We request but do not require that you provide your full-name address using the forms on the podium in case we have any contact you regarding your contact Okay without son I Would like to call to order this meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District And the time is 632 p.m. First item on the agenda. I think we need to take roll Excuse me. Bye. Take roll please President Hill Vice President Ackerman here director Falls here Director Mayhut here director Smalley here Okay, thank you To the agenda the staff have any changes to the agenda tonight Yes, we'd like to he'd like to just talk about the change to the packet to the packet not there's no change to the agenda Correct, right. There was an updated packet to eliminate any reference to the ballots that had already been collected So that was clear that there's no pre Determination of how this hearing is going to go and how many ballots to be told about this evening and there was also a Mistake or we missed one spot where we needed to add wastewater rates as well as water Yeah So that was the change to the agenda packet Thank you. So there's and there's also one correction. It's not in the agenda packet is that there is Resolution on that the rate resolution there is We also need to read every sending resolution 12 18-19 Which is the wastewater rates resolution? Okay, and that was omitted so we had three resolutions we need to add that fourth one. So Get to the motion we may want to have Do we need a motion on that right now Okay communications This portion of the agenda is reserved for all communications by the public for any subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district And it's not on the agenda The water rate increase is on the agenda. So this is not the time for water great comments yet Any person may address the board of directors at this time Normally presentations must not exceed three minutes in length and individuals may only speak once Please understand that the Brown Act limits what the board can do regarding issues not on the agenda No action or discussion may occur on issues outside of those already listed on today's agenda Any director may request a matter raised during the oral communications the place on a future agenda, sir Yes, Don Dietrich. I live at 904 Lockwood Lane in Scotts Valley. I'm a water customer of this district Yes, on January 4th of this year. My water was abruptly shut off without notice Now they were working on the main line a Quarter or half a mile from my house for two would allow almost two days They abruptly shut the water off without notice Never noticed the plan is when I was gonna come back on what came out of my cap and into my house look like sewer walk Now I I don't know what regulations you follow under or what they're supposed to do And I tried to find out by looking on your website, which is atrocious is horrible And when I called to find out why my water is off It was a snarky attitude There's an emergency Waterline break which can't be an emergency if you're working on it for a day and a half to two days before you shut the water off so When they turn it back when it was coming out brown and called back or told just run the water outside For 10 or 15 minutes.  I had to drain all water out of my house No, I'm sure I'm gonna pay for all that water that went down the curve because this water district did not have the courtesy To tell me they were gonna shut my water off I believe you're required to tell us when you're shutting it off under the California code regulations And I believe when water is contaminated or the pressure drops below a certain amount You're required to issue a cautionary boil water notice until you know the water is safe None of that happened.  So I drop my thing off My name is Karen Brown I think you guys need a history lesson my family ran a system with 26 homes with the treatment plant and holding text a 5,000 adult 5,000 gallon gravity-fed tank to the homes and I know how to take care of a public system I had to answer to customers as you do When SOV took over We were promised safe and high-quality water at an equitable price 2009 the rate increased 30% for three years They needed more the probation with the probation tank was used as a poster for repair examples and a big list on the improvements 2011 the good old boys Used my money and rebuilt the tanks on Nina Rebecca Drive It did some trickery real estate in order to move along so they can put in the tanks and This benefited three of the directors who lived up there and One of them even made money on the sale of this property and then the district paid thousands to defend him and Then they devised your master water plan Which you are still following to this day and in the master water plan What was devised was this campus? this campus idea and They wanted to use the campus Don't have it here To consolidate all their equipment all of their supplies into one place Which is great if you live in Boulder Creek, but having lived through all these disasters You do that all your forces like Pearl Harbor are in one place You need those strategically Distributed out in amongst all of us so when we have major storms major problems Trees down highways closed We can attack from all the different sides to repair the water and get our your customers back online 2014 another rate increase you change the district managers the old one got a $95,000 severance package the inter manager gets an unnecessary raise for a hundred and fifty four thousand dollars per year and Then there's 1.5 million set for the CIP project There's a grand jury investigation and you bought three fully loaded trucks for engineers The probation tank was ordered to be started and it was replaced five times bigger than it needed to be to service What Scott's Valley the master water plan? The director Director gave Okay Well, since I knew this was gonna happen I mean Thank you Maybe the meeting's over after me We have any more comments that are not related to the rate increase All five of you are lined up the way you are Usually We have any more comments that are not part of the right increase and not on the agenda tonight Thank you And I became very interested what we've had so much disaster I've lived in this town for a really long time and they finally put the fire hydrants in my Area, but when I approached the guys I said what about the water pipes and they said no, that's for a future date So I live from side you put the all the new fire hydrants, which I'm thankful It took the season you fire I'm thankful to have my home my question would be What Did you more did you do? Besides fire hydrants and it took over 50 years There was only one little fire hydrant and five homes burnt down in my area since I've lived there permanently in 74 I moved there permanently and The way that this flyer came to us all I Had some senior friends and we were gonna go to the meeting That was the sales, you know for the wife bringing us up to what and why and I've been conserving water For all this time and I'm thankful to this Bob for writing your article Because I that's when brought everything to my attention when you said we deserve more as Rapiers and that the accountability part is not listed and So like I said when the guys are saying in the road you were supposed to have that page and All you did was pay where the new pipe is it? It's wonderful to see the new fire hydrants. They're all up and down the road, but it took over 50 years It's a long time and it took a CZU fire and I'm wondering if that was part of the regulation for the For the FEMA loans or was that a part of the regulation from insurance companies? To have to install the water hybrids that I don't know. Maybe I've missed Several of the neighbors through those things when I said did you get the flyer if you do not say no?  They said what flyer so many people aren't even aware and so it's kind of like Your intentions are good. We all live in this valley. We know we need things I'm for all that and when the water was shut off Quickly in my neighborhood when the pipes were being done Without notice I called immediately and everybody's always so nice at the water department And when we were out of here at the CZU fire the water guys were staying at the same property we were which was my Son-in-law's Sisters property and they were camping there in their trailers And they would come back and give reports as to what was happening for our in my home was still intact so thank you yes, and I'm still not for this because I don't feel that we've had enough time We've been through too much disaster Okay Seeing no other commenters We will move on to Okay Okay Unfinished business and the first item on unfinished business is the public hearing The proposed rate increase so we are now Transitioning from just a regular board meeting to the right hearing and We'll proceed with the right hearing and not deal with other issues except the right hearing until we finish this portion Thank You President So this is a little bit of a Say lengthy but Moderately length Presentation, so I'd ask that everybody put their seats in the upright position with their drink tray up and stow it Bouncing your seatbelts and we'll get going Okay Item one so we're gonna have Heather kick this off Heather is our acting finance director at the moment and I don't know Holly. Are you able to put her up so she's actually speaking CTV will do that. Okay. Thank you And then I'll be followed by a presentation by the consultant wrap tell us and I will make some closing remarks So thank you. Take it away Heather Thank you Good evening board president and fellow directors. I'm Heather. I Palletti senior advisor with RGS serving as interim finance director I'm starting the presentation with some details about the events that got the desk district to this point It all started when the board approved a contract with Raft tell us for a rate study that was approved April 6 2023 Then like most other utility rate studies the study objectives includes preparing five-year financial plan Assessing current financial situation and ongoing revenue needs Performing a cost of service analysis consistent with legal requirements and Then proposing rate structures to meet rate setting objectives. Those objectives included rate stability This helps the district to weather droughts and emergencies Also to address the inequity in a single uniform rate as well as to encourage water conservation The process began with a rates 101 workshop on July 13 and Then various versions of the financial plan with scenarios that met goals concerning that coverage Fresh blow reserve levels were presented to the board on September 7 and 14 At least one presentation to the budget and finance committee With the board adopting the financial plan on October 5th From those financial plans The rate structure alternatives were Created and presented to the budget and finance committee on October 23rd And then to the board on November 2nd and then on November Excuse me December 7th when the board accepted the rate study and directed staff Proceed with the prop 218 process No less than eight public meetings were held prior to tonight a little bit more about the financial plan a plan adopted includes a Modest level of capital expenditures over a five-year period Modest level is twenty five million dollars worth It includes replacing raw water pipelines destroyed in the CZU fire It also includes the current five-year CIP Proved by the board during budget adoption plus Additional projects related to storm damage Total planned projects actually exceed that twenty five million dollar number Alternative funding sources will need to be found to pay for those additional projects No change to the level of staffing has been proposed or included in the financial plan Of the twenty five million in projects nineteen million will be is proposed to be paid for with debt financing Assumed in the financial plan is a four point five percent 20 year market loan The district will seek a loan with the most advantageous terms available at the time As the funds are needed It's important to note any debt financing will be presented to the board with additional public input It's also important to note a financial plan is an estimate Similar to the district's budget biennial budget It adjusts with time. It's not something set in stone That concludes my part from the financial plan the rate structure Is formulated and the rates are then calculated and that's where the district manager fruits and Raff tell us will take the presentation. Thank you very much Thank you Heather appreciate that I'm gonna Share my screen here Bear with me just a moment. All right. There we go Thank you Board district staff and members for having us back here today to discuss the water and wastewater rate setting process As a reminder, these are the steps that we have stepped through to get to this point today And we are at that last step here the public hearing The district strives to meet serval service level goals To provide safe drinking water some of those goals include replacing undersized and leaking mains improving system-wide reliability in times of emergency increasing water storage and fire and storm damage recovery On the wastewater side out those include regulatory requirements that drive additional capital needs And an existing collection system that needs improvement before it can be connected to the county csa number seven So now we'll step into the water enterprise As a reminder all the revenues that come into the water enterprise Go towards the operations and improvement of the water system The largest of those costs are related to supply treatment distribution and debt service related to capital renewal replacement and improvement projects As a reminder, this is the approved water financial plan projection this Uses a mix of revenue adjustments and debt issues to keep the plan at or near reserve target levels while trying to Keep revenue adjustments at 10 percent or lower So what the financial plan does is tells us how large of how large the pie needs to be how much money Is needed to operate the system and meet the levels of service goals What cost of service does is then says how do we divide up that pie between the different customer classes So this is a method To recover costs from customers in proportion to their usage of the system So we allocate costs to customer classes based on how the customers use the water For example peak versus average flow The cost of service is described in the american waterworks association manual m1 Principles of rates fees and charges and this methodology is used throughout the united states to set public and privately owned And from this cost of service analysis, we can help develop the rates and while developing the rates We also keep more keeping in mind balancing the policy objectives related to revenue stability conservation and affordability So we created a separate line item for capital related costs to help increase the transparency And and how your rates are being used For increased revenue stability, we increased fixed cost recovery from 37 to 45 percent To try to counterbalance that with regards to affordability We developed tiered rates for residential for the residential customer class and we added a new charge for private fire service customers We also keep in mind tier and peaking considerations when we were developing the rates The key factors that came out of the San Juan Capistrano decision is that you know Tiered rates are allowed, but they have to be justified The city in that case used multipliers to justify the tiered rates without an administrative record of the underlying rationale Raftos was retained after that to redo the tiered rates and those were not challenged Other considerations that peaking costs for Operations maintenance and capital are related to