MINUTES

The Board of Directors of Brooktrails Township Community Services District met in regular session February 14, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. at the Brooktrails Community Center.

A. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

B. ROLL CALL
Roll call showed the following Directors present: Williams, Ziady, Horrick, Skezas and Orth. Also present were General Manager Chapman and District Counsel Neary.

REPORT ON CLOSED SESSION
None.

C. ADDITIONS/ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA
None.

D. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS
1. January 24, 2006 - Director Orth moved to approve the minutes as presented; Director Horrick seconded. The motion carried unanimously.

E. SPECIAL PRESENTATION
None.

F. PUBLIC HEARING
None.

G. PUBLIC COMMENTS
Roger Wear, owner of Gateway Realty, made comments that our dam could be used to produce electricity and that solar panels could be installed on it and that this would solve the fossil fuels problem locally. John Pinches discussed a plan he had proposed 10 years ago to pump water back from the Eel River at Dos Rios to existing reservoirs and said he had brought this to the Brooktrails Board and other governmental entities seven years ago. He said this would solve the water crisis in the area, not just for Brooktrails. Ginger Pohlson said the North Coast Integrated Regional Water Management Plan came out in July 2005 and the money is there to help us with our water projects relating to the moratorium. She further commented that the residents of Redwood Valley Water District had sued that District about a year before their moratorium was enacted due to giving connections when water was not available. Tom Porter, Chairman and CEO of the Deerwood Corporation, asked to give a presentation later.

H. CONSENT CALENDAR
2. Review of Accounts Payable Report and authorization to issue checks. Director Orth moved to approve payment of the outstanding invoices; Director Ziady seconded and the motion carried unanimously.

I. ACTION AGENDA
3. Report on Water Processed and Sold (Calendar 2005). Via an overhead projector to a full crowd, General Manager Chapman summarized the annual water processed and sold report (three year chart). He briefly explained the terminology of production and sold, and further explained that some of the difference was due to backwashes, line flushings, hydrant use, etc. He then reviewed the 2005 figures as follows: 213 gallons per day (g.p.d.) produced per customer; 172 g.p.d. used per customer; national consumption average 340 g.p.d. The topic then turned to leak reduction. He pointed out the 18% loss in 2003 was reduced to 14% loss in 2005. Part of this was attributable to the discovery of the massive Birch Street leak in December 2004. Also, the year 2005 was wetter than 2004, particularly in May and June. Lastly, Mr. Chapman reported that our crews were going to place a pressure reducing station in Spring Creek this spring to help alleviate the line pressures in that area.

Comments came from directors. Director Orth clarified that during the winter we must keep the dam spillway open, releasing water for flood control until April each year. Director Ziady pointed out that the water system was placed in 1963 and its age needs to be considered, as maintenance investments will be needed over the next 20 years.

Dave Gregarson, a vacant lot owner from the Bay Area, represented himself as "blue collar" and as a representative of "the little people" in this situation. He said he had bought his lot as an investment, and he didn't want to wait five or six years for his property to go up in value. He further added that he would be glad to be assessed $1,000 as long as he could leave this meeting with something concrete.

Director Orth moved to accept the water report for 2005 and file it; Director Horrick seconded and the motion carried unanimously.

4. Division of Dams & Dam Safety update regarding rubber spillway. General Manager Chapman explained current water storage capacity to the audience with a diagram on paper. He pointed out the siltation at the bottom of Lake Emily has caused about 70 acre-feet of water loss from the original 270. Raising the dam 3' via the rubber spillway will yield 50 more acre-feet of water storage. The current cost estimate is at least $1 million, but the exact figure is not known yet because core drillings have to be done to know the inner compaction of the dam. Ultimately the silt will be dredged and used to build up the base of the dam in the next, larger project, raising Lake Emily 15'. Mr. Chapman continued that the rubber spillway project will be attempted to be done within the next two years, whereas the dredging/raising 15' project would be at least a five-year project, given its scope (i.e., moving dirt). He then once again clarified that the rubber spillway will not take the District out of the moratorium.

