Okay. It's 632. Let's go ahead and open the open session part of this meeting. Let's see. I will give a report of actions taken in closed session. The board voted unanimously to authorize the district manager to sign a water rights protest resolution agreement subject to certain changes requested by the board. We're now reconvening the open session. Paulie, can you take the world call note, please? President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Ackman. Here. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Smalley. Here. Okay. Now is time for oral communications from members of the public on items within the purview of the district but that are not on the agenda tonight. Are there any oral communications? Seeing none. Hearing none. There's somebody trying to make a comment. We'll go ahead. There is no president's report this evening. So we go on to new business. The first item is the draft water supply collaboration agreement. Rick, you want to take the lead? I'll ask district council to present this item to the board. Thank you, Chair Mayhood. District manager Rogers. The proposed agreement that you see in front of you is something that has been worked out in the context of trying to resolve the district's water rights protest of the city of Santa Cruz's petitions to change its permits and licenses for the use of its water rights. Certainly the board and perhaps some of the public that regularly attend these meetings will recall back in spring approximately in March. The district took a close look at the changes that the city was seeking to its water rights permits and licenses that was processing through the state board. And we filed a protest focused on two specific issues. One being to protect to ensure that the district's Loch Lomond contractual entitlement or allotment to water from the reservoir was protected against potential ambiguities that might suggest that the changes to the city's water rights somehow interfered or limited the district's Loch Lomond allotment. So that was one. The second issue of concern had to do with the potential interaction between the city's proposed changes to the required in-stream flows in the San Lorenzo River at the big trees gauge and how those might be seen or interpreted or misinterpreted as binding precedent for the district's Felton petitions which have a by flow an in-stream flow requirement in the river that's measured at the exact same location. And the city's changes if they were applied whether inadvertently or purposefully to the district's water rights would essentially double what the district is required to keep in ensure stays in the water system as measured at big trees. So we identified both of those issues in our water rights protest and since then there's been a series of correspondence and negotiations between the district and the city in an effort to agree to language that would resolve the district's water rights protest. And you can see the last exhibit to the agenda item is the agreement that potentially would resolve those water rights protests that the that the board just discussed in closed session. The reason for this open session item is that in connection with language that ensures that the city's water rights changes don't modify or interfere with the district's contract rights there's a sentence after that that indicates that the parties are going to mutually collaborate to determine or going to collaborate to determine mutually agreeable operational terms for the district to exercise its Loch Lomond entitlement or allotment. So I think there was some hesitation on the part of the district to as open-ended as that that commitment is there's some hesitation to enter into or to agree to that type of language without at least starting the process with the city of talking about what mutually agreeable operational terms would look like. We've only talked with the city essentially once maybe twice about how about this precise issue and the result of that discussion was the proposed water supply collaboration agreement that you see as exhibit as the attachment aid to the agenda item. And all of this proposed agreement essentially does is create a framework for the district and the city to work together holding regular meetings over the next few years and exchanging information in an effort to determine what the operations would be for the district to make use of its Loch Lomond entitlement. It doesn't commit the parties to any particular course of action simply to meet and exchange information and the agreement itself indicates that the parties are going to use reasonable best efforts to enter into some kind of an operational agreement by 2025. And again I just want to underscore for the folks at the district that there's nothing in the proposed water rights protest resolution agreement or in this proposed water supply collaboration agreement that changes the district's contractual entitlement to the water from Loch Lomond or there's in particular there's a 1981 judgment that interprets the meaning of those contract rights. So the district continues to hold those rights and what this does is tee up a process for the district and city to figure out how that's actually going to be accomplished. And with that I'm happy to answer any questions. We'll go ahead and start off. Jamie, do you have any questions or comments? Not at this time. Okay. Bob? I'm not at this time. Lois? Can we talk about flows at this time or should we wait? You can ask any question or talk about whatever you want. Okay. Well, I, this is kind of a, I mean there's always been flow requirements that I'm aware of. And I think the bottom amount was like a 20 and the city wants to raise it to 40, which is double and really makes it hard to, for us to get water if that passes. And I, this, this is kind of a, what is this, what does this mean? It's a curiosity question. CFS is cubic feet in a second. How do we measure cubic feet in a second? A second disappears in a flash and does it include how wide the river is or how wide the stream is? What exactly does that mean? Because I can't imagine how you can come up with flow in one second if that goes by in a blink of the eye. Is there some magic doodad that does that for us? I mean I, it, maybe that's not, yes there is and Rick would you like to quickly answer Vos's question? Real quick, there's modern equipment in the San Lorenzo River that you can go online at the USGS station at Big Trees that provides those measurements in real time and historical. Okay. All right. Thank you that answers my question because I just couldn't figure out how it could be done. It's an interesting website. I'll send you that link. It has years and years and years of background and monitoring of the San Lorenzo River. Okay. Thank you. Mark? Yes. I understand from the draft agreement that that's the district signs this and the city signs this that the city was going to convey this to the state board indicating that we're withdrawing our protests to their petition. When would the state go ahead with this if we do not end up coming to a mutual agreement on this? What's the schedule or the timing of that effort? Currently the deadline for the parties to resolve the protests themselves is December 23rd. So absent an extension as of December 23rd the state board could initiate administrative hearing proceedings related to the district's water rights protest. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. Okay. I have concerns about these agreements which are especially in item G that it seems that some of the statements in here are sort of weak or passively written. So for example, that the city it says does do not preclude the city from delivering water to SLB under hydrologic conditions four and five. So that language means that these changes that you're talking about and you're agreeing to here does not preclude the city, but it also isn't saying that it requires the city to deliver the water at any time. I mean obviously not instantaneously or whatever there'd have to be some operational limits on that, but it really doesn't the way it's worded give much confidence about that we certainly can draw on that contractual agreement on 314 acre feet during drought situations. And so I guess I would just like a comment from Rosemary about that. Great. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak. And Ryan Bezier, the city's water rights attorney is also on. So if there are further questions you can add or correct me if I'm whatever I say might not be exactly right. I think that with respect to the actual petitions, I the the goal of the language that was written was to just document that it that the commitments and the prohibitions we're making on what we're going to do with our water does not affect you and and I think that's why it's written the way it is. I think that we could say something something else but the bottom line is we've acknowledged I think in the recital document that you have a right to this water and to from our point of view there's not an argument about that. You didn't really answer my question you said we have the right to the water but you didn't say irrespective of drought conditions. Go ahead Ryan. Sure thank you for the opportunity. The way I would think about it is the relationship between the city and the district is governed by your contract as interpreted by the court in 1981 which is 313 acre feet a year doesn't matter what kind of year what year dry year drought year it's 313 acre feet as defined by the contract. The language you quoted Chair Mahood it is to go into a water right permit and so the tricky thing is you want to acknowledge the contractual relationship between the city and the district without having the state water resources control board get in the middle of that relationship through a water right term and so you're you're correct that the language in the water right protest agreement doesn't expressly state what the contract right is and basically that's because we don't want the state water board getting involved in our contracts um and so it's the contract that's the legal commitment by the city to the district about that 313 acre feet and the language in the water rights protest agreement is is somewhat more vague simply because we don't want the water board involved in our contract that that's between the city and the district not the water not entirely satisfactory answer but anyway okay i'll i'll leave it at that any other members of the board want to comment bomb well just just following up on that and you know my apologies for asking a stupid question here but does that mean that the state could put in place a water right that would effectively prohibit our ability to um obtain that water under our contract i don't believe so well could they i mean i i mean i know we don't believe so but is it possible that whatever comes out of the state uh water board will in any way impact that so i mean that go it's a double edged sword right i think the action that they're taking affects our water rights and i think our goal in the language that we included was to establish the situation in which we acknowledged that we have a contractual right to you know responsibility to provide this water to you and that we have done a number of things in this uh in our protest response in the back and forth to you know clearly make it the case that what we're committing to with respect to the 40c fs for example at the big trees gauge and this situation and what our commitments are do not affect you either from the what you're required to release in the the flows or um our ability to deliver water to you i don't think that the the um state board is going to get in the middle of that that's my personal view so just just to be really clear and take an extreme example let's say that you had available to you 314 acre feet um and a particular period and we wanted to take 313 of it that we're okay doing that absolutely okay and i if i could add just a little to that so you know of course the the major benefit of to the district of the contract is being able to access the city's stored water and so in a really really dry condition like hydro hydrologic condition four or five you're not going to want to divert natural flows anyway because there's very little natural flow you would want access to the stored water and so you know the the language we attempted to draft was to recognize you would be able to exercise your contract right to that stored water and i i certainly would hope the state board would not seek to effectively invalidate your contract we don't have a big problem with that i think that's for us to do business with not them and just if i may follow up jenice or gail sorry uh jenna and that is that your understanding of the uh the intent of the language as well yes um i the the my understanding the intent of the language to resolve the the lock loman portion of the the protest is that it confirms that the district's contractual allotment to the lock loman water can be exercised by the district at any time of year