Hello everyone, my name is Leif Pedersen. I'm a technical artist here at RenderMan at Pixar and today I have the luck to present one of our amazing developers of RenderMan from Aya, Philippe de Prince, who will be talking about his close collaboration with Industrial Lighting Magic and presenting and implementing their layered material system called Lama, which has been used in Star Wars and The Irishman, among other films. So to tell you a little bit about the format for today, we'll be talking, we'll be going first with our show reel, which will give you a sneak peek at the amazing work done by RenderMan Studios and you'll also see some Lama work of course with Star Wars and The Irishman, so watch out for that. Then Philippe will present and then we'll be talking over some live demos so you can see how it all unfolds in a more practical way. Then we'll be taking some questions, so make sure you ask your questions in the questions tab and not in the chat because it gets very very popular and it's hard for us to kind of sort through all that stuff. So without further ado, here's the RenderMan show reel. This is a sneak peek at some of the new shooting features in RenderMan 24. We'll start with Lama, which is the next generation of materials. Lama stands for layered materials. It was developed at Industrial Lights and Magic to replace their previous solution, monolithic BXDF with a pre-arranged combination of lobes, similar to pixel surface. Main idea was to separate the lobes to create arbitrary combinations and make it easier to add new lobes whenever necessary. Lama is a node based system with a small number of user friendly nodes. It is currently implemented in RenderMan RS and Mari and it has become a production proven tool at IAM. In Lama you will find three types of nodes. The main BXDF that will be attached to your object, it renders nothing by itself but controls the other connected Lama nodes. The layering nodes allow you to combine two nodes to build your materials final appearance. The BXDF nodes are the lobes that will respond to your seams elimination. And this is what Lama material looks like, a node graph, the highlighted nodes in the image are Lama nodes. The other nodes are regular patterns. In this case, we first combine a diffuse and a dielectric loop to create a shiny plastic and then combine the result to add a layer of diffuse dust. In pixel surface, the diffuse lobe is at the bottom of the stack. In this example, it is at the top. Lama brings a new level of flexibility. But now let's take a look at the main BXDF Lama surface. So Lama surface has only a few settings to control downstream nodes. It sets up the material per side, controls the execution of some features and triggers custom AOV evaluation. Let's take a look at the material setup. By default, we have a single sided material. In this case, the number of sides is set to one and a simple diffuse node is connected to the font material program. Now, if I set the number of sides to two, the same diffuse material will be used by the backside as well. But I can also connect a different lobe to the back material plug. In this case, it is just a conductor node, but you can of course have a photograph on each side. Let's take a look at what Lama has to offer. First off, you get nine different lobes to allow building anything you need from hard surfaces to hair and fur. Then we have two ways of combining these lobes horizontally and vertically. To give you a better sense of how much is available, let's take a look at each node. Lama conductor is designed to create metallic surfaces. It has the usual controls like Fresnel and isotropillary descents as well as a couple of new features. Full energy conservation and GGX tail control. Let's take a look. In our previous BXDFs, Pixar surface included, specular lobes suffered from energy loss at high roughness. Lama nodes implement microfacet multiple scattering using MLML Turkin's technique. The result is perfect and fast. It is used by all specular lobes as well as the diffused lobe as the RNIR algorithm suffers from a similar energy loss at high roughness. In the RNIR case, the algorithm has been tweaked to avoid oversaturating the colors, which is problematic when your albedo texture has been painted from reference. Now let's move to the other features. Specular haziness or tail control is a way to create a halo around a sharp specular response. This is often visible on metals or shiny dielectrics with micro scratches. In the past, artists often had to combine two specular lobes to achieve that effect and increased render times. The system combines two roughness values into a single specular lobe and at minimal cost. It has the same look as the GTR lobe used by the Disney BRDF, although the GTR lobe cannot be tweaked. Let's go back to our node now. Lama Dietrich can be used for glass, barnishes, coatings and so on. Energy conservation is a great improvement for first aid glass. It includes the usual controls as well as a longer waiting new feature, dispersion. This will make quite a few people happy right now. Note that Lama Dietrich offers more granular shadowing control than our previous offerings. Lama diffuses your classic ORNIR node with better energy conservation. Note that in many Lama nodes, the energy compensation slider allows you to tweak the look to match older assets that were not energy conserving. Lama emission, as usual, this is for low intensity emission like small LED screens. Lama subsurface scattering handles all subsurface scattering duties. It implements both of our past traced subsurface algorithm as well as the Burley algorithm for a different look. Sheen is used for cloth pitch furs and other microfibers scattering effects. This lobe is energy conserving as well. Lama translucent is evaluating backfacing diffuse elimination. It is typically used for tree leaves, paper or thin cloth. It is a separate node to make double-sided materials more controllable and potentially output to a different AOV. Lama tricolor SSS is the other subsurface scattering node. This mode was introduced in Renaman 20 and IleM likes its versatility. They found it was useful to use tricolor SSS in some areas of a model and use Lama SSS in the other areas and that is one of the big advantages of this framework, the ability to blend different subsurface scattering models in the same material. This node implements Cheung Hair model which has been very successfully used by Walt Disney Animation, Pixar and IleM. It is energy conserving efficient and easy to control, reproducing a wide range of hair and fur with just a few intuitive parameters. Lama Mix is our first layering node. It is a horizontal layering node which means that it blends two lobes the same way you would blend two images. It is similar to the way you can blend multiple Pixar layers nodes. There are two modes normalized, make sure the resulting blend is still energy conserving and additive which lets you go crazy but at your own risk of course. Lama Stack is a vertical layering node. It means that we have a layer on top of a base material. If the top layer is transmissive, Lama Stack can compute volumetric effects like absorption based on the top layer's thickness. This is a more physical way to combine two materials. To conclude this presentation, let's talk about IleM's experience with Lama. Luc Dev Artist quickly adopted the new system as it offers unprecedented flexibility. It also opens interesting possibilities to optimize some materials but more than another time. Performance has been great across the board although one could imagine less skilled artists pining on lobes for no reason and significantly slowing the renderer. But in practice with the same number of active lobes performance is the same as a monolithic BXDF. Finally, IleM reconstructed their previous monolithic BXDF with Lama to reuse all the assets. This technique can of course be used to support other models like Disney's BXDF or Autodesk's Standard Surface. This is something that came during the first session yesterday and I made a new slide on that. This is an example where we have a simple metallic workflow because Lama uses the same albedo and diffuse color and speculoque as Pixar Surface. So here you have the Lama nodes that reconstruct a very simplified Disney BXDF and you have two Pixar mix nodes that allow us to basically get exactly the same result with the metallic thing. And at the bottom we have the formula that you can use to get those results. So these textures were created with Substance Painter using a pivion metallic workflow and it's quite easy to get exactly the same results. You just have a couple of extra nodes. So here this is a quick render I did this morning to show you Disney versus Lama and it matches quite well. There are a couple of differences. The diffuse model are different and the Lama speculoque will look brighter at high roughness because it won't lose the energy like Pixar Disney does. So Lama will be available in Random Man 24 in Houdini, Katana, Maya and Blender. We are actively working with IELM to improve and extend Lama for later releases. After 24 we will implement Lama-based material exchange via MaterialX and USD. That means that we will be able to ingest MaterialX document and reconstruct your material using Lama nodes. And of course Lama will come to XPU as it represents for us the future of material creation. Now we're going to move on to another important aspect of shading in 24. It's the next step of our OSL adoption. So C++ patterns are deprecated. All patterns are now written in OSL. We improved our OSL support to make sure we could translate our pattern library to OSL without any functionality loss. And that allowed us to implement exciting new nodes but on that a little later. 24 is using the latest OSL 111 library delivering all the new features people have been waiting for including continued CMD execution for maximum performance and compatibility with MaterialX standard library. Full OSL adoption is important to help our user transition to XPU where OSL is the only supported shading language. Note that closures are still not supported as we feel our C++ BXD API still offers a lot more flexibility to advanced users. So this is one of the new OSL patterns that we are going to release with 24. The X-tyling pattern. So what is it? It's a new way to seamlessly tie textures. So you take a seamlessly repeating texture, you tie it and you wish you didn't see the repetition but you do. Enter X-tyling. The repetition is pretty much gone with the default settings. With a couple of tweaks, it can look really good. So how does it work? The white grid shows the texture grid. The idea is that you randomly pick hexagonal image areas and blend them together like so. Another hex-style and another one. The center of each style contains modified pixels and each hex-style blends progressively into each other. This is a visualization of the blending weights. It works really well with repeating textures that look pretty uniform. One of the key aspects of that technique is the blending between the tiles. It is designed to preserve the contrast in the blending areas. Let's take a look at a simple example. Here we have a PXR texture plus PXR manifold 2D on the floor and a PXR multi-texture plus PXR round cube on the sphere and statue. Repetition is obvious. Here we replace PXR manifold 2D with PXR hex-style manifold and just enable X-tyling in PXR round cube. That's a pretty significant improvement with close to zero effort. Let's enable the grid and we can see I tied the object at different frequencies to get something I like. This renderer shows the contrast preserving blend in action. The colors are not faded and it is hard to tell where the blending areas are. Now I turn it off. The colors are more washed out in the blending areas. Let's look at it again. The contrast is on. It's off. It's not quite as contrasty and you lost a lot of nice detail. Another thing that we can fine-tune is the width of the blend, which is useful for some type of pattern. Here we have a wide blend between the hexagonal tiles and I will just move to the next kind of width 0.5 and then 0. With this texture you start to feel the hexagonal shape of the tile. So a larger blend works better. So I will step back 0.5, 1, 0.5, 0. And if you look at the top you see kind