Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City Of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call please.

Board Member Wright?

Here.

Board Member DeWitt? Present. Board Member Badenfort? Here. Vice Chair Anoni?

Here.

And Chair Galvin?

Here.

Let the record reflect that all Board Members are present.

Alrighty. Any statements of abstention by board members? Very good. Item 4.1 is a proclamation which I am honored to read to Mr. Mullen.

Unfortunately, he tendered his resignation a couple weeks ago to the board and we're sorry to see him go, but totally understand. So I will read the proclamation. Whereas J. Matthew Mullen was first appointed to the Board of Public Utilities by City Council member Chris Coursey in May 2018 and subsequently reappointed by City Council members Richard Dowd in 2020 and Victoria Fleming in 2025. And whereas during his service, Mr.

Mullen consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to Santa Rosa Water providing excellent leadership and support to the department. And whereas Mr. Mullen brought his valuable knowledge and insight from his extensive experience as a leader of utilities and town manager of Windsor and whereas Mr. Mullen contributed significantly through service on many subcommittees of the board including budget review, water conservation and contract review subcommittees and whereas as a member of the water conservation subcommittee Mr. Mullen provided leadership that strengthened our education and outreach regarding the significant water savings that have been achieved from our water use efficiency programs and whereas Mr.

Mullen consistently demonstrated a commitment to the cost effective, reliable and environmentally responsible delivery of water, storm water and wastewater services offering insightful analysis, thoughtful feedback and sound fiscal guidance that strengthen the Board's stewardship of public resources while prioritizing water resiliency and whereas Mr. Mullen's diligence and attention to detail enhance the effectiveness of the Board's work and his careful evaluation of operational, maintenance and capital budgets as well as water and sewer rate structures demonstrated his commitment to transparent and effective public service and whereas recognizing the Board's responsibility to make difficult but necessary decisions regarding infrastructure maintenance, repair and replacement, Mr. Mullen approached this work with diligence and a strong commitment to ensuring Santa Rosa Water's continued provision of safe, sustainable and dependable water distribution, storm water management and wastewater collection, treatment and reuse for the community. Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Public Utilities of the City of Santa Rosa hereby recognizes, commends and expresses sincere appreciation to J. Matthew Mullen for his dedicated service, principled leadership, and commitment to the community of Santa Rosa.

I'm gonna say speech. I am pleased to have signed the proclamation, Matt. Thank you for being here. We'd love to have you if you want to make some comments or if the board has comments. We also want to get a picture. Vice Chair Aronone? I would love to make

a comment because I've served on a lot of different boards and commissions but Matt in particular stands out among the people I've served with in his, first of all, pre existing knowledge. I mean I've known Matt since he was head of a water district up in Windsor before there was a town and he's always been incredibly thoughtful in his leadership and his experience has been a boon to anybody he's worked with and it's really benefited the Board of Public Utilities in Santa Rosa and so I express my thanks to you Matt and my enjoyment having worked with you and my appreciation for your service. Thank you. Here. Board

Member Badenford.

I will admit that I'm very sorry to see you go and secretly hope that you magically come back one more time. Your experience, I have learned a lot from you just by watching you, watching your both careful and your kind and courageous questioning, and especially your commitment to trying to be very thoughtful about how we future proof our budget, how we future proof our policies that this department and this board makes. I've learned a great deal from you and I appreciate every meeting I got to be in with you and every committee meeting we were able to sit together. So good luck. Wish you all the best and please come back any time.

Thank you.

Board Member Wright? Matt, it's been a pleasure working with you the last, I don't know, it's like you're here and you're gone, but anyway. The last few times I've enjoyed it. I've actually really enjoyed your comments and your questions and bringing some thoughtfulness to this board. So thank you very much and good luck on your future endeavors. Thank you.

Sir, I'd like to also thank you and I'd also hope that you'd come and offer some words to us because you've got wisdom. I've been learning from you as the newest member and it's been a pleasure to spend time talking with you.

Matt, we go back a long ways. Old man softball and then now here at the BPU and it's been a pleasure working with you and learning from you. I'm sorry that you decided to resign but totally understand and wish you only the best and the City of Santa Rosa is in your debt for all the good work that you did. So thank you. You're more than welcome to make comments if you'd like. Sure.

Thank you for all the kind words. It makes me feel more important that I think I really am and I have forgotten all the times I've come and gone to this place and it seems like I can't finish anything at the end. I've worked in the business for over three decades and get to see a lot and you realize how much you don't know in this business because what you're doing here and what the staff does here is you change people's lives and it's a wonderful feeling to make a decision at this body and see it unveil and how it changes the lives of all the people that are served here. And that's what attracted me to it back when I was a much younger man and had black hair, and I stayed with it all along and I always went to work every day figuring that today I was gonna make somebody's life better. And so I really commend you.

It's been my honor and privilege to serve with this body. I'm sorry I wasn't able to finish it to the end, but things have happened and I'm moving in another direction. I will tell you this, I won't be back and speaking from this podium again. You have enough of that. But I hope it's an opportunity for part of the new generation of people in this community to realize that public service is really rewarding and you make a difference in people's lives.

And I want to lastly thank Director Burke and the staff and Michelle for helping me along the way and keep up your good work. The team is doing well and I think we're in a good fit, we're in a good place and just keep the bus moving forward and think things will be great. So thank you very much for this. I appreciate it.

So before we present you with the proclamation and take a picture, we'll open it up for public comment. Anybody wishes to make a public comment please move to the podium. Seeing no one, now we'll gather here and have a photo and present you with the proclamation. Oh I'm sorry, Director Burke.

Sorry I should have jumped in earlier but I just want to say thank you very much for your service. It has been a pleasure to work with you and I really appreciated all of the knowledge and skill set you brought and the experience that you could share based on the work that you did in Windsor and other utilities. So on behalf of the Water Department, we're very grateful for your leadership and we're sorry to see you go and we really appreciate your service. Thank you.

All right, back to our agenda. I would like to welcome the newest member to our board, Georgia Meisler. If you would come down and have the oath administered to you please.

Okay

if you could please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I Georgia Meisler. I Georgia Meisler do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of The United States and the constitution of the state of California and the constitution of the state of California against all enemies foreign and domestic

against all enemies foreign and domestic

that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear truth faith and allegiance to the constitution of The United States and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

Welcome Board Member Meister. We will get a picture in just a second. Welcome to the days and to the Board. Happy to give you an opportunity to say a few words if you'd like about being on the board and whatever.

I'm humbled to accept this responsibility after hearing the resolution for the departing member. I feel like there are very big impressive shoes to fill. And I'm excited to bring a lot of experience and education in public service and public administration. And I'm excited to learn from all of you. Thank you. Great.

Well we appreciate you being on our board. I know it's gonna be a learning process and we look forward to helping you as much as we can and we'll learn from you as you will learn from us. Other board member questions or comments for the new member? Well then we'll open it up for public comment on item number five. If you wish to make a public comment feel free to move to the podium. I think your husband's here but he's not gonna move, Okay. All right that'll take care of the oath. We have no study session. We have one presentation item 7.1. Director Burke.

Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our presentation is the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency update and making the presentation is Peter Martin, our Deputy Director of Water Resources and Andy Rogers, the Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Alright, apologies for delay there. Alright, good afternoon Chair Galvin, members of the board. Definitely very excited to have this opportunity to present have, the administrator, Andy Rogers of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency, present to you about an update on, the activities. Just, you know, to give some background, it is, has been about more than a decade that the city of Santa Rosa has been involved, from the beginning and, creation of the joint powers authority that ultimately became the Santa Rosa Plain Groundworks Sustainability Agency. And our participation has been ongoing and we've been very involved in the development of the plan.

And we're in an exciting time. There's really some momentum after the plan was adopted in 2022. And you're going to hear a lot today about some of the activities and actions that have occurred during the implementation of that plan. So I'm just very excited to be able to give you this presentation today. And with that, I'll let Andy take it away.

Great. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin, Board Members, Director Burke. It's nice to see you all. Thank you for the invitation. I am Andy Rogers.

I'm the administrator for the Santa Rosa Plain groundwater sustainability agency, a position that I've had the honor of serving since 2018. I have, as Peter mentioned, the agency's been active and busy for ten years and so there's a lot to talk about but I want to give you an overview of a lot of things and so hopefully it sparked some interest in a few things that I'm happy to either answer today or follow-up with you at any time in the future. As a member agency, the City of Santa Rosa is a very important part of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency and I just want gratitude for the staff that supports the work technically and for outreach input and the governance. Mayor Stapp is the current city representative on our board and it's a very important and valuable position to hold so we appreciate that. So can I hit there?

Okay.

So I'm just going to

give you an overview, a background and I'm going to talk about then the agency itself, what we're how we're set up, how we're funded, the activities we're doing, and some of the things that you may have already be aware of that's out in the community. But in 2014, a few droughts ago, Governor Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act which became effective in 2015 and that named essentially 140 groundwater basins in California that needed to have attention paid to them. So the jurisdictions that overlaid those 140 basins were responsible for coming up with the way they wanted to manage and govern the water resources in those 140 basins. Out of that two sixty GSAs have been formed all at different levels of priority. In Sonoma County of all the groundwater basins the three shown in this map here, the Santa Rosa Plain, the Petaluma Valley, and the Sonoma Valley GSAs were formed and each have their own independent governance and so I'm here obviously to talk about Santa Rosa Plain today.

The things, the criteria, there's I mentioned prioritization. San Rosa Plain and Petaluma Valley are considered medium priority and the Sonoma Valley is considered high. The criteria that names the GSA has to do with population, reliance on wells, some level of distress perhaps noted, irrigated lands, all kinds of criteria. So that's how we became have three GSAs in Sonoma County. Regarding the well reliance that I mentioned, the left is a pie chart of the approximate categorical use of the groundwater basin which I should have pointed out on the map.

It starts North North Of Windsor down to the Cotati grade and then on the East Side Bennett Valley and on the West Side is the city limits of the city of Sebastopol. So within that large area we have roughly if you put the small water systems and the municipal together as one category that's roughly a third. If you have irrigated turf and rural residential together that's roughly about a third and then agriculture is another third. So it's an easy way to think of it, it's about 30 ish percent of each of those three master categories.

And then

you all super familiar with the water that comes from Sonoma water, surface water, but also there's groundwater as part of it. But separate from that, Sonoma County has the distinction of having the most per capita wells in the state in Sonoma County. So obviously well reliance is an important factor in this area and separate from the Sonoma water supplied system we have 8,600 parcels plus that are the sole source of water is groundwater serving roughly 32,000 people and then a lot of irrigated wines and of course our environment is supported by the water we have and the groundwater that's underneath. So the SGMA, which is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act acronym basically called out some significant milestones. One was an agency needed to be formed.

As I mentioned, we locally got together with Santa Rosa as one of 10 member agencies at the Santa Rosa Plain GSA. That governance was determined and put into an agreement in the mid-twenty seventeen as was required. And then by January 2022 we needed to have a plan that was put together that met all the significant criteria that Sigma required of our basin in a plan. That plan was developed with over 50 public meetings, was a significant two year process and thankfully we were doing that using grant funds supplied by the state. So after that we are now in step three.

I don't know if I have a build slide, yes I do. So we are in achieve sustainability phase right now where the plan is in place, the state has approved it, and we are busy implementing sustainability. So the other piece that our member agencies wanted to make sure when we started is that the member agencies stood up the agency, developed the plan with outside funding from the state, but we wanted to make sure that when we started to implement that we had a sustainable funding mechanism. In 2022 that was established and we've had that ever since using a methodology that looks at both known extraction levels from municipal wells, other public water supply wells which are metered and reported to the state, and then we have a series of complex formulas looking at other categorical uses rural residential, different types of agriculture, etc. To come up with a kind of annual usage they have.

And essentially to come up with a simple mathematical formula, the cost of the agency to comply with Sigma, operate and implement actions to become sustainable by 2042. That annual cost divided by the extracted amount every year comes up with what that acre foot cost is right there, dollars 44.7 per acre foot. So it's at that level because we have been very successful to date and I'm knocking on some wood here hopefully that we will continue to be successful in bringing out outside funds. After our groundwater sustainability plan grant funding we're able to secure $5,300,000 for the Santa Rosa Plain Basin to implement plan actions. And so I'm going be talking about those here.

So a little bit about our Santa Rosa Plain Basin. Again, I can tell I'm staying at a very high level but hopefully this is helpful to kind of cover a lot of ground and then happy to answer any questions from there. So the way our groundwater sustainability plan is structured is based on guidelines provided by the state that we have to require. These are sustainable management criteria of which it specifies six and you only see five here because the sixth one is seawater or saltwater intrusion. So we don't have that in the Santa Rosa Plain so we don't have to worry about that particular criteria.

So however our plan does go into great detail on how we are defining sustainability for water quality, land subsidence, groundwater levels and storage which are very connected but there are several separate criteria and interconnected surface water. And the interconnected surface water is where we are considering as the most significant data gaps which is a common element of all the GSAs throughout the state. So that is basically understanding and tracking the relationship of surface water, so stream flow, that kind of thing with the health of the basin because they are connected. So just some graphs and there's a lot of colors and a lot of dots here, but just wanted to show if you look at our we've been looking plan view at our basin. If we're looking cross section wise, we look at our base the Santa Rosa Plain is really divided into two primary aquifers shallow which is shallower than 200 feet and then the deep aquifer is greater than 200 feet.

And so we monitor those conditions very closely and have been for a long time. As you can see these graphs go back to 1990 and the colors represent the blue represents wet years and the yellow represents dry years. So no surprise, pretty logical, but the shallow aquifer reacts and tracks with seasonality. So as you can see, during dry season the water levels kind of drop and that's what elevation is shown on the on the y axis there. And then during dry years it drops and then wet years that it goes back up.

With the deep aquifer, it takes much much longer for the water that is infiltrated into the ground to get to the deeper aquifer. And so what's interesting about the graph here, so it doesn't track the exact same as shallow because it doesn't respond that quickly. But ultimately it does and over time we have kind of done better in the deeper basin. But when we get to the 2021 drought this is where you see people are pumping out more. So that's not because there's less coming in because it's not reacting to the seasons yet, but if there's more that's being extracted out of the basin, those water levels are impacted.