General Manager Chapman continued by saying that we have to resolve two issues with the Division of Dams: the nearness of the Maacama Fault, and the need for us to be able to store water sooner than April 1. The Board directed the manager in November 2005 that as soon as those questions are satisfied, we will perform the core sample tests. If there are any problems with the core tests regarding the chimney (which runs parallel to the dam crest at the high water mark), we will have a much more expensive project. There is no way to know until the sampling is done. The compaction tests should be done by at least June 1, and we will immediately start the CEQA process afterwards. USDA Rural Development and LaSalle Bank in Texas are both interested in funding the project. Mr. Chapman said he hoped to have all preliminary work done by December 1 and then get the bid packet out. Construction would have to start on August 1, 2007, which happens to be our high demand month. We would have to send a letter to all water customers asking them to conserve water during construction.

Comments came from the directors and the floor. Mr. Chapman then confirmed for Claudia Reed of the Willits News that the rubber spillway could be lifted and used on the dam after the 15' raise as well. Director Orth commented that the rubber spillway could be financed internally with a loan, but raising the dam 15' would require a Prop. 218 election and assessments according to benefit. Every property owner will have a vote for every property they own.

An audience member asked for clarification about the water rights application being reduced. Mr. Chapman said that the Specific Plan took the expected users from 6,000 to 4,000 in 1997. If there are 4,000 users we will need about 1,000 acre feet of water. Currently the 1982 water rights permit is 2,452 acre-feet. Revising this down to about 1,000 will more than provide water for 4,000 SFRs.

The discussion then turned to the third dam. Mr. Chapman discussed the improbability of the third dam, due to three major concerns: First is the several slides in the proposed area; second is the concern of CA Fish & Game regarding a new dam on an in-line fishery stream; and the third issue was that the dam would have been 120 feet high, nine times larger capacity-wise than Lake Emily, creating a different floodplain issue.

Tom Porter asked what is forcing the District to revise downward at all. He suggested keeping the water and selling it. Director Orth commented that the Specific Plan calculated how many SFRs this District could realistically provide water for. It was necessary to calculate this, and now we have a legal basis for our water rights application quantity. Mr. Porter said if the District was going to ask 6,000 lot owners to sign on a Prop. 218 assessment, there should be enough water for 6,000 lots. Director Orth responded that the District had set up a very successful lot merging program where each two lots merged resulted in one less required water/sewer connection. The Specific Plan set this in place to deal with the 2,000 excess lots. Mr. Porter asked if the District were going to identify the 2,380 lots that are not going to be built on and advise those lots. Director Orth said the market will do that. Mr. Porter responded that the market is being driven down by the actions of this board and previous boards. Director Orth said that each Brooktrails lot with water has a higher value now, so once Lake Emily is raised 15', the values Mr. Porter used to sell lots for will now be there. He said the District cannot take care of 60 years from now, but can work on a 20-year window, and that's as much as we can do.

An audience member asked about an earlier comment that if you have three lots, you have three votes. District Counsel Neary said that a Prop. 218 election will weight the values of the improvement to each lot. If there is a lot that will never be built on, their portion of the 218 obligation will be very small, if anything. The existing lots will have a vote but they will have a very low weighting because they will not be gaining a benefit from the improvement. An audience member asked how many additional hookups the rubber spillway would provide. Mr. Chapman said it would take us to around 1,100, still 400 short of current needs. He said the primary goal was to be able to collect water earlier than April 1, and the additional 50 acre-feet of water was needed.

Director Ziady commented that the Tom Herman study was based on a drought year, and that we wouldn't have enough water for our current homes, and the rubber spillway helps address this by allowing an earlier collection of water. It would also be transferable to the higher dam.

Jim West asked if anyone had calculated how long the siltation had taken to accumulate, especially since, he said, the District is putting off putting in a catchment basin. Mr. Chapman said he had not made that calculation, but it had taken 40 years to lose 22% of capacity. Director Ziady commented that the previous logging had contributed to the siltation. She noted the District's recent acquisition of 153 acres above the dam which had been logged, but will no longer be logged.

An audience member asked if a flotation type of dredging system would be used. Mr. Chapman said it could, but that he would let the engineers deal with that. Bob Turner asked if the Specific Plan could be changed; Mr. Chapman said it is updated every five years. The discussion turned to reserves. Mr. Turner said he felt if we continue to buy new things, we won't have any reserves. Mr. Chapman said we have about $257,000 in reserves now, but gave examples of pending expenses such as a $15,000 pressure reducing station in Spring Creek, and a $15,000 tank liner. Mr. Turner asked why reserves weren't being collected for raising the dam 15'. Director Orth noted that you cannot raise the dam 15' with reserves, and the rubber spillway will be done with borrowed funds paid back by the ratepayers.

