I would like to invite Treasurer Pax Collector Minahein to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
Thank you. Our next agenda item is the pet of the week. So I would like to introduce our pet of the week.
Okay, here we go.
Can you?
Okay, all right, good morning, Luis, welcome.
Who do we have today?
This is Reba, Reba is a
community that's really with everybody.
What's out in the bow of thinking, that's going to be a facility where I've seen too much from
work time.
And then this weekend, we are going to be doing an adopted event, so we are going to be
going
to be doing an adopted event, so we are going to be doing an adopted event.
I have a lot of other thoughts.
So we're going to experiment with a presentation as we have to have a thing to want
to do with the same chance.
But this weekend, from the 13th to the 15th, we'll have Dr. Dean's to adopt the
event.
A dog, what even are bad is with the options in place.
And he seems pretty much everything that he's saying.
You're certain that he might get to the vaccine.
He's wearing her seat.
Take many things in.
We get a huge heat test, start by about the structure of our force of the test, and hopefully we'll be in the second half of the heat test.
Okay.
All
right.
Our next item is our consent calendar, including special districts.
And we have items A through Z.
Z, we will be dropping item 4G from the consent calendar today.
Do we have any board comments or items to pull off of the consent calendar this morning?
Chair, I would ask, just given the importance and significance in this first step.
I would ask that item 4x be pulled separately for discussion.
Okay, for X, we'll be full for the discussion.
Thank you, anything else?
Okay, not seeing anything, then is there anyone present wishing
to make a public comment on anything on the consent calendar?
Is there anyone on the phones?
Okay, there is no one on the phones.
So, may I have a motion in a second to approve the consent calendar?
item is A through G minus 4G, which has been dropped, and minus X, so moved.
All right, all those in favor?
Hi.
Okay, that passes unanimously.
Thank you.
That was a motion by, that was a motion by Supervisor Romus.
The second by, not a clue.
Oh, motion by control, second by Romus.
Thank you.
That's why we check.
Okay.
So, so thank you. That's it for the consent calendar. Our next item on the agenda is public comment.
We'll be discussing the item, the item pulled from the consent calendar later on the agenda.
But for right now, it's public comment on any items not on the agenda.
And that includes also items that are on the agenda includes sessions.
So items 10 A and 10 B, 10 C, check the number in here.
E, 10, it's the third, the third case in closed session.
It will be dropped from closed session today.
So are there any comments on the first two cases listed for closed session today?
Please come forward.
I'm having allergies and brain fog with medication this morning.
So if it's OK, I'm going to play my recorded message.
Yeah, that's fine.
As long as it's under three minutes.
It's under three.
Shall we go to the audience?
So to wage war against these small libraries,
it makes absolutely no sense.
So why am I concerned?
Not because of
wind kids in
the club.
And not because of them to partner.
We went to elders in Yachtville as partners
And we went to Lindsay Hoops to partner with her
on basis at Farmstead and her farm in this interactive activity
to get kids out of there.
Boys and girls could have been a mood day,
two experienced community activity, and the healthy practices.
She immediately agreed.
She said, yes, and she's going to help lead this project with us.
That's who Lindsay Hoops is.
Just a community minded small business owner homegrown in this valley who gives that to
owners to see the system this last week.
Thank you.
I apologize that I didn't say this myself that I'm just not feeling well.
And I'd like to leave it in the fire.
If you could bring it to the clerk on the other.
Bye.
Thank you.
including elders for this intergenerational path to encourage your participation.
Okay, thank you for your comments today.
Are there any other comments from anyone on any items not on the agenda or any items on a closed session?
Good morning.
Windell Coleman Napa.
So I noticed this morning on the consent calendar.
I just briefly saw
public employee discipline dismissal release.
I'm not exactly sure what that's about, but what I am sure about is the fact that, well, let me
lead into this a different way. I am African-American, and I'm also Native American, and I read
an article, I started to read article in the Napa Register this morning about the celebration
of Black History Month, which is the shortest month of the year, even shorter, every leap here,
And I was almost enraged because of the fact that I have lived here for 23 years, and at no point in time, prior to moving to NAPA and being prosecuted by district attorney Allison Hayley, have I ever felt such strong and immense discrimination, not only based on race, but based on economics.
I want to turn your attention to a confidential transcript of Ryan Cole's interview from November
1st, 2019.
He was a sergeant in the Napa Police Department until he was terminated for using the
word Nigger several times during his tenure with the Napa Police Department and Fagget.
This happened on multiple occasions.
he was informally disciplined and the activity continued to happen and he was finally terminated.
When I was prosecuted here in Napa in 2017 to 2019, at both of my trials,
jurors wrote in and literally stated that racism was observed in the courtroom.
One gentleman took it apart himself to reach out to Black Lives Matter,
right letters to the board and he also wrote our congressmen about the issues that he
witnessed in the judicial system. One juror wrote, I have served on two juries. The first
made me question our trial system and this one caused me to lose complete faith in it. I found
the judge was not impartial and felt forced to bring a guilty verdict because something was technically
true. This was in the courtroom of Elliott Ortiz who is an absolute bonafide racist.
One of the key notes of my trial is my ex spoke this on the record.
I asked him about it, I said I want to get pregnant, and I remember laying out a few scenarios
of how that could still happen.
Would you be offended, for example, I asked him, if I got pregnant and then just slept your life
completely and raised this child without you.
I didn't have like a whole lot of men walking up to my door wanting to have a baby with me.
I mean,
ultimately, her dream is where-
Can you conclude your comments please?
Pardon?
If you could conclude your comments.
Ultimately, her goal was made to fruition.
Thanks to the assistance of Keisha Land, Alison Hayley, and the other operators within
the Napa Judiciary.
