6 o'clock.  I would like to convene this special meeting of the Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District at 6 o'clock. Holly, will you call the roll? President Mayhood. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Henry. Here. I would like to call the roll. I would like to call the roll. Director to. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Yes. I would like to remove. Delete item. 3E unfinished business or respectful workplace policy. On the agenda. Okay. staff ran out of time to thoroughly put it together okay to get it to the board okay I'm inclined to agree to delete this but if there are any comments from the board first I'll be happy to hear them hearing none I just had no objection oh okay um with no objection sir I'll go ahead and approve that deletion of item three e and now we come to the portion of the agenda that's reserved for oral communications from members of the public on subjects that lie within the purview of the district but are not on the agenda tonight um because we have a long meeting tonight I would like to limit your presentations if you have any to three minutes and when you do speak please give your name and the town that you reside in are there any comments in this section of the then can we have a district council um talk about the chat function please okay thank you chair mayhood I just want to let everybody know please refrain from using the chat function during the meeting um not all of the panelists in particular the board members monitors chat throughout the meeting so if you in order to make sure that you're participating in the meeting and that the board members all hear you it's important to participate in oral communication rather than communicating via chat should you type any message into chat that will be a public record subject to the public records act thank you thank you I'm going to rise on a point to the privilege right now before we get into the main part of the meeting and it's basically because at the last meeting we got off to a little bit of a rocky start um I lost control of the meeting at times and I also lost control of my temper for which I apologize and given that I thought I would take a few minutes at the beginning of this meeting to state my intentions and goals in sharing the board's meetings and these largely arise actually from the first conversation that I had when I met Tina after we were both elected we both immediately agreed that board meetings are too long with the result that it's a serious imposition on staff many of whom start work at six or seven a.m we were also concerned that these long meetings are a barrier to public participation we really can't expect public to hang in there for three and four hour long meetings especially those who have families or that work so we agreed that what we would try to aim for as an ideal are meetings that last no longer than two and a half hours we also agreed that it'd be better if all board members weighed in on issues rather than discussions being dominated by just a couple of board members as we commonly observed when we attended meetings last year so to that end I intended to do my best to run meetings efficiently so that we adjourn no later tonight than 8 30 and regular meetings that start at 6 30 at 9 p.m and to make sure that all members of the board have an equal chance to influence the course of decision the course of the discussions that we have with agenda items rather than call on the person who raises their hand first each time we go to the board for comment I'll invite the next director on the on an alphabetical list to start the discussion um similarly I'll do that with the public calling on them in such a way that different people can lead off the discussion so the way this will go will be back to our sort of normal way in contrast to the first meeting where the item is presented by the staff I'll then invite each member of the board to make a comment they don't always have to but they'll be invited to before the floor is opened up to members of public and once we've heard from the public with their comments I will return to the board and invite each member to make a comment before we consider entertaining a motion and once the motion is made and seconded each member will be allowed to comment at that time so with that I'd like to start on our first piece of unfinished business uh 3a which is the vacancy and elective office of the board of directors uh Rick did you want to start that off yeah I'll I'll just you know introduce uh chair or chair I'll introduce district council Nichols to present this item open it to the the board okay um okay uh well this item of course has been before the board of several times now over the past few months so I won't go into any great amount of detail um in short the board determined that a vacancy exists as of November 5th 2020 um that was the board seat held by former president Steve Swan whose term was scheduled to end at the end of 2022 um the board ultimately after a few meetings determined to fill the vacancy by appointment uh the board has until January 4th to make an appointment um which uh I may of course be done at this meeting here tonight and I believe the district secretary is prepared to swear in any appointee that may be chosen by the board at this evening's meeting ma'am thank you okay we received um five applications and I just want to make sure that everybody uh those five people are here um I saw uh Jamie Ackerman is here mark doleson are you there that'd be a good idea for you to unmute mark now I'm I'm unmuted and here okay all right thank you um Elena Lang president thank you Jamie Newton Jamie I know you're there want to unmute I I didn't know if I had control my mute they're present no you do right okay and mark smally here okay great all right well let me just um explain to everybody uh how this is going to go and um the five applicants have all been informed of this in an email beforehand so I'm not springing anything on them here each one of them will be given four minutes to introduce themselves and that will be followed um by me asking a set of standard questions to each of them um four questions and then each member of the board will be offered the opportunity to ask a question of a candidate um if they'd like and we'll do that for each person sequentially um after we've interviewed all five we'll go to the board for a single comment for each board member then out to the public for their comment and then we'll come back to the board for a discussion of the candidates at least one round before we invite a motion so with that I would like to get started on this with Jamie Ackerman she's there and I just want to state upfront that in posing the questions we're looking for the person that's best fall off if I had to join the board at this juncture that we find ourselves at you may not be able to answer every question I ask that's okay but do use the opportunity the questions afford to provide the strongest case you can for why we should choose you so Jamie if you're ready the first question is please provide a specific example from your own experience working on a board or a committee or in some context in which you helped a group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome sure um first I'll be happy to answer that question but if I could ask a quick question about procedure well I'm sorry you got four minutes I jumped in I'm sorry thank you for calling me on that one one second board president is James director of operations um am I timing this uh yes that would be great okay just want to be sure okay good evening board members water district staff and neighbors first I just want to offer my thanks to the water district staff and first responders who fought the fire and restored our community as a water service industry professional I understand the dedication it takes to respond at a moment's notice when a community's water resources are in crisis I was with San Jose water when we had an E. Coli outbreak when construction broke major water mains and through many more mundane water emergencies my job as director of communications was to work with the local neighborhoods and businesses to provide messaging and outreach to local elected officials and customers and to really win the hearts and minds of the community so that they understood what we were doing with their rates and fees to invest in their water system I've never faced a crisis in my professional life like the one we all faced down as a community this summer during the fires my home is just a thousand feet from where the fire stopped at the top of valley view road and ben lomond and because of that I've never been more grateful to be a resident at the san lorenzo valley and specifically the lomond terrace association and ben lomond and if any of my neighbors are on the line tonight thank you so much for all of your support that is part of my motivation to find ways to be more involved locally my work has largely focused on public infrastructure issues and good governance and as a graduate of leadership san jose and a member of women in transportation I was focused on building a more accessible and equitable world through which to travel I believe then and I continue to believe today that transportation is key to a healthy community but through that advocacy work I came to see the interconnectedness of our housing water electrical and infrastructure environmental solutions and how our water infrastructure and services were suffering in many of the same ways the rest of our country's infrastructure is suffering the american society of civil engineers gives our nation's water infrastructure a d plus the solving the problem is as much a generational challenge as the original construction of our systems were between the early 1900s and the end of the baby boom the most important work this board will do is to create a legacy of improvements but also a commitment to continually improve the san lorenzo valley watershed and water services and to do that we need to build an ongoing dialogue with the greater san lorenzo valley our regional state and federal representatives and more importantly with each other I believe my background in government relations community outreach and organizing and communications will be an asset to this board and to the district in 2018 the santa cruz county grand jury issued a report that focused on two primary concerns a lack of outreach and communication with the community and poor coordination with and guidance to the lumpico assessment district oversight committee while I appreciate the unprecedented nature of some of the challenges the district has faced in the past year we have more work to do in curing the concerns leveled by that grand jury report my background is a water industry communications expert and my previous experience as staff liaison to various brown act govern committees gives me the skills and tools to help the district in this board meet its goals in short this board has incredibly important decisions that will need to be made quickly we need to recover federal emergency management funds I have relationships with anna eshu's office and with most of our state and regional legislators we need to continue to move capital improvement projects forward like the country club lane tank installation project I was pivotal pivotal in obtaining federal funding for countering electrification in the bay area not to mention I'm told other capital infrastructure improvements we have the perennial work of restoring and maintaining the health of our watershed and I too understand that from my work with san jose water which manages thousands of acres of watershed in the santa cruz mountains your job tonight is difficult you have to try to reflect the voice of the community in your decision because san lorenzo valley residents don't get a chance to weigh in on this appointment until 2022 I submit that last month when president mohoode supported the effort to seek an appointee she said that the board could benefit from a fresh new perspective and clearly the grand jury has weighed in to see that the board could do more to connect with our community too I hope that more than the does and I hope that the more than a dozen letters of support and comments you've received about my appointment combined with my strong background as a candidate will offer the fresh perspective president mohoode referred to reaching beyond your inner circle sends the right message to the broader san lorenzo valley community about your desire to bring their voice into this process and with that I'm open for your questions okay so let me state the first one again thank you please provide a specific example from your own experience working on a board a committee or in some other context in which you helped a group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome um most recently I worked with the Santa Cruz county regional transportation commission as staff via my role with the as the director of communications for Santa Cruz metro we were working on the bus improvement auxiliary lanes project so the goal of that project is to add some lane space along highway one so that buses can actually have places to pull on and pull off more quickly improving the flow of traffic giving us a rapid transportation corridor but it has some impacts that are controversial for the community and obviously it could impact the flow of traffic along that corridor things that are already challenging so we worked carefully with the community and with county supervisors members of the regional transportation commission to try and cure those concerns and ensure that the project really reflected the needs of the community and in fact it's been funded and it's already moving into construction thank you um my second question is please describe what you think is at stake in the district's participation in the Santa margarita groundwater agency well management of our groundwater resources is you know pretty critical in this valley in particular but I'm sure that throughout Santa Cruz county that's an issue um when I was with Santa Santa's a water uh we relied heavily on groundwater uh for water distribution and um it has different than unique challenges frequent uh frankly uh than using surface water does in terms of treatment and in terms of um quality issues with the customers so um I think that having a voice in that board and um continuing to ensure that our concerns in the valley are heard um is what the goal of good governance is in participating with this board could you please describe your engagement with the workings of the San Lorenzo Valley water district up until this point in time I'm a customer I've been following the things that you're doing but I haven't been heavily engaged that's largely because I've also been raising kids and working over the hill for the vast majority of my career until just the last year so um when I moved into my role with Santa Cruz metro and then when I went into consulting so I now am here and and have much more time to commit to a project like this and that's really the issue is you need to make sure whomever you appoint really has the time for long board meetings and responding to and engaging with constituents I get that challenge because uh as a public agency staffer for the last 20 years I've been staffed to these meetings so I really appreciate what you were saying president mohoot about trying to be respectful of the water district staff when you're managing these meetings as well well that sort of seags into my last question which is as you just said being a member of the board is a major commitment of time especially you know the financial problems of covid