Good afternoon. Welcome to the February 20th, 2025 meeting of the Secretary of Flood Control Agency Board of Directors. Would the clerk please call the roll.

Thank you. Director Desmond.

Director Hume.

Director Kennedy.

Director Hege's.

Director Surnah.

Director Jennings.

Director Kaplan.

Director Taliman Thays.

Director Holloway.

Director John's.

Director Perez.

Director Betähne.

Director Beantes.

Director Steven, we have a full 13-millimeter quorum.

Thank you. Would you please join me in the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands.

Unwilling nation, under God, in this rolling, the liberty of those just as of all.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this meeting of SAFEKA is being live streamed at Metro14live.saccounty.gov

and will be recorded and reared on MetroCable 14 on Saturday, February 22nd at 3pm.

It will also be available on SAFEKA's website within 48 hours after the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

This time do we have any public comment or items not on the agenda?

I have not received any.

I will be continuing the audience hearing and seeing none.

It takes us to our Executive Directors report.

Good afternoon members of the board.

Rick Johnson, Executive Director.

So I have been asked quite a bit lately about any impacts for some of the activities going on in Washington, D.C. on our project.

So I thought I would just take a couple of minutes and address those a little bit there.

Probably our most important resource in executing our projects is the federal employee

and needless to say they are feeling pretty attacked right now.

So short of anything else there is going to be some loss of, you know, morale, efficiency and some of that right there.

So that, I worry about that to some degree.

But between our two agencies that we work with the most, the Bureau of Reclamation has actually been hit harder than the core.

Towards the end of last week they did have to do layoffs.

Pretty significant amount of their workforce.

They also, all their future contracts were frozen and they also had to go cancel all their existing construction contracts.

Unless they could get an exemption proving they were critical.

So they really are hitting them hard and then Bureau has funding on two of our projects that was frozen.

One was on the temperature control shutters at Folsom.

The Reclamation actually has a larger share of the funding than the core does.

Their funding has been frozen and then the other project is Reclamation's funding for an operation study that's part of the water control manual for the race when it's done was also frozen.

So we will, I do worry, we'll see some impacts on our projects up at Folsom.

We do need the Reclamation to be functioning.

The core is fair to better to date.

There were some early things that caused them to slow down a few things.

But they've gotten all of our construction projects going again.

So they haven't had quite the delays.

But I am a little concerned yesterday.

There was announcement that Department of Defense was going to have some pretty big cuts.

And so how to see what goes down to the core.

So at this point, we're moving forward with our construction projects.

May see some impacts up at Folsom, but we'll see what happens over the next couple of months.

So just wanted to share that's where we're at right now.

Okay, moving on to some better news.

Just a few pictures, the course provided on some of the projects that are still going on.

The latest picture on the fish passage structure out at the where, sack where.

You can see it coming up out of the ground.

Moving over this is looking at the vehicle bridge.

You can see the piers coming up.

And then this is just a different angle on that.

So it's fun getting to see the structure coming up out of the ground.

Moving up to Folsom, Dyke won the race up there is almost complete.

Dyke six, they're working on that.

This is some downstream erosion protection that they're putting on.

On the right wing, they continue with the flood wall there.

So we got active construction going on there.

I've shared this picture with you before, but I need to explain what's going on.

So I need to share it again.

These are the stop logs that were manufactured in Alabama to bring out for work on the race.

This is just a schematic trying to show though put those six of those in place behind a gate so they can take the gate out of service and rebuild it.

Each one of those is about eight to five thousand pounds.

So why this is important is they got the corbels at the bottom which hold the weight of the stop logs.

Once the water came down, they inspected them and found out that they probably weren't going to be able to hold that weight.

So they had to go in and do some work to repair them and beat them up so that they could handle that.

That part's been done.

And then they also found that the behind the vertical, vertical piece that the stop logs go and I'm losing my mind here as to the term is the grout's deteriorator.

So they're fixing that right now.

Hopefully then early next month they'll get started putting the stop logs in and can start work on the gate eight.

That's that'll give us their call to the proof of concept.

They'll let us see how long it takes the contractor to do it if there's other issues that come up and then that'll help inform how long and how much it'll cost after that.

This is just a closer up picture of the work on the Corboh repair.