I ask this board to engage in a productive dialogue to identify and cope with and deal with
the racial situations here that are in existence in Napa County.
Thank you, Mr. Coleman.
No, my name.
Okay, are there any other people making,
wishing to make a comment in the room?
Is there anyone on the phone?
There's two on the phone?
Okay, we do have, yeah, go ahead and come forward,
and yeah, three minutes, please.
Okay, thank you, get kind of funny timing,
but good morning to the board.
My name is Elizabeth Webb,
and I am a deputy DA here in Napa and a Napa resident.
I was proud to start my career as a DA here.
in Napa 19 years ago, where I worked for six years in the career of their building.
I returned to the Napa DA's office in 2025 after being away for a period of time for family
reasons. It was quite nostalgic for me to return to the career of their building after 13 years
away, but it was also a little bit shocking that the only things that seemed to have changed
there was more case files and more employees and less comfortable space to function in in a severely
dilapidated building. During my time away I worked as a DA for two other counties in places that are
notoriously not not nearly as nice as a place of as Napa is. Yet the office space provided was
significantly more functional than Krither.
And I am basically here to express my gratitude to the board and to the county for the opportunity
for the NAPA DA's office to work at 1250 Main Street, where the space to move.
And the places that we have to work in are so much better and are on par with other DA offices across the state.
So thank you to the county and the board for making that happen.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Good morning, everybody.
I am Pat Collins.
I'm a Deputy DA at the DAP of DA's office along with my colleague, Ms. Web.
I would like to express thanks for everything that the board and the CEO's office is done to move us into our new space.
I've worked as a WGA for 12 years.
Almost all that time in careers and it is a startling difference to see actual natural light.
I've never worked in office with Windows before.
So we just want to say thank you on behalf of the office.
People in our office often deal with very difficult situations.
The phone call cases can't be tough to come to work even on the best days.
But the change in environment has been really wonderful.
It's had a great effect on people.
The morale in the office is really improved quite a bit.
So we just want to say thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair Collins.
Okay, and I guess we'll go to the phone's now.
I don't see anyone else in the room.
We're wishing to make public comment on anything
not on the agenda.
You know, a couple people just walked in.
Okay, so we'll go to the phone's.
First commenter today is Shana.
Shana, are you there?
Yes, I am, can you hear me?
Yes, you go ahead, you have three minutes.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Shana Warlie,
and I also work as a deputy district attorney for
at the county. I have worked for the county now for almost four years after working for five
years in the neighboring Tunis, Toronto. I work in our office in sexual assault unit where
I prosecute sexual assaults of adult victims, the physical and sexual abuse of children, human
trafficking, and I also serve as our office in animal abuse prosecutor. I wanted to give great
thanks to the Board of Supervisors for supporting our office's move to 1250 Main Street.
We appreciate the county's investment and facilities that allow us to do our jobs with dignity and pride.
I cannot tell the Board how much the move has boosted morale in our office and how happy I personally am,
much like Mr. Collins to have natural light and windows in my office.
The ability to have a life plant to provide their
Ramos actually happen to ride the elevator with me a couple of weeks ago
with my plants when I was bringing them into the office.
I'm sure she saw the big smile on my face.
Most importantly, I now feel a sense of pride in being able to
bring victims into the office to meet with me and
investigators to talk about cases.
I didn't feel this sense of pride working in the
others building. I think it's important and we're so gracious to have the office that truly
feel reflective of the important and difficult work that we do. So I thank you for your
leadership and commitment to making it not the county a better place.
Thank you Mrs. Whirlie. Is there there's a second person? Yes.
Okay, next caller is John.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
You have.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Okay.
We can hear you.
Go ahead.
You have three minutes.
I want to begin by congratulating Amber Manfrey.
I have it conferred for her or spoke to her since before she was promoted to the chair of the board.
I voted for you twice.
I was from Fort District. I'm very proud to see that you're up there, and I know you're going to do great things.
I'm going to move right along to my next subject.
In Washington, D.C., there's an active case before the United States Department of Justice in the Federal Court.
It's John Anaya versus Napa County, or County of Napa at all.
There's a case, John Anaya versus Department of Justice, and within the next 30 days,
The DOJ is presently conferring with the agency's relative to this matter, and I'm actually pulling into the Eastern District of Virginia right now for the Federal Court House, where there's an additional case, John and Ia versus County of Napa at our Eastern District of Virginia.
What is relative to is my first wife's father being kidnapped and murdered in his home in San Diego, and I was in the Army, and after I left the Army, I volunteered to the United States Department of Justice to go undercover for two years.
And, after two years, I did my best to put my life together and I moved back to where
I grew up in Napa, California, and was able to buy a home.
Unfortunately, the irony is the action is preferred against the county in Napa to improve
the district attorney's office, for willfully intentionally exposing me as a former federal
DOJ asset.
Action has been preferred against the county as providing material support to what is now
SCOs, that's foreign bread organizations, specifically cartels, is a violation of 18 U.S.C.
2339 Bravo.
I'm protected by 19 CFR 1, 6, 1.15, and NAPA County has consistently violated that because
you're not in full support of the information relative to my service to the United States
Department of Justice, which the NAPA County District Attorney felt it was funny or to
it make it public as they're Christine Percenio and the rest of the individuals with their
overacts that are being sought after by the axiom I preferred. What you guys have done is
placed me in a lethal conundrum and I have asked for the United States to hold those accountable
for those who do it. You've never placed your life in harm's way, then you wouldn't know what it means
and deter that it feels when cartels and organized crimes like the mafia that are connected
to the people is at work in the county of Napa and for the county of Napa and that they
sought to hide this. This is public information now so they wanted to public and that's
a horse that they're going to have to ride. The DOJ is within the next 30 days will make the
decision as to whether or not to prefer action against those responsible for willfully intentionally
placing a former DOJ asset in a life and death commendru. Have a good day.
