I show 630 I'd like to call the order this meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board of Directors on January 18, 2024 at 6.30 p.m. Colleen, what you call the roll? President Hill. President. Vice President Ackman. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Mayhead. Here. Director Smalley. Here. Okay. Do we have any changes to the agenda? No changes. No changes to the agenda. Okay, next is oral communications. This portion of the agenda is reserved for oral communications by the public on any subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district and is not on the agenda. Any person may address the board of directors at this time. Normally presentations may not exceed three minutes in length and individuals may only speak once. Please state your name and town or city of residence for the record at the beginning of the statement. Please understand that the broad act limits what the board can do regarding issues not on the agenda. No action or discussion may occur on the issues outside of those already listed on today's agenda. The director may request that a matter raised during oral communication be placed on a future agenda. Do we have anyone from the public that wishes to address items on the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we'll move on to unfinished business. Low income rate assistance program. Yes, thank you. That's going to be it. Good evening. Heather I. Palletti, interim finance director. The action before you is to approve increasing the amount of the low-income discount provided by the rate assistance program to $20 per month up to 240 annually. Effective March 1st, 2024, assuming the adoption of the rate increase in February of 24.  So I have a question. How much do we anticipate we'll spend with this versus budget? The adoption for the program is 20 in the current fiscal year and 25 next fiscal year. The year-to-date expense through December 31 is $7,260. And it is anticipated that the current fiscal year, even if we increase it to the $20 starting in March, we will have plenty of budget. And for the entire fiscal year, next year, we'll have sufficient budget to cover it. That's why I only increased it by the amount up to 20, not proposing a budget amendment because the existing budget does cover the proposed change. If we went to 25 instead of 20, would we break the current budget? Hold on. I'll do a quick count. Yeah. Yeah, the current fiscal year budget would cover up to 127 customers. So in reality, it all depends on whether your customers increase. So right now, I've got it balanced within the current budget. If you increase the amount, it may cover it, but you're at a risk of if additional customers start participating in the program. Does that make sense? Let's go around and ask the rest of the directors if they have any questions. Thank you. Have we given any consideration to staff or the committee that reviewed this, changing how people qualify for this? Because I've heard of the difficulties of first going through PG&E, getting on PG&E's program in order to be able to qualify here. So has that been considered? That is a really good question. I have not considered that, and this is why. How do I put this nicely? I don't think it's put off in that kind of position to determine whether customer qualifies for the program. I think it's nice that we, if a customer qualifies under the PG&E program, then they're in. If we change that qualification, then we're reviewing documents. We are determining a yes or no. That's a tough position to put staff in. I understand. Okay. In addition to PII management, in a way that we may not want to PII, personally, identify the information. Tax returns, things like that. I don't have any questions. I oppose this in the past for the primary reason that this is a solution that needs to be done at a state level at scale. The state continues to not fulfill its obligations under the, I forget the name of the law, that was passed declaring water as a human right and has never funded that program. We as an organization need to join with other organizations, perhaps through our association and say please fund that program so that this can be offered at a much, much broader scale. Until then, I think by trying to do it on our own, we're basically giving the legislature a pass on their obligations and responsibilities. Thank you. Jami? I think this is a step in the right direction, but not far enough. For obvious reasons, I don't think that this makes a really meaningful difference given the cost of living in our area. I don't want to discourage us from offering people more relief rather than less. I don't have any other comments or questions. Yeah, I support this. $240 a year, it's better than a stick in the eye, let's put it that way. So I think we're helping people to some degree and I think that is not non-diminimous. It means something. And I also think that Heather is correct and that we should just incrementally raise this a small amount initially because we don't know how elastic the demand will be. If we jump to $25, then maybe a bunch more people will want it and then we're in a position of either having to limit them or say no, you can't have it because you didn't apply in time. And so there's nothing to prevent us from if we go up to 20 and find that it only brings in a few more people and everything goes according to plan with the rate increase that we increase it again. And I think that's a better way to do it, to just protect us and make sure that we can have as many people can participate as possible. And to your question mark, the budget and finance asks sort of the same question of, is there some other way to do this? Also partly because there's also the issue of that this only works for people who actually own the property, it does not work for renters. And that's actually, in most of our view, a bigger problem than the fact that they have to apply through PG&E. And I'm not sure how to solve that, but I think that's maybe something that budget and finance should think they'll investigate more if there's some way to do that without getting us into the sorts of problems that Bob has suggested with personal information or huge amounts of staff time. Comments from the public? Staff? Comments? Can we have a motion? Public motion that the board approves increasing the amount of the low income discount provided by the rate assistance program to $20 per month up to $240 annually effective March 1st, 2024, assuming the adoption of the rate increase in February 2024. Second. Second. Can we have a motion? Second. President Hale? