Okay well looks like we're just a little past three so I'd like to call the August 17th 2020 Longmont Water Board meeting to order. Can we please start with the roll call? Todd Williams. Here. Allison Gould. Kathy Peterson. Here. Renee Davis. Here. Roger Lang. Here. City staff we have Ken Houston. Here. Nelson Tipton. Here. West Lowry. Here. Kevin Bowden. Here. Heather McIntyre is here. David Bell. Here. Brancy Jaffe. Here. Jason Elkins. Here. And then we have guests with us today Larry Wainow. Becky Doyle. Here. And Danielle Levine. Here. And Jennifer Loper. Here. And then do we have council member Martin with us? Oh there she is. Just joined. Thank you. Okay next on the agenda will be election of officers so I would like to ask the board for nominations for chairman of the upcoming Water Board year. Kathy. I'd like to nominate Todd Williams as chair again since he's doing such a good job. Are there any other nominations? All right we're hearing none. I'll close the nominations and I'll ask for a vote of the current Water Board members for Todd Williams to be the 2020-2021 Water Board chairman. If you could please state by saying I in confirmation of that. Need a second first. Oh sorry. Yeah I guess I do. Thank you. Do I have a second? All second. All right. Thank you. All right with that I'd like to take a take the vote all in favor of Todd Williams being the 2020-2021 chairman for the Water Board symbol by saying, I. Hi, hi, Hi. than the opposed. Same sign. Hopefully we had any I'm going to do now it's turn it over to Todd to have the election for the vice-chair well I guess couple of notes before we do that one I want to welcome Allison. Welcome to the your first Water Board meeting I wish it was in person but this is about all we can do in the current state of things so welcome to your first waterboard meeting. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm honored. Thanks. And then the second thing I wanted to mention is I talked to Renee Davis and I think she wanted to kind of make an announcement before we we nominate the vice chair. So go ahead Renee when you're ready. Yes so things have changed for me and I have moved to Lafayette. I am technically still a legal resident of Longmont through the end of the month but after that I'm not. So I need to resign from waterboard. So bye. What's the date Renee? What's the date that I leave? Yeah. August 31st. Okay. Sorry to see you go. Yeah it's a bummer but it's okay. And I just wanted to reiterate Renee has been a great resource for the board and thank you for all your your time and effort. So we're definitely sad to see you go. I've learned so much from you guys. It's been great. Thanks again. I guess with that we need to make a nomination for the vice chair which I think I believe I can Wes can I make that nomination? Yeah as the chairman you can. Okay I'd like to nominate Kathy Peterson to be the vice chair of the waterboard. So we have a motion in a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay motion carries. Thank you Kathy and you got big shoes to fail. I know. So with that we're on to approval of the and maybe before I get to number four there I wanted to bring up one item in talking to Wes and can it sounds like the replacement for Renee's position may according to the city clerk's office maybe waiting until December for applications and I didn't know you know obviously Allison is very qualified. I didn't know if there's any other very qualified applicants and Marsha would there be a possibility given all we've got going on of maybe trying to use one of the prior applicants to fill Renee's seat or is that a possibility or not and we can talk about this later in the meeting if need be I was just thinking about it at this point. The answer is we did have some other qualified applicants. We the most qualified other applicant there was concern about a conflict of interest because he represents other water litigants inside Longmont but I would have to I'd have to look at the other applicants and see and maybe have a discussion about the one applicant who was also a water attorney but I also don't understand how the process works so I don't know whether there's any possibility of appointing someone in advance but I'm happy to take that and consult with the city clerk about it. If you could my understanding is it wouldn't be until December until it be posted my concern is we've got a lot of important items to discuss and if it's you know five or six months before we could seat that missing position on the water board if there's a way to do it earlier I think the earlier the better so someone could get up to speed on the issues so I'd appreciate if you could do that March and then let us know yeah what can be done in that regard I'll do that today awesome thank you very much with that we're on the item number four which is approval of the previous month's minutes for July 20th of 2020 did any of the board have any questions comments on those minutes if not we need a motion to approve those minutes we have a motion do we have a second second okay motion a second any further just hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed okay that carries next item number five is the water status report west who's are you giving that today I'll give that today the flow of the St. Verane at Lyons at 8 a.m. this morning was 55.6 CFS the hundred and 24 year average was 120.28 CFS so about half the call on the St. Verane is Longmont supply with an admin of 5600 or May 1st 1865 as the priority date calling the main stem of the South Platte is lower Latham with an admin of 1100 611,670 so that is a appropriation date of October 24th 1881 the button rock is spilling and we are releasing 35 CFS Union is a 26.6 feet so it's down about 2.4 feet or just a little under a thousand acre feet and that's all I have thank you Wes is there any questions comments for Wes on the water status report okay thank you for the report Wes item six is public invited to be heard and special presentations I guess to start with do we have any special presentations today can or Wes we do have a special presentation do you want to do the public invited to be heard first or do yes presentation no we can do public invited to be heard I know Gathea wants to wanted to address us was there anyone else or just Gathea today she's the only one that I see on the call so okay well welcome Gathea I'm glad you could make it today just a couple of notes first of all if you could state your name and address for the record and then secondly I'll try to time it here but we have a three minute kind of time limit I think they let you know before the meeting so whenever you're ready go ahead and you've got the floor okay my name is Gathea Weiss and I live at 1433 Cannon Mountain Drive in Longmont and I'm a retired analytical chemist and I am just speaking today because I wanted to raise awareness of a July 2020 report to the Colorado Water Conservation Board entitled Colorado's demand management feasibility investigation update and this has to do with the Colorado Colorado River Basin and it calls for temporary voluntary and compensated reduction in consumptive use of that water and the purpose of this is to increase storage in Lake Powell and that all has to do with the Colorado compact of 1920 and what Delft carpenter agreed to with deep concern that if the call Lake Powell disappears in as a storage then there are some huge consequences for the upper basin including Colorado in terms of what has to be delivered downstream anyway so the issue is I see it has to do with climate change increasing aridity in this area and what all that means for the viability of our windy gap junior water rights and I'm not an expert I'm just basically raising that concern today I can send a link to the full report which is like 200 pages long but does have a executive summary to Heather to distribute to the group and there is a public comment section coming up at least a public one I don't know how you guys qualify as public or they have some have some special conduit anyway that's the public one is August 26th just coming right up thank you great thank you get in yeah if you could send that to Heather and Heather if you could maybe send that link out to the rest of the board I sure can do that being great great well thank you for your comment today gave you appreciate that was there anyone that was it Heather and then we'll be on to the special presentations that's correct yes okay who's handling the special presentation can we're gonna introduce that yeah what we wanted to do is present some of the information on the upcoming bond election which may occur this fall if well City Council sets that as a bond issue we have a number of large capital projects due in the water operating fund and construction funds primarily the biggest one is an enlargement of the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant and probably secondarily is is a replacement for some of our treated water storage tanks we have Becky and Barbara on the call today to give you a kind of the rundown on on the bond and some of the facts about the issue the question that will go before the public and so I believe Becky was gonna do the presentation I think you get Larry actually okay Larry we get Larry that's that's even better he's Larry is is in our engineering department and is the project manager for the enlargement of the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant and so yeah you get the real good technical details from Larry so I'll go ahead and turn it over to Larry okay thank you good afternoon everyone I am Larry we know I work in public works natural resources I'm a engineering administrator our engineering group manages all the water and wastewater infrastructure for the city so we do want to talk to you about the bond water bond election that is being proposed for this this fall Becky will probably jump in during some of this presentation because she can fill you in on the details of the actual financing and the bonds better than I can I think there is a short what we've done is we've prepared a PowerPoint presentation and a video that we are going to be presenting to the public to educate them about this bond election so I think Heather is going to run that and we'll start out with the video I think after that we will do a short PowerPoint presentation and since we don't have a lot of a large group here it may be more efficient as we do the slides if you do have questions just holler or raise your hand and we can try to answer your questions as we go through the slides so can we start that we don't have volume on this you don't have volume no we're not hearing my beautiful voice there should be a button as you get ready to share it of course you probably know that she probably done a hundred times hold on one second okay ah share computer sound that probably helps oh sorry guys let's try that again the city council may submit a question to voters on the November ballot asking for approval to issue 80 million dollars in water bonds to finance the renewal of aging water infrastructure and maintain system reliability and quality these are critical citywide system improvements that benefit water customers today and into the future a clean safe and reliable drinking water supply is always critical