It's council ready. Okay, staff ready. I would like to call to order today's special meeting.
Our budget workshop number two is 10 a.m. and with that, can I get a roll call?
Councilmember McKee, Councilmember Knight. I'm here.
Vice Mayor Reeves, Mayor Moller. I am also here.
Councilmember Trepp, chair. And just a note for the minutes in the record.
Councilmember Trepp is participating remotely due to just cause resulting from a medical condition.
All right, great. Thank you very much.
Can we stand and say the pledge of allegiance, please?
Thank you. Thank you. And I would like to ask the council if I could get a motion and a second to adopt today's agenda.
So moved.
Second. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. And you posed and abstain.
And with that, we have an agenda. And now it's time for public comment.
This is public comment that is about anything that is not on our agenda for this morning, which is related to the budget.
And I'd like to come up and address us.
Seeing none, I will close public comment. And now item six is our budget workshop.
We have seven different areas of our budget. We met two weeks ago.
And today is the second half. And then we'll have a summary and final council directions at the end of today.
Our overall budget. And once we go through our seven review items, I will then also ask for public comment on anything that we've discussed during those items.
So with that, I will turn it over to staff to get us going today.
Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I'm going to turn it over to see if you're king or administrative director, but I do want to acknowledge all of the staff that have contributed to the work on the budget.
And we have a lot of them in the room. You obviously have the department heads, resolve a remirons is here.
Because we're going to talk a lot about CIP and utilities, which is we also have Erica Rogers and Cal Batista who work public works in finance.
So a lot of work obviously, the budget's always, you know, to me, the heaviest lift that we have to work through.
And so I will turn it over to Cilia King. I will come back, you know, as we introduce CIP and make some comments as it relates to strategic planning and kind of what we heard in February.
I do want to point out at least emphasize that I know Cilia talks about this at some point and I think it's in the closing slides is that we have.
Requested that we push back the budget adoption hearing to the May 19th meeting mainly because we need the time.
So, so note that we were talking about May 5th. That's going to be at the May 19th meeting.
We will have a full agenda on May 5th on other matters. So without I'll turn it over to Cilia.
Thank you, town manager. Good morning. Mayor and town council. So we will jump right into the presentation and just to remind her about the presentation every couple of slides.
We do have a question slide where we will pause and the town council can discuss anything on the previous slides.
So we start with a little recap of the April 7th budget workshop number one where staff presented a balanced two year proposed budget for general fund operating departments.
And within that budget we also had some special revenue funds, one being the upper value waste disposal franchise fee.
Fund where we did propose an initial cost of about a $6,000 for the regional climate action and adaptation plan implementation and we did talk about how that cost had gone down a bit.
Well, quite a lot actually it did go down by $56,000 ish. So the new revised cost proposal is 29,833 dollars for that cost. So that's the final number that you will see in the budget adoption on May 19th.
And then also I talked about the tourism improvement district assessment fund 22 how it needed some corrections there.
So we did revise those revenues and you will also see that in the final version of the proposed budget and just to note that the local TID budget will be presented for adoption to the TID board on May 14th.
So again, this is not a budget that the town council decides it is cited by the board but it's presented to the town council for information.
We also had a request for information about total compensation. So if I answered you a little bit of analysis on the proposed budget for salary and benefits.
And came up with a calculation of an average benefit cost overall employees about 51%.
And this does this benefit package does ensure strong recruitment and retention about 44% of all town staff have been here for five years or more, which is great. The majority have been 10 years plus and it does keep the town competitive as an employer for when we do try to recruit we are an attractive place to be employed.
In the front section of the budget we have the financial policies and these are reaffirmed and re-adopted each budget cycle by the town council.
So we include them for review and just want to point out two of these policies in particular the OPEB trust investment policy.
And that one does need a bit of updating because in January of 2024 the PARS trust was being managed by high mark capital management and it transitioned to being managed by PM asset management.
So just a small change in the name of the investment advisor.
So we will bring that final draft again with the final proposed budget on May 19th.
And then the second one is the use of drought water reserve bank policy.
In the current fiscal year we had proposed town council actually approved the use of that fund to support the 1 million gallon water storage tank project and that project along with this funding sources have been moved into fiscal year 2627.
So we did not bring an amendment to that policy in the current fiscal year but we will bring be bringing that forward in the next fiscal year in alignment with the project.
We also have a general fund financial forecast and this is where we use current available data to project.
How it seems that revenues and expenditures may perform in future years and highlighting that first bullet point where it does explain that in those peaks of expenditures on that red line in fiscal year 2324 and 26 those are not necessarily budgeted expenditures exceeding revenues those are one time uses of general fund balance.
So the town has a history of having a surplus and so then the town council has the opportunity to reallocate that surplus to different uses so those peaks are actually transfers out from the general fund to different funds for other purposes.
And of course there is a little bit of a gap in those out years and this is refined each budget process as we update it with more current information.
There were no changes to any general fund revenues expenditures or transfers at as a result of the first budget workshop.
So just showing this again to highlight that the general fund is balanced the proposed budget is balanced in the two out years.
And this is our first question slide.
Council have any questions for a question.
I do have a question.
On the slide for the general fund financial forecast and the one time expenditures in 2026 are those ones that we'll be looking at today.
No those were approved I believe in January that was the fiscal year 2425 and assign fund balance the largest transfer there was the three million dollars into capital fund 50 for the on the comments project.
Okay, thank you. And on the focuses on economic development and certainly prudent fiscal decisions. How does community engagement fit in there.
I'm looking at how we continue to work on the revenue side.
That's an excellent question. I think it's more focused on the expenditure side. I think as we.
We, you know, have a focus on community events and bringing tourism to yon fill but also providing events that serve the locals and if the town manager has anything to expand on there.
You know, our practice has been to budget conservatively in terms of revenue growth generally we show a 2% number we will alter that if we have other data that maybe shows.
You know, greater increase clearly we invest in economic development we tend to historically outpace our growth projections and likewise I just want to point out as I think it's important the word expenditures can sometimes be misconstrued.
When silly you just talked about the 3 million dollar allocation of fund balance in 2026 we encumbered it but we did not spend it.
And so you will see as we talk about the upcoming year when we get into the CIP that we're not proposing to spend that 3 million dollars clearly we need to work through whatever issues.
However any engagement cost when you use work community engagement my mind goes to like having meetings with the community discuss projects and sort of build consensus.
Those costs will have to come out of that that bucket but I think we're trying to so I guess to clarify a few things again expenditure doesn't mean we've spent the money always it's been encumbered or has been allocated on this early spent.
And I think to start history of budgeting in Yonville has been to look at revenues you know conservatively expenditures you know we I think we generally look at a 3% growth so when you look at five years out.
You you have to sort of you know sort of test the assumptions but I think part of this slide is always looking backward you have five years backward five years forward you know I think if you look backward and you take out the one time transfers or the one time.
Allocations you can see that we've historically had a surplus which is a nice thing to have.
Okay thank you very much.
Councilmember No.
Oh.
So when have a.
I do have a question when you're done, Eric.
Sorry.
Sorry to interrupt.
I see that on my box Hillary.
Okay thank you.
Thank you.
So first I think we saw financial forecasts like this I can't remember maybe before our current town manager was here.
So my first question is.
Does this is something you update on a regular basis which I see you not in yes so.
And the other thing is for the council maybe the community.
I just wondered how you view a forecast that in some ways is kind of static because I think of my experience on the council where.
I was in a council during 9.11 and we saw a drop off a fairly short term drop off of visitors.
And then in 2010 2011 with whatever they were going to you would call a depression or.
Great recession and then in the beginning of covid.
The council is always as a general rule well not as a general rule always has been as the time manager said conservative and our finances we.
We saw drop off some revenues but we also made adjustments and expenditures and so.
Well I think it's important to have something like this I don't know if it really reflects a history of how.
And the fact that we have a very important town is responded to very difficult times and the fact that we always have had a reserve we actually have a reserve now that's higher than what.
We said is a minimum and and those three instances that I talked about we never.
Had to dip into our reserves because of the.
The smart planning by.
The and thankfulness for staff to look forward thinking but for council to make those decisions too so.
It's it's a good thing for us to always keep our mind on but it's maybe not the full picture.
That's an excellent point and these future years that we're showing do not include any use of reserves in those future years and to the town manager's point.
If you did see these numbers without the transfers out you would see that that red line was under the black line in each of those historical years.
Thank you.
Council member trip.
Yes I had a question.
Question about the slide actually that Eric is speaking to. And I'm just going based on the handouts.
And I really wanted to ask Celia because it's always good to make sure it's apples to apples.
And I had sent the slide that we used to call this the five year financial forecast.
And it was called General Fund revenues and expenditures five year forecast.
Is this have you changed any of the parameters on this slide that you're showing or is it basically the same slide that we looked at in previous years and then I sent you last week.
Correct. This is an updated version of that same model.
Updated version of the same model. So it's basically the same slide but new numbers.
Correct. Yes.
Okay. And on the old slide you used to have assumptions and this kind of gets to what Eric was asking assumptions about major revenues and assumptions about major expenditures.
And on the old slide you listed some assumptions about revenues like property tax increase and sales tax and TOT.
So would you when you get to the end are you going to have those same assumptions on this slide or is it going to look different.
So those are listed in the staff report packets on the general fund five year forecast page.
We do have the assumptions for major revenues and assumptions for major expenditures and also a section for some future considerations.
Okay. I could not see that. What what tap is that it's on budget workshop to I'm sorry to digress but that's okay. It's in the packet for general funds summary.
Oh, I see it's the last two pages of that packet.
Got it. So it is going to be the same slide.
Okay. That was my question. Thank you, Celia.
You're welcome.
I just wanted to make an observation this slide that we've been talking about is pretty much the same slide I saw four years ago when I ran for office and when you don't actually understand the budgetary constraints and the issues that that create this line graph.
It is concerning and I think all of the council is always concerned with those lines but that.
Eric's observation historically we have met those possibilities with tightening belts if necessary and currently we're quite focused on how to improve revenues and stabilize revenues.
So it feels like that has been a major focus of this town council is to encourage business and to expand.
Our ability to get the funds that are necessary for all the projects and all of the runnings of the town.
So I mean this could be a scary thing, but it's not and it hasn't proved to be that.
So I just wanted to make that observation.
Thank you and I just wanted to comment on this as well.
This is you can there's a lot of assumptions that you could put in and decide to describe both of these lines and how you form both of these lines and so we've just simply.
We're using what what is 3% for expenses and 2% for revenue.
Just and these are really trend lines they're forecast they're they're really not facts I think if you you know and that's really explained by I think.
I think it's actually an explanation by why you see the you know the increases in a couple of the bumps over time because those when you really look at those I always look at.
You know a parameter for lines that's area under the curve this is like a lot of money goes from 15,000 me 15 million to 20 million over several years and so that's a lot of area so it's a lot of money.
But it's not money yes we spent it but we had it to spend because it was excess money in a way.
So I think that there I have seen a lot of misinterpretation of this and gloom and doom and it really is just a forecast basically.
Without any error bars or standard area I mean this is you know there's a lot of variation in this and it really is just a forecast typically I see these is kind of dash lines you know this where is is where it could possibly go but to the other council members.
Points yes I think it's something to look at because but it'd be much more meaningful if one of the lines was greatly you know above or below the other ones and they're not so that I think is really the message that we really.
need to send to the public that these are generally where you know we're doing really well we would this doesn't take into account any the.
Reserves that we have in a lot of different funds so before people want to go make something out of this I think it needs to be.
Carefully looked at and not over interpreted or under interpreted as a case may be so with that any other questions.
Will we move to the next item.
Nope we'll go ahead then thank you.
Thank you.
And I'm going to now kick off the CIP the capital improvement program portion of it.
I can go to the first slide members work in the deck.
So as you all know but for for for the public's.
We shifted to a two year budget cycle of by any old budget.
Three years ago.
And part of the rationale for that was to separate you know strategic planning or goal setting from you know deep budgeting.
And I always like to explain that we're always budgeting to some degree we have mid cycle budgets we we have mid year budgets and we have now mid cycle budgets so.
Generally this is the year that we're doing the deep dive on the budgeting this is why we have two workshops our second workshop will come back with adoption hearing.
If you need more time we have to adopt a balanced budget by the end of June this is state law.
So we have time.
But this is the budget year last year we did strategic planning and part of that is goal setting.
And so I wanted to remind everyone of the dot boards and we did it two ways this previous year on the left and you can't read these but these are all available on our website.
You know we did what we called collective wins where we kind of did a top 20 of things that we had heard you know the staff supports you know there is budgetary impacts but these are not new initiatives.
I shouldn't say that some cases they are new initiatives but these were generally sort of collective wins meaning like things that we can get done we just kind of needed to have a sense of priorities when the council.
So you were all given ten dots it was like a rule if you can't put two on one thing and you know it was kind of a lightning round of the dots and you know what emerged you can see you know kind of later some of the stuff that we've been working on.
You know customer service savings surveys the yant fill stations which are the idea of integrating sparkling water to reduce single use plastics those were the two five daughters there was a bunch of four daughters and three daughters.
So we try to take that input and you know basically make it actionable and figure out.
So you'll see that some of that stuff later is gone resolve it get into the details and actually we have Byron Hoffman from offset in the crowd who will make a presentation who kind of gets to some of those.
Ideas and initiatives on the right side is when the dots are a little more.
Deliberative because you know we had gold dots and silver dots those generally represent resources you know so in terms of you know budget that's available and then we have these red green and blue and I want to remind you.
Blue and I want to remind everyone you know what those mean because we we have talked a lot about readiness or yantville.
Green or blue zones but generally they follow those principles like red was emergency preparedness green was sustainability initiatives and blue were health initiatives.
So in this case for the public that didn't witness this you know you were able to go forward place a dot on the board kind of explain why you're putting that dot there.
So you know what was interesting was and it's always at least interesting to me and I think the staff because we never know where the dots are going to end up.
But it was clear at the time last year that yantville commons was the highest priority you got five gold dots saving for construction got five silver dots.
But then what was to me kind of an interesting thing was this idea of virtual power nodes.
And I don't want to go into a big wonky explanation of virtual power nodes but this sort of feeds the energy resilience and micro grid discussion.
You know we did you'll see in the slide recently get 250 thousand dollars from the federal government so we work on these things after you know it's not just a exercise of placing dots like we we take this and especially if something has five dots.
You know we really try to figure out how to either implement it through an existing budget or come forward as we are today.
With budget items.
I think what's important to to be clear about today because we're talking about the next two years.
In the existing budget we still have a considerable amount of funding for things that we are working on.
And so as John and Resolva go through things I think they can explain there are certain things like the floorage met hall.
You know we this is an enhancement to the commons that we all kind of need Sam can talk about the needs in terms of parking rack.
etc. I think there's seventy five thousand dollars in the current year budget that has not been spent to implement that project.
So we want to get direction on certain things that we already have budget for because we are at a place where we're you know making some decisions that we want to make sure the council's involved with.
But I think recognize that what you're being asked at least on May 19th to approve is the next two year budgets.
We can give you updates we have ongoing process of talking about the current fiscal year.
But there is considerable funding and I think we'll talk about that as we get through the slides but it always starts to me with goal setting and strategic planning that the council did last year and will do again next year at this time.
So that we can kind of reset and kind of hear from the council collectively what are the priorities and this is mainly for CIP but it does get into operating things as well.
So next slide.
When we had our February kick off meeting our budget parameters meeting you know staff asked are there anything you'd like us to look at you know and and as you know we talked about a lot but there were three specific things we noted and three things that you will see.
We'll see in this presentation today.
One of which is the hydrology study in North Yonfield this is kind of some of the issues of.
So I want to run off at Yonfield Park and areas around that expanded electric vehicle charging stations this has been an ongoing regional conversation so we have done a little work on that and then finally there was a new idea of California drive and how can we do mobility improvements.
To improve when we talk about mobility we're talking about usually pedestrians and bicycles.
So those were things we heard we've done some work so that we'll see I think it's important to note here that as individuals which is the meeting you all talked and can say things I think we need to take direction from the group and so when we talk about things today there needs to be at least direction like okay yeah we support.
When we get to the California drive you'll see we've kind of said okay well here would be an initial study here's you know these are.
Guests of myths in terms of what it would cost to actually implement but in many cases you have to spend the money to study it so that you can have a capital project.
And so you get into that question of do you want to invest 50 thousand dollars you need to weigh the trade offs of that relative to other things.
Whether it be way finding which is also a mobility sort of it thing so we need to at least on these items get clear direction because they came from you but typically from individuals.
And I think that's when I transition to John.
I just want to add that to that during the year just you know for the public and transparency when we go through and actually talk about one of these specific projects that you know are now all being listed and you know considered for approval or not.
It's always great that the staff report actually shows you know is this budgeted where is it budget is what how does it conform to our strategic plan so it's very important I don't really see a lot of other communities actually doing that I think that's an excellent process that we have.
So that because you know sometimes even when you're a new council member or kind of new to being in the audience looking at stuff.
It's very clear that yes this has always been something that has been budgeted is it isn't something we're just going to worry about how to pay for it later there is very thorough process that goes into spending the money once we actually get to that part.
So thank you staff for doing that.
And I think I've heard people refer to this as colors of money you know I think I see a little refer to it as fund accounting.
You know we have about 30 funds 20 to 30 funds 40 40 so all funds have different sort of.
Constraints restrictions requirements you get in a road money enterprise money we'll talk about that today I think this is the point of making it complicated and sometimes it's easier to do mobility enhancements like with road money.
This is what we did with.
North Washington, right? We were able to do, we called upon Chiefius sidewalk, other things that we were able to enhance, but we were using road money.
We weren't using general fund money. And I think we all know the general fund money is the least restricted. It's the most important to sort of pay attention to.
So, but that's one fund. There's, well, when we do capital budgeting, we probably look at like 10 funds, I would say.
There are 40 funds that you all have to think about in the overall budget and all of them are, you know, what again, I've heard as colors of money.
So, the only money that's truly green is general fund. Everything else has some restrictions on it.
So, thank you for bringing that up. John's going to now talk about types of projects, so we'll start with that.
And we can, as we get into the imagery, we can stop and ask questions. And I think it's always important to ask that question is like,
would this project be eligible for road money or would it be eligible for, you know, we got a grant for sustainability?
Like, grants are not the silver bullet. Everyone always says, like, can we get a grant?
I think we were seeking a grant for the water tank for like several years, and we now have come up with a strategy on how we can fund it.
With water money, existing water money, not future rate payer money. So that's another really good example of something that's using two or three funds.
It's a very complicated thing, but it's one CIP, which is the idea of the water tank.
So, John, you go ahead and.
Good morning, everybody. So, as this two-year budget cycle evolves, and we are in our second year or second of the two-year budget cycle,
there's an additional layer that we would like to add or a concept that is really important to bring forward as we budget these things.
And that's the idea of a capital improvement project versus a major maintenance project.
So, prior to this conversation, all of our projects were lumped into capital improvement projects, but we are now trying to make the distinction between the two,
and the first category is a capital improvement project. That's what we think of, or I hope you think of in the traditional sense,
where it's a long-term investment of town funds to upgrade, build something new or renovate a physical asset that we have.
It's typically focused on infrastructure, building facilities and equipment, streets, things like that.
A capital improvement project does increase the value, extend the life, or adapt and existing facility to a new use next door as a perfect example.
And it also, in this category, considers the new projects that we want to propose at budget kickoff and build into our capital improvement program.
On the flip side, as we all know, youngville has lots of many nice things, and to keep them nice as they get used on a regular basis,
the community center is a great example. We built that in 2010, it's now 16-ish years old, and it's up for major maintenance.
And so, we have to budget for those things, but it's not necessarily a capital improvement project where we're going to build something new with the community center.
We're just going to spend money on fixing or maintaining the systems that are there.
And so, those can be a significant cost. They're not necessarily an annual thing.
It can be a rehabilitation of a system or a replacement of a system like HVAC, for example, or the repair replace a major structural components.
It does extend the assets, useful life, and improve its condition.
The best example to give is the community center and the geothermal system there.
And so, after 12 years of regular use, it started needing more major maintenance.
And so, we built that into our operational budget as well as needed.
We will build in major maintenance projects to rehabilitate facilities like that.
To keep the facilities that youngville has and enjoys in the condition that we all know and appreciate.
And so, as there's a couple slides later that we'll hit upon that we'll kind of focus on this.
The other comment would be we do have a slide to that fund conversation that we're having right before I started.
