AlumRock TV Live Stream Special Board Meeting September 29, 2020

001right here we do in the district office oh it's above it's above me too nice did you still need um help with the cloud that you have this is justine marcus hello trustee marcus um there's all kinds of stuff on my screen uh asking me to do the english portion and i did i hit english and it didn't go away it's still on my screen what is that um we all have the same oh okay you're okay okay so do we have any notice from um trustee quintero dr bauer no okay well we will there's four of us here so we'll go ahead and get started um so i will call the meeting to order at 5 31 for our special board meeting on tuesday september the 29th um before we get going can i

002have maribel can you take the role please today is a special board meeting of september 29th 2020 at 5 30 p.m members of the boarding attendants president vice president president members of administration superintendent dr bauer president and trustee quintero says he is connecting okay okay so looks like we do have a quorum and we are recording this tonight um and as always the methods for the public to um provide comment are in the agenda in the instructions at the top of the agenda which you'll find on our web page um but it is basically the same that we've been doing now for a number of months um and also do we need to make the announcement again about the the translation interpretation um mr tripoli i don't know if you want to go ahead and

003do that as we have that's kind of a newer feature okay thank you [Music] thank you and and just in english i don't know if we need to make the announcement but i believe we do need to um if you are listening in english at the bottom of your screen you'll see a little button that it says what does it say translation i already did my interpretation so if you click on that and select um english if you're listening in english then you'll be able to hear the meeting without pause or delay or interruption we've had some some issues with that in the past so thank you everyone and so um with that being said at this point we'll go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance and then we can get started with the

004rest of the agenda so if you're able to stand at this time please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states okay so thank you everyone and we can before we actually get started um it's been a you know as i as we hear the helicopter some of us here buzzing over our heads here in our community and i don't know what that is for but it has been a particularly difficult week for our district and our community and and with that being said um i'll go ahead and and provide open up the floor for trusteera loera um to make a statement about uh some unfortunate things in the past week in our district thank you president uh so as uh ernesto mentioned our

005alum rocking elementary school district has been impacted by several tragedies um in this weekend alone we unfortunately um lost one of our team members a health assistant to covet 19 on saturday two of our students lost both of their parents in the elm rock avenue accident on sunday a former student attempted against her life and is in a coma right now um on sunday and one of our students was shot last night monday night um each and every one of those lives are sacred and matter not just to us but most importantly to their parents their family members their community closest community and of course impact us as the alum rock community it also shows that we are still not doing enough as an entire community when one of our team members dies due to

006cohobid one of our children is shot and others have attempted to take their life it is calling all of us to ask ourselves if we're doing enough are we doing enough as a sister are we doing enough as a parent are we doing enough as whatever role we play we each have a particular piece in each and every one of the lives of those that are in our community so i asked during this moment of silence not just to think about um each individual and um i can't share the name obviously you know due to um holding um their personal lives um with honor and and not mentioning that but think about you know them and also think about what each and every one of you are doing and also as a representative of a

007system in our in our district you know our what are we doing um are we doing enough can we do more can we do more as individuals can we do more as a community can we do more as systems in place to support our alum rock union elementary school district so i ask you to think about those things um think about each and every one of those individuals and at this point i'm going to ask all of us to hold a moment of silence and i'll time it thank you uh thank you and at this point i just call you you know each and every one of us for call to action in whichever way you can support to do our part so that we don't have another youth you know or we don't lose

008any other youth that we can make this place this community safe sacred where all of us feel included loved and supported thank you thank you trusted and and to your final point there obviously i mean nothing there's nothing more to be said about just the the tragedies that that these are but to your point about a call to action i know that the um there is a gofundme page for the family um of the with the car accident that happened and so i guess um i know on my facebook uh trusty facebook page i can post it i think other trustees who have pages can post the link to that um and i'm not sure at the district level what we might be able to do but that's one thing that whoever is seeing this

009meeting or participating can can do every little bit um will help this family to you know just at least monetarily financially deal with you know a future that is unknown [Music] sorry yeah okay so um is trustee quintero with us at this point oh yeah there he is all right so let's um um mr mr ruiz can i make an adjustment or modification or at least a request to change the order of the agenda items i want what i want to do is allow the um the public on for each of the items on our agenda to um to to to have them hear the material and then be allowed to comment on the material once they've heard it but i know it's public comment is agendized before both of the items but i'm wondering

010if we can for each item present the information and then allow the public to comment at that time yes that's that's fine as long as the public is allowed an opportunity to come in okay okay so then and do we need any board consensus or anything no you do not okay so i think we'll go ahead and do that then just to make sure that the public can separate out their comments and hear the the um information that they'll be commenting on so with that being said um we can start with item number 3.01 approve the 2021 learning continuity and attendance plan um dr bauer i can turn this over to you at this point thank you uh more president i'm gonna turn it over to messandra garcia so that she can summarize what we're

011doing tonight and what we're requesting respectfully from the boards thank you can you all see my presentation no no can we share the the screen uh after maribel yeah okay let me try hold on um here we go yes yeah okay good evening superintendent bauer board president members of the board and alum rock community my name is sandra sian i'm the director of state and federal programs i'm here this evening to present to you our final draft of our learning continuity and attendance plan for board adoption i have a few slides that i want to share with you um just to kind of give a recap of the work we've done and the contents of the plan so if you all remember the last board meeting on september 10th i gave some background on the

012learning continuity plan just as a reminder this plan replaces the lcap for this school year only it is a special plan that was designed um to address the impact of covet 19 on pupils families and staff and to provide continuity of learning the requirements for adoption for this plan are that the board shall hold a public hearing to solicit recommendations and comments from the public which we did on september 10th and for the board to hold a special board meeting to adopt the learning continuity and attendance plan which is this evening as with all of our lcat plans it is important to gather stakeholder input um in developing the plan to use in developing the plan uh here is a brief summary of what we have done to gather input from our stakeholders for this

013plan we have used information from our four town hall meetings that took place over the summer which is allowed under the statute we have um we included parents teachers and support staff in those town hall meetings and we conducted them in english spanish and vietnamese we um launched two surveys um one in june uh in 2020 which gave us information um preliminary information on on how to begin um this plan and then another uh most recently in september for our parents to provide more information on their needs at the beginning of the school year we have also conducted input sessions with parents and teachers every site had an input session to gather recommendations and answer questions from site members we shared a copy of the first draft with our parent advisory groups our dak gilac

014and with a group of leaders from school ptas and school site councils we shared a draft copy with our union and association groups to gather input and also held the public hearing on september 10th some of the emerging themes through this process were that the the need to provide daily live synchronous instruction um also that there is a need for increased connection to staff and peers for students to have a sense of belonging in their classrooms and in their school the need for increased communication between teachers and parents the need for more resources for parents to support their students learning including how to use technology and the apps and platforms that we're using in the classrooms and lastly the need to expand support services for students struggling the most with distance learning this is just

015a review we went into detail um on september 10th the the contents of the draft plan and i just want to share again quickly what the content what you will find in the learning continuity plan i thought she was pausing but i think there's she's frozen i thought that was a dramatic pause um let's give it a second and see if the connection comes back hmm did we take the powerpoint away or did she do that okay so um while we wait and see if maybe she's able to connect on in a relatively short time is there anyone else from staff that has any um additional input to what has already been presented or maybe just something um pertaining to the report yeah i was trying to see if mr sanchez was there um and

016but we needed the you know i don't know if you have the power her powerpoint mr sanchez i'm communicating with sandra right now trying to get her back up um i don't have it uploaded right now i would have to forget about that let me take more than one click basically sandra went over the content of the plan in september we wanted to on you know just to refresh everybody's memory about you know some of the major highlights um if there is any questions from the board right now this tonight we're asking the board to approve this plan is due tomorrow to the state um as i have mentioned to you during our one-on-ones we have provided ample opportunity for feedback and we have taken feedback very seriously so um is there any further questions

017at this point i'll be happy you know to to respond to some of them or to ask mr sanchez to help you respond yes and if you um have tauro maribel if you could make me co-host see if i could share my screen are you able to share mr sanchez at this point i think he found the presentation and you know just um i don't know if coincidentally is the right word but this i know that this mirrors the experience that you know our families and our students experience in their day-to-day learning i think these types of events from what i've what i've been able to ascertain and gather from talking to people and hearing people and stuff i think these types of things are at this point a little bit more of the exception

018than the rules meaning that um you know they don't most of the time the connection for most students or families is is fairly stable at a minimum if not stable enough to to get things done that need to be done um but i know that we as part of the report in that we have been very intentional about setting up support really putting in not just one-off kind of one-by-one individual support but really looking at how to make that assist how to systematize the the the support that we can provide whether it's through um videos that people can access or through phone numbers and so dr bauer um or anyone do you have any sense if um that has improved and sanders you know she her area lost the internet you know those of all

019of us have experienced that and funny that you were talking about that trustee pejerano this morning and we were attending a virtual conference on innovation and technology so the leaders of the nation and the world were presenting we were very honored to be in presence of such eminence and um a bunch of people from boston froze in the middle of the conversation when none other than colin powell so i saw that i think that he was kind of clueless interviewing the forming chief former chief of staff um gets frozen in the middle of her conversation and he has to add live just like you're like we're doing right now it was fascinating to see them and you know kind of the question becomes when this happens to a student a kindergartner or a third grader

020or a sixth grader how do they ad lib you know maybe we you know we continue to have some intentional thought about preparing students as well i'm sure we're doing that at the classroom level but maybe it's something to think about even more is like i'm not back for harry potter i'm so sorry i don't i don't know what happened but um i don't even know where where the last you heard my presentation um where i ended up i was so into it and you didn't realize do you you were um did i go over the contents of the learning plan you weren't you were going to start that oh okay okay so um very briefly i'll just finish up it there's just a few more slides so just as a reminder the contents of

021the learning and continuity plan i did go into detail last um on the 10th for the contents under the plan just as a reminder there are five buckets included in the plan the first is the continuity of learning and that includes our plans for distance learning uh in-person instruction when we're able to go back devices and connectivity professional development people learning loss and then support for students with unique needs the second bucket is around the mental health and wellness social emotional learning and that includes the support services for mental health and wellness and the social emotional learning piece the third bucket is the student and family engagement and outreach and that includes our plans for reaching out to students when they're not taking part in their classes what is the tiered system for re-engagement um

