping Tom you're gonna still do MGA I would like to but I don't know if we'd wait till March or do it now that's good to know because we can plan for that in the future I mean it says it expires then so it's just a matter can we yeah you can renew it now yeah you could definitely renew an ounce of order like and I would like to continue on the MGA as well let's do it now I mean I don't know how much it's going to meet but I'd also want to point out that the zone five schedule and the public outreach schedule are in conflict oh jeez unavoidably so it's either or on that one for sure and then the other aspect of it is you know it's about a 10 minute meeting and they don't really discuss more budget budgets public public works projects and budget furthermore the neck the other thing I observe from being on it for now five years and just going it not all the times but anyway is I think they raid especially as in 2017 particular roads were washed out so what do you recommend that we not have somebody regularly attend and just monitor the agenda to see if there's yeah so we did make a point of attending a comprehensive report on the drainage capital Stefan Carlin who is city council member and that was the only thing anyone outside the county did the report and she's already off the floor they had a question about you said that you said public outreach and the flood control conflict but one public outreach is on the second Tuesday and the other ones on the fourth Tuesday yeah somehow they maybe they counsel maybe the fourth Tuesday is correct maybe they pick other days yes they can cancel okay so that's not a voting position you have no vote but five supervisors so they kind of rule the roost yeah and just so you know we're checking right now I mean two options to come to mind you could change the public outreach committee meeting time I'm not suggesting that but or we're just checking to see if you if you can appoint a staff member to attend as a representative I'm not sure that's able but we just want to give you full options not a vine for that I did that for a while and it's unclear it would be worth staff members time to go there and sit and approve the agenda and some of the stuff is just very anyone's time great another option might be you could still appoint some board member and just monitor the agenda and if it was like a crucial meeting or something yeah I'd be willing to do that a 15-minute meeting sounds like I work on the west side so yeah okay another thing that from when I did it is that it was always on the county's agenda but they kind of played with their agenda sometimes so sometimes you go in at nine and sit there until they take it at 11 30 or something that was just changed so that would make it work but it's usually in the morning at 10 30 so can I make a motion that Bruce does the flood control yes second okay that's gonna have us I believe so we were talking about the public outreach for water resources okay water resources I'd like to stay on that and I would too but I need to be to want to switch them we could let's do that then anyone else want to be on that one still going to be an alternate but there's someone else would like it it's fine the other two are pretty good I don't think I've gone on that committee this year so they show I don't even if I do hit traffic sometimes yeah okay so we'll switch those two positions just kind of nice that way Carl is not chair of every subcommittee I know okay so we make a motion on each one or we're gonna do them all together that's okay so this one that one's Rachelle and Carla and you the alternate but there was a good two are gonna switch okay okay and public outreach who wants to do that one I mean I'm still fine to do it even though it says I'm not I'd be willing to be an alternate but obviously there would be conflicts if there was the flight control going on the same time so I don't know if that's a good idea I don't think I've ever been called okay I'll volunteer not to be cold and Carla do you still want to be the chair that we can switch it if you want I don't care either way but that's fine yeah so so then it'd be me and Carla and then Bruce has the alternate okay what about finance everybody happy I'll do it but someone else could take it if they want especially I'm getting I'm especially more interested in the coming I think there'll still be lots of challenges there so if you're into it that'd be great okay so that one doesn't change that I guess but we decide on who's chairing the public outreach did you switch that cover it I think oh the big county are we gonna extend it their way to March we can vote now if you want to extend it how long should we extend it for another year another year so we'll talk about it so yeah why don't we put it on the same schedule yeah that makes sense yeah we do all the same time and so for the coming year it would be Tom and Bruce and Charlie would you want to be the alternate yeah I haven't gone lately I think it's less demanding now there will be the only thing really going on is the reports that we have to do a year update comes out soon April budget we know there's actually one here that wasn't mentioned and this goes dates back from quite a while to one of the directors of the JPIA for aqua and that was about five years ago also and I'm on the groundwater committee formalize those so well yeah for the awkward I might I'd recommend bringing that back at a future meeting but the MGA could absolutely be acted on tonight extra point that out that we'll bring it back at a subsequent meeting some of them like the groundwater committee in aqua you can have as many members as you want so it's not restricted to you one per region kind of a thing or two and so if any of you wanted to be on the groundwater committee or the water quality committee or the water management committee