 Okay, it's been six o'clock. Let's call our meeting to order for the Soquel Creek Water District. Even though Dr. LaHue is listed on the front page as being a dial-in attendee, he actually will not be dialing in. So it'll just be the four of us here that you see. So roll call would show the four of us. And also the closed session mentioned as item number seven will not occur because it's on the agenda. People can speak publicly on it for three minutes. Oh, but we're not having the closed session. Okay, so let's get started. We have a public hearing. Whose item is this? I'm going to be presenting this item. Okay. So as you recall, at our December 17th meeting, the board of directors took action to increase its board member compensation. And as promised in that memo that I presented in December, we have to bring back some additional information for updating the ordinance for board compensation and updating our policy, which is done through resolution. And so presented to you tonight in this packet. And as part of the public hearing is that updated ordinance and the updated resolution to update the policy. So if there's any questions, the action was taken and approved, so there's no change in that. All right. Any board questions? I'll just offer the comment. I'm sorry for all the brouhaha, since I introduced that whole issue at this particular time. So I'm sorry for the extra trouble. But I'm glad it's part of it. There hasn't been an increase to board compensation in about 10 years or so. And so sometimes those processes, we need to revisit them. And so this is just making sure that we do that as promised when you took the action in December. I wanted to question the page 19 schedule A. It's a list of organizations and mentions the Basin Implementation Group, which no longer exists. The Basin Advisory Group, which also no longer exists. And the SCWD2 Deceleration Task Force, which way, way doesn't exist anymore. It does not list the MGA, which does exist and for which we are participants in. So that might be added. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I will open the public hearing. On the matter of board compensation. I noticed looking at what was purportedly sent to me, and then looking tonight on the only copy you have, hiding it from the public, the agenda items, there's no indication of what your compensation has been and what it will be. It's not there at page three. So I'd like you to, before you proceed further, tell me what the compensation is now and tell me what's proposed, Miss. 160, 200. $200 a meeting? Why isn't 160 adequate? If you're serving the public, why isn't that more than adequate? Well, even so, it's probably below the limit. Why shouldn't you serve for no compensation if you really care about your rate payers? Yeah, I don't need to answer here. This is public comment. Well, my public comment is I don't think you should be paid anything. You should invite people in the public to be on your board, if, presumably, it's necessary, at no reimbursement. And if you are going to provide any reimbursement, it shouldn't be increased a dime. Inflation hasn't impacted your capacity. The cost of gasoline hasn't impacted your capacity to attend and participate. No. In the interest of all 15, 16,000 rate payers, whom you show some loyalty to and some fiduciary accountability to the how you spend and waste their money by the hundreds of thousands, you shouldn't increase your compensation at all. Why don't you show some discipline, some fiscal restraint, some accountability for the millions of dollars you're entrusted with by your rate payers, you and your senior staff. Does anyone else wish to address us on this item? Here at 60 for every meeting, being on the board at Central Fire for quite a while, you know, their increase could only be allowed $5. And you're now getting $40. And I'm not sure, I'm going to have to go back. I didn't know this was going to be on the agenda until I just saw it tonight. I am going to look into this because they said that they could no longer, they could not raise any more than $5. That's our situation as well. You can only raise it $5. But anything you don't use, you can do it in the future. So we could raise it, I think, over $100 if we wanted to. If you take a look at the agenda items from the December 17th meeting, President Daniels, you'll see the schedule. I know. And on that schedule is where it lists the annual compensation. Yeah, it's on the public website. Here is the, you know, 6 o'clock is difficult for a lot of us to attend. I just barely made it. We have to come from Santa Cruz. And to get here at 6, I missed the last meeting you had because, and I'm sure people would want to know about this. And I do have board members that have served on the board at Central. But I'm going to look into this a little further. And I apologize for not being at the last meeting, but I didn't get home to, or even halfway here to quarter after 6. And it was actually too late to be here. So 6 o'clock is really difficult, but that's not what I'm talking about. I am going to look into this, and I did not see the December. I should have gone on there, and I apologize. I didn't, but I'll be looking forward to it. And just to be clear, this is the advertisement, right, Emma, that was published in the Sentinel. Is this correct? Okay. That's what I'm going to make aware that we did do our public posting. So anyone else with stardust on this item? Seeing no one, I'll entertain in motion. Oh, I'll move an honest fact into it. Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we close the public hearing. All in favor? All in favor? We have to roll call, please. Yeah. Is that later? Here. Yes. Director Jackie? Yes. Director Christensen? Yes. And President Daniels? Yes. So we are discussing the item now. Any comments? Well, I spend quite a bit of time studying those packets there are hundreds of pages long. We've heard members of the public complain about it. Basically, we get paid about $10 an hour. Oh, not even that. I mean, given the time. So I don't have a problem with this. Okay. Yeah, I was the one who introduced it and it was expressly because there hadn't been any kind of an increase in 10 years, as it turns out, I didn't know it was even that much. And so the actual increase is modest, especially a view of all the other things we do for the district on a volunteer basis that we are not reimbursed. We're only reimbursed for the meetings that we attend, not any of the other ancillary stuff we do for the district. It's, I appreciate that people object to even that, but that is what we have here. Yeah, I once sat down and figured out it was something like minimum wage when you include the time that we, sometimes these meetings have gone to midnight, even, that we've been here. And indeed, looking at a 200, 300 page packet that we've sometimes had, spending a time necessary to read that carefully. Well, yes, we've had one of those, that it's minimum wage or below, typically. I think it's not unreasonable. So that being the case, we can now make two motions to approve ordinance 20-1 and then 20-3. Am I hearing you motions? I'll move to approve of resolutions. And I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Roll call, please. Vice President Leder. Yes. Director Jaffe. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Daniels. Yes. Okay, so that's the public hearing. We're moving out to the consent agenda. There are three items on the consent agenda. Anyone want to take anything off the consent agenda? Anyone to public? Oh, I don't know if I have to recuse myself. I wasn't at the January 21st, the 2020 meeting, and I merely approved those minutes to catch up on what was going on. I can't really vote to approve me. So if the board would like, you can actually leave that on the consent calendar and then you can just abstain from that item and then vote on the balance. Now that's, are you going to do the same? I was there at that. You were. Okay, so we have three votes. Because as in the situation, we have to have three votes for things. 6.2 and 6.3, I want to address, please. That's not consent. That's consent agenda is 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. So those are going to be the planning calendar of the only single copy on the planet to the public is available back there. I believe back there. Let me take more looks. Keep the clock going, folks. Can you hear that? Are you hearing me okay? Can you hear this okay? Is that better? Okay. Try again. Are you adjusting Taj 1, 2, 3 testing? Is that better? Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's okay. You never know if they adjust it. Tracy, do you have that clock? We're ready. Started to talk about some things. Okay. I have no comment on your agenda, but I have comment on the item. Okay. I'll make the motion to approve all the consent items. Okay, thank you. Second. We have a second. Roll call, please. Vice President Lather. Yes. Director Jaffee. Yes. Director Christensen. Abstain on 3.1 and yes on the rest. And President Daniels. Yes. Okay, we now go to oral and written communications. So everyone, you can speak on any item, not on tonight's agenda. You have three minutes. I believe you all got the packet that I dropped off at the office yesterday. You read my first letter and I'm very concerned about all of these issues, especially the tier number two. It's totally unfair. The increases are unbelievable. Most of us cannot afford what's gone to. I'm not going to go over because you've already got it and read it. On my second page, there was somebody was asked about did this make this tier two make the water increased hard for difficult for people to pay. The answer was no, it does not. This was your answer. I also have that in your packet. You can read what was replied. It said no, they're just using more water. That is a ridiculous statement. This is how lost you are with the people that you serve. You're not talking to them. Get on neighborhood Aptos and find out what's really going on in your area. On this next one, there was one on neighborhood Aptos and she put on there. I don't know what people are talking about and I'm not going to say. She said I have a husband myself, my teenager. We take two showers a day. She's