Welcome back to Senate Education Wednesday, March 1st, 310. We've been talking about school safety, and one of the things we've been saying in committee is gosh, it'd be great to get our heads around sort of a on-the-ground understanding of how all of this works. And Mr. Moreno was kind enough. Mr. Moreno, you're the principal, right? At the Williston Central School? Hi, I'm lead principal at the Williston School. So I support both Allenbrook and Williston Central. Great. And we should ask you what you're filming with this film, just so I'm curious. Great, and so we're thrilled to have you here. We're going to take advantage of having you here, not only to talk about school safety, but we will also have a couple other questions for you. And we really appreciate it, since we know you're on break right now. I don't know if you ever really get a break from the incredible work you're committed to, but we do appreciate you helping us out with our conversation around school safety. And your name was given to us by D. Barbic, the director of the Violence Prevention Task Force, from us, the director of Violence Prevention Task Force. So you could just tell us, Mr. Moreno, a little bit about your work and how your role in your school, and then also a little bit around the role you play as it relates to school safety. That would be great. Certainly. So my name's Greg Moreno. I am in my eighth year as lead principal at the Williston Schools, which is part of Champlain Valley School District. For all that time, I have also served as the chair of the Williston School Safety Committee. I've also been involved in co-leading the district safety efforts at CVSD with the chief operations officer. Previously it was Gene Jensen. Now it's Gary Marquess. I have been a school administrator in Vermont, involved in school safety work for 16 years since I moved here with my family in 2007. And this is my 29th year in education. So in my role as the chair of the safety committee, the school safety efforts are a big part of my responsibilities. Terrific. So can you tell us a little bit about, you have a task force? We don't have something called a task force. We have a school safety committee. OK, could you tell us a little bit about that and how it works? Certainly. So I think all of the schools in CVSD have a similar type of team. In Williston, we have a school safety committee that consists of staff from both Allenbrook School and Williston Central. That staff is intentionally inclusive of classroom teachers, support staff, technology experts, people responsible for running our access control protocol. In other words, people who work the front desk and buzz people in every day. We have a mental health. We have school nurse. We have partners on the town as part of our committee. That is inclusive of the school library because they share a driveway with us. So the school library representative is there standing members from Williston Police Department, Williston Fire. We also have the REC department director as part of the team. And then our district facilities director comes and sits in on many of our meetings. And our local Williston facilities director is part of the committee. We meet monthly for about an hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half. And the purpose of our meetings is really to help support faculty and staff being in our systems and structures to be more prepared, more aware and knowledgeable about school safety efforts and an effort to help keep everybody safe. So what would you consider to be an incident or something where the group that you just mentioned needs to come together quickly? OK, so the group that I just described is our safety committee. And that is a little bit different than our behavioral threat assessment team. Our safety committee is a standing committee that does, that works on the work. So we're doing the work around procedures, around protocols, supporting practices and drills around our options-based protocols, trying to give information to staff that they need to be successful and to build those skills. And then we've had a number of people that are on our safety committee, as well as other professionals in our schools, trained to be part of our threat assessment team. So our threat assessment team, again, there's carryover from some people on the safety committee. And then also we have other folks like our school counselors, I know I mentioned my nurse already, a school psychologist. And so those folks have been trained in behavioral threat assessment. And then if something comes up, a concern comes to our attention where we are concerned that it could be a threat of violence. We then pull that team together. At first we do an initial review because the protocol we've been trained in has a few screening questions that a small group, usually it's a few administrators and one or two members of that team that's been trained to do that initial screening to determine is a threat assessment appropriate in this case. If so, then we pull threat assessment team together and we run through the protocol based on the situation. Could you tell us a little bit about the protocol? Certainly. So the first, as I mentioned initially, there's a screening exercise. And that screening exercise asks first and foremost, is this an emergency? Like it's someone in imminent danger. Obviously, if it is, you wanna make sure you're following your procedures for that. And then beyond that, it asks, is there a need to run an assessment? Has the person threatened violence or made any other communication about intense to threaten violence or intense to do violence? Have these concerns, are they being experienced by other people? Have behaviors raised concerns about violence to self or others? Is there a fearful victim or third party? And then it asks, does the student have a behavior intervention plan, a 504 plan, an IEP plan and or health plan? And then it asks some questions about whether or not the behavior could be a manifestation of our baseline behavior for a student on one of those plans. And that helps determine whether or not to run the threat assessment. And then the threat assessment itself, if we decided that it is appropriate, it just asks, first of all, the premise of threat assessment is to collect as much information before you're making, from the training, the phrase is collect the dots before connecting the dots. And so that phrase collecting the dots really speaks to bringing in as many people who have real on the ground daily knowledge of this particular situation. So people who interact with this person of concern or this behavior of concern, people interact with them daily. So we wanna make sure we're talking with all of those people and not making any assumptions based on the report that came in. So that could be the teacher who, maybe the report was a result of something a student wrote in a journal where they wrote some explicit language around causing harm. So that teacher, we'd want to have that teacher at the table and ask about that. We'd wanna certainly talk to the caregivers of that person. We'd wanna talk to other people that that person interacts with on a regular basis, people who would notice changes in behavior, people who would have real day-to-day information that was reliable about that person. And then the protocol goes through and asks you to consider these various questions. I think there are 11 or 12 questions on the protocol. And at the end of the process, it essentially asks based on these, based on this information you've collected, based on the responses to these questions that the team has responded to, to the best of their ability. Do you think this person could be on a pathway to causing harm, either to themselves or to others? And if the answer is yes, then essentially the protocol directs you to create an intervention plan. And in this part, frankly, as an educator, if a student, if a concern like this has come up where someone's wondering about safety anyway, you're likely gonna create some kind of intervention for that student anyway. But this, when folks, when something comes our way that makes people think about yikes, this student might be unsafe or I might be unsafe as a result of what I just heard or this other student is feeling unsafe. It has been very helpful to have a really objective process to sort of lean into where you can take a breath, collect the information, use the questions to objectively look at the situation. And then at the end, build a plan of intervention to support that situation. It could be in the form of like an educational support team plan, like an ESD plan. It could be some other type of intervention plan where you're pulling in variety of supports that the school has at its disposal. But what I have found about the threat assessment process is in moments where it could feel pretty uncomfortable and pretty, you know, you can get some pretty unraveled folks, understandably. It gives you this thing to turn to, this tool to turn to that's very procedurally based. It's very objective. Not all the answers are crystal clear in terms of like, oh yeah, the eight people here all unequivocally agree the answer to this question is yes. It doesn't always work out that way, but at least it gives you a process to collect, to have the conversation. And at the end, this decision whether to build an intervention plan or not for the student. I hope that kind of get at your question. Senator Gullick. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for your testimony, Principal Marino. I was wondering how often your behavioral threat teams typically meet? Is this a rare occurrence? Is it more regular? And also just wondering if the assessment has ever ended or any of the assessments have ended in suspension at all? That's a great question. So I can... Okay, no, we have never expelled a student. And so the question about how often at Williston, I would say in the past, since we've been trained, so last year, half of this year, we have probably run four threat assessment processes, maybe five threat assessments in the last two years, four or five. In terms of suspension, we don't use the threat assessment process as a way to determine our response to a particular behavior. The threat assessment process really helps determine severity of a person causing potential harm or not and how to intervene and build a plan of support around that to interrupt that. But regardless of the threat assessment process, we still have our code of conduct. We still have all of the responses to different behaviors at our disposal that we could apply or not apply. We don't use the threat assessment process to determine whether or not we would suspend a student. We would make a decision to suspend a student based on the circumstances of the particular behavior. We don't make those suspension decisions contingent upon a threat assessment, but two parallel processes that have slightly different purposes. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yes. So do you obviously have this plan written down? Did it come from an experience someone had or from some training? Obviously, this information gets condensed down to your situation from other schools where things have happened, but is it something that's on your school website so people can look at it and so they understand what you're doing in a situation? Great question. Well, in terms of how we got to the process that we use is we were trained in the Sigma process. The state offered free threat assessment training for Vermont educators starting, I guess about a couple of years back. We took advantage of that training. We had probably 16, 17 professionals from the Williston Schools trained in threat assessment. Recently, I went also additionally took the train the trainer workshop that was offered this year. So that feels pretty fresh for me. Which state agency? Say that again. Which state agency did the training? It was sponsored by, you know, it came from the AOE Field Memo. It was sponsored by the School Safety Center, but I think Sigma did the training, but you know, it's sponsored by the AOE, I believe. I was in the training with a number of AOE for Vermont educators. In terms of the process being on our website, I don't know the answer to that. I don't think it is. I don't think the threat assessment protocol is posted on our website. I don't see a reason why it couldn't be. That could be a question I could bring back to my superintendent and communications director. So the reason I asked was that sometimes it sounds like you got a good plan. You've had some situational training exercises that were realistic. You do like an after-action review after the situation and sit down and go, you know, we did this right, we did this wrong, this next time it happens, this is what we're gonna do. And if it was in writing, then other schools that haven't got the protocols you've got might be able to get a hold of it and adopt it. I think that's a uniformity that I'm looking for.   It's here it is, absolutely. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you. So good testimony. Curious in your threat assessment process and based on your experience, to what scope do you have the parents involved in this process? To whatever extent that we can. So most of the time that means that they are quite involved. Whether it is, I can think of one instance in the last year where they were in the room with a larger team, actively participating, going through the protocol and that always feels good to me because it feels transparent. You know, we, much like our ES, our educational support team process, it's nice to be able to say we have this protocol that we've been trained in to help support situations that we encounter with that where somebody could be at risk of causing themselves harm or somebody else harm. So it's nice to be able to say that we have this process and this thing that we've been trained in. So I can think, I remember that day sitting in my office with that team and the parents being at the table and it didn't, it felt very collaborative. Then in other situations that where it's not practical or possible for the parent to be in the room, we would be having a separate interview with that parent whether over the phone or in person, collecting the information, explaining what we're doing as the threat assessment. So parents are involved to the extent that they can be. Thank you. Committee, any other questions from Mr. Moreno at this point? It's very helpful, very helpful. We've been looking for some, you know, some understanding of how things are working in individual schools. We're going to keep our going. We're going to have a walkthrough of a new version of the bill now. And then we'll, you know, if you're able to Greg, you know, we might be back in contact with you. We understand you're a busy person, but we might follow up with you and ask you to testify again or weigh in on certain things. Before you do go though, Senator Gullick, I believe you're Senator, right? I am. Yeah, you are. Oh, no, it depends on where you live. I don't know where you live, Greg, but I'm wondering when your school was built. Your school is the one with the blue roof, correct? That's one of our schools. So I live in Williston and that's, which is also where I work because I'm lucky enough to live there as well. So we have the two schools, Allenbrook School, which is pre-K through two, and then Williston Central, which is third through eighth grade. Allenbrook School was built in 1996, I believe maybe 95, 96, and Williston Central started in 1949 with a little brick section and has grown and grown since then and a lot of iterations since then. Okay, thank you. The one that was built in 96 has been pretty good shape then. Well, we're coming up on 30 years and it's got its issues comparatively what other school districts and locations are dealing with. I'd say it's an okay shape, but it's got its issues, especially related to building envelope. The way the building was constructed really didn't give the attention deserved to the exterior envelope of the building. So we also happen to be in a little space crunch as you may know, be aware of what they're doing the graphics in Williston. Yeah, thank you very much. You're welcome. Senator Gulick is leading the charge on getting our schools, those that can still continue to be renovated, but really how can we get some new school buildings in this state for 21st century learning and it's, we're hearing then the need is there for sure. Well, that's for sure, right? Yeah, absolutely. Any other questions for Mr. Moreno? Great. Okay, thank you, Mr. Moreno. Good to see you. You're welcome. Thanks for this opportunity and thanks for the work you do. Thanks for the work you do. Okay. The same teams is gonna be in here in a second to take us through a new version of the school safety bill. Welcome back to Senate Education 336 PM, March 1st. The same teams. So based on yesterday's testimony from D. Barbic and the C. Lee and others, we have a new draft of school safety bill. I suspect it's not gonna be our last, but let's go through it. I'm gonna make an opening statement if I may. The purpose of it seems, and I could be reading it wrong. It seems like there's a lot that could be done to streamline some of these comments. In other words, it says approved independent schools and it says the next one's public schools. Is there a way to sort of, I thought we were, publics and independents were all gonna be kind of doing the same thing. I just wanna make sure that matches the introduction. They are. Okay. And you can provide feedback to further streamline that. I do think it's... It's accurate. I think it's, yes. So that's St. James Office of Legislative Counsel and I apologize, I do have a hard stuff at four. The changes between the last draft you looked at and today are all highlighted in yellow. Okay, let's focus on those. So I will just say everything before the very end of page four and all of page five, are changes made based on the feedback from the V's. Some of those are just small word choices. Most of that is adding approved or recognized independent schools and requiring a policy where public school is required a policy. There are separate sections. So for example, under section 1481, which starts on page one and goes on to page two, subdivision A is applicable to public schools and it talks about requiring the drills, following the guidance issued by the school safety council, et cetera. And then subdivision B is for the approved, this still has language in there that is, I think, very broad and I would encourage you to take testimony on the intent behind other educational institutions. What line are you on? 17. Okay. But each approved or recognized independent school shall adopt a policy, I think before it was procedure, mandating the school to conduct options based response drills with the consistent with the requirements of subsection A above. So just referring you back to A that has all of the requirements there. And then because superintendents are different than heads of school, there's just that second line there about the head of the school does the reporting instead of the superintendent because some of those terms are not the same. I do think it makes sense to have like a public school section and an approved independent school section. Not all of the language is repeated. It refers back to section A for the substance of what those schools have to do. Yeah. You could certainly combine them all into one subsection. I just think it gets wordy. Page three. Again, section two, emergency operations plans. There's an additional requirement for approved and recognized