it's of particular importance during times of emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic long once water is clean primarily because it comes from a very pristine source within Rocky Mountain National Park that clean water is then stored in Ralph Price reservoir which is surrounded by the 3500 acre of Button Rock Preserve in the mountains west of Longmont to be ready for the communities use throughout the year after the water leaves Ralph Price reservoir and is delivered to our two treatment facilities Nelson Flanders treatment plant which is the primary treatment plant of the city as well as the way Gattus treatment plant which is really used in an emergency basis and for backups when necessary the city's way Gattus water treatment plant was placed in service in 1983 that plant now is reaching in of its lifecycle and the capacity that it currently provides will have to be replaced the city recently conducted some engineering studies to determine what's the best way to replace that capacity we had the choice of either replacing Wade Gattus or expanding our Nelson Flanders water treatment plant and the the best option at least cost for us is to expand the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant which was placed in service in about 2005 fortunately that plant was actually constructed with expansion in mind so that makes it really an efficient option for us in addition to expanding the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant there are other planned upgrades in the potable water treatment system over the next couple of years this includes potable water tanks that are aging now and have reached their life cycle and miles of pipe that will also need to be replaced in 2019 the city council approved a five-year rate schedule that contemplated selling bonds to spread out the costs to upgrade Longmont's aging water infrastructure over several years that rate schedule supports issuing up to 80 million dollars in water bonds without water approval to issue the water bonds needed projects could be delayed and system reliability affected pick up water bonds like taking out a mortgage on a house paying for improvements with water bonds helps acquire needed assets and infrastructure repairs now while spreading out the cost of those improvements over time to avoid rate spikes this keeps rates more predictable for users using water bonds to finance the infrastructure improvements also results in user rates that are initially lower than if cash were used to fund the improvements this spreads out the cost of these upgrades more equitably across both current and future water customers these are all considerations to keep in mind when voting here are some reasons why a voter might be in favor of this funding request and here are some reasons why a voter might be against this funding request a yes vote would allow the city of Longmont to issue 80 million dollars in water bonds to be used along with existing fund balances and adopted rate increases toward renewing aging water infrastructure and maintaining system reliability and quality a no vote would mean bonds would not be issued adopted rate increases would still take place those rate increases plus existing cash balances could be used toward renewal projects but other funding sources would need to be found the safety and reliability of Longmont's drinking water is essential to our community we ask you to spend some time researching the issues ask questions if you have them and most importantly come out and vote vote vote learn more about the water bond issue at longmont colorado.gov slash water hyphen bonds election day is Tuesday November 3rd go ahead and talk Larry while I pull up the oh okay so was I think there may have been a question councilwoman Martin thank you Larry um I just this is very nice job by the way I like it a lot um I wanted to know where this is going to be aired how many different places how often all that stuff um so uh you know we've suffered in the past from not getting the message out enough and I want to make sure that this message gets out enough yeah I know our communications people have been scheduling to present this to other groups in the in the city I don't have the exact number but they are planning on doing it throughout the month of August so that's something we can follow up on and let you know if uh you would like like us to do that uh Becky will it be on channel 8 and on YouTube so that people can share it it's called I think but anybody any Becky who knows may answer Jennifer's I think coming back into the meeting but yes I couldn't unmute but if Jennifer is able to unmute she's got the latest on that and she'd be best otherwise I can tell you what I know Jennifer's coming back online right now hi there sorry my my next like connection kicked me out I think it was my husband's fault so Jennifer there's a question council member Martin was wondering how we're getting this video message out to everyone and where it's posted so people can um see it absolutely no that's a great question council member Martin um so we are doing several um following several options and paths for getting this messaging out we're doing community presentations like this one we've presented to a couple of groups so far we have a handful more scheduled coming up sorry I guess I could turn my camera on and then you guys could see me instead of just being a disembodied voice um and then we have a dedicated web page that has the video on it along with some information about the waterbonds valid issue we also have started a series of social media posts which will send people both to that web page and then sometimes give them a little snippet of the video as well and then we're also looking at doing possibly like something like a facebook live where we can invite members of the community to come and watch it and hear the presentation and then you know type in their questions so so uh part of my question that you didn't get to hear because you were kicked off was is it going to be aired on channel eight and 880 and it's going to be on the youtube channel for long month public yes it is on the youtube channel yes thank you for bringing that up and yes I do plan also to work with lpm to get it on the uh the public access channels yes all of those things and any other suggestions you have i'm happy to hear that's just the suggestion i always make okay it's a good one it's a good one use our resources thank you roger go ahead who roger is that question for me i don't know oh yeah yeah it is for you Jennifer uh you know the typical thing the public thinks about is when they're voting for a bond issue is the question always gets asked whether they understand it or not will the rates go up if i vote for it and as i uh watch what uh larry put on there the rates will stay the rate increases will be the rate increases regardless of this bond issue approved or not approved is that correct i'm gonna let becky dole explain that one she uh she's our numbers lady hello i'm becky dole um yes yes so we so council has adopted a five-year rate schedule that includes you know that contemplates the issuing of these bonds and so i would say yeah the rates the rates are the rates they're already adopted um and those changes will take place um i i think the potentially without the passage of this issue you we may have to revisit um i mean because something has to move move whether it's you know either rescheduling projects or um then you know raising additional funding through through rate increases at that point oh i'm saying as you know i think we ought to be very clear about the fact that rates will not automatically go up because of approval of the bond issue that's a my statement once i'm reading it wrong because if people understand the rates of the rates regardless if the bond issue goes through or not i think that would be a positive outcome of approving the bonds that's the way i look at it unless somebody can tell me differently but just make sure that you know when this information goes out especially wherever you're putting out people understand that situation yes i think that's a key message thank you any other questions at this point i don't see any larry do you want to keep i'm sorry marcia did you have one um yeah this is and i should know this because i already voted to prove it i put it on the ballot but um uh does the language of the result of that will be on the ballot say without raising your water brought up water rates that's something i should know too and i will look that up while larry goes through the powerpoint has that thank you okay larry do you want to do your go ahead i had just uh just so that people don't feel like we're trying to pull something over on them i think we need to um make sure that we preface that was saying there are are already scheduled uh rate increases or rates over the next five years and that voting for this will not increase it it's not that you'll never have a rate increase you know because we're going to have rate increases and maybe even i don't know if you feel comfortable saying that but if we if this doesn't pass it's been said that it'll even out the effect on rates that the effect on rates would be more uh dramatic actually so yeah that that's exactly right kathy um yes uh the the passage of the bonds is part of the overall rate structure package that council member martin and the other members of city council voted for and so there are structured rate increases over the next five years um that have been designed to help pay back the bonds and their interest but as you said if if the bonds aren't approved then you have to find other funding other funding has to be found you don't have to find it but fraud your go ahead i don't want to belabor this but uh marcia your language saying the passage of this will not raise your water rates if water rates are already scheduled you know somehow that that strikes me as uh something that people would would challenge if you understand what i'm saying the rates are going to increase and that's the way it is and to say they won't increase i i think that's uh no i wasn't i wasn't suggesting language roger i was just wanting to make sure that it uh i was just curious as to whether we had said that the rate schedule was already fixed which it does say in this video um and that your vote um will not immediately the passage or or failure of of this bond issue um will not immediately affect rates so um yeah it is it is difficult to explain but um people should understand that it's not a direct impact on their pocketbook and that and and yeah that that having it fail is probably more likely to have an adverse impact on their bill than than having it succeed well and with the speaking point to it be something more like passage of this bond will help keep rate increases in the near term to a minimum um you know rather than no rate increases because they are scheduled but say hey this is your tradeoff it's between a small rate increase and a big rate increase it's exactly if something happens true yeah any other comments all right larry looks like we're ready for the presentation right thanks uh i think those are really really good comments uh it is covered to some extent on the powerpoint presentation and in fact the presentation mentions