treatment reservoirs and storage transmission and distribution The water system is used day to day to meet customer demand But fire is is emergency use only and the industry standard Is to allocate costs on a customer usage and demand basis So we use the detailed billing data to help define or to calculate the demand characteristics and to Determine customer class customer classes to use for the rate structure So we have single family residential which includes single family as well as Homes with a single adu Commercial which includes multi residential mobile homes and homes with two or more adus An industrial class which includes schools and private mutuals and irrigation which includes the parks So on this slide we're graphically showing you those system demand characteristics by the different customer classes And you can see that we've also broken out residential into the three proposed tiers Because we look at each of those tiers as its own individual customer class to help determine these demand patterns So you can see sort of the overall seasonal variation as well as How the classes sort of classes and tiers peak throughout throughout this season And the table in the bottom right Shows you those peaking factor calculations. So we look at the max month usage divided by the average demand and that can you can see that peaking factor their demand characteristic for the customer class you can see that residential tier one is relatively flat has very little peaking to it Whereas for example that irrigation class has a lot of peaking. It's mostly used in the summer months So when we're looking at tier rate design derivation the tiered rates just like rates for all the uniform for the uniform customer classes Must be based on the cost to serve the water To serve customers in that tier and as we said we use the demand characteristics for the classes and for those tiers to determine that The tiers can also be broken down into different components We used base extra capacity and conservation So base is kind of the average amount of supply and delivery costs They're incurred and those are the same for every customer class in tier The extra capacity costs Get allocated based on those demand characteristics that we were just discussing And then there are also conservation costs that are identified by the district but those are applied to every customer class in tier equally as well because Those conservation efforts are a benefit to the entire system. There's not A focus on one particular class or tier And so you add those up together to get the total volumetric rate for each of the tiers This next slide is showing example of how the building will work for single family customers with this new tiered structure so currently All usage is priced at the same amount So if you say had seven units Of water use in a month all of all seven units of that water would be priced at 12 dollars and 66 cents In the proposed rate structure using the proposed fiscal year 2024 rates Your uh, that seven units of water would be split across two tiers Your first four units would be priced at that tier one price of 869 And the next three units would be priced at the second tier price So your seven units aren't all priced at tier two of the 1179 It steps through those tiers. So the first four would be priced at the tier one price They're remaining three at that tier two price In addition the district has the fire recovery surcharge There are no changes contemplated for that charge and the five million dollar threshold Is still in place. It's anticipated that that would be Met in early fiscal year 2027 and once it's met that charge will be removed from your bill So this slide is showing the single family bill impacts at different usage levels And what you see the dark colored bars are the bill Under the current rate structure and the current rates at different levels. So Um You know, you might have one bill, you know out of a bill for one month That's at four and maybe you have a summer bill. That's at seven or so. So As your usage varies from month to month You can kind of get an example See where that would fall and then what the light light blue bar is showing you is the five-year average bill so we looked at what is the Average bill over the five-year rate setting period that we're examining and what does that look like On average over over that year compared to the current bill And this one is showing an example of the seasonal variation throughout the year So let me first orient to you the blue colored bars are showing you the portion of the bill that is recovered through the fixed charges And the green is showing the volumetric portion of the bill The light colored bars so the light blue and the light green are under the current Rates and the dark blue and dark green are under the proposed fiscal year 2024 rates So you can see um as this example moves through um winter usage around four ccf Up to summer usage of seven ccf What the bill looks like under The current rates and under the proposed rates for fiscal year 2024 And what portion um is is coming from fixed versus volume And then this the overall difference as you would move throughout the year with different Amounts of water use throughout the year And then this next slide is showing your neighborhood agency comparison for fiscal year 2024 rates So these are the rates that are either On the books or being proposed for these entities for fiscal year 2024 And using a six unit per month bill on a five eighth inch meter And you can see the comparison here that the district falls in sort of the middle segment of the comparison agencies So now we'll move on to the wastewater enterprise As with the water all Revenue generated by the wastewater rates go towards the operations of the wastewater system You can see that the largest components of that are for um Contract professional services salaries and benefits and operating expenses of the wastewater system This shows the approved water financial plan projection It's taking into consideration that there was a notice of violation of the wastewater discharge permit issued on april 1st 2016 And it's a set to keep pace with the projected overall increase in operations and maintenance costs Additional adjust rationale for this adjustment to the wastewater rates for the bear creek estates Is to provide customers with a steady regular schedule of rate adjustments that align with the projected annual increases and expenses To have sufficient funds to cover annual expenses while building reserves to target levels by fiscal year 2026 And if reserves grow over time as projected Reserves over the target will be used to help defray cost required to bring the treatment plant into compliance if required By the state water board And now I'd like to hand it back to brian Thank you, trisa So I just wanted to make some final observations here Um, and I think heather pointed it out beginning in her discussion of The rate study is a model and I know One of the criticisms was we were going to walk out The door and take out a 19 million dollar loan as soon as this rate study is done The rate study depends on that it's a conservative estimate that that's what we would do But it isn't necessarily how we're going to act in reality where we may only need A million of it at one time and then followed by maybe five million more, etc But we have to assume something but I think I know that one of the criticisms were we're going to go borrow this all at once and The model assumes that the rates and the big rates are based on that action because we have to assume something for the model And models hopefully are a good method of predicting reality But that doesn't mean we're going to go out and do that. I just want to point that out. We could be a little more Measured in how we borrow that money That's one of one of the points. I wanted to make the other one was You could turn to the next slide. Trisa Thank you I know that initially we had presented first year increase And I think that we probably did ourselves a disfavor when we did that Because if you look at the red bars in this graph It is an extreme difference that first year someone that doesn't even tick over the meter They've got a 20 dollar increase on their bill where there's whereas somebody that uses eight units In that month 99 cents So That bothered me as well and that was pointed out to me and it's But as an analyst I realized that's not all the data And what happens is when you tinker with knobs on a rate study or any kind of rate structure And we did we shifted more cost over the fix rather than the variable cost Um That first year does get a little bit. It seems a little bit Out of line But when you take the whole five years and average it now look at the blue bars. It's a much less Of a steep increase when you look at it overall 26 dollars versus 16 dollars Not a more 20 times difference So that's one thing that I want to point out here is that it's Not as extreme and like I said, I think we did ourselves a disservice by only pointing out that first year increase Um next slide Teresa Thank you Here's another chart here that I wanted to to show and this is Looking at the percent of the bills that fall under one category So in this particular graph, if you look there zero that's about and you know while I'm presenting I really appreciate So, um Seven percent of the people roughly are paying seven percent of the revenue You go on to the next one You can see that they're more like eight nine percent And I can read this off nine nearly nine percent, but they're paying seven point six percent of the increase If you go all the way along here, you see the light below bars for the percent of Customers that got billed in that billing unit for the billing unit And in every single situation until you get to about nine units of water It's greater. That means there's more people paying less of percent of the total increase So what that shows is is it really or one of the criticisms are the worst shifting this whole That That we are billing The lower the lower users are footing this bill whereas that's not really the case What you can see that crossover at nine Units is that's when the tiered rates kick in and now you look at blue bars are higher That means that there's More revenue paid by less But hopefully that's That makes sense and another way to look at this is if you have Say there's 55 percent of the total Excuse me 55 percent of the total revenue is paid by 75 percent of the people But first 75 percent of the customers, which is the lower users on up to a point They're paying only 55 percent of all the revenue That means that there's 25 percent of the people that are paying the other 45. Okay Um, I believe that's my Last slide there. So Essentially, that's what I wanted to point out is I did a lot of number crunching on this because I was really bothered by the whole statement that people that don't Use a lot are footing this bill and my determination is no if they're not The higher users are the ones that are paying Thank you. Thank you So I'll open up the questions. Yes, so we'll now open this up to public comments Questions only I'm sorry, that's what we've typically done. I don't know if you were segueing the public I think some clarifying questions might be in order. Yes. Let's let's do a couple of questions from the board There's clarifying questions, but I think we're here. It's a hearing. We're here to hear Normally the board would ask any questions. No, that's what I said if there's clarifying questions, but Right, if you if any of the board members have any questions regarding the presentation To clarify what was presented those should be asked now. Yes, let's do that then mom. Do you want to start? um, yes, um Our finance director used the word plan for the financial Numbers that were put together you use the word model Plan to me means something different than model But neither one of them are a budget So what level of commitment is that are those numbers? Is it a model? Is it a plan? Is it a budget? They're both the model the model plan is based on the model and both are To develop the rates And are those commitments that have been made to the community? In what manner are you saying a commitment? vote of the board That's specific to what specific to those numbers being the budget that we're going to follow We're voting on a rate increase Not a budget So the numbers the plan that we put together then were not was not a budget It was only a model we can change that at any time. Is that basically what I'm hearing? We are we have a plan and a model that supports the rate increase A budget is a completely another topic that's saying how you're getting now you have the revenue coming in And now you're going to say how you're spending it and we're here talking about the rates and increasing the rates We're not talking about a budget Next question has to do with reserves. It was unclear to me how much of the reserves were Free cash versus how much was being funded by borrowing Do we have any numbers on those? Would one of the folks at rat tell us be able to answer that May I actually um Make a statement in regards to that Sure Thank you The district is unable to borrow money and call it reserves When we borrow money it has to be used for capital projects And how The reserves get built up by us borrowing money We are using The debt proceeds To pay for our capital projects Instead of going into reserves for those projects So to say that We are borrowing money and it's Going directly into reserves would not be accurate I'm very confused and I apologize for being confused, but maybe you can help me Okay, so when I look at the when I look at the raf tell us presentation and talked about reserves It looked like it was a very very large number And I I don't know how you get to that large number without including The cash from the borrowing could you clarify that please? The assumption is that we're spending that on capital projects not Not just putting it into reserves We cannot do that so No, I understand. I just don't understand how on the on the slide we can call it reserves, but Here we're saying it's not reserves. I mean if we could bring the slide out, maybe we could please Teresa are you able to bring up that slide? Let me maybe address that, you know, so I think This is for simplification We are just showing the amount of cash that is going to be available to the district to finance its capital projects We have not tried to show the debt funding separately But included that in just a total amount of cash available to the district. Yes, it is That you're seeing or in in 25 that Is boosting up the reserve, but basically you can assume, you know, you know If you when you look at the this particular chart here, maybe I should Let's see Share screen Okay, you are you are sharing it So, you know when you're looking at this 2025 actually that's the year that we We borrowed supposedly money in the current year And that helps up to build up this 22.3 million dollars that you see but in that in essence If you were to see what your actual reserves are It would be you would have to subtract the amount that is actually used by The capital cost to come up with the amount that is, you know, that your actual reserve is But for purpose of simplification, we have just shown that as combined So that that is the total amount of cash that you have available now To be able to finance your capital costs and meet your reserve requirements as well Well, how do we meet the reserve requirements if those aren't reserves? I'm very confused about it So we don't meet the reserve requirements in those particular years, you know I don't know what we are trying to establish over here What I'm trying to establish is that the blue bar there With the dark line for reserves makes it look like particularly in the f y 2025 year That