and post ccu fire issues so board members can expect to spend an order of 10 to 20 hours sometimes more per week attending board and committee meetings reading agenda background material and preparing to be an active participant can you please describe how you plan to integrate this commitment um and work with any other obligations that you have sure um actually this kind of uh comes at a really perfect time for me personally because as luck would have it at the beginning of 2020 I made the decision to go out on my own as a communications consultant and writer and uh and my last day at work I I had turned in my resignation it was March 13th as luck would have it and the very next day we went into shelter in place so all of the big plans that I had for this time I was taking to move into consulting I was going to volunteer at the local library I was going to get involved with the community in ways that I had never had time to do really were upended and then the fires of course changed the course of I think all of our sort of focuses and priorities um so this opportunity is is what I had hoped to do with this time and what how I intend to spend a lot of my focus not just with this board but in trying to find other ways to involve myself in this community to that end I've joined the Valley Women's Club I've joined there are both their women's issues and environmental issues I'll be starting a column with the San Lorenzo Valley Post shortly on my thoughts around water and environmental issues and I'm writing for a couple of other local publications as well including Santa Cruz Waves thank you um we now can go to the board um and each board member if they'd like can ask a question and I'll begin with Director Fultz yes thank you very much Jamie for that background and the answers to that um I I think from my perspective we're looking at a very robust set of applicants so I have one question which is what do you view as the most critical item for the San Lorenzo Valley Water District to focus on in the next year or two well I mean you know the best laid plans are are never able to be you know followed to a T right I would say that that because of the fires the recovery of federal emergency management funds the recovery and restoration of the watershed and the continued hardening and strengthening of our facilities is probably going to be amongst our top priorities but to that end we're going to have to look at all of the the financial considerations behind that as a you know certified rate adjuster with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners I have a lot of background in really understanding and a public utility agency's financials great thank you thank you director Henry thank you Jamie very impressive I do have a question I noticed that you worked for San Jose Waterworks a company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and also uh and it is the PUC is the one who oversees San Jose Waterworks and also that you were involved in a a merger between Connecticut water and San Jose water and so my question is are you in favor of prioritizing water districts or do you think um it doesn't matter whether it's prioritized or a water district or a mutual so I think you mean privatized um is I'm not just mean by prioritized a private company she meant private privatization ah got it um so I left San Jose water in the midst of their merger with Connecticut water because I don't agree with private utility operated private investor owned utilities I spent two years there and it was a real lesson I got to learn all aspects of watershed maintenance operations administration and rate setting but I didn't like the model I am a public agency employee and if you look at the rest of my career and I'm sure you looked at my resume director Henry you would see that from 2000 to 2018 I worked for public agencies like the San Mateo County Transit District the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Agency and Santa Cruz Metro and for two years I worked at San Jose water it was a really great opportunity and a learning experience um but it wasn't a model that I thought was the right model for water distribution thank you okay director tow did you have a question first or are you going after me no go ahead um I just want to say I'm really impressed with your resume and all of the references you sent um I actually don't have a question at this time that's fine we don't have to have questions all right um well then thank you very much uh Jamie I appreciate your answers and um yeah so next we have Mark Doulson and you have uh four minutes to uh introduce yourself and James you want to kind of give an indication somewhere around three and a half minutes so people know how much time they have I'll do thank you okay thank you well you know I think maybe the the most important thing for me to say is that um about this position itself I know there's been a lot of discussion in in recent weeks about this opening and you know I've seen it treated as a primarily political issue I don't see it that way I see the board as a team and I see this appointment as a critical opportunity to strengthen that team so the way I look at it if I were already on the board what would I be doing at this point I'd be looking this this gives you some sense of how I operate I think I would be looking to add someone who's hardworking you know someone highly collaborative you know someone with a solid understanding of the challenges facing the district someone with strong analytical skills excellent communication skills all those things I think you know seem pretty obvious but also I'd really be looking for someone who can help to make all four other board members more effective that that's really what interests me most I'm applying for this position because I think I fit this description both based on my career experience in which team building has been really a top priority for me and and also just because I've I've been so immersed in over the past year in the board's activities I've I've devoted many hours each month to not just attending the meetings but publishing you know detailed summaries of each board meeting you know to understanding the district's issues the board dynamics writing lengthy articles about the issues confronting the district so you know I've come to believe that the most critical long-term issue that the district does need to contend with is business precarious financial status I mean this this is a predicament that's a consequence of years of underinvestment in physical infrastructure but also escalating costs and and now due to the fire depletion of cash reserves it's it's something we need to address but also we need to be attentive to other issues as well you know I'm certainly concerned about optimizing the overall effectiveness of staff managing evolving threats to the watershed and partnering effectively with other agencies and with our community so I regard all of those things as as the board's mission but to accomplish this you know I think we need a board that's working together at peak efficiency and that doesn't mean a board that that always agrees it means a board that is learning from disagreements so that they're productive and they're enabling us to jointly build on what we've learned just to say an example here I've I've had many many hours of discussion with with director folks and we've disagreed on a number of points but I've always come away from those discussions feeling that my overall understanding has been improved and also that there are constructive next steps that we could take together so if I were to end up on the board you know I would look forward to pursuing those kinds of of really mutual learning opportunities with all the directors because for me that that's really what the draws I think the board can be can be more effective than it has been today it's all about building the strongest possible team the there's a lot of important work to do and and I guess what I would say to the board members if you share this agenda I hope you will strongly consider me for this position thank you thank you all right so um let me go to the first question please provide a specific example from your own experience working on a board a committee or some other context in which you helped a group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome I think that's a great question and of course as soon as you posed it I started thinking back that this the experience you know for me that that was most formative and had the most profound influence on me actually came a number of years ago when I first found myself in position of responsibility this was working for the creative advanced technology center in scott's valley we had about a hundred members of staff and we had a team of four directors who were jointly responsible for for that organization we were we were part of a larger company a company based in singapore but that gave us a lot of autonomy in how we operated and there was a lot of learning as we went there was uh there was a lot of helpful coaching as well but um you know the fundamental issue and it repeated again and again was that you know amongst the directors we had very different personalities and and areas of expertise and so we needed to to learn how to have productive discussions amongst ourselves at the same time we needed to learn how to have effective engagement with all of the other people on the staff you know many of whom were engineers also very opinionated and so I learned an awful lot in that time about how to really understand what people's concerns are and how to effectively address them how to build trust with people and and then probably the biggest challenge for us was that we still needed to have those same kinds of successful interactions with the senior management in Singapore who had a very different perspective and even a different cultural approach to things so even though I didn't give you a very specific example there it was a sustained experience over a number of years and ultimately a very satisfying one but that's really what drew me into this role of focusing on team building thank you my second question is please describe what you think is at stake in the district's participation in the Santa Margarita groundwater agency yes that's a question that I don't feel I have a lot of expertise in that area you know I have sat in on some of the groundwater association meetings and um the the fundamental situation there where there um are disparate communities that are that are coming together to try and have a common plan in Scotts Valley, San Lorenzo Valley and Santa Cruz you know inherently sets up differences in you know in people's interests and priorities and Scotts Valley has a very different population than we do and has made different demands on the groundwater than the San Lorenzo Valley has so to be completely honest I don't know specifically what I what what the most pressing current issue is with that agency but I believe it's very important for the San Lorenzo Valley to be effectively and represented in that both both in the sense of reaching consensus in the ongoing planning joint planning and also making sure that that planning doesn't adversely affect the valley okay um please describe your engagement with the workings of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District up until this point in time sure if you go back you know maybe 14 months or so I had very little awareness of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District so for me it's been a really intensive learning experience over the past year and a few months the the form of that has come from as I said participating as a primarily as a spectator in all of the meetings but but doing a lot of work to try to understand and summarize what's been going on and try and move from that to understanding what the underlying issues are trying to research those so you know I've had to do a fair amount of investigation and I've had to do a fair amount of of learning right from the start the thing that that interested me most was what is it that that all of these directors know that I don't yet know and that's why I started reaching out to directors like director folds director swan to to try and accelerate my own learning process um I feel like I've I've lived uh very closely with the the water district since you know it's essentially November of last year but um obviously not as close as the people on the board and the final question is being a member of the board is a major commitment of time and energy especially in this post-CZU and COVID plagued interval board members can be expected to spend 10 to 20 hours per week sometimes more and attending board and committee meetings reading agenda background materials and preparing to be an active participant in meetings please describe how you plan to integrate this commitment and work with any other obligations you have happily at this time I don't have any conflicting obligations and this is precisely the kind of of engagement that I very much enjoy and I'm naturally drawn to so from my perspective I would expect to ramp up the the work that I've been doing as a citizen if I were actually on the board member I would clearly have additional responsibilities but I don't anticipate any difficulty in in handling those okay thank you now we'll um see if there's any questions from the uh board director Henry sure thank you um Mark doleson uh thank you for your remarks I don't know if you're aware that I was on the Long Pico water district board for almost eight years I I it was short by six months because we managed to merge with SLV I also attended Santa Margarita Basin meetings while I was on that board and I can agree with you that having a board that works well together is wonderful and I can remember being on the Long Pico board oh my gosh it it could get pretty difficult sometimes and and so I'm I'm really in favor of a board that works well together but of course we are going to have disagreements and it's kind of how we handle those disagreements and I can be a little bit of a hothead myself so I sometimes am not very good about handling those disagreements but I try so I appreciate your willingness to apply for the board and I also saw that you applied for the admin committee thank you okay director tow I also appreciate Mark's qualifications but I do also do not have questions at this time okay director folks thank you mark I don't have any questions at this time we have talked extensively okay then we'll go on to our next candidate alina lang can you tell me how to pronounce your name correctly Alina Alina okay all right Alina go ahead you have four minutes to introduce yourself all right well my name is Lena Lang and I'm a fisheries biologist and I was asked to come to California to apply my expertise in passive integrated transponder technology to help better understand how drought conditions affect salmonid migration and having the ability to monitor fish migration and behavior is crucial to understanding the impacts of extreme climate change conditions water operations and developing managing management strategies to minimize threats and I've been a public servant my entire career whether it be representing federal or state government collecting critical data or participating in non-proprietary research to create new open source technological advancements I have experience with the national marine fisheries service permitting large waterway infrastructure whereas the project man during the field overseeing the installation for this project I was also tasked with allocating the budget on a fixed firm contract to make sure our research goals are met I perform many habitat