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? No. Director Mayhood? Yes. Director Smolling? Yes. Thank you. Okay. The next item on unfinished business is the discrimination, harassment, and retaliation policy. We'll have discussion on possible action regarding changes to the policy. Again, we'll have the board members comment. We'll ask the public, we'll ask staff, and we'll go to the vote. If there's a question. Can I do staff presentation first? Sorry. A staff presentation about the first? Yes. Is there a presentation for this? Thank you. So we brought this item to you in December, December 7th. At that time it was asked that we do some general cleanup on the document but also make sure that we're including the board members and committee members in the policy so that we're involving them into the same policy. So then taking it to legal, we also made some edits that bring the document up to date with the latest regulations on harassment, etc. So we put a draft in the agenda and also a red line copy so you can see what the edits changes are. What's important is you're adopting this by resolution, and the resolution actually proves this for the next year and subsequent years, though you also have in your policy that you review it every year, which one doesn't conflict with the other. So that's pretty much it, and we'll let it open up to your comments at this point. Or sorry, questions. This is Barbara Brenner, and I'd just like to make one comment before the board starts the discussion, or actually one request that you make a slight edit to this, what we proposed, and that slight edit is to remove the terms with malice on page 18 on the first sentence below abuse of conduct workplace bullying, and it's mostly I'm asking you to do that just because it doesn't grammatically work, and I think it doesn't help us that much. In other words, I think the examples below in that paragraph are a better way of determining what the abuse of conduct bullying is versus adding the term with malice in the middle of that first sentence on page 18. So that's my slight change that I would recommend. Okay, so we'll have comments by the board that will go to the public, and we'll see if there are any last minute changes on that. Mark? Staying on that page 18, the same sentence that Barbara was referencing in the with malice, I see committee members referenced in other places, but I don't see that committee members referenced here in this paragraph on the abuse of conduct workplace bullying. Was that intentional, or was that...? I think in the red line version, does it read abusive conduct or workplace bullying as the conduct of any employer, employee, or member of the board of directors in the workplace? Mm-hmm. Right. My comment is, should that apply to committee members also? Oh, yes. The committees, because we've pulled out committee members. Sorry, I didn't understand what you're getting at. In other portions of the document to keep it parallel. So Barbara, would you care to comment on that one? Yeah, I'm just looking, because the scope applies to all the persons involved, including officers and board of committee members of the district in the first on page 16. And then it does indicate board committees under harassment prevention. I understand. I see it there. I didn't see it with this paragraph where, again, employer, employees, members of the board are called specified, so... Can I just suggest a change there along that line of just after member of the board of directors or board committees? Board committees. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I question whether it should be there or not, because there was another area that I think was focused on training where committee members were not called out, where I think it was appropriate that they are not involved in that training. Yeah. So, okay, yes. I think that that should be included in this section. Okay. Okay. That's my only question. Yeah, a couple of questions. From a clarity point of view, when I look at the original policy on page three, it says, this policy applies to all persons involved in the operations and rents value water district, including any and all employees, supervisors, managers, coworkers, officers, and board or committee members of the district. Are we confusing things by adding to that in various sections as opposed to, for example, a training section saying this part of the policy shall not apply to committee members? I think that's really the genesis of the confusion is that the scope already covers, in the original policy, already covered everybody. And throughout the policy, we kind of say, well, it's bored. You know, we add all the redundant, it seems redundant in that sense. And I think it's also confusing. I suppose if they're all the same as this first sentence in the policy, that might make it clear. But I just think from a drafting point of view, that certainly confused me as well. The other question I had was, when I look, and by the way, this sort of goes back to a memo from Gina Nichols from December of 2020, where she was recommending harmonization and or elimination of the respectful workplace policy with this policy. And I think I remember at the time in the discussion, her recommendation was to keep this policy sort of in line with government code 12940. And if there's anything else that we wanted to do, either do that in a separate policy, or merge everything together and keep those separate so that people looking at it know which part deals with government code 19240 and which one doesn't. So a question I have is, is all the changes that are made in here taken directly from government code 12940 at SEC, I guess is the fancy word. And if so, I was hoping maybe offline, you could point me to where those were because I went through and I wasn't sure that everything was lining up. And I really wanted to follow Gina's recommendation of keeping this close to that part of the government code. That'd be a question for council, I believe. Yes. Yeah, I'm not sure to take the truth off of the top of my head because I had labor employment folks in my firm revise this and talk to me about some of the new provisions as far as new laws. But we didn't talk code section, so I can't repeat to you which code sections they relied on in this instance. I know that we were asked to take a look at this policy and do this one first, not with any reference to another policy or a particular government code section. So my understanding is that we were not, we did not limit ourselves to that one code section in this policy. Yeah, I mean, I think when you get to page four is where it introduces the concept, the Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 64 and the government code 12940 at SEC. And since this is, I mean, if you look at that code section, it seems to follow pretty closely with this, which is why I think that's referenced. If there are other things that are being referenced and the other codes that were being used in here, I think those need to be referenced as well. Perhaps the labor attorneys could help us out with that too. Yeah, I see which page four of 10 