we have a balance alert that we're under our reserves If right So the graph is conflating two things that are very different. It looks like So I appreciate you clarifying that but it looks like the blue bars are not the actual reserves Okay, so would you like to see our rates increased by 100 to bring up the reserves to the level that we require to meet the targets? Is that what you're suggesting? Did you know I would really appreciate it if as a consultant you would not put words in my mouth or attempt to do so I will make the statement about what my policy is Is that understood we we can drop that Drop those reserves and show what it is net of the debt that you have and I don't know what that would basically convey to You know, I think it is very important, sir That we be crystal clear and transparent with our community About what our exact financial position is whether it's good, bad or ugly I'm not asking you to do anything other than that What I am asking is that we not do a graph like this that complete That conflates two different cash balances into one line and makes it seem like we're okay on reserves except for that one year Is that understood? I think you understood the question Next clarifying question On the aww m1 What I think I heard but I wanted to make sure I Got this crystal clear Is that those calculations do meet the requirements of capistrano? And that that has actually been tested in the court I don't think that capistrano addresses anything like a I mean capistrano Was dealing with the the fair to support the tiers So has and and the next question is has Has there been subsequent case law that establishes how to What is a good tiered rate? No We don't have a strano holds Capistrano is good law. Yes Yes, there hasn't been What we call reported cases to to provide further clarification On tiered rates. There is one about to be decided though. I think yes There are there are lots of things pending out there on 218. Yeah, but there's a lot of case law in this area Okay, so Um, my then my understanding on the way we calculate costs to justify tiered rates Is through a monthly peaking average not around peak busy hour or actual measurements that are taken around what those Peak busy hour or peak busy four hour periods might be It is basically a rough calculation based on total monthly use. Is that correct? That's right Great. Thank you Okay, moving on I have no questions on the presentation. I do have some on the details On other aspects that will follow and we will have another opportunity. We'll have another opportunity Opportunity after we have the public comments for the board to discuss. Okay. Thanks. Sammy Thanks. I just wanted to clarify the issue of whether this is a budget Because while I think that you know, we understand this there may be some folks who are new to this process So we set our budgets Beginning with the fiscal year starting in july, right? So we'll be passing a budget That the staff will bring to us in May and june will look at the budget We can't actually begin to set a budget until we know what our rates are going to be because our rates are going to determine our revenues Right, so then we know how much money we'll have coming in and and the staff can then put a budget together to propose How to use that money beginning with the next fiscal year that starts in july If for some reason this Process were not to go forward if the rate were not to pass we would have a different budget starting in july Which would be much smaller obviously And the staff would have to figure out how to put that together for us Which is why this is not a budget setting process. This is just to look at the rates So I would add one further comment to that and that is that we set our budgets on a biannual basis It's a rolling two years um The revenue Rate study is based on a five-year estimate and ref tell us made that very clear that it was an estimate out of budget at that point so Okay, only have any comments just to to say that when you have the revenue The plan the financial plan that does embody some assumptions about how we Divide our money between operating expenses and capital expenses And we will certainly be budgeting to the extent that we can very closely to that because the Reptiles in their modeling used a lot of information that came from the staff Based on previous budgets and what we plan to do in the future But we do not Control everything. I mean we can have another earthquake. We can have Another storm we could have another bit another fire and so Our intentions are that we will follow that revenue plan and we'll spend the money the way we've modeled and Have established how much money we need to be able to do that to complete the capital plan that is Given in the report But we can't promise cross our hearts that that's what we're going to do because every year we have to deal with The circumstances that are there and that's what budget process is about And that's where you know as the public can come in and have your input in the budget process Every year So bob wants us to promise but it would be dishonest for me to say that although I will do the best I can On the budget finance committee to match the plan I you know, I can't say that that's exactly what will happen Because stuff stuff happens here in the valley Okay, so at this point we'll move on to public comments And as before three minute limit Please introduce yourself And we would like you to give us your name and address, but that's not required Vincent ralph boulder creek If you look at the flyer that law districts announced is page three at the top of the page If you look at chart the chart it shows In the first year's rating crease a 274 for a single family that uses to be in his water those That's 4137 per unit You look at it that way You'll also see that 282 222 for a single family we use the 16 units a month that's 1764 per unit You would think that if you use the more water it costs more That's quite a savings for someone who used a lot of water A primary function of water district is water delivery There are a lot of cost involved in water delivery Labor infrastructure repair maintenance equipment fuel electricity building all kinds of stuff SOP water district has complicated Billing by dividing up costs of water delivery into service charges, capital charges, volumetric charges All these considered water delivery costs my suggestion is simplify just bill water Instead of various service charges raise the volumetric rate Set a base of three water units so that people who use no water Pay a base amount for being hooked up to the system The water should be just that a water bill I have been an SOV customer since 1979 It's my water district But even I will be willing to sign on to a class action suit The current rate structure and post rate structures are unfair to those who conserve water I suggest the board withdraw the rate Start Thank you My name is Chris from Langland and it's been a good moment and My pet peeve with this rain increase is in the tiered system It should be from one to four delves first tier You should turn over the meter before you get billed for any water that you get During the drown years, I moved to two gallon water mail bucket into my shower And I I I use grey water to flush my toilet I use less than 300 gallons a month. I'm a single guy, I'm not alone, but I can do that And under this system, you're going to be charging me for using as many as four units of water that I never use In my old water bill, I got a volumetric charge once every three months Under this system, I'll be paying every month for water that I don't use Once again, you know We can serve During the drown years we do methods and techniques and practices to help you guys And at this point At this point you're screwing us over because Those drown years are going to come again And uh, and some of us will be ready, but we have to pay through the nose for getting our Best practices to conserve water. It's just plain unfair um The only other thing I gotta say is Dent service is way too high on this budget There ought to there ought to be some way to knock that down. It's a huge chunk of your budget Thank you for your consideration And we all love the generator Thank you Hello, I'm Bob Turner live in Boulder Creek, and I just want to echo the comments of the previous Gentleman who spoke That is if you go to the slide that was presented tonight single-family bill impacts at different usage Which by the way when you're presenting these slides if you're just a pointer or something on your presentation Then people in the audience could follow you Since we're not uh, they're familiar with these details if you are Anyway, if you look at that it says that the current bill Yeah Is 70 dollars and 33 cents for the five-year average. This is the slide you presented tonight. Can you pull it up? I can't you don't have a commander to your own file Okay, so then it says the five-year average bill is 91 dollars and 50 cents That means over five years of the average 91 dollars and 56 cents. That's right This isn't a conversation you can make your comments My comment is is that if you've made a very poor presentation now you refuse to even comment about it So what you're saying is that two units? We see a 30 increase However at four units We see a 17 percent increase at six units You have something like a 14 percent increase So yes, indeed the people who use the least water will pay the biggest impact on their water bill That's not fair. It doesn't encourage conservation If you're going to have a rate increase, you know doing like most metropolitan areas do You have a tier one that's basic service. It has a certain rate Tier two is people who can serve less. They pay a higher rate when their usage goes above tier one Tier three Same thing.   I'm sorry to say Anyway, thank you very much Any The water is free and they already charge it enough If they can't figure out their budgets, they should hire somebody else to do the budgets I have more units than anybody else in Santa Cruz in the Santa Rosa Valley And uh, is the next one it works for a water company here Anybody know what they can see how much I pay every month to the water company I'll pay over 50 60,000 dollars a month I'm sorry a year to the water company And if this increase gonna happen I can't afford it Because my tenants and they never pay for the water bill And I'll pay for everything. I can't tell them not to use it or do whatever If they give me a meter for every unit I have I don't care what prices you're going to charge I've got 60 70 units in Santa Rosa Valley and I'll rent And I'll pay for everybody's water And if it's going to go up 48 percent we're talking about I'm going to pay another 30 40,000 dollars a year That's all I've got to say Thank you Thank you Fine, my name is Mark say I'm from town I'm all rage At this proposal that we have here before us. It's inequitable the people know it You are punishing the conservation users in this community My recommendation is go take this great hike It's inequitable go back to the drawing board and come back with something Is more reasonable Charge for water and reduce the basic connection beaker. This is outrageous You're going to have you're going to spawn lawsuits after lawsuits. And yes, the cap strato case Is being challenged in San Diego on a chair structure You open a can of worms here. You don't even know it My recommendation Is to withdraw this proposal And go back to the drawing board. This is inequitable the people know it. It's unfair Those that are conserving water Are being charged and punished For conserving water doesn't make sense 54 percent Of the increase Is paid by those users under zero to four units per month The people are using for example anyone who's in gardening That has is using two five eight units is paying five percent increases. You consider that equitable? No those that are Using two or three nine units plus are using 41 percent of the rate increase I mean, it's not fair Please withdraw this proposal And that's what I have that's all I have to say. Thank you Hi, my name is Andy Benkert and I live in Bedmond. I'm here to voice support for the plan I think We have a lot of costs that need to be addressed in the district And rates from our previous boards have been kept artificially I don't want to pay higher rates. Nobody wants to pay higher rates But unfortunately, that's the world that we live in um, and a lot was put into this plan and I think to Not pass this at this point. We'll end up costing the district and rate payers more. So I support the plan Thank you very much. Thank you, sir I'm a john patch co-wrily living in Bedmond for about 25 years And I am halfway agreeing with him. I think everybody is agreeing with him realizing that things cost more of his baby um And we're going to be getting a great increase at some point but My one of my biggest suggestions was with the initial flyer that we all received And The specific water rate increase for each customer will depend on their meter size The amount of water used in their category category Typical residential water customers will not see their monthly bill increased by a few dollars in that in 2024 a few dollars Then it goes on residential water customers who use the exceptionally large water quantities of water Would experience larger annual increases possibly 20 percent Uh or more You know, you know, have What this is even something Every residential water payer Making that sound. Oh, don't track the numbers.  