SLVWD Board Meeting Summary
January 7, 2021
Mark Dolson
Highlights:
Committee appointments.
Brown Act training.
Next Board meeting is at 6:30 PM on January 21.
Preliminaries:
There were no actions to report from closed session. There were no non-agenda-related public oral communications.
Old Business
Board Member Committee Appointments for 2021
There are five standing committees, and all except the Lompico Assessment District Oversight Committee (LADOC) have two Board members. President Mahood recommended that these assignments be made as follows for the current calendar year:
Administration: Mahood, Fultz
Budget and Finance: Mahood, Henry
Engineering: Smolley, To
Environmental: Fultz, To
For LADOC, President Mahood recommended Director Henry as the liaison. For the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency (SMGWA), she recommended Directors Mahood and Smolley with Director Henry as the alternate. She further recommended that meetings be initially held on the second and fourth weeks of the month in order to distribute the Staff work load (Secretary Holly Hassock clarified that committees typically set their own follow-up meeting times).
Director Fultz asked why he was not recommended for Budget and Finance. President Mahood replied that he had been on this committee for two years without succeeding in advancing his 2018 campaign agenda. She said she shared this agenda and felt that she could be more effective in advancing it. Director Fultz countered that his 2018 agenda was quite novel and had made progress; he felt it would inevitably take more than two years to complete. He also noted that finance is his area of professional expertise.
During public input, two people spoke in favor of keeping Director Fultz on the Budget and Finance committee. The first said she shared Director Fultz’s concern and felt that the public would as well. The second was Rick Moran who read a statement of support for Director Fultz.
Elaine Fresco said she was happy with the assignments, given that four of the five Board members were happy with them. She said that Director Fultz can sometimes go on and on and be difficult to work with.
The motion passed 4-0 with Director Fultz abstaining.
Public Committee Member Appointments for 2021
President Mahood recommended limiting the number of public members for each committee to a maximum of three. Staff and others have reported that having more than three public members becomes unwieldy, making it harder to find a time everyone can attend, harder to achieve a quorum, and harder to keep meetings from running too long.
There were 15 applicants, but one (Mark Smolley) was appointed to the Board, and one (Elaine Fresco) volunteered to step down if there was a competing applicant with more technical knowledge. This left one excess applicant (for the Administration committee), and President Mahood recommended the three that she judged most qualified:
Administration: Bounds, DeJesus, Dolson
Budget and Finance: Hill, Lund, ,Winegarden
Engineering: Lande, Murphy, Ladd
Environmental: O’Connor, Layng, Herbst
Director Fultz was very glad to receive this number of applications and said he wants to continue to expand public participation as much as possible. He said he didn’t see four public members as an unworkable number, and he hoped that Michael Hickey (the only applicant not appointed) would still participate in the future. President Mahood shared this hope and urged everyone to sign up for District emails to stay informed of opportunities.
Director Smolley reported that he had privately prepared a list very similar to the one presented by President Mahood. Director To concurred.
Secretary Hossack will be in charge of contacting committee members and arranging for meetings. (LADOC appointments will be made later in the year.)
There was no public input. The motion passed 5-0.
New Business
Brown Act Training
District Counsel Gina Nicholls presented a thirty-minute training session. The focus was on complying with the Brown Act (and recently passed Assembly Bill 992) during interactions among Board members (and committee members) in meetings, outside of meetings, and on social media.
The Brown Act prohibits non-public meetings. A "meeting" is almost any communication that includes a quorum of Board or committee members and touches on matters within their official jurisdiction (as opposed to purely social chit chat). This includes oral conversation, email, text, etc. All meetings must be open and public: properly posted and agendized with public access and comment. Actions and deliberations must be taken openly (except for closed session). Consequently, three or more Board members can never engage in any form of private discussion of Board business.
This prohibition includes "serial" meetings (which are created when overlapping groups of people discuss the same topic in separate exchanges). Serial meetings can be created via both "daisy chain" (A talks to B, and B talks to C) and "hub and spoke" (A talks to B, and A talks to C) communications (assuming that A, B, and C are all Board or committee members). Case law has taken a broad view of what constitutes a serial meeting. There are no exceptions.