those all happen in order on month on Tuesdays before the conference actually starts and the next one will be in Monterey so the spring so you want to get have it on the agenda before then and we could talk about it well anyone can show up at those meetings so you can show up and listen to it and it's very informative I mean there's always the state board's always there and they've spent about an hour talking about Sigma and then P to VR is there I mean the state boards there and they talk about that's for the groundwater committee that's why I like that's why I put my name back in for this next session but anyone can show up and you in fact can get on it late so if you wanted to put in an application you could do it now and you know be on maybe in the spring so anyway it's I don't think that's something we need to pick and choose on No, you regret that I didn't go I didn't have any specific questions I didn't have any water I don't know we'll just bet anyway So aqua and the water reuse from the same month? Aquas usually But that we will talk about that item when we get up to it because we do want to give you the breadth of conferences going on during that period too so you can think about weight to that item right so ready for a motion I think we need a motion now so I'll take a shot at it so the Water Resources Management Infrastructure Committee is gonna we're gonna switch Carla to Vice Chair and Michelle to chair and you're gonna be alternate still Bruce right and then public outreach so Tom is gonna be the chair Carla is gonna be the vice chair and I'll be the alternate right and the finance we're gonna keep the same right so I did did want to swap the chairs on that not necessarily I mean Carl's doing a great job so okay we'll keep it the same yeah and then for the MGA we're gonna switch to a different schedule of going from December to December so that we hit all these at the same time and then we're gonna have the same people Tom and and Bruce Daniels are gonna be the the main people and Carla's gonna be alternate that's kind of interesting is that Bruce Bruce's and Carlos aren't up until March 2022 well we were after I think that was something that was set at based on terms and I think if when you elected elected right and I think if one of them withdraws then the board could replace them even though it's not a schedule that's correct we decided that you know you can do it any time Carla which should be the one of the seats then that person could design and we could put Carl in that spot it makes sense to do it in December yeah because the elections are in November right well we can also make all the decisions at the same time because it's kind of nice to spread them out so each one has a responsibility right we know yeah yeah so we'll basically we'll keep that same group till next December and then we'll reevaluate okay and was there anything else yeah laughter we don't have to do anything because and then but you were gonna do from zone 5 oh yeah I'm gonna do flight control yeah that cover okay I was gonna say just a second well in favor hi I see now must yeah okay that's a bit of time 6.4 review and consider compensation good evening on an annual basis the board considers its compensation in accordance with so Cal Creek Water District ordinance 1501 and in compliance with section 20202 of Division 10 of the California Water Code and basically those two rules provide for any adjustment cannot exceed 5% each year of the original adopted compensation which is $100 from the onset of this ordinance plus any unused adjustment from previous years so I've attached the history of the director's annual compensation adjustments that have taken place since 1992 as you can see the last adjustment that the board made for itself was back in 2007 8 in the amount of a 6.66 increase and what happens is the board has the opportunity to look at an annual adjustment of no more than 5% with the option of carrying over anything that's not used on a cumulative basis so this year the board has the ability to make any adjustment to its compensation based upon the cumulative available amount that's set forth in the memo and shown on the table of attachment number one I've also included as backup information the director health and welfare benefits that are provided to so-called Creek Water District Board of Directors and this is based on some information showing the 2020 rates for our health benefits plan year which is effective January 1st so I can answer any questions if you have them I doubt it so what do you want to do folks did the same for a long time yeah 11 years I think we should get combat pay I don't think there's enough I'm good with it how much would you like to increase it and just as a reminder what you're talking about the increasing of $40 to the $160 per day for each day's attendance all in favor okay so that passes $40 increase what else do we forget about for 11 years service within the county currently it's $80 per day proportional so be $20 increase of that it's always been half it's always been half right and the last one is direct staff to incorporate these changes into the board reimbursement policy and return to support review and approval those modifications so as noted in the memo that's a separate document and it has specific dollar amounts in it so I'd have to bring that back we have to make direct we have to direct staff yes okay I'll make the motion all favor hi okay good yes as Leslie makes her way up here with her still injured leg again I know I say this every year but to me you know why don't we get our chairs yeah do you need a chair okay I'm gonna make it quick okay we may not make it quick anyway outstanding job we get all kinds of recognition and awards for the work that goes her and Ryan do the way she sums it up in the first trend in the transmittal letter