of you kind of start to see the hexagonal times. Another example, so it's just a flat texture on the plane. I just had some displacement and normal maps and it looks pretty okay. Note that Pixar RunCube can now handle normal maps correctly as well. Another last example, oh yeah and another one. It is a really effective technique that will save a lot of time. So next feature, phasor noise. It's a new type of noise that was presented at Seagraft last year and used by ILM to look at the other in the rise of Skywalker. They used it for the sand dunes and a number of other effects. It's there is a really vast texture space to explore and we ship our studio's implementation which has a lot of nice features. So phasor noise, what is it really? It creates, imagine wave-like patterns that can be oriented and distorted in many different ways. The waves can have different shapes and morph into each other. It works a little bit like Gabber Noise but also has contrast preserving features that prevent the grayish areas you can sometimes see in the Gabber Noise. Let's take a look at a few examples. As I mentioned, you can create a very wide range of patterns and phasor noise has a lot of control. You can choose different types of wave shapes. You can orient them with a texture or with a fixed direction. You can modulate the waves density in a lot of different ways and you can use sophisticated fractal loops to add visual complexity. It's pretty amazing to play with and it's so flexible it's probably worth a contest one day. To finish, let's have this mandatory UI shot where you can see that there is a lot of parameters. So we will ship with a few presets to get people started. Another cool feature of 24 is that OSL allows us to review our bump mapping workflow. So we decided to go with something quite different. We took advantage of this new paper from Morten Mikkelsen which redefines bump mapping as surface gradients. Old bump techniques that is height and normal maps can be formulated that way and mixing surface gradients give predictable results with very little work. It works much better than in previous versions of Run-Man. So our main bump mapping node is now PXR bump mixer. It takes surface gradients as an input and outputs the final normal ready to use by your BXCF. PXR bump is still available of course for backward compatibility and PXR normal outputs surface gradients as well. So where are the surface gradients coming from? Well pretty much every node can output a surface gradient through a new NG output plug. Here is a quick demo. We directly use PXR Worley's NG plug to feed a PXR bump mixer connected to Lama diffuse and Lama dielectric. So in practice we just created a simple plastic in Lama. Here I'm adding a fractal on top and I'm just going back to my mixer and changing the amount of blending between the two until I like it. And then I can choose to maybe invert the noise to see if that looks a bit better. Isolate one layer versus the other. All those things become quite easy to do and very predictable. Of course you have three blending nodes you have over add and subtract. So you can completely mask some areas to just bump a small portion with a texture. So to recap we introduced a new workflow around PXR bump mixer. These many nodes can output surface gradients to create a final bump signal. And it is more flexible and predictable than our previous implementation. So this is it for me. Thank you very much for your attention. And I will pass the mic back to Lef. Great talk. I'm going to close your presentation over there. Great. So we're going to mix this section with the video for phasing noise and a bunch of other features with some of the questions from the audience so that we can combine our time that we have left. So one of the interesting questions for phaser noise and hex tiling, can you actually drive any of the new patterns with any surface attributes, prim bars or anything else? Sorry. Can you hear me? Yes. Sorry. I think there was a connection problem. Yeah, no. The question was can hex tiling pick up frequency attributes off of the mesh it's applied to, for example, or any other of the awesome? Yeah, potentially you can do that, yes. Okay, cool. And is there any layering performance and advantage or disadvantage to using Lama, for example, against the Disney PXDF or PXR surface? It's the same cost. It's the number of active lobe that matters. So if you have a configuration of your PXR Disney that uses mostly diffuse and specular and sheen, for example, it will have exactly the same cost as those three lobes in Lama network. Sorry. Cool. And I mean, I was just doing there in the demo some simple sand there, but it showed the potential of bump and you can combine flakes, for example, any other kind of interesting nodes in the system and you've wired this new system, right, with our PXR texture and a bunch of other OSL nodes to actually get the normal the it's called ng now into the bump mapping directly, right? So no intermediary step, right? Yes. What are the benefits there? We did talk about some benefits and speed. I think you were mentioning that 2x speed up and competing models. Yeah. So it's a bit faster and it's very easy to take the output of any node and compute the, for example, the luminance of that signal and use it to compute the surface gradients and then allow, you know, PXR bump, PXR to use that. So it means that suddenly you are not limited the same way you used to be with PXR bump and PXR normal. Another great advantage is that you can mix normal maps together, for example, and you get the correct result or you can mix different normal maps and bump maps and it works as expected. That's awesome. We're seeing a little bit of open color IO here in your new ASUS workflow, which is super interesting, right? I mean, you can currently use it in 23, but you have to kind of, you know, do a pipe manually and we have some cool new bloom features here, which are interesting. You can actually output these artifacts to comp, right? Yeah, absolutely. So there is a new bloom filter that allows you to, you know, create blooming effects and you can output the different layers separately if you want to recompay everything yourself. I have a couple of more questions here. Is Lama available for NCR version? Yes, it's going to be completely available for non-commercial and it will be available in all bridge tools, including Blender. In fact, we might even have a little demo of it here, so stick around for that. Another question is, does Lama allow heterogeneous volumetric interiors controlled by, for example, an open VDD asset? So at the moment, this is not possible, but it is a general limitation of our internal APIs that's definitely on our list of things to do, but we can't do it at the moment. Another good one. What are the main differences between Lama and MaterialX? So Lama is a number of nodes that allow you to create a material, well, a BXDF, really, so the response of your surface to light. MaterialX is a high-level description. It's something that will say, oh, and I have a diffuse and I have a specular on top and I have a little bit of sheen and I have all those nodes that will create patterns that will feed those things. And it means for us that we can ingest, well, at some point in the future, we will be able to ingest a MaterialX document and translate it into Lama network of nodes and patterns, and then you will get the same result as, you know, in another renderer. So this is what we're going to do in the future, but MaterialX doesn't do anything by itself. It's just a description and Lama is the nodes that will be used by that description to talk to RenderMan. Another good question is, is it possible to layer other BXDFs over the new hair shader and Lama picture chain? So you can use, you know, any Lama nodes to layer on top of each other, but you can't mix with the BXDF surface or something like that. It's not possible because they don't respond to the same internal API. But you can mix all the my nodes together. Some might not give you the expected result because hair shading is something that's quite particular, but you can completely have different hair shading settings to have like dirt on top of clean hair and stuff like that. That's interesting. That's a completely new feature, so that's awesome. Does Lama have an equivalent parameter for Pixar surface to fuse exponent parameter? And I think who asked that question? So what we have is a roughness parameter and that's because it's an ORNIR model and that's a tree. Okay, that's another great question here. Does Lama layering compute each layer independently or is it, or is there interaction between them? For example, if the top layer was a path trace of surface, would that affect another bottom path trace of surface layer correctly, tracing through the top and scattering into the bottom layer? So when it comes to mixing different subsurface things, we are limited at the moment by the internal architecture to only two, as far as I remember. And it means that they can be mixed, but if you stack them, you will get a correct looking result, but you shouldn't expect energy propagation between the layers. But you could mix, for example, a path trace of surface and a tricolor, right? If you wanted that kind of artist freedom for an alien or something that's completely, you know, not plausible, you know. Yeah, or, you know, the thing is, in IMS case, what they do is that often they have to do body doubles, you know, where you have a famous actor with a lot of pictures and they need to match exactly under a certain set of lighting conditions, the references. And they found that sometimes the subsurface scattering, when it's path traced, looks better in some areas with some kind of topology. And sometimes the tricolor will work better. So that was the reason why they decided to be able to have those two nodes and be able to mix them however they want. In practice, they can mix together four different algorithms, which is very, very flexible. I'm going to go back a little bit here for XPU because I want to touch quickly on the advantages of speed, of course, here and how this whole new paradigm of doing everything through OSL for patterns is really benefiting kind of this forward-looking, you know, transition to our upcoming render. So can you talk a little bit about what the advantages for Lama and OSL are for XPU particularly? So the best thing about OSL is that we write the patterns once and it works in XPU automatically. There's nothing to do. So you have to know that our support of OSL contains a number of special specific things that are specific really to RenderMan. So it's not guaranteed that some functionalities, if you write them for RenderMan, will work in other renders, but 95% or 98% of the OSL shaders you write in RenderMan should work in another renderer. But anyway, this freedom to write once and use multiple places is really great. Lama is not yet implemented in XPU. At the moment, we support PXR Surface and PXR Disney BSDF, which is the second Disney BSDF which has subsurface catering and can do glass and all those things. You were talking about also at some point in the past, I remember how Lama was just kind of more naturally, you know, better working essentially for GPUs because it provided kind of a smaller footprint per node and the code base, right? So then like storing all of these things instead of a monolithic shader is actually a lot better, right? Is that true? Yes, but that means also that we need to have like an execution model for our BSDF that is slightly different. So this is why we haven't implemented Lama yet because this is like the second phase of our delivery. At the moment, we need to focus on delivering for Lugdev using PXR Surface mostly and PXR Disney BSDF. And then the second round will be redesigning the BSDF part which has been done already partially by Fran to support Lama. Another great question is the chromatic aberration effect on the glass. Does that mean we can separate index of refraction per RGB value and blend them? Or is that done by just mixing glass materials and that kind of thing? No, you have a dispersion parameter basically. So the idea is that you instead of computing the Fresnel for a specific value, you compute it over a range of values and the wider the range and the more dispersion