that you're looking at. Agenda package page 16. Oh yeah, sorry. I'm looking at the policy, the current policy itself. You're referencing though Agenda package page 16, correct? The footnote one? Hang on. Or no, no, you're not referencing that footnote. It would be seven. So the original statement I made about the policy application is on page 16 in the board packet. The reference to codes, the reference to codes I believe that are underlying this policy or is on page 17 in the board packet. Okay. Let me just, I don't, you know, I don't want to say absolutely, right? I want to make sure that I'm correct in that. So I still don't. Well, you know, the 12940 was quite, I mean, it's a lot. Right. So I don't know. I see where you're looking. Okay. I don't know if it's something that you do in real time here. But it did strike me that if we're, if we're moving beyond the 12940, which is what this policy was originally intended to mirror, then we probably, yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Now that I see exactly what you're referencing, I would say no, that's what we're trying to capture in this. So, but I will double-check and confirm that. Thank you. Okay. Jamie, comments? On page 21 of the packet under the section training requirements, I note that we, it doesn't, it looks like we don't require committee members to do the same harassment and discrimination trainings that we require board members and employees to do. Is that accurate? Yes. And I think that's appropriate. Right. Given that it's a lot to ask committee members to have to undergo this and they're, you know, in their contact with staff is not all that great. So the only thing I noticed when I read that same section was that we didn't specify how many hours the board of directors, folks needed to do the training. And I would just recommend that we specify in the part where it says managerial and supervisory and board of directors because they're in effect in a supervisory role so that they should do the two hours too. Is that okay, Barbara? Yeah. Just note it says either online, okay, as required by law. So generally we're watching whatever the board members are required to do. Sometimes those change. So I would be fine, you know, because it still contains as required by law. So that may change. The board member hours may change. Requirements may change. So just note that. Okay. As I say, before I go out to the... I hadn't had a chance to speak. I thought you were just speaking. No, I was commenting on James. I want to address Bob's comments. First, that he says it's somehow confusing if we call out the members of the board of directors and the members of board committees at each mention. And the reason I disagree with that is I think it was confusing that they weren't called out because in most, it says it only once at the very beginning of the document that this applies to them. And then everywhere else in the document it said referred to employees only. And so anybody just doing a quick read through and looking at the part that they think might apply to them would not think that this policy applies to members of the board. And so my suggestion of including that was to make it explicit at every occurrence that these policies also applied to the board. And I think in contrast to what Bob says, it actually makes for greater clarity about what we're intending to do here. The second thing I would say is I don't think we want to... This is our policy, right? And we decide what we want, the types of conduct that we consider acceptable or not acceptable. And whether you can do this kind of lawyerly arguments about whether it follows exactly the lines of certain kinds of laws does not carry much weight with me because as long as you're not putting something in the policy that is blatantly against the law, it's our policy. And we can set our own standards. But I think it's certainly true that this language, if you read it, is clearly pulled from existing material. This didn't just come out of the air. This is a kind of language about abusive conduct and workplace bullying. So if you want to bring in one more code that we base some of this on, that's fine. But I don't think I want to put this off to do a bunch of detailed work of trying to figure out whether this code or that code applies to things. And I want to thank Brian and Barbara for inserting the language that describes specific behaviors that would be considered sexual harassment. I think everybody understands that quid pro quo is wrong. But what constitutes hostile work environment is a little bit not quite as clear. And by being specific, we're signaling what behaviors aren't acceptable in the workplace. We make it clear to people on the receiving end of those kinds of behaviors, what behaviors are grounds for a complaint. And we provide more guidance to supervisors and to the board as to what constitutes violations of the policy. And I'm also very glad to see the addition of the new section on abusive conduct and workplace bullying. Again, giving specific examples of unacceptable behaviors is very helpful. It strikes me as especially important for interactions where there's an imbalance of power, such as between a supervisor and a subordinate or a board member and staff. So thank you for putting those examples in. I think it makes the policy much more clear what we don't consider acceptable. And just for everybody. Thank you. Okay. Comments from the public on this subject? First off, I want to say that it is at the utmost importance to have a safe workplace to support this policy. When I saw this on the agenda, I was concerned that this was another way that we were going to talk about the charges that were brought up against Director Fultz. So that's what I prepared my statement for. So please allow me that understanding. Okay. Because then there's a narrative out there that's going on that one person is responsible for a lot of stuff that I don't think is actually true. Okay. So here's my statement. To put all the blame for staff around at worker retention on one person, I believe it overstates or tries to simplify the problem. While recently losing the general manager and finance director is problematic, the district has dealt with senior staff departure in the past. Within the last few years, we have had the district council lead, the previous finance director, the district engineer and awarded treatment specialist all left. These losses are not the fault of one person, but rather somebody's choice about their career. Issues of retention are not unique to this water district. I have attended many board meetings and I've witnessed way too many personal attacks rather than debates about policy. Also, I've listened to way too much micromanaging and repetitive arguments, repetitive attempts at persuasion. These behaviors are not serving the people of our valley and