a lot of things that were in the video but i think uh gives the presentation probably does give an opportunity for those questions to be asked as we go out through all the to the public different uh uh citizen groups we can try to make that clear as we're going through this presentation uh so uh again i think we're we can go on to the next slide the next so uh let me try to get my stuff in sync so the valid issue for voter presentation or consideration it is something again that we will inform the citizens that it was unanimously uh passed by the city council at the august 11th meeting to place this ballot issue on or ballot issue on the the water bond issue on the ballot for november and we do mention and we will mention that the bonds are part of a five year rate structure increase that was adopted by council in 2019 um next slide the reason for the putting the uh bond on the ballot uh it is required by a city charter uh again uh this bond will not uh create any new taxes it is not subject to the Tabor amendment because there are no changes in taxes and also the water utility is a enterprise fund so they are exempt from the Tabor uh the water bond is needed to implement several large uh projects that we have identified uh through previous master planning we've done there was a plan that was done in 2013 and then a update of that master plan in 2019 all the projects that we've identified that our high priority projects have been included in this bond election the next slide so why does the uh city want to issue these bonds again the bonds by issuing bonds we can control the rate increases on uh on the citizens uh and keep them lower than what we have scheduled and what have already been adopted by the city in 2019 so if we can issue the bonds the rate increases that have been adopted already adopted will not be impacted and the next slide what will the the bonds are really uh our our effort to try to maintain the the efficiency and reliability of all of our water supply infrastructure and to maintain the quality of water that we provide to the citizens the largest in probably most significant project that is included in there is the Nelson Flanders water treatment plan expansion again it was constructed and started operation in january 2006 it is the primary treatment plant for the city it is operated year round when we designed planned and designed this plant we actually had planned for expansion of this plant to 60 million gallons per day and that was also included in our boulder county permit because we're outside the city in unincorporated boulder county we had to go through a activities of state interest permit or what is referred to as a 1041 permit at that time we actually included in that permit that we would be able to expand the capacity of that plant up to 80 although we have anticipated that we will only need to get it up to 60 uh in the future that expansion is actually a little bit misleading because we're not actually expanding total capacity of our system we have two treatment plants the weight gas water treatment plant is a plant that was built in 1983 it is really a standby treatment plant but it has experience a lot of issues primarily structural issues it is an older plant i'll talk about that a little bit more but we are actually just replacing the capacity of that weight gas plant by expanding treatment at nelson-flanders there are other projects that we've identified through our master planning the next highest priority project is our 70 million gallon price part storage tank located just north of sunset golf course the other we have identified other projects that are high priority but at this time we haven't determined the priority of those projects we have transmission lines we've got storage tanks that need to be addressed over the next five to ten year period probably that one of the bigger project is also another storage tank gumry tank it is a six million gallon tank it was built in 1967 we also have transmission lines that we will need to address in the near future one of them being the north saint brain pipeline that brings water down from Ralph Pyser reservoir so those projects will be in addition to the price part in nelson-flanders will be looked at closer over the next year or two and we will make a decision on which ones will be the highest priority to implement in the near future but definitely nelson-flanders will be something we need to address in the next year or two if we can the next slide so talking a little bit more about the treatment plants the current estimate for expanding nelson-flanders is around 40 million dollars we do have cash on hand but we don't have enough to complete that project so approximately 40 million from the bond election is what we will need in addition to what we already have in our waterfront to implement that project it will be implemented as a design built project very much similar to the way we constructed the original plant it is a different type of delivery method that we use compared to what is traditionally done as a where you design a project then you bid it out and then contractors will submit bids on it we found that a design build delivery is probably the most effective way to to implement very large projects it also has the ability for us to control some costs during the project life so it is because of the bonds and the limitation we have it's probably the most effective way to go i think there's a question um yes i wonder what's exactly meant by design build delivery i may be the only one who doesn't know sure so start out with the traditional what we referred to as a dvd project and that's basically what i had mentioned it we usually retain a engineer who goes and designs a project then we advertise it for bidding and then contractors will look at the design and then estimate what it will cost to build it and then they submit their bids a lot of people think that's the most cheapest way to do a project but once you get into very large projects especially projects that are more complex it's you don't really get the benefit of having a contractor work with the engineer so that's what a design build delivery method is rather than having one contract with the engineer in one contract with a contractor we have one single contract that is composed of a team of engineers and contractors working together so a contractor can actually suggest to an engineer some ways or some changes to a design that would be more cost effective you get a lot better communication between the engineer and the builder and you actually have a collaborative effort between the engineer the builder and the owner so you get a lot of you derive a lot of benefits you actually get cost estimates as you're going through the design too so at early phases if you see that the cost of the project is getting beyond which you believe you can spend you can adjust the design to control your costs that's very different than in a design bid build delivery method in which you get a bid submitted by a contractor there's really no opportunity at that point to really save any costs because the design has been completed already so it is very difficult in fact you end up with change orders generally on the order of five percent is what an average cost of change orders is on a traditional design bid build project on the Nelson Flanders project we actually stayed within a 60 million dollar budget for the water plant and our pipelines we actually saved three million dollars that was reinvested in other improvements on the project so we feel that that's really the one of the better methods to use for construction thank you another question yeah Larry this is Todd one question on the 40 million dollar estimate have you done like a 30 percent design of the expansion or you know I think usually you do a certain level of design before you bring the contractor on I'm just curious how far along you are in the design and how kind of sure you are of that right that that 40 million would kind of cover the expansion that you're talking about we we normally when we're doing planning master planning work it's a much more conceptual level estimate that was what was done in the 2013 master plan we did an update in 2019 first of all to update the project costs that were identified in the 2013 study and also we did a much more detailed cost estimate for the water plant I would say it's generally in the 30 percent range there's several things that have happened over the last five to ten years there we were starting to see a lot of escalating costs in construction with the amount of activity that was going on and since the virus has changed a lot of things there is going to be a little uncertainty as what that impact is going to be on construction that's another reason for us going with a design build delivery method is that because there are some things that are a little bit uncertain we can identify what those costs how those impact the design as we're at the 30 percent design at the 60 nine design and at the final design so those things will know as we develop the project and Todd I'd also like to add real quickly that this particular plant expansion when the original plant was built the flock chambers and the sed chambers had a pipe gallery basically was going to separate the other half of the plant so in essence the plant was almost designed as part of the first plant construction we're just mirroring on the other half and so typically you would be looking at a new design whereas in this particular instance we really are just we already have a plant there we're just mirroring so that that makes a little bit of difference in this thanks Ken can you hear me Ken yes just kind of an unrelated but a curiosity question since we treat lion's water for them how are they involved in any cost changes that we're experiencing now with expanding the plant if at all so I'd be happy to let Becky add to this answer but in essence for the town of lions for all the taps essentially they pay on a tap by tap basis they bought into the original plant that is out there right now for their base water capacity for 80 90 percent of the taps they have then as each plant a new tap is issued by the town of lions once a year we aggregate that and charge them for the cost of essentially the same as a tap we would do in long money you pay per tap that's added and as time goes on as they add new development or new taps they're actually quite a ways down they're getting fairly built out so they don't have a whole lot left to go but as they go they'll basically pay for new taps and so that gets them into the system that helps build that portion of the plant that they use for capacity and then every year when they when we treat the water for them it goes to them we do a calculation of every bit of the system and that even includes things like button rock and you know our raw water source to get the water to the plant as well as treatment of the water at the plant and sending the water to them so they pay a hundred percent of the cost to treating their water on a on a month by month basis as as that water is treated for them so yeah they fully pay for their portion all right thanks i'll turn it back over to larry sorry larry oh no problem i don't know if uh becky had any more to say but i think that really