I have 630 so I would like to convene this meeting with the Board of Directors for the San Lorenzo Valley Water District for August 3rd, 2023. Holly, would you take roll, please? President Smalley. Here. Vice President Hill. Here. Director Ackman. Here. Director Fultz. Here. Director Mayhood is out with a medical issue and would like to be excused from this meeting. I want to make a motion that we excuse her. Second. President Smalley. Yes. Vice President Hill. Yes. Director Ackman. Yes. Director Fultz. Yes. Okay. Mr. Manager Rogers, any additions or deletions? Yes, Chairman, before we get into the meeting, I would like to introduce Garrett Robb to the Board and to the public, our new district engineer. Garrett, before attending college, Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo Group, Ben Lohman, and graduated San Lorenzo Valley High. In the past, Garrett's been working for a civil and structural engineering firm for over a decade where he earned a registration as a professional civil engineer and gained valuable experience with engineering, design, permit, approval, process, and construction management. Garrett is a familiar face to the district as he's worked on several of the district's projects, including just recently the project manager for the Fall Creek Fish Lab. I'd like you all to welcome Garrett. Welcome, Garrett. It's nice to have you here. We appreciate the work that you're going to be able to do for us. Thank you. Thanks. Moving on to our communications. This portion of the agenda is reserved for communications from the public on a subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district that is not on the agenda for this meeting. A reminder throughout this portion and other portions of the meeting. Members of the public are requested to keep their presentations within a three-minute limit. Do we have a timer? I don't know about the moment to represent that. Melissa, you have a timer, a three-minute timer. Does any member of the public wish to speak? So if you would identify yourself. Okay. My name is Chris Keller. These are my neighbors. Steve Farrow. We live on Brookside Drive in Felton, California. Some of you may be familiar with us. I do have statements for everybody. I don't know the best way to district yet. You can give them to me. Okay. So thank you for your time. We, like most of Santa Cruz County, were impacted by the storm on December 31st. We live on a private road. It's about a quarter of a mile. When we were on board the storm was about to start. During the New Year's Eve event. So much water came down and it washed away our. And we exposed the pipes. San Lorenzo pipes. You'll see pictures in pamphlet. It's been a hard road for us. There's 12 households for them still cannot reach their homes. in fire season and the CCU fire came within a mile of our homes and that was very scary and now a fire truck can't make it up our road because of the storm and we have successfully been granted through FEMA at this point almost $300,000 to redo our road and we're very grateful for that. We're unable to really move forward until the exposed pipes are dealt with and I know that there's a lot of need out there and you guys have your playful and there's a lot of aging infrastructure not just ours. So we are just asking if you could review our situation and we just want to be on the radar and and invite you to work with us and collaboration. Rick has granted a survey to begin next week. So thank you Rick. We'll see what comes from that. We are working with Granite Construction. They will be doing the repair. We're on a creek, so parts of our road are inside the creek. So there's a lot to do and he would love to bid the project as well whenever work needs to be done. So yes we do have some questions in there. You can review them and perhaps we'll be on the agenda next time. I would like to ask, I know that there's a budgetary shortfall or concern for your budget, but I heard that you guys got $15 million for projects. Is that accurate? Ms. Anacruz? No, okay. We can answer questions. If you want me to answer, we did receive loans and I don't know that's the exact amount, but it's close to it and that money has been allocated for projects and some of those projects are already in construction. I did just speak with Congressman Panetta's office today. Many of you were copied on the email that I sent last week. They've been very helpful from the beginning getting our FEMA claims through all the hoops and he is going to address the delay and reimbursement from the CCU fires.  So that makes our project more challenging. So he is going to be responding to that and perhaps there's a way to streamline the funds so that the project life hours won't go unnoticed and we can address the issues. I'm just concerned for my neighbors. I have four households they still can't, they're still renting. They're not able to access their homes and like I said, the fire thing is very concerning and also the winter, our road won't last another one, but we had this past time. So I think the pictures kind of tell our story as well. So just want to thank you for your time and your consideration. Yeah, so we had four trees fall that doesn't have anything to do with y'all, but they have agreed, PG&E has agreed to come back and retrieve all these remnants of the tree that were left in our road. But they're concerned about going up our road because of the exposed pipes and yesterday David Tree did run over one of the pipes and so we had a break. And that's what we're concerned about because we really can't pave over no pipes that are 90 to 100 years old. Okay, okay. Because it's not on our agenda? Yes. Or can't discuss it this evening? Okay. We will review this information and Rick, I think it's appropriate to put this on an agenda for the next meeting. And could we also review the FEMA projects that came out of the rainstorms as well? Because the money that we were talking about before was for CZU and I don't know that I've got a good handle on what the FEMA projects are for the storms. None of the new projects in the winter of this year have been obligated, so there's not even approval. But at least the candidates that we're asking for, could we review that? We'll bring you the damage list. A lot of these projects or none of these projects have been obligated. So there is no money available from FEMA for any of the new projects in 2023. I'd like to know if we've made requests. Yes. Okay. So let's just have all the status. Yeah. Mark, in discussing that, if we're able to do the next meeting or as soon as possible, in addition to the list of projects that we are seeking FEMA reimbursement for from the storm events, could we talk about whether there is an appropriate way or a possible way for us to prioritize them? Because if there are projects that are preventing people from reaching their homes, for example, I think that that should be discussed with a different level of priority than one where people can still pass, if that's possible. I mean, I don't know what else is on that list, to be honest, in terms of other damage that we're looking at. Okay. Next meeting then. Yes. Okay. 17th. Wonderful. Thank you very much for your time. It's great. We've all been very kind. Same place. Yes. In two weeks. In two weeks. Yes. Okay. Thank you for bringing us to our attention. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else from the public? I see none in online remotely. Okay. We can proceed to that. Okay. First item is unfinished business, the emergency contract for Quail Hollow. Yes. Thank you. At the previous meeting, the board approved an emergency contract with Anderson Pacific for trench failure on Quail Hollow Road during the early January February during the heavy rainfall events. The trench failed on Quail Hollow Road, right? In a new 12-inch main project that we probably have been less than six months have been completed. The road opened up to the extent that it was dangerous for vehicles to pass and had to be steel plated and the county requested the district move right in and facilitate repairs. The board did approve an expenditure of approximately 250,000 dollars for exploration of the failed potable water main trench in Quail Hollow. Since that approval, Anderson Pacific has opened the areas around the pipeline and we found considerable voids along our pipeline trench and even out into the adjoining lanes. Some of the area was up to about 14-foot wide voids in Quail Hollow Road. Those have been repaired and underdrain has been put in a recompaction, slurry and permeable base rock is put in to restore the road. We're still doing exploration and finding voids, although it appears that the voids are coming to an end. They're getting much, much smaller and much more easier and right around our pipeline. We do have one area that we haven't done exploration yet and that is up right next to the entrance to Quail Hollow Ranch. There is probably 12-inch round circles or indentations where you can see down into the ground that the soil, the roadway has collapsed. So we have expensed our funds and are close to even expensing, will be close to expensing 600,000. They're very, very shortly. We're still working out there. We hope this will come to an end. There was some real serious undermining at the first location and this location appears to be a lot less, but we won't know until we continue with exploration. There is some hazards out there with the road opening up and we don't know just how big of a void is underneath the road. So we need to continue with the emergency exploration. I'm asking you amend the contract and not to exceed 600,000. Again, working with FEMA this week on multiple projects, including the Brookside Drive project and this project, this project is not obligated as of yet either and we're expensing money that we're not sure we're going to be reimbursed for on this project, but it's with our mainline. We need to move ahead. I'm asking the board to approve the contract amendment. Garrett was on the project when we hired MME to manage after Josh and he could probably answer questions up to the degree of the holes that were found. We'll try to answer questions. I'm concerned about the entire pipeline because a lot of it cuts through that same kind of ground. My understanding is that was constructed in exact conformance with county standards, county requirements, correct? The backfill, the trench, yes, the pipeline was installed at district standards, which I do believe not only it's ductile iron, which is probably the best in my opinion, but we've also, Garrett, correct me if I'm wrong, we have field lock gaskets. So each joint is restrained, although it's not good not to have a bench around your pipe and so forth. You don't want it to kick or to move, but at this point, we haven't found any damage to the pipe. Okay, I'm good with the pipe. I'm mostly worried about other washouts. So when you say 600,000, how much of that downslope on Quail Hollow is we going to be looking at? I can't answer that, Bob. And nonetheless, we do further exploration. We have no, you know, you get indications in the road because the trench seems to start to get like bird bass or settling. And that's what we have at the upper end. And then the lower end, we're working now, the road just came down.  So we probably won't know again till next winter or that. And now if you want to go out and do trench, you know, I think we need to explore. Well, we looked into when they call it not X-Rang, but we looked into they could do pot blowing. Yeah. And we could do pot blowing and that something, you know, that will get expensive as well. We cannot have Quail Hollow compromise. I mean, the worst thing that happens is Quail Hollow washes out.  You know, we exhibited above and below. And above is where we found, you know, continual voids. And we're addressing those. And we went a ways below. We went 100 feet below the last void we found. And we found the backfill to be integrity. I think we need to consider doing more.  