Sage RanchCongratulations to all on Sage Ranch. I attended the meeting and sat behind Claudia from the Tehachapi News, where she was taking pictures of the other side of the room with Jeff and his team. The amount of design work presented was thorough and lots of back and forth. The water district guy was on my side of the room and looked like he wanted to speak before Jeff gave a water update about having confidential documents from the District telling the City by email that there was enough water for Sage and more with a 2% growth rate per the District's own engineer. I asked Jeff and his team after the formal meeting what it all meant. The District said Sage Ranch alone only needs a 1% increase in supply. His engineer told me the city water study for Sage was based on the districts own information, saying the water supplies would support an increase of 2.3% annual growth in the city and surrounding area. The District sued as it wanted to renege on their own engineering as the District Board are all farm land owners and get revenue from big Ag. So the District came back in two sets of negotiations and said to city take 1% as that is enough for Sage and a slight few more houses a year. The city then asked the district for them to pick a global engineering firm to write a true independent report. The District hired AECON, which is a huge worldwide outfit. AECON came back at 2.4%, which was higher than the city own submission and higher than the districts older reports that the city relied upon. In two rounds of settlement hearing which Jeff was part of but without a NDA, The District offered 1% to allow for Sage and drop the litigation. The city said to the district to follow their own science of 2.4% but offered to settle at 1.5%. The District said yes but wanted the city to pay the District's legal fees of 300k. The city said no. Bottom line is the lawyers on the city/Sage side Sent legal opinion to Voya saying a judge could not stop the project under the laws. The most a judge could do is ask for the report to be rewritten with the latest report which support the city/Sage numbers. In addition the District own new report is higher than city/Sage numbers. Now the District is at risk because both city/Sage can build without a problem but District is liable for vexatious litigation.. Jeff wins. Sage wins