and the statistics at the back I say or a mush read so thank you Leslie for all all the effort that goes in house so unfortunately our audit partner was not able to make it this evening so the good news is you've got me and I may move through it a little more quickly than he might have but these are his slides so I'm just gonna recap real quick feedback and Brown did perform the 2019 audit for us it was performed in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles or gap and then the next page shows that we did receive an unmodified clean opinion and I have to give a shout out to our supervising accountant Ryan Kenny he's pretty much taken over the audit function and he's done a fantastic job so just real quickly on the next slide we'll go ahead and they did not identify any material weaknesses in our internal control environment and the one thing I do want to point out that has changed over prior years of the is they've changed the way they're handling our financial accounting for the MGA in the past that contribution to the MGA was simply expensed in our operating expenses and this time they took a look at it and they read the MGA JPA contract and they decided that instead of being an expense item it's an equity investment in a JPA so they went ahead and did a prior period adjustment for our 2018 financials to reflect that change in accounting the way they're handling it from an accounting perspective and then you'll see it flow through on to the 2019 so what it usually these are you know assets that have a value and I don't know what the JPA has that you'd consider well the the contract of the JPA indicates that if it were to be dissolved or an agency were to back out that they would get the net position that they have in the agency so we wouldn't get back everything we've put into it but anything that hasn't been utilized so it's the current we would get back balance if you will different audit with a different firm two weeks ago yeah they're taking exactly the same position okay under gas being it's an end to why this year they discovered that that was a different treatment I don't know but but they did change it the advantage to us is we don't have that large outflow in our operating expenditures so it does stand to help us on our debt coverage ratio a little bit so just real quickly to move through this this is just the financial highlights this is a statement of net position that gives us our assets our liabilities and then our net position our net position did increase for the year by 2.9 million but I do want to point out that that increase was not in the unrestricted net position that increase was mainly in investment in capital assets so what that means from a district perspective is our capital facilities reserve when we typically take a little bit of that and move it into the reserve it's when we see a gain in in unrestricted net position this year we did not see a gain we saw $32,000 decrease so there's nothing to move into the capital facilities reserve this year up there the there's current and noncurrent and I our operation current current and on current liabilities so what that is is current is anything that is expected to be paid within the next 12 months are received next correct anything 12 months are further outward is considered a noncurrent asset or noncurrent liability and anything way way out there is it's not distinguished from anything that's six months in a day no it's just okay one or one or the other okay and then the deferred outflows and inflows you saw there were actually our pension and our OPEB liabilities and and expenditures so given given that this qualification is made it is there any reason as far as we're concerned of whether it's current or noncurrent no it just gives you an idea of what we anticipate our liabilities to be over the next year and then mainly the ones that are noncurrent liabilities are those things like our OPEB responsibilities debt that's not within the next 12 months the other thing is our compensated absences for employees that's farther out than 12 months all of those things is what are rolling into noncurrent liabilities more of a cash flow issue then right it just gives you an idea of what we expect to come up the next 12 months so on the next slide we've got this is the snapshot of our changes in that position and this is what kind of really tells you what our operating revenues and our operating expenditures were for the year and our operating revenues were down slightly mainly because of a slight decrease in water consumption revenue and the reason for that decrease was of course the change in our rates that happened in July of 2018 after the lawsuit we had to do away with tier two so that caused us a little bit of a downturn as well as a slight reduction in consumption for the year I thought I read in the opening section that the difference between our enterprise and a business enterprise is we don't do depreciation but we do do we do depreciate our capital assets just the cap so the difference the difference is in the way we handle it from a budget perspective and the way we handle it from an accounting perspective we depreciate on our financial statements but we don't factor in for depreciation in our budget because it's not really a cash expenditure so we do do depreciation is just handled differently than right we just don't budget for corporations so okay so go ahead and go to the next slide and so here you can see the water consumption sales were down a little over half a million this year but water service charges were up so that kind of offset each other so revenue revenue stayed pretty close to where they were in 2018 but we did have an increase in our expenditures if you go to the next slide we did have an increase in our operating expenditures of 1.7 million so what that meant for us is because