you get. And there's an additional control to desaturate or oversaturate the dispersion effect if you want to. I find it super simple. It's a single slider and there is also a really great show. That was awesome to see. How would displacement for double sided models work? So at the moment displacement happens in a separate execution pipeline in the renderer which means that it has to happen before Lama runs. It's part of the model of pipeline, not part of the shading pipeline. Yes. So displacement basically takes your geometry and rebakes it displaced and then this is what the renderer will use, what Lama will use. So at the moment there is no integrated approach to that. We could make it look as if there was one by implementing a number of layering patterns for displacement, but you already kind of have that. So it's just that you can't say, oh, this is a material that is displaced and another material is displaced and I'm combining them through Lama and then magically the displacements will combine. Logically, the displacement, if it comes in, it's going to come out of the other side, of course, in a single place. If you're only doing the geometry, there's really no way around that current. In the past there were tricks to do double sided displacement. We don't support that anymore I think in the renderer, but that's definitely an interesting question. Absolutely. Can we make rough boundaries between two mixing layers? I know you have masking and all kinds of other interesting things in there. Yeah. I mean, if you mean like a very gradient gradual blend over a ramp over a surface, yeah, you can do that. It works fine. We'll take one last question. Actually, one might have a question for time for two. Let's see here. Does the hex tiling work with displacement? Yes, absolutely. I demoed it in some of the examples that were displaced. They were using the hex tiling in displacement. Basically, the displacement uses the same OSL patterns. Anything you write in OSL to transform, to create signals is usable in displacement. That's interesting because the next question I was going to ask was essentially about that. Does that mean that we can drive texture coordinates with our own gradient data instead of being forced to use a manifold? You need a base manifold that then you can perturb. If you're using hex tiling, it's possible to drive it also with a gradient map that will allow you to create non-retilinear mappings of your manifold. This is something that is used, for example, at Pixar to create a tree bark. You have a texture that is just tree bark like this, and they create a vector field like this, and then the tree bark will look like that. Interesting. I think we're going to finish it off with one last question. Is vertical layering actually path traced between layers, or is there some different kind of approximation to get the interlayer scattering? It is not doing the interlayering, layer scattering, so there is an energy loss. It's using the kind of classic layering that has been described by, what's her name? Oh, I drew a blank. Anyway, sorry. Basically, we are not modeling the light transport that is, well, the light that is inter-reflected between the layers. This is something we look at, and we would like to have in the future, but there isn't a good quick algorithm that doesn't have a lot of drawbacks. A bit penalty, right? Yeah, there's speed, but there are also some that require a baking phase, things like that, and we haven't found something that works well with anisotropy, and there's a lot of restriction at the moment, so we don't think it's quite ready yet, but as soon as we can find something, we will definitely look into it. Awesome. Well, I want to appreciate everyone's comments, great positive attitude, and amazing questions. I hope that, yes, follow the link. There's a great new session starting right now. You have to get out of this page and go into that new one, so make sure you don't miss that for the women in Render Man, and I just want to say thank you to Philippe for being with us, and I'll see you next time. Thank you very much, everyone.


I'm doing back the open session. Now at 6.30 from 10, no reportable actions, taking a closed session. So I'd like to ask if there's any additional deletions to the open session agenda. Staff has no additions or deletions to the open session. Okay. So we'll move on to oral communications and this portion of the agenda is reserved for matters of the water district that are not on tonight's agenda. Anybody like to speak to the report? Sir. I'm ready? Yeah. Thank you. First, Shantlin, for the panel. I'm just saying about what the directors believe is the median household income in SOE. Mr. Lee is the promoting number of approximately 100,000. Maybe this can influence some of your decisions. So he provided the source for that and I followed that and the source doesn't explain where the data comes from but they do provide some demographic information, groups of 10 to 20 to 30,000, things like that. And if you add those up, okay, you find out that at 100,000 they get 62%. But they say that the mean median is 101,000. But how can that be if 62% of the population has incomes less than 100,000? So I went a little further to verify that I was computing the percentages as they did. When I found out that they believe that the Chandelier Valley has 125,802 households. Now this is quite a trick in a county that has 92,000. So, you know, there's some discrepancies here and I believe you might be believing them because this same organization, citydata.com shows up in your 2016-2017 budget presentation and for it and yet, you know, by their numbers it's closer to 75,000 but those numbers are ludicrous because we don't have the kind of household definitions that they are using and no idea where they get them. And there are other websites that you can review that have numbers that are much more in line with what I would expect. Now I agree, what I would expect is probably war because I did a very modest neighborhood and I read the books. So, you know, there's a different perspective there. But I think it's important that you understand that number because a reliable version of that number that you don't have right now because this can impact some of your decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody? I believe the beginning of the problems between Longhiko and NFLB scarred with surcharge. Before the assessment was passed, I went to the general manager and said, we're going to pay two of the debts that are listed on surcharge. And he said, don't worry about it, don't bring it up, we'll only confuse people. We'll do the sidebar agreement. Well, the assessment passes, there was no change to the fee that we were paying. And so I went to the district one of the meetings and said, look, we pay two debts that were on the surcharge. And I was told go to the finance committee. So I went to the next finance committee and before the meeting started, Director Bachman, now President Bachman told me, this is not on the agenda, the time for negotiation is passed. I didn't say anything when I got a chance to talk, I just talked about the surcharge. But I did complain. I said, I felt I was treated rudely. We had been negotiating for years. I wasn't there to negotiate. I wanted to talk about what was written on the surcharge. And I complained in a board meeting, said I felt I was not shown any of this fact. And Marla Bruce gave me a little lecture and then our camera gave me a little lecture, which I believe is totally uncalled for. So that was started. And the other thing, the budget, not the budget, but the auditors report. And I have said to Mr. Lee early in 2016, we're getting ready for your audit. It's due June 3rd yet. Do you want us to go ahead and do it and to start the one for this current year at the same time? He said, no, it probably costs less money if we have our auditors do the audit. So back in the day when I trusted him, I said, fine. But then the next thing I know, I'm hearing, oh, Longchico is late on their audit.  That was due June 30th. And Round of Brown chastised us and accused us of being years behind. You wonder why we have a problem with this district? Or else one things are known. I see no one else wanting to speak to us on communications. And on the first volume of Unfinished Business being 9A, is the district managers bearing increased calls and objectives. And I'd like to, because we just discussed in a closed session, the decision was made in closed session, it's now being reported out at this time, that decision made, which was at a board meeting of his mob regularly agendized item, or agendized meeting at economic. So the board decision from that is that the board voted three to one, with directors moment voting against, to recommend a two and a half percent bearer decrease, which is half of the maximum annual increase, all out of the district managers contract. So at this point, I would like to open this up to public comment on this item. So if anybody would like to speak at this point on this, please do so. How do you get to do that in closed session? I thought all bearer raises have been done in closed session. They can't vote for a bearer raise in closed session. Ms. Herred, there are recommendations to be developed in closed session, but it then has to be read into the record immediately at the start of an open session discussion at which the bearer increase is actually discussed with public comment and then decided upon it at that time. So no final action has been taken yet, only a recommendation to start with an updated discussion. All right, so, okay, two and a half percent and you got three and a quarter percent cost living, right? Three percent, three and a quarter. I don't remember the exact number or something like that. Last meeting, you didn't know the answer. What answer done, Ms. Herred? Okay, my understanding is three and a quarter and two and a half to that, we've got five and three quarters. How much is that a year? I know that if you would have given me a three percent and the three and a quarter, it would have been $11,101 and $11 or something like that. What does that amount to a year? I didn't do any math on two and a half. I did three, I did four, I did five, but I didn't do two and a half. You mean to vote on something and you don't even know how much it is? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. For Chair Bochum's benefit, our reference to the Social Security Administration was cost of living adjustments for 2017. So, the cost of living increased for the staff. All of SLB, the media was due for some question. So you don't go by the 2018, I mean 2018 cost of living? We're asking what is Bradley's cost of living increased for all those of the rest of the staff. And that's built into this contract, so you don't have to figure it. We asked for this last one, so you don't have to figure that. But does anybody at the table know the figure? It's two or three percent, something like that. Two or three percent is a sketch of figure, but nobody knows the answer. Would anybody please help me? I'm sorry, are we on time? This is over time, I don't understand right now. Pardon? It's a difficult time. I'm just wondering, are you going to speak in general? And we will say that you're going to speak in general. It's about five percent, though. Oh, it's five percent, so that's really good. Okay, so the hundred nights of table reading, what? So, I'll recognize, to hallway, during all of you. Oh, well, first thing I'm saying is, I'm merely asking that the last meeting was specifically asked, what is the, because the understanding is that, according to the contract with the district manager, it's the same percentage increases that everyone provided is satisfactory performance, which can be used in June. And so, the question was, according to satisfactory performance, that this increase is automatic, along with all the other staff and the percentage is exactly what percentage? Is there anyone in this district who wants the answer to the question from last night? And since I think it's apparent that there is none, then I would like to continue to say that regarding the arrest of Brian Lee's contract, in 2017, he called me a liar. He called me a thief. He said many other things. And I think that he deserves zero, zero. He's