SLVWD Board Meeting Summary
May 7, 2026
Prepared by Mark Dolson for FSLVW
NOTE: Provided purely as a public service — NOT the official SLVWD Meeting Minutes.
Highlights:
Board Policy Manual
Donation of Water to the Redwood Faire
Replacement Board Meeting
Long Service Line Agreement
Echo Tank Geotechnical Engineer Construction Contract
Redwood Park Tank Geotechnical Engineer Construction Contract
Next Board meeting will be at 6:30 PM on May 20, 2026
Preliminaries
Four directors were present. Director Largay was absent.
President Russ said the Board took no reportable actions in the just-concluded Closed Session.
General Manager Jason Lillion announced that Agenda Item 9a would be continued until next month.
There was one public comment on non-agenda topics. Bruce Holloway of Boulder Creek said the District’s Connection Fee of $10,577 was last adjusted in 2017. This was based on guidance from a consultant who came up with two different methodologies for determining the appropriate fee and who then blended these two in an 80/20 ratio. Bruce recommended that the fee be regularly reassessed at two-year intervals, and he recommended tasking both the General Manager and the Finance Committee with following up on this. He didn’t think the District needed to hire a consultant – rather, it could plug updated numbers into the existing formula. His gut feeling was that the fee should now be closer to $15,000. He also suggested that this could be a starting point for negotiations with a district seeking to be consolidated.
Unfinished Business
None.
New Business
Board Policy Manual
General Manager Jason Lillion introduced this agenda item. He described the latest round of revisions to the Board Policy Manual (BPM) as an ongoing effort dating back to 2024. This agenda item was tabled at the Board Meeting on February 19, 2026 in the face of an overwhelming number of proposed edits by Director Fultz. An Ad Hoc Committee consisting of President Russ and Director Fultz was tasked with developing a revised proposal, and the result was reviewed by District Counsel Gage Marchini.
President Russ described what he hoped the Board would do next. He said the mission was to create a document that will provide guidance to current and future directors. He asked that the Board’s ensuing discussion be focused on facilitating this. He said Director Fultz and he had spent a fair amount of time on this, and he had tried to identify as much common ground as possible. He felt that the proposed revision contained many helpful updates, and he asked the Board to be courteous and on point in its discussion.
Director Fultz said his own thoughts were inherent in the modifications. He said President Russ and he had a great collaboration and ended up with a compromise. He said, with regard to the section on censure, he wanted to replace political score settling with a fair process aimed at getting to the truth. He said there were a number of other sections substantially revised around training. This was an area that he felt the Board had fallen short on for many years. He said there were also changes in response to new statutory provisions, particularly around financial matters. He said he viewed this as a good outcome and probably a model for how the Board should handle future divergent viewpoints. It was nice to have frank and productive conversations and not have things rammed down one’s throat. The respect for minority rights was most welcome.
The Board discussion was too lengthy to fully detail here. Director Smolley had questions and comments relating to numerous details, but he also took strong exception to some major proposed changes, particularly involving verbiage aimed at making it far more difficult to censure a Board member. Director Layng had a very similar response, and she went into far greater detail on multiple points where the proposed revisions would effectively give directors far greater latitude in how disruptive their Board conduct could be.
Director Layng also objected to the revision process itself which she saw as disrespectful to the Administration Committee’s prior work. She said an Ad Hoc Committee should be appointed and approved by the full Board, and this was not the case here. In addition, she described the final document as incredibly difficult to review. A lot of tracked changes were not present. She said she would want to see these before voting to approve anything.
Legal Counsel Gage Marchini validated Director Smolley’s and Layng’s position with regard to censure. He described censure as a purely symbolic statement. Censure does not deprive a Board member of something. This is why there is no associated requirement for due process. Gage said some of the suggested revisions would turn this into a formal investigative process, and this raised a number of concerns, including cost.
There was one public comment. Bruce Holloway of Boulder Creek called attention to a number of details that he believed should receive further Board consideration. He also agreed with a prior comment that the Board wasn’t really following Robert’s Rules of Order.
