 Reconvene to open session at this time and note that all directors are present for the meeting and there was no reportable action out of closed session. But before we move formally into the rest of the agenda, I suggest and I would like to have a moment of silence for the passing of the director who had a long tenure on this board and that's Fred McPherson. So if there's no objection in front of the public, I'd like to give us a minute to contemplate and think of Fred's contributions over the years. So, please, thank you. And for the two people who just came in, we've had a moment of silence of one minute for Fred McPherson, the passing of the director. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. So, we will move on to tonight's agenda. Are there any additions or deletions to open session agenda? I'd like you to change in the order of items 10, I, 10, J, and move those to the beginning of our new business. Any objections from the board members? Okay. Do we need to public? Okay. We will do that. But first we will take over communications from the public on any item, that's an item tonight's agenda. Ms. Norton. Yes, I had asked both the board and Mr. Senator Rogers if I could possibly prepare the agenda for the next LADOC meeting. And I understand that it's, you know, that it's something that you'd like to take care of. And I just would appreciate it if I understand you'll be presenting the, I'm hoping, the charter, because it'll be a great tool for the committee to review and use as a starting point. But I would really appreciate it if it could be published as quickly as possible, the agenda, since we, it's, the 27th is the date of the LADOC meeting, so we could have an opportunity to study it and be prepared to discuss it. Thank you. Ms. Hammack. Yeah, I'm living in Hammock-Lampico. I had a question about LADOC as well. I understand there's another opening and was something going to be done about that, that the next regular board meeting, or was it going to be advertised? I saw it was, but only on the Lampico page, again, not on any page. Okay. I'm not sure that's something that. No, you can answer just one of the people. Right. But we'll take another consideration as to when to do that. We have not moved ahead on advertising. It's in this packet for resignation. Right. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else? I'm Nancy Macy from Older Creek. I wanted to thank the board for the district with the board's support for cosponsoring the 19th annual Environmental Town Hall. That's this Saturday from one to three at the community hall. And there will be over 20 other organizations, nonprofits, county agencies, schools that will have exhibits there. And so we encourage everybody to come, no later than one, because there will be about 20 minutes or so where they'll have a chance to peruse those wonderful exhibits. And then Mark Stone will be giving a presentation, which will basically cover the environmental issues at the state level or things going on or potentially coming that will affect us here locally. And then there'll be a Q&A with Mark and then we'll close and there'll be another opportunity to visit the exhibits. So it's going to be very exciting. I really appreciate the incredible support that we've had and especially from Jen for her help. And then I want to thank the department board members from the bottom of my heart for the extraordinary job they've done and sorry to see them go. Thank you. Anybody? Ms. Henry? I have a question about the bill pay or accounts payable, as you would. The bills are listed in the, they're in the agenda packet, but they aren't listed on the agenda. And I'm wondering if I want to ask a question about those, when can I ask a question? Because the only other place I could see would be finance. And it says if you want to ask a question there, you have to submit something ahead of time. So. Okay, thank you. I think we can provide a response to that. You can't tell me? No, I said we can. Okay. And those are under district reports. And at the time, that's the conventional time in which they're in one of the district reports. So that's the standard place to bring an item of, you know, a question about that. Anybody else? Okay. I don't see anybody else on their comment during oral communications. So we have one item of unfinished business this evening, and that's the public hearing for the Bear Creek Estates Wastewater Enterprise Proposition 218. And I haven't handled one of these myself. So either Rick, I think, I don't know at which point we have a, I could take oral communications before and then open a public hearing. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. As you know, we've been working with the Bear Creek Estates Wastewater customers on fixing the wastewater rates and charges. We've met with the homeowner several times to talk with them about improvements that are needed and a rate increase that are needed for the Bear Creek Water Works. We did move ahead with a Prop 218 clean, which is, in fact, with this public hearing it is four to nine. I do believe the district secretary has calculated the amount of protests that we've received to date, and we plan on asking to receive protests if anybody has thought one to a meeting tonight. And then move forward. I'm going to add to that. Just a suggestion. If you want to give the board an opportunity to comment before opening the public hearing, that would be appropriate, or you could simply open the public hearing. I recommend reminding the public about whatever time limits you intend to set for purposes of the public hearing when you open the hearing. For individual comments during the public hearing. And would those be separate from, if we took public comments before, if the board had a discussion we took public comments before the hearing, would we need to take comments again during the hearing? The hearing itself is the public comment period. So once you open the hearing, that will be the public comment period, and when you close it, public comments will be over. Okay. So, any board members want to? Yes. Okay. I've been involved in this both as a director and also as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee, and I just want to commend Stephanie on her work getting this second round to the really, I think, much improved state that it is now working with a number of the neighbors up in Bear Creek Estates. I think that seems like a really successful process, and I really appreciate your involvement with that as well as the residents up there. I think it's something that we really had to get done, and I think this is hopefully a really good compromise. So I think that was a great way to approach it, and I really appreciate sort of your extra attention to that. Any other board members? No, I can wait until the hearing. Okay. I mean, I kind of would like to second Jean's thoughts on this. I also want to thank the people from Bear Creek Estates, okay, for engaging, okay, with us in a productive manner. I think I haven't been part of the Budget and Finance Committee and been really involved in this, but I'm really proud of the way that both sides in this handle themselves, and I think we've gotten to a point that we'll make progress on this, okay, matter, and we'll get to getting on with the next phase of it. So if there's no more board comments, time to open the public. Okay, and is there any official manner in which that's done? Okay, so at this point we will open the public hearing. We will open the public hearing for the Bear Creek Wastewater Enterprise Proposition 218. So at this point we see if there's any in additional protests that are collected. Those can be provided at any time to the district secretary while the public hearing is open. Once the public hearing closes, no more will be accepted. So we don't have to provide a specific opportunity to that as long as anybody knows. If you have one, make sure Holly gets it before the public hearing is closed. Okay, and this is the point. And I'm Holly, you don't know who I am. So this process is to hear the public input during this process, have time, okay, to submit a protest during this process and then close that hearing and then come back and look at the results of what the protest process resulted in and make a determination. So at this point I'll open this up to public comment during the hearing. Would anybody like to comment? This is McKibben. And then McKibben from Boulder Street that I live in Bear Creek Estates has worked on the last protest with the neighbors and worked with the group that put together all the input from the neighbors, which I really appreciated your listening to and incorporating into your plan. And I want to thank you for that because that made a big impact on being listened to by the board and having that incorporated in there. And I wanted to thank Bill's moment for meeting with us and setting forth a really feasible plan, giving us a lot of hope that it could be fixed or it could be dumped or whatever we've got hope for. So thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else like to comment during the hearing? I don't see anybody. So close the hearing at this point. Okay. The hearing will consider the hearing closed at this point. And are we at a point that we know the results of the process? Yes, sir. We have not received enough protests to have this prop 218 stopped. So it will go through. Okay. Very well. Okay. So at this point. Do we need the numbers of protests received? Well, if we're below three of the numbers around 26, that we don't need to validate them. So if we get one close, we would have to go through each one and make a determination as to whether it was valid. But if we're below 26, should we state the number that we did receive? Sure. We received five protests. Okay. So with that, we now need to address a resolution. Okay. Okay. That appears in our packet tonight. Is there any board discussion about this at this point? Just reaffirmed that I would, you know, move approval of resolution 12, 18, 19. I think it's an excellent compromise. And it gets us going in the right direction. Okay. One second. Okay. Again, I just want to say I appreciate the, this process and maturity with which it's been handled during, okay, that we got through this. I hope that that holds for the next phase in which we get capital done. Okay. The district gets it done. So I will then call for a roll call vote. Okay. So we have a motion to move on to resolution 12, 18, 19. Director Hayes. Yes. Director Smallman. Aye. Director Ratcliffe. Yes. President Boffman. Yes. Director Bruce. Yes. The motion is passed. Very well. Thank you all very much. So let's move on to new business and let's move up as we just discussed. Item J. Okay. I need to be first. Is that right? Okay. Move up I first. Okay. So move up I to the beginning. And I is the debt policy. And it's buried a little bit in my stack of papers. Okay. Okay. And I'll allow, okay, if you would, okay, introduce the sign. So in going through kind of this process, which is the first for me since I've been repeating a large debt financing in our attention as a district did not have a prior debt management policy that is considered best practices with the GFOA. And also something that investors are looking for us to have, you know, that it is something that you need to have in place. Nossamine is a firm that we involved in all this type of stuff. They have draft documents of stuff like this, you know, firms like themselves and others prepare kind of a template policy that they can then tailor to fit your exact needs. So this has been, you know, reviewed by Nossamine as well to be an effective debt management policy. It goes over a lot of different things for the different types of investments that the district can enter into kind of the policies behind the different players. And you know, you just have underwriters, you have bond counsel. There's a lot of different moving targets of the varieties of debt that the districts could go out for. This is something that we should consider to look at from time to time. You know, it does have certain things in place for, you know, debt coverage ratios and stuff like that. So, you know, through the audit, we are going to be looking to make sure that we're in compliance with that and whatnot. And so this is kind of something that should have been done a while ago, but you know, this is a good policy that we should have. Any questions? Two quick questions. One, did this go through the Finance Committee? Yes, we saw this and I had just a couple of questions because some of this was new language to me, but I wasn't concerned with the fundamentals, just the details of the language, especially some of the debt refunding and some of that language was new. Some of it is, you know, a little bit more foreign to me. We do have Catherine from Nossamine here as well, but if there are any specific questions for the debt policy, you know, she should be able to answer some of those questions. Okay. One other small one about, there was on page 156 of the document, and I'm trying to figure out where this was. Something jumped out at me about, shall consult the district's municipal advisor or other kinds of advice thought and I thought, well, why wouldn't we also ask you to consult the district's financial director your advice as well? Or should that not be here? You're talking about people that have certain licenses to be able to give actual legal advice about this particular data. So that's where I mean, it's kind of a partnership. It is one of those things that we want to make sure that we're reaching out to licensed professionals to get good opinions from the best realm. Got it. Anybody else? I'll have to open it up to public comment. Anybody from the public want to comment on this item? I don't see any. So we'll close out public comment on it. Bring it back. I have no further comments. Anybody like to make a motion? There is a resolution involved. Number 14, 18, 19. 