Okay, so is there anyone else on the phone's that concludes public comment. Thank you that concludes public comment. Okay, so moving on to item six, which is Board of Supervisors reports and announcements. I welcome any of my colleagues to
Oh, I see one, I see a supervisor Gallagher, and then after that vice chair, Lesia,
thank
you chair.
As many of you can probably see, we have Dolly Parton joining us today from the Imagination
Library, and wanted to tell you a little bit about this, it's a national program that has
brought to Napa County by first five and the Napa County Office of Education and every family that
enrolls their child in the program will receive a book every month from birth through their
fifth year. So not only is this a literacy program but it really promotes the joy of
reading together as a family and we have books in many different languages so that everyone can
those to a diversity of both language and culture. So I wanted to invite our HHSA director, Jennifer
Yalsamoto, so you can tell you a little bit about the partnership that we've developed through
sponsorship and also Katherine Vantries and Jesse Ramer from Nap County 1st 5 and they can tell us
just a little bit more about it and then if I can indulge the board if we could take a photo, that would be great.
Okay, I think so. Yes. Welcome, Mrs. Jalsimato. Good morning.
Chair Manfrey and Board members. Well thank you for indulging us in a little bit of fun today
that's entirely designed to amplify as a supervisor.
Gallagher said free books for any child, five and under.
The program advances early learning and makes it really exciting because books are mailed directly to the home of our families.
I'm really excited to also be joined by Katharine Vantries, who's the program's coordinator and Jesse Raymer, who's the operations manager at first five in the county.
This is a program that's made possible because of the partnership between first five and
NCOE and just a little explanation is to why we have Dolly.
I know when I told people that Dolly was coming here, some people actually thought that I
had secured the real Dolly.
So the next best thing is the cutout Dolly because everybody loves Dolly.
So helping human services is one of the sponsors and also partners in helping to get the
And as part of this sponsorship, we get physical
possession of Dolly's cutout, which we are happy to have
for the months of January and February.
So we brought Dolly here yesterday afternoons to bring her
into the board room today, and we'll be taking her back to the
agency, but this is all part of promoting just something that
is pure good that is almost one of those is this
really possible and is this something that we're doing for
all of our residents here.
So I've got flyers here that I want to leave in different county department lobbies because
even children of our staff can enroll.
There's no income or eligibility requirements.
You just have to live in Napa County.
And then everybody gets a book and it can be either in Spanish or English.
And they're all the books that we grew up with and no in love.
And so age appropriate.
And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Katherine and she'll give a little bit more details
about this wonderful program and again thank you for making time and space for this today
because it really helps to amplify. And we want to get our enrollment numbers up and sort of
break the ceiling on where we can go with this.
Good morning, Chair Manfrey and members of the
Board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Catherine Vantris and I am the
program's coordinator for first five Napa County and I'm here to highlight our exciting and impactful
local partnership that is helping shape the future of Napa County's youngest residents.
The Napa County Imagination Library in partnership with the Dalai Partner Imagination
Library. Through this program, more than 1,465 children in Napa County are currently enrolled,
which means nearly 1 in 4 children under the age of 5 across our county are receiving a brand
high quality, and if requested, bilingual book, delivered directly to their home every month.
Completely free of cost to families. That is an incredible reach, and it speaks to the strength
of our community partnerships and shared commitment to early childhood development. And just
to sign out this program only started in June. So we're about a quarter of the way there.
but trying to get all kids under five enrolled.
And we also have 155 graduates already,
which are kids who were enrolled in the program
and have already aged out.
They graduate when they turn five.
The imagination library in Napa County
is administered by a first five Napa County and NCOE.
We are especially grateful for our founding partners,
including Napa County Health and Human Services Agency.
Childs start ink and the coanness club of Greater Napa,
whose early support helped launch the program and ensure that these amazing books could reach children across our county regardless of zip code or family income.
Access to books in the earliest years of life matters. Early literacy is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic success, health outcomes and economic stability.
When young children are read to regularly, they develop stronger language skills, better social,
social, emotional development, and a lifelong love of learning.
Just as importantly, this program strengthens family bonds by encouraging caregivers to spend
time reading and connecting with their children.
While we are proud that our program continues to grow, we now there is still more work to do.
Every child in Napa County deserves the opportunity to build a home library and start kindergarten
ready to learn. Our goal is to reach all eligible children within the county and with continued
collaboration and community support that goal is definitely within reach. Which is why we are here
today to highlight our friend, Dolly Parton, as she makes her rounds throughout Napa County AJ JSA
buildings and as she visits the board chambers today. As sponsoring partners, a special thank you
to the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency is featured on the back of every book
that is delivered to families in the months of January and February as a special community shoutout
and reminder of their support and partnership. We welcome any other agencies or organizations who
would like to join in this movement to get books to all of our county's children. Thank you so much
for your ongoing commitment to Napa County's families and for supporting initiatives that invest
early, invest wisely, and invest in our children's future. We appreciate you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for bringing this wonderful program to us today and highlighting it here.
I think it'd be great if we could all take a picture right now.
So let's do that and we'll get back to reports right away.
I'm going to get to the right.
I'm going to take a surfer.
Okay.
That concludes your all.
Galator's comments.
Next.
I'm sorry.
Vice chair.
Thank you.
Well, I think that's a perfect administration of how unique it is.
And I think special for an all women board supervisor.
I mean, I don't think this has ever happened in the history of us, the coordination, right,
on such efforts.