President Russ asked the Directors how they were feeling at this point. Director Layng said she could not vote this evening. She said the document wasn’t in final form, and the correct procedure would have been to collect all comments and send these back to the Administration Committee. She said she would prefer to approve the original document with only some simple edits. Lastly, she said she wanted to hear more from Legal.
Gage said Legal’s view was that the recommended edits added a lot of new information that, in some cases, created new processes that are not necessarily required (e.g., involving censure). He had other reservations as well. He said this was a long document with a lot of changes, some of which have not been adequately flagged and reviewed.
Director Smolley said he thought they were close except for the language around censure and associated investigations and due process. In the past, he said, the Board voted almost paragraph by paragraph on items in dispute. He thought there might only five or so significant items in this category, and he suggested putting these to a vote. President Russ was receptive to this.
Director Fultz said he thought the real hot button was around the censure thing. He said there was an improper assumption that accusations against him were true by definition. This assumes the accuser is acting in good faith, whereas we are all humans with our own interests, and we can't discount this. He said only a neutral third party can get beyond this, and the majority doesn't want to hear the other side of the story. In his view, the original February censure was basically a kangaroo court. There was no investigation of true charges or backup. Moving forward, a fuller discussion is needed. The assumption is that we can trust whatever anybody says about a Board member. This becomes a nakedly political act. He said he had experience with a previous Legal Counsel and a previous General Manager conspiring to get around the law and the policy.
The Directors continued to debate this without any significant progress. Finally, Director Fultz suggested sending the document back to the Ad Hoc committee. President Russ said he would like to avoid this, and Director Smolley concurred. Director Layng supported Director Smolley’s suggestion that they simply vote on each proposed revision.
President Russ ultimately decided to work with General Manager Jason Lillion to develop a final revision and bring it back to the Board for a vote. He planned to incorporate suggestions from Bruce Holloway as well. He thought five or six items might be flagged for final discussion. Lastly, he said Directors should send additional comments to Jason and him.
Before moving on, President Russ invited Bruce Holloway to contribute further public comment. Bruce described his personal experience with regard to the previous censure efforts and with a more recent controversy.
Donation of Water to the Redwood Faire
Director of Operations Jesse Guiver introduced this agenda item. His memo stated that SLVWD has been donating water to the Redwood Mountain Faire for nearly 15 years. This event brings the community together while raising funds to support local nonprofit organizations. The District’s participation provides an opportunity to promote community goodwill and positive public outreach. The District’s donation of water at the Mountain Faire has consistently received positive feedback from both the community and event organizers.
The Roaring Camp property does not have a water service connection with the District; therefore, a District-supplied water tank will be necessary to provide water for the event. This approach is consistent with how the District has facilitated the donation in previous years. Staff estimates that approximately 35 hours of staff time will be required totaling approximately $1,225 in District resources. In addition, three bacteriological samples will be processed through the District’s ELAP-certified laboratory, totaling approximately $450 in District resources. A 1,000-gallon poly tank and one of the District dump trucks will also be needed over a three-day period. These estimates are consistent with the level of resources committed to this event in prior years.
Director Fultz said he had consistently opposed this for one simple reason. While he was not opposed to donating time and water to a non-profit, it seemed to him that the only request the District receives is from the people who run this event, and Director Fultz said he didn’t like the way these people involved themselves in how SLVWD is run. He characterized this as “too inside-baseball.” He suggested that the Administration Committee might be able to put together an outreach plan to attract a more diverse set of requests. In a second round of comment, he went further and suggested that the Administration Committee develop a policy that would avoid the need for Board approval. He also noted that the Board recently received a similar request for an event in Boulder Creek, and he voted in favor of this one.
Director Smolley asked for more detail on the outreach the District was planning to conduct. Jesse said the District planned to have staff volunteers present and taking questions. It also has informational packets. President Russ suggested poster boards. He said he thought this was a great idea, and the event should be made as educational and informative to customers as possible.
There was one public comment. Cheryl Adams said she had participated in the Redwood Mountain Faire for the past couple of years for the radio station, and she called it a wonderful event. All the valley nonprofits benefit and participate. It's a positive environment in which to interact with the SLV community. She thought an SLVWD booth was a great idea.