14. There we go. Out of order. Makes sense. I would move approval of resolution 14 of 18, 19, which is the debt business policy. Second. Okay. Further discussion? Okay. Seeing none. Holly, could you have a roll call move? Director Hayes? Yes. Director Smallman? Aye. Director Ratcliffe? Yes. President Boffman? Yes. Director Bruce? Yes. Okay. Motion passes. Motion passes. Okay. Go on to Jay. So now let's move on to what needed to be, the thing for which this needed to be approved. So, and I'll bring this back again to Stephanie. I believe it is the correct person to introduce. Yes. So the agenda item was the authorization for execution and delivery of documents relating to the sale of certificates of participation and related actions. Over the course of the last couple weeks, the capital markets and rates have been fluctuating while the original idea was to be moving forward with these certificates of participation. We do believe that we have been able to find private placement that is going to potentially be offering the district a better option, not to mention the level of intensity that certificates of participation entail. So while this was the original item that we were hoping to kind of move forward with, our recommendation has changed to where we do not recommend moving forward with this option at this time. We plan to have more final documents at the 1120. We are having a special board meeting on the 1128 for the audit. We are proposing to move an item to there for more of the final debt financing. And this is all relating around the $2 million financing that we're looking for related to probation. When you're talking about sort of the fluctuating and volatile finance market, is there a chance that this window will close before then? Or is it not that volatile? That's kind of where all of this starts to play in. So the capital markets is obviously going to be a moving thing. You're not going to know what your locked-in rate is until you actually go to the public for the offering of certificate of deposit. When we first started talking about this was the very end of August. In between then, the effects have raised the rates. The market has been a little bit more volatile. The private placement is going to be more something someone can assimilate to a home loan to where we are able to get a fixed rate with someone to where we can move forward to where this is going to continue to fluctuate until we are eventually able to be there. So that is part of what we are liking right now is the fact that we can lock in a rate and we know what that is and have something hopefully final by the 28th of this month versus something getting dragged out a little bit longer. There has been talks that the feds are going to be potentially raising the rates here again in the next few weeks. We kind of want to make sure that we are hitting into something before that. We do have Chris and Catherine here who if people have questions that are probably over my head for the exact details they can answer some of those questions tonight if there are any. My follow-up question is really simple. If this is able to be brought back on the 28th what is the time until execution is possible? Would it be the sort of thing if we approved it it could be put in a place immediately? Yes. So the start of the legwork that we have already done has been working on the installment purchase contract jump in if I am using wrong terms. It will be... So with the documents that you have looked at already for the private placement deal there will be far fewer documents that need to be signed. So that is called installment purchase contract that is in the packet. We will have a document very similar to that and you will sign that directly with the bank that is going to be lending you the money. Once you guys approve hopefully fingers crossed on the 28th the financing we can get the deal closed and get cash to Stephanie. We could do it in a week it is going to depend on the bank and what they require for two weeks after that point. So by the first second week in December Stephanie will have the money and then forward it. What would the path be if we continued on the certificate of participation? If we continued with the COPs we would meet still need to come back on the 28th with another big document that until you guys decide what to do we just stopped work on but a big disclosure document that would go out to all the investors and we work with Stephanie to gather a lot of different data points about the district and all different rates and water usage and all this data that we have to share with the investors. So that will take a little bit of time we bring that document back for you guys to approve on the 28th and then we would go lock in the rates pretty shortly after that meeting and it could take two or three weeks beyond the meeting so we could still get the money by the end of the year but it would take several weeks longer and we don't have the certainty of having the rate lock whereas we could lock the rate very shortly for the private placement deal and not have to worry about the markets and the fluctuations. Would you guys want to introduce yourselves? I'm Katherine Thursby I'm a partner at Nassaman and I work actually out of the San Francisco office and I'm strictly a bond council public finance attorney been doing that for about ten years. We're a public finance underwriter and we do the capital markets in big placements so we can straddle both so through this process we were looking at we saw a 45 basis point increase in the long end of the yield curve which are 15 years to 30 years gone up a half percent in the last few weeks which is significant until a few weeks ago and when that happened it made that long end of the investment hard to justify from a structural standpoint and before I had proposed my offer I actually tried to straddle both markets to see capital markets banks which one is more viable and back then capital markets was by far a better option but now that has changed and so that's sort of where we're at today but okay other board comments on this? public I'm curious, you're talking about private options is this a local bank or is it a national bank national bank it's not felt in first whatever local banks have a harder time on the lock in rates for a longer period of time someone who's got enough balance sheet to hold it for a longer period of time and they did lock in the rate today through the end of December so if that's a direction where the board decides to go we've saved till then what rate did they lock in well we're at about four and an eighth that's 4.15 okay any other public comment? Ms. Norton I'm I'm just curious is this the same company that you were using before? correct so they will be MCM we will be partnering with for this $2 million the $6.5 million bridge next year and the $1 million Long Pico Long Pico so part of that is there's a lot of front-end work in getting some of these initial documents that then are going to make those other pieces easier one of the things we do as a company I focus on working with rural development the USDA programs all over the country so that came to fruition because of the $6.5 million project and then Sefi had mentioned there was these other smaller ones and because of the work involved the excess, usually the better money you know we looked at this $2 million project so that it just turned out that it wasn't viable because of the size it's a smaller issue so it's more expensive to do it it's a capital markets transaction okay two million is very small I mean two million is very small most of the deals that you're talking about that they're using taking the capital markets is $15 million plus having these smaller things is an intricate piece of the pie it's nice that MCM looks to help more rural smaller agencies find some of these different options and figuring out ways to leverage and make it affordable so that we're not having to go to some of the local banks that are they really would I mean it costs an arm and a leg sometimes to get stuff like this I don't see any other hands up so we'll close out public comment and come back here and let you have a recommendation at this point there's nothing for the board to approve because the staff recommendation changed there's no action the board can take tonight okay it will be on the 1128 agenda so anyone interested in this audit and this will be will be at least two items on that agenda so it's a question on the 2 million are you going to do an early call on that or do you get a lot there from the term do you know there's a call feature at 10 years so it's a 20 year fixed term okay it's callable at 10 years at heart I'm not going to sit here and guess what position we're going to be in 10 years to be able to if we're going to be able to do something like that I mean obviously if we're ever able to the idea with the larger one is to call it at the time the USDA law kicks in right with the 6.5 that's going to be a totally different the bridge loan that's going to be a different set up than what this is this is intended to be a true longer term price that was what I was thinking okay thank you as long as for the probation tank that is in construction that would be good good you're coming you don't have to stay for the nice to meet you thank you thanks for watching maybe it's less smoky here I've got my mask oh jeez today was like the worst day that we've had oh my brother was driving over the bridge told me he couldn't even see the color of the screen 213 nice to meet you all good night okay so let's return to our previously scheduled agenda order and bring item 10a to the forefront and that's the engineering department reorganization this is certainly your word over the years the district has a lot of different variations on the engineering department we've had district engineers managing engineers, social staff and down now to the current single staff position GIS staff position on the 2018-19 fiscal budget board approved a new position a project coordinator position that position was going to coordinate the last amount of capital improvement projects the PICO projects and the budget we have going on today and utilize solding engineers to do plan specifications we've done a lot of the generalized engineering we haven't filled that position today we've done interviews we've decided that with the change of district managers I'd rather go in a different direction to do the engineering manager and a engineering manager assistant or an engineering assistant that can support the engineering manager and bring a lot of the consultant engineering back into the district instead of relying on consultants just a project manager to carry on with their work the district with its sample improvement projects the expansions that we've had the modeling of the system and the different projects that we've been doing we need an in-house engineer there's a lot of day-to-day engineering that I've been covering that the deputy director's been covering meter services, fire review there's a lot of day-to-day stuff I mean we've been subbing a lot of that out as well so what I'd like to propose with my reclassification from director of operations to district manager we're going to most likely move ahead and fill in the director operations with a deputy director position which is James which that position was created about four or five years ago as a transition just for the transition when I was to retire a smooth transition so we've been training and coming up to speed to make that transition and make that transition and then no longer fill the deputy director position so that will free up a large amount of salary then move forward with the reorganization of hiring an engineering manager and then an engineering assistant I mean looking at when you take current budgeted approved budgeted salaries and you look at the non-filled positions it's about an increase about $2,200 very small to get an in-house engineer and to really move the engineering department forward so I'd like the board to move ahead and approve a district engineer position managing engineer position and move forward as