not serving this district. We're embroiled in this Terry Bureau law suit. The record, the record at the corpus shows. Brian Lee was talking to Terry Bureau. Late night, late night, talking on the phone. Brian Lee was meeting with Terry Bureau in his office on Central Avenue in Boulder Creek because he wants to defend Terry Bureau. Brian Lee is indebt to Terry Bureau. He's indebt to a private party. And he deserves zero at this point. There's much more that could be said. But he and Terry Bureau didn't do anything. Many other people didn't do anything. So I'm sorry that the water ward had nothing more to do than hand out perpetual, this is perpetual. Whatever you award Brian Lee at this moment will be perpetual for the rest of his whole life. For the rest of his whole life. For the rest of his whole wife's whole life. This will be perpetual. And why does he deserve it? The music for our community doesn't even live here. He's gonna call us dirty names and pursue illegal activities. So I think zero is enough, zero is enough. Even if he gets whatever increase the rest of the staff gets, it's very generous. In regard to a question about cost of living, I think people in the district who would have the information of your human resources staff who don't attend they would have to accept numbers since they're inevitably involved in that. Next. Anybody else? Yeah, Deborah Lohman in the hall control. I don't want to be labored the Brown Act thing but I did look that up too. And so closed sessions may not include the discussion of or action on post compensation except for reduction of compensation that results in the end of the system. That's government code section 549574. So the city's plan to discuss salary increases in closed session that increases the violence of the Brown Act and the violation would not be carried by stating after the closed session what action was taken or even the recommendation. So it is a gray area apparently that we don't have to do. I'm very concerned that you don't know the exact amount. After the city of Bell, a lot of new Brown Act items went into effect 2017 and the January 1st. And part of that I remember reading is that you're supposed to tell us exactly what the increases, how much in salary and how much in benefits and how that affects the budget. The reason for that in the California Court of Appeals was because salaries and other terms of compensation constitute municipal budgetary matters of substantial public interest, warranting open discussions. That's before you made your recommendation. We have a right to know how you deliberated on it. What numbers do you consider? Apparently you don't know those numbers. My main point though is I sent a letter to the board back in June. I had a lot of concerns about Mr. Bryan and his performance and I don't have a letter in front of me. Basically, over the past year I have seen in subordination, I have seen not following district policies, rules and regulations. I do tell a lot of this directly to Gina Nichols in some matters. They are real problems here. I think what you are doing is you are telling the rest of the staff and the rest of the customers that this is okay. You're condoning behavior that does not follow district policies. And I think it's a very bad message. I would hate to be on the staff in this district having to work under those conditions. And I urge you to not vote for American preset this time. Part of the reason is personal. With a long peak of energy you have absolutely no leverage that any of the recommendations you're gonna make to the grand jury not fulfill those obligations to the assessment district are going to be met because he has stated clearly his position that he does not approve, isn't it? You have no leverage to make sure it's done.  Is there anything more to say about coming out of the recommendation? Well, I looked into those and you were in the last quarter of that. And I stand firm in a position that you could, that it was appropriate for the board to have a discussion solely with the place of developing recommendations for grand jury to start a public discussion. Anybody else have a comment? Sir. He can get started. Brutale, I hate following somebody and I just want to sense. I believe that any director that had that votes on a number had better have a good, clear understanding of that number. Whatever it is, its impact is important. And here we're talking about infusion over two numbers. I don't know, isn't acceptable. Knowing what percentage is and what the actual dollar amount that represents are the basic minimums. Whether it's merit raise or the cost of living raise, I believe we should get an answer from directors because they know that number and they understand it clearly. I would like to clarify that having made a, having determined there was a satisfactory review that that increase is determined by cost of living numbers and that decision. So that number is then not, that's not being the number, right? Correct? Correct, and then there is a merit increase based on that and there was a process by which the district manager was evaluated on various scales and the percentage was determined from the evaluation numbers that came from the evaluation categories and where the director, where the district manager ranked along those scales. And I feel that the two and a half percent number is reasonable compared to the review that was given to the district manager and is not an overly generous number when viewed in the context of all the areas that are not in district managers' performance that are being discussed. Well, I think that's a very good explanation. Thank you. But there's also a problem of what does that mean in dollars to the district? What's that question? Is that, I mean, your, sir, I mean, at this point I provided, thank you for your, that was a good question and I provided what I think is a pretty response to that. I'd like to continue with the rest of the, the folks. Oh, I'm sorry, I can hear my feet. Would anybody else like to speak on this? I just want to clarify, two and a half, that sounds like a small number, but it's two and a half plus whatever it is. Else who works for this, so what do they get? Do they get three and a half? So it's six percent. So let's be clear that Brian is getting six percent because everybody else gets three percent and he's getting whatever this number is himself. In addition, so be clear, please be clear. Just tell us what the staff gets and what Brian may get because more than one staff. Anybody else want to comment? Okay, so I'm going to close out the world. I'll bring this back to the board. You know, what came to mind when I was listening to Keith's comments and particularly the residents from the Long Pico zone is that is an area of great controversy and dissatisfaction, and I'd like to put it in the perspective of the entire work of the district, which is, you know, a very large number of different duties that a general manager performs and basically delivering water. So certainly the Long Pico area is where there was certainly some, I'd say controversies and dissatisfaction, but we had some extremely good outcomes last year that are reflected in the operational side of the water district that I think are not, you know, not top-of-the-line people are not thinking about those, but that was certainly part of our evaluation we looked at a number of projects, a number of personnel operation and sort of capital improvement criteria as part of the evaluation. So there's a lot more to it that was considered one of the problems. We did the evaluation of criminal satisfactory performance and then anything beyond that that was a consideration for a merit increase. So I just want to emphasize that there's way more to the general manager's, district manager's job than might be apparent without divulging our confidential evaluation discussion. I think it's important to point out that Brian Lee is the board's sole employee. We do not do the review for nor are they involved in a compensation discussion for staff beyond the front. The board is authorized to in response to Brian's the resources and the authority to do things like a staffing study which we have done to do a comparative salary survey to make sure that what was paying our employees is consistent with industry standards. So the board does not intimately involved in deciding individual staff because compensation. I think the district is in pretty good shape despite issues with legal issues and perhaps a few, you say, you know, badly word of discussion points at a time or two, but the district now is on a solid fiscal position that hasn't been in my memory and is an active participant in the most important thing going on in this county regarding water which is moving towards sustainable groundwater management. So based on what I consider the two most important issues that the water district needs to address, the district is in good shape and that is in that sort of good shape to a significant extent to the management of the district, especially the district manager. So I know there are issues that some people in the public have with some particular pieces of it and I hope we can improve all of those in the future but a middle-of-the-range American increase, I think, is a reasonable one. Six percent per year. Forever. Please know how. So we have a recommendation. Does anybody want to make a comment? Or do you want to consider any other number? I'm comfortable with the scoring process that I'm comfortable with the discussion that we have and I'm comfortable with the recommendation of how we can improve all of the American increase to a moderate percent. Okay. A second. I'll second that motion. Okay. Director Hayes. Epstein. Director Bruce. Yes. Director Bob. Yes. Director Radcliffe. Yes. Director Smallman. Let's move on to unfinished business. I will be the draft response to the grand jury report. So we have a memorandum in here. I'll read the recommendation. Receive review and discuss the draft response to the 2017-18 grand jury report in any public comment regarding the same board of directors may by motion adopt the draft response as written or with specific provisions. I'll turn it over when we need the board and the draft response before it may but does not require due to the motion that provides direction or guidance to the ad hoc community in regard to the desired provisions. And as one of the members of the ad hoc committee that generated this draft response I want to say that the inputs of those except for some staff which did not they are my director Hayes and myself. So I hope everybody here has had a chance to read this and I believe the right way we have a limited amount of time in the community to appear at 8.30 so I would like to group the the discussions into the findings at one time and the recommendations as another. So to leave this off I wanted to ask for public comment regarding hopefully the draft response and the reports and it's available to everybody tonight. So I would like to comment on this draft response regarding finding when to agree for you. I read the draft response and I love this the Santa Lawrence Valley District and it's for the directors appreciate the work of the grand jury. This is your second grand jury report in four years and how do we know that you're going to follow your recommendations are you going to something that says yeah we all agree it's a resolution you all go along with it but then if Mr. Lee gets his paws on it he'll say I disagree with it so we're not going to talk about communication right now we're only going to talk about the stuff among people as far as it's going to be communication first finding he said the three findings so communication is one of them communication communication and civility but gee all anybody has to do is look at the April 17 recording that's on the county not the county but the fellow who's recording this right now look at it there was no civility that night it's it Margaret Bruce was brutal to Rick Moran your manager called Bruce a liar kind of thief director Ratcliffe who was a president should have gathered Margaret Bruce but instead she told the people that were there that were organic growers that they were relying on emotion not science I'm sure they loved hearing so civility communication you did Jurassic Park the whole