Don't look at the numbers Looking at these single water single family water bill impacts It will in four years go up roughly I'm figure 87 percent Married that 20 percent. It's just not the 20 percent of water uses Larger annual water increase the lessons residential water customers who use exceptionally large water quantities Of water will experience larger annual increases No, it's not the opposite. You've insulted us in a way By that statement And I think that's why everybody is keyed off a little bit more That they've cracked the numbers and just seen that it just is not equitable I love that word Used or prior. It's not equitable down the line Anyway, that's my two cents Thank you, sir Don't need your plan for a walk with Lane scott's valley The first of all, listen, I know you're all elected If I'm making any money you guys can get any I applaud you for doing that Sorry, I have to come in here rail on you, but I didn't cause that I'd never say he didn't he's your manager This this is my wallet This is my What I got left at the end of the month where I get to use this Now for some reason Your manager thinks this is his wallet because he wants me to open it up And then I think what's in here out I figured out I'd pay the rest of my bills afterwards now if you could go and get social security To increase my social security check by 45 percent. I'd be happy to give you your 45 percent of that But that's not going to happen. I got to live within my wallet within my needs And that's my biggest concern what you're doing here is It's like the rate payers are just a open wallet or a open checkbook Actually now here And so I'm opposed to what you're doing because there's not enough transparency to really know where the money's going But I looked at those slides and I saw somewhere in the neighborhood 25 percent That the pie chart was debt management I don't run my personal Finance as a 25 percent Oh and debt on it and that's unacceptable to me. So my suggestion is Be a little more transparent. I came from scott's valley. I think there's nothing other people here from there Okay, so I'm hearing the audience so It's not always convenient for us to come here just like people in boulder creek say it's a lot farther To sanikers and it is from sanikers the boulder creek Right, you don't want to go down there, but we don't want to come up here either. So Make it more convenient for people to understand what you're doing, but How do you manage your money? Remember it's coming out of this wallet and that wallet and that wallet and that wallet there at some point What does the guy in the face $50,000 is not going to be able to pay it anymore So Yeah, they're gonna have to do something else the last thing I'm gonna tell you my last 42 seconds is I take great offense to that consultant there For him to talk to a board member the way he spoke to the board member He should be fired He should be fired and go find somebody else. It's more respectable to you and the community I've been here for a couple of days Pull the microphone closer to your words I'm only coming to listen. Thank you. But when the consultant was rude, I couldn't help but Kind of say something I came because my landlord pays my water bill and if the water is increased I'm pretty sure my rent has been increased Boom with that said I was gonna ask back more questions like the big base of water people did but I guess that's not how it goes here So, uh, are there any printouts that show? itemize the fund allocation Do you plan to do the work in-house? Are you planning to hire outside? Are you are any raises for the people that are here that are on the zoom call or whatever is money going to them? Uh, it's my understanding that the projection is 25 million but only five million is going to be On the backs of this little tiny community, which is actually a really wonderful community and I kind of resent somebody Saying that we don't understand what this process works. Most of the community are like myself. I worked in high tech I'm a code writer. I'm c++ certified at multiple other degrees. So to say that I don't understand basic Formulation isn't true, but the math isn't mapping for me and I'll just say that How much of the money is is leading the SLB again to the people that are just on the zoom conference How much money is going to them? Along with raises to anybody else and I appreciate you guys all being here You guys all seem like very sweet people and every time I've interacted with anybody at the SLB water district you've always been nice um Are you buying any new trucks or tractors and equipment to help our community or any trucks or tractors to help any other communities? Yep, which I don't mind. I was just asking questions. Um, I already asked that question and then Are there any panelists on board here or not on board? and uh Yeah, I think I asked everything. I thought I was gonna get answers back. That's okay. Thank you so much for being here And again, I'm Gemma and I love to tell you and I'm not giving you my address Hi, my name is George Galt I'm a 41 year I love it here. Um I was one of the states a private citizen, but actually I am called to do something else. I'm an elected official just like you guys are I owe you guys and women I'm the board of directors of boulder creek recreation and parks district And um, so I'm going to talk from the point of view of a board member of boulder creek recreation parks district Not for the board. I'm not speaking for them. I was speaking for myself, but So, um, I'm pretty passionate about parks and recreation. Um, I'm pretty passionate about the water I drink as well and I appreciate your work, um to provide safe and clean and um and water for for all of us and the fact that it's Compared to bg and e it's quite dependable So, um The The process the what the a record of what our recreation and parks district provides is A way to build community through facilities and activities that we all can do together And whether or not you participate in those activities Your community is stronger for their being there. There are a lot of studies that show that the more Places that people have to gather in a um You know a friendly setting like a park or a coffee house to that matter Um, the more resilient that community is and that they're able to respond to to difficulties so If boulder creek if a san rosa valley water district makes it possible to live in boulder creek The boulder creek recreation and parks district makes it meaningful Helps to make it meaningful. So, um We're going to be paying considerably more for water Uh, uh, we spent about 69 thousand dollars this year with this pasture on uh on water Um in 2028, um, we've done the computation It will be a hundred and four thousand So that's a 50 increase So that is a significant Impact and will cut into our ability to be able to serve our community So I would because it's we don't have any power to stop this But the five of you do So I think if I urge you to take that power and to hold off on doing this Thank you Hi, my name is Becky Fitzgerald and I live in ben loman. Um, I have several Concerns about this proposed great increase Uh, one of which is there have been As far as I can tell at least five Some of them multi-year rate increases for this water district since 2002 And it seems that we get a year off here there And then the board goes and does another rate study and we have to pay more for our water And uh when people talk about we want to make sure we have a stable financial base So that if problems occur, we can cover them Well, we had uh, we went from having a bi-monthly bill To having a monthly bill that was supposed to help stabilize The money's coming in we have this surcharge in 2021 for the cz u fire uh issues And I'm hearing now that it's not going to end until 2027. I thought it was a five-year thing Which would have made it 2026. I'm a little wondering about that um I'm not even saying we don't have to pay more money. I'm just not sure that this is the way to do it There's there's several problems with it I can't even tell I'm in a different situation with most people because I've got three houses on my property We're all on one water meter. Uh, it's all family. So it's not really a commercial enterprise I don't know if we're going to go from the tier one Which is what we are now to something else because we will then be a higher water usage even though My last bill was for 11 units of water and that was for three three houses. So less than four units of water house um my Surcharge what do you call it when you your utility charge when your basic utility charge just to be hooked up to the system We'll go from 50 summer dollars a month almost 100 by the year 50 And it seems like we're paying for our meters twice You know we're paying if you have a meter and it's an inch Which is what ours is then this is what your monthly cost is And then there's this other cost that has to do with your meter size And then we get to the water which your water rates are going to go down for the actual thing. We're buying It'll go up the in five years. It won't be as high as it is now for me the just the water I have a lot of concerns about this Thank you One time for person please Our press on my 50 year resident of all degree I'm really concerned about the fish charges Uh the five is meter according to page 20 of the report says that it will go up 58 percent the first year If you carry that up to the 50 or it's 112 percent I've been to multiple Meetings like this over the years. I am almost promised. I was promised that if you just approve this Multi-percent increase that everything will be stabilized and we'll take care of all of our Um different maintenance problems and everything will be fine I have a bill here of buying from uh 2012 and it's for $87 and 45 cents for two months And then I have one From 11 years later. That's a hundred and thirty three dollars Two cents for one month, so that's a greater than nine percent increase over 11 years And that same time according to the federal government the consumer price interest has got up 32.7 percent So basically if my water bill Has gone up 10 times the inflation rate and that like the time And I just want to know when this is going to end and we Finally stable everything stable and and we're going to be somewhere near the actual cost of living for the rest of the country It just seems like because we can't shop for water on amazon and somewhere else you're taking advantage of Thank you I Need your money every now as I come from Felton And um, I'm going to go backwards with my list here and if I don't get to the reason I have to buy the dog sign Because I run out of time But um, as I heard things being presented today One of the first things I heard is something about budget matching the income And it seems like he got the horse in front of the car Or the car in front of the horse. I know you budget out what you need And then you try to get the revenue to match it Luckily the way around you say, hey, look, we got all this money. Well, it's suspended because we got it That seems to be The back end of how it should be the some of these presentations dealt with this 2024 But you carry that out these rates continue up and as the general informer said Uh, just for the the average user you go from 35 dollars to 75 dollars So just your fixed fees as a hundred and twelve percent increase over a million four four years So Something seems wrong there Kind of that much expense that you're you're not doing your budgeting, right? You're spending money on consultants or whatever We should be going back into the infrastructure um See, you know, and it was a lot of talk about the rates But these fixed charges are going to kill people who would just Trying to conserve the you know, the rates are one thing but these fixed charges are outrageous Uh, I am a one inch meter and not because I use that the quarter We'll get into that if I had time But I'm going to be thinking I think 15 dollars just to be connected to one of this without a drop or use That's that's that's not right um So the fire connection I noticed it was caught them down for Maybe I will be That you're going to be charging a fire connection great Okay, because the reason I don't want each meter is because I had a pretty sprinkle system inside my house Okay, I don't use that water. I don't need a one inch meat. I use As most of the residents here I can use I probably use a half inch meter if I had to But I'm being hit with all these surcharges Because I'm kind of fire protection system in my house.  Once you pay put it there You're done. There's no cost to you the district at all. It just sits there and that's what my hand is doing And um, and it's not just a little bit again, uh Follows out. I'll be ended up paying 50 50 3 percent more for a connection that I'm not using So I think we we think about how you assign Metersizes versus I'm a residential user. And if you look at my how much I use you'll find out that I'm not using 20 quarter One is not necessary for water use We have Well, I'm an SLP water just are different in Boulder Creek And what do you have to say is really quite simple I don't understand asking for money without a budget My proposal is put together a budget you'll work with your community which will help to develop trust Come up with a budget and then let's put a plan together for a sale for an increase Clearly one is needed But let's stop with the car before the box I never learned from lumpiko canyon There was I didn't really prepare for anything here because I've been talking to you all along since But gail april when this started you and I exchanged emails I Was making a very big point then That like no other rate increase proposal before we should include the demographics of this area We have 20 percent of our customers are retired We have a larger which is bigger than the rest of the count We have the most number of veterans here We have a great number of low-income and middle-income people here all available on the statistics Which I sent Which you said you were going to consider which I don't seem to report at all in fact, what I see is ignoring The makeup of our community I think a lot of these consultants come in and they look at the median household income and say well They come forward to pay this 58 percent increase We cannot Um, I want to just go back in time a little bit Where I started out on this, um, I went back and looked at like the November presentation for rap tell us And I discovered that there were quite a lot of different proposals available to you I think there were six plus within the six there were just breakouts And they all did different things but rap tell us is very careful to tell you that all of these proposals ended up Giving you the same amount of money Not all of the proposals are as harsh as this one on the low-income users and yet you chose that So this is on you. This is your legacy This is probably going to pass But it is on you the thought the Four of our members we're going to approve this because mr. Falls has already said He doesn't like this either Um, I started investigating it And looking at the um proposition 218 thing that came out And on your website where it says the average user is going to see about a two percent increase average and sometimes called typical But in the rap tell us reported on November It said the median house the median use is four units So I was really curious why you were using the bigger number and in fact I did a public workers request took a little while Got the information There's double the amount of people using three units that are using six Three is the most the highest category. The next highest category are people who use two units That's me I'm getting a 20 percent rate increase and yet all your literature is telling me i'm getting a two percent rate increase If i'm typical i am more typical than a six unit user On one of the uh power outages I sat down Down when we were on three or three minutes please I'm very much opposed to this. I think this needs to be withdrawn. I think should be withdrawn from the beginning Thank you one more comment Ralph Thomas did the rate increase for coastline water districts um They kept the base charge very low and charge for the water that was recently done So any kind of word that you're following the rap tell us recommendation you have to raise base rates is completely false And then moment on I um I'm actually in Favor of increases but not this one I I recognize that there's a need to extend On certain items was not really clear to me And as a person who has a history working for not the profits or at least the ones I've worked with Very transparent What exactly are the projects that are needed to be spent on? What are the Roles on that and then at the end of five years, isn't there an end to some of these? I'm Some again to this I would be in favor of putting a grandfather in class on it or another revoke At the end of any increase that is given so that there is a more of accountability You have more transparency. Those are the truth. I'm looking forward to be able to say yes Thank you Little bit gone um born and raised here I actually work with us in the valley water district. Um I work on vibes I think always And so And I am opposed to the great increase too, but at the same at the same time at the same time I'm the one that sees was underground nobody sees was underground and the age of infrastructure is ridiculous It kind of needs to happen So and like somebody else voted the longer that we don't do this the worse it's going to get in the more expensive It's going to get We're not debating that.  