Ron's Log

March 23, 2020

This is a report on the MSWD Board meetings of March 12 and 16, 2020. I did not attend the meeting on Monday, March 16, and base that part of my report on the video.

Video of the Thursday, March 12 meeting.

Video of the Monday, March 16 meeting.

At both the Thursday and Monday meetings, Director Grasha participated via telephone. Vice President Duncan was absent (excused) from the Thursday meeting.

The Monday meeting began with Grace Gardner speaking by phone. She was not introduced, other than to give us her name, nor was her presentation agendized. Ms. Gardner summarized the federal, state and local rules about dealing with COVID-19. It is now possible for the entire board to participate in board meetings via telephone.

Sewer Connection Financial Assistance Fund

This will be similar to the fund that was set up for AD12, but this one can apply to all future assessment districts. It will be started with $250,000. Loans will be available for both residential and commercial customers. The maximum loan for one residential property is $6,000. The resolution doesn't state a maximum for commercial customers. The board can approve a higher amount. The length of the loan can be up to ten years. The resolution says "Payments shall be included on the utility bill of the improved property." I take that to mean some amount will be added to the water bill monthly. The interest rate will be 5% or the Local Agency Investment Fund yield rate, if higher. Delinquencies will be assessed a 7% penalty and all of that will then go on the tax bill.

Approved 5-0.

Water Supply Assessment For The DHS 109 Industrial Park

The DHS 109 development is east of Little Morongo, west of Atlantic Avenue and north of 16th Avenue. If you know where the self-storage business is on the west side of Little Morongo (in the county), DHS 109 will be east of that, on the other side of the wash. It will include 5.4 acres of light industrial, 17.5 acres cannabis cultivation, 6.6 acres for a power plant (no info on what kind, but I'm guessing it will be natural gas), 25.7 acres of landscaping, 5.7 acres for detention basins and a whopping 49.36 acres for streets and parking. Total water demand will be about 1,800 acre-feet/year, but the developer will set up a water recycling system which will reduce the net water demand to 910 acre-feet/year. The district has sufficient water to supply that.

Approved 5-0.

Public Safety Power Shutoff

The board had asked for an update on Edison's policies on public safety power shutoffs, so Edison sent a couple of reps to explain. This included a visual presentation, so if you want to see that go to 10:15 in the video of the Thursday meeting. Edison is installing more HD cameras in high fire-risk areas. Currently they have about 200 cameras installed. By the end of 2020 they should have camera coverage of 90% of their high fire-risk areas. They are also installing more weather stations. Now they have 400 weather stations. By the end of 2020 they will have over 850 set up. In the past Edison has cleared vegetation back to create a 4-foot buffer. Going forward they will make that a 12-foot buffer. They've begun hardening their grid. That means replacing wooden poles with composite poles in high fire-risk areas. Also, they are beginning to insulate all their bare wire. Insulation will reduce the probability of an ignition point creating a fire by 60%.

Edison has 7 to 10 meteorologists on duty at all times whose job it is to assess threats. They also have fire experts on board who used to work with CalFire or other fire agencies. When winds in an area reach 32 MPH and wind gusts reach 47 MPH then Edison will focus its attention on that area. They try to look four to seven days ahead, if possible, and may "sound an alarm" seven days ahead of an expected event. If a weather event is expected in three days or less, then a team is activated in the emergency operations center. Edison will then begin to notify local agencies and pinpoint a "period of concern." Up to about a year-and-a-half ago Edison did not directly notify water districts, but trusted the local city or county to pass the word on to them. But someone has since pointed out to Edison how important water is for fighting fires, so now water districts get the same notification as cities and counties. Notification is sent out to all customers on any circuit one and two days before any event that Edison thinks may require that circuit to be cut off.

The "period of concern" is when Edison thinks it is most likely that power will be cut off. If power does get cut off, customers should not count on power being restored until 24 hours after the period of concern ends. During those 24 hours Edison will be repairing and inspecting lines.

But, of course, if conditions are moving too fast (such as a wildfire), all those timeframes could be shortened.

With sufficient warning the district can fill reservoirs and move generators to power wells and pumps. The district has permanent generators located at the Horton wastewater treatment plant and at district headquarters on 2nd Street.