thing with Jurassic Park is to eliminate communications to limit things in the minutes I mean really I find this a joke yes I've already given some of my thoughts to John his privately when I was reviewing it when it was really I'd like to say all of the findings and recommendations that to anyone who's a district and doesn't understand how the district is worth they look like you've had a really good job but to those of us who know how this district works you see it as being really ineffective and I'm sorry it doesn't seem strong enough and one of the things about the findings especially is that at the last meeting when the board discussed it they said they agreed with all three findings and yet in this version you partially agreed with the one on communications and so I'm wondering when the board discussed it why wasn't that translated right directly into your your own report my most common complaint to Mr. Hayes was I think it's really too rude the instructions response explanation says there's the only additional communication response required if you put other than or agree if you mark or agree you don't need to explain yourself and I think it explained to everybody that you were just very very confused about things doesn't put you in the best line I think you better off just saying we agreed with the findings that's my recommendation to the board going back to those three on communications the awarding list to me really stands out according to that you're giving people you're trying things like giving people three minutes to speak and that only kind of details how seriously this board needs better ground-match training because that's already safe off you're not creating anything wonderful for us by allowing us to speak for three minutes a lot of this seems like saying yes but and there was a whole saying everything you say that you agree with me goes away when you say the word everything happened but it eliminates everything so I think taking MPS but changing gas for you to quickly with very minimal explanation please don't make excuses and please not say that you're confused anybody else would like to do well you're at the loss somewhere you know the fact that you can't answer whether you should just do it and it was brought up on what's the percentage I mean there are a few staff members here I'm looking at Jen I think Jen is a pretty sharp individual I suppose Jen because let me know what's the animal standard increase that anybody got do you think Collie Collie can tell me that something I would be able to tell them and because whatever it is two and a half two and a half quoted more two and a half Brian got to know everybody else that works for the water industry all the people that turned their engines all the people that did the dishes Brian got more because he's a he's a dirty name Collie dirty names what you want and that gives him a six percent increase when everybody else that works for the fishery that leaves a ditch there's a family two percent that's no effect so you have a communication problem why can't you just tell us how much more does Brian leave than the real other staff member why don't you just come out with a number and just tell us you can even tell us that he makes two hundred thousand dollars a year and that's six percent as of the twelve thousand so he's making a thousand dollars a month every year every month he's going to be making a thousand dollars a month and this percentage increase is much more than other staff members who have to live here so effective communication I mean you're falling short if I were working I'd give this a 5.7 I'd be able to say 2.75 whatever it is whatever it is but there's nobody at this table that can say the number and that pretty funny Brian knows is a thousand dollars a month that's what he's doing he knows the number he's the only one that you don't want to say nobody will say that come on speak up where's the effective communication going on so here's your tool here's your tool here's your assignment just doing your thing and he calls people and artists with dirty hands and he's getting a thousand dollars a month more this year anybody else want to comment it's response to grand jury report I thought it was professional and thoughtful and I think it was a good thing as a system member of the environmental community I was forward to the Brown Act and ethics training and whatever training you know my communication was important or appropriate I trust that the board and district is prepared to be forward in good faith and it would be great if the public would be willing to move forward in their faith as well I think acrimony is a barrier to more public participation and it's not conducive to getting work done because we can all be more issue and project focus and less discussion back to the directors I want to appreciate the work that John and Chuck did on this I understand the comment about not having put explanation under a degree I do think that it's useful for people who don't attend meetings on a regular basis big players who may be able to get grand jury report to flesh out it's a little bit so I think it's a useful contribution rather than just checking the box I think a little bit of context is not inappropriate so I thought that was helpful I I think it's important because there's the observation that I am going to our approach to this isn't a disagreement it's that we would like to explain our position we would like to caveat our actions and I'm not sure that's necessary as she recommends and and and if there is a response then our response to the finding of our three would be to restate our commitment to animal public engagement and if necessary some examples like moving the location and location time so that cross section of our community commitment engagement I would love to say these things one of the things I just I think there's a lot of meat in here and I hope you picked up on a couple of things it's not just a re-response we really tried hard to make sure that there were really some substantive progress made in actually fixing a lot of these issues so some things that I hope you can see in there is that that you know we strongly agree with all the findings we're going beyond what the grand jury recommended in most of the recommendations we're taking what they said, we're taking it to heart and we're going not only taking the recommendation but actually getting more to the heart of the issue and we're going beyond that in addressing the issues as they point out a lot of the frustrations we've had I think we're trying to deal with that without spooking this response too by establishing a new charter for laptop in looking at we looked at a lot of examples of other wrong oversight and tried to find some assessment district oversight so maybe he's out there that had charters and bylaws that we could kind of use in a model we looked at lots of samples in constructing this response and Debra was really helpful in sending some of the samples to us and we got other input from Tony for example on the laptop to try to get as much of a consensus here as possible but we want to build a strong charter for the one sentence charter that exists in the laptop agreement is clearly not sufficient as we said and we want to build a strong charter we want to have bylaws as well the other three elements of an oversight committee like that are having an annual report format if you know kind of what the output looks like it helps you create the process to get to that output so we're going to have staff help us jumpstart the process to get to what that annual report should look like and get to that as soon as possible we're going to the other two elements are what kind of financial information or what would be the financial audit process that goes in there and what the performance piece of it looks like what the performance audit goes on we know there's been a lot of confusion about the assessment district itself I personally feel that's the reason for a lot of the acrimony is and I put the word confusion and are right up to the finding F1 there maybe that's a bit wrong word it's maybe just agreements or misunderstandings but I thought confusion was a more powerful word there but in any case one really key piece that I think is leading in this right up is the protocol that we're going to put in place to examine scope changes to the assessment industry if the scope changes how are we going to handle it what is the process that we're going to invoke and what will happen as a result of that I mean that opens up all kinds of I think better communication good things for the Long Pico books so I think there's we really we spent a lot of hours working on this and I hope you see that and I welcome your input I really would love to use it John, you're used to the word confusion I think that's appropriate it's not that we are I think there's I can't even put that a word to indicate that there is a different understanding from different sides so I don't know whether it would be confusion is more appropriate it really reflects the fact that I think there are sincere beliefs on several different sides about the assessment district and everybody's equally sincere therefore I think confusion is the appropriate word unless somebody else would come up with a better term to express that situation confusion links that the findings are fairly easy at least the first two with regard to to agree with finding one is the lack of effective communication between the district and the community regarding the administration assessment district it's called public concern regarding the timing and implementation of the assessment district project I mean the the district would have a better job of communicating how the purpose is what the requirements of LADAC should be through coming up with a better charter on it we're going to you know we're going to have workshops to present the report that comes out the annual report that comes out of this and project summaries and we're going to implement layers on between LADAC and staff so that's another really key point there, the liaisons all of the other committees that exist have two board members on them LADAC has five representatives from from Malpito but no board representatives of LADAC so we have this idea that putting a liaison or two staff connected directly with LADAC doesn't give more validity more authority better able to allocate resources any time an issue comes up on LADAC it can be immediately escalated but it's a much stronger connection to the board I think that's a huge improvement I mean the one that we have some we have some disagreement on is F3 and for me the there's a certain degree of wording of how you respond to this whether you agree with some partial disagreement or you partially disagree while having substantial agreement is somewhat moved but some of the discussion in the report itself was about whether we had reduced access to the district through having more special meetings and fewer and it's a constant because we went to have two board meetings two regular scheduled board meetings a month those were done for reasons of trying to make the district run officially of having break times for staff in between board meetings and not being on the treadmill of always having to do that so I think that is a small price to pay of not having these things filmed in occasional special board meetings we can do some work on trying to get regularly scheduled meetings that perhaps twice a month but dealing with budget or dealing with a capital improvement workshop or the audit could probably fall within that range so those small instances of filming I think are relatively consequential and at the same time we're going to large efforts to have recordings of all the committee meetings and having those committee meeting recordings done in a way that has minutes of being embedded in them so I think we're getting closer to having more effective communications regarding the committees than we did prior so I think some of that I think the things that we have pressed and done well on perhaps not sufficiently recognized by the grand jury in one instance in three findings and eight recommendations so I wouldn't take it terribly seriously as being a disagreeable response to the grand jury board and I think the mechanisms that we're going to