survey surveys for national marine fisheries service organ apartment efficient wildlife and washing apartment efficient wildlife I fostered relationships with NGOs private landowners as well as local and federal agencies to allow site access and build partnerships among agencies I saw the the impact firsthand of the previous fire and what it had on the water quality and how it affected the salmonid marine at the scott creek hatchery I've been involved in many things in our area including installing monitoring equipment on the felton bladder dam and conducting topographic land surveys the common dam removal geomorphological study besides my scientific expertise I deeply care about the affordability of clean drinking water and addressing the equity of water and an era of rising costs it's extremely important that we design more effective water rate and fee assistance programs for low-income houses that are unable to pay their bill you know one way of achieving this is I know you guys have that the low-income rate assistance program that's currently in the trial phase and we can sure that we expand that I'd also like to expand the community communication between the board and our customers especially as we navigate through this post fire period but there are going to be many opportunities moving forward post fire for impactful change that will last for generations this director seat should go to a scientist that knows how to best update our water infrastructure so we don't find ourselves repeating the same mistakes my combination of watershed experience public relations public budget allocation and the use of innovative technology makes me a good fit for this board seat in the last election the public overwhelmingly said with their votes they want scientists on this board and their wishes should be honored when this physician's two years term is up I feel confident that I know how to run a successful campaign for my volunteer effort setting up phone banks and events for political candidates on a personal note I'm an avid mushroom picker I enjoy hiking and camping with my wonderful husband who works at the Santa Clara Valley Water District and my four-year-old son the last research project I was a part of was published and I decided to be at home and take on the challenges of a fixed rupper that we bought here in Boulder Creek I was actually originally looking to return to the workforce and then COVID hit and child care was an issue so I decided to stay home longer so this means that sitting on the board will be my sole focus and I can dedicate myself fully to this endeavor I just really want to thank the board for the consideration and it'd be an honor to serve our community all right thank you okay my first question is please provide a specific example from your own experience on a board a committee or in some other context in which you helped a group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome yeah well I've been involved in a lot of the Central Valley acoustic tagging committees and there's a definitely a lot of diverse back there from academia research to working with CDFW and even in water districts at all show up to these meetings and how to best use the technology to track some modern migration and our big role was to bring in passive integrative technology or pit tags down into California which hadn't seen this technology most people down here use acoustic technology so we had a lot of pushback a lot of people didn't want to you know kind of have something else in the mix and we had to go in there and present and explain to them like how this pit tag technology could close you know or critical data gaps and it would be really helpful to add this to tool to our tool belt and in the end we got people on board and we ended up collaborating with several different agencies we had some people that were already doing some acoustic tagging and they let us piggy back onto them and insert our pit tags at the moment that they were doing the surgery we ended up having a really successful research project okay thank you please describe what you think is at stake in the district's participation in the Santa Margarita groundwater agency I you know I'm not too too familiar with this I do know a lot about groundwater especially what's going around in the area in Central Valley and you know I understand that the recharge that we in this area only comes from rainfall and that the the you can see called aquifers below or are low and I know a lot with the Santa Clara Valley water district when they do water releases to try to get fish to move up it it just soaks right into the ground because the the groundwater is so low uh so I I think we have a lot at stake here because the fact that we may not have surface water intake you know for a while with contaminations and debris flows and this this might be our only chance at being able to provide water if something happens uh it's I think it's very important that we collaborate with these people and especially for the fact that if everyone has a straw and we're not working together and we're all just sucking out out water we're just going to further deplete it so we definitely have to come it to collaborate with everyone else um on this issue so we're allocating the water appropriately thank you please describe your engagement with the workings of the San Lorenzo Valley water district up until this point in time well I I watched your meetings a lot and I did apply to be on the environmental committee because I wanted to be more involved and then this position opened up so I thought I was vying this position but you know maybe in two years when I had served on the environmental committee because you know there were no positions open at the time um so not as much as I would like uh but I would I'm trying to change that by by being more involved okay I think you sort of answered this already but I everybody gets a fair chance on this so being a member of the board is a major commitment of time and energy um and board members can expect to spend 10 to 20 hours per week sometimes more in attending board and committee meetings reading agenda background material and preparing to be active participants and board deliberations please describe how you plan to integrate this commitment and work with any other obligations you have now well we are wrapping up and think hopefully our our fixer uppers so and like I said uh I was planning to go back to work but with COVID and Child Hit Care that just wasn't something that was possible so my my schedule is open and this is my project and I have the time and I'm willing to put it in okay thank you very much um now we'll go to the board uh director tow I just wanted to thank Alina for applying and as a fellow environmental scientist slash marine scientist slash ecologist I really appreciate your resume it was very impressive thank you okay um director faults yeah thank you um and of course um Alina as someone who lived in the Oregon coast for a long time I was pleased to see you spent time in Newport so that's that's really great fairly close to my old stomping grounds um you had mentioned during your um uh introduction to us that there were mistakes that had been made and I was wondering if you could expand on that were those mistakes that uh we make is in general as a society or there's specific things you thought um might be the case here uh locally I I'm sorry I didn't I don't know where I said mistakes oh maybe I misunderstood oh oh repeating the same I guess I did say that well I mean just like when the fire came through it wiped out our ability to serve any water at all because a lot of the the pipe was above ground and you know re-putting back in htpe pipes again and above ground and the fire comes through again we see ourselves back in that that same problem again and you know maybe we look at it and nothing really is feasible except above ground htpe pipes in some areas um but you know we need to be you know looking at like do do like I think we talked about this previously like we're putting some of that outside of the watershed so the entire system isn't getting impacted all together you know is there areas where we can put it underground or it's safer or using other materials like I know like when you use steel their hose into the process of having to continually recote those pipes but I think it's just really important that we don't see ourselves back in this same position if another fire rolls through so I think that's a great point thank you for clarifying that and and I understand okay director Henry okay Alina I noticed in reading your um resume that you've spent a lot of time out in the field doing all kinds of interesting things I would imagine and I find myself wondering if that's what you would rather be doing than to be in a board meeting if you're really going to be happy um being on a board where you don't get to go out and work in the field which I get would be really a great thing to do with all your expertise you have so much expertise yeah oh I hear you um honestly I I like being in the field but not so much in California with all your guys is poison oak and ticks so I would gladly sit on the board down here um yeah you know I've had so much fun being in the field but I also really um enjoy you know making real change and being able to be a part of our community and I really don't I don't see that as a problem I got enough you know side projects at home to keep me entertained or go hike on my own on a trail and not have to be stomping through the the the ticks and poison oak anymore so I I don't see that as a problem drink goat's milk that the goat's been eating poison oak yeah it helps I've never gotten poison oak and telling me it's a californian and I got it really really bad and I mean I'm not even everywhere so thank you Alina all right um next we have jamie newton and jamie would you please go ahead and take four minutes to introduce yourself I don't know I don't know if I'm going to take four minutes but at first I would say I mean I'm just I have been so impressed with all of these all of these I have questions for everybody what can I tell you about me um I don't remember um uh where I found the application for this board of directors and I picked it up because I was because I'm concerned I'm concerned that you're looking for somebody before it's time to look for somebody I'm concerned um about something so important as our water um being in the hands of our community uh uh I just felt I just felt compelled I was absolutely compelled to get a hold of it and find out more about it it's all going to be an education for me except for what experience I've had with it I've been a customer um with the uh well I started out with on pico I've known hen lowest Henry's name for a long time um I got here in 2004 um uh and Bob Foltz too I've seen um these names and Gail also I I know all of your names I just don't know anything about working with um you and that wasn't even crossing my mind as a possibility I'm just pleased to meet you honor that's it well let are you ready for your questions then lay money okay please provide a specific example from your own experience working on a board or committee or in some other context in which to help the group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome well the the board that I had volunteered on was with my son's school and I was just feeling the exact same thing compelled to be a part of the community and um the community that my son is immersed in or was until COVID um the the contention arose and and were worked out it was a really nice team to be on and what I did was uh often or what I found myself to is since it was the first board that I'd ever been on was um adding ideas and a lot of listening and and giving um feedback without being uh I don't know it worked it worked there's a there's a um what came up what came up it was in 2017 and there had been some security issues that had come up because there had been uh uh some shootings um this is when I got really um concerns that it hadn't been brought up and I said please bring it up I want to know more about the security of the campus and why are we and what are we going to do why aren't we doing anything now and um when I feel passionate about something I'll speak up and uh I can do that with a smile and keep everybody um on the subject without it being um a contention it's a concern and uh water is a big concern and how it's managed is is is bigger than I know and I just expect a lot of education out of this I've never been to a board meeting other than that and I really enjoyed it I learned about how board meetings run I had never done that before um I liked being a participant it was great okay thank you please describe what you think is at stake in the district's participation in the Santa Margarita groundwater agency okay I do not know okay you're enough like I said at the beginning I'm full again again I can answer all the questions and that's perfectly okay can I go on to the next one please yes all right please please please describe your engagement with the workings of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District up until this point besides paying your bills on time right yeah you know I do and um even when they got really really crazy high which was when I was with uh the Long Pico Water District and all I knew was that there was a big like people connection problem and I was removed from it because I didn't know how to become a part of it somebody mentioned who mentioned that the communication between the board and the people the customers who was that one of our one of our one of our not mark somebody said that she brought that up and it's so important so important because I would be I would have jumped on this probably a lot longer ago if um I didn't do so by accident this week and I just don't know how to get involved and I want to be involved yeah I am terribly concerned we have uh we've been here since 2004 we've always um watched out for issues in our neighborhood we've seen leaks spring up in the streets we know that the that the system is old we know that there's an intertide we know um on the on the consumption side that there's a lot of things that need to happen before we can turn on our water faucet I I count every day as a blessing that we have it okay and the final question is being a member of the board is a major commitment of time and energy um board members can be expected to spend between 10 and 20 hours per week sometimes more attending board and committee meetings reading agenda background material and preparing to be active participants and board deliberations please describe how you plan to integrate this commitment and work with any of your other obligations well my obligations just got cut in half so I was working full time and now I have an extra 20 hours also um that is not an issue for me I have more energy than I have things to spend it on and that was how I got involved with sending in in for any a little bit of information about myself that I did send to you all right thank you director faults did you have a question I have no questions thanks okay director Henry oh of course uh Jamie yes please meet you yeah you know um long pico had a lot of problems uh problems that uh slv doesn't have the slv has different problems um but I did notice that you lived on carol avenue so I figured you lived in long pico so I was wondering if you knew about uh laddock which is the oversight the long pico oversight committee for the special district I mean for the special interest for anyway for the special assessment yes that's for the special assessment and I'm wondering if you would even think about getting involved