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YOU MUST TELL US WHY YOU THINK YOU SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK
That is pretty much the attitude of Soquel Creek Water District Board Chairman Bruce Daniels, now that all members of the public must submit a written request to the Board to pull any Consent Agenda item for better public discussion.  One also must write the Clerk of the Board to ask to speak on specific regular agenda items.  If you don’t, you cannot speak.  

I am grateful for the kind consideration of Board member Bruce Jaffe who is agreeable to my requests that Consent Agenda items get pulled, even though Chairman Daniels makes it clear that I have not provided the Board with any good reason for doing so.  Apparently, “for better public discussion” has no meaning to Chairman Daniels.  I really appreciate Bruce Jaffe. 

SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT IS DIGGING A DEEP HOLE OF DEBT FOR CUSTOMER BURDEN BUT STAFF WILL GET A 6% RAISE
Any Soquel Creek Water District customer should be worried about how much their water will cost them in the next couple of years and be concerned about the massive debt the District is loading up on your wallet. There were 18 participants logged into the May 5 Soquel Creek Water District Board meeting.  Maybe one of them was you. If not, let me fill you all in a bit on what happened that has me especially concerned for the financial fate of the District’s rate payers.

I’ll begin with the Budget Presentation, Item 7.3

Usually the Board hears the annual Budget presentation in the form of a separate workshop.  This year, it was presented as “a robust memo”.  There was to have been a presentation by Raftelis rate consultant to inform the Board about the real financial situation post-rate increases and how it is affecting revenues and customers.  That was not part of the presentation. 

Financial Director Leslie Strohm went quickly through a dizzying amount of material quickly.  The upshot is that they will need to borrow an additional $57.7 million to support the expenses of the PureWater Soquel Project ($55.2 million) and the Quail Run Tank Project ($2.5 million), causing the total debt service next year to approach $4.8 million and remain as such for 20 years.  (see pages 157 and 158)  

Water sales are down, and are projected to decrease by $1.1 million (although on page 139, it is stated that water sales are up by $449,600).  

The operating expenses are projected to rise by $2 million in 2020/2021, but without explanation.  If PureWater Soquel gets built, that would raise annual operating expenses by an estimated $2.5 million for that system alone. 

With the addition of more AMI (“smart meters”) registers, it is expected that more customers will fall into the expensive Tier 2 pricing.  The District has budgeted $50,000 in revenue next year, due to penalties for late payments.  They paid a staff member to attend a webinar by the Special Districts Association to learn “How to Collect Unpaid Bills”.  Ron Duncan said staff has suggested forming a Go-Fund-Me campaign to help raise money for the people who cannot afford to pay their water bills.  There was supposed to have been a discussion about the three different ways customers who are unable to pay their water bill could get a credit.  That discussion did not happen, and was described in the Financial Staff Report, citing there would be other discussion about it in later agenda items.  It was not part of the “Robust Memo Item”.

Because of the debt the Board feels is necessary to take on to move ahead on PureWater Soquel, they discussed postponing other capital improvement projects, such as main replacements.  The only project they cannot postpone is the Alta Drive trenching and paving project in La Selva Beach, because it is being mandated by the County, according to Leslie Strohm.  

Most disturbing was the discussion about how to cut costs.  Leslie Strohm said various departments had worked together to cut $1 million in order to present a balanced budget to the Board.  Bruce Daniels pointed out that since the Water Transfers will end this December, they could eliminate the proposed $90,000 set aside for water purchases and testing . “The agreement ends in December, so that’s a good place where money wont get spent.”  Bruce Daniels said. Tom LaHue asked if the District is still negotiating with the City?  Ron Duncan simply said “Yes, maybe a $50,000 Pilot Water Transfer would be more appropriate to budget.” 

“But if we don’t transfer anything, then that’s zero.” said Bruce Daniels.  He reminded the Board that the price the City wants to charge will determine everything, and since they can’t give the District the $300/AF price (referring to that law suit from the North Coast farmers) it will be too expensive.  “I’d rather give the money to PureWater Project.” he said. 

Bruce Daniels then wanted to further decrease the Conservation Dept. budget.  It had already been decreased budgeted customer rebates by $60,000.  He said he felt that with the economic depression of the COVID-19 situation, people will be just trying to pay their bills and won’t have money to do water-saving projects.

Leslie Strohm told the Board they may have to look at raising rates further in 2023. 

There are some odd expenditures by the District regarding the Water Transfer Project, evidenced in the March warrants. I pointed out to the Board that it appeared the Monterey Bay Analytical labs had double-billed $2,227.50 on March 27.(page 39/40)  I also asked why Miles Farmer was paid $2,800 again this month to do water sampling for the Water Transfer Project when the intertie and transfer project got shut down in the end of January, and never resumed?(page 39).  The District paid the City $1,947 for water purchase, but I am not clear if that it the total amount. 