introduce with the trainings and the rest of the things that we're going to discuss regarding the recommendations are evidence of commitment to communications to the public priority and to a lot of so Mr. Bursch. A question for the chat and the other committee member in your consideration of community communications, did you benchmark against what other special districts in the region or beyond typically do? How are typical meetings recorded? How are typical committee meetings recorded or presented in other similar districts? We didn't explicitly do that as part of this. We certainly mentioned some of those. Just digging if there were some best practices that we're going to reference at this point. Yes. Keeping in mind 2014 grand jury report transparency was a big issue and I don't think the public has seen much improvement since that time. Well on PICO's grand jury report, the main recommendation was to merge with the standarons Valley Water District which we specifically did. Last year, one of the quote-unquote experiments was to just basically cut the public comment by 15 percent so that it was only 15 minutes from public comment. Not only that, they're recommended to fill out speaker sheets. And I don't know I mean to me that was just basically quite fondly and effus of the public to participate at this meeting. I came down here and said, hey what's going on here? I remember when this meeting was set up it's at 3.30 and I only noticed I think one spring night president here that it would be at 3.30 so the people here and I'm sure there's so many that works in this community that the notice could simply have gone out to all the residents here that the main part of the meeting is what's going to be at 6.30, not 3.30. So there was about 6 or 7 spring night presidents down here that didn't know I mean they can come here to the meeting. The midpoint is we work for you okay and I know that we're sitting up here with our little names and stuff like that but you are the boss. You put us in here with your vote you can take us out not give me your vote you pay our paychecks so these meetings we want to encourage we want more public involvement and it seems that that's something that this dirt district has seemed to forget because we want you to come I've had some town hall meetings or whatever I want to make sure that I want to draw as many people in there of course there's going to be a lot of people but that's part of the process but let me tell you something I've learned a lot every meeting I come to there's some people I disagree with but I don't but the main thing is to have the attitude and I think that's part of this grand jury report is to make sure that we have to encourage public involvement to listen to their viewpoints accept and I think that's something that needs to be addressed with this and one of the reasons why I don't think this is a very good response back from the grand jury report briefly on the PICO again I see this as a project manager I believe it's going to go over budget I think the project management on the entire project I know some people are more concerned about some of the ways that the committees work and the charter etc that I believe it's going to go over budget and I'll explain this over and over you know some people talked about the PRVs they don't seem to understand that the Lompeco, the elevation changes from over 200 feet down in the bottom so that's 100 psi so arguably none of the service breaks that you see emergency crews coming out there are former district manager with Lompeco he's lowest nose all of his time repairing service breaks that all could have been fixed over a year ago we have the funding source and you've heard the reason why why not as this district proceeding with projects is because we needed to raise the rates well guess what Lompeco's got the funding source right there so it's in the best interest of the entire district to move forward with that and you know I feel like the board members of the LADOC are like Vietnam veterans they're just really calling up saying hey thanks for coming down there but they weren't given the tools and I'm all in favor of all the training that's recommended nothing training but quite frankly as a project manager I do not see Lompeco it's a very difficult thing and I do not see the tools for proper tools it would be simple and it would be the best interest to move forward so I can't agree with anyway tying this all up the final thing is that I do believe that there are people in this venue here that the spring makes people deserve to need to know and be informed of the upcoming election and that it wouldn't be very difficult but I do believe that somebody I think there's only one member here but for gosh sakes and I know that you would appreciate viewing the candidates again the public is the boss here is that you deserve to hear from they're actually one of the requests if I could just follow up just a comment I have to respond to the speakers because that was my idea when I worked as a plan commissioner at a different town I attended lots of city council meetings and like any small town we had people who would come to every meeting you know who would bring our attendance and the council members were familiar with them personally they knew their names and so forth and in order to maintain a real objective approach and get everybody a fair pudding they instituted speakers because otherwise for instance we had a lawn senior that was associated with the silica in town and he would always get the last word and that was because they knew him and knew him by name and suggested the speakers to level the playing field so anybody who wanted to make a comment would have equal steps and they wouldn't be intimidated by the fact that the council seemed to know people in the audience and they were at first time or perhaps intimidated by the process so that was my hope the last meeting was not to squelch public participation but to give me a bite and first time attendees an opportunity to speak and not feel in a disenfranchised because they were unknown so that did not go well it was low intention and I had seen it work in another in another jurisdiction it gave everybody so I did not work out well but it certainly wasn't intended in the amount that you may ascribe to it so it was unsuccessful but I will say that since 2014 when the the play about that brought up as a district institution in Watson the filming for example was one that was instituted shortly after that report was issued when did we start doing that spring of 2015 no spring of 2015 that was a regular date the community outreach the advisory committee was also doing it this time and it depended on that I had been recording some of the recordings so I do think that that you know sort of benchmarking as Bart was suggesting what do other districts do to meet transparency goals we do the filming for other entities do not we have one of those information rich websites in the county certainly for a district outside the county we are moving to one of the most technological events and useful means of recording balance and it's being adopted by the JPA okay for the grant water sustainability agency I think we're doing everything that we're we're doing a lot so we have a goal here to decide how to proceed with whether or not we want to accept the recommendations or we want to take perhaps we can decide to accept some number of them or predicted ones of them and you have a suggestion that we can discuss could we decide perhaps whether we have one of them to make sense to get through the findings and then get to the specifics of what guidance may be provided for further recommendations before going back to the findings thinking about the time constraint we have anymore okay okay if the other directors feel this is a good way to go shall we go ahead and then we'll take public effort on the recommendations Mr. Bolt to take this process here I'm really good very sad because I agree with what you're saying about needing to come together in a unified way I think perhaps where we made different is that's a two-way street and at least a couple of you have been on board for four years and it seems like the only time that any change actually happens is not when you're receiving constant feedback from the public but only when you get a two by four inside your head through your grand jury board or in the case of the Terry Barrow Lawsuit and funding it the overwhelming negative response you got from the public and I think that's probably why there's a high degree of skepticism about whether or not all of these things are actually going to come to pass particularly when this is coming just before an election where three of you are out for re-election two actually for re-election one for an issue of election and so you know I think why I keep hearing here is the recurring theme of the Brown Act and all the things about transparency you don't go for the ceiling, you go for the floor what you're really trying to do here is raise the floor maybe a few inches and I think that's really sad you have a grand opportunity here to do something other than that experimentation none of these things we've talked about is experiments they will talk about that stuff policy and even in the face of overwhelming opposition they remain in policy for a fair period of time until I guess so it's sad and you could have done a whole lot of it but here we are and we haven't had a lot of it you can always hold it over for a little bit again with a response this is where the uninitiated sounds really wonderful but for those of us who have been around a lot doubt what's going to happen I was looking at the grand jury and their write-up so the civil grand jury works under the district attorney and so I think they have a lot of resources available through that and what they say is that when they're asked to investigate something they look into it and if they do it for a month or two and they find there's nothing there they drop it so when we get a grand jury report that goes as far as this has and with as many findings and recommendations as we have here there is something here there's something very solid here going on that needs to be fixed it is a real problem and I wish that the responses were more directly relating to that fresh mission that there is a problem and we need to address it the Long Pico merger agreement was to be with the board of directors it was not with the manager so I would request that all of our questions be answered by the board and not keep being referred to Brian and nothing that you have heard here or none of the recommended recommendations are news to you at all I've been spending the past writing many letters and you can all smile and shake your heads and say yes because you have very tired reading my letters but I treat you with great respect I wrote letters that detail what the information was and I gave you back-end documents to confirm it I was talking to you and I was showing you what the ingredients were and asking you to look into it I was treating you as intelligent adults and that's not the response how a lot of people got back who are just clearly becoming frustrated you not paying attention to the problems in my letters I talked about that lot I needed to have better oversight to use they were being stripped down I suggested having workshops to dispass the whole merger so that we would all be on the same page and have the questions answered I suggested we get an expert to clear up any questions on how the merger worked and how assessment districts worked none of that happened in your recommendations there's quite a lot that say staff will do this staff will do this so the template for the report and all that and I would request that staff be removed from any kind of direction for this committee I would like you to consider the committee more as like an independent auditor rather than a committee like engineering or one of the other committees there should be completely independent the staff should only be there to provide information that is requested by the committee and as John said our liaison should be with the board member not with the staff and it was interesting Jenny told us about money we're all kind of sick of it I wanted to read you something and I would beg to have this is like one