revenues were about the same but operating expenses increased we did have a decrease in our debt coverage ratio we went from a little over 3% down to 2.3 so that's something we'll have to continue to watch as we move forward going out for debt what's the magic number we have a 1.7 target we can't drop below 1.2 and then the 2019 in terms of the assets the water charges it includes raised rates it did include the raised rates effective March 1st that's correct that number reflects the cost of the preliminary studies for pure water so Cal so anything that's done in advance of making a decision to move forward on the project winds up being expensed for the year whereas once a decision has been made to go ahead and create a capital asset and we start construction and design and all that stuff we can begin to capitalize those expenses and so they stay off of the statement of net positions and they just they just stay out there until we're ready to capitalize the asset and begin depreciating it but as long as there's still kind of feasibility or preliminary work we have to expense those as we go and so that's why you see a higher number for sources of supply and what's the marker for that we've proved the our project the marker for us was about December 2018 okay but this this covers July 2018 right so half a year so about half a year we started to capitalize those expenditures now so where those show up from now on those will actually stay in CIP so you'll see it on the on the balance sheet portion under assets and then once construction is done we'll move it into the fixed asset account and then you'll begin to see depreciation on that we don't depreciate until it's that's an investment not an expense correct okay correct we have seen an increase in our interest receivable I guess that's on the previous slide we did make quite a bit more on our investments this year than we had in prior years and I don't expect that to necessarily continue I expected to trend downward again as we begin begin to use some of those funds that we had otherwise invested plus the markets turned a little bit so we're not getting as good a return so go through and that's just a quick financial highlight of everything I've already kind of explained to you on the tables that we just looked at if you've got any questions I'm happy to answer them or if you had any comment on the cap for itself I'm happy to incorporate there were some things that were deferred and some things that were prepaid and I didn't quite yeah deferred in flows and outflows are mainly what we're dealing with in terms of our pension when we recognize those our pension liabilities and our OPEB liabilities those are to comply with GASB 45 and GASB 75 they recognize those deferred in flows and outflows in terms of prepaid expenses when we purchase something to be used in a future period like software license so we bought a software license in January and it goes January to December we only recognize half of that expenditure in the year the rest of it's considered a prepaid for the next year okay I appreciate your attention to detail and thank Ryan for us to it's every year we keep getting you know an opinion that everything's transparent and runs smoothly and really appreciate that so much so I even I guess we have to have public comment anyone wants to comment on this document thank you Becky Steinburn resident of Aptos this is a very extensive report and I am not good at accounting but I do enjoy seeing figures presented transparently I want to bring your attention to page 149 of this report the financial highlights and again I'll just repeat the district's operating revenues decreased the decrease in water consumption revenue was largely offset with increased service charge revenue due to a rate increase in April revenues increased 16.25 percent in 2018 because of the other rate increase that had happened the district's operating expenses increased 14.57 percent source of supply costs increased by nearly two million dollars or 83.11 percent compared to fiscal year 2018 due to increased spending on the district's advanced purified water supplemental supply project pure water so Cal it's been a very expensive project for you and it will continue to be so if you build it so I hope you won't because the water transfers can accomplish a great deal of what you're trying to do with this at a much less energy cost and cost to your rate payers I want to point out that you are a not-for-profit agency I want to commend your rate payers for decreasing their use by 83 acre feet that is reporting on reported on page I believe it is 153 and that's to be commended so please don't punish them with further rate increases on page 213 it talks about the water demand offset credits and I'm nearly out of time page 214 it talks about the expenses again being increased by 14.57 percent nearly two million dollars I I don't understand the debt service ratio date debt coverage ratio there's no definition in your report here at least I couldn't find it so as a member of the public that would be a very helpful thing and I know that it has been decreasing over time and that is of concern I think and should be to your rate payers the net income after debt service is decreased by two million dollars and that's largely to your pure water efforts that have been again very expensive on page 222 I have a question it states employment yeah time's up all right well just if you can clarify those many of those agencies reported as being employers within your district or within the county and so I think that's misinformation in your report thank you the debt service covers ratio is covered on page 158 of 234 so if you want to learn more about it there it is and now no and I'd like to talking about mistakes it is a mistake to say that this transfer thing would save us money in fact the