I know I've just First hands on, you know and Speak Yeah, I'm I feel bad for the people that have to deal with Some of the, you know, dad maybe the contractors that were hired And yeah, no, I see you guys all the time and I don't want to see you guys. Love you guys, but So I don't want too much and that was you know, it's infrastructure that needs to be done but you know a lot of people get screwed over and I feel too I gotta do that. I gotta pay the rates. I gotta pay more and Yeah, thank you The district is still in stage one of a drought Your work considered the Somebody needs some air. Yes Your board considered this the status of the drought emergency Some months ago and you decided to remain Or I just He decided to be in stage one of a drought emergency And the reason for that is I recall is that uh since the fire our Water intake capacity up ben loman mountain is only about 40 percent of what it used to be There's a project to replace the p-vine pipeline which will bring that to about 60 percent of what it used to be um, so that's a good reason to consider to Ctv ctv you're talking It's a good reason to continue uh To take measures to get people to reduce consumption to minimize consumption and yet Most of the customer classes here are actually going to be paying less per unit of water under this plan Then they are today people have been paying 1266 a unit for every customer plus for over a year and they're used to it So I think it's It's kind of crazy To be reducing the volume price of water at all Now I know Some people would just like to see this not even be implemented at all But I can't help looking for a middle way Uh, that's a little bit like this and a little bit like what you already have So since um, the district has already gone through a prep 218 process that authorizes 1266 per unit I don't think you should reduce any of these prices below that um and The that'll bring in more money so that you can reduce the basic rate So I think what you should really do is keep 1266 is an absolute minimum And then knock about one third off of all the basic rates um When I was looking at some of these graphs About the peak usage It looks like july and august and peak months And what occurred to me right away is that uh, the school schools are pretty deserted in july and august and uh So maybe they're not contributing as much as scrap tell us says to the peak usage um The names commercial industrial uh They don't really apply to schools as far as I can see so I think it's arbitrary to put schools in a category where They're going to have to pay more more for water than Joe's bar or Ernie's auto Uh, I think the school should get the best rate that the district can offer So I think there's um, there's changes that you ought to make to this and not do it as a channel. Thank you One person online Okay, we have one question. Are these two? On these these power points, are they online? Yes He was asking if the power point presentation that the consultative gave tonight is online and it is it's on that I don't know whether they're still on right now the consultants. I assume that they are yeah Okay, so I'm told that we have one person online, but I don't see it. So Um, I see Nancy. Nancy glintz. I'm only mulling Okay So let's do Nancy I'm Nancy. Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Yes Great I wanted to comment on two things Uh, number one, I wanted to say that I agree Uh, that you were presented with a number of options for how to how to do these rate increases And I'm I'm perplexed as to why this is the one you chose. There are others. I think you should consider or at least maybe even make Uh A hyperbola, you know, a couple of them, but I wanted to particularly address the These the Page that showed how we would be somewhere in the middle of water rates and I find that to be really perplexing so We would be about 75 percent more per month than the average Santa Cruz water user We would be about 25 percent more paying more in this area than we would the average scott valley water district user And we would be getting very close to the lingerie district, which is literally the highest Price in our nation for water and it's harder for me to imagine that the slv area Can afford to be up there with the highest price in the nation for water. So I hope that you will Not vote this in tonight take some time to consider some other ways you could go about collecting money and rate increases I think we all agree. We understand We have to have better systems and they help our neighbors out who are still struggling after the fire and other areas but To talk about this plan just doesn't make sense. It's not it's not fair. It's not equitable and I just wanted to say that so thank you so much What would you mind if we do a one more uh online? That's not what you normally do but you go right ahead and do what you want There's only one person Elena Can we have alina Yep. Hi, alina laying boulder creek. I just heard out by saying thank you so much board for Giving your time and sitting through all of this like we really do appreciate you And the only thing I have to say is that I really do agree With the parks and schools comment that is my my biggest worry with these rate increases You know, I've said it last time when we had the the meetings about this but the school They can't charge me more for sending my kid there You know, the those costs have to come from somewhere and they are The schools are the largest water users in the area So they are going to be footing a big part of this bill And you know, they've already seen that they had a reading funding cut because the contractor on 236 Was starting work before 9 a.m. And they were holding traffic for over 20 minutes and people were trying to get to school And if they're late to school, they lose reading funding So they've already been impacted that way by the water district that happened for months on end Now they're going to get hit with a higher water bill. And so Um, like they're getting hurt hard and then it's when you go to parks and you think about parks It's not just like oh, it's it's one one rate increase for the parks is every single one of their location So junction park, you know, garaham Their offices downtown like all of those are different bill differently And so they have a fire charge a fire charge on each one of those accounts And now the base is going to go up on each one of those accounts And you know, these are things that are critical to our community And you know if that funding also has to come from somewhere else to be able to pay for these water bill increases And so overall just I really wish that that would have been addressed that came up in the You know the meetings as we were before the prop 218 process And I didn't really hear any solutions on on how to help our schools and parks and help our community thrive Where people come together. Oh anyways, but thank you so much for listening to these comments and all the work that's been done on this Well, I feel like First of all, I'd like to say I resent the fact that you didn't ask if there was any more people in the public They wanted to talk I already stood up and was approaching the podium when you acknowledged people I'm sorry. I just I just didn't see you I had a scripted speech to give tonight What i'm going to bear off of that because listening to all the input tonight Made the problem and for me crystal clear And the problem is not this rate increase The problem is everybody here believes our rates are going to continue to go up forever And we have to break that vision cycle Right on So towards that I have two recommendations one on infrastructure Looking at page 59 on the rate study final grant There's over 50 projects listed as products that the district is going to be doing in the next five years Totally over 75 million dollars What I see is a lot of projects dedicated towards delayed maintenance And fixing aging equipment. What I don't see is a A plan that addresses a comprehensive integrated state-of-the-art I agree by my writing A plan that comes out of a strategic plan that addresses the future of the district I think we're remiss by not having a strategic plan. I think that's something that is important To developing a really good plan for the future So I would recommend that we wait until we have a strategic plan and know what the true costs are Before we proceed because I think if we do that the cost will probably go up from what you're suggesting But ultimately they might go down And that's my Second one is quality Well, first you give some examples of the infrastructure because I hate to throw a problem out without giving some solutions I've looked at six other districts in the state that are similar to us The number of tanks they have on average is less than 10. We have 50 The average size of those tanks is 2 million gallons The average size of our tanks is somewhere between 250 and 300 thousand gallons So we're nowhere near the norm And I've put a lot of stock in best practices So either they're doing something wrong or we're doing something wrong And I think what it comes down to is that we are A district made up of 80 years of consolidating smaller districts into us And all we've done is make it work And not think about the ultimate goal of the streamline strategic plan that's effective and reduces costs The other part is pipes The pipe connections vary widely all over the district And that's because again of all the districts that we've Simulated without doing anything more than connecting the pipes to the water supply What we need is it is getting great We're around on time Thank you One quick comment. I think we need a quality professional in the organization even though it's going to cost money Thank you Okay, I'm Dean Acklin. I'm a 25 year family residence and I like why everyone else in this room Doesn't like high rates for anything, but there's PG&E or water and no one likes to see the rates go up Can I see a a show of hands from everyone in this room? Who wants to be A Big basin water customer right now. Can I show a show hands?  My point is if we don't invest in Projects that need fixed That are aging in this in the San Lorenzo Valley water company We will be like big basin water And that water is more important to me every single day getting clean healthy water to me every single day Knowing i'm going to get it long term and not be like my friends and family That are in big basin water system that don't have water and it affected their water their property Prices so we could be like big basin water Thank you And we have we have um charlaine online Can we activate charlaine? Are you muted charlaine perhaps you can speak she can speak now. Okay charlaine you can can you speak you don't hear you Scott do you see anything I see she's got her hand up. I see she has her hand up but she isn't I think so Did you get me no, no Try again. Oh, okay. I figured it out um, I just wanted to say that um, I Appreciate all the work that everybody's done and I appreciate that We have a public agency that we can address and we elect you And if this was PGD me it would have just gone through without any kind of a public hearing So i'm glad for the process However, one thing I would like to see happen Is I don't know if If you I don't think you should go back to the drawing board I think you've got a concept But I think what i'm hearing from the audience if they are representative of the community I don't know if that's true or not is they have some good ideas of You know, I I thought people would just say I don't want any of this but a lot of it just came about From having to pay for something that you're not using and if you before you Put everything into effect maybe if you could kind of look at How that could be done a little better or if it can be done a little better and show people That I think you'd have more of a buy-in in some of the people who are just not Happy and they've stated what their reasons are So, you know, I think in like in 2013 something like that happened and You know, they made a couple tweaks and everybody went away knowing they didn't get everything they wanted but Things were maybe maybe people's concerns were addressed a little bit more So i'm not sure what's going to happen once this conversation goes back to the board tonight but I'm wondering if there's something you could do to kind of meet some of those Some of those needs because I don't get that part either and um That's you know, that's all I have to say other than you know for a few bucks a month I turn on my tap And I've got clean water and there's people everywhere who don't so You know, we appreciate you and we appreciate the workers. I don't want to see salaries cut I just I want to see infrastructure and I know we need the money for that So thanks for your time Thank you Is there anyone else online? No, okay. Is there anyone else here that wishes to speak? I just want to know when the final panel is going to be Total out and posted Right after this Okay, so uh, we're going to close public comment at this point and Anyone that has a ballot with them Or wishes to fill out a ballot now is the time to do it We'll be closing the ballot box After you have board discussion. Oh, yes, we do have to have more discussion Yeah, the ballots are still being taken until you end the year You don't have that board discussion. So we'll move to board discussion Okay, so This is where the board can respond to Comments from the public if we choose So I'm going to start at the other round this time gail. Do you have any Comments that You're back here Brian, could you pass me the mic please so that I can put that in gail's hands? So, thank you. I mean we could we could do that way. Um, we're having a little bit of The heartburn here over procedure, so maybe right. Yeah, let's have a point of order discussion about how we want to See how they're hearing. Yeah, right, Brian. They're hearing public hearing once we've had public comments We need to count the ballot.  So what I would suggest president Is that um, we Take a recess so that that's not a recess. It has to happen during Yeah, it can't be recessed the hearing has to continue and open while you count the ballots Yeah, okay So are you saying that you would like the board to make comments now? No What we need to do is we need to finish the hearing and then we go back to the agenda for the board To take action one way or no action. Whatever they want to do But we need to finish the hearing before we do that. Okay. So and in order to finish the hearing you'll have to count the ballots Yeah, so if anyone has any ballots Seeing none The ballot box is closed. Thank you, right and then now we have to count the ballots, right? Which needs to be done in front of the public. Yes So we're just going to sit here for a few minutes while that happens and then we'll resume our discussion On everything up to now and then we're going to count the ones that are here Right. You actually just kind of sit there wait That's kind of what you do or use the facilities or use the facilities to get some water, especially legs Sometimes we've That's all right Do you know the name of the senator, okay But it's supposed to be decided by And that is that they're going to legislate They have to declare That cost can be clearly So I have this one, and I'm for a lot of people, so that's what happens, and that's what you talk about. I think it will be interesting to find out. And there's the stats, because I have several points that we do. For me, that's what you say. Yeah, I went through it, and we did look for more current views. Well, I didn't find that. There's a question. She's saying there's more current views. No, she's talking about that's the law, because I have to have the name of the article. What's the name of the guy in the article? Yeah, agenda. agenda after this. What do you say about this case? Yeah, counting is complete. Yeah, I mean, it does talk about, but what we're so concerned about is the state of the history of the state of the state of the United States. Yeah, this is one. Yeah, we need to be partnered at 12.29. From 13.76. Go that direction. We're just going to slap this up a little bit. 47 on the top. I love to slap it. You know what we talked about? One of them, like, I guess, that case. We're all putting it on the table. And so, for me, this is not a two-year grade case. This is a standard of review. We look at it from a different perspective. The student abuse, I mean, it's big. 47, that's a good one. So, what's the overall two-year grade case? So, what's the overall two-year grade case? So, all I have is like, you know, the chain of pestilence. And then, what I asked about what's the total. And then, hand-wink, hand air-free, The separate. Wastewater is separate. Wastewater is separate. Okay, so we have a separate count on that. This is just a vlogger, okay. This is just a vlogger. Yeah, and then you gotta separately count the waste water. Right. It's not gonna happen. And I don't think I can, you know, get out of the way. If we're gonna get out of the same place, we're gonna get down. We won't go out.  