and at any rate so long as yes gail does that does that get to the the heart of your concern are we still have a gap um i i guess i i never heard rosemary or ryan say that directly jenna just said it so that that's what worries me about it but i'm just i think i'll just let that i think i heard i think i heard rosemary agree though yes and and i guess i would say that um from the early days of the san margarita groundwater basin process there was a that there was a conversation at the end of one of the early meetings that occurred in belton and i'm on record saying you have a contractual right to this and you can have it under that right whenever you want it drought or no drought and that's on a video someplace as well as this is obvious i'm not on this one too okay yes right so this one will go in the archives yeah well you know i i really i really do want to um acknowledge that we plan for this it's not it's not something outside of what we've planned for i think that it's one of the reasons why the operating agreement is really important to us not because uh if someone's wanting to constrain how you're going to take it but for us to be able to effectively manage the system that we have access to we need to understand what you want to do and when you want to do it and how you want to do it and that's what that's about and it's not it's not a matter of constraint it's a matter of the opportunity to work together to figure out what works for you and hopefully what works for you will work for us as well as as long as that's at the lowest possible cost it'll work i'm sure there you go that's certainly one criteria i'd like to turn to uh members of the public will come back if the board has any more questions but would any of the members of the public like to ask any questions or make any comments about this agreement uh rick or am i'm unmuted no you're fine go ahead okay i'm glad to see that some progress is being made with this uh 300 acre feet a lot in it it's been something that's uh hung over for us for a long time and we should get to some resolution about this and i too had that concern about uh whether we could get water from uh this our allotment during stage four or stage five drought conditions and i'm pleasantly reassured that we can so um i'm glad to hear that and uh i think if that is truly the case then um we should have a good arrangement with them and uh look forward to us actually using that water uh in the best way we can thank you jim mosher can you hear me yes we can well thank you board and i have i guess i was a little surprised by the comments by the city's attorney and by rosemary that we couldn't have this agreement in writing because the water board would be uh because it would get involved in the water board petition i don't see why we can't have in writing what rosemary and and um gale and um jena just said which is that it would be it just seems to me would be reassuring to have what's been said orally actually in writing it if it somehow shouldn't be part of this particular agreement why can't we have a side agreement um that confirms what's been said verbally uh and uh so that's one point i just i i think you wanted in writing partly because i feel like the city is um these agreements are so based on well everyone's going to cooperate and be in good faith but on the other hand the city uh filed apparent that looks like spent tens of thousands of dollars filing up filing a protest to our own water rights petition as a rate payer anyway i had i was surprised to see this i didn't know if the board had any warning or any there was any discussion before that petition that protest was filed um and i just i worry that we the that we are in a one down position with the city and all this and that the cooperation is uh more one way so i i those are my concerns about uh moving forward on this thank you thank you jim are there any other comments uh from the public seeing none hearing none let's go back uh and see if there are any uh comments from the board mark yes i would like to follow up on uh mr roger's suggestion of getting something offline that we don't have to put in front of the state um i believe ryan was the one that made that uh or implied that's why we don't want to put it into this uh agreement but can't we develop something between the city and the district that's internal between the two of us that addresses uh concerns that have been brought up by the district recording this uh rosemary ryan can you comment on that i can comment if you like rosemary would you like to go ahead go ahead ryan i well we do have two agreements fundamentally um we have the water rights protest agreement that would go to the state board and we have this water supply collaboration agreement that is a side agreement between strictly the district and um the city to to deal with this i believe both agreements recitals recite that the district has a right as determined by santa cruz county superior court to the 313 acre feet per year um that i mean that's i think it's about that simple jenna can correct me if she feels any differently but we the water supply collaboration agreement is intended to be a side agreement strictly between the city and the district that would not go to the state board and so it is a little more open about how we will work together to ensure that you can access that supply i would just uh say that my reading of of that as attachment a is that it is largely addressing kind of operational things about sharing data about flows and pipes and other things and really doesn't says we'll collaborate on that aspect of it but it doesn't address for example the issue that um that mark just raised about um timing of taking our allotment or for example any kinds of issues having to do with precedence regarding um flows uh in when we can take things out of fault creek so you know and there's nothing in that agreement that says anything about what our priority is in terms of taking uh you know water and um you know if our if our priority is in terms of taking water out of uh of lakloban is equal to anybody else's it i think it would be encouraging to all involve to have that stated explicitly could i could i could i make a couple of comments here i'd be happy to um in the agreement that is the one about collaboration on the operational um you know developing the operational plan i'd be happy to add a sentence or two that indicates the um that the city acknowledges the contractual right entitles the the district to take water under any circumstances and and something like that we could add a sentence to one of the recitals where we've acknowledged that that's a case so if that would be useful i i don't believe that we can stay something related to the issue with the fault creek flows and and i will say this is why because that our our we we've made a recommendation to the um to the uh state board that would go into our water rights that would acknowledge that our commitment to the 480cfs bypass flow does not affect you and beyond that i think that your those flows and whatever they're going to turn out to be if they stay at they what they are they get lower uh if they change in any way is something that you've been working on with respect to some of the water rights issues you're dealing with right and we we've gone on record to indicate some of what our concerns are and i do want to clarify that the 40cfs bypass flow doesn't require the city to put 40cfs in the in the system below there at the current flow right there right there now right now for example is only i think that's under 20 it means that we can't operate our facility at felton unless the flows the bypass flows 40cfs so it's an operational constraint it has nothing to do with us having to like deliver water out of the lock loam under not divert someplace else and we don't really divert in that part of the basin anyway so i think that the issue with respect to the felton flows is resolved adequately in the water rights uh language protest resolution and we've acknowledged that it doesn't doesn't that's just what we're doing doesn't apply to you i don't know that it belongs in the uh acknowledgement agreement that we're talking about but a language in the agreement to collaborate on the 313 from lachlan well i think before the meeting started rosemary i heard you exchange something cut the tail end of the exchange with lois about you know we're in the same neighborhood and we want to collaborate and things and really work together and and that's certainly the approach i think that i've wanted to take and i think our district has taken i think that i would be most comfortable if that had been done within the context of not seeing a response to our activities that is going to cost our rate payers hundreds of thousands of dollars and take a lot more time to you know in the end of at the end of the day it's going to result basically in the same outcome which is we want to be able to move water from any source to any destination so that we can manage our district as efficiently as possible and the city of santa cruz has made that task a little bit more challenging um i would certainly be more comfortable with statements about intent if we were in fact working together to be able to resolve those kinds of differences in a way that doesn't cost our rate payers as much time money as it's going to um so i mean for for what it's worth i'm i'm happy to hear you say what you say i'm certainly looking forward to additional actions that will bring that kind of neighborly approach to our activities going forward as well i think our response to your activities was very measured very focused and could be easily addressed i'm not sure i see that on the other side may i reply yes okay i with with the great respect i understand your point and i respect your your point of view i do i will tell you that the conversation that has occurred between myself and rick and others jena over what these many months while we've been working on the the before and the our water rights petitions were were noted noticed and you know through the process has a lot to do with recognizing that you're correct there are we have we're both in that basin we we have the ability to negatively or positively affect each other i am entirely uh we feel responsible and happy to take responsibility for avoiding minimizing and mitigating the impacts of my systems operation on the environment and certainly on you i i believe that we are responsible for that and by the same token i believe you're responsible for avoiding minimizing mitigating the effects of your operation on the environment and the city and our response to your petitions and your you know your eir your not your eir but your um in may mitigated negative deck was basically a notice on uh our part to you that we had concerns that in fact what your operation noise might have negative impact effects on us but that we couldn't tell because of the lack of information uh and the depth of the information and analysis associated with what you developed i i do get the point that you make about your ratepayers and what they you know what the costs are i respect the concerns but i cannot let another entity externalize its impacts onto my ratepayers just as you can't let us externalize our impacts under your ratepayers so i really feel i you know that's that's the point of you that i bring to this process and i do think we we um we do have a lot of work to do together and i think there's a great opportunity for us to work effectively together and i look forward to doing that uh well i appreciate that rosemary we certainly would like to work on that in a neighborly way that would um ensure that uh the impacts to all involved are reduced i do want to make one very very important point though over the last 10 years our water use has dropped dramatically uh we're talking the order of somewhere around 40 percent we are currently at about 38 gallons per water per person per day indoor use we are so far below the state uh goal that it's not even funny and so to basically indicate and by the way we're in a no growth environment which is very different from other areas of the county and the only growth we're going to have is demographic shifts as empty nesters and retirees perhaps go elsewhere and families replace them so we are in a very very very different environment we have done unbelievably good work on making sure that our community's impact on the environment is minimized to an extent that i challenge the rest of the state to get to where we are and in fact at some level to get to where the county of santa cruises um so um yeah i i'm not sure exactly where people want us to go 30 gallons a day 20 gallons a day in order to make sure that we're quote not impacting the environment in some way or externalizing our impacts uh we have done a really good job and i stand by that in any forum at any time and challenge other people to do as good as we are doing statewide i well i think that's well said bob the the asymmetry of the situation is pretty striking um