Director Martin asked about "hell hydrants" which are temporary water supplies that fire fighting aircraft can use. Staff said MSWD had used something like that in 2006 during a fire in the western part of the district. Here's an article about a fire-fighting base in the Santa Monica Mountains that uses water "pumpkins" that seem to function as I imagine hell hydrants might.

New Meters Project

A little more than 4,700 new water meters have been installed which is about 37% of the total. There are 12 installers and they still expect the job to be completed in June (but that's probably not allowing for any delays that may be cause by the pandemic).

Meters are designed so they cannot overread. As they age, they will tend to underread. This means when a customer gets a new meter, it may look like their consumption has increased, but in reality they were just getting some free unmetered water from the old meter and going forward they will get no more free water.

General Manager's Comments

At the Monday meeting the changes the district was making to deal with COVID-19 were announced. One of the changes was to divide the staff into two halves. Each half would work from home during alternate weeks. MSWD will not shut off any customers, but all the usual billing rules still apply (IOW, there are still late fees, etc.). Director Grasha said he supported this, but thought it could be a slippery slope.

Director's Comments

Director Grasha thanked the staff for their work during this pandemic, and he warned them to try to stay safe.

Director Martin raised the issue of how dirty cash can be, saying he was going to pay for everything using his debit card. Then President Wright made the rather startling revelation that she has no ATM card.

Vice President Duncan said he wanted to remind everyone that what one board member does reflects on the other. He used Director Sewell for an example, saying that if he went out and got a DUI it would look bad for the whole board. It also reflects badly on staff, management and the attorney. If staff does badly, it reflects badly on the board. Then he had a statement to read:

This past Monday, March 9, Steve Grasha posted on Facebook his intent to run against Manny Perez for county supervisor. During the thread of conversation the gentleman told Steve simply "Fix the water," to which he replied "The agency is too corrupt to be fixed. It needs to be disbanded and rolled into the Desert Water Agency. That will be my recommendation to the public." Normally I comment on these things at this point. I'm not going to today because I included this in my defamation of character lawsuit which will be heard tomorrow afternoon, Palm Springs Municipal Court. Secondly, I apologize for the upcoming language, especially to the ladies but I really want everyone to get a true picture of who's representing us. After several pages of comments on that post Dana Reed, a council member from the Indian Wells commented on the conversation by simply saying "That loud noise you hear are cheers from Supervisor Perez's office." To which Grasha replied, and, again, apologize here, "You're one of the morons I want to make sure never gets close to the ribbons of power in this country. You are the most corrupt motherfuckers that ever walked the face of the earth." Didn't say "face," sorry. "Ever walked the earth." That comment was made on Indian Wells council member who has no service with us and has no jurisdiction over us. He simply commented to the Facebook post. That entire conversation also caught the attention of Manny Perez, the current supervisor for the county, who contacted Victoria asking about that conversation and I'm sure wanted to know what the heck was going on here at the district. Again, what one of us do, reflects on us all. Both of those comments made by Grasha are out of line and completely unacceptable. I would like to recommend to this board that we consult with our attorney to find some way to sanction Grasha for these despicable words and actions. This has gone on too long. We cannot leave this the way it's going.

Attorney Pinkney said he would not comment on that.

As President Wright was about the wrap up the open session, in anticipation of moving to closed session, Director Grasha piped up without waiting to be recognized.

I'm glad to know that it's okay with the director that drinking and driving is okay, but having a discussion with a director from another community is not okay.

Filed under California,Coachella Valley,Desert Hot Springs,Politics | March 23, 2020 at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2020

I just happened to run across They Made Me A Criminal (from 1939) on the local OTA movie channel one night a couple of weeks ago. I was surprised to see a sequence that was obviously shot in the Coachella Valley, as Mt. San Jacinto can be clearly identified. I got the DVD from Netflix and grabbed that short bit to share below. After walking to a date grove, star John Garfield settles in romancing the blonde lady who owns the grove and teaching some east coast juvenile delinquents (played by The Dead End Kids) boxing. All is paradise until Claude Rains shows up.

IMDB identifies the shooting location as "Palm Desert, California," but nothing of Palm Desert existed in 1939.

Filed under California,Coachella Valley,Film/Movies,History | March 18, 2020 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)