Minutes of 12 June 2002 Board of Directors

Garrapata Creek Watershed Council

Board of Directors Meeting

June 12, 2002

7:00pm

Ken’s home

Meeting Notes

Present: Gary Collings, Ken Ekelund, Carol Fisch, Lloyd Jones, Charly Kleissner, Lynn Overtree, Molly Williams.

Action items are in bold.

7:00pm – Meeting began.

Directors & Officers:

Richard Taylor resigned at last planning group meeting, so we don’t have a vice-president at this time. We didn’t see a need to replace the position at this time.

Tomorrow Heidi Fish (NMFS) is coming to do a quick survey for the presence or absence of fish in Garrapata; (Editor’s note: she found steelhead in both Joshua and Garrapata Creek).

Lloyd suggested we reconsider Todd Acheson for the board.

7:32pm – Charly Kleissner arrived.

At next meeting we will appoint a nominating committee (2 people from the BOD and 3 from the planning group).

Everyone decided we don’t need to replace the VP position.

Fundraising:

There was no money as a result of the last general meeting.

People need to see that the organization is doing things. They need to be invested in the project. Gary suggested displaying the stream gage data.

7:40pm – Molly Williams arrived.

Charly wants to find ways to get the results out to people. People will want to fund projects, not operations. Fold operations into the cost of projects.

Grants:

PWA submitted a grant to do road implementation work for $313,000.

Marty suggested that we put together a proposal to look at all the issues in the watershed. More than just the roads. Water quality, quantity, migration barriers, exotics, etc. Ken put together a $27,000 grant application to look at in-stream restoration projects. We should know in October of it was awarded.

Natural barriers can use a fish ladder to help move fish beyond the barrier. Look at the possibility of buying land when needed.

In the short term, we need to do a newsletter.

The Watershed Fair was changed to October 5 & 6^th. Our General Meeting is on the 5^th, but we may be able to get some people from the fair. Let’s have a booth there. (it has been changed to September 28^th at 1:30pm at Molly’s house.)

Lloyd suggested we put articles in the RoundUp newsletter. Monthly paper.

Lloyd offered to write an article on Cape ivy control.

Ken joined the State Parks to roll up Cape ivy. He’s ordered a McCloud to do work in Garrapata Watershed.

Next General Meeting, at Molly’s house, will be the natives theme. Molly will try to get Joe Balciunus to speak on the Cape ivy biocontrol.

Return of the Natives has put together a wallet index on Good/Invasive/Very Invasive garden plants. It may be a pdf file on their website.

The Watershed Information Exchange Meeting at the Watershed Institute next Wednesday 3pm.

Ken shared his poster entitled “Using GIS to assess fish passage barriers on Garrapata Creek”.

Change to signature card for bank account:

Account held at Monterey County Bank with monthly fees waived.

The resolution was made by Carol Fisch, seconded by Molly Williams. Voted unanimously.

Lynn and Molly will get on the signature card.

Fundraising:

Charly suggests we charge a nominal fee for membership and that would cover some of the operational costs. Lloyd thinks we would get about 20 members.

Operational costs are about $1500/year. If each of us gives $100 each to the organization, we can raise a little more from other members of the community. Gary suggests that we use this money to raise matching funds.

The county Fish & Game Commission is a source we could go to for funds. They distribute money collected from fines for Fish & Game violations. Ken has expressed interest in being on the commission.

How to make our council more “democratic”?

Do we want to have members? Sean Flavin, attorney, advised us that having members would make the incorporation more difficult ...there are no major issues as long as the members get some kind of right...such as the ability to vote for the Directors, etc, there is no real problems except that the By-laws are bit more complicated. Many of the board, however, want to have members.

Discussion on the risks of allowing members to vote for the board. Since we have a staggered board over three year rotations, we shouldn’t have a great risk of shifting the mission of the organization greatly. Lloyd stated that several stakeholders in Garrapata Canyon have expressed an opinion that the Creek has no fish, that it's "dead", that roads are not a significant cause of siltation in the creek, and that the GCWC is subversive organization (an arm of Fish and Game, Big Sur Land Trust, FF&W, etc.) If they were to be elected to the board, it could prove to be divisive and draw us away from the mission, and this fragile volunteer organization would have an even more difficult time attracting volunteers who are interested in promoting the mission..

Charly will check with his attorney about the issues relating to membership.

Meetings:

Postpone the planning group meeting to Tuesday July 9^th, 7pm at Carol’s house of the BSLT office.

Change the General Meeting to September 28^th at 1:30pm at Molly’s house.

8:55 Meeting Adjourned.

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