And you can see after the '21 we had a few wet years, you see it recover. Hopefully I'm not going too fast or speaking too quickly. So I mentioned that was levels very tied with storage. So what these lines represent is we track how much water we have in our basin. So just like you on when you have above ground tanks, when you when your water level in your tank is high, you have more water storage.

It's the same in the ground. So when we're looking at water levels that are high, we have more storage. When the water levels drop, we have less storage. It's really that simple. And you can see that again kind of looking at the shallow aquifer on the left and the deeper aquifer on the right, we're tracking these things. This started in 1975. If you remember there was a significant drought in 'seventy six and 'seventy seven I think. And so you can see that effect was pretty strong back then. But we track storage. Now both the water levels as far as sustainability criteria and storage were in good shape.

So we've developed criteria if the storage reaches a certain point or the water levels reach a certain point then we would want to take some actions and understand that better and if we need to do something the GSA has the authorities to do that. The good news we don't have to at this point and we hope we get wet years for many years. So the other sustainability criteria I mentioned this interconnected surface water. We are also within the sustainability range that was developed and approved by the state. However, we have a lot of resource agencies convened around this subject matter and through our grant funding we've had over the last two years in particular, we've put in wells to really monitor the relationships of creek flow with groundwater levels to get that understanding of that relationship so we can track that over time and make sure that we are watching that adequately.

Within the jurisdiction of the GSA there's a lot of agencies that are associated with water quality that have jurisdiction but related to where the GSA is is where there's projects and actions that impact water quality, that's when we become involved and right now there are no minimum thresholds which is the jargon that Sigma uses being exceeded and we're not seeing any evidence of lamp subsidence at this point. So overall just to throw some numbers your way, I mentioned that the fees are calculated based on the cost of the agency divided by the extraction amount. Our groundwater sustainability plan uses the known numbers and the assumed numbers to come up with an estimate of roughly about 18 this is all modeled data, just under 18,000 acre foot per year. We are not seeing any overdraft conditions at this point but we have a plan that looks ahead twenty years and we're seeing that if based on climate modeling and the projected trends of groundwater extraction, this is our groundwater sustainability plan from four years ago, we're projecting a 2,200 acre foot per year deficit. So that's what we are working to correct right now.

That's our mission. Oh, and I should point out because it said there that an acre foot is roughly equal to about two households whereas I think in this you're very water conservation oriented city and the partner there's Snowmobrin Water Saving Partnership, it's a higher or a lower amount but we have the rural residential we used to consider which has probably larger gardens, larger land areas, animals, those types of things. And so that estimate is higher which is why that says it's only an acre foot serves about two households. So for the project updates, I just want to go through those. So on this journey that I'm describing, I covered some of this but just this is another way to look at it.

So in 2022 I mentioned we submitted our groundwater sustainability plan which is what GSP stands for to the agency which is Department of Water Resources And at that same time we also approved the fees associated with implementing that plan. A year later the state approved that. Every year the Groundwater Sustainability Agency produces a report, kind of the state of the basin kind of fact sheet and I believe staff may have included a copy of the most recent one in your meeting packet. So every year that is something that we produce. And then as we get better data over the years which we have been, when we instituted our fee we opened up a very transparent and interactive way to engage with our fee payers and so if we got it wrong there's a mechanism for folks to talk to us about it and show us how we're wrong and we make those corrections.

We've been doing that for a lot of years and that also makes our data more accurate. So when we update our fee study it reflects those updates. While we're also putting in more monitoring wells, getting more data, and we're watching trends over time. So every year we get a little bit more accurate. We're right now in the middle of preparing our five year update which is requirement of the state to our groundwater sustainability plan.

That is something that's going to be available for public review this summer probably in a few months and it does show that the benefits of probably awareness of our groundwater stakeholders, the few wet years we've had the last few years, it does show we might have less extraction going on than was originally estimated but that model is still being worked on and being borne out and so that five year update will reflect what that information shows. And then looking forward in 2027 which is coming quickly we'll be submitting that five year evaluation and we'll be implementing revised projects and management actions to be sustainable based on the newer information. So that's where the 2028 through 2041 comes into play and we high five at 2042 that we did it but hopefully in the years before that. So just some things to point out that we've been very busy doing with grant funding these last couple years. In the Santa Rosa Plain we're constructing six new monitoring wells.

Five are done. One is just about to start and we should be done in a couple months. And that's looking at both shallow and deep aquifer. So places we didn't have information, we're getting information, data gap filling. So as I've mentioned before, we're studying closely the connection between surface water and groundwater and what is that relationship and how can we manage that in the best way possible.

The well inventory, we're always improving that. Like I said, we're engaged with the fee payers and member staff and we're always improving our database and plenty more. A few programs that are out there, it's not just GSA staff, member staff, and our awesome advisory committee, it's everybody. And so we have a voluntary monitoring program and what you're seeing here is a picture of one of our advisory committee members training, that's a group in Bennett Valley that wants to kind of monitor and manage their own area to look at groundwater and those kinds of that kind of engagement is really important to us being able to get to be sustainable. FlowSmart is a program that was grant funded where we provided 24 meters to anybody who wanted signed up to get a meter on their well and through that we were able to point out leaks and so there was a lot of water saved and hopefully it's a very newly engaged water extractors and users.

Water use efficiency has been a big component of the work we've been doing the last few years. We've developed a number of programs. We have online tool kits. We have consultations that have been provided for free. We've had there's development of data, best management practices by category.

We have signage that's a picture of one at Maddox Ranch. And just some general information, we're really able to leverage the expertise of the Sonoma Water Saving Partnership and all the water conservation experts in this region. So that's really exciting to be able to offer that to people who have never had the opportunity to have a water conservation program because they're not part of the water system. Other projects, one very exciting one, had an aquifer storage and recovery grant funded project that we collaborated really closely with the city of Santa Rosa on the Martha Way well project which is out on Greenway area and that was able to be conducted last year and we're looking at the data right now and seeing if you know is it feasible and so that in this case the city of Santa Rosa could use that information to either act on that or not but to better evaluate. That's So an example of collaboration.

While we have a basin ride role, all of our member agencies have kind of sub basin components and so all those components make the whole. We're looking at storm water recharge on ag lands and including fallowed fields which is of course something that Ag interests are very interested in right now. Then recycled water expansion, we're interested in that. We did that in the Petaluma Valley GSA this last year. And then just a number of tools to point out. There's a

lot of

online resources but a lot of printed too. We developed a groundwater well user guide just recently something that a lot of people ask for but we have ways to engage with parcel specific groundwater data that we have and that's Guide, Groundwater User Information Data Exchange. The Well Aware Toolkit has all the water conservation programs that I mentioned and more. And then the data dashboard where you can really dive in deeper into information that's available. And I told you that was going be a lot of information, but thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. I'll open it up for board member questions or comments.

Have some, but I was wondering if it might be appropriate to hear what public members have to say first so we can make our comments based on what we hear from the public. I understand. Okay, The agenda doesn't allow for that, so I'm gonna ask some questions. I'm, very familiar with when this organization started. I attended a number of meetings over the years, and one of the things that I find from people that talk with me about these topics is they're not able to attend meetings that happen about this time of the day.

The working class can't get out there. I'm from a working class neighborhood where many people have wells and some of them got contaminated in the past, difficult situations have arisen, city of Santa Rosa has stepped in and been helpful in some ways. Whenever you sink a well, it's an expensive endeavor, isn't it? So 60 wells, who picks up the tab for that?

