you the Good evening everyone. When is not just this is the East Paralato City Council special meeting. We will start the regular meeting at 630 but we have some other business to attend and we have a pretty full plate this evening so we want to make sure we get it on top of all our to-dos. The time is 5.35 pm. It is Tuesday, December 3rd and James can you give us a roll call please? Oh, do you need a roll call? Yeah, okay, make sure. Correct. Mayor Lopez. Here. Vice Mayor Barragan. Council member, Abrika. Here. Council member, Romero. Present. And Council member, Gosei, is currently absent, but she will be a little late, but you do have a quorum. Sounds good. We hope to see you soon. There are number two. This is the East Palato Sanitary District Item Number 2.1, appointment of positions. James, I take it, you're going to present this, is that correct? I believe, um, yeah, Assistant City Manager, uh, Sherry Clemens. Oh, excuse me, sorry. No. James does our appointments, fellas. Through the chair, I just, just said a procedural question, whether we need to approve the agenda or we can just jump into it or. I just said a procedural question, whether we need to approve the agenda or we can just jump into it or. It's not strictly necessary, you can, but we'll take that feedback going forward. That's what you'd like. Okay, just, I'll include it in the next agenda to keep it existing, I think. Okay, thank you, Council Member Rico. Okay, Mayor, Mayor Patam, council members, good evening, my name is Shiri Kleema I'm your assistant general manager of the EPA SD and this is about the appointment of recommendations are to a point from your board, a president, and a president pro tem to appoint the city clerk as the secretary and to find that the appointment of these positions is exempt from CEQA. So as you know, on November 15th of 2024, the San Mateo Lafgo unanimously approved the city's application requesting that EPSD be made a subsidiary of the city. And on October 1st, that reorganization occurred. The City Council yourselves became the EPA SD Board and the City Manager became the general manager. So staff is focusing on a smooth transition and you're gonna hear from West Bay, which is doing our operations this evening. You're going to hear an update from them on this whole process. But the Sanitary District Act, which is the act under which Sanitary Districts operate, require that at your first meeting or soon thereafter, you choose one of your members as president and also appoint a secretary. And you also need to choose a president pro-tem or vice president, however you'd like to name that position. The other roles that need to be named, for example, Treasure and so forth, the City Attorney in the next item will present to you. It is not under the Sanitary District Act, but it is needed for your ordinances and so forth. So I've listed the statutory roles that are in state code of the president and the secretary. I don't think I I don't want to go through all of them and read it all to you, but it's signatures. Excuse me. Signatures of the president and secretary are needed on a variety of legal documents. Property taxes must be signed by them. And then the codes have to be available in the office of the secretary. The secretary runs the elections, which is interesting because it's because your board is also the City Council. It makes sense then. That's why we're recommending that the City Clerk who runs the elections for the City Council also govern these elections. And that if this board decides to issue bonds in the future. Those bonds have to be signed as well by the president and secretary. There's no such bonds being contemplated right now, but it is going to be something that you have the power to issue, if you'd like, to issue through elections. So again, we recommend that your board selects a president and president pro-tem perhaps if you'd like you can choose your city council that mayor and the vice mayor going forward to be your president and president pro-tem but it does not have to be this way. We recommend you appoint the city clerk as secretary because the responsibilities overlap. And then again, that you find that these appointment of these positions are exempt from CEQA because they're just ministerial actions. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you very much. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you very much. Council member, is any questions, comments? Seems pretty procedural. Yeah, there. Yes. When you mention the elections, that's... So the city clerk handles elections for city council when there are elections That's what you refer into so that I mean It's gonna be the same body for now. So just reaffirming that that's the same thing correct correct Other folks other comments You know in terms of of President and vice President, I don't know if it makes sense. I mean, if we were to go with the suggestion that was made to perhaps the mayor and the vice mayor become the president and and pro and president pro tem, it may make sense to switch it so that actually it's the vice mayor that winds up being the president one just because the mayors have other duties. I've seen it that way. You just actually happen when we had to redevelop an agency. I think they used to do it that way. So swap the vice mayor roles for the... If we decided to go that route, that if you're mayor and vice mayor then you assume the position of president president pro tem as we at one point time did with the redevelopment see it was the other way around yeah so so the vice mayor becomes the president and then the mayor would be the president pro tem well I don't want to put my colleague on the spot. Vice Mayor Barraghan, do you have any preference or any, yeah, regarding being pro-10 or president for the senator, or the East Paul the Sanitary District? I was just thinking about what Councilmember Carlos was saying about the responsibilities and some