putting this all on there and I said, you know, if you're smart, you won't post this because if you're getting that low bill, consider yourself very lucky because there's many of us that are not. Just the other day when we all got our second bill, which was astronomical, I think a little more than 9% increase, she puts down, up, got my bill today, only had to pay, went down $46. I'm thinking, you know, lady, you're really asking for a problem. Now this is actually what's been on neighborhood Aptos, which I think should go to. On the next pages, I've given you the bills. My January bill was $216.95. The bill I just received is $254.90. So tell me, it's not an increase. Tell me it's not a hardship. I'm now paying more for my water than my PG&E. There are five adults that live in our house. You've made no accommodations for them, for people. There's two to five and I think that has to be done. You said you're going to restructure. It hasn't been done. This is absolutely ridiculous. My business is paying the same amount that we are. I've talked to people in Santa Cruz. I've seen their water bills. They just can't believe what we're paying for water. Something is wrong with tier two. It has to be restructured. This is a problem. People can't afford to pay this. Thank you. Thank you. So Director Daniels, if you want, we can discuss this a little bit. I asked the customer if they'd like to have a personal meeting or discuss at the meeting. I think she wanted to bring this up at the meeting. So the invitation to meet with us personally is still out there. So a couple of things. Here's the Aptosia website. You can see somebody says their bill is going down there. But I think more important is there may be some misunderstanding. They're also, we suspect there potentially could be a leak and we'll go through that. So maybe, and this is the key that I want to make sure that you understand is that this scale over here is adjustable. Look, can you see the screen? The scale on the left? Okay. So this is your water bill that you sent to us and you can see the bar on the left is usually lower on the bar on the right. The bar on the right is your water usage. So if you look at the last couple bills, your water usage has gone up double to what it was. So that's one of the primary drivers for your increase in your bill. But what I want to make sure is clear is that this scale, because I interpret it maybe incorrectly and please, you know, assure me if I'm wrong, that because this bar is to the top, the scale is different than this scale here or this scale down here. So that doesn't mean all the bills are similar and there's different costs. Like this one's $70, even though the bars are near the top, there's a lot less gallons over here on the left side. So I just want to make sure that we are absolutely clear on that. But also, you have an interesting water use where it goes down in the summertime and up more in the winter months. So we would love to have the opportunity to come out. We know you had a leak adjustment and help you with that. Maybe it wasn't fully realized or fixed and we're curious to why this pattern is unusual to see this. So we extend that offer to meet with you. We appreciate the communication. And Tracy, I mean, Leslie, did you want to add anything to that? I believe Ms. Miller was given a leak adjustment for her July and August bills, I believe, for the high water use this summer. But it doesn't look as though that's abated. It looks like something is still ongoing. So I don't know if there was a repair effect or not. And if that was something that would carry you above tier one, then it's continuing. Typically, your water use has historically been around five or six units a month and it's now running 10 to 12 units a month. So the increase in the bill is due to doubling of the water use. I had a running toilet and my bill was the same amount. And it wasn't running all the time. And so it could be something as simple as that. So anyone else wish to address this? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. We have no reports. That's item five under administrative business. There are no wills service. So we go to item 6.2 consideration of board procedure modifications to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of board meetings. Yeah, so I'm going to take this one. The board asked us to bring a couple items back. And as we do about every six months to a year, we look at our processes, especially having to bring on new legal counsel, new eyes, fresh eyes there, input from customers on ways we might be able to improve what we're doing and basically save the ratepayers money in the long run. So that's what this memo is about. And it focuses on several items and we'll just go through them here. I'm doing two computers. So I'm kind of losing bearings here. So the first one was the review of the consent items. And you wanted to expressly should, what do other agencies do and what are your options that this board could do? And so we researched it and we went out to our local agencies here, the city of Santa Cruz and the county. And what they do is only permit members of the governing body to request that the chair or the board president pull the items. And the way the public gets input to that is they allow the public to contact their representatives beforehand, before the meeting, Viva email if they're looking at the packet or whatever their means of communication to that board member is or chair or council members and request a pull. And then it's at the discretion of the board at the meeting, whether they pull the item off consent for consideration. And I think Josh has indicated that the agencies, you're involved with this as kind of a BMP. Yeah. It's pretty standard just to have staff and the board handle agenda items being pulled. And so, and Emma, you had a lot of input on this one. So if you want to chime in, please do. So what we realize, if the board did want to go in that direction, kind of what the other agencies do, what you would want to do is reorder the process that you currently have so that people would have and still an opportunity to comment on items that weren't pulled off the agenda, off the consent agenda. So what we've proposed here is the board would start with a call to order, a roll call, public hearing, and then announcement by board members to remove any items or not. And so after that, the, here it is. And I assume that that item four is something the public could comment on since it's a listed agenda item. Right? Yes. So they structure that way. Yes. So even if they didn't ask anyone beforehand, they could ask someone to pull it during that item. Yes. Yes. Now most agencies I've observed have not done that, but I suppose that's an option. Where it comes into play for the public, if an item is not pulled, if it's pulled, of course, the public can comment on it. And we do suggest putting that item at the back of the agenda at the end just because these are generally routine items that don't require the brain power, if you will, of the major items. They're kind of routine. So we save them for last. But if an item does stay on there and it's not pulled, then they would have the opportunity to comment on oral communications. So it is set up to expressly allow communication, whether an item is pulled or not, I guess, I could say. So I'm going to run through these, and then we'll come back and visit them. That one, I think, I capture that right, Emma? Okay. So the next item of consideration, there are like four items here, is review of oral communications. So this is what our current policy is right here, and we have laid out, I'm trying to get these up here for you, several options. Right now, the board basically allows up to three minutes for public comment on each item. Of course, as it states in our guidelines on the agenda, if it's packed house, trying to give everybody equal opportunity, you can scale that back, and that would still apply. But for the general comment period, there's a couple options that we've identified here, either come up with or what other agencies do. So again, we reached out to our local agencies, and the city of Santa Cruz allows up to two minutes per public comment. Sometimes they reduce that. The county is two to three minutes. So that's option one. You can reduce down to two minutes per item. Option two is you could allow public members the opportunity to speak for three minutes on their first public comment and two minutes on any subsequent. So kind of a hybrid, if you will. The item three is our option three is allow the public to comment up to four on any four agenda items. And the city of Sacramento has taken this approach. So we wanted to put that out there for you also. So staff, you know, often on policy items, we come together as a management team and look at this and try to put forth our best recommendation for you. And after all things considered, and we bounced around a little bit, we thought up to two items, I mean two minutes per item was our recommendation. And we liked the three minutes at the first and then two minutes subsequently, but logistically we weren't sure if the board's interested in that. I suppose we could trial that and see how it pans out. So anyway, that's the second item on consideration of these policy. And their review of board packet distribution. So as you know, we make the board packet available, Viva, the internet, it's posted on our website. If people want to copy, they can ask us, we'll reproduce a copy. It costs them right now, what is it, 15 cents a page or 25 cents a double-sided page. And that's about in the middle of the agencies we survey. We try not to, it's just, that's our cost, we figure with the copying. So again, we looked out what was best practices. The city and the county absolutely charge for any copies that they produce. They don't provide a hard copy or anything like that, like we do. We currently provide a hard copy in addition at the back table here, in case people want to come in and peruse that. And I noticed a few people doing that tonight. So it seemed of a benefit. So the options that we've identified are, one, you could continue with charging for the printed copies. And we just want to say this is very in line