The wells that we've put in have been grant funded.

Okay, so the state taxpayers are covering that?

We applied for grant funding for the six wells. For six

or 60? Six. Okay, so then 54 more wells have gone in or are going in?

I think, no, I think we have quite a good network for monitoring which is what was represented on those slides. We had data gaps and that's what those six wells are meant to address.

Nice. With that in mind, slide on page 16. The well aware slide, nice situation. People that I know are involved with vineyards. They're very interested in finding out how stringent is the oversight and monitoring of the vineyards and those people that use groundwater.

So I want to answer your question best I can, so our responsibility is basin wide so where there's great deal of ag lands if we have those sustainability criteria that we see are being exceeded or at least stressed towards where we don't want it to that's when we would definitely want to get more information and find out. But that's what our jurisdiction is, is basin wide and so if there's an area of agriculture where we're seeing distress, we will definitely be paying attention.

Alright. How do you find out about the distress?

So we have those water networks which produce those lines I was showing.

I appreciate that. Santa Rosa Basin is the one that we here are involved with, and a number of people that I have spoken with about their wells are concerned that if they become involved in voluntary monitoring, someday down the road it could create a liability in a sense and they're apprehensive, they don't want to become involved in something that may become a governmental type of oversight. How do we connect with those folks and show them this is positive, we're all working together, it's a kumbaya situation?

I love that question, thank you. So we're very aware of the skepticism of sharing information with an agency and we're thrilled with the success that our voluntary programs have shown so we're hoping that over time the there will be testimonials of folks who said I learned a lot, I know a lot more, I'm able to detect my leaks and I wish my neighbors would too. So we're hoping that we're not the ones that share that information that actually neighbor to neighbor are the promoters of that But we benefit when more people are engaged and manage their water resources. And so that's what we're here to support.

Thank you sir. With that in mind then, I'm going to ask you an old fashioned question. Do you have business cards?

I believe I do have business cards.

Many people in my area aren't on the internet and getting some business cards and being able to spread the good news that they can use from you would be helpful. So then may I come and speak with you on my own, not as a member of this board in any way shape or form, just as a local man whose land is on a well.

Of course.

Thank you kindly for your time, sir.

Thank you. Other board member questions or comments? Alright. I'll open up for public comment on item number 7.1. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. Please give your name and don't start speaking until

the time or what?

You have three minutes.

Okay. I don't see a clock. Okay. Michael Hilberg. I finally was able to contact an attorney who's gonna look over this documentation and see about getting our money back. This outfit wants us to pay hippies to go around and spread wood chips. It's a it's a scam that's been cooked up to rip people off. You'll see at Maddox Regional Park that they got a big tank to catch rainwater. I checked it early in the spring and found it was close to empty. Not only are they not using it, but they spent our tax dollars to put up a sign there bragging about the existence of this tank.

Another thing that they've there's a Sonoma Valley and Petaluma Valley groundwater agencies, they are both subsidized by the county to the tune of about a half million dollars each. And they paid their attorneys, the San Rosa Group, to look into consolidating with Sonoma and Petaluma, the purpose being that the county would could withdraw that $1,000,000 subsidy to to those two basins and people in the Santa Rosa Basin could be forced to pay extra to absorb them and pick up the deficit. You know, we're being ripped off here. This board was packed with wine industry fat cats and leftists from city council members purely of a particular political agenda and the goal was to cook up the books, create a fraudulent fee schedule that underestimates wine industry use, and use 0.6 acre feet per acre for vineyards where the state uses two point zero acre feet per acre. So they're using a number that's 70% less and they also dole out exemptions and reductions inappropriately, so it shifts the burden.

They really only have one legitimate purpose and that is to monitor the levels and if they do start to decline, the thing to to do would be to clamp down on commercial and municipal use. Not all this other superfluous nonsense about hiring nonprofits to do stupid things and waste money and provide consultations and all that nonsense. The whole fee schedule is cooked up, you know, they had Joe Dutton as one of the board members to vote on. He's one of the biggest vineyard owners around here. So their whole idea was to try to make it the cheapest possible for the wine industry and stick it to everyone else.

Thank you for your comments. Ma'am, if you would state your name and you can start.

Thank you. Janice Carmen. And, the comment I wanna make about the water is that I think that there needs to be better zoning enforcement of people who dwell drill wells without any permits or anything and just figure they can just take it. And then when they don't get enough water, they just go a little deeper, do what they can do. There is a real problem with that in both annexed and unincorporated areas.

And the, the other is that it seems to me, besides the Public Utilities Commission, that anything to do with water, for example, this presentation, which I very much appreciated because I think there was a lot of work that went into it, and our water is very precious. It's also related to the trees. The waterways have to do with the groundwater and the aquifers. And I went to the first waterway meeting, and when I was at the waterway meeting, I talked about a related clear cutting of property that was completely illegal, and a board member said, well, we're for waterways here. Do you have a waterway?

I said, yes. As a matter of fact, I have one that runs the full length of my house, and there's all sorts of creeks and rivers that run under the mountain. So, overlaps. The next third meeting I went to, a board member that had been appointed to the planning commission showed up and essentially was very lackadaisical about his presence there. He made comments that were extremely inappropriate and personal to him, And he said that he thought that they should not have the waterways committee except for in urgency meetings for urgency.

And, you know, he found it all appalling. And so, they are not having the waterway meeting anymore until somebody says there's an urgent need to have one. So, when Duane is bringing up that people can't make it to these meetings during the day, which is a challenge, I I retired, and I'm also running for congress right now, District 1. And these sorts of things are problems that overlap with what is going on here, in the city, in the county, and the water is really important. And the waterway meeting should be reemerging, and we should pay attention to that as well as having meetings here in the middle of the afternoon that give a lot of information, but they exclude the people who are getting the result.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Any other public comments? Mr. Rogers, you're under no obligation, but I'll give you an opportunity if you wish to respond to either of the public comments.

Thank you, Chair. I'll only say sensitive to the timing of our meetings and I've heard a couple comments today on that and we're aware of that. Whenever we held a community workshop those are always after hours, so we make sure those are the case. It's challenging as we all know to schedule a lot of elected folks and so that's why those happen during the day but we are looking always at any ways that we can be accessible to folks and be as convenient in that way as possible. So I appreciate the comments and happy to answer anything else.

Great, thank you very much. I think that covers the public comments. That takes care of item 7.1 so thank you both for the presentation. Item number 8.1 is approval of the minutes from the May 7 meeting. If the board has any questions or changes? Hearing none, we'll open it up for public comment on item 8.1. Seeing no one rise, the minutes will be approved and entered. Item 9.1 is a staff briefing. Director Burke.

Thank you Chair Gabbana, members of the board. Item 9.1 is our water and recycled water supply update And making the presentation will be Peter Martin, Deputy Director, Water Resources, and Andrew Romero, Wastewater Reclamation Superintendent. All

right. I didn't have to move much. So happy to provide you with this water and recycled water update. And it's that time of year where rainfall has diminished, so we're working off of what Mother Nature has provided over the winter. Terms of storage at Lake Pillsbury, as of today, is at about 52,000 acre feet.