Then I mentioned earlier before that the joint federal project, the hydraulic cylinder coating on those had cracked and the core was replacing them.

So this is at the manufacturer in Netherlands, a couple of pictures of the rods.

The first shipment came out earlier this week so they're headed our way. So just sharing that a little bit.

Okay, so then I wanted to talk a little bit about 2025. We're kind of in a period of transition for SAFE.

Primarily in the past, over the last few decades we've worked with the court to get all the studies and authorizations and new construction starts in place for our six projects.

Getting the appropriations both at the federal local and state level and then more recently we've seen a lot of activity in dealing with the getting the real estate and relocation to head of construction.

And the courts had us help them significantly on some of their design with some of the consulting firms getting the designs move forward.

However, we're hitting this point now. This is a map of our system and you can see all the green areas are the areas that are essentially complete construction.

The red areas are the ones that are under construction right now and then the blue will come in the future.

So looking more specifically at the red, we've got pretty much all the work up at Folsom under construction right now. That'll take a few more years.

We've got an Atomus reach A and reach A year, the two biggest contracts there. They'll take a couple more years.

And then on common features, 2016, the wear is going to take a little longer too.

But then going and looking, we don't have a lot left that's in the blue.

And specifically up at Folsom, just Dyke 7's only one left to be awarded.

So that'll be the key to the technology or the big ones on Atomus.

And then down on common features, 2016 is pretty much the erosion work.

So most of those designs are pretty well along the core, won't need a lot of our assistance in those.

There'll still be a few real estate issues here and there. But for the most part, those are done.

So we're going to have a lot of different in some of our activities.

We don't have, we're in a good spot DC. We don't have any heavy duty requests there.

We don't need any authorizations or new starts or any policy issues for a while. Relatively small appropriation needs.

Atomus will need a little bit more and we get that funded annually anyway.

They're waiting to see on a couple of the claims to see how large those are.

So we don't have any money to be done annually, but that's a relatively small amount.

And then we'll see after the proof of concept up at the race whether we need any more funding or not.

So really until the comm study is done in four or five years, we don't have any heavy duty requests from DC.

So we'll be turning our focus now to the following items.

Real estate, all the real estate we purchased can count against our cost share for our federal projects.

We get that reviewed and approved as credit.

And we've got hundreds of millions of credit sitting there to date the core has not approved any of them.

And this goes back to some of the real estate back as far as 2007.

They have come back finally and decided what exactly they want to see.

So we'll be repackaging the previous submittals, have to do some new appraisals.

We still have about 100 real estate packages that we estimate we're going to have to put together to get credits for that 100 million.

So it'll take several years to get through that.

Then the other thing that we're turning our focus on is the title to most of the properties that Savkis purchased has to get turned over to the state.

And then anything that doesn't get turned over to the state to the local maintaining agencies.

And then we do have some easements that we need to get to the utility companies.

The state has been very difficult in deciding what they want and their process and it keeps modifying a little bit.

So it's been kind of slow.

So we're estimating it's going to take probably at least a decade with those about 550 parcels that we need to turn over there.

This is going to be a major activity that we're doing.

And then for there's other properties that we have to maintain primarily mitigation properties were required to either own or maintain the properties and perpetuity so that the habitat value stays there.

We've got more than 425 parcels that this fits under.

So we're working on trying to find long term management partners and a way to fund those long term.

So these are our three major activities that we're going to switch gears on.

I just kind of wanted to give you a feel for we're going to be moving from some of what we've been doing in the past.

And this will be our focus moving forward a little bit.

So with that I'll take any questions.

All right.

Thank you.

I do.

Sorry.

Just a quick question on those 425 or more than 425 parcels that need to be maintained and perpetuity.

We're looking for partners that might be willing to do that.

And this is probably something you don't know off the top of your head.

So what we've been looking at is that we've been looking for partners that are located is there a resource conservation district or some sort of conservancy that has a geographical reach over that area.

Yeah.

So some in some areas.

I mean we've got property spread all throughout with all the projects.

So we actually have had for example we were for a while having the Natomas Conservancy maintained for those they they wanted out of that arrangement.

And we're looking at a new one up there.