with our current, our public records request protocol, where members of the public can do a public records request and they get the first 10 pages for free and then subsequent pages are charged if we're gonna provide them a hard copy. We provide them electronic copy, which we often do. We give them a thumb drive and I think the cost of the thumb drives around three or four bucks, something like that. So, and I consider our board packet our main public record. If we have, if you had identified, I would say that's our main public record. All of them are, I suppose. So the other option, option two, the request of a public member provide a printed copy of the board packet at no cost and set a maximum of one or two copies per year or something like that. There's many hybrids on that option you could do, but we're not recommending that for various reasons. But it's an option. Option three is kind of an interesting one. I think this is one that Josh indicated he had never seen before, in the brainstorming sessions we had and we call it the library approach and that's where we would take the printed copy that we used for the back table but make it available for hours on Monday and Tuesday when we're open at the district and somebody could check it out for a couple hours. We haven't worked out all the details whether they leave a deposit or if they were late returning it two to three times and they lose their privilege or whatnot, but we wanted to see in concept whether you're approved with this. This is just another viable option there. I think that's it. Did I get all the options? There's a fourth. What is there a fourth? About the board planning calendar. Oh, yeah, fourth, but I was just going on that one item. And then on the fourth item in this agenda and we can look at the motions here in a minute that will help sum it all up. In the name of efficiency, staff has routinely put the board planning calendar and special board assignments. They're both on this agenda tonight. They're on the consent agenda. On every board packet and if it's a value, we want to continue doing that. However, if it's just as good to have it on one board once a month presented, that would probably save a half hour to an hour off Emma and Mai's time. Plus, if somebody gets a printed copy, it's not necessarily have to print all that out. So that was another small savings and then in discussions with Director Lather, she also, if I may, suggest that maybe we put the management report on consent agenda. And that seems to make sense too. You could pull it or staff may be and ask to have that pulled occasionally. But if there's not, that's another thing we could throw up in consent. I'm just adding that as an extra bonus point here. So those are the various efficiency measures, protocols we're putting forth tonight with various options. And then here in the motions of this are kind of where we get down to the four different items. One being the revolving around the consent agenda. The other one, the time for public comment. And then the third, how to provide hard copies of the agenda. And then fourth, the items to remove from consent from regular. So it looks like the four motions you have here are for the staff recommended choices. They are. They are. We presumably could pick something else. Yeah, absolutely. Or a hybrid. There are these. Yes. You know, you could continue on as we are. Okay. All right. Thanks for laying it out. It was very clear and stimulating. Yeah. And thanks to Emma. She put a lot of time into this and so did the other staff because policy is serious stuff does. Okay. So let's do public comment. Colonel Maxwell, a rate payer of longstanding and someone who studied the 40 year history or more of the Soquel Creek Water District, including the performance of the prior incumbent members of this board, the incumbent members and so forth. And it's a history of millions of dollars of your rate payer's money being misspent to study desaline correctly, misspent on other items, overspent on consultants, overspent on attorneys preposterously. You spend a small fortune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend you against a very proper lawsuit brought by a lady in the public interest, Ms. Becky Steinbrenner. I'm sorry, that does not have anything to do with this agenda. Well, it does. It does because it relates to comment period on everything and it also relates to the performance of the efficiency here. Your proposal to discontinue allowing three-minute commentary because, gee, Santa Cruz City has restricted the number of time. Well, Santa Cruz City is overloaded, so are the supervisors meetings with hundreds of people sometimes who want to make comments, certainly dozens. Ladies and gentlemen, I've asked the camera to look out here and see there's empty. There's no audience. You're trying to deceive your audience on the television recording that you're overloaded with people making comments? You're not. This is any equivalent. In fact, what's proposed here to justify your restricting the comment periods is as dishonest with logic, legal proceedings, the common law traditions, and the opportunities of citizens to make comment and hold you accountable for your performance and monitor you as what the Republicans have done in the Senate this week and last week. You're ignoring reality. I don't see a roomful of people here imposing unreasonably. You don't like to be confronted with criticism. It's very valid. Apparently, neither does Donald Trump and the people defending him. What's proposed here is absolutely as ridiculous as the Republican defenses of Trump last week in this week. Do not change your calendar. Allow three minutes. Allow your, and your stockholders and ratepayers are equivalent to stockholders. We're not citizens attending the city meeting, the city council, and the supervisors. Your ratepayers have the equivalency under the law of stockholders, and they deserve better respect from you for their time and the imposition of their time on your time and you're listening to their commentary and their concerns, which I've watched you ignore for years frequently. Your rates are too high. They're too damn high because you've mismanaged this place into your bankruptcy by the profit it's spending for 40 years, and especially the last 12. Do not change the comment period from three minutes for crying out loud. Give your ratepayers, your stockholders the same due they would have with a public and controlled company, and they're owed it under the common law tradition in this state. Anyone else? Seeing no one. We'll bring it back to the board. So, I'll take each one separately. I think so. Let's just start with number one, I'd say. Number one is about consent items, which are the three or are there others that we want to talk about? Let's just take it one by one. Yep. The fact that the public can comment on the consent item if it's not pulled, I think is essentially the same as what's been happening. I see an advantage to the public contacting the board or one of the board members asking for it to be pulled in that that's an opportunity for them to express their concerns at that point. Right. So, and to engage in a dialogue about that item. So, I don't see a downside to making it a conditioned, a pointed item to have a board member do it. But I'd like, you know, I'm open to pulling any item. But, and I'm open also if, you know, at the beginning of the meeting, a member of the public came up to me and said I'd like to, you know, pull this item from the Senate agenda. I would go ahead and pull it. Yeah, we can be as flexible as we want. In fact, I think it's kind of nice. It's, to me, very much like the fact that one of us could make a motion, but if we don't get a second, it's dead. So, if there's not at least two people supporting it. So, this would mean public comment as well. If you can't get one board member to say, yeah, I think that's something we should talk about, then it's kind of a wasted comment. And so it's, I think, a reasonable thing to have. Yeah, I like the changing of the format, the discussion format to allow for public comment after the fact that there is a disagreement of some sort about what's on the consent agenda and what is being removed for discussion. And so I would support that also. I've been through meetings at the county supervisors and that's how they keep order. They have, of course, a far larger meeting attendance that are ordinarily here at the district. And that is a way to keep order and keep meeting running smoothly and allow people, everyone in the public who wants to discuss what needs to be discussed. Also having a heads up on what is being questioned is nice because then staff could be prepared if we tell them ahead of time so that you're not being asked a question and they have to say, well, we're going to have to look into that because we don't know the answer. We weren't prepared for that. So I see that as a benefit also. Yeah, and I should note it doesn't preclude the public at all from submitting a written comment. This is just oral communication. So at the time, so a well thought out argument or input is always welcome. There are meetings, in general, we don't have as many people here, well, but there are, as the board of supervisors or the city council, but we've had some meetings with quite a few people. Like 400, I think, once. So these, whatever we decide here, will apply to the whole wide range. Well, today is the smallest I've seen in the entire time I've been here as a board member. So I don't know if it reflects reality. And I witnessed that huge meeting. I wasn't on the board at the time and it was a little chaotic because we didn't have a system, multiple members of the community were speaking up almost out of turn. They took all the numbers to have an opportunity to speak and ended up just reiterating their previous opinions over and over again. And so the meeting went on for hours. It didn't need to be. The comments that had been made, many of them were made repeatedly. It just dragged the proceedings down very, defeating a lot of people left, a lot of customers who did want to have a chance to talk never got a chance, and they left without ever getting a chance to speak because of that. So I think