You know, I guess I should mention, once again, PG and E during the wintertime filed variance request from their mandated flows under the federal energy regulatory commission requirements. And those have mandated flows for the amount of water that is sent from the diversion into the Upper Russian River via the East Fork. That was granted, I believe, around the fifteenth of this month. And that allows, essentially, PG and E to reduce their flows in the upper sorry, into the East Fork Of The Russian River down from the mandated 75 cubic feet per second to about 25 cubic feet per second. So what you're seeing here is storage as of today which should start to level out quite a bit so they can manage things better.

And really the intent is to preserve cold water storage in Lake Billsbury through the remainder of the water year. PG and E has a stated target of about 25,000 acre feet by October 1. As you can see, if it falls along most of the trend lines with that black line, it's likely they'll achieve that. Simultaneously, storage in Lake Mendocino is at about 84,000 acre feet as of today, and outflow is about 70 cubic feet per second. It's about 75% of capacity allowable during this time of year.

So there is a good amount of carryover storage that occurred even rainfall hasn't been as plentiful as it has been in the last couple of years. In terms of storage in Lake Sonoma, things are very good. About 261,500 acre feet as of today. So just under the maximum allowable amount for this time of year under the forecast and form reservoir operations for that reservoir. So this is our storage as a contractor and lots of storage going into this year. And

of

course they got a bump through the forecast and form reservoir operations over the wintertime. I did want to note that on March 26, the State Water Board did issue an order granting the temporary change petition that Simba Water had requested. This is the same petition that they file every time this time of year. And really it does two things. It allows them to connect the water year type and the instantaneous flow requirements for in stream to be based on storage in Lake Mendocino.

Their water permits alternatively say that it's based on cumulative inflow into Lake Pillsbury and that is of very much separated from the reality of what's going on in the Russian River. And so they get to use that as the indicator, and also they issue at the same time a request to align the normal year in stream flow requirements with the federal biological opinion. The federal biological opinion actually requests lower flows in many of those years. So during normal times, they're allowed to ramp those down to be protective of the endangered species in the Russian River. So as of today, with that indicator being based on the storage in Lake Mendocino, Russian River under dry water supply conditions, and that allows the water better opportunity to manage the flows.

And so minimum in stream flows are actually reduced down to 75 cubic feet per second and 85 cubic feet per second in the upper and lower portions of the Russian River. This is down substantially from the normal year water requirements but also is protective of those fish species. Lastly, I just want to invite everyone to the Water Smart Expo occurring at the Wednesday Market next month on June 17 on Courthouse Square. We hold this event every year and it's a great opportunity for folks to learn how they can save water. We have a lot of demonstrations and it's a great time.

And we'll be sending out that I believe actually it's already out. There's a bill insert going around right now for all customers of Santa Rosa and we hope to see

you there.

With that, that concludes my portion of the presentation.

I'll hand

it over to Superintendent Romero.

Thank you Peter. Good afternoon Chair Galvin, members of board. My name is Andrew Romero, Reclamation Superintendent and I'll be providing you with a brief recycled water update. However, first I want to acknowledge the picture on the screen. At one of the previous BPU meetings earlier this year, I shared this photo of the East Station Building which was under construction.

However, I am happy to report that the building has been successfully replaced since the last meeting. This is what it looks like now and as just a friendly reminder that this station building is located across the street of the Leukewine treatment plant. So I just want to give a huge thank you to city staff, design engineers and contractors for making this a successful project. This next slide is a recent snapshot of our recycled water storage curve. The red trend is this year's storage levels.

Currently we have twelve twenty million gallons in storage which is average for this time of year. Therefore we expect to meet all the water allocations for the 2026 irrigation season. Also no recycled water has been available since early spring and there was no discharge for this water year. And that concludes the recycled water portion. We're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. Any questions or comments from the board? Board Member DeWitt? Yes.

Thank you both for the presentation. I really find it very informative and also getting to see the graphs, all the other information. Are school districts involved in your recycling activity or any of these other types of things such as the water expo? Do you take it to school districts at all?

We have a couple opportunities to engage our local school church of children. One of the primary ways is through our Take It For The Tap program. We go out to classrooms and talk about the water cycle, discuss, you know, the water use efficiency measures that folks kids should be doing their home. Actually, kids are really good at carrying the message home, so we do utilize that opportunity. And also, we do have an opportunity and we hope to expand that even more to get a lot of school aged children out to the Laguna Treatment Plant for tours as well.

Thank you sir, that's very encouraging. I'd like to ask you to come to Roseland. They have two main school elementary districts and they waste water. It's just one of these things where they seem to be a kingdom under themselves and look at it like, well hey. And it's just the kind of thing where if you folks came there and said hey, you don't need to be irrigating a patch of lawn that's not used for anything. As part of the water conservation subcommittee, there's been some talk about how you shouldn't be irrigating non used turf, things of this nature. Maybe you could bring that message to them. Thank you kindly for your time sir.

Thank you. Other board member questions or comments? Alright, we'll open up for public comment on item 9.1. If you wish to make a comment on this item, please move to the podium. State your name.

I'm Michael Hilber. I can't really ask a question during public comment, but I would have appreciated seeing more elaboration on what the major uses of recycled water are and what opportunities to grow that. Any potential large scale additional uses to expand recycled water use. Petaluma, for instance, has a golf course that uses well water and they're hoping to hook it up to recycle to save on, you know, groundwater even though they don't have a shortage but they're hoping to hook it up to the Petaluma recycled water plant. So anyway, I would have appreciated, you know, if you feel like elaborating a bit more who are your main customers for reclaimed water and any prospects for increasing it and adding new uses and what types of uses would those be?

Thank you. Mr. Romero, do you want to respond?

Sure. Our primary customer is Calpine. They take two thirds of the water produced here at the Laguna Treatment Plant. The other third is our urban customers, city of Roanoke Park and city of Santa Rosa where they irrigate at City Of Roanoke Park they irrigate schools, golf courses, city parks. Same with the city of Santa Rosa urban system. We irrigate city parks. So and we have another one of our largest users is our customers, which we have about 70 customers there and they irrigate around a billion gallons per year. So those are our customers.

Thank you. Sure. Board member DeWitt.

I'd like to ask you something, sir. You might not be aware of this but sometimes the parks department when they're making their plans they decide they might put in turf in certain places. And over in my area, there's a park that's been discussed for a number of years along Roseland Creek, and a previous director of the parks had wanted to put in turf, and to me as a water conservation type person I thought that might not be a good idea. Have you ever had any discussions about putting in turf and using recycled water for the turf over at the Rosen Community Park?

So the urban recycled water system is primarily limited to the areas around West College and Stony Point. During the time that that system was built, there was an expectation that there would be surplus recycled water and future phases would be able to grow that recycled water system. However, our recycled water is basically over prescribed between the various users and there's not an opportunity to continue to grow urban. But should there be an opportunity in the future, we would certainly take a look at that. But the system as it is today is pretty far from that that park.

So and then, you know, the the water department, you know, only can provide technical expertise to the parks folks. They they are under a whole set of different conditions for their planning efforts on what goes into a park and we you know, they're a customer too as well. So, parks are customer just like everybody else.

Thank you kindly, sir.

Yes, ma'am. Please speak. May I speak?

Yes you may.