of us do a full time day jobs as well and families and kids and it's a lot of hats to wear not that it's not impossible but it's something to think about I think and to consider. Yeah. I do remember the period of redevelopment, and that was the practice, that whoever was the vice mayor became the chair of the redevelopment and vice mayor. So I'm okay with that, or I'm okay with the other way too. But I think it's taking to the mayor vice mayor rather than doing separate, you know, but I mean I think that worked well with the redevelopment, you know, that you would have the just sort of flipped the positions and certainly I, I mean, two weeks after I, if I were, it was a president, like two weeks ago. You'd run into, there'd be the, it would be an issue anywhere, you know? So. Yeah, so that was, yeah, I'm not trying to deny you the president's. No, it's, you know, I've been itching for the saying. No, I, were you saying Ruben, I'm sorry. Well, no, that was my other question because we do have a transition. Right. Come in now. And I think it's the night more or less the concept like we're discussing versus naming names because, yeah, I mean. So council member, you can do it either way. You can appoint specific people. The recommendation that I had made. Well, it sounds, it sounds to me that we're in favor of mayor or, or slipping it. Right. In which case, then it doesn't make sense to name names tonight. Correct. Because we don't, we don't have that. Well, I mean, I can make a motion. I mean, to that effect that we appoint that the procedure for appointing pro-tem, for mayor, excuse me, President and President pro-tem be that the mayor serve as the pro-tem and the vice mayor serve as the president. And then it's my motion on that on that point when my when I no longer am air would then Barragan become President of the board effective immediately or would have to be another vote taken by the next subsequent council No, we have a take of vote. Yeah, it's not out of matter. No, no, but he's It wouldn't be automatic in the sense that well what I'm saying is the name. I mean I'm just saying that no I understand the the unwritten rule is that the vice mayor becomes mayor right yeah right correct but it's not on the matter that's not on the matter it'll take a vote the council and so the concept though I think could hold it says whoever ends up being the Mayor and vice mayor will kind of lift up the position. All right. Well something like we have other items to extend as well So customer of metal you made the motion. I'm happy to I'll doubt second. Okay. Yeah, go ahead It's been moving seconded alls in favor. Oh, do we have But come a minute. Do you want to also do the two and three as well pointing the city clerk and in your motion? Customs are not a good question. I move that we appoint the city clerk as secretary and find the disappointment. These appointments are exempt from sequel. Yeah, well on second. Okay. Has it moved in a second? All in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I. I. Great. All right. Is that it from your door to one? Okay. Thank you. Item 2.2. Memons to sanitary district code. Wait. So then would you be right? Yeah. I was going to say. I got around the meat. Hey. Okay. I got around the meeting. There you go. Oh, how do I do that? Congratulations. Number 2.2. Present. Oh, the present. Oh, okay. Present, guys. Okay. We did it. Okay. So. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry. 2.2. Yes. 2.2. So, I guess the recommendation is to adopt an ordinance, amending various provisions of the sanitary district code in quoting to facilitate joint meetings of the East Pole also city council meeting in dual capacities such as in its capacity as a governing board of the city of East Pole also sanitary district and find that the adoption of the city council of the amendments is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA, pursuant to public resources code section 21065 and CEQA guidelines sections five zero six one B three and one five three two zero eight. Thanks for that. I don't know. Yeah. Just a quick presentation on the changes. These changes to this standard Terry district code. I'm not in present are primarily to ensure that when the council meets as the governing board of the district that you're able to do so and comply with the sanitary district code as adopted. So for example, we made some naming convention changes, the board is the council, city manager would be general manager, so on so forth, and as your city attorney, I'd be district council secretary obviously would be city clerk We're making those changes in light of your previous item that you approved and also public works director would be the district engineer The meetings would also be obviously in council chambers no longer a nine at nine oh one weeks We're requiring that the conflict of interest code be applied to the to the body as well, the governing body. We also made some one change to the authority of the treasurer to have the authority to deposit and withdraw and draw down funds if it's within the budget. And one quick thing to note is that you'll notice that this ordinance is actually simply being adopted, as opposed to at first and a second. It's because there are different rules that apply when you act as a general law of city, which you're not right now, you're acting in your capacity as a governing board of a special district. So it would just simply be an adoption. I think one other change we did was to ensure that when you make these ordinance changes, they comply with due process. And, you know, typically what we do is, first and second, we do a newspaper notice here. We're following the practice of West Bay Sanitary District. Our contractor was helping us primarily implement a lot of the work that you guys are doing. And so we're going to follow that same rule. So this ordinance and the next ordinance will be adopted the same way. And with that, I'll take any questions. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, yeah, so just I don't know. I mean, a couple of potential changes, but it sounds like maybe the one on. Well, this is page 65, which happens to be the report a couple of potential changes, but it sounds like maybe the one on, this is page 65, which happens to be the report from the last meeting. But under B, so Section 303, B, I guess it would be, a general manager who's duty shall be, should that just say general manager, comma, shall mean the city manager who's duty shall be, or there's no need to do that since you kind of covered it in kind of the preamble to section three. Because the general manager of this shall be the same individual selected by the city council of the city, we spot out to be the city manager of that city. It's kind of a cumbersome phrase. Yeah, I think it's looking at the, you say it was big. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm using last, because that's the one that I marked up from the last meeting. Yeah, because you and I were like, let's make it. the one that I marked out from the last meeting because you and I were really, really, really good. Yeah, yeah, it's section. That's a gentleman who's going to be talking to you as Chris Carnazon-Borl and you're right. You're fine. But in other words, the panel of definition. Yeah. Setting your ladder is for that. I don't know if you're someone who's going to go to the next level. You're going to go to the next level. I don't know if you're someone who's seen it and just synthesized it in the telepathy. Yeah. So it is. Yeah, it'd be 303 B, right? Okay. I just it's it again. I don't want to wordsmith here and you know, you can wordsmith it. It just it's seen the little cumbersome there, but that's fine. If you don't think we need it under B, as you know, this parenthetical, the General Manager shall be, that's fine. The other issue, so I think Council said, it's good as it is. The other issue is if you go to Section 16D, Section D, meeting place, all meetings at the board shall be held at the East Palo Alto City Council meeting. So, at the East Palo Alto City Council are in council chambers or something, right? So, let's correct that. Yeah, yeah, that would be perfect. So, just pursuant to applicable law and I think those were the only changes that are counted. Thank you. Should we, do we need a motion for this or do just, okay. I'm happy to make the motion to for item 2.2. Adopted ordinance and many various prohibitions of the senator district code as well as finding the adoption by the city council of the amendments exempt from sequel. Second. Second. All right. Second. It's been second and properly motioned. All in favor. I don't know if we need roll call or just all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item 2.3. Adopting an ordinance and a resolution regarding discharge of fats, oils, and grease conveyed into the west waste, sorry, waste water facilities. I don't know if we have a presentation for that. Okay, sure. We do. Thank you. I'll take that one as well. Thank you. So adopting a fog ordinance and related resolution. The recommend, oh let me give the clerk one minute. The secretary, you're right. That's right, the secretary, my bad. Thank you. The recommendations are to adopt an ordinance establishing rules and regulations that apply to the discharges of wastewater containing fats, oils, and grease. That term fats, oils, and grease is what Fog stands for. Secondly, adopt a resolution adopting the grease control device variance findings, and thirdly, find that these adoptions are exempt from CEQA. So as I mentioned, Fog stands for fats, oils, and grease, and it can significantly reduce the capacity of the sewer lines. It's a cause of major sanitary sewer overflows. So particularly the grease that's dumped by food service establishments because they do have so much grease. It builds up in the sewer system and creates a lot of blockages. And it forces raw sewage to escape through the manhole covers because it puts pressure on it and through the drainage systems. And so this is a public health risk, so much so that the state of California concluded that we must have that all sewer system operators and owners must implement a fog control program. So that's what this ordinance is. It's that proposed fog control ordinance. And here's the summary of it. It was of course attached to your agenda, but in large part, the food service establishments are required to adopt the best management practices to reduce the amount of fog entering the sewer system. And predominantly, what that means is they have to install and maintain an approved grease control device. They must implement the best management practices in accordance with the National Restaurant Association's guidelines that they've established, which is attached to your item as well. They must maintain on the premises the records for three years listing when they've cleaned these devices, maintain these devices and other such critical records. They must allow the EPSD staff or our operator to access the premises to inspect the grease control device and sample the wastewater discharges and review these records. And then finally that there are grease control device variant guidelines available if a food service establishment wants to submit a request for a variance. And that would be upon a showing that the installation of such a device is not feasible for them. Or that the discharge is negligible. As the city attorney previously explained this is just one reading of the ordinance. We don't have to have a second reading. And so, again, we recommend adopting this ordinance to regulate fog, adopting a resolution that has the grease control device variance findings and then finding that this is all exempt from CEQA. And I'm happy to answer questions if you have any. I don't know if we have any questions at this time from our council members before