mountains very well. It also discourages people from being involved in our water district. Director Foltz has been elected three times by the people of this valley, once to the school board and two times to the board, to this board. Yet he has never been chair of the board. He served six years so far. To me, that sends a powerful message. We do not trust you. It is a well-established moment that boards rotate members to the chairperson. That is where a member can learn the complexities and responsibilities of that job. Most parents, most teachers know that if you want people to act responsibly, you must give them responsibility. Just as this board should commit to some sort of self-reflection, Director Foltz should as well. If you hear similar complaints from multiple sources, you should listen and consider what you can do about the complaints. To that end, I will suggest again that some formal training on contentious issues be had. While some may disregard this training, predetermining a negative outcome is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, seek some training and with an open mind to improve our budget. Chances are, some good may come of it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Hi, I'm Bruce Honoway from Boulder Creek. On page 23, this is kind of the bottom line of the whole policy, I guess. It says employees or board member, I'm sorry, I don't have my glasses on, but it says they may be held personally liable for the misconduct. So about 10 years ago, I found out that a board member had sold a house to this district and accepted a real estate commission. And that is a conflict of interest and that's against the law. But he truly believed, he had been on the board for 20 years and he truly believed that he was golden. If he was a board member, that he was golden. He can do no wrong. And he had gotten that idea from the district council at the time. And as soon as a lawsuit came to the board, they immediately decided to defend the board member. They circled the wagons and they said, let's defend this guy. So this is a complete reversal from that. This is saying, wow, we're going to identify a board member and we're going to hold him personally liable. And I guess I don't understand who's going to do this. I don't know, is the disgruntled employee and a civil board member or is the four out of five board members going to get together and say, yeah, let's have a lawsuit and let's assume the board member. So I don't really understand what this means personally liable. Now, looking around the table there, I see, looks like a coffee cutter or a water glass and I see a lot of laptops. I can imagine being up there at the table. And I might just knock over a cup of coffee on your laptop by mistake. And all of a sudden cost a thousand dollars worth of damage just for coming to a meeting. And I'm kind of wondering where this is going to be. Are board members going to be suing each other for small slides? Is the district going to be suing a board member? And then the other thing is there's this confirmation. This is on page 28. It says board member signature. So suppose somebody who isn't here tonight decides to run for the water board in November and they get elected. So all of a sudden they get elected. They start getting broken in. And at some point in the process a few months down there, I guess it says you have three months to do this. Then they're they're going to be presented with this confirmation of custody. And they're acknowledging this whole policy which says I'm going to be personally alive. So I'm kind of wondering if somebody gets elected in November and then next February they decide I don't want to sign that because I don't want to be personally liable. If you think I'm personally liable you prove it in court. But I'm not going to sign that. I don't understand what consequence you can impose. Do you think you can set your person at that point for not signing the statement? Thank you for your comments. Do we have any further comments from staff on this? That for me? Okay. It sounds to me and let me just make my own comment here that we are close but there are some small edits that could have major importance but they're not you know paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of text. And so I'm going to ask if we have a comment. I think Mr. Holloway asked a really good question. Are we just going to not answer that? How would the enforcement policy work on this relative to personal liability? Is the board going to sue the individual? That's Barbara's answer. I mean I think we're they as opposed to will be. I get that but they means absolutely possible and I think it's a reasonable question that he asked. And I think when community members ask reasonable questions during our discussion and debate we should respond. Are you amazed at this issue and we are discussing it? This is Barbara. There are times when a district gets into a civil litigation against individual board members or employees. Those instances do occur. Does this policy encourage that? I don't think so. This policy is trying to set up what is defined in the law as harassment by folks that are in public positions and employees of a district. So this is not unusual this type of policy nor is it unusual that this type of policy applies to board members and committee members. So is there a possibility of litigation? Always. Always. When there's harassment involved there's that possibility. But this policy is not intended to encourage that. This policy is intended to inform and make people aware of what is considered to be harassment and bullying. And have some sort of notion that what will occur if that is happening. I think the answer to Mr. Holloway's question is yes. Could absolutely happen. So my only comment on that is the alternative, the opposite of that, is that the board is indemnifying all of board members and everyone else. That's not going to happen. Well I understand but I mean you know we're asking Jeff come on you know. Well but if you remove the fact that there's personal liability then you have the indemnification. I want to comment on this. To respond first I would just say that you may be held responsible. What that's really saying is that you know if there is behavior that's so egregious and that through informal processes we can't get you to stop you should be aware that we do not indemnify you forever. And in fact after the Vieira case the board policy manual was extensively modified to make it clear that the board would not indemnify somebody you know to the whole extent that depending on what had actually happened it would be you know appropriate. And so what this is saying is that depending on the circumstances yes an individual could be soon and it would not be the district's responsibility to indemnify them depending on what the nature of it was. And I think