In some cases we'll be having we have county Sacramento County parks maintain some of the ones that are in the parkway.

But yeah, wherever there's a we are talking to some of those types of agencies.

And then we're looking at how we can set up an endowment or a trust or something to maintain those over time.

Finding those and getting them all lined up with the right folks that are willing to do it is what we're working on right now.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

With that we will recess into closed session.

Chair, I think we have some potentially recusals before we go into closed session.

Okay, I thought we were going to do just do that report out but okay.

I'm going to recuse myself first item.

Okay, Vice Chair Holloway will be recusing on the first item.

I'll be recusing on the first three items in closed session.

Okay.

That's Director Kaplan.

Anyone else?

All right.

Thank you so much.

Would the clerk please call the roll.

Thank you.

Director Desmond.

Director Hume.

Here.

Director Kennedy.

Here.

Director Hedges.

Here.

Director Surnin.

Here.

Director Jennings.

Here.

Director Kaplan.

Here.

Director Talimentes.

Director Holloway.

Director John.

Here.

Director Perez.

Present.

Director Bane.

Here.

We have a 12 member form.

Director Talimentes is here.

Thank you.

We have a 13 member form.

Okay, Councils, is there anything to report out?

Yes, I'd like to report that Director Holloway was not present and did not receive any information related to the discussions on APN 214-0010-011.

And that Director Kaplan was not present and did not receive any information related to the discussions on any of the items on East Levy Road.

Okay, then I assume that Director Kaplan and the Vice Chair will have a nice afternoon.

We're going to.

We have consent matters.

Oh, we still have consent.

I'm sorry.

You are correct.

We have consent matters and items two through ten are in order.

I want to have a good afternoon.

Okay.

Are there any questions of an item that's on consent?

Move consent.

Second.

Okay, hearing no questions.

Is there any member of the public that would like to address the board at this time on a item on consent?

Hearing and seeing none.

We have a motion to second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain?

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Kaplan.

Now.

I'm going to.

I'm for the record.

We're acknowledging that Director Kaplan and Director Holloway are recusing themselves and leaving the building.

We're a happy Friday afternoon.

Okay.

OK.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

An dodging statement.

Right.

And again, to phrase,

the specific matters item 11 is the public hearing resolution of necessity number 2020.

5 017 regarding Sacramento County.

8 peon.

Or .

Georgia Avdus as trustees of the Avdus family,

Trust dated 9-21-06, John Zorbus, Harry Zorbus,

Georgia DeCauluths, and Connie Vomvolidis.

We'll give you a B on that one, Lindy.

I haven't said good before, I can't believe it.

Go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, directors.

And Mattregout, real estate program manager at Safegault.

The property mentioned is located on East Levy Road,

on the land side of the Natomas East Main Dranj Canal,

West Levy, in the Natomas Basin area of Sacramento County.

Acquisition of the property is required for the Nimmdeck West Levy

Reach G component of phase 4db of the project.

This is if it shows the different reaches of the Natomas project,

and we are in Reach G on the right hand,

the bottom right hand.

Attachment B1 is a sketch that shows the Levy improvements

at the northwest portion of the property on East Levy Road.

These improvements include widening of the top of the levy

and flattening of the landslide levy slope,

construction of a seeper stability berm,

construction of an operation in maintenance road

at the landslide top of the levy,

and the establishment of a Flood Control Works Protection Zone.

An attachment B2 is a sketch that shows the similar improvements

on the southeast portion of the property,

and the only difference really is the width of the acquisition

between the two areas.

This is a wider acquisition.

Attachment C is a map of the project reach,

showing the location of the property,

and you can see that in the right hand corner.

Attachment D1 is an exhibit that shows the fee,

the proposed fee acquisition area,

and the proposed easement acquisition area.

It's kind of hard to see in this one,

but we have a better exhibit coming up.

So the fee is in the brown area,

and the access easement is the yellow,

little yellow square,

you can't kind of buy the road up there on the top.

Attachment D2 has an exhibit that shows

the temporary construction easement.

Again, it's not a great exhibit to see right now,

but it's parallel to the fee acquisition.

So we put those together so you can see them better here,

and you can see the fee acquisition in red,

the acquisition easement in yellow,

and the temporary construction easement parallel in blue.