The thing's not up. I want to public speak, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Janice Carmen here. And I just want to say I'm commenting on the whole picture, but, I don't remember exactly when, but it was two and a half, three months ago. It was around the time that the paper said that there was gonna be a $12,000,000 Martin Luther King Park in. I go to all the meetings I can go to. I've probably gone to a 125 since I started doing this a year and a half ago. But, anyway, the turf was a big discussion at the city council meeting.

And I'm not a, expert in any of this, but I am not for plastics, and recently, I've read more about the turf. But the complaint at the meeting was the people who've had the turf and that it breaks down and it gets into their soil, and it it did not have a good recommendation. So, I'm just bringing this up as something that happened recently at a city council meeting, and I don't know what the decision was because I think it was tabled at that time, but I'm just saying that turf is a very controversial maneuver to try to save, that I know of, water, and I just wanted to get on record as knowing that much. Thank you.

Thank you. That will conclude our staff briefing on the water and recycled water supply. We'll now move to the consent calendar. We have four items on the consent calendar.

I'll move adoption of the consent calendar.

Second.

We have a motion by Vice Chair Anoni, seconded by Board Member Badenfort to approve the consent calendar. I'll open it up now for public comment on the consent calendar. Seeing no one rise, may we have a roll call vote please.

Board Member Wright. Aye. Board Member Meisler. Board member DeWitt?

Yes.

Board member Badenfort? Aye. Vice Chair Anoni? Aye. And Chair Galvin? Aye. Let the record reflect that the consent calendar passes unanimously.

Thank you. We'll move now to report items item 11.1. Director Burke.

Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the board. Item 11.1 is our 2025 urban water management plan and 2025 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. And Claire Nordley, our Senior Water Resources Planner will be making the presentation.

Good afternoon Ms. Nordley.

Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. I'm Claire Nordley. I'm going to be talking about our urban water management plan and our water shortage contingency plan today. So we are required to do an urban water management plan and a water shortage contingency plan specifically because of the California Urban Water Management Planning Act. Any water utility in California that has at least 3,000 water connections or serves more than 3,000 acre feet per year is required to do an urban water management plan.

We have about 56,000 connections and serve about 17,000 acre feet per year. So we are required to put together this plan. Basically this plan sort of looks into the future and assesses our water supply adequacy and our reliability. Not only do we do this obviously to comply with state law, but it also helps us. We get to understand both our supply and demand in the future.

It also helps us maintain eligibility for grant applications. Oftentimes with state grant applications, we're required to confirm that we have an approved urban water management plan on the books. So we update this plan every five years. It's next due in July 2026, so just in a few months. So what the urban water management plan and water shortage contingency plan is, it's not highly customizable, I'll just say that.

It's created on a template that's provided by the state of California. There are required questions that we must answer, there are required fields that we must enter, tables that we're required to fill in, etc. It also provides broad future forecasts for supply and demand. And to clarify, it's not a plan for specific projects that we're going to implement. It's really about forecasting supply and demand into future.

And then of course as I mentioned, it's updated every five years. So there are 10 required chapters within the urban water management plan. We'll be going over many of those today, especially the more meaty ones. So really the most important part of this plan is the water demand. So we project that of the baseline potable water demand is based on both growth projections for our region, which is based in climate, the economy, population, potential employment opportunities that are going to be in our area.

It's also based on past water use, what do our customers what have our customers used historically, as well as new plan developments that we're aware of that will be moving forward in the future. We also take into consideration water loss. We look at our water loss on our own internal water system. We look at unbilled authorized usage such as firefighting flows. We look at real water loss, meaning leaks and breaks in our own internal distribution system, as well as apparent losses.

We also add into that projected water demand our urban recycled water demand. And then subtracted from the demand, we look at our passive water conservation savings. This is both from plumbing standards as well as natural replacement of fixtures over time. As you can imagine, the state of California continues to ramp down on flow rates for things like toilets and showerheads, faucets, and so we incorporate those savings into the future. So all of that said, here are our demands for the 2025 urban water management plan.

To put this into perspective, last year we used about 17,000 acre feet per year or in that year. So as you can see the forecast is projected to increase about to 21,000 at the most at 2050. We also look at our projected water supplies. We have a contractual obligation from Sonoma Water, our water wholesaler for 29,100 acre feet per year. We expect to be able to produce about 140 acre feet per year of urban recycled water.

And then our groundwater is anywhere from 2,300 acre feet all the way up to potentially 4,000 acre feet if we move forward with new groundwater projects. So to see the comparison here, you can see the demand in the green line, which is significantly below the orange line, which is supply. So this is good news. It means that we have sufficient supply in order to meet our demand all the way out until 2050. Another requirement of the urban water management plan is a drought risk assessment.

We're required to conduct this on the next five years after the plan is due. So this is 2026 through 2030. As you can see here, the supply numbers exactly meet the demand numbers, which again is really good news. It means sufficient supply in order to meet our demand in dry years. So this is good news.

We also have to report within the Urban Water Management Plan our compliance with SBX seven by seven. This is legislation that required that everybody or water utilities within California reduce their water use by 20% in 2020. As you can see here, the orange line is our target. This is 126 gallons per capita per day and we are significantly below this. So we met this target in 2020 which was required by law and we continue to meet it.

Right now as you can see we're at 88 gallons per capita per day, which is wonderful. And really that water savings, that low gallons per capita per day is achieved through decades worth of investment in water use efficiency. As you can see here, over $30,000,000 invested, 56,000 toilets replaced, and that's really resulted ultimately in a 24% reduction in total water use over the last thirty five years. Part of the urban water management plan is the water shortage contingency plan. This document really describes what we would do in a water shortage emergency.

That could be a drought. It could be a catastrophic event that would reduce our water usage. It establishes protocols for when we would trigger a water shortage, and it documents demand reduction strategies that we would implement. It also documents fees that are associated with water shortages, which I'll go into more detail next. Basically there are two separate fees we could implement.

There's charge which is a penalty associated with excess use beyond an allocation that we would provide a customer. That could be implemented in stages five through eight. I should note for both the excess use penalty and the next charge that I'll talk about, both of those require City Council approval and adoption prior to implementation. There's also a water shortage charge which could be implemented in stages two through eight and that encourages customers to reduce water use and as well as help the city recover cost of the shortage. And of course, there's appeal and an appeal and exemption process.

So these are the water shortage stages we are required to have by the State of California, one through eight. You can see the stage one is the least amount of reduction requested from our customers and is actually a voluntary reduction. Once we hit stage five in a 26 through 30% reduction, that's when it becomes an option to implement water allocations for each individual customer and no longer becomes a community wide reduction goal. Stage eight would be the most severe drought that we could experience, an over 50% reduction request for our customers. Hopefully, never get to that.

So as I mentioned, the water shortage charge, again, I should also have mentioned the water shortage charge is the exact same, charge that we brought forth in 2020 and was approved by city council. It's no change from the 2020 urban water management plan. As I mentioned, it's enacted by, a city council vote prior to a water shortage or during right before we would declare a water shortage. And instead of implementing a water shortage charge, we could always look at additional strategies to increase revenue such as using reserves capital projects. This is the actual water shortage charge, as you can see here.

Depending on the reduction requested for our customers, the water shortage charge would increase. There's also an excess use penalty that could be implemented. This is again a penalty that could be assessed to customers allocation is provided to them. We do include up to nineteen ninety nine gallon buffer prior to the penalty. So basically a customer would have an allocation and then they would have an additional buffer before they received a penalty.