I think we learned something from this project about how to be operating inside of sandhills in terms of county standards and that sort of thing. I think there's an opportunity here for collaboration. So we don't repeat this in the future because we will surely have other pipes that we're going to be putting into that same kind of environment. So I mean, let's fix this first. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we need to make sure that we're not being told by the county next time we go in there, do it this way again, right? For only once. So, but yeah, I really would strongly, I do not want this, us to find out about a failure in the middle of a rainstorm. I think we're the car and the whole potential. Okay, other questions? So have we reached any kind of conclusion as to how much of this problem is the result of county standards that we work to and how much of it is other unknown factors or things we didn't do right? We have not. Okay. Okay. Just as an observation, I happened to drive Quail Hollow Road yesterday and we had one man down the trench and a stretch about the length of this room unpaved basically. I mean, it just had loose, some loose asphalt on it. They were working down there at the lower end. I did notice some potholding up at the upper end, particularly right at the beginning as you mentioned. It was difficult for me as an outside observer basically to tell where they had actually repaired and completed the repair. Comparing that with other places on the whole stretch of road, you see a line of dark asphalt in the middle and it's been compacted and everything. So it was difficult for me to, I didn't stop or ask anybody. I just happened to be driving down there. It was difficult to know where they had already fixed things versus where it hadn't been touched yet other than the fact that some of the places have a pretty substantial population. Correct. And I think to make that a little more difficult, Jeff, the county's doing digouts and getting ready for sealing for the winter. And there's additional digouts along Cuell Hollow. I mean, deficiencies in the asphalt and that makes it even more difficult to find where they were working. We can provide you some mapping if that would help. I mean, I don't know that way that we could get that detailed for you. I was just observing. Not my job to stop and ask questions or anything. I drove by because I was going through that area anyway and I think they were working. There was a small crew, five or six people perhaps, plus a couple of road guards. The big digout was just below the entrance to the quarry. That kind of gives you a landmark. I don't have any specific questions about, you know, this particular emergency contract amendment, but I guess it would be great if we could do overall debrief on this project to look at the entire cost from the original work all the way through, because we've done several contract amendments on this work. So it feels like it would be good to sort of have a debrief on the process at some point so that we can understand the total impact of this one project. Rick, I wanted to clarify what you were saying earlier. I thought I heard you say, and we're close to expending $600K. We are. So you well exceeded the $250K already and they're now exceeding working. What's that? They'll exceed it again. They've been working. We were just getting the pricing and the actual costs have been coming in this week for the breakdowns. And yes, they have extended. I didn't think they have that yet, but they have. So we're playing a little catch up. We're close to exceeding $600K. And that's what you're asking us for. We're not done. We're not. So this number isn't going to be $600K. This is going to be just a million. It could be up to a million. We'll know more when we open up. And do we have an idea when we're going to open up the entrance? Right now, they're following the void past the sand plant. Okay. Especially if we do the whole on that road. So if we have done about 250 feet so far is what I saw in your memo. Okay. I was thinking we have done 250 feet for 250,000, but no, the 250 feet maybe familiar. You've said we've finished 250 feet and there's this other area near the entrance. It's about how much? I can't tell you. I just know that there's an area. Okay. I can tell you that the sinkholes there are only less than 100 feet. Maybe 50, 75 feet. There's only a few of them.  Not helping so much, but saying yes, we're good with because what I see in the design that you're using, or what you've described, putting these drainages in, that's not, wasn't part of the original design. No, it was not. That was because of the amount of water flow. Once we brought on a team of experts of engineers, Choff and Wheeler, MME, and then there was a couple others that MME brought in and said it was important to get that de-watered and to put that drain in so we could do the work. We had a significant flow. Now, that flow has dropped way off to nothing right now. But this piping that you're putting in is part of the permanent installation? At that location. Not planned at the next location up at the entrance because we don't have the water. Right, okay. But you're doing things that aren't part of anybody's design right now. The design was with Choff and Wheeler and MME and approved by the county. We submitted to the county. Did the county have that then in the game? Is the county there on an ongoing basis? I don't believe so. Have you seen them here? Are they? No, they're not making daily site visits. We are doing video or pictures or something like that. Yeah, there's daily logs and photographs of all the work. Okay, so then we got their approval beginning. The reason I'm going here is, I don't know how much of this is conditions that we're experiencing in the field with O. This is what it's like now. How are we changing design on the fly at all to accommodate what's there? Or are we following through on the design that the engineering team and the county has given us and bought off on? And that's what we're using for this repair work area. Outside of the drain, I think we're done installing the drain. We're using the backfill that we feel that will let the water move through and then with slurry. And that we're following as a trench backfill and as a void backfill. Right. And that's assessed as we go. And did the county then buy off on this drain system then? Okay. All right. Are we doing as-built drawings then? Yes. After the, okay, after this is all completed. Okay. And I'm guessing the all of this money for now is coming from reserves. I would have to double check that with Kendra, but I would say so. Yes. Do you have any other pockets? No, I do not. Okay. I would say yes. Yes, I'm guessing the magic money where this is coming from. Okay. Okay. And we have had extensive discussions with FEMA and it is on its way hopefully to be obligated. And then that will reimburse us 75%. But it has not been obligated. Yes, but the odds are we're, we have that expectation that they will reimburse that. I don't have that yet. But we're not there yet. And if they do. How much have we asked them to reimburse? Well, with FEMA, Jeff, you put in a scope of work. On the scope of work, say it's due. And then you sign the bill. And then they pay, if they obligate your scope of work, then they pay actual 75% of actual costs. To point to Bob who was making earlier about wanting to have some assurances for investigating the rest of the area, I think we need to do something. We need to look at the book. Let me finish up. To look at the rest of this area also. Some way and get the engineering teams involved that you've had. I think it would be appropriate to bring back to the board a map just showing this. Here's where we've done the repairs. Here's what we saw in this area. Here's the, you know, the entrance, whatever that extent is also. And then here's what we've done in the rest of the years. And if it's spacing out some, some potholes, or if it's doing some other kind of compaction probe assessments, whether it's through any geophysical method or something else like that, but something else down that line to assess what is the rest of it. And I don't think that we're, that we would ever get to 100% assurance with these other methods, unless we excavated everything. And I'm not, I'm not of the opinion that we need to excavate everything, but I would like some level of confidence rather than just eyeballing for where the depressions are or for where the sinkholes are in the, in the asphalt. Something along the rest of it that says, yeah, we tested three other locations on the rest of the line there where we didn't see anything and we didn't see any voids. So we think that something like something along the pipe, I, I get concerns that there may be voids on your Quail Hollow Road that have nothing to do with our project, that, you know, I don't want to start lifting and looking and all of a sudden we find that Quail Hollow Road is undermined in multiple locations. I'm not suggesting to look at other locations. So I'm, you know, I'm a little, a little nervous moving ahead, but I totally get that we need to make sure about the integrity of our pipeline trench. Talk, talk to the engineers. Yeah. And see what they would recommend to somehow assess the stability of the, the backfill material, the compactions there and what's under the trench in these other areas. There's, yeah, pommelings one way. Is there, is there a early video? And we've been looking at different techniques to see if then we can X-ray, I mean, there's different ways of doing things to find voids. Is ground penetrating radar? Yeah. Is that, and we kind of wrote the consultants kind of ruled that out, but you could find voids with that, but these voids are probably too small and not of the right. So there's none.  There's things that we can do and we'll discuss that with the, with the team. Talk to, talk to discuss that and see what, and I would like to see something after you've had this discussion with, with the engineering team, if you could show us something, if not the next meeting, but one after that on this, so that we can see how, how about we bring this back to the engineering committee? I think that that's a little more than tomorrow. Yeah. But I mean, the next engineering month, yeah. And we may be able to, you know, if I get something concrete, then I can ask for a special engineering committee meeting. And then once we get a, a solution from our discussions and I can bring it to the full board for approval, that's, I think that's good. That'll be good. Can I ask one more question? It'll at least move this along and give us some, give the board some level of comfortability. Okay. We have looked beyond where we see these depression in the, in some level. Okay. So I am not a geologist, but I live on a sand hill. And I've been looking at a cross-section of one for the last 35 years out my front window. And I know that you've got lots of loose sand, but you go down the ways and you run into what is generally known as poorly-eclomerated sandstone. It's not, it's, it's, it's sand. It's stuck together. If it had been stuck together for another 50 million years, it probably would be real hard sandstone, but it's not. And one of the things I see when I look across the street at this cross-section where it was cut is all manner of gopher holes, some things like that, that make parts of that hillside look like Swiss cheese. And so, and also act as conduits for rainwater that washes out of the side of the hill when it rains. So we may want to think about, you know, some of these sand hills, you go down 100 feet, it's all soft sand. Some of them, you've got this poorly-eclomerated sandstone, which will support, you know, I've got holes this big around across the street from my house going into the hill, coming out somewhere else. And this winter we've lost a lot of the hillside because those things have gotten wet and the hill is lost, but this poorly-eclomerated wigged sandstone has lost its integrity in the last. So it would be useful, I think, to know what's down there because you may well have resident gopher holes or old roots that brought it away 100 years, 1,000 years ago, that left tons. And if you want to see that, you can come over to my house and I'll show you. Well, we did some geotech work before the project started. So we did know what the soils were like along that line. This is part of our standard process. But did we know every inch of it? I guess my point is that if you got the rigid stuff, that this poorly-eclomerated sandstone, it will support a pretty good size, you know, gopher hole type thing, running through it for quite some distance. And you might have run, you might be running into that.  