implementing a process in advance of anything like that would be really an advantage. If I can add in again, you bring to mind talking about process. Director Lathrop had another good idea. I thought if you do agree with some of these, especially the consent agenda, at the top of the agenda, we would lay out the process to make sure, because there's a lot of public members that come and it's confusing if you haven't been. So we try to make that crystal clear that this will be the order and how you go about it. So do any of you see a downside to make any consent agenda being pulled by a public member who talks with the board members? You'll probably be the one that they all call. Yeah, now that I've said it, I've said I'll pull anything, because I do believe in hearing comment. Well, actually, since, as I mentioned, they can pull, what is it, number two, and speak on that, which is where we're pulling. They can ask anyone of the five of us to pull something forward. So if you can get even one person. Usually I am available the whole day of a meeting just making sure I understand the board packet adequately. I think we all put a lot of time in it, but that time period in particular, I go over the board packet during the day. So it sounds like we're kind of all okay with motion number one. Do we want to change that motion anyway, or add something to it? So the timing of when this would be, Ron, you mentioned towards the end of the meeting is the consent agenda? Well, if an item is pulled off the consent agenda, we thought we would put it at the end if there's going to be discussion and vote, just because they're generally the, we want to put the most prominent things in front of you. Yeah, that need the most input, whether from the public or the board, the staff at the top of the agenda. The reason it's on the consent is because and the board president setting the agenda with the general manager and anybody else, it's been deemed routine and non-controversial and just doesn't really belong on the regular admin calendar. So if it was pulled, we were suggesting put it at the bottom. I'd have to just be on the fly. But more important, I think, if I understand what you're really asking, is the meeting would start, and I've got it up here with a call to order. Let me get down here. Yeah, call to order, roll call. If there's a public hearing, which we don't always have. We had one tonight, but that was, and then announcement by the board president really are board members of items to be removed from the consent agenda. And there's various ways to do that. Any, however you decide tonight, any board member can have the authority, and Josh helped me out, what I thought I heard was, you need a second by somebody else. I mean, you can design that. I would assume however you want. That's correct. And, but the point here is, once people know what's removed from consent, they know what's not removed from consent, and so they can talk about that on oral communications, which is the next item and down here, you know, it would be on the, then we would go to oral and written communications. So if something wasn't pulled, for whatever reason, there's still the opportunity for the public to say, hey, items, you know, 3.1 wasn't pulled. It's on the consent. I'd like to talk to it. And then comes the consent agenda after that. So you're voting on the consent agenda after the public has had time to input on it. And I think that's the key that we wanted to stress. So it wouldn't be a separate oral community, separate opportunity for the public. It seems like oral communications, as it is now, it's things that aren't on the agenda. And is it a consent agenda, also an agenda? So this is the way I believe Santa Cruz and others do it. Could they talk to it on six when they get to the consent agenda as a whole? That would be how we, how the board would like us to structure public comments so we could structure it the way it's been, you know, identified up on the screen. Alternatively, if you'd like, we could have an additional public comment period just for number six. I'm, although I'm going to, later on, you know, try and limit the amount of time, but I'm, I think the more opportunities for public comment, the better. So I would favor having a public comment specifically on the consent agenda. For items not pulled at that point. Okay, so I'm confused about if a board member is going to be requesting something to be pulled. Is it always going to be voted on before we'll pull it? Because right now we ask for things to be pulled. Nobody votes on that. Now we've pulled on it at the end of it. When we address it and Ron suggesting that come at the end of the meeting, the consent agenda items tend to be more matter of fact. Is that what you're suggesting? Well, there's confusion here. So there's vote on the item itself. I think is what you're talking about, whether you pull an item and everybody gets to vote. And then I think we're, director Lathar, I thought what I heard you say is, are you voting on whether to pull an item, not the item itself? And there's different ways to go about, and Josh, help me out here. Well, I would propose we keep it the way we do now. The president asks board members, if any of them have anything they want pulled, and if they do, it is pulled. So we don't vote on it. If a board member thinks they want to talk about it, then we should talk about it. And that's the way it's meant to be in this. It just wasn't explicit. But yeah. And another thing is that this is clearly a trial. So if we don't find this is quite workable, we'll bring it back and change it. So now I'm confused. So you talked about any items that were pulled would not be discussed at that time and not voted on at that time. It'd be later. Right. Yeah, that's what we've seen other agencies do. And it seemed to make sense because then you're, the public's chiming in and you're, and then we have a discussion around an item that maybe other members of the public came to things that were on the agenda that have at least been evaluated to the best of our degree to be require more input or more discussion. Okay. It does make things more time certain. And if you want to see, you know, item, you know, 6.3, you have some idea of when that's level to come up. Whereas if you pull consent items as we can now and spend, you know, half an hour talking about consent items, then that makes that certainty less certain. So I think there's, in fact, I think the regional board does it that way too. It's clearer when things are going to happen. Okay. So, so it looks like motion one does capture what we just talked about. Right. So anyone would like to make that motion. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second roll call please. Vice President Lather. Yes. Director Jaffee. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Daniels. Yes. Okay. We'll roll along to the next one, which is about public comment, I believe. Yeah. So as I went through, I don't know if you need any more description, but we laid you out some options. And there's our recommendation, staff's recommendation. And just to go back, options where stick with three minutes, state, go to two minutes, go to three minutes for the first time somebody speaks or two minutes in two minutes for any subsequent item that they speak to allow, allow public to speak up to four agenda items with, and I would assume that would be with three minutes. So those are the options that we presented. I have a question about two and three. Both of those require record keeping. You say one person can do three minutes for the first one and then two minutes. Yeah. So you have to keep records of everyone who's spoken and same thing for number three. So who is going to do that work? I mean, people over there are kind of busy already. That's a great question. And that's why. I vote for the general manager to do it. How about it? And that's why we love that you say whatever we do is a trial. I mean, that's how we operate. We try it and fix it. If it's if it's not right and refine it and make it better. So on that one, we were worried. We were are worried about the logistics of it a little bit. So right now you're, you're, we're looking over at Tracy and she would probably have to do that. It could be potentially confusing or hard if you had a bunch of people, I would say if you had a bunch of people in the crowd, you probably get a limited to just two minutes straight off the bat or one minute even because again, equal opportunity. That's why we did not recommend that option. You know, we liked it, but logistically the doing it outweigh what the other agencies do two minutes. So the, when we talk about these guidelines, let's say we have another 400 person meeting. I hope not. But let's, let's say we do. Yeah. Are we, are we able to deviate from these guidelines? I think we already have. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And we would, if whatever the board decides on this, we'll make sure to keep the flexibility in your guidelines that give you at the discretion at the beginning of the meeting to modify these as appropriate. And so if you have 400 people, it would be okay for you to go down to 60 seconds a person to ensure as many people got to speak as possible. So just like today, the default is three minutes. We can make the default be something else for a particular meeting. Yes. So I had a different, different approach that didn't involve record keeping and that was to an interest of letting everyone comment, providing three minutes for oral communications, presumably because that would be new items that aren't being considered on the agenda already. And then going automatically down to two and planning for advanced review of the board packet so that we could have concise comments that really directly pertain to the item being discussed. And that would be really a valuable contribution from the public if they were prepared and could present their arguments in two minutes. I think that would be really an asset to the whole meeting proceedings. But the three, a lot of people comment on oral communications who aren't necessarily prepared but have something occurred to them just then. And that would be an opportunity and give them a chance to not have a completely formed idea. In addition to the item they may have come for is what you're saying. Yeah. And again, I would, I don't know, I wasn't really comfortable with limiting the number of items that could be commented on or, you know, very often someone gets in there and they hear someone's comment previously and they go, well, wait a second. I want to say something. But it can go on and on unless you really think about what you've said and can really be concise. So I'm hoping that this would foster that kind of editing, self-editing a little bit. That's what I'm proposing now. It is a three-minute oral communication time limit. And then defer to the president if any other limits are required, you know, in view of who shows up for commenting. Right. That sounds like a kind of a happy medium. In addition, I think we should be really clear on guidelines, it's public comment, and it's not interactive, it's not, it's not, it's not, we can, people can say whatever they want, but we can encourage people, if other people have said what they were going to say to keep it briefer and just say that they agree with that person. And the reason for that, I mean, for me, I signed on for this. And I, and so I, you know, if the meeting goes long, I'm here to where, whenever it ends, but there, I've noticed, and I've actually had people comment to me, when the meeting drags on, people don't stay, and they, they might want, might have wanted to stay for a later part of the meeting, but they don't stay. So I'd like to keep it efficient. And it respects the public's time. Yeah, and we could certainly, this is what's on the agenda now, the second page on every agenda, we can elaborate in the oral written communications, however we think is appropriate to better inform the public on expectations. Who would suggest that we, not necessarily read it, but summarize it, you know? Wasn't that what I was... Yeah, you had, you had that, maybe some of that would go up top too, besides just the consent agenda. Put it up at the top, you know, this is the procedure. Yeah. You get your time to talk. You don't yell in the middle of the meeting. I don't know how you'd say it, but there's, there's a certain decorum that's... You can't disrupt the meeting. Right. That's the, I think that's the bottom line. Yeah. So I'm confused. What are we, what do we think... Well, that was something different. Sorry, but I liked what, I liked the idea of three minutes for oral communications, for things not on the agenda. Right. And how about... I liked the idea of two minutes, or trying that, and seeing... Too much... It could be that it doesn't work, that that's not enough time for public comment, but I'd like to try it. Okay. Well, even now, the president can give people extra time, I believe, so... Yeah. If someone makes a case that they need more than two minutes, that can be done. And again, that's oral communication. The public can always write in, as one lady has done today, which is great. And since it's on the agenda, they certainly have the capability of writing it down, so we need that one. Okay. So, anyone want to make that motion for number two? I have a comment on what you're concerned... You've already talked on this item. Yes, I do. Yes, you've already talked on it. You have already talked on this item. I'll move to another topic. You have already talked on number 6.2. And you've moved to a subtop. Nope. No, no, you get to talk on 6.2, you've done that, done. You can't vote on it until you have full comment. And you've... You gave a comment on 6.2, you are out of order. You are like the Republican stopping witnesses. You cannot restrict public comment. Three minutes should remain it. You don't have 12 hours up here to talk to us. You get one three-minute section to talk about each agenda item, and that was done. Okay. So, where are we? Yes, we're looking at this one. Anyone want to form a motion on this one? Oh, so I was going to... Did we state the motion? No, not yet. Not yet. Okay. I would propose that we allow three minutes for oral communications, and limit it to two-minute comment on agenda items. And pretty strict, but we would follow that, and it would be subject to subsequent change and review and change, but it didn't work out. So that's... Would you be willing to add that we evaluated it at some point in the future? Yes. Just to... Since it is something new, I don't know what appropriate length of time. Three months. Three months that came to mind. And so when you say oral communication, you mean the item, oral communications for... Yes, item... Currently, it's 4.0 on this one. 4.0. Okay. Oral and written communications. Okay. That's my motion. Okay. Okay. I'll second. Motion second. Roll call, please. Vice President Lither. Yes. Director Jaffe. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Daniels. Yes. Okay. That was 6.2. And now I'll go to 6.3. No worries. I don't have to worry in this. No worries. All right. Okay. You're right. We're just taking this motion. What was confusing is we've been taking this item by item to keep it... Right. Discussionful. To keep the President from getting confused. Next one's on printed copies. Yep. So we've laid out again several options for you there. What we've noted is that to provide a hard copy, we just averaged the last year's worth of meetings, which the packets have actually been a little bit smaller than in the past. And it's about $30 a packet or $570 a year. And then with staff time, that does not include staff time. So I equate it roughly to a basically free water service for a family of two over a year, the equivalent of giving out a printed packet. But again, the options are continue with the current practice, which is the current practice before it has been to charge. We were giving somebody a free copy for a while, but that wasn't necessarily our practice. This is what we were doing, I guess. But in the current practice is to charge for copy, printed copies, $0.15 a page or $0.25 a double-sided page. Let's see. And then at the request of a public member, we could also produce the packet at that cost. And then we could also set if a public member... Another option is if a public member requested, give any public member a copy once or twice a year. We're not recommending that one. The library approach was, again, we're kind of a little bit proud of that one because we hadn't seen it when it came up with us. It's neat because it still allows a hard copy to be available at no charge to the public. Anybody that wants to see it and check it out, there are some logistical issues with it. That's why we didn't recommend it. Another thing, it's in line with our sustainability practice of not making just additional copies that are out there that aren't being used or at no cost to the people. And so that was the third approach. Staff is recommending we do what other agencies and what is a BMP of best management practice and that is to charge for the printed copies, although we laid out a couple options for you. I have a comment on that. I just wanted to emphasize that you had discussed this at the beginning of Item 6.2 and this is just elaborations for our questions. We're still on Item 6.2. I think the public member was confused. Yeah, so I had a question about that and that is going on to the library thing and that's actually whether it's feasible or whether you considered going to the two libraries or in our district, the Aptos Library and the Capital Library, which is of course under reconstruction, but to provide a desk copy that people could read because one of the problems, the other problem with having a hard copy as a library item here is that there's really, I mean not here, but in our district is currently there's no place to sit down and read it very easily and checking it out would leave other members of the public unable to access that copy, whereas if you have it as a reference item at the library itself, people could sit there and read it and once they were finished with it there might be even a time limit. I don't know how complicated that would be but I know that other items have been available at libraries. Those are good suggestions. We had thought about that. I'll respond to that. Regarding the library, the one thing we don't want to do is put out copies that aren't used. We don't have control once it's put out. People could take certain things or even insert pages that are beyond our control. So we are uncomfortable with that but mainly I don't know if that would be the highest use of our resources because generally there aren't a lot of people asking for this packet. I can tell you that. In the office, the checkout, that does have some logistical issues. So if we were to do that, of course, it'd be a trial thing as all this is as we break new ground. But we thought that had potential. We didn't recommend it because of the issues but I could foresee people ahead of time saying, hey, I want to reserve a spot, a slot to check it out and then you know that you can't come during that. It's going to be checked out. And maybe we reserve a little bit of time that's more spontaneous so for people who see the new agenda. There's various options on that. I was thinking that it might be attractive to the librarians because the alternative is to go online at the library and read it. But that ties up a computer. The library is pretty much at a premium because that is many people in our community the source of the internet connection. And so if you don't absolutely need it, it's one copy might be a valuable public service. So I reached out to Tom Lihue, Director Lihue because this was something that he wanted to have on here. And I'll just read the text. So he liked the idea of having someone be able to check out the one printed copy at the district for several hours. That way we don't waste money on extra copies but still give the public access to a printed copy prior to the meeting. I was thinking of that one actually in combination with number one, which is when you check it out, you would essentially lay down what thing costs and then you would get it back when you turn it in. So if you didn't turn it in, you just bought a copy. So if it's $20, you put down $20, when you check it back in appropriately, you