can't covered it okay all right so um this slide is really uh to emphasize that you know a yes vote versus a no vote what the impact would be on on a yes vote we would have the 80 million dollar bond election the rate increases that have already been adopted would not change and we would be using our existing balance uh fund balance on a no vote there's no bonds the adopted age uh adopted rates would be would have to be increased from what they already have been approved and adopted by the council and we would still be using our existing fund balance so it does impact a no vote does impact the current adopted rates uh and they would have to rate be much higher than they are currently the next slide so again our arguments for the funding request really avoids the rate spikes and it keeps our rates predictable uh distributes the costs between the current and future users and it makes the needed improvements now uh short term repairs would only postpone the need for the improvements in the future so trying to delay the bond really doesn't save us anything and in fact we would be spending money to make short term improvements that would later be have to be scrapped and replaced again so we would be spending more money in that scenario next slide the arguments against again the costs it's going to cost it would cost more over time with bond interest the city should not have to go into debt that would be an argument against the bond and this is not the right time to spend money so that could be an argument based on everyone's concern of where the where we are in the economy right now and short term repairs could extend the life of the system although we would need to make repair or make these improvements at some point the next slide is really some references for getting more information and that's i believe pretty much the end of the presentation so i'd be happy to answer any other questions that you may have yes i'll assume hi thank you so much i really appreciate you taking the time to do the presentation and lay all that out and i thought the video was very well done um quick question one thing that i heard in the video and i apologize i'm not going to be able to get this quite right but one of the messages that i heard was that because of the emergency this was a particularly important time to address the situation um whereas i heard in your presentation larry the argument being that because of the COVID-19 epidemic life is unpredictable and that was not the right time so i kind of heard uh crossed messages one going in one direction the other going in the other and i was kind of hoping someone could speak to that Jennifer might be yeah yeah yeah thank you allison i appreciate that question so um you're right that you heard both of those points and actually the way that we're trying to put those across one of the requirements of presentations like this that we do is that we do need to include arguments for and arguments against so um throughout the video a lot of the point that we try to make is that are having a quality safe secure reliable water system clean water system is always important and it's even more important now it becomes even more of a necessity during something like this so um it's not that the need for it's not that the need for the upgrades has happened because of COVID um it's not anything like that it's just that you know it's always important and we become more aware of it and become more conscious of it during this time and so saying that now is not the right time to spend the money those that's part of the arguments against so that's what someone who is against this bond issue might say does that answer your question yeah i think so and i i completely i think that those are both excellent points i guess um and i apologize i don't remember them off the top of my head and i thought it was really useful to have the arguments for and then the arguments against i just don't recall seeing both of those on both sides in the video right okay yeah um you know what they were i don't know that there is an art i don't know that there is an argument that says it's more important than ever that we make these upgrades because of COVID but there is an argument saying that it's important to keep our water system clean safe reliable during this time you know always important but also during this time we become more aware of it and then there is an argument you know that an argument against would be that people would say we shouldn't spend anybody right now so yeah so you won't see them as parallel arguments not like because of COVID we should because of COVID we shouldn't you won't see them that parallel um the fours and against don't really work out quite that balanced on everything and if you want to see those again those um arguments the video and those arguments are on that water bond web page loma colorado.gov slash water bonds water hyphen bonds sorry okay thank you uh-huh thank you any other questions or comments the the one i guess that hit me in the presentation that i think needs to be highlighted in my mind is you're really talking about replacing aging infrastructure um versus the way i was kind of wording it is you know if you don't bond it you may not have the money to do the replacement so then you're doing repairs to infrastructure that's past its useful life and then that also plays into meeting regulations and layer i know you have that in there but i mean if you kind of boil it down to that it's you know you're going to spend you know kind of good money after bad trying to put band-aids on things that are you know really past their useful life when you're going to have to replace them anyway now's the time to do the replacement so um it just seemed like that you know in a nutshell is kind of what was the take home for me in terms of the reason for the bond issue but anyway any other questions or comments um for staff on this great well thank you guys i appreciate the thank you larry and thank you becky jennifer thank you for all your work on this it really looks good great thank you so much for having us and if you guys think of more things you know how to find us thank you thanks okay we're on item seven agenda revisions and submission of documents can or west do we have any revisions or submission of documents Todd i don't have any submissions um i do have one small revision on the items from staff on the windy gap firming project um we had hoped to be able to bring that at the actual final allotment contract but it wasn't quite ready yet so we was just going to do a verbal update but unfortunately the agenda didn't reflect that it left the wording on there that asking board the board for a recommendation to council actually won't be asking for a recommendation from to council on when you got firming project allotment contract we'll just i'll give you a verbal update and then we'll come back later with that allotment contract okay thanks can next item is development activity which doesn't look like we have any this month is that right Wes that's correct okay okay um on now under nine a which is general business and the first item or the only item under that is the climate action task force recommendation comments for council um maybe i can give a little background for Allison's benefit and i know Renee wasn't able to make last meeting um we talked about that and made some recommendations i think is the board and the thought at the end of the meeting was we would try to come up with some language after the board meeting that could then come back to to the board i i even thought there was some thought i'd go to council prior to this meeting but um the language is included in the packet um so i don't know if staff if you want to walk through that in more detail um francy if you're going to do that um but just a little kind of context of of what what's been done there so yep oh thanks heathers bringing up the language so francy or does someone want to kind of walk through that the language and then we can at that point get a vote from the the board on whether it's adequate or if we want to make any changes prior to going it going to council yep i would be happy to walk through it and Todd thank you again for providing your feedback and comments we decided we tried to build this section out based on the kind of the feedback that was given at the last water board meeting so the first paragraph on why the water members present voted down on the recommendation and that was primarily because um water board believed that there was an analysis um analyses needed of environmental economic and social impacts before kind of stating such an extreme conservation measure and then kind of highlighted a number of concerns um the second paragraph the water board members felt that was important to acknowledge kind of the past work that Longmont has done so we highlighted a little bit of a history of that when the first water conservation plan was passed and i believe i think it was roger who might have told the story about level one um how we stayed in a level one drought response um why other cities went to a level two and three drought response during the 2002 drought so highlighting how water um past water supply planning for long what has gone well um and then the last two paragraphs just kind requests that in a an evaluation of a more ambitious water evaluation of the more ambitious water conservation drought response school and the process of doing that and essentially proposes that staff complete analysis within 12 to 18 months of city council direction instead of accepting what the climate action task force um had proposed um kind of give staff some time to do a more thorough analysis and this will be going to city council next Tuesday um i i i realized that um i'm i actually don't know if the city council packet for next tuesday has gone out yet or not heather i think it goes later um tomorrow or wednesday so we we can get this okay i just wanted to make make sure before we voted that we there was time for some adjustments for the support great and this this will go with all the climate action task force recommendations and all the advisory board feedback and so it won't just be talking about the water conservation recommendation at the next or uh city council meeting thanks francy and allison maybe for your benefit the the original recommendation was that we would try to get 35 to 40 um reduction in demands is part of this but there really wasn't any kind of detail or background proposed so that as you can see kind of plays out in our recommendation of you know if you do want to go to that level we need to kind of prove it up and i guess without marcia do you have something you wanted to speak to there yeah i just wanted to add that the climate action task force evaluation committee didn't approve of this either the um the recommendation was submitted with no analysis um in support of it other than um uh you know well with no analysis in support of it at all really i guess marcia one of the questions will be you know when it goes to to council you know does the council want to have higher levels of conservation if so you know then the staff can do additional analysis um so that i guess is what we're asking for maybe the council to come back with is yeah you'd like to explore