tudy has been to look for you know look for how it would look to have a water sancroos city water in soquel creek water district pipes and survey it to our customers and so so the whole purpose of it is to take samples and and collect data on the chemical content the water analysis and the early analyses are a little disquieting maybe christine you want to comment on that there are two graphs in the minutes from that meeting um on disinfection and byproducts one the first graph is on trihalomethanes and the second is for halolacetic acids and since the city uses surface water they have a higher organic content in their water which translates to higher concentrations of dbp so that we are seeing that um in our monitoring and uh this is when we open it up to the larger part of our distribution system next year the water age will increase and so i wouldn't be surprised if we saw these results go even higher when the water because he's uh at least the trihalomethanes as the water ages those levels increase over time so the water in this in the pilot zone um is not that old and we don't have much room for adding anymore yeah the red line is further say that's the mc chemicals are they're not innocuous that was for many years that chlorination was the god sound of treating water because it was very effective at eliminating pathogens which were very hazardous to people drinking water but and it was just accepted as a side an necessary side effect but uh i did work with a national cancer institute and the national toxicology program years ago and the this is the focus of their early uh assessments because a lot of these compounds are carcinogenic they are not the aren't healthy chemicals to have in our water we in the so-called creek water district are really lucky to have very low levels naturally in the water because we have not that much organic matter in our system but uh that is why there's a red line at the top of this graph that's the state's reportable concentration and uh as was reporting the committee the water that was introduced from Santa Cruz city was headed up to that reportable level so that would be the first time that our district had that kind of reporting obligation but they mixed and i'm pretty sure that Santa Cruz city must have to mix be very careful and constantly mix their different sources of water to keep those levels down for their customers as much as possible but yeah right i think that their different sources have different organic content so that creates higher disinfectant byproducts i think um i think actually the lock may have the higher organic that would be the typical thing yeah yeah uh sorry yeah so that's that's all i wanted to point out i wish more customers you know from the rate rate discussion we're here to really hear that water transfers are not you know an easy thing to uh they're they're going to be just as complicated as any other water source something that a water supply that we looked for they're going to be pros and cons things that have to be dealt with and things that might be costly costly to deal with also at the meeting i mentioned the fact that you know these high levels we see on the right hand side of that graph are basically from just the injection of the city's water into our district distribution pipes and as over time they'll gradually become higher levels in the tanks that we have so someone will get piped up into the tanks and and so the tanks will have a higher distribution of that and over time you know we've we've actually seen some of the contributions on the left the low levels as they sit in the tanks with the chlorine that's there they eventually go up and they never have gotten up to the red i don't think but they've gotten much closer so take those over on the right and move those up the same amount and yeah we could have some big problems and so we might actually have to treat the water we get from the Santa Cruz city of somehow to reduce organic matter to reduce organic matter do something with it to make it so that the tank or not use the tanks which would be a real problem because we got about two days supply in the tanks in case there's a disaster or something and to have to do without those uh i don't i don't be unsafe i think all right so anybody would make a motion on the consent agenda items i wanted to just thank you for considering the stormwater capture and moving that forward because i'm bugging them at the golf course all the time about it and i'm bugging you guys about it because i believe in having various ways of getting our groundwater replenished in stormwater especially when you see the flooded road and i'm walking my dog down it i think about what we could be doing with it rather than that so thank you anything else christine okay and then you had a comment on this item this time thank you becky steinbrunner i was at this committee meeting and i thought it was very interesting i want to thank the district for watching these levels of contamination um but there was a question raised at that committee for which there was no answer what it what are the city levels of these contaminants that people within the city of santa cruz uh drink and i'm not saying that just because people drink it it's okay and and and i'm curious to see that it is here but i also want to say that um i did attend the santa cruz city water advisory commission meeting when isidro gave the report on to that commission on the water surface water transfer and this was in early january he reported that um the water transfer has actually improved their water quality because their water does not age it keeps it fresher so i would expect within expanded uh surface water uh project that maybe hopefully next year will incorporate service areas one and two for the district that you would see an improvement in these figures um so i would like a discussion from maybe christine has those uh numbers uh that santa cruz city often sees in there and if if this is an issue then maybe the district could look at putting in a further surface water cleansing akin to the pure water so-called but with a much cleaner source as monica maguire pointed out sewage has synergistic chemical reactions within it and that is well known and so you can't test for everything because you don't know what is in sewage water because things react and the difference in using sewage water and treating it with advanced water purification could be much um has much different outcomes because there are things like pharmaceuticals and radioactive uh elements that people take in their bodies for chemotherapy that you can't get out and there are no drinking water standards for and there are things that you can't test for because you don't know they're there so if these levels are troublesome to you regarding future and expanded surface water um transfers let's look at cleaning up the stream water so that these problems are not within your district customer service areas rather than you sewage water thank you and anyone else want to comment on the specifically the water resources management and infrastructure committee meeting summary