city has said over and over again that the cost to us after this trial is over would be more than pure water soquel cost that's the truth so let's we need to approve this now I was going to make a motion that we accept the report a second we have a motion and a second all in favor all right that's unanimous thank you and I think we did not take public comment no we didn't use to so so if anyone wants to comment on 6263 or 64 we we did have public comment on Bob's 6364 6364 well since there doesn't seem to be any public comment we want to vote again on those do we need to vote again you don't need to there was an opportunity for someone to approach the podium no one did and no one objected so I just like to recognize another thing that that Leslie has been very diligent at in terms of trying to benefit our customers and that's where we have money you know we have a certain policy and it's very conservative because we're you know it's our public's money but where where there is latitude and it's appropriate she has shifted money from one CD to another and try to time it to the result of thousands of dollars to the benefit of our customers and so thank you for taking time breathing bringing that to our attention and for doing it a lot of agencies would let that slide and you don't so thank you this care and attention that way we've come to expect but still we do appreciate thank you so we're done I guess I've got the next one too okay six six so item 6 6 is to approve funding from our OCR operating contingent to reserve to fund some work that we propose being done by Raft tell us to update the finance plan when we did the finance plan in preparation for the rate study it was done in summer of 2018 and at that time we had some preliminary project costs but we hadn't actually identified the supplemental supply project pure water soquel yet as being the project we were going to move forward on and since that time we have noted some changes to project costs we've also secured funding from the state of California and from the federal government in terms of with you alone so what we're proposing is that we have Raft tell us take another look at the finance plan take a look at projected costs and funding streams for this particular project and take a look at how that will impact tier two if it if it has an impact on tier two in the near term and so that will cost us thirty two thousand eight hundred and thirty eight according to Sanjay's proposal and we're asking that from the operating contingency reserve since we're going into our second of those rates that they calculated what period are you planning this one to go forward the same one we have to we this is not a new rate study it's simply an addendum to our existing rates study so the window would still be the twenty twenty three window okay we wouldn't be changing that we wouldn't be going back out for another proposition to 18 it's assumed that the costs would be lower if there is any savings in the near term okay I just do want to caveat a little bit I've I've had the opportunity to speak with people about this proposal and as Sanjay has kind of explained it to us we were looking at a five-year time frame for rates the cost savings that we project that we anticipate from grants and loans is probably going to be outside that window but that's why we're asking him to take a look at it again well we also have to I think we need to think about what what we're doing this for why why are we doing this and I think some of it for me at least is to let the folks know about the savings they will probably look forward to and it's unfortunate that this is you know this window is so tight because I mean a lot of folks don't realize this is all of them but certainly the the grant is reimbursement situation so we actually have to raise money to do that thing do the thing and then fill out a reimbursement document to send to the state and or whoever to actually get the and then it comes back and so that could we first of all we have to estimate how long that cycle takes and if it takes a long time it may not be in that window so people will get the wrong impression that there's not much benefit from them for all this stuff and then they're going to wonder what are you doing with all this money you just got five million dollars and fifty million dollars and they're seeing no benefit from it so I would actually like to see this thing done five or six years into the future for that reason so that we could actually show people you know that the savings would actually eventually accrue to them versus well and I've kind of had to explain to people it's similar to taking out a mortgage on your home so you take out a million dollar mortgage for a home and your monthly payments are five thousand dollars a month and somewhere along the line you have an uncle that passes away and leaves you half a million dollars but it trickles in over time your mortgage payment doesn't decrease over the length of your 30 year mortgage you'll only pay five hundred thousand dollars for your home but unless you refinance that monthly payment doesn't change so our debt obligation won't change over the near term probably but we'll have Sanjay take a look at that based on the cash flows coming in and as you said most of them are reimbursement based cash flows so first we have to incur the cost and then we've got to wait for that money to be released I guess yeah go ahead are the with you alone and the low-interest loan through the state also reimbursement I believe the SWCC loan through the state is going to be a reimbursement I believe the with you alone is drawdown we can draw down we have to have been invoiced for the expenditure so we've had we have to have the work done we have to be invoiced but we don't actually have to have paid the invoice to be able to submit it to with you