And because we've had conversations, we're concerned about the entire line. And agreed. Then I'd like to make the motion that the board direct the district manager to amend the existing contract with Anderson Pacific in an amount not to exceed $600,000 for the repair of the failed potable, water made of quail hollowed wood. I will reluctantly second that. Okay. So we'd like to hear from the public to see if there are any questions or comments on this issue. Seeing none, Holly. President Smalley. Yes. Vice President Hill. Yes. Director Ackman. Yes. Director Fultz. Yes. Moving on then. New business. The 2021-22 stream flow report. Yes. And the district's environmental planner is here to do the introductions. And we have a consultant as well. Karlie. Thank you, Rick. All right. This item is a presentation by the district's consultant balance hydrologics on the water year 2021 and 2022 stream flow, salinity and temperature monitoring and operation gauging report balance began working with the district in 2014 to collect this valuable data. The data is used. Yeah. Sorry. This data is used to inform regulatory agencies, assist with operations and establish a baseline for future projects. In water year 2019, a more refined monitoring and diversion management program was developed, reducing gauging to dry season monitoring and removal of gauges on non-operational diversions. The district also requested to separate the ecological and operational gauging. These ecological data will be used to evaluate the potential impacts of the district's diversions on stream flow and temperature for ecological regulatory purposes for habitat monitoring and for conjunctive use studies. While the operational data will be used to better understand how its diversion may affect flow and habitat values, ensure compliance with water right bypass requirements and allow for treatment operators to easily assess diversion flows. Annually balance completes report exploring the data collected during the water year and this 2021 2022 report is included as part of the memo. I'm also happy to welcome Chelsea Neal from balance hydrologics who is with us tonight to present the report's findings and highlights. And after the presentation, Chelsea and staff are both prepared to answer any questions the Board of Public may have. Welcome Chelsea. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Here tonight to share the monitoring that we did for dry season 2021 and 2022 for stream flow and temperature for the water district. So giving a little bit of project history, balance first began stream gauging for the district in 2013-2014. We started out with a pretty robust monitoring program. I think there were about 13 gauges on nine different creeks with the goal of really understanding all the various watersheds and the relationship with all of the district's diversions. As Carly mentioned, we did this monitoring program for about five years and then worked with the district to refine the program, seeing what was really important and how we could narrow down our scope. We also did a few key or specific studies during the initial five-year period. And as Carly mentioned in 2019, we did split the ecological gauging and the operational gauging and for 2021 for the ecological gauging we further refined. This was right after the CCU fire. And so with much of the district's diversions had been lost, some of our gauges had been lost. We decided to only monitor on Foreman Creek for 2021. And in 2022, we monitor on both Foreman and Boulder Creek. And then we've also been doing operational gauging, which was originally on Fair Creek and Fall Creek. That gauge was also destroyed in the CCU fire and now it's just Fall Creek for the time being. This is a summary of the 2021 streamflow. If you'll remember, 2021 was a critically dry year. There was about just under 19 inches of rain here in Boulder Creek. That was about 37 percent of average. And at the USGS Big Trees Gauge, the mean annual streamflow was about 16 percent of average. 2021 was the second consecutive dry year and was also the first year post-fire that we did monitoring. So up top on this graph, this is precipitation. This is just for the dry season from May to October. And then we have streamflow. So this is Foreman Creek. At the beginning of the season in May and June, flows ranged from about 0.1 to almost up to 0.2 CFS. In mid-July, this is when the district stops its operation of its diversion. You can see the increase in flow up to about 0.2 CFS and then the recessional flow for the remainder of the dry season. In terms of temperature, we like to look at the seven-day forward rolling average. This is a metric that local fisheries biologists have come up with. It's a threshold for steelhead and staying below that threshold is the most viable for juvenile rearing. And so here we see Foreman Creek stayed well below that 20 degree threshold with maximum temperatures at 16 degrees Celsius. For 2022, also a dry year, though not as dry. There was about 37 inches of rain here in Boulder Creek, about 74% of average. And the menial flow at the big treats gauge was 54%. This is now the third consecutive dry year. I'll also mention that the Foreman Creek gauge was varied during the debris flows of 2021. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. A similar graph here with the precipitation up on top. In orange, we have the Boulder Creek stream flow, which started out during the season at about 0.4 CFS and then receded down to about 0.2 CFS for the remainder of the season. Foreman Creek had a little bit more water in water year 2022. Rows ranged from about 0.2 to 0.1. And then when the district stopped its diversion flows went up to about 0.3 CFS. You'll also probably notice at the end of the season, you see a slight rise in the hydrograph. That's during the fall as leaves start to fall and there's less of that flow transpiration. We tend to see face flows generally rising during that time of year, even if there's no precipitation. Once again, for temperature, you'll stay well below the 20 degree Celsius threshold. The maximum temperature on Boulder Creek was 19 degrees Celsius and on Foreman. A little bit warmer than what we saw in 2021, about 17. You'll also notice that there's a temperature reversal where Boulder Creek is warmer in the summer and the cooler in the winter. We've noted this temperature reversal every year that we've done monitoring. As I mentioned, there's the debris flow on Foreman Creek on the top here. These are photos of before the debris flow starting on the left here. We have the district's diversion and below is after close. And you can see all of the sediment and the changes in vegetation. This was our gauge prior to the debris flow underneath a root watt here and that pool was completely buried by the sediment. And this is standing at our gauge looking upstream. You can see the pretty dramatic difference in the channel. Some of you may have seen there was some ring doorbell footage from the debris flow that was actually taken from this deck here just across from where our gauge was just upstream of Highway 236. This is what Fall Creek looked like before the summer at the fish ladder. So, Balance has been operating a stream gauge on Fall Creek upstream of the diversion starting in 2013. But in 2018, we worked with the district to install a real-time gauge. This was the setup with our gauge here. And this gauge reported directly to the district's SCADA system, as well as to an online portal that Balance hosts. And this information has been really critical for the district in terms of managing the diversion. They can actively see how much flow is being bypassed and make any adjustments needed to the diversion operation. We did remove all the equipment prior to construction and have been working with the contractor to make sure that we're still accounting for flows during this construction season and then can reinstall when the construction's finished in the new fish ladders in place. I will also say Water Year 2023 was a remarkable Water Year as we're all aware. And so unfortunately both the Boulder Creek and Foreman Creek gauges were lost during the high flows. These are photos that show Boulder Creek prior to the storms and afterwards. This is what it looks like and our gauge is gone. Similarly on Foreman Creek, our gauge is underneath this large duck fir tree which fell over on top of the gauge and you can see the root water varying where the gauge used to be. Just a quick summary, the gauging program that Balance has been doing has provided a quantitative baseline for stream flow and temperature over a range of conditions we've monitored both extremely dry and extremely wet years. The 2021 and 2022 Water Years represent consecutive dry years, actually the second and third consecutive dry year. The Foreman Creek gauge was varied in 2021 and had to be reinstalled for 2022. We saw that the flows in Foreman Creek were slightly lower in 2021 than 2022 and the water temperature remained well below the 20 degree threshold at all of the gauges during this period of monitoring. One observation that we've made over our years of monitoring is that the thermal effects from the diversions seem to be very minimal. It's an observation that we've made for a number of years now which is really positive from an ecological and habitat perspective. The Fall Creek real-time gauge continues to be a critical asset to the district's operations and finally both gauges were destroyed in 2023 and will need to be replaced. That, thanks for your time and happy to answer any questions you have. Okay, thank you, Josie. Let's start with questions, Jeff. What do we lose over the period of time where we don't have gauges in price in terms of data collection? Will we have some, you know, lost data integrity until we can put that back? Yeah, so right now there's no data that's being collected because those gauges were unfortunately lost in the storm so there's no data being collected this summer right now until they're reinstalled. But is there any other way for us to like backfill that information until we can get that replaced or like how do we, what do we do about future reporting when we have that kind of a hole in our data collection? Yeah, I mean typically, you know, we leave the gauges in place. We'll remove, we'll leave our, you know, staff plate and bestowing well the main infrastructure which is not particularly expensive in place and we'll remove the expensive pressure transducers for the winter when they're likely to get washed away. But often we'll try and put them back in and would have done so at the beginning of this year but without them being there it was a little bit more challenging. Yeah, it's definitely tricky. You can look at other gauges and try to do a correlation with how it flows work and we have a lot of previous data that's been collected so you can try to come up with a decent correlation to how these watersheds respond to other watersheds and try to fill in information that way. Can I add to that as well? Yeah, I'll also state as we talked about this has been a pretty different water year that we have a lot of water in the streams. So from the regulatory perspective they're less interested probably in this water year. They're really looking for like the critically dry periods and that's what they're looking for different habitat impacts. So even if we do have this hole for the summer it's not necessarily going to impact our permitting in the future or