yes i would because none of you said the other piece that is follow on to what becky just said i'm monica maguire again it is beyond me that we have to bring this to you but common sense we ask you to please address the common sense that yes you would have to treat the surface water which would absolutely by every definition be at least 100 times less of an effective treatment needed compared to toilet water simple common sense just because surface water also needs treatment anyone can understand the toilet water needs an incredibly large amount more and as we've asked over and over please address these common sense questions that we have brought to you all of these years in order to assuage this feeling that gets to people calling what you say lies because it makes no sense that that hasn't been addressed and it makes no sense that when you talk about between the two municipalities that you haven't done what people asked which was show us where you've gone through real efforts to say we have this marriage made in heaven so again those things should be coming up at every single meeting where you're working with anyone else in the county for all our sake for the children's sake for fairness sake for logic and common sense sake I asked multiple times within three minutes one point because multiple times over a year it never got addressed and it's always good to get at least three minutes to say something that we're still asking for thank you okay consent agenda oh this is this is on this report as well yes I was very interested to hear that you said you used to work with the national toxicology program yeah and the problems with chlorine it brought to my mind that some years ago I read about the toxicity of chlorine and that there was an international body of scientists who felt that chlorine was so toxic that it really should not be used and the article was in Rachel's environment and health news named after Rachel Carson the chlorine chemical council representing the industry producing the chlorine did this huge campaign to assure that chlorine would still be used and I I often think of these two questions that are pertinent here why is this happening and who benefits why do we have so many toxins spooned into our environment why is that allowed and who's benefiting the corporations producing them not us these toxins end up in our bodies the umbilical cords of babies I think have something like 140 chemicals or more I myself I might have mentioned before was in the lawsuit to ban the carcinogenic pesticide DDT coming on 50 years now was 1969 and all us nursing mothers had DDT in our breast milk I mean I was just devastated how why are these corporations allowed to contaminate everything and then you and we and everyone is supposed to you know they profit you know and and what is it you know we paid for the cost this is all wrong how do we stop the toxic sources it's really we're in a big amount of trouble and I think the system is a toxic system where profit is prioritized over the proven health and safety of what the corporations are producing really disturb thank you yeah I have to say uh just the introduction of chlorination to the water supply the nations of water supply has been a great boon to the safety in general of the waters of water it was only more recently that new techniques you know for analyses and for evaluation that's how these compounds were discovered to be toxic but it's still better than pathogen pathogens in your water supply that just goes without saying but it does really there are other ways and one way to purify water of course is the pure water soquel project that we're thinking about and but that is you know that has other obviously some people are unhappy with that but it it takes chlorine you know chlorinated by products out of the water so at least at that very you know that when we can assure but it is a fundamental detoxification I mean disinfectants we we put chlorine in there because it's required state law requires us to put chlorine in there now you can't kill bacteria with other things for example ultraviolet light kills bacteria but the problem is that's only on a particular location and it's not then in the distribution system so if you have a leak in the distribution system the chlorine will still be in there and kill the bacteria whereas ultraviolet light is going to be long gone and so you can get people poisoned by that way because this the leak in this in the distribution system we get into the pipes and then go on into people's drinking water so that's why is that it it does serve a benefit it does have problems though because most toxics are related to chlorine in the interactions okay I would love to get through the consent agenda I know I'm just saying it's it's it's nine o'clock um and we're at the consent agenda the remaining items all second well all of the items because we have not no no we never voted because Michelle was not here oh oh sorry okay okay we held it for you so thank you the motion would be all okay that's the motion that I make okay I'll second all in favor hi hi posed okay now it's time for oral communications which is for items not on the agenda we're in a little thank you steinbrunner can I just have one clarification I was watching when you were voting for the um the rate increase and director lather how did you vote I didn't know you she didn't vote she did not vote all right four to four to zero to one okay because it seemed like it was reported unanimous so I just want to make that clear for the record thank you yeah thank you thank you um I didn't hear a nay either though I did not say nay but I didn't say anything yeah interesting okay so that's an abstention I guess so that needs to be recorded thank you okay um I want to first of all um let you know that in the recent meetings I've gone to regarding the um environmental review underway for the water amendment to write water amendment what are rights amendments for the San Lorenzo river with the city of Santa Cruz uh Rosemary Bernard uh did report that the projected demand for the city is flat through 2040 and I thought that was very interesting your your information here also supports that trend and her uh that comment was again repeated in the um very excellent workshop that the Santa Margarita groundwater agency put on and felt in regarding the connection between growth and water use which we've talked about here a lot with a real broken process at the county um I also want to point out that um John ricker has recently released and the board of supervisors approved the county's uh annual water report so I urge you to look at that it's very interesting too and um I was also at the mid county groundwater advisory committee um enrichment workshop last week where in uh Cameron talked about the model and how it was built and the impacts and he said some very interesting things um it was at the community foundation that the perisma aquifer can be um healed essentially in five years um 10 years max if 1500 acre feet a year are recharged so I thought that was a very quick timeline I was surprised and he repeated it