with that because they're shorthanded uh they put out recently uh their first annual report actually I guess it's been almost a year now and it's time for another one and what they're looking at is you realize the part of your tax money uh is paying for uh the assessment we for 10 years we're going to be paying and uh so they're keeping an eye on the money how it's spent and I don't know if you recently saw the newsletter from the district that talked about the long pico tanks yes six tanks being replaced uh uh I can't remember if it's uh two of them are already fully if it's casky I think it's caskies and uh madron tanks are kind of in process and then the lewis tanks are probably going to be the last and if I got that wrong rick rogers um just straighten me out would you uh so I I would really like to see you get involved with the if you don't get picked to be on the board that you would get involved with that group laddock you called it yeah well it's along pico assessment district oversight committee okay I will okay I'll give them your name how's that that'd be great that'd be fine okay thank you director tall do you have a question I just wanted to thank jamie for her commitment to community service and um I would also mimic lois and that uh you don't want if you further want to get involved in especially with the watered area to get involved with that laddock thing so that would be great it's a committee okay um our last candidate or applicant is mark smally and mark would you spend four minutes or less introducing yourself sure thanks gil uh thanks to the board for uh inviting me to participate in this process I have 20 years of general experience as a construction project manager with extensive experiencing managing utility infrastructure which has included groundwater piping systems at various campuses and an electrical power plant this has given me a good background insight into the challenges that the district is facing with a lot of the water pipeline projects that the district is now implementing um in addition to that I'm a licensed professional geologist and spent 12 years investigating soil and groundwater contamination sites in that role I installed numerous ground water monitoring wells and water production wells so I have the background and expertise on um water production aspects from that avenue also while I was um working in the environmental industry the 12 years that I mentioned I prepared reviewed submitted a number of environmental impact reports negative declarations um and similar environmental reports not only on the environmental side but for the construction projects that I've managed also similar to what the district um needs to do now for the various infrastructure construction that it's that you're doing so it gives me a good insight into that on the volunteer side um I participated with a non-profit in San Jose called Rebuilding Together for 18 years as a volunteer including six years of that time on their board of directors serving as one of the directors so um that's my background as a director I think that a focus uh needs to be drawn on not only the infrastructure or the new projects but also maintaining existing viable systems if there are and I'm not aware that there are at this point but if there are any maintenance that's overdue um anything else like that in order to preserve the existing infrastructure as much as possible while also expanding into newer areas so with that I'll leave it to you Gail to go through the questions all right so my first question is please provide a specific example from your own experience working with a board a committee or in some other context in which you helped a group of people with diverse perspectives and opinions collectively reach agreement on a contentious issue what did you do to influence the group and what was the outcome um while I was on the board with the non-profit agency at one point we had sufficient funds not only to continue to operate but to expand our services um several of the board members were in favor of instead of expanding services uh investing in a building at that time instead of continuing to rent um and from a capital perspective that may have been an attractive thing for them to do but I strongly felt that expanding our services was what needed to be done with that agency and after um several board meetings of discussion that's what the board ended up doing as a board we were then able over those six years to expand our revenues and continue to operate successfully as a non-profit agency thank you please describe what you think is at stake in the district's participation in the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency um the long-term sustainability of the basin the district has water production wells along in addition other cities across this municipality across the basin have that also we continue to need to draw on those resources and that sustainability of the system is what needs to be focused on and what I think the district needs to focus on with that agency please describe your engagement with the workings of the district up until this point in time um I've been on the engineering committee with the water district for the past two years um participating in that role has allowed me to see that the experience that I have in managing the construction of water pipeline systems water treatment systems um and not only managing the physical in-ground aspects but also scope schedule and budget I served as the owner's representative similar to um the construction management firms that the district hires um that previous experiences allowed me to I feel uh contribute positively to the district on that engineering committee thank you and finally um being a member of the board is a major commitment of time and energy board members could be expected to spend between 10 and 20 hours per week sometimes more attending board committee meetings reading agenda background materials and preparing to be active participant board meetings please describe to me how you plan to integrate the commitment and work with your other obligations I'm recently retired and um I'm looking for my next volunteer opportunity recently I've been in touch with the Forest Service and I'm going to be doing some work with them up in the Amador County area um and I have no issues time constraints at this point from participating with the district um as a director okay thank you director Henry do you have a question that you'd like to yeah so Mark Smollett I I unfortunately being would be a third wheel so I couldn't go to any of the engineering committee meetings but I did see what the engineering committee sent to the board for uh discussion and approval and I I've always been very impressed about that and I just want to thank you for your two years of service so far and I hope we have some more years of your time thank you I was one of several participants Lois I I'm not going to take credit for that I I realize that but I'm just I I wouldn't have known you if I saw you on the street um you're welcome director toe uh thank you Mark for applying very impressive resume um I just had one question and that you mentioned uh volunteering for the Forest Service and I'm hoping that you can expand on that a little bit because this is such a big time commitment and how do you think you'll manage um between the two volunteer opportunities um the volunteer work at this point that they're looking to me for is to construct a a bulletin board at the beginning of one of their trails that I've been frequenting for the last 25 years and I agree that there should be a trail map inside there so that's so far what I've signed up for with them okay sounds manageable it's definitely manageable I I lived there as a kid so I and I know where it's at so I just was curious I see director faults no questions of his time and I'll echo Lois thanks for serving on the engineering committee it's been your way um okay well thank you um all of you for this is this has been delightful that it's actually wonderful that we've had five excellent candidates that we get to choose from and um so what we're going to do right now is uh we will ask um each member of the board if they'd like to make a comment um before we go out to uh the rest of for to the public um and so uh director tow would you like to make a comment not at this time okay and um director faults yes I would I would echo that in that I'm um very impressed with the the caliber and quality and quantity of people that applied for this open position um you know in our valley we have an enormous amount of talent and a lot of times that talent um could be very well used by the San Lorenzo Valley water district and in all sorts of capacities and so uh and one of the reasons that I was so very much in favor of expanding the number of public members on committees and uh making sure that the committees stay as they are is to give people that have that inclination and those talents the opportunity to be able to serve the district serve their community and at one point in time very well perhaps um uh become a board member um and be able to bring all of that learning to that so for those that don't get picked tonight I would very much encourage you to continue your uh applications into committees and get involved with the district there are lots of things to do thank you director Henry um I I think I'll wait and listen to the public okay that's fine um with that we'll go to the public and I will ask that you um please uh raise your hand if you have a comment and um when you're called on please say your name and identify the town you live in and please keep your remarks to less than three minutes so let's see I'm trying to do I have any raised hands out there yeah uh where am I go down to participants and then up to attendees you have two so down in the middle as participants and then after you click that attendees is up in the corner thank you all right uh Kate Stolten yes you are okay great thank you um thank you everyone my name is Kate I am a resident of Felton of almost 20 years I've had the pleasure of knowing uh knowing Jamie Eggman for more than half of that time and um I'm just here to let you know she is the real deal you all heard her impressive background um I have found her to be extremely devoted to SLV um passionate about water usage and I know that her big city experience for a small town water district will um help us get to where we need to go and I feel confident that she is the right candidate for this position and I do want to thank all the other candidates also for stepping up because it is a big time commitment and um I as a valet resident I absolutely appreciate all of you all of your willingness to do this so thanks to everyone and the board as well thank you thank you Kate Jim Mosher uh yes my name is Jim Mosher I've uh Felton resident I've been here off and on for 40 years and I want to just echo the last person's comment and also about Folk's comment about how appreciative I am of the talent we have in the valley and the willingness of you to take this role on which is a very uh a very challenging role um and each of you bring different talents and I hope that we can uh have you stay involved with the district whether you're chosen or not um and I just want to speak on behalf of Barb Dolson who I've worked with over the last year and just echo uh that what he said about him's about his talents in terms of building consensus and working as a team we've been with the friends of San Lorenzo Valley Water he was a instrumental in bringing this a non-partisan group uh flourishing to um participate in a variety of issues around the water I've really enjoyed working with him and been impressed with his expertise and willingness to work hard to build the team and to uh to be successful in working across the divisions across disagreements to find solutions that will uh better the entire district as the primary goal thank you thank you Karen Hall um my name is Karen Hall and I'm a resident of Felton and um I also wanted to say I was really impressed with all the candidates that applied and the incredible amount of experience that they brought um and I was sort of thinking of it from a bit more from of what criteria I think are important at this very important juncture for the board when there are so many crises facing the board with financial with debris flows with infrastructure and so many different things and it seems like there's sort of three things to look at the candidates on um what relevant professional experience they would bring particularly the compliments the existing board the um experience that they have with the water district which as obviously the board knows is his own beast and even somebody myself who has environmental expertise it's one thing to have the expertise but it's one thing to really understand what the water board is facing and having that experience as I said and obviously a third criteria in working in a board with diverse opinions is having that experience having worked with different people and being able to come to consensus um and I don't personally know any of the candidates but I have to say that in reading the resumes and the letters and also hearing tonight that it really felt to me like Mark Smalley brought all three of those things to the table having spent two years on the engineering committee and knowing the issues being a licensed geologist and having so much professional experience with water infrastructure and also having served as again on the engineering committee bringing people together and on the big nonprofit board in San Jose and I really think that those are the sort of looking at a distance as somebody who doesn't have a personal candidate that I was no personally that I'm logging for that really seem to have that set of qualifications that the board needs thanks okay do we have any other attendees wanting to make a comment Richard oh Rick Moran welcome back here we go yeah welcome well my name is Rick Moran I'm from Ben Lohman and I had the pleasure to work with Mark for over a year on the engineering committee and his two years on that committee has demonstrated to me his desire to serve this community uh his input to that committee was always thoughtful and very helpful uh Mark's particular interest uh helped refine many of the requests for proposals the committee reviewed for the infrastructure projects those are the things that Lois said uh was referring to uh his commitment to this community and his experience would be a great addition to this board thank you thank you Rick any other comments um Kelly Francis hi this is Kelly Francis can you hear me yes hi there I am an SLV uh resident for 22 years now and after having listened to everybody I'm actually here to support uh support Jamie Ackerman I've known her for over 20 years and she is a very passionate and well informed person I feel she's very smart and forward thinking and very community driven so I just wanted to support her and let everybody know that when the fires broke out she was you know there for everybody she wanted to know everything she's very passionate about finding information and sharing it so I feel that across the board she's very balanced and wants to find solutions and I'm extremely excited for all the candidates but especially for Jamie thank you Kelly if we don't have any other hands up maybe I could go to we do have two phone phone ins or one phone in person did they want to speak I guess not silence or is there any other comments comments from the if there aren't then we'll go back to um the board and what I'd like to do is um go ahead and get a comment from or invite a comment from each member of the board um uh