022to ensure that they're getting the education that they need a family engagement and then the parent education that we will provide to make sure parents have what they need to help their students the fourth bucket is on student nutrition and how we will continue to provide meals for our students during this time and the fifth bucket has to do with the increased and improved services for our foster youth english learners and low-income students and that includes the prioritization of support for these students which are also called our unduplicated students and how we support them with our support staff our schooling services coordinators counselors community liaisons and after school support providers and how we prioritize services for these students through this plan and that's it that's the end again sorry about that okay thank you no

023problem it happens to the best of us um so thank you for the presentation um before we have any board questions or comments now um i'd like to open it up for public comment um so mr gill do we have at this point any uh public comment it's the latest one okay so maribel can we go ahead and get the timer set up and on the screen the first person will be delzer gonzalez okay is the timer up i don't know if my no my thing is set up right okay so maryville is a photoshoot okay and miss gonzalez when oh there we go when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin um for your public comment good evening members of the board my name is gonzalez i am a parent of three of

024two students in the umbra school district first of all i want to acknowledge and thank all of you guys for the moment of silence and acknowledging the family in the last that we've been having during the past days as a as a parent and as a community member i really appreciate that and i'm sorry if i'm breaking up because this is close to home um second i would like to thank sandra dr bauer and renee and the whole staff for the amazing work that they did um doing the continuing plan i would like to acknowledge the support and the dedication that they put especially in the social emotional part is something that is needed our families our staff and our children are getting stressed are getting anxiety and we could see some of that all

025that that there is that had happened because of this pandemic and that six months that we've been in insulation i would also like to um acknowledge the hard work and the education that they have been putting to the parents and having it translated in spanish and in vietnamese and uh for that um i will i don't have nothing else to say then to thank you and and to keep on working together and moving forward and having these mellow um meetings i really appreciate that have a really good evening thank you um mr gill next person is there another person yes next person is veronica okay veronica when you begin speaking your two minutes will start veronica are you there yes can you hear me yes when you begin speaking you're two minutes let's start great

026thank you and good afternoon um members of the borah and the members of alan rock um thank you for taking a moment of silence and thank you for letting us know of the although there are tragedies we need to know so we know how to support some communities um and thank you trustee corrina for your kind words um and again for the moment of silence i also want to thank dr laria bauer and renee um and as well as sandra for doing the amazing work and really taking our feedback that we have been um expressing towards them and continuing with that open conversation as it is crucial our children are the most important and most precious things that we have and we must make sure that we care for them and that we put in

027front of them what is their right right which is more than to survive um and so with that i also want to um make sure that i say that this is an ongoing um the continuity plan is just a foundation but um this ongoing talk with families and feedback will be open and we will continue with the work thank you again and have a great day thank you next person mr gill none okay thank you everyone for that so that being said uh we'll move on to board questions and comments trustee marquez and trustee quintero i obviously can't see you so if you have questions or comments either just give me some kind of sign i don't want to take it to the oldies songs here but just give me a little sign and and

028all you know you can have the floor um so at this point i see trastierer um go ahead and take the floor thank you um so i want to thank all the parent engagement that this plan called in you know um i know that each and every one of us as parents care about our children and you know what they're doing now and then the future plans um but i really you know enjoyed that this plan really um kind of woke up you know other parents that i hadn't seen in a while um and you know that they also called meetings with dr bauer um and that they were really not you know obviously we all care about things um but that they also found the time to be engaged and involved you know in

029providing their feedback um to me it's important to have you know that parent engagement and feedback so thank you parents and uh you know dr bauer thank you for taking the time right to not only create it or start off with a plan and you know baseline in the skeleton but also go to the parents and um and spend that time you know important time with them to include you know what is important to them as well obviously they know what's best for their children we know what's best for our children um so that for me was very important and you know i feel good i feel good that we took the time um you know in our last board meeting um that we took the time to you know meet with the parents um

030and that we included their feedback um and so you know i will be supporting this um and i look forward to having more more of those types of you know as one of the parents mentioned working forward and uh making sure that you know we do things together in this way in this matter okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board okay i don't see any other so um i'll actually just i had a question but first of all well i'm sorry trustee travis did you i can't barely make out your your figure did you have your hand raised she was raising her hand muted oh she's muted the whole time i was muted thank you oh go ahead um i do have some questions on the el cap is that okay

031to start asking him now yeah sure so on one of the pages it said that it was a community group that they um that they were gonna help and what's the name of the community group it just mentioned them as san jose a group in the community and just a san jose group who is that it said on page 17 of 24 a local community based organization within east san jose who are they page 17 of 24. i think it would have been just easier to name the group but there's no name as i read it it's the first paragraph page 17. the top it's at the top the first paragraph yeah the first paragraph page 17. it's under mental health support that starts at the bottom of page 16. there's like two sentence two

032lines that it starts on page 16 at the bottom so can you just give me the name second harvest food bank thank you okay did you have more questions trustee travis yes it says on page 15 that there's a plan in development to provide support um do you have something in writing as to what the plan is second paragraph of page 15. last line i'm going on pretty soon on 15 yeah that uh plans mine reads ongoing modifications of supports and services will be made based on student data on page on my page 15 of 24 it says this plan is being developed to provide support such as basic case management and referral brokerage is there a plan in writing right now and if so can we see it yeah you are going to be

033seeing it by october trustee chavez this is the plan that barbara campbell is working with some principles to address students who are recent arrivals to the district english learners yeah i guess my question is it's always better to see the plan ahead of time to see and know what we're approving well the you're approving the lcap you're not approving that english language learner plan okay thank you and if i could just uh remind you all that this is a plan for 2020 2021 school year so it's for the whole school year and there will be some things that are still being developed so we can meet the needs of the students so i do have another question and it's kind of the same framework that it's still being developed that's all thank you okay thank

034you um any other questions or comments from the board on this item i do have a comment this is trustee marquez go ahead um because um sandra just said that this is a plan or template um for the 2021 um that's what i was dreaming right as you open it when the 20 when the 21 comes around um are you going to come in with new things or just what you have implemented so i'm the lucky one that gets to write two plans in one year so we will begin the process of writing an lcap in um january 2021 to bring to the board by june okay and so i'm glad you you you just worded it like that because tell me what the difference is uh on the uh the learning the continuity and

035an attendance plan template and then the l cap i mean we all know what the l cap is but we're not calling it an l cap anymore or we are so so um this plan is replacing the lcap for this school year yes only this school year during this time of covet and distance learning and school closures and things like that so it is only replacing it for this school year because it is more specific towards the pandemic and the time we're in and how we're addressing student needs and then we will go back hopefully we will go back to using the lcap as our guide for the school year for next year thank you for the information it's clear functional to me thank you okay thank you any other questions or comments from the

036board okay i um i just also want to thank everyone parents staff administration for all the hard work that's gone into putting this together as i continually talk about this is new for everybody from students on up and and it's not easy to put together an entire educational plan using an entire different model you know in this short of a time but everyone has come together to to get that done so i want to just appreciate that work from everybody um and my only question is the plan as it's laid out um i'm assuming that's why it's coming to us for approval that we do have the resources or the partnerships or or whatever it may be to to implement this plan going forward but are there any particular areas of the plan that um

037that may need us to to keep our eye on in terms of the sufficient support for implementation or you know any challenges that we do need to keep an eye on in particular um go ahead not not that i know of i mean if it's in the plan it's something that we definitely feel that we have the resources to do of course we're always looking for more resources to improve and add to what we're providing but um unless dr bauer did you want to speak to it more no that's that's the answer that's the answer yeah excuse me one last question sorry i missed it so on page 12 uh where it says the tech support so it says that the on the last uh block it says that the tech support for parent staff

038the i.t staff provides extended evening and weekend tech support to parents so the additional 80 000 is that because you did a new hire or are you now paying time and a half to the it time and personnel half to ait personnel trustee travis so um isn't it more cost effective to hire somebody else as a consultant and that way you're not paying time and a half no no i'm answering that's okay people will say otherwise thank you very much i know this is trustee marcus uh yeah before or before you trustee marcus i just kind of wanted to add on to um you know i understand it's a good point of you know making sure that we have enough support i t support but i in terms of um you know hiring a new

039person i i know that the cost to onboard a new person is often you know it seems like it makes sense up front but at least in my experience um in government agencies that cost to onboard and get people you know up and running often um out exceeds the amount that it costs to to pay existing staff who are familiar with all the processes and everything to move forward so that that's just been my experience in other areas trustee marquez um yes in your comment on it just reminded me of a concern that i had when i was reading this because um over the weekend i was talking um at a function i was talking with um with a couple of parents um from ellen rock and they were saying um they're always getting thrown

040out when they're trying to log in and i had to explain to her that 8 500 people were trying to get on and so that was going to be happening and then then the parent she said um but i don't think it was that uh just imagine i think that it was the fact that i what the the computer or whatever what whatever she had that we gave her it is the problem it's too old or it needs to be refurbished or it needs to be fixed because it happens way too many times so when you say we need to keep an eye on something that may have may reoccur or is reoccurring right now um she's not the first parent i have heard that from a couple of parents that are employees and have

041children in the district i've also mentioned to me that that they they think that they need to take in whatever was given to them at their school and have been checking out or give them something else so i think we need to stay on top of that because it doesn't sound to me from where i'm at that um every single uh laptop or whatever we gave the children um is is working all that well so i think we need to really keep an eye on those um on those those that equipment so thank you okay thank you i had uh raised my hand a while ago but i don't think you saw it oh i didn't see it but is it can i just do a follow up on that particular comment or do you

042have something yeah yeah oh no yeah i'm sure okay thanks uh mr gil is there any way that you could of all the devices that we have and you're muted by the way so oh there you go of all the devices that we have handed out whether they be hot spots or laptops or chromebooks whatever is there any way that you could just very generally speak to the um not necessarily the condition but the like how recent or how new or how what is the the not the quality like are these devices that are old outdated and you know likely to to have hardware issues so if i make comment more video generally any device when it is working is working but this part of its age right there are many other now we have

043seen most of our learning is a distance learning and there are factors of internet there is a factor of a zoom itself even if the internet is good and we are experiencing every day so most of our devices are pretty new newer three years or less there are few devices which have aged uh four plus years three plus years but most of the devices are premium less than three years okay but we're confident fairly confident that they are sufficiently functional um and we just kind of have to come to terms as we've seen in tonight's meeting with the reality of you know maybe i didn't it was my fault because i didn't put my you know password in right or maybe the internet or zoom or something else external was the problem and that's you

044know part of the picture it sounds like it's just the reality that we all are learning to come to grips with but it sounds like the device end for the most part is sufficient then in your estimation yes it is sufficient and as you stated that there are some user cases too where sometimes it is a password issue and if i may share there because we hear a lot of incidents from families through our tech support and my technicians share with me so there's one incident i would share is a student has an ipad what he did is he took a screenshot of his home screen and then when his parent comes to him why you are not connected he just click on the screenshot and stating that my ipad is not working see i'm