he supported it and he also said that um in his opinion in lieu recharge would be a much more flexible way to recharge and uh address problem areas within the aquifer so I think that it behooves you to really examine the flexibility of the pure water sokelling a fixed position re re recharge area in which the draft environmental impact report has said the aquifer levels have recovered thank you all right anyone else on an item not on tonight's agenda I can respond to a little bit of that if you like I mean Cameron did call me later and thought it's yours might be let's verify this construed um he said that people are confusing in lieu with the thought that it's just uh transfer water that sort of thing in that context what he said he was indicating was that like with pure water so kill the flexibility of putting uh that the mga could look at is putting water in a certain area so you don't have to have a large infrastructure pumping more out of that area and resting other wells along the coast so in lieu resting pumping of those wells and creating more of an iron curtain so okay thank you he he did call me on that another item not on tonight's agenda yes um mr. Richard Andre the esteemed elder who was here explaining that he has been a college professor and had taught on legal and news items came out to speak with me about the fact that he wanted to come back uh at this time but could not because he had to drive back to carmel but he is an expert on the brown act and he said everything that I had said and everything that many other people had said was entirely legal because there were no personal attacks there were no uh no ways in in in any form that anyone was in danger or disrupted it was entirely appropriate to show emotion and say we are not being answered and to quote as I did that we have been asked we have been asking over and over for answers to specific questions that have been dodged and or misanswered answered with specious non-answers and that is exactly what the brown act is there for more to protect us to make sure that we are listened to and answered so his request was that somebody come in since he couldn't since he had to drive home and that was what I wanted to uh say we have watched you not put what we ask about on the agenda not do any communication back and forth with us over and over tell us that we can speak but that you're not allowed to answer us and he said that is absolutely wrong and please look it up and please make sure that it's on the record that we have been treated absolutely abominably by you and that that is the problem here so please take into account everything that Becky Steinbrunner has said as an incredible resource who comes to you over and over with help and then teaches the rest of us to look at the facts and talk about common sense and request over and over to be answered and then we have the right to say it's really awful that you answer us with not common sense and with specious answers I can't ask it another clearer way but the brown act is worth looking into and actually talking about that thank you thank you to the previous speakers living in what we're told is a democracy I always think in part that the people are represented and that when there's a presentation of anything you hear pros and cons you hear one perspective you hear another and my thought today on listening to the districts about our presentation I thought it would have been appropriate to have Becky Steinbrunner on the other perspective and what's in her appeal things are often very one-sided in selling products or whatever you just pass the consent agenda there's something called informed consent when we are exposed to certain toxins I was listening to Barry Trower and one of his interviews he worked in the British Secret Service in the 60s and 70s with a specialty in microwave radiation weaponry and he was talking about the exposure to wireless microwave radiation and now we have 5G coming as an issue that violates the Nuremberg treaties after World War II I'm going to get the exact language but basically it is illegal to be experimenting on people without their informed consent with the exception that it's a medical doctor who wants to experiment on him or herself with certain exposures to chemicals or radiation that's permissible this whole wireless microwave technology in the language of the industry they're looking to see what happens to people it's an experiment and I think that the same with your so-called smart meters where is your informed consent where people have been told of the science that shows the links to diabetes heart problems mental health issues causing DNA strand breaks insomnia that you have a signed informed consent form from everybody just because wireless microwave technology is popular doesn't mean it's safe it's the opposite thank you I'll pass this out again I have something not on the agenda and independent of anything you said before my life's journey included working for Ralph Nader when I was young and idealistic and one of the things Ralph told me he repeated it at a reunion we had several years ago in Washington to protect the public interest and to do with right regarding the public interest to not be dominated by greedy corporations or corrupt others is to look at the big picture Terry and looking at the big picture what is the most honest and the best thing to look at the public interest in first that regard and the big picture here is we have a water situation and we have a drought situation and we have all these polyglot water districts of which this is one and we have the city of Santa Cruz right there nearby adjacent that could consolidate so let us offer miss monard consolidation that's been on the table also years here and it's been abused and it's been neglected and it's been sidelined improperly by members of Lafko most recently and this board I urge you to propose consolidation because maybe a group of us citizens should demand that like Ralph Nader taught me consolidate this with the city of Santa Cruz and then we don't have to worry about where the water comes from and that their excess that's going out to the Pacific a little could be diverted here so maybe it's if we don't have consolidation with city of Santa Cruz then let us have a state or federal takeover the entire region which might even make a lot more sense in terms of as Ralph taught me look at the big picture so there's my big picture proposal to your audience your ratepayers and yourselves and I think the most intellectually honest thing you might consider is voting tonight to consolidate with Santa Cruz thank you all right anyone from the board ready to move on okay we had a management update yeah so since it's a late night I think we're maybe the managers just want to say a couple words we'll keep it brief though the only thing I'd like to add is that the will serves on tonight's agenda represent kind of the tail end of the projects that were on our waitlist so any future will serves that we will be bringing will be completely new and they'll probably be a lot fewer in the next few meetings so just wanted to point