that's an important it's a reasonable thing to alert people to that that their behavior has consequences. And I think the other key point of that last sentence that Mr. Holloway is flagging is the word unlawful. I'm not going to determine what's unlawful. We have civil statutes that specify that. So if somebody is crossing that line unlawful yes they need to be held accountable. And this last sentence certainly wasn't inserted in this round of review. It's part of the policy for some kind of time. So I find this acceptable. Barbara? Yeah I just wanted to add one more statement that this policy wasn't geared for any particular person as you know indicated in one of the comments. These edits came from legal. We know we're not attempting to focus on any particular individual by any means and certainly not a particular director. We're trying to produce to you a policy that is in compliance with current law and make sure that folks that are operating in your system including board members and committee members are aware of those laws and the consequences. So I just want to make that clear. Okay seeing no more comments. Do we have a motion? I'll make it. I'll move that the board adopt the attached resolution that re-adopts the district's discrimination, harassment, and retaliation prevention policy for 2024 and subsequent years. Is there a second? I second that. Motion has been made and seconded. How late can you? President Hill? Yes. I'm excuse me Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayhood? Yes. Director Smalley? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving on to no business. We have discussion on possible action by the board regarding the integrated regional water management agreement. And I believe staff has a presentation on this. Yes. So we're going to have comments from Carly on this one. Carly, please. Thank you, Brian. I'd first like to point out that there's two motions or two motions accompanying this memo. The first is to execute the memo random of agreement or MOA. And the second is to execute a local project sponsor agreement, or LPSA. The Santa Cruz integrated regional water management or SCIRWM manages and coordinates regional water planning in Santa Cruz County. IRWM was first established as part of a state program that began in 2002. This is to encourage regional planning and offers funding to participate in regions. The district has been participating and signed the first MOA in 2016. And the MOA is now up for renewal. As well in 2003 or 2023, sorry, the district submitted a project for funding and received a notice boarded for $305,000 for fire-hardening 13 critical pump house structures. To accept this award, the district will need to execute an LPSA. Both the MOA and LPSA are linked in this memo and staff is prepared to answer any questions. This requires a 305,000 matching. And we have that in budget. Yes, that was considered when we applied for the funding. Okay. Okay. That's the only question I have on this other than the comment of good job on getting another grant lined up. Thank you. Evermore? Jamie? No comments. Okay. Did Mark again? Good job. Do we have any comments from the public on this? Thanks. So I had a little bit of trouble understanding the memo. It talks about the $300,000 grant that Director Somali was just referring to. And then in the last paragraph, it says, with the recent IRWM implementation grant award, $2.5 million six additional projects. So I guess I've got a little confused because it's the recent. So that's 2023. That means the other one's recent. That's 2023. So I guess maybe I'm not caught up on what the other six projects are. So I had a little trouble understanding the memo. The other thing is at the very end of the memo, there's five links. Those do not work for me. They don't work on the website. And I've seen this before. I've seen this before where there's been a memo in the packet with links and they don't work for us on the outside. So it may be that you can send emails to each other and the links all work, but these links don't work for for an ordinary member of the public. And I mean, they look like links to me. They look like they should be links on page 47. I'm just clicking on that. And I'm just saying they work. They work for you. They do not work for an ordinary member of the public clicking on the packet. And I guess I'm aware, I'm making you aware of this, because you obviously don't understand that you're not making this information available to us. And I don't think that I should have to do a records request to figure out what those five links are. So unfortunately, this may be extra work for your information technology staff to be able to figure out how to make the links work in the packet. But right now we do. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. And I'm going to refer that one to staff for resolution of the link issue on those. And I would also ask Carly, if you respond to the question about what the other two and a half million dollars six projects. So it is a regional grant. So there's multiple agencies participating in IRWM. And that total grant award was for the other projects for other agencies. So a regional grant and we got 300,000. Exactly. Thank you. Okay, is there a motion required on this? Yes, two motions. I move that the board authorize and direct the interim district manager to execute the 2024 memorandum of agreement with the IRWM on behalf of the district and authorize and direct the interim district manager to execute the local project sponsor agreement to accept the awarded funding with the IRWM on behalf of the district. I'll second that. Any further comments? Do I call or all? Do I do these separately? They're tied together. It's a single motion. Yeah, yeah, they're tied together. Okay. You wouldn't do one without the other. All right. President Hill? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayhood? Yes. And Director Smalley? Yes. Question passes. Thank you. Okay, we are now finished with all the new business on the agenda. We have the consent agenda. Are there any objections to anything on the consent agenda? I have several questions on the district managers, the general manager's report. Is that part of the consent? That's not the consent agenda. Okay. Never. Okay. So we do need to vote on that consent? I don't think we have an active objection. No. So I think quite default. We now have to vote at where we learned. So go ahead. President Hill? We want to go out to the public. Oh, that's right. Public. I'm sorry. Public. I couldn't. I'm sorry. Do you want to go out to the public? Yes. Do we have comments from the public on this item? Seeing none. Okay. President Hill? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayhead? Yes. Director Smalley? Yes. Okay. The next item on the agenda is district reports. Staffers to present reports. Yes. Thank you, President. I did want to make, I guess, the beginning change in the agenda, but I do want to make just one change that I'll speak at the end. And I believe all the other reports are just, if you have any questions on any of the other reports, like general manager, I'll speak at the end. Any other status reports? Department status reports? Yes, I do. Thank you. On the Fulton Heights tank, waiting design, we are, are we close to being able to move forward with? We're waiting for geotech to be able to procure an easement. So we have an easement to do the survey, but we don't have the geotech done yet. That's the best thing is geotech after the survey is done. Okay. And there's no easement right now. We just have information. Okay, great. Thank you for that clarification. On the fish ladder, I was a little confused as to where exactly we are on that. Motor control center scheduled for delivery in April, but Pedestrian Bridge schedule will be open for public after January 19th. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know what the motor control center is referring to. It's the SCADA system that'll be delivered. And then when I installed it, it's the last thing that we have to do operationally. Okay. But as Gary put it in there, the bridge is supposed to be open naturally, correct? Yeah. So they were intending to open it this week, but it got delayed. So it'll be open next week. Okay. Well, when I saw motor control, I was like, no, we're talking about something across the bridge or something like that. It's just telemetry on and off. Yeah. We can use SCADA in parentheses. That would have helped. Are we going to have an open house or something out there? Please say yes. I don't think very much like to do that. After this, it's been at least a decade, I believe, but this has been going. Yeah. This would be really great to have a celebration out there. Okay. Great. And I mean, I'm really happy to see that there's so many projects that are awaiting climate. Yeah. There's a lot of progress here. This is really, really, very, really, very good. Pedal to the metal more, more, more. Okay. Great. Thank you. Other comments? I've got a few questions on report. On the general manager's report on page 59, it references the compensation study with consultants been interviewed and selected. Who interviewed? Who selected? Was that staff? Was that committee also? I can touch on it when I am going to speak on for the general manager section. I will speak at the end, but I'm happy to answer that one question now. Okay. I didn't understand that part of it, but that's okay. I mean, I can answer it now. So I'm not as well. So it was President Hill and Director May. Okay. All right. Well, then I have other questions also, but I'll let you go ahead then with some. I'm supposed to ask questions on the department reports now. Sure. Any other parts? Okay. All right. The engineering report refers to Breckenbrae 4 Springs Consolidation, and it mentions Phase 2 plants. How did we get to Phase 2? In particular, my question is, where's the money coming from on any of the work that we've done so far that we're doing right now for Phase 2 without any other grant coming into play? And this is on page 63 that it references it. So the Phase 2 plants are the replacement tanks up on 4 Springs and the hydrobooster system for the houses in the mix and the other tanks? Right. Okay. And I thought it was the, was it the laterals also that I think I saw? So the laterals are issued specifically to 4 Springs and it's currently not in Santa's scope to develop that. They've hired Sherwood engineers. They've hired Sherwood engineers for like a concept set of plans that addresses the laterals. Right. Ultimately, if they are a Consolidate in the district, how we need to be implemented. Okay. But they're pursuing that engineering work. The district right now isn't doing that work. Not the laterals. Santos is working for the district on the tanks and the hydrobooster system, which are not included in the Phase 1 plants. And that work that Santos is doing is covered by that DWR grant? Correct. Okay. Including those tanks. Okay. All right. On the Environmental Department Report, the Lachlan and Feasibility Studies on Page 67, we're going back out with the RP. What did we change to try to attract somebody? Right. So I think the main feedback we got from the firms that we did send out the RP to mentioned that the time frame that we gave for as far as working time frame was too short. So we did extend that and we're hoping to get more interest. Okay. So that was the intel that we got. Right. Wearing the firms in. Okay. Good. Good. Okay. And on the environmental, is there a mention in the environmental report of the status of the AIR for conjunctive use? I think we've been working on that for a long time. Right. Yes. So CPEC, who was working on the model for us, has just completed their memo to staff. So we are in the process of reviewing. And then we'll start to move ahead everything else. But it's kind of a chicken and egg where we'd like to start at least looking into the feasibility of Loch Blomens prior to really moving ahead with the AIR. But we are getting closer. We've also finalized and worked through an operations plan, which was a piece that was holding up us moving ahead with the project description on the AIR. Okay. A question on that. Have we had any conversations with Santa Cruz to get closer to what the cost of raw versus treated water would be relative to a financial analysis on the Loch Blomens feasibility study? Not yet. But Brian has been meeting with the city. We have a I have a plan to meet with the new directors. I'm sorry. Could you speak up a little? Sorry. I have plans to meet with the new directors. Has she taken over yet? I just really quickly, I just want to make a general comment. I found I just want to compliment you all on reformatting these things. So it's a little bit easier for me to see what things are at different stages, especially in the engineering report, you know, all because we have so many different projects. And I also liked in the general managers report that there was a look ahead to what might happen next quarter, which is something we haven't had in the past. And I think it's really important for us to be able to track, you know, whether we're accomplishing our goals. So I thank you for implementing that so quickly. I'm taking, you know, over here and everybody accommodating that. So good job. Okay, Brian. Okay, you're on it. Yeah. Sorry. I might not have been the most convenient format, but maybe next time I will just speak it and put you could ask all your questions at once. So anyway, so current activities, I did take a little bit of liberty. I know it's fourth quarter, but it started in November 20th. So it's pretty much what happened maybe up to last week in some cases, but not quite so