soon as possible it will definitely take a lot of workload off of me and the director of operations we're doing a lot of the day-to-day stuff that we need to get done okay just for our edification what are some of the qualifications or how would you describe the position qualifications in a way just to help be a registered professional engineer the position would be a registered professional engineer that could sign plans it would be a management and it would be one that we would look engineers are in great demand right now I know a lot of the consultant firms are having problems finding engineers and people so it may be a little take a short while to find the right person we want someone that has several years in waterworks experience and what we're doing here I don't want an electrical engineer or a chemical engineer that has underground engineering and construction experience that could hit the ground running is there someone you know that you could steal go to public soon well that was my concern years when we were looking for electricians it's been hard to fill positions because the cost of living in this area competitive job market so that was one of my concerns it depends on the positions we've been out just recently for a couple other positions and we seem to get a better recruitment to move through an engineering manager is going to be a difficult one but you know we could steal send out both they stole one from us we've been stolen from by the construction and the district is a little different the district offers a benefit package it has medical and where some of these private firms probably don't have the benefits that the district has so we'll just find the right one I like the idea of having some of the burden taken off of you and other people who have more high-level duties so I like the idea of the day-to-day stuff being taken care of by somebody else my concern is if the capital projects become too much obviously we can still rely on consultants at some point we will not be able to do away with consultant 200% there will still be plans and specifications but there's a lot of coordination there's a lot of background work that an in-house engineer will do plus all the other things we're working on we're trying to model our water system we're working on our GIS our CAD systems we're trying to get our mapping up that we need to support staff for our GIS as well we're also looking one of the tasks we'll test this individual putting together some numbers to see if that would be a beneficial to the district to start replacing pike within house groups there's work to be done to do that and it's another perfect project for the district that's something that's been kicked around for a few years we just haven't had the time or money to focus on it there's some concerns on that I'll track we've got to make sure that we can keep staff because rainfall is concerned when you're laying pike because you can't really lay pike in the rain so I want to be sure whatever we do and that's what this another task of this individual to look ahead and there's a host of work to look into about power consumption of our pumps, our motors our engineering background to make sure our fish our efficiencies are proper and we're not wasting money on burning energy needs to be looked at I had to play for the job if I wasn't stuck with this one one of the things from a financial aspect it's essentially a wash it's a reorganization it also has a great deal of potential it's all in costs you sort of studied how much we would save we started to look at that a little bit I mean there's definitely I did want to throw a number out but I I consider anyone from 50 to 100,000 the first year once we start inspection we got work going on out in the field I think there's considerable savings we kind of have that WSU kind of already but they're not locked in but their work that would replace WSU some of the stuff the USDA projects they're putting out plans and specifications it wouldn't but this individual would work closely with them and lower that cost but I think with the separate pipeline crew and stuff like that and just being able to do all the engineering in the long run it's going to be a big win I think it's a very healthy organization we've had engineering departments before in the past and they worked out great it just seemed that when the engineer left we just never really played it it was just a way to cut costs at the time and we didn't have a robust capital improvement program going in the last few years but I don't see any daylight and I don't want to see any daylight on capital improvements I mean I see us moving in I'm very much in favor of doing this I think this work structure is very good to me we need to have this expertise in house I even have a candidate in mind okay so let's first go to I asked the public input on this anybody from the public want to comment on this item I saw Mr. Ferris first Lou reading Rick's memo on the justification for the reorganization I think one of the questions came to mind one is looking at the text you talk about adding two head cans and not replacing one head can but then in the salary chart you talk about adding two head cans and deleting two head cans I'm not clear you had some re-classifications so that made it a little confusing but to me it wasn't clear how many ads and how many subtractions you have that's just a question the project quarter position was an approved budget position so while we physically don't have that person hired yet that's the head count that we would and then the deputy director going away so it's essentially one one what we'll be hiring two we'll be bringing two people on but one of them is already funded the project not here but it is in the budget it's funded that's still two ads that's for more sense one ad and one transition we would not backfill the deputy director by eliminating the deputy director we didn't then that would be three and then that would be a healthy increase we feel that now that the transition is done at this point we don't need the deputy director position so in short there was to be one ad and now there's going to be basically that same one ad with the project coordinator becoming the engineering replaced with the engineering tech position and then the engineering manager position is filled with the non-filling of the deputy director and the difference of those two salaries right is 2200 or something any other public second question your reference to that where we are now is based on a staffing study done in 2016 by an outside firm and what you're proposing is more capital intensive as a justification but it strikes me that's really more of a description of the change and not a justification for example you say that you're going to say it outside consulting costs how much are you going to say I don't have that number for you well don't you need to know that to justify what you're going to do I know it's going to be I know for the public and for the board I have that number particularly since the 2200 you were quoting is based on that's based on direct salaries yeah but it's based on the average of direct salaries as I look at the range it's huge so the error on that 2200 couldn't be immense is the only point I'm trying to make there is a little high in there that's my point and where did you pick to get that 2200 I assumed it was the mid it looked like it was the mid anyway the number we need to have more concrete numbers and not just we're going to save money second part of that question is why is the new better than the old I mean concrete specifics I mean you've got a description of we want to head off in this direction well give me the details of why this is better than that it's not clear to me that may be the right direction but it's not a convincing argument and then the last part is what are the downsides I don't see any reference to downsides are there no downsides have you thought about the downsides and the minimal I mean I'd like to see some discussion I'm sure we thought about a long enough we could find a downside I think the downsides are so minimal I don't see a downside to bringing a certified or registered professional engineer into the district my point is just this your plan is to do one thing and I don't see the that pro and con to doing that one thing I just see doing that one thing and I think I need more information in that regard okay thank you Louis we had some back and forth do I did I get my three? Miss Mason well I got so wrapped up in that I kind of lost what I was going to say but I think there are several savings involved and one is that Rick will be able to focus on his job instead of on managing the consultants and that will enable him to finish work the tasks and having an in-house person I think he gives you the board and Rick more control over than he would have over the consultants so it seems really wise to get someone inside have our own person thank you I agree I think that consultants are just a problem with all corporations today that they don't have the jobs in-house they don't have like you said as much control and those costs just seem to skyrocket that just keep going higher and higher so I think it's a great great move that's healthy I concur this is very good to get in and I saw that an in-house person will make the district more responsive to its customers instead of having to wait for a consultant to have time to do whatever it is that you like you have somebody that you can send out immediately and it will be better customer service for everyone Ms. Shaw? I agree having an in-house engineer with these are for back and forth or questions or change a plan it just seems to me the efficiency and desirability I mean it will get the job done the way you want it thank you Ms. Henry I think having an in-house engineer has been a long time coming it should have been done long before this thank you sir? I think a lot of what people say about having the in-house engineers is really a good thing one question that is bothersome is of course how can you justify the in-house versus the consultant you've got to balance that you're swinging the pendulum back a little bit which is probably a good thing but that's still speculation are we going to have anything in place to try and measure the benefits that we've received from this over periods of time not next week, not the week after but three years down the road are you going to be able to look at something and say yes this was handled much better and we saved this amount of money because we did do this in November of 2018 if you don't have the data it's all speculation I can answer that we're going to be working on this position so if they're working specific hours on a capitalizable project specifically a project that's capitalizable they would be getting specifically tracked and extracted and capitalized and that plus whatever premium of profit you want to put on what you think an outside consultant would have been charging you would be a more concrete number down the road that we can identify you're saying we will be able to you will be able to it's not an easy number to come out we've come up with some numbers but I agree with you because you've also got to be able to go to value on your staff time and work those numbers in I'm sure there's a formula that we can do that or an awareness it'll be a speculation it'll be an estimate but it'll be a pretty good estimate but there's no doubt there's going to be a savings I would just like to be able to read and be charged for projects but just what that number is and I know they come up with the public they'd like to know that that's a perfect answer thank you but now I've got to get that number and I couldn't give that to you to see consulting hours in the next budget okay anybody else from the public want to comment on this I don't see any so close out public comment on this one of the things I think I like about this is it'll build institutional memory the position will be filled by somebody who knows the district quite intimately eventually and I think that's a real plus for this and I think you wanted to say I wanted to comment on and thank Lou for his and also Virgil I think is your name something that resonates with me a lot is preventing confirmation bias if you're aware of what that is not only looking at the things that support your initial premise or your initial position but being willing to take a look seriously at the con side and understand how the analysis goes forward so I appreciate when staff does and think that we should do more going into the future of take a look at all sides and make sure that we present to ourselves for our analysis and to the public that we've really done a diligent job looking at all sides and documenting the rationale for the choice whether it's you know yes it's going to add another person we're going to have to figure out a desk and a place and you know all of those logistics and here's how we're going to do that whether it's just something that simple but making sure that we are checking