working with the regulatory agencies. Yeah, I mean I'm really glad. I mean for me the key takeaway is that it continues to be the thermal effects. I mean that's the thing I really care about. The rest of it is good data for you guys but from policy point of view that's what I'm interested in because there are entities that I think are not particularly happy with our water rights applications and this I think continues to show that our surface water use is the minimalist impact on the overall environment and that our water rights should continue as they are and as we want them to be. I think I mean as I recall we've we spent somewhere around $800,000 or something like that on the original five-year or program or something like that. I mean it was an enormous amount of money gathered, an enormous amount of data from a lot of different locations. I think the focus on the ones that we have here is probably an appropriate compromise between amassing lots and lots and lots of data versus data that's actually can be used for what we're trying to do at a policy level. So thank you for continuing to do that. Yeah and you know having established that long record you have a lot more to gain and to show that like you know we have collected this data this is what we've learned and so I think that puts you in a really great position with the regulators too in terms of you know being able to understand the watersheds and how they're working. And this data goes right into our EIR right? Right it will be feeding all the modeling that we're doing right now. So that's the second thing I care about. Okay so great thank you. So to kind of follow up on what Bob was saying this isn't regulatory required. We're doing this for our benefit then so that we can have this to substantiate the EIR. And yeah any permitting we go through when we have any discussions with regulatory agencies it's really good to show here's this data record we have. It may not be required Mark but it's regulatory adjacent and in fact the way that it works is if you don't do this you aren't going to get what you want. Okay thank you Bob. So as a scientist I have to ask the question how much data is enough data? I didn't want to ask that. Well it's a good question. I did a lot of ground water monitoring as an environmental consultant and it was always this how much data is enough data. So I need to pose that question to our two experts here. We have nine years at this point and the point that Bob made on no changes in the water temperature where the diversions are shut off versus when they're when they're working. Great I like that conclusion but we have enough data to say that conclusively now. Okay can I ask for a political statement on that? Until we get our water rights fixed then maybe we can stop. We get our permits now everything in place. Then we can stop. Okay. Then we can maybe take it you know dial it down. We have dialed it back considerably but in the beginning. But this evening you're not asking us for additional budget approval. This is already yet? Yes. So the reason we have this gap right now during this time period is because we did go out to bid for this work. So we have two proposals and we're bringing that to the board probably this next upcoming meeting or we might try to bring it to the committee first. Let's we'll have to discuss that but ideally we bring it to the board and get the contract in place so we can start collecting data again. Okay okay all right so for as long as we need it to then substantiate changes that we're trying to make in our permitting environment and to support the unit. And I will add to that that anytime you have an active diversion it's not a bad thing to have some kind of data of what you are bypassing because if something comes up where someone challenges us we have that record to prove we're not going over our bypass limit. We're not you know like what we're doing at Fall Creek. Right. So we're always showing that we're within our water right we're within our bypass. And a full support of where we need that support the diversion such as at Fall Creek. Yes we should be taking that on an ongoing basis so that there's no question about that. But then rest of the data looks like it doesn't sound like it's or a direct operational aspect because I'm understanding it's more for the ecological here's how it's responding part of the record that we can use to substantiate the changes that we want to make. I do use it for operational. That's what we said for Fall Creek yeah that operational aspect and the limit on that. Let's keep in mind that you know from a water usage point of view this district is performing a level that a lot of people around the state would be like to be at. So we're not increasing our water usage and so all these concerns that people have about how much water we're taking out we're lower on a per capita basis I mean we're let's say 20 or 30 years ago. So substantially lower. So I mean all that sort of rolls into the hopefully rolls into the EIR that historically we're also taking out less than we used to on a per capita basis. I could answer my question just a lot longer. Thank you. Any comments from the public on this item? Seeing none. They're not asking us for any motion at this point. That's right. Other than accepting this report. So you need a motion to accept it? We have in the past yeah okay so we could reject the report. Then I move that the board accept the staff report and presentation concerning the water year 2021-22 stream flows salinity and temperature monitoring and operational gauging report. Second that. President Smalley. Yes. Vice President Hill. Yes. Director Ackerman. Yes. Yes. Moving on to. Thank you Chelsea. Thank you. Thank you Chelsea. Item 5B the Verizon cellular site. Yes thank you Mark. In February 2023 the district was contacted by Sequoia Development Services. Inquiring of the district was interested in leasing approximately 750 square feet of land that either the district's lion water treatment plant or the Huckleberry tank site located in Boulder Creek. Of the two sites the Huckleberry sites problematic with the neighborhood and protected environmental species as that property is Sandhills and the district has run into oppositions in the past from the neighborhood as recently as talking about the KBZC or whatever radio station in Boulder Creek. So the district directed Sequoia towards the lion site is a good location that has ample flat ground and is more remotely located than the Huckleberry site. The initial site visit of the lion tank was very pleasing to Sequoia. They are proposing a lease of an additional term of five years plus four years and five years automatic renewal options for a total of 25 years. They propose to rent an annual rent amount of 15,000 in discussion with other real estate type development folks that do this for a living 17,000 was more in line with other wireless sites because this is more of a wireless internet than it is cellular phone and there's there I don't understand all this but there's a much greater value in this type of site. In recent discussions with Sequoia for Verizon Wireless they would like to start architectural design, survey, draft lease and preliminary tower report at an estimated cost of $10,000 and ask that the district approve their concept of installing a cellular site up at the lion treatment water site before moving forward as they're looking at expending funds. Local public safety is very supportive of the installation of another wireless communications facility in the Boulder Creek area. The service has been very unreliable during CZU and during the Atmosphere River events, the recent events there has been no cell service, no internet service and no even texting in the Boulder Creek area. However, you know, wireless communications facilities can be very and most likely will be controversial in the populated neighborhoods as these towers have electronic equipment and antennas that receive and transmit cell phone signals using radio frequency RF waves as part of the permitting process. Public outreach will be required and most likely the district would probably want to make sure that this board also did public outreach moving ahead and staff is asking the board to approve the concept moving forward. I don't have any questions. I just have, you know, the desire to be able to use my cell phone between 236 and the outskirts of Boulder Creek. So if this would improve that, sounds like it would. You're ready to approve there. I'm very ready to move forward. It's a huge problem. I've noticed that gap in cellular communications for years. I've been doing that commute over skyline, you know, for a decade. I don't know if it'll help with that necessarily. You don't think? It's possible. Did they lose their antenna during the fire? Is that the idea? I think it was a lot of power loss and just internet was down and when it seems like the internet goes down we lose everything. You know, I'm not sure how it's all interconnected but is this an augmentation or a complete new site? Do you know? I don't know.  But I know they don't like doing that kind of thing. What about the environmental aspects for our employees that would be up at the site relative to cellular signals and that sort of thing? That's a good question that we should ask. The site is not staffed all day long. They're up there for a couple hours, Monday through Friday, and there's some duties on the weekend. It's not a 24-hour or even an eight-hour staff site, but site do come and go. And we wrote, staff are rotated through the treatment plan. So it's not the same staff individual up there all the time. That's a good question. Well, and where exactly would this be located relative to the plant and tank and all that?  It's going to be up on the knob by the smaller lion tank. Okay, well, that's better because the cellular signal goes off like this typically. So as long as the building is generally sort of underneath the cone, there shouldn't be a tremendous amount of signal issues. And I imagine there will be an environmental review, and most likely that question will come up in the neighborhood. And is this 5G? Don't know. They seem to be heavy wireless internet. Well, I get that. But Jamie's question, if it's strictly internet, from a voice point of view, you're screwed unless they're deploying VoIP. But it would be, I think, I think in terms of being able to offer this as a benefit to the community, understanding a little bit more about what the benefits are, what services are being provided. Do they have a footprint that they're trying to cover on this on the cellular signals that people can see than a fact that would benefit them? I think all these things would be really important for them to do, and particularly for us to understand if we're going to be the host of this, right? Because at some point, we're going to become the focus of the community, right? And these are some questions that I would like to ask of them and get a little bit more information about. And I think we should, with the agreement, get into it with legal and make sure we cover sub-leasing, because I know in our Scotts Valley site, there's multiple wireless companies on that one tower. We only receive lease payments from one company. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. In terms of, I think we're getting $25,000 more or less from our other leases. What size of footprint is that relative to this? I think it's about the same, but that's a unique lease down there because we don't own the property, but we have a lease. The county owns the property, but it's our easement that we're leasing out. So it's a little, that's what that one's unique. And that's a busy site. There's multiple carriers on that cell site. And when does that lease expire? I couldn't tell you. But where is that site? It's up by the probation tank, right up by the probation center, up on the San Nile by the cross. The cross used to be, or still is. They get to it through our now nice road, actually. Yeah, most of that area is behind gates and things now. Yes, it's a sand house. And when would we start engaging, assuming we approve this tonight, when do we start engaging with them on getting answers? We've already kind of had some non-binding discussions to get this far. I mean, I think what we're saying tonight is not that we are approving a lease. What we're saying is that we're open to a conversation about the concept, but there's no obligation in our part should we decide not to move forward with it sometime down the road. They're not able to provide answers or what have you. We're not obligated to follow through on a signature. I was under the impression that, among other things, we would be agreeing to provide them with access to the site and things like that to do with studying. Yeah, diligence to activities. But what I'm getting at is that we are, in terms of the communications to the community, we are not approving a lease. We're exploring whether or not we can get answers. I mean, to get answers in order to decide whether or not we should approve it. Exactly. And as part of that, we're not granting them access to the studies. Yeah, you have to grant them access for diligent purposes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Questions? Or have you asked? Well, I asked and also Bob was very thorough. It's okay. Thank you. Okay. Oh, and noise. Right. That should be covered as part of their environmental. I would hope so. Yeah. So, in addition to what's been asked, so do we know what the plan is for the horizon's environmental view? Do not. Are they doing the public outreach that you mentioned? For what I remember from our previous discussions with cell companies that there's a requirement as part of their permitting that they have to do public noticing and part of the environmental, they will have to post in the neighborhood. But I would also recommend that the district, because it is a district property, would do some type of outreach or maybe at least make sure that there's something at a board meeting where people can voice concerns. You know, because I don't think one of these can go in without opposition. You know, it's been my experience that, you know, there's a certain amount of people out there that really have issues with this type of communications. Right. What's our potential liability? Because I see indemnifications for them that are in this agreement. What's our potential liability of having this there? I don't refer to legal counsel on that one. And we haven't dug into that yet, but I'm more happy to ask Barbara. At some point, Barbara, I'd like you to address that. I don't, it's just a question this evening. I don't think we need to delve into that. But it is something that I'd like to have. I mean, what you're asking is they should hold as harmless if their people get hurt on site and all that sort of thing. That would be pretty standard. But then also any damage from that installation itself in the event of winds or the rest of that if somebody on earth site is injured. You're talking about the final lease? Yes. Yes, I'm talking about the final. Right. Because I'm looking. Yeah, right now I'm looking at the concept, which is we're going to allow them on our property. They need to indemnify us for any injuries, etc. Right now for ingress and egress to do their exploring. They would have to work on the grant with the district. So we're going to have costs in going through their due diligence assisting them on being up there, any legal reviews, all of the rest of your staff time, all of the rest of that. Is it appropriate to ask them for some type of an upfront fee outside of this lease of annual lease fee? Because you're going to be expending costs just to get to a point of do we want to do this? So, you know, I think that's reasonable. I mean, there will be, I'm not saying it's a several amount of time, but there is staff time. And I've known from past experience with sell companies, they get to a certain point that you do utilize staff time to get to that point and then we never hear from them again. So I mean, if, you know, the county other agencies apply, they charge permitting fees or you put a deposit down and it's time and time and material that you deduct from that, we could definitely do that. There will be someone of a cost for legally to review the agreements. We'll have legal expense and then we'll have our own expense reviewing the environmental, public meeting, so forth. So I think it would be prudent. I mean, this kind of goes back to what we talked about in terms of applications for water making. Same thing. Yeah, agreed. Which we still don't have normality around. So it might be worthwhile to roll all this together in terms of permits and the like for people that want to make use of our resources, but with they have no obligation to buy themselves. All right. Well, you know, staff can put together more of a one off than the water meters. But from a policy point of the same thing. They're expending staff resources in time to then say, oh, we're done. Thanks. We can start to put together a rough estimate and ask for a deposit. I think that that would be appropriate. Nice qualifier. It would show that they're real. Well, I mean, I just think they're real. And that they want to seriously consider this. But if I were them, I'd be talking to other people, too. Pardon me? Well, if I were them, I'd be talking to other people, too. They try to stick with public agencies because they're easier to deal with private partners. They try to. I don't see the annual fee that they're offering as being anything significantly beneficial to us from a money standpoint. However, to your point, if it provides better coverage for the Boulder Creek area, for the Valley area, well, then there's a public benefit there. That we can provide just by letting them boost it. So and it is a different form of revenue. It's not a water rate revenue. Right. Yes. But I still want to ask the question about something up front based on what you think are quantifiable staff costs, legal costs, and anything else like that. I see that they have in their agreement termination options therein. What termination options do we have on our end if we don't like them at some point, or if we see that for some reason we need to abandon that site? I guess the question of the, you know, is the expectation that this is what I would call MOU or LOI or what have you are the only terms that would go into a final lease agreement. If that's the expectation, then they should be disabused at that. If this is just, hey, these are the things that we're thinking about. It's non-binding. It's no big deal. They can be changed later. All says that on non-binding, et cetera. Then I'm not too worried about it. Right. Then is it appropriate to get an example final from them at this point or let them do their due diligence to a point where it's not costing us much of anything? Yeah, I mean, I would tend to go that way. The county just redid the agreement I think three years ago currently for the Scotts Valley cell tower, and that was a pretty extensive agreement. We can pull that to provide that to legal counsel. I think Mark's got a really good point. I just didn't want to spend much money of district funds on it, until we knew that they were seriously wanting to sit down. But if we charge them a deposit and get our cost recovery, we could start looking into this a little more. Yeah. I mean, the paragraph after the points is pretty clear about not paying legal and binding. I'm relaxed about that. So I see that you have a motion here in front of us. From anything that we've talked about tonight, in particular the any upfront funds, do I need to modify this recommended motion? Probably not. To cover that somehow. Probably. Because you can always come back to us two weeks from now. I move that the district approved the concept of a lease agreement. Actually, maybe it ought to be. Do you have to sign this? Rick, you do. So I don't think so. Yeah, it says acceptance. Is there? Yep, you got to sign it. So I think the motion is I move that we authorize the district manager to execute the concept of lease agreement with Verizon Wireless for the installation of wireless communication facility at the district flying water treatment facility subject to mutually acceptable terms, including a deposit. We don't need to specify an amount. I will second that. Thank you. Any comments from the public on this? I see that Cynthia has her hand up. Is that correct? Looks like it. Yes. This is Cynthia from Felton. And I'm very interested in getting better communications during emergencies. So I fully support this type of project. My question is, will the district provide power for the cell location? And will it be uninterrupted power? Will there be a generator or battery backup for that cell tower power? Thank you. The district will not provide power, but they will have a PG&E power drop of their own. And this would include a standby generator. Good. Any other questions? I see none. We have a motion with a friendly amendment where you made the motion fully. I made the motion. Okay. Okay. President Smiley? Yes. Vice President Hill? Yes. Director Ackerman? Yes. Director Fultz? Yes. The consent agenda. Does anybody have anything that they want to comment on that? I don't want to pull it now. All right. Grid communication and total information material we have done on those. Thank you all. So this is 748 adjournment. Thank you, Melissa. Have a good evening all.


Hey there friends, thanks for checking in at the range now today We're going to do a range comparison with the Steyr M9 a1 versus the CZ P10C both Very fine handguns polymer frame striker fire compact size models with four inch barrels And both have their share of followers many people don't realize How many people love the Steyr models and they are their great handguns The one thing that sets them back is that you don't typically see them at your local gun store And that is because once imported and distributed they get eaten up very quickly Because people really like them great ergos to it now. This is the M9 It does come with mags that carry 17 rounds with a four inch barrel. It is very wide and squared off Does have a accessory rail right there. This is the flat dark earth Possibly the OD green. I can't remember looks OD green to me But a very smooth shooter easy to disassemble it has trapezoidal sights Which is a little unique it has angled lines in the rear and a triangle in the front and what makes this Very cool. I think is that all you do is fill that triangle Into those angles and it's pretty dead nuts now the trigger pull is really nice It does have a trigger bar safety in there nice positive strike Not much of a tactical reset, but a short reset Right there Right around five and a quarter pounds Already mentioned 17 round mags and a nice looking and firing handgun now they came out with the a2 Mf. Okay, and those are hard to find that Offers a lot more within the grip it offers a full pick rail things like that The urgals on this are fine as is the new models are a little more gritty You can change out the grip panels in the back straps this one you cannot but I'm okay with it because It's got a great feel to it slight finger groove in the grip I'm kind of surprised nobody else has modeled the sight picture Because it's kind of cool, but you can't change them out for night sights if that is your choice Yeah, I love Steyr very nice handguns kind of New ages new age ish how it's kind of wide here and then comes and thins out toward The rear of the slide, but over here. We've got the p10c And this was known to be a Glock killer people said you know when that came out That's a Glock killer and for a while it was probably still is to a degree, but a phenomenal handgun You know people love CZ. I love CZ and when they came out with this It was impressive as it is today now It's a fully ambidextrous gun both magazine release and slide stop on both sides and 15 round magazines four inch barrel. This does have the front serrations three dot sights a Great trigger pull breaks right around five pounds with the reset Right there. It has stood the test of time Although the Steyr M9 is older and that has stood the test of time too Although there were some ejection issues with the earlier models that one is there has been fine for me But this has been around for about four or five years and it has gained a great reputation And since then CZ has come out with the p10s the smaller the p10f the larger and Who knows what else but the p10c was very popular still is and I've loved it now. This one here has Grip tape around there. All right, because the texturing was very aggressive with this model They slipped it out a bit with the p10s, but a great handgun MSRP 499 And I think that's very fairly priced. Let's take a few shots Wow Love it Love the way it feels love the way it functions and That did not There we go. I'd never recall that happening before But anyways, here we have the CZ p10c Steyr M9 a1 both phenomenal handguns Which would you choose and I'm going to give you my decision right now? Love them both. I Think I love the steyr because it's a little more unique little different. It is hard to find I like the OD green frame, which I do believe it is OD green. It's not it's not flat dark earth Nonetheless, it's a great handgun, but in this comparison, I'm going with the CZ p10c. I just love this model. I believe I have more confidence in this model I've actually shot it more and I think that you know that trigger pull which Are both great really doesn't for me with the cz p10c if you like videos like this Please subscribe and share. I always appreciate thumbs up button Thanks for watching and you guys be safe