minute to read go ahead October 2017 managers report to the board I'm going to quote since the merger the district has endured persistent complaints for individuals of Longheath area regarding their personal misunderstandings of the merger Longheathans have monopolized a significant amount of district time and energy attempting to impose their interpretation of the merger and yet here we are today all those questions we were on the right track and the board was not paying attention and as a grand jury found there's something there well I was miss nicey nice for months for months but they on October meeting Longheath was shown as rats and when I said something about that I was told oh that's just Brian Lee's weird sense of humor frustration builds I went to all the meetings for the assessment for the merger that became an assessment district I went to all of them and to be told I don't know what I'm talking about to be told that Brian Lee gets I what it's all about and forget what we think how would you feel would you just continue to be miss nicey nice I don't call him names I don't call any of you names but I do protest I do and so far I can't trust that you will do what you're saying if you pass this if it's not a resolution that all the board members agree to or if it's not written in blood because okay let's I'll go back to the surcharge John Hayes myself Brian Lee we met with Bruce McPherson and in that meeting it was agreed that the surcharge didn't need to continue because everything had changed we were not going to be a separate part of SLD we had water through the intertide all the meters had been done and the skater and Brian Lee at that meeting agreed that the surcharge I believe it was July 1st that the surcharge would stop guess what happened it went on another six months he reneged on that agreement he had with us and I'm supposed to trust that he won't renege and that you won't cave how can I trust that tell me I mean I looked at what you ran on in 2014 Director Bachman President Bachman you talked about wanting to converse with the public and all that kind of stuff it's like first meeting to have one observation that it seems like the actions that are recommended in each of the sections have a fairly a fairly generous timeline within the next six months within the next six months while I'm positive that some of the work that is going to be necessary in actually responding to these is a of an institutional nature where we have to fold this information in fold these procedures in fold these policy changes and fold these practices into existing structures I think we can speak things up I think six months seems to be an overview of the considerations that we want to hear about but I think there should be a sense of urgency My opinion on that is that currently there is a grand jury report on the effectiveness of districts responding and following through on their obligations that they have set for themselves in their grand jury reports I think we need to set ourselves goals and often people in the district sometimes set goals optimistically and don't they meet some a buffer zone I agree that the six month time periods in this are should not be the goal for this perhaps we could already in within six months or hopefully with as expeditious as possible or something longer than six months right could be good language in that because I do think we should aspire to that I feel good with the recommendations I think the change proposed by Margaret Smith one you have still that six month deadline but you express your goal as faster as possible some of these things require a couple of meetings and scheduling or workshops and things of that sort not all of them not all of them some of them require that you need to get a process in place within a certain period of time but but not necessarily if the requires further analysis of the in recommendation says not to exceed six months but implementation on something depending upon the nature of it can take longer than that would the chair consider having a standing portion of the board meeting agenda that is a report out on the status of responses to the rendering of findings so we have a regular report out on any actions taken progress toward goals and specific actions that have been taken toward meeting those amounts well since we're probably going to have for this to go back we'll have a continuing ad hoc committee to implement this online for John with the it's reasonable it's a regular report out of the project that's a good idea there's so much going on simultaneously that they have a little automatic reminder because otherwise it gets lost and everything else that's accepted which are the latest I think that would be useful would say it's kind of hard to do edits from skepticism you know it's just hard to figure out how to edit this to address skepticism I guess I mean the only thing I can I believe that these are all things that in all the recommendations we make these are achievable milestones really quickly we can produce a chart for a layout we can get the layout committee back to a you know a workable team we can implement a protocol for dealing with 8016 scope changes we can do all those things but I understand the skepticism you know no doubt about that and the proof will be in the pudding as we move forward with these recommendations and you see them work you see them get implemented like we did and ultimately get rid of the surcharge and it took a little bit longer than we hoped in our McPherson meeting all this to get it done but once we actually got all the numbers together and everything the district was able to to get rid of that thing we did do it and we will do these things we'll do them the same way we did that working together yes I do too I believe we set ourselves in this I think the two ad hoc committee members are committed to doing what has been outlined in this and I think the director spoke this evening I agree so I agree as we do so I recommend that we take this back with a few changes in this and bring it back to what always means my question is as far as you don't have a full compliment on the latter so you weren't able to discuss these findings and recommendations but the latter committee staff report gives a bit of background that individual members informally consulted is there any there's no prospect timeline that will allow us to wait until the is fully populated no I don't think that's probable I mean we can still reach out to some people informally it's possible that in late August or something but that's very late in this process too late Bill if you want to have any comments on those recommendations okay I don't think we need to do it officially in order to proceed with the role of the small community it doesn't need to be we're just going to table it but take the inputs on this perhaps and we'll go back we'll essentially go to August I'll motion to approve this table image we'll get back to it for my mistake I don't think there's any motion on the table just a discussion let's go next one okay with the final okay let's move on to the rest of the unfinished business and that is 9C Fall Creek Fish Library review removal all its staff introduce I'll run with that thank you so as the board knows the Fall Creek Fish Latter suffered some damage during the 2017 winter storms the damage mainly consisting of additional debris filling up the chambers that fish use to rest and build up speed to complete the jumps we have been working with a number of agencies to develop a plan to build those chambers we finally have a plan developed and we've been to bid with that plan last month we've received no bids to clean those chambers out during the bid process Jim Nicholson reached out to the California Conservation Court and asked him if they would be willing to bid on the project and their response was that they would be unable to bid on the project because it is, they're not competitive with the contractor's environment Ms. Nicholson reached out to the CCC again after the lack of bids received and they said yeah we could probably do this we could provide the labor to make this happen the problem we have is that the labor is not the entire equation, we also have equipment that needs to occur and management oversight that needs to occur as well the operations department have stepped up and agreed to assist in that regard so between the environmental team and the operations team I believe we have the ability to accomplish the clean out of the chambers this year and that is important in getting it done this year because FEMA still could reimburse up to 75% of that cost under the storm damage agreements that we have with them so it is a little bit up in the air whether they still will or not but we're hopeful that we can convince them and negotiate a reimbursement for that so this all occurred over the course of the CCC involved or re-involved when the CCC occurred over the course of the last couple of days and I have literally been out of the picture on that when I'm chasing under butterflies so I'm going to turn it over to Jen to provide more detail on that regard and let her explain how this is going down and costs associated with the CCC getting involved potentially I know she's been working with them quite a lot so Jen I haven't worked with them yet on this project because staff person has been on vacation this week so I was hoping to get a cost estimate to provide a meeting but I don't have but I have looked at the CCC crews on other projects before their rates are usually around $2,500 a day for about 10 to 15 crew members instead of their reasonable rates and from what I heard from the office department that they're expecting to do it in a week or two so I don't have anything concrete and I'm meeting with the CCC tomorrow next week out in the Kenton field and should have something more concrete then but I think this is really right now it's our only option for getting the debris removed from the ladder this year if we don't get the debris removed from the ladder this year we won't be able to do construction on the ladder in the future and so until we get the debris removed which needs to be done in one year needs to be to take the two-phase project because the construction will take the entire amount of time that's allotted for working in the stream because it's a huge project so we need to be able to remove the debris and then come back later and do the construction not sure if this is needed but I would like to admit that I mean without probably the requirement of having another meeting to approve a bid once you get it that we could possibly approve the cost not to exceed approximately $2,500 per day because I don't believe that we're not going to get a better deal from a contractor so I'm not if that's not needed then but I don't know the recommendations actually we're right on the same line I was doing calculations I used $3,000 a day just to cover the bases and I assumed three weeks so 15 days came to $45,000 I would license concurrence with Rick on this one but I was thinking that the board would be willing to authorize moving forward with this not to exceed $100,000 to cover labor and equipment that way we can move forward with this rapidly without having to call you all back together at a point of clarification that that is reversible by FEMA up to 75% contingent upon the timing is that right? it is reversible by FEMA as long as FEMA agrees to reverse this and we don't have we're still negotiating on that okay thank you for that using the environmental delays FEMA will grant they understand environmental delays and there hasn't been a specific they're going to approve the extension how many permitting agencies are we working with on this one Jen? nine in fact they won't approve without proper performance in place and we just received another time extension on another project on a line for similar reasons so I anticipate a couple years we have to get it clean one way or another but it would be nice to have it 75% and as soon as we move on this we have a lot of experience using CCC crews and one thing they can throw a mention of a business here would be fire season they can't get pulled off of fires so I believe Director Slaman made a motion we'll go ahead oh yes public needs to be done will that revise my motion to $100,000 basically