all the boxes and not just confirming our own gut sense even though I trust Rick's gut sense completely you don't know all of the things that go into his head and it would be helpful to see some of that I'm really good to have those numbers as we move on so we can say next year how much we save the disk because it shows that we're doing our job and it makes it easy to sell the next position or to work with the public on something else by being able to have some substantial numbers and so I know Stephanie's already got ideas and says it's very easy but it's doable but I think that is important to show savings or did we spend more meaning it may not always be good but I think in this case it will the numbers be positive towards the disk well that's one of the things when Lou was talking pros and cons there were two sort of intangible pros and that is developing knowledge of the district which is a huge plus that's why we like to go back to people for hydrogeologists who know our system already you know or or engineering firms who've worked in this very complex system before so having the in-house knowledge as Margaret said that's going to be invaluable the other one is sort of the capital market that's the problem where our little itty bitty two million dollar loan nobody wants to touch it if you're a little district it calls on people periodically for relatively small consulting contracts we're not going to be their top priority we may not get their 18 we may not get their their full attention and that's just business so I think those are sort of intangible benefits but I like the idea of especially during this a lot of the hours would be capitalized and that's that's the sort of thing that is just trapped anyhow that is the type of item that we would be I think at least for the first number of years most of this individual's efforts would be capitalized I'm guessing with a small amount of this routine type work filling in the blanks and I mean it's not the whole reason why this is being proposed is because there were pros and cons of weight about the prior proposed structure of a project coordinator so I mean those things have been getting looked at this has a little bit more flexibility and it has the the certification that lets us do some things in-house that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise I think so I think it's it's a good idea especially considering the complexity of our physical circumstances here where all kinds of crazy things happen and the more time you spend in the district the faster and more constantly you can respond to crazy things that routinely happen here other board comment on this so how do we have a motion on this that we have I'll move that we go forward with the recommendation that engineering manager position be created and the other adjustments to the staffing plan as described in item 10a be implemented as in the board packet okay okay bill okay you win okay any other discussion hearing none Holly Director Hayes Director Smallman Director Radcliffe President Bachman Director Bruce motion passes unanimously and we will move on to item 10b which is the review of association of California water agency membership so this recently received 2019 annual dues for the association of California water agencies known as AQUA we now have $18,300 this is an annual membership at the April 16, 2015 board directors meeting the board approved membership in AQUA we've been members in the past and we kind of went out and then the boards and staff have changed we decided to go back AQUA is the largest political advocate group for local water districts joining AQUA being an active member to provide the district a voice in Sacramento related to water laws and state requirements particularly at that time there was a drought there was a lot going on with the drought we also are members in CSTA California Special District which is very similar to AQUA but it tailors more to the smaller district and special districts and the district utilizes CSTA quite quite a bit conferences and different I think we have a CSTA alone at one time it meets the needs of the district in the memo way back in 2015 it said it's important to remember that we only get positive results joining AQUA if we put the time and energy into AQUA joining is a commitment to utilize the available resource and become an active participant we have used AQUA very little one director has gone to a conference and got some information for the money I really don't see the membership doing the benefits to the district not unless we're going to change getting into legislation and and utilize it and we sure as heck won't be both AQUA and CSTA they're a little different but they do a lot of the same so I always kind of recommend the board to review this and consider but not renewing our membership the CSTA membership is approximately 75 7300 a year so I would request that the board consider not renewing the AQUA membership I'll weigh in first for a change here on this one I agree with that I have gone to one AQUA conference and I've signed up for one of the seminars on Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems but I think we had a excess of enthusiasm with the new board and trying to find educational opportunities four years ago approximately four years ago and it hasn't worked out that AQUA seems to be a much broader state oriented organization if you're involved in Groundwater and San Joaquin or Sacramento Basins it's a good thing to be involved in but we haven't participated enough in order to justify the expense on this so I agree but thank you for bringing that noticing that and bringing that to the board future boards or something changes that we feel that we need this type of representation we can always go back I would chime in too I've participated in a conference I've participated in a webinar and have been loosely associated with their energy committee which over the time that I've been monitoring it and occasionally participating has become more and more conservative as has AQUA in general and taking instead of forward looking stances the organization has become very much more a sort of joint forces and say no organization and their stance on for example energy issues energy water nexus issues which I think are important because you save money if you save energy it's more like well it's an unfunded mandate you shouldn't have to do anything so I am in favor of also not at this time and I I attended a number of the energy committee meetings and first of all I realized that it's not being helpful to our district because we're on a much smaller scale than many but the main thrust of AQUA was the legislative advocacy and we get these updates from them asking us to support legislation and what they're endorsing and we're a little backwater so to speak the California water world most of that legislation is irrelevant to us and now that we have the groundwater act passed that was important to everybody in the state but a lot of the other legislative concerns of AQUA don't really affect us in any way and so I think that's why we haven't been as engaged because they weren't relevant to our local situation CSDA on the other hand we go there for policy guidance or finance information and it's been very helpful I think we've participated a lot more in CSDA because they are focused on small districts and I think that's really helpful because whether you're a cemetery district or a rec district or a small water district you have the same finance issues so it's not water specific but it's special district and small district specific and I've gotten a lot more out of CSDA memberships so I would definitely endorse this Before I go to any other board members want to comment on this? Yeah I think we get everything we need from the CSDA I thought that's been helpful and I don't know too much at all about AQUA at all but I don't think I think all we need is the CSDA Okay go to public Well I just wanted to say that I recently contacted AQUA with some questions I was looking into a project and was trying to get some information and I was told oh no we don't work with you because you're not part of our JPA so although we're members of AQUA JPA and we were told no sorry you don't get that information but we'll sell it to you Okay well that pretty much seals that About that you need to go to public comment there I'm a member of the public Okay now formally to the public Anybody want to comment? Okay nobody's sticking I just totally agree with all your points that we're not getting any value from them what's the point Right Okay anybody else Okay I don't see anybody else so I think there's no action to be taken on this I mean we just let the membership expire We can write a letter Because otherwise they keep pounding it We can write them a letter I propose that we have Holly contact them personally With her special raspberry stationary And I'd be surprised if the emails didn't continue okay forever Okay Anyway let's move on to another item which is a new business the programmatic Habitat Conservation Plan otherwise Aquaman Okay as HCP contract with Joey McCraw so I think this might be something you want to start with that right? So the district provides water to a large number of our community who live in Sandhills Habitat and we have tanks and pumps and wells that are located in Sandhills Habitat So as we move forward with our capital improvement program we're going to have more and more projects that are going to have impacts to Sandhills habitats and more specifically to endangered species species that are protected by the state and federal endangered species act and so in order for us to do the construction and improve infrastructure in those Sandhills habitats the Endangered Species Act requires that we have an incidental take permit which basically compensates which provides a way to compensate for the impacts to those species and those habitats by providing either on-site or elsewhere by providing a way to protect species of the same species in another place and so so what we're proposing here is that we work with Jodi McGraw who worked with us on the probation tank to get our habitat conservation plan put in place so we could do the construction on the probation tank. What we did through the probation tank process was set up sort of a mitigation set aside in Sandhills habitat and so what this will be is the kind of phase two of that mitigation set aside where we now will have a habitat conservation plan that will identify all the projects in the future that will take place in Sandhills habitat that will have impacts on the endangered species and so and so we can mitigate on our set aside that we've already established and then what will happen is any there will be a certain mitigation cost associated with each of the projects that those costs will go into the endowment which has now been set up as part of the probation tank and so we'll continue to use that endowment and fully fund that endowment so we can do management and monitoring on the habitat set aside that we've already established so this is sort of phase two of the whole phase that we set up with the probation tank and now we're moving forward with setting up a plan for the rest of our projects that are in Sandhills habitat. Okay. Is that me? Anybody want John? So I was curious of the I mean not all of the Cap-and-My-Projects impact the Sandhills. Roughly how many 75 projects actually do affect the Sandhills? How many HCPs would we need in other words you know. It will be the list we'll identify all of the projects and what species on each of those projects will be impacted and then we will propose mitigation for all of the projects in this one shot. It's going to save us a ton of time. I understand that. I was just curious how many actual projects impact the Sandhills. It's capital projects and it's also rehabs and wells and different things that when we pull a pump and mower out of a well we expand our footprint but we'll put that information together. Yeah that will all be identified through this process of writing with the habitat conservation plan and off the top of my head I'm not really sure but we'll identify those through the process. I'm not sure how many HCPs for the probation time. She did. And then she's also got the contract to actually deliver the services to manage the set aside correct. Which seems to be kind of there's a check on an allowance issue there I think if we're letting her define how much it's going to take to mitigate all this and then she's getting the contracts that's defined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So she works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to come and the district has a big say like what we agree to and so she's sort of the middle man there just negotiating between the district and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to find an agreeable mitigation strategy and then she's the one that's implementing the management considering on the site that's been identified and required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and