before we consider um coming to a motion and then after we have a motion that has been seconded there will also be another round uh of of comments so with that um director false would you like to start us off well you know after listening to everybody and the comments from everybody I really wish we could um take all five people and put them into one because the skill sets that are there are actually skill sets that the district needs um overall and each person brings a real um you know real strength in either one or more areas so um I think what I'd like to do is hear what other board members have to say and we'll see where we go from here all right director Henry well I I do have a favorite here Mark Smolley uh I everything I've heard about him and and the things that Rick Moran said he sounds like a person who will can I say man woman or is that a no no anyway uh he seems like a person who will listen who will work well with others and we have so many problems in the district with our infrastructure and maintaining that infrastructure that I just feel like he would be the best person okay director tell hi uh yeah I'm just looking for my notes here and um man this is a really tough choice everybody's so great and I appreciate um Alina's experience and all of her work with her research and field work this is amazing and and Mark Doulton's experience like working with collaborating with other groups um Jamie Aikman like anyway I I don't mean to get all but I I think well for me the things that are are important is that we um recover from our fire and our groundwater needs to be um taken care of so for me the person that I think would serve the board best is Mark Smolley just because he's already on the committee he has experience uh with construction um he is familiar with the groundwater agency so uh that is my current assessment but I would love to hear more okay um if I go I guess I'll go ahead as the fourth person unless Bob unless you want to pop in now oh go ahead okay um I have three main criteria in evaluating the candidates and one is whether they bring relevant skills and expertise particularly in this time of rebuilding from the CZU fire um whether this person has enough direct engagement with the district and general knowledge of the technical and financial issues that we're facing that they basically can hit the ground running on joining the bar board and whether they have substantive experience contributing constructively to group decision making in a relatively high stakes setting and to me the applicant who fill fulfills all three of these criteria is Mark Smolley he brings deep expertise in utilities construction projects including those installing water and he served on the engineering committee for two years I've also been on that committee and what I observed is that Mark attends the meetings regularly he's always well prepared he's easy to work with and he also as we've already heard made important contributions to the efforts of the committee especially when it comes to sort of evaluating the contracts that we make for construction things and these are very expensive contracts so it's an important issue so I think that Mark will bring an important perspective to the board that will really help us when we make decisions in the next year or so how to replace the facilities that said even though Mark's my first choice I've been very impressed by the resumes of the applicants and I think they have a lot to offer to the board and so as Director Fultz advised me a couple of years ago when I unsuccessfully applied for a vacant board meeting board seat I hope you'll all think about serving on committees and deepen your knowledge of the district so that two years from now I might be voting for you in a board election in fact Mark and Elena have applied to serve on committees in 2021 and I'm going to do all I can do to make sure that they're appointed to the admin and environmental committees they've applied to and I think Lois had a great suggestion that Jamie you may want to get involved with the LADOC committee yeah thanks you know I think the I think one of the one of the things that I think I heard everybody say on the board is the the fact that Mark Smully is really known that is his work his participation on committees his demeanor and presence are all something that everybody knows and I think that is one of the important criteria in addition to the skill set that any of the applicants would bring to the board and so I know one of the things that we talked about at a couple of board meetings ago was being able to achieve a consensus here or at least that would be the goal and what I'm really happy to say is I think we have done it I think Mark Smully is a great should be a great addition to our board and I think given the challenges that we are facing here over the course of next well several years frankly I think Mark is going to bring a lot of perspective to the board that we really really need and Mark just so you know there's about 10 million dollars worth of maintenance that needs to be done in tanks that has not been done yet and is way overdue for being done so we already have that kind of a situation what I would say to everybody else is thank you very much for applying and like Gail I for those that are have applied for committees I absolutely would love to have you on those committees and for Jamie please do look into the Lannock committee I think you'll get a tremendous amount of background not only about Lompeco but also about the district in general by by your participation there and I do believe there are openings on that or will be if there are already so thanks everybody for sharing with us all of your insights and expertise tonight and I'm looking forward to moving this to a vote I guess I think I think Jamie said earlier she has to leave now so thank you Jamie for coming thank you and I just add something James director of operations Jamie you did say you started in Lompeco so I just want to be sure they're all telling you to be part of the Lannock committee are you still in Lompeco because you have to be in Lompeco I'm here I'm not going anywhere James their addresses are on the uh application so I didn't look at that already hear me there I'll I'll find them help they'll find me all right together I'll I'll give you the address um we're gonna go seems to be there seems to be a consensus would anybody like to make a motion I would okay Lois I would like to make a motion uh that we fill the current vacancy um that exists with Mark Smolley I'll second that okay it's been moved and seconded that we appoint Mark Smolley to the open vacancy on the board of directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District is there any further discussion just one question um Gail are we going to take it while Mark gets sworn in and all that are we going to take a short break um well actually uh let's go ahead and finish the vote and then we'll talk about that okay great because we've got the motion on the table we should we should act on it um unless somebody has this anybody want to um have any further discussion thank you okay if not um Holly could you take a roll call vote please president may hood I vice president Henry yes director false yes director to welcome to the board mark thank you that's a yes let me at this point um just confer with uh Holly about how we go ahead and swear mark in at this point would you like to do the honors on that yes thank you mark may I ask you to raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I mark Smolley do solemnly swear or affirm do you solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State to California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of of the state of California. And I take that and I take this obligation freely and I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which the duties upon which I am about to enter I'm about to enter welcome to the board thank you I would like to ask that we talk tomorrow perhaps and we can set up a time so that we can actually have you sign the papers okay sounds good darling I would now like to move on to the next item of unfinished business which is items 3b and 3c they both involve installation of water service and so I would like to have Rick present them to together so that the board just for sake of efficiency and we we can then we have to vote on them as separate resolutions but we can consider them together understand chair there they are slightly different the first one is this long service line agreement for Kimberly and Steve Markey which Kimberly and Steve Markey expressed an interest in connecting to the district's water with a long service land agreement and I've taken steps to acquire the appropriate easements to do so staff review indicates that the district has no water distribution facilities at this location and with no plans for them to build in the immediate future we recommend that a long service line agreement be approved by the board the the second item that you spoke about has to do with three existing uh customers that have uh existing long service lines now however these customers have been with the district probably since the the formation of the district and their meters are a long distance from their homes their service lines travel along the embankment of xiany creek have been very problematic and have uh are crossing over properties without easements district staff has worked with these three homeowners to relocate the meters to a common public bridge where they could run their service lines across the bridge their meters currently now are in our district but uh their homes are outside the district so we will be working on an annexation to bring their properties into the district the resolution for those states that they are in the district we would want to strike that both the the agreements for all of these have been reviewed as you recall at the last meeting directors had some issues with some of the wording district council has reviewed and rewrote the agreements they're a lot more clear and I do believe we've addressed those issues that the board had concern on staff is recommending that we approve agreements for all for a long service line agreement with that I'll take questions or council nickels would like to uh to add uh on the agreements that'd be great okay thank you um rick I uh I don't have a lot to say on the agreements except that I I do think that the the primary changes that were made uh were to clarify the language and um the purpose and the ability to record the agreements against the parsing such as by adding the certificate of acceptance also the term is more clear and what survives um termination I believe is more clear in the in the agreement is redrafted but I think it's fair to say that the um the spirit and the intent of the agreements really has not changed um the prohibitions that were of concern at the last board meeting related to preventing um the uh applicants under the agreements from participating in certain types of public processes those were removed uh from the agreements so um you know there's a lot that could be talked about here I think what we have now is a good template that could be replicated going forward director Henry did you have anything you want to comment on this one ah no I don't okay director Smolley on the um installation of the water service uh to the marquee property uh does the district have any agreement on funds that they're paying for this service installation at this point yes director Smolley they will they will pay a connection fee and an installation fee uh to install the meter this is a a new service and then their service line will be the responsibility their own personal responsibility to install okay director I'm sorry director Smolley did you have another question no okay director tow I didn't have a question I just wanted to make a comment that I really hope that we can get these people their water and that we can work out on the agreement tonight thanks okay we're here for director Fultz yeah I have um a couple comments and some questions for Gina um I think these agreements are much much better and I'm prepared to move forward on them tonight but there are a couple things that I wanted to ask about just to make sure it's clear in my mind what we're moving forward on Gina there is a post termination indemnification clause and um I'm a little concerned about that relative to what that is intended to cover okay uh director Fultz it's written broadly to cover um just about anything that the district may do in connection with the implementation of these agreements which could include um installation of the meter it could include um you know interactions around obtaining the rights of way or you know confirming that the that the rights of way are adequate for purposes of the long service line extension um it could include potentially future activities related to you know main line extensions that are related to um obligations in the agreement so there's a lot of things that could fall within it um well just to be just to be clear on a couple things you mentioned there so the the homeowner is expected to indemnify the district for activities that the district undertakes on their on their own to fulfill this over which the homeowner has no uh direct involvement am I hearing that right uh yes the the indemnification clause is written broadly enough to cover those kinds of activities and typically indemnification isn't quite that broad um you know usually it's over things that are representations that someone is making I I am uncomfortable with this being a template forever because of that um that seems overly broad and one of the reasons I bring this up is that you know these agreements aren't between the district and and a customer they're between neighbors effectively and the San Lorenzo Valley Water District is a is a small agency and while I certainly don't want us to do anything um that isn't a good business practice I also don't want to be doing things that would be considered unneighborly like I say I'm still prepared to move forward on it tonight but um I still have some ongoing concerns about that with respect to clause 12 which talks about the person's obligations going forward um I do want to make sure it's it's clear here they are paying a fee and they are paying a connection fee which typically is supposed to go for the capital improvement necessary to provide water service if we choose not to put in a main line that is more our choice and so depending on the circumstance going forward and many of these will probably never get a main line but if there is a main line that goes forward I would certainly encourage the homeowners to keep an eye on that and make sure that they um are getting themselves in the position where they're not paying twice for something um I think the impetus for this was the north boulder creek situation that rick explained to me that came about with a happy ending no one paid twice for the for service and I just want to make sure that we're um that the homeowners are negotiation can happen that's I think that's what I'll say right now but yes let's please do move forward with these so we can get people into water Rick how long will it take to get the annexation going and can we um I'm assuming we're not going to turn off service because they're not in our district right now no you know lafko has provisions for emergency service and so forth but the average that we've seen in the past for just the stray annexation has been 18 months holy cow it's not a it's not a fast process but they won't be in water and I will meet with the executive director of lafko and we'll work that out okay great thank