So that was, that was really fun.
Thank you for bringing that forward.
I'm going to sign my granddaughter for this also.
A few updates.
I just want to share, you know that I'm on an, I've been appointed by this board to be a board member of the Marin Clean Energy Board.
And there's a lot going on there, we are having, I've been appointed to an ad hoc committee, which is a represents, it's five people represents the five counties.
We're doing work on that and it's a governance assessment of the board and then possibly the agency too.
And we've also established a finance committee and I am the chair of the finance committee, so more work is going to be done there.
And just for, you know, the customers of Marine Clean Energy, you know, the goal this year is really the board is looking at how can we reduce rates while still maintaining the mission and the programs.
The programming is going to be really, it's going to be centered primarily around access to EV charging stations.
So, which we know we need here are not the county.
Also, I'm on the suicide prevention council and I have been something I personally
been on since 2017 and I want to thank our director, Jennifer Yasimoto and our
epidemiologist, Crystal Milton, thank you for really doing some work on terms of how we
We can look at this public health issue with data that comes from several sources.
It's really reliable, good data to help direct the efforts of this council.
So thank you for that.
I attended, I love this event, again, attend, you know, we all get to attend events.
But this event, I really love, this is the Boys and Girls Club event I'm looking for
their names and the youth of the year and so that was last week that the winner, they're all winners
and they also had members of the year. So if you've never been to the annual Boys and Girls Club
Youth of the Year, please keep an eye out for it next year. These kids are incredible and it
really shows the demonstrates the great work of the Boys and Girls Club. This year,
winner is Mariano Coronado. She was very inspiring, very heartfelt. Last year's youth of
the year, Melody Condor, got to make the announcement give her that award. I also attended the
Nebuchadnezzar Society. It was the documentary of Chinese, the Chinese history in Nepe Valley.
There's a book written by John McCormick who's grew up here. It's kind of a retirement passion
project that's turned into a documentary. It was a sold-out event at the
Cameroon Theatre. Keep an eye out if you, to see that, if you're enjoying
history like myself.
I want to say I just want to recognize too that, you know, this
month is Black History Month. It's also American Heart Month, National Dating Violence Awareness
and preventive months, which I know News is doing work on,
National Children's Mental Health Month,
Library-Levers Month, which is perfect with Dolly.
National check, a self-check month,
which is about taking care of yourself
and family support awareness month.
On that, and I do wanna say, in 2020,
and this kind of connects with some of my comments
in the public comment.
In 2020, the city of Napa passed a resolution declaring that systemic racism and discrimination
is public health crisis and in this time in era, I think it's time that we do that again.
And so if I can make a referral, I know we have certain amounts in terms of what you
know making resolutions but I think it's time that we do that as a board and make that declaration
again. That's it. Thank you. Thank you Supervisor Olesio. Supervisor Romance. Thank you so much
chair and thank you to the partnership with first five and HHSA for bringing Dahlia and
getting our day started off in a very positive way. One of the things I want to say
Um, my family was recently stricken with the flu and we still have vaccinations available
at Health and Human Services this month and those are continuing on Wednesdays.
So I would highly, highly suggest that after some really rough weeks and in our household,
I would highly suggest that you visit our Health and Human Services vaccinations on Wednesdays.
And we do have that information available on our on our website.
And I really love and I think if there's reminding, we didn't have a microphone when we came with Reba.
And that is the adoption fees are being waived between February 13th and February 15th so you can get your loved ones, everyone knows.
I have an adoptable at home, and I think he's the greatest fella on earth, and so just make sure you visit our shelter and get yourself a little furry Valentine.
Many thanks to the library for having a really, really great, refreshing, grand opening at the American Canyon Library.
It was so incredibly well attended and we literally had monkeys, not like, not like figurative monkeys, like actual literal monkeys that were there doing a little show, they live in American Canyon and they've been in movies and it was really really exciting and it was a great, great twist and it was really a personal pleasure for me to be reminded that I was on the council when we opened that library at that facility.
in 2012, so to be able to continue with that is really, really great.
I, yesterday, had the opportunity to go up to St. Alina, a place at the Montavista
apartment, a place where I had friends that would live there growing up in St. Alina, to tour
the facility, and one of the great things is in partnership with our town in St.
Burbank Housing, Bobba, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, which is run through MTC, provided
$3 million to purchase this property and to deed secure as affordable housing.
And it was just a really great opportunity to see what that potential is for having that
loan funding in place that can help projects be deed secure as affordable that otherwise
don't meet those really competitive requirements for tax credits and other issues so those
dollars that sometimes theme kind of out of reach made it all the way to St. Lena California.
So I just wanted to share that with each of you. I'll be joining two of my colleagues at the
I know it's been very important for all of our community, especially those in District 4, regarding airport operations.
And so to stress the fact that we as a board recognize that the current that the current published flight path is impacting our residents.
I will say that the 2025 landings had a 22% decrease over 2024,
but in 2024 we had 34 noise
complaints in 2025 we had 915 and so this stress is the importance and I appreciate the support
from all of the board and working with our consultant and I know the airport staff has been
working through the work plan and the deliverables and we should reach a conclusion on what those deliverables are this week so that we can get to work and again there is there there is no guarantee that it will work but certainly these numbers show that we do need to we do need to advocate for our community and next if you like soup I'm going to say you need to join me on Saturday.
The American Canyon Q1 is food pantry that works with a community action app of Valley and American Canyon to distribute food has a fun razor from 12 to 2 at the American Canyon community church and you buy a bowl and there are about 30 different suits to try.
So if you want to join me for soup on Saturday, I'll be having my bowl of soup. Thanks so much.