we go to public comments. No? I don't know if we have anyone that would like to make a public comment on this item 2.2.2.3. Oh, see none. I wanted to ask how we enforce this. I mean, we have a lot of ordinances that sort of go unenforced. And this one sounds like one that we should not let go unenforced so there ought to be a and maybe maybe the the folks from West Bay will enlighten us on how that works but I'm all for having a lot more establishments that cook in this city and if we're going to do it then we need to have a frog enforcement at the same time. Thank you. Yes, would you like to speak? Kind of briefly to that. We've had conversations with West Bay, I think generally speaking, and I think this is true for all ordinances is there is a period during which you sort of educate folks on the requirements and enforcement right out of the gate is probably not something that is desirable. But once that period is over, there will be a period of notifying people of the requirements by letter in the form of something like an NOV or a notice of violation and attaching certain consequences. There will be, well, these involved as well, but also there is an opportunity for the district to be able to do the work and request some form of reimbursement. We do this sometimes in the code enforcement context for meeting code violations, for abating a nuisance, will abate the nuisance and will expect that the owner pay for it once we've done that. We have done it previously with leans and also causes of action, but that's generally I think how it would be. But again, first it's education, then it's going to be providing notice of violation, so they have an opportunity to correct because what we always want is for voluntary compliance to happen. In order to do that, you must educate and give them an opportunity to make the change to come into compliance. Thank you. I don't know if we have any more comments from the public. We do have one more comment from Gil Wilkerson. You're talking about the grease traps. I just happened to own over 10 restaurants and it is the job of the health department to make sure there's a grease trap in each restaurant. And it seems to me, well, a lot of stuff has been swept under the rug and everything but they have to be put on the list when a new restaurant takes out a permit or somebody wants to turn the place into some sort of restaurant so the health department not like what happened with the sanitary district, you have to notify them so they'll know to come out. And that's a big no-no. I've had restaurants in about every northern California county up in Sacramento also. I dealt with the health department. The San Patel Health Department, come see, come saw. I think we got a bad reputation. I don't know what it is. But at the festivals, some of them, they didn't even show up. It was only one time with the, what's that, Emerson? The one lady came and she was right on top of everything. But if you want to be better city, if you want things to be done right, you have to know these things. So put that in your little box, call the health department, then you won't have to worry about it because the health department will put them out of business because of that because that's a big no-no because it's just like what you said they'll stop everything up. Thank you. Those are last comment. I don't know if our council members have any questions or comments at this time. Don't but unless there's any further comments I I'm happy, uh, President to Madam President to make the motion to adopt item 2.3. John, is that sufficient enough of a motion? I think that's fine. Okay. I don't know if we have any more comments. Second. Second. Okay. Thank you. So can we go ahead and take a vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you. So now we're moving to 2.4. Update on maintenance and operations by the West Bay Sanitary Districts. Thank you, Madam President. This is an item where we have our partner, West Bay Sanitary District coming to provide an update on their operations and maintenance of the Sanitary Districts since they've taken over October 1. We're joined by the Presidential Be Lead by West Bay Sanitary District General Manager, Sergio Ramirez, but just wanted to just preface this with saying West Bay has been a great partner thus far. They taught us a lot they've worked with the crews existing EPSD crews. And it's been a joy and a pleasure to work with them to bring excellent service to this community. In Sergio's presentation, he'll highlight some of the challenges that they face and some of the things that we've discovered since taking over on October 1. But then also wanted to let you know aside from what West Bay is doing, we've also began doing an audit and working on a SOAR service master plan to make sure that EPA SD is meeting all state regulatory needs going forward, as well as doing financial audits and accounting and other things. But with that, I'd like to ask Mr. Ramirez, General Manager Ramirez to come up and... Good evening, Mayor Lopez, vice mayor Barragan and members of the BRika and Romero. Thank you, Melbourne for having me here, having us here. My name is Sergio Romero, I'm with West Bay Sanitary District on the General Manager. I've been there for about 15 years. And prior to that, I helped manage two other sanitary agencies. Foster City was one and then Castor Valley Sanitary District. But here with me today are Superintendent, Bob Holesman, and then our operations supervisor, Heath Cortez, who spent a lot of the last two months here, you know, training your crews and doing a lot of the things that you're gonna see tonight. I have a short presentation to help keep me on point. But if you have any questions, please ask during my sanitary district board is pretty lively. And I cannot get through a presentation without several questions of feel free. Let's see. Next slide. All right, so I don't know if you can see it from your screens