I think she's thinking, she's thinking, she's thinking, it's gonna happen. I guess they cannot. I think we're gonna, she's not gonna pay.  Because we're loading on that tonight. We have to. I don't think she got any of those tonight. We have so far submitted up to this evening. I wish there was a little bit of the back in the room. I don't know what else to put in. Bring it up. We're using the same table. They don't feel like. I don't want to talk to the lake. Just walk out. Okay, we're going to come to the end of the session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. We're going to restart here. Yeah. Let's ask the district secretary to please announce the ballot count. Okay. First of all, I need to explain to you what the. That is a call the chain of custody is for the ballot. So she didn't know how they got to the district. They came either by email, US mail or by drop off. And those as soon as they came to the district, they were delivered to me. Where I stamped them on the date that they were received and put them in a fireproof cabinet where they stayed locked up until I put them in this box and sealed it up and brought it here tonight. So let me. The balance that I received here this evening, totaled 47. Our total of 1376 protest votes. I received 24 wastewater protest votes. That's. Thank you. Good evening. We're going to close the email. Everything that was sent to me. 1376. And. Do you know what the total would be to reach the 50, one. It was approximately 3951. That includes the residents that houses burned up. Did you hear that? Those people, and it won't recruit the houses that burn. Are they still there? This is for connections that we have. Because it's approximately 7,900 there. 911 houses that got burned, 911. No, there were 120 in our district. In our district. In our district. Oh, you're just in the district. Most of the houses that burned were not in our district. So are those 29? No. Not right now. No, they are not. But they can vote. Right. They would receive their ballot wherever they have their mail forwarded. Okay. Moving on. It is now time for more discussion. You need to close. Okay. So we'll close the public hearing. Public hearings. We'll have more discussion on the. Agenda item. Agenda item. Because you don't. Have out of the protest. Balance to invalidate. Mm hmm. You can choose to adopt the rates as reptiles is presented them. You could choose lower rates than has been presented. Or you could choose not to increase the rate. Okay. Those are your options. So before we choose an option. Let's ask for comments. Bob, would you like to start? Sure, I can do that. Before I get into my explanation about why I oppose this, which will be a lengthy and serious critique of the issues. I did want to clarify a couple of things. And I'm, I am looking forward that perhaps in the future, we might be able to. Sink up on the numbers calculations before the day we're going to vote on things. I calculated all the bills and the percentages based on numbers excluding the fire surcharge. That way you get an apples to apples comparison between now and later, because later the fire surcharge will be gone. So the percentages are based on that. The percentages will absolutely change if you include the fire surcharge. I felt that that was not an apples and apples comparison, but apples and oranges. Second of all, regarding adopting rates before the budget, you know, I've done finance for a lot of my career and. You know, this process of prop two 18 is definitely very, very different because normally you do deal either with revenue forecast budgets, but the final plan basically is, is, is done as part of a long range financial plan. And that isn't necessarily where you're going to end up, but it is an indication of what your priorities are where you're going to spend money and how you allocate resources. We are not doing that. In fact, I'm afraid that director Mahood may be suffering from a logical fallacy and that disasters can happen. Whether you have a two-year budget or a five-year budget, and you may have to change those budgets, whether it's a two-year budget or a five-year budget. Everybody understands that. That's not a question. The issue is that if you pass a five-year budget to match the rate increase, you're telling the community what your priorities are that you're committing to. That's a big difference. And we're not doing that here. We're doing a sort of soft kind of. Well, we intend to do that, but we're not doing that here. We're doing a sort of soft kind of. Well, we intend to do this, but there's no commitment on the part of the board to do that. In fact, in the plan, 50% of the additional money is slated to go towards increases in operating expenses. We have an agenda item later that will put us on the path to take that back to the 67% in my opinion that we've been at for the last 10 years, where the vast majority of the money is not going to where we're emphasizing in the ballot, but rather going to just delivering water to the district. We're on a hamster wheel, folks, and we're not getting off it. And I hope someday that we'll be able to get off that. I have four specific reasons I oppose this rate increase, process, content, spending, and legal. And I'm critiquing this because this is what I was elected to do. I was very upfront during the campaign, perhaps not to my advantage about exactly where I come on these kinds of issues. There should have been no question in anybody's mind about that. This critique is not directed at anybody in particular. It is business. I have no idea who did anything other than what the board voted on and what the consultants did. But it is the board's majority for this. I agree that the mailer has significant issues. And I just want to start with what the mailer looked like when it came in. This is our ballot that we get from the county. This is what you got from the district. There's nothing on here that says ballot. You might kind of see, well, maybe rate increase here if you turn it over. I got a tremendous number of emails from people saying they didn't receive a ballot. It's very possible that they looked at it and said junk mail and pitched it immediately. The content also said that there was a stamped envelope included. Confused people. Even though something came out in the bill later, it wasn't particularly highlighted. I mean, I went right by it until I went back and looked at it. There was no board review of this content. And the admin committee, which had ample time to prepare for this, didn't seem to be as deeply involved as I was expecting given that we delegated that authority to them. So the mailer was itself a really bad look for the district in my opinion. We also held a tight 45-day window during the worst weather time of the year in our valley. And I don't know about you guys, but I've been without power for substantial parts of that time, most recently about five days. This is why I did not want us to send the ballot out during the holiday season during this weather. We could have shifted a little bit. It wouldn't have made a serious difference. So these are issues around process that hopefully we'll take some lessons learned on this and do better next time. The last thing that really bothered me is a consultant's final report wasn't finalized until last Friday. That report should have been available to the community before then. I know the slides were out there. I get that. But slides and report are two very different things. And I think that was a big disservice to the community. The next thing is content. There was some real misleading information in the mailer in my opinion. This is what you were going to focus on as a recipient of that. Average. What do you think about average? Typical. You think bell-shaped curve. Everybody's kind of around that average. Folks, the plain matter is only 7% of the bills sent out in 2023 were at six units. 7% is not average. It's not typical. It's not any of the synonyms. It is in fact the exact opposite of that. And for this to go out in this fashion to me sort of relates to something I found online around 2021 court decision floor and county water district where the court said the district had provided only hypothetical examples of how a rate pair's charges would increase over time in a hide the ball approach. To me, this sort of borders on hiding the ball. That is it doesn't really reflect what the reality is, which is this. Most bills, four units and under. 59% as a matter of fact. That is a serious problem. And I think we as a district, we as a board, need to be more transparent with people. I think everybody here I heard recognizes that some increase might be required some time under some circumstances in some format, what have you. But this isn't it. It's totally unfair for that. Thank you. I'm not done. So the other part of this is that 25% of the bills are in the eight, the five to eight unit range and 18% are above that. In fact, when you look at the first year, 54% of the money that's expected to be raised is coming from people under four units. And this is if you take the 2023 bills and calculate them using 2024 rates. And in the future, Brian, I do hope that we're able to collaborate in this because if your numbers aren't the same as my numbers, that's definitely an issue. But setting that aside, the real issue is that information needs to be presented to the community at the start of the process, not at the end. And that is a failure on our part. I'm, I like a number of people that are commented. I'm very sad for our seniors, people on fixed income, people that conserved. I know this is going to feel like a punishment. It's going to feel like a regressive tax. It's not fairly levyed across the community. I can't do anything about it. There weren't enough votes to do that. But I agree with you on that. The next issue is spending. Folks, this is where I've been and the board here is going to be. And they've told me this in the past of hearing this, but I'm going to say it again. There's nothing in the mailer that commits the district to do anything with respect to the money that they raise, regardless of how they say they're going to use it. I have the marketing material from the last two rate increases. It says we're going to spend it on infrastructure. Guess what? One third of the money is going to be spent on infrastructure. We're going to spend it on infrastructure. Guess what? One third of the money went to infrastructure. My view is two thirds should go. Not one third. So in effect, because there's no commitment, the board is saying trust us. Love to. But we can't based on what's happened over the last two rate increases. And there's a gentleman that spoke that goes back even farther than I do. And it's the same result. Every time we say X, but we spend it on Y. And that's not right. If in fact, the board's priority is to spend money on operating expenses to the tune of 67%, then they need to come up with a plan that deals with the fact that we need to be spending at least $6 million a year on infrastructure just to stay even.  And there's not a plan to deal with at all in any of this material that came out. Therefore, five years from now it is a high probability that we'll be asking the same questions yet again. And that is just simply not the way to run an agency like this that has long-term financial issues that it's simply not dealing with. The fact of the matter is your bill for a four unit customer has gone up 150% since 2013. Operating expenses have doubled in that time period, a 10-year period, at a time when inflation was about 25% for that 10-year period. Four times inflation. I don't mean to be mean, but everybody that would look at that, and I certainly can tell you in my business, if someone walked in with that kind of an increase, I would be saying, Mr. Manager, Mrs. Manager, what did you spend the money on? What benefit did we get for that? And how can you justify that kind of increase going forward if there isn't quantitative documented benefits? I have been asking for that for years. It is not coming. And I don't think it will. As a community, you should be very upset about that because I guarantee you run your household budget on how are we spending money and what's the value for it. So we've got a problem there with how we're spending the money. The other part of this is what's not said. There are in fact steel tanks that are not being maintained. The last number I did on that was about 6.5 million based on numbers I got from district staff. That was about three years ago. I guarantee you it's at least 50% higher, if not more, particularly since when tanks aren't maintained, they do deteriorate over time to the extent they have to be repaired, which drives up costs of maintenance. We have no plan here for how to build up real cash reserves. I am really disappointed in a graph that shows cash with a reserve line implying that in fact that cash is reserves. That is totally misleading to the community. Our cash reserves are not where they need to be to withstand the next disaster, at least not at this point.  But we had about a 4 to 4.4 million cash reserve before the CZU fire. We spent almost 4 million of that responding to the fire. If we hadn't worked so hard from 2018 to that time to build cash reserves, we would not have had the cash to respond. Our cash reserve should be somewhere in the 5 to 8 million range according to our policy. We have no plan to get there. Our pension liability using a reasonable rate of return, not the rate of return that the state pension fund says that they should get, but something that actually matches reality, we're facing about an $8 million shortfall in our pension reserve as of right now. There is no plan to address that. And we keep paying 7% interest, which I guess nowadays isn't as bad, but when interest rates were 2%, that was basically loan sharking. But that's what we had to pay to the state every year in order to pay interest on our debt. No plan to deal with that. Unfortunately, given where we are today, the real plan is lather, rinse, repeat. Five years from now, we're all going to be sitting here, I hope, and basically having the same conversation. I hope we have a different conversation. I hope the models follow. There's absolutely no evidence that's going to be, that's going to happen. And I'm concerned that these mounting liabilities are going to very well affect our property values. Folks, this is not a choice between either we pass this rate increase or we're big base in water. Those are two extremes. The reality can be very much in between there with a reasonable plan, long-term financial planning, and a stable water system that doesn't have the issues that regrettably the big base in water company does. And the last topic has to do about legal issues. I have a fiduciary responsibility based on my oath of office to ask some of these questions. I have not gotten a very clear responses at this point. I don't believe that the consultants report adequately addresses the quantitative costs associated with tiered rates.  