higher levels um and then staff can do that work i mean so it seems to me that's kind of one of the inputs that needs to come back is this goes to council is do you want to go beyond the 10 savings that is in is kind of codified or included in the current planning um if so staff can do that and then we can build actual higher level conservation knowing what the impacts are to the different kind of aspects economic environmental all those items and then it can be the appropriate level can be determined anyway so it seems to me that still needs to be kind of maybe brought back or approved by council yeah um first of all Todd uh i can't speak for the rest of the council so they could very well um you know react to this thumbs down by uh by uh asking you guys to do more work um uh i did not recommend that having you know having been on the water board and uh knowing first of all the the good experience that long line has had with ongoing conservation uh and second uh knowing that um actions uh recommended that that are substantiated by other recommendations will have a tendency to be conservative of water and and help the current processes maybe continue to exceed expectations i don't think that this that it's needed at this time um but it's always possible that despite that recommendation and despite the board's recommendation uh that the council could vote to do more analysis so i can't promise you anything other than then if the council votes that way then uh i can work to make sure that the recommendations are specific okay thank you i guess with that being said i don't we could walk through or if anybody has any comments or questions on the materials that were provided allison do you have something yeah i did um a point of clarification when i was looking through the board packet i didn't know what the four thumbs down meant so i have a note to self to ask what that meant in my in france you can jump in here but we basically had to think the the recommendation of the boards who had to review a portion of the task force recommendations had to either approve it come back with comments or deny it and i think we felt like we you know the the proper thing to do was deny it with and kind of qualify that um of why we were denying it and you know then go back and if they want to give more detail we can react to that differently but that was the reason i think we were more or less we had to make a a read basically a thumbs up thumbs down or i guess they had a sideways vote and we decided to do the thumbs down on the current recommendation for the reasons listed and then say hey if you do want to have a higher level of conservation break we're we're open to it we just need to do a different additional analysis and figure out what's feasible and what the impacts are yet that that was a very good explanation tot and i just want also want to clarify when it goes to city council it's going to say four do not approve so that it's very clear to city council that's just how we made the voting process easier for the board there any other questions comments and then i guess if there's any specific recommendations on the language that was in the packet then oh go ahead Kathy so are we saying we want to finesse this statement which i thought was good uh to say that if city council wants more analysis then staff will do more analysis or it almost seems as if we're saying that that is going to happen maybe i'm not reading it correctly but it my interpretation was that that we were recommending uh more study and analysis that the water board was recommending that did i think the way i read it and what i remember is you know we more or less say if more ambition ambitious water conservation and drought response goal if necessary so if the council believes that's necessary that will require the you know the necessary analysis of those you know to reach that level what measures are required and then what the impacts are so that's kind of was mentioned earlier in my mind i think we need to kind of go back to the council and we're willing to do it but they need to define do we need to go to a higher level or not um is i think kind of how but but i understand the confusion so i don't know um marcia did you have a thought on on how we do well yeah i would say the the task force the the committee the water conservation committee of the task force did not present any supporting evidence why this um uh this level of conservation was necessary um you know essentially they said the windy gap the chimney hollow reservoir will never be built in climate changes happening which you know one is pure speculation and the other one was taken into account by the analysis done by the staff and board already uh so they didn't present any data-based uh evidence for what recommendation that that they were making um i believe that the council discussion already understands that uh and you know unlike some other areas where conservation measures can be replot can be applied uh you know pretty pretty serious and successful water conservation is going on uh already um you know just like a lot of the other recommendations of the climate action task force are already in the city's sustainability plan um you know there were recommendations that were presented that are not in the sustainability plan and some of them are fairly uh aspirational but they are uh supported by data analysis from the outside so this one kind of stands alone as being hard to defend uh i doubt very much that we'll see the council um that's what i said before i doubt that we'll see the council ask for additional analysis at this time but uh if they do um you know what what i can do is have the facts at hand and and uh ask them to be specific in their recommendations and that's the best i can promise okay are there any other questions or comments looks like frenzy has something to say yeah go ahead yeah i don't know if it's helpful um to the last paragraph it says water board proposes that staff complete this analysis within 12 to 18 months of city council direction would it be helpful to address your Kathy your comment by saying if city council thinks a more ambitious water conservation goal um should it be achieve what then water board proposes that staff complete analysis that's very clear yeah that's perfect that's i just feel like we need to qualify it a little bit i'd agree with that as well um renate i know you know this is your kind of bailiwick um do you have anything you want to add um on this topic no i i read through the statement and it seemed to cover things very nicely i actually like the the counterpoint statement that's available now um i i get and this is kind of reiterating stuff that i i sent along an email to Todd for last month's meeting to the effect of wow 35 percent that's magic number um because that number it isn't terribly realistic to me and i think that's one of the things that it's important to have a smart goal there's an acronym there and i don't know all the parts but one of the middle parts is attainable um and so an attainable conservation goal is worthwhile now if the city wants to take more action through the the climate task force that's great um but i think that that's a case where the existing conservation plan should be the guideline um you know and so if they're like okay this is the conservation goal and we want to go a bit higher than that okay but it does need to be attainable and this one is not and i think when you have a a goal okay well conservation's also been working that's the other thing too it's it's not like you know conservation's been making these steady decreases in use over the years and that's great um and then if you have this huge unattainable goal suddenly these great steady decreases are a failure that that was where i was kind of like no let's not set up conservation for any sort of thing where somebody can point and say oh they're not doing it there are um they're just doing it realistically i i did like the thing in the statement where you guys talked about um or where Todd talked about affordability too because if you start really reducing water use you're going to have to increase your fixed charge which is going to hit low-income customers in a way that they're not going to be able to adjust and roll with that um i also think from my work with the climate action group in Fort Collins when i was on the city staff there as a conservationist looking at climate action stuff for the city water increase was actually one of the possible i don't always say goals but one of the possible side effects of other goals so you you know you can also think about heat island effect one of the ways to adapt to climate change is to plant more trees now i'm not always in favor of planting trees in cities but when you do that you actually have the potential of taking your water use up um and i think that speaks to the point where water use is so integral to so many things um and so i think we need to also keep that in mind for the task force is that you know if you want to make these big goals there might be trade-offs because the other thing the trade-off is is if you're going to really reduce water use you could actually increase heat island effect by killing trees that's not good so there's a lot to it but i i definitely support the statement as is mersha did you want to well yeah i just i just wanted to say some of the other recommendations do in fact get to what rene was talking about they don't say plant fewer trees they say uh do soil conditioning for improved carbon sequestration which has a side effect of making plants grow with less water and um you know there there are some conservatory recommendations that don't put us in out at an apocalyptic level of consumption which this would okay um so we need a i guess recommendation to counsel of the statement i i like kathy's recommendation francy you i think you captured it very well with that additional sentence at the beginning of the last paragraph so i i guess i would throw that out of if everybody's okay with that if we want to get a motion to approve the the statement with that one addition does that make sense or is there any questions comments looks like that's okay if it is we need a motion to um approve the the climate action report comments with that one i guess with with francy's language included i can briefly share my screen if that's helpful as well before the sure go ahead does that am i sharing the right screen sure okay so it's just this right at the end here any thoughts questions comments on that and i cannot see everybody so if anybody has a thought they need to speak up i think that looks good might be comfortable with making a motion um to send this on to counsel with that particular language second motion is second is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor say i i i opposed okay that carries um the next item we're on to item 10 a which is the button rock preserve management plan update is daniel gonna give that presentation yep okay hi daniel hi um i don't have the ability to share the document heather because i'm joining you on my phone otherwise my screen's too glitchy so this is the document that should have been in your packet so you board members should have had a little chance to review it but if not i'm gonna just go through