get your $20 back. And if you didn't, if you decide, well I want to keep this and you put it up on the wall and frame it or something, you would just keep it and you've already paid for it essentially. That would mean less problems trying to track it down and find it and count the hours and all that. They don't return it on the, based on the guidelines. I'm not attracted to that idea. I think we may not be able to vote on this because we don't even know how a library would do that. Like the Aptos Library is not very far from, so that's the only library we're considering. We could possibly consider within our district, but taking, even if someone checks it out and they return it several hours later, it's still tying it up a copy that someone else might want to use. Whereas if you're sitting there reading it, you know how much time you're going to have. Well as well, that would sort of deviate from their policy. Usually I check things out for two weeks. I'm not sure they're even going to want to deal with two hour checkouts. There are plenty of reference materials that are not checked out. As we discuss this on the fly, I mean the district is the district, so it's not a library, but I might be concerned about if we put it at the Capitola Library, it'd be more favoritism to the Capitola folks or the Aptos. I just want to think that one through two, that we're being fair. And then there's staff time and getting back out there. We have to be running that out every Monday morning or whatever and recouping them. It's an interesting concept. We thought it through some, but not all, because we just stopped at a certain point. Well, Wednesday after the meeting it's pretty moot. It's just a bunch of recycled paper. We put them online forever so people can go back and look at them. That's a different copy of the document. I think we're flattering ourselves that a lot of people are going to want our... We could try to pack it, but we do want to make it accessible. I favor the idea of trying having a copy at the district. Your idea of there being some responsibility of whoever checks it out, I agree with that, but I don't think we have to ask them to put down money up front, but if somebody keeps checking it out and doesn't return it, then they lose the privilege to check it out. I know it would be staff time running it out to a library, but if people were going to look at it, then it'd be worthwhile. I'm not as concerned like you that there's going to be people putting in fake pages and saying that Jaffe said this when he did this. One thought is if we see a heavy demand for the packet at the office, or if it's an exceptional agenda that we think the public may be interested in, we could note that we will deliver to libraries or something like that. But I would say let's test drive this. Like you said, we may be flattering ourselves thinking we have a best seller when we're really lucky to... Honestly, most likely people are interested in the agenda so they can know about when they would show up for an item, and then the material supporting that particular item on the agenda is I think mostly how commenters, customers work here. So it may be they don't even have to check it out, they just need to look at it for a few minutes. Yeah, and remember, we're just talking about a hard copy. Most people prefer, for whatever reasons, electronic copy, which is certainly available to... Presumably any scheme we pick, you're always able to do number one, which is walk in and buy one copy. Absolutely. Well, yeah, I'll make a motion. I would like to try the library concept with one copy at the district, and three hours per check out so somebody could take it, go to a coffee shop, do whatever and bring it back. And let's see, I'd like... I don't know if we need to formalize that it's a privilege, so if somebody doesn't return it, that they lose the privilege. Well, I think we need to have something in place. It could be we delegate that to staff. We'll let staff, yeah. But I just like the last motion I think we should reevaluate in three months because this is... Yeah, for a minute. Yeah. So is that clear enough? Item three you're talking about? Yeah. No, motion three. Yeah, motion three, thank you. Right. But it's adopting three, the third approach, the library approach, as you suggested. Yeah, yeah. Item three, evaluate three, the third approach in three. Yeah, in three months, three, three, three. Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion? I'll second. Okay. Roll call, please. Vice President Lather? Yes. Director Jaffe? Yes. Director Christensen? Yes. And President Daniels? Yes. And I'd love to see ten copies being necessary. I think we'd benefit if people were that into... Yeah. It goes on in meetings, but I doubt they are. Right. So we have number four to consider. Yeah, and hopefully this is an easy one. It's just... However, if the board does find having the board planning calendar or special board assignments valuable for every... In every board packet, that's wonderful. We're here to provide it. If not, we're suggesting we do it only once a month, and that'd be the first board meeting unless we only have one board meeting and it would be that board meeting per month. And so you wouldn't be doing a calendar in each packet. Right. And then the special board assignments to ask for it. Yeah, we'd just be presented once a month. It doesn't change that heavily, and we do capture everything. I think we've been very good about that. And I like the way that you have different colors. Yeah, we have different colors and bring it back. Everything's so active and new. Yeah, now one thing that was brought up is do we need... We try to do it very comprehensively. We give like two months in the rears and two months in the future. And I know, I think it was you particularly, Director Jaffe, that liked having the history, but if that's just kind of like dragging it down, we could reduce that down to one month in the past or none, whatever you want. I'll leave it up to you. Okay. I don't want to be dragged down. Yeah, and then this is different than the reports that we do receive from a different time. Yeah, and that's the management update that we do once a month. And what we were proposing there... Can we talk about... Okay, so we can talk... So that's another efficiency item that was introduced by Director Lather was putting that on the consent agenda, because it really is just a report out. We're here if you want the items discussed. And sometimes we do. We may ask you to pull the item, but generally it's just meant to be a one-way flow of information to update you and the community on what we're doing. And if there's something that is... So you'd put on a consent agenda, and if staff wants to highlight something, they would pull it. And if the board or public wanted more information on something... Then the board would decide whether to pull it or not. And it would go to the end of the packet for the night. Or close to the end if another agenda... It's just like any other consent item. So I think we don't even need to change this motion. Right? Right, and then it's just guidance on the... Yeah. In terms of the organization of the management reports. It's not a motion. Okay. Well, then I'll do the easy one and say let's... I'll make the motion for what it says here for number four. And I'll second it. Roll call, please. Vice President Lather. Yes. Director Jaffe. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Daniels. Yes. So is there anything else on this one? That's it. I think so. Thank you. Okay, now we go to 6.3. Consider approval of Sea Water Intrusion Prevention Wells and monitoring wells. Good evening. So this item relates to Pure Water Soquel, as you're mostly familiar with. This is the third pillar of our three-component project. This is professional services for engineering and preparation of bid-ready documents. This is different from the pipelines and the treatment plants, which are being done progressive design build. This pillar of Sea Water Intrusion Prevention Wells will be bid out as a traditional design bid build phase of procurement. And so Montgomery and Associates has in their wheelhouse formally hydrometrics the expertise to weigh in and provide the technical specs and design for the wells, the remaining wells. That would be the Monterey Well and the Willowbrook Well. That's the straw on the ground. They're very familiar with that. They've worked with us in the past and successfully provided that service. That's only approximately 17% of the scope that you're considering tonight. The lion's share of it is more civil-cited infrastructures. That's everything related to site access, electrical, paving, pump selection, fencing, making the site literally from start to finish, operable, ready to work. And so we've had to do this recently at the Granite Way Well. As you might recall, that's nearing completion, but there is a decent amount of effort to go from design to construction. And so that they have recruited water systems consulting, and that's a familiar name. They did our last urban water management plan, but they also have civil experience in their wheelhouse. And so Montgomery and Associates has teamed with them as a sub-consultant to do the site civil work. And we are ready to move forward with this. This has a little longer process because we're going to split it up into two bid phases. That's traditionally how we do it. It's a little easier to design the pump and system dynamics once the well is finished, and they're usually very different contractors. So our approach here would be to do the design of the wells first, procure those, and then fall back on the civil and move forward with that procurement after the wells are drilled. This will be funded through the grant. And so we ask that you consider making a motion to award this scope of work, but before that I can answer any questions or we can have public comment as well. Any questions of staff? Yeah, I was just... So in looking at the budget, it looks like you're relying on Montgomery and Associates for assistance, like on the well-bid assistance. And in the past, we've done that in-house, right? So is engineering slammed? Is that with everything going on? Or am I