so that's one that we may be that might be a little faster yeah I believe what I hear director president Daniel saying is in some way you know we know that our ratepayers are going to benefit by 50 million dollars of essentially free money from the state and 86 million in low interest loan or somewhere they're about to be on how much we take and so how to try to demonstrate that there is a there is a tangible benefit and how you know with money and time cash flow that it's a it's it's difficult but we'll do our best to try to demonstrate that obviously there is a well I guess what I'm asking for is can Sanjay do a three-year which would be the rest of our of our account now and then do another one on the side which is like six years so we could show people you know yes in this three-year section you're not going to see much benefit because because of all these factors but it will eventually come down because of these these monies that we're getting not to actually set rates no not to set rates just just as a PR thing to show people well not even a promise that we'll do that it's just a you know in our best thinking you know with all these things we've gotten these are the kind of rates you'd see for the next six years like is there any kind of visual that you could make like here's what rates would do without the grant and here's what they'll do with so there's a me that's what I would see like oh okay I see where that benefits going to be in 2024 or whatever well I'll find out whether or not he can do it with within the scope of what he's quoted here if not we may have to come back with an additional scope because we did we did a 10-year plan of our monies so in theory he could do an eight-year off of that now and that would certainly tell us you know more about what rates could be not what they will be because we're not actually going to implement those but it gives an idea I'm a little confused I thought we set the rates assuming we're not getting any funding correct so we assumed we would debt finance it but in the next five years we probably are not going to see a whole lot of money coming in from the loans and grants that we've gone out for so the loans and grants are for what for planning and construction or just construction for planning and construction so if you if you invoice if you get invoiced every month and then you invoice immediately every month you should be getting back money within let's say two months of the initial invoice we still haven't received any monies from the prop two or prop one implement a or prop one planning grant yet and that was supposed to have been received last year and you invoice them yes so it's it's slow I didn't have that kind of trouble when I was talking to other people as I understand it state water resources control board has moved to a new software and it's causing some significant delays just speaking to that I've had other clients with unfortunately similar delays with the water board with those types of funding agreements now last year or so yeah and to be fair when the state had funding problems they stopped paying all of them and then paid us like a year later but that was Schwarzenegger yeah I was encouraging to do this just sort of a research a white paper on how it could look if we got got funding and we do have that you're right there's a software that we're not going to get a bit in the long run there should be a trajectory that might be worth demonstrating yeah we will definitely it's worth doing but I think it's a stretch to look like so so as I understand that there's going to be a spreadsheet somewhere yeah generated could could we require that the spreadsheet have different assumptions on how quickly we get the money back just so we can see what the effect is well we've got Brown and Caldwell and Lydia Gutierrez working on the cash flow and expectations for the funding we received so how how's that so I think they're only working at Raft Ellis could do their own well they're they're providing the data to Raft Ellis they're they're providing the cash flow data to Raft Ellis Raft Ellis has no idea when to expect these funding streams to come in they're reliant on our Pure Water Soquel team right but it's a spreadsheet you can run it with different different different assumptions correct we could I'd like to see that we will it does change the scope of what Sanjay has proposed here well it seems like that's a real key unknown is how quickly the money will come in and I'd like to know what the what the range is and what the effect is on on rates you also just we we can I would imagine that can be done the one you know as again a an agency that's responsible for providing water one thing we will do and what we do do is we are on the conservative side because the last thing we want to do and we've seen this with other agencies have cash flow issues and so they're not getting the money and they thought they time they were going to get it that's we don't want to jeopardize but our customers in that place they will eventually benefit from this 50 million plus up to 85 million and low interest loans but we don't want to create a hiccup because that would cost even more money if you had to stop work or something like that if you made the assumption and then went with it that they state would and federal government would reimburse us quicker than we had slower than we anticipated but we're not changing to a 2018 so the it's still 9% for the entire thing so you know we just talked about making it less than that nine 9% each year but what you what you're saying Ron is that we don't want to be overly optimistic and created a problem and I agree with that but I you know still be conservative see in the assumption there's conservative and really conservative okay you know what the effects of so in getting paid back I think there's two