independent schools to adopt those emergency operations plans. Again, consistent with A, which is the public school section. And page four, section three, access control and visitor management policy. And access control shall adopt an access control and visitor management policy. I think I added that language. Don't have to go back and look at the V's testimony on that. But that is what the section heading is. And then again, subsection B is requiring a written access control and visitor management policy consistent with subsection A for the approved and recognized independent schools. So we're not repeating out everything there, we're just referring back to subsection A. So there's no requirement now to have an access control and visitor management policy? No, there is. That's what this says. Oh, okay. And there varies. One of the things we heard early on, you may recall, a lot of this is happening in most of the, most many, many, many of our schools. So this is kind of inconsistent. Please. The big change is on page four to section four, the behavioral threat assessment team. Yes, and this I asked you to add in response to the C-leaks. Please go ahead. Correct. So the direction I received was to add language to make it clear that behavioral threat assessment should not be used for a punitive or disciplinary purpose and then to require more specific data to be reported every year regarding the behavioral threat assessment. So I added subsection B on page four, line 20. Yep. So behavioral threat assessment shall not be used for a punitive or disciplinary purpose. A behavioral threat assessment shall not replace a manifest determination review for students on an individual education plan is required under the IDEA. And then I refer to the federal statutes there. And then subsection C is annually each supervisory union, supervisory district and approved independent school shall report data related to behavioral threat assessments to the agency in a format approved by the secretary. That language is already there. Yeah. But what I added was at a minimum, the annual report shall include the names and members behavioral assessment team was already there. And then so I added the number of behavioral threat assessment conducted in the preceding year and for each assessment conducted, a description of behavior requiring an assessment, the age and grade of the student requiring the assessment, the results of each assessment. And then the number of students referred for manifest determination review, a lieu of behavioral threat assessment. I did not, I think I caught the very tail end of Ms. Felix testimony on this. So I have not seen all of her testimony. This is based on our conversations with Senator Campion. And so certainly you can beef it up, beef it up, take things out as you see fit. Ms. Sealy, we have Ledge Council here for another about 10 minutes. So why don't we have you weigh in on this section. What would you like to have added to that data collection? Sure. So Rachel Sealy, I'm not relaying the record. So first, in terms of the data section, I would want to see added in addition to age and grade, gender, race, eligibility or non-eligibility for free introduced lunch as a proxy for low income, as well as disability status. And disability status can include 504 or IEP eligibility. Your prior witness talked about as well, educational support teams. And I think I mentioned to you last time, coordinated services plans are encouraged under Act 264. And some students also have individual health plans that are operated by their nurse. It's not a substitute for a 504, but it may also be a piece of data about kind of the special needs of the student who is the subject of this. I would also be interested in whether a student is subject to repeated behavioral assessments, as well as whether those plans have changed in the meantime. If a student is subjected to two or three or four behavioral threat assessments, was their IEP or 504 plan amended? Was their behavioral intervention plan amended? Because the student is not necessarily the threat. The student is not necessarily getting the services and supports they need to have the behavior to be safe and strong. And I don't want this to, some of my prior testimony has discussed results in treating the children as the danger, right? They deserve to be protected, too. A couple of, now, is it off of this? It's still on this, but it's not on this list. It's manifestation determination review rather than manifest determination review. And it shouldn't just be IDEA, it should also be section 504 in terms of students with disabilities. Is, can I ask a question? Please, yes, absolutely. Is, so I think, is a manifestation determination review required under section 504? Because if it's not, that's a, the committee needs to understand that and that's a policy decision. In Vermont, under our disciplinary rules, manifestation determination review is required for both 504 and IDEA students, as well as students who are being considered for those plans, or maybe are not eligible. So that's based on rule 4,000, the state board of education rules. It's actually section 404. It's in the 4,000s here. Ms. St. James, is there any, remember when we were doing data collection for other things over the years? Is there any, are we in an area where it's, we can't get this information, anything like that? Do you remember when we were doing the school discipline bill, I think it was something we couldn't get. We're okay? So you're not gonna be able to get identifiable information, right? Right, right, right. No, thank you. I think most of this is already, a lot of this may be required, especially if there's an excess suspension or expulsion. But I can start, I will certainly ensure that anything moving forward, I don't have a concern about. Senator Wicks. I have informed my question here. Okay. I've got one percolate. All right, all right. Percolate. Let us know when you're ready. Committee, just thoughts? What do you think? I was looking for a judicial committee guide. But, I don't know, I don't know. I have to think of something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Being that on page four, line 17, we're including local law enforcement officials. I'm just curious. What do you have, Jim, sir? Page four, line 17, we've already written in local law enforcement officials as part of this team. Yeah. I'm just curious if these reports, you kind of give the full landscape of these, the need to initiate for assessments. What about the legal law enforcement record associated with this? You know, I mean, in some way, so we've got things happening in the school, we've got things happening outside of the school.  And I'm just, it's just a theory. I'm curious if there's folks might think about that. Would the help of breaking down some silos? Exactly. So it's not just the school recognizing there's an issue that needs to be dealt with, and how they deal with it, and it's got all the biographical data behind it, but, you know, is this consistent with what's being potentially experienced outside the school, or the same people who are necessary to create threat assessments for? Just seems like I'm not projecting, trying to project an answer. Ask them a question, ask them a question. Are you saying that a lot of the incidents of violence in schools has been perpetrated from, without, as opposed to from, again? I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that the experience of what might be, the experiences inside the school might have a parallel outside of the school. It's germane to the data being collected. Because right now, I'm getting a sense that, you know, the schools are being accused of being a bit too harsh or too derogatory or too aggressive. And in fact, there's an whole aspect of what happens outside the school that might not be reflected in the sense. Yeah, I know, I hear you. And I, having worked with teenagers my whole life, I just, they behave erratically and I know Beth needs to go. I just... You're okay for another five minutes? Yeah, it's a half till four. Okay, yeah, no, this is helpful, please. I want our schools to be safe, obviously, but, I don't know, like your story that you just told, that just like really is disconcerting that number of threat assessments. To what end? I mean, were any of them real threats or were they just kids being kids? I guess I would want to know.  