precise, but I think you get the idea. The race day, I think we know we have, we updated the admin committee earlier in the day today, which was what our direction was that staff would work through the admin committee for the outreach portion. And then of course, once we're done with that, we would report the whole thing back on the 15th of February. And so that event, I know this is looking ahead, but that event is on Saturday. Staff is definitely well in the throes of gearing up for that. Compensation study, thanks Mark for the question. I didn't elaborate, but so it was President Hill and Director Mayhood and I interviewed, we actually reviewed all the consultants proposals, and then we interviewed the top candidate and decided that we were okay with that candidate. And so now it's in the, I'm working through the contract with them. They are owned by a large insurance company, which means they're going to have comments on our standard agreement. And so there'll be a little bit of back and forth. So I'm hoping February on that. And I believe we landed on it because you both were on the budget and finance budget and finance. And so I'm not sure about the history of how it landed in that responsibility, but I believe we decided that we could go ahead and under that, those conflicts. So we did. If I could interject, the chosen vendor had far and away more experience in doing this than the other two that we were looking at. I don't think anybody else, I just wanted to know who from our the board was involved. And it was such an obvious choice that we didn't even think it needed to go back to budget and finance. We're going to bring it directly to the whole board. Okay. So also, you know, I forgot to mention at very beginning, you saw all the other department before it's kudos to staff here, because we're doing a lot. And it's like, I think that's really important that everybody here knows that everybody's working pretty hard here. And it's great to be part of an organization and having a staff that's self motivated and doing all this stuff because it's a lot. So onward budget review and reconciliation, I've been working with Heather and we've been going back and forth on getting a good I want a good solid handle on not just the capital projects, but what buckets of money we're feeding them from. And that does drive our prioritization. Are they grants? Are they FEMA? These all have sunsets and timelines that we have to spend the money by. So it definitely prioritizes them. But not always. Sometimes it could just be such a headache for off staff that maybe we want to prioritize that for some reason. But anyway, it does dovetail into that. So that's one thing that I'm up to. Take basin. We do have the letter that we responded to the customers. I think the big takeaway there is, of course, the board has already spoken on this that we really can't we just are unable to do anything more without funding. And so I am, you know, as much as that's true, it's just encouraging those that were asking for consolidation to pressure their electives for funding. For active brand forest brings, I do want to add a little bit to that conversation because we do have a certain amount of money. We have 3.2 million. We spent some of it on design. But the latest is that I really asked that we can look at the scope of work that logically connects certain elements of that project and is around that 3.2 million. It makes sense to put it together like that and have this definite fix like this is within grant funds available and that we come up with a functioning, even if it's the truck lines or whatever improvements to our system. And then that also kind of puts us in an awkward position where we can't really enter into a consolidation agreement, but we could at least move one step along from an LOI, a letter of intent to a pre-consolidation agreement. So each one, and this is with consultation with legal finance, etc., that we've all kind of had some preliminary discussions with the forest brings folks. So of course, both parties, both mutuals would have to buy into yes, they accept this is the first step in the scope of work. And that yes, we're going to continue to look for funding, etc., etc. But that's pretty much an internet shell, whatever the mutuals and also that we're working with BRAC and BRAI now, we have an estimate there. We're going to work on getting them an emergency intertie to take them off the receiverships. So they're no longer depending on the receiverships cost of water, they can just deal with us. Yeah. Brian, I have a quick question on Alaska. Is that all in the whole deal with that, too? I believe, but it's kind of something off and on the distance that, you know, it'll enter into the agreements at some point. So some observations. We did have a pretty serious uptick in public information requests. We've gone a year with none and Paulie has had seven in the last month. We are pretty, we're sure about making sure that everything checks out with legal. There's information that fits readily available. Of course, it's public information. There's information that has certain customer information that we can't divulge. And it's not always intuitive to somebody who's not a legal person. So legal things are helpful on that. But we have learned a few things along the way and one of them is that public requests for information also extended board members, but not committee members. So anyway, there you have that. So look ahead. The rate study, as we know, if we do approve on the 15th, and I say if we do, one thing that customer service made me aware of is we are done with our work, but that's when their work starts is because they're going to have to retool all the bills. And I'm certainly there's people that they only look at their bill and they're not, they may not even be watching the whole dialogue about whether there's going to be a rate increase or not, but they're going to get their bill and then they're going to ask questions. And so looking how we can support that staff, the three people that do that, but that's an observation on staffing there. Rock and Brand Forest Springs, yes, hopefully that not only that we retool the scope so that we can go to bid for that grant amount, and then we're looking ahead for these agreements, the pre-consolidation agreements. And then, but finally, we have a line on SRDF funding, state revolving fund, and we have an application. And then the other one is just to keep looking for money because we're not done looking. So we have to have a way to find that. So along with that, I'll skip the next one.  