But before we get into that we just want to give a quick update of some of the current projects that are happening right now.
The most significant, not the most significant but the most visible one is the south parking lot in the permeable paper project there.
And so, that project is moving along.
We have a contractor working on it in and amongst the weather.
We hope it will be done soon.
Other examples of projects that were in the CIP were the interior paint of Schmidt Hall that helped.
That was kind of that major maintenance category where it was a facility that needed an upgrade.
Our camps use it 15 weeks out of the year so we want to make sure it's up and running and maintain well.
And then, for the general public that we all know about our storm challenges here in Yachtville.
And so, the other significant project that was completed this year is the Oak Circle spillway project.
So, on the left, the photo shows what the condition used to be with the current weather trend.
The middle photo shows it with no water and then the photo on the right shows it with the water flowing out the spillway.
Obviously, it was a successful project.
And what we don't show here is the video stream that would allow somebody that lives in that neighborhood to check the camera to see where the water is at any given time.
So, here we are on that fund slide.
And so, as Tom Andrew said, general fund revenue is known as the least restrictive and the non-genal fund revenue is use specific.
So, what we did here is try to lay out the funds from left to right in order until you get the general fund which is fund 50.
So, the lower numbers are on the left until we heat the fleet number and then we jump back to 50 because it's the least restrictive.
And so, we'll go through each of these funding sources and hit the highlights for each of the categories as we go forward.
But on the left is the transportation funding.
That's our our gas tax measure you.
SB1 and measure you equivalent and that's where we do spend a lot of our money to get that payment condition index that we all are proud of of 82.
And one thing that the town we we take pride in this but instead of using all of our measure you money for a street project.
We try to focus the measure you money on the asphalt part of the street project.
And so, we use our gas tax money for the design is a gas tax for design.
Gas tax for design of the project.
And then we use the measure the SB1 money for the concrete work or other work around that project.
And then that allows us to maximize the amount of measure you money that we use to put asphalt on the street.
So we did use that strategy on the Washington Street Quarter project.
We didn't include Washington Street Quarter on the previous slide because we had that presentation a couple meetings ago.
But that allows us to maximize the amount of work that we get done and that's why our streets are in such a good shape.
So just a general comment for the public.
So overall our all of our street maintenance at this point.
So I don't think we're building any new one is really covered by grant funds.
We don't use general fund.
I would say not grant funds in the traditional sense.
Well, specific use specific funds.
Well, all to say non non general fund.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Yes, thank you.
And then we have the housing measure S fund 71 flight control fund 75 facilities and fleet are ones that we typically don't talk about very often in these meetings, but we'll highlight a little bit of those today.
And then the general fund is the one that the the easiest money or the freeest money that we everybody likes to spend.
And so moving on to the next.
The next few things real quick, John.
So people are aware measure a the flood control money is done.
So, you know, as we look at flood control projects moving forward, there's no there's no dedicated funding source.
This is many regions deal with this issue.
It's different than wastewater of course, so you need to look at.
General fund when you're looking at future projects.
And then we talk about fund 50 as general fund.
It's not always 100% that I just want everyone to know.
Like this is kind of how we think of the general CIP, but in many cases projects get funded by different funding sources that go into a project fund.
Can be general fund, it can be measure as it can be, you know, other things as long as they're not.
Specifically funded by like the transportation fund, you will see that in fund 50.
So it doesn't mean it's 100% general fund.
Okay.
I just wanted to add to that.
I know that.
So the measure A for the flood was put on our property tax bill by voter approval.
I think that was probably in the 70s or something like that.
I think it's been a long time.
We've been using that for a long time.
So even though that has now sunset, we won't be getting any more of it.
All the money that's been spent on the flood control is for the flooding from the NAPA river.
And I think that over those decades, we have really seen very significant improvement.
I don't remember the NAPA river flooding for a long time.
And we're still spending some of that money on, you know, there are, we said on the flood control board.
And there is a quite a bit of federal funds that go along with those funds.
So whatever, even though we're running out of that money, I think the use of that money is really contributing to less need for the money.
The only flooding that we see is the, I would call it nuisance flooding.
I don't live in Oak Circle.
They might call it something else, but that we see from Hopper Creek.
So it's a great example of the use of that kind of money and really mitigating a lot of the problems that everybody, a value, including NAPA used to have.
So I just wanted to add that.
Mary, I just wanted to mention to that.
I mean, youngville benefited, benefited greatly from measuring funds.
I mean, there were years when our first responders were getting people out of ranch at NAPA.
And what was then gateway with boats because of the flooding of the NAPA river coming west.
And that's back when we our time manager was Nancy Weiss, and we use those measure A funds through the, through the federal government to put the wall around.
Ranchered in NAPA and gateway now, a win ofista that has, and then a wall along the Hopper Creek that would be preventative if there was flooding there too.
To improve the quality of life of a neighborhood that was always, it was always a worrisome time when we had a lot of rain.
So we benefited from that.
We use those funds wisely and I think, and we do today with all of these other non, general fund revenues to improve the quality of life.
The quality of life for the residents so.
Yeah.
So thanks for that.
Thanks to staff.
You haven't used them all up yet.
So good job.
Well, we have a slide where we'll.
We're going to go ahead and drain that one.
All right.
No pun intended.
So first up is a big ticket item that we all, everybody knows and loves.
Used to be measured to you.
It's now measured you.
It's it's where the book of our street funny money's come from in the coming budget.
If it's adopted, we are proposing to do.
Vista court vineyard drive and vista drive.
So the vista neighborhood for pavement rehabilitation.
And then in addition to.
The regular street work as part of measure you were obligated to set aside money's from the general fund or other funding sources.
To do class one or class four active transportation infrastructure projects.
And with that, I'm going to have Rosalda got some color.
Oh, good morning everybody.
I'll go ahead and give a little bit more background and how we choose our streets.
So what we are trying to do is overall raise our full town rating or PCI.
And we try to also see what projects we can get moved forward and get the most from.
So we have been attempting to do a smaller micro servicing project and group of such a small streets together.
Don't require a striping.
But some of those streets once we pick them out, we actually go out and review them.
They now need further repairs, which would be a completely different contractor.
So when looking at our list, these three streets all require the same type of work.
And we can go ahead and do those deeper repairs on those micro servicing streets.
To get that smaller project put together later on.
And that's kind of how we look at our set of street network just to see what can we move together more efficiently.
Our town's pretty small, so even grouping certain sections so that the whole town is under construction is something that we look at as well.
So if they're kind of grouped together, that's for a reason.
And we do try to get in there and get out as quickly as possible to kind of have less impact on the neighbors and the residents.
And then a little more information on the measure you.
The measure you equivalent fund, one of the key differences between the measure T equivalent fund and the measure you equivalent fund is the ability for us to use our maintenance work to meet that goal.
So previously with measure T, it had to be the creation of new class one and class four by facilities.
But with the new measure you funds, we can meet the required amount by doing maintenance work, say, on the wind trail or on existing paths.
So that's really helping us help all the agencies that get the measure you funds to meet that collective goal for the measure you equivalent fund.
Next slide continues on the transportation funding state gas tax is what I spoke about earlier.
That's where we focus our we use that to focus the money on the design of the projects that we have to put out a bid and just a reminder.
When we do a traditional project we have to prepare designs and specifications that we publish for public bidding.
And then those documents get bid upon by contractors and then we go through the award process for the lowest responsive and responsible contractor.
So, there is value in spending the money on the design because it creates those plants and specifications that allow us to follow the public bidding process.
And then for SB1, what the town is experiencing the past is if you tied a project that had both asphalt and concrete in it, the often times the concrete subcontractor doesn't conform to the schedule that you would like them to.
And then the streetwork gets put on hold while you're waiting for the concrete guy to show up.
And so what we've done is separate that out and have the concrete subcontractors do their work independently.
And so you're not tied to two different disciplines doing the work together.
Whereas it's much more efficient if you just have a paving contractor coming into the work.
So, Washington Street, for example, Rosalda had all of the concrete work done in advance and then that's what allowed good fellow brothers to come in and get it done in essentially three days and five shifts.
Because all that concrete work was done and they just pay up to it.
So, yes, we had the flight control conversation a moment ago.
This is fund 75.
We did hear from the town council that there needs to be further study of the northern part of the town as well as let's revisit the general flow of water through the town.
The February 4th anniversary deluge kind of inspired this conversation because we saw more water than we were accustomed to at that moment.
And so, we under the current fiscal year, we are under contract with an engineer who is doing a hydrology hydrology study of the north part of Yountville to try to determine the watershed and the flows and where they go.
So, then we can once we know that we can better manage them.
And then additionally, this is falls into kind of the major maintenance category that we're using the last of the fund 75.
Five four is to hydro flush the weirs.
And so, you've heard me talk about the weirs that are the off ramps for the water from Hopper Creek.
And so, the best example is right here at the corner of Fonell and the school or the common property, there's three 36 inch diameter storm grain pipes that get fed by that weir.
And it's imperative that we make sure those are cleared out every year to make sure the flow gets diverted when it should and isn't inhibited by debris in the pipe.
And then the other we do use the money to inspect the flood wall, the aforementioned flood wall.
And do any maintenance and repairs on that.
And then finally, we are working on the townwide flood management and flood management assessments.
So, we are focused on North Yountville at the moment, but we are studying the town as a whole in a bigger fashion.
You've heard us talk about the improvements that were done around 2015 that introduced the weirs in the off ramps.
So that hydrology hydrology study, excuse me, was done about 2012 2013 then those improvements were built.
So it's time to review that and see if there's anything that we can do to help manage stormwater flow in times of February 4th storm.
Just a quick question on that. So that's just not or do you have enough information to know that.
Was it, is it related to hop or creek or just, you know, the excess rain that we get with these, you know, big storm events.
Right now it's related to the change in weather pattern and the more frequent atmospheric rivers that we're experiencing.
So when we didn't have in the storm models didn't include that frequency when it was contemplated back in 2010, 2012ish.
And based on all of our experience, even in the last five years that I've been here, it's changed fairly dramatically and so we're trying to account for that.
Okay, great, thanks.
You're having a quick question about what control and this maybe goes to just our regular maintenance regularly regularly regularly regularly over the years.
We between mulberry and oak circle and hop or creek.
We see finally when hop or creek settles, there's a lot of gravel and debris that ends up in that area.
Do we, is this a part of our budgeting, we continue to at some point get approvals to be able to get in there and kind of reduce that gravel load that occurs in that stretch of the creek with we mulberry and oak circle or.
So yes, we have a partnership with napaccounty and so the napaccounty flick control and water conservation district is the one holds the routine maintenance agreement to do that work with department efficient and wildlife.
And so we have a standing agreement with them to come and do that work annually, so they assess it after the winter season and then they make a determination.
In consultation with us on what section that they're going to focus their attention on on any given year and then they hire the contractor that comes in and does that work and it's traditionally from.
The hop or creek bridge behind Barcelona down to oak circle that they focus their attention.
Right, it just seems like it's just driving by on oak circle the other day just seems like it's typical that you know some gravel builds up there and when you start getting just.
areas above water that it's probably something that they'll look into this year because it helps create some more capacity in that stretch between all berry and oak circle.
And the detention basin just upstream from oak circle is intended for that purpose it was.
Designed to slow the water down and have the gravel settle out so it can be removed every year and not clog underneath the oak circle bridge right.
Thank you and I think you wanted to.
So moving on to fund 81 this brings us to fund 81 is government buildings and facilities and this is where we really tie in that major maintenance concept.
So like we talked about a little bit ago all of these buildings are in great condition now we want to maintain that and there's a lot of infrastructure behind these walls that.
These walls that need just like everybody's house need care and maintenance over time and so we need to plan for that when you have.
Government buildings multiple government buildings it's good to have a strategy and so the town.
Set the next slide.
I'm confused on my slides I apologize and so this is where the regular major maintenance comes in and we are.
Inspecting and repairing the structural components of HVAC systems we do look at.
The exterior of the buildings just like a homeowner you're going to have to look at your house and every once you say oh that trim that trim starting to peel I need to get somebody in here to scrape it and paint it and so in this case.
It also applies to the grounds of the building so we're not talking about just the buildings themselves and so fund anyone is major maintenance and built into this budget that you're considering we have.
The corp yard parking lot for example you can see the picture on the left is in pretty bad shape so we would repair that.
The community center parking lot will get a similar treatment and then the exterior part of it where if you next time you're outside on mulberry check out the wood on the sheriff's office.
And that'll give you an idea of that exterior paint that needs to be the exterior stain that needs to be repaired.
And the next slide is the same thing but for the vehicles that we use to service all aspects of the town so each of the public works departments realize on some kind of vehicle to do the work that they do to get around town.
And so the the major the big ticket item for us this year in this budget is the replacement of a backo.
So we have currently have our backo is a 2005 model and it's beyond its scheduled lifespan but it's at the point now where it's needing more and more maintenance annually.
Then it's you know just like your car eventually you realize I'm spending more time at the shop than I am driving the car in this case.
The backo is a very important emergency response vehicle the two photos there are obviously at Oak Circle clearing flood debris but it's also it's a tool that we use for example on the left where a tree fell and we had to remove that tree trunk off the roof of that truck.
And so it's a very valuable piece of equipment and so it's this time of the year that or it's this time in the schedule and based on how the current backo is performing that we need to replace it.
Likewise with the the trucks that we drive in this case.
The trucks are considered emergency response vehicles because public works we always get lost in the shuffle because of police and fire but we are emergency responders and we do have to have a certain category of vehicle in order to respond to emergencies.
I mean to say oftentimes fortunately we've been we we have been fortunate but it you have to think beyond just youngville and so the example I would give in the 2014 earthquake are crews took our vehicles and drove to Napa and we're assigned water system repairs to help with.
with response to the earthquake and so we have to make sure we have emergency response vehicles that can perform during the necessary emergency and the reason I bring that up is even though we are trending towards electric vehicles not all of them at this time are going to be replaced by an electric vehicle.
So in this case we are replacing a pickup truck with a gasoline powered pickup truck in order to have that emergency response vehicle when we need it.
And the control and a goal for as we've had for a while to meet your sustainability goals is to improve the EV charging systems in town I understand that I'm not an EV.
have an electric vehicle, so I might not be using the right terminology, but for lack of
better word, we don't have any superchargers or fast chargers or the ones that really
juice them up quick. And so we understand that that's a goal of town council to have those built
into the system, and we are working on that. Rosalbe has been very diligent in it, but the challenge
becomes is the PG&E infrastructure that's in the ground to support those in place or not.
And the other challenge is PG&E's timeline, so if we were to apply today to install a supercharger,
they always tell us from the application point that it will be plus or minus 18 months before
this really is in place. I did want to add the chargers that we put in a few years ago,
we put two in that North Park. We put those type of chargers because there was enough power in that
system. There was enough for superchargers. And before you start the application for PG&E,
you have to know one where there could be a potential power source, because that's where PG&E is going to
install their service connections. And then you have to be able to provide them a plan and a map and
a location onto that application. So they can tell you, yes, we can do that or know here are the restrictions.
So we are trying to find the right locations for the superchargers and to be able to
want to get the approval and then start the PG&E application and get there okay for the actual connection.
Do we have any information on the usage of the chargers that we've put in or they use a lot,
you monitor that and you know the costs, I know I hear a lot of people talking about
some chargers cost more in their credit card to charge than others. So can you just speak to that a little
bit? Yes, so our engineer technician Jacob Solice, he's in charge of monitoring the usage and he was just
actually letting us know that the last month or two we have seen a really high usage and we've updated
our current rates to match the requirements that we need to so they did increase slightly, we're still
very affordable and we saw an increase in what we received for the chargers. So the ones we have in place,
I think the high usage ones are the community center and veterans park and veterans park with some of the
new ones. The other ones get used but not as much but we are seeing a real increase in usage.
Okay, thanks. Your question for someone, I'm sorry.
You asked for someone. For someone who doesn't have an electric vehicle and it'll hold the
soul dynamic. So when we put these in, is there any return to the town in terms of payment to the town
for providing these services to customers or is it just our goodwill for and for our hopes to and
I believe so I just looked back at our financial analyst to confirm but I do believe that the town
receives a portion of the charging piece. Thank you.
This is my question was regarding fees, people actually did they have to put a credit card into to use it?
Or an app. Okay, because I do see some of my neighborhood frequent users and I didn't know if it was
a free me for them. Not quite. So it is either download the app and you can pay your phone or
I believe you can pay via credit card. But the rates are very low.
Typically, somebody who wants to stay there for a tele-skated decent charge, so it could be a couple of dollars for, you know, half-charge, but they do have to pay. And the fees we receive, so we do receive, you know, the payment from the charging systems we have, and they are used to cover the costs we incur in getting those charge, the EB charge and stations possible.
If we have super-chargers, then is it a more expensive rate because it's a quicker amount of time?
Typically. So, and that's once we get super-chargers in, we'll know more information, and it also could vary from type.
So we would see what type of charge would fit best, and those fees are typically higher than your still charging stations, but lower charging capabilities.
Okay.
There are rates also different, like, you know, PG&E tells us to not use electricity during certain hours.
If you, is the rate charge to that customer different depending on what time of day they use, they charge their vehicle?
I don't verify that, but I don't believe we change our rates, so I don't think there's a peak hour rate change, but I can verify that.
Okay.
I could add that as an EV user.
There are times of really excessive use, like when the charger is really busy, they do raise the rates, and it does have to do with time of day.
Maybe not our home time of day use, but maybe more on, you know, when it's a traveler's heavy use.
So, I mean, that's what I notice.
And we are interested in seeing how the usage is with upcoming events, where we think there's going to be a lot heavier traffic here in town, especially with EV users.
So that is something we're going to keep an eye on.
It's kind of like Uber, I think.
Yeah.
So there you go.
Thank you.
I can just confirm what I had said before.
Yes, the town does receive some revenue, and you can actually see it in the general fund revenue detail page.
There's a line item for electric vehicle charging station, and we're estimating about $4,500 of revenue each year for the proposed budget.
Thank you.
So, because I know there is a lot of interest in these super charged units, but I know the price is super charged to get those two.
Can we, like, add a surcharge, since ours are pretty reasonable to help cover that?
Or we're trying to look for grants, or what's the plan?
So there are grants available for EV charging, where we could apply for one-two by the charging station.
So say we get a surren amount when it covers 50 or more percent of the charge of the charging station.
And you have to match, right?
We have to match.
The problem is then finding where to put that charging station with a power.
Right.
So we could apply for grants, and regarding whether we can do a surcharge on the charging stations themselves,
I'm not sure if we can.
Usually we collect what we need to cover the cost of them, so that could be a possibility.
Once we are able to forward with the superchargers, I think that's where we'll get more information,
and we'll provide more feedback on what we can charge on what we can do.
Yeah.
So it could help expedite that until we pay them off or something, just to thought.
Yes, go ahead.
Just real quick.
We are studying the funding for the virtual power notes.
And in terms of that being a possible option.
Because we're looking at that just just so everyone knows both that the Community Center and here at Town Hall.
Generally, the idea of virtual power notes is back up power, which we already have diesel generators.
But when you layer in battery, back up power based on solar, for those of you that have Tesla,
and understand how Tesla walls work, I do think there might be an opportunity to integrate the virtual power notes.
And as you know, we just got a $250,000 grant.
So this might be our opportunity.
We haven't studied enough to say it's possible, but that's the kind of exploration we're doing.
And if we could start with either Town Hall or Community Center,
we think that is what makes the most sense for our first type three,
or what I guess we're calling a supercharger.
So we'll keep you posted.
I don't know if we're all aware that the Climate Action Committee supports a guy at Berkeley,
but it's basically meant to help find multifamily low-income housing locations.
But it also tells you where the electricity is possible.
So maybe we could use part of that app to help locate or justify a place for grant applications.
Yeah, Aaron's back there nodding.
I do know that part of the, I guess the outcomes of the Regional Climate Action Committee will include some implementation steps related to EV chargers.
So we'll make sure whatever that that's going to be soon.
We're going to see a report.
We can utilize that.
Always where when I hear the words guy from Berkeley that created an app.
You know, but I think the reality of, you know, and those that I've rented an EV,
so I've lived through kind of that anxiety of charging.
It's a real thing and I think, you know, we know having a type three charger here,
it does come back to the PG&E dilemma,
and I do feel like we're working through that.
So you have a lot of, a lot of things and I think when you,
when you hear 18 months it's almost demoralizing to like,
you know, how do we even get the ball rolling here?