Thank you, supervisor Ramon, supervisor Kitra.
Thank you.
Great to get all these updates.
I wanted to share a few things last week.
I was out at the far far reaches of North Barriasa on the east side of the lake for a meeting where residents and
and can fire-wise, and Cal Fire, and Napa County Fire,
and many other federal agencies were represented
to talk about a new fire-safe council
on that part of the county, which not very many people live out there.
It's sparsely populated.
There's a lot of land area, and it's a place that's burned a lot.
So it was really encouraging to see all those residents out there.
I want to say thanks to them, and also to all the partners
who came together.
we started looking at maps right away so I'm encouraged about that. Also Black History Month
celebration has come up was happy to attend that with a couple of my colleagues. Thank you
to Crosswalk Community Church for hosting that and to J. T. Thompson who had the original
vision and really has kept that going and it's bigger and better every year and I particularly
want to give a shout out to the Napa Valley College students who spoke and told a little bit
about the programs they have at the at the school and then a wonderful keynote by Cameron
Lipsen who I hope we keep hearing from because he did a great job.
Up in Calestoga I wanted to just flag a specific issue but it flags a general issue.
Hearts and Hands pre school is having a tough time.
I will be meeting with residents and city leaders up there to try to talk about what the
are, you know, one of the great things in California is the advent of the TK program, which is
where four-year-olds can begin school before they go to kindergarten, which is a great way to get kids
into learning environments earlier, but it's a transition for a lot of the traditional
preschools we've had. So that will be a community effort up in Calestoga. I wanted to also flag,
You know, I've heard from many residents about smoke from ag burns, particularly when we have
this sunny dry weather, it's a good opportunity for those ag burns, and we want to make
sure that everyone is doing best practices to keep that smoke low.
So we'll have ongoing conversations about that.
I hear you and I also am working with industry partners on that as well.
And finally in Yalphil, there was a terrific Marty Graparade this past weekend and was happy
to see folks from Napa County Library, the sheriff's office,
and also Napa County Fire, representing there too.
So thank you.
Fantastic, thank you.
So for district four announcements,
I would like to make sure that we highlight
that the third round of community workshops
are coming soon for the baseline data report.
And this is a process that feeds into our general plan,
revision, which is upcoming.
these workshops engage the public to review the public draft and give feedback.
So there's a draft which is it out yet or it will be out soon.
Okay, okay later this month it will be out great.
And I do know that staff are working really hard to include every last comment that they can.
And so if you can find this time to comment on the drafts and get those comments in,
we will work hard to make sure that your perspectives are reflected as much as possible.
And you can send your thoughts in any time of the day or night to BDR at countyofnabba.org anytime even right now.
So no need to wait.
And then I also want to highlight that we have a lovely celebration for Black History Month at Crosswalk Community Church class.
Saturday and three of us were there. And it was absolutely heartwarming and healing and just a wonderful thing that goes on in this community and I encourage you to to check it out next year.
I heard that they're planning to keep it going. So that's a really great opportunity to go out and just participate in our community.
We also celebrated World, World, Wetlands Day on February 2 with a Proclamation Recognizing Public Works Flood District Staff and the Resource Conservation District for their phenomenal world class work in restoring wetlands in our valley.
then I haven't, and then the Navi County Bicycle Champion of the year, nominations are open.
They'll be open until February 28th.
So if you know of a bicycle champion in our community, you can't nominate them.
And if you have, if you have questions, you can, I guess contact me about that about where to go or just Google it.
Because the link is a little bit long to read, but I'm sure you can find it.
And also the PG&E Foundation is awarding the Better Together STEM Scholarship for up to 60 students for
suing STEM. The applications are due by March 12th. And they also have a website where you can find more information.
So great opportunity for students. And lastly, the Citizens Academy run by the sheriff's office starts February 25th.
And that program is at capacity this year. But I strongly encourage folks to sign up next year.
It's a wonderful opportunity to see from a very up-close perspective, the work that our
Fair of Staff Department does in keeping our community safe.
So thank you very much.
That concludes my comments on announcements.
And the next item we'll be going to is discussions of item pulled from the consent calendar.
And so this will be item 4x relating to South Campus Building 4HFAC upgrades.
So, Supervisor Ramones, would you like to kick us off?
Thank you so much, Chair.
And I just wanted to take a moment to highlight this.
I'm going to go ahead and call it an accomplishment.
It has taken years to get to this point,
where we could find the collaborative space,
where we can work with labor in our contracting and in public work spaces and I just wanted
to take the opportunity to thank all of our unions that participated in the building trades and
to thank our staff. You listened, you took our, I'm going to say it wasn't even direction. It was
more like feelings that we put out into space and you put it into words. And so I just wanted
to take that opportunity and to really highlight that as we do this work on building four,
we're going to do it and it's us looking at this from a pilot perspective of what's
this going to look like so that we can understand how we call it a community workforce agreement,
other agencies call it. Is it a PLA, a Project Labor Agreement, but community workforce, I think
was far more reflective of the intent
that we were trying to achieve here at the board.
So I just wanted to call that out.
And thank everyone who is present and those who intend to sign,
so that we can get this work started.
Thank you.
And if there's anything that they see here,
I would like to add to that.
Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
Through the Chair, thank you to the opportunity.
Yeah, it was all appreciate the labor partners.
but on the staff side it was all county council, Tom, and county council's office, Steve, our director of public works, it was all them, so credit to them.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
I also see county council, is that or is that you share a button or no?
I have it.
Okay.
It's cleared.
Thank you.
And supervisor Gallagher, did you have something to say?
I just wanted to echo things to our labor groups and to our staff for working really well together to put this together.
It is a milestone and a really great opportunity for us as a county to support working families.