it with you now it's pretty brief um and and just kind of remind you of where we are at um so we we embarked on the button rock management plan process in february 2019 and um it's a two-year process so we hope to finish up the document in december of this year um and the purpose is to gather baseline data of what we have out on the preserve in terms of natural resources and then just get a sense of uh visitor use and then um to make recommendations um as to um visitor use natural resource protection and um all the various things that are going to go into the plan so in terms of public process we have had two public meetings the first in june 2019 and the second in november 2019 and we're looking at having a third public meeting in october this year and that'll be virtual where it'll probably be something like us recording ourselves and um the public getting a chance to make comments ask questions um and facilitating it in that way um the other piece um is we are working with three advisory boards so you water board as well as sustainability board and the parks and recreation advisory board so we've been coming to you the advisory boards periodically throughout this time um when we meet when we are at critical junctions in the project and and to just keep you in the loop um so we've had three public surveys throughout the process and we just completed our third public survey we don't have um all the comments compiled so i'm not going to go into the comments but i am going to just give you a sense of what questions were asked and what the public is saying out there so first of all um and as just a reminder our last public survey we had a thousand people participate and this is this is when we had surveys posted up at the trailhead and we had things online and um and then the pandemic hit um for this survey but we still had um over 800 831 people responded online to this public survey so i feel like we still got a really good public response to this survey that we had open for summer so um i'm just going to go through the questions and then we can talk about them so we wanted to know where people were from 74 percent who participated were from longmont and so none of these questions were required so not everybody answered every question so uh of the respondents 160 people skipped this question so uh to alleviate parking pressure at the preserve would you ride a shuttle 72 percent said no and 28 percent said yes and then we are saying to the public that our goals for button rock preserve as it is a preserve is to protect our drinks and water supply number one protect surrounding ecosystems including healthy forests so that watershed the local watershed and then um thirdly to provide limited sustainable recreational opportunities to the public so then the question was phrased research indicates that when humans are accompanied by dogs both on and off trail their area of influence including noise sent trash increases impacting wildlife behavior and movement how would you feel if a no-dog policy was instituted 64 percent who answered strongly disagreed and only two people skipped this question so everybody wanted to participate in this one so 64 percent disagreed with a no-dog policy 25 percent strongly agreed with it and 11 percent of respondents were neutral then the next question beginning in 2021 staff recommends eliminating the button rock fishing permit and fee once in effect anglers will only need to carry a state license instead of both a button rock permit and a state license do you agree with this recommendation and again only two people skip this question 48 percent strongly disagree with getting rid of the special button rock fishing permit 30 are neutral and 22 percent strongly agree five visitation is overwhelming the preserve staff recommends dispersing use and limiting overall visitor numbers by charging fee a fee on Friday Saturday and Sunday between Memorial Day and Labor Day do you agree with this strategy 55 answered yes 28 maybe and 17 percent no and then if you agree with dispersing or limiting visitor numbers what would be the best way to accomplish this and so then you can see the chart that was presented on the on the survey with the green and the orange and so we were just trying to get a sense if people would prefer to pay for time that they visit or they'd rather buy an annual pass or they're a senior and they want to buy an annual pass or they don't support the fee so 35 percent wanted to pay per time 26 annually another 27 annually that or it would be in the senior category and then 12 don't support doing this and didn't pick any of the other and then in terms of comments you can see here the most the highest number of comments came in about dogs then hiking then the fee that were we would propose then parking trails fishing cars and bikes so one thing that I want to say is I presented this these findings to Parks and Rec board last week and they had some questions about the fishing permit fee so question number four and I think what's not clear from this question is some of the details behind this so that the fee the reason that staff is recommending eliminating the fee is because we are working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife one of our partners on this project they're on our technical advisory committee and they are saying if we can go ahead and get rid of this additional permitting process they'll have the ability and they will stock more you know and that would be a benefit to the Angling public at Button Rock and also what's not known in this question is that the fees from this additional permit don't go back into Button Rock and the other reason staff would be recommending this is just because it is a lot of administrative work for the ranger arrangers that that work up there especially for dollars that don't go back into the preserve so so those are some of the things that went into that and that wasn't necessarily clear from a short question on a postcard to the public so I'm happy to take any questions okay thank you Danielle are there any questions comments on the presentation or the survey go ahead Kathy uh how much of weight do these surveys give to staff or to council or whoever about you know for instance the dog ban or potential dog ban or the fees and so forth I mean I think it's great it's interesting to see these but if staff thinks that there's a a dog ban would help in you know water safety etc would you know I guess maybe Marsha can answer this what how how do you think uh we could proceed well I can I can give you an answer but I can wait I can let Marsha speak first um yeah I was actually gonna offer to let you speak first Danielle okay but since I'm speaking um I was going to say Kathy that I do not believe that this survey is binding on the water board or the council at all um we do public engagement to find out what the public is thinking but during the summer of COVID we have found um that um that the public has not been reasonable or prudent in their use of our natural amenities or any of our outdoor amenities at all and I believe it to be the duty of the board and the council to protect our critical resources whether the public likes it or not so um you know again I don't speak for the council when they vote but I would vote for a dog ban no matter what if you guys recommend it so um to answer from the the the project perspective of the button rock management plan it's it's Heather could you share the survey one more time so we could look at question three please I just want to say that um the whole time we've been doing this project and we will continue to reinforce this messaging of um this this framework that we're trying to come at this planning process from where and and when we when you're at a public meeting you'll see the graphic and I maybe should have put it in this but I didn't um it's an upside down triangle where the biggest piece is up there on top protect uh drinking water number one that is the goal of button rock preserve that is why Longmont has button rock preserve and then number two medium on the upside down triangle would be protecting surrounding ecosystems the local watershed the forests the riparian areas etc and then third the smallest piece of the triangle and the third goal down below the other two is the recreational the visitor use piece so we are looking at that within that third section of the triangle which comes below the other two right and so when the public is responding to these surveys and things it's important that the public gets to voice their opinion but it's also important and it's our job to make it clear that um this is a preserve and number one and two are the goals the main goals that the preserve and also additional benefit we offer limited recreational opportunities at the preserve so hopefully that that context helps a little bit um it's something that I want to drive home to the public and and continue to work on Daniel one question I have so you know Marcia mentioned with COVID a lot more people maybe out and about in the natural areas what has happened I know we had had presentations previously with regards to dogs and some of the issues there I mean has it been a lot worse this year given you know the number of visitors and the people out there just can you give us a an update so you know we kind of have a context of what the current situation is I can give you some some anecdotal information in just speaking with Miles Churchill the ranger up there people have been doing a good job um um staying in line with the the interim dog regulation that is one dog per person on a leash with a pickup bag in general people have been behaving and following that rule um some of the exceptions to that we we have have had wildlife cameras up and so we have what some observations that we have seen in the couple of months that we've had the camera up and collecting data and the counts we've done um there there have been some people just letting their dogs off leash especially up in the meadow on the sleepy lion trail and some repeat offenders doing that activity and it's something that before we um put this rule in place that the public was allowed to do and um you know a lot of people don't like the rule so they just they're continuing to do it but but it's not a lot of people it's it's a handful of people that are doing that and a handful of repeat offenders um and then in terms of what we've seen since the pandemic in general um throughout the summer months especially when things were starting to open up again so maybe late may and throughout june we were having a lot of pressure on our parking lot so we were having the parking lot fill up early in the morning especially on weekends and even on weekdays but um especially on weekends so we did divert some additional staff up to Button Rock to try and deal with that um you know and the residents were concerned the residents that live along uh Long Mont Dam road about the extra traffic and the dust that was being kicked up we worked with the town of lions to get signage um town of lions has a amber highway sign where they do messaging and they allowed us to share the sign with them for uh several weekends so that we could tell people when they arrived in lions hey the parking lot's full you know turn around here before