Real, okay. But you're worried? Yeah, I mean, you know, from where, in my world, where I live, we've been trying really hard to get sort of cops and law enforcement out of our schools because of exactly the things that Rachel was bringing up. So, I don't know, let's just think about it. Yeah, we already have the police, the law enforcement's involved. Well, they're already written into a draft, right? They're gonna do a draft. You don't have to have them as part of the team. Right, right, right. Senator Sheen, what are you thinking? I'm thinking of a lot of things, but they're still fermenting them. Yeah, yeah. No, it's complicated stuff. I think what we're all trying to do is make sure that, correct me if I'm wrong, at least I'm hearing that you don't want kids misidentified, for two years hearing testimonies about how serious suspensions and explosions are, what that does to a kid in that school to prison pipeline that really exists that have to give credit, would credits to the Texas Agency of Education. They were sort of in the forefront of that and they were some of the first to stop it. We don't wanna do more of that kind of stuff. And yet, to what everybody else is also saying, we want schools to be safe and we wanna make sure that when threats are happening, they're assessed and dealt with. And I think we'll get somewhere, but I'm understanding the complications of it. Please, yeah, let's go ahead. Sorry, I just had a thought, sorry. I am wondering if anyone, if this could help, maybe, if anyone on the behavioral threat assessment team, if you could put it something in here about like mandatory bias training or mandatory some kind of training to sort of like to have the correct lens, I'm gonna use that word again, going into this, just to at least be aware of your own bias and aware of some of, you know, societal biases that we've all lived in and percolated in our whole lives. I just wonder if that could be helpful. That was one of the suggestions I was gonna offer to you on the training piece was not just training on this assessment protocol. And I think there's potentially also some room to say the agency has to designate which of these vendors are even allowable, right? Like we've done that with restraints, inclusion. There's only certain vendors that are like by default allowable trainers. So I think that's one of these because there are some models out there that are worse than, I mean, I don't like any of this, but there are models out there that are worse and are kind of more kind of otherizing of kids than others. Well, I just wanna, I mean, you don't like any of it. And I understand it's, we're also, I mean, how do we keep our schools safe? How do we make sure, because I mean, that's also something worth living the reality. Well, so when you're hearing from your previous witness, the school safety committee, they have no issue with those. Like I do think that kind of like ongoing process. I think the piece that I don't think actually keeps our schools safe is the targeting of kids and saying this kid is a threat without kind of having, you know, and it sounds like theirs is a district that is maybe engaging in some really good practices that are not reflected in this language, right? Like parents are involved and they make sure to involve people who do actually know the kid. None of that is required in what you have here. Those would certainly go a long way to make me feel less bad about this. But do you disagree that at some point a kid could be a threat to a community? I think that's right, but I think mostly that comes from we didn't meet the kids needs. Yeah, yeah. And so there's an upstream investment on positive behavior interventions and supports and restorative practice and preventing hazing harassment and bullying. And you know, all of those things, I think make it then less likely that we have 54 threat assessments, 58 threat assessments in less than a year, right? Like that suggests to me that these kids needs are not being met. And there are a lot of reasons for that. But I think it's a good time to say, all right, one of those reasons and how can we meet those needs rather than we have it at these needs. And so now we're going to say these kids are not part of our community and keep our, make our community unsafe. Yeah, yeah, thank you. To that end, are we going to acknowledge in this bill what we heard yesterday from Bo Yang around the correcting the standard, the severe and pervasive standard and establishing a new one? You mean for harassment? Yeah. Yeah, but we can't do it in this. Okay, that's separate. I mean, we just, there's this, yeah. Okay. We would do that, hopefully. I mean, I hate to use their miscellaneous ed bill, but for us to get these three bills out, we just can't jump into that right now. All right. But I agree, it's something we definitely after crossover have to jump into. Yeah, I just, I thought the way she explained it was great and it was like an upstream investment. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I just put out there to everyone, including you, Ms. Seagley, is there, so what parts of this, is there a part of this, if this committee, so something's going to leave this committee by crossover, is there part of this that needs to be looked at during the summer or in another way before we get to that? Sure. And that's the only thing, but at the same time, I don't want anything happening in our schools. Right. While we do a summer study committee. While we do a summer study committee and that's a serious issue we know in the United States and in this state as well right now. Absolutely. So that's, I think some of, as we're all speaking honestly here, that's I think kind of what we're grappling with. Why are schools to be super safe? As do you. Yes. At the same time, we want to make sure that we are not harming kids. Yes. I'm happy to think more about this new draft that the St. Jason's put together and if I have additional recommendations where we're not taking any girl threat assessment teams out, but putting in some more of the safeguards that. Like the trainings that are bullet mentioned. Like the trainings, like kind of defining what threats are, rise to the level of these threat assessment teams because I do recognize if a student is expelled we're just creating a bigger problem. Right. Your work. But yes, that's what I was, yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. Maybe. Often. I mean, I have to, I'll pull up the Texas stuff. It came out of judiciary actually. They were the ones that found it. I mean, that school to prison pipeline was pretty dramatic for all of us over the past couple of years. Yes. Which is pretty terrible. Yeah. But we also want to make sure if there is a threat in the school that threat is addressed in. Yeah. And as a middle schooler, my school had hate bomb threats called it in two years. Right. Like I lived through that. It wasn't, they stopped sending us home and started teaching us on the football fields, but there were never moms. And so it started like making us feel like this is a waste of protection. Until it really out. What's that? Until it really out. Yep. Yep. That's what we're trying to, yeah, great. You'll continue to think about this. The same chance. Go. I just, before I leave, would you like me to make an amendment to the manifestation determination piece in alignment with the state board rule? Yes, please. Any other edits for the next draft? I think let's put the other data collection information in there for the committee to respond to. So as well as the secretary, the data collection criteria outlined by Ms. Sealy. Okay. For tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. And then we'll have the secretary weigh in and we'll let everybody think about this and try to. And I will ask Ms. Sealy to work with you and us to just keep, get it so we can get somewhere on this. Do you want me to share language before tomorrow with Ms. Sealy? Realistically, by the time I get it back from editing, it'll probably be late morning or early afternoon anyway. Then we'll look at it together. That's okay. That's that way we can all. Yeah. Okay. So we don't get too many. I want to root the committee to stay on the same page. I will make those edits. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're making me nervous. Tick, tick, tick. I have to be on each. I do have to be on each. Sorry? Are you staying on this? If not, I have another committee that is on it. I think so. Thank you so much for your consideration. I really appreciate your time. Thanks, great job. So anything right now on anything? Are we still on? Yeah. I got something. We are on for a little discussion. Yeah, please go ahead. Just something I want to say about what you said. You know, we've been trying to get police out of our schools for a long time. You know what? Back in the day when things were better in our schools, the police were your friends, and we trained. They came in, the students got exposed to them, they understood the good things they could do, and I think maybe in your neighborhood, maybe there's a reason for that, but in my neighborhood it's not. And they can still have that for you and be in the school system as a police officer and the kids can know that they are there without being in any kind of a threat. The city of Rockham, they had a police officer that was a commander, he was on the blue line, he took his guns off and went to special training and he was out there trying to de-escalate situations. So it can be done in the general public across if you get done in the schools. So I just think that sometimes there's a lot of situations that happen in schools because there's no consequences for it. And everybody needs to understand that there is a consequence if you do this. And I think we've got away from that. I just had to say that. No, I really appreciate that. And we had SROs in our district that were really beloved by the community and a lot of the kids loved them and they were real positive. But at the same time, a few things. One is, when I grew up, I think we had one kid of color in our school. I mean, the Burlington School District anyway is 50% BIPOC students. And I know Winooski is a majority minority school, or district. And as Rachel said the other day, it has, there's data that suggests that people of color are more targeted than white folks when it comes to law enforcement. And for us, particularly in our district, we just had a lot of students coming from refugee camps who, when they saw a guy with a big gun and a, you know, a bulletproof vest and in that the equipment is intimidating. It was very scary for them. It was like, it was traumatic and triggering for some of those kids. And then the other piece of it is that last I checked, there's not a lot of evidence that suggests police in schools actually make them safer. They just, I have not seen any data that shows a direct correlation between law enforcement in schools and a safer environment. If it exists, I would love to see it. But we took a deep dive in this a couple of years ago with around SROs and there just wasn't any evidence, sadly. But I think the relationship piece is important. I do. Because you want to be building relationships between your community and your law enforcement. We did have, there was an SRO bill to remove them from all the schools a couple years ago. And we did hear a lot of pushback because like you said, people love, there are a lot of people out there all through the state that, and it, you can either add or get rid of an SRO tomorrow in your own district. So we said, okay, we'll leave it to the local folks to the side. And so, you both have good points. Okay, anything else? So we'll look at new drafts of this and Ms. Lania said tomorrow and we're also gonna be looking at our pre-K study language. Okay, we'll get there. Thanks everybody, have a good afternoon. Thank you. Yeah, see ya.


