The Consolidated Irrigation District’s board of directors met at its Selma headquarters on Wednesday, August 8, 2018. Chairman Larry Cruff called the meeting to order at 1:00pm. CID had a procedural problem with the agenda dealing with the board’s function as board of equalization for CID. There were three or four applicants who didn’t get their cases in on time. They wanted to receive surface water. General Manager Phil Desatoff said there are conditions to join the district’s distribution. Attorneys Lauren Layne and Doug Jensen were both there to advise. Easements, laterals, $250 application fees and other 
requirements will be adopted by vote of the board. Director Ray Moles suggested time extensions can be granted on a case by case basis and that was well received.
PR
CID has retained a public relations company, Watermark of Temecula, California for help with its 218 election and to just help burnish its image in general. There was an hour-long presentation and it was decided the 218 election will be held in November the week after the general election. I’ve seen a few presentations and Watermark really puts out a quality product.
The board added an item to the agenda; a ditch tender hit a dog and a claim was made. Too sad. Walt Frost CID Superintendent reported a dump truck’s engine blew up and had to be repaired for a good amount of money – $44,000. This model of engine had a turbo blow it to hell and Desatoff said staff is investigating any design flaws that International may have omitted. With that the consent calendar was accepted.
Under correspondence The Fresno Historical Society is sponsoring a lecture on the Sunset Irrigation District and the CID board and staff were invited. Local grower and FHS board member Bill Chandler made sure folks were aware of the event next week. On side note there will also be a Civil War Reenactment sponsored by FHS in October and it is well worth attending. Former CID ram rod Margaret 
Macias gave a big warm thank you for her retirement party.
Manager’s Report
Should the 218 election pass the county needs to be informed so the billing will be updated. Before that happens the votes must be counted and before that happens the engineer’s report has to be completed. Good news – Provost & Pritchard has completed the engineer’s report. The board will have to approve the engineer’s report by week after next so there will be time to complete the election by the November 14th CID board meeting.
At this time Amanda Monaco from a legal based NGO that works with people of color from disadvantaged communities about water supplies. She asked the board for a letter of recommendation to give to DWR for a Prop One grant. This money is to be spent on public outreach. There is a DAC called Tombstone outside of Sanger that is in the Central Kings GSA. There board had a lot of questions. Desatoff said he’d like to see the water quality testing. Director Earl Hudson was concerned a letter of support to the NGO could potentially be on the hook for the community’s domestic water supply. The grant is $700,000 and none of it will be going to improving the wells. It will all go to outreach and workshops and such.
Frost said there was 9,307 a/f storage left in Pine Flat for CID. The Lone Tree branch, the temperature control pool demands and there are trades out there with other districts that could leave CID with very little carry over. Desatoff said they could give most of that back and leave 1,000 a/f for evaporation between now and the end of the year.
SGMA
Desatoff said coordination with the other GSAs in the Kings Sub Basin is still moving forward and he expects to see that completed next month. That is the most optimistic assessment of this I’ve heard yet.
The board adopted a resolution for the annual statement of assessment rates. The rates are the 
same as last year. A grower in the audience said he thought the presentation giving by Watermark was excellent and shows the need for the people of the district to protect themselves from the State Board taking over groundwater under SGMA.
The meeting then went into closed session for a conference with legal counsel. The next meeting will be Wednesday, September 12th.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 by Don A. Wright No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of DAW.
CONSOLIDATED IRRIGATION DISTRICT – 2255 Chandler St, Selma, CA 93662 Telephone; 559/896-1660
CID covers 145,000 acres mostly in South Central Fresno County. Surface water supplies: Kings River CID is its own GSA
General Manager – Phil Desatoff, Attorney – Doug Jensen, Water Master – Walt Frost
Board of Directors – President Larry Cruff, Thomas Benzler, Earl Hudson, Tony Lewis, Ray Moles