making the big long drive into there just to find that out we were doing enforcement along the road so i i would say the main the main thing we were seeing is is pressure on the parking lot and and people wanting to come come up there but um it did dive back down in july and we stopped putting extra staff up there in july go ahead roger you're muted roger a comment on the fishing license thing given our concern about the numbers that are coming up there i just can't quite understand why we would do something that would increase the number of people coming there uh versus just leaving things alone and continuing to issue you know fishing license specific to uh that area that's just that's just my comment i think all that will do is is added the number of people coming up there so i just want to make that comment i do think that is um a concern that is shared by some of the people that answered that question on the public survey thinking that if you eliminate that then you're not controlling the numbers and it's going to allow more people up there the thinking behind the elimination was some of the things i already mentioned the administration time it takes for the rangers when they could be doing other things the the money not going into the preserve working with cpw to keep the creek stocked in the reservoirs um but um also in previous years now this year because of the possibly because of the pandemic has been an exception we hadn't been selling out anywhere close at all to the permit limit so it seemed like an unnecessary thing where we would have 500 permits available and we weren't getting close to those numbers so um that's just more perspective for you okay thank you Alison thank you thank you very much for the survey that was really interesting and i just want to follow up on roger's question about the fishing permits um specifically is there any issue concerning water temperature um as far as fishing like later in the day such that it would cause some stress to the fish um so there is a concern regarding overfishing potentially one consideration could be limiting the fishing to the earlier hours when it's cooler um that's an interesting thought i i don't think um the fishing program is top of mind in terms of overuse but it's definitely something to consider um and maybe david david bell who's here might have an additional comment on that but one thing i will say is that you know after the flood the the health of the fishery at button rock was devastated right and so we weren't having the um my growing bird we weren't having the health we didn't have you know the habitat was destroyed so then we weren't having the insects so then you know the fish populations weren't healthy and that is starting to come back work was done um in creek and in my perian areas to improve things and so we are starting to see some benefits from that um an official study where i give you exact data on that is not part of this it's outside the scope of what we did in this plan but um that's just some information for you and i don't know david if you have anything to add there i don't i don't think i do daniel i think on that one again i think going back i'll almost like you said allison to roger's question was um was that permit damping the numbers of the anglers up there and that's what we're hoping it was doing but we were seeing those permits just sitting there so we weren't seeing those numbers even reached with the permits so having those those permits there is a way to kind of decrease the numbers is we saw that as an extra administrative piece that wasn't really achieving that goal because those permits were just sitting downtown not being used so we weren't seeing those those big numbers we historically used to so that was one of the reasons that we tried balancing the benefit of that along with administrative costs as well the other piece daniel i just wanted to jump back i think you did a nice job um answering council member martin's question but the piece i throw in there the public game to be heard is important but it also is important for council i think to know if there's going to be a discrepancy between what the public's looking for the direction staff's recommending and what they're going to be voting for what kind of work we as staff have to do what kind of staffing might we have to put in place to help get that message out what kind of work i have to do through education and outreach because if our alignment is probably a pretty easy change if there's going to be some resistance i think it's important for council to recognize that as they make the vote and then they can direct staff to provide those additional resources to help make that change but to Kathy's point i i don't think staff was looking at it as a a direct vote and however the public you know felt we should management that was not what we were looking at we were looking at to give council information so as they voted they know they would understand um where their constituents did exactly and and is it yeah in terms of coming from the a point in time so that we have this this data in the future if we need it as well go ahead martin yeah is uh the after this report is presented um is the council going to be asked to give direction on a management or rule change at button rock or is this just for the information of the council at this point um are you contemplating a change in how the how button rock is managed and the other question i have is is this board the water board going to make a recommendation on any rule on making a rule change such as having a no dog rule or limiting the number of dogs or banning people who are caught with their dog off leash or from the park i mean all of those seem like reasonable responses um yes we are coming to council and we will come to the boards before we come to council um to ask for um decisions on various points we do um we do want to we do want to recommend consolidating um the button rock municipal code and getting it um in one place uh in the code and so we're going to go through the various points some of the things you mentioned dogs etc and um make our staff recommendations and then look for council to make decisions on these various points so yes this is more than um an informational document the the purpose of bringing um a draft document to boards and then council is to get feedback and recommendations and then incorporate that into the final plan thank you and you know what's the time frame on it sounds like you have another virtual um kind of meeting or public information and then so will it be it's going to be next spring or something that you what's the time frame on coming back for recommendations the time frame is pretty quickly um we this project has suffered since the pandemic in terms of getting the the staff time and attention that it really needs but the goal is always to finish this project in December of this year so that would mean coming back to boards and coming with a draft to council boards would be september and um council would be october but i will i will say that you know there have there has been some time lost due to the pandemic on this project thank you are there any other questions or comments okay thank you daniel i appreciate your update that's good information thank you thanks right um moving on we're at 10 b which is a as ken mentioned earlier now is just kind of a windy gap firming project update ken thank you todd um just wanted to give the board a quick update on the windy gap firming project we actually had hoped to have our final allotment contract today but they're just a couple small changes to the contract that needed to occur um part of that is um for some of the pooled financing long months of cash financing participants so it doesn't impact us directly but for the pooled financing participants they're still struggling a little bit with the length of the bond issuance some of them want 20 year and some want 30 year and um each side has some really good reasons why why they want what they want so i think that that final detail has to be worked out but uh as soon as that happens then um we think we're literally within a week or so of having the final allotment contract ready ready for final review um as such um absent anything else we'll probably come back to the september water board meeting and ask for review uh and recommendation at that point um it's it's entirely possible that it may come a little sooner than that and and i may even ask the chair if if it's if it would work to have a special water board meeting um because we can't take the to do the september meeting it's it's the day before the second regular council meeting in september so that would postpone us till october for the uh council action but i think we're probably there with the with the uh scheduling anyway but if that changes we'll certainly let water board know uh between now and the september meeting so right now it's most likely that we'll be coming back to the september meeting uh for a final recommendation on that as far as the project itself probably the most significant item to report is that um yesterday uh the division five water uh judge signed the state uh change case or the decree for the windy gap project uh as and that's probably second only to get in the federal case resolved which obviously uh we required to be done but the the state water court case as you may recall uh involved really three primary areas it involved a lot of there there's a ton of stuff in there but the three primary areas are one that um the project as contemplated um is acceptable and within the confines of the original uh decrees there are a number of decrees for the windy gap parent project the second is that storage of the water on the eastern slope in the chimney hollow reservoir site is acceptable underneath the decree and that's extremely important and then the third thing was aligned for the uh connectivity channel around the windy gap reservoir on the west slope on the colorado river can be built it can be built without requiring mitigation and that it'll basically leave the colorado river still flows through the windy gap reservoir and this the connectivity channel is just a diversion around the reservoir and doesn't constitute a relocation of the colorado river or um and therefore requiring a change appointed diversion and all kinds of things with the windy gap diversion reservoir and project on the west slope so really that um that decree is just it it's a great huge step forward in the project um and um I have to I have to really credit um the legal team at at northern water and the municipal sub district for moving that that forward when you understand how much uh how tender and gentle those negotiations had to be over decades uh with the west slope and to be able to move this project forward um it was substantially very little opposition uh in the state water court that's fantastic so that's one more thing checked off on our our case really kind of highlighting and putting the spotlight on the federal case and um as really the last thing we need to move forward um the contractor is is moving forward quite well on all the pre um work that needs to happen um and last I heard they actually had their cofferdam have to build a dam in front of the dam to keep a flood from