Some proud of our board and proud of the work that we're doing and very excited to see this move forward.
Supervisor, Supervisor Control?
Yeah, thanks to my colleagues. I thank you. You guys really hit the nail on the head. So I will say did out to that. And then I also just want to in thanking staff and all of the labor folks who are here today. Also just make the point that there's a lot of rhetoric around PLAs and these kinds of agreements and I'm thankful for this opportunity to have a data point to get some experience to understand what works where there are challenges.
So I think this is a great opportunity to build on a good working relationship and compare some notes, and we'll keep improving too. So thank you.
Thank you. Yeah, and I will just I guess further echo the comments, but you know for some communities, it's a very standard procedure to go through this process and I'm, you know, I'm very helpful that this will go well and that we can build from here forward. So, so thank you so much for working with us and thanks to staff for working with unions.
Very good. Are there any public comments on this item?
Welcome.
Thank you, Danny Bernardini, Napaslano, Building Trades, Business Manager.
Thank you for your comments. I won't take up too much time.
I did want to also thank staff, Thomas Steve and Ryan.
Everybody that put a work in behind the scenes as well.
And being able to call you all and let you know how it's going and answer your question.
So again, like you said, years, we've been before you all.
And so we're really we're excited to show you what we can do and hopefully like you said build on this for the future.
So again, thank you all for putting your faith in us and we're going to do what we do.
So thank you again.
Thank you, Mr. Rotty.
Good morning, Board.
It members of the Public Glenn Love all executive director of the NAPA Slono Central Labor Council AFL CIO.
Just echoing of course what our labor siblings in the building trades have articulated and our great appreciation to this Board and staff.
for the partnership that we are looking at here and taking this great step forward toward
all the more equitable, inclusive economic development, uplifting workers, local residents,
and all the important collaborations that it takes to move growth forward in the right direction.
So thank you again, and we look forward to our next steps in the partnership.
Thank you, Mr. Lovell.
Hi Ryan O'Connell from Napa Selana for everyone, the local chapter of Yimbe Action.
In support of the community workforce agreement, it's a pleasure because normally there's a lot of tension
between workforce agreements and how things can slow down construction processes and public
works but I think it's an excellent negotiation piece of an excellent negotiation agreement
and then would also recommend that we include even more explicitly partners like the
Carpentries in future agreements and that we have a lot more like these in the future. Thank you supporting
Thank you Mr. O'Connell
I don't see anyone else in the room. Is there anyone on the phone?
Thank you
I think that sounds like that concludes our discussion on this item
So I will take item 4x to about we have a chair. I'll go ahead and make a
motion that we approve item 4x.
I'll second.
Motion by Ramos.
Second by LSEO.
All those in favor?
Aye.
That passes unanimously.
Very good.
Okay.
Thank you all for joining us today for that one.
All right.
So we are going to.
Oh.
I have a request for a recess.
We will take a recess until 10.
Let's try to come back your 10, 10 chart. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. We are back on air. So we're going to continue this meeting from our short break.
And our next item will be item eight,
which is administrative items and our first item 8A.
Discuss and improve four transmission of position letter in support of California Senate Bill 299.
Related to Secret Review of proposed child care facilities.
I welcome legislative analyst, Mise, to explain this item to us.
Thank you.
Good morning.
My name is Andrew Mise.
I have a privilege of serving as the county's legislative and policy analyst.
This matter is before your board upon referral by Supervisor Lesio at your boards January 27, 2026,
regular meeting.
The referral sought transmission of a five signature position letter in support of
Democratic member representing among other counties in
Napa County, and principally co-authored by a
Sunder-Sasha Renee Perez, the Democratic member from
Al-Hombra,
the bill-exense, the exempt from
secret review, daycare centers, and family daycare homes
located on parcels zone exclusively for residential use.
This is a fairly narrowly tailored exemption in that
applies only to residential use parcels. And not all daycare centers in residential areas.
As noted in the staff report, under current law, most child care facilities in residential areas
are exempt from sequa using existing facilities, a class one, and infill, class 32 exemptions,
or are likely considered by right facilities, meaning that they are not subject to sequa at all.
But the use of these exemptions requires the project proponent to demonstrate how their project meets the criteria for these exemptions.
And this rationale is subject to challenge. This bill provides a secret exemption that has fewer eligibility requirements than the class 1 and class 32 exemptions.
The requirements of this exemption are straightforward, and as a result, the exemption proposed by SB299 would be difficult to challenge.
Passage of this bill would substantially restrict grounds for neighbor challenges, two child care centers on residential parcels, on the basis of a project's non-adherence to sequo exemption eligibility requirements.
challenges would have to stem from other non-sequa grounds.
In addition to its broad impacts on the counties in corporate cities,
areas of unincorporated Napa County with significant residential
development where this exemption could be used,
include VCU Springs, Silverado, Circle Oaks,
Barriessa, England, and Pope Valley.
This referral seeks authorization of five signature position
letter in support of SB 299 to the committee currently considering the proposal and authorization
for future transmissions to other committees which may later consider it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Rice.
I would like to open this up for public comment.
Next is there any of you from the public question, speak?
Thank you.
Good morning, Alex Pader with Senator Christopher Cabalvin here to speak in support of
Let's be 299 when it has bills.
SB 299 is a common-sense solution to prevent the weaponization of seek law.
We've seen seek law weaponize in our own community, not to protect the environment, not to
protect an endangered species, not to protect a unique, wildflower native to Napa County,
but instead we've seen seek we use to keep those people out of our neighborhood, to prevent
people from driving down their personal street just because they don't like people driving
on their street.
