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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-15-2016 Item CLR, AshbaughCOUNCIL MEETING: I'T'EM NO.: Office of the City Council 990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-3249 805.781.7114 slocity org Council Liaison Report- Ashbaugh November 15, 2016 RFC:�t l ••p. NOV 15 2016 St_o CITY CLERK This will be my final Liaison report to this Council. Some Council observers and staff might have noticed that over the past few months, I've not submitted a written report on the many activities, meetings, and events where I've represented the City. I've simply not been able to find the time. I wanted to submit this item in writing, however, so that Council is aware of recent and ongoing meetings in my role as the Council's representative to the Water Resources Advisory Committee. The City's need for additional potable water requires significant attention and I have tried to give it that attention for the entire eight years I've served on the Council. Two factors have motivated me to prepare this report at this time, even as I contemplate the fact that tonight will be my final Regular Meeting as a member of this Council. First, we are facing a very real prospect of continued severe drought resulting from climate change. Many people in this community continue to push the Council to adopt a building moratorium, preventing new development from competing with existing water demand by our water utility customers in SLO. I have not subscribed to this proposition, and the results of the recent election indicate that the voters of this community generally agree with this position at this time — however, if the drought continues, the Council does have the "trigger points" in place to enact such a moratorium when it is warranted, and not earlier. The second reason I've put out this Council Liaison Report on this subject at this time is that the City is at a critical point in our collaborative work with four other "Disadvantaged Communities" in the County, and with SLO County Flood Control and Water Conservation District staff, to submit an application for State Department of Water Resources (DWR) for substantial funding under the "Integrated Water Resources Management" process. It may surprise many people that San Luis Obispo qualifies as a "Disadvantaged Community" at all, but in fact among all the communities in SLO County, our City's population has the second -lowest median household income in the County — just above San Simeon and well under 80% of the County's overall median income. Accordingly, last summer our City applied to the County for about $72,000 in planning funds to support our engineering work on the upgrade to the City's wastewater plant to accelerate our understanding of how best to achieve near -potable quality of recycled wastewater from this facility. It should be noted that DWR requires that at least 103'6 of the County's Manning grant — overall, about $7.2 million — be allocated to such Disadvantaged Communities. In working with the other four DCs, our staff agreed to apply only for 10% of these funds (i.e., $72,000 of the $720,000), even though we are one of only five such communities and thereby might have argued for a full 20% share. The other four communities will split 80%, with the final 10% required by the County FWCD staff for administration. As the grant preparation process continued into late summer, objections to this funding formula were filed by Oceano and San Simeon to the inclusion of San Luis Obispo. Their agencies operate on a considerably smaller budget than others, and both of these agencies have experienced difficulties in terms of cash flow and continuity of general management staff. Additionally, their perception is that SLO is only superficially a "disadvantaged community" due to our disproportionate share of college students. On November 2, these objections came to a head at the meeting of the IRWM Committee where our city is represented by our Utilities Director as well as myself. We were able to overcome strenuous objections by the representative from San Simeon to our inclusion in this grant by endorsing a last- minute compromise suggested by the Oceano representative. That compromise will, if implemented, result in SLO continuing to receive its $72,000 grant, while increasing the overall planning grant amount by that sum. This "enlarging the pie" proposal does not come without a price, however: The addition of this $72,000 to the planning grant requires that we reduce the subsequent implementation grant by that amount. This will mean about 1% taken off the overall $5.9 million allocated to the County for the larger grant. It remains to be seen whether DWR would approve this strategy, but County staff indicated that State law only requires that a minir-nunti of 100X, of overall grant funds be awarded to disadvantaged communities. Thus, there is a floor but no ceiling — and we're only raising that floor by a few inches, figuratively speaking. County staff will report back to the IRWM Committee at its meeting on December 7, with the WRAC giving consideration to the final planning grant proposal and recommendation to the Board of Supervisors on that same date. This particular confluence of dates, along with the fact that we will not be swearing in the new Council until December 9, makes it imperative that there be a smooth transition from this Council to the next in terms of our representation on the WRAC. In order to achieve this purpose, I ask that the Council seek to name a representative among its continuing or new members for the WRAC at this meeting tonight (November 15), so that that Councilmember (or member -elect) may accompany me to the meetings on December 7. Whether I am able to continue to "officially" represent the City at this occasion may be a matter for scholarly or legal debate, since our Charter only permits me to serve through December 1— however, I have warned the members of both the IRWM Committee and the WRAC that my presence at this final meeting might be helpful (or annoying, as the case may be), and I would ask the indulgence of the Council to continue at least in an unofficial role until the decision is made as to our City's inclusion in the planning grant. While the amount of $72,000 may seem insignificant in the overall context of our Water Resource Recovery Facility upgrade — it's about 0.1% of the estimated cost — there is an important principle at stake here. Our City's water customers do not deserve to be excluded from eligibility for these funds merely because so many of them attend college. Throughout my two terms on this Council, I have been fighting the widespread misperception that our young adult population is a group of undeserving, privileged, upper-class transients who can be gouged by high taxes and even higher water rates without consequence. The fact is that the roughly 20,000 college students who reside in this community deserve just as much consideration as our permanent residents, and we cannot and should not ignore the reality of their difficult and challenging financial circumstances — especially when the State of California is offering financial incentives for us to acknowledge their presence here. I look forward to the Council's deliberations on this subject this evening.