Abalone Cove Landslide Abatement District
P.O. Box 4351 – Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA 90274 - (310) 753-7117

MINUTES – Sept. 9, 2024
Via Zoom

The Chairman, Gordon Leon, called the regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Directors of the Abalone Cove Landslide Abatement District to order on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at 5 pm. via Zoom. 

Roll Call – Director’s Present – Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller

The board moved that the meeting be recessed to go into executive session.

After the executive session, Ms. Miller invited the residents into the regular meeting via Zoom and the meeting was reconvened at 5:30 p.m.

Roll Call – Director’s Present – Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller

Mr. Leon welcomed the members and announced that the board had an executive session and there were no actionable items.                                                                           

Secretarial Matters – Mr. Barth made a motion that the clerk postpone retirement for another three months and that we name Ms. Colleen Miller as the Clerk at such time as the current clerk’s resignation is accepted.  He would also propose a compensation to Ms. Miller of $1,400/month.  The motion was seconded by Mr. Knight. We have interviewed several candidates and the board agreed that Ms. Miller is the best candidate for the job. 

The vote was:  Ayes: Leon, Barth, Knight
   		 Abstain:  Miller 
		The motion passed by the above vote.

Consent Calendar
Approval of the Agenda 
Approval of the minutes of August 12, 2024

A motion was made by Mr. Knight to accept the consent calendar.  The motion was seconded by Mr. Barth.  The Chairman asked for any discussion.  There was none.

The vote was:  Ayes: Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller 
		The motion passed by the above vote.

(Amended-@ meeting) Maintenance & Operations Warrant Register – September 9, 2024

1.  Sandy Marshall – September 9 2024			1,400.00	
2.  Edison Co. billings – estimate			.00
3.  Colleen Miller – Asst. clerk - September 9, 2024		1,400.00	      4.  Gordon Leon – reimb. electrical & drainage parts		198.92

								Total 		$2,998.92

This warrant register will be updated when Coastal Construction sends in their bills.

A motion was made by Mr. Barth and seconded by Mr. Knight that the (Amended) Maintenance and Warrant Register dated September 9, 2024, warrants 1 through 4 in the amount of $2,998.92                     as summarized on the warrant register, be approved for payment.

The vote was:  Ayes:  Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller 
		The motion passed by the above vote.

In relation to the warrants - Mr. Barth made a motion that we purchase a laptop.  Mr. Barth would like to purchase a Think Pad, information to be stored on a secure cloud, not to exceed $2,000 to be used by the clerk for Abalone Cove business only.  The motion was seconded by Mr. Leon.  Discussion followed.  

The vote was:  Ayes:  Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller 
		The motion passed by the above vote.

Continued Business

1.	Community Liaison, PBCA, RPV – Colleen Miller – As everyone is aware, lives have been turned upside down by the movement of the landslide in the last week.  But the neighborhood has been great.  Gordon has done everything to get the wells up and running.  We are trying really hard for everyone to stick together for the community especially for the older folks in the community.  Nonresidents have dropped off solar phone chargers, camper supplies and all kinds of camping batteries.  It was a very heart felt experience.  The temple donated 100 head lights that they couldn’t send to Iraq because they were battery operated. Members of the community then handed out these batteries and phone chargers at the local gathering spot on Figtree.  Thanks to everyone involved. Tim is hooking up Star link and propane bottles for the elderly neighbors.  The community has really come together.  Guy Grant procured 4 generators from his company and neighbors went and picked them up.  Michael Barth gave a big thank you to Colleen because she has helped and continues to help all of the community.

2.	 Maintenance, Drilling, and Operational Report - Gordon Leon – The Chairman                                          placed his report on the screen.  The state of health for this month is marginal. 

We have 10 wells operating on generators.  We have 7 wells sheared, 5-11 wells that need solar power and 2 more wells that need various repairs.  We have installed 9 generators, currently running on 5 gal tanks, at 6 hours per tank and Tim Kelly is working out a fueling plan for these. The city now has delivered 3 propane generators and we now have generators powering our sewer system.  We need to take the borrowed generators back to Guy’s company.  Multiple system drain pipe breaks have been repaired. 

Kelvin Canyon Spring is now draining down Vanderlip Drive and we are re-assessing WW#15 drainage given the lack of power.

Surface Drainage – we are working with RPV on a winterization plan, which includes grading of Altamira Canyon fissures near the top of the landslide. The high priority projects are Narcissa/PBRC/Ginger Root and Narcissa/Cinnamon.  These projects have been in the talking phase, starting back in March.  Tim Kelly has gotten a surveyor to come and get the elevations of all the points so that we can create a plan to get water down thru the roads to the Altamira Canyon below Figtree

Other activities include pausing drilling any new wells until we can define a real power plan.  On the Klondike side, the city put in a series of bore holes to locate the hydraugers and what they discovered is a slip plane that is very deep and moving.  They want to do bore holes in ACLAD to assess the Abalone Cove slip plan.