hitting the dam when you build it and that cofferdam to protect the the main dam was big enough it required state engineer's office review as well so that that is now I I don't know if it's been approved but it's substantially done and um so that that's good and basically all the things that the contractor needs to do to to kick off the project once um we pull the uh the plug on and you know the federal case is done and we're able to move forward um is happening so that's very good as well so at this point we're really um just recently um we're ready to um order the one main valve that it's like a two-year lead time on the valve um that that was originally approved to move forward last August but finally got the bid from the from the firm that builds it's in Germany um it's probably the last of the big things that we'll kind of allow to move forward at some point we have to think about how much we're spending um on the pre-work before the actual court federal court case gets done so that's probably our next big struggle um or conversation with all the participants in the project we need to look at that very hard um but really uh I think we're doing quite well um since we have uh lowered our participation to 7500 we have 500 acre feet that other participants can pick up um I have had conversations with two the project participants who are looking strongly at picking up that capacity um we're at the point of we're we're looking at a contract to get that work done and so I think um we'll be bringing that with the final allotment contract we'll be bringing that those two IGA's back at the next meeting with Water Board to review that as well I'm pretty optimistic that that part will go go through and will be successful so um I think it all seems to be falling into place and and seems the speed and the pace seems to be picking up a little bit right now so and that's really all I have right now I'd be happy to answer any questions on the project if there are any thanks Ken any questions for Ken I do not see any okay thank you Ken thank you all right um so we are now on to um item 11 items from the board so we have the major project listings and items tentatively scheduled for the future board meetings um Ken or Wes is there anything we need to talk about in regards to that I have nothing thank you and I have nothing okay item 12 is informational items and water board correspondence um it has the prescription take back event on October 24th there's one the staff want to speak to that yeah so we got an email about that I'd be happy to do that Todd go ahead Ken yeah um we just that's and we get an email on that date every year um water boards always ask that we um put that date out I think actually a little bit to help us advertise a little bit one of the one of the real critical issues uh at at any wastewater treatment plant anywhere are pharmaceuticals that end up in the treatment process probably one of the hardest things there are to take out you know in a water treatment process and so we really like to get it out to our citizens and we ask anybody that'll you know send the word out never flush your your pharmaceuticals down the toilet if you know once you're done with them in you know either take them back most pharmacies now take them back most of them have take back bins you can put them in that you don't even have to be buying from them but also the city sponsors once a year want to make sure that we can take keep as much of that out of the treatment process as possible so just let let all your friends and everybody know that there's a proper way to dispose of pharmaceuticals thank you thank you Ken um Heather did you have something as well yeah just wanted additional note on that because of the pandemic this year they are doing that as a drop off rather than as people taking it to the hospital it will be at Longmont United Hospital again but they're just doing it as a drive-through drop off okay thank you all right next item is um items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings cash and lieu review so we'll revisit that in September is that right Wes yeah well we're planning to bring that back in the next quarter in September okay great with that that's the agenda for today does anybody else have anything they they'd like to say Marcia um yes I heard back from Don Quintana and that there is no reason other than the mayor saying no that we can't put an additional appointment on the on the next council agenda so I'm going to request that that will be done thank you very much for for I'm looking into that Marcia I guess with that I'd first of all like to say thank you and best wishes to Renee in your future endeavors I wish you were staying in Longmont but I get the way it works with the working family so best wishes to you and then secondly I want to thank you and we're welcome Allison to the water board hopefully you found it interesting we've got a lot of items going right now so um hopefully you can stay abreast and we'll get up to speed as you kind of go along here so thank you for applying and welcome to the board good luck Renee and with that I'm gonna unless anybody else has anything else I'm going to go ahead and adjourn the meeting great thank you and bye everyone


Salam, you're watching the International Daily Roundup, people's dispatch is selection of some of the top stories from around the world. Let's first take a look at today's headlines. Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez, to be the candidates for Colombia's historic packed coalition. A new report indicates 80% of Africa's rural population lacks safely managed drinking water. A Communist Party activist in Swaziland has been detained and assaulted. And Algerian political prisoner Fethigares has been released. Our first story is from Colombia, where the left-wing historic packed coalition will field Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez as its presidential and vice presidential candidates in the May elections. The duo obtained the highest votes in the primaries held on 13 March. According to the latest opinion polls, the unity ticket of the progressive forces is favored to win the upcoming presidential election on May 29, with about 47% of the voting population indicating its preference. Speaking at the announcement, Petro said, and I quote, Today we have reached a definitive moment. We have achieved an undeniable triumph. Millions of Colombians want the country to change, and today they are the majority. Petro is a former mayor of Bogota and was also the progressive candidate in the 2018 elections. Francia Marquez is a lawyer and environmental leader and a native of Causa. Marquez has stated that she will work on addressing the environmental crisis and the reparation of the rights of Colombian Afro-descendant communities. In 2018, Marquez won the top prize recognizing Nature's Defenders, the Goldman Environment Prize, and at the time she also gave a speech honoring the ancestral knowledge of her community. The elections in Colombia followed a disastrous pandemic, during which the administration of right-wing President Ivan Duque was widely criticized. There has also been a huge amount of violence against activists and social society leaders. 80% of the rural population on the African continent lacks safely managed drinking water. As much as 75% of the same population lacks safely managed sanitation, and as many as 70% lack basic hygiene services. These details were revealed in a special report of the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene. 40% of the population in urban Africa also lack safely managed drinking water. The UNICEF and the WHO warned that the Sustainable Development Goals targets will not be met in Africa unless a 12-fold increase can be achieved in the rate of expansion of access to safely managed drinking water, safely managed sanitation requires a 20-fold increase to meet SDG targets, and basic hygiene services need as much as 42 times increase. In Swaziland, Bongi and Kambhule, an activist of the Communist Party of Swaziland, was allegedly abducted by the police from the capital city of Mbabaane on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 23rd. He was reportedly released at night, but also assaulted. At the time, he was picked up by a truck of policemen, and Kambhule, who is in his mid-30s, was returning from the Manzini court, where charges against two other activists were being heard. The other two activists were arrested on the 22nd of May, 2021, on accusations of vandalising and burning the Manzini police station. The said incident occurred after police forces attacked the memorial service for a student, Thabani and Moe. The student's dead body was found earlier that month, four days after he was allegedly killed by the police, who then tried to cover up the murder. The protest against police brutality in the aftermath of the student's killing snowballed into unprecedented country-wide, anti-monarchist and pro-democracy protests by June, which for the first time swept across rural Swaziland as well. And finally, Algerian opposition figure and leader of the leftist Democratic and Social Movement Party, Fethi Ghares, was granted an early release from prison on Tuesday 22nd of March. Ghares was arrested on June, 2021 and sentenced to a two-year term in jail in January, on charges of insulting the head of state, inciting an armed assembly, contempt for a legal authority, and dissemination of information that could harm the national interests. According to reports, the 47-year-old activist left the Al-Haraj prison after the Algerian court of appeal awarded him a revised sentence of one year in prison, including six months suspended during an appeal trial, which began on the 8th of March and concluded on the 22nd. The prosecution at the trial had requested a three-year prison sentence. Ghares was active in the anti-establishment Hiraq protest, which first started in 2019 against then president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. This was after the president announced that he would seek a fifth consecutive term in power. The nationwide protests ultimately forced Bouteflika to resign and ended his authoritarian regime after almost 30 years in power. The weekly Hiraq demonstrations continued against a subsequent government as well, with protesters demanding substantial, structural, political, and economic reform. Protesters have been demanding the ouster of all politicians, army officials, and business elite from the Bouteflika era who continued to hold important positions of power. Even though several members of the former regime, including prime ministers and other ministers, have since been prosecuted for corruption and sentenced, there are many who have escaped prosecution altogether. According to data released by the CNLD, over 300 Algerians are still being detained in prison for their participation or links with the Hiraq movement or for their involvement in other related campaigns advocating for civil liberties and human rights. That's all we have on this episode of the International Daily Roundup. For more details on all of these stories, head over to our website peoplesdispatch.org and do give us a follow on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We'll be back again tomorrow. See you then. Goodbye.