An audience member asked when this study finding negative capacity was done; Mr. Chapman responded it was February 2003, and this was the California Department of Health Services. The topic turned to timing of the projects. Ms. Pohlson said that realistically, if everything goes right, this project will take 15 years. Mr. Chapman disagreed. Ms. Pohlson said everyone agreed with Director Orth's statement that we have to have a 218, but, she said if you're only going to benefit 1,000 lot owners, what will happen to the other 3,000 - 4,000. She proposed offsite storage, perhaps to be paid for by only the persons using it, and felt it might cost each family $75-100,000 and she felt this would be preferable to a 218 election, and that it would be better to deliver the services early and have just the specific users pay for them than to wait another 10 years and have everyone pay. She said we are overselling a project we can't deliver.

Director Ziady said she had no doubt that prices will go up and that off-site water storage will be in our future and will be very expensive, but to ask someone to pay $50,000 for a water hookup is going to be very difficult.

President Skezas said the meeting would proceed to the next agenda item after a five-minute break.

5. Update on water moratorium and request for 10 service connections. General Manager Chapman gave copies of his staff report to every individual and couple in the room. He then briefed his report. He mentioned that DHS initially limited us to 1,451 connections, but later allowed 59 more individuals who were actively pursuing development at the time the moratorium was imposed. Mr. Chapman believed we have made enough progress now to ask for 10 more connections, which would be requested for those individuals on our waiting list from years 2003 and 2004. This would take our total count to 1,520. He stressed we are still in a moratorium, and further addressed the fact that each year we have a different set of dynamics regarding rainfall, and that we are dependent on the weather, particularly in April and May. He expressed appreciation for District Counsel Neary's help. He said he had touched on the suggestion of asking for more connections with Bruce Burton of DHS, who has not said he would grant such a request, but who had asked for a position paper and the support of the District Board to accompany any request.

Mr. Chapman said he would cover moratorium complexities, review what we have done in the last three years, and present a timeline for future projects. He said we have a capacity problem, and that's why we are proposing the rubber spillway and raising the dam. We also have a legal obligation to augment our available water supply in order to meet increasing demand. He then discussed in some detail the demographics issue and that Brooktrails was unique in the size of its water/sewer system. Lastly, he touched on politics as a fourth issue.

Mr. Chapman then spoke about what we have done during the last three years: the well program, the clearwell and backwash ponds project, the USGS monitoring station / bypass monitor, and our leak detection program. The latter program has led to a lower loss percentage; Mr. Chapman felt that if we bottom out at a 14% loss percentage from leaks, we are in a way increasing capacity over time. He noted that the compliance order required us to create an emergency water conservation ordinance, which we have done.

Mr. Chapman pointed out the Estabrook water projection model, computed twice yearly, as extremely important. It enables us to predict our water supply as of December 1 in May, and would serve as the trigger device for implementing water conservation procedures in a dry year. Director Orth noted that we have a USGS gauging station in the headwaters of Lake Emily and a flow bypass meter on our releases at the bottom of the dam to monitor our Fish & Game releases. With these devices greater efficiency is being accomplished in releases, and they are providing us a database to accompany our water rights application. Director Ziady said that the gauging station over time will provide data that might alter some of the Tom Herman study results in our favor. Mr. Porter said that Mr. Burton had told the Board that if data showed the Herman model to be too conservative, that would be a factor to revise the compliance order targets.

The General Manager continued about the near future. He spoke about the weeper ditch at Lake Ada Rose, and said we will attempt to capture water from that as well this summer.

Mr. Chapman reviewed project timelines. He cited the drilling of one well per year and then went on to the rubber spillway project and targeted 2008, or sooner, for that project. Mr. Chapman said immediately after the rubber spillway installation, we would reevaluate the lake's capacity with a new engineering study, along with water and sewer rates. He then moved on to the third project -- raising Lake Emily by 15'. He said we are still waiting from Hanson Engineering as to the cost, but once this factor is known he would get some engineers who specialize in the 218 bond / ballot process before the Board.