you but we do need uh and I'll uh refer back to council nicles on the resolution 11 20-21 we do need to strike about them being in the district service area the parcels from that resolution yeah and if I um thank you for mentioning that could I specifically recommend specifically what I believe needs to be stricken from that resolution yes please okay so in resolution number 11 uh the proposed resolution which is on page 53 of the board packet the second whereas clause uh the third line where it says are situated within the boundaries of the district those words should be stricken um so that the proposed resolution does not state are situated within the boundaries of the district and the third whereas clause which states whereas comma the parcels are within the district service area semi-colon and should also be stricken from the proposed resolution question director of operations just thought of here um so if they are annexed in what does that mean I mean I think that that should be a question as that we do serve them at this time if they are not annexed in when we're serving them now I mean I maybe I shouldn't ask this now Rick I'm sorry but you know just a question in the past we have never had one turned down but when someone's had water uh LAFCO has made every effort to move this through and I guess we would cross that path when we come to it but I don't anticipate that being a problem if there are no objections I would like to move that we adopt resolution number 10 approving the agreement regarding water service for Kimberley and Steve Markey in Boulder Creek and also resolution 11 which is approving the agreement with Ron and Elizabeth Hyatt, Steve Hunt and Craig Levitt and Jill McClure with the correction that we are in the second paragraph deleting are situated within the boundaries of the district and and deleting the third whereas the parcels are within the district service area excuse me um Gail do we need this do we need separate votes on this so we asked Gina about that Gina uh uh I think that the motion is sufficiently clear to well it it as long as all the board members are prepared to vote the same way on for both resolutions it works out fine but it could be separated if there's any concern about you know directors voting different ways for each of the resolutions because we do need to record the votes for each resolution right that's why he's asking but okay um I'm assuming everybody's good with it yeah I that that was why I said without objection I I would do it this way is there a second I'll second it okay any discussion if not Holly would you please take a real call vote president mayhood I vice president Henry yes director false yes director too yes motion passes okay then we go on to Gail yeah one oh I'm sorry should my name is yes I apologize it's okay director Smalley yes okay thank you and did we have public comment on that item oh sorry we did not I guess I just assumed that it was so all right well it's kind of too late now I think so let's just go on well um you do you want to go back that was that was a good point and um I think public comment ought to be taken and then it ought to be removed and re-voted that's what I would recommend all right I will take your recommendation is there any public comment on these two items about the people on the telephone hearing none then I guess the vote stands is that correct I um and I apologize that I didn't catch this um when we were discussing the item but um it really ought to be removed and re-voted in order to make sure there's no issues okay would you like me to restate the motion yes please thank you um motion is to adopt resolution 10 approving the agreement regarding water service for Kimberley and Steve Markey in Boulder Creek and resolution number 11 approving the agreement uh with Ron and Elizabeth Hyatt Steve Hunt and Craig Libet and Jill McClure with the following changes the elimination of the third line in the second paragraph which says are situated within the boundaries of the district and the elimination of the third paragraph which says whereas the parcels are within the within the district service area that's the motion is there a second I'll second it again okay is there any discussion among the board members okay Ollie would you like to take a roll call vote please President Mayhood aye Vice President Henry yes Director Falls yes Director Smalley yes Director too yes motion passes all right good okay we're all legal now huh thank you okay that with that then we'll go on to unfinished business item D the redwood park tank initial study mitigated negative declaration yes thank you we have a environmental planner uh Blanchard here tonight to present this item which is a milestone for this project Carly great thank you rick so as gail mentioned we are going to discuss the initial study and mitigated negative declaration for the redwood park tank since we have some new board members I'd like to quickly go through the project description location and some background information before we move on to the recommendation so the basic um goals of this project is to replace two undersized aging and leaking 20 000 gallon water storage tanks located in ben loman near country club drive and dundee avenue we would then replace those two tanks with an 125 000 gallon bolted steel water storage tank on an approximately 6500 square foot parcel located at the intersection of country club drive and dundee avenue the project would consist of the 125 000 gallon bolted steel water storage tank two water pumps housed in an 80 square foot pumping station made from concrete masonry and fire resistant roofing base rock surface to pave driveway and then I'd like to apologize that there is a typo here it should be um ductile steel so the 400 linear feet of eight inch ductile steel and not hdpe or high density polyethylene water pipeline a standby backup generator propane tank for emergency power an al nesting box for road and control and then the revegetation of native wildlife friendly planting person background um the district repaired the draft initial study and mitigated negative declaration um for sequa the original 30 day public review period commenced july 31st and was scheduled to end august 30th but due to the cz u lightning complex fires in august we extended the review period until october 2nd after the review period the district worked with ring con to finalize the ismnd respond to all public comments create a mitigate of mitigation monitoring and reporting program and create the summary documents facts answers and questions or faq summarizing responses to public comments these are all um on the district's website and we've included a link because these documents were pretty large and they could not be included in the agenda tonight on november 5th we held on november 5th 2020 the ismnd was staying to the board of directors for approval the public voice concerns regarding the project during public input the board and staff decided to pull the item from questions until questions and concerns could be addressed on december 8th a public workshop was conducted to address questions and concerns from the neighborhood we facilitate this meeting the district conducted a direct mailing to approximately 260 notices to the entire neighborhood impacted by the tank and construction the informational meeting consisted of a short presentation and a question and answer period with approximately 18 participants most of the questions were in regards to traffic control during the two-week construction period of the mainline there were also several questions regarding impacts to the neighborhood parking and roadways resurfacing staff believes neighborhood questions and concerns have now been addressed once the board adopts the initial study and mitigated negative declaration or ismnd the district will move forward with the purchase of the property um once we have that we will also uh do the notice of determination and once that process is completed we'll complete the sale contract um any issues raised by the title company must be resolved prior prior to closing so that the district can obtain title insurance staff and is ready to answer any questions there there is also two that we have members of the public that were at that meeting uh they are uh in the audience tonight and today district staff did install a story pole uh at the center of the tank location the story pole is a pole that is uh erected to the height of the tank so the neighborhood could see the actual height of uh the tank that we're going to construct because there was some questions with visual concerns from a neighbor directly um behind the tank i didn't talk to that neighbor this evening and i do believe uh he is um at the attending the meeting tonight also thank you for that additional information um we'll go to the board for an initial set of comments director smally do you have anything you wanted to i do not okay uh director tow uh nothing at this time okay director faults yes i i just want to compliment and commend um of staff and um the neighborhood for participating in this in the way that it did i think this is really um a prime example of how neighbors working together with neighbors uh and why this district is is so important um you know that we're not some big far away you know company um it seemed like the issues have been worked through and um i but i'm definitely want to hear from the members of that neighborhood that are here uh to see if they have any remaining concerns um carly i did have one question on the mitigated negative declaration um is this sort of a uh a faster approach to uh obtaining environmental approval to move forward than other alternatives and um i i'm not sure if that i'm not sure if the community really understood that and i i want to make sure we get that out on the table right yeah so the the ismnd um i guess it's a little bit quicker than going through the full um environmental review um and because the project had less environmental impact we could go this route with the sequa process and also less expensive too right great thank you director henry since um the fire situation and realizing this new tank would give so much better fire protection for that area because the two redwood tanks um granted we could replace them with two more redwood tanks that will leak um and will not give the same amount of fire flow as the new tank will and i i think if the district fails to put in the right type tank we would not be serving that area as it should be and so i i um think oh and if you haven't seen photos of the new tank what it would look like it really is it looks great uh it it does it's um if you haven't seen the photo of what it will look like you ought to look at it because it really doesn't look like the big giant probation tank but this is a great photo of the swim tank i would just before we go out to the public i would just like to add a comment that um really commending rick and james and carly for that meeting that they had with the public it went on for two hours they answered every question that um came up i thought it was a very productive meeting between the district and the people that live there um and mostly mostly people had attended they sent out invitations to about 260 but most of the people attended i think it was 15 or 18 something like that are were the people that lived close to it um but it was quite clear to me i think that everybody you know was on board and that we were still discussing some details and there was great willingness on both sides um to cooperate and so echoing what bob fultz said i think that that was something i came away with that i was very pleased at um and i i think it's just a wonderful thing that those folks are finally going to get larger diameter pipes that will allow them to have adequate fire flow and they'll they'll all you know there'll be a little bit of inconvenience for a couple of weeks but they're after cz u we we all know how important it is to have that additional protection can we go out to the public are there any comments from the public you can raise your hand if uh you have a comment you want to make i do just want to point out peter parker is on the line and he had issues last time with communicating with us yeah um and and he really would i'd like to really hear from him yeah i always got his hand up he's got his hand up so that's promising so let's um debute it or unmute him so that he can talk i think i think peter needs to unmute himself yes there we go peter can you hear me yes oh excellent this is the first time i've had an unmute button it makes it much easier um well i just want to uh first of all thank the directors and the board uh in general for being responsive um to the issue of pump noise abatement um it's just been a series of good experiences i was able to listen to a pump and then um during the last meeting um it was brought up that it's actually possible to have a pump enclosure that is soundproof as well as fireproof and uh district manager rick rogers proposed doing that and i was also contacted by director faults and he uh seconded that indicated that they wanted to move ahead with a soundproof version of the enclosure um not just one that's constructive concrete block but i assume this one is actually cast in place concrete and they also um put the story pole up i think that was actually today that had happened and i i sent a notice out to the rest of the neighborhood if anybody wanted to um take a look at that and i was surprised that it's not quite as close to my property as i thought but my main concern was abatement of the uh potential pump noise and that issue was actually taken care of at the last meeting and confirmed by bob faults and i spoke with rick again this evening i'm really happy with uh the arrangements that the board was willing to make i'm happy that we're going to get a big tank here i think it's going to be a win-win solution for everyone uh there were some minor points about the appearance of the tank or the the fence surrounding it but i think that's something that we can work out with rick um as we move forward on this i just want to really express my appreciation for the board in the way that you've handled this and the way you've included the community and um i think uh it's just speaking for myself personally i'm really happy with the with the results and i guess so we're going to be partners now that we're going to be living next door to each other so i think we've uh set the tone for a good relationship and um i wish you well on the on the pro on the project on your end of it hey peter i have a question for you if you have a chance sure so have you seen some of the murals that are located around boulder creek and other parts of the valley and i was looking at this photo and i noticed the tank itself is green it blends in with the forest pretty well um but i was wondering if you were interested in you were worried about the fence and so i was thinking maybe um one of the mural designers could work with the neighborhood or the district and we could potentially paint the fence in a way that is um makes it look nice or that either maybe even blends in with the surrounding um forest is that something you think um you would like well my desire is to have it um disappear as much as possible so i think you know painting it with a dark color that absorbs light rather than reflecting it will make it less uh visibly apparent and rick was saying that um like a dark forest green uh is what they usually do for tanks in a forested area i think that's uh i think that's a great plan i don't think i would personally uh like to see it dressed up uh with any type of visuals that would actually attract the eye