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Ground Water Commission Meeting Minutes Page 14 <br /> May 16, 2025 <br /> Ms. Mele thought that before beginning the stakeholder and rulemaking <br /> process, it would be best to revise the rules one more time at the next <br /> Commission meeting, however, Ms. Mele also thought it would be possible to <br /> make the revisions during the stakeholder and rulemaking process. <br /> Commissioner Pautler agreed that he was agreeable to moving forward with the <br /> stakeholder and rulemaking process, so long as Commission Staff was <br /> comfortable with the proposed rule change language. However, Commissioner <br /> Pautler also commented that due to the technical difficulties experienced <br /> during this meeting, it would be reasonable to do another round of draft rule <br /> revisions in advance of the next Commission meeting in August in case some <br /> online attendees were not able to make comments or ask questions about the <br /> draft rules at this meeting. <br /> Acting Chairman Noble agreed that it may be beneficial to complete another <br /> review of the draft rule revisions at the next meeting before moving forward <br /> with stakeholder meetings and rulemaking. <br /> Ms. Kosloff commented that it would be helpful for the districts to clarify if <br /> they believe there is a different standard for objections submitted by districts <br /> versus other objectors during this next round of revisions to the draft rules. <br /> b) Discuss the process for amending erroneously issued Determinations of Facts <br /> Ms. Brucker addressed the Commission, and reminded attendees of previous <br /> Commission discussions involving cases where Determinations of Facts were <br /> erroneously issued. Some of these cases involved land claimed but not actually <br /> owned by the original Applicant. Ms. Brucker noted that there isn't an <br /> incentive for the owner of an erroneous allocation of ground water rights to <br /> voluntarily apply to reduce their allocation. Ms. Brucker noted that in many of <br /> these cases, Staff can fill out an application, pay the filing fee Et publication <br /> costs, and publish a notice for the application in the respective newspaper. <br /> Ms. Brucker then described the most common scenario where an erroneous <br /> determination would be discovered, which typically involves a landowner <br /> applying for a determination on land where an allocation was already <br /> previously made in error. In these scenarios, Staff will first review the <br /> application documentation to verify that the previous determination was made <br /> in error. An effort is then made by Staff to contact the current owner of the <br /> erroneous determination to make them aware of the situation and provide a <br /> summary of the error and new allocation volume for their amended <br /> determination. Contacting the current owner would likely be limited to <br /> searching DWR records for contacts related to the determination and searching <br /> County Assessor Records. For situations where there are multiple new owners <br />