But I'm hopeful that the virtual power nodes and the, and the,
I guess the information we get through the Regional Climate Committee,
we can, we can, we can speed things up and we can,
and solve these, these dilemmas and these problems.
So both the city of NAP, NAP and Kalisto have used this app,
and applied for funds to make those locations happen.
So I think, you know, it's not just the guy with the NAP,
but it is actually a proven thing.
I'm sorry for joking.
No, we take it seriously and we will look at all that information.
I'm sorry, Mira.
Thank you.
So it's, it's interesting to, again, not some,
I don't own an electric car, and it's interesting to have our,
this conversation we talk about creating super chargers for people with electric vehicles.
But I still know enough about it, and I guess my concern is,
when there's such negativity on the federal level for electric,
for these type of innovative choices and car builders are doing,
building less vehicles that my interest is that as we talk about,
micro nodes and energy sustainability that,
I know you're, you're saying this, but we're really focusing on how we create buildings,
community centers and all that, that in a time when there's outpower outages
and all that, that we have something to offer the residents,
and can power up locations when it's either very warm or cold or something.
So that would, that's always my focus.
And I appreciate what we do for super chargers and electric vehicles,
but I don't.
I wonder, you know, you wonder at times what, what the near future of that is,
and, and focusing on, having more sustainability in our buildings here in town
is, would be my main interest.
So, but thank you for all that you do for that, because I think in the end,
we get to the right place.
But, uh,
it will be competing money councilmember McKee.
Just a, um, a quick thought when you talk about powering up residents
when we do have outages, um,
I think there's probably at least 50 or 60 golf carts in town too.
So, I, they don't use charging stations, but, um,
certainly need some place maybe to charge up, because that is a,
a good way to keep our streets, um, clear of too many cars.
It's people get around.
Just thought.
So, two things before I go away from the slide.
The first one is we, the, this is the first slide in the fund 50 category,
so we moved away from fund 82, which is fleet.
This is the first category.
And then I also want to give Brad the award for spoiler alert,
because we do have a virtual power notes slide coming up,
similar to our flight control power slide earlier.
Uh, this is the one I was confused.
I thought it was coming sooner in the slide presentation.
But a lot of time on these, and then when we go to game day,
all of a sudden it's out the window and you're flying by the seat of your pants.
And so, uh, this is the major maintenance category that I wanted to speak about earlier,
but in 2018 the town had a study done that identified,
and looked at our buildings and gave kind of a facility's maintenance plan.
These are the systems that you have.
These are their age and these are the timelines that you need to look at.
And so this line item is to hire a company to come do a new facility,
updated facilities maintenance plan for us.
And the end result will, you know, keep our building safe, hopefully efficient,
and if we can incorporate environmental responsibility into it, we will.
But it's intended to focus on the maintenance, the asset management compliance,
because as we know, ADA and energy rules change frequently,
and so some of our aging facilities might need upgrades.
And then again, sustainability is a key one that as a goal of counsel that you've given us,
so we're constantly coming for that.
And so this is a really a tool that will guide the major maintenance going forward.
And then sustainability efforts on the street level, it seems,
we don't talk about it much, but the state has, and the town has a goal of being sustainable,
but to that goal, the state has required that we need to change out all of our street light
LEDs.
And so we own 130 or so street lights in town, and this project will allow us to go through
and replace the old street lights with new LED fixtures.
And then the big ticket item here that we were talking about on the last slide is the virtual power nodes.
And this is tied to that $250,000 check that we received from the federal government
with the idea to engineer and design the components of what we hope to be,
a system using power banks generators and the solar to create a virtual power node.
Either here or at town hall, I mean either at the community center or town hall,
in order to provide that energy resiliency that you were discussing a little bit ago.
And so this will help us hire somebody to go through that analysis and really create a virtual
power node that will help the community.
And the example, the one that we're looking at is the community center because it already has a diesel generator
and solar and PG&E.
And you need those three things combined with some sort of battery facility to have that energy resiliency.
And then the unintended consequence of a virtual power node is you're going to end up producing your PG&E bills.
So we will see value in the virtual power node not only in terms of emergency or resiliency,
but on a regular basis where we're not reliant on that PG&E power constantly.
John, why you're on that slide?
In between my self and Brad, no, in between the mayor and I.
Who's feeder those?
I did alter the picture, so it was just all of you, but I couldn't get rid of his feet.
Sorry.
That's very, very observant.
It's like, wait, that's amazing that you saw that.
She's blushing.
She got me an air and we're in there and we're trying to focus on you and the council.
To be an air now.
I'm just having.
She could get my legs up.
That's the legs for the check.
Yeah, walk in the check off.
One other thing for energy nerds that want to, because I've been asked a few times.
You know, what is this virtual power node?
If you Google virtual power network, you can go into a depotion of information and actually MCE, you know,
who's our community choice aggregator.
We're in clean energy.
They're sort of leading the charge in my view on what sort of the new term being used for micro grids,
which is a virtual power network.
So I don't want to try to explain it, but a node is just a point in a network.
And virtual power networks, if you want to nerd out, will sort of share with you.
At least kind of what people are viewing as the future on this subject.
They can't remember a trip as a question.
Yeah, it kind of goes with exactly what Brad was saying.
So just looking at John's description of the virtual power node.
It's either going to be generating some power through solar, right?
Or we're going to be storing it through power banks.
So is that basically the idea that it's a backup source of power either power we've stored through a power bank.
So we can use it when demand requires it or something else goes out or we're going to generate,
which I'm thinking it's probably solar because we're not going to start running generators probably all the time.
Is that basically what we're talking about?
And then my second question is, what does something like that cost?
I know the power walls just, you know, in general are very, very expensive.
So, or power banks, whatever.
Some mechanism of storing power, which probably requires a battery system of some sort.
Well, and maybe John said this, and I missed it.
What order of magnitude of costs are we talking about?
The first question the answer is yes, it is generally viewed as a, you know, a power source in terms of you are generating power through.
So, you're storing it through batteries and then to have the redundancy needed to establish the resiliency goals you have, at least in today's world, a diesel backup.
So, that's why the two areas where we currently have diesel backup generators or significant ones is where we're kind of studying this.
The question of cost is really gets into kind of the solar and the battery. There's a lot of discussion right now about batteries.
So, I don't think we're prepared. You know, we have now this grant to, you know, spend some money to study it. We also do have, I think it's $350,000 in the current fiscal year budget that we did allocate last year.
So, between these two funding sources, you know, we have roughly a half a million dollars after we study it to implement something and our hope is that we'll be able to do one node for that amount of money.
Okay, and just going back to what you're saying, no, in terms of generating power, we're not planning on expanding diesel generators. I know they're kind of a necessity, but that wouldn't seem to be.
Or would we look at some other form of generation of power, because diesel's not optimum and solar, yeah, we all know solar. So is there some other form of power generation, we would be talking about here.
Now, just solar. Okay. Yeah, again, the third layer is the diesel generator, so that's where if the batteries run out, because you either don't have sufficient charge or there's, you know, a lot of demand, if there's a, like when we had the power outage, I think, for 30 hours, like we were, you know, really cranking those generators because of the need. So now, the backup to the backup is the diesel, we recognize, you know, that's the last resort.
Thank you.
Okay, moving on to one of the new projects that we'd like to discuss, this came out of the discussion earlier in the budget cycle and request from Council to look at the California Drive corridor from Solano Avenue to Washington Street.
And so to that end, we have hired with existing funds, a transportation specialist to look at it and prepare some conceptual designs, which I'll let Rosaba talk about.
Yes, so we're looking at California Drive as a whole from Washington all the way to Solano, so we did.
Do have a consultant, GHG, who develops just these preliminary renderings, just on light discussions on what we see as issues, what could possibly be an improvement, so these aren't final designers, these are just to get the idea of what some preliminary ideas could be.
On the wind trail, where the wind trail crosses California, it might be hard to see the difference, but one of the ideas is to pull that bulb out where they're crossing the wind trail, so that the bicyclist or the pedestrian is put out further and the cars stop ahead, so they can see that there's someone there.
What you can't see in the renderings are ideas for possible alert system like flashing lights or even cutting back some of the trees and limbs to make it clearer.
What's not shown here, but we will be done is changes and updates to the actual walkway or sidewalk that crosses the railroad tracks, so that right there is going to be updated.
These are just additional traffic common solutions that could help alert drivers and make it more obvious that this is a highly used pedestrian and bicyclist area.
So these are just some of the ideas that we wanted to show in renderings of what could we done.
It just providing a bigger entrance to the wind trail over on the other side of the bridge of 29 trying to find ways to reduce the conflicts that we're seeing out there with vehicles.
And then as just automatic we will be updating the accessibility components so that the walkways for the wheelchair users on on either side or on the north side where the path is for those users.
So for example, this initial study and the time it took to put the renderings together.
My first question is how much did that cost and we were able to use SB one funds or any measure you funds or did it come out of general funds.
So we big little want to use measure you funds because we want to say that for asphalt, but we use gas taxes be one funds or existing even ADA funds that we have something that we can use for a design.
This particular one was just this preliminary toxin renderings it was about 15,000 dollars because it wasn't a full blown study or design.
It was an experienced consultant that we get down we sit down with and say here are some of the issues we need something just preliminary what can we look at.
And then once we get the approval before that's when we sit down with them more and really get their feedback on what they've seen what they consider to be the biggest is you're what they recommend and then that's what we'll bring back.
Okay, thanks.
Yeah, and I just to add what I said earlier you can see here the teams estimating 50 to 60,000 dollars to do that.
We have.
Usually two buckets that we draw for from from these kind of things, you know, we have what we consider traffic calming which is typically a bucket that could be used and then we have.
What we've been calling recently mobility and way finding so I think when we get to a point it probably at the end of you know maybe the morning session.
To get some direction from the council because you know there's trade offs to those you know and this is a 50 to 60,000 dollar what would and I think be mainly general fund money.
At this stage so I just want to be clear about that when we get into the actually the rehab and all the stuff below that's when we can start to use road money.
Particularly if there's a project through this area and I don't think we have scheduled right now this area specifically for as fault but it would probably be somewhere in the five year kind of.
Yes, so a lot of the streets especially street to where I see their improvements needed are in our five year plan.
If we haven't moved forward with something it's because we see traffic improvements need to be done and we typically don't pave if there's going to be strangers to the striping.
So when we do traffic changes or improvements or add additional striping or do changes like that we want to pave it first so that new striping is fresh and it's the permanent kind.
So just as an alternative as you think about options you know you could say like we like this idea we're not prepared to spend 50 to 60 and general fund money but when there's road money available because we're planning this area for a future.
Road project like we could re.
Bring this back so you have that options not like killing it but it's delaying it so that we can you know way the trade offs of how you want to use general fund.
Prioritize yes thank you.
Then go back to the slide I do want to remind everybody it's a complicated little corridor in that this is not a typical street for the town of Yantville the wine train train tracks pass through here and they have.
We have the right of way 15 feet on either side of it of the center line of the tracks so there's a challenge balancing getting them to repair the.
As well that a butts the tracks and then everything between the off ramps is counter ends and so you know alternatively to us waiting for counter ramps to pave what that little section.
We have to get a cultural permit to do the work and so there's layers of this that make it more complicated the other thing I do want to highlight in the lower right corner or is one of the concepts that what of the.
Points that we are studying is that right turn off of northbound 29 on to Washington and that crosswalk that's right there and so.
Everybody that exits there is always looking left to see if they can go and if you turn to look to go when you're going if there's a person in that crosswalk it's a bit of surprise and so in that lower right corner one of the concepts that we're.
Considering is taking that crosswalk out taking the path that leads to it out of the park.
And then having people cross at Washington in California to get to the trailhead at the vine trail which would be a much safer pedestrian permit.
And we've talked to Sam in Parkson wreck about that and she's supportive of the idea and I don't know if you want to add anything.
That's a no thank you very much Sam for waiting.
And so the other diagonal across town the other project that we are looking at that we do have some current funding for things to the Oak advice subdivision.
And project is the youtville cross road mobility improvements and so we are working with a different consultant looking at improvements along that corridor and I'll hand it over.
And that's a slightly longer stretch of road so costs for even payment improvements increase but it's also a highly used bicycle trail and then a nice pedestrian connection from Yant Street over to Stacks view to do a loop around.
So we are with with this consultant going through different ideas of how to improve the pedestrian access there and the bicyclist access.
One of the other bigger issues that we're looking at is how to slow down county drivers coming into town.
So those are some of the issues that this consultant tells you looking into.
The improvements we can do phases of improvements on this ahead of the oak and vine subdivision because we don't want to do any large roadway improvements if they're going to have a big construction projects because then it damages the road improvements we just did.
So we are trying to see what improvements we can do ahead of that project and then final improvements we can do after that project.
I just wanted to comment since we were talking about this that's a much more problematic.
Intersection to me than over on California because it was two stop signs nobody stops at either one there just wasn't by and I've seen a lot of problems there and yeah the access for the bicyclists.
The one thing that got lost in the Washington Street corridor project is the fact that we did re-stripe Madison to young streets.
So we have improvements up to there so the idea is to build upon that and then improve the intersection and on the picture on the right would.
I'm much safer environment for the pedestrians and the bicyclists that are making that right turn on to young low cross road and as we all know it's everybody's making the left turn and then that quick right turn.
The biggest challenge is the trucks making the right turn and cutting the corner so that concept on the right you can't see at this level but there is a truck apron there that would be intended to guide the trucks to take the turn wider which would slow them down.
And also also give a safe space for in that case where the bicyclists is and then coming into town on the other end.
It's hard to see on this photo but as you're entering town from youngville cross road traveling west we would propose to put to their truck aprons with the total height of about two inches in the middle.
They from above they look like an island but if you're on the ground they don't stick out very much and they would be on the edge of the bike lane and give the drivers entering town that feeling of entering a more narrow space which.
Engineering studies have shown that it slows the driver down as they're entering town and it does give us more of an entrance or a gateway into town from youngville cross road.
I just want to add because I want to give I guess John I'll give everyone credit but John specifically I've never met a public or a director who cares more about the aesthetics of the street and that's a huge compliment because usually you know they'll put up.
Reflectors and you know all the signals on all the distractions that you can find.
And you know if you go back to the other slide like you know and John was all when I talk like he doesn't like the zebra striping because he doesn't like that much paint.
You know and I think those that's a really good sort of approach because you know we've really balanced like now you see green pain everywhere right this is like the new thing to do for bikes you know.
Flora string green paint but truthfully it does take away from the aesthetic of the street and you know we are a rural community so we try to maintain those roots.
Think the other thing that you know John convinced me because really what you're trying to do is you're trying here to tighten the intersections so that.
You know obviously cars have to slow down to make the turns and what he's talking about with this reveal like we had a product which they call armadillos which is basically like it looks like the back of armadillos.
They do the same thing but John's concern which was you know was convincing is that the street sweeper can't go over it right so you have these balancing things and you know we want clean streets right so you want a traffic calming.
It's a technique or tool that does the job of slowing things down but doesn't take away one from the aesthetics of youngville and two maintains sort of some of the public works functionality.
This critical to you know are ongoing maintenance efforts so those are that's like a deep dive into long conversations we have.
And I just think it's important for the community to understand like we weigh these things.
You know because of what a special place youngville is.
I have a quick question why we're on that that first slide.
Looks like this stop sign was moved back is that just optics between these two pictures or is that.
A strategy.
No that was just their version of the rendering.
Okay.
That's like the rendering is our early and keep stopping all the way.
So okay.
Mayor I also wanted just to.
reiterate with the town manager says I I really appreciate the fact that we have.
Director firms and deputy director resolve that we have full time public works directors for in a community.
Where we care about our roads and the safety and the just the sustainability.
Having staff here that is thoughtful as you are I appreciate it.
We've had public works directors in the past that were contract and they were the yellow buttons on this.
And so it was if it was a main street down Jefferson and Napa. And so when I appreciate the time you spend because it improves the quality of our community when it's been a little bit more time and take what you're thinking about into consideration.
Thank you for both other work that you do and all the staff does to kind of keep our small town a small town so thank you.
Vice Mayor.
I just have one question about the, of course, I travel this road a lot because I live on that side of town.
And I guess my question is that both the curbs on the east side of Yant Street as you turn on to the Yantville Cross Road.
Both sides are really rounded.
Would a squared off curb area make more traffic calming sense or is it all about allowing those cars to go as fast as they can around a really big radius, which is what's there now.
You keep it as a radius typically to allow one movement of the cars and avoid any obstacles or obstructions that could cause issues later on.
That's why we put other, we're not this particular one, but for other one we could bulb something out or put in an apron to create that separation.
But typically we keep it a circular radius just for safety.
But the tighter radius does serve the need of slowing people down and that's in the picture on the right where the truck apron is just to the left of the bicyclist is that it effectively reduces the radius.
It reduces the radius of the right turn and causes the trucks to need to swing wider, which slows them down.
All right, questions over, continue.
So moving on to our favorite community center.
We have a line item in the budget for community center enhancements stepping back from the current budget that you're considering we have a current project to do shade sales in the current budget at the barbecue kitchen event space area.
And we are going through that design process and trying to balance the need for shade versus the design aesthetic versus the cost.
And so we've looked at multiple versions and are considering some of the ones that we see on the left here for the existing shade sales project.
And then on the right side is a picture of the kiosk with the idea that if the kiosk was successful, do we want to put a potentially permanent kiosk in the community center campus somewhere in front there.
I think we're seeking, or Sam's going to chime in a little bit.
Well, we're talking about Sam's.
I wanted to give Sam equal billing in terms of caring about a facility because we all know this is her home and she cares deeply about it.
I think the shade has been an interesting process and you know, we've kind of come full circle.
So I just want to say now we're not going to have shade this summer other than umbrellas and things that we can do temporarily because we have options.
Maybe some of them here I don't think we're at a point where staff is ready to make a recommendation we're happy to listen to your input.
But we, you know, care deeply again about the aesthetics of that plaza and I think we studied different options we're looking at it.
I do think when Sam and John agree.
That's when I'll make sure that we come back to council because this will be a contract that council will have to approve.
But I think I just want you to know again, I'm Sam can chime in. I think the kiosk I just want to say there's no way we're going to build a permanent kiosk for that amount of money.
We did a temporary thing with the greenhouses you know it worked.
If we want to explore that we would need to get direction beyond just this budget this would be a bigger thing.
And yes, Sam, maybe you can talk about the kitchen.
What's going on there?
Absolutely. So you may remember we brought fees and charges forward a while back to institute commercial kitchen use of the community hall kitchen.
And so we have been going through the pervenine process with Napa County and there's several layers to that it's pretty involved.
And although the kitchen is set up really nicely there are some things that we may have to look at improving one of which is the.
The hood system with the fans is predates me and probably 30 or 40 or 50 years of everyone else.
So there are some things that we most likely are going to have to improve to finalize that and what the use could be then is we're able to run it out for people who are using it to prepare foods, whether it's something they sell.
A farmer's market or even caterers who are cooking on site so currently we're permitted for people to bring in food to serve that's kept warm but the cooking aspect is only for one time special event type thing.
So those are the things we're looking at there.
And then just to reiterate what Brad said, you know when you start we went through this with the on feel community park as well when you start looking at shade there's just a lot of different aspects to it.
We're just so conscious of the visual of the building because it is you know structurally so lovely in that area we don't want to cover any of that up but we also want to be realistic about putting something in that actually provides the shade that we need back there so.
There's almost done a ton of research and we're really honing in on three different kinds of things in like Brad said we look forward to bringing that back with the parks and advisory commission and the council to get more feedback but it is more involved.
Thank you.
So the next slide I mean we can because I want to say I'm to chime in on if we can go to the comments enhancements too so this is something that we put in no because as it was discussed earlier.
The council in a cupboard three million dollars for the comments now since we're.
You know having a reset in terms of housing we still need to move forward with enhancements which we as a staff feel are needed so we created a new sort of project number which are proposed or our comments enhancements just like community center enhancements so I just wanted to also kind of walk through these and then we can answer questions on both thoughts.
All right so some of the things that we started examining in this fiscal year and are looking at for the future in genres all can help me if you need if I messed up something but.
Schmidt Hall bathrooms and so obviously if you've been in there they were made for children in elementary school and we've adopted them slightly.
So we have a huge influx of traffic there that are adults so using young they'll fit visiting the dog park and different things like that so we were looking at.
Simple not like full full gutting or anything but simple ways we could improve the look and then also the you know the usability of those for all ages.