and move forward move forward with the FEMA applications move forward with the CCC's with the CCC's see your motions to authorize District Manager to negotiate a security contract to open $100,000 outside of that okay I want to make sure there's a public comment okay Director Hayes yes Director Bruce yes Director Radcliffe yes great moving forward okay okay yeah somebody who is going to assist with this okay let's move on to the new business first item in the new business this evening is to relocate future meetings scheduled for the fire station I think this is a practical thing to be doing but since this is a recommendation of the District Manager I'll allow me to just we're compressed for time so I want to make this real quick there are audio issues associated with having board meetings at the fire station that we've experienced two times now since we've held meetings there so we'd like to move the meetings back to the regular board room in Boulder Creek for future meetings scheduled for the fire station however the board needs date and time on location so board needs to authorize the relocation from the fire station back to the District's office okay any comment was really distracting certainly distracting those of us in the meeting and we may well have distracted and understand the desire to look back to the operation building I agree any public comment yes I think this meeting should have been held at the Zion Fire District and it wasn't it was clear over here and so much of it was about long people and I've asked them perhaps for things to be held at the Zion Fire District and I've been told nobody knows where it is but they have all kinds of meetings there at the San Lorenzo Group I mean it's a big room there's a lot of parking why don't we have a meeting in Felton where there's no parking I think it would only be fair since there's meetings going to have a lot of long people that would be there I also feel the lab committee shouldn't meet have the Fire District the Zion Fire District why do five people from Long Pico have to go all the way to Boulder Creek it's not the center of the universe even though you think that and if John Hayes is a board member on that committee he lives closer to the Fire District than anybody so it just it seems like because it was said nobody knows where Zion Fire District is where it's too far to go what do you think it was everybody knows where it is or they don't know where it is they have GPs thank you the Zion Fire District would be a very community location for me and it has a lot of amenities there I feel it's a very central location a lot of the Water District I think that the Zion Fire Station would make a lot of sense for a lot of folks and I would be one of them thank you I understand the complaints about the Boulder Creek Fire Department but I've got to see there the District Office the over 50% of that space has been up by the directors and they're on to all of it yes and there's very little space like I had spent several days out in the rain with the door locked open so you need to come up with a better solution I agree with the complaint but I don't believe that the District Office is probably a good solution it's funny I was going to suggest the Zion Fire Station also be considered a part of your rotation I know that one of the reasons that give up water can work would be noisy like Boulder Creek except it's a completely different building it's set apart much greater distance from the bay where the fire engines are it is set up as a community we built that we did that by one measure and we built it so that it would be available for community it's definitely set up there and it has on the other hand at the parking it's a whole lot better than any of the other alternate places you've been meeting so far thank you very much I think we have trouble meeting at the Zion Fire I have no idea what the process would be for scheduling a community affair and being sure they're probably as nervous to the location what's nine whether the ones that were at the partner August and November right I mean we could agenda I think for another meeting for the discussion of locations that should be meeting to be considered for the next calendar or for the continuation of this year's calendar I I think that is a good thing to consider the account was I would be in favor of generalizing this further another discussion of what our meeting then used will be what has worked and what hasn't but I don't this is not an agenda item for this evening so I would just enough it's agenda is to be located for agenda if there's a conflict on one way or the other then the default but if it's available either one or both it's okay I have to say that this place was actually magnificent but the meeting is a very beautiful garden and I've never been down here before but it's a very beautiful outside garden and this item was presented with a resolution that may not be modified in a way at least for those but a resolution is not needed it just requires formal action of the board so the motion could be substituted in the resolution with the subject details that chair want to raise some logistical concerns we don't really have the ability of the Sanctifier house that was the fourth Thursday of the month we do know that we can kick anybody out of the SWWB meeting space so making a decision tonight on Zionty would be contingent on the Sanctifier house being available anybody like to turn that into a I would move that we do schedule the meetings on August 16 and remember 15 from the San Juan Fron de Boulder Green Firehouse to the Zionty Firehouse contingent upon its availability for those two dates in the event that neither of those dates or one of those dates is not available the meeting will be held in default location of the San Juan Valley Water District Obligations Yes Director Brooks Yes Yes Director Radcliffe Yes Very good so let us continue and we move on to the second item on new business which is the Conference and this exists here for the purpose of offers I have a request from staff that we could jump and deal with item C prior to this so that we don't have to see it on board I believe from a staff perspective see it more important than B Absolutely Okay So then let's move on to item C and a recommendation for item C is that Board of Directors review this memo and authorized sole source for human SCADA's control software upgraded hardware replacement to system integrated for a total of $183,702 and $6 so staff report I don't believe staff report is necessary but if you want to provide any additional code it's just that you know, just for SCADA's system SCADA's hardware and software that we're looking to upgrade from place as part of 16 years old we have been replacing the SCADA system and upgrading it over the last several years we started with a line water treatment plant to complete SCADA upgrade we moved the curvy treatment plant to the same there and then the last year we did the data concentrator that remains SCADA in Boulder Creek at the off building we're still having issues and we believe it is the iFIX software and older machines that are causing this problem with the amount of data we're trying to process we've had several people look at the systems we went out and looked at other systems, other manufacturers we believe that we should stay with the same manufacturer due to the fact that it's an upgrade of the software and we're not replacing the replace software we have to replace all our SCADA screens which is quite expensive we have over 70 SCADA screens that we have to rebuild we have additional training to staff that we have a new system I'm not sure how well it will integrate with our hardware and the field with the individual nodes and the individual sites throughout the distribution system so I'm asking that we do have a procurement with the iFIX and replace the four computers and the attachment due to the integration and configuration move ahead with it I'm a sole source I'll try to answer questions I'm not behind the scenes SCADA again I can operate the system I have a question for the purpose of the discussion to improve the performance of the network before I enter in a second I would like to move forward back to the board and I'll second that I would just add I met with Rick and Scott last Monday and I thank you for your time Rick and just going over the SCADA system we have an amazing SCADA system in place and a lot of what this expenditure is about is things that we all experience with old computers and old drivers and old operating systems you get to the point where you have to unplug your computer and turn it on and off once a day and it's kind of where we're at with the servers that exist and the drivers we have and the justification for the sole source here is the system, the integrator that we're working with from Orange, California is a company called SI has the expertise to allow us to keep all of the existing customizations that we've made in the IPIC software the GE software that's actually running the whole district and without having to upgrade all of that out there, they're upgrading all the middleware and servers and everything and retaining all the investment and customization so if we had to replace the whole SCADA system it would be a lot more this is just an upgrade of the middleware and the servers that are really running ahead of me I'd like to add that this SCADA system really it really would amount to electronic things all around the system monitoring potential problems or whatever it's a worth every penny because it really saves a lot of money because without it it's like if you had some sort of leaky tank or whatever or some bad pressure high pressure problem within the district it's not worth skipping on any penny to make sure that you have an up-to-date system in the long run it's really it's really a very good investment so as I said I'm so open so yes okay so we have a motion and a second do we appreciate it? I'm afraid for placement I'm sure I think he already asked I just wanted to say probably five or six years ago I was fortunate to be able to see a SCADA system being from a little long peak oh I was totally impressed and as a credit union person we had a credit union computer program for everything we did and when we had to read in things we went with the company because the what it costs is a whole lot of money to go with somebody new and so I trust Rick he knows what he's doing and I think it's great I think there are some glitchy things in all the people is that through maybe some corners or something people are running at that different type of SCADA system when we render it off the shelf we just handle all of it basically and it just reports back to our main stand eventually we replace the tanks in the peak of the SCADA system and we upgrade it to lead to those projects okay that's a new assessment that's a new assessment, that's correct alright this is just more of a general upgrade of the software and operating system in order to get the general system we're doing we'll handle people but it's not for that it's different we'll be able to handle additional sites as we see fit to put on our additional points out of the distribution system Director Hayes Director Bruce President Bachman Director Radcliffe Director Smallman thank you at one time the board has one more decision to make and that is whether to rethink this meeting at Boulder Creek or defer the other two items to a future date which would be the percent agenda and the CSDA conference staff needs time to break this from down and clarify it very um okay well let's complete this, I mean I recommend that we complete the evening um we've got well we've got a consent agenda and district reports um break the communication yeah we're not going to break the group you basically need to break down now I'm not taking you out okay so um so we continue okay and Gina how would it be this would be a complete and make it order to take it back to Boulder Creek to just bend into the board meeting tonight um okay the conference is not quite critical so we could certainly adjourn the meeting and then to extend the items and to be added to the summit and the staff is free to do that okay we'll bring these uh minutes back and this will be posted in the next week okay so the meeting is now finished thank you