that out any questions on any of the other items stormwater I appreciate you moving forward with the storm water yeah yeah that was a good meeting good okay any questions no all right seeing none any questions for Christine no um I just did want to add one um item from my report the city contacted us today to say that we could resume um full capacity of the enter tie after they asked us on February 6 to cut back 50% okay good thank you Christine anyone else on staff Melanie you're up nothing okay okay and finance she's probably done yeah and then Tracy you're good run yeah just uh pure water Monterey look they sent an article they're about 80% done with construction and then the other thing if you could go down just a little bit there um this just kind of struck my um it's then a floss river um June um predicted flows and you can just out through time you can see a steady decrease there um I'm sure some of that must be snowpack related and whatnot but um it's still it's a it shows the impact and the whole source of this was a Stanford study saying um nothing that you don't already know but uh climate change is fundamentally transforming the way we manage water in the western US a big chunk of that is evaporation every time tempter goes up one degree evaporation increases by 4% and they're predicting something like six seven degrees of interpreter rise so they and we can get something like a 24% reduction in our water supply in a normal year just from the evaporation increase that's the scary thing yeah in fact the last drought that we were familiar with the 2015 drought 15% of that drought was not caused by lack of rain but by evaporation of the little bit of rain that we did get yeah okay that's our future all right um so that is the management report any comments from public on that thank you Becky Steinbruner of Aptos I have a question about page 271 it's a little hard to read but um it um it shows to me it shows that the main street well is very responsive and levels come up very quickly when it's um when the water transfers were in progress and then off over to the right it shows that the the level quickly went down within the well when the amount of water transfer volume was reduced I wonder if staff can explain just talk about this information a little bit and analyze it for the public I think that's I'm okay with that too just thank you Becky thank you just if there's any clarification on that graph for for us or the public Christine I'll take a just a bigger shy I think it's but some of the modeling shown without a constant source once you stop recharging you get dramatic decrease so what goes up relatively quickly or modestly it's a slope there but it drops off quickly once you stop and I'm sorry I uh I guess I another way I could have said instead of 50% reduction in water transfer volume I could have said main street well came back online because we were asked to reduce the water transfer volume by 50% so the that drop in water level reflects the fact that that well was going back online and every time you see that water level go up and down that's the pump turning on and off great thank you can you where it says recharge this just from rainwater no that's the actual injection of the of the city's water into belts 12 it's asr what for so that's the other project and the recovery means the extraction yeah I'm tired sorry okay great so we can move on then to the district council there's nothing important enough at 9 20 to report on okay all right the next then is item 6.1 conditional and unconditional will serve I'm here to answer any of your questions questions no any members of the public on this item yes I do thank you Becky Steinbruner I just want to note in in miss flocks report on page 269 that the total offset balance is that a different item well it's related isn't it no the water demand offset amount of credits that you've got and you're ready to issue a bunch of wheel serves well you can address it the other wheel serves go ahead make your point it's half used up already and you have no measurable success from your installation of the AMI meters that gave you these numbers that are allowing you to grant all of these new conditional services so how are you justifying this are you done yes but I'd like an answer thank you thank you I'm actually having sleepless nights again worrying about these wheel serves I'm having issues so I agree with Becky on that well I mean the way I understood it is you know these are the time that the timing would work that the timing by the time I mean these are not built these are wheel serves right they won't be extracting water for a while so these are not projects that are going to be there before the AMI is installed it's trust no right I know but that was that was staff's assessment when we when we approved the AMI project I know and I'm having second thoughts about my vote for that too last meeting that's one of the reasons I voted and then as I recall as I recall because of the uncertainty in how much water savings there would be we discounted that pretty strongly I just feel like we're asking people to raise take pay more and then we're letting new people in okay I understood but you know we we went over this whole idea as a as a board and looked at the timing and and approved this I mean we if right now we just have the wheel serves in front of us so no we've already started that topic and you already spoke on it people already know excuse me it's not this is we're on item 6.1 period and he didn't stand up did you want it did you want to speak on the wheel serves yeah go ahead that's fine Mrs. Steinbrenner went up and then no one else was there so we moved on points clear and she pointed out that the AMI data apparently is not fully available secondly people will trust us we're going to let people go in in advance approve the wheel serves how can you do that until you have all the AMI data and how can you improve any wheel serves given the the the threat to the aquifer daily from the over extraction being done by this water district you should suspend any such wheel serves and I suspect there's some quite frankly some corruption behind some of these wheel serves that you're so eager to approve Dr. LaHue that's my suspicion that's a smart member of the public and a guy who's worked with Ralph and they are watching government officials not be honest go ahead and finish okay so there's lots of suspicion here you should not approve any such wheel serve until you have as Becky's criteria it is fully resolved that's obvious that's logical it's honest and it's also legal in all probability under the Brown Act and other provisions under which you have authority in California so we're just talking about these wheel serves right now you know I'm a school teacher and I'm a veterinarian I'm trying to do the best I can serving on the board as well I have no connection to any of this stuff okay so sorry that you're suspicious of everyone but you're not going to find that here um any any movement for if you want to if you want to change my mind from when I changed my mind I think Terry could help