The flooring in Schmidt Hall you know I get a lot of it's very dirty comments but it's actually not it's just vinyl linolium that is was put in when the school.
Constructed that facility and so we've had it deep clean and it is what it is visually is is not appealing so we've looked at a couple things we could epoxy or paint the floor but the look of that is not really what I think we are going for so.
We're in the process of just gathering some more information there's not enough money in the current budget to do we budgeted to paint it there's not enough money to do anything more so we're looking at different options and then carrying that forward.
And the code compliance with the firm stand and so as that the firm stand the coupe as that.
Got opened and not the county came out and did their regular inspections there are some changes that needed to be made as far as overnight storage of in storage within the refrigeration so you see some of that developing now we found a really cost effective.
The solution to that which was bringing in the.
Connex box in theory with slide up doors and electricity so that the the refrigeration can be moved in to there and and securely stored overnight which will comply with what.
County is asking and really just to keep it open and going and evolving and I think you know eventually.
With the housing as that moves forward I think we can all agree like it will be a great asset for and it it already is a great asset for everybody so the evolution of that and and opening that space up for more park like use as well.
And I want to chime in real quick because I've had a lot of questions about this that green connex box that's there is not refrigerated itself it is a space to put the refrigerators and so there's this.
I'm going idea that we bought a refrigerator a giant refrigerated box for that purpose of refrigerating the entire space no the refrigerators will be placed inside the roll up door and when they open for business they roll the doors up and the refrigerator doors will be accessible from the outside it's not a refrigerated container.
Thank you for that explanation for those questions myself so thank you very much.
And was that our last two slides are our CIP project sheet and we provide these because these are the work sheets that we use throughout the year to track projects and follow projects and talk about projects and Oliver meeting so.
We do color code them fiscal year 2627 is blue this year and 2728 is that I'll say salmon color and these are the sheets and you'll see them later in the enterprise fund presentation as well.
We have them laminated two sides and we these are the tool that we used to have conversations all the time in all of our offices about the status or the future of any of these given projects and so there's there are some.
Programs and maintenance projects on here that are not in the slideshow but we're presenting them and there are in the budget book that the budget packet that you have.
And with that I believe we're at our questions I'm sorry for a quick question for a larger print out of this is at on our website so I can.
Get it into 12 point type or something like that.
Is that where I can I find it on the website or we can put it on the website typically since this is direct information that's in the budget book we don't put these sheets on there but it is something we could look into doing.
I would it would be helpful to be able to have one place where you could just kind of look at the projects and and yeah I mean just be able to plan set them and see and I'd like to see that it is useful sheet I think it's also in your CIP book to see now under your CIP it's just.
I think that's a great suggestion too because sometimes especially if I'm looking at staff reports that are coming up it's good to see it in relation to everything else.
I mean for once the projects first I get budgeted and then they get studied and then something finally comes to us and I can't always remember exactly what I said year and a half before during budget discussion so I think it would be very helpful.
I agree with that too.
I just want to make a general kind of comment before go into see if we have any more questions.
What we've all been talking about here is I kind of lump all into this big category of infrastructure.
This is something that's not sexy but I just think it's so important for young people and I see so many real major budget issues with the cities around us because they don't maintain stuff and they don't put.
You know the council doesn't prioritize that you know there's a lot of stuff underground and above the ground and all sorts of places that.
You know really don't get looked at they really get you know just pushed off into some other later date so you know I just really come in the council and our staff for making this a priority because ultimately it saves us a lot of money.
And you know if we put our money now all this incremental stuff doesn't we don't have to rebuild all these streets we don't have to we don't have brown water coming out tanks and we're going to get enterprise funds soon but you know.
It's just so critical to what we do so again thanks to council and staff that continue to make this infrastructure important because I think it's important so that vice mayor.
I'm in total agreement with your comments but I also am interested in sort of supporting the idea of.
Formalizing even more as we go along the difference between maintenance major maintenance and money for new projects and I love this sheet of this is 2627 and this is 2728.
If we could within those sort of lump the the things that are major maintenance and the things that are new projects so that we see a difference in the highlighting color or whatever so that it's at a glance kind of thing that.
really helps us understand what's happening first and what's the priority.
So when do you see this sheet on the bottom and in the categories we did add mm as a major maintenance.
And then it's the bottom and the community field facilities category the bottom six or seven are major maintenance and at the bottom each of the categories.
We try to add the mm projects but we can certainly work keep working progress and we're happy to try to make it more clear and or color code it differently to make it more clear.
Okay.
We are trying to meet that goal that's.
Good, because you see this visually challenged thing of mine that I'm like, okay, well, I can almost see that, but I really appreciate the categorization of that and sort of the one at a glance kind of ability.
Had one other question when we talk about resurfacing, say the community hall, for instance, is there any possibility that we could maybe partially or work towards more permeable surfaces at that location as well as we have in the southern parking lot,
maybe not the same thing, maybe clinkers, maybe something different that could change the asphalt to.
It's definitely something we could get feedback on. The original feedback we got because I have looked into more low usage areas for permeable asphalt, something that could change that.
And a very smart feedback that we got that I always neglect is, we always have to resurface our asphalt or parking lots or roadways to keep maintenance up.
So if we install permeable surface now and then we have to come and maintain it by doing a surface, remove the permeability of it.
And so that's one of the issues. We have to find something that we can put in, but that we can also maintain and keep that permeability, much like the papers.
If we were doing, looking, we'll look at the current condition of the parking lot back there and if it's to the point where we have to remove and replace good portions of it.
And then I'll start looking into could this be a good candidate for those papers because we have to do full remover replace.
But if the condition of the pavement of the parking lot is such that we still have a good 510 years out of it, which is to resurface, we kind of want to do that first for longevity and then do the major repairs when it's when it's time and makes economical sense to do it.
But it is something I've always wanted to look into and explore more of how can we make these areas more permeable.
The south parking lot really came up as a good opportunity because it was completely new. It was dirt from the beginning.
So that is something that we're trying to get more ideas of and is time progresses.
Then new materials and options do become available and we we're able to see other agencies with their using agencies that have different areas and kind of to see how they're maintaining it, how it's working and how it's lasting.
So it is something we always have on our radar on what can we change with our not only parking lots but are paving in our roadways and possibly in our smaller smaller use of areas.
Right and maybe there are opportunities for pilot area within a parking lot just to see how things go.
I totally get that the south parking lot is way more informal and at the community center we probably wouldn't want to use that type of permeable surface.
But these high-five fire cement clinkers that they use in Europe.
There's just an amazing ability to remove and replace the same pavers over and over again as things change or you do projects in that area.
It just feels like those are things that we could start to consider or maybe move out from from the margins in towards the center so that we get an experience with them and see whether we could do the whole thing at a later date.
I would just say I can again, a test to resolve us sustainability efforts and I think well always if there's things you want to look at will look at them.
I can't remember how the true grid got to us I know it was partly based on conversations we heard a few years ago about making that permeable and we found something.
So we'll keep researching that.
I want to do a quick time check, Mayor.
We do have one more presentation we want to try to get in in the morning before the lunch break because.
I'm off set is here.
It's related to some of the you know what I would call non enterprise projects or non utilities.
So happy to answer any quick questions but we want to end the morning at least with that and then take all direction on all things heard this morning.
So.
I know I said about 15 minutes but I want to we can go into the lunch hour to but.
That's the unless there's any problem we're going to keep rolling.
Mayor.
What I had my hand up would you rather I wait and ask my question at the end.
I have.
I have you on on my box here can you is it a quick question.
Well first of all I just want to think we're very fortunate to have such two professional engineers on staff who do what they do very thoughtfully.
So that our town is beautiful because that's like the number one thing that attracts people.
So I just wanted to say thank you my question no has to do with the shade in front of the community center.
I think I heard.
The idea that we're going to look into the shade sales which I like but I think I heard the idea and I really want to support this that we have to make sure it fits with the architecture as need as those are up at the park.
We have a very definite look for our community center and especially in the front so.
Did I hear that correctly that we're going to kind of take a look at that how that might fit with the design in the architecture because is wonderful as they are.
They're big and I could see it could kind of overwhelm them although we definitely need the shade so that was my question are we going to look at it from a aesthetic architectural perspective.
Yes and we are looking at the area where the buds barbecue now we call it in that that area in the in the back the front.
You know where we already did the umbrellas we feel like is is.
I like to say I think it satisfies the current need so this is what I'll just call the back shade and and yes you did hear.
We're exploring options that maintain sort of the integrity of the architecture and the structure.
Okay, thank you.
All right, keep rolling.
Mr. Hoffman.
You can come to the podium.
Do we have to change slide decks or we're all.
Yeah.
Welcome nice to see you.
Thank you everyone.
So just a little bit of context.
Byron Hoffman from Offset as Brad mentioned working on just the way fighting program.
There's many components of that which I'll get into in this presentation.
But before we get into the actual work I'm going to take you through just a little bit of the research process that kind of fed into the inspiration for the work that you're going to see.
Byron.
I just want to I want to we had a transition slide that we just jumped over really quickly.
There's really sort of four things it's more than just way finding and if you go back to the dots you know we prioritize the out there it is.
I was going to say the out fill water stations the workable three bin solutions.
We talked about way finding.
We have also and we talked about what we were calling the legacy trail but we're now calling the heritage trail so I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that those are the four things I also want to say.
You know there's a team behind Byron that's not here.
There is a way finding expert these are sub consultants to the work that he's been doing.
There's a number of people that have been aiding this process.
And I think the storytelling or I remember asking you know you know I know that.
When I asked Byron what does he do you know here narrative designer graphic designer different sort of industry type terms.
I think telling the stories of y'allville to me is kind of what we're trying to do at the same time as we're trying to provide safe way finding we're trying to provide practical sustainability solutions.
You know we're trying to promote the place that is y'allville which is again a special place.
So this is all sort of a lot of work some of which is you've seen little pieces of like the sign on the side of the farm stand garden that was painted.
These are all things where we're trying to like you know use the dots to I mean and I say literally connected dots in terms of some of the you know the signs that exist and so forth.
So we're at a really exciting time in my view because you're seeing about a year's worth of work.
We want to make sure that we're on track with the stuff that's already budgeted and I will try to be clear on what budgeted versus you know what is future.
But the one thing that is budgeted which I think is is to me the thing that sort of is star of the show if you will even there's a lot in here is the pedestrian way finding signs the there's 13 of the signs that exist in town today.
We've been holding for a while they've they've become somewhat obsolete at least certain businesses that don't exist or I've moved.
We started this was like oh we need to do that real quick you know I think through all of the time and effort.
You know Byron has in his team have really thought this through so you'll see that I want to make sure we're on track we do have budget to move forward this year now I think it's a.
Day 120 day lead time so once we say yes unless people see things you know we're looking at sort of end of summer to get those signs refaced.
So there's a lot here but I think that's kind of where I feel like we we want to make sure we're on point so we can move forward with the current budget stuff and then we can talk about all the future stuff as much as you'd like.
Thank you.
Thank you Brad.
I'm sorry.
I just wanted to have Mr. often maybe do a quick introduction I think you you I appreciate all the work that I just have been looking at you've been working on but you have a unique.
Connection to yacht bill and I and I'd appreciate if you just share that with us so.
Yeah absolutely so.
Yeah I have a very very personal connection to you to you on fill my my grandparents were Don and Sally Schmidt.
Don Schmidt was the mayor of Yantville during the time that the the master plan from what Lawrence help him was.
Developed of course.
Sally Schmidt's history with the French laundry multiple restaurants and then I also worked as a producer and designer effort cookbook six hell of four new kitchens for many many years.
So this project.
I feel a real responsibility to make sure that it's done right but I'm also very aware of how close I am to it as well so as Brad mentioned we brought in kind of a team of experts that can kind of continually take a kind of third party perspective on the work as well.
Thank you I appreciate that.
I'm not there's definitely no conflict of interest but there is just a lot of love in this project and I think residents will see that thank you.
Thank you.
Okay let's just jump right into it.
Okay so as I mentioned before we dug into a way for this to.
Let's see is there a.
Strange maybe we can just view it like this.
Cool.
And if you'd like is it possible for me to hook in because I've actually updated a couple things in the slide deck if you have not we can go through this.
Yeah.
I already talking I'll get to have a fine.
Okay great.
Sorry everyone.
I'm not sure.
Option and say.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh.
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Oh.
Hi.
Hello.
So.
Okay.
Nope.
Oh.
Wow.
Secret door.
We even know about it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Where does the tunnel lead to?
There's a way.
Yeah.
We have 25.
Under there.
Yeah.
Okay. Got it.
All I do is everyone.
It looks like the internet's on very slow, a mental public.
There's not a lot of changes, maybe I'll just go through and I'll just call that a couple of things.
I'm feeling lots.
Let's just get into it.
Your call?
What we can do is include the updated presentation with the final packet.
So we'll replace the new materials that are there with any updates you've made.
Okay, perfect.
Can everybody hear me? Okay, if I had to stand this closely in the mic?
Okay, fantastic.
So really how we kicked off this project was taking stock of what already exist,
both present day and also historical. So this meant a lot of times spent on foot,
and really just getting re-acquainted with the talent of Yantville, and also digging into the archives,
which had a bit of a head start on through years working to my grandmother on her cookbook.
So this is very much just the tip of the iceberg, but some materials that did inspire the work at hand,
something that you all know, very well, just a history of redwood lined signage in town,
which is something that I remember as a kid, my grandfather, kind of seeing under his watch and just being so, so proud of.
So definitely biased when it comes to that piece of something that we have carried through into a lot of the signage,
like the street signs, of course, a very iconic.
And they went through an update, but still the same basic post design, which I think is really distinctive to the town.
And then we also dug into some of the historic signage that exists and has really been preserved over the years.
Two signs, in particular, the Yantville train station sign, which kind of utilizes classic hand painting,
and also the market signage as well.
Of course, the groves into a winery has a history of sign painting as well.
And then if you look at this little illustration of the vintage cafe,
there's this history of illustration being used in really interesting ways in the town of Yantville.
And then if you look at the illustrations of the left, so it's not in the valley of California, kind of the staff view of Yantville.
If you actually zoom into that, there's actually a lot of details of some of the historic signage that used to exist that no longer.
So we really wanted to get a sense of what is the town for Nackivler and how can we make sure that that's translated into the project.
If you wanted it next slide.
The other component of this is just acknowledging Yantville's place just in the context of the wider Napa Valley.
And to speak a little bit to my professional experience, I've worked for got 25 years now designing primarily for the wine industry.
And a big piece of that has been, of course, continually kind of digging into what is the vernacular of Napa Valley wine.
So there is a bit of that visual language that you'll see reflected in the work in the way that scripts are incorporated.
It's called Iceler label has this like beautiful brick red, which really speaks to just the, the, the, the earth.
You know, very simple classic typography on the old Madavi label.
And then there's also a history of wood signage throughout the Napa Valley that is very much connected to the wood-soundage signage in the town of Yantville.
And then I think the Turnbull sign is an energy example of like what is a contemporary interpretation of that vernacular.
If you want to move on.
So we also want to be very careful, like just because we're looking to history and town vernacular.
We don't want to design a signage system that just feels like it's stuck in the past, but we don't want to have that the Disneyland equivalent of of signage.
So we need to make sure that it really sits within the modern context of Yantville.
And Yantville, like, of course, as you all know, is home to world-class restaurants, hotels, shops.
And when you dig into their, their signage, their architecture, their kind of retail, front-age,
most of it is extremely well done.
So it's something that we need to, you know, have the town signage really kind of sit well in this context and not just be a throwback.
And a couple of things in particular here I want to call out.
The French laundry sign, the use of brass, how it's kind of integrated into the stone masonry,
which, of course, is a kind of, you know, piece of vernacular design that you see throughout, you know,
I mean, not just Yantville, but it's a nap of valley as whole.
And also the way that landscaping is integrated into so many of these signs.
If you look at these are John T, the climbing roses.
I think there's this huge part of the success of the storefront and just the life that it brings to the street.
You want to move forward?
So the other starting point for us, you know, where as a studio, we never looked to kind of create
new elements just to create them.
We want to kind of always anchor on like what has been produced before.
So we did dig into your current visual identity system.
And two things became apparent and I'll speak to this very high level.
One is there weren't really many elements that actually kind of keyed in directly to the town for
an academic that we just looked at.
And the other component was just in terms of uses.
If you get into the typeface, you know, the signage had some really kind of like some needs
that this typeface system like was not able to cover.
So kind of really a byproduct of the signage work was going through and kind of refining,
refining and extending kind of a kit of visual identity components that we can use kind of across the signage system.
And if the town, of course, you know, feels that this is something that they would like to
be forward with, it could be used kind of well beyond signage as well.
If you want to move forward.
So these are just a couple of the kind of proposed visual identity components.
I'll speak to the typeface first.
So you'll probably recognize the Yantville lettering from the train station.
So we actually worked to a foot incredible type designer to create a typeface that is kind of
based off of those letter forms.
So it can be used for a town of Yantville logo type.
But it can also be something that you can use very easily for other signage kind of, you know,
town needs in the future.
And then, you know, of course planning ahead because these are core components that we want to really have a lot of use for you.
Even thinking about the street signs which have vertical type.
So we created a separate stack version that could be used in that context as well.
So wanting to make sure these kit of components are really pressure tested.
Colors, everything here should be very natural.
So a brown that really keys into the redwood that already edges the signs.
Using this brick red, which work kind of keen into the old grows into your building.
But also treating it as a neutral as well.
We want to make sure that as a whole everything that we create doesn't contribute to sign clutter and really
integrates with the natural environment.
And that brick red is a really valuable tool and that respect.
And then you also see that there's this kind of mustard brass that we're bringing in and small doses as as well.
And I'll speak to what's in the left last.
But then also kind of building upon this history of illustration.
And if you go back into the archives so much of those beautiful illustrations that exist like they were created by locals.
So we really kind of revive that approach and we're working closely with Ivy Zomer like an amazing local artist to create a kind of like whole suite of illustrations for the heritage trail that we're getting to later.
Inspired by this classic pinnaker approach, but then bringing in beautiful watercolour to kind of bring life to them.
And then on the left you can see it proposed kind of lock up for how all these elements come together.
And are you able to zoom into the circular icon?
Okay.
I'll speak to it just really high levels so you can see indexing on the why which is a very distinctive shape.
And then speaking to Yantville's both, you know, a viticulture and culinary history.
And also what was here kind of before.
So at the very top you'll see a corn which speaks to the native Oaks and then tomatoes on the bottom and then great finds kind of integrated throughout.
And we also love the oak and the oak corn which is the metaphor digging into history of Yantville.
The it's it's the birth of of California wine in many ways.
I mean the Georgian being the first person to plant great finds here, you know, arguably of my grandmother with the birth of California cuisine.
So could the acorn be like an entry point to tell that story in the appropriate context.
So let's move forward.
Okay. So let's talk about the heritage trail and before we get into this the website for the heritage trail.
We also created a circular icon for the trail that you're seeing reflected on the left.
The the bell and then he respects is kind of the universal symbol for heritage.
And the bell that we've modeled this after is the pioneer pioneer school bell just right out front.
And then you know I spoke to you know the beautiful kind of landscaping in the front of so many businesses but something that I was really struck by just walking the streets of Yantville over and over again.
It's just like that the town is just it's filled with gardens it really is this garden town.
So we brought a sense of that into the mark as well so you can see that there is a honey suckle that is native to the region on the left and bringing in a climbing rose on the right.
You go back.
So let's see it's probably hard to see the the website here at Hudsonman and but I'll speak to it high level.
So the heritage trail like of course in the future there will be kind of physical signs that exist out in the field.
But we want to make sure that we're able to kind of really dig into this project kind of pull together all the history the writing in one place and then the kind of the physical manifestation would happen later down the road.
So we're focusing on a website what's really be the forcing function to kind of tell the story around these different sites that said we would definitely want to provide a link to it out in the field.
So if you're looking at the upper right there's a small little plaque of a QR code.
You'll see this reflected later on way finding where if a user kind of scans that they'll essentially receive the mobile version of what you're looking at here.
That either point you towards a kind of very handle handy Google locking map that takes you site to site with more historical context or you know if you're let's say not looking to explore the town on foot.
Let's say you're at a coffee shop here at home.
It can take you to what you're seeing on the left here, which is this kind of interactive locking map experience.
So basically the way that this works and all these illustrations were done by by Ivy is that you see a bird's eye view of the map on the left and as you scroll.