045clicking on the icon and it's not going so those are a lot of human involvement this is one example i share i go i'm gonna go back on my statement about trustee chavez i want this kid hired i want this kid hired for our itt he's brilliant oh but yeah so you know that's a good point of how and also so did santa are you taking that statement back no i'm not i'm not even gonna go there again this month but trustee um quintero uh i know you have comments i apologize for butting in there nah no worries um i i just want to express my gratitude and uh for for the the staff and the team that put the plan together the collaboration i think that um by working with all the stakeholders uh

046the the the folks that are you know impacted by this plan uh he got some really good input and so very very much appreciative of that um i've been able to observe firsthand some of that um interaction and i've had an enhanced appreciation for our teachers uh for the district staff and everything that they do um man that's a lot of patience that teachers have with with the students and uh my god that's their saints um because of uh because of some of the things that go on uh during during the sessions i'm not not that i'm peering or anything like that but i'm there to lend support to my kids and i'm able to observe some of the things that take place and um i i do feel uh um [Music] thanks to taftar

047and the entire i.t team because um the uh the teachers do feel very comfortable in saying reach out to the it folks remember i told you to do that last week and then or or remember that you know they were able to resolve this issue and so they're they are pointing the students in the right direction and they actually have examples of of issues with technology getting resolved when they point to the iep department so very uh i'm grateful to to to have a firsthand look at some of the um things that our our staff is doing and seeing them actually work so thank you all for the work that you're doing that was it okay thank you any last questions or comments and if not we'll go ahead and call for the vote for

048the approval i just wanted to make a comment that um when when i when i said my comment it was only for step to keep an eye on that not to examine it whether it is true or whether it's going this way or whether it's human error or whether it's technology error only to keep an eye on that because i i talk to people over here in all different kinds of places and every once in a while something will pop up and that was my only comment for that just to have the staff say we're going to keep an eye on that that's it okay i don't know can i just say something real quick um i just wanna you know i think uh the lotus for doing that because you know a lot of

049parents you know some of us are connected you know with the commanders some of us are connected you know by family and so that's great that they felt comfortable and letting you know um the lord is you know of course we could always improve as a district um and then the only thing in which you i'm sure you did but you know just continue to remind them that we have people like our amazing staff that can support them they don't go another day without you know being logged on to school so thank you to everybody you know we're doing our best so let's keep moving forward thank you okay thank you so i just realized that we don't have a motion or a second yet for this item to approve this item approval okay uh

050hold on your answers so we do have a motion i heard trustee quintero and second i heard trusty chavez but i'm sure what you have um um for the second that's what i heard first before justice either one is fine go ahead and put chavez i'm okay with that okay so i will go ahead and call for your vote as always as i see you here on my screen for the approval of item 3.01 trustee marquez yes trustee yes trustee chavez trusty quintero hi and myself i motion passes unanimously thank you everyone keep up the good work um and with that we can move on to item 4.01 update presentation and discussion on potential district solar power program initiative so at this point um as i mentioned we'll do the presentation first and then we'll

051allow for public comment um after that followed by board member discussion and questions this is an information only item so no action will be taken on this tonight um so with that being said um mr ruiz are you taking over oh he's going i'm you um rogerio and there you go are you able to share your screen um let's give it a go can you see that yes okay great um good evening board uh superintendent bauer members of the community um so i have been working with the staff and preparing this update uh for you uh regarding where the district is and looking at and examining the possibility of a solar power or solar pv project for the district and after listening to the discussion and the comments from board members and comments from members

052of the public we we thought we would try to structure this update to address some of those questions that concerns that we've heard in the past and hopefully we provide we can provide some answers to those questions and some more insight and so to do that i thought it would be helpful you know to lay out the goals for this brief presentation uh and those are really four things that we would like to cover the first is how did we get to this point how did the district get to this point to where it is right now in terms of its examination of a possible solar program for the district and what has been so done so far and what i'm referring to there is that um you know part of this process is is

053remembering that the solar program or a potential solar program is not a standalone item in itself the district has actually been looking at renewable energy sources and possible energy savings for about five years now and so we wanted to sort of update the board and remind the board of the community what steps have been taken along those ways along that way since then so and then look at where are we now in that process other renewable energy projects um and how it fits in with solar and then what the next steps look like in this process so um let's talk about how we got to where we are uh right now um so um in 2015 uh the board approved a program development agreement between the district and optera energy services that was in october

054of 2015 so almost exactly five years ago the purpose and i'll get into more detail into the purpose of that agreement but the thrust of that agreement was for the district to bring in a consultant to make an assessment of how the district uses its energy how much energy you the district uses both gas and electric and then uh what possible savings might the district achieve if it implemented some energy conservation measures or or other types of renewal renewable energy programs and again that was in 2015 after that ng services you you us incorporated acquired optera energy services and so as a result that program development agreement between the district and optera basically went over to ng in connection with that program development agreement ng then prepared an energy program savings report for the district

055that identified the district's usage of power both electric and gas and also looked at some possible savings solutions and then after that the district issued a competitive rfq for solar and energy savings program in 2017. so the purpose for that was to take the analysis that was in the program development agreement and the energy program savings report that was prepared by ng and then the next step was to examine or to start looking at possible partners or contractors who could implement uh some of those recommendations so in connection with that rfq a committee was organized consisting of the bargaining unit representatives teacher representatives principals representatives from the business office staff who conducted interviews um of from the firms among the firms that proposed and uh that committee recommended and ng as a finalist and then

056the the board approved ng or approved the selection of edgy on april 12 2017 and then two years later in 2019 the board approved resolution 39-18-19 approving an energy services contract between the district and ng and i'll talk about that in a second too but that energy services contract dealt primarily with the implementation of of lighting measures replacement of district lighting and the use of prop 39 funds to pay for that project so let me go back to the 2015 uh program development agreement because it is directly related to the solar program so the pro the the program development agreement the purpose of that was for optera now ng to perform an energy assessment of the district facilities and then provide a recommendation identifying potential energy improvements and operational changes that could be implemented at

057the district sites to achieve energy efficiencies and cost savings so specifically in that agreement optero was or ng was to look at six different uh possible savings measures or areas for savings they included lighting building ottoman automation handling systems equipment modifications solar pv and electrical vehicle charging stations of course the district wasn't that was just a an examination of possibilities it didn't mean that the district was bound to go forward on any of those and then the second important part of that program development agreement was that the district in optera would then enter into good faith negotiations for an energy services contract following the assessment for installation of energy conservation measures and again that was in 2015 and that was approved by the board after that agreement altera acquires is acquired by ng and then

058ng proceeds and prepares the energy savings program report that is required by the program development and so this is a page from that energy program savings report and again the purpose of the report was or one of the purposes of the report was to provide recommendations identifying potential energy improvements and so as part of that process part of that analysis of course ng had to identify how much energy was used being used at each of the district's facilities and sites and so you can see here in this chart on this slide there's a very specific analysis of each of the district sites and the actual electrical energy usage and building and billing rates as part of that analysis ng also prepared uh recommended energy improvements for consideration by the board and there were three separate

059areas of improvements the first one was led lighting at eight sites the funding of which would be through prop 39 grant money and ng prepared an estimate of lifetime net savings over the lifetime of that equipment or that program the second area of examination was a potential solar program solar photovoltaic system at all of the district's sites the funding uh was because of the district's uh capital facilities program and needs and really you know um the overall uh unavailability of capital resources the funding in the energy savings program report was as was a power purchase agreement and i'll get into that in a little a little bit more detail but under a power purchase agreement the uh customer in this case the district does not pay for the acquisition of the equipment it doesn't pay

060for the installation or the construction or the maintenance of the equipment it's more in the nature of a contract for services in that ng would or the the contractor would set up the solar pv system and then the customer the district would then buy power from the contractor so the lifetime net savings estimated from that program were 43 million dollars and then the third program that was looked at by angie was led lighting at the remaining district sites but as you can see from this chart um funding or potential funding source was indeterminate at that point but if it could happen there the district could achieve additional lifetime savings over the life of that program so in connection so again this was all i anticipated this analysis was all anticipated in the original programmed agreement

061it was fleshed out a little bit more in the energy savings program report and as part of that energy program savings report and i believe this is a slide or a chart that you have all seen in one form or another ng did prepare an estimate of net savings if the district was to implement a solar pv power purchase agreement at 22 of its district sites and so you can see on the chart on this slide these estimates are based on 22 district sites and the term of the power purchase agreement being 28 years and you can see in the second column from the right the net savings every year at the bottom of that column based on this analysis that the net savings over the uh the 28 year life of that agreement to

062the district would be just over 43 million dollars so again this was part of the energy savings program report which was a consequence of the program development agreement so uh again um in april of 2019 the board approved the energy services contract with ng as i said earlier uh the purpose of that agreement was the implementation of the lighting measures and the contract amount in that case was 2.823 million dollars the and you can see here that the scope of the work were facility interior and exterior lighting efficiency upgrades and retrofits at eight schools the eight schools listed on that slide that work was completed in february of this year and again the funding source for that was prop 39 funds so that gives us that gives us the framework of the program development agreement

063and the energy services contract so that brings us to solar because that's that would be potentially the next step in this process okay so uh so as i said earlier the energy savings uh program report looked at potential savings um if the district was to implement a solar pv program that was uh slide number five and then uh the slide the green chart that we looked at uh included an estimate of cost savings from implementation of a power purchase agreement framework for this kind of program at the district and again it's all based on a power purchase agreement so what is a solar power purchase agreement a solar pv ppa um and this is a definition that i have just pulled from the epa website and a power purchase agreement is a financial arrangement in

064which a third-party developer owns operates and maintains the photovoltaic system and a host customer in this case the district agrees to site the system on its property and purchases the system's electric out output from the solar services provided a provider for a predetermined period so in this case what we talked about uh or what what angie put together was an estimate of savings over over a power purchase agreement with a term of 28 years and i think one of the points that that has been made in the past by district staff and others is that this is the point at the bottom of this slide is that because it is the um because it the the customer in this case the district doesn't pay for the system for its installation or construction but rather just

065simply purchases power generated by the system at a predetermined rate lower than what it would normally pay to the utility in this case pg e one of the benefits of this structure is that it can be cash flow positive for the for the host customer the district from the day that the system is commissioned so the concept of the uh so again the concept is the district would not purchase the equipment we would not pay for its construction installation or maintenance the developer pays all of those upfront all of those costs up front what the district would do is it would lease portions of its sites to the solar pv developer at a nominal p lease rate for the installation and operation of the solar equipment on the district facilities to generate the solar power