different things one is when the money goes out and then you're you're talking about the assumptions of when the State Board reimburses at different assumptions on that so I think there's two different things we're speaking to this is a big topic we want to bring it back well that's the question well Sanchez won't be able to get us anything by February unless he starts off of this we could come back later it have to come back as a revised thing in January to take this input second me in January and that would be delayed but we can have we can ask Sanjay now you know could he do this and how much more would it take right so approve what approve what he he's what's being proposed and then ask Sanjay you know what would it take to expand what would it take to explore when the money comes back and how that affects things okay that you on the same page yeah so you want to you want us to do a few different scenarios on the cash flow expectations as well as I think director Daniels had a request for going out farther on a finance plan yeah yeah so if by cash flow expectations you mean when we're get repaid right by you know by the state then that's that's my intent okay I know there's uncertainties on timing and project things but seems to me like when things cut when the money comes back could make a huge difference okay we can do that your crystal clear on okay thank you yes public comment on this thank you Becky Steinbruner resident of Aptos I think it's kind of amazing actually that you that this district would consider paying rough tell us an additional almost $33,000 to sort of undo damage economic damage to your rate payers that your board voted on November 6th 2018 before you approved the pure water SoCal project and I know you dispute that but how can you not say that you did that when Raf tell us presented to you on the evening of November 6th basically the information you're asking them to come back with now they laid that all out on the table and they gave you the two options with grant without grant now because you hadn't approved the project they couldn't put the name pure water SoCal on it but that's what it was what other grants were you looking for at the time none it was all for pure water SoCal so the information that you're asking Raf tell us to put out now is exactly what was presented to you November 6th 2018 and he even laid it out further as chairman Daniels is asking them to do now and said well you'd have to have an 8% increase for three years after the 9% increases are done so this has all been done for you already on November 6th 2018 before you approved the project I want to point out to you that I have heard stated to you that there were concerns about the federal grants because the reimbursement could take up to 10 years there were concerns presented to your board that the state grants could take six to eight years for reimbursement and I want to point out to you that your general manager Mr. Ron Duncan has made a declaration under the penalty of perjury that all receipts must be done for this project by February 29th 2020 in order to get reimbursement that was in one of the decorate lorations he did under the penalty of perjury in the course of the lawsuit that's against the project in your district so I think you need to go back to your November 6th meeting and review all that material because I think many of the questions you're asking now you'll find the answers there that were presented to you by Raft tell us and rather than pay them an additional $33,000 what do you go back and review what they've already laid out for you very well thank you thank you anyone else I'll close public hearing and I'd like to say that back then we were looking at a $35 million grant part federal part state and we still haven't gotten the federal one we have gotten the state one much higher and we didn't have any accommodation in that previous plan for loans and we've gotten a $36 million loan at 1.3% and we've got a federal with the loan for 49 million I think 49 yeah and so again the thing we did back then doesn't apply now so we have to do something like this if we want to get a reasonable gauge of what we're doing so what is their pleasure folks I'll move to approve it with the request for proposal for an addendum for the extra work I'll second that all in favor okay make sure I understand this in line with Leslie go ahead and you just approved Raft tell us to move forward with the proposal so if we can bring that back in late February we'll do that but also at some time between now and then or when we can bring back the addendum for approval okay I personally I don't think there's much hurry to do this three-year one thing because there won't be any savings the next couple years and so it'll stay at 9% it has to and it's only at after time when you'll actually start to see significant you know downtrend of that so maybe if we see savings in the addendum built upon this that we won't rush the what was approved tonight to be brought back in late February and discussions with January does that make sense okay so okay I still want to see the effect yes I think you know it may not be right but all I was saying what I what I thought I was hearing was that you you approve that work to be done and an addendum and we could come back within February with that work being done but if the addendum if he says hey if I bring back the addendum work with the work that you proved tonight and there's some savings in that we bring it all back together that's maybe a little bit later than the February that's that is what the board desires yeah I think that maybe some of the info maybe at the next meeting you could come back with some information explaining how these loans work yeah and because if we can borrow let's say we borrow 85 million but then we pay back it as we get reimbursed can