So good morning, everyone, and welcome to our special water advisory committee meeting on Monday, April 6th. And thanks for everyone being so helpful. I know this is not the way we normally handle this, but we're going to do our best. I really appreciate all the work that Jennifer and Drew put into getting us this far. I hope everyone is safe. And with that, I have a couple of housekeeping things, just to remind everyone that they need to mute their phones when they're not speaking. And also anybody that has music on hold, please don't put us on hold or we'll hear your music. And I'd also like to remind you that the meeting is being streamed live and WAC and contact members can follow the presentation that was emailed to them or they can follow the presentation on the web address listed in the agenda. Please note on the web address, remember to mute the volume on your computer and unmute their phone to speak. That way we won't get all that feedback. So with those housekeeping items, I think I will move into a roll call. City of Tottie, myself, I am here. City of Petaluma, Dave King. Here. City of Brunner Park, Jake McKenzie. Okay. City of Santa Rosa, Victoria Fleming. Morning. Thank you. City of Sonoma, Logan Harvey. Logan was here. Well, we have Logan. North Marin Water District, Jack Baker. Here. County of Windsor, Sam Salmon. Here. Valley of the Moon Water District, John Foreman. Here. Okay. And with that, I will let Drew do the tack roll call. I'm going to get, sorry, City of Sonoma is here. Thank you, Logan. Okay. Thank you, Matt. Yeah. Jack Gibson from municipal. What a municipal. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is Drew McIntyre. I'll go ahead and go through the roll call for the tack members. City of Tottie. Craig Hutt. Yes. President. City of Petaluma. Kent Carruthers. President. City of Brunner Park. Mary Grace Pawson. President. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke. I'm here. City of Sonoma, Colleen Ferguson. I am here with North Carolina Water District, Town of Windsor, Sandy Potter. Yes. I'm here. Valley of the Moon Water District, Alan Gardner. Present. Okay. And then we also, we also just want to, for the meeting minutes, want to reflect that we have Mike Vaughn with Marin Municipal. And we also have Grant Davis and Jack, and we already got Jack Gibson. Easter, was there anyone else? We have Kimberly Zizino and Lynn Rizzelli. Thank you so much for that. Drew, I believe that you have the public comments that were emailed to you. That is correct, Madam Chair. I was monitoring both email comments and any voicemail messages and did not receive any comments either by email or voicemail. Then the record will show that we got no public comment. Thank you so much for that. And then we will move to a recap of the February 3rd WAC-TAC meeting minutes. Has everyone had a chance to read the minutes? Yeah. I'm assuming that is the affirmative. Were there any public comments received for the minutes? Madam Chair, this is Drew McIntyre. There were no public comments received. So there was no public comment on that. And we will, I will ask for a motion and in order for this to be able to be recorded properly, if the person making the motion would state their name so Easter can catch it. And the same with the person making a second. I'd appreciate that. So do I have a motion? Jack Gibson makes a motion. Okay, I heard Jack made a motion. Do I have a second? Just for clarity here, the motions and the seconds should be just made by the actual WAC members. So Jack, you're not a voting member of the WAC. So if you can, if we can just get the motions and the seconds and the vote by the voting members of the WAC, that would be best. Mr. McKenzie and so we still have our second yes okay we have a motion in a second and we'll do a roll call vote then city of Katari yes city of Paloma yes city of Brunner Park aye city of Santa Rosa yes city of Sonoma abstain North Marin Water District yes town of Windsor still there Sam all right valley of the moon yes I'm sorry yes town of Windsor yes oh thank you Sam okay so Easter did you get that did we hear from Valley of the moon yeah yes thank you no you haven't but Valley of the moon yes city of Katari Paloma Brunner Park Santa Rosa North Marin Water District town of Windsor and Valley of the moon all yes and city of Sonoma abstain so with that we can move on to presentation I believe that Lynn Revelli some of you have seen this presentation some of you it's first time for you but with that thank you so much for being here to give us this presentation Lynn and I will let you and Easter work your magic okay hi this is Lynn Revelli with Sonoma Water Easter I'm going to stay on that cover slide for a minute and then I'll let you know when to switch slides this is the proposed budget and rates for the water transmission system before the period of time beginning July 1st as we began developing this budget back in October there was certainly no whisper of a coronavirus pandemic we even met with the budget subcommittee in in January and into February and there was still not a sense that there was going to be this coronavirus pandemic and yet we worked our way through this budget I want to thank the budget subcommittee the tech budget subcommittee for their review and input on this budget Kimberley Zunino Jennifer Burke Chris Tetlock Sandy Potter Craig Scott Julie blue and Mike Vaughn your input was very valuable and we incorporated your comments wherever we could accommodate them so now here we are and this is the first virtual presentation of the water transmission system budget and rates that I'm aware of and I want to go ahead and start by talking about what we have included in this budget go ahead Easter to the next slide please Lynn this is Drew if you can as you go through these slides just in case somebody's following their hard copy and not looking on the the computer could you just indicate what page number you're on as well sure so we're now on page two the heading is hazard mitigation projects and what we wanted to present here is that back in June of 2019 which seems like the eons ago the Sonoma County civil grand jury prepared a report with recommendations regarding Sonoma Waters readiness for seismic hazard mitigation and what in response to that they recommended that we present some options for we present some for hold on a second getting a call can you still hear me okay so we presented we presented some options for expediting hazard mitigation funding for seismic projects going forward and what we wanted to present to you here is the very large hasn't the large hazard mitigation projects that have been completed in the past on the left-hand side of that slide and on the right-hand slide is what is included in the fiscal year 2021 budget and of those projects listed on the right-hand side under in progress three will be going to construction next fiscal year and one will be well into the design phase that you like booster pump station will be well into the design next fiscal year the last item listed on that on that slide is the local hazard mitigation program design and this is one of the recommendations that we made to accelerate funding for hazard mitigation projects we will initiate the plenary design of a number of hazard mitigation projects on the aqueduct capital funds and in the regular other capital projects that are common to all the water contractors we budgeted 225,000 in 2021 which will be added to the 600,000 that we have accumulated over time to actually do this plenary design work and that will help accelerate some of these hazard mitigation projects that are very critical to the reliability of the water transmission system and the budget the total budget for these hazard mitigation projects for next fiscal year is 10.2 for a million dollars next slide please titled other capital projects at the top is the Sonoma Booster Pump Station upgrade project which will reach substantial completion in the winter of 2021 this is on the Sonoma aqueduct so the Sonoma aqueduct customers are paying for this it is a water reliability project it is a very critical project especially in lieu of the fires to provide some reliability pumping and electrical reliability to the water contractors on the Sonoma aqueduct it also has a seismic component to it there's the Mirabelle Dam Ladder replacement project the ladder is at its useful life but it is a very important piece of infrastructure because it creates a backwater when it is inflated creates a backwater behind it which allows water to infiltrate through the gravels and sands into our collector wells so that we can provide a clean safe reliable source of water to our water contractors and we have the Warm Springs Dam Hydro-Turban Retrofit project that will be awarded in 2021 as well that will increase the efficiency of the Hydro-Turban which will save money on power and it is also a important piece of infrastructure as well and it has a payback period of seven years so it is very cost effective project so the budget for these additional projects that will occur in 2021 is 2.2 million dollars so the total capital budget including the hazard mitigation project is 12.6 million dollars next slide please slide