that he said so Michelle if you want to propose re-agendizing this yeah you should do that okay right that would be the way to do it right now we just this being about the the modern man offset in the credits from I mean right yeah and and we have customers that we've told about the program that we did approve and we've told them how to proceed and they have proceeded according to our guidelines yeah the district has done a lot of due diligence and research on the AMI we should agendize it and talk I mean that's a separate separate item it's not it it makes you uneasy because you're not really seeing the results and it's related and I understand the discussion or you can do what I did last meeting and vote no it'll still pass but you're at least have it just expressed your displeasure you know sometimes just right and that's fine and people can everyone's free to vote the way they want I just I feel like it's a little bit tough to change what we decide on on people who are already we've told them how to proceed so you're building a house or an ad you and you've gotten guidance from the district that this is how you proceed and and then suddenly in midstream you've changed I mean I think if we want to bring re-agendize the item that's perfectly fine and then give them new guidance being fair to those people that have already been given other guidance but I would hate to be the customer that was you know told one thing and then and then you know told something different so I actually don't help anyway I guess I made my point so I'll make I'll move approval I'll just second it okay all in favor I posed opposed we are now going to item 6.2 approve water main extension agreement with city of capitol this should be pretty controversial I just make the motion well it's not yet yeah public comment we need to have public comment available that to you okay any questions on the you don't have questions okay any any members of the public have a question on item 6.2 or comment okay seeing none you want to make your motion I'll second it moved and seconded all in favor I posed okay that motion carries unanimously last item is 6.3 on the this section administrative business is surplus property sale yes we have mainly two surplus trucks that we would like to have deemed surplus and and get bids to sell them there's also a 350 kilowatt load bank one thing to note on one of the trucks the old unit 16 whether or not we go through with the sale on that is dependent on the results of going out to bid for meter register replacements if if we do not get sufficient amount of qualified bids for that we may hire a temporary employee to do that and so that truck would be used for that purpose but we'd like the flexibility of either adding that to the next surplus sale or not okay anyone in the public wish to comment on this item sale of surplus items could you explain this in more detail I attend board of supervisors meetings as well and I often see it's not unusual surplus county property or surplus like this vehicles I guess you're talking about right now how do you define that and I'm I'm thinking when they're talking about property that it's county property it belongs to the county and the people of the county and if it's sold it's taking that out of the public cans I'm very I'm I don't it's so these are like saying could you explain how you define how you determine what is surplus and is something still very usable when it's called surplus like an old truck it's no longer usable for the district something like that but staff wants to give nobody from the district can purchase any of these surplus item it has to be a bid from public members who maybe it's not serving the district anymore but they could use it so they bid on it and we get some money that goes into the district used for other items other things so it's just do you have anything to add to that um no I mean it's it's any item that has resale value that doesn't fit the district's needs anymore or is obsolete right and all of these items fit that description got it all right I'll make the motion I'll second all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries the last item before a closed session is written communications um anyone have any questions or comments on that any public comment I do thank you my name is Becky Steinbrenner and I sent to your board an email because something very odd happened at the end of last meeting I check your website a lot these days and immediately after the last board meeting the video was up and I thought oh that's great I'll watch and just um recap what I said before the board regarding the um the legal action regarding the sequel action and and it was very odd because that part of the video was missing and it was a Vimeo and um so I had worried about that happening because sometimes the man that does the recording here um it it isn't always that the body allows the public to comment before a closed session and so I had worried that he assumed that you would not allow the public to to speak and so I actually had my own recorder going when I got up to speak and also recorded the other people that got up to speak about the closed session where you're discussed you were discussing um the case 19 cv 00181 but the comment for closed session was missing in that so that's what prompted me to write this letter by the end of the day uh uh Victor had contacted me and let me know that it looked like it was up and running then it was a youtube and it included my comment and the comment of others so I I just thought that was very odd yeah and I just want to explain to you why I wrote this message to you and that it did get corrected but initially the public comment for the closed session had been omitted and there were the the the titles you know the subtitles roll call all that that was there it was very jerky like it had been cut and edited but it was on a Vimeo and the public comment on closed session was omitted but I am happy that it was corrected and it is available now for the public to view thank you very much thanks for checking that um right so um we will now go to closed session and um anybody has any comments before closed session that's okay I'm gonna I'm you know why not thank you that is part of the brown act and I appreciate your abiding by the brown act because I'm training on that excellent my name is Becky Steinbrunner I am the person bringing the um litigation before you and I want to let you know there is a ex parte hearing tomorrow at one o'clock um I am seeking a preliminary injunction and um temporary restraining order and um a stay of action it troubles me that um the district is choosing to spend $175,000 $172,000 to fight me rather than um stepping back pausing and curing and correcting uh thoroughly allowing the judge to examine my allegations and in the meantime you're not stopping most legal cases like this would stop all action and you're not stopping so that's why I'm taking the action tomorrow thank you okay thank you so now we will go to closed session so I agree this case is in process and I think it's you know that saying about look before you leap I think you need to stop right now once the aquifer is poisoned and nothing is sure that it's gonna work perfectly there are often mistakes then it's gone and I remember the ads about nuclear power safe clean cheap so cheap that you wouldn't even need to monitor it and we have Fukushima and Three Mile Island etc this is a hazardous step you're taking without the informed consent of those you represent and it's critical that you stop there's a sense of smugness that oh this is gonna work and this is great and it's gonna solve the saltwater intrusion I just poisons are poisons and I I think you need to stop what's what's going to be the harm of waiting to check how the judge rules and what are the real what's the real evidence of harm before you proceed we can think of so many things in history and policy where we've been assured of safety and it's been the opposite please pause stop thank you thank you all right so we're now going to end the meeting it's adjourned to a closed session thanks everyone


