i'd like to point out that i did not put the name stud on there i'm not sure exactly sure exactly oh i got that i got that username on web i've never used webex before so maybe that's the default there he is he got connected well it's certainly fitting i mean right [Laughter] if you have a teenage daughter she probably did it that could be it yeah wants to embarrass you all right i think i think we're out here so we're ready to go if judy was able to unmute herself yet judy can you hear her she could not hear us oh judy cannot hear us how about i call her and um put her on speaker yeah and i think the mute button is in a different spot it might be that or no if you can't can everyone hear me i uh i couldn't hear you guys at first either and i went up to at the top at audio video i had to switch my speaker that it was on um so it might be your speaker issue not yeah it's not tissue oh okay okay judy can you say something judy she can't hear us she can't hear us but we can hear her but she can't hear us i think she needs to change her speaker maybe are her is her volume up i would think so it's probably that audio video thing like you said there the top do you have multiple monitors yeah okay you can i can't hear any of you but we can so i don't know what's going on so dana maybe tell her about the audio video up at the time yeah there's an audio video okay just a second all right now hold on somebody say something okay now we're on okay all right can you hear me judy yep we're good all right all right terrific i will call us to order here friends we are not live streamed yet um okay can we take a one second i will let you know when we're live perfect thank you and we are live okay good afternoon everyone it's 12 33 and i call to order this emergency meeting of the victoria city council this morning as mayor i'm calling an emergency meeting of the city council to discuss the implementation of an outdoor watering ban this is the only item on the agenda for this meeting at this time i'd like to do a roll call of the council if you are present please say i chad roberts aye judy black aye alvin a bear hi derek gunderson aye deb mcmillan mayor is present counsel before us this afternoon is a resolution establishing the outdoor watering ban i'd like to read the resolution now for your consideration whereas the unusually hot weather combined with the long-term forecast has resulted in a large increase in water usage and whereas excessive watering of lawns reduces the capacity of the city's water treatment plant placing undue stress on the watering system and lowering the quality levels of water for victoria residents and businesses and whereas the water levels in the city of victoria's water tower are lower than what is desired to coordinate and provide water for fire protection purposes and whereas due to home irrigation the city of victoria's water plant is at maximum capacity and the water system is unable to keep pace with demand and whereas the city of victoria recognizes that water is a precious resource and whereas victoria residents are encouraged to be more efficient in using water whenever possible whereas the city of victoria recognizes that water is a precious resource and whereas victoria residents are encouraged to be more efficient in using water whenever possible now therefore be it resolved the city the victoria city council hereby declares an emergency outdoor watering ban effective immediately prohibiting all outdoor watering by mechanical or automatic means this ban is in effect until further notice and includes watering of lawns gardens irrigation and car washing be it further resolved the city of victoria will allow watering for new sod and seeding of grass with a special permit that is properly displayed but it will not issue any new permits until the ban is lifted and be it further resolved the city manager is delegating the authority to implement reasonable water conservation measure measures including establishing outdoor watering ban consistent with the city's ordinance due to the extreme heat that has been forecasted for the summer months the city manager shall take input from the public works director and the fire chief before implementing any conservation measures or bans and the purpose of this delegation of authority is to ensure the city of victoria maintains safe water levels and adequate fire protection per the city code chapters 25 through 26 and 25 the outdoor watering ban does not apply to special permits for new sod and seating of grass or business dependent upon sprinkling the ban also does not apply to private wells exemptions are made for a hand-held watering of outdoor areas including flowers and vegetation and water toys for children actively playing any person violating the precision provisions of this section will be subject to a fine on behalf of the city council and staff we thank all our residents in advance for your cooperation so we can meet the fire protection requirements needed in our community on behalf of the city council and staff we thank our residents for your cooperation before i ask for council discussion ms hardy is there any additional information that staff would like to share with the council or the public thank you mayor members of the council just real quick um chief hagar and um dave shogher our public works director are both here to answer any specific questions that you all may have but i just wanted to note that the recommendation for establishing this ban has been weighed quite carefully with staff um i'd like to take an opportunity to publicly recognize our dave shogher and our public works team for their careful monitoring of the situation and their diligence and troubleshooting and trying to keep everything running