is slide number four and it is titled operations and maintenance and it lists the various projects that will be occurring the major operations and maintenance projects include cathodic protection maintenance I'm not seeing that the YouTube is caught up yet there we go cathodic protection maintenance projects on all of the aqueducts this is a very critical maintenance program and it's very labor intensive and it's critical to maintaining the integrity of the aqueducts it would be much more expensive to replace aqueducts than to actually do the cathodic protection maintenance that's required over time to protect those pipelines we have the forestville tank recode project we are recoding the two forestville tanks and that will be substantially complete next the beginning of next fiscal year and then we have the tank maintenance program that we talked about last year and we'll be continuing for the next nine years is a 38 million dollar tank maintenance program and 3.8 million is program for next fiscal year it includes overall tank maintenance and recoding of the tanks in the tank farms that we have the 18 tanks that we maintain for storage purposes and then we have a number of cities that are ongoing that include water Sonoma water labor as well as contract consultant services there's the regional water supply resiliency study where we are developing a decision support tool that will help us evaluate and prioritize water supply resiliency projects throughout the region and provide more resiliency within our entire region we have this water system risk and resiliency assessment study that is ongoing it is an EPA mandated program we are evaluating the risks and threats associated with the water transmission system that work is currently being done but there are tasks that are required also in fiscal year 2021 we will take the results from this risk and vulnerability assessment and we will roll them forward into updating our emergency response plan and that is an important and mandated project then we have the watershed and riverbank filtration water quality studies that we began just before the 2017 fires and as an ongoing since we have added some additional sites for quality testing to ensure that we maintain as the kingtade fires so that we maintain and ensure that our water quality remains high and that we can continue to provide a clean reliable source of water to our water contractors so the only budget is twenty nine point six million dollars for fiscal year 2021 next slide please this slide is slide number five and it is titled dry creek habitat enhancement and what we want to mention here is that phase four or or mile four of the dry creek habitat enhancement project will be at ninety percent design this fiscal year and we anticipate that the core will be constructing this project in the summer of 2021 we will be pre-funding our share of that construction which is thirty five percent in 2021 and the core has the good news is that the core has committed to obligating their share of construction of miles four five and six it's twenty eight million dollars that represents the course sixty five percent share of the dry creek habitat enhancement for miles four five and six that is twenty eight million dollars that the water contractors will not have to front or pay and so that is extremely good news and as a result of the many efforts of a grant and our team staff and our board in keeping the core up to speed on on what is needed and making sure the core commits to their responsibilities on this project so the budget for the dry creek habitat enhancement other biological opinion compliance projects including estuary adaptation at history management and the fish flow EIR where supply planning water conservation the budget is eleven point eight nine million next slide please this is slide number six excuse me it's titled expenditures compared to fiscal year nineteen twenty and what we are showing here is the comparison of the budget for twenty twenty one versus the budget for nineteen twenty and the total budget for twenty twenty one is shown as fifty nine million the total for fiscal year nineteen twenty is fifty one point seven six million that's a seven point two six million dollar change operations and maintenance is increasing for catholic protection tank maintenance and the studies that I mentioned on the previous slide capital projects is increasing because of the hazard mitigation projects that we will be implementing that are very critical to the system biological opinion clients and water supply and water conservation are increasing because of the dry creek habitat enhancement construction and that service is increasing as a result of the twenty nineteen revenue bonds that we issued so as a result we have fifty nine million in budget we also have fourteen point four four million in grants used to fund balance and bond proceeds offsetting that fifty nine million that's a significant amount that brings down the total budget significant amount the rate increase would be substantially more if it were not for that fourteen point four four million next slide please so this is a great slide number seven and it's titled rate setting calculation it's an example the calculation itself is actually more complicated but this is to show you for the restructure agreement for water supply that this is a fully volumetric rate on on this slide at the very bottom we show the deliveries in acre feet the bottom left shows forty four thousand seven ninety five acre feet that is the three year annual average acre feet on the right hand bottom is forty three thousand seven hundred seven acre feet that is the last twelve months of water deliveries restructure agreement requires that we take the lower of the two which is the forty three thousand seven hundred and seven thousand acre feet that becomes the denominator in the equation so when you take the revenue requirements or expenditures of forty two point two six million dollars and divide it by the acre feet you get your rate for the Santa Rosa Petaluma aqueduct of nine hundred and sixty seven dollars per acre foot and this is very significant because as deliveries decrease if expenditure missing your rate is going to increase significantly and so far we've had a very dry year and with the coronavirus it is uncertain how the rest of the year will turn out we will see but that it's a very very strong example of how the deliveries really impact the rate next slide please so the next slide is slide eight the top says proposed rates for fiscal year twenty twenty one the deliveries are forty three thousand seven hundred and seven acre feet and the rate is based on that delivery amount for all three aqueducts the rate on the Santa Rosa Petaluma aqueduct is nine hundred sixty six dollars and ninety five cents that represents a five point three percent rate increase over fiscal year nineteen twenty the rate on the snow aqueduct is one thousand one hundred seven point two one dollars per acre foot and that represents a rate increase of five point five seven percent there is a discretionary charge that is two-thirds of the way down the page there on the slide and it's called the capital charge that the prime contractors provide input on it's to build fund balance for future projects it also acts as a rate stabilization tool and also to help with the grand juries request that we look at expediting funding for future hazard mitigation projects this rate will go towards that or help towards that and the Santa Rosa Petaluma aqueducts are set at twenty seven dollars Sonoma aqueduct is set at thirty two dollars as we decrease the rate during our negotiations with the tax budget sub committees Sonoma aqueduct asked that the additional decrease be rolled into their capital charge because they have some significant seismic hazard mitigation projects coming forward and because their deliveries are lower than the other aqueducts they need this additional capital charge to help on those hazard mitigation projects and soften the rate going forward and so the Sonoma aqueduct does pay a higher debt service charge primarily because of the Eldridge Madrone pipeline and that is why the Sonoma aqueduct rate is higher than the Santa Rosa and Petaluma aqueducts next slide please so this is slide nine and at the top it says fiscal year twenty twenty one budgeted expenditures and this is where the money is spent it is fifty percent is spent on operations and maintenance twenty two percent on capital projects twenty percent on biological opinion compliance water supply planning and water conservation and that service makes up eight percent of the expenditures and have fourteen point four million in grants bond proceeds and use of fund balance and so this is this is a pie chart that shows that the the large majority of the expenditures are for operations and maintenance next slide please this is slide ten and at the top it says twenty twenty wholesale water rates per acre foot and this is a slide that compares our our rates to other wholesale water rates in the greater Bay Area and our rates are still lower than the other water contractors in the Bay Area at nine hundred sixty seven dollars per acre foot even the Sonoma aqueduct at one thousand one hundred dollars per acre foot is still lower than the other aqueducts other water contractors in the Bay Area so we are accomplishing not only operations maintenance projects and constructing phase four of the biological opinion as well as several hazard mitigation projects and keeping our rate below other wholesale water contractors in the greater Bay Area we always footnote that it's not an apples to apples comparison with the other Bay Area water contractors because they may have larger systems and more complicated systems and treatments treatment methodologies we are fortunate to have natural filtration