September 8th found a crowd of people gathered around a giant pinecone at Deering Oaks Park. The occasion was the dedication ceremony of Pinecone, a sculptural piece by artist Patrick Clauart, a graduate of Mecca, whose work can be seen all over Maine. Pinecone is eight feet long and is made of 146 recycled shovels. Pinecone was gifted to the Portland Public Art Committee by Tempawart in honor of artist Alice Spencer, a true champion of public art and the founder of Tempawart. Those in attendance were treated to music by Colin Fulham and Pichintu. Pichintu is a multinational choir made up of young girls from our refugee community. Okay, so that concludes our planned program. On the table there are some real pinecones and some cookie pinecones, so we have refreshments if you're interested. This is a great time to mingle, to give Alice your own two cents of thank you, and I really appreciate all of you being here. This has been a great night. Thank you so much.


e-commerce is growing at a tremendous rate. However, online conversion is still a big problem. Long checkout forms often lead to frustration, especially as customers increasingly turn to their mobile devices for various e-commerce activities. It's no surprise that 69% of users today drop out of the checkout process before the purchase has been completed. With Google Pay API, we want to help you make your checkout experience easier, allowing users to pay with many forms of payments stored in their Google account, including credit and debit cards, whether your customers are shopping at a physical store or online in your apps or websites. Today, there are hundreds of millions of payment methods, billing, and shipping addresses saved to Google accounts. Users have stored this information when making purchases on apps like the Play Store, YouTube, or shopping the web using Chrome. We call them Ready to Pay Users. Google Pay API enables you to call up their information in a secure way and allow your customers to checkout with the click of a button. Having customers who are just a tap away from performing a financial transaction is not only convenient, but also sets the merchant up to take on smart technologies such as Google Home or other connected devices, preparing your app for voice powered transactions. The Google Pay API can be implemented in just under a week and it works with your existing payments processing stack, making this integration really simple. There are also no additional charges added to your standard processor fees. We've partnered with many leading gateways and processors around the world with more coming soon. Check out g.co.com. Now let's have a quick look at how the Google Pay API works. Once the user clicks on the Google Pay button, the Google Pay API initiates a request to Google servers. With this request, your app passes the name of your processor among other parameters. Google uses the processor's public key to encrypt the response and sends a chargeable payment token back to you for use with your processor. Now that the processor has the payment information, it can use it the same way as if it came from the user's input directly. So to summarize, with Google Pay API, hundreds of millions of customers around the world who saved their payment information with Google can now pay on your apps or websites with the click of a button. Your customer's payment data is end-to-end encrypted from Google's servers to your payment processor. This means Google Pay simplifies how you handle this otherwise sensitive data. Customers can check out using any device or platform. The integration of the API is simple and can be completed in just a few days. Check out the video, Google Pay API implementation demo to learn more. You can find additional useful resources in the video description below, which can help you to further optimize your e-commerce experience and find more information on how we are continuously committed to adding new payment credentials, loyalty programs, and more for the convenience of your users. Google Pay, a better way to pay by Google.


In the next 60 seconds, what you're about to hear could very well change your life. I'm David Wong, the frequency expert and best-selling author of The Life of Chi. Hey, I'm not just a health tech founder. I'm walking proof that this whole energy and frequency thing isn't just talk. Not only did I self-heal from a disease they told me was incurable, but I also aged backwards. That's right, I'm not 25, not 35, I'm 43 years old. I guess that's a nice side effect of living the life of Chi I talk about. Over the last six years, my company KeyLife has transformed thousands of lives around the world. We've provided innovative, non-invasive support for sleep, energy, mental health, and pain management. But we didn't stop there. We've helped many people with serious conditions like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular issues, Lyme disease, and autism. You know, Nikola Tesla once said something about the universe being all about energy, frequency, and vibration. Here at Chi Life, we've combined ancient wisdom with cutting-edge tech to unlock Tesla's secret keys to a healthier and happier life. So this here is our Chi Coil System. It's not just your average wellness tool. Think of it as your personal meditation shortcut, supercharging your dreams into reality, and pulling in all the good vibes. We tune it with what we call quantum abundance frequencies. Fancy, right? It's all about keeping those negative vibes at bay and soaking in the good stuff. Change your frequency, change your destiny. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it's legit. It's amazing how a little shift in your vibe can bring such a big change. And hey, we're all about mixing science with real results here at Chi Life. Now, I'd love to hear from you. In the comments, share your thoughts on natural healing. Have you experienced it? Are you curious? Follow us for daily insights and tips on harnessing the power of frequency. Together, let's embark on a journey where you change your frequency and indeed, change your destiny.