066so we have to keep in mind that you know not every solar agreement works for every customer so what would how how could it benefit the district in this instance so two of the principal points are is that it would benefit the district if it provides a stable source of electrical energy to the district over the term of the agreement and second that it provides that electrical energy to the district over the term at a cost less than what the district would have paid to utility over the same length of time and if that's the case then that would result in general fund savings to the district in this case so applying that that principle to the to alum rock um the district currently pays approximately 1.65 million dollars annually to pg e so if

067the the if in this case using the uh a solar pv program at all 22 district sites as as has been looked at previously let's assume that the developer installed solar at the dis in the district at all 22 of those sites the district using that analysis the district would continue to buy some electricity from pg e uh or power but not at the rate you know or the volume has had been done previously and if that amount is 250 000 annually to pg e and one million dollars per year to the developer the owner of the solar pv system i'm sorry you you um you went you know silent for a few minutes so um can you back up a couple of seconds yes so on this slide what i'm looking what i'm looking

068at is sort of uh implementing or putting together all of these principles uh and how it would work at alum rock specifically can you hear me now still yes so currently the district pays approximately 1.6 million dollars to pg e annually for power um but let's assume that the district installed solar uh solar power program across all 22 sites and that in this case the district would continue its its its utility bills paid to pg e would be reduced dramatically to fifty 250 dollars per year for electricity and one million dollars per year would be paid to the developer for the solar power generated by the solar pv system on the district property so in that case once the solar pv system is installed the district's electrical bill would be 1.25 million dollars that would

069be a 400 000 savings per year initially um under the solar power purchase agreement framework and again that would be you know a long-term agreement and what we've been looking at here is possibly 28 years one of the benefits or a couple of the benefits of this agreement or this type of structure is that the developer remains responsible for maintaining and repairing the solar pv system um for the term of the agreement in in this case 28 years in addition in the agreement itself the developer guarantees the amount of power that will be generated or the minimum amount of power that will be generated by the solar pv system over those 20 years and the reason that customers like the district and other school districts ask for that guarantee is your interest or one of

070your interests is locking in savings to your general fund over the course of the agreement and so though that power guarantee is critical uh to your interests so the district would pay only for the power produced provided that it meets the minimum guarantee at predetermined prices over the life of the agreement and then the agreement can also be structured with an out with an option to purchase so that if uh if it makes sense financial sense for the district at some point to acquire the system then it can do that those can all be built into the agreement okay so uh it so is all of this free and the answer to that is no it's not all free there would be costs in entering into a solar pv power purchase agreement so you would

071continue to have to purchase some electricity whether it would be through some of it through pg e and or some of it through your developer you would still have to buy some to power your systems but again the point of the agreement is that you are buying it the electric the electricity at rates lower than what you were you would otherwise pay and which are locked in for the term of the agreement there would also be some transactional costs associated with this the first would be dsa certified inspectors so in california whenever construction takes place on a school site most projects require a dsa certified inspector who is there to represent the interests of the district there may be some additional costs for permits and approvals there are transactional other transactional types like attorneys fees

072uh and other consultants to negotiate a solar pv power or purchase agreement and then um as the site the last category would be as the details of this of an agreement are being worked out there would be a more specific assessment of the district several several sites to determine to make a determination that the solar pv equipment can be installed there fully and easily there may be some issues that might have to be addressed of course as part of this um as you know with you know the the the school sites have to be accessible uh to disabled persons and these are not these would not be roof mounted solar systems they would be canopies they would be shade structures in the parking lots and potentially in other places at the school sites so there

073may be some additional uh minor cost associated with some necessary site improvements that would have to take place at about the same time some of these costs still remain to be determined but in you know in you know in terms of an order of magnitude um they are not uh you know they don't appear to be more than uh you know a million dollars at this point um but that this information would still have to be determined so what are the next steps uh for the district um so uh you know the staff the staff is working on getting answers to the following critical questions excuse me to help the board make a decision about this type of project these critical questions include would a solar pv system be implemented safely without disruption to the

074district's educational program second can a solar pv system be installed in the district that fits the requirements of the district's current and planned electrical structure and future needs so for example you would want the district has an interest in making sure that if if it is going to enter into a power purchase agreement for solar energy that the district does that the district doesn't have to spend exorbitant sums of money upgrading its existing facilities in other words the solar system can be can be installed and operated using the district's current electrical system and structure also taking into account um some planned improvements hopefully in the near future things like hvac and heating projects third what would the phasing of the installation project look like what is the period of time of build out which schools

075would go first those types of issues fourth would a solar pv system save money for the district and if so how much fifth what is a firm estimate of the transactional costs to the district in entering into the solar pv agreement so those are all critical questions um that and there may be some more that the board has but you know we think these are critical questions that we need to be able to provide uh the board uh answers for uh as part of your decision making process once we have those answers then uh the staff will make a presentation uh present its analysis and recommendations to the board under the government code for these types of projects the board cannot approve them unless and until it holds a public hearing with at least two

076weeks advanced notice to the public at which time the the board uh considering the staff's analysis and recommendations the potential benefits to the district the board would have to make a finding that the solar power purchase agreement is in the best interest of the district and then secondly generally that the anticipated cost to the district uh for the solar for the solar energy uh will be less than the anticipated costs uh for energy to the district in the future if it didn't have the solar power program so again that determination uh can only be made uh after a public hearing at a regular board meeting that's uh you know with at least two weeks advanced notice to the public so that's the presentation that's uh we are really at the point now of answering these

077these five questions uh that i walked you through uh to try to get to this the points in this last slide to develop a firm analysis and recommendation to the board so thank you for your attention and we're happy to answer any questions okay thank you mr ruiz and and staff everyone that that has worked on this report very thorough and very informative um and so uh before we get to questions and comments from the board as i mentioned we will go ahead and take public comment uh from our public and then we'll move into the to the board discussion or questions on this item so mr gill i am assuming that there are public comments so maribel um if we can get the timer up we can get going on those comments my assumption

078is correct right mr gill we have public comment yes there is one okay and there's leonika okay so uh the timer is up so veronica when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin you look great thank you so much for and thank you rogelio for giving this presentation um i do have a couple of questions one is um my first question is why is rogerio doing the presentation we usually have other staff just being him the lawyer um and then another of my questions is i know that governmentary newsletter is moving towards you know um more innovative electricity more innovative um uh stuff sorry um and and so would it be possible that maybe later governor newsom might put out a grant for districts um to receive um money to make sure that this

079installation you know whatever that we have to put up front does not come from our own money but rather than it comes from a brand that the government might put and it's not something that as parents we can definitely advocate up to um sacramento but just because it is essential that we know that there's other priorities that need to be handled before we put solar panels um and as we heard i know that before it was like oh no it's going to be free but it turns out like there is the cost and you know we kind of didn't know about that cost and we don't still even have an estimate of how much so i really want to keep us on that loop of like we know that governmentism is very progressive um and

080we're hoping to have him hopefully more and longer um and should a grand calm um should that really alleviate us because we are at 26 million dollars and also you know as the board moves forward with some of these things um i also want to remind everyone that there is still a mistrust right there is something that happened before that hurt our community and those war members for the most part are not there anymore and so just keep in mind that you might not be here and what it what is that that you're going to implement going to affect our families ourselves and our children so thank you thank you next speaker mr gill mendel hi um good evening uh board members um superintendent um i do have a comment over this um i appreciate

081the slideshow and the information i think that it gives us a lot of it answers a lot of the questions that we have um i do see that the expenditure is 10 to 20 000 that we at this point don't have i would love to redirect the staff to student achievement and um ways that we can support our students because right now as we see we are in dashboard at orange which means we're close to red which is not great as much as i would love to see solar panels i would love to see our student achievement go up and since this does require money maybe we could push this um a little bit further until hopefully prop 15 passes that can give some money to the district so we can do these things i

082would also love to see more companies i feel like this whole presentation was based on ng and um i would love to see more local companies that come from uh our area where the money goes back to the community and see what partnerships we can get to cover some of these expenses because i know that this can happen if we create great partnerships that or grants that can help us pay for this but i do want to concentrate on student achievement because right now we are in covit 19 and we still have a lot of issues that need to be covered and i would love this presentation to be done in a school board meeting not in a special board meeting where not a lot of attendance are and i find that that it's kind

083of um a red flag that this would be giving in a special board meeting not last time we had said this was going to be brought in october and we're in september 29th so i don't understand why there's this big pressure right now for this when we have a lot of issues with our student learning virtual learning thank you thank you next comment mr gil gonzalez when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin good evening members of the board um once again superintendent i have to echo what veronica and brenda had said before me one can we weigh a little bit more into governor and houston brings um a little more help for our students and for our help i know that he's an amazing leader and he's doing a lot for especially for

084our schools and education wise second i don't understand why we bring in this item this awesome presentation i have to i have to acknowledge that and thank the staff for bringing this and answering most of the questions that our parents had to a um to this kind of meeting instead of an open public meeting which is gonna happen in two weeks from now um it gives a lot more opportunity for more audience it gives a lot more opportunity for people to know and to hear the presentation and to acknowledge the work that i have been doing and not in a in in this in this kind of setting i i as a parent and as a as a community member that have been in every single board meeting will um don't understand why and i

085i really want to ask that to the board to why today and not waiting to october how it was planned before and what people are expected to hear um and also let's focus on another things that we have to focus based on our schools based on reparations that the schools needs before focusing on bringing solar panels so thank you very much and have a good evening thank you next person mr gill none okay thank you everyone so we can now open it up to questions and comments from um from the board are there any questions or comments off the top um from board members to direct courts staff or whoever trustee i see your hand and then trust me i see you after that uh so and i'm assuming it's a question for uh or

086the staff you know the answer um back in and you went through the timeline i want to say maybe april 2017 um when uh you know whether it's ng or at the time that the agreement was made whether it was the previous uh organization or not or at the time it was ng is there a uh like a legal binding agreement that was made is there a legal contract that was made at that time that we need to continue with this organization no um no that and that's why i thought it was to to go back to the program development agreement from 2015 because that just laid out the original structure of somebody taking a an analysis or doing an assessment and analysis of what possible energy conservation measures there might be the agreement for