there, but our service area, that's a map of our service area. We maintain 210 miles of sanitary sewer for five different communities in our area. Oh, thank you. And along with that, since about 2009, 2010, we had a big turnaround. Our agency wasn't performing very well. We changed management, changed several personnel, introduced different maintenance programs. And since 2010, we've been doing excellent work that we've been recognized throughout the state for our work. Our board felt years ago that it was important to share these resources with our community, with the communities around us. So we entered into interagency agreements with the town of Woodside, who was too small to have their own crews. We entered into another interagency agreement with Los Altos Hills, who again, they have a public works department, but we're too small to have their own sanitary crews and the expertise. And most recently, with these volatile sanitary districts, as you've seen throughout the last couple of years. The district was established in 1902. We manage a collection system, which is a sewer system, basically, in our, in our verbiage. 12 pump stations. We're working on our second water facility here at Bayfront Park. We're going to be bringing reclaimed water to the Metacampus, the new Willow village. We've added capacity to that treatment facility to someday bring reclaimed water to East Palo Alto as well. The closest connection will eventually be to the West Bank. We're going to be bringing reclaimed water to the Metacampus, the new Willow village. We've added capacity to that treatment facility to someday bring reclaimed water to East Palo Alto as well. the city. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. the three interagency agreements. The city, a few years back, requested that West Space Entity District requested our O&M program. Basically, and we worked with Fire and LaRetta to qualify for your request for proposals. We then submitted a proposal and bid on this agreement to provide certain services. If you can hit the next space bars, something. So the agreement includes maintaining your system, video inspecting your system to assess the pipes conditions, manholes and things like that, and come up with recommendations on improving your system. Similar to what we do to our own system and the two other towns that we serve. We will be responding to service calls or as you said we have been responding to service calls, emergency response and then fatsoals and grease inspections are included in this contract. So we have two bilingual inspectors that will be visiting the restaurants, educating owners, educating operators. What happens in the restaurant industry is will train people, but because they're such high turnover in the, you know, with the, with the, with the staff, that we have to retrain and retrain. So it's a constant learning thing. We try not to send notice of violations unless we really have a bad actor. But most of the time people are willing to comply and we do work with the Semento County Health Department in conjunction to make sure that people are maintaining their facilities properly so that grease doesn't enter your system. Then we are contracted to do properties properly so that grease doesn't enter your system. And then we are contracted to do construction inspections. Once you do start your master plan and replacing pipe, manhole to manhole and miles of pipe that need to be replaced, we have an inspector on duty that will inspect to make sure that it meets the district specs. We're also doing a lot of data management, map updating, tracking history. We're doing a lot of that kind of management behind the scenes for you. And then we also bid on doing spot repairs. So, trenchless spot repairs are open repairs. We won't obligate ourselves to do full line replacements, but spot repairs be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. We're not going to be able to do a lot of work. and complying with the state water boards waste discharge requirement. That's what mandates just like a water system is mandated by the Department of Drinking Water. We're mandated by the state water board and complying with this waste discharge requirement. One of the items inside the, if you could click on the slide, one of the items is that every agency over one mile that owns over one mile of pipe have a sewer system management plan in place. Your sewer system management plan is due for an update and that's when General Manager Melvin gains just a meant alluded to. We hired a professional that does this for a living and he was actually on the enforcement side of the wastewater of the Water Board so we brought him on board to help clean up the to help one Perform an audit on what your SSMP says that you're supposed to do as a sanitary district and what's truly Happened over the past several years so we're gonna get a good good baseline on where your system is and they'll be able to do a good gap analysis and that'll establish a good baseline for us to move forward as a board and staff, city and district. So we began October 1st, assessing your maintenance history, your database, inventory and equipment, assessing your fog list, and performing some video inspections. We also assessed your staff, the contracted staff that's there now, their knowledge skills and abilities. We started training your existing staff and upgrading your equipment so we so it could have proper tools on it. We did notice a gap there and then own crews come into the district and start maintaining your system. So we've used your contract crews for the past two months. We'll do that through December. So then eventually where our crews will be performing this maintenance and video inspecting your entire system. All right. You actually can I just jump in here and ask the question. So will the existing, will the, will the staffing from the East former East Palo Alto sanitary district before we