On the right there'd be a little red line that would take you from point to point just to reinforce this is a trail that you can experience on foot.
And if you click between any of those points of interest it would just automatically jump you to the appropriate point on the page.
And then you can see on the right as you're scrolling through the various points of interest for the heritage trail for the most part they would be represented by illustration and the reason for that is it's a really valuable tool to be able to tell great stories around these sites.
So for example with the the authorization rather than having a photo of it present day with all the shops we're able to go back in time a little bit and kind of show what like what it once was.
So again this allows us to tell like really quick visual stories for each site and also get some real mileage out of this work as well.
So for example with the 연file key, you know two of these illustrations the 연file station and town hall she sold as postcards.
So there is utility to this work beyond just what you're seeing on the website.
And then in the middle here you're seeing just a slide show this would also be a place to house historic photos that if you clicked on any of them they would be brought up in a slide show format with the ability to have a caption.
Any questions as I kind of go through this and jump from item item.
Okay. Let's keep moving.
Okay, so another project that we're kind of in in the midst of but is extremely high level is you know Brad mentioned this before the sparkling water stations were definitely at a research phase but also a little bit of testing to see that the unit on the far right.
Public works has sourced and actually have in front of or in the back of the yellow farms stand to kind of see how this is how the system behaves.
But as you can see like on the left and also kind of moving to the right.
Paris really is the place where this system was pioneered and it's it's been incredibly successful.
But I may recall this quote the number here, but I believe a 20% reduction in single use plastics through this installation so really really effective.
And you can see that almost all these are actually part of a kind of larger.
He asked even though the system itself is an extremely large and the reason for that for the research that we've done is that.
Almost all these systems are officially rated for outdoor use.
There needs to be some type of structure that's built around them that provide shelter from from the elements of course they need power they need water hook up there is multiple requirements.
So really the path here in public work could speak to this in much more detail is like let's let's pressure test a system and then from there.
We'll kind of go into what is the form factor and then what is what are the graphics that do the storytelling around this.
Do you want to move forward.
So trash is another high level project so I live in San Francisco and there's a notorious story there of a half a million dollar custom trash can so this of course has been in the back of my mind this this entire project.
So where we started was you know how could we let's say lean on public works to create a very simple trash can that integrated with the town vernacular so what you're seeing here is just a simple box.
I'm adding a red word.
But in some kind of select situations, could you use different materials, for example, masonry, that allow it to kind of blend into its environment.
And just a very simple kind of like metal fabricated, stenciled top that kind of calls out which bin is which.
From there, if you move on to the right, we wanted to look and again, this is very much led by public works, is there an existing system that we could buy that could integrate kind of into the town.
So what you're seeing, the photo, bottom right here, this is currently being tested at the Yantful Farm stand, and with the system we're able to specify custom colors, so it can integrate into its environment.
And then on the left, we also wanted to ask ourselves like, is there a even simpler approach this that also just leans into values of sustainability?
So of course, using a wine barrel, the trash can is not a new idea, but I would argue that.
Yantville, an appability of all places probably has like more residue than anyone else, and could there be a bit of storytelling around.
Let's say featuring wineries that are in the Yantville, AVA, and also just principles of reuse as well.
See, they're very small, you can't read them right now, but you could have a simple little plaque that says, you know, donated by such and such wine, remember of the Yantville, AVA.
Let's keep moving.
Before you get out down, you can go back real quick. I just wanted to point out on the far right and what's being tested at the Farms stand.
This partly gets into maintenance, because what this is, is a thing that conceals what are basically residential totes, the things that we all have at our house.
And so as Barron and I have gone on like, literally around the world on this subject, in terms of best practices, you know, this is something that obviously most people understand is how to sort waste at their home.
Like, we've learned about the black, the blue, and the green waste fins.
Maybe we're not all great about how we do it, but the idea is a structure that, so what you'll see out there is those totes underneath it.
So it serves that sort of, I guess, sort of just basic purpose, but then furthermore, our crews can just wheel it out to the curb.
You know, and then upper value waste comes and picks it up.
Right versus picking up a bag, putting it in the back of thing, taking it up to the yard, putting it in the thing.
So I just want, as we talk about the waste system, you know, I think there's things that, you know, we want to talk about now.
We have existing cans throughout the park. This is kind of where the conversation started, right?
We want to have three in each place. We've kind of come now full circle of like, maybe three isn't the best in each place.
Like, let's talk about location. Let's talk about what people understand intuitively.
You know, and I know Pam, I've said this line a hundred times is like, what we want is a million people, you know, doing this, not like a few people doing it perfectly.
So it's like, how do we get that balance of trying to get this moving in the right direction, and I think it is partly trial and error.
I mean, but I do think the test out of the farm stand will be useful.
And obviously the aesthetics of the wine bros all, part of this does go back to like the town and telling the story of the town.
Well, a lot wrapped into this will be excited to hear what you have to think.
But we're not quite at a point where we've even like resolved some of these challenges.
So I just want to say that, that low. Thank you.
Okay, let's go to the next slide.
So before we get into some way finding, just want to surface some of the high level principles that came kind of like out of this organic design process.
One is just holistic and timeless design, so making sure that we're not designing anything and isolation that we truly are designing a graphic system that works together.
But, you know, there's another piece of that is we also don't want to design a system that feels corporate.
I mean, Yachtville is this, you know, beautiful small town. So let's let's embrace that. Let's make sure that like what we do here isn't too polished, but that it did it integrates.
And then, of course, timeless design, signage.
If we do this right, these giants should exist for a long time, similar to the, you know, the history of the wood-edged stop signs, which I think are very timeless still.
So let's make sure that the design isn't kind of rely on current trends, like even current techniques in terms of like how these signs are produced.
Gradient in town for inocular spoken about that quite a bit.
Reduce sign clutter. This is twofold. Part of it is the colors that we're using, the materials that we're using, the work needs that really kind of blend into the town as a whole.
John, kind of hearing about your focus on making sure that the streets are beautiful. I think that this, this plays a role in that and handled incorrectly, could, could easily kind of defeat those purposes.
We want to be very careful. And there's another component of this, like once we get into kind of really producing this system.
Hopefully there's some, some of this way finding that could actually allow us to remove some signs that exist, so rather than just being additive.
If we do this right, I think that we could theoretically end up with, you know, not more signage in town as a whole.
And lastly, just embracing craft and, you know, this comes into play in things like the icons created for the heritage trail for the town of Yantville.
We worked with a, you know, incredible illustrator that we have a long history with that, you know, so sign stamps for the, you know, the Royal Mail and mail and the UK, like just like, you know, embracing those traditional crafts that are being lost in the work.
But then also just in terms of the execution, so just that the simple farms and garden sign, we worked with a really incredible sign paneer out of San Francisco, who's really becoming known for kind of traditional hand-painted signs for kind of the best restaurants in San Francisco.
So, you know, it's both like in the actual design or craft is important and also in the execution as well.
Let's move forward.
Okay, so pedestrian way finding and just a quick note here, I caught an error in the file, the left side of the way finding is, there's no arrows, that is not the intent.
I said, just want to call that out.
So, big, big picture.
We're really looking to kind of lean into what you currently have, we're not looking to replace the base system.
The posts that currently exist in town, the concrete anchors, those are elements that we're looking to essentially reuse and create new kind of horizontal flags that work better for making communication perspective.
But also endure more in the elements, so kind of a potential partner in this project is Thomas Swan, sign company, which is.
They're incredible, they do signage for apparel research and hardware as of Moma, so they've been a incredible partner when it comes to like, what are the appropriate materials to use for something like this to make sure that it truly.
Endures and you're not having to constantly kind of do maintenance on the science.
So, from a information perspective, you can see a couple things here.
Using a kind of lower case versus upper case, which has really been proven to be more scanable quickly, for example, in San Francisco, the street signs are kind of slowly being segwayed into lower case versus upper case because it just is more scanable at a glance.
Using a typeface, which is more condensed, these business and also kind of like civic point of interest, some of the names become rather long, so we want to make sure that we have a typeface that allows them to not take up too much space.
And you're not seeing it reflected on this comp that we've also kind of built the system where they can actually go to a second line and things don't break, it still works.
And then from an information design perspective, when you have a two-sided sign like this, organizing the businesses in a way that makes sense and is intuitive.
So, if, for example, you encounter one of these signs, and you're on the right side of the street, all of the businesses on the right side would follow, and they would be on the right side of the street.
If there's a, everything on the left side would be on the other side of the street.
And then also grouping everything sequentially as well, and you'll have to look really close here, but there are step counts that reinforce that idea.
And then just from a scanability perspective, and to also kind of remove this dynamic where some businesses are including a long line of text that describes what they are.
Building a kind of symbol system that is able to quickly communicate the type of business, which I think is also, especially relevant just because the number of international visitors that you have in Yachtville.
So, going from left to right here, the Y is anything that is municipal, culinary, tasty rooms, shopping, lodging, wellness, arts and culture parks, bathrooms.
And then you're seeing the Heritage Trail icon here again.
High level, you know, previously this has been very much about businesses with some civic mixed in, as we've gone through, and we've kind of pressure tested this with all the appropriate sites in the DPR on which sign.
Really prioritizing civic points of interest and making sure they don't get lost.
And if they happen to be on the Heritage Trail, then they would receive the Yachtville Heritage Trail icon.
And then, as I mentioned before, if you look at the very top of the sign, there is the brass plaque that encourages people to kind of scan that QR code and pull up that app that brings them from Heritage Trail site to site.
Let's keep moving.
It's all the bathrooms on all the QR codes when you pull them up. I love bathroom maps, I think they're important.
That's a good idea. We have not planned for that, but I think there's a large discussion around, like should we, you know, also have a QR code that pulls up just the digital version of what you're seeing for this way, finding not just the Heritage Trail.
So we do have versions of this where we have kind of multiple plaques with appropriate QR codes, and I think integrating the bathrooms into that high level would make a lot of sense.
All right, great. I vote for bathrooms. Thanks.
I've been in that situation, so I understand.
I know. Okay. So we're going to get into some kind of more conceptual or proposed designs, but you know, how did those visual identity components potentially manifest in kind of like larger kind of gateway concepts.
So this is looking at the cross-town gateway fairly self-explanatory where you're seeing, but really kind of leaning into traditional techniques.
So for the Yantfield lettering, having them be, you know, beautiful kind of cutout raised with letter forms.
There is a history of this. For example, the Yantfield farm stand, the kind of Yantfield type that is this is there for years is simply just kind of cut out of wood, so could that be kind of repurposed for other things like this.
And then also thinking about, you know, signs like this are their components or maybe even the entirety that could be created by public works versus having to outsource them.
So everything here is very simple humble material. So redwood posts, the traditional kind of redwood edge, shape, the shape takes inspiration from the train depot sign, and then pulling in a little bit of kind of like hand lettering for the established and incorporated date.
And then again, just leaning into the town vernacular, bringing in Masonry for the anchors and then these icons that had been developed before the town and the heritage trail designing them in such a way where they would make just like really beautiful kind of sculptural brass placks as well.
And then the other piece that we really want to kind of index on here is that for signs like this, like we don't think that they would be finished without landscaping.
And landscaping brings so much life to them and place like places them in their site, so something that really should be considered not just as an afterthought, but part of the design as a whole.
So I don't know if you know this yet or not, but I really like the little lights over the young fill thing.
Would you be able to see this as your driving north on 29?
I'm really tired of all and I keep complaining all the time, not getting all the faded signs, the calfran's put to the town fill, you know.
So they say you will be able to see it.
Absolutely, so I think that the lights could be really beautiful here.
That said, we would definitely want to get into.
We want to want someone to see this and suddenly swear to left that's the entrance to the yacht bell, so we don't want to be very very very careful about that.
There's the wall there for the vine trail for safety, so some of the landscaping will be lost, but since the signage behind Vinnie, 1870 and the estate yacht bell that used to be really prevalent.
Yeah.
This would take that place really nicely and it's so welcoming.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
If it's not, but if it had to make a lot taller.
And we've actually, we've, we've kind of gone out on site, we printed out a ridiculously large version of this first and realized that was maybe a little bit too big, so this is still large.
But I think it would integrate in the site really well and also you would be able to see it from the road.
But of course, anything like this we'd want to make sure that we're doing prototyping that in the field to make sure that both sizing and placement are just right, which is, you know, goes about saying incredibly important with the cycle.
Like a story pole or something to get it right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But, but speaking of that, if you want to move forward to the, the last slide.
So this is taking a look at, you know, how could that design then be extended to signs that would actually exist on the highway that would take the place of the existing Caltrans sign that is there.
And then the single post sign is what could potentially be a new kind of single post sign on y'allville crossroads.
So that replacement could even be a tool to use kind of in town once you've arrived.
I've got to be seen one of these larger gateways signs.
And again, same, same vernacular kind of used throughout as the signs get smaller, bringing in kind of different pieces of information.
So embracing consistency, but having the storytelling be kind of, you know, additive as you kind of experiences as a whole versus just seeing the same thing over and over again.
For example, integrating the taste life here or the heart of the Napa Valley into some of these signs.
And I'll be an Instagram photo shoot, so.
The, if you go back to the previous slide.
I think this is actually a really fantastic one to design for, for that use case because it's, of course, someone isn't pulling off like right on the side of the highway.
This is something that can access it's a little bit of a secret.
I think that that is something that we absolutely want to take into account and encourage for.
But of course, like with.
Yeah, it's a grand photo up.
So much of this.
It needs to be integrated with what the TID is possibly doing with the collection.
I think we're done. Unless fire any of the final words and I want to make one or anything else out of that?
No, I would say welcome questions. So much of this is conceptual work. Some of it we brought, you know, pretty far along in terms of the icons to really kind of like, you know, show the craft that we're after.
But again, like, very kind of interested in hearing, hearing reactions.
Yeah, I just want to make one, a couple closing remarks. First of all, again, there's, there's, there's a team here.
Lensies and the audience. I want to recognize Lensie who, you know, keeps fire in sort of on time.
But also has, you know, been a really, you know, a good creative contributor. I think she's based in Napa.
Byron's downstairs in Cisco. There's been, there's been a lot of people involved. I want to name everyone, but I just want to single out Lensies and she's here.
But I mean, kind of to the point you're getting, like, I feel like we've done a lot of work.
A lot of this is sort of branding work, you know, in terms of, like, how it can be used in many ways.
I will say, we, you know, we took out a number of slides, you know, because we recognize we're going to be tied on time.
But, you know, Byron is really helpful in creating, like, the merch we had in the chaos. I mean, the T-shirt, it's all the things you saw.
You know, I think I can say this is wife has a clothing store. There was, like, a lot of interesting connections as we started to, you know, work on what started as just a wayfinding program.
So I'm, I'm really proud of the work. I think the staff knows, I'm extremely, I don't know what the right word I use for me.
But I'm concerned about signs. I don't like signs in general because I think sign clutter is a real thing. I like, I like, I like fewer really high quality signs.
We have started this week. I mentioned to you, but for the public, we've started to do proactive education on signs in town.
And I think, you know, sandwich boards, A frames are not allowed in this town. So we're trying to now, as we deal with education and enforcement, we're offering to me something
that is much better. Because I could go on and on about different communities. I pay attention to signs.
You know, and I think, like, you know, read the signs sort of thing, but any community you go into that's nice, you know, the signs are all very organized.
And it's, they're very thought out. And then you go to areas where, like, every window is plastered with an advertisement, right?
And people just lose control of signs. And it is a huge part of what makes places special. So find, you know, and, and Byron came to the 60th anniversary obviously talked about as grandparents.
We've been working for a year, I think, you know, we've, you know, there's so much to this work.
But ultimately, we're at this place where we want your direction with the community, you know what we're doing. These are stories that are really hard to tell and sound bites.
Like, these are these are long stories. I feel like you're all, we're all doing our best to share with the community, everything we're doing for economic development.
And just generally for the soul and the part of the town. I think these things. So I want to thank you.
I mean, I do all I can directly to you. And then, yeah, I think we, we have questions, but this is also where we could take public comment if you want for the morning session.
You know, we have an afternoon session, which is a little more, you know, black and white with utilities and enterprise funds.
So we'll be able to get through that quicker. So, however you want to go through a mirror, but.
Okay, so let's see if we have any public comment real quick and then we'll come back and look for some council direction. So Alan, let me do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, anything you've heard since you've been here at 10 o'clock.
Yeah, usually I'm up and down more.
Well, let's start at this spot. I have to say I love it. It's, I think, getting back to the roots.
And I like that it's unified, that it's bottom to top. It integrates really well.
And I think we have to be careful if you do build that gateway. I think you're going to have people.
I don't know if you've ever seen the case, not the cases, but the game goes up at Farniente. There are cars on both sides of the road stopped, you know, to take that picture.
So I think we need to be mindful that we don't want to create a new sense, but I do find it very attractive.
In terms of the capital projects, I think, you know, I like the separation of the maintenance, you know, major maintenance from, you know, from capital. I think it's clear that way.
And in terms of anything specific, I don't, I think you've covered everything very well, so thanks for the opportunity.
All right, thanks Alan.
All right, so council comments on the section that we haven't covered.
Thank you.
So I really appreciate all the work you've done. And so I don't think today's the, I don't want to go into a long conversation, but I, like I love the, I don't feel heritage trail logo and that kind of button look.
At some point, we'd want to continue to talk more about the town logo and what we want to do, because when you look at your science, science principles of timeless and grounded in town vernacular.
In our current town logo, when it talks about the heart of the Napa Valley being so visible, and that's what we are and, and the fact that we are the only town in the valley to emphasize out with this photo, we have that is not maybe necessarily identifiable of anything particular town, but it says has a message.
And then just talking about the cursive and all that, I learned cursive and first and second grade, but third 30 years later, my daughters didn't, and maybe 15 years from now, cursive will be so impossible for people to read that will have to do something else, but I just want to have more conversation about what our current logo does to really identify S is a unique place.
So anyway, perhaps absolutely, two, two quick notes on that, of course doing design for the wine industry, I hear a lot about people can't read scripts now, of course if you know, so I think that in some cases that is a concern, you know, maybe part of why we actually kind of like move the cursive to be a secondary element versus be kind of the primary mark.
So leaning into the lettering for the, that you see on the on field depot, this very, very bold, very distinctive, you can read it as a glance, and then using the cursive and kind of smaller doses throughout the system, where if someone is unable to scan it quickly, they don't, they're not losing kind of the core of the message.
And then in terms of the heart of the Napa Valley taste life here, yeah, I think that is really more of a brand new discussion that the town would need to, to dig into.
Thank you.
Can I remember a trip? Question, where's comments?
I really like the work. When I first moved here, I used to walk around and try to figure out what made y'all feel so special, and I think that the even then the well place signs and not too many of them.
I made you feel like you were in a neighborhood and not a commercial zone, so I really like this work, and I love the heritage trail idea.
When I was at the visitor center, it was always so hard to suggest something to people that they could do for free.
That would get them outside and let them enjoy the town, and so I just think that's great. It's sort of like the art walk. There's not many things you can do that don't cost anything, but are really lovely.
And my last question is, I do like the outcome of the vernacular, but my question was, I'm sure you did a survey of the existing signs and what not.
Did you take a look at, you mentioned the French laundry sign, which is kind of iconic, but did you take a look at any of the other signs?
Interestingly, I think one of your designs with the y and the, I think you said honey suckle, but whatever plant that is is very similar to the what I see at the estate it.
You want, though, did you give any thought to how it blends with the commercial logos or how does that fit into your idea of what we should be doing or not?
Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say that it's it's all part of a fabric. So, you know, when we did our survey, I mean, we won't share this with you all of you right now, but we have a giant document, which I think is literally every single sign of civic and business in Yontville organized, so that's something that we we started with that because we wanted really wanted to get a sense of what is being done as a whole.
And then when it comes to components of the work kind of having a little bit of a connected tissue to not just history, but kind of businesses in town, I think that that's.
It's part of embracing every natural, you know, I think that the estate, you know, it's the fox logo, it has a little bit of kind of like floric kind of like inter mixed within I think that that places it within this kind of garden town context.
So, I think that we are doing something that is not not the same in from like a brand design perspective, like I wouldn't say that there's a conflict there, that's really a world that I that I live in, but I think that there's a kind of.
There's a truth about the town in terms of it being a garden town that is reflected in that work and that we're trying to reflect in the work that we're doing.
Okay, thank you.
Vice Mayor.
I just want to say that I've lived here for a very long time and I feel like when I look at these renderings, I get a glimpse back and forward and I think that the openness of the script and the background, the difference in the color.