This is the actual charge that they would receive depending on the allocation and depending on how many gallons they went over that allocation. Of course, Santa Rosa Water doesn't want to assess penalties. We always want to work with our customers and take a progressive approach to any kind of compliance. So of course we would alert a customer to a violation, offer technical assistance. You know, we have free water audits that will go to a customer's home.

We have free devices that we offer customers, and then if needed issue a warning, and then if needed apply a penalty for that customer. There's also extensive outreach that's detailed within the water shortage contingency plan. We do things like bill inserts, envelope messaging, updating the website, social media, lots of events, public events that we go to, lots of presentations at various different community groups like chambers of commerce, etcetera. So we are everywhere during a drought. And for those of you who have been on the board for a long time, you surely remember our many, droughts that we have had and how much outreach there constantly is during a drought.

Part of the urban water management plan and the water shortage contingency plan is public participation. We, went to the water conservation subcommittee of the BPU in February. We did public outreach and, bill inserts and all the water bills in March. We're now here, to you all in May. We've also done, some recent social media posts.

We also have copies of the urban water management plan and the water shortage contingency plan posted online as well as printed copies at several of the, city locations for people to go and actually review the plan. It's it's been, available. The the draft plans have been available since April and will be through June, and hopefully the city council will adopt the, plans in June after a public hearing as well. So with that, it is recommended by Santa Rosa Water that the Board of Public Utilities by resolution recommend that the City Council adopt the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and the 2025 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Ms. Nordli. We'll open it up for board member questions or comments. Hearing none, we'll open it up for public comment on item 11.1. You wish to make a public comment please move to the podium state your name and wait for the timer to start.

Janice Carmen and I just want to say thank you for the presentation. I think she did a very good job. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing no one else rise, that'll take care of item 11.1. Thank you again for the presentation. Oh, need a motion.

I'll move adoption of a resolution of the Board of Public Utilities recommending that the Council of the City of Santa Rosa adopted 2025 urban water management plan and the 2025 water shortage contingency plan.

I'll second. Motion by Vice Chair Anoni, seconded by Board Member Wright. Can we have a roll call vote please?

Board Member Wright?

Aye.

Board Member Meissler?

Aye.

Board Member DeWitt?

Yes.

Board Member Badenfort? Aye. Vice Chair Anoni? Aye. Chair Galvin? Aye. Let the record reflect that that resolution passes unanimously.

Thank you again. We'll now move to item 11.2, another report item. Burke.

Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our second report item is our approval of changes to Santa Rosa Waters Help to Others H2O program and Kevin Buchanan, Budget and Financial Analyst, no, Analysis Manager. He has the worst title, I'm so sorry. It's a terrible title but Kevin's amazing. Kevin Buchanan, our Budget and Financial Analysis Manager will be presenting.

Did you give him the title?

I did not.

Welcome Mr. Buchanan.

Thank you. I too hate my job title so it's okay.

But not your job. You love your

job. True. Alright well thank you again board for hearing this update Help to Others program. I was here a couple months ago and have taken some feedback and have some revised recommendations at the end to share with you. So I'll go over the history again.

Between 2014 and 2016 both BPU and City Council expressed an interest in Santa Rosa Water developing a low income program of some kind to help residents with their water bill. One of the biggest challenges to that is that Prop two eighteen requires that any kind of funding for that can't be rate payer revenue. So the water department back then decided to use cell tower lease revenue and any community donations as a way to fund the program. And in 2016, the Help to Others program was established and for its first three years, it offered a 50% subsidy of fixed charges. Enrollment remained low during those first three years.

So in 2019 the decision was made to increase the subsidy to 100% of customers fixed charges for their water and sewer fees. So the program has been since 2019 offering that 100% subsidy that equates to right now about a $45 per month amount that is waived off of people's bills. Participants still pay their full usage fees. And then I have some good news which is that since the last time I talked to you we went back and found a couple of other non ratepayer revenue ground leases that we've decided we're going to start applying towards the h2o program July 1. So you may recall that I had talked about some of the telecom leases that had recently expired or been cancelled.

There's a couple of ground leases to the tune of about $47,000 that we're going to start applying to the H2O program July 1 which is helping with the funding but the program itself continues to still be kind of not self sufficient. And I was able to do kind of a more detailed analysis and I believe that at the end of our current fiscal year we should see our H2O reserves to be just under $300,000 I led off the last presentation with this slide. It's been updated to show those increases in ground leases but you can see that on our current trajectory of providing a 100% subsidy we continue to have program expenses above program revenue and that diamond at the end of the orange line there shows that in fiscal year twenty nine the program would run out of money. So some of the feedback that I took from this board two months ago was to look for ways to add people from the waitlist, reduce the subsidy to an amount that would accommodate more people, and try to save the reserves in the event that additional telecom leases end. So with all that in mind, today's recommendation includes these proposed changes.

We would look to add 50 customers from the waitlist. We would do kind of a step down where for next year we would reduce the subsidy from 100% to 75% but we would need to do a second reduction in fiscal year twenty eight to 50% to be fully sustainable. The idea of sort of the two steps there is to really minimize the financial burden to everyone who's about to see kind of an increase in their bill. And if all of our projections were to kind of go according to plan, we believe we'd actually grow our reserves from about 300,000 this year to maybe around 330,000 and then by in three years and that's without any additional telecom leases or other sources of revenue that would be found along the way. This just kind of shows graphically what we would look to do if we did reduce the subsidy to 75% next year.

We would still have program expenses above revenue mainly because there's going to be a lot of staffing costs involved in onboarding 50 new participants. But then by fiscal year twenty eight reducing the subsidy to 50% you can see we finally get to a spot where program expenses are kind of within our revenue. So with that the recommendation is that Santa Rosa Water that the Board of Public Utilities by motion approve the following changes to the Help to Others program. Number one, for fiscal year twenty seven add 50 additional applicants from the waitlist and lower the program subsidy to 75% of fixed fees. And then number two for fiscal year twenty twenty eight lower the program subsidy to 50% of fixed fees.

And with that I can answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Board Member questions or comments? Board Member Wright?

Thank you for the presentation. Yeah, I support this. I think that you've done pretty much what we requested. You do, I don't know, several months ago, so I think we're certainly on track and I like that we found 47,000 That was a pretty good deal. So anyway, thank you very much, I support this.

Other board member questions or comments? Board member Badenfort.

I just want to dovetail off of Board member Wright's comments that, thank you, program redesign on the fly and unexpectedly is appreciated. You found an excellent balance between serving as many folks as we possibly can while preserving the sustainability of the program. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

My question is if we add 50 from the waitlist, how many are then left on that waitlist?

Probably another 300. 300?

Alright, any other board member questions

Let or me just add one little While part to the waitlist is about three fifty, we have not vetted that all those people are actually eligible for the program. Those are just three fifty people that have called and said they are interested in the program. So we do suspect that if we were to add 50 people, probably the first 50 names are not all going to meet the income verification and that we would actually probably go beyond 50 names on the waitlist.

Gotcha, thank you. Okay, other board member questions or comments? Alright, we'll open it up for public comment on item 11.2 if you wish to make a comment.