agreed to by the board. It's a huge commitment of time on her part in six months of a year basically. She has biologists almost full time. It'll be a big heavy lift and we'll have a lot of back and forth between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the district. So I understand this contract sort of like a pay as you go and there's, you know, it's not a, you know, whatever but one of the little confusing things is that it actually could include the removal of the broom because I know she did some work with, it's cited in the contract with Acacia and the broom removal thing so which brings me to the important thing is that I would really think that this contract should include the language of the fact that the voters have really voted to not the use of glyphosate so I would request it in this contract just so that we're all on the same page that she includes the fact that if not prohibiting the use of category one and two known and probable carcinogens from the Safe Drinking, Water and Toxic Enforcement Act and just basically in the contract just so we don't have any problems, you know because I know she probably wouldn't have a problem with just stating that in the contract but I just don't want us to, because of my feeling is the voters have spoken, you know, that was just a big issue and that the new elective board is not going to allow for the use of glyphosate or any other Yeah, can I Can I speak to that? This, I appreciate your thoughts about that and I understand there's great concern about that. This contract won't have any implementation. This is just writing the Habitat Conservation Plan which will talk about mitigation requirements for impacts to infrastructure There's no actual on-the-ground work included in this Correct There's not going to be a take There would be as a project as a project, as a listed project wouldn't we list that as a project based on PCS eradication So where that piece would come in is in management and monitoring plan which we've already I recommended that manual pulling with the biological consultant i.e. Jodi McCraw that she would participate in that project So I just That's not what we're talking about I know that it's really confusing because there are so many differences I'm really not But what you're talking about is the management and monitoring plan which is already I'm really talking about the language in the actual contract This contract is not going to have any language around methods or strategies for managing or monitoring the property It will have identify the square footage of impact on each of the projects and how much mitigation fees will be associated with those impacts and it's going to detail costs of mitigation but it's not going to specify the management or monitoring or how the property gets managed I just think it should have that language in the contract I think it's irrelevant because this doesn't talk about implementation of any action This is a study document It's a planning document A study and an evaluation type document which is what RCTPs always are This information will be the basis for future action but there's no action here It's just an evaluation Is the draft be submitted to the environmental committee before it's sent into US Fish and Wildlife? We can bring it to the board We can bring the draft before it's submitted back to the board to have a final look seeing of your concerns There's going to be a healthy document Does that mean lengthy? It's going to be a $130,000 document so it needs to be That's healthy Okay, let me go to the public first Thanks for answering one of the questions I appreciate that Is there a expiry time on this HCP? So for example, wetlands delineation plans are a 7-year expiry I believe, or 5-year or something like that So usually there's some expiry I imagine there will be I don't know what that timeline will be at this time I expect it will be something like 20 years That's just an educated guess You understand my concern The expiry is X and we're going to spend a lot of money looking at really big projects We might not be spending money wisely So it would be really nice to know what that expiry time was before so we want to make sure that we have it I understand So it's ongoing maintenance at the same time All I'm saying is that expiry time is too short If we have the habitat conservation in place, it will have an expiration date but at that time you'll be able to take it back and just renew it without a flight if necessary So this is what I've talked to Chad Mitchum from the US Fish and Wildlife Service about that before and he said they want to have an expiration date So if there's new information that comes available in the next 20 years they can use that information to modify and adapt the plan to make it the best for everybody I always just get really skeptical of folks that tell me don't worry about it in the future we'll just be able to renew it, no problem maybe, maybe not but I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that there may be an issue here in terms of the money spent versus the time that we'll actually be able to keep that valid Well I would just point out that the habitat conservation plan is not an optional I understand It's not optional If we want to do maintenance or any kind of improvements in Sandhills Habitat which we have to have an incidental take permit which requires that we have a habitat conservation plan I understand It wasn't a question A good example too when we lost this well we had to get special permission and exemptions before we even had this plan and if we had this plan with ACP it'll speeden up and we'll be able to move right ahead because these projects will all be outlined so it's a worthwhile plan for the district to have but it's a good question you don't want to expire before we get to work on it The issue was not whether or not we needed it or whether it was good to have or anything that is all understood I had to do a second wetlands elimination after the first one ran out I paid 2x but it basically went right back to first principles and said we can't use what we did before we have to look at it all over again that's all any other public comment Sharon didn't she just say that you believed it was 20 years ago I would guess that it would be 20 years so that would be great but we'll be able to confirm that we will be able to confirm that okay any other comments Rick Moran from Denlon so I looked at this thing I'm concerned with the water shed as most of you know and what I didn't see in the contract was and I think in an HCP there has to be some sort of public hearings and I didn't see any list of possible public hearings in this thing so I just wanted to make sure that the public has an opportunity to weigh in on this this is an endangered species we will bring it back to the board for review before we send it in so there will be some review for the public but it may not be the public hearing for sure the board will have multiple chances to look at this okay other public input okay I don't see any for the board discussion I just had a technical question the California ESA versus the federal one is ours more or less strict than the feds strict and covers different species and sometimes there's overlap but not in every case we have all these endemics that are only in California and only in Santa Cruz County and yet some of them aren't even like the the original it's not even federally endangered it just surprises me a lot of the California species are flax people don't care about them California cares about them okay just curious, thank you okay anybody else on the board want to come in okay do we hear a motion? I move approval and direct the district manager to enter into a contract with Jody McGraw consulting for the preparation of the habitat conservation plan I will second okay for the discussion okay, Polly Director Hayes Director Smallman Director Ratcliffe Director Bachman President Bachman Director Brooks yes okay let's move on to 10D probation tank HCP implementation, discussion and possible action by the board regarding the probation tank HCP okay so following in the same vein the probation tank is as Rick has mentioned several plans is underway in the probation tank conservation plan which was approved and adopted by the board we had a number of requirements that include things like protective fencing so that when the construction vehicles are staging they don't cross over certain boundaries so that we're not expanding the temporary impacts to the species on site things like collecting seed and putting them back out after the construction is after the temporary impacts are completed various biological protective measures that that we are asking for a contract to conduct okay you don't look like you might be continuing I didn't I didn't have my thing board comment you need to do this pardon? we know we need to do this this has been this is part of the project this is like it should be a subcontract to the construction the only comment I'll have is that there's another one following these contracts shouldn't have been bought to the board before construction started we'll be high on that projects are already in construction she's already doing a lot of work in the firm just sitting on the board I was there you'll see another contract here for the type of service we'll be high on that okay I don't want to bring it up public comment on this I don't see any so come back here they should carry out they should make it like carry out carry out just point clarification this does not include the monitoring management contract that contract was already approved that was $20,000 that's what the non-wasting balance pays for is that it will pay for the implementation of the plan for the two the biological service this is separate this is a separate mitigation this is on site on the actual construction site this is project associated I should make like a chart all of the different just want to make sure I was track where we stand in each of those in terms of the process I would approve of the recommendation that we direct the district manager to enter into a contract with Jodi McGraw consulting for the consulting biological services around the tank probation tank replacement project and I'll second that no further discussion I assume director Hayes director Smallman director Ratcliffe president Boffman director Bruce let's move on to Teney which is the radio survey and past study at San Lorenzo Valley Water District in Lompico so this is a little in 2016 the district consolidated with Lompico County Water District as part of the consolidation customers are participating in several capital replacement projects including replacement of the SCADA system supervisory control and data acquisition equipment as outlined in the assessment district number 2016-1 engineering report the type of SCADA system we use can communicate through the district main SCADA either via radio, telephone lease line, internet or district its own aerial cable the preferred method is radio because there's no monthly charges internet can be added to 120 bucks a month per site and they all have different drawbacks radio will be the best for that canyon we're hoping that we can move signals across the canyon and then move signals again right to the district main SCADA we don't have to worry about countertrees, telephone lines or internet to facilitate to make sure that the equipment we purchased will communicate to me in a radio survey basically the provider comes out and sets up equipment transceivers and actually physically goes from point to point and makes sure that the radio signal is strong and they can receive attack frequencies and they'll do an analysis that when it rains the pine trees with the long needles and redwood trees don't distort the signal the worst thing that we could do is not to do the survey and purchase the equipment and plug it in it doesn't work for people to communicate people's a difficult area to communicate just because of the canyon and the trees it's difficult but it's not like a lot of our systems we have radio in a lot of parts of our system and some areas of our system radio will not work so the radio survey will tell us before we purchase the equipment it's part of moving forward on the tank replacement project and I request the board to approve the amount of 11,000 and change and answer any questions Will this involve consideration of placement of towers or more so the quality of the receivers I don't like to use alert towers because it's a very small antenna for starters well there need to be towers it will be a pipe it's a small antenna the radio equipment is very small it will go on placement yes and it will look at our the only good thing about the water district is obviously all of our facilities are high and that's what you want with the radio there are a couple even in the drone Booster, Limpico Booster they're more encompassed in the forest they're not up on peaks so it will be interesting to see how well and how strong the survey is