Staff presented a draft demand management framework and asked the board for direction on next steps. "Ultimately a global element relative to demand management says we're gonna reduce pumping somehow and we're gonna leave more water in the ground," the presenter said, summarizing the framework's central aim.

The presentation, given by Mr. Weeks (staff member), described the framework as a synthesis of roughly 18 months of work, including technical input from the Sustainability Management Criteria Technical Advisory Committee (SMC TAC). Weeks said the document identifies a menu of possible measures for agricultural and urban areas — on‑farm conservation (drip irrigation), reduced pumping, tiered pricing, land banking/repurposing, pumping limits or allocations, and projects such as extraction barriers — but that the larger challenge is defining triggers, decision authority and implementation steps.

Weeks warned the board that demand management will have different effects across subbasins and highlighted seawater intrusion as a special technical problem: "In the seawater intruded area, it's not that straightforward," he said, noting that stopping pumping alone may not reverse intrusion and that projects such as extraction barriers may be required.

The presentation proposed a five‑stage approach tied to measurable groundwater objectives (stage 0 = sustainable; higher stages correspond to worsening conditions). Weeks said the staging and many possible measures draw on SMC TAC work but acknowledged that the framework itself does not yet define the SMC TAC's formal role in decision making or enforcement.

Public commenters urged greater clarity and subbasin specificity. Tom Versic, who spoke during public comment, said the framework currently mixes a diagnostic tool and an implementation manual and lacks explicit SMC TAC authority or binding subbasin language; he also cited a presenter note indicating a Round 1 implementation grant targeted to the 18400 (critically overdrafted) subbasin. "The framework document as it exists needs to be decoupled. It is a diagnostic tool... and it's also a manual," Versic said, urging closer attention to the 18400 subbasin and to grant‑funded deliverables.

Nancy Isaacson of the Salinas Valley Water Coalition echoed Versic, noting that certain framework deliverables are tied to DWR grant requirements for the 18400 subbasin and stressing that coordination agreements and fees should be subject to the board's review.

In response, staff recommended that internal staff (Weeks and "Gus," identified in the record as staff) develop more detailed implementation concepts, clarify the role of the SMC TAC and the forebay implementation subcommittee, and map how staging/triggers would translate into measures. The board provided direction to staff to proceed with that work; no final policy, ordinance, or regulatory action was adopted at the meeting.

Key clarifications raised during the discussion included: the expectation that demand management programs and projects will likely be funded in part by subbasin beneficiaries (consistent with Proposition 218 principles for project beneficiaries), the administrative costs that may be shared across subbasins, and the likely need for multi‑year timelines to design and implement capital projects.

The record includes multiple technical and process cautions: staff emphasized that some projects take a decade or longer from design through environmental review to construction; seawater intrusion areas will require tailored approaches; and demand management measures could prompt legal challenges or require careful allocation and enforcement frameworks.

Staff said they would return with developed concepts and recommendations to the board and advisory committees to inform the next GSP update cycle.