087the lighting retrofits was specific to that to that project it doesn't bind the district to move forward on the solar uh program with ng or or at all with anybody okay and then um the next question i have and i you know kind of did my calculations with your approximate 1 million dollar dollar cost um at the beginning so that would mean that after the third year then we'd see um gainings from it uh money back to the to the district that we can then implement into you know whatever else we decide at that time is that correct that's correct assuming that savings level it's it's also possible so as as i noted in terms of the transactional cost there might be some site specific or for example ada costs those may actually never materialize

088with respect to the dsa inspectors there is a way to and no contract has been negotiated with ng or with anybody else so there is a way to try to build those costs in order to negotiate lower amounts uh to offset some of those costs so i i you know i i was probably being a little very conservative with the one million dollar estimate my my gut tells me that the transactional costs won't come in nearly that high and then even if you can't get rid of all of them there are some there there is some room to try to continue to push those costs down okay those are just the questions off the top of my head as you were talking that came out thank you okay thank you um and obviously you know

089more opportunity if other things come up to any other board members as we discuss uh trustee quintero um yeah so i appreciate the work that staff did to to bring uh this information i think it's good information um and uh you know um one of the reasons why we brought it forward i assume is because we wanted to dedicate more time uh because at a regular board meeting it kind of gets a little bit more of um there's other there's other items in the agenda but i would be glad to see it on the regular boardview agenda but not just the information that staff provided because what i assumed we were going to get at this meeting was other uh potential options beyond um what we're seeing and so there's a good information but i

090also wanted to see other options and so um other organizations that do power purchase agreements and what uh what what opportunities are out there and so um while we have an rfp in place with ng i'm i was more inclined to get uh more uh you know to find out what other opportunities i know it's been a while and so there's always new things that are popping up new programs new new technology and so that was my interest just to get more information um as we move forward that way we make sure we do so without you know with the wealth of information so those are my comments okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board uh trustee chavez uh kind of tapping on a little bit of what our trustee just

091just spoke on uh was this board has not seen three bids and so i know that they've seen them in 2015 but this board has not and also i want to remind you that in 2014 or 13 there was five schools that needed repair and they put it on a priority list and to this day they still have not done that first and it was priority then it's still priority over this um and the those schools were promised that and i just see us passing things and not following through i think we should follow on through on those things first because that is you can use the bond money there and um another thing is i don't know if i this may not sound too good but if we do this just go with this

092one company it sounds again like we're only going with one company and we're not vetting them properly and are we there i'm gonna be told something by the state because this is what happened with the last previous board um that there wasn't um several bids out and also i want to remind um everybody that i mentioned months ago that we haven't heard the alternative side and one of them is being that in one of the presentations on the facilities not only did the mot guy state but as well as the ng representative stated that we needed to upgrade the electrical before they put the solar in and so that's going to be a lot more cost in in the previous meetings when it was written down on the agenda no cost or very little cost

093that wasn't true and to me the way it was written it seemed deceptive so i didn't agree with that and also um i want to thank mr roger for the presentation and it seems like they have a new salesman but the thing is is that nobody on this board is a solar expert neither is the superintendent nor any of the admins any other trustees or the legal team so i would like to have a presentation of the 10 mistakes that districts make and i had recommended this before and there's things that you can guide yourself on it's done through the csba who has a team of lawyers and this particular law firm did it and i'm not advocating for them so i'm not going to put their name up but we should also get that

094presentation and an overview of solar power purchasing contracts including ppas and alternative ownership of options because as everybody knows anything in say in the phone world in communications within five years it's obsolete and so i believe that the solar power uh is being redone and in in a better way year after year and so this was done 2015 i don't want to get a system and put it in place and then ten years later it's gonna be a leader you can't get the solar panels and all the different mistakes that districts have made in trying to pursue solar power and and how to help the districts avoid all those mistakes i think we should look into that too because this is a good project but not now because we should be focused on student learning

095this distance learning has put so many kids behind and when i see the presentation and i see ng on the agenda month after month after month that tells me that the administration that's their priority when the priority should be the students and their learning and if they're not learning put all that you have towards that because before the coping the children were 68 below grade level so you can imagine after six months where they're at now if we spend the money on this it's at the cost of something else and it'll be and affect the students and their learning and i'm just requesting that you table this for months before you can get an expert telling you the other side before we see how much learning loss has been done during this period so that

096way we can help the students and the teachers in the classrooms thank you thank you uh mr ruiz mr chang or dr bauer are you um would you like to or are you able to respond to any of the questions that trustee chavez had or trustee quintero or i guess anyone up to this point with regards to um you know the bidding process um the the way that monies are allocated and whether or not that would distract from um the the academic focus that we need to take with the district any comments or responses to any of that in general well um this has not been for months and months it's not it's not you know trustee chavez you said that several times this when board with different trustees ask the board president and myself

097to bring items to the agenda we bring them to the agenda so that's how these happen we are focusing on student achievement and you're absolutely right we have to look into some some of the things that are happening to our students um we opened this special board meeting uh talking about the tremendous hurt that is it that that is in our community and we are obviously looking for ways to support them we have brought to this board numerous ways on how we are um addressing those issues and having said that this item has been requested by a trustee and we brought it just the way the rest of the board has requested other items and they are brought to the to the to the agenda so i just want to clarify that this particular effort

098in terms of it's it's a cost saving efforts um i know that there are many many steps before the board before we are ready to present to the board to um whatever way the board decides to go and i just want to say very clearly that you're absolutely right i have been working with the staff i've been working with rogelio to remind everybody that this particular board has not seen other rfps and i agree with that i agree 100 with you on that and that is the that is the reason that some of these conversations are being had right in public with plenty of time for the board to ask all the questions that the board has um we this this uh special war meeting was set up to answer questions regarding this effort not

099regarding ng and i just want to make sure that everybody understand that this is not about is the ng proposal being considered because that is not this is the beginning of the conversation if the board wants to have it maybe the board does not want to have this conversation and we are fine with that we will look for other ways to continue to bring savings to the district but in terms of student achievement this is not a distraction we still have to address facilities needs very soon we're bringing to the board because the board requested to go over all the rfps for program managers so we need to do that that's another step we need to and and by the way that's a great opportunity for the board to look into these scopes of this

100program manager to be able to address some of the the potential projects that that the district has to have mr edwards or mr chang anything to add to that um yeah so um so the government code under the government code these types of projects for energy conservation measures are not required to be bid as i mentioned and i think the last slide is although they're not required to be put out to to bid they the board does cannot award this kind of contract except to have after holding a public hearing and making a determination that the that in the board's view it's in the best interest of the district and that you're going to save more than you spend over time that being said it's the board's decision on whether or not it wants to

101issue an rfp or call for bids or an issue in rfq the government code gives you that flexibility that is a board decision the only reason i included the ng slides in that analysis is because frankly over the five year period ng is the only uh only one of your contractors who has prepared that analysis under that program development agreement um so it's just the intent there is just to give a framework for the discussion and an understanding of how that agreement would ultimately work but again it's it is a board's determination of whether or not the board wants to put it out to bid to an rfq process an rfp process and as i mentioned to remember there is nothing in those contracts that compels this district to either uh contract with ng on

102a solar program or even to implement a solar program in any way shape or form so this is really just about presenting the information and letting the board know this is your judgment call okay thank you um i'll go ahead and make a couple comments and then i see your hand trustee chavez well after after that you you can go um first of all i want again i want to thank everyone for the work that's been put into this so far and i just wanted to address a couple of things from my perspective so in terms of just this idea of of why and not necessarily why make a decision right now obviously we're not deciding tonight or next month or anything to make a definitive decision to move something forward but to me why

103this is important why not why this is now is a couple of things number one as dr bauer alluded to even as we focus on the academic part of our responsibility and obligation that doesn't mean that all focus needs to come off of everything else a district as as a quote-unquote business still needs to run there's still hr functions that need to happen operational there's all these other things that need to continue happening so to me i mean i think it's a little bit of a stretch to say that pursuing you know options in in some of these areas are going to be detrimental significantly detrimental to the academic program programming that we have and additionally um a reason why i you know continue to be supportive of moving a a solar program forward whatever

104that might look like is because based on information that i you know we've received now from staff and a number of different um places in my own research it's very clear to me that there's a a fairly significant or or reasonable assumption that can be made that there is money annual money and significant money over the lifetime of an agreement like this that can be saved now when we talk about needing resources for the district obviously our district and many other districts are challenged with millions of dollars in deficit and when i see the opportunity to year over year put 400 500 you know 600 whatever it is thousand dollars on the table every year to help with to help you know with some of those costs of running a district i take that very

105seriously i think that that becomes a priority to me because if you want to address issues of you know um whether it's academic programming or or social emotional learning all those types of things money that we don't have right now is potentially up you know to be to be available for us to do that kind of stuff and so this knowing the situation that we're in financially time is of the essence to me and some in some respects because i feel like i don't i i feel like i have the obligation to the to the district to the community to not leave money on the table as how i see it in terms of um what's available to us and how that could impact the learning of our kids um and the last thing i'll

106say for now is that with regards to like the hvac um and the electrical panels which i know was a concern for me also and i brought it up during that initial meeting that trusty child has alluded to i believe if i'm not correct and um and i think we do have some subject matter experts in this room tonight but i believe that the cost for the replacement of those solar of those um electrical panels there's a possibility that that could be worked into the agreement that we could do for a ppa and um and in that way we would still pay for them but we would pay over the course of 28 years but we need money in the immediate to put in air conditioning and heating and all those facilities things and that

107money in that way which i believe was um 4.5 million dollars would be freed up from our bond money to use on other things that we immediately need to address um in our facilities so getting into an agreement has the potential to delay those costs we still pay them but we will pay them over the course of time and again that frees up that money to address the concerns about the panel and the um the air conditioning and heating it frees up more of our bond money that needs to be used for those types of things so those are just um some of my thoughts for now and the last thing actually sorry is that the reason why we're bringing it to this meeting is to allow for more time because i know there's been

108some concerns about this taking too much time during a regular board meeting so given that feedback we've tried to be responsive to communities concerns and we brought it into this forum um so that there could be more time to discuss it so with that um trustee chavez i know i said you would be next okay so um dr bauer mentioned that you know we do have facilities needs we do and the money that they pass for the bond was exactly for that what had been allocated what had been voted on agreed on promised to those schools those students and six or seven years later down the road we have not done what the district voted on to do why is that if the bond money is sitting there it's just sitting it could have already