are there any other comments by board members mark yes i would ask rick rogers take uh rosemary's offer to amend that collaboration agreement to address the concerns that we've expressed with being able to take water at any time during a year um and put it in a more uh what assertive was the word that you used earlier gale rather than the passive voice of the active voice um into that so if if you will allow me mark what i'll do is just add that as a second component of the motion that we will have in front of the board is that all right please yes so i think what i will do them is um as we agreed from closed session um we are the motion before us is to authorize the district manager to sign a water rights protest resolution agreement subject to certain changes care care may good if i if i could i'm sorry to stop you but i are you trying to create another motion similar to what we did from the report out of closed session i i thought that um i thought that we had to vote on this in public no uh there's no need to vote on the water rights protest resolution agreement in the open session all right okay then i will that i'm sorry i didn't understand the process so then um i think at this point then the only motion that we would have in front of us is to direct um the district manager to um work to uh modify the water supply collaboration agreement to include language about the timing of uh are uh using the lock lomond um a 314 acre feet per year per um rosemary statement that it is not with restricted with regard to drought situation and chair may hood could i offer a clarification on this point um assuming the board approves the motion that chair may hood just proposed i would take it as my direction to try to work work out the changes to the water uh the collaboration agreement and the protest resolution agreement both this week with a view towards finalizing both so that we have that done before um the deadline uh with the state board to resolve the protest uh i i think that that's fine anybody have any concerns about that okay um i i had a motion is there a second for that motion i'll second okay um paulie would you take a roll call vote please president may hood all right vice president henry yes director ackerman yes director false yes director smally yes the motion passes unanimously okay thank you um we move on to the next order of new business which is the draft annual financial report for fiscal year 2020-21 yes i would ask the uh the acting finance manager to present this item to the board uh hello everyone uh we are happy to be presenting the comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year 2020-2021 uh the draft financials were brought to the budget and finance committee and discussed at the committee meeting uh during the budget and finance committee meeting a few typographical errors were brought to our attention uh one being on the first page of the financials it was requested we changed the verbiage uh for the fiscal years to for the fiscal year and on the second page we updated uh mark smally and jamie ackman's term expiration date to reflect december uh 2022 both of these changes have been made um and with that we are going to slightly update the recommendation to be it is recommended that the board of directors review this memo receive the presentation from our audit firm fedoc and brown llp and accept the slvwd financial statements for fiscal year 2020-2021 with the typographical changes noted from the budget and finance committee um and with that i'll hand it over to andy beck with fedoc and brown for his presentation thank you miss reid can everyone hear me hello yes we can okay uh i'm not sure as far as as far as the powerpoint presentation did you guys want me to share my screen yes i think that would be good if you can okay um give me one second i mean assuming he's a presenter do you see the uh presentation right now yes we can thank you okay so again my name is andy beck with the firm of back in brown and i'd like to start with the independent auditor's report which is located on page 10 of the financial report on the bottom paragraph we give an opinion and in the case of the district we give an unmodified clean opinion by saying that the financial statements are fairly stated here we have a summary of the statements of net position the statement shows that total assets were at approximately 78.9 million which is an increase of approximately 18.6 million deferred outflows of resources were at 1.7 million which is an increase of approximately 31 000 now this balance consists of amounts regarding your op-ed and your pension liabilities and it's offset by your deferred inflows of resources which was at approximately 67 000 uh total liabilities were approximately 43 million dollars which is an increase of approximately 14.5 million now on the bottom we have your total net position which is the net worth of the district at 37.6 million and this is an increase of 4.2 million and consists of your net investment in capital asset and these are your capital assets using operations to provide water and wastewater to your customers and not available for future spending your restricted net position sits at 626 000 and your unrestricted net position is at 3.1 million dollars and this is the amount essentially available for future spending here we have a summary of the statements of revenue expenses and changes in net position total revenues were at 13.2 million dollars which is an increase of 509 000 total expenses were 12 million which is an increase of 1.5 million dollars and capital contributions were at 3 million dollars which is an increase of 2.99 million uh increasing your net position again by 4.2 million dollars we also provide a management report which consists of our communication with those charged with governance and again in the case of the district that would be the board of directors and our communication of controlled deficiencies and our communication with those charged with governance were required to communicate any significant estimates or sensitive note disclosure in the case of the district cash and investments capital assets pension and OPEB were all significant estimates and sensitive note disclosures there were no difficulties encountered in performing the audit no disagreements with management and no management consultation with other independent accountants in our communication of controlled deficiencies we noted no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies right so to summarize the district received an unmodified keen opinion which is the highest opinion you could get net position increased by approximately 4.2 million dollars total revenues increased by 509 000 total expenses increased by 1.5 million dollars and total capital contributions increased by 2.99 million uh i would like to conclude by thanking uh the general manager mr rick rogers and the finance department for their assistance in performing our test work and i could take a moment right now to answer any questions regarding our financial report okay thank you andy um let's start um questions or comments with lois who's uh the chair of the budget finance committee well i believe during the finance budget and finance committee meeting we did address our questions and the information that we had received so i i'm do you want me to say what the committee recommended to the board yes okay the committee we met yesterday and we had all our questions uh answered and lots of information as was mentioned there were some small little problems that were asked to be fixed and the budget and finance committee decided that they wanted to recommend that the board approve the slv wd financial statement for fiscal year 2020 to june 30th 2021 all right um mark did you have any questions or comments um i'd like to better understand this 4.1 million of net uh overall net position increase um which to me seems very significant almost 10 percent of our uh budget so i don't know if it's uh kendra to address that question uh rick uh can you help me out here i could kind of uh answer that okay during the year you guys are the district receive about three a little bit over three million dollars in capital or just let's call it operating in capital grants because of the the cz u fire that uh that the district experienced during i believe it was a okay so so it is it is grants then so that a lot of it yet three million of that would be grants okay all right um that answers that question the other question that i have is on um the district's portion of the financial report um on page 80 you presented photographs of all of the directors i find that somewhat strange in a financial report um to me it seems like this isn't the uh the annual yearbook photos i don't know if the other districts find that on the district presents a uh comprehensive annual report the gfoa for a war and as far as these reports and i i tried to not i don't want to call it a cat for because uh supposedly this that uh that has a meaning that's derogatory in another nation so i'm going to refer to as an act for annual comprehensive financial report so for something that goes out for award my experience is that the board members pictures are on there now is a mandatory i okay get with the gfoa checklist and if all right uh did you have any other questions mark or are you asking that our pictures be taken down i'm asking if any of the rest of the directors find that odd and if not let it let it proceed jamey i saw your hand up hey i was just going to respond that these cap documents are pretty standardized across special districts and um we had to produce them in the transit world and although in in the private sector it may seem odd um elected officials usually like to have their faces in any documents that their names are going to be on and so it's pretty typical in in this world mark okay thank you jamey jamey did you have any comments or questions about the audit for the overall financial report no thank you well done okay uh director faults wow yes and just to piggyback on on that would mark um i i don't think we're being narcissistic here so i think i think we're doing um yes i um you know the the thing about these reports is that there's there's no doubt in my mind and after reviewing it that the accounting is all the way that it needs to be i've said that in the past and i think our finance department does a good job in making sure that the numbers balance the way that they're supposed to i had two i had one comment on the content one question which i think is hopefully a very simple answer and then i have a few observations the first comment is on the organization chart um my understanding was that we are going to include uh the community at the top of the organization chart um and i think i don't think that was in there i think we included it in the budget by the way am i still coming through because i think my yes you are i think my computer was doing some weird things there during hanty's presentation i remember you mentioning that and i can't remember how that was resolved kendra did you or or rick you want to pop in and make that change yeah yeah i i know it may seem symbolic but you know the the community is in fact the owners of this district and they certainly are our bosses for sure because we report to them at least every four years if not more frequently um the question was about the document being searchable um i was not able to search the uh draft report and i'm wondering if that's because it's labeled a draft it seems like it should be searchable but but it was not doing a search when i tried andy do you want to respond to that uh when you see searchable do you mean searchable on the district's website searchable as inside of the pdf that i downloaded oh no it should be searchable um let me check on my side real quick a second well i i just want to make sure that it will be searchable yeah i mean i i do nothing to protect this document so okay yeah it should be searchable okay sounds good about this okay um let let holly respond i think she wanted to say something about it i was just going to say um sometimes when i um put this document together the uh different uh components are not no longer searchable if i'm if i'm trying to use the bookmarks for the agenda itself the the different components suddenly lose their compatibility with the searchable aspect so it may be just uh the the problem with the action the document that you received and that was posted and when it goes on the website it will work properly okay great thank you um just a couple of observations before we we go on to public comment and about these annual reports are from my point of view more statements of accounting they're not really statements of finance strategy or really provide a lot of insight into the district's true financial position specifically the off book's unfunded obligations that the district has as well as a view of what kind of investment is necessary in the district's infrastructure going forward um i think we've discussed before that depreciation numbers