We have also submitted the final damage inventory to FEMA.  This contains approximately 30 different areas in the community of different damage areas associated with the winter storms of Jan 29, 2024 to Feb. 9, 2024.  There is another set of FEMA funds at the Cal OES level where the governor has declared a disaster that we have lost our power.  All of the expenses of repowering our wells should be covered by FEMA and Cal OES.  That will also require a mountain of paperwork.

He generally has a sheet showing the pumping volume, but he does not have one this month, because of the wells being off and on and going to the new propane generator system.  This system is pumping the wells quite well, but we don’t have good data in terms of how much water we are pumping at this time.

Mr. Leon included a solar workup from his meeting with the owner of Go Green Solar.  They are working on a design for solar/battery power for the wells.  A full time well could use 36 solar panels plus a $20K battery to run a well.  We may need to change pumps to DC.

Mr. Leon also included his well status report and asked for any questions from the audience.

Ms. Miller says we need to give a big thank you to Gordon for getting 10 wells up and running within a week without power.  It has been an awful week dealing with our own homes.  Having 10 wells up and running is great and we should feel a little secure that we have something in place.  Discussion followed.

3.	 Geology Issues – Scott Kerwin – no report at this time.

4.	 Financial Report, Governance, Legal, Accounting, & Certification – Michael Barth 

We are three months into our year and we have spent well over a 1/3 of our money.  We spent a lot of our money on well maintenance, which will be the key.  Hopefully we can use city money to drill new wells.  We have the city loan of $1.6M loan available to us.  There is also the promise of FEMA funds.  The total $598,000 was our assessment of which $535,000 was received.  10% is left to be collected by the county with the property taxes.  It was suggested that we give owners a second notice to pay their assessment before a lien is placed on their property.  This will be the job of the new clerk.

There were no questions from the audience.

5.	 City loan to ACLAD – The Chairman reports that the promise of a loan exists but we have no funds as of yet.  The Chairman asked for questions from the audience.  There were none.

6.	  Election Resolution cancelling the election.  The clerk read Resolution 24-11 which is a Resolution canceling the election that was scheduled for November 5, 2024 for the election of three members of the Board of Directors for the full term of four years.  At the close of the nomination period on Monday, August 12, 2024, there are not more candidates than offices to be elected. 

	Therefore, the General District Election scheduled for November 5, 2024 is canceled and the Elections Code allows one of the following courses of action to be taken:

1.	Appoint to the office the person who has been nominated; or
2.	Appoint to the office any eligible landowner if no one has been nominated.

Therefore, after the election, the two board members who were up for election will be re-appointed and the board may appoint another person to fill the remaining open seat. Mr. Knight moved that we pass Resolution 24-11.  Mr. Barth seconded the motion.

The vote was:  Ayes: Leon, Barth, Knight, Miller 
		The motion passed by the above vote.

New Business – Additional personnel that will be needed in the future.  Mr. Barth reports that we will need people to help us organize the information that the city wants us to provide.  We need a budget and an expected completion date. We need a professional engineer to sign off on each item of the budget and we will need a construction supervisor.  We will need these people when we start our projects, but we don’t know yet when we will be needing this assistance.  We

are a bit premature, but do need to start thinking about these positions.  Mr. Leon has spoken with an engineering firm, but they are not willing to accept the risk in dealing with us regarding work in the landslide.  The city may have to back off on that particular requirement.  Ms. Miller thought that the city was going to offer some in kind services.  Mr. Leon has had no luck with this.  The city has the same problems that we have.  Mr. Barth says that we may need to indemnify them in order to get them to perform.  He had an additional item – regarding a meeting a couple of weeks ago where a group of lawyers were presenting some arguments with regard to litigating against various defendants as a result of various damages caused by the landslide.  He would hope that ACLAD would not be included, but it seems that they are going to sue everybody.  Our insurance will cover us to some extent, as our carrier is sympathetic to our cause, but they all have limits.  We need to be cognoscente as to what may be coming down.

Information Items – A continuing Declaration of a State of Emergency needs to be renewed every 60 days.  The original State of Emergency was declared at the July 8, 2024 meeting.  
Mr. Barth asked that this be posted on the agenda each month.

Mr. Leon reports that Mr. Kelly felt we should have a safety officer in the community.  Mr. Leon says that as a resident if you are not familiar with electricity of generators that there are people in the community that are familiar with them and that you should not feel bad asking for some help.  We wouldn’t want to have a generator short problem that causes a fire and burns down our houses or property.  We all need to be really careful about this.  As a note, Ms. Miller got her solar generator yesterday. She says that it is small and quiet and works great.  This might be a solution for some people. The Beach Club is requiring residents to get permits for generators, which should be safer. Abalone Cove has a little different configuration of homes because they are farther apart than ones in the Beach Club.

Audience Items – there were no additional items

Adjournment –. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

The Next Meeting will be held on Monday, October 14, 2024, 2024 - 5:30 p.m. via Zoom

Respectfully submitted,  

Sandy Marshall, District Clerk