um and i have not seen the murals that you're referring to we just have some really talented artists in the valley and some of the murals like um the one on on the side of johnny's market with different things and oh yeah it doesn't have to be uh something like that stands out and i get what you're saying how you you don't want it to stand out but i'm sure those artists are talented enough to make it like the fence you're concerned about the fence and in the the simulation the fence is brown and um but i was thinking we could we could potentially do something with a low environmental impact that would um make it you know blend in to the of the surrounding forest so you potentially wouldn't notice the tank as much that's that was my only thought and i was wondering how you felt about it well if it were um sure if it were something non-graphic uh that wouldn't attract uh the eye i i suppose that would be okay um but to me if it's just darkly colored uh that would probably do the job and thank you for your input sure do we have any other comments by members of the public uh people on the telephone is there uh any more uh let's see i guess um we go back to um the board um director toad did you have anything to say about this any comment you'd like to make uh just that the staff i think has done a wonderful job on this report i was reading it over it's very very detailed and i think that i want to compliment them on that um and just a side technical note hey peter if you could mute yourself that'd be great i no longer have a mute oh there we go yeah director faults did you want to make a comment no thank you okay director henry i just want to say i'm glad we're moving ahead with this i think it'll be good for the community director smally who goes to the district's staff on being able to effectively use the environmental review and comment process with the public that's going to be affected by this good job on that this is the way it's supposed to work do i have a motion or if i would i would move to go forward with the purchase of the property and start the process of this take okay let me restate that sure exactly i think you're i know what your intent is but let me just restate it that the motion is to adopt the initial study and mitigated negative declaration before the redwood park tank all second yes i i would move to adopt the initial study and mitigated negative declaration is mnd for the redwood parking okay second i second thank you director faults holly would you do a real call vote please you're muted apologize president mayhood vice president henry yes director falls yes director smally yes director too yes motion passes okay um we decided to remove from the agenda the next item of unfinished business the respectful workplace policy pending getting the background information we need so we next have new business and we have as a b and c resolutions of appreciation for former directors and i'm thinking that the most efficient way to do this would be to put all three of them together if without if there are no objections and voting on them as a single item rick did you want to yes i'd like to request the district secretary to read uh the three resolutions of appreciation may i go ahead yeah never mind san lorenzo valley water district resolution number 12 2021 subjects resolution of appreciation for director swan whereas on december 13 2018 steven swan was sworn in after being elected to the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district and whereas director swan faithfully and continuously served in his capacity as a board member for a period of two years and whereas director swan distinguished himself as an exemplary board president in 2020 and led the district through the cz u wildfire and whereas director swan was dedicated to the proper management and physical and fiscal viability of the district as well as the protection of the district's watershed property and the environmental health of the entire san lorenzo river watershed now therefore be it resolved by the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district that steven swan is to be commended and thanked for his years of dedicated service and that he has the respect of all who have worked with him and that his efforts and dedication will be sorely missed thank you resolution number 13 2021 resolution of appreciation for director ferris whereas on may 2nd 2019 lewis ferris was sworn in after being appointed to the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district and whereas director ferris faithfully and continuously served in his capacity as a member of the board for a period of one year seven months and whereas director ferris began working with the district as a member of the community outreach citizens advisory committee where he was instrumental in the district earning a transparency certificate of excellence and improving outreach to the public and whereas director ferris was involved in the district's engineering committee both as a public member and as a board member and whereas director ferris was dedicated to the proper management and protection of the district's watershed property and the environmental health of the entire san lorenzo river watershed and whereas director ferris was involved in the santa margarita groundwater management agency and served as one of the district's representatives there whereas director ferris was instrumental and moving forward with the district's fire management plan now therefore be it resolved by the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district that lewis ferris be commended and thanked for his years of dedicated service and that the respect of and that he has the respect of all who have worked with him and that his efforts and dedication will be sorely missed resolution number 14 2021 resolution of appreciation for director maran whereas on august 28th 2019 richard maran was sworn in as an appointed member of the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district and whereas director maran continuously served in his capacity on the board of directors for a period of one year and four months and whereas director maran was dedicated to the proper management and protection of the district's watershed property and the environmental health of the entire san lorenzo river watershed and whereas director maran was involved in the district's environmental committee both as a public member and as a board member and chair often imparting his knowledge for the good of the district and whereas director maran was instrumental in banning the use of glyphosate a probable human carcinogen from use on district properties and whereas director maran was responsible for moving forward the adoption of the district's first integrated pest management plan reducing the use of pesticides to the maximum degree possible now therefore be it resolved by the board of directors of the san lorenzo valley water district that richard maran be commended and thanked for his years of dedicated service that he has the respect of all who have worked with him and that his efforts and dedication will be missed thank you molly um go now to the board to see if there are any comments director faults yes a couple comments but first i wanted to suggest a couple of typos uh corrected they've already been corrected well they they have yes oh great they were sent to me earlier today and they've been corrected okay great because then the one i have it's anyway okay great um that was the typos director faults that you sent yeah like that so if you have anything additional no no no i just i because i'm looking at the old document here it's still um that way no so no problem no i wanted to um really thank rick and and lou and steve for their their service um you know lou uh more than anybody else within a month or two of him being on the board really took the entire fire preparation topic to heart and and drove that through working with um you know lorry ford and others in the community uh to try to raise the awareness of this and and work to get us prepared for a possible wildfire and unfortunately we saw what happened this year um but but that is really i think going to be the foundation of all the improvements we're going to be making going forward and certainly starting with this new redwood park tank where the uh the pump house is going to be absolutely fire resistant uh so that we don't get into any situations there and with rick you know i i think back to three years ago or so where rick was really advocating strongly for the banning of of glyphosate used within the district and really took a lot of hits initially on that but ultimately um you know what rick was advocating came out as being something that we adopted and sometimes i think um you know a lot of the work that good people do like rick and and lou sometimes get overlooked and i'm really glad to see that we're putting out this resolution appreciation so thank you very much for bringing this to us to do director henry i uh don't have any comments director smolley director smolley do you have a comment uh he's not here right now how about director tow i just wanted to say thank you to anyone who participates in public service and i really appreciate these three board members and all the work that they've done especially through the cdu fire um their preparation just really made it i think a big difference in how the valley functioned during the fire so um thank you to them okay i'll return to director smolley um if he stepped out for a minute then we'll just go ahead to the public if there's any comments from the public please go ahead and raise your hand about on the telephone okay if not we can come back for further comments uh from the board um do you think that's necessary or can we move to uh a motion is there is there anybody willing to offer a motion i'll make a motion to uh for let's see there's it's 12 13 and 14 right yes um the resolutions of appreciation for steven swan lou ferris and richard moran so oh it's motions 12 13 and 14 yeah resolutions 12 so we adopt resolutions 12 13 and 14 you have a second tina i'll second it okay is seconding it any further discussion from the board hearing none i will ask molly to um do a real call vote president may hood hi vice president henry yes director falls yes director smolley you're muted yes director too motion passes okay thank you holly um now we move on to um the next item of business which is the board policy manual for 2021 rick did you want to start that off yes uh the recommendation is discuss the process for making any changes to the district board policy or to the district board of directors policy manual board manual for 2021 staff proposes that each board member review the board manual and email a brief summary of any requested changes to staff by december 28 2020 staff would then compile all the input received from each board member into an agenda item for discussion at a regular board meeting in january the agenda item also would include a statement of any changes recommended by staff and with that i'll turn it back over to chair okay um director henry do you have any comments on that i guess i will i i think this is a good idea um because uh i've i've wanted some changes in the past and nothing ever happened so i i think it's great everybody will be able to look at this and decide on what things they feel need to be changed if anything maybe you won't it's okay if you don't want to change anything or if you want to change 10 things uh i just think this is a really good idea okay director smalley yes did i hear a time frame where you were asking for these comments back by yes asking for uh your initial comments back uh the staff by december 28 2020 thanks i missed that director tow nothing at this time and director faults yeah um i think this is a great thing and of course we're you know the board policy manual says we will review it annually so getting into a habit of doing that i think is great there there are some things i think in there that do need tightening um and i have a couple other suggestions um i believe that the csda has some board policy templates and i think it would be helpful for board members to be able to uh have access to those as part of their review i'm not suggesting that we use the templates as is necessarily but it certainly gives you an idea of what the csda is is looking at is important for boards to consider um i find templates to be a little bit vanilla for um and that's because of what they're doing it's just the nature of the beast but it certainly is a great place to start i believe we are members of csda and have access to that content um so i don't know exactly how to get access to it whether we have a login or we can download the templates and send them to the board members but i would very much like to uh to review those as well um i would also like to have the board consider during the the meeting where we discussed this sending at least some of these items to um the admin committee which is the committee that we have formed and is charged with looking at these kinds of things there may be some things that wouldn't go there just because of the nature of the item isn't conducive to having committee input but i think by sending it to committee we also are opening it up for more public input as well and i think that's a good thing um particularly given uh who i think will be on the on the committees shortly or at least two i i hope will be um i um i obviously have some ideas myself about things that we learn uh and can make improvements in and i think some of these ideas will hopefully go along with uh you know streamlining some of the aspects of uh housekeeping aspects of of board meetings and board preparation and that sort of thing while at the same time making sure that we retain the ability to have a very wide ranging and free flowing discussion about agenda items and not in any way try to inhibit or um you know attenuate any of the conversation having those conversations in public is a really important thing even if there happens to be unanimity on a particular item so just some thoughts for us to consider as we as we move forward on this process thank you director folks um are there any comments from the public hearing none um that will just end the discussion because there's no action by the board is requested um at this time so we'll move on to item excuse me excuse me sorry um are we going to be able to look at any of the csda templates i think in order for that to happen the board as a whole would have to give direction to staff to make those available um is it that no one else wants to look at any of those templates is that the is that the what i'm hearing i'm interested in that and i think that we can we can get the board but or not the board does staff to do that offline potentially well you typically on request special request you you would make a the board would make a request of staff to do that and that way uh you know yes it will get done how it gets done i don't care i would like to very much look at those things as we're doing the review of the of the board policy manual jane or rick would you like to respond to that we you know the board can direct the board chair can direct staff to facilitate that and i've taken that as direction and we will uh we are members of csda they do have templates um a different type of templates and we will research that and get it uh disseminated to the board very shortly great thank you that satisfy you director folks yeah absolutely just want to make sure it's real clear and let's go on to our next item which i think lowest had a question sorry forget it i already did go out to the public right no i was saying that lowest had her hand