and assets and that sort of thing are historical they're not they're not going forward that said those kinds of um that kind of information is not part of standard annual reports and i understand that but i believe that it should be part of the supplemental information that we provide to our community in order to continue providing a transparent view of where the district really is at with respect to its true financial position and i'm hopeful that over the course of the next year or two that we can get to the point where we are providing a summary of the obligations that we have on our effectively credit card um and the obligations that we have for spending on capital going forward which are substantially different than um what might be implied by some of these historical numbers in addition um i wanted to mention or wanted to ask actually if that 1.5 or 1.7 million dollar increase in operating expenses that we saw this year wasn't any way going to be offset by FEMA money because that is a substantial increase and i'm assuming a good portion of that was due to our activities around the CZU fire we have a the finance manager has a breakdown on that bob and when you get done with your questions she can report on that that would be great i think it'd be helpful for the community as well um as you know i'm deeply concerned about the pace at which our operating expenses are increasing which are consuming the vast majority of the rate increases that we have seen over the last few years and by vast majority i mean about two-thirds of the net revenue that's resulted from the rate increases and i also want to caution folks about the net increase or excuse me the increase in assets that are on there i believe that is due mostly to the loan that we took out and um that loan of course is not um i mean that's money that's going to a specific purpose it's not sort of free cash that's sitting there that we get to do with what we need to so while they those increases look really good if you look at the increase in liabilities that's a little bit of an offset between those two um okay great thanks and uh sort of a rundown on what those FEMA reimbursements on operating expenses would be you want to respond yeah so um i kind of did a you know quick review of the increase in expenses that were related to the CZU fire um and we have just a quick rundown uh tree removal was one of the bigger expenses coming in at 422 thousands the and that was the portion that we were not able to capitalize so there there was additional tree removal that had to be done for construction that we were able to capitalize but 422 000 hit our operating expenses our water quality sampling increased about 100 000 meals for our staff was about 8400 utility costs increased about 100 000 we had some more erosion controlled debris removal which was about 100 000 all of our staff over time came out to about 81 000 and temp labor was about 75 000 and uh just other miscellaneous items was about 30 000 so that's totaling about uh 900 000 um the numbers probably a more but i just i just found this in doing a quick review of expenses that i could pin down um it would most likely be a higher number if i went through with a fine-tooth comb um but that would take you know a little bit more time but that's uh certainly something that i can get to you if you would like me to delve into that a little deeper um close close close enough is good okay is any of is any of this um is any of this recoverable by FEMA yes um so a lot of this was submitted to FEMA for reimbursement again i would have to figure out which portions were actually submitted for FEMA but that's something i could provide to you as well um i think just from from my perspective a gross number of operating expenses that's submitted for FEMA reimbursement would be fine it doesn't have to be detailed i just want the top line number yeah yeah i could get that for you tomorrow um i don't have that in front of me right now i think the only thing it wasn't the only thing that wasn't reimbursable out of that list of FEMA was the hundred thousand dollars in increased operating costs with PG&E FEMA will not cover those increased operating costs for power after the uh after the disaster event so so that means we should be looking at getting somewhere around 600k back then at the 75 percent reimbursement correct plus the state share and what would that be i don't have that in front of me we can get you that bob with the number right now yeah that's great i mean so basically then what you're saying and i think this is the important point is the increase in operating expenses really after all these offsets come in is going to be somewhere more in the order of a million dollars not the 1.5 to 1.7 okay great thank you um are there any more questions comments by the board before i go out to the public okay um are there any questions or comments by members of the public on the audit i don't see any hands um so uh i'll come back and we have a motion in front of us uh sent to us from the budget and finance committee to accept the San Lorenzo Valley Water District financial statements for fiscal year 2020-21 with the typographical changes that were noted at the budget and finance committee is there a second second but i have a question yeah well let's just okay now we open it up again okay bob go ahead so would the motion need to include the addition of the since we're talking about typos would it need to include the addition of the org chart the community to the org chart yes if you would like we will add that typographical noted at the budget finance committee and the change to the organizational chart okay thank you so that that's a friendly uh friendly amendment to the motion and uh so we don't need to second that um any comments from the public or any more comments from the uh board if not holly let's go ahead and call a roll call vote president mayhud hi as president henry yes director ackman yes director false yes director smally yes motion passes unanimously with that we go to our next item of new business which is grant approval funding for consolidations um right yes thank you chair on october 7 2021 the board approved a request from four springs and brack and bray mutual to explore consolidation with the san lorenzo valley water district in addition the board approved resolution number five authorizing the state department of water resource uh small community drought relief grant application um and on november fourth 2021 the state water resource control board approved grant funding in the amount of 3.2 million dollars the grant provided funding for an interconnection between the san lorenzo valley water district and brack and bray and four springs to provide necessary engineering construction sequel review um on everything necessary to install the inner ties ties currently district staff and council are working with brack and bray uh four springs and big basin on putting together uh and developing agreements moving forward and term sheets to protect the district and to protect the mutuals staff is requesting to at this point we do not have any authorization from the board to do any construction or spend any hard funds for engineering sequel etc we would like to move ahead with the construction project that is covered entirely by the grant funding and the amount of 3.2 million start with engineering put out rfp start the process moving forward um the risk of the district is very minimal it's believed at this time although we don't have agreements um in place with the two mutuals we are moving in that direction um we're also moving in the same direction with big basin water uh either way the mutuals will become consolidated with san lorenzo valley whether it's on their own or if it's through big basin water um feel that this risk um is very small staff is requesting that we start these processes moving forward i've asked director smalley as chair of the engineering committee and with his background and experience in engineering to participate in the consolidation process of the three mutuals um working with uh myself and the engineers and i would like the board to authorize moving forward with the uh with the inner ties for these two mutuals and with that i'll turn it back over to the board for questions bob would you like to start with questions or comments you're muted i got it rick um what was the original grant request amount the original grant request i do believe was 4.6 million and now in in conversation with the state water board they looked at our itemized list of uh of projects uh and the cost estimates cost estimates for you know the engineering the rfp sequa they believe that the district's cost estimates were high uh and they reduced uh the the grant into what they thought the actual cost estimates would be they didn't reduce the amount of piping or the project they just uh felt that our prices were too high in the estimates and questioning they have are in the process of assigning a construction overseer from the state and if the projects go over bid closer to what our original estimates were that they will adjust grants before the construction moves ahead is that in writing it is not in writing but what they approved is the grant application that includes the the scope of work i think the scope of work is the most important in this process and we will move ahead with hard construction if the the grant finance is not there we will you know re regroup with the state okay so just to be really clear here the um we're short 1.4 million of what we think it's going to cost um they're okay with us starting to spend money on engineering and sequa and all the preparation work but when we get to the point of actually going out to bid if the money left over from all those activities doesn't cover the bid then we don't start work that's correct okay Gina has Gina has her hand up so it looks like she wants to pipe in here um thanks chairman hood i just wanted to add that we have had discussions now with bracken bray we haven't with forest springs just yet about putting together a term sheet to outline what this process is going to look like i believe consistent with the direction the board provided in october and one of the concepts we did talk to the bracken bray folks about is the notion that those homeowners may need to put up funds if the grant funding isn't sufficient so we haven't documented that yet but we did have that conversation and i think it's fair to say rick we didn't get any strong negative no really get any negative with bracken bray bracken bray is i don't want to say they're super funded but bracken bray with their fema money and this project they're looking at almost being made a hole so they're they're on board with no concerns and bob i i made a mistake it wasn't 4.6 it was 4.2 million re-requested on that we're only short a million they're only short a million and and the state did not with and what they did remove is the contingency they will not do an estimate or do grant funding on contingency following on actual costs okay so i mean i think it's it's fair to say at least certainly my opinion hopefully that i think the board agree you know is a unanimousness that we want this to proceed but you know contracts are written not because things go well but because things don't go well um and uh you know i just want to make sure that the rest of the sand runs by water district isn't on the hook for the million dollars so the commitment that we have operationally is that if we get to the point where um we've expended all this pre-construction money um and what is left of that 3.2 million isn't going to cover the cost of what we put the grant in for that we do not proceed with the project um until such time as that money is covered correct um and i i do want to say i'm just quick pulling it up um on the uh the part of the uh the intertide going through existing san lorenzo valley uh upgrading existing undersized main is a cost of 1.7 million in the grant so the district's getting a benefit out of this grant as well just uh yes i i understand that yes i totally understand that but without bringing these folks in we wouldn't be doing this construction at this point right at least not to this extent that's correct yeah so um yeah right so um so just to be really clear then we wouldn't proceed with any portion of the construction even the part that benefits us if we don't have enough money left to be able to do the whole thing that's correct okay and this and and these improvements will also will be needed uh as part of the big basin consolidation as this water will piggyback through the system no i understand that um and so the the second part of my question then is let's say everything you know doesn't happen the state besides they're not going to put any more money in it takes a while to get everybody on board and in four springs and bracken braided to basically cover the rest which is not an inconsequential sum um is the state going to want any of this grant money back if the project doesn't complete in a period