Part three strategies for options. So I've already made part one which was strikes part two which was Months and part three is the last in the series of three and I'm going to cover strategies now These are the easiest to understand There's so many different strategies, but I just want to give you some Three basic strategies in combining the characteristics of these options I'm going to cover a long call. I'm going to cover a short put and I'm also going to cover a vertical spread and Vertical spread will have a short short short leg and a long leg and I'm going to do a short put and You could also do the same thing for a long call spread because they're kind of like a box Let's jump over to the long call We're still going to use our snapchat example. Now. Let's say we think snapchat is a good value Obviously, I can't can't know the future, but I think maybe it goes to 15 Maybe it pulls back and then eventually goes higher I don't know, but I'm going to put on a trade and I'm going to give myself the best chance to succeed So for this case, I'm going to put on the What are we going to do something with a lot of time I'm going to look at the 10 strike and There is a January 17 2025 and there's also a Jan for 2026 for our purposes I'm going to look at that almost when you're out and I'm going to try to put on a Conservative long call now because I'm trying to be conservative I'm going to do for this example the four strike the four strike is deep in the money So this is not a junkie option. This this option will give me the upside and Instead of using $1100 For a hundred shares. I'm gonna only have to pay 730 about $730 because this four strike call Which gives me the upside from four and on it costs me 725 to 735 So we're gonna say it's 730 So it's a little bit of leverage Not quite 50% and probably I don't know what that is. It's a Probably a third leverage because I only have to put up Two two-thirds of the capital, but this is a conservative option It's in the money deep in the money. It gives me all the upside and only some of the risk So that's gonna be an example of using a little bit of leverage for a bullish idea Now We're gonna do a short put now. Let's say I Maybe I bought the long call. Maybe I have shares, but I also want to create some income the way I could do it is I'm gonna look at the puts and There's a sweet spot for option decay. We're gonna use Roughly two months. I'm gonna look at the April Everybody might have a preference. I don't mind 60 days. Some people like 30 days for this example. That's that's roughly two months so we're gonna use the April month April 19th month and then to be conservative. I'm gonna go below 10 I might even do Because 11 about 11 is about 50 deltas, which means it represents 50 shares out of 100 I might do if I look at the 10, that's probably around 20 to 30 deltas For this example, I'm gonna go even further down and I'm gonna look at the nine strike Which means if I sell the nine put for April for two months, someone is gonna pay me 20 cents to buy it at nine. I have to commit to buying the shares at nine I am selling the put I am offering the put I am entering a deal To give someone protection when someone buys a put they want the downside of nine They're buying the nine put and hoping the stock crashes or they're using it as insurance If I'm selling I'm taking the other side if a buyer buys the nine I'm selling the nine. So I'm only gonna get 20 20 bucks. That's all I get but I Get the income for two months and if it never goes down there I just keep the 20 bucks if it does go down there. I have to buy the nine I have to buy the shares 100 shares at nine, but I already got paid 20 bucks So my cost basis the price at which I will own them will be around 880 now the current price is 11 So as of right now, I'm happy to own them at 880 if I'm if I'm bullish the shares on on Snapchat I don't mind owning them now, but I would be even happier to buy them at below nine So you see how that works? I'm getting paid to do something I already want to do and this might be cash secured.  I already want to do Selling the put is like buying the shares with a coupon So it may be confusing for you. Luckily, you can always rewatch this section and Hopefully, you'll understand the verb itch and you can look up some of the words But this is the way option traders speak So now vertical spreads it was calls and puts Only and then I switched it to vertical spreads now if you look Vertical spreads are when you combine two options now in this example We're gonna do a short put spread real quick because it's kind of an advanced Concept and may not have enough information or not enough time to cover it. I'm gonna do Let's say we're gonna do the same spread as That nine put we were talking about and we're gonna do the nine seven. So what that means is if I go also go to April which is two months and Maybe I don't want to sell the put naked, which means without protection or cash secured I can do a spread which means I sell the nine put and I buy a smaller option below and the combined spread is Is a 14 to 18 so almost the 20 bucks It's a little bit less But now I have less risk because I can always Exercise the seven strike this whole spread is two dollars wide and I'm collecting 15 16 cents, but I only have the $2 whole $2 risk versus $9 Hopefully that makes sense I'm just trading a box a $2 wide box. I'm collecting a little less income for a little less risk This is called a spread If I was bullish, I would do something different. I would buy Maybe an 11 13 Call spread or a 10 12 call spread and again we're trading a box This is a $2 box here 10 12 buying the 10 call and then selling the 12 call a little higher the whole relationship that whole spread is 90 let's say 95 cents and it can go up to $2 I can only lose 95 cents if if my trade is completely wrong and that's why option traders like spreads There are smaller trades and it allows people to trade their thesis their ideas Without as much risk. Okay. Those are the three strategies that I covered.  I hope you found that useful Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed these series one two and three You can rewatch the other ones and you can follow for more of these if you like this stuff. Cheers