I'm Nancy Frischberg and I want to just say welcome to Kate to Hair because this is your first appearance this year at the Linguistics Career Launch. But Kate and I have been acquainted for many, many, many years from our, I think initially from our relationship to Bake High where you were the dinner coordinator and I showed up at dinner a bunch. And so we got acquainted there and actually have even worked together sometimes in the intervening years and Kate's now been at Salesforce for, wow, more than five years, right? Nine years, yeah. Nine years, wow. All right, Kate, take it away, tell us everything. All right. Well, thanks everyone for coming. Welcome to Right Great Air Messages. This is an introduction for you for linguists today. So, well, today we'll cover what air messages are and how they get to be where they are, why they deserve your attention, your linguistic attention and how to apply our expertise as linguists to air messages. We'll talk about standards and audience, interaction design and process, and then we'll split up into small groups and look at some examples and then get back together and report them what we've seen. My background, I, as Nancy said, I've been working at Salesforce for nine years. I have written thousands of air messages of various kinds and also written a lot of standards and guidelines for over, that are in use by over 200 technical riders at Salesforce. I have a patent on a process for organizing and managing user interface text and that's me in a nutshell. So what are air messages and how do they get where they are? In software, we talk about the happy path. So that's what happens in an ideal world. And before I talk more about that, I'm going to, I want to show you a historical example of an air message from the 1970s. Yeah, so it's arguable and you could argue about whether Hal's end of that conversation was guided. I know some of you have been in the conversation design track over the last few weeks, but so an error is something that knocks the user off of that happy path and just the way the software is supposed to work. It's like any other user interface text, it's part of a, like any other user interface text, it's part of a conversation with someone who wants to get something done, but now the conversation runs off the rails and you have to get your conversation partner, you as the error message writer have to get your conversation partner back on track. So how do error messages come to exist and where do they pop up? Well, first there are a few kinds of error messages. So one is, for example, the validation. So for example, you've left a required field empty and the software checks to make sure that you can't continue without providing that information or you've put the wrong sort of value in a field. Those are validations. Other kinds of errors are exceptions. So for example, the connection, that's the technical term. So for example, the connection between your device and the software server has been lost, even, you know, maybe your Wi-Fi goes down or there's some problem with the server. Those are some of the ways that error messages can errors can happen. So who identifies these scenarios so that you can write the messages? Well, engineers, designers, researchers, you, sometimes it's users, your customers, find problems and report them and the engineers fix them. And by the way, engineers is a synonym for programmers, which is a synonym for developers, so you'll see all those terms used. But the team of people working on software has to, they have to somehow identify these messages. I've worked in places where that's kind of an ad hoc, a little bit random process. And in other places, the process can be really structured and it's paired with test planning for the software. Where do messages appear? What do they look like? Well, they can appear on mobile devices, on desktop computers, they can appear in different OSs. And they can appear in dialogue boxes, which you've all seen, a little window with a title and a body and a button, or they can appear in something called a toast, which is a banner that pops up. That's why they call it a toast. There also are API errors. That's errors that are just seen by software developers making software. And I'll go into that a little bit. More later. So why do error messages deserve the attention of a linguist? Well, linguists understand how language generates meaning and prompts emotion. A lot of companies errors and other UI text is written by engineers and designers. And I think that goes a long way toward explaining why so much software is so hard to use. So good for companies that employ writers linguists to do this work. I once worked with a developer. We were working on a project and I asked him, is there any UI text in this particular part of the project we were working on? He said, no, just some error messages. So that's not the right attitude. So linguists know how to convey meaning. You know how to make sentences work, right? An error message is an interruption and it can worsen the distraction. The message itself can worsen the distraction of the error or it can resolve it. So how are word choice and syntax operating? And for example, this message that you can see on the screen, something to think about, how does your brain respond to an error? Well, your prefrontal cortex is involved in trying to resolve linguistic ambiguity. And those neurons are firing in there and they're engaging you. Like you want to solve the problem. If the message is confusing, your brain's going to be stuck there and those neurons are going to be firing and keep you in that state of confusion. You as a linguist can resolve confusion and sometimes the difference between clarity and confusion is pretty subtle and that's where really we can all come in and save the day. Linguists also understand language's emotional impact at a crucial juncture in the user's experience. So timing is a part of how error messages affect us. Does an error message come up late in the process of something that you as a user are doing? Does the error result in extra work? These are things to be aware of and think about. You may not be able to prevent the error, but you can mitigate its impact on users. Think about the context. Is the user dealing with sensitive information like medical and health information or money, bank data? Another thing is, so then the content is the part that you have control over, is the look and the feel and the tone sensitive and helpful or are they oblivious and inappropriate? No one likes to be interrupted and when errors appear they tend to make users annoyed or upset. So your message has an important role in mitigating that and helping a user get back on track. Let's talk about some dos and don'ts. What should you put in an error message? The main thing is to say what went wrong and how to fix it. It's a map back to where you want to be in the software. So you are here at plus directions for getting back on the trail. So in this message we've got a title. We say what's wrong. You can't run your report. And then there's a body that talks about why. And then there's a button where the user can acknowledge that they've seen this thing. In some cases the button can go to, say what you need to do to fix the problem is to change a setting. So the button could go and open up your settings page. In this case, user clicks got it. The dialogue goes away. And there's the report again with its filter adjustments. And the user uses those and tries again. So that's how this area is resolved. More about what to put in there. To help users recover, get back on track, focus on the solution more than on what the problem is. So on the left there's a zip code field and the message says the zip code you entered is invalid. So like I said, say what users can do rather than what they can't. So on the right it says enter a valid zip code and that's nice and clear. This idea of saying what's wrong and then how to fix it, often you end up with two sentences and two short sentences are always better than one long one. But sometimes you can easily imply the problem in the solution rather than first stating the problem and then the solution. That's what's happening in this message here. Let's look at some don'ts. Be really concise. It's amazing how you can cut back and cut back. It's important to be really concise. Make every word count.  Leave out irrelevant details. Just tell users what they need to know. You may get lots of details, information from an engineer when you get specs for writing an error message and it's your job to figure out just what users need to know and know more. They're trying to figure out how to get unstuck and extra information is just confusing. So think of it as a kind of budget with everything. An error message has to compete with everything that's on the screen, in the room, inside the user's head, all of that is swirling around in a user's brain. So think of this as a kind of budget process. So with each message scenario, you have limited space and time to get the user back to the happy path. So use it well. So examples of irrelevant information are technical information for programmers. If you're writing for a consumer interface, then just developers will tend to give you technical information. It doesn't belong there for users. Unless it's something they don't need and then you need to express it in a way that is going to make sense to them. Another thing is a business process. So raise your hand if you've been in a conversation with a customer service representative who's responded to your problem by explaining how the company's system works. Do you care? No. So yeah, stay away from business process and stuff like that that really doesn't matter to users. That's one of the things that can confuse and annoy them. The overall thing, and this doesn't only apply to error messages, but to user interface text in general, there are English words that have have developed engineering meanings, in other words, jargon. And they show up in these kind of stilted sounding constructions because they come from engineering concepts. So for example, submit, we've all seen a button that says, buttons that say submit. That comes from engineering jargon. Use the English verb that describes what the user is actually doing. So it's save or send whatever it is. Failed is another term that's used in engineering and it has really bad connotations in English. So just talk about what actually is going on from the user's point of view. You