Flood Control and Water Conservation District - Regular Meeting

Twenty five Flood Control and Water Conservation District meeting. And can I have the roll call, please?

Director Mueller? Here. Director Washington? Here. Vice Chair Sedgley? Here. Director Doering? Here. Director De Natale? Here. Director Ramos? Here. Let the record reflect directors. Excuse me. Director Cottrell is excused. Director Lopez Ortega?

Here.

Director Manfrey?

Here.

Director Alessio is en route. Chair Gallagher?

Here.

Chair Gallagher, may we have Director Ramos lead the pledge in honor of her birthday that was on Sunday.

Yes, we may. Yes. And happy belated birthday to director Ramos, and we'll all wanna hear later what you what you were up to. I know. Moving a steer around, I'm sure.

Okay. Let's see. We need to have the approval of the minutes. Do you have any comments from the public on the minutes? I will entertain a motion.

So moved, Sedgwick.

Second. I have a motion by Sedgley, second by Washington. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed or abstentions? All right. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We do not have any presentations and commendations. We do have consent items A and B. Do we have any public comment on those consent items? Do we have anyone who wishes to make any comments or pull anything from the dais? Alright. Would someone like to make a motion?

All right. We have a motion from Director Dana Talley, a second from Director Ramos. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. All right. We are now to public comment. At this time, anyone may address the board of the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District regarding any subject not on today's agenda, over which the board does have jurisdiction.

Is there anyone in the audience or the phone? All right. Thank you. We're going to move on to our administrative items. 8A, adoption of a resolution of intent to sell the real property located at 1317 McKinstry Street in Napa. Thank you. Morning. So welcome.

Good morning, board. Joe Panchesson, engineering technician. This is a resolution adopting the intent to sell a parcel that the district owns on McKinstry and Soskol. This resolution will propose a minimum purchasing bid of $1,100,000 as well as set all of the other conditions of sale that will be further spelled out in the request for proposals that staff is currently drafting and will produce in a couple of weeks.

Okay. Let's see if we have any public comment on this resolution. Anything in the phone? Okay. Alright. We'll bring it back. Does anyone have any questions or comments? Alright. Then we're gonna go ahead and look for a motion. I know it's Tuesday morning, everyone, but you've had a whole day to catch up.

All right. Director Lopez Ortega makes a motion. Second by Director Ramos. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. We have item 8B, approve and authorize amendment number five to agreement number 220223 B with HDR Engineering Incorporated increasing the maximum from million 862,062 to a new total of 17,846,772.

Good morning. Good

morning. Andrew Butler, district engineer. Believe we're pulling up a PowerPoint real quick here.

Okay. Thank you.

I'll just start this off. I we just wanted to talk a little bit about this amendment since there's obviously some big numbers there, about basically what HDR has provided us with to date with the original contract and amendments one through four and then what amendment five is for specifically. It is do I just hit something? The slides aren't super critical if we need to go without them.

Oh, they're there.

Okay. Great. Cool. So this first map is a map of the entire Napa flood project reach. We'll zoom in here on this next slide. So increment to the bypass to do we call them the bypass To Lincoln Flood Walls is what we designed most recently with HCR. We got to 100% design on that. It's currently going through the approval process with the Corps of Engineers, made it through the district level, through the division. I believe it's going up to the ASA at the end of this week for kind of final approval of the design. So that's what we've done to date with HDR.

It also includes construction management assistance, engineering during construction, biological monitoring and permit compliance and cultural monitoring. So the total for that would be the original $10,800,000 That's roughly in line with what the estimates were for the design and then management during construction of the project, maybe even a little under what we expected if you escalate to today's dollars. So Amendment five is specifically for the next project, what we call Increment three, the Imola two Hat floodwalls. So we really tried to dial in the design based on our experience with Increment two and the whole process of going through the core. I think we've mentioned we're actually the first project in the nation to use this process with the Corps of Engineers to build a project.

So there was a lot of kinks to work out with them, but we feel like we've kind of paved the path for for these projects now. So we we felt like we did we took the lessons learned from increment two and then made the scope for increment three, and that's the, roughly $7,000,000 for design of that, which is also basically in line with previous estimates or even a little below. And with that, I'll take any questions.

Okay. First, I'll make a look for any public comment. I'm thinking nothing on the phone. Do we anticipate any issues getting our final approval from No.

It's been approved at all the lower levels. The ASA just basically needs to sign off.

Okay. Great. Anybody have any questions? Comments? Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Butler. Can we go ahead and get a motion? I'll make a motion to approve and authorize amendment number five to the agreement. Thank you. Motion by Manfrey. Second by Second by Ramos. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes unanimously.

Thank

you. Thank you, Andrew. All right. We do not have any public hearings. Do we have a district manager's report? Mr. Thomassar.

Yes. Good morning. Rick Thomassar, district manager. And I'm here with, engineering manager Chris Silk. The one update I have is that we're still tracking, our next regular Board meeting on September 16 as the date for the Board to sign the project partnership agreement with the core for the, flood walls north of the bypass contract and actually increment three as well that Andrew spoke of.