of our water and be able to provide clean safe drinking water to our water contractors next slide please this is slide eleven and it at the top it says next steps and as you may know the budget and rates were recommended by the technical advisory committee on March 2nd and we received we did not we were not able to present to all of the water contractors before the coronavirus pandemic was was proclaimed we were able to present to the Valley and the Water District and the City of Katadi but we did hear back from the other water districts and board the councils and who indicated that they were recommending this budget to the water advisory member so the water advisory committee vote is today and it will be we will take this budget and rates to our boards normal waters board on April 21st for our board adoption of this budget and rate and with that the questions you might have and you can stay on this slide Easter okay so much Lynn I'm going to go through city by city and ask if there's any questions just to keep this quarterly city of Katadi I have no questions at this time thank you for giving us the presentation we just not getting under the wire city of Padluma no questions thank you thank you city of runner park no questions just a statement with I was authorized to vote in favor of this budget recommendation at our virtual city council meeting which was our second council meeting of March that's good news runner park's name should have been on they recommended by thank you for that is that all Jake oh yeah no questions ever that thanks for all the hard work as always city of Santa Rosa questions hi thank you so much for the presentation I'm curious given that you know we did not get a chance to review this as a council and that situation has really changed significantly since this is presented to the tax what if anything would have been changed given the current circumstances there have been no changes to this budget since it was presented to the tack and we are so this this presentation is the same the budget and rates are the same as they were presented and given the existing circumstances we believe we need to move forward with this budget and and rate for fiscal year 2021 we know that we will be and are continuing to implement the capital projects our water transmission system of is being operated and maintained it is a it is a essential service and we are continuing to move forward with the construction projects and the team that isn't operating and maintaining the water transmission system is working on the studies we are teleworking and we intend to keep moving forward with all of these initiatives into 2021 there is a lot of uncertainty moving forward but we don't anticipate at this point in time any changes grant I don't know if you want to say anything in reference to that no I think it's a great question that Mr. Goodman's asking I think that the fact that my friend lemon oh sorry I snare Fleming my apologies our team meets daily and in particular we were looking at down the way our ability to carry out the perceived construction projects and so just about all of them that we had planned are underway and either out for bid or in the planning stages the one the one that we are sitting on at the moment and I believe have made the decision to proceed is the phase three third mile of Dry Creek that requires a lot of right-of-way and things to click into place but I'm pretty sure it's on track and we'll be able to get that underway this summer with any with any luck and that would be the one that might have changed the equation somewhat but Lynn answered it very well okay so where I'm going with this is that each of us are sitting on councils where we're looking at significant budgetary roll backs and wondering what the water agency is looking at rolling back given the changes a month ago when you presented this budget things weren't how they are a month ago none of us could have easily predicted that we'd be looking at major haircut so I'm looking for you guys to be adaptable in light of the changing circumstances and not just roll back to well this is how things were and so this is what we'd like to do we'd all like to do that so we all need to participate in this painful process and none of us is immune well I can assure you that we are not immune either we are participating in fact right now director rabbit is over at the EOC and is dealing with this on a day to day basis being part of the special district that's also tied to the county we will in fact and have every reason to believe that we will be having to go through much like everyone else I can only harken back to the last time that we had something similar to this which would have been during the recession and we implemented fairly aggressive policies to get ahead of that and looked at a multi-year effort to make it through that and work with the contractors very directly to do it and so I would anticipate we'll be doing something very similar in the not too distant future I'm just curious as to how I can justify this rate increase at this time to my constituents given that nothing has changed in the proposed budget budget given the outbreak the pandemic and the corresponding economic toll that's taking on our community well you don't have to answer well I well I think I think part of it is that water is an essential service and it is critically important that we maintain essential water service operations and maintenance and construction if we do not proceed with this budget and cut this budget then we will not be in a position where we can actually provide security and reliability that we would need to now it's possible that and we don't know but it is possible that for next fiscal year's budget if there have been changes and there have been instances where we were not able to proceed with some of these projects that could be reflected in the rate next year but we simply don't know that at this point in time but we feel that this is critically important because it is an essential service that we provide to our customers and to cut this at this particular time is is something that is because it is so essential is something that we have not discussed doing at this particular time and I greatly appreciate the work that was done to get the budget here and the service that you provide for us I'm have to unfortunately I answer not to you guys I answer to the constituents and at this time it seems really tone desk to have a water rate increase that and so I don't think I can support it but I it's not for the great work that you guys do it's more on the the being aligned every day people are going to Madam chair Jake yes Jake a question relating to this past conversation in the month of March what patterns if any have we seen in reduction of basically consumption of Sonoma waters supply have we seen any changes as a result of shelter in place Lynn this is Pam do you want me to answer that sure that would be great we have not seen any change Jake looking at last year if you just look at the daily information it looks like it's a little bit different but overall it really hasn't changed and that would be my point and the reason I asked the question is and it goes back to water as an essential a truly essential part of what we have to do as cities the protection of public safety and the protection of public health and so I was authorized to vote in favor of this budget by our city council and I believe that you can tell that while we have all been sheltering in place the need for water you know continues to be an essential service a little cost of water per gallon is is extremely low in comparison to other commodities at point oh oh two cents per gallon so it is an extremely low-cost commodity but an essential one that anything else thank you very much then I'll move to city of Sonoma any questions how how big of a percentage increase is this is this increase so what are we going from and to you may have covered this just a recap it's it's it's on the Santa Rosa and Petaluma aqueduct is a 5.3 percent increase and on the Sonoma aqueduct is a 5.57 percent increase so all right per gallon cost what are we going from and then what are we going to I don't have that but I could work on calculating that I'd have to do a conversion to figure that out okay yeah it would be nice to know so I can kind of have an understanding of what citizens will see in their water bill as far as how much more it's going to go up for our average family of two or average family of four but I usually say to Susan I know that when we do our water we usually look at you know like a five-year period and we have built into our rates a certain percentage going up every year so for us this fits within the range so it's already calculated in our five-year plan this doesn't deviate from that yeah I agree and frankly I think it is important that we continue to improve and upgrade our water system and continue to protect our water system if you don't invest in infrastructure you can start to see it the grade and water is probably you know number one or number two in terms of important infrastructure that we've got in the county so all right it'd be nice to see how much it would cost the family of four but it's how you pass through your costs to your customers and I'm not I'm not sure how that that works and I think the contractors handle that some currently but it's a different if we calculate what the price is per gallon that still not may not be what the price is to your customers because you have to look at how you pass that rate through okay are you done Logan yes okay North Moran Water District questions no this is Jack Baker of North Moran no particular questions right now we do appreciate the good work of Lynn and her colleagues on this thing I know it's pretty tricky and we've had input obviously through Drew