of time that they think it should i think that's a possibility oh really i can't say no i mean wow uh there may be you know if we don't complete a hundred percent of the grant work yes they may want the money back is there a time frame on that because that certainly raises the risk for me pretty uh but we submitted we submitted a time frame in the application that we would uh we're looking at completion in two years um okay again everybody wants just to happen and contracts are not written for when things go well but that just raised the risk for me okay um the last question i had was on you mentioned something about mark's role and you know mark's got a lot of background in engineering but i'm wondering what what specific role is he playing again it's not clear to me and how that is different than just his role in the engineering and environmental committees by the way these kinds of these kinds of um consolidations are probably going to touch a lot of different committees right admin for communication environmental certainly engineering certainly and absolutely finance i'm not sure what mark's i don't i don't understand mark's role mark's role would be mostly in the design and moving forward on putting together these inter-type projects um on that that staff and working with consultants i'm sorry isn't that staff work it's also nice to have support from uh the engineering committee uh the and the engineering chair well i think we did support consider it staff work but as you know either as i will tell you that i could use all the help we can get right now mark's help would certainly be appreciated well i think there's other expertise in the board that could also be you know done for other specific things as well and i don't mean to belabor this but but i i think it's very important that we maintain uh boundaries right between board and staff work and um if what you're saying is that you're going to expect him to do work that is classified as staff work i i'm not i mean i have a great respect for mark's ability and certainly if he wasn't on the board and you wanted to hire him and all the rest of that i'd be more than happy with that but i'm concerned about this from a precedent setting point of view relative to best practices board policy and and the rest of it i mean the board policy is pretty explicit about staff does staff board does board i do believe board members have been involved in the felton consolidation board members have been involved in the lupkiko consolidation this is nothing new to uh have a board member review and be in involved in some of this were were they involved at a uh engineering staff level or were they involved as an ad hoc committee to negotiate the deal or communication involved in many strategy type sessions well that again i mean we can certainly put together an ad hoc committee if we wish on consolidations and i would be open to that kind of a concept but i i'm very concerned about the notion of board members doing staff work i i guess rick um i i don't quite understand this i i thought that when we've discussed this before that basically mark would be sort of serving as a representative of the board if there were negotiations um with uh people involved with bracken brayer forest springs in you know sort of the same way that somebody's represented i'm a representative on santa margarita and i i didn't really think of him as being doing staff work it was just that we have to have one board member that kind of represents and in his present for uh discussions of things so see it you know where involvement and high level involvement staff a board member the face of the district it worked out well in the past there never seemed to be a problem felt and it sure didn't seem to be a problem in la pico i don't understand what the issue is now but that's okay i mean it's a it's a very different thing bob jaymie had a some letter i'd like to hear from jamie on this too because she's got a lot of experience working with these these community so um first of all i i think it the the concern that i take rick is is less in in mark or any board member's involvement and more in that it seems to me it should be the decision of the board who we select to represent us it um relative to any interactions just as you know as gail pointed out we selected those representatives for santa margarita right as the board so i i guess what i'm concerned about is you're sort of identifying who you would prefer and that does potentially create some issues i mean because you have certain boundaries um with the board in terms of your preferences for their involvement in certain activities for example writing um and communications on behalf of the district so for you to then determine that you want board member involvement in certain places that's additional does seem to represent some questions that i think we as a board need to have an opportunity to weigh in on lois um this is not quite um board uh involvement but but san lorenzo valley water district uh sent two of their employees to in rick's case to uh help with a grant that we receive from the state a hundred percent grant for an intertie between between slv and long pico and so the san uh slv sent rick over to take care of that he did absolutely all the work now granted he wasn't a board member the other thing i want to say about this is that if we dilly dally around what's going to happen is what happened when there was a big delay a two-year delay starting on the long pico projects and everything the cost went right through the roof and and also james was sent over by slv to help out long pico so there has been maybe not board members doing that but there has been a record of employees working with another district to help them we also had board members i do believe jim raposa made the long pico meetings and he also made the felton meetings he was on the facilities committee which was pretty much the same as the engineering committee well that's true he was we have done that in the past but at this board that was a different board yeah so i'm i'm willing to let bob go ahead we'll just one more comment on this and then i think we should we need to if i may suggest something because i i think jamie makes a really good point this may be a topic for a board discussion about how we want to engage on these on on these consolidations i would like to separate that part from the question tonight and and take that up again perhaps in january if if that's a minimal to the board because at this point in time i i think there are serious issues with this involvement being anything outside of regular committee work the second thing i want to mention is i don't see this dilly valley is long pico in any way shape or form no work was being contemplated on long pico until after the assessment was passed the issue was once the assessment was passed the district did not promptly go into it the agreements were already in place to consolidate everything was you know dotted eyes cross teeth i think that's what i just said we we don't have that here we don't have the agreements in place to cover our rate payers in the event that's something where to go sideways and i i i really hope that that's not the case rick can we quantify about how much the it's going to cost us to do this pre-work that if something went sideways we might be on the hook for um i'm looking at uh the break i mean if it's a hundred thousand i don't care if it's a million mark i'm gonna go ahead and call on mark um i reviewed the grant application go ahead go ahead i reviewed the grant application um which was included in our board packet to address bob's question about this upfront work which includes uh getting the water service agreement in place the sequa um environmental permitting aspect and then the design for the engineering design work we're looking at uh about 320 000 between those aspects which is i think bob what you're referring to is the upfront work well hopefully by then we would have um you know agreements in place to cover us right um well i i have a few questions on what's being put in front of us this evening for this uh grant agreement that i think might shed some light on this if i can go ahead with those yes please do okay um the letter that we received from the state refers to a funding agreement uh that a funding agreement is being drafted uh but the letter that we received from them i think is november 14th do we have that funding agreement yet rick i don't believe so okay um because i share a lot of the same concerns that bob has already raised um were about a million dollars less than what you had estimated for and i went back and i looked at the um as bid per per lineal foot for work on the quail hollow pipeline which just came in about two or three months ago and if i take the third most competitive bid out of there we're right at uh the costs that the state is allocating just for the construction aspects so i think we're going to be short on on funds if we go ahead as as planned at that 3.2 so i understand from what jenna said that bracken bray uh residents or the mutual was not averse to them picking up some costs but have we put out potential numbers that we could be as much as a million dollars short and are they prepared for uh a cost on the order of several hundred thousand or four springs or yeah for four springs or for bracken bayer for both um right so my question is this draft the funding agreement that we're getting from the state how does it address cost overruns beyond the cost of what's in the um of what they've allocated for us uh to address bob's question on this these upfront costs how do we get the interim payments from uh did they give us line allocations in the way that um our engineering manager had laid out with plans and engineering at 200 000 if they gave us line items for those can we invoice them then once we get completed with those and get and get reimbursement we can take draws on the grant okay so we can take draw interim draws on it um and once we have the engineering we should be able to get the cost estimate from contractors or outside consulting or construction management firm to see if it lines up with what the rest of the grant is giving us okay then I think getting this funding agreement from the state is important also so that we understand how we cover or how the district would be compensated for any of these overages um and if we don't have that funding agreement yet when do we anticipate that should be coming any time right because they've assigned a grant manager and he was supposed to be contacting as they said within two weeks and that was about a week ago so I imagine it's going to follow hand in hand uh mark and can I just uh sort of follow on on that and ask what about a sort of an equivalent agreement with Brackenbrain Forest Springs about you know if we come up short how much they're willing to pay or how we're going to deal with it it just seems like we need to have also that kind of an agreement before we're going to feel totally comfortable going forward we're working on putting those together with both forest springs and Brackenbrain but they're not you had your hand up um my question was answered okay and I have another question um I couldn't figure out when I looked at the grants it was clear that the that we were only going to get the money um reimbursed in other words there is no quote upfront money um and what I wasn't clear on is like how often that happens whether it's paid out you know annually or whether you can just bill them and they'll um as Mark was sort of saying you invoice them and then they pay you some amount so I guess what I'm saying here is that that sort of matters too is whether we could be on the hook for you know a million dollars worth of stuff that we're waiting for them to approve it's kind of like the problem we've had with FEMA that hopefully we can avoid by negotiating something up upfront Gina do you have any insights into that well you know unfortunately these types of agreements are essentially contracts of adhesion they're going to say what they say and we'll have to take it or leave it um but uh once we get it we can analyze it with a view towards better understanding these issues and how they may impact the district and what we need to do to build the protections that we can into our arrangements with the mutuals how far along are we with negotiating these agreements with Bracken-Brady and Forest Springs are we almost done are we do we have any letters of intent do we or are we just starting we're just we're in the early stages we've met with the leadership of Bracken-Brady and I do believe was it either tomorrow or a thursday we meet with the leadership of Forest Springs yeah and we told them in those meetings that we would try to get and I called it a term sheet but said you know I'm not looking at a very legal type of term sheet more of a roadmap or an outline and we would try to have something worked out with them this month to bring back to the board next month and then we'd have to develop a more detailed