An audience member asked if 4,600 was the target figure; Mr. Chapman reiterated that raising the dam 15' should increase the capacity to 2,600, which is the next phase. Another audience member asked if we were seriously thinking that 4,800 people would vote on this if half of them don't get any benefit. Mr. Chapman said that is why we are discussing the issue. Another audience member inquired as to why the Tom Herman study was done in the first place. Mr. Chapman said this was the result of the 2001 DHS biennial inspection. In January 2002 the District hired Tom Herman and the study was begun, and the report came out in February 2003, which caused the moratorium. Director Orth interjected that throughout this county and the state, water districts are being required to look at their capacity issues, including Hopland and Ukiah. Ms. Pohlson said when the development was sold in 1965, there was only water for 300 houses; the County approved a project that was not viable.

Mr. Chapman said the only way we are going to get through this is to get a successful 218 bond issue passed. Director Williams asked if the 2,600 figure was predicated on the study that told us that in drought years we only had enough water for 741 homes. Mr. Chapman said no, it was in relationship to the Estabrook model. Mr. Estabrook spoke from the audience and said his model was based on the same model Tom Herman used. Director Williams said it may turn out that the basic assumptions of the Herman model were wrong. Mr. Chapman said he was not saying that, but was saying that we would be reevaluating it because we have been collecting actual data on flow into the reservoir for three or four years, whereas Tom Herman had to extrapolate his data from other data from another area. Director Williams said that the number was an uncertain number, although we are talking about it as if it were a certain number, and could change based on the data we get out of our meters in the next two years. Mr. Estabrook commented that you needed 40 or 50 years worth of data from such gauging stations to make any valid statistical changes to the Tom Herman study, and this was why Mr. Herman had based his calculations on data from Dos Rios beginning in the 1950s. Director Williams commented that this was a certain figure, then.

General Manager Chapman said a decision would have to be made within the next 18 months as to whether we would have two Prop. 218 votes (raising the dam and second access road), or whether they would be combined. He said this was something to be reviewed by the assessing engineers. John Pinches said he knew from his experience on the Board of Supervisors that this question had already been asked and answered, and it would have to be two separate votes. Director Orth said he felt that was probably very accurate, but he felt they might need two 218 elections at the same time.

District Counsel Neary said that since Prop. 218 was passed there has been some experience with it , and at some point there will be experts on Prop. 218 elections to address these questions for the Board with pinpoint accuracy. Ms. Pohlson commented that Potter Valley has a $4 million road project. Director Orth said they were not a community services district like we are. Ms. Pohlson asked if Potter Valley was going to have to pay a share of their project. Mr. Pinches responded that the money had already been set aside by the county. Ms. Pohlson asked why we have to pay a share of our road if Potter Valley does not have to; Mr. Pinches replied it is a difference in representation. Ms. Pohlson concluded by asking again why we are taking it upon ourselves to pay for a road. Director Orth said right now the County is asking for only 25 to 50% of the road, but we can't know now how the funding will be taken care of as we will seek both federal and state funds to offset costs.

Mr. Chapman continued that between 2011 and 2013, as soon as we get the reservoir
raised by 15', we will have to install a half-million gallon storage tank on the airport side of
the District due to current population density in that area (60% of residents). Mr. Chapman
noted that another bottleneck that must be addressed is that our sewer line going to Willits
is going to max out at 2,200 homes. And if we have a reservoir for 2,600 homes, we will have
to address increasing our sewer line capacity.

Moving on to off-site storage, Mr. Chapman showed a chart for a series of tanks that could be developed along the "golf course road" where a 12" hard water line runs between Lake Emily and to our water plant. He said tanks are very effective if you can get a well to fill it up, but if you just put one on the ground and have no way to fill it, it will be phenomenally expensive. The tanks he envisioned would be gravity-fed and linked in a series. He reviewed the potential sites, noting there were about a dozen.

An audience member asked how many houses an acre-foot would serve. Mr. Estabrook said that looking at a dry year like 1991, an acre-foot would serve about 4.75 households. Mr. Pinches said that the State allows one acre-foot per household per year in water rights applications. An audience member asked about storage tanks being placed by the dam; she said she lives right across from the dam and asked how that would affect her house, if, for example, it should break in an earthquake. Mr. Chapman said if the dam breaks, that would affect her house too; he said he did not mean to be facetious, but sites must be found, and there was a small flat section below Lake Emily.