President Russ moved to approve this, and Director Layng seconded. The motion was approved by a vote of 3-1 with Director Fultz opposed.
Replacement Board Meeting
General Manager Jason Lillion introduced this agenda item. He said the Board lacked a quorum for its normally scheduled May 21st meeting. He asked what alternate date might work.
The Directors agreed that it would most expedient to have Staff conduct a poll, provided that there was sufficient content to justify a meeting.
There was no public comment.
Long Service Line Agreement
Engineering Manager Garrett Roffe introduced this agenda item. He explained that the Board approved a Long Service Line Agreement for this property on July 17, 2025. Unfortunately, the customer had a disagreement with his neighbor and now wants to run it through his other neighbor's property.
President Russ sought clarification on the charge ($4600) and the reason for waiving the main extension requirement. Garrett said there was a 4” line off the main along Highway 9. Director Fultz commented that the District could still require a main extension if more houses are built in the future. Director Smolley asked if the meter location would be changing, and Garrett said it would.
There was no public comment.
Director Smolley moved to execute the agreement, and President Russ seconded. The motion passed 4-0.
Echo Tank Geotechnical Engineer Construction Contract
Engineering Manager Garrett Roffe introduced this agenda item. Engineering Manager Garrett Roffe introduced this agenda item. He reminded the Board that construction of the Echo Tank and the Redwood Park Tank was awarded to Anderson Pacific Engineering Construction, Inc. at the February 19, 2026, Board meeting in an amount not to exceed $3,524,524. As the Geotechnical Engineer of Record, Haro, Kasunich and Associates, Inc. (HKA) should be involved during construction of the new tank as indicated in the Geotechnical Investigation Report and Engineering Plans.
Garrett reported that, following a meeting on August 24, 2025, the District contracted with HKA. All geotechnical reports are now complete, and the project has entered into the construction phase. HKA has prepared a proposal with discounted rates dating back to 2025. They estimate a total cost of up to $49,456 for the Echo Tank site. This will be funded from the $4,600,000 appropriated in the FY2025-2027 Capital Improvement Budget.
Director Fultz had no questions, but he suggested that a future agenda item should consider whether it might be more economical to bundle these services together rather than negotiating separate contracts for each tank. Director Smolley had a similar thought. He wondered if there might be a project management cost savings inherent in having HKA bid concurrently on both the Echo and Redwood Park tank sites. President Russ asked how many such contracts were likely to be needed per year. Garrett said there were three tanks this year and one next year. President Russ than joined Directors Fultz and Smolley in asking Garrett to think about achieving additional economies of scale going forward. Garrett said he deliberately separated the contracts to prevent HKA from using leftover money from one tank to effectively charge more than its not-to-exceed target on a different tank.
There was no public comment.
Director Smolley moved to execute the agreement, and Director Layng seconded. The motion passed 4-0.
Redwood Park Tank Geotechnical Engineer Construction Contract
Engineering Manager Garrett Roffe introduced this agenda item. The relevant background information was identical to that of the preceding agenda item. Garrett reported that he had a talk with the principal and requested a better deal than initially offered. The result was that the District is now being offered a discounted 2025 rate. The cost estimate for the Redwood Park Tank is not to exceed $35,324.
The Directors had no comment.
There was no public comment.
Director Smolley moved to execute the agreement, and President Russ seconded. The motion passed 4-0.
Consent Agenda
There was one item on the Consent Agenda:
a. Board Meeting Minutes 4.16.26
Director Layng pulled this item to make a correction: the minutes listed her as absent when, in fact, she attended the Board meeting Open Session. She was absent for the preceding Closed Session.
There was one public comment. Bruce Holloway of Boulder Creek took exception to use of the phrase “approved by Board consensus.” He stated that the correct phrase was “approved by unanimous consent.” He identified the failure to advance a formal motion and to conduct a Board vote as a violation of the Brown Act. He went on to criticize other details in the minutes, and he urged the Board to clean these up before approving the minutes.
President Russ said the Board was sending the minutes back to Staff for further revision.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 PM.