we've tried cell service up there now to try to operate the Limpico Booster and it drops out it just ends when it rains it really drops out important link to this case system we hope to be able to take the signal forward to our state of backbone the main trunk lines either at the NINA tanks or the quail tanks by radio and once it gets there then it's on the main state of system we'll have access to it everywhere are those line of sight to the other locations for the close? I would try to say it's going to work or not without the survey and the facilities are the drone tanks the Limpico Booster and the NINA tank and the quail tank and that's the existing district facilities NINA and quail that's where our hubs are it's not like that we're moving into the rest of the distribution system outside of Limpico it's just to utilize the backbone okay Rick is there any thought about including the badger gears and the cellular kind of communications that they're well we're working on working with the fire districts there's a program that the fire districts can request and public safety can request not this fire but we got included in to get enhanced cellular service and it's my understanding that AT&T is working with a lot of other agencies smaller areas to bring cell service in and so forth we'd like to bring increased cell service on camera that would benefit everybody and it would benefit everybody you're going to be a feather in the district cap because it would help and we have sites and we could work with these companies on a joint project to bring hopefully bring cell service in there we've met with John Stipes and I've met with Polar Creek Fire Chief for information and we're trying to move ahead on that don't know because cell service there's no money there but there's money out there for public safety so we're over well if you have an internet solution for the other needs here you could build off of that cellular off of that with ecocells and that would help the badger at the same time okay okay any other board for initial thoughts public, Mr. Colts if you're referring to band 14 that I couldn't pay that's the public sector band if that's the case you will not be able to use any of your phones on it it's a completely different band and typically those radios cost $5,000 the prices are coming down but that's specialized though how many days and how many people are going to be out there I have to, I can get you to serve the background I don't want to take the board's times now to go through through the counter, I'll get you to that I've said three days I've said three days of on-site service consulting approximately seven sites how many people? two people are out of Florida that's for the radio and I don't see any amount of people thank you Olivia you have a question one of our neighbors has a ham radio operation running through regulatory lines and stuff has that been looked into instead of regular, just ham radio? 10 meter there's no such thing as regular ham radio there is a very broad it's got wires all through all the redwood trees instead of poles so he seems to be operating ham radio that way he gets really complicated with ourselves take it to the squirrels to run the lines okay, Tony and then I'll okay Tony well, a couple of things so did you say that it has to be line of sight? they like line of sight it does not necessarily have to be 100% line of sight but if it's marginally you want to be careful because it's just tree growth we've had those issues in the past the tank sites you know where the tank sites are I know where Lewis is and we have a lot of good line of sight that's one of the best ones but it's important to get the radius unless they want to do the span the scale of budgets I think it's a couple hundred thousand plus and they already used part of it on the temporary which that was debatable and then the other thing so you mentioned those other two locations the quail and the other one that won't come out of the assessment district most of the equipment is already there they're the hubs they're the receivers that get into the rest of the scale now whether additional equipment is needed to make Lompico work it would just be for Lompico so I would consider that to come out of the assessment district if it was just for now it was for an upgrade to say that we had to upgrade that for the whole system that'd be a little different one other thing that I retired from AT&T and we have a if you're an AT&T customer you can subscribe to an M cell a piece of equipment that connects to your cable and then your cell service works and you have a pretty wide range well if they have this safety money that they fund maybe Comcast and maybe we can work them together to be able to come up with a solution we've been looking to improve the cell service AT&T doesn't support their Michael cells anymore well it's just found out I had to replace mine so last word though I continue to use it they don't support it anymore my turn okay at one point people were coming to Lompico wanting to put towers so there would be cell service but they kind of faded into the knife because there aren't that many people there but maybe there's a way you can get them to come back I don't know the other thing is okay the tanks are in pretty high places but what about the other things you were talking about what if you can't radio everything that you had on your list then we'll do a combination a combination it was likely internet we have internet people believe out there now a couple locations because the cell service wouldn't work and so yeah internet worked at the water district nothing else I prefer not to use internet because it comes with a monthly fee so cost obviously ongoing costs are concerned okay anyone else okay oh Virgil thank you I really like to say that this sounds like an intelligent approach to the problem you have every time you try to add this or add that and modify it you add to the complexity and what you have here is probably the simplest solution to your problem everything else is going to be a little more expensive and a little more complicated and radio frequency communication like this is well understood they know how to build the antennas they know everything and you also have to understand that you're limited to the frequencies and the power you can use over those frequencies you're getting somebody out there to say the $70,000 you're going to spend for this system it's going to work and it's going to work for 20 years that is a big thing to be satisfied with and for somebody that claims not to be really up to snuff on some of this stuff you've always taken a very good approach to it I do have the experience that I do have so anyway I really support this approach not that I'm bad or I disagree on that it matters okay any other public okay, how do you think you were the last one back to the board any further discussion further discussion I have a group approval of resolution number 10 of 1819 the radio survey for Longpico cast study and sole source procurement second Holly director Hayes director Smallman director Ratcliffe president Bachman director Bruce and let's move on to item 10F ratification of the joint powers authority between San Lorenzo Valley bar district and the San Margarita groundwater agency and I'll allow you to so I got a call a few months ago from Terry Rain who's the attorney for the JPA because one of the landowners had noticed that the signature president Bachman you had signed the JPA agreement on behalf of the district after the board voted to approve it and one of the landowners noticed that the agreement itself calls for the president to sign and in fact there was no formal designation of authority for the vice president to sign in place of the president so it would be appropriate to clean that up since it brought our attention by simply ratifying the signature president Bachman on the JPA agreement consistent with the board's approval of that agreement in 2017 right and that was an instance in which the current president of the board was not able to be at that meeting it was the assumption that since for our body the vice president can sign in the absence of the president that that would be appropriate authority for the JPA and so there's no ambiguity about that and no questioning of it, I think this is good to get all the ends wrapped up about this and just get this tidy so that there's no and I think it was brought from a good purpose from the private well owner purpose who wanted to be sure that things were tight and I agree with that so any other comment from any staff and any other of the board members okay, I don't see any public, anybody want to comment on this? okay, I don't see anybody so I'll bring this back here and I guess since it was my signature that was in question I will make the motion that after having reviewed this memo the board of directors vote that that my signature on this again will be valid and proper and the authorized signature on the JPA agreement oh, there is a resolution and do that thusly by approving resolution number 9 of 1819 okay okay, any other discussion? okay, seeing none can I have a vote? Director Hayes? Director Smallman? Director Ratcliffe? President Hoffman? Director Bruce? said passes and now let's move on 10G, the probation tank skate us all source procurement thank you, the district is in the process of talking about the probation tank as part of the project all skated equipment is being replaced the existing equipment requires proper communication of wire to be run across country across Santa Cruz sandhills which features a habitat suitable for federally endangered mountain and June beetle the new equipment will communicate via radio transmission and will be solar powered and something I should have put in this memo by replacing this equipment with radio and solar power we're removing approximately a 90,000 dollar expenditure for a power drop and building to house the power and equipment and circuit breakers so there's significant savings there should have been oh, sorry so what we're asking for the board to move ahead and approve the expenditure of $33,410 for the purchase of skated equipment for the probation tank this is the Emerson brand that we utilize throughout the distribution system is why I'm asking a source work procurement the district has a significant investment in Emerson equipment and we need to continue to match equipment plus with this equipment we're removing the same proprietary equipment when a piece of equipment gets damaged from lightning or something on a very important site such as the probation tank we can swap it with a less important site that we can run manually and not have any outages or any problems so to have the proprietary Emerson equipment throughout the district is a real benefit to the district because we're using the same equipment that we'll be moving ahead with people we're requesting the board to approve that resolution I think it makes practical sense and I like the idea of saving a little bit under $60,000 sounds like we won't have to maintain that electrical drop then we also get the cover wire out of the sand hills which if something happens to that cover wire we have to replace it it's an HCP the less things are better the less the more we can get out of the sand hills is that stopped there's no other electrical power required with that no, it'll be all sold the does not protect it does not require power a mixing valve in the bottom of the tank that just operates through hydraulics public input what's the battery backup capacity how many days could you run without Emerson it's been at other sites anywhere from 7 to 14 and we usually replace a small battery with a much larger battery more of a car type battery than the little battery they have the small batteries they have can chill like 24 hours but we like a 7 to 8 but our district standard is like 14 days 7 to 14 days any other public input okay, see none bring it back here further questions I would move the approved resolution 11 approved resolution 19 probation tank state of sole source procurement second second director Hayes director Smallman director Racklett yes yes okay let's move on to 10-8 and that's probation tank inspection services contract amendment as you know we are in the process of construction of the probation tank to Canyon Springs Enterprises the cost of that project is $128 million as part of that project there is specialized inspections such as coatings welding soils mechanical engineering and so forth this contract the district awarded the contract to MME to do the consulting services for the project management these contracts through MME are in addition to that this is an amendment to the original contract in the amount of $262,750 again this should have been done when we awarded to Canyon Springs we are behind on this it should have been brought in at that time initial board thoughts this covers all those special right a couple of them are a little more expensive than we like with this travel because the tank is being constructed and taken to