109been implemented put and already using all the age back systems but instead it's just sitting there in the bank account and it's doing no good learning very earning very little interest and when all of these five facilities and even the district mot person said that there was five schools that really needed them and some of them were safety issues and even mg said that there were safety issues we asked them what schools were they what priorities were they and still after all these years it hasn't been done how can you start a new project or even start talking about another project when you haven't even finished what you already voted on approved and what the bond money was supposed to be for thank you trustee quintero is that you wanting to say something yeah um

110you know we we've gone through we went through the facilities assessment and you know because when comments are made they need to be addressed you know if we don't stand out here people are going to think that this is true and the fact of the matter was that those those very those emergency situations were dealt with uh with them with the bond monies that we do have and so as far as i can recall that that's what took place um and if dr bauer if you can respond to to my to my comment and let me know if in fact it happened because that's right that's the report that i received and those those uh basically emergency issues the health and safety concerns that were raised in the in the um facilities report uh where

111the ones that were targeted and were dealt with correct and when i left colvera i i'm thinking that i can barely hear you so i don't know if mr chen uh got all of that i have a lot of noise here in the street um board president were you able to hear me or was that yeah you came across fine but it looks like mr chang heard and he can respond if we can unmute him yes so uh trustee contains um can you be more specific in terms of what um you were referring to so i can when we received the facilities report there were some very very serious safety issues that were highlighted in that very in-depth report that we got and what we said is we're going to take some of the bond

112money that we do have and go ahead and target those health and safety issues i want to make sure that i'm at least from what i was told that did in fact happen and so it did it take place that were those health and safety issues addressed right off the bat i remember the the the list of needs was massive in the report but the the ones that had to be taken care of immediately was obviously a smaller number and so my question to staff is was was my understanding correct that we went ahead and dealt with those health and safety concerns yeah there's there's a few items that we dealt with not particularly with bond money but with some deported maintenance money um and the two um that i that comes to my top

113of my head right now are some immediate um uh hvac system where we did install some temporary units uh because we did have some really old ones that wasn't working um in addition to that we also addressed all the locks that were needed to be replaced for security reasons at all of our sites so those were the immediate needs i know that the report also identified you know some electrical issues uh to be fixed but remember when those are those are big ticket items and we haven't had a program managers who to operate or oversee our bronze program and so back to the comment where things haven't been done over the last seven years that's really not true i mean we just had the hvac at dorsa and lucha um and the roofing projects about

114two years ago and up until now we haven't had a program manager and um you know we desperately need one in order for them to provide some support um and some uh facilitation on um identifying the needs and where we would need to address some of those uh urgent issues and that if you recall we asked the board and the board wanted to vet all the companies that have already submitted their paperwork and that's going to be another special we're meeting if you recall we asked that of the board in september and you wanted you didn't want the staff you didn't want a committee the board wanted to get all the companies so that's what we still need to do okay trustee and then myself and then trustee chavez after that and i just want

115to also confirm because i know i heard uh linda mention you know ask a question about you know pretty much there's been all this money kind of sitting there and why hasn't it been been used um and also i just want to you know ask you know just so we can refresh our minds as as board members and the community because i think if i was just in the community hearing that then i'd be like you know raising arms and bringing my my uh you know signs um to protest because um you know it just doesn't make sense right to have all this money just sitting there and not um making sure that our children get what they need um and i know we've you know turned this rock over and over but apparently we

116i think we forget that um part of part of the problem was that we weren't able to touch those bonds that bonds money um at one point right so you have you have in the bank the five million dollars that trustee travis is talking about but five million dollars do not cover the those hvac systems that were lined up to take care of the schools that's why corvette colvera was talking about that school that still doesn't have hvac and we needed to buy those units now all of this is pre-covered 19 right so we we were working thinking that we we were going to need them if we had been in school right now we definitely you know would have felt it because of the heat right so those five million dollars have not been

117touched as colebera mentioned we have used these other uh maintenance funds to be able to provide somebody uh and i apologize my system is also being delayed and there's an echo but the other the other bonds there's the the other uh issue that were that was paused by the county and i don't want to re leave all of that we are still we are going to be coming to the board to begin that process you know we are going to need a new count born counsel we're going to need uh people a financial advisor we're going to need a number of people to be able to put the district in a position to reissue bonds so that we can finalize some of those major ticket projects that the board needs to do it's just that

118at this point five million dollars last uh and and i need coverage to refresh my memory but that does not cover all of the the five schools that are still waiting for the hvac so that's that's the main thing that the the what we have right now in the bank does not cover for what is needed in terms of those five schools that i think trustee chavez was um uh alluding to okay i don't know where did you have anything to add to that no i was gonna um agree with dr bauer's comment in terms of um the the cost of the vice hvac system because when we went out to bid um those five hp's this is what's going to cost us approximately 25 million dollars and so um we were hoping to issue

119some measure eye bonds but at that point you know with all the stuff that was going on um we weren't able to i mean with with the county's involvement with the all the investigation so we kind of have to put that on hold for a little while so the cost that we got was 25 million and we have 5 million right now correct okay okay so just real quick um i had a a comment and a couple questions for um so the comment if and and i could be wrong on this but i believe in terms of the electrical panel what i remember being reported to us was that the reason that they were a safety issue i mean acknowledging that they're many many years old and our staff has done an amazing job apparently

120of keeping them functional up and running and able to to operate things but i believe that the the safety concern that was stated was that um it was that if the power went out then we could potentially have students and staff and parents on campus and that could pose a safety risk but in at least in the very immediate if that's correct um obviously that that's not a an immediate safety concern for the most part although we do have some staff and students on campus so you know that's partially true i guess the question that i have um for mr release number one in terms of those administrative costs and those um upfront costs that that would be included um in an agreement are there ways sometimes in these types of agreements that those costs

121could be there's other ways to cover those costs that it the district would not need to come up with that money um from their own funding or are there other strategies that have been used to your knowledge to um to handle some of these types of situations because i would imagine there's other districts that you know don't have you know money laying around that they just can you know put towards things that they want to do well one one possible way would be to build them into the cost structure of the agreement but then that would lower your savings over time so i'm not sure how palatable that would be in terms of grant funding and things like that remember these are really transactional costs including primarily the dsa certified inspectors special inspectors for this

122type of project so i'm not aware of any available grant funding that would cover those costs these are really just project costs that a district a public agency or school district in particular doesn't have any options on it has to have these types of inspections on this project okay but there might be options then that would cover that potential yes okay and then the last question i have is um it appears that we have at least a couple of either construction or solar experts here in the room tonight so at some point during the meeting is it um possible to allow them to speak as subject matter experts if they have anything that they want to answer questions that the community or board members have no well i mean they're they're perfectly entitled to some

123kind of members of the public so so would they but as much so they don't need to be like as public comment then they would yes they would need to have the two minute um yes requirement okay okay uh trustee chavez so with whatever money we have now get the worst one and situation and the one that is the biggest safety issue and put the money towards that one but at least do something if you can't do all five we already know that we heard that at the facilities um meeting but we were asking just do one of them or something to at least get it going and get that done start you know checking off before we want to go and forget the ball rolling is what i'm asking and also are we gonna

124also allow for another response contract i mean the uh if you're gonna allow for supposed experts are you gonna also hear the other side and i think we already hear public comment i think it's only fair that we hear both sides as what i was asking in the beginning that you know because again none of us are solar experts and um i think that both sides should be heard in all fairness thank you i don't i mean for me i don't know that there's a both sides to this like there's nothing this is just still information gathering um but to your point about getting the ball rolling on on you know just getting something going and just just doing something and throwing something out there i think i would be very cautious about that because

125as you know to your point about experts nobody that i'm aware of in our district is an expert on on project management in terms of these these construction projects and facilities projects so the fact that we have um put out requests for project managers and now we have them they're going to be coming back to us and we'll be voting on that um to me that is getting the ball rolling so so that's a necessary step that we need to take for um you know getting the ball rolling in terms of managing projects because we can't in my mind we can't take that on as a district without having the proper knowledge and and um person who can coordinate that work and make sure that it's being done properly um and so uh as i

126heard from mr ruiz we can still take some public comment for anyone that does so can i say one more thing one that does have um of the two mr garcia or or mr baldwin you don't necessarily need to say anything but i just want to make sure that you have the opportunity um are you going to recognize this excuse me i have the floor i know but i'll call on you when i do you see your hand i have the floor so please respect the process thank you so you know just raise your hand in the room if you need if you would like to make a comment if not the ball rolling there were six years that it wasn't rolling and i'm just that's just a frame a few words but what i'm

127saying is if we do vote on something or the previous book that we should we could is what i'm saying when we had the experts there we had the bond person that should have been priority that's what i'm saying that's the only thing i'm saying i know we don't have those people now we're trying to look to hire somebody and hopefully once we do that gets implemented before all this other solar uh more meetings on solar thank you for president yes trustee quintero you know um there are there's uh you know there's a president united states that tends to repeat uh uh certain things over and over again with the intention of making people believe them and uh unfortunately that seems to be a practice that's coming into alimock school board we just heard from

128uh kovara who let us know that there has been work that's been done the last six or seven years contrary to what was just mentioned and so when these um when when these attempts to go ahead and uh and steer the community in a different direction than what in fact take place and i'm going to continue to make sure that the community is made aware that we were we were we were putting on roofs we were doing uh things here in the district and so to say that six or seven years nothing happened is uh an effort to go ahead and obfuscate the truth and uh i don't necessarily appreciate it i would hope that some of my other colleagues would be able to speak up when other other members of the sport are attempting

129to mislead the public thank you any other questions or comments from the board yes i do okay trust me marquez so um first i'd like to request from rogelio the um the presentation that i did not get one um and so i was just writing notes as you were giving the presentation so if i you know staff can make sure that i get one i'd appreciate that and then um there was so much being said here you know from both sides from from everyone and i was just um i didn't know where to start i had comments for everything that everyone was saying but i'm gonna tell you what i know of the decade that i have been here and i think there was a mention about um covering he says we haven't had a

130bond direct bond director for a while and and then karina says well we weren't able to touch that five million dollars no that's not true that five million dollars we could touch it up until the office of victims was the one who stopped us but prior to them that just happened okay prior to that it was dr bauer who stopped everything everything i was here and we kept saying why is it not moving forward why is it not moving forward we couldn't move it forward because the administration is under her and we cannot order the administration the board members of the administration so it did stop everything stopped and then when you said cavero we don't we haven't had a bond director in a while well yeah that's right because um they gave him a

131letter saying that his services were nowhere no they weren't needed anymore because there was no funds there was lack of work and i forget the other one you still there hello trustee marquez we can't hear you if you're talking um yes yes okay we can hear you now we lost you for a second there yeah i had left rogelio like that when he was doing his presentation that's why i requested it but getting back to the we had an mot and then he was let go for those reasons and yet we're talking about five million dollars still being there you know the priority list that you know had input from community and and it was made and it was dealt with on the floor for the board and things that could have been done for