um without without issues this has been a very stressful time for our team and i appreciate the long hours that they're putting in making sure that we have adequate adequate and quality water supply in our community the issue that we have is not i just there's been some social media information i just want to put some information out there um to make sure that everybody is aware this issue is not a ground water issue it is a water plant capacity issue our water pumps are able to pump more water than our plants can actually produce the plant capacity issue is resulting in the degradation degradation of the water quality mainly in taste and appearance the drawdown is also affecting our on the water due to the demand and the increased usage um is impacting our our reservoirs and our water tower as mayor you noted in the resolution um and at these levels that we're currently experiencing it makes adequate fire protection in our community a little bit challenging without um council taking any action to put a ban into place or pursue other other conservation measures the weather service just predicted today sent out information today to the emergency managers in the community that they are predicting higher than normal temperatures for the foreseeable future specifically through june 23rd our water conservation efforts mainly have been through our may through september watering restrictions which has been an ordinance that's been in place for a number of years i believe that was established in 1998 and last revised in 2014 if i'm not mistaken um we have been proactively putting information out asking residents for their cooperation and water restrictions it just hasn't been enough there has not been enough people abiding by those restrictions to uh to keep our plants operating um without putting stress on our on our water system so the action here that we're asking council to take by resolution today is really to ensure um not only water quality but it's really to ensure that we have adequate fire protection in our community and with that dave public works director and chief haeger here to answer any other specific questions that you all may have thank you very much dana council questions i don't have any maybe deb you want a role call that if they have any questions but just go down the line of that be easier all right thank you cindy all right judy says no questions derek questions for you uh questions things that we got to talk think about are for future meetings related to fines for how we manage violate violations and citations i currently don't think that what we have in place has enough teeth to make anybody actually abide by this so if we can do something in another meeting um you know but i want to make sure that we actually are able to address what we're trying to address and if dave and the chief think that this is going to be enough do we actually have ability to enforce what we're doing and or is it going to cause us is this going to cause us some problems in the next few weeks because people want to water their lawns thank you anything else council member gunderson nope councilmember roberts um i yeah i would just say um you know i you know i understand people want to water their lawns we all want to have nice green lawns um but uh you know as uh councilmember gunderson said in a post yesterday right no one cares about how green your lawn is if your house is burned down right so we want to make sure um you know we can take care of fires when and when they're there um you know and i would just also say uh you know we we have you know the restrictions as dana had said right in place of you know uneven days for watering and certain times that you can't water and you know i i would urge people when we eventually do get to water again to stick to those because i think you know this is where we're seeing the issues right if people if people would stick to those restrictions um we probably wouldn't be seeing the problems that we're having um now so a few people are ruining it for everyone really so i would just remind people to stick to those restrictions so that um you know we don't have to do these type of things that's all i have thank you council member roberts council member yeah i would just like to add a statement and a question um i too until i became educated to not understand the seriousness of the situation that we're in um so i did not in my own thought in my own head take it serious enough and now i realize that that is pretty serious um so i just encourage others to do the same um my question um is um if if we can if if the ban is in effect for i don't know how long right do we have um data that would tell us how long we could when if we stopped watering our lawns the irrigation piece what does that look like in terms of easing the stress on the the water pumps so the could we had said where we're pumping over three million versus uh you know typically around seven hundred thousand so do we have data that that will suggest that if we ban water for two weeks we could get back down to traditional type levels do we have any information that would help us make sense of of another measure to make sense of of the reason for this councilman um may or if i may just jump in there dave will probably follow up here but that's a good point one of the things is i'm listening to you all discuss and i want to answer that question um to the extent that i can but i think it's important for our residents to understand just kind of the order of magnitude of this issue um on in a non-summer month our average use of what we're pushing through our water system um in producing at the water plant each day what's going through our water plant every day is about 650 to 700 000 gallons per day