And the raised quality, that's something that that echoes the past, but it's also really distinct and easy to read and I think that openness quality is what we sort of hope to project, which is.
Hospitality like welcoming people in so we're telling them the great things that they might see here and that sort of travels into the the white background of the direction signs and the fact that the the typeface is much easier to read and the condensed quality doesn't like make it so.
Heart to read like our logo when you see this group, the.
Curse of it, it's a repeated pattern and and you kind of lose where you are in the middle of it and I think that the script.
Typeface that you've provided as the tag line is way more open again easier to read from a distance even.
I really appreciate that and the color palette is.
Subdued and that's always been sort of yantville style we.
We revel in the fact that we live in such a great place so we don't want to like shout it, but we do want to offer it and and I think that palette is.
Part of that offering versus shouting and.
I like all of it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. What you described is definitely be intent with the script we looked at.
We're geeky of it wrapped designers so we looked at hundreds of versions and wanted one that that had a connection back to this kind of napa valley vernacular but didn't feel.
But really fussy and more importantly like you could read it at a glance.
Yeah, nice council member. Thank you. I definitely appreciate all that you brought forward about the openness because.
With logo where with a logo like Brad has that on his chest it's a nice large logo, but it's just hard to read and it's.
It gets smaller so the thought that you put into it and the earthiness of the colors are great and I love the.
As you were talking about the heritage trail.
The fact that the QR code would go to a sub website that tells the story and embraces the history and kind of the founding elements of the town as we heard at the last.
Nick log dinner from former supervisor Diane Dylan people tend to stay longer.
And in low cows where there's history reflected so I think that is spot on to capture people's interest and make them want to even come here.
And as we're looking at the walkability of the town as we're selling it as a whole collective in the future that's more kind of future and modern thinking.
But trying to combine the storytelling that we're going to try to do to make sure that we get corporate groups here mid week that appreciate the town for it's walkability.
I think the tie in here it can be really good and we're looking up modern tools for that that include like when you go to my tickets for stadium you can actually click on the seat and see the view.
So if we can balance that somehow like with a map that's created here for the heritage trail.
So we've got this organic look and then I don't know it's just going to have to be a discussion on how we move forward in a modern way.
But also embrace this for the past.
That makes sense absolutely that is a that is a balancing act.
Yeah definitely I love it.
I just have a follow-up question actually and that has to do with the technology and I think this idea of the heritage.
It's trail or whatever we're going to call it. Having a map and having those watercolors is a beautiful concept, but we also have the art walk, right? And they have a story to tell as well. And it feels like if there were room on this app to have a sub-map that you could click to say, oh, the here's the heritage trail, here's the artwork.
And here's the municipal facilities, like the bathrooms and things, then it would be a real, well, yeah.
It just feels like there could be layers of information provided. I don't know if this app would support that, but it's an idea.
It absolutely could, and Brad mentioned that the presentation is kind of the tip of the iceberg of the work together. We don't want to overwhelm you with options.
But we do have a version where we have essentially three plaques on the way-finding polls. So for the heritage trail, for the artwork, art walk and just for the digital version of what you're seeing, like actually on the polls.
So that could definitely something we could do. We've also looked at, is there a single QR code that really brings up a website that then links to those three things. So those are all things that we could re-examine, I think, could be really useful.
Nice one to kind of follow up with some final comments. I think this is great, and since we're talking about budget and spending money, I think this is exactly the type of thing that to me,
it's the most beautiful part of infrastructure, no offense, John, and Rosalva, but I think, you know, it's really kind of a gift to not only the community, but to our visitors as well.
So I think it's kind of hits all the buttons for everybody, you know, people will hold, you know, just come here for a short time, and those of us will live here.
So I am very supportive of spending the money for a lot of the ideas that you kind of brought forward that, you know,
I think this is such a great way to maintain our identity that we've kind of, it's been created over, you know, 60 years plus.
So I'm very supportive of that. So thanks for doing that.
Thank you. It's been a lot of fun to work on.
Yeah, I want to say, just next steps, based on what it feels like sort of unanimous direction to move forward. The pedestrian signs are in the current year budget. We can move forward.
We are working with the chamber on exactly what goes on the sign. So you can imagine this is a challenge.
Yeah, it's important to note, and Erin will bring back at some point.
We're kind of morphing this program into a pay-to-play program for commercial signs.
This currently you have to pay to be on these signs and there's a whole long process to something that will be more civic oriented.
That the town will fund through CIP, but on an ongoing basis obviously businesses change. So there needs to be a process.
We've talked about it. I think we can bring that back, you know, soon as we're manufacturing.
So that, you know, we can't please everyone, you know, everyone can't be on every sign and, you know, there needs to be a strategy which we've talked a lot about.
But again, it's more of a civic strategy. So telling our stories about the heritage trail, etc.
So I just want you to know that will be coming. We will move forward with the current year budget.
The additional signs that you saw, the gateway sign at the Midtown connector and the potential freeway signs, we do not have cost estimates on those.
Those are not in the current year budget. Those could be, we have what you see in your two year budget is a hundred thousand dollars per year in mobility and wayfinding.
So if we don't spend that money on studies or other things, it is possible.
Again, we would have to get costs and finished designs and talk to the fabricator. We would bring that back to you all once we had final.
But I feel like the safety concerns were legit about the gateway sign at Midtown connector. I think we should probably, you know, talk about that a little more, but we should probably also move beyond concept and get some real numbers so that you can consider that.
I would definitely want to consider that. So I just, yeah. So I think we can move forward with the stuff this year. We will work with the chamber and again, all the businesses.
Also work with them to get rid of that very expensive, very giant useless, in my opinion map that they publish every year all the time.
This is the third piece we've been talking about earlier. We were talking about the visitor guide, which is what that is, the art walk and the heritage trail and those all complementing each other.
But that's not as easy as just an app in your fingers. And I think art walk, you know, Sam's been in a lot of these conversations, you'll work with the art commission on how we can modernize, I guess the mapping and the wayfinding of that program.
The chamber is their own thing, but we do help fund the visitors guide. So I do think we're all trying to guide it in the same direction.
I just want to be clear on what we're going to do now, how we're going to move it forward. And I think right now, we need the chamber to help us vet what goes on the science.
So we're saying we're naming businesses right, we're putting the right text on there. So people aren't, you know.
But this isn't a pay-to-play program. We're going to do this for civic purposes. And then we will have a system moving forward where if people need to change, because either got a business or people want to be on a sign, we'll develop a system that isn't as complicated as the system we have to act.
Because right now, the system or the program that's in place is pretty tedious. And this is partly why a number of businesses just choose not to participate.
So again, I will make sure that we bring that back and I can move forward at least on the existing stuff.
So thanks again, obviously tend to one mayor, when do you want to reconvene? You know we have a two o'clock close session.
We do have Corolla engineers is in the back. They have a 15 minute presentation.
So I'm like, he's giving me the nod. And then I think John and his all we can probably quickly, relatively quickly, to this morning, go through enterprise.
But I would suggest if we could get started again at like one 15.
Well, why do we just, how long how much more time do you think we need? I'm going to just ask the council maybe.
I need a lunch break. I'll start with me. I definitely need a bathroom break.
And kind of keep rolling and then break for lunch. And we'll know exactly how much time we have.
We're going to need at least 30 minutes. And I would say 45. So that's why I feel like it depends on questions.
But I think the afternoon is far more straightforward than the morning.
But I don't want to short change Corolla because they have a lot of important stuff to share as it relates to the wastewater master plan.
So I mean, 10 10, you want to take a 15 20 minute break. If we can go to the bathroom.
We have let's just try to take a 10 minute break and then come back and then after we're done. We'll take a lunch break.
We can be in one o'clock. Okay. One o'clock.
Okay.
Eight minutes. Okay.
Welcome back everybody. Hello. We're we're being filmed right now. Thank you very much. Okay. So we're back in business. So where are we on the on the budget we're going to.
We're moving now to the afternoon and John Furns will lead the enterprise funds.
Okay.
I guess you'll start off.
I will start with utility fund operating departments.
Similar to the other budget session we went through the operating stuff last meeting and then CIP today. So we're doing that for water and wastewater all at once. So so he's going to go through the operating wastewater water and wastewater first and then we'll hit the CIP and then Ray will come up as Corolla.
Starting with water utility enterprise funds.
And these operating departments as this is essentially a roll forward budget are similar to the general fund departments that you saw. So starting with the variable variables that impact all operating departments.
We driven by salaries and benefits, including Perse costs the 3.1% cola for the upcoming fiscal year based on the current MOU.
Increases to health insurance, the trust contributions and then a correction to this last bullet here about the cost allocation plan implementation.
The utility funds will not show a contribution to fleet repair and replacement fund 82.
The vehicles and major equipment for the utility funds is budgeted separately in the utility fund capital projects and that's to keep them separate from the primarily general fund supported fund 82.
So they only show a line item for contributing to the facility repair and replacement fund.
This is a overall roll up of all revenues expenditures and transfers for the water utility funds.
And that bottom line down there we could add some extra verbiage there where it says excess deficiency or use of fund balance after transfers.
So those negatives that you see there really stem stem from that use of drought reserve fund 57, which is not a new revenue.
So it's an existing fund balance all the wastewater and water funds and with positive fund balances, which you can see in the summary of fund balance activity on the staff report packets.
The drought reserve fund 57 is going to we propose using the two million dollars to support the one million gallon water storage tank project.
This is the project that was budgeted for the current fiscal year and now both project and funding sources are moving to fiscal year 2627.
Impact fee funds again we do not budget for because they are based on building permit issuance, which can be hard to project.
If any utility or sorry impact fee funds are received they are transferred into the corresponding capital projects fund to support those projects.
Water operations and distribution fund this fund is mostly flat the biggest key the key ticket item here is the 37,500 dollars as a contribution for the utility rate study.
So that will be happening in fiscal year 2627 and the cost is split between water and wastewater.
And then the largest expense in the water purchases in conservation fund is the purchase of water from Cal that we do expect to have access to the full 500 acre fee allotment of water and we are currently in a 10 year water purchase sale agreement with Cal that.
Questions on water fund.
Water fund.
So in terms of maybe the conversation might be around the investment.
I assume it's a property now talking about in terms of the investment for the one million gallon tank for the town.
I think this is operations that's the CIP so if you're okay we can go through that.
Okay good.
So in terms of so in terms of operations maybe when we talk about the drought water drought reserve fund where we move money.
To talk about that and that other capital investment.
How would we in terms of.
And maybe this is a question for later conversation how do we refund that.
Or that reserve fund.
So that is going to be addressed in the proposed amendment to the policy because that drought reserve usage policy does state that it has to be replenished if used.
And due to the fact that this water storage tank would help solve.
And some of the issues that the town would face during a drought.
We were going to propose that that policy be amended to not have to be paid back.
And we would talk about that.
And it was we talked later about the CIP purchase or or is that something you will.
We're talking about now.
It could be a conversation for today.
The actual policy amendment would come at a later time during the next fiscal year prior to the project commencing.
Okay that's good.
I think it'll be more relevant as we're talking talking about the storage tank so thank you.
Okay.
Yes.
Councilmember McKee.
Will you please I'm reminded where we are within the 10 year agreement with Calvac.
I believe it.
I think we're in year one year two.
Thank you.
And just before we move more to the water tank and in the policy I just wanted to throw a little.
Historical perspective in on why we have the two million dollars that started back in 2008 when we were spending at that time.
And today's dollars it's a lot more over 350,000 as I recall back then.
Purchasing water from the state water fund.
And as we found that we had plenty of water really in rector.
And we would only need it.
I think the past time we had a drought maybe.
And at that time if everybody else is in a severe drought too you're only going to get 5% of what you're paying for.
So we decided to sell our water rise to the city of Napa.
Because they have some creative ways of selling water to different people.
So I won't go into that.
So we've had that money.
We borrowed from it one time.
When we had some broken pipes that really needed to get fixed over in Washington Park, but it's really
just been sitting there, not even earning very much money. So, when we, you know, kind of, considered
that policy I just wanted to provide that history, it wasn't something that was any more
than, you know, we actually sold the water right for 3 million. We spent 1,000 probably digging ourselves
out of a whole that we had in some CIP that we needed for the water systems. So, it was, it just,
we thought it would be used for some of these big droughts, but even our last drought, we didn't
really use it to purchase water on the spot market. So, just historical perspective of how it got there
and it's been sitting there for 20 years. So, anyone? Mayor, just another maybe short conversation.
Well, I'll be short about water. And I know just recently in the last two years because of issues
of, with water testing and from, with the veteran's home, the town in the city of Napa and Calvett
developed a joint powers agreement. And I've just wondered in the last, maybe in the last year. So,
how that JPA is worked and if you, and is it helped resolve some issues that, in the near past,
you know, having that JPA available to help reassess water testing and.
Yes. So, the JPA is in effect an all-of-our-water testing for
potable water has been routed to the city of Napa's lab, certified lab. It's worked fantastically.
We haven't had any boil water notices. And so, we can say that it's working and I think that it's
improved the quality of the testing to mitigate those false alarm boil water notices that we're
expanding. That's great. And we talked, we mentioned that we know we've just entered into a 10-year
water agreement with Calvett and for Rector Reservoir. And we've talked about this a little bit in the past,
but at some point it seems to me with the valuable asset that Calvett has, the town benefits from and
Rector Reservoir and really the focus for Calvett and the veteran's home and the near future is
skilled nursing and maybe hopefully housing for employees that it seems like we should take an opportunity
to maybe expand that kind of conversation with Calvett and including the city of Napa and the town
about a JPA that may look at management or just a conversation about Rector and how maybe there
is a broader mission or something that the JPA could take up and maybe relieve the Calvett of a concern
that and allow them to focus on veterans healthcare and things like that. I don't know how we would
brooch that but I think it's a conversation we should have about an incredible resource that we are very
fortunate in our little part of the Napa Valley to have access to Rector Reservoir water but there may be
other benefits of that water for the valley in general too so I don't know at some point
how we would get there or begin a conversation like that. Those conversations are happening
at the staff level and there's nothing substantive to report yet but staff both here us and at the
city of Napa have been investigating the opportunity that is somebody like the city of Napa taking over
operation a Rector and then how that plays into water supply up and down the valley. So the conversations
are happening at a lower staff level now and when they rise to the occasion we will hopefully
bring them forward to. Yeah I think the idea that's being discussed is really the JPA operating it
and obviously city of Napa is the largest and probably the most qualified in terms of just like they
have the testing lab they have the infrastructure they have staff etc. I would say you just brought it up
so I mean we're having the conversation now. I think if there's consensus amongst the council
you know we can elevate the conversation and I think it's a good time to do that because as we go into
next year of a rate study like these things all sort of have a relation of course back to economics
and rates. I think the benefit obviously of the relationship with Calvett the town of Yonfil is like
we have you know very few out of town customers we talk a lot about it because there's the issue
we have the town customers which is what our bread butter has. I think the thing we have to be mindful
on a regional conversation particularly through the lens of a rate study is okay what what are the current
customers are in a good position getting and if we're going to think about how does that water get used more
broadly for other people that might need it you know I just think there's a there's a there's a political
discussion on that level that really gets into you know protecting what we have but I think because
and I don't know you know John I've learned a lot about water but I'm definitely not a water expert
I mean it feels like Rector has capacity right and I think this is kind of this question of how do we
work together to make sure we're doing this you know both locally and regionally appropriately so I think
I'm brought it up I mean I'm happy to take more sort of feedback but I think this happens probably
at the staff level to do some sort of exploratory process that can kind of come back to the political
level but that takes a lot of time and I think as we move into rates studies they those get hyper
political I'm sure you've been through different versions of that so unless there's opposition to
exploring it we'll just keep doing that I think we could probably use this conversation to say
you know I came up at the budget meeting we'd like the JPA to sort of look at other options
and once we have options that are worthy of your consideration we'll bring them back.
Well I wouldn't have been I just want to remind everybody that I really was the one who spearheaded
a major report done by Lafco probably five or six years ago now where we really looked at
a regional water it was a report looking at a regional water and wastewater and it really wasn't
about although you know it could be you know everybody like taking water from one place to another but
really starting at the ground level really what we're really doing just like if you know there's a
lot of if everybody didn't have their own little waste treatment plants analysis and and water analysis
labs they went to and it was all centralized I think there would be a lot of benefit there in terms of you
know buying chemicals that we use for both of the systems there's some real low hanging fruit I think
that we can kind of start with and I definitely do not want to own a dam or any liability for a dam so
I would take that off the table and not want to talk about that at all I want to leave that responsibility
with the state of California thank you very much so but I was just a bear and I was about that but
and you know so I think it's something that I would like to see move forward I think we do way too
much in this valley and these little insular like you know this city or net town and and to you know start
regionalizing some of the stuff it really goes to the economics and the more that we can encourage some of
these other you know cities to kind of be involved they can really see that you know it might be a more
economical way to do a lot of things about you know police and fire water and wastewater so I think overall
anything that we can do to start moving in that direction is something that would serve public policy
throughout Napa County well yes can I make a comment mayor just man Brad's got the floor oh sorry
I just wanted to remind those that were at the Niklogg meeting there was a very complicated presentation that
got specifically into what you're talking about so we could start with bringing that here that was a
public meeting it's in the public record what I would hesitate from is this whole regional discussion because
there is so many factors I think all we're talking about here is the JPA and how we might expand the beginning yes
yeah I just want to bring it into like the realm of like control versus like the presentation you already heard but we
could start with both and I think people can understand the complexity of it but I do think like if what I'm hearing
today is like hey let's continue to explore the idea of the JPA and then we can bring that back but I don't
feel like we're getting into I don't know and I want to hear everyone's comments so I just want to remind
people of the Niklogg presentation thank you I totally support the idea there's two things kind of I think going
on here one is cost savings which there's always economies of scale and I think we already do some chemical
sharing and joint buying on the wastewater treatment plant and I know it's really a pain in the
neck to get operators up there at Raptor and make sure they're qualified so you know just from an
economies of scale maybe getting more of that turned over to the or contracted with the city and
that makes a lot of sense but I do in terms of resource sharing one I just remind everybody and you
guys have more history than I that you know John however many summers ago we were talking constantly the
safe I think the word John used to use is safe yield out of Raptor reservoir and we were ending up buying
I think we ended up buying or narrowly escaped having to buy water from the city of Napa so Raptor is
it's a big reservoir but it's not without its limits and I think I forget who sets the safe yield but I think
it's the state so safe yield being the most that can be given to the town of Yantville so it wasn't
that long ago we were using the well maybe a little bit and I think and John could correct me were we buying
water from the city in Napa we were using city of Napa water to supplement and when we were approaching
the limit that the allotment limit from the state right so I just in terms of it's not an in
exhaustible the resource sharing I would want to look at as Brad might have alluded to maybe as a separate
issue as opposed to kind of cost sharing and economies of scale and things like that that make a lot of
sense and the other might make sense too but it's a different issue in my mind and just also to comment
on that even though we've been able to increase our allotments and use them that according to
rector that a third of that water is due is obligated to the Napa state hospital they don't need it
but it's obligated there so it would be you'd be talking to the state it would be extremely complicated
to to work through that and they're an interesting and just to bring this back into close it I just think
we have an opportunity with what has been so far a successful joint our powers on a JPA the
agreement that I've never would consider the concept of a small town or something owning a damn but
in terms of the fact that we might be able to work on a JPA where operation could take some
weight off of the you know could we have the city of Napa or someone or take some weight off the
back of the of Calvet and the veterans home there just a conversation I think is worth continuing and
and maybe maybe there's something in the future the benefit of all the communities so
starting this conversation so I think they're long overdue thank you
elevating the conversations because they're long overdue yes okay moving on to wastewater utility
enterprise funds again a rollup of all reviews expenditures and transfers and that bottom portion
that deficiency actually translates to use of existing fund balance wastewater utility funds are again
projected to end with positive fund balances wastewater utility collection system operations
so these two operating departments experience some staff transition in the current fiscal year so that's
why in the future fiscal years the the budgets don't seem to escalate as much as you would expect there is
little the newer employee of course costs slightly less than a longer term employee who has left
and again this this department and the following department share half of the rest of the half of the
cost of the utility rate study wastewater treatment operations this is the fund that sorry the
department that the veterans home shares 50% of the costs of and chemicals and gas and electric
are one of the largest expenses and of course that one time cost for the utility rate study
sewer connection impact fees we do not budget for but if they are received they go to the wastewater
collection capital improvement fund and then lastly ending on the utility enterprise capital projects
restricted fund which was established back in fiscal year 2223 and is used to support both water and
wastewater capital projects funds and the biggest utilization here will be in next fiscal year 1.1 million
again to the 1 million gallon water storage tank project there is no proposed usage in fiscal year 2728 so
This fund will continue to have a balance of just over $200,000 for future use.