became it? Will some of them be incorporated into your cruise? What is going to happen with that stuff? We're going to be performing recruitment between, sometime between January and March, but we're going to be hiring approximately two to three more employees. And what I've told Melvin is that the gentleman that are working for you now are very welcome to apply. Some of them do have a commercial class A license, which is very valuable to us, but there's also certification that could happen after hiring and things like that, but we're training them now on our best practices. So hopefully they'll have a good opportunity to apply and go through the proper betting. Thank you. So this is a this is a I'm almost finished with the slides it gets more interesting from here because there's more photos but we did respond to a spill on Clark and what we found was that one of the pipes was collapsed we noticed that there was a huge void it was you had about two Bill on Clark and what we found was that one of the pipes was collapsed. We noticed that there was a huge void. You had about two feet of cover between the street and the void and then another several feet of just open, an open void. If I may just elaborate on to define like for the public like a void like what that refers to in your, in this industry. Yeah. So a void happens whenever there's a piece of pipe missing and undermining occurs around a pipe, any kind of utility pipe. It happens a lot during water main breaks where water main will break and it undermines the street. So we found that over on Clark. So what we responded initially to a stoppage and then overflow, well that turned into a collapsed pipe that couldn't wait till the next day to fix. So we went ahead and started the repair. If you could, and that's the void on the screen that you're looking at there. So what we noticed is that we found once we dug down about six to seven feet, I want to say, we noticed that an asbestosament pipe had deteriorated. It was in bad shape. You can see the pipe there on the right side of the screen with the large void. We uncovered that and then ended up replacing. A asbestosament pipe becomes very brittle over time. And when you try to make a nice cut to connect to, it starts to break apart. So you end up having to chase it to make a nice cut to connect to, it starts to break apart. So you end up having to chase it to make sure that you have a good structure to connect to. You've been there? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it turned into a couple of foot repair, turned into an 11 foot repair. We've also found things like groundwater leaking into your system. This is a C900 or SDR-26 pipe. It's a PVC pipe, but it does have and it looks relatively new. However, the connection between the pipe and the manhole is defective and it's allowing groundwater to come in. Now, a sewer system and a storm grain system are two separate systems. Once a closed system, once an open system, a storm grain system, you want to capture all the rain water that you can with the sanitary sewer, you want to keep the rain water out, groundwater out. And you have some, we found several areas where you do have groundwater coming in. This groundwater doesn't require treatment. It costs more money to treat at the Pallolto treatment plant when you have the more water you have So we want to seal these things up and keep the rain water Which we call and you'll learn this term as we go on inflow and infiltration or I and I That's what we call it in our in our world. This is on beach We've also found things like this, just structural defects. This is relatively new installation, but we see some orders coming off of the wall. If that goes, it goes into the sewer pipe and then it causes problems. Paper buildup eventually a stoppage. One thing that we have found is, we have found that we've gone to a lot of service calls where people's private laterals need to be replaced. They're just in bad shape. So what we've done is we've gone out there because somebody has a plumbing problem, we'll try to clear the stoppage, help them clear it. We provide both West Bay Sanitary District, any small, also Sanitary District, provide a courtesy cleaning as long as the person, the homeowner, property owner has a proper clean out by the sidewalk that we can service. If there is a clean out there, we'll provide a courtesy cleaning. It doesn't mean that the sanitary district owns that pipe, that lower lateral, that lower pipe that connects to the main, but it will provide a courtesy cleaning. The homeowners in this district, just like in ours, and the other two towns that we serve, the homeowners are responsible from their plumbing through their property out to the street and into the main. So the city, the towns and the districts here in this area, in this lower San Mateo County area, are responsible for the main pipeline only. Basically, the main pipe that serves all the entire neighborhood, if you will. So, individual homeowners are finding themselves needing to replace their pipes. So, you'll learn more about that as we go through other meetings suggesting remedies for this and help for the homeowners. Next one. So this is another service call that we went to. It was a relatively new pipe. However, a permit was not pulled, so the proper inspection was not performed and this new pipe was already squeezed together, as you can see there on the right side and causing a paper buildup. This one was blocked up, we unclogged it and then relieved it. But that's a very temporary means. We did have the plumber that did the installation, dig up that piece of pipe, and then reinstall a new piece to fix that point. So was that a condition that was on the public side or that was on the private side? It was on the public side. It was on the public right away. Right. However, the lateral is owned by the homeowner. So the homeowner or their contractor needs to pull a permit through the city and- So the lateral going to your line in the middle of the street or port of the street, you're saying that is owned up to your line, right? That is owned by the resident. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So owned by the property owner. Yeah. So that it's typically a four inch pipe that exits the foundation. Usually the bathroom that's closest to the street area. It exits the four inch pipe exits through through your property. It gravities to the street from there it connects to the sewer main. So yeah, the districts are responsible for the sewer mains only. What what is that material? Was that like a I mean that's it was a high density polyethylene HDPEO. So you're going to learn a lot of acronyms in this field. Yeah, through the chair. You know, when it says that this was performed by someone without the sort of permit, but you did find out who did it through the owner, I guess, and then they were responsible for replacing that. And then, I don't know how often it happens, but then how is that, was he required them to get a permit or how is that restituted so it doesn't? I mean, so people learn that, don't be doing things like that. Exactly, yeah. So the person did pull a permit to fix, to perform the repair after we found it. So they did pull it. But a lot of this also, similar to the fog inspections that we're gonna be doing, a lot of the times it's education to the contractors, education to the homeowners, the more they see us out there, the more people start doing the right thing. So this contractor won't do this again because we found out about it. Chances are he's going to get more work in the city, but he knows he needs to pull a permit because we're out there watching. Yeah. Okay. This is another one on Cooley. This was a sanitary sewer overflow out of a lateral. It was out of an apartment complex the I don't think the the the Cust the property owner was being to Responsible about this reoccurring incident. So we went ahead and dug it out. Excuse me, unclogged it. We pulled back mud and debris, which tells us that the line is in bad shape. So we informed the property owner, had them pull a permit, and had a plumber fix the actual problem. Can I ask a jurisdiction question? I'm sure Hums is on the line. Can I ask a jurisdiction question? I'm sure Hums is on the line. In terms of the lateral from, or the connection from the residents to our pipe, and I'm going to call it our pipe. Is that inspected and approved by you that is the by West Bay or does our you know inspection department do the inspections because it sounds like there's some overlap here. So can you kind of explain because I want to make sure that our residents you know know that oh you don't just have to it's, it's not you or it's not the city building department that you have to go to. So could you explain who's kind of responsible for the inspection and for the permit? So generally speaking, the district is responsible from the clean out, from the clean out that's by the sidewalk. We call that the lower lateral that's connected to our pipe. That is the jurisdiction of the district generally, and then an inspection, and then for above the clean out, so the pipe that's through the property, say the front yard leading up to the home and the plumbing, that's usually performed by building an building inspector. So that's where the jurisdiction generally ends. We're working with the city right now, city staff to establish the criteria for both, and to make sure that when we come out and inspect, we're inspecting the lower laterals versus the city inspector inspecting what they do now through the building department, which is inspecting the upper lateral. But yeah. And again, that you're just our jurisdiction ends, um, I don't know about it, ends, but it's where your clean out is, which I think has to be within 10 feet of that lateral. Is that correct? Or would be where's the cleanup? The clean out is you require a clean out a certain number of feet from your, your line, correct? Within five feet within five of the back of the curb. So which mean which of the back of the curb? Yeah, five feet into the property, if you will. That way we can still service it kind of from the sidewalk without walking through somebody's property and things like that. That's the purpose of the five foot. Hopefully. Thanks. And this is just another one. So like I mentioned, we are responding to a lot of lateral calls, more lateral calls than sewer main calls. We want to respond to all of these calls. Our response time is 45 minutes. After hours, we're generally here within 30 minutes. We have somebody on call constantly. If they don't live within 45 minutes, we pay for them to stay at the Valambrosa over in Menlo Park overnight for the whole week to make sure that we have somebody here within the vicinity. So response is very crucial to us and very important. Sometimes we come out to a service call that sounds like it's a homeowner's problem, but we find that the main, the district's main is actually plugged up and it's causing problems for the homeowner. So that's why we wanna be called first. It's written all over our vehicle, that's our motto, call us first. We wanna go out there and assess the situation first and without added cost of a plumber, we wanna go assess it. If we can help the homeowner, we will. By cleaning their lower lateral, if we can't help them, then we'll suggest to call a plumber so they can fix, so they can do it. So that's what we're going to be. How will you be or we or you be pushing that? So that is to say how will we be providing the information to the homeowner so they understand this lateral issue. We do get folks to say it's the city's responsibility all the way up to my house. So what will we be doing or will you be doing email outreach? Are we going to be doing email outreach? Are we gonna be doing, mail outreach, what is gonna be the preferred method? Or what is