BOARD AGENDA MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
Title
Consider Agricultural Water Advisory Committee’s Recommendations and Associated Staff Analyses from the Committee’s Meeting on January 6, 2020.
End
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Consider and act on the following recommendations by the Agricultural Water Advisory Committee:
A. Direct staff to provide financial data on the differences of commercial/industrial versus residential water usage within the county with the information supplied by the Water Retailers and Valley Water;
B. Invite County Board of Supervisor Hon. Mike Wasserman or his designee to the Committee’s April 6, 2020, meeting;
C. Add the Open Space Credit/Agricultural component to the future funding measure and keep the agricultural rates stable and at the current rate; and
D. Allow the Farm Bureau to formulate a question to add to the future funding community input survey.
Body
SUMMARY:
At the Agricultural Water Advisory Committee’s (Committee) meeting on Monday, January 6, 2020, the Committee took the following action:
Recommendation #1:
Voted unanimously that the Board consider the Committee’s recommendation to the Board to:
1. Direct staff to provide financial data on the differences of commercial/industrial versus residential water usage within the county with the information supplied by the Water Retailers and Valley Water.
Staff Analysis #1:
Staff can provide the information requested upon approval by the Board. To provide a comprehensive evaluation, staff would like to provide five years’ worth of data. Staff will need to coordinate with retailers to collect and analyze the information, estimated staff time is up to 40 hours. Staff expects to fulfill the request in time for the next Committee meeting.
Recommendation #2:
Voted unanimously that the Board consider the Committee’s recommendation:
1. Invite County Board of Supervisor Hon. Mike Wasserman or his designee to the Committee’s April 6, 2020, meeting
Staff Analysis #2:
The Committee Chair has the authority to invite special guests for an agendized item to their Committee meetings with Board approval. Staff recommends that the Committee Chair work directly with Clerk of the Board staff to invite Hon. Mike Wasserman or his designee to the Committee’s April 6, 2020, meeting.
Recommendation #3:
Voted unanimously that the Board consider the Committee’s recommendation to the Board to:
1. Add the Open Space Credit/Agricultural component to the future funding measure and keep the agricultural rates stable and at the current rate.
Staff Analysis #3:
Connected to this action (refer to Action #4), the Committee on January 6, 2020 voted to defer to the Farm Bureau to develop and include an Agricultural/ Open Space Credit question for consideration in the future funding community input survey, to help ascertain the level of community interest for maintaining the open space credit. However, on January 11, 2020, the final proposed question was subsequently requested to be removed from the survey per the Farm Bureau’s request. Staff agreed that the question was not necessary to develop any future program.
Recommendation #4:
Voted unanimously that the Board consider the Committee’s recommendation to the Board to:
1. Allow the Farm Bureau to formulate the question to add to the future funding community input survey.
Staff Analysis #4:
Staff provided response via email correspondence to Farm Bureau on Jan 8, 2020. After further discussions, the Farm Bureau has since withdrawn their request to include a question as part of the future funding community input survey (See Staff Analysis #3).
Footnote:
Recommendation #4 is for Board’s information only.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
There is no financial impact associated with this item. There may be a future financial impact pending the result of the negotiation.
CEQA:
The recommended action does not constitute a project under CEQA because it does not have a potential for resulting in direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.
ATTACHMENTS:
None.
UNCLASSIFIED MANAGER:
Manager
Garth Hall, 408-630-2750
Rick Callender, 408-630-2017
Marta Lugo, 408-630-2237