couldn't save the task. Insufficient privileges is a term that comes up in applications that involve permission to do something or another thing. Again, just speak English there and talk about permission to access or something like that. Okay, so here's one successfully. And this is not, again, not only related to error messages, but I'm going to talk about it because it's really pervasive. So programmers, the way software development works is programmers send what's called an API. They send a call out and then a response comes back. And it's deemed completed, whether the call succeeds or fails and whatever it was trying to do. So you really see this task failed successfully. Example here is really comes from real life because that's how programming works. But of course, in English, the phrase successfully completed makes no sense because what's the opposite of successfully completed? But this notion of successfully has really propagated all over all kinds of user interfaces I've seen in it, gas pumps and all over the place. So when you see that word successfully, take it out. All right, so let's talk about some about standards, mechanics of writing that probably the most important thing is to keep sentences short. And that's again, an overall rule in technical writing. It's one of the most important ways that you can keep content usable, easy to read. They help everyone. They help non-native speakers of English looking at your app. They help translators translating your material into other languages and locales. And everyone really, it's just easier for everyone to read shorter, simpler sentences. And in general, two short sentences are better than one long one. And that took me a little while to get used to as a writer. But that giving people information in shorter chunks really helps usability. Use the imperative or the first person to talk to users, talk to users with them, don't talk at them. So in the first example, the user should contact their IT person for help. This message is being displayed to the person whose job it is, who needs to contact the IT person. So don't, this is a typical sort of construction that you might see when engineers or people who aren't experienced in writing write messages like this. So just use the imperative. Imagine that you're, again, you're in a conversation with someone, you're talking with them. Couldn't save the document for help, contact your IT person. Take your cues from the UI. Just do what you can to understand how the software works. Walk through each task that you're writing error messages for in a user's shoes. So one point there is to give information in the order users need it. So in the second part of this example, where it's this bullet where it says, select customize on the layout page in your settings. What do you need to do first? First you need to go to the settings and then the layout page and then you select customize. So if you have a sentence like select customize on the layout page in your settings, then users have to read the sentence twice, once forward, and then they need to read it backward again. So don't do that to users in error messages or anything else. In general, use the order if this, then that, rather than the other way around for similar reasons. Every now and then there's something that there's an exception, like for that robot, I'm not a robot check box that we all have to check sometimes to identify ourselves. Check the box if you're not a robot. Works better than if you're not a robot, check the box. There is a, for detecting these kinds of things, if your company has a program like acrylics or something similar that says sort of souped up, those are sort of souped up spelling and grammar checkers. And they can, they flag sentences with if in the middle. So they'll catch your if then, your flipped if then constructions. And oh, and they also will count words in a sentence, which is a super handy feature. So if your sentence is 32 words long, you know, if you run one of these checkers on it, it can catch that sort of stuff for you. You want to echo the wording and capitalization in the UI, especially in an error message, because it helps the user stay on track. It helps them user map what the error says to says to do back into the UI. A couple of notes about internationalization and optimizing content for that. So localization is includes translation into various languages and dial, but also local dialects, local dates and time. So it's not only about the translation per se, but but also about everything is so for if you think of, you know, Montreal versus Paris, there's different versions of French different time zones. And like that. So that's what internet internationalization refers to optimizing whatever you're doing for that process. Again, a plug in like acrylics, flags, modal verbs, which some modal verbs have more than one meaning, for example, may and might to it's best to avoid those. Because again, they can cause problems in, you know, mistranslation or even for English as a second language speakers. You can replace words like may with can, so on. That's probably a whole other workshop maybe next year. The word should can have a whole range of meanings from it's generally best to you absolutely must to this is what happens if everything is working right. So avoid the word should and just cut to the real verb. One more note about internationalization don't concatenate. And so explain what that means. Air messages and other user interface text in computer code are called strings. And if a programmer puts two or more strings together to form one sentence, that's called concatenation. Remember that each string is delivered to translators separately. All they get is one string at a time. So if you divide a sentence in two and one string includes the subject and the other includes the verb translator can't do their job. So don't let a programmer split things up, split sentences up into separate strings and that should be nothing smaller than a sentence. Oh, and a few other tips about internationalization. Translated strings can be up to 30% longer. So keep that in mind when you're writing and work with your programmer and designer to make sure messages fit into this space that you've have. Your developer can put comments in the code to clarify ambiguity for translators. And then the translators will see the comments but the end users won't. So some words can be ambiguous out of context like the word state. Are you referring to Alaska or to the status of something? Some words can be a noun or a verb, order, access. They may be identical in English but not in other languages. They would be different words. So some grammar tips. Well, be precise. Watch for dangling and misplaced modifiers. Again, it's really important in our messages to be precise and concise. So dangling and misplaced modifiers need to go. One thing, one sort of wording construction that I see a lot is acting as if processes were people but a process can't act on itself. So don't say that a setup process didn't complete. Say that it isn't finished. The passive voice, which we are told so often to stay away from, it can be the right choice. There are cases where specifying a subject can just be distracting. So in this sentence, email was sent to Sarah Johnson and three others. Well, where would you, you know, if you put in a subject, you know, the software sent email to Sarah Johnson and three others, you don't really know. I need to know, you know, what the subject is. It's enough to put this in the passive voice. Develop standard phrasing and usage for your app that you're working on because consistency helps minimize uncertainty and it also reduces your workload once you get the standard phrasing down. So, you know, standard messages for common situations like, you know, the server went down or something. Here are some examples of some standard messaging.  Consider your company's voice and tone guidelines because error messages should be, you know, consistent with all the other company's other materials and voice and tone. And I recommend if you're a UX writer taking a copy editing course because there's a lot that kind of basic publishing standards and techniques, you know, can contribute to the whole process of, to any process of writing. And let's see, one more thing about standards, please and sorry. Brought this up and we have standards for these at Salesforce and so please we only use when the problem is the software's fault. And sorry, we use only when the user can't continue without help. And this seems kind of like a subtle distinction, but these are the kinds of subtle signals that help users understand what's going on. Okay, audience. We talk about tone and word choice. So who's using what you're making? You know, really understand like I was saying before, you know, understand how the software is used and who's using it. Imagine walking in their shoes. Are you making software for business people, for bird watchers, for kids?  And find out, you can find out about them from a product manager you're working with, product managers are listening to customers all the time. And a lot of companies have user experience researchers who do studies and write reports about how users have reacted to say prototypes or you know, existing software. And they create representative they can create representative personas, different kinds of people and how many this the software in their, you know, daily activities. And just to note about AP, I mentioned APIs before. So if you're, and I'll explain what that means, if you're writing for software programmers developer, if you're writing API error messages, API stands for application programming interface, and this is not for end users, this is for programmers who are building software. The difference in those messages is that API APIs, programmers are just working on in code line, just one line at a time. So the error messages need more information incorporated in them because when when they appear, developers don't have the kind of context that end users have. Like if you're, if you're using, if you're using Salesforce, which is business software, you're say you're a salesperson, and you're using the software, and you're working on an account record, and an error comes up, you're still seeing the account record there, there's a lot of context around the around the message. A programmer doesn't have it can't see the programmer can't see what field we're talking about or what value they might be missing. So you have to specify all of that in the message and that makes the messages more detailed and longer. But just remember, so I don't have a particularly a technical background, but I have written a lot of error messages for developers in Salesforce. And it's just a matter of, you know, asking questions and taking time to become familiar with what the software does as a whole and, and figuring out, figuring stuff out. That's an important skill of a technical writer is just asking questions, keep asking, you know, figuring out how to get the information that you need.  