Mr. Chapman said he was asking the Board to allow the District to request connections for 10 more individuals from DHS at this point, with the goal of sending a message to vacant lot owners that there was a very small light at the end of the tunnel, and he thought it was doable and would not take 15 years. The key to it, however, was a successful 218 election. He further pointed out that the Board cannot answer to all 6,000 lot owners at once, but rather must work in phases as the Specific Plan suggests. He said he felt if we were granted the 10 connections, it would be within two weeks.

Claudia Reed of the Willits News presented her calculations of all of the improvements noted in the staff report as adding up to 164 SFRs in additional water, and asked why, if we need to add 741 SFRs just to meet current needs, the District would ask for 10 more connections at this point. Mr. Chapman said that there were legal issues, and the State will make a ruling; he said he is trying to present a mechanism for potential funding, and it is crucial for vacant lot owners to help us pass this bond.

Mr. Chapman said another issue was that people being granted connections are not part of a lottery contest. He said language would be prepared to ensure that building was actually part of the process. He said the District would prepare legislation so that profiteering would be prevented, and people would actually have the opportunity to build homes. He finished by suggesting that we are just now finishing the Clearwell project, we are more familiar with construction methods and and financing; we are now known by USDA Rural Development and have contacts throughout California that can help us achieve our goals. Mr. Chapman said he was therefore very optimistic about the process. He opened the floor to discussion.

Mr. Porter said in 1994 he recommended building a third reservoir which would have served all future homes. He said the bond issue would have passed for certain, and the reservoir would have been totally constructed by 1998. He stated that past boards had mismanaged the community. He said if the Board starts talking about 6 or 8 or 15 years, he felt that lawsuits could not be stopped, even if they wanted to stop them. He said there needed to be an expedited program. He said that lots with good water are worth about $100,000.00 minimum. He said his opinion was we were not letting everybody into the process. Mr. Porter said a lot of the discussion is assessing 4,830 lot owners and raising this dam 15', and said the 4,830 vacant lot owners should be notified, and that if the District doesn't have the money to do this they should call him for assistance, and he would be happy to let them know there would be a meeting affecting the future value of their property. He said we have to evaluate which of the 6,000 lots are not going to be built on, or we're going to have to provide lots for them, and said these people have been paying taxes and assessments since 1967. He said there were public reports saying there would be a third reservoir. He then said the Board should consider affordable housing and he supposed they were working with the County on this. He urged the District to reconsider reducing the water rights to below 4,000; he said absolutely not, don't give up any of the valuable resource that you have.

John Pinches then spoke at length on the idea of the Dos Rios High Flow project he had earlier addressed. It would be about a $250 million project, depending on the environmental review costs. Discussion followed about the relative costs of the Brooktrails project and this larger project. Director Orth commented that the Brooktrails projects were less costly.

Kurt Ackermann expressed his support of the Pinches proposal, and made a presentation on the fairness and benefits of a Prop. 218 bond measure. He said he could not believe the Board was proposing that the newcomers carry the freight. He said water must be provided for all 6,000 lot owners even though they would not all build and must identify the 2,000-plus who would not get benefits. Director Orth responded that the half-million-dollar 218 engineering study would identify the benefit for each particular lot. Mr. Ackermann concluded that everyone should be assessed for increased water capacity. He also protested the high value of Brooktrails housing, which he said went up because of the District's moratorium.

An audience member clarified that it is the State's moratorium, not the District's.

Director Williams asked the audience if it is their expectation was that somehow this community services district provide affordable housing in Brooktrails. Various responses indicated that this was expected, on some lots. Audience comments followed that Willits and other localities were not expected to provide this. Director Orth said that affordable housing must be located within one-half mile of services, which cannot be done in Brooktrails.