the field we have to go down there to do the inspection on wells on paintings and coatings it's going to be pre-constructed on site we should have figured all this stuff out we should have had this contract when we started that would be the typical way that you go out and before you start this you have all your consultants because we're involved we're in the process these are all good consultants but we didn't really have a chance to bid these were not bidded because of the family or our rights so we should do a better job and have it done and have it bidded right out that tank before during the process of getting bonds and everything else and we could have bidded these projects okay other board public seeing no comment from the public return here any other board comment before the promotion I just appreciate you're cleaning up of all the details and not leaving this as some kind of nasty surprise of wiggling things under rocks that we would find later in the process okay engineering would do too and house engineering would make sure this stuff is getting done and make sure these contracts are being done so that's given the process of that person and all the firms seem to have excellent references we've used all those before and the firm just the process how we got here could have been dealt with okay um motion oh I'm sorry okay okay are you I'll make a motion to approve the contract the first object C was like 30 total was 262.750 262.750 for the sections for the provision okay second director Hayes director Smallman director Recklett president Hoffman director Bruce okay and now we can skip ahead and go on to the quail hollow slash Olympia Wells rehabilitation evaluation yes the district's a quail hollow will 5a on the quail 3 has been losing water production over the last three years the loss of production may be a plugging or decline water levels or combination of both an assessment is needed to determine the cause of production in production this work would be a review of the current hydrological conditions in these wells to allow the district to make an informed decision as whether to rehabilitate the wells in a type of rehabilitation that we would do Martin Feeney has been a consultant hydrologist for many years performing the similar tasks in which he just performed Olympia Pasadjampo 7 and he is a hydrologist on the construction of Pasadjampo well 8 after he does his report the district would move ahead and be in services to do said work so this would only tell us what needs to be done and an RFP would be produced from this work and then we would go out and compete for the actual rehabilitation work and that's what society would need of both those wells the Olympia well 3 well is a 1989 earthquake replacement I think 5a was similar after that and you've talked ahead how old 5a is 1993 these wells are old but this was well filled with these getting old just a bit there with something to keep in the back of your mind what is the typical life of a well or a well field if something was put in in 93 and it sort of reached its anticipated lifespan or is it sort of so variable depending on conditions it all depends on the steel used in the well whether it's stainless steel or mild steel and these wells are all mild steel put in in 93 and 89 so the life expectancy of a well is 30 years with mild steel so we're done the clock is ticking there's also a factor like some of those that get clogged up and you have to do like acid well that's what this would be expensive like a boiler of steers that we have to do there's a combination there so there will be a combination or a type of cleaning that will be determined now past sample well 8 finishing up construction now is stainless steel what is stainless steel? the new one is stainless steel past sample 5a is stainless steel the screens are so there's as we replace we put in stainless but back then they didn't do stainless how will you know what their plugging is and I take it that's the porosity of the adjoining rock okay you mean by plugging or you mean plugging in iron bacteria or just from years of use finds coming in and plugging behind the screens into the gravel pack that's the case I don't believe that it won't do much good or it will be short-lived correct? isn't that what went wrong with past sample well? past sample well is carbon steel that failed rusted through, holes came through it and then the gravel pack kept coming in and then we tried to swedge it but basically sent patches down over it and then the casing just started split that well reached its life expectancy before it came in public on this? Henry? I appreciate that you came up with this been going on for three years ah it just I mean it's in a good part of the aquifer and for it to for them to stop producing should have been like a big red flag well it dropped off Lois and some of it we believe it was to the drought and some of it they just naturally dropped off over years but this year I don't have a number of thought in my head how much it dropped but and we can tell that the water level from drawdowns there's water there so it appears to be a plug instead of the walls collapsing when the walls collapse you'll start pumping a gravel pack and you'll get the well will stop right there a lot of times it will seize the motor or you start getting small amounts of gravel pack and then you know that I'm glad you're doing this, that's all thank you the wells are inherently a pin in the neck and the day you drill them they constantly lose production it's just a maintenance now it is a money hole okay any other board any other public comment see any come back any other board comment anybody want to make a motion I would move approval of Resolution 13 of 18-19 the sole source Resolution to approve a sole source contract for the well hollow Olympia Well Rehabilitation Evaluation second Holly Director Hayes Director Smallman Director Ratcliffe President Bachman Director Burgs Rick and your production comparison on page page 247 looks like the production is about half of what it was about it has been dropping you know they all have dropped off with the ground and then the last two years or the last year we started getting some rainfall and a lot of that was dropped so there's a production it's all hydraulic okay that concludes new business so we have a consent agenda with one item on it the first to publish on this does anybody want to comment on the consent agenda don't see any so we have minutes from the last board of directors meeting on this anybody on the board want to say anything about it and shall we move I would move approval I'll second that any discussion okay Holly Director Hayes Director Smallman Director Ratcliffe President Bachman Director Burgs okay and now for the large topic of district reports I'll open that up to any of the any staff that wants to with you Rick if you want to admin engineering no need I can ask public page 187 page 187 is the beginning of that for your admin for my admin that's 200 that's 200 alright let me I might be out of order here that's a covering machine issue today there we go a couple things which I considered a real success was the community outreach where we met several different restaurants or coffee shops Stephanie and I we had three different outreaches and we had anywhere between 8 to 12 people that's some really good questions and from all different different types of questions from billing to meter locations leads that were thought to not be repaired board meeting and you know etiquette, number of meetings enough to where I would like to bring a report back or memo back to the board and recommend that we continue to have these outreach and we really had some great feedback and talk to some people and a lot of it required follow up which we made sure we followed up to show the people that came to those outreaches that we were serious about hearing their concerns so it was well I thought it was more received by the public and I think we want to continue doing those outreaches past tempo well construction we're in the test pumping the well has been constructed now we are in the test pumping and after we get our test pumping done we'll be designing the actual well pump and motor that goes in the ground well head construction and state approval we'll have to have a state health permanent management which is just a little time consuming but we'll be moving around along with the permanent district projects we're working with a consultant on the six redwood tanks and PRVs we're moving around along with the redwood tanks trying to locate and figure out how we're going to keep people in the water at the same time that they're constructing the PRVs we did final review of the plans yesterday James spent time and I spent time on the final review and we should be out to bid by the first next week that's been a struggle to get those through there's just been a lot of bits and pieces to it but we should be out to bid for the replacement of those PRVs by next week that's all I have on my report on November 5th we had a multi agency regulatory agency meeting here at the district and we talked with fish and wildlife and the county and various regulatory agencies regional state and federal to talk about the four year update of our stream flow and temperature monitoring and how our water diversions are impacting fish habitat in the San Lorenzo river and how it's impacting total stream flow and temperature and we've been monitoring pools and ripples and how our diversions impact temperature as well as stream flow and then that was sort of the background information and then the second half of the meeting we talked about the conjunctive use grant and where we are with that process we have completed the hydrological assessment and a full report on what our hydrological assessment is and then we presented a strategy for assessing how how we can best move so basically the hydrological assessment looked at what happens and how can we most efficiently move water through our system to be able to sustainably manage both surface water for fish habitat and groundwater resources in the south system that are overdrafted and the north system like Coil, Hollow and Olympia so we can do both and really best optimize our operations here at the water district in order to have sustainable groundwater and surface water management in the future especially with climate change and things that are coming so it was a really great meeting we have a clear path forward for how we're going to assess fish habitat and fish resources we can best improve fish habitat through conjunctive use and so that will be the next step we'll be to complete a fish assessment and then once we get those two major hurdles done we'll do a big public engagement workshop outreach and do a bunch of public communication around this project and how it's coming along it was a great meeting and the resource agencies were really positive about the process, they were really impressed with how our district is really taking the initiative to improve water resource management in our area can I just chime in here on that thank you having a positive relationship with the regulatory agencies is incredibly important the time that you've invested the time that you've spent making sure that they are heard, that they are included working through the Byzantine process of their permits carefully, respectfully, diligently ensures that we have that runway for a long, long time for a good working relationship I've seen the situation where organizations can get on the wrong side get off on the back foot with the regulatory agency it's just so difficult to restore trust to to restore open channels of communications and good faith and I think our positive working relationship with those agencies is in no small part because of your work I would also agree that having a great working relationship with the regulatory agencies is really how we make things happen legally and efficiently and when you have an open phone line they see your number and they're not like I'm not going to touch your phone they actually pick up and talk to you that's very helpful and I also saw my own experience professionally sometimes you're on their good side and they see an impending problem they'll give you a heads up in advance and you'll find out before you put it otherwise so it's a great way to prevent that's very useful I want to thank Stephanie for now having a project listing of additions to CIP and okay, financial report that's a good start on future feedback to board and community on what we're getting done and what the district is getting done so any other one quick thing I forgot I will be asking the board to consider changing the December 20th board meeting to December 13th at our audit review there's some conflicts on the 20th and we'd like to move that meeting to the 13th which would also be the Otho Office was wearing a new director once the election is certified and it would be open December 13th and I talked to Gene about asking to add it to the agenda but we thought it would be better to