We know that we don't have enough childcare in Napa County, and we know we don't have enough
childcare across the state of California, and the childcare that we do have is far too
often unaffordable for too many families, even I struggle, personally.
SB299 will help both with the access of childcare and the affordability of childcare, critical
to our local economy, and just the general well-being of Napa County families.
There's currently no opposition to SB299, and some of the listed supporters are the California
State Association of Counties, Community Resources for Children, the League of California
Cities, the rural county representatives of California, and the urban counties of California,
as well as Monterey County, and we hope we can add Napa County to that list.
Thank you.
Thank you, is there anyone else?
I'm not seeing anyone approaching the podium.
Is there anyone on the phones?
On the side of them?
Okay.
Then I will bring it back to the board for discussion and any questions for staff.
Vice Chair Lassia?
Thank you.
First of all, I think staff are bringing this back so quickly.
I just made this referral the last meeting.
So I appreciate the speed in what you took this.
I also want to thank Alex Pader for being here representing Senator Christopher Kabaldon.
I need to thank Christopher Kabaldon because last year Senator Weiner included protection of child care centers in child care in his bill.
and went through the process, it came out exempting child care in all areas, commercial,
industrial, I guess agricultural, but all areas except really where these child care centers
are needed and where they're located, and that is in the neighborhoods where families live,
work, and play. It makes zero sense.
So, when St. Dr. Cobaldon and I had a conversation because he was actually congratulating us,
I said, well, we took a bite, but it's not done.
And he said, we're going to take care of this.
And to my delight right after the beginning of the year, he had a bill all drafted and proposed,
and we're circling the bill with great success, and invited me to speak on behalf of this.
Just to share some things that we might know, but I want to state for the record, a significant portion of that residents, our child care burden was nearly 40% of all families lacking income free essentials, like housing and child care.
over 78% to child care, lacking license care, meaning families are having to find alternatives
to place their kids. These alternatives aren't necessarily safe, healthy, early learning,
thriving environments. Well parents are doing their best in terms of earning enough money
to keep a roof over their head. We know child care is a second largest financial
burden now for working families. The state in terms of California is even worse. It's a significant portion of California families are child care burden with nearly 46% of young children lacking regular care and many households spending over 200 dollars a week 70% and 2023. Now these are these are this 2020 23 it's only gotten more expensive and more difficult.
for working families. While millions of eligible and subsidized remain
observed, we don't have enough subsidies. And that really leads to the
conversation of one day that I hope we're here, writing a five-thin sure
letters of Port of the Universal Child Care. I want to thank our staff member
Holly Dawson for sending me this article that talked about a study done on
universal child care, the visibility of it, and actually, we know there's the economic
development aspect to this.
Now, only is this the right thing to do in providing the health and safety and early learning
for these children and babies.
If there's also a very important economic development aspect and universal child care based on
different studies and well-known universities show and net gain if California was able to get
enough political will for universal child care.
So I just want to share that also.
I do have a potential small minor change
from the second to the last sentence where it says,
where it's proposed, it says, quote,
SB299, puts the prospect of small in-home daycare centers
on level footing with centers in other areas.
My concern is that that's focusing specifically on in-home day care centers, which is already
exempt.
So what I'd like to do is a couple of ways we can do this.
We can say SB 299 provides a level footing with day care centers in other areas, so we're
not really out the in-home small day care centers with the public comment from Elixir
We can add in SB299 provides level footing providing access and affordability with daycare centers in other areas.
I kind of like adding the access and affordability.
And then it says this bill strikes the right balance in providing needed access to infinite child care for working families where they live or comply.
So that actually that second part is mine too.
So I'm open to staff thought on this, but let me go back and to say the revision I'm suggesting is SB 299 provides level footing with day care centers in other areas.
Keep it short and clean.
So we're just taking out that small section.
This bill strikes the right balance in providing needed access and affordability to infant and child care for working families where they live, work and play.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions or comments from the board?
I'm not seeing any.
I have a couple of questions for staff.
Council, I have not been through the process of creating a five signature letter before.
could you give us a little clarification on how this works?
Please.
Sure.
So, through the chair, the way the letter's been drafted and it's in front of you today,
includes a signature line for each of you.
As an alternative, a lot of times the letters that go out may just be signed by the chair,
but are approved by the majority of the board.
So, I'm happy to answer any questions on that.
Thank you.
I think that's helpful for me to know.
And then I also noticed, as you were listening through,
Legislative Analysts might, as you were listening through places where this would take effect.
I also talked to our planning director about this,
and some of the places I think aren't actually,
so Brian Warden, I'm planning director Warden.
And if I could just get some clarification as to whether this will or won't affect Pope Valley
Angwin and Barriers of Highlands because those are the places where I wasn't quite clear
because I got conflicting information about how the zoning would work.
My brief read of the staff report in the bill seems to suggest that this is limited or strictly
applicable to residential areas, which makes sense because that's where a lot of the people
live in the infrastructure exists.
In the review of our zoning code, our residential areas,
our residential country, and residential single.
That includes circle logs that does not include
various of the highlands or the estates.
There's nothing in Pope Valley that has that zoning.
There are a couple pockets in Angwin and of course Silverado
and the Cumesville area are definitely zoned for that.
But I think by and large, this is a bill
aimed at urban areas, like most state legislation, but yeah, I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, that's really helpful.
Thank you, and I also wouldn't want people having Paul's expectations for how this might
play out in different parts of the community, so I think that's really helpful just clarifying.
Thank you.
Yeah, okay.
