Meeting: October 13, 2022

The meeting started with an overview of final voting results with gratitude given to the task force for the heavy lift to get 100% approval on Workgroup 1 & 2 recommendations. A brief overview of the voting results for Work Group 3’s first set of recommendations was provided and another meeting was suggested to finalize the final report before the executive committee begins coordinating with legislative advisors.

The executive committee requested a rework of Workgroup 3 recommendations. Three task force members participated in the creation of a second set of recommendations. These members thought that Work Group 3 produced great ideas that simply needed more definition, so they embarked upon a review the full list of Workgroup 3 recommendations using comments, suggestions, ideas, and advice from workgroup members and other water task members, Utton Center, and written guidance from the executive committee.

The recommendations were sorted based on 4 different criteria:

• Effectiveness at addressing challenges identified in the problem statement to define the problem
• Specificity and clarity of the action to be taken by the legislative or executive branches
• Likelihood of support from task force members based on previous votes and comments
• Representation of the full range of workgroup member views with a focus on fairness, representation, and equity

To simplify, streamline, and organize the recommendations, they were sorted into the following focus areas:

• River health
• Aquifer health
• Watershed health
• Water quality
• Water education

Task Force members were given a 10-minute period to review an alternative slate of recommendations proposed for Workgroup 3, then broke into small groups to ask clarifying questions and suggest specific changes for 30 minutes. The whole group discussed common themes and issues of concerns and offered additional suggestions for changes that could strengthen the new recommendations.

Feedback from the small groups and task force discussion would be consolidated and revisions made to the recommendations after the meeting, then sent to the task force for review along with a revised problem statement consistent to the framing and focus of the newly proposed recommendations.

In the latter part of the meeting, the group gave feedback on the draft final report on the task forces’ work, prepared by the Utton Center. The focus of the next task force meeting will be to vote on the approval of changes made to the final report, and to prepare for meetings with legislators.