132you know ten thousand a hundred thousand here or maybe you know here and there but things could have been gotten done you know roofing roofing continued could have continued but that stopped too so i've seen it all i've been here i haven't gone anywhere and i've seen it all so roger says that the state we're losing you again trusty marquez so then can you hear me there you go the last thing we heard was can you hear me yes the last thing we heard was rogelio said something yeah the state will allow us to decide for the board to decide um that um that for the energy savings part that the board can decide okay okay and yeah and i'm getting feedback any feedback can you hear me can you hear me yes we can

133hear you yeah so we um there was a there was a public meeting with the mot director that was there at the time and he spoke in frustrations he was real frustrated because he says there are so many things that need to be done and he goes and then they won't let me um they won't let me do it what they have me doing and these are his words is that they have me putting band-aids on but there are there are things that need to be done you know um he was very concerned and he spoke and he pleaded at this at this mot meeting that they let him do his job and let him because these things need to be done but it did not happen because it was stopped at the superintendent level

134that's where it had stopped then there was other comments but um it's way too much and i have already taken a lot of time and i don't want to go there but what i do want what i do want to say is it i'm going to support my community who spoke today and said this is just um why can't we wait um why is it that when this first started was no cost no cost but now we're looking over a million dollar cost so but that kind of gets people's attention you know when they said there's no cost and then there is and um i just i just believe that this discussion is best saved for a later time and only because in less than 40 days i think it is um there there may

135be a new board or there may be different board members the you know the facets of it is going to change or may not change or in either case we make a decision right here right now and whatever happens if there's another board or whatever they have to deal with the aftermath down the line you know and it says well why did we get into it well because back there back then it kind of reminds me of this situation about what our president wants to appoint you know at the supreme court and we're saying oh not right now not right now we're in an election you know and he's hurrying it up and he's hurrying it up because he's got the vote because he can do it now and it's like this is what i'm

136projecting that this is happening right now and and i know that that we need we need to put the brakes on the brake on and to at least get some other companies to come and put in a bid and then do the presentation for us because the companies are the experts my general counsel he's not an expert but the companies they we need to get and get them going for you know get the bids going and you know hey let me go where it's going to go let it forward it's going to fall but not right now i want to focus more on the issues of this covet obviously it is a big problem for the you know for the entire state and everyone every district seems to be focusing on that and we're going

137off in a tangent with uh wanting to save money and bring money in and the parents and i can hear care my community and they have a lot of confidence in me because of the decade that i've been here in the 30 years on top of that that i have worked in this community and so they know me with confianza and they keep saying um give up assad what's going to happen what's going to happen and say we just we all have to work together and we'll have to wait to see how but we have to think of the safety of their children first and you guys want your children back in school but is it safe for them to go back what are some of the safety things we have to do just to

138bring them back so all of that takes time all that takes money and right now you need to know we're in deficit spending we were in deficit spending last year and it cost us our libraries and when deficit spending now who knows what it's going to cost us now so this book um i thank you for the information rogelio and the staff that helped you with it but i'd like to hear from um you know the people that know and that understand it and that's their job their work day in and day out so those professionals need to come and give us a presentation and not only that but give us the pros and the cons you can that's the community professionals thank you thank you um there's a number of inaccuracies that i heard

139in in that statement and i'll just um excuse me i have the floor but more thank you so we will you've uh trustee marcus you've had the opportunity to speak just as all of us have you have not demonstrated show raise your hand or anything to show that you wanted some to say something so that's why you haven't had the opportunity to speak to this point but you certainly will as much as you need to here but the only inaccuracy that i wanted to address specifically is that because it was made in public comment and it's been made by um at this point now trustees is that it was stated that this was no cost and from the beginning it was stated that there would be administrative costs that's in writing i mean in presentations

140that um have been given that this it says it was stated that there were administrative costs and that's indeed the costs that um that are have been indicated this evening and so i just wanted to correct that so i saw trusty um i saw trustee quintero and then after that trustee marquez if you have something to um continue with you'll be after trustee quintero and we can unmute the microphone for now mr jill thank you thank you uh so i just wanted to also clarify that i never mentioned the five uh million dollars specifically but uh the staff um you know talked about that money that um we were under an investigation um and so anyways all that that we've had to go through um and work to where we're at now anyways um i

141just want to bring us to like our point you know i keep hearing two sides and the other side and the other side um i think you know we are all on the same side right of providing our our students and our our staff um with what they need um including energy you know in safety and so i would just like to kind of regroup you know and bring ourselves back to our focus um and that today is just to um talk about this there is no action so i keep hearing you know you guys and i don't really know who you guys are but really i haven't seen anybody put it on the agenda for um action today and it's just conversation you know part of our duties as uh trustees to um you

142know sit down and go through the information and figure out is it the best for our district now or not and so it's just a part of that hard work right that some of us were elected or appointed to do and so um here we are you know again another long meeting i thought you know i told my husband i think i can have dinner with you by eight you know and it's okay he knows that i might not um but it's the work we get to do and so there's no actions happening today um and i've already heard from at least two trustees and i'm in agreement i think i said this last time um and that i want to see you know at least three or here you know we have ng and

143we can invite them back to give us the details but then we invite at least two others to give us the details um and it doesn't have to be next you know month it doesn't have to be i'm not like rushing for it and i don't think i've heard any one of us rushing for it i just want that in the near future um and so i look forward to doing that you know i look forward to focusing um on you know things like you know how our children doing and test scores and things like that that we don't spend on just you know lying or just turning you know words around um so that's it that's all i want to say thank you trustee quintero and then trustee marcus after that board president um

144keep on hearing about uh this uh program uh the the bond program person that used to be here i want to thank the citizens oversight committee for doing a very thorough job in the report that we got uh at the last meeting where they they very very aptly pointed out some serious issues with the last uh pro um bond um what's the official title cover bond manager or bond director bond director director yes yeah and yeah and so we saw that this individual signed off on uh jobs that have been done with zip ties and and things that have gotten us into a lot of trouble so for the public and for my fellow colleagues here um those are the reasons why you know we had a part ways unfortunately we we're seeing the the

145results of the work that that individual did in uh these in in these in these projects that were signed off and that were done in a horrible manner and so for somebody to sit here and go around uh feeling horrible because this individual was let go it's it's very sad and i think it's due to the fact that uh certain board members obviously aren't paying attention to the reports we're getting during the meetings because we would have you would have been informed that this individual is signing off on zip tie uh projects and so um that's part of those are part of my comments i i a lot of folks have asked for experts and we have individuals here that we would be able to call upon to inform us more about these opportunities i

146know you mentioned mr baldwin we also have so garcia who works with the um trades and has been informed of what opportunities are out there um i think that we can go ahead and bring folks to talk about uh what opportunities are out there and and what uh what things that what what things may be available not not too in debt but you know just enough to inform us as as board members as to what other opportunities are out there so um i would like to hear i would like to hear from you hey thank you thank you can we unmute her microphone um mr gill i think she wanted to continue or after her comment trustee marquez can you hear me yes okay so um you know it's really a shame it's always a

147shame and i'm always saddened by andres quintero when he always goes back to make reference to a good job these these zip ties you talk about i'm sure he wouldn't have never done that he's a professional you know and uh and he's a licensed architect and so he know he would never have done that if anything people in our staff and our emoji staff may have gone over there and just put a band-aid like their emoji director was saying you don't know you know but that you know it's like that's been done you won you guys won you wanted him out of here because he was he knew deltera he worked for deltera and our superintendent went and stole him from deltera but in the end you won you let this gentleman go when it

148was no fault of his every job they had while they were doing here came in on time there was no accidents it didn't cost more than then it was said it was going to cost but nobody speaks to that nobody speaks to that but he did give a report and saying every time something was done there it is and he would show you all the pictures of all the schools that were being done that he came in on time no accidents and it was at no additional cost so you know these things happen you know and that you know we we have sides i unfortunately i don't know how else to put that but um i i just i just wanna move on but my colleague never wants to move on he always wants to

149bring it back bring it back and we had a study session on how the whole board was going to get together and how we were just going to move forward then we can the last argument or the argument for that that i got in with him on it you know it again is because he went to he went to the past and he judged up stuff you know and it just seems to me that this is never gonna finish is this it unless we can all come together and just say i don't want two or three people to apply and put a bid in i want five or six people to put in for a bit i want a bigger and a bigger one i think that i think that community community see that there

150are other you know other companies out there that can come in here and i don't know them and andres doesn't know them and the lady doesn't know them and they had ano doesn't know them and you know none of them know him they just came and applied but i don't think that's the case anymore because nobody ever wants to touch this district with a 10 foot pole after we've done what we have gone through in the last six years you know it's like nobody wants to really come only if one board member or superintendent or a cbo reaches out to them and say hey you know come on over i think you have a good chance we're not getting any fights but in either case i just i want to apologize for raising my voice

151and um i'm not going to comment on what you had said but i do want to leave you with this one comment for you the head honor is it you talk the longest than anybody else you talk the most and it's not it's not to direct the the agenda and move it forward it's to make your opinions is to make your comments your personal comments you know it's it's and i really think that you know you need to be more aware of that and you need to maybe just control yourself a little bit more because you you do um you do speak quite a bit thank you thank you um so i do see a couple things but i'm not even going to dignify that comment with any response on my end but i do

152want to just speak very specifically and bring us back to trustee point that you know it i don't see the value in going back and doing all this other stuff but in terms of this a solar agreement or moving forward on a solar program that would benefit you know in the 30 to 40 million dollars in these scenarios over the course of the agreement to to make that easier to understand you know if if i have to pay someone one dollar up front and in the next coming years they're gonna give me forty dollars back for my one dollar then that's something that i want to take very seriously and if i know that not only are they gonna give me forty dollars back but they're gonna start giving me parts of that forty dollars

153back immediately so every year they're gonna give me a dollar a dollar fifty cents whatever it is then my dollar that i put forth up front is well worth it to me because i could then use that 50 cents or a dollar every single time they give me that that that money to spend on other things that i want to do so that's um all that i saw so i did see um um and uh if there is any public comment um from mr baldwin that i think he wants to provide as a subject matter expert um also the floor as i mentioned is open to mr garcia but can we unmute mr baldwin for now um or i'm sorry mr gill and let's see if he wants to speak and again this is a