our record high i think it was set last year was 2.7 million gallons in a day two days ago we hit 3.1 million gallons so more than we ever have before and i believe yesterday um or today we're at 3.7 million gallons so we are pushing water through our system at a capacity that our plans has never seen before um and this is all due to irrigation so to council member robert's comments we do believe that the issues and the challenges that we're seeing um today are a result of excessive watering primarily due to home irrigation um we love making data driven decisions at the staff level we're all about that and so this is something that um dave and his team have data on are monitoring um are they have made um several i'll call them tweaks or refinements modifications to try do things on to provide some relief um to our plant so it's not constantly running um on timing um but really uh dave do you want to talk about some of the data points that you're looking at to say yeah we feel like we're in a based on this data this is kind of the levels of where we need to be sure thank you thank you mayor and council um as dana mentioned yes we have far exceeded any of uh daily output records in the last week um consistently and has have seen that trend ramping up more and more so i think it was 3.5 or 3.6 yesterday was our uh 3.5 million gallons or in the 3.6 million gallons yesterday that was produced out of the plant so we are far and above any place we've ever been before and we're really prepared to go i guess but um also let's start back from the beginning um as dana had mentioned we don't have a water aquifer issue we have plenty of water in our ground um all of our drawdown sensors are showing that the water incoming into our production wells is very sufficient we're not seeing any undue stress there the real problem has just been the quantity of water leaving the plant at the same time so when those irrigation systems private typically irrigation systems are turning on they're all turning on about the same time so if you can imagine everybody in town flushing the toilet at the exact same time i mean that's a lot of water beliefs and you're talking about just a half inch water line you're talking about an inch and a half water line typically in a irrigation system or an inch water line in an irrigation system so that is a huge amount of volume all leaving every residence hall not every but a lot of majority of the residents at the same time and it's just is putting us in a position where our capacity to have water in our water tower and in our ground reservoirs um to put a huge amount of stress on those systems so um providing us with any cushion for fire suppression if we had to um it would just make that much more challenging and make it put us in a position where we're not going to be very secure in knowing that we have the ability to do that so the question was made you know going forward do we have any belief or suggestion that we should be able to maintain a watering system um for our for our residents and i believe that if we had better um compliance with our water restrictions that we've got in our ordinance i think that we would have plenty of capacity to provide that i think the real issue has been that we've got people watering every day multiple times a day and at the wrong periods of day that has just put this strain on our system so um obviously the weather has played a huge part in this and with this long hot dry spell everybody's watering longer and harder than they ever have before trying to keep their grass green so um the end answer is yes i believe that we have the capacity to be able to allow people to water their yards as long as it's managed well and as long as we have compliance and we have people that understand that um you know that inch to inch and a half a week of water in their yard is efficient so whatever that takes to get there is probably the right amount for their yard typically but you know there are a lot of variables soil conditions soil qualities and the plants that are growing in those irrigated areas so um i do believe though that we do have capacity in our system to be able to provide appropriate fire suppression as well as clean drinking water as well as uh irrigation to our residents as long as you know it's our compliance is there but it's just not there right now and that's why this um emergency ban has been requested and i believe that it's the right direction mayor members of the council if i could just add one brief comment um the there was um council member gundersen asked about fines and made a cohen about um just uh kind of our fine structure and our ability to have some meat behind what we're doing um i just wanted to give you a sense we were out because we knew this issue was coming right we have been monitoring our our levels and um our public works team was out issuing citations the last few days um just in the last two days we were pushing just over 100 um citations and we did not hit um all areas of our city um and uh just so everybody is aware through our organs your first citation is a warning the second citation is 75 the next one is 250. so um we do have an escalator in there um but most of the people who receive those citations in the last couple days were first-time offenders and received warnings dana can i ask a quick question sorry if one came up so i know we've posted a lot of stuff on social media about the restrictions that we have in place you know the odd even and the time of day type thing um you know there's still lots of people out there in this day and age that still aren't on social media do we have we have we sent out flyers ever or cards um sorry for cutting you off um councilmember roberts may i remember this of