But guess what, guys? That's why we build the tanks the way that they are. We aren't doing them for capacity reasons, I guarantee you. A lot of our pipes in this district are two and four inches. But when we install new pipe, we put in six to eight, four fire flow, not for capacity. And so I don't know if any of this has been adjudicated in court. The Capistrana decision, I guess, is still the most recent one. It was pretty clear about what they needed to do. I asked a whole ton of questions about the law on this. I've received zero answers. Folks, if I can't get the answer, you're not going to get the answer. But we need to be able to say very clearly why we believe that this report passes the requirements of Capistrana. I don't see it. I could be wrong. I'm not an attorney, but I do read contracts a lot during the day. And I do financial analysis. I don't see it. I see hand waving at this point around tiered rates. Now, mind you, whether or not tiered rates are a good public policy is a separate question. Has nothing to do with whether or not you're following the law. And that you have backup for that, that we have, in fact, a legal opinion or a legal decision that says, the AWW M1 rates that are used nationwide, in fact, fulfill Capistrana requirements. I don't have that. I asked the question. There's no answer. And we're not going to get an answer before I don't believe before this vote takes place. Folks, I think that is again, short changing the community with respect to our fiduciary responsibility is certainly mine. And you know, Raf tell us does say that they would defend the district in the case of any kind of prop to 18 challenge. Great. Had they defended one sex successfully that used the, the methodology that they use. I asked that question. And I did not receive an answer. So to vote in favor of this, without understanding the legal aspect of this to me is something that I couldn't do, even if I was in favor of the rates, because I can't stand behind it and my oath of office. So I want to close out by, because I know it's been very long. I appreciate everybody listening to me. I'm grateful to the community for supporting me so I can bring these issues to light. I understand it's a minority opinion. But as I said earlier today on a, on a Facebook post, it's important that the community engaging this debate, whether or not you're in favor or against having this debate is important. There is no way in our Valley that 100% of the community supports this rate increase. And I'll guarantee you it's probably more than the 1300. If we actually took it to a positive and vote instead of this sort of stack deck backwards prop to 18 process. This is not about showing loyalty to the district or not supporting the district if you oppose it. In fact, in my opinion, opposing bad financial decisions and bad financial process is the height of the support for the district. I want this district to be on sound financial footing. And at this point in time, it is not. And what's worse, this rate increase will not put it on sound financial footing because we're not addressing the issues that are outstanding with us right now. Those issues don't go away based on this when, in fact, this when opens the spigot to other spending as what happened in the past. There's a word for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And we are about to engage in that. The bottom line here is that this board and previous boards have shown no desire for long-term financial planning, fiscal restraint and operating expenses, any of this thing. The only way that's going to change in my opinion is through either the prop 218 process, defeating this, which was is a long shot. It's the number of defeats that have happened in the state of California. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand since 1996, but a future board is not obligated to continue with this rate increase in this fashion. So in November, you have an opportunity to make your voices known. There will be two board seats open. I appreciate it very much. I appreciate my fellow board members for listening to me. I know it's a lot, but it is important that the community hear this as part of the process. Thank you very much. Can I ask the procedural question? Is it, um, I, I'm moving to the impression that the Brown Act suggests that we should not campaign from the dais, which is what I just heard at the end of the dais. That sounds like a violation of Brown Act. Well, I will, I will withdraw it if it is and apologize profusely to the community of the board for saying so. And not doing it again in this meeting. I wonder what that is. I think Bob's final statement, um, made it pretty clear what his previous comments were, what his comments were really about, which is not addressing substantively the proposal we have in front of us, but setting up something else. Let me just say address two things first that directly that Bob said. And then I want to talk about the issues of equity and another topic that I think is really important that people understand. Um, and that I only learned, um, because I was part of this process of, um, being on the budget and finance committee. First, um, let me say that Bob saying that he, uh, is worried about the legality of what draft Ellis has done and that he can't get the information he needs about peaking charges. They're laid out in the report. Um, and it's, it's not complicated. You can go and read the report.  It's just that they're sort of standard best practices in the industry. I mean, this is, they're doing this all over the country. Every water board has to do this every five years when they separate. So there's sort of standards of how do you figure out what peaking charges and they're explained. What that also means is that we don't have as much discretion as we might in our hearts want to have, like, for example, Alina says, well, we should give the schools a break, you know, you know, or the parks a break, we would love to. Um, but you, you can't do that. You are required, um, by the decision to charge people more or less what it costs to deliver the water to them. Okay. Um, and so then, um, the, the other thing that Bob says is he keeps going on and on about debt. And this has been explained to him multiple times. I don't understand why he doesn't get it. Heather tried very politely. Um, that is that, um, the money that we get for debt, we just, it just doesn't get thrown into the budget in such a way that, uh, we can do whatever we want with it. It is tied to specific capital projects, all the debt that we've gotten. So what does that do in terms of reserves? It means that if we don't have to spend, if we go out for some amount of debt, whether it's 19 or as Brian said, it might be something smaller. Um, what that does is it relieves money that we might have spent from our water revenues that we get from the charges to spend on other things. And one of those things that we can do is build up our cash reserves. Now, when we talked about this, um, and in fact, one of the things that came up in the budget and finance committee was that Raftalus really wanted, um, us to build up our reserves, um, um, even faster. The problem with that is if you try to build up reserves really fast or you try to fix everything that's wrong with the district right now, in other words addressing the storm damage or addressing, uh, the, the CZU fire, what that means is that all the people that just happened to be owning a house and living here now end up paying for all of this. So for, let me just give you an example, because I did this calculation. Say as Bob says, we're under reserving on the order of maybe something like $3 million. If we were to try to raise that the same way that we raised the fire surcharge, it would mean that your rates would have to go, everybody's rates would have to go up $30 a month. So that's one alternative. If we want to bring our, our reserves up, that was one way we could have done it. The other way you do it is you take out debt for 20 or 30 years and you say, you know, some of the people that are going to benefit from the changes and the things that we're doing now that has replaced, and as we upgrade, as we replace, more people are going to benefit down the road. You know, I'll be dead. Um, but there'll be people moving in and taking my place and they're benefiting. So putting it on alone makes sense because the beneficiaries are not just the people now. What that means is the cost of this debt is something on the order of about 30 cents a month on your bill, right? So you are paying for these things and helping bring the reserves back, but that's the choice. Okay. Is do we hit everybody now or do we try to put it down? So that, so that's, that's good. And then we get to the question of equity and I know this is really a tough one. Um, and it, and it has to do with the fact that it really, it has to do with the fact that we're so fantastic at reserving and preserving and excuse me, not conserving and conserving too many serves or great at conserving in this valley. And the median usage that is 50% of the people use more 50% use less is four units a month. It's, it's really small. Okay. It's really quite, quite small. And that's partly because we have a lot of households that are only one or two people in it, but it mostly is because we're very good at conserving. So what that means is, is you cannot simply say, we're going to give a break to the people that are have one or two units of water that they use because you simply can't raise the revenue need. If you sort of say, well, we're not going to raise the revenue of half of our population and Bob knows that. Okay. So this is, this is not an issue of, you know, it's not an issue of equity. It comes out of the fact that we have half of our people don't use very much water. And if we are going to get the revenue, we need something has to give there. And I think that the other question of equity is you can stand back and you can say, okay, yes, people that are at the low end are getting a 20% increase. But in fact, it's less than a dollar a day. And so you asked, okay, what is the, you know, what's fair and what we're doing with this rate increase in so many ways, fixing the mistakes that were made in the last rate increase in 2017 when under pressure from the public, they dropped the base rate. It used to be that we were 50% base rate and 50% volumetric rate. So 50% fixed 50%. We dropped back to 37%. So what that means is that we only had guaranteed that 37%. The unintended consequence, they didn't think it through was we're so good at conserving that what happened was, is that our revenue went down drastically because we shifted this proportion of fixed versus volumetric. And this is one of the main reasons it's not profligate spending on operating expenses. It's the fact that we under collected revenue. That's one of the main reasons that we didn't do all the infrastructure things since 2017 that those board members promised you. Okay. So this gets to the question of what is equitable and the concept, which is a little bit hard for me to get my head around initially, but it's the concept of ready to serve. What are you paying for when you pay your water bill? You're not, you're, yeah, you're paying for the water, but really what you're mostly paying for is ready to serve. What that means is when you turn on the tap, there will be water there. When you turn on the tap, that water will be clean and healthy and you don't have to worry about there being a boil. So when you turn on the tap, there will be enough water to flush your toilets, you know, and take a shower. All right. Then the other component of that is that there's also enough pressure in the whole system nearby that if your house catches on fire, the fire department can put out the fire. So you're paying for that. So for somebody to say, well, I hardly use any water. I don't know if you're paying for that. Great, but you'd be pretty upset if suddenly there weren't water there. If your house caught on fire, you would want that. What else are you paying for?  I mean, I remember talking to Rick, I actually told him call the staff in under some of the winter conditions we had because they were out trying to get us out of the water. I think that staff is what fixes breaks quickly that allows you to have your water. The other thing that they do is they're the ones that are out there.  Right. So this is partly what we're paying for is a staff that is willing to get out of the water. So, although, so the idea of equity is what's fair. We all have to pay a certain amount towards that ready to serve. And the ready to serve component is part of the reason that we see this increase the base charge. We haven't actually even gone back to the pre 2017 value. In some ways for financial reasons, it would actually make it safer if we did, but in some ways, it would make it safer to go back to that or even higher. Usually 5050 is what sort of mountainous water districts do like ours that are mountainous and dispersed over wide areas. So we've dropped to 37. We're only taking it back to 45. And we did that in part because we knew that the hit would be big, bigger than it is on the lower end users. They'd feel it more. And it's not in the way we would have thought it would be before. So I guess I'm. And I chared it. You can blame me for it, if you want, but we worked really hard to balance the needs of the district. We pushed back on RAF tell us to get a steeper touring of rates so that the rates would be less for water users. And that the rates would be. The amount of bills would hit higher as Brian described. as Brian described, on the higher water users. And so I would just say that that's what we did. And you can vote me out. But next time you feel free. But we don't come into this job. We're not paying a lot. Doesn't even pay for my coffee money. We don't come into it thinking we want to screw over people or charge them a lot. I mean, we do the best we can. And I think that the staff and the Budget and Finance Committee did just that. Thank you, Mark. Sure. I will attempt to keep it short so that we can keep this moving. I will attempt to keep it short in an effort to keep this meeting moving along. I've been involved with participating from a board perspective and from the Engineering and Environmental Committee throughout this rate study process. I've seen the evolution of the plan. I've seen comments from the board that have caused the staff to make what I thought were positive changes in what they were proposing. I've seen comments from the public that have caused the plan to be changed. One specific was on the initial proposed Boulder Creek wastewater rates, which were initially significantly higher than what's currently in the plan. And staff went back and looked at it and made changes. Do we have a perfect plan here? No. I don't know that we could ever get to perfect. Do we have a good plan? I believe so. To one of the points that I heard brought up during public comments was related to the debt service. The debt service being at 25%, how can we as an agency do? It's common for public agencies to do that. We're using the rates that you're going to be paying over the next number of years and taking out a loan against that so that we can more quickly begin to replace some of that aging infrastructure that the staff member who was here was describing with piping underground that's failing. We can take out a loan and begin to replace that sooner than waiting to collect the money over a number of years and then taking that much longer to get it done. So from everything that I've seen, the staff is and has worked to provide us a reasonable plan here that we can move forward with and I'm supportive of this. With that, I'll turn it back to Jeff. So I used to work for San Jose Water Company. Can you speak up, please? I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that. Totally