up so that's why i mentioned it i i did but i took it down okay um the next item is agreement with best best and crueger for legal services um with the proposed loan financing correct and i will ask uh council nickles to present this item and i would like to say before i turn it over to jena that uh staff is not prepared tonight to go in and discuss the finances of the of the cz uh cz u uh fire um we are trying to just get approval to move forward uh entering into this contract and very shortly staff will be bringing uh information to the budget and finance committee and to the full board on uh the finances of the district and with that i'd ask jena to uh could i say one thing first could i say something uh no i'd lowest why don't you hold it until um jena has given her presentation okay it just has to do with the resolution number it's wrong well let's let's we can deal with that when we make a motion go ahead jena okay thank you uh chair mayhood um so this item the reason that i'm presenting this item is that um as uh mr rogers said it currently the posture of the item is not to finalize any of the budgetary or other sort of financial specifics related to the loan it's to help the district to move forward with some of the um the actions that it needs to get the advice that it needs to hammer out the details of the loan and once they do that get it documented so what's before the board tonight is that um is a fee agreement with best best and krueger which is a law firm that has a public finance practice that specializes in these types of public entity tax exempt financings um this is a type of service that that nasim and my firm has formerly provided to the district um but we are not currently well positioned to provide this particular service um to the district and therefore i am recommending um that the district um retain special counsel for this purpose um i can attest that you know i'm not familiar with a particular lawyer um who will be handling the matter but i can attest to the you know the firm being reputable and competent in this regard generally um so uh once the district assuming the the district approves um authorizes this the district manager to enter into the fee agreement with best best and krueger they would be retained as bond counsel which is sort of a generic term that gets applied to um lawyers who work in the field of public finance um in this particular instance because the district would be retaining them as bond counsel they would be representing the district in getting a loan from a lender documented um consistent with uh tax laws and so forth to ensure the district gets the benefit of tax exempt financing and they would provide the necessary opinions for um the tax exempt status as well as um the uh the enforceability of the loan generally um the fee uh set forth in the fee agreement is $25,000 plus $1,500 in costs um that seems reasonable uh to me um nos and then performed a similar service for $20,000 a couple of years ago um it certainly seems in the ballpark with what this type of service should cost um by going ahead and getting them retained they can help the just they can help advise the district in terms of how to hammer out the details of the loan as I understand it there's a couple of lenders in the running um and best best and krueger could be very helpful in kind of narrowing that down and hammering out some of the details of what the finance package would look like and how it would be structured um so I do recommend going ahead and retaining them to help the district move forward with this process um the resolution that's in the packet is something that the proposed bond counsel asked the district to adopt as soon as possible it's a um and it's in there it's resolution number 16 and as director henry um pointed out that should be I believe uh resolution 15 is that right holly it's quite often our practice when there's going to be a resolution that was taken off of an agenda and is going to be on another one to just just change the date on it and use the same agenda for instance it happened uh six and seven seven six actually came uh after seven and for this very same reason it was an item that so I don't usually change go back and change the numbers it would stay the same and then when the respectful work workplace comes up it will remain uh number 15 2021 that seems confusing to me yeah I think we we may need to talk about that um since but that's uh not I think this ought to be resolution number 15 um since 14 was the last one that was approved by the district I think they ought to go in numerical order so this would be number 15 the purpose of it is to um take advantage of the some of the laws pertaining to tax exempt status to allow the district to use the proceeds of the loan to pay to reimburse the district for monies that it's already expended in um in its response to the season in its response to the cz u fire in particular capital expenditures um resulting from the cz u fire so the two million dollars that's in this reimbursement resolution is as I understand it as a rough estimate intended to be on the high side um to make sure it captures everything that the district has paid within the past 60 days the sooner this resolution gets adopted the better even if that two million dollar number is imperfect because um if the district were for example to wait until January to adopt this resolution it could lose out on the ability to refinance or to um use the loan proceeds to pay for expenses and say uh early October uh well actually the entire month of October so um it's important to go ahead and get this done and um certainly there will be more to follow when and if um the district goes ahead and appoints bb and k as the special council and adopts the resolution and without all answering any questions director smally would you like to begin if you have any questions I don't have any questions at this point thank you director tow I also believe the finance manager is uh attending the meeting tonight as well and she may be able to answer questions as well director tow yeah jean I had a question about the fee um I did think it was a lot but like you said it's in what it's within range of what this sort of fee would be and I'm unfamiliar with using this sort of service so um I'm just curious if that fee is a one-time fee so if for some reason this particular firm has a difficult time or it takes longer than they anticipated are they gonna charge us more or is the the fee the one-time fee and until this problem is resolved yeah that's that's a great question and it's it's intended to be a flat fee as you see in the fee agreement it's supposed to be a one-time fee there's a little bit of wiggle room built into the agreement so for example if the district were to ask them to do things considered outside of the scope of what this would typically entail they could tell us that they believe it's outside the scope and then you know start charging on an additional basis but there would be a discussion before anything like that were to happen um we did by the way ask the firm about you know blown deal issues and they said they've never had a blown deal problem with this type of a of a loan um so but if that situation were to occur that they would anticipate working out a reasonable solution uh and and blown deal if you haven't encountered that before that's where you know you go down the path of securing and documenting and financing and then it doesn't close for some reason and you've already expended quite a lot of time and energy on it um so we did have that conversation with them um I I think that answered satisfactory for this purpose but I did want to make the board aware of that because it's not covered in the fee agreement would it be okay if I ask Stephanie a question okay I just wanted to ask Stephanie's opinion on this and see um you know because I know that the staff was working towards finding this uh agreement on their own at first and I'm just curious what what her opinion is on this particular matter so bond council is a little different in order for us to be able to offer lenders a tax exempt financing you have to have a legal opinion and so tax exempt financing essentially should get us anywhere from say 30 to maybe up to 40 basis points more favorable interest rates so just for some perspective on that if we were going for say something like a five million dollar loan over 20 years um being able to get that beneficial 30 basis points should save us you know somewhere around you know close to $200,000 in the big scheme of things so this $25,000 is going towards getting that legal tax opinion to give to the lenders that it can be tax exempt financing and so that's kind of the big picture as to why we're going for bond council thank you Stephanie director folks yeah thank you um yeah the I mean if we were to borrow up to five million that wouldn't end up being about half a percent which is not a bad big to pay to bond council you know I'm assuming we're going to these new folks because Nausman hasn't quite yet replaced I think the person that was helping us last time was on her way to a different place out of Nausman so hopefully you guys will be able to do that so we could take advantage of all your expertise in that area in the future when we come back for the next I had a question either for Rick or or Stephanie um what kind of expenses are we looking at covering with this because this looks to be more bondish than bridge loanish in terms of what we're talking about doing um and I want to want to make sure I understand I know we're not going to talk too much detail about it tonight but just give me a flavor for the kinds of things would actually go into this you want to take that Stephanie um sure I can so part of the difficulties is to get the bridge loan you need to have the official FEMA allocation we do not have that yet there was a couple there's about a couple million dollars in past or upcoming expenses that are going to be coming through the door um at the end of the day you know the cvu fire emergencies are expected to be somewhere around 20 million dollars the district can reasonably assume we're going to be on the hook for approximately 25 of that um so this is going to be helping to fix the immediate cash flow needs as well as go towards funding the portion that the district would be needing to pay irregardless um of the portion that FEMA covers so there will still be another round of financing for once we get the FEMA allocation once we have an idea as to what the expenditures are going to be um during that that gap in period for FEMA reimbursement and what we have to pay upfront yeah so at some point I do think we need to dig into this a little bit more to make sure we understand how this relates to the money that's gone out on reserves and a little bit more about what what is being spent on and of course it depends on the term I I'm a little concerned about the possibility of getting into uh going into long-term debt on short-term assets or expenditures and um that I know where we are right now we don't have a lot of clarity but but at some point we're going to need to get to that clarity um it seems like our estimates on the uh damage regrettably uh continue to escalate at a rapid pace I think the last estimate we heard was somewhere between 12 and 15 million and so we're at 20 now um what are the chances that this is going to go to 25 or 30 million in which case the amount of money we would need to borrow would be uh higher significantly higher I can kind of answer that there's going to be and as you heard tonight there's going to be some decisions that the board is going to have to make and our really big ticket items and the millions of dollars are the surface water supply lines now if we go back and replace in kind above ground hdpe pipe um if that's the direction the district takes we'll probably be okay on our estimates but now we go back and and say that we want to bury that we want to use a different type of pipe for one I'm not even sure it can be done with the environmental constraints but it will be considerably a lot more expensive so we're pretty confident that these prices that we have now we've had a really well investigation of our facilities we feel that we have a good list that we should not you know the latest we found was we had two tanks that were contaminated uh coatings that were possibly had to be uh recoded but put close to an extra million dollars onto it but we're still sampling those and and and we'll find out where we're at on those shortly we feel that we have all the damage captured but now it's going to say how we replace things um you know we lost several above ground lines even in the distribution system to bury a FEMA will cover some of that but when we change the type of construction we relocate to a different location you know instead of going cross-country we go into the roadways there's going to be more expenses and we'll we'll just have to take those project by project. Rick thanks do we do we have a sense of what FEMA will do relative to replacing perhaps according to current best practices as opposed to replace like for like um so for example if we were to replace like for like they do 75 percent of that but if we were to do something to reflect current best practice better fire uh a hardening and the like are they basically going to say hey anything over 75 percent of like for like you're on your own. Well there's a potential for that but in the past and I can only go on past experience because in the past where we've had standards where we we adopted standards you know AWWA standards waterworks standards for engineering they have paid for increasing sizes we have taken two inch mains and replaced them to six inch main because that's our current standard and we practice that ourselves so there is a good potential to receive funds now it's when it gets a little tricky is when you change locations now possibly when we change um from going cross-country which may be three times longer than going cross-country but because the district doesn't have a standard at this time to say no more you know cross-country above ground right so there's going to be and that'll that'll be determined when we have the actual inspections and we had a two hour meeting again today with FEMA we're having a lot of meetings with FEMA and we're getting ready that it sounds like they're going to send a team out we're still entering documentation damage surveys and so forth in the FEMA portal they have a huge new website that all this is going into and it's it's it seems to be time consuming even for the FEMA folks to uh to enter but we'll know more you know each each week we know more and these estimates then are more or less based on replacing like for like the 20 million is uh no no it's it's actually relocating it's what i would will we believe estimates to be to replace it to today's water work standards you know awa standards district standards in public rideways uh you know i have a strong opinion that we should no longer go cross-country and above ground in on the on the surface water collection pipe you're saying on our distribution system as well we've also had a lot of piping all the piping between our reservoirs at lion between lion little lion and big steel were above ground they went across country now the replacement we just put in were buried and a reductile iron we made a complete switch over into into rights away uh well there is no right away at lion tank i mean it's they're so close there are no roadways um but we're assuming that we're going to move ahead with putting in the right away under pavement um and buried sorry my my question was specifically about the raw wat