Should you be funny? Well, it depends. Consider the content and the context because humor can work well in error messages, but be aware of a couple of things. So humor can interfere with clarity because it requires a layer of interpretation. And it can in that way can interrupt the user's thought process. And, you know, just as in real life humor can strike the wrong tone. It can make users feel that the company isn't handling their data securely. Again, think of money or health data. And, and humor is, is more often than not culture specific and tends not to translate well. So if your software is localized, just be very careful about that. And again, remember that errors appear at a crucial juncture and tend to make users feel annoyed or even upset. So just be careful with humor. A little bit on interaction design. How do people interact with your messages to get back on track? Sometimes a developer will ask you to write a message that covers lots of things. And at some point you recognize you, you, this is too complicated. You can't write a clear error message. There are too many possibilities to explain. So on the left here, basically the user can't renew the subscription but for a couple of different reasons. And in this case, I, and, and each, each reason has a separate resolution. So I asked the developer to split the code into so that two separate messages could be displayed. And then each one has a separate resolution. In one case, the user can open the settings and change the settings. In the other case, user can't, it has to click OK and then go and do something else. But it, but at least each message has a specific one single action associated with as the solution. So work, you work with your developer to figure that out. Another way to work with developers is to prevent an error from happening in the first place. So you work with a developer and sometimes a designer to do this. So on the left here, we have you're on a, you're buying shoes and there's a field where you select a color. But right now, the only option is black. So, but you neglected to make a, make the selection for that field. So you got an error says, and then the field is required.   So why didn't it just, you know, decide for you? So on the right, I got the developer to, supposing I was the writer here, the writer has gotten a developer to make black the default selection. So it's already pre-selected and the user, there's no opportunity for an error to happen. You might not want black shoes, but that's a different problem. Different error formats have different writing requirements. So here on the left and right, we have the same message, but it's written differently because in one case it's displayed in a dialogue box, which has a title and a body and a button in this case. And on the right, it's really the same message, but it's written for display in a toast, which was that banner that I mentioned that is called a toast because it pops up. So I'm not addressing visual design here, but be familiar with your company's design standards and work with your developer to make sure that messages are displayed in a way that makes sense. Okay. So sometimes, unfortunately, there are error scenarios where users can't solve the problem themselves, and they need to pass information along to someone else. These scenarios are harder to handle gracefully. So here's an example of one of those where a user has to ask their IT person to do something. And there's really no good way currently of handling this. Maybe in the future, AI will help situations like this. These kinds of scenarios are usually the result of some edge case, something obscure that happened. So just do what you can to make the information transfer from the user to the other party as painless as possible. All right. A little bit about process, collaborating with engineers, researchers, designers, product managers. How do you get started writing, working with all these people? Well, you gather information about each error, and you set up a document or spreadsheet with a template or columns, and I'll have a template that you can copy and take away at the end of the class. So give it these columns, a summary of what the error scenario is, what triggers the error, and how the user can fix it. Another column to indicate how the error is displayed, is it a dialogue box or toast, or is it an API error message? It's useful to have a place to put any existing text or draft that the developer can provide, because even if that stuff isn't written well, it can contain helpful clues for you on communicating exactly what the problem is and how to fix it. And have a space for drafting and finalizing your messages. I suggest color coding it to indicate whether it's in draft or final, and then any other columns that you might want for tracking the work item and so on. So you want a QA, do your own QA of error messages when it gets checked into the, in most cases, writers can't check in error strings themselves, they need developers to do that for them. So companies handle this in various ways, and it can be a manual process where the programmer copies your text into an XML file, these are called label files in ProgrammerSpeak. Your company may have some kind of content management system for user interface text, or there may be a plug into an app that UX designers use, they're different ways. I mean, the industry needs better solutions for user interface text. Some best practices. As I say, you should QA what programmers check in because they can misinterpret your specs, you can't just count on them automatically to get everything right. Everybody makes oversights sometimes, even people who are very good and detail-oriented, and just remember that correction, if you correct something now, right up front, as soon as the error is introduced, it's much less costly than trying to fix it later on, especially if a customer finds it in complaints. And then document your process and use communication channels in your company to reinforce the process so that developers don't just make up their own text and check it in without your knowing. So just a last word. So what about the future of error messages? Will AI be involved in error messages? Voice technology, some of you probably know more about this than I do. Voice technology already can detect a caller's mood and change the voice menu accordingly. I did once yell into the phone and then get a different response back from the bot. That was an interesting experience. So in the future is AI artificial intelligence? Is it going to be used to detect problems and respond to users? Could it walk you through solution? I just think there's a great future for linguists in UX writing. So you're in the right place. Okay. Rachel is going to split you into small groups. And let's see. She's going to share doc with you with a couple of sections. There's some errors, some sample error messages, nine of those, and some sample scenarios plus draft messages. And there's no... So what I'd like you to do is just in your groups, pick a few, one or two, or use the examples that you brought if you brought them. Whatever interests you doesn't matter. And talk in your group about what works and what you might change. And then we'll re-gather in what times it... Let's try to regroup at 1.35 to give everybody time to sort of peruse the messages and discuss things. It's not 1.35 everywhere, but 35 minutes after the hour. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. Speaking of localization. Well, we haven't talked about it yet. It's coming up tomorrow morning. And then Rachel will also share with you another file, which is a template that you can copy for gathering information if you go out and get a job as a user experience writer. So that's what this looks like here. So Rachel, take it away. One of the questions that you didn't get a chance to answer earlier from Caroline, do you want to say it, Caroline? Yeah, sure. Thank you. So one thing we actually spoke about in the breakout rooms was, I guess, how common, confusing or ambiguous error messages are in very mainstream programs such as Tableau, R, Latex. And so one thing I was wondering was what types of resistance you've encountered from different stakeholders and in wanting to dedicate time and resources to writing good error messages. And do you have any advice for how to convince particularly non-linguist or non-linguistically minded stakeholders of the value of evaluating error messages in detail and writing good error messages? Yeah, that's a great question. There is research showing that error messages are really important to developers working on how good error messages are really important to them. I don't have it handy if there's a place, Nancy, maybe where I can follow up with information that I can find. If you pass it to us, we can put it in the Slack and we can send it out in the daily email, whichever you like. Okay, thank you. And I'm going to recommend that we not take up Kelly and Trisha's second to that question because the next session will focus on that as well, right, Sue? So, Sue, just make a note of those questions. Okay, sorry, Kate, back to you. Yeah, so for developer documentation, for non-documentation, for APIs, error messages are really a very important part of developers workflow. They need to be clear and actionable.  Those would be a couple of suggestions. Thank you. Or we can have a first version of that answer and then go on and do more answers where we have more people. Or Nancy says, or have UX researchers coach you on how you can test your own error messages? Yeah. Other questions? So talk a little bit about what your group process was like and how you helped each other write error messages because I wasn't in a group. We talked about good messages and bad messages rather than writing any messages per se. And I commented that oftentimes no message where one is needed is very problematic. Sure. Right. So I was trying to make a reservation, an airline reservation and put the reservation on hold fair. Unbeknownst to me because there was no information about it on the website, that rule did not let you put hold fair on it. But had there been an error message, I would have saved a lot of time and frustration. So I guess the company didn't have very good UX people involved. Right. They didn't investigate. They didn't lay out use cases. Yeah. Chuk had a question, will I share the answers for the exercise? Because there aren't any answers. This is all just about exploring based on what you've learned. So there's no answer key. Sorry. But I thought you guys were doing great job in your breakout room. So you're on the right track. And Alfonso has raising his hand. How nice. So basically, I just wanted to comment on the role of culture when it comes to error messages. For example, in our group, I find it very interesting that we mentioned humour as a something that for me, that's something that works out well. Like when you're just trying to deal with all this frustration like, oh, technically this is not working. And for Sue and Miriam, humour perhaps is not the best approach to it. But to me, it's always kind of, you know, when I just get a bit of a wink from the computer, it's something that I find very interesting. And I just find it catchy. It just kind of helps me relax the entire process. So I suppose that culture might be something to take into account there. And again, US research might be useful in that regard too. And I think they've both been working on business-facing, business users software rather than consumer-facing software. So that may be another reason that we hold back on the humour in the business context. But yes, a little snark can be very nice on a 404 page, you know. Oh my goodness, how did you get here? I'm so sorry. Let's move you on. Nothing to see here, you know, one of those things. Or a little self-deprecating humour like, oops, we're so embarrassed. Please forgive us and, you know, try this.  But poking fun at ourselves as the developer maybe, I think that can kind of diffuse some of the anger that people feel. Yeah, again, keeping in mind, be careful in the context, because you can make it look as if, you just have to be careful, you can make it so that the company isn't taking your data seriously. You don't want to convey something like, what were you thinking?  Things have gone badly. I think Alfonso, you had a nice example of one in Spanish that seemed very kind of relaxed and not overly wordy, but, you know, still fairly direct, but it was in plain language and you found it comforting. I think comforting is a good feeling to come away from. True, and as you mentioned, it was worded in a very nice way so that it actually blamed the developer, the software or the, in these case days, Mozilla. I was like, oops, we cannot reach that place. You know, so it's, as you mentioned, it's humour but very nicely attached. So I totally like that remark. So yeah. Well, in order to give Sue and Kate a chance to splash water on their face or whatever they need to do in the next 10 minutes, I think we're going to have to close out this session.