So the fee interest is needed to construct

the leveeing improvements to ensure that no encroachments

or excavations undermine the integrity of the leveeing

improvements and allow for the proper operation

of maintenance of the flood control features to take place.

The permanent access easement is needed

to adjust the ramp that connects Serinto Road to East Levy Road,

and the temporary construction easement

is required for replacing the owner's fence

along the new property line.

Attachment E3-3 is the project description

and necessity for the acquisition,

environmental compliance documents,

and considerations in selecting the mitigation sites,

and additional design analysis that was done.

On March 7th of 2022,

Safegasense, a letter to the owners of the property,

advising them that the upcoming levee project

will affect their property.

On July 28th of 2022,

Safegasense, a letter to the property owners,

advising them that Safegas preparing an appraisal

to acquire a portion of their property in fee.

On January 11th of 2023,

Safegasense, a letter to the property owners,

advising them that the acquisition areas

required for the project have been updated

to reflect a more current design.

On June 22nd of 2023,

Safegas provided a formal offer

to purchase the property rights,

which consisted of the fee acquisition,

the permit easement,

and the construction easement.

Then on May 14th of 2024,

and in an attempt to avoid litigation

by wherever negotiating,

and while also addressing Safegas urgent need

for possession of the property,

Safegasense, a letter to the property owners,

offering additional compensation

in exchange for an irrevocable right of entry

to construct the project.

This right of entry would grant Safegas

the possession of the property,

and this allow for more time for negotiations to take place.

Safegas and the owners,

they did execute this right of entry,

aligned for additional times to negotiate.

However, this right of entry,

it did state that if within six months

of the agreement be executed,

that no agreement has been reached

for the compensation amount,

that the owners may initiate an inverse condemnation action

if this board does not vote

to pursue a resolution and necessity.

And that time period is this month,

at the end of this month.

Attachment L is a diary of discussions

between Safegas right away acquisition,

agent and staff, and the owners,

and the representatives,

during which they discuss the potential effects

of the project on the property,

and the requirements that the interests

and the property,

that the interests and the properties

need for the project.

And on February 3rd, it's 125 Safegas did mail,

a written notice, the owners,

the property advising them

that this board would hold a hearing today at this time

to consider the adoption of a resolution

necessity to acquire the property rights by imminent domain.

So with this ownership,

they are dispersed internationally,

so that's been one of the challenges during negotiations.

However, we were able to get everyone together

for that right of the process,

and we were able to get everyone together

for that right of entry.

However, in the time we have left,

we don't feel confident that we're going to be able

to reach an agreement on the conversation

before the six month period is up.

So we will, as always, continue to negotiate

with the property owners to reach a resolution,

but at this time we request your consideration

for this adoption of the resolution.

All right, thank you very much, Mr. DeGroote.

Is there any question before we open up

the public hearing?

Is there any questions from the board?

Hearing, seeing none, open up the public hearing.

Is there any member of the public

that would like to address the board at this time on this item?

Seeing and hearing none, receiving no cards, I take it?

I have not received any.

Okay, then I will close the public hearing.

Is there a motion?

Move to issue, the run.

I'll second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Mr. Dean, thank you.

Thank you.

Item number 12 is a public hearing resolution

of necessity number 2025-01-8, regarding Sacramento County APN 226-0010-002,

property at 5625 East Levy Road, property owners,

Rivian, E. Avdus, and Georgia Avdus,

as trustees of the Avdus Family Trust, dated 921-06.

Mr. Goldberg, considering what was transpired in closed session.

It's, if the board so chooses, there is a proposal on the table to continue the item until April.

Both items 12 and 13 would require a board vote.

Excuse me.

Okay, I'll make the motion that we continue till April.

Second.

All right, any questions?

Any public comment?

I have not received any.

Okay, all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain.

Item number 13 is a public hearing resolution of necessity number 2025-01-9,

regarding Sacramento County APN 226-00100-003, property at 531-11 East Levy Road,

property owner, Nick Avdus.

Okay, I will move to continue for 60 days or till April.

Second.

Any comments?

Questions?

Any public comment?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Is there any other business before the board at this time, Madam Clerk?

I'm not aware of any.

All right, then.

We are adjourned.