agreement from there because this would require a vote of the people right certainly the final agreement would for the term sheet we would probably ask the board to approve it but it doesn't necessarily have to be if it's not binding I I'm wondering if given the discomfort some of us have expressed that this should be tabled at this time and brought back at the first meeting in January that these two recommendations because I fear that if they came up now we might have some negative votes and I don't think we want we don't want that but so that would be my motion would be to table is there a second I'll second that is there any discussion of that motion yeah Lois is I just called on you Lois okay okay so like I said Lompico got a full grant for an intertie but we had to pay the whole amount before the funding came to us and I imagine those things haven't changed but unlike FEMA the state came up with the money a whole lot faster than FEMA did and I know we don't have a fairy godmother Lompico we had a fairy godmother who paid because we didn't have the money upfront to do the job that would do the intertie the cost and so I I don't really know what to tell you but that's the way grants work for the most part I don't know if you can just divide it up into parts um or not but we couldn't it was we had to pay the whole amount once it was done Bob yeah Lois I think makes a good point it it might be good to see if we could get paid for each segment right our segment for Springs and Brackenburg um I I did have a another suggestion Dale would it be worthwhile excuse me to also have on the agenda a discussion of what the board involvement uh if any uh beyond just you know regular committee work it is going to look like for these consolidations um I I certainly would like to see that given the discussion the way I would handle that Bob is um we have a motion in front of us that we should vote on and then your suggestion which is I I consider quite separate from the recommendations that's fine we had and that that we would just simply agendize you know at your request and I think many sounds like she would support that that I we would agendize that discussion sometime in in January um and I wonder one or the other of the those two meetings um but that that's kind of a separate question from the the motion which is because we were basically directing a district manager to construct certain things and to do certain things and I think right now people are a little uncomfortable with that so that was why I was I had the motion on a table Gina would you like the comment sorry can I just follow up with that the only reason I raised it in the context of the motion was because Rick introduced it in the context of the approval yeah I understand but I'm happy with the way that you're suggesting I just want to make sure it gets on the agenda before Rick takes official action on that okay Gina did you have a comment I just want to add and I'm risking putting words in Rick's mouth here which is always dangerous um but I think as I understood part of the impetus to get this on the agenda was to get some board buy in to just to get the ball moving with developing RFPs um and getting bids to get this process rolling so that you know the stars align as we certainly hope they will um with agreements with the mutuals and the grant funding that we're not behind the eight ball uh Rick is that a fair summer I don't know that it would involve actually spending that much money now would it all of this is extremely time sensitive moving ahead and there's going to be this all the way through through both of these and big basin and you're not going to have 100 guarantees there's going to be a lot of steps through here and there's going to be you know a lot of different you know we're looking at hopefully grants of up to 20 25 million moving ahead and there's going to be a lot of uncertainty as we move ahead and as there was in Felton as there was in Lampico but they worked out um you know if you don't want to take my recommendations and and how I see this moving forward I don't think I'm the right person for this job no you're looking at months of delays once you start going into committee and so forth this isn't these grants is very time sensitive they want this money spent and I understand the risk and I understand the board's risk and I feel the same way I'm concerned about your risk but if you don't want to take my recommendations and have trust and moving forward I'm not the right guy for this job I really would think we need to have that discussion moving forward I would rather have that discussion before we get into you know what the board's going to do and and how you're going to because you're never going to get 100 percent guarantees on this stuff and there's a lot of reasons why Lampico is costing what it is and it's not just because we held off on the projects um and there's a lot of reasons what Felton costed what it did but those were decisions that were made so I you know we can hold off on this but what you're doing is putting the projects out other two months all I want to start doing is getting the RFPs out not much cost in that okay how about numbers I do think we should have this other discussion for me let me try to thread the needle here um it seems to me that part of the problem is that there are two components of the recommendation and the first part which is seems pretty low risk which is including authorization to incur legal and grant writing expenses within the amount of the district manager's purchasing authority and and also is essentially saying go ahead and you know get get started on that and I think what I it's the second part where we're you know we're directing you to definitely construct something that I think everybody's sort of choked on so would it I guess what perhaps what would be acceptable then is to take a vote on the um I could withdraw my motion to table and instead make a motion to basically say what the first part of this recommendation is would would that be be better and then the idea is that you know in January at the first meeting um there would be hopefully by then some kind of information from the state about the funding and from Brackenbray and Forest Springs about how they'll deal with any shortfalls and at that point we can deal with the second component of this recommendation I don't know we can have those answers by January from Forest Springs and Brackenbray you know they have their processes who will to get through their boards and their votes I don't know if I can have what you all want probably not until February March I you know we haven't got you know we've got votes from Brackenbray a hundred percent of their of their members to consolidate but we haven't had any agreements going back and forth yet and you know obviously when it comes to financial agreements and so forth and responsibility that's from things slow down a little so what's to stop you from sending out RFPs or other things that that's a kind of a no or low cost thing right very low cost and there may be you know we'd like to run we would like to get the water master plan updated to run those neighborhoods to make sure what we put together for design and so forth you know is the adequate pipe sizes and so forth Mark um I would like to see the district proceed with preparing the RFPs for both the CEQA permitting and the construction design efforts and I expect that that's going to take on the order of a month to six weeks to get RFPs put together for both of those and then be able to get responses from consultants so yes I want to I want to see that happen and I think that that's certainly within your purview to go ahead with that I expect at the same time then that this funding agreement that we're getting from the state will be into us and whether we get it in January or February that's okay because we're still working through these initial steps at that point and I agree with what Gail is saying can we as a board authorize you to proceed with that initial preparation work to keep the ball moving so yes on that on the second aspect of this to construct the interconnection no that's what a number of us are having difficulty with at this point the actual construction to all our aspects or not that we don't want to done but just that to actually direct you to do it right now given the information we have in front of us right uh Jamie um thank you I just wanted to say Rick I I I have enormous respect for the challenges that you are facing in terms of you know trying to get all of this work done under tight time like pressures knowing that there's a you know finite timeline on this grant money and so we have this you know deadline looming to which we have to meet and so you know I I want to take a deep breath and just you know let you know that I really appreciate that um that being said I also want and hope that you'll take the deep breath and recognize that it absolutely is our job to ask these questions you know there's a lot of discussion that goes on in these meetings about the past poor decisions that past boards have made sometimes because they were being forced to make decisions without enough information so as challenging as that might be I think that we have to have the room as board members to ask you those questions without without you know you thinking that we are questioning your abilities as the general manager that's uh I think Jamie is just was spot on in what she said um and I I echo every bit of it um the only thing I want to add is that we also made a commitment to our community uh that we were not going to put them on the hook for these consolidations now I think everybody recognizes there's timing a little bit of risk versus a lot of risk but but that is the commitment and I I I call upon the Forest Springs and Bracken Brake people to accelerate their efforts as well to get us into a position where everybody understands what the guardrails are and what the rules of the road are as fast as possible even over this holiday period that's coming up because I know our team is going to be working on the things that Mark talked about earlier and I I expect that Forest Springs and Bracken Brake will do exactly the same thing um so thank you for your efforts and let's keep moving I would like based on what Mark said to offer a new motion Mark would you let me sort of paraphrase what you suggested if you would and you can you can you can fix it in a friendly emotion if you don't motion if you don't like it um that we move to direct the district manager to proceed with water system consolidation with Forest Springs and Bracken Brake mutuals including authorization to incur legal and grant writing expenses within the amount of the district manager's prefetching authority and to develop RFPs for SQL work and engineering studies does that capture yes okay can I have a second on that second second thank you um Rick Moran has been sitting out there with his hand up for a long time so um oh did you take your hand down Rick I was going to call on you finally I'm sorry okay um there is okay Rick did you want to comment and then we'll come back to the board for a comment on the motion go ahead Rick Moran are you out there he's coming do you hear me now yes we can okay do these mutuals have any assets that will benefit the slv water district such as watershed property access to streams for possible diversions access to aquifer and wells any buildings pumps do they have assets that we will take over if we merge with them thank you Rick you want to answer that the only asset that is out there that would be considered something the district could use Rick would be Jamison Creek which is in the big basin watershed and big basin water does have two wells but both the other mutuals are receiving water from big basin they really do not have a source or any aquifers or any facilities all their facilities have been burnt to the ground so they would wind up with all new facilities 100 new mainline in bracken bray with storage and 100 of new mainline and storage in forest springs um so we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion of the motion by the board uh bob had his hands up and then lois just to follow up on that a little bit um there's going to be a lot other a lot more construction that has to go on in four springs in bracken bray area that is separate from and not part of this particular grant in order to get them up to the right place so this is this is a small portion of the overall job that's going to have to be done lois i guess i'm a little torn because four springs and bracken bray need our assistance our help they've gone through a horrible fire and i really i i don't know how i want to vote on this i i want to vote that we start moving ahead but in the process if we can't support the district manager i don't want to lose him i i don't think that's what's happening lois i think we all support him in his efforts and we're just i i understand that but i think um and i'm sorry he feels that way but i think we're also