All right, so I have, I think I'm kind of jumping ahead, but I want to make sure that it will be there because I couldn't really read the,
see, like, 8.5 on the CIP project. So it looks like right now, we haven't done the waste, water, or the waste water, five-year study.
But in the past, we already kind of knew at this point, you know, year out, that we were going to have deficits based on the really needed CIP projects.
But I not really see that, those big deficits that we used to have in the past really kind of coming up, and my, just my expectation correct.
For the proposed two years in this biennial budget, the all of the water and waste water capital projects funds will end with positive fund balances.
So now, no deficits up through fiscal year 2078.
Okay, so, but, and that's taking in the CIP projects that you have planned.
Just for those two fiscal years, yes.
We have no information looking out after that.
That has not been analyzed yet, no.
Okay, got it. All right, thanks.
Any other questions? Nope. Keep moving then. Thanks.
Okay. So similar to what we did with capital improvement program for the regular funding, we're doing the same thing for capital improvement program for the utility enterprises.
I do want to acknowledge that Rosalva's key to these projects as well, similar to what you saw this morning.
And then I also want to acknowledge Nick, keep your, all of us are our utilities manager. He's key to the success of the operation of the plant.
And then you'll hear from Ray David from Kurolo engineers in a little bit.
So similar, this is obviously a lot less bubbles or funding sources.
The water and waste water are the most restrictive funds that we have.
It's based on the rate schedule and it's a cost recovery model.
The water, fund of six in water fund 60, as well as waste water fund.
Treatment fund 63 and collections fund 64.
And as we go through this presentation, it's important to distinguish between.
Treatment and collections 63 and 64 on the wastewater side of things.
And so everything in town that drains to the pump station at the corner of town and goes,
to the plant falls under collections fund 64.
And at the outfall at the plant where it joins the outfall from the vet's home is where it becomes fund 63 treatment.
And so the pump station itself is a mechanical thing that has expensive pumps in it that falls on the collection side of things.
And then the treatment process is fund 63, which is the cost share that we're going to talk about now.
And so the Calvet agreement, thank you for bringing it up.
I wanted to give it just a brief highlight.
We did renew it for 10 years and I was trying to look up the exact date, the middle of 2024.
The purpose of it is to provide treated potable water from rector reservoir to the town.
It does establish fair proportional wastewater treatment cost allocation to the town's joint treatment plant.
So you hear that phrase joint treatment plan or WRF.
And so joint treatment plan, it's the treatment plant that treats both ours and the vet's homes wastewater.
WRF is referring to the same plant but that refers to water wastewater reclamation facility.
So in the industry, those are two terms of art that we use.
The easiest way to say it and these people are tired of me hearing saying this is where their biggest water customer and their biggest sewer customer.
That's really what this agreement gives us.
But from the water supply standpoint, it gives us 500 plus acre feet per year of treated water at 250 acre foot minimum purchase that were required.
And every year in April they tell us if we're going to get our 500 acre feet or not, we got the letter.
The allotment letter earlier this month that said we're going to get our 500 plus acre feet this year.
To council members trip to point earlier two or three years ago we actually got the letter that said we're all under mandatory restrictions.
You're only going to get 400 acre feet and you better figure it out.
You better start considering and so that's the the safe yield becomes 400 feet acre feet instead of 500.
And so the pricing and cost recovery in that agreement is annual annual cost per acre foot based on their operations treatment, regulatory compliance and capital recovery.
And we do conduct an annual true up exercise where our estimated costs get resolved against their actual costs.
And we meet Sylvia and I meet with representatives from Calbet and do that annually.
On the wastewater side of things, the costs are not clean as directly 50% but it always calculates around 50% but it's based on actual loading of the flow that they provide is so it's not just a volume of flow, but it's the quality of flow.
And again, in terms of biological, actual demand, BOD and TSS is total suspended solids.
And so we're obligated to test their water that's coming in and based on those test results we do a complicated calculation that says what their cost will be.
Oh, I do have the date.
So 10 year initial term was renewed on July 1st, 2024 and it's renewable in 10 year increments.
And the goal of that agreement is to ensure we get water and they get treated, somebody treats their wastewater.
So real quick, one of the most significant water projects that we've completed recently was our copper and lead results and I'm going to let Rosalbe speak to this.
The state did require us to do the lead and copper survey, just for the townwide to try to eliminate any connections to residents, properties that are lead and copper.
So we did hire a consultant to go and do a survey.
And one of the requirements from the state is to post a results online.
So we had the consultant start putting together information to create a GIS map and then Jacob Solice our engineering tech.
Gather that information, clean it up, and made the public facing GIS map that we post on the website.
So it meets the state requirements and allows residents to go in and type in their address and they can pull up the results of the lead and copper survey as well as some other minor information,
or property or their connections that they could use.
Now that was a recent project that we completed, so now looking forward into the budget that you're considering.
This is the do as we say and as we do category of projects.
So a lot of people have been getting backflow letters that the state has applied more stringent cross connection and backflow requirements.
So we the town as the water distributor are requiring our customers to install backflow devices.
But as a customer of the state we're required to install our own backflow devices on the connections to the state system.
And so it's a similar thing but on a much grander scale.
And so the two projects here are the out of town meter and backflow connection.
So on the outville cross road, it's hard to see in the picture, but there's a vault in the ground that is the existing water meter.
It needs to be rebuilt or rehabilitated and then a backflow device added to it.
And then on the lower right picture is our connection out on Sonnell Road and the outville cross road.
We have the exact same connection in the landscaping right here in the parking lot of town hall.
Each of those two connections also need a backflow device installed to comply with state requirements.
Does the better some have backflow devices?
From on the better home property.
Up there I don't know.
So we're installing backflow devices on our systems connection to their system.
Just like you as a customer has to connect one from your system to our system.
But I can't speak to what they have on their campus.
So this is obviously the big ticket item. The water capital improvement.
It's the the one million gallon water tank.
This aerial photograph shows the pump station down at the, the, the, the,
Peter is a Peter.
Let me get his name right Peter.
Peter J. Bartosano pump station.
And that's the primary location for the one million gallon water tank.
The towns existing water well is there.
And it's been upgraded to the municipal water well for water supply.
And so a million gallons is roughly three days of water supply for our water customers.
Assuming there was some sort of disaster that caused us to not be able to connect to Calvett and or.
The city of NAP was water supply, but it also could be could be used to augment our water supply on an operational basis as needed.
And so.
Fund 06 did receive the transfer in help me if I get this wrong.
Yeah.
From fund.
57.
The water dropped reserve fund that we're discussing earlier.
And so.
The important part to note is using these funding sources.
We can design and construct this tank in independent of the water depending water rate study and not on the backs of the water customers.
And it will improve water resiliency in the town.
And that's kind of an image on the right in the bubbles.
What it would look like and where it would most likely be cited on the property.
How tall is that?
It's depending on the diameter we're shooting for 24 feet tall.
Which is.
Not much it's in the same range as the peak of a single story house.
And so we can adjust the height by making it bigger around.
The vineyard that's just to the left of that tank is that part of the father's vineyard that's on the.
That's the vineyard that's owned by the church.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Can I ask a question, John?
Sure.
So you were mentioning the entire cost could be covered the three point.
The three million.
I think 250,000 could be covered by using funds other than funds that come out of the water.
Those two accounts that are the water reserve water.
The water enterprise accounts.
In other words, those that end up having to be paid by the customers.
Is that correct?
The whole cost could be covered.
Yeah.
The funding source for this project is funding six.
The utility enterprise capital projects restricted fund and fund 57 the water drought reserve fund.
So those are the funding sources other than.
Instead of I should say having this be part of the upcoming utility rate study, which would then utilize water rates.
And not not to put to find a paid point on it, but the fund that the 1.25 million is coming out of.
Whether or not it goes into the rate study.
Actually, is that a cost that will come back to the customers whether it goes into this rate study or somewhere down the line.
I'm not sure that I understood your question, but using the fund oh six is is something that was that fund was established specifically for capital projects.
It's not something that continues to be grown.
So once that fund is used, it will not be available and it's not going to be to my knowledge proposed to be grown with the utility rate study.
So let me ask you a different way, Celia, if we ran into a utility issue where we needed more funding to cover something for the water enterprise, something that would come back to customers.
So if we use that fund with that normally have been available for something that would otherwise be paid for by customers.
So in other words, yes, I get what you're saying we don't have to replenish it, but we are using a resource that would otherwise be available is that a way to think about that.
In the event that in the future, we had a shortfall in the utility enterprises or the water enterprises.
I think it could be otherwise available if not used however the purpose of it was to be set aside to cover capital projects one time capital projects.
So it is being utilized for its intended purpose rather than being used more as a reserve fund for emergencies.
Okay, and so there's no issue around this was never unrestricted money, so we're using money that was dedicated for the water enterprises basically correct.
Correct, it is restricted to what utility enterprise capital projects.
Okay, and if in the future like we were to need to revise the pump station that was very interesting how John parsed out.
The treatment activities versus the pump which makes sense because why would the cow that want to pay for us pumping the water or sewer water up there, but.
I never mind I answer my this is just the water question, but I guess the only point I want to make is should we down the road need money.
For something that would otherwise have to be paid out of the rate study we will have used this up I guess that's.
That's all I'm trying to say. Correct. Correct. It would have been a reserve used for other capital projects related to water, correct? Correct. And there is no proposed usage in that second year, the 2728 year. So beyond this biennial budget, this fund is projected to have about $200,000 available.
Okay. So there will still be money left. Okay. Thank you.
Excuse me, Mayor, but fund of six is a relatively new fund, right? Didn't we put this money in in 2021 or 2022 from unantit from additional TOT funds? And so it's fairly new.
Correct. Fiscal year 2223, this was a usage of unassigned general fund and assigned fund balance.
And as I recall, that was in part because I think it was council member reads wanted to have some amount available to help down the line.
If we needed to defer some capital expense on the water enterprises so that it wouldn't hit the utility customer so hard that was part of what I remember of the history.
We will be using that money up, but I think it's probably for good costs. I'm just pointing out it. It's right. It's money. We won't have any more if we need it for something else.
Correct. And I think when it was originally established, it was meant to bring down the amount of rate increase to the water funds.
Specifically, so that the capital projects funds would not be included in that 2022 utility rate study, which brought the rate increase down.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks.
Mayor, I had a question.
Continuing question about the water tank. So I understand that we've talked about this.
You know, in the past about the importance of potential of this one million gallon tank for water resiliency for the town.
I'm just wanted to clarify. So this tank is primarily for the purposes of of of holding well water.
It says plus three days of potable water or little research idea that's a million gallons is also plus or minus three acre feed of water.
So it's some point if we didn't have access to well water. I'm not sure there's any community in the valley that necessarily uses well water for potable and drinking.
Could we will have the ability to hold three acre feed of rector water if we, I mean, it will be piped for that as well.
Yes, it will be connected to the distribution system. So if for some reason the well was unavailable, we could route water rector or city of Apple water there and start there.
So when we put like three three acre feed or three days of potable into a tank like that, how often when we've talked about this in the past, how often do we have to use that water so it's not sitting there.
We would have it supplement the system for that reason we don't surprisingly water does get stale in a big giant tink like that and so we would augment the supply from rector with well water and meter it out and at a rate that would provide the proper turnover for the tank and what that is off top my head, I don't know.
Okay. And then I would like to say that same Lena does use me just does use groundwater as part of the you know see do they have three groundwater wells that they use for the.
And that's kind of part of the water problem of their they store stores some of that in tanks and there's some of their problem is they're not maintaining the tanks properly so.
When they add more water to it, it disturbs some kind of sediment they have and it goes out into the pipes and it looks terrible but it's still very potable and safe to drink so that's part of their.
What you hear about it there.
Yeah, so I just think the advantage to be sure it's obviously plumb for rector that at some point in the future where yeah, there's either a well well problem or there's an issue in the valley of groundwater use for potable drinking water that.
It becomes a source for us for rector if you know in case we don't have access to rector or city of Napa water anything it's.
That resiliency is a value I think to the community so.
Thank you.
Okay moving on to fund 64 wastewater collections we had a successful project in 23 24 where we did an extensive CIP capital improvement project which was an inflow and infiltration study and what you see there is a map of the entire collection system and where.
Portions of the system could use repair and so as a reminder what inflow and infiltration is because sewer systems are not pressure systems like a water system.
Ground water and rainwater or storm water enter the system and this is a universal problem for the industry and ours is pretty good compared to some but it's still not great.
So just to give you an idea are they the way the regulations work they issue a permit to the treatment plant for dry weather flow and so our dry weather flow is 0.55 million gallons a day.
And that's our permitted amount but we are allowed and have to treat more water when it rains during the winter and so that number goes from half a million gallons a day to two million gallons a day.
And so the the industry challenge is do you increase capacity to deal with the three months out of the year that you have that extra water coming in or do you not let the extra water in.
And so the inflow and infiltration program is intended to not let that extra water in and so with the study that we did in 2324 we've identified streets or pipes in the streets that would give us that we can repair to give us less info and infiltration.
And so that informs our program and what you see there is 2627 and 2728 we have 57000 dollars allocated for each year to do a.
And so we are going to give you a inflow and infiltration project to slip line the sewers and keep that groundwater and storm water out.
And then this one I'm going to go through these next slides fairly quickly and the interest of time quick question about infiltration sorry.
So we do our best to deal with infiltration in the sit in the.
For us folks that are on the east side of 29 I'm assuming that the for the town we don't have any control over what infiltration occurs coming down the hill from the veterans home and.
You have ever have a sense of when we you know we get to those high flows.
Whether it's mostly coming from one place or the other or or is there an issue that we some day we have to.
Work with the Calvet to improve that I think that Calvet is challenged with the same problem of inflow and infiltration as any sewer collection system is and we can see the difference in their flows from summer to winter.
And see that they have that same problem and we could probably quantify the number for them.
Conversationally we understand that they have a fairly aging sewer collection system that needs a lot of attention, but they also have a steam system for disputing heat that needs a lot of attention and so their resources are stretched fairly thin.
And so they do are faced with that same challenge that we are.
Interesting and they have I mean it's an old facility and you have you're going to have pipes that are going to allow groundwater infiltration all the time and certainly more when but.
In terms of just our investment for the wastewater treatment plant and all that our capacities handle that and with the assumption it doesn't get worse or hopefully gets better in the future as.
Yes, as the state invests on on the property in the campus. Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so the next few slides I want to go through fairly quickly because they're born from the Corrello work that you're going to hear about momentarily so Corrello is doing a master plan study for us and they've identified some.
Projects early on that we should spend some investment time and money into and so I've highlighted those here but you'll hear about them from Ray momentarily and so.
Some of the obvious ones are a safety project where you can see on the left and in the middle there's a lot of hand rills out there given the amount of water tanks and those hand rills just need to be evaluated.
And there's a corrosion the prevent they can treat them to prevent corrosion on the right side that in the middle you're looking at the final clarifier so water spins.
Ex amount of time in that final clarifier on the far end the waters really murky and on the close end it's really not murky anymore.
The equipment that makes that happen is the final clarifier drive assembly in the lower right corner and it's just a mechanical thing that's been in there for ex amount of years that wears out over time just like the gears and transmission on a car and so it needs to be repaired.
Similar here the chlorine tank confined space the tank inside the tank leaks on occasion and to enter it we have it's a confined space entry so there's a whole process that we have to go to you.
It's not an inexpensive project it's $35,000 to replace that whole system and then take away the need for the ongoing entry into the confined space.
The lower right corner is a little more significant and so with SB 1383 and restricting organics to the landfill.
What we used to do is we would dry our sludge out on the in the sludge of the dunes and when we turned it over periodically and it was when it gets to a certain point of dryness for lack of a better word.
The chloroflat landfill would come collect it take it up there and use it for cover on the average day of the color on the landfill but not wanting organics in the landfill and then chloroflat closing has combined to create.
So we've done a pilot study to take the sludge and dry it in a machine for lack of a better description into a cake format and that cake format like a cake mix kind of and that cake goes to an agricultural use applied agricultural use right now we're in between that stage where.
A company called LISTEC who is helping us with the pilot study is taking the dried sludge and using it for the same agricultural use but in the sludge in the lagoon format it's not the most efficient and so we're looking at getting that piece of equipment that will dry the sludge and then they hold it off monthly instead of annually.
Do we sell it or do they buy it or do we.
Right now we're paying them to take it.
And so similar here headworks grinder auger spiral lift at the beginning of the treatment chain there's the headworks that grinds all the stuff that's in the pipe up and makes it more.
Fluid to go through the system and that just needs annual or not annual it's this kind of major maintenance category like we're talking about before and then the primary trickling filter rehab.
That big thing on the right down below is the primary trickling filter and a little pop out picture is the filter media that's inside there and that to our institutional knowledge that filter media has been there forever but probably not forever but at least 25 years and so it's going to need to be studied and replaced.
I want to point out the beauty of these pictures I took these pictures last week and even our wastewater treatment plant is beautiful here in yellow.
They're very nice pictures.
And so we have two ponds out there the one on the left is used for flow equalization and the one on the right is used for the recycled water that gets delivered to our customers.
Those ponds have been in place in an active use since 1977 and in the major maintenance category we need to analyze them make sure the clay liners still intact make sure they're not leaking water and causing groundwater pollution to human creek which is immediately adjacent.
This one is probably hopefully the most interesting one for you because even proving that on the consent calendar for quite some time now but this picture is intended to give you the idea of what's happening for the recycled water line repair.
We'll say that the funding source is going to be reimbursement from insurance funds so that's good news but what you see here in the lower left corners you outville and the lower left corners are treatment plant the red line is the recycled water line.
That was built in 1977 to deliver water to what was then chimney rock golf for a course where it changes from red to yellow is where it's broken underneath the napa river and given the modern environmental regulatory climate we can't open cut the napa river and play a pipe in it like they did in 1977 so we have to directionally drill the replacement pipe and that's what that purple line indicates.
So they're going to bring in equipment and directionally bore underneath the river and have it come out.
Now, where they're going to go under the river, go underneath the vineyard and then connect it, roughly where that purple line connects, and then that will be the new pipeline replacement underneath the river. And then the other segment gets abandoned.
The idea when this is the bird surveys are happening now. So as part of this project, and part of the environmental permit, we have to do swans and hawks surveys at certain times of year.
And so right now those bird surveys are happening and anticipation of doing this in August 2 October.
Yeah, we beat the surveys this year. We have to do it between August and October, but we're still trying to get the final information from the designer and contractor so that we can update the property owner's there to let know what kind of impacts will be on them as well.
So we're shooting for this summer, but if we miss that window, we have to find the next environmental clearance window.
Okay, thanks.
And then similar to the this morning session, we have our CIP sheets. These are on the backside of the one that you saw this morning and we'll go ahead and share these as requested earlier.
And with that, Sylia has something to add.
I just want to add something going back to council member trips question about emergency resources for emergency projects.
All of these capital funds for water and wastewater in these staff report packets.
They do show a summary of fund balance activity table and you can see in those fund balance allocations, they all have 5% of asset value reserved for emergency capital replacements.
So they all have a little bit of balance that aside, in addition to that balance that will be in fund 6.
Thank you.
And so with that, would you are, oh, I skipped over it, sorry.
The Corolla presentation, I like to introduce the most patient man in the room after Alan temperature.
Now, so.
Ray David from Corolla engineering.
Late for our close session, but please, thank you very much for being here and.
Sounds good.
And being patient, yes, thanks.
Okay, all right, thank you, Mayor vice mayor and town council, appreciate your time here.
I'll keep it snappy kind of get through an update here.
Kind of a lot of that.
I'm done and discussing have been generally kind of reflect on already.
It's kind of go through the process that we're going through at the WRF.
So this is a summary of the wastewater recognition facility master plan.
It should overall.
I'll do it on this effort.
So quick agenda, I'll go through the introductions and the project team.
As you kind of conclude when I go through this.
This is not an independent effort.
This is very much a collaborative effort with both the town and the Corolla team.
Then I'll go through what the project goals were and just give an update on where we are.