154public meeting so everyone has the opportunity to attend this and provide public comment mr baldwin i believe thank you can you hear me yeah can you hold on a second though we do have to do this under um a public comment so um can you get the two minutes up so for now we have um because we don't have presentations and at some point you know if we continue this process then um you know we might have the opportunity for anybody who is in such a matter expert to come and be a part of the discussion but for now you can have the two minutes um as a public comment to go ahead and say what you wanted to say so whenever you start talking the two minutes will begin thank you very much yeah

155um i'd like to just make a couple of clarifications um rohingya transaction comp and ng actually got proposals for all of those types of costs except for the attorney fees and uh we have included all of those costs in the savings number that were shown tonight so all of those costs are embedded in those savings numbers mr president one thing um the second is that as a general contractor ng ran a competitive process with local labor for the electrical and mechanical scopes and invited numerous uh local union shops to um bid on that work so that's also part of the proposal um the solar tax credits that go into providing um a portion of the the lower rates that you're getting will drop where they're at now 22 on january 1st first um regard uh

156meter mains the the electric panels the main panels um well we don't need to replace those to actually connect the solar because we connect uh in front of them and not to the panel itself we can replace at the district's request really old or dilapidated panels as part of the project um it would just be a a slight increase in capital costs which would um raise the ppa price just slightly um so i just wanted to make those few clarifications there truly are no costs other than the attorney fees and we could include those if we if you wanted us to as well thank you thank you mr baldwin um i don't know is um his title or his company or who he is if someone can he didn't he didn't say anything like that

157so can you please tell me who he is um well as part of public comment an individual does not need to identify themselves i'm just asking if anybody knows yes frosty marquez thank you mr baldwin is the first the representative for ng thank you thank you okay so um it looks like that is all the unless there's any further comment or questions from the board it seems like the discussion has kind of um gone it's course and so we do at this point it sounds like and correct me if i'm wrong anybody but um we we do have it looks like an and request or a desire on the one hand to just not do anything um and that's you know that has been heard some people are of the belief that we just don't

158do anything and just wait until some non-specific point in the future i have also heard that there are trustees who are interested in having more information brought to us including other individuals who can present as subject matter experts um and so so that's something that i think would need to be considered those those opinions that were voiced um and i'm trying to think what else to kind of capture everything trustee quintero did you have a comment that you wanted to make yeah i just wanted to agree with uh the second or the latter uh that um i'm not on the side of not doing anything because i think that we can realize savings um but i wanted to make sure that we go ahead and get more information as we move forward um you know

159if not necessarily full on rfp um but more information that could potentially lead us to a new rfp if we get some really really uh very different information um and then you know because i don't think that i don't think that we i i i i i i am concerned about the loss and savings that will result as of the because of the january 1st deadline but i do believe that there's a bunch of politics involved around this not not from you know there's an election and people are you know fact they're concerned they're raising concerns this probably wouldn't be a big issue had it not been the the election time i think that after the election happens we can go ahead and move forward as a board and a lot of the issues are

160going to probably drop off and people are going to be able to focus on the actual savings um so i'm good with leaving until after the election so that the board can go ahead and focus on it on just just on its merits and um and so in the meantime i would like more information whether that's in in writing to the board or in a in a workshop in some way or another i want i want to um make sure that we we get more more information on what options are out there and then you know once this this whole issue uh passes on november 3rd uh we as a working you know regroup and then make an informed decision whether it's to to move on with the options that we have or move with

161the full-on rfp because there's other opportunities so those were my the points that i wanted to make okay can you just clarify a little bit what you say you want them to bring back more information but um are you saying that we want to hear back from specific um companies or entities that that are experts on the knowledge of this or are interested in other groups that can provide us options such as other groups that do ppas and so if i can get that information we can review it um and then make you know make a decision as to whether or not we we move forward with the rfp that we have in place or we go with a full-on other rfp again i don't think anything precludes us from doing another rfp if we

162find out that there are opportunities out there that we should we should look into so you basically mean that maybe in a regular board meeting staff would present to us that they went out they sought more opportunities that might exist and those and here are those opportunities and in a public meeting regular board meeting then we would decide whether we wanted to look more into those opportunities that were brought at that time or given the information at that time to just decide to maybe take an action on what we have currently to limit uh you know that report i don't think that we should go back and read relive this this study session again um but uh you know short and sweet to the point uh obviously while beforehand give us a thorough presentation to

163us and the public so that we can go ahead and come in and have a good dialogue but i have to take several hours to to make a decision okay um and does staff understand that is that clear because and oh the other thing i just wanted to add on to that that i think i heard you say is this would occur um in the i guess the november meeting at the earliest because the election would have happened by that time um what about the earliest that would happen november i think the election is the is it the third yeah so our meeting would be after that and so that would also give us time to regroup and make sure that we are able to take advantage of the savings that are going to disappear

164by january 1st if in fact the board wants to pursue that route if we want to let savings go then you know we as a board will be able to make an informed decision thank you thank you um i agree and i think that's a reasonable step forward unless there's any other comments from my colleagues okay 20 21. i'm sorry what was that how about 2021 the new year and we can have some presenters for both sides please thank you we leave the savings on january 1st okay so um so i know that i also want to just um say that as we're considering this um you know whoever might come to us i think that um we heard that it's very possible to um to include those upfront costs into the the longer term

165and still have significant savings over the length of that agreement so that's you know knowing that that's a possibility and we would not have to come up with any of that money out of our pocket and so um you know that's very significant part of the consideration that i'd like for people to have on their minds for no money literally no money i mean not literally figuratively no money but obviously attorneys costs and things there will still be cost there but minimally or some of those costs could be rolled into the agreement so that's an interesting part to consider to to receive um a benefit ongoing um did i hear someone else marcus trusty marquez um earlier when we were in full discussion um you said the general counsel had said that we could go

166back to uh to the community for comments or questions or input um i'd like us to do that so before we leave this um this item okay anyone that has not already spoken um if they would like to uh and let's get the clock ready mighty bell in case we have someone and uh mr gill do we have anyone yes we have i'm sorry who we have two people first one is kim espinoza okay miss espinosa when you begin speaking your time will begin hello hello i'm sorry mister i thought you said kim espinosa um yes you can stop the clock please mardi gras or reset the clock okay we can hear you so when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin okay all right good everybody good evening everyone um so you know

167we we literally just had a presentation from the bonds committee about the status of our facilities and um some recommendations were made about how we can reinvest in our schools and our facilities um you know like like maksa for example you know but here we are again talking about solar panels and i understand that there's no action today um but at some point there will be action and those actions can potentially have you know lasting impacts that supersede all of your terms we're having conversations about putting in solar panels at our schools but not enough conversations about how our kids will go back to school safely and not enough conversations about you know how the structural improvements uh needed for our facilities as a kid my parents always told me that nothing in life is

168free and many of us already know that to be true so i'm really skeptical about the implications that this project will have um and what the true cost of these solar panels would be once all is said and done and in the end the ones who pay our children um so obviously just like a lot of parents um i'm very concerned and i'm looking forward to hearing more you know not just from experts but from the rest of the community as well thank you hi thank you next person mr gill so the next person is josue garcia okay mr garcia um at this time when you begin speaking you have two minutes and those two minutes will begin when you start talking and i just want to make a few points which i can email

169to you out of the interest of time but i want to say that you first make sure that the computer they said that you select it's securing any and all possible incentives for the project that they should make sure that whoever they select is capable of providing strong warranties and performance guarantees independent independent of the financial structures taxable taxable leases are a great way for the district to make some savings and also tax exempt leases are a great savings and in summary it is important that the district has have their respondents propose many procurement financing solutions as possible i am representing a group that uh possibly can even provide funding for their uh fixing issues and implementation issues as well uh like i said i'm happy to send an email with these people so you

170can take a look at them look at them tomorrow thank you thank you just quick clarification because you broke up there you said you're representing a group that could possibly provide something yes again on top of the financing for the project the energy project we can possibly provide financing for the electrical to fix the electrical problems and the hvac problems as well as part of the whole package okay thank you very much any other comments mr gill um we i think the hand raised by veronica but as for maryville she already yeah she provided public comment earlier on um on this item okay thank you public for um providing your feedback and so i think at this point um the the suggestion or the recommendation from um trustee quintero has been heard it seems reasonable

171i would agree haven't heard anything to the contrary so i think we can start closing this down now unless there's any last comments trustee chavez yeah my internet went out when he said it can you please repeat whatever the motion or whatever he said [Applause] okay so you heard that part of it right i've heard a portion of it and then when i hear them say i think december then that's when i said 2021 january oh yeah so i think we just said at the earliest at the earliest november since that would be after the election that more information will be brought to us and at that time we would um decide how we move forward based on what is brought to us in that meeting okay and also um there was a um i

172guess a text with uh a comment that i made and dr bowers that i can always ask for for that as well when you bring that presentation um i guess i could email it but i would also like to say it now to put the 10 mistakes that districts make so that way we can be aware of not to commit the same mistakes that's it thank you so you said to put it what do you mean to put it as part of the as part of the materials when when and if it comes or when it comes as an item after the election just as part of the the supplementary materials yes in january 2021 preferably thank you next and next week fine um have you provided that to dr bauer already or can you

173provide that to dr bauer so that it can be included trustee travis have you provided that to dr bauer already or if not can you provide it to her i'm texting i i'm providing it now let me finish my text thank you okay thank you want to be on the text or on the email i mean i would imagine email would be better but you can work that out offline with that the thing is on my phone from the computer i don't want to lose it so as soon as this meeting's over it'll be emailed thank you well that doesn't need to be right this second but however i never know okay thank you okay trusty marquez yeah i i am i just have a question because um i.t director said that there was one

174person only that wanted to speak and if i heard right i think he said veronica and were there any other ones if it was just her why did you allowed to speak i mean i can't understand if you know 10 or 12 or whatever was you know ready to say something but if it was just one i i wish to do to let you know her speak because she so faithfully comes to these meetings and he gives us our input and he's been very respectful um so he's he didn't say one i think he said there were two and actually um those two and i don't even know if maybe one more spoke but um as i'm sure you're well aware of um the brown act doesn't allows for someone to um provide public on

175an item and so i don't know that we can um allow people to make continuous comments on an item well i just thought because she had heard all of the board members input and and comments that she probably had a burning comment to give us or her her you know opinion or a question that she can leave us with and anyway just i just wondered why he didn't call just on one okay thank you all right so then at this time i think we can go ahead and adjourn this meeting um thank you everyone for your participation and um we will see you soon at our next regular board meeting coming up here soon so thank you everyone and have a good night this meeting is adjourned at 8 22. you