At this point President Skezas said he would like to address the motion to support the General Manager's request that 10 more service connections be released to the District at this time. Director Orth so moved. Discussion resumed. Ms. Pohlsonsaid the waiting list needs to be stopped right now and a lottery instituted instead. President Skezas said that would be another agenda item. Mr. Estabrook took the podium and urged the Board to hold off on the motion. He said the moratorium is based on a reasonably worst case dry year scenario and this has last occurred in 1991 and will happen again. He said if we get such a year, we will be under water rationing under Ord. 122, where the stored amount will be allocated equally among all water customers. He reviewed some calculations prepared for this meeting to see what the rationing amount would actually be, and said his model assumes that we already have the rubber spillway and are able to inflate it before April 1. Mr. Estabrook gave his working data as: the 1991 drawdown began April 2 and lasted for 9 months, and the average water use per day per Brooktrails SFR was the recent figure, 198 gallons) was 198 gallons, with August typically the highest water use month with an average water use of 256 g.p.d. He said when plugging the 1991 data into his model, the water rationing would be 134 g.p.d., requiring an average user to reduce usage by 32% for 9 months. He said if 10 more are added, each household will have to cut back 2 gallons more per day over the ordinary drought restriction He said it wasn't the 10 homes he's worried about, it's 50 homes. He asked where is the legally defensible argument for cutting it off at 10, and said his worry was that some kind of precedent would be set that we would not be able to legally stop at number 11 or number 50.

Mr. Porter said he gets lots of calls from people wanting to build and he has discouraged all of them due to the moratorium. He said if connections were to be allowed from the waiting list, he would come in with 100 applications on behalf of people; he said he would have plans and would meet all requirements. He said a lot of people have been discouraged, and that local people have the ability to come in and meet with the architect and prepare plans, but the others are being penalized.

Director Orth interjected that the whole discussion of off-stream storage came about as his proposal as an infill project prior to raising Lake Emily 15'. He said his original idea was that a group--such as the 20 on the waiting list--should pull together to buy and build a tank to serve just those homes. The hookup charges would be based upon their share of building that tank; they would pay an upfront share for capital costs and then for 40 years would have a surcharge on their bill. Mr. Porter said that would be a very fair way to do it. Wallace Stahle said this was a great idea, but not on topic. Director Orth responded that it was on topic, because if you have tanks for that very purpose of additional raw water storage, the benefit to the District was that you always want your storage capacity not just in reservoirs, but in some tank storage as well, because if a reservoir gets contaminated, all you're going to have is your tanks.

Wallace Stahle took the podium and asked the Board to hold off on this matter. He asked the Board to consider the idea of the waiting list because this gentleman [indicating Tom Porter] indicated he would just buy a whole bunch, and other lot owners would be out to lunch unless they bought one of his lots. Mr. Porter responded that he would be acting on behalf of those who had indicated a desire to build to him. Mr. Stahle said that Mr. Porter would have the waiting list, then, instead of the District. Mr. Porter said he would present it to the District.

President Skezas asked for any other comments on the specific motion, and then asked for comments from the Board. Director Williams said the first question that occurred to him was why only 10, and said he thought he understood the reason for that. He said he had been wondering how we were going to go from where we are to where we need to be, and the plan described to him sounded pretty ad hoc. He said there are 4,000 people who don't live here who don't know what's going on for the most part, unless there are people selling lots trying to keep people informed on an informal basis. He said Ginger Pohlson had discussed this with him and raised some serious issues, and he said he was going to vote no on this motion; he said if they were going to give any more permits, it can't just be fair to 10 or 20 people on the list, but to everyone, including the people who live here, who want to live here, and who are using this place as an investment vehicle. He said until we have resolved a lot of these issues, including how we get out of the moratorium, he did not think we should be issuing any more permits, because anything we do is going to be unfair to a lot of people.

Director Ziady said the District sent a newsletter to each property owner listing the process on the moratorium for the last couple of years. She said she had concerns like Richard Estabrook's about drought and whether we could deal with it. She said if we are liable for not providing water for new development, as people are saying, we are just as liable, like Redwood Valley is, if we develop, and then don't have the water. She said she was very hesitant to approve this because of serious concerns about the drought and where you stop and how you make it fair to people coming on to the list. She said she thought the Board has done a good job and great planning; she said perhaps there needs to be a session for the long term as well, but that long term involves multiple agencies and is not easy. She noted the other concerns addressed tonight, such as the Eel River proposal. She said she would probably be voting no, but said she understood the reason for the proposal was to give hope to people who want to live here, and she hoped we can go forward and raise the dam and give as many as we can that ability, short term, to build a home.