Progressive wise in terms of the overall steps that we're taking to complete this project.
I'll have the next steps to kind of go to completion and then open up to Q and A.
But as always, if there's any questions as I'm going through this.
Please feel free to just chime in.
So as I noted, this is a very much a collaborative effort with the town and the team for Corolla.
Maybe I should introduce myself.
I'm Ray David, the project manager for this project.
And we've been working with Brad, John, Rosalba, Nick and Jeff and the entire team at the WRF.
As you kind of get into with a lot of data.
Look, the visited the WRF multiple times.
The condition assessment to evaluate.
So a lot of their feedback kind of understanding what they're liking about the WRF.
If there's any issues with any of the assets that I'll get into.
Making sure they'll be more of all that information.
It can use that to then develop a 10-year plan.
That's the intent and goal of this.
It's to look forward over the next 10 years to identify what projects may be needed.
What assets need to be as noted either replaced or rehabbed or if there's another process that makes sense to move towards.
Because that existing asset is kind of hearing the end of a useful life and it makes sense.
Then to kind of reimagine what that process could be.
That's the most beneficial.
Most efficient.
It potentially also most cost conscious for the WRF and for the talent overall.
So going through the goals and overall progress update.
So maybe just taking a little bit of stuff back and giving you the roadmap to get to where we're at today.
I think I was like to think about what's the end product and what is this kind of successful master plan.
Starting out with is that the intent is to develop a roadmap.
So we've gotten over the next 10 years looking at both historical data.
But also current and anticipated future regulations.
Understanding what is the city that we are to be the talent that WRF currently working with.
And then what do they need to get to to meet those different regulations and needs.
And there's also making sure that the match plan is is adaptable and flexible.
Understanding that regulations while we can kind of see them coming usually and there's some dialogue.
Sometimes things come up that we can anticipate so are there kind of off ramps on this road.
I guess I'll misunderstand the same metaphor that we built into this massive plan so that there's some flexibility to move forward.
And then finally are kind of logistics whatever evidence memorialized the recommendations.
Are they very clear and are they built on kind of credible data get a driven decisions that then the city can look at and the talent that you can look at understand exactly what they're doing there.
So then looking at the 10 year planning horizon the intent was to identify what is the purpose of any project or project need.
So it was one to focus on critical term so any near term items that were identified if there was asset that for instance is no longer functioning that became obviously on the critical near term path.
I think at again 18th of a structure and any future regulations that there are concerns that we need to identify and any kind of deficiencies in terms of those efforts.
Looking at an assessment that we did of the WRF and of the different assets.
So to look at how the existing facility and how it's operated kind of dove tales with what it's going to need to be able to do over the next 10 year planning horizon.
And then also identify there's any improvements just to overall better efficiently and with greater efficacy manage and operate the WRF.
So those four items there are showed on the loft kind of carried over from the previous slide and then on the right that we develop what is actually trigger for projects.
I think again to the point I made about making sure this is kind of a clear concise you know,
defensible project we wanted to say is this driven is this project that we're identifying driven by a regulatory need is a driven by a condition based need is it because of an increased wastewater.
You know volume this required for treatment purposes is going to provide economic benefit.
What is the operational benefit and then also is an internal driver from the talents perspective that we want to make sure is memorialized in this this project.
So maybe starting off with regulations so the on the right is that intended to be looked at and detailed it's a lot of web of lines.
What I'm showing there is the WRF kind of from before and after what's flowing into it what's coming out of it all the blue and green lines are kind of the liquid stream and the darker green lines are kind of the solid stream.
So the intent of this is to show you kind of the interladiness of this entire WRF and that when we start looking at regulations it is understanding how each of those icons which represent a tank or specific process.
How they work with upstream and downstream processes it also helps identify which ones are kind of most concerning from a risk standpoint.
Because you know for anything the chain is only as strong as a week of slink obviously so that's part of our effort.
It's not identified which process units which assets are the most concerning that if they were to fail or go out of service for a long period of time or any period of time would pose the greatest risk to the talent in terms of its mission of you know.
Cleaning and treating the water so that's kind of our our mission on that effort in terms of regulations.
From a conditions standpoint we went and did a one day condition assessment of the WRF talking with the town staff to understand.
Again each asset that we're looking at you know the various pumps valves tanks process units you know the concrete structures and we had a group that included mechanical engineers electrical engineers structural.
Corrosion and instrumentation control to evaluate all of these different assets and score them so it's providing a quantifiable way to measure how each of these assets sex up in terms of.
Kind of it's a raw mechanical condition it's actual condition and then allows us again to identify from a risk standpoint.
And from an H standpoint how does that asset kind of fit into the overall picture for the WRF and then how does it move into the tenure planning horizon.
So this is kind of a cool.
I'll use the cool effort that we were able to kind of work on as part of this effort on the left side there are it's two views the top on the left side is looking at a tank from the top.
The white lines are the actual walls of the tank and then on the middle image which is the right side of that black panel is what a drone is actually visualizing so.
And someone noted that.
There are tanks that are below great put in this case this is.
Fluent contact base number two and is one that the town noted was one that really concerned about.
They're not sure what the condition was it's a confined space as proof he talked about so confined space entries very challenging from a safety standpoint.
There's obviously a lot of resources associated with it because you know from the ingress standpoint you have to really manage that so.
But they want to we want to find a way to actually assess that so what we ended up doing was subcontracting out with a drone operator that specializes in the specific type of work.
It's not really been done too much on the wastewater side.
It's been done a lot of like a music parks for them to like look at huge long tunnels of electrical conduit kind of one of the first times that we've been implemented this on the wastewater side so.
They're about play the video you kind of see on the left side is looking at it from above and you can see the little drone and it's like.
Focal perspective with its little green little netting and then you can see it walk on the right side and what it's actually picturing and looking at the condition so we can actually see from above and.
You know what is a concrete condition where the concerns where is the water line is associated with the tank identify if there's any cracking.
This provide a lot of visual benefit from a more kind of cost effective approach where it didn't require someone to get inside the tank all the safety requirements associated with that and then so make a really solid assessment of the condition of this core impact at big so.
It's a very long video so I kind of sniped it a little bit but it goes it's a very it's a sort of teen you know shapes are kind of goes back and forth and comes back around helps us really identify and I think another huge benefit of this is those there's no need to take this tank out of service for a significant period of time.
Obviously if you actually have people enter this tank there's a huge risk from health standpoint and safety standpoint but there's also it disrupts operations significantly so that was a huge benefit of that effort.
And because of that we actually submitted this abstract and we're waiting for feedback to because of its unique novelty.
It's also the way that to the largest water conference in the United States which is weftag and because of the unique aspect of think we're hopeful that we'll be able to kind of present and kind of highlight the work that the talent's been doing to kind of evaluate and manage and maintain and plan for the WRS future.
So the other project needs that I want to touch upon were kind of make sure that we're looking towards potentially increase wastewater treatment need and then making sure that we're kind of acknowledging the need for the academic benefit of the different projects that we're looking at.
So on the right side there shows on two different lines and there's a primary and a secondary access and then the access there is years from 2022 through the planning horizon they're getting so getting through 2042 here.
So the red orange line is like the population projections so we look at historical data but then also population trends and then we use that to identify what the wastewater treatment.
need is going to be for the WRF to make sure that as population increases visited a man increases that the WRF is able to manage that as well so that we're not running into an issue where we're not planning for that future capacity need for the WRF.
And then in kind that's making sure that we prioritize that when we make decisions that we're working with the town on defining these projects that John John noted there that we are kind of selecting processes that the staff.
It's going to kind of prioritize in terms of operation and maintenance but also that's very cost effective and again that we're also looking at the developments that the town is currently looking towards is describing the previous morning session and those projections are included within this this effort.
And the other kind of product need and trigger that we wanted to look at was operational benefit we wanted to make sure that the staff that have their hands on this day to day, hour after hour in terms of all those process units are able to operate it most efficiently and it's not causing them headaches it's not a friction point within their daily kind of day to day efforts.
So on the right side there is a graphic it's not going on there all the dots incorporate are kind of one data point so one measurement that the staff took and then on the left side can be considered to be any kind of make comp or kind of any metric that's regulated by the waterboard for instance.
So what you see here is from a performance standpoint that operates very well kind of for a lot of conditions but then the top part of that would be indicating there's a couple instances where there's potential.
There's potential for some operational optimization that we can work on with the town so just kind of indicating that from a performance standpoint.
The 95% of the operations is kind of below that regulatory limit which is the orange line there are instances that you know kind of somewhat goes over that and then that's where we kind of work with the town to identify.
One of the options is an operational issue is it equipment issue is an asset issue and kind of understand that so we can help identify what's best needed moving forward.
And then the intent is to identify if framework that helps improve both current and future performance and on and on reduce on the challenges.
And then we're kind of right now which will kind of kind of during the end of this presentation here is developing the mass response or writing all of this up we've kind of done the condition assessment.
We're currently in the kind of projections that I discuss.
We are kind of nearing submission to the town for review of kind of all of the kind of capacity review.
So looking at each of those process units that I showed on that messy graph.
All the icons, so we went through each of those identifiable, what was the actual design basis, so what was that unit design to handle?
And then what is it as being asked to handle right now? Is it overperforming underperforming and then is there a delta that needs to be managed moving forward over the next 10 years?
And that's kind of helping support the towns effort in terms of discussions today about your budget over the next kind of planning horizon.
So this is kind of in terms of next step, again, we're kind of moving towards identifying product alternatives, so looking at, again, based on capacity needs, based on condition needs, what projects might make the most sense.
I think John very much cheated up for it since on the solid standpoint.
You know, there's the realistic as the current kind of one option there.
Looking at other options that we might want to explore as part of this effort to highlight, you know, some optionality in case that is not kind of the preferred option moving forward.
There were also receiving technical feedback from the town on the TM that have been sent along,
continuing with our evaluations and then helping by the end of the summer to wrap up the master plan, so we kind of buttoned all together,
and it kind of has the 10 year planning horizon recommendations, as well as kind of cost associated with those projects that were included.
So with that, that's, I'll have to kind of share right now, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
So with all this great analysis you've done, together, are there any big surprises in terms of budget needs over the near term that you are projecting?
I'm not going to write down on a mouse, but.
What was really nice about this master plan, if we did see kind of the rough draft before we put this budget together,
was it been able to actually prioritize and hone in on what do we need soon?
Rather than what the operators are at there are, you know, hey, we think this might be needing to be updated soon or this might need maintenance on.
It was nice having that overall view from somebody who came in and looked at everything and let us know,
longevity away currently have, you can do maintenance on this and it'll work for another 10 years versus this is, you're going to need to do something soon,
so wouldn't just do small fixes, I do something bigger.
So it was nice we were able to get that for our overall plan and put that in the budget.
So any big hits in the near term to rate pairs?
To rate pairs, I don't believe so.
Excellent news, thank you, good job.
Any other questions?
Seeing none, thank you very much.
I didn't see your light on, sorry.
Sorry, Margie, that was a really excellent report.
And that makes all the sense in the world the way you rate projects based on necessity and whatnot.
I just wanted to ask you on that chart on disinfection performance.
Where we had a few dots above the line are those things that we end up having to report.
As part of our MPDS permit or the regional water quality board or those just kind of operational anomalies.
In other words, I think they permit violations or just something that falls within the ranges.
Because I assume the discharge and the chloroform levels and maybe I've got this wrong are covered by our wastewater discharge permit.
Yes, you're correct.
So again, looking at over five of your horizons.
So those do get reported if they are exceedences above the current thresholds.
Some of that could be driven by potentially season analytics, as you can probably.
It's hard to doubt this scale, but all those occur during well weather events.
So whenever weather events obviously there is usually a reason why those exceedences occur as a capacity if a huge flush that comes through.
So I think the state obviously counts for that, but they are also as noted.
To a call of form is a regulated kind of metric that's monitored.
So those any exceedences do get reported to the state.
Okay, and then what other really quick question.
Given your business, you probably know this.
Is there are there any news standards coming down the pipe that you think are likely to be implemented that could impact us in terms of.
Water quality and discharge limitations.
Yeah, I can speak to that.
I know you also have a consultant that kind of works on your regulatory side that we've been working with with with resolve and John and the town.
Okay, so right now the one that we're kind of obviously all waiting on is just understanding how kind of PFAS might be regulated both from a water standpoint,
but also from a biosolid standpoint.
Because that kind of indicates where can potentially be kind of placed, as John noted in terms of where the sec also can place it.
In fact, their business model was in there for impacts what you know customers may need to pay in this case.
That's how it would be the customer to listen in that operation.
Putting PFAS is one that we're looking at and just understanding where that's going.
I think that's still frankly.
I don't want to kind of presume, but I think there's still a lot going on there from the federal level.
How they're going to kind of trickle that down if there's going to be a lot of discussion about the.
But currently on the water side, the drinking water side, and then when that move to the wastewater side.
So that's something that we are looking at and that's kind of one of the major ones that everyone's kind of keeping an eye on.
I think nutrients are one that particularly we're talking about, you know, the San Francisco Bay area has been one that, you know, the Bay Area Clean Water Agency has been particularly tracking.
I think it's one that we've looked at the town's data.
I think they're very good shape from that perspective, but they may kind of ratchet down those regulations from an ammonia perspective.
So that may kind of consider what processes for instance that we're talking about right now with as part of this master plan.
We would recommend because we might identify this process unit for you right now makes a lot of sense and it's also the most flexible that if you do need to wrap down in terms of.
Your ammonia numbers or phosphorus for instance, which is much, much further away in my opinion.
Then you'll be much better shape than if you stick with this technology that helps you now, but then maybe has less future flexibility from that perspective.
So I got to do this paper as I think it's nutrients.
I'm not probably the two that everyone's kind of tracking right now from a water quality sampling.
Great, thank you.
Okay.
Any further questions?
Yes.
Quick question.
Now after Council Member Tripass, those questions, looking at those points above the line, they seem to center mostly in areas like in December, maybe where there's higher flow.
Are those a reflection of limitations on facility or SOP or something like that in terms of process? Is that what you look you look at or.
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a mix of all the all of the above to the degree.
I think one part of it is because of the size of the plants, it doesn't have the same necessarily buffering capacity like a huge plant does right like a.
SOP sees out these plant or cinema water plant where they have, you know, 10MGD.
So any fluctuation, I think really impacts and I think the talent does an amazing job kind of operating the plant.
But in the to the point there whenever you do have like a what will their mind and their needs to be an operational shift.
I think it's kind of working with the talent to identify, you know, how given the data that's available to the town and maybe as part of our project.
Is it a virus, any additional sensors that might be beneficial for the town to have to be able to kind of, you know, to the note they're developing SOP or revise the current SOP that could help alleviate those efforts in those items.
I will note that these are over five years, there's like five points I believe over the lines again, I want to kind of applaud the towns.
But I think it's kind of when you look at the scale of the plant, when you look at those what what their events as we experience today.
It does kind of don't have it on kind of us the standard procedure, so I think it's identifying during those five six times a year where that happens.
Okay, how do we need to rethink things and then when do we need to start making decisions to kind of best get ahead of the curve.
So this, for instance, would be like the disinfection strategy and the dosing, et cetera.
I don't want to get too granular with it, but that's kind of what we're trying to lay out as part of this passive plan.
All right, great. Any other questions?
Seeing it, thank you very much and thanks Nick Beck there for keeping everything flowing.
We appreciate that, so.
So what is, uh, definitely from the council before.
See, it just has a few closing slides and then final comments.
Thank you.
Okay, so just to roll up of the total expenditure budget summary for the proposed budget as it was presented,
$37.4 million.
And then for budget adoption, finance staff will go through and complete any corrections.
Do fact checking facts checking and formatting improvements so that we can bring it back for adoption on May 19th and that goes back to needing a little more time to compile all those final elements.
And make sure we continue to strive for that GFOA distinguished budget award.
And closing comments and next steps.
All right, great.
I think we already kind of, do you have any further comments, Alan?
Very brief.
Okay.
I'm a big fan of the million gallon water tank.
I think it adds an incredible element of resilience.
I was here in this chamber when it was first presented in terms of our municipal well.
And I know the great growers pushed back very hard against it.
I'm happy that at least we're not getting any push back now because I think that's very useful.
In terms of the sliplining of the sewer pipes, I think that's going to go a long way to help mitigate your five
incidents of reportable events.
So I think that's very wise use of your money.
So I think that summarizes pretty much my take on.
Thank you.
Okay.
Great.
All of our money.
So.
All right.
What kind of direction do you need?
Because we've been kind of providing direction as we've been going along.
Do you want to summarize or give some head nods on certain things?
Or, what would you like?
Yeah.
I think.
I mean, it'd be hard for me to summarize everything I've heard.
You don't have to summarize anything.
But it's something that you're missing that you need.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I feel like we're in a good place in the budget process.
I mean, obviously the CIP, I heard, you know, move forward.
Generally on what we had proposed.
I think there is this $100,000 in there for mobility and way of finding for the two follow-up years.
You don't need to decide today because we're not breaking that into two budgets.
But I do feel like by the budget adoption it would be good to know from the consensus that council did we want to keep that power drive for way of finding,
or do we want to explore using general fund to study California drive in terms of the safety or mobility enhancements that we're discussed.
I think that's the one where I feel like we don't need to go there today.
But if you wanted to, everything else I felt like we got pretty clear direction on looking at the rest of the team to see if there's anything.
Just to start.
The California drive just seems a lot of money right now.
I think for kind of what we need.
So I agree.
It's a lot more than I was anticipating.
And I still just even last week I saw a couple.
Brighting their bike in one split and one over to the vineyard at the estate and the woman just stayed there in the intersection, not knowing what to do.
But I don't think that these problems will alleviate that kind of confusion.
I think people come in from the vine trail and they don't understand.
And my biggest concern are the people coming north on the off ramp and I think even just blinking lights there, but I understand the dilemma that it's a state property on that corner.
So we can keep exploring sort of non-general fund improvements.
And we're doing road improvements in the area.
I definitely agree.
It could be a timing issue but I just would hate for somebody to get hurt in the meantime.
Can we also just push it forward on our list to another year or two or whatever?
Because I think it is an important safety and also visitor-friendly idea so that people can feel like we're welcoming them in rather than just clear their chances.
Does this young bell?
When you say list, do you mean like road project lists?
Yeah and any kind of NVTA funds that come for active mobility plans.
It just feels like there's something there that we might be able to utilize.
We agree.
It's an issue so I think we'll explore that.
It does.
It is complicated because of CalTrans.
It's a vine trail.
I think we try to...
We try to prioritize road projects.
I'm strictly unlike I think PCI.
Rather than try to like have a mobility project maybe jump the looking at resolve.
But I think that's to me kind of how we try to approach it.
We'll look at each time from how do we maintain our roads.
But I do think we can explore these things.
I think we've heard you were looking at it.
There might be NVTA grants.
Sometimes we look at those things.
So if you see opportunities present on them but for the purposes of this budget, we won't.
At least consider putting general fund money towards further design.
So another question I had from a couple of residents was the under-rounding on Mallbury.
Is that you want to make a quick comment on that?
We still have the under-grounding line item in the budget.
Right.
And we could study.
Our most recent effort was looking at Weber.
Right.
But we can study that.
And the biggest challenges on a grinding is very expensive.
I don't think we have about 400.
That's not happening next year.
Well, I think to be clear, we likely have some money to study it.
But we have no money to implement it.
Okay.
All right.
Good.
That's what I thought, too.
Yes.
I've got some building rules to talk to you.
We're also talking about just continuing to work on ideas as open-vind.
Develops on the crossroads that that's a part of we're trying to improve that as we develop funds, and I mean,
slowing traffic as people come west on the crossroads, as always, have benefited whatever we come up with.
So. Yeah. And I think, since I feel like Offset or Byron's presentation was well received,
truthfully we even looked at like there's a gateway sign there. That might be a good place to start,
because it could be integrated into like a traffic calming. So we'll keep exploring that. I think we're trying to be mindful of,
I think it's $125,000 that was assigned from the project. So we do think we can do the intersection improvements we showed you.
But we'll explore the other stuff coming west, and maybe there's opportunities to integrate, you know, gateway features like signage.
Thank you. Okay. So with that, there's no further comments. I'm going to ask that we
get a motion and a second to adjourn to our regular council meeting at three o'clock on May the fifth.
I moved to adjourn to make fifth.
I'll second. All in favor say aye. Aye. And you're opposed. And it's saying, okay, we adjourn to that.
So if I need a quick break before we move to close session.