your preferred method of doing this? So it has to be an array of things. From the phone number on our vehicles to the websites, to these public meetings, to public events where we can set up booths for the city, the district, and that's how we get the message out to the public meetings, to public events where we can set up booths for the city, the district, and that's how we get the message out to the public. Art festivals, wind festivals, and things like that. So I don't know if I skipped this, I have one, this is the last slide, but I don't know if I skipped this, this slide that we performed so far in the last two months we performed 20 service calls 17 utility markings. Four mainline stoppages that we with all the back of the scenes, the office, the meetings that we have had with staff and try to reorg the district. And then I will go to the last slide for just a last bullet. And like I mentioned, the city and the district staff have been communicating daily. We're working on reassessing your entire system, organizing operations, including your fog program. So that'll get rolled out in January, like we mentioned. And then Fisher compliance is working on updating your sewer system management plans. So you're going to hear that at one of your next board meetings to approve the audit that is mandated by the state So he'll make sure that you stay in compliance along with the city and district staff If you have any questions that I would be a good You know quickly for comparison purposes and maybe you can go back to that's Second the last the penult the penultimate slide. Yes, no. The one that showed the number of service calls you've had. What else did it do? OK, yeah. How would you compare this level, this intensity of calls to, let's say, an established West Bay area of the same size, is this seem to be high? Is it average? What do you think at this point? From what we gather at this point, it's pretty average. I don't, yeah, we don't see anything really. What did you say? What a perspective. We have about 50 in a month at West Bay. But we have 210 miles of pipe. This is 35 miles of pipe. So actually, this is probably a little more intense. It's a little more intense. It's going to be more intense for the next several years until people fix their laterals. They see that the sanitary sewer system is being maintained watched over Closed up so we don't have illegal connections and things like that. So over time I mean it took us a good it took us a good 10 years to get from From 40 overflows or spills 40 overflows a year. It took us about 10 years to get from 40 overflows or spills, 40 overflows a year, it took us about 10 years to get down to zero. So it's gonna take some work, it's gonna take investment into your infrastructure, fixing pipes, manhole, demand, whole brand new. So there's a lot of work ahead of us, definitely. So I don't know if we have any more questions or comments. Just this might be more for our staff, but journey. So as you've been making all these assessments and, you know, on the operations, on the conditions, and then also the financial, which you're not doing that, but I guess our staff is. At some point down the line, we will get, be able to get a report, or at least those documents will be deposited with the city clerk. So, if we want to read them, or examine them, or how will that work? Or, you know, at some point down the line, maybe a study session where we, you know, able to discuss, because I think it's important in the transition to, and for the public too, as you know, able to discuss, I think it's important in the transition to, in for the public too, as you mentioned, you know, a lot of it, or a good thing would be outreach and education, and I found one way is to review documents that are solid documents that have, that people will understand and maybe even believe more, you know, listen. So, yeah. Thank you. Thanks for that. So the SSMP audit will be coming to you all believe in January for your review and approval. The financial audit is, it's doing it, you know, we're doing two different things. We're doing more forensic accounting as well as this regular financial audit. And both of those will also come before the sanitary district board or approval or acceptance. So all of these audits that we're doing will come forth from you. Kind of the report that General Manager Ramirez gave today is it's not a written report it's an oral update but that was it's not an official audit, it's more just an accounting of what's been. No, no, that was very helpful, you know, to get an overview. Yeah, thank you. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. I don't know if we have any comment, public comments from the audience. Oh, yes, we did receive one speaker slip from Gil Wilkerson. Resident, uh, citizen number one, real estate person. I've been into a lot of houses in East Philadelphia, and it's gonna be more than that. In fact, I had to go to court a couple of times when the toilets have backed up, balled over, and here I am. I didn't do it. But I'm pretty sure there's more out there, but you know, he made me feel kind of good. I'm hopeful that he'll take care of his fellow alto. I would like to extend my olive branch because I'm coming around and it looks like it's going to be for the best. I hope so. But the cost of the lateral is what's going to get people and you got lazy landlords out there. I used to be a landlord. I had 24 houses and these fell out though, but I fixed my pipes. I did everything I was supposed to do, but there's a lot of landlords that come in here and think they can make a quick buck and not do anything. Put 3, 4, 10 families in a house, causing all the traffic, and then leave, and they're getting away with it. And you're gonna find more. He says, what, 25? Well, how many houses in East Falauteau? I'm pretty sure there's at least 500, and I'm being conserved with that, because the landlords aren't made to exist.