minutes

Regular Meeting

Governing Board of Sweetwater Authority

January 26, 2005

The Governing Board of Sweetwater Authority held a regular meeting on Wednesday, January 26, 2005, at the Sweetwater Authority Administrative Office, 505 Garrett Avenue, Chula Vista, California. Chair Pocklington called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m.

· ROLL CALL

Directors Present: Alkire, Beauchamp, Doud, Inzunza, Pocklington, Salas and Welsh.

Directors Absent: None.

Others Present: General Manager Bostad, Operations Manager Rogers, Legal Counsel Cowett, Treasurer Avery, and Board Secretary Farpón. Staff members, Mark Molsberry, Bill Olson, George Silva, Jim Smyth, and Don Thomson.

· PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Director Salas conducted the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

· OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT (Government Code Section (54954.3)
There were no members of the public present for comment.

· CHAIR 'S PRESENTATION
There was none.

ACTION CALENDAR ITEMS

1. ITEMS TO BE ADDED, WITHDRAWN, OR REORDERED IN THE AGENDA
General Manager Bostad pointed out that the agenda had been revised to include the Report of the South Bay Irrigation District and the City of National City Representatives to the San Diego County Water Authority.

Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Alkire, to add the 1st Friday Mayor's Breakfast on February 4, 2005, as item 7.D. The motion carried.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Director Beauchamp made a motion, seconded by Director Doud, that the Board approve the minutes of January 12, 2005. The motion carried.

3. APPROVAL OF DEMANDS AND WARRANTS

Director Alkire made a motion, seconded by Director Salas, that the Governing Board approve Warrants 98182 through 98402 including all voided checks. The motion carried.

4. FINANCE AND PERSONNEL COMMITTEE (Meeting of January 17, 2005)

Director Alkire made a motion, seconded by Director Doud, that the Governing Board approve the 2005 membership renewal in Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and the payment of dues in the amount of $1,000. The motion carried.

5. OPERATIONS COMMITTEE (Meeting of January 19, 2005)

A. Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Welsh, that the Governing Board approve Mr. Hoody's request for access across the Authority's property at Loveland Reservoir. The conditions for approval are similar to those granted in the past, including the execution of a license agreement. The motion carried.

B. Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Welsh, that the Governing Board approve the submittal of an application to the American Society of Civil Engineers for consideration of Sweetwater Dam in the Society's historic landmark program. The motion carried.

C. Update of Administration Parking Lot. This was an information item and no action was required by the Governing Board.

6. REPORT OF THE SOUTH BAY IRRIGATION DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVE AND THE CITY OF NATIONAL CITY REPRESENTATIVE TO THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY

Chairman Pocklington stated that tomorrow's CWA Board meeting would be the first meeting under the new Chairman, Jim Bond. He reviewed the committee assignments and provided background information on how these committees are formed. He gave an extensive report on issues of interest to Sweetwater Authority included in the agenda for tomorrow's Board meeting. Some issues that he reported on were the 2005 Urban Water Management Plan; a professional service agreement for the preparation of a Drought Management Plan; an update on desalination negotiations, which will be discussed in Closed Session; and the projected Regional Treatment Capacity Storage. He also commented on the 10-day Aqueduct Maintenance Outage Policy, which conveys a strong recommendation that all member agencies have a 10-day storage for emergencies.

Additional issues that he commented on were the Bay Delta Work Plan schedule, which deals with getting money from Prop. 50 for additional studies; the Quantification Settlement Agreement quarterly report; and the drafting of a Water Use Omnibus Recycling Bill, which schedule is established by the 2002 Recycling Water Task Force to develop recommendations to increase and support the development of recycle water projects throughout the state.

Lastly, he mentioned the resignation of Robert Valderrama as a Board member, and the appointments of Director James Lewanski from Helix Water District and Mayor Nick Inzunza from the City of National City as members of the Board.

Director Inzunza said he would be sworn in tomorrow at 8:30 a.m., as a CWA Director. He looks forward to serving on the two committees that Mr. Valderrama sat on, the Engineering and Operations Committee, and the Legislation, Conservation and Outreach Committee. He thinks he can be very effective working with the Legislation Committee in trying to get some of our state assembly and senate members to understand why SB 1272 could be very disruptive and could work against our democracy. Although he does not think he will be the authority on some of the water issues, he does believe he will be an authority on state legislation and working with the Assembly and Senate members. He thinks there is a tremendous disconnect on SB 1272 as the members of water boards believe it is a Draconian bill and the members of the Assembly and Senate believe that water boards are abusing the system. One of the fundamental problems in trying to create dialogue around the issue, he added, is that there are not too many Assembly or Senate members that have sat on a water board and it is difficult for them to understand where we are coming from and the importance of local control.

7. APPROVAL OF DIRECTORS' ATTENDANCE AT MEETINGS AND FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS

A. California Special Districts Association, San Diego Chapter - Quarterly Meeting Thursday, February 17, 2005, at the DoubleTree Club Hotel, Mission Valley. All directors will attend this pre-approved meeting. No action was required by the Governing Board.

B. American Bar Association - 23rd Annual Water Law Conference - February 24, 2005, at the Horton Plaza Westin Hotel, San Diego. Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Alkire, that the Governing Board approve per diem for directors who wish to attend this event. The motion carried.

C. Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Alkire, that the Governing Board approve per diem for directors who attended the Swearing-In Ceremony for Supervisor Greg Cox and Dianne Jacob on January 4, 2005. The motion carried.

D. Director Doud made a motion, seconded by Director Pocklington, that the Governing Board approve per diem for directors who wish to attend the Mayor's First Friday Breakfast on February 4, 2005. The motion carried.

8. REPORT OF TREASURER - WANDA AVERY

Ms. Avery reported that the interest rate at the Local Agency Investment Fund (LAIF) was 2.3 percent, and she hopes this is an indication that the rates will get stronger still.

9. BUDGET REPORT - DIRECTOR OF FINANCE GAUS
Report as of December 31, 2004

Director of Finance Gaus reviewed the first six-months of this fiscal year. He said that we are now seeing the first effects of the rains in December, and the water sales are $582,198 under budget. The Other Income is $579,751 over what we had projected and that is because we received the funds from the State and Title 16 earlier than we had anticipated. Interest income is slightly above what we had projected. The Operating Expenses will drop off in the next few months because we will have to buy less water, which will make up for the loss in revenue due to the decline of water sales. From a cash flow standpoint, if we offset the reduction of approximately $500,000 in water sales against the increase of interest and the $300,000 decrease in Operating Expenses, we are netting out about $150,000. As for Capital Projects, we budgeted for 41 percent to be spent at this time and we have spent only 26 percent.

10. MANAGEMENT REPORT

A. Report of Operations Manager Rogers: Operations Manager Rogers said that the rain predicted for yesterday and today did not happen. Fortunately, we have been consistently getting runoff into Loveland Reservoir of about 53 cubic feet per second. Loveland Reservoir is at 67 percent of its capacity. If we get more rain, we might have to consider releasing water from Loveland Reservoir down to Sweetwater Reservoir. Because of the Arroyo toads in the riverbed, if we are going to release water, we will have to do it by March 1st.

Mr. Rogers reported that this morning at about 6:45 a.m., we lost all power to the Administrative Office. Between 6:45 a.m. and 7:20 a.m., the Engineering staff collected the generator at the Operations Center, brought it to the Administration building, hooked it up, and the power was restored by about 7:40 a.m. He wanted to commend the Engineering staff for hooking up the generator so quickly allowing us to have power in the office.

B. Report of General Manager Bostad: Mr. Bostad informed the Board that there would be a Habitat Conservation Plan workshop on February 8th. The workshop will address issues such as the toads and our ability to transfer water between the two reservoirs, as well as other endangered species. This workshop is open to the public.

He congratulated Mayor Inzunza on his appointment as a member of the CWA Board of Directors. He thinks that it is going to be a benefit to Sweetwater Authority.

He commented on a newspaper article about a notice to residents in Phoenix asking them to boil the water because of turbidity problems. This problem is affecting one and a half million people. This article helps to highlight the efforts of our Water Quality staff, who work seven days a week, around the clock, to insure that we have safe water and are not caught in a situation like that.

Mr. Bostad will be in Washington D.C. next week trying to obtain funds for the projects that we want to build.

11. DIRECTORS' COMMENTS

Director Doud said that he was not wearing glasses because he had cataract surgery yesterday and now he can drive without them. He will have to get new glasses so that he can read.

Director Beauchamp said a couple of mornings ago he was listening to PBS radio and they had a program about a water company in France. They are going through a big bottled water issue in France and they are marketing their municipal water as Eau de Paris. They are handing out carafes to have the people fill them with their municipal water and put them in the fridge to chill, so that some of the chlorine taste and odor are attenuated. He thought that would be an interesting idea to consider. Some kind of carafes to hand out would be an inexpensive thing instead of the spray nozzles that are subsidized by different programs.

Director Pocklington mentioned the train accident this morning in Glendale with a Metro liner derailing and the involvement of two commuter trains and a freight train. MWD was attempting to contact Metro line officials because they were concerned that some of their 900 employees might have been in those trains. On another subject, he said he had learned that Penguins have an organ above their eyes that converts seawater to fresh water.

12. CLOSED SESSION

At 4:38 p.m., the Board recessed to convene in Closed Session to discuss Public Employee Appointment and the creation of a new position, in compliance with Government Code Section 54956.9, and to conference with Real Property Negotiator regarding the sale of a future National City Tank Site, in compliance with Government Code Section 54956.8. All persons left the room with the exception of the Governing Board, Management Team, Legal Counsel, Director of Engineering, Treasurer, and Board Secretary. There were no minutes taken, and the session was not tape-recorded.

At 4:49, Chair Pocklington declared the meeting to be in open session. He reported that under the first closed session to discuss the Public Employee Appointment, Director Alkire had made a motion, seconded by Director Doud, that the Board approve the creation of a new position called Principal Inspector. The motion carried.
There was not reportable action taken under the second closed session to conference with Real Property Negotiator regarding the sale of a Future National City Tank Site.

13. ADJOURNMENT

With no further business before the Board, Chair Pocklington adjourned the meeting at 4:50 p.m., to the hour of 6:00 p.m. on February 9, 2005.