Director Orth said he looks at the fact that DHS has stated that in future they didn't plan to give us big release numbers, even if we could supply 2,600 by raising the dam 15'; instead, they will react to applications like this, and may give us so many per annum based upon the facts at hand. He said no Board ever has all the answers. He noted Tom Porter's comment about gross negligence, but repeated that no Board has all of the answers and we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

We try to project; we're forced into planning. He said the Specific Plan is the most focused thing we've done as a community, looking at the totality of the issues and trying to look forward 20 to 60 years. He said this is very difficult to do. He said you have major corporations in the last few months saying we're going to develop new water-saving technology, but we have no idea what that's going to be. He felt the Board was working very responsibly. He said we have to get this stuff done, we have to get the Specific Plan--the community vision--and turn it into projects. He said he did not want lawsuits taking up the dollars we could use taking care of these problems. He said he felt we should make this request, and that DHS could easily say no as well as yes. But he said they were the ones looking at all the projections, looking at all the districts around the state, and asking which ones were doing their job, and putting solving these problems ahead of not doing them. He said the value is here to bond this community to get these projects done; he said a lot with a water connection has showed over $100,000 value, and the values are here. He said everything that has happened in his two decades on the board has led us to where we are able to do these projects. He said once we get a few answers from the State we'll be able to take those next steps, and if the State returns our General Fund dollars, we'll be able to move faster.

Director Horrick said we have made a lot of progress since the moratorium, and said that the people who have been on the waiting list for three years played the game fairly, and so he thought the request should be made.

President Skezas reminded the audience that this is a request and the Board was not approving any homes to be built; it is up to the State to agree or not. He asked for a roll call vote.

Roll call vote was as follows:
AYES: Directors: Orth, Horrick, Skezas
NOES: Directors: Williams, Ziady
ABSENT: Directors: None

6. Annual Report of Officer & Employee Expense Reimbursement. General Manager Chapman presented this annual report for reimbursement to employees for such expenses as mileage and uniform allowances. Director Orth moved to receive and file the report; Director Horrick seconded and the motion carried.

7. Request of Ginger Pohlson for Appointment to the Specific Plan Advisory Committee. General Manager Chapman said the committee currently has six members. Director Orth moved to appoint Ms. Pohlson to the committee; Director Ziady seconded. President Skezas said he was confused as to whether Ms. Pohlson wanted to be on the committee or not. Ms. Pohlson said that previously she had not wanted to be a member, but had changed her mind, but now she wanted an opinion as to whether, if she were a member, the Brown Act extended to her lobbying the directors. She was told yes, and then said she wanted to withdraw her application. Asked to explain, she asked if the Brown Act precluded her talking to more than two directors. Mr. Chapman's stated a concern about "cumulative concurrence." She said she understood the workings if she were a Director, but asked how did it affect her participation with the Board if she were a member of the committee. District Counsel Neary said he would like to do an opinion on it as he had not been asked that particular question before. Director Williams said he took it she was discussing talking serially to members of the board. Ms. Pohlson said not representing the committee, but as an individual. Director Orth said he withdrew his motion.

J. ADDITIONS TO FUTURE AGENDAS.
Director Orth said he would like the Board to discuss and give guidelines to the Specific Plan Advisory Committee specific to the formation of local ordinances. President Skezas said he would like to put the item John Pinches had discussed on an agenda; he noted that Roland Sanford (Mendocino County Water Agency) had addressed this question at an earlier time; he said he wanted to know whether such water would be available, although he did not know if we would have a space to put it.

K. SPECIAL REPORTS
Directors: Director Ziady said the Recreation, Greenbelt & Conservation Committee's ad hoc committee would meet on the 20th; she said they were in contact with Julie Rogers of the Fire Safe Council regarding some abatement on private lands and hoped to meet in mid-March.
District Counsel: None.

General Manager Chapman: The General Manager said the AB 1234 ethics training would take place after the budget meeting of April 8, 2006.

L. PUBLIC COMMENTS
None.

M. ADJOURNMENT
A motion to adjourn was made and President Skezas declared the meeting of
February 14, 2006 closed at 10:31 p.m.


GEORGE C. SKEZAS
President


MICHAEL V. CHAPMAN
Secretary to the Board of Directors