correctly uh exercising our fiduciary duties directors so we have a motion on the table in a second um holly would you take a uh a roll call vote please president may hood hi okay vice president henry yes director akman yes director falls yes director smally yes okay motion uh passes unanimously okay so we now go on to our last order of new business which is the board policy manual uh rick or jena want to take the lead on this i'll ask the district council to present this item to the board okay thanks chair may hood uh and rick this uh i'm bringing the board policy manual back to you tonight for its annual review um no doubt you will recall the fairly extensive process that we went through um really less than a year ago starting in approximately january of 2021 it lasted through about march or april um where we consolidated input from the various board members and came up with a list of proposed changes and then did a red line and asked the board to approve the red line revised board policy manual i'm hoping that in light of the scope of changes that we did earlier this year that this may be a more limited review um that we can get through a little more quickly um and to that end i proposed um a fairly short list of staff rick maran muted or yeah rick maran please uh ctp people please mute rick maran uh thanks very much um so i've proposed a fairly short list of staff recommendations for um conceptually the changes that we would make to the policy manual and bring back in january and i'll just step through them quickly updating essentially video conferencing procedures in light of where we are now with with covid and ab 361 um updating the section on minutes to reflect current practice and this was one that that holly had had a great suggestion that we needed to do because the way the district records um meetings and creates minutes is different than what's in the board policy manual now it's fairly technical changes i believe um combining the district's engineering and environmental committee um to reduce in part to reduce the number of committee meetings uh going forward uh reinstating the policy of holding regular board meetings twice every month uh first and third thursday given experience with having to call special meetings during the holiday months um updating the board order business to reflect current practice the main thing i'm aware of in this category is that um we now have a president's report which results in a short report um from the from the chairperson typically uh which should be added to the order the regular order of business and then we need to do a little housekeeping on the section on the investment policy annual review because it's changed in light of the investment policy that the district um adopted this past summer and then i have actually one more a number seven um that we became aware of just in the last couple days which is because the board made can public uh committee member appointments so early this year it raised a question when do they actually start serving on committees um and so i think we're gonna have to be more clear that um when the board makes its regular appointments that they start essentially january first and end december 31st typically unless there's a resignation and it gets filled midterm okay um so here's here's my suggestion for how we might proceed on this so we have seven items in front of us that i think um jena would like us to discuss tonight um so that we could have sort of an informal poll uh about whether we want to accept them or not and those that we accept she would then create official you know changes to the board policy manual that would come back in a red line version um at a board meeting in january and then if uh that we would then vote on that there would be the official vote um and that if there are individuals that have other changes and i don't know if there are or not that they would submit those to jena who would then sort of recast them in the same way we did the last round where we had a poll that would then be sent out to all members of the board the results of that poll would be part of the board packet for a board meeting in january where any of these other items that might be suggested by board members would then be discussed and also voted on separately so and then presumably if any of those were adopted then jena would come up with the exact language that would be voted on in a red line at a subsequent meeting so i don't i don't know if there are board members that have other changes i guess the first question i'd ask is are there other changes that board members if you if you have any you want to raise your hand if there are bob you have some okay so then so um if you you know um i think that the process that i described would probably be you know depending on how many you have or how many you want to we can get to tonight but we might be well i will submit them later i think yeah that's what you know we didn't as i told jena when i talked about this before the meeting i was saying you know we didn't really know this was coming up and so i think that we want to give the board you know members a chance to go back and and think about whether there are other changes that we've talked about and formulate them so i think what i would say is that let's say that you get you have to if you have any changes you want to make then you have to get them to jena in 10 days and then she will recast them and send out a poll that you have to respond to within a few days and then that could be at a meeting in in january okay so in the meantime let's go ahead and talk about the seven items that are in front of us and i guess what i was just thinking that let's start with the one that strikes me as being perhaps the most substantive which is the number three which is to combine the district's engineering and environmental committees into a single committee and rick would you like to i think this is in part from from you and maybe other members of the staff and i think mark might have want to weigh in on this can seize the chair of both of those committees but let's start with you rick and what the reasoning for this might be well just a lot of the items that the engineering committee takes up it's not a lot it's not all of the items have environmental segments to them and it just seems a good fit that we can combine the two and discuss the two issues with you know each individual project you know you take there's not a project that doesn't have significant environmental impacts and they go hand in hand and i think it's a good would be a good combination and what this year we've only got what one or two public members on the environmental committee this year just one okay we have one environment next year one okay next year one yeah and she's a continuing elena playing i'll let mark do you want to comment on this since you kind of have the most direct experience from my past working experience and from what i see in particularly with the environmental committee rick your comment about the engineering projects almost all have some construction or some environmental component yes i agree with that but of the issues that are in front of the environmental committee i estimate that 70 of those issues are due to construction that the district is doing in various areas and needing to do some type of environmental review aspects so from that perspective i think the the link between those two committees makes sense so that both can understand what the other side is doing and i understand the the desire from a what an efficiency standpoint to be able to do those together most of my experience on the environmental side um is from doing construction projects and doing uh EIRs negative declarations environmental impact statements so that's where a lot of my experience comes from thanks all right lois you're also on the engineering committee did you want to have a say anything about this well i've noticed for quite a long time that engineering and the environmental committee seem like they go together because the district doesn't want to do some infrastructure work that would damage the aquifer or for anything environmentally so are we going to vote on this tonight or yes okay so if we're going to vote on this tonight could i ask bob a question go ahead okay yes um would you like to be on this combined committee may may i respond yes please so um first of all let me say that this is the way that it used to be and it was not a very workable solution um and the reason for that is because the outside of the construction aspects of the environment the rest of the environmental issues that come before the committee in the past and should come before it going forward the the expertise is very very different and what was happening is that a lot of the environmental issues were simply not getting um the kind of specific attention that they needed so i'm not in favor of this at all it was split up for a reason and the reason was that the topics outside of construction are very very different in fact i doubt that we would have our life as a policy our integrated pest management policy and a number of other issues if we had this as a combined committee it simply would not have gotten the oxygen that it needed to move those things forward so um i i just i don't i don't agree with merging it at all now having said that um i might be the only one on the board that doesn't want to go back to the way that it was because i think this was a good change to split them up in which case um i will answer the question that you pose lois which is a good question uh after we get a sense of where the board is at then i won't say what i was going to say okay um if you're not going to answer me let let me just i didn't say i'm not going to we have to determine if we're going to consolidate that's fine let let me just um say some respond a little bit to to what bob says and and i get your point but i think that one of the things that has changed and and i'm not i think that there might be a time when some of where i'm in favor of this because in reality i think we've been sort of overcome by events that given the fire and how much of our efforts now are devoted to uh construction um there really isn't um that much else that's done also as we've seen the public interest in this committee has declined um and i think that's in part because in 2019 a number of the sort of community-based environmental projects that members of the public felt comfortable talking about or were interested in were eliminated and the result is is that now a lot of it is you know is fairly technical um and so for example lane fresco told me that you know she used to be on it when we worried about things like you know funding cleaning up the river or school research projects that the public was really interested but now she just for example didn't want to be on the committee because she didn't feel like she was qualified to really assess rfps for consultants so the way i view this is that it might be that there will be a couple years from now where we'll go back and we'll split them up but that the reality of the situation is is that the workload is such um both for the public and for the community for rick and staff and the nature of the workload for the committees are largely related to construction so i think it makes sense to do this but let me ask jamie before i go back to lois and bob to have her if she wants to say anything no i i'm i'm in favor actually of combining the two committees because i i am compelled that it makes sense and i i understand bob exactly what you're saying and why you're saying it that it was important to separate the committees because it gave room for a conversation that was not just about engineering needs as it related to the environment but about the you know our environmental responsibilities itself so i really do appreciate that but i think when i think when i look at our mission as an agency you know and what we're doing right now that is affecting the environment um this probably makes the most sense so i i want to let let me go back bob let don't lois okay just out of fairness so i had a reason for my question bob asking you if you'd like to be on this combined committee because i would be willing to step away from being on the engineering committee don't get me i like being on the engineering committee i've been on budget and finance that's what i've done for my whole working life and the 11 years i've been on a water district i've been on budget and finance and it was a breath of fresh air to be on in fire on the engineering committee but i will step away bob so you can be on that committee oh that bob go ahead your turn yeah so i i mean so it's sort of basically everybody wants to do this um i i do um i do say that i i think we'll see if we'll see if alina wants to move over um or if there's even room depending on well i mean that that that is one advantage is we only have next year we had two applicants for engineering and one applicant for uh environmental so this allows uh all the members of