add it to put it on the agenda on the side of the agenda deadline at the audit there's a couple reasons one of the conflicts is with the the JPA meeting it moved its time because of the holidays that might be a travel two benefits to that I'm trying to find the section in here but we're trying about that really deep leak that was detected that was so large in the sandstone I don't know was that in I'm guessing that's I'm assuming this is the same leak detection technology that was used in previous passes so it wasn't that it existed before no there was a leak there the last time they were there too repaired or fixed same area and then I put in also in the report that we did find 35 gallons a minute of leaks and it estimated 50,000 gallons of water a day that we were losing and that was in the first round and we were in our second two weeks and that wraps up tomorrow we're going to have new numbers for that in the next report and I don't recall the figures from two or three years ago but it was yeah there's not many leaks we found these are all subsurface leaks to all the majority so long as we wouldn't have found and that Zion team might sound like it was really deep and it was coming out at the level of the creek so nobody's down in the creek looking for water coming down the bank of the creek that's really remarkable that they were able to detect that and so that's great and this is something that you do on a regular basis it's a real thing we're there about every three years that's what the state recommends is every three years so we did it three years ago so that's the six million gallon leak in the Felton system that's in the report I thought it was a tight no east Zion it's east Zion 1065 east Zion where is that in my report it's on page 261 6 million gallon leak 6 million gallon leak oh well that was yes that is that one yes sorry I was drawing a plate right there they had it at 600 million at 1.9 that is a tight one that's a tight one my numbers are I figured there couldn't be more than one of those that was the one and that's because we assessed that that had been going since the pressure issue that we had on Wells Road during in April and so we had to go back to that date to do the GPM on it and that's what it came up to that's like 20 acre feet or something in that order that's quite a bit for a 1400-1500 acre feet a year leak detection is fatal very positive okay okay in just a second absolutely any other board okay and I want to take public input on both the department status reports and then also on committee reports so please for the department status reports I had a question for Stephanie I noticed that there were four months of bills for the attorney and I wondered why it took four months to get that paid it wasn't four months to get it paid that's when we received the bills what was that? that was when we received the bills after four months Gina can speak probably more to that there was a large bill in June that she took back to the partners to try and get some of it written off to get the bill discounted which delayed their future bills but that's kind of a big hit over 100 $19,000 we accrued the year-end procedures you accrued it that got accrued last month my thing mentioned that we were waiting on a legal bill I put it in here again that all of these legal bills were going to be getting an octave okay any other public input on the district reports department status reports on Gina's November 9th memo about categories of legal services there was a new category called election issues that beat my curiosity what about election issues do we need legal advice on? I can't speak to the specific communications that came to legal related to election issues because that would be privileged but there were questions that came up in the course of the election it was a pretty small item but there were some and I addressed them and I created them I was directing the question to the board they also not okay I'm just curious when we have that memo that talks about categories of legal services I assume that means we can since it's part of the public domain in the monthly meeting I assume we can ask questions about it the point is we can't ask questions about the legal memo no I believe Chuck was trying to answer it by referring it to Gina and she answered and she answered to the best that she can okay anybody else want to comment on department status reports okay committee reports I attended a technical advisory meeting of the groundwater agency on Tuesday a lot of people couldn't make it that was the day of the 21 carpila so our attendance was rather low we had a couple of people Jen and Rosemary from the city both called in which was helpful but we weren't down a few directors but we made progress we have a recommendation that's going to be presented to the full board at the next meeting and the sooner we get going on that the better so hopefully they will be able to have their questions answered about how we approach selection of a technical consultant and we can get started on the real meat of the GSP okay the groundwater sustainability plan thank you okay anybody else on committee reports Jen did you want to do the environmental committee report or push that off to me I'll show it back to where we were yes now I've skipped over it excuse me I have to find it now it's 268 it's just a blur now I'm scanning so fast yeah we did have a number of interesting things and that was regrettably that was the last time we saw Fred McPherson he was a great stalwart attendee of the environmental committee he was really committed to the watershed plan of the district and that was always one of his primary purposes so we really miss his participation and his input and we're going to really miss him otherwise but especially in the environmental sector we did talk about in the new business we talked about the climate change adaptation and mitigation plan which is really important to the district this is something that's a real specialty item and it's going to require certainly the services of the consultant to do this staff doesn't have the time to do that but I do think considering the makeup arm district it's going to be something that's going to have to be a high priority and we talked about some of the things like the hydrological consultant the changes have happened there but I think it was a very useful meeting and as I say we're going to really miss Fred McPherson so it was great to see him there and he was always a real positive influence on the district his video was so great that he built his own video editing workstation would you like to comment anything on the engineering committee meeting? the engineering committee meeting went well we talked about barricade estates and then Rick we talked about the whole engineering new decision department for the water district so we could bring it to this meeting and then for us to move over to barricade estates and then we went over and as usual Rick brought an update on the capital okay all the capital okay the facilitation committee of the JPA met yesterday you should be starting to see some educational programs like three major meetings beginning in the next year the first one having to do with land use and the planning and the interactions between the JPA so the water agency and the land use agencies so the future ones are not as well they've not had as much thought yet but that's part of the mandate of the groundwater sustainability agency through sigma is to have an educational process so I think those will probably be felt in Hall coming in there was some thought of having those in Mount Herman but they were not able to accommodate conflicts and things well no not so complex is that you need to actually kind of have to stay there okay sign up for some residency there for a few nights in order to use the facilities there you don't have to join the JPA or anything okay so that's it for that I think for the JPA and so I'll open it up to public for the comments on the committee reports anybody want to say anything the scoping meeting for the Santa Cruz city water rights NOP was fascinating and went by way too fast and promised that we would all be able to get to see the what's it called the slide show no point thank you powerpoint that wasn't coming to my brain we want to make sure you have a slide show giving my age away so that will be very useful to look at that again but I'm wondering is the environmental committee or is the district how involved are you did you comment on the NOP is there anything that you can tell us as far as your interaction about that what's the district's role well I spoke with Chris Berry at the event I also attended and we briefly discussed what their water rights changes would impact our water rights on Fall Creek and then we didn't set a date but we have tentatively going to follow up about that so I'll have more information and have a later date because I'm concerned about how much water is going to be diverted at Felton and the changes there and what's going to happen to the river flow below that and that flow amount may not be adequate because of the changes in Raincon and we've had multiple channels now there are all these complexities that come up that this district is going to have to pay attention to because it's the river thank you anybody else want to comment on committee reports okay one more thing but as we saw the debt management policy and just to remind people there is a special audit meeting on the 28th so we'll be seeing that we saw that it was still hot from the printer when we saw it and we'll have the addition of that to that of the loan okay that's it for district reports if nobody else has any director's report I'd like to share so at the end of October the organization I work for hosted a forum in the city of Santa Rosa on energy resilience and public safety and one of our districts own Nate Gillespie who's in operations here spoke on a panel for us about the impacts of the public safety power shutdown and the impacts to water districts and special districts and the events of those sort of power interruptions where you're counting on power being reliable it might not be and what does that mean for communications what does that mean for fire suppression if you're counting on water pressure what does that mean for operations, internet, etc so I can appreciate Nate Gillespie for his service there and it was great to have his input on the district's behalf there were a lot of other organizations who valued his input so thanks again for that you enjoyed it in the context of that energy security, energy reliability and community resilience the latest update on the impacts of the campfire is a fatality count of our 63 and 631 missing so I think it's really important that this area, which is also critically high risk fire keep in mind how important our reliable water system is how important communication systems are, how important it is for us to stay in touch with our residents and our customers in the event of you know if it's not a fire it's going to be an earthquake or a horrible winter storm being in touch with our residents and having them understand how we are embracing these risks and what we're planning to do to address them to make sure water stays on the best we can is I think a critically important thing that we can do as a service for our residents related to the last environmental community also in part where my day job had on December 10th we're going to be co-hosting and facilitating a presentation of the 4th climate impact assessment the venue is at UC Santa Cruz Alumni's facility it's from 10 until 4pm it's a description of the state's assessment of climate change impacts at as downscaled critically local at the scale as possible so I'll make sure that Nancy you have fliers for the upcoming Saturday so if it's appropriate to have those handed out there and I would encourage and I'll reach out to other folks in the network this is a great opportunity to be informed about the latest scientific research on just what are we understanding about temperature increase precipitation changes and other ways in which climate change is impacting this locally or is it possible to post that on the district website absolutely yeah if that's okay with the district it's December 10th December 10th so absolutely and again hosted at the UCSC Alumni facility and fliers can go out and I'll share it around time of day time of day 10 until 4 it's a most of the day thing so I'll be there with hostess with the most cool that was it okay any future board of directors agenda items anybody want to speak up for having something agenda item next meeting I don't see any and then back to the public anything on committee reports and director reports okay so we'll close out district reports there are written communications from two people in the packet and informational material of two items and people can take note of those and otherwise we're going to get to the meeting and adjourn slightly before 9 o'clock thank you everybody for sticking out until this good night