misremembering? Well, no, that's specific to any questions that may come up, requests for information or potentially addendums that may need to be issued as bidders look at the packet, and if there's any clarification that we need to make before we issue the bid, that may also include reviewing the bid results and giving their opinion on the qualifications of drillers and... We will handle the civil side, but that is the well-drilling portion is M&A's wheelhouse, if there's procedurally some question about what's requested. So they're the best people to do that? They would be. Yeah, okay. And then just a question on... So WSC is a subcontractor? To M&A. Montgomery Associates and water... Systems consultants. So there's a markup, and that's because it's subcontracted and that's standard? That would be standard. Now, any subsequent markup, we can request be removed. So if WSC has a subconsultant with say electrical design sub, so a sub to a sub, that would then... We don't want to have a double markup. Okay, but that's standard to do a markup? On one, yes. But not a subsequent markup. One thing I do want to mention, I mentioned it in the memo, but we did conduct... Brown and Caldwell is familiar with this type of project, and so we requested that they perform an independent cost analysis, and they did that for us line by line, task by task, and they came to a price that was actually a little higher than this, roughly $59,000 higher when it all comes down to it, and so we do feel that this is in line and not out of line with this type of work. For three separate sites, independent sites, it's got some logistics associated with it. Thanks for asking for that independent cost analysis. You're welcome. Any other questions? I had a few. Actually, it's not just the three wells. It's three wells and all the monitoring wells, which there's like four or five per injection well. Is that then going to produce monitoring wells like the monitoring wells we currently have along the coast, or will they be different? They'll be relatively similar to what we're familiar with. Yes. Because I see there's also a lot of money being spent on designing these monitoring wells. If we already have designs for the ones we use along the coast, maybe that could save us some money is to not start from scratch and produce something very different that we don't quite have any experience using. Well, the reason that that, they have done our design for the monitoring wells in the past. This will take a different approach. The method of drilling is different than the production wells, so they will be a separate procedure that's just prescribed and required. But yes, they do have that in their wheelhouse. I'm not sure how much, if that's real specific, if it's broken out specifically, how much they're contributing towards monitoring wells. On page 44, I see at the very top, for the Twin Lakes Church, they're calling for redevelopment. I know we do redevelopment of wells when they've been in service for 10 years and they start getting clogged up, but this is literally almost a brand new well that has been tested, so why are we doing redevelopment of that? Is that expensive? I would imagine so. When we were conducting the testing of that well, subsequent injection tests, when we did a video after the first injection test, we discovered that there was some fine silt in the screens and that needs to be removed and it hasn't been removed as part of the original drilling operations. That's what's meant by redevelopment of wells? Yeah, it's removing any fine silt that remained after the injection testing, which is not typical for our production wells. We don't normally do that, but it did generate some silt and the final video showed that and it is something that we want to remove from there before we begin injecting. So it's not the typical redevelopment that we have to do for old wells? No, sometimes we use a chemical rehab. They'll probably do some air lifting and some zone development, but they will need to bring in baker tanks. The thing I'm really concerned about is on page 68. It's the schedule and they have the last item, 65.2, well-site equipment bid phase, well-site equipping construction and start-up. And that lasts 21 months and takes us into 2023. If that's the case, we're not going to have a system that works by the end of 2022 because there's to be creating the wells and that seems, for one thing, why does it take 21 months? And the other is if it does, we need to try and find something different to accelerate that. You don't have to answer now, but I think that needs to be looked at. Yes, good point. Any other comments? That meant I didn't see a color key, huh? Yeah, all right. Okay, public comment. Anyone wish to speak on this item? And I believe the new policies you adopted will begin at the next board meeting. Yes, that makes sense. Thank you. Becky Steinbruner is a nevaptas. So the Twin Lakes Church is part of Pure Water Soquel. Let's make that clear. It has been all along. I do want to just point out that this is an extremely expensive project, extremely risky project, and I still feel it should not go forward. I want to point out you're not talking about the money in front of your audience. You're a very small audience here. Maybe you've got people watching, but this is for a contract not to exceed $645,320. That's a lot of money. And it's coming out of the Operating Contingencies Reserve. Since when do capital improvement projects come out of the Operating Contingencies Reserve? This isn't making a lot of financial sense to me. And you have a tank, the Quail Run Tank, that you borrowed money for a long time ago, and it's still not even anywhere near on the completion or even being looked at. It is anticipated that approximately 47% of the total cost will be expended by June 30th of this year. So what about the other half of the cost of this doing these injection wells? Your general manager stated under oath and under penalty perjury that all costs to be reimbursed by grant money would have to be expended by February 29th of this year. So how are you going to recover the rest of this money? I also want to say that I've seen the Monterey site. It is extremely constricted. It's a small site, a lot of oak trees. Are you going to be cutting trees? And right next to it, nearly on the fence, is a two-story apartment complex. What are you going to be doing for that? Where will you put the Baker tanks to develop the Monterey well? How will you address the issue of at Willowbrook, the park being right there? This is not very well thought out, and it's very expensive. And thank you, Director Daniels, for bringing out the point that it's not even going to be making the deadline for your project to be online, as is one of the requirements for your grant that you've just received. So again, I want to say that this will be coming out of the operating contingency fund that is $2 million. Anyone else? Terry Maxwell, a customer and a resident and a rate payer. And I endorse Ms. Steinbrunner's comments a hundred and a thousand percent. She is totally correct. Every item she challenges is totally well founded. For you to steal from your operating contingency reserve fund to fund this capital improvement, which by the way you're doing in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, because you haven't complied with looking at the alternatives, and Ms. Steinbrunner has correctly sued you about that. And you have had it manipulated by Judge Gallagher to ignore the facts, the evidence and the law, and not enjoin you it should have happened. Every one of you should be investigated, and perhaps even indicted, for your failure to honor your obligations to your rate payers and their money, and your compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as your compliance with the common law traditions of fiduciary obligations with other people's money. It is so easy in government, especially in this county, to waste the taxpayer's money. And you're part of the county government, in effect, your offshoot component. But you're even more obligated because your rate payers have the position of being stockholders and shareholders in the Soquel Creek Water District. And for 45 years, this board has ignored your obligations, especially the last 10 or 12. The Poopwater Soquel Project, as I call it, should not proceed until you comply with a proper environmental assessment. And if you did that, it would fail. That's why you've got to fix from Judge Gallagher twice, and to fix from Judge Smoltz twice. It's tragic. You could fix the problem with a merger with Santa Cruz and a regionalization of the water authorities here, and $18 to $23 million, implementing the Lackifer and Mr. McGill voice, North Coast, and some other recovery, and not waste $130 to $50 million and produce water that is going to be always polluted, that will always have pharmaceutical waste in it, and will always be a danger to children, especially, who get their water from the Soquel Creek Water District where they live. It's tragic. Somebody's going to make a lot of money on the $130 million, $150 million, and I predict you'll waste that, too. The $2 million you should not touch. You don't have the rights to do so, and it's profligate as hell for you to steal from your operating contingency fund to throw it into this unsupported, technically unnecessary, and not properly in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act yet. Ms. Steinbrunner should be applauded for her plaudits, for her efforts to hold you accountable to comply with the law, common sense, and good science. It's tragic. This board is tragic in your waste of other people's money, your rapier's money. I'll be removed in a recall. You're still. Anyone else? I'm just listening to all the things that are going to be done here, and before I think I've mentioned my husband for 33 years, he was a superintendent of production at Santa Cruz City Water, and many times he spoke about doing the desol plant, and he said it would be so expensive not only to do it, but to have people there to run it. This is the astronomical cost to the ratepayers, and I think you have to take this into consideration. I wish he was here to talk about it, because he would have a lot to say. Sorry, he's