AB 992 says that, on social media, Board members cannot react to one another's posts at all. District business can be posted, but Board or committee members should not engage with these posts. The bill allows a Board member to communicate with community members via social media, to answer questions, provide information to the public, or solicit information from the public regarding a matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. However, the use of social media by Board members to discuss Board business among themselves (even by simply “liking” a post) is prohibited.
Gina also reminded Board members that emails are considered public records and are subject to retention, collection, and public production. Almost anything a Board or committee member says or writes about District business may become public. Lastly, Gina urged Board members to avoid even the appearance of a violation of the above guidelines.
Director Henry asked about a call that she received from the SF Chronicle in which she answered some questions relating to public information. She then referred this reporter to Rick Rogers. Did this create a violation? Counsel Nicholls did not see a violation here. She also said that the Board President and the District Manager usually serve as public spokespersons.
Director Fultz asked why the Zoom Chat capability can't be integrated into Board meetings in a way that conforms to the Brown Act. He also requested further clarity regarding neighborhood groups on Facebook or NextDoor which are moderated. Lastly, he sought clarification of his ability to express his views and positions in general, not on social media but in, say, the Valley Press. Counsel Nicholls described this as a grey area that she would follow up on.
Director To asked about the implications for a newly appointed committee member who hosts both a website and a blog devoted to SLVWD-related topics (including this meeting summary). Counsel Nicholls said this may be okay if the content is informational, but she would need more detail to comment further.
There was no public input.
District Projects Update
Acting Engineering Manager James Furtado provided an engineering update.
Projects in Construction:
Lompico Tank Replacement. Work is continuing. The tanks at the Madrone site have been installed and are being put to use. Paving and fencing are still to be completed. Tanks at the Lewis site have been constructed and are in the process of filling and sampling; the District is waiting on State approval to put these into use. Paving has been completed; fencing is scheduled for February 2021 for both these sites. Work at the Kaski site is proceeding more slowly due to the unexpected depth of the underlying bedrock. Completion is scheduled for March 2021.
2020 Pipeline Replacement. Construction on the Hillside and California pipelines is continuing. The mainline on Hillside and Reynolds north Boulder Creek has been installed, disinfected, and sampled. Fire hydrants, customer services laterals, meters and air relief valves have been installed. Site clean-up and paving are the final items to be completed, and asphalt work is subject to temperature and weather constraints. The mainline project on California Drive in Ben Lomond is progressing. Estimated completion is late February to early March 2021.
CZU Fire Damage Projects. The District is continuing to replace and repair damaged infrastructure, most often with temporary solutions as final design and construction will follow FEMA acceptance. Sandis Engineering continues to be a big help. The Alta Via pipeline, South Reservoir System pipelines, Bennett Springs pipeline, Eckley Zone System, Blackstone System, Big Steel Zone pipeline, and Forman Intake Pipeline are all temporarily installed and in service. The new Engineering Manager will assume responsibility 1/11/21.
Big Steel / Lyon piping has been completed, installed to AWWA standards with ductile iron pipe all buried with three feet of cover. This project was done in a permanent manner due to the location and topography.
The Little Lyon tank should be out to bid January 8, 2021. The Lyon tank has been filled, sampled, and approved by the State, so it went online today. (It turned out that recoating was only needed for the Little Lyon tank.)
The Alder tank is a small 500-gallon tank that was destroyed. It has now been replaced and is awaiting FEMA approval.
The Riverside Grove Booster Station has minor burn damage to the fascia and roof. The District is in the process of getting prices from contractors to replace the roof and fascia with fire resistant materials.
Annual District Mainline Flushing: This program will be in progress from the beginning of February through April 16, 2021. Relevant information will be posted to the District website, and affected areas will be directly notified.
Projects in Design:
Water Master Plan. A GIS hydraulic model of the water system will be compared to results in the field. This will provide a great understanding of the distribution system (e.g., for fire flow).
Redwood Park Tank Replacement. Environmental review is complete. The District is working to procure the property. A tentative closing date has been set for 1/25/21.
Director Smolley asked how long James has been serving as Acting Engineering Manager. He has been in this role since July, 2020. Directors Smolley and To complimented him on his work.
There was no public input.