the council um we do do you we do do reminders in our utility bills we also put it in our spirit um so um which is our quarterly newsletter that goes out um people may not be on social media we hope a lot of people are using our website that information is also up on our website so we are using multiple means to get that information out there are also um dave correct me if i'm wrong there's signs in the neighborhoods um so signs are in the neighborhoods that say what our watering restrictions are too muscle member black yes um i i can vouch that they are in dear runs neighborhood i'm just wondering if they're in all the neighborhoods mr silver they are in most neighborhoods um we try to keep ahead of it and make sure that they are always up there have been some areas that have probably not been uh more recent developments that might have gotten missed but we've always been uh trying to get ahead of it and catch back up to make sure every every neighborhood is signed in the entrances how do we differentiate between neighborhoods that may be on city water in the house and well water on the outside of the home how do we differentiate between those so that we're i mean if technically under the this ban we wouldn't have uh people with uh personal wells still while new neighborhoods probably don't have those some of the older neighborhoods do how are we making sure we're not banned uh citing those individuals if they choose to water thank you for asking the question there is a language in the ordinance that talks about they have five days for um submitting uh proof that they are using a well or something like that before the fine gets attached to their utility bill or they're expected to have paid so there's language in there that that talks to them okay so i just want to make sure that if people do get those i want to make sure they've got an avenue to be able to prove that they've that they're on a well system terrific thank you mr gunderson um other questions council member abaer did you get all your questions answered i did thank you mayor terrific thank you i just have one thing i just want to clarify this is a this is an outright ban with the exceptions that were listed in the resolution this at this point in time we are not allowing people to even add water is that correct may or members of the council yes that is correct okay so so community members while this is an inconvenience we we do need to um implement this so that we can in in for everybody's public safety we need to be able to suppress a fire should one start so um we we are asking kindly and actually begging for your compliance on this resolution so with that are there any other further questions or comments i i do for the outright ban that there's still exceptions to that ban correct for the sod thank you cindy so if you do have new sod or grass seed you can get a permit from city hall to allow you to water that we understand that sod is an expensive investment and and you will be allowed to water that side i would just ask that they try to stick to the inch and a half as best they can talking to some of the landscaping companies around here they feel that an inch and a half is at night is will be enough for new sod uh and one and if you if you do you know once a day for a week then once the roots start to sprout it should they they can back off that even so i would just ask that during this time if they can keep it to a minimum as much as possible i do understand the investment i i can sympathize with that but to keep it to a minimum it would be the ask for people with new sod and seed thank you councilmember gunderson i do sorry mayor i did um with the exception permits that we're giving first out are we limiting that so that you know we're not getting too many people who all of a sudden buy sod during this time and and uh want to water that tardy you want to speak to that exception in the resolution uh council member roberts mayor members of the council yes um the resolution does have a statement a whereas clause that says no new um permits will be issued um we do understand that um assad has a long lead time so you generally don't pull that permit until you know when it's arriving so there we do know of some cases in a couple of the newer developments that saad was ordered last fall and it delivery is expected in the next two weeks and some of the conversations that we've had with those um builders and so we do have a tool and a mechanism in our ordinance for staff to review and make that judgment call perfect thank you any other questions counsel any final comments from staff with that because we are meeting virtually i'm going to uh we'll need a roll call vote so before making a motion or a second please state your name so i will ask now for a motion to adopt the resolution establishing the outdoor watering ban this is derek uh i'll second or make the motion thank you mr gun uh councilmember gunderson is there a second chad roberts will make a second thank you councilmember roberts i'll take a roll call vote now councilmember black yes councilmember gunderson yes council member a bear yes council member roberts yes mayor votes yes thank you for all of your help on this and uh again thank you to the public for your compliance with this with this watering bag members of the council there are no more items to come before the body again uh make a motion or a second please state your name can i have a motion to adjourn i make a motion to adjourn this is judy thank you can i have a second alvin a bear thank you alvin and i'll take a roll call vote council member black yes council member gunderson council member a bear yes council member roberts yes your votes yes thank you motion carries we stand adjourned thank you you