This is something that we talked about in the engineering and environmental committee, that having a list and sort of prioritizing these projects based on funding, et cetera, et cetera, that having that list and pretty solid in the next few months here, having a solid list. And then also being able to take that out and look at staffing. Compensation study, hopefully in the next month execute the agreement and then I think that we can have it done June, maybe July, I mean, so that we have something. And lastly, tying into that staffing needs is I will look at that compensation study and maybe pose some positions that we don't have or tweaks to the ones we do so that we at least we have salary information on that. It doesn't say that we're creating or budgeting yet. That would be a formal move by the board, but just to give us options so that we don't have to go turn around and then do a salary study in a position that we are thinking about doing. So with that, I'll open it up to your questions. Yes. And it gives us the opportunity and then what happened at this point or what are you doing over the next two months on this aspect? Good presentation. Okay. We are now at written communication. I'm sorry. Do we have an opportunity for questions after public comment? Yes. Mark, thanks. No, no, no. It's versus up there right now. Thanks. The general manager said something about public records requests and he made some kind of distinction between committee members and board members and whatever that was, it went over my head. I kind of feel like I'm on equal footing with any committee member or any board member if I want to do a public records request and we're all saying so I didn't understand the distinction. Since they don't fall under what we have to get out there information. It says a legal timeframe. No, they're not. It's not that we were asking. It was when the requests were about us. They have to do it for board members but not for members of the committees. We can't get out there. Any other questions about the... Yeah, with respect to the rate study and the public outreach efforts and I sort of broadly defined that as educating our community about various aspects of the proposed rate increase. When will we be able to or is the information about peaking calculations already available for the public and the board to look at? I don't recall if we had anything other than a presentation from the draft tell us and I think it would be great to get that out before February 15th because it's something I've asked about probably from the beginning of the process when the budget committee came back with a we want to do tear rates which in concept I agree with but there's legal requirements around that and I want to make sure as part of diligence that we're meeting those legal requirements. So no need to respond, just I want to throw that out. There's something I think needs to be made public as sooner rather than later. I think I heard you say on the prioritization of capital projects that numbers one and one and one would be FEMA and the commitments we made through our grants. Is that correct? Those are definitely criteria. Well I think it would be worthwhile to know what the criteria might be for that and maybe that's something for the engineering committee to look at. The reason I'm asking is that a lot of these loans come with certain dates by which you're supposed to do things and we can probably make some the lenders in a world where interest rates were low. I don't think the lenders would have necessarily been thinking about making any calls on the loans or anything like that but interest rates aren't where they used to be and it is now in the interests of lenders to in fact replace low interest loans with high interest loans. I do not want the district to get into that kind of a position so I understand FEMA's got their deadlines and you know the grants have their deadlines but you know we've got roughly 30 million dollars worth of loans out there that do have deadlines and I know one of them got shifted because of the fire but I'm not sure about the other one and I think it's been very worthwhile to engage with council on reviewing those to make sure that we are in good shape because we had to identify projects that they were going to be applied to. Well if I may comment I think you're absolutely right and I think that the issue of prioritizing these projects is going to depend on a variety of different priorities because there's one matter of deadlines we're dealing with here we're going to have to sort of take a look at each one and say you know which ones fall off the cliff first which ones are necessary for technical reasons whatever but yeah you're absolutely right we have to look at the loans. Well and I think from diligence and oversight and transparency it's something the board needs visibility into. I think I heard this but I wanted to make sure I'm crystal clear on this 100% of the work that we're doing in Brackenbray and Four Springs is currently covered by the grant. Yes the enter the intertie is actually they're paying the cost of an emergency intertie. Well I should say grant or Brackenbray or FEMA or FEMA. Yes and FEMA is in there too. Okay we're not pulling money out of our capital budgets to cover any of this. Okay sorry I mean I may have answered it but I want to make sure it's crystal clear. I'll make sure FEMA was part of that not just yeah yeah no it's that's good that's great to put in there because it really is we're not we that is our repairs our pay right because that was a commitment we made to our community when we did that. And on the big base on the big base of water company situation we still have the filling station up. No. Is there any demand for it? No there are boil water notices off lifted so no more filling station and we are supplying them through both water intertie. Okay if they did get into a situation put it back. Okay I want to make sure that at least from my perspective we need to do everything that we've been doing to support. If they don't have portable water we don't be sure that filling station goes back up and Jonathan from the state contacts us and tells us about what's going on. And I think we'd already improved that going entering into an intertie agreement or did we not approve that? I think we've certainly discussed who? With big bases. Sorry the topic. We are that's already been all done. It's in. Yeah that's what I thought. Yeah we're pumping water them constantly. Okay good. Okay so I mean that is that is really a big deal as long as I keep there as long as I keep their system clean they've got reliable water at this point and we're getting paid for it. Yeah. Okay great I'll echo comments Brian. This is a dramatic improvement in the method of communication with the board. Thank you for doing that. Okay moving on written communications we have a letter to the board from Debra Rowan. Is there any need to read that at this meeting or I think so. And we just just just discussed the letter to Big Base of Water Company. Unless there's any objection I think we're we'll finish with that. Thank you all have a good evening.