Meanwhile, salaries are up 6%, and the pension benefits are up 12.4%, largely because the CalPERS unfunded pension debt.  The District is adding 2 new Full Time Employees this year..I am unsure what they will do. That’s the upshot of their Budget discussion.  Leslie Strohm will come back June 2 with a proposal to borrow $57.2 million and ask the Board to approve the 2020/2021 budget. They all thanked her profusely.

I encourage you to listen to their Board meeting proceedings.  I as glad to be able to point out to them that in the “What’s On Tap’ item 4.12, there was misinformation….”our hydrologists tell us that 5.99 units per household per day is sustainable.”  for the groundwater basin levels.  I asked them to explain that claim if it were true.  Bruce Daniels admitted it was an error and directed staff to correct it.  “Good one.” said Director Christensen.  No one thanked me for pointing that error out.  Oh well.

CITY OF SANTA CRUZ WATER COMMISSION ALSO CONSIDERS RAISING RATES
On May 4, the Santa Cruz City Water Commission met via teleconference and discussed “water pricing priorities”, which is a very politically-correct way of saying RAISING WATER RATES.

City water rates went up a couple of years ago, and the rate structure changed, too.  Now, it’s time to start priming the pump for another rate increase, and that happened at the City Water Commission meeting.  Unfortunately, those meetings are not recorded…but should be. I got busy and forgot to check for the City Water Commission meeting agenda…I used to get notices, but that hasn’t happened in awhile.

I think pages 21- 22 have interesting information about the capital improvement projects and operations.

There was an interesting agenda for the Commission’s May 4 meeting that featured a presentation by Raftelis to discuss setting priorities on water pricing, beginning at page 55.  This is the same rate consultant that Soquel Creek Water District uses.  Watch out!  The issue will be determining the Cost of Service.

There is also a good report about the Annual Water Demand and Assessment for 2020 on page 45.

This report summarizes current water supply conditions and presents information supporting the staff recommendation that no water restrictions be implemented during the peak season of 2020.

 DISCUSSION: Water year 2020 is shaping up to be different from prior years in several ways. In contrast to water year 2019, which saw an optimal water supply outlook in April due to abundant rainfall and strong surface water runoff, water year 2020 has been marked by comparatively lower rainfall amounts overall and one entire month, February 2020, that was completely dry. River runoff has been considerably lower throughout the winter thus far. As of the writing of this report in mid-April, rainfall totals in the City measured 22.66 inches, about 77% of average for the season to date. Cumulative river runoff for the San Lorenzo is following the trend of the 2018 water year. The current cumulative runoff amount as of April 15th is 25,717 acre-feet. In 2018, the end of March cumulative runoff amount was just over 22,000 acre-feet. That amount alone would classify the year as critically dry. However, in 2018 the cumulative runoff crossed the threshold from critically dry to dry by the end of May which ended the water year in the dry category. It is expected that this current water year, 2020, will follow a similar pattern and the water year will be classified as dry. Water conditions have improved somewhat, 5.1 beginning in mid-March and then again in early-April when several late-season storms provided much needed precipitation to the central coast region. These late season storms pushed up the local rainfall and runoff totals. If not for these storms, the water year classification would surely fall squarely in the critically dry category. 

There is good information on pages 51-53.

Did you by chance  listen in on that teleconference meeting?  If so, please let me know what happened.

OVERREACHING NEW COUNTY ANIMAL ORDINANCES WOULD LIKELY WIPE OUT THE SANTA CRUZ COUNTY FAIR AND 4-H
The May 12, 2020 Board of Supervisor Agenda Item #8 proposes massive changes to the County’s animal and animal husbandry codes, and if passed, would wipe potentially out the Santa Cruz County Fair animal exhibits and 4-H showmanship activities.  It would also make anyone with more than three dogs or more than five cats endure home inspections and hefty animal facility license fees.  

People need to write the Board and request these proposed changes get vetted by small family farm owners, 4-H / FFA, the Santa Cruz County Fair Board, the County Agricultural Commission, the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and the public in general.  Why are such broad and overreaching changes being shoved through during this crazy Shelter-in-Place time when no real public meetings are allowed?

The Board may decide to approve these changes, and have a second reading of the changes on May 19, thereby adopting them.  However, if enough people have contacted them by Tuesday morning, the Board may request staff to make changes. 

I must say, the County Administrative Officer, Carlos Palacios, who is sponsoring this cannonball, really made it difficult over the weekend for the public to access the proposed new language from the website.

Many attached files became “corrupted and not able to be uploaded”, but eventually got repaired, only to have others disappear and be replaced with incorrect and irrelevant documents (“Redevelopment Successor Agency Financial Statement and Independent Audit June 30, 2019”).   Hmmmm…..