McIntyre and that Julie blue on the financial part but we do appreciate the work and no questions at this time thank you so much town of Windsor Sam you have any questions no questions just that we did look at the cost to our customers and it was in terms of other things it was fairly negligible you know because the vast our vast costs are in our delivery in town thank you for that Valley of the Moon Water District any questions no questions okay Grant and Lynn I have just a little follow-up along the lines of funding have we how firm do we think we're at with the federal funding given everything is there any inklings that that could change we'll have to watch that we'll have to watch that closely but the work that we did in prior years led up to funds being obligated which is the necessary threshold for fortunately to advance the completion of the three miles so that's probably the lion's share of the largest area that we've got to be watching for on that and ending that project so that was about a 28 million dollar load the other area of course would be federal projects dealing with the two dams or operation and maintenance budgets are always underfunded and the need to battle for those so I expect it could mean that we have to go and do our best to point out the necessary upgrades and maintenance requirements on both Warm Springs and Coyote Valley Dam thank you for that okay if there are no other questions this is your last opportunity for questions this is Lynn one more time so the change in the rate is 48 dollars and sixty-five cents per acre foot and when you convert that to gallons it's point zero zero zero one cents cheaper the price thank you for that win so Drew do we have any public comments on this item we do not madam chair you're not okay so with that I think that we are at a point that we can look to approve this budget if that is the wish of everyone so anyone I would move the item madam chair thank you so much Jake do I have a second I'll second Jack Baker Northburn okay we have a motion in the second I'll do a roll call vote then City of Katari yes City of Petaluma yes City of Brony Park I City of Santa Rosa no the of Sonoma yes North Marin Water District yes I don't have Windsor yes Valley of the Moon Water District yes okay so then I show that City of Katari Petaluma Rohnert Park Sonoma Northman Water District Windsor and Valley of the Moon are yes and City of Santa Rosa no okay Easter yes thank you okay so with that we can move on to items for our next meeting which is supposed to be May 4th are there any items that people would like to see on that I think they're madam chair I think there should be an update on any impact any impacts on water consumption just the question that I raised earlier on just so that we continue to be apprised of any possible impact of shelter in place thank you for that anything else madam chair this is a grant I think it's probably worth also reporting while we've got everybody assembled here virtually that last week the water contractors and water agency you may recall have been meeting regularly at least once a week to report out on the Katari corrosion control the repair work that had happened successfully I'm really proud of everybody working together on that and getting that job completed and as a result many of us I know North Marin Santa Rosa and us have committed to a series of weekly calls to stay abreast of what might be changing to coordinate best management practices and to ensure that we're communicating frequently to learn from each other and be ahead of this as much as possible so I just wanted the WAC members to be aware of the tack has been moving in that direction and we're already learning things from each other and making sure we've got mutual aid and other assistance available when needed thank you for that jolly good yeah so I would again like to thank Jennifer and Easter and Drew for helping get us through this thank Lynn for the presentation thank all of you for being so patient with this I hope everyone stays safe and stays home and I send lots of prayers out to anybody that's not feeling well and wish for a speedy recovery and I'd like to thank Snowmawater and all the water contractors for keeping our fresh clean water coming and so with that I believe we can be adjourned thank you madam chair well ready well done thank you very much


Happy Thanksgiving to the American viewers that are watching this video today. We have some exciting things to go over, so it looks like Cedar Point is buying more property and it's all property surrounding a similar area. So I'm going to go over in this video why I think they're buying this property, what I think could be happening with this property, and in terms of if it's a future kind of thing or a future future kind of thing, if you get what I mean. So we all know that Cedar Point has been purchasing property since I think around 2016, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but Cedar Point has been purchasing property just on the exit or the entrance to the Peninsula since 2016, 2017 they bought more and then just this past week they've purchased the rest. So in red is what Cedar Point currently now owns. So they bought the homes along. I do not know how to pronounce his name, pardon me, but Knuck Street, something along those lines they purchased those homes, they purchased the old furniture store, and they finished the purchase of the kind of roadway and alleyway as of this week. Now I encompassed the red to show what they currently own. The green is what I think that they could be after. So red is a little like kind of weird to me because it's a very small pot of land. And I don't know what they could be doing with residential property as well. It's very weird. I don't know if it's going to end up being more dorms, a hotel, a hotel would be really weird for me because it's again a very weird location for a hotel, or if it's going to be offsite, HR, you know, headquarters or maybe parking again, it's super small for parking as well, unless they're going after the green. Now let's say Cedar Point is going after the green. I could definitely see this being some sort of parking garage structure. Again it would be really weird and rude to build a giant parking garage structure right next to residential homes, but Cedar Point's got to do what Cedar Point's going to do. Now the only thing I have against this building a giant parking structure out here and then expanding Cedar Point outward is they did just expand their front gate, made it really nice. They installed gatekeeper and that would render that whole expansion useless. So again, I do have to say I don't think this expansion and buying of property is for the near future. I think they're buying property to kind of solidify a future market. Maybe they, you know, are going to keep going after Cedar Point for years to come and they want this property just in case. They bought this property again for about $1.27 million. So for anyone that isn't in America and in Ohio or in more expensive parts of America, $1.27 million for all that property they bought is pennies. To put that into perspective where I live, you can buy a townhouse nowadays like a small townhouse for $1 million, like for $1 million, like that's how little $1 million get to in other parts of the world or in more expensive parts in America. So the fact that Cedar Point was able to purchase this land for $1.27 million, that's a really good deal and I do not blame them for purchasing that land. Now let's get even more broad. So they're obviously purchasing land rate at the entrance slash exit of the peninsula. They're purchasing land kind of in a similar fashion all surrounding the thirsty pony. I encompassed it in green. They do not own the thirsty pony. They have not bought that land yet. But this is what I generally think they could be going after. Now what they're going to do with that land is very interesting. No one really knows. They're not saying what they're going to do with it. The news outlets don't know what they're going to do with it. We don't know what they're going to do with it and you guys don't know what they're going to do with it. It's very interesting. It could be anything. I can tell you though it is not going to be part of the dry park. Cedar Point is not expanding all the way out there. It's impossible. It will not happen. There are a couple of options that are open. It could be parking. It could be again HR headquarters or it could be dorms or hotel. Really those are kind of the only options. I mean they could also maybe invest in a restaurants again maybe just a couple more restaurants out there. Anything could happen but it's not going to be ride related. I really don't think it's going to be park expansion related either. It would be really difficult for Cedar Point to then tear down their front gate. Move it, change gatekeeper although you wouldn't really need to change gatekeeper other than maybe it's name even then not really but to remove your front gate it's just not going to happen in the next five years. Again this is a tough one because it's are they planning that far in the future that they're buying this land and you know maybe eventually parking garages will move out there and they'll have shuttle transportation to the island. Who knows it's a very difficult situation. Anyways I want to hear from you guys now comment down below what you think why do you think Cedar Point is buying all this land at the exit and entrance of the peninsula what do you think could be going on and what do you think is going to happen is it a near future project or a far future project comment down below guys hope you guys enjoyed this video smash that like button share this video for others to enjoy and comment down below have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy your weekend guys bye