Hello, welcome back to JSA TV and JSA podcast where we're covering the latest stories trends and innovations with leaders in the digital infrastructure and global connectivity markets. And one of those leaders that I'm referring to, of course, is Jennifer Holmes, Chief Commercial Officer with London Internet Exchange, also known as the links. Welcome Jennifer. Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. We're so excited to have you here at Capacity Europe and beautiful London. We are in the new space here at the show. It's really nice kind of exclusive feel in this space we're in right now. So we're excited to just get a quick update about the latest that's going on with links. So you guys are the UK's premier peering community and the leading one, of course. So if you could just share a little bit about what you do for folks who don't know how you connect companies to cloud services and other digital infrastructure. Yeah, certainly. So links has been around for 29 years, our 30th birthday next year, which are very excited about. And we originally started off with sort of five large UK networks coming together to exchange their data with each other. And it snowballed from there really. So we provide infrastructures in London, but also Manchester, Scotland, Wales. And then we've got a site in North America. And then we also have partnerships in Saudi Arabia as well. So we provide that infrastructure for networks to join. And once they've joined that infrastructure, they can then freely collaborate with all of the other networks on that track on that. I'm not on that land. So in London, our main services peering, which is literally just the exchange of data between networks. But we also offer a lot of other services like Microsoft, as you're peering other cloud services as well. Closed user groups, all sorts. Anything you might need to feel interconnection needs, you can get links there in London. Excellent, excellent. Well, happy early 30th birthday. Thank you. That's very exciting. Yeah, that's quite an accomplishment. And you're talking about global expansion. And we've certainly seen some rumblings in the news from links about some of your expansion news in Africa in the Middle East. And of course, we're here in London, and the UK is still a very, very important region. So can you just shed some light on the latest in particular in the UK market? Yeah, yeah. So as you said, obviously, we've been focusing a lot on Africa at the moment. We announced our new exchange in Nairobi, which will be going live later in the year. But as you say, the UK is our home market. It's our bread and butter. It's what we, what, where a lot of our business happens. So we like to make sure that we have a lot of engagement with our members, especially those in the UK, making sure we're serving their needs back here. Whilst we're at the same time tackling that global expansion. And we do that mainly to having a lot of engagement with our members and events and things like that, but also making sure that we're really keeping up to date with the industry in the UK. Making sure we're keeping up to date with all our data center partners, as well as looking at new partners in the UK. So this is a very fast moving industry. There's new players coming in all the time. So we make sure we come to events like this and that we collaborate with any partners in the industry. And specifically in the new UK that we think might benefit our members. So that can evolve into expanding into new data centers or providing new services via partners. So yeah, we still do have a lot of focus on the UK and it's a lot around partnerships and building, building that presence. Yeah, so that's a perfect segue to the next question, which is about, thank you very much. Any new services? I hear you're kind of rolling out to your core UK, you know, to reach even more UK customers. And can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so we've expanded a lot more into sort of dedicated services for our members who might be trying to just have dedicated connections with another member. So we've launched private VLANs, a technical term that is basically a one-to-one connection a couple of years back. And now we also have closed user groups, which is where a group of our members who are specifically interested in the type of traffic can have that special connection and just have that secure connection to collaborate with each other that way. Working with all the cloud providers, as you can imagine, they're all pretty big names. And we're bringing those on as and when we can. So we have a number of cloud providers available in London and now in Manchester as well. So yeah, it's just a case of keeping up to date with the technology and what the technology can offer us and what we can then offer as added value to our members. Excellent, awesome. So we've talked a lot about the expansion that you have going on, new products, rollouts, how you're serving your existing members. Is there anything else you can tell us about what's on the horizon, what's next for links? Yeah, I think I've covered quite a lot. That's a lot. But yeah, it's really about listening to the members, what they want, where they want us to go. Because we're non-profit and we're membership-owned. We have to think really carefully about where we're going and what we're using member funds for. So all of our future business cases are very carefully considered. We're speaking to a lot of data centers about different markets, global markets at the moment. There's a lot going on in the Middle East and Africa. And we announced Nairobi and we're looking at other locations. But stressing that we only decide on business plans if they make absolute sense to our members. And we need to make sure that anything we do, we're making a real difference to where we're going to. So yeah, watch this space. Yeah, absolutely. Watch the space. And thank you so much for joining us and giving us a quick update on the latest book links. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. We're so glad to have you. And to our viewers, stay in touch. Watch this space because we will be continuing to live stream interviews here at Capacity Europe for a few more hours today and then tomorrow morning. And as always, happy networking.