We still do not have a decision from the core on how they want to either do a joint signing or come to Napa for, some sort of an event with their commander. So as soon as I, hear from them what they'd like to do, we'll send a message out to the board so you're aware. But you may we'll we'll I think we'll attempt to do it like, I think our preference would be to do it after the board meeting, just immediately after, and maybe go out to the site. So that's what I'm aiming towards. So if if board members who want to participate in that could keep that in mind.

And like I said, I'll keep you updated. With that, I'm going to ask Chris to give us an update on some state water project matters.

Thanks, Rick. Again, Chris Silk, engineering manager. Just as a refresher, I oversee the contract that the flood district has with the Department of Water Resources and our water supply entitlements through the state water project. So, wanted to update you on the ongoing litigation that we have in our case versus DWR, and this is in relation to our area of origin dispute that has been ongoing since 2021. This afternoon, I will be meeting with special water council as well as Yuba, city of Yuba officials, as well as Solano County Water Agency staff.

We need to reach a decision as to whether or not to continue with the ongoing settlement negotiations or proceed to trial, which is scheduled to be heard in October. So we'll kind of reach a critical decision on that collectively later today. I will inform the board going forward as far as which pathway we believe is in the best interest of all three parties. And then also, wanted to update the board on a matter related to our article 56 carryover. That is storage that we have on paper that resides in San Luis Reservoir, and we are the beneficiary of a copious amount of storage this year due to the allocation being at 70 percent North Of Delta.

And so collectively, I've met with the city leaders that oversee your utilities, and we arrived at a decision to offload 6,000 acre feet of water to Kern County Water Agency Westside districts. So we're proceeding with that sale of water. They will take delivery in the ensuing months. I advise the cities to be patient to let the spot price of water come to us because ag typically demands the seasonal trend in prices for water. And so on we look at the top line of the three cities should realize a pretty substantial revenue boost this year, and we'll also be at least sitting on about a year and a half worth of carryover storage supply.

So if we were to slip into the clutches of another multiple critical dry year, we would still be in a good place managing our water portfolio.

Interesting. Anybody have any questions, comments? Yeah. Go ahead. On

the area of origin, are there other water agencies involved in the suit? Is this kind of like a class action or is this just that county?

No. Well, this relates to what we call the NOD3, the North Of Delta three agencies, that are participants, subscribers in contract with DWR. And those agencies are the City of Yuba, Solano County Water Agency, and the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District. So it's just us three that are in litigation with DWR.

Thank you. I know that's been ongoing for several years. The sale of the excess, the carryover, my understanding is if it just sits there, we potentially will lose it. There will be no value. So it's good to go ahead with the year and a half still behind us on backup and the potential for another good year, I think it's a good decision to move ahead with the sale at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Silk, any other updates?

Don't think so. All right.

You. Do we have any directors reports or announcements? I

was fortunate to join Jeremy Salo from the flood district. Yes, he's an engineer. We went out to the newly acquired wetlands property off of 29 at South end of the city. So it's just a phenomenal piece of property now that's now it's back in the hands of the public. It was a private purchase.

And with the 57 acres that the city has in the area, It's just this potential for this an amazing new public area for walking and biking and just it's just that thanks for the district for acquiring the grants that we secured to get the property. It was a once in a rare opportunity to do it. But yes, so Barry Eberling from the Napa Valley Register wanted to do a piece on it. And so we went out and Jeremy drove us around. Even the old little red barn that sits out there, there's even talk about maybe that site could be an interpretive area where people could come in and read and learn about the area.

So good work district, it's going to be a great asset to the public and restore that entire area from the Butler Bridge North to the city limits as natural wetlands. And the diversity of the environment, it's just amazing out there how since the district took that back when flood District when the flood project began, how it's just returned to it. Some levees were breached and some water was let back in. And so it's just amazing out there. If you have a chance to get out there, I'll climb the fence with you right now and we'll go tour it. But yeah, right now it's not open yet.

We have keys, so you don't have to climb.

That sounds better. Let's use the keys. Thank you.

Nobody climbing.

All right. That's great. Maybe we can do a little field trip. Okay. Thank you. Any future agenda items that anyone would like to bring up? Alright. And we're gonna go ahead and move to closed session. So, Council Bagley, if you can go ahead and announce that.

Good morning. Our district board will now go into closed session. During closed session, we will hold a conference with the district manager as a real property negotiator regarding the parcels listed in agenda item 13A through E and also have conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation, again, concerning the items listed in 13A through E.

Chair, ready when you are.

We are back from closed session. And Ms. Bagley, can you report out, please?

Thank you, Chair. Our district board met in closed session regarding agenda items 13A through E. There are no reportable actions.

All right. Thank you very much. We will go ahead then and adjourn to our next meeting on Tuesday, 09/16/2025 at 9AM. Thank you, everyone.