the public who showed interest to have the ability to serve on a combined yeah and and i'm hopeful that because i think alina brings a very very important voice um to our deliberations at the environmental committee um and it's a voice that needs to be heard and it's a voice that i hope even though the focus here is going to shift over to engineering it is something that she'll want to participate in i don't know if mark has spoken to her or not but um i haven't so i'm assuming here that that said lois i'll answer your question you know sure i mean i mean i have an engineering background i like to say i'm a recovering engineer occasionally i've also done a lot of finance as you know um but that pass seems to be uh not open so we'll do this just just to be clear we have not discussed this with any members of the public or anybody else because this is a board decision first and then right so well i mean you know we just recently approved approved well i um you know and and i i would hope that there have been some outreach they'll be informed and encouraged to i mean i will encourage all of them to serve on a combined committee and then it'll be up to them to decide if we vote to do this mark go ahead um i want to concur with bob's sentiment on alina and her experience in back rub does bring import into the environmental issues that we discuss at the committee so uh if the board agrees this yes i do intend to reach out to her to uh encourage her to participate so i agree with that and um to bob's earlier point this this is the way the committee or engineering environmental was handled previously but then some number of years ago they were split up my thoughts on that are if we find uh after i'm guessing we leave it this way for all of 2022 if we find that this is not working and in particular if we're getting input from carly that she doesn't get the uh the air or the audience and the time that she needs let's rethink this then well i i don't think we'll get that input but um i think it's going to be more of a board do we think we're covering the environmental issues appropriately given what's in front of us i i i think this this is a board committee and a board decisions okay um so i gina do you want formal votes on these i think it's it or how do you want me to answer i had been looking for a poll but it seems like the board at least there's a majority consensus on this issue and it does affect how the district stands up the committees in january so maybe it makes sense to actually have a motion and a vote on this particular element mark would you like to make a motion um yes i will um i'd like to make the motion that we have the district manager combine the upcoming engineering and environmental committees in january into one combined meeting okay and do i say committee i'll second the motion okay um i'd like to go out to the public before the um then come back for a final discussion of the board does anybody um and or carly for that matter you're there if you'd like to have anything to say about this we'd certainly like to hear it all right thank you director i mean thank you president um and i i guess you know in my mind i i believe that combining the two committees at this point does make sense um you know i think that's something we can revisit right now a lot of our items and our budget for the department are focused on our actual construction projects um so i do agree with with mark and rick thank you okay that that's good that's important to hear that from you any members of the public have any comments see any well rick has rick maran rose raised his hand yes and i'm unmuted uh thank you uh thank you for indulging me in so many times i've talked this evening but i do have direct experience with this i was on those original environmental and engineering committees uh when they were held as a joint committee and i was involved with them when they split up as well and uh to bob's point um i think that environmental issues will be the focus of uh people who are concerned about uh environmental issues and they will speak up whether it's the environmental committee meeting or a joint engineer committee meeting uh if they're committed to these environmental issues they'll find the platform to speak and that's what i did and uh many other people did as well um and the other part about it is as my part as a committee member and as a board member is if you can lessen the number of meetings that you have to go to that's a good idea so i i would support this with the caveat that bob um if there are important environmental issues they will be heard thank you thank you rick for educating us with your experience that's valuable okay so we have a motion on the table um any further comments by members of the board if not holly would you take the roll call though please president mayford hi hi vice president henry yes director ackman yes director false no director smallie yes the motion passes um okay so we now have uh the the other items um to me seem pretty simple and straightforward but i guess uh we could kind of consider it like a consent agenda and if anybody wants to pull one of them now uh because they want to discuss them more um we can and those that don't get discussed we will wait and see what we basically or would be saying that we approve them um but we're waiting to see the language that gina brings back in the red line okay so if that's that's an acceptable way to do it um let's see if anybody wants to pull any of the other things off and it looks like bob does so go ahead bob number four number four go ahead oh um go ahead and talk about it yes okay um thanks i can do that does rick uh or who among the staff for holly some who would like to address this the source of this one this is this one is actually as much from me i think as it is from the staff um in that my experience both this year and last year was that we ended up having special meetings in july november and december just because we had that much business it has to be done um and especially because so many things have to be done at the end of the year and it seemed like it was a better strategy to just have those calendared in and if you know morably need to we didn't need those meetings to cancel them then it is to have to force holly into trying to find times where everybody can be there um for special meetings so that was kind of the the rationale why i thought this was a a good idea you know as a as potentially a compromise i my's i maybe we can do the december one even though depending on the time frame it does bump up against um you know certain travel situations now given that we're all remote that hasn't been an issue but um you know it was an issue in the past um but the july and and um uh november ones i think are are harder the other thing i want to point out is that you know it may be that we don't need them in which case if we do have a special meeting it's certainly less costly to the district to do that from the point of view of compensation for the director's well okay our compensation is so low i think that if you've calculated that versus holly's time it's would be okay doesn't matter i mean we can basically say you should expect the potential of a special meeting on the third thursday or the first thursday in july but um you know don't don't count on i mean i could have done thursday this week um or even next week but uh i wouldn't have been able to make july or november well i think all of us are going to always have uh some conflicts and and i i could see that your point that sometimes the third thursday may be problematic for certain years and those would be ones where we would probably cancel well or the first or the first thursday in july holly you had your hand up holly you didn't have your hand up okay i thought you wanted to comment on this as the person that has to schedule these things any anybody else have a comment on this particular one well um i i wanted to say you know i i recognize what you're trying to do and it makes sense scale i i like the idea of being able to tell staff hey you know we're not having a december meeting you can plan your life according to that you know but then of course we have other work that comes up and we end up having to have these special meetings so you know i'm i'm torn because i i understand what a gift it is to staff to be able to let them plan for not having certain meetings during the year in terms of how it impacts their workload and personal lives too um but i you know appreciate that we also haven't exactly minimized the number of meetings this year any anybody else have a uh lois or mark okay well let's take an informal poll on this one again go ahead bob sorry i want i this was something that was introduced um in 2019 and we we did successfully um not have special meetings that year um it could be that maybe with the cz of fire recovery you know we're not able to do that but but it has happened where we've been able to manage to actually do what jayme was talking about so yeah mark um i would rather have the meeting on my calendar and be able to have it canceled a week before two weeks before rather than having to a week before make other accommodations for this special meeting when it comes up so that's my thought on i totally agree with that and and it would be especially compelling if we get to the point where we have to actually have a certain number of us in a room um being asked to do a special meeting on short notice can this be a burden then it isn't so much now but it would be them lois well all happens and sometimes we've got to have special meetings but we also i believe need to have a regular schedule so we like for me i look at when i think the meetings are going to be or when i at least what i thought they were going to be and i make sure i'm available i always make sure i'm available because i know when the meetings are now if one guy canceled it wouldn't be a problem but um and we we have a number of special meetings we had a special um budget and finance meeting yesterday and this is actually a special meeting wampikos having a meeting tomorrow night i've got three meetings this week but it's okay we have to go with the flow things change and we need to at least schedule what is forecast for the year for meetings and know that we're going to be available and if something comes up then that might change everything but like i said life happens okay so let's go ahead and just just to simplify this let's uh this would somebody like to make a motion regarding number four or go ahead mario yes are you in a position to make the motion because i think and then reinstate the policy of folding regular board meetings on the first and third thursday of every month including july november and december i'll second that are there any comments from members of the public seeing none holly would you take a roll call vote sorry about that president may hood hi hi as president henry yes director ackman yes director falls no director smiley sorry yes the motion passes um okay are there any other of the seven items that we would like to discuss or pull off of the so-called consent agenda here all right so given that we don't then gina you're instructed now to basically come up with the language for a red line that you will let red line version of the revised board policy manual that you'll bring to us at the first board meeting in january right and just as a public service announcement if you're going to send me input um i think the board said within 10 days which should be the 17th um just be aware that that input is going to go into the into the board packet as we did last year um so that it's public deliberation right so and also so just to clarify gina will then take whatever those inputs are and make them a poll like we did last year then we'll distribute it to the board members we will respond with our votes and she will make that poll part of the board packet as well um and then we'll discuss those at the first meeting in january okay everybody i think i think i got it straight that time okay um with that the final thing that we have is uh old business which is just the remote meeting authorization and um this just means that we ratify the resolution proclaiming an ongoing state of local emergency and authorizing remote meetings for another 30 days during the COVID-19 pandemic that's the motion is there a second second okay um can we have a real call vote does it have anything we get just um i'm sorry sorry we have public comments oh a public well or bob did you want to just comment or go out to the public well i was going to suggest we needed to go to the public thank you thank you for reminding me are there any comments from the public seeing none are there any comments from the board all right now holly would you take a roll call the president may hood hi vice president henry yes director ackman yes rector foals yes director smalling yes motion passes all right with that ladies and gentlemen i think we're uh ready to adjourn thank you very much good night thank you have a good night