understand. We're passing the microphone around. I used to work for San Jose Water Company, which is one of the oldest water companies in the state of California, not to mention the Bay Area. And one of the things that you learn when you go to work for a really old water company is that people paid for your pipes 100 years ago, because the way that water rates used to work was that you were paying for that ready-to-serve cost. That was the largest part of your bill. You were paying for all the pipes and infrastructure that have to be in place and maintained to get the water from where the water is collected and treated to your home. And that's our biggest cost. Those are fixed costs. Our two biggest fixed costs are PG&E, because we have to spend a lot of money on energy to pump the water up and over these mountains. And that's why when people say, I've compared us to other rates in the area, I need to know, what are the geographical and topographical conditions that that water district is operating in? Because if you have to pump water and maintain the pressure up and over mountains like we do, you're gonna spend more money. In addition to that, we have a larger geographic service area. So we may serve the same number of population as a similarly sized water district, but we're spread out a lot more than a compact water district in a more urban or metropolitan area, which means we need more energy to get the water from where we are to those homes that are the furthest out there in the reaches. So that's a really big cost for us. And guess what? PG&E doesn't ask us when they raise the rates. They just raise it and we just have to pay those increased rates like all of you do. This year, we also renegotiated a budget with our union members, many of whom, most of whom frankly, live here in this valley and pay all the increased costs that we're all paying. And they need to be able to earn a wage to continue to live here. Part of this wage increase or part of this rate increase will go to meet those conditions of that newly renegotiated contract that we entered into with our staff earlier this year and that we're now obligated to maintain. We're obligated to pay them at the rate that we agreed to pay them. So we've got those two big costs that are fixed in our budget, right? We have to pay our staff and we don't have very many of them. So it's not like we can just cut them and we have to pay our energy bills and our chemical bills and our fixed costs. We got to buy pipe, that's a fixed cost. And that's how we get the water to you. Well, unfortunately about 30 to 40 years ago, change in the thinking at the state of California was implemented to say, you know what, we want to tell everybody to conserve water. So we're going to flip flop the way that you charge people. And instead of charging them for your biggest costs, your fixed costs, you're going to charge them more for the volume cost. So what they said was, you're going to take some of your fixed costs and you're going to move them into the variable cost of your water rate. So things that we have to pay are built into the amount of water that you use. Well, you use different amounts of water throughout the year. During the winter, you use less. So we get less money. And during the summer, you use more. And if you want to cut back and get rid of your garden, for example, you use even less. Well, as someone said, our business is in water sales. So when you use less money, that means a hit to our revenue, which makes it harder for us to maintain our budget plan. So all of these reasons are why we looked at these tiered rates and determined that we have to increase the fixed costs to some degree to help balance out the fact that you're all a really good group of consumers. We're all a really good group of consumers, but that means your volumetric costs go up and down so drastically through the year that we can't put together a reliable budget and pay our bills on a regular basis and save for all of the capital projects that my counterpart down the dais wants us to spend money on and save for our reserves as my counterpart down the dais wants us to do. And if we were to raise rates enough to do all of the things that my counterpart down the dais wants us to do, you'd be seeing a much higher increase than what we're proposing right now. So it's a little bit confusing to hear that we should be doing these other things that will raise our rates at the same time, being told that we shouldn't raise our rates to do those things. It's an impossible condition to set up. And so for those reasons, and for all of my past experience, I support this water increase. In the interest of time, I'm going to say that the things I had planned to say have been said. I will only comment that we are here today with the issues that we have today. We have pipes that need to be fixed or repaired replaced pipes that are too small for fire flow. We have tanks. We still have some redwood tanks, for example. We have tanks that need to be changed, upgraded, cleaned. I agree with Bob. We need to be maintaining those tanks better. We have one location in Felton where we're replacing a 10,000 gallon tank that's an old tank. And the fire district says, we want you to put in 60,000 gallons or maybe 120,000 gallons. Guess what? A lot more money there. But that neighborhood will have a lot more, a lot more assistance from firefights once that tank is there. We are where we are. Mistakes have been made in the past. No doubt this board will make mistakes here and there. I'm sure we've made some. But we are where we are. We have to look forward. And I don't think it's right or fair to hold this board responsible for things that two boards, three boards ago did, commitments they made, and circumstances changed. It's a fact of life, circumstances changed. So I'm going to support this proposal. I think I will ask Barbara what the next step is on this. I think we need a motion. I'd like to make a motion. Okay. I'm note that the board accept the water and wastewater rate study final draft report that was repaired by RAVTELUS. And secondly, adopts a resolution approving updated water and wastewater services rates and rescinds resolution number six, seven and eight. Was there another one you needed to add? Yes. Resolution, thank you. Resolution number 12, 18-19. Okay. As so stated. As so stated. I'll second that. Comments from the public? Comments from the board? I have a couple of quick comments. I want everybody to know about a 40%, actually 40 points of the almost doubling and operating expenses came before the pandemic or CCU fire. So that put us due to the power of compounding, that put us on a path to where we're going now to say that all of that happened because of the pandemic or fire, some of it did, but I backed that out on my calculations. So we need to make sure when we're doing these that we're actually looking at the real numbers. Folks, I want you, I think that there was a couple of comments made that are very true. These can't be solved overnight. I constructed a 25-year model of the district's revenue and operating expenses, adjusting for the fact that Felton and Lompeco and Olympia weren't in our district 25 years ago. Operating expenses during that time increased at a rate of about 5.5% due to the power of compounding. If we had- Point of order. Lower that. This is not a comment on the motion. If we had lowered, this is the reason I'm opposing it because if we had lowered that to a number around three to three and a half percent, we would have $30 million extra if we had assumed the same rate increases. So we have to get ourselves onto financial planning and I'm looking forward actually to the board doing that as they say they're going to because I'm skeptical what's gonna happen. Thank you. Any other board comments? Will you call the vote? Do you allow- President Hill, you already asked for public comment. Sorry, I asked. We know she was not up and waiting. We asked for public comment before we asked for board comment. Would you have a right to comment? Regardless, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Just a proof of concept, I believe several of our board members might know what that means. Yes. In 2017, the board asked the staff to come up with a budget that was less than 5% increase. They did. It was a lot of complaining. No one lost their job. They were able to fill reserves within about a year and a half. That is the power of compounding. And I believe that's what Bob is saying. None of you have addressed, you only addressed the increasing in revenue. None of you have addressed the other side. If you can just bend the curve down in spending, that money comes up and you don't have to increase the rate so much. It's a very simple concept, basic economics. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Holly, will you call with them? President Hill? Yes. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? No. Director Mayhood? Yes. Director Smalley? Yes. Motion passes. It is 9.30 p.m. or 9.12 p.m. I could ask you to be quiet and release. They are people on the phone still listening and we need to continue meeting. We still have items on the agenda that... It is time to move on to new business. Before we do, it's 20 minutes after nine. Are there any of those three issues under new business that we wish to table for the next meeting? Are you saying you want to table all of them or some of them? I move that we table 5A and 5B. Sorry, which ones are those? The changes to the Director of Finance description, DAW description and the change to single monthly meetings rather than to... And I do that because I think the... I found the memos regarding them a little bit confusing and I think it'll be given the hour hard for Brian to walk us through those sufficiently. They are not particularly urgent. On the other hand, I think item 5C, we should... So anyway, I move that we table 5A and 5B to return to it next week. We need a roll call vote on that. Yes. Any public comment? There's no comment, no debate. President O'Haraos of order. Vice President Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Mayhut? Yes. Director Smalley? Yes. Okay, thank you. We'll now proceed to the item 5C conversation study. Brian, do you want to present that? Sure. Thank you, President Bill. So essentially this is a professional service agreement to conduct a salary study, which I believe we've... We've brought this to both committee and the board before. I know that also we have two MOUs that you mentioned earlier with each of the bargaining units. However, right now the salaries are tied to the CPI or Cost of Living Index. And so one of the contingencies or one of the statements in the MOUs is that we would use a salary study to justify a new salary rates for each of the employees in the bargaining units. So maybe a couple of things to also point out that there's a selection committee of three of us. It was myself and two of the board members were also on the outgoing members of that admin committee. Budget and finance. Budget and finance, excuse me. Myself, I'm not an either bargaining unit. So I felt that was the only staff member that didn't have a conflict of interest. So then having two board members to help select it seemed appropriate. And so I guess the other thing is what the consultant had brought up is that there is to put together a working group which would include one board member, one representative from each of the bargaining units, myself and finance manager or acting finance manager because then there's some transparency through the process. It's not like there's a study and then we're bringing it back to these bargaining units six months later, four months later. So there's steps along the way where we're getting by. Lastly, I plan to ask, along with the salary study is that we look at salaries for specific positions that we don't have or need to kind of get a hone in on a new salary for. So there's business and customer services, supervisor, contract and reporting specialist and an associate engineer. And those are positions at the moment. So we'd like to have salary survey cover those. And this doesn't mean we're opening and establishing those positions only having the option that we now know what a fair salary is to offer should we decide to do that. And the other one is finance manager and the finance manager position that we haven't had a salary for that for some time and we haven't used that title in that position. One of the other, one of the items we tabled was about that but be it as it may is just looking at it from that standpoint of having a finance manager rather than the director of finance and business services. So with that, I believe there may, there was pointed out there was something in the agreement that needed to be changed but I will point out that the recommended motion that authorizes me as the interim general manager to execute extensions and non-substantive changes and we consider that change of title which was rather than having it commenced within 100 days and 80 days that it's completed in 180 days. So anyway, that's all I have to say about that. Okay, I don't have the recommended motion right in front of me. Does somebody have that? I have it right here. Okay. Okay. I move that the board directs the interim general manager to enter in an agreement with Gallagher benefit services incorporated for an amount not to exceed $37,000 to perform a compensation study with a $3,000 contingency and authorizes the interim general manager to execute extensions and or non-substantive modifications to the agreement as necessary. Second that with the minor amendment that the general Commence goes to complete. Yes. You need to go with public comment. Yeah. Yes, public comment, but do we have. When the board. The board should be. The board should the board go first. Yes. Yes. Generally. Yeah. Well, I think it depends on the sort of the The item is. The big item is right, yeah. Why don't you start public comment at this end? Okay, so now. I would just say that I think both, all three of us thought that this company that we chose was by far the best of the ones that we interviewed. And we liked the way they had this sort of iterative process where they would come back and involve the members of staff so that we don't, as Brian said, end up with something at the end that nobody agrees with or they're grumbling. Well, you didn't check this or whatever. And I also liked the way Brian included some potential changes of, in terms of how we would structure the budget manager and then the business services part of things and also two other potential things to look at. I thought that was, that was smart. So I'm in favor of this. I mean, I support the recommendation as put forward. I'm not familiar with this organization, but I trust the ad hoc committee that made the determination and we've made a commitment to the staff to do the study. So I support this. Okay, so talking about the organization that we're talking about contracting with, one of the most impressive things was that they have a long and impressive list of clients that are government agencies, public districts, water districts, they know our business well. Including little districts in difficult, topographical areas. They know our business well and they know, know how businesses and organizations like this are structured. The other two candidates, not nearly so well. Okay. I did not have the opportunity to interview the firm. So the only thing I'm basing my comments on or what was presented to us in the agenda packet, what they provided to us appeared to be a bit of a cut and paste with the leadoff being, dear Ms. Reed, addressed to Rick Rogers. Not a good way to start off. Their proposal says it's valid. Actually, I think that was correct. Not from what I saw. Kendra Reed was not sure when