My neighbor, it was sounding to me like your staff members kind of not too happy about proposition two eighteen and the fact that you can't use rate payer funds to sub to to fund us like somehow you should be charging more to some people so you can handle more subsidies. Yeah, two eighteen gives us some protection, but I will say that, you know, I object to the very existence of this program. This is a fee and it's supposed to be uniform and everybody's supposed to pay their fair share. So it's not right to be doing this with, some discretionary funds that you get to how who knows how you get them if you're gonna subsidize subsidize everybody, not a select few. And I also say this, there's massive welfare fraud going on in Santa Rosa.

I suspect quite a few of your beneficiaries here are lying about their income to be eligible.

Thank you for your comment. Any other public comments?

If not, I'll entertain a motion. I'll move that the board approve the following changes to the Help to Others program. Number one, for fiscal year twenty twenty seven add 50 applicants from the waiting list to the program and lower the program subsidy to 75% of fixed fees and two for fiscal year twenty twenty eight lower the program subsidy to 50% of fixed fees.

Second.

Motion by board member Wright seconded by board member Badenfort. May we please have a roll call vote?

Board Member Wright?

Aye.

Board Member Meissler? Board Member DeWitt?

Yes.

Board Member Badenfort? Aye. Vice Chair Anoni? Aye. And Chair Galvin. Aye. Let the record reflect that motion passes unanimously.

Thank you again. Item number 12 is public comment on non agenda matters. Please again state your name for the record and wait till the timer starts.

This

gentleman was here first so we'll let him go That's okay.

Michael Hilbert. I will comment on this demonstration landscaping that the city of Santa Rosa put out in front of this building and around the parking lot. It's got some signs saying, you know, it's sustainable and resilient and all that stuff. It costs a huge amount of money. And it's got that really ugly desert grass.

It looks like a broom that you stuck it in upside down and it's sticking up like that and a bunch of wood chips. And you're supposed to use minimal water. Well, I noticed, you know, out there, you can't help but notice that all the wood chips are supposed to keep it clean, you know, because we had a few heavy rainstorms. It just massive amounts of grass and weeds and dandelions are growing up all around there. It looks no better than, you know, the average neglected yard that's full of grass and weeds, you know.

Nobody's gonna go out there and pull that stuff. You know, it is more a waste of money than anything else. If I if I let grass and weeds grow in my yard and hit it with a weed whacker, it really wouldn't be any worse than what you got out there, and I didn't spend. What did what what what was that? Hundreds of thousands of dollars on that? You know, I really don't think people can responsibly manage money in this city. Every you got signs out there saying how great it is. Well, I don't think it's so great. Go out there and look at all those dandelions and weeds and grass. It's more of a mess than anything else and a waste of money.

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree on that one. Go ahead, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you. Janice Carmen. I wanna talk about PG and E and the fact that they haven't paid the fire victims, and that goes back to the Tubbs fire, which we suffered in 2017. Two years later, we had another fire.

There's the fire in Paradise. There's all kinds of fires, and PG and E has been very irresponsible about attention to the fire victims. The last time I spoke about this, about two months ago, I think, I know someone who got a message that said, We'll be paying you soon. And then I looked up the PG and E today, and they're actually acting as their own lobby. They're doing a lot of charitable work and offering a lot of money to San Luis Obispo right now.

They have changed the name to reopen the nuclear facility on Mount Diablo. They've been expanding. They've been raising the rates. It seems like they're raising rates about every few months, and the people are suffering from what PG and E is doing. Plus PG and E

Excuse me, ma'am. I appreciate your comments, but PG and E has nothing to do with this board or

Well, does have it to do because the last time I spoke here, it was about the easement on Hartville Road that you were giving to PG and E. And I just wanna say, don't cooperate with PG and E. Don't do anything that PG and E asks. They're doing illegal things by going down and and offering money to people in San Luis Obispo, and that's just the beginning of it. I don't think they paid off the San Mateo, explosion that happened there, and we should not continue to acquiesce to them.

They they are causing a lot of damage in the society, and it has to do with AI, and it has to do with backing the AI facilities all around the country that they're moving in a lot of people that don't even know what's going on, up the property and develop. And it's horrible on the resources and the water, the electricity. It's all necessary for AI, and I'm not totally against AI. There's a good thing about AI. They might be able to take the pharmaceuticals and take them from twelve years.

I was in a Stanford physician assistant program. While I was there, it took a long time. Later, I sold wine and I was selling wine to people who were at at these other places, and it was still taking ten to twelve years to get a pharmaceutical to market. And with AI, we'd be able to do it, they think, within four months, which would take the physical labor out of developing a pharmaceutical and would reduce our medical costs. It's related. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing no one rise, that'll take care of our public comments. We have no referrals. We have no written communications. I believe we have one subcommittee report. Board Member Badenfort.

Yes, thank you Chair Galvin. The Water Conservation Subcommittee met on Monday, May 18, and received an update from staff on recent state regulation that bans the irrigation of nonfunctional turf at commercial, industrial, and institutional sites. Staff provided an overview of the new regulation, reviewed the changes to city code, and provided an update on the outreach that is planned to inform our customers about this very challenging new regulation that everybody will be following before too long. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Any questions from the board of board member Badinfort? You may.

Hello, I'd like to add something because I'm a member of that subcommittee and appreciate Ms. Badinfort's good work on that and point out an earlier question I had made about school districts. They basically need to do better water conservation on the school districts at least in my area of Roseland. And I do believe that this water conservation subcommittee and the Board of Public Utilities could do a good job of communicating to school districts to not waste water. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments? We'll open it up for public comment on item 15. Here's to make a comment. Please move to the podium.

Just want to hello.

Go ahead.

It's not there yet. I'm waiting for, oh, they never showed the three minutes. It doesn't matter. I'm not gonna go on for a long time. I just support everything and anything that can be done to, recover the water and to, have have the water as we've we've done an amazing job with it here in this county, And as I've been speaking over the last couple of years, my husband was a water agency engineer, self trained Swedish engineer.

It wasn't his first language. Went to the state of California, got licensed, and went to work for the water agency. I also was very active with the agricultural board because he became the agricultural engineer for the Valley Of The Moon when the wineries were developing. And I saw lots of things during that time, but I didn't see anything like I saw when we moved to Indonesia. We were working in Indonesia on a five year plan of a thirty year water plan.

The water is really, really special, and we have done a good job so far. We've had some marks that didn't exactly carry us well for a while. I also lived through the drought, and earlier they misquoted the time as far as I know because I remember it as being about '75, '77, somewhere in there. But, we haven't had times like that. Before, it was if it's yellow, let it mellow, and if it's the other, flush it down.

I mean, there was a lot of disgusting stuff going on during the droughts, but we haven't had one since. And I have to say that the water and what Duane also said about the conservation, it's important. And it's important to teach the young people that water is as precious as it is. And there was a book a long time ago, The Solid Gold Cadillac, I believe, that talked about water at least 30 ago. And it's very necessary for people to have it uppermost in their mind, and that's another reason why I talked about this zoning today and zoning enforcement for people that do drill wells when they shouldn't be drilling them and haven't gotten any permissions.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. That'll take care of this subcommittee report. Any board member reports? Director's report?

I do not have one today.

All right. That concludes our agenda for today. So we will adjourn with a further welcome to Board Member Meissler. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to working with you and we are adjourned.