not. So I'm speaking for him. Think of the ratepayers. Look at the cost. You're putting a lot of this outside of our own district. We have engineers. I agree with someone. Why can't our own engineers look into these? You're paying a lot of people outside, and they're getting lots of money. So think about that. We have engineers. Let them focus on that. Anyone else? So you know when I bring it back? And by the way, as I've mentioned last time, and as you've complained again this time, there are no other alternatives. These are not alternatives. If you think those are alternatives, go to the city of Santa Cruz and have them write it up as an alternative. It is, sit down. They are not alternatives, because the city owns those properties. They own the water rights. We don't, unless the city is willing to say you can have it for this circumstance, and these arrangements, it doesn't exist. And therefore, it should not be in EIR, because you're not supposed to comment on things that are not real. A regional takeover of the water supply. That would have no effect whatsoever. No it wouldn't, because legally, the water right that the city has only applies to their property. President Daniels, it's turning into a back and forth. Okay, let's move on to... I would like to give staff an opportunity if they want to correct any misinformation. But before that, what keeps coming up is that there's going to be pharmaceuticals in the water, and that's not the truth. There's membranes involved, reverse osmosis doesn't allow a molecule the size of a pharmaceutical to get through. And in contrast, some of the city's water in the river already does contain pharmaceuticals that are not taken out by their processes, since there are literally thousands of septic systems up the river. What we've learned through various surveys is that many people express the same fear, and then when they become educated about it, they move their position. And they kind of... The story that I use to help people with water quality understand it better is, and I've said it and I may just take a second, is that many cities around the world take water either from the ground or from a river, treat it to secondary standards and put it back in the river. And then the town below it takes that same water and treats it to conventional water standards and then serves it to their public. And this goes on and on. So they're dumping their secondary, treated affluent into the river and the next town picks it up. For example, in Atlanta, 15 places, I think, within about 10 miles stretch north in Dallas, if they didn't put their secondary treated affluent into the river down in Dallas in the summertime, the river would go dry. But here's the kicker that really helps people, and this is what the Berkeley professor shared with us, this recycle concept, is that when people take the water out and treat it to conventional standards, even though it's a lot of its secondary water, the process that is being proposed by Pure Water Soquel and it's been proven by others, treats that water 100 million times more than conventional standards. 100 million times. Even though they may have similar compensation because it has treated affluent in it, 100 million times. And so the independent advisory panel that the board hired, that's why they supported the Pure Water Soquel project because they know this kind of information. So we're looking at 6.3. Can I ask the board, consider adding another motion before you authorize this to transfer the funds from OCR? I omitted that, and that was my error, but that does need to happen. That's part of the approval of the item, so it would need to be included in the initial motion, but it could be handled at a single motion. Is there any discussion or any motions? We'll move that we transfer funds from the operation OCR budget in the amount of 645,320. Up to you. Up to, yeah. Not to exceed, right? Not to exceed, and authorize the board president to amend the existing professional contract with Montgomery and Associates to approve that scope that is attached to this board item. And then I think authorize the general manager to sign the purchase order in addition. Oh yes, there you are. And authorize the general manager to sign the purchase order. I missed that, and I'm sorry about that. That's all in motion. All right. Someone want to second that? I will second that. Roll call, please. Vice president Lather. Yes. Director Jaffee. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And president Daniels. Yes, thank you. And the board of 6.4, appointment of district representative on the Aqua JPIA. Yeah. So in accordance with JPIA, the joint powers insurance authority bylaws, and we belong to JPIA and Aqua, that the governing board, the district must appoint one director to be part of the governing board select a several alternates that they like and so I'm going to slightly modify what we recommend down here in this recommendation. If two board members want to do it, that's excellent. The reason we suggest staff being an alternate is because often one of the staff members are at these meetings. You know, they're in Monterey one time, one part of the year, and the next part of the year, they're usually in Southern California, Monterey or Sacramento and then down south. So what we're recommending tonight is that the board appoint or reappoint a, and Director Christensen is currently the member by the way, appoint or reappoint a district board member as the primary representative for the district on the JPIA Board of Directors and the motion currently reads appoint the general manager to serve as the alternate. What we'd like to amend that to be the appoint the general manager, the HR manager, and the finance and business manager as the alternates and we'll see what works best amongst ourselves if a board member decides not to go. Any public comment on this item? See none. I bring it back to the board. So Carla, what's involved? It's an early attendance to AQUA. It's on Tuesdays, isn't it? Yeah, and any person who is one of the representatives, that particular part of the meeting is not part of AQUA, it's you don't pay a registration fee to just go to that one day of meeting. The position didn't exist until it was Kim Adamson who came on the board and wanted to be a member of the JPIA and could it put out another board member, but that's as far as it went, so I didn't make a point of going to it. I think it's a good idea to go to it, but we do have an expert, I felt like the things that I have gone to felt like we really have a good knowledge base here on our own at the district with Tracy Hart, so I did make a point of attending very many of the meetings, but it is one whole day of work and another several hundred page packet. That was always another bunch of stuff, but it's all like you know the benefits, insurance, there's a lot of information there that's relevant to the district, but like I said we have a really good representation here already, knowledge representation. So are we going to do it again? Yeah, I'm happy to do it again. I would say anybody who works, I would say that perhaps Rochelle and Bruce Jaffe would not be interested because it would take a day off of work that you already have a lot of responsibilities at. And the other person might be Dr. Daniels because you go, they are on Tuesday. I'm always there on Tuesdays, but the groundwater meetings in the morning and then the water management meeting is in the early afternoon and then water quality is in the late afternoon, so I'm usually busy all Tuesday going to those. This is Monday. You would be willing to do this? Yes, especially since the meetings are so close by now. I don't mind it so much as when it was down, way down Southern California. Well, I'll make the motion that you're the primary representative and that the general manager and Tracy Finance and Business Manager and the general manager has alternates. I'll second whatever he said. I didn't say it very well. Good enough. All right. Roll call yet again, please. Vice President Lather. Yes. Director Jaffe. Yes. Director Christensen. Yes. And President Daniels. Yes. Thanks for being here. So item seven is the closed session, which we are not having tonight. If anyone wants to speak on that, this is the time. Actually, I think. So we're not, it's up to the board. We're not required to have public comment on an item that had been pulled from the agenda, especially when it was announced at the beginning. I don't think we need to do that. So I think we are done. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Well, we're having a meeting in two weeks. You can do it then. She wanted to retract. Okay. Well, retract. Yeah. We're in back in order. Go ahead. Retract. I have no idea. The notice of the action in January, and I was going by the definition of what a limited versus unlimited case is. A limited case by legal definition that I read is that it is less than $25,000. Still under the impression of the legal definition of tied to the $25,000. I classified in my case management statement that it is a limited case. I'm not going to let knowing that it is not a limited because I'll see the cases as she knows, but I didn't. And nowhere in the law is it stated that such cases are under the cases. Work case management statement rightfully. So I want to make clear that in her case management statement, she did properly classify it as unequal. The travesty is that the judge who heard the case management case did not even pay attention to the disparity of the two classifications. And therefore it was not addressed. The judge was negligent in his duty to determine the classification. My understanding was that I was still operating under that law. That definition that it was limited. But when I feel the case, I took it as is required for limited cases. I took it to the appellate division within the Santa Cruz County Supreme Court. And finally, after two further actions, the judge, Judge Wolfman, finally looked and made the decision and should have been done a long time ago that it is an unlimited case. I do know how I would vote in the cost that the elect has levy against me over $2,800. She chose to use the limited. We're adjourned. I'm adjourned. Satash. This is... Oh.