we do that I don't know okay and that's great idea and we also thought we would bring back and Leslie I think this is still on our charter just a reminder of the the rates and what some of the assumptions were because people are saying bills you know my bills gone up this much and it says President Daniel said earlier they can only go up so much unless you're using more water and so we want to show show that too so maybe that could be I've actually talked to a number of people who'd seen that on back next door I was gonna say back door up to us next door and they and they're like yeah I heard all this fuss about it but my bill was fine so I'm not sure what it was about so we'll bring you still gonna get that information where we're seeing what the actual effect is right yeah yeah okay yeah and and I just heard also maybe the the grant how they work along with a primer on the the rate study like we talked about yeah and the loans because you know like when you borrow for your house you get a lump sum and if you you know and you go back let's say you you're allowed to pay back part of it with over the time and in an increased amount I mean how does that work that way with all right so I think we move on now I think 6.7 approved board attendance at Waterloo's conference yeah let me in and so I just we put this on there just to it's good to make us aware of this and also as an opportunity to put frame it within the other conferences that'll be going on during that time and we may not even have them all but because I know there's a California special district association that's I think in around this time frame maybe a little later but so March up in San Francisco was Waterloo's Melanie or Taj I might need some help and April like 17th that third week in April is a design build conference in Dallas Texas so that's that and then Aqua is in May so there's three conferences that are pretty you know important to our water industry coming up we've heard rave reviews if you want to learn more about the design bill which is a process part of the process that we're using in Santa Cruz is moving toward to that's in Dallas and it's focused on water and I know Taj Melanie came back saying this is really good information so I encourage directors who want to explore that I may try to do it I have some conflicting things but it sounds really great and then this one we know that this is a really informative conference and it's local which is great and then Aqua which you know you can I just want to put them all out there well and I think our customers benefit when we're more educated can make better decisions so I support conferences that are pertinent to yeah they definitely give the value back many fall over I mean just like last we were at Aqua recently we're meeting with the federal government and we know you know it's pursuing more funding and that sort of thing and they've already funded us so the return's been there and I want to thank all the directors who go to the site oftentimes can't because of my day job but it it's I think the customers if they knew the sacrifices that the directors are making that they would they would be very appreciative I'll report on the Aqua groundwater committee next so I think we need public comment before a motion yes we do public comment now I'd like to make the motion to authorize the attendance of ought to reuse a second motion second all favor post okay it listed a closed session but it turns out we're not going to need one or have one tonight so okay anyone wants to talk to this non-event closed session thing on the thing this would be the time thank you I would like to speak about the non-happening closed session and that is the wrap up of what you may think is the wrap up of the legal action but I am appealing it so it's not done and I have received a memorandum of costs from best best and Krieger asking for over 2800 dollars in in costs I am moving to strike that so there will be legal action against that I am filing the appeal for the main denial for the writ of mandate and I tried to appeal the denial for the change of venue and that was handled very oddly the way to appeal that is to submit a petition for writ of mandate and I did that and the clerk told me that I could not file it because the judge didn't know what to do with it this was Judge Volkman the head of the appeals division this case appeal will stay in Santa Cruz County Superior Court with the tribunal of three because it is a civil case with it's called a limited amount less than ten thousand dollars so initially it will stay here I really have no confidence that I will get anywhere with that so I want to let you know I do plan to continue appealing it to the sixth district Court of Appeals if I need to but what happened with my petition for writ of mandate to appeal the denial to get it out of this county and to Sacramento County where I felt I would have a better more seasoned environmental judge examine things is that the judge sat on it he sat on my writ of mandate I couldn't file it I had an amended petition for writ of mandate that I know I can do without the leave of court one time to include further information and correct some mistakes I could not file that until the judge decided what to do with my initial one and so the judge sat on it for over two weeks and then just today I heard that the appellate division tribunal considered it and denied it so I've not served it to you because I was never able to file it and I'm quite perplexed about all this all this is being handled but it will then be wrapped into my general appeal for the denial for writ of mandate I'm doing this because I care this is very hard on me I don't want to bring this expense to you and your repairs but I care about what I see as a travesty here thank you okay so we're done thank you everyone congratulations Bob