So, let's see, I support childcare generally and the government assisting wherever it's helpful.
with a provision of childcare. It's absolutely a basic need for the community and I support
a NAPA County intervening to assist like the TIT elephant and their quest to help provide
a significant amount of childcare spaces for the community. I'm struggling with this one because
I don't, I'm struggling to understand how it pertains to the need because the primary things we
can do to improve the provision of childcare are lowering cost to families and building workforce
housing and I don't know that there's a major threat because of sequo being weaponized
to against child care specifically like I I'm very open to hearing if anyone wants to provide
information on instances of that happening but for me to sign on to something that's requesting
a carve out or a reduction in the umbrella that's going to be covered under sequo when I'm not
quite seeing the benefit. I'm struggling with that. And I'm also struggling where I haven't
heard constituents asking for this in the community. And I know that it will have major
or major maybe. I mean, but it will have more of a relevant impact to the cities. And I think
it would be perfectly appropriate for the cities to step forward and advocate for in their own
interests. And again, I have not heard much from, I haven't heard anything personally from them
this, I don't know if there's something I've missed, but I'm open to getting information about
that. So, I'm going to continue the discussion. I see a couple more lights here. I see
supervisor control, and then we're going to pass. Okay. And then, okay. So then I see
vice chair Alasio, and then after that, supervisor Gallagher.
I'm going to let supervisor Gallagher
go first, and then I'll go next to that. That's okay.
Yeah, that's fine. Is that okay? But yeah,
of course.
So first I have a question and I want to make sure I'm reading this right.
So residential zoning includes multifamily, correct?
Where is exclusively residential basically refers to single family?
How is that how you're reading this?
Because the way I'm reading it is the exemption is for residential zoning.
The exemption is not for exclusively residential zoning.
If I made it with the chair,
the way that the bill is phrased is for residential parcels.
It does not make distinction as to local variants of what residential parcel means.
It is simply residential parcels.
So, it is not residential areas, which is the carve out in last year's bill.
If the carve out was residential areas, broadly, this adds back in daycare centers and family daycares on residential parcels, without regard to what residential parcels mean.
Okay. I don't know. In my reading, I felt like it made its distinction between exclusively residential and residential. But I just put that out there for if you think there's a special clarification on the needs we made.
I believe it is exclusively residential, but it does not distinguish what kind of residential.
Okay.
the point I was making. Okay, great. Thank you. So I just wanted to address some concerns that seem
to be coming up. You know, it is true that child care homes and centers are generally located
in cities that absolutely makes sense. And we obviously don't have jurisdiction in cities,
but I think there's a precedent for this board supporting critical community services such as
child care. You know, a few years ago we allocated $3.8 million in ARPA funds to expanding
child care in our communities regardless of jurisdiction, you know, knowing very well
that most of those would be in cities and rightfully so. So I do believe it's a it's incumbent
upon us to weigh in on the legislation, it makes sense, it follows with our values and what we
support it. I don't generally endorse
secret exemptions. However, because of last year's legislation and
how the law stands now, child care businesses in industrial
commercial areas are now really incentivized over residential
areas, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You know, these
services are located in areas where families live and they can
or easily access care within their neighborhood.
So it does make sense for us to at least put on equal footing
the incentivization of putting child care in residential areas.
So I'm in favor of supporting this for those reasons.
Thank you.
Supervisor Kichorell.
I don't see any.
Yeah.
I can just.
Okay.
Just weigh in briefly.
I think what a Supervisor Gallagher lays out makes a lot of sense that, in general, particularly
with the board action that has been taken previously with the ARPA funding.
I think we did step into this arena, even though we can all agree that most of the childcare
options that we have in the county are within the cities as they should be because those are
the places where we have more residences where we have services and schools, things like that.
Also, really appreciate the point that we don't want to be, I think, as individuals or a board
being generally favorable to seek what exemptions without very good reason. And I think we do have a
good reason supervisor Leslie laid out some of the path of how we got here that there was a bill in place and a carve out pretty late in the game that made it very challenging for day care centers. So in general, I'm in favor of I'm happy to sign on to this letter.
I think your question about, do we all need to be signatories on it?
We don't.
So I think it's your choice.
We can move forward as individuals as well.
Thank you.
Supervisor Alessia?
Thank you.
The purpose for the five signatures is just a unified,
a unified force, you know,
as we hear to supporting Dolly,
we support other things.
It's another way to show
another way to emphasize our unified support of this.
You know, I came from this, I came from City Council for six years and I always struggled
when and this is in all respect.
I always struggled when people put boundaries between what the city did and what the county
did.
There's too many silos and because we're caring for our entire community, when it comes
to the city or the county we cannot silo our governance, we cannot silo what we do for
people we serve. Personally, jurisdictionally, two-thirds of my constituents live in the city
of Napa. I don't just serve the people outside of Napa. And I just don't serve people
my jurisdiction. Or my district, I serve everybody in this county regardless of district,
city,
is similar to housing.
The reason access to child care is so difficult
is because it's not a big money maker.
It takes money to start one.
It takes somebody who has a passion and love and patience
to open up a center.
We don't have enough.
And because of the scarcity,
we have a lot of access and families
are having to pay a lot more than
we would if we had more child care centers.
As a single mom in the past, I had to have access to child care.
I spent a lot, not as much as people were paying today,
but it was critical for me to keep a roof over my head
and not be in a homeless shelter or live with my mother, mom,
not to you, because I know she's watching.
But, you know, it is, it falls in all the areas that we, that are important to us as this county and public health public safety equity for these families and it's also in our legislative platform that we just supported.
So, I think it's important, we have unincorporated pockets within the city that are
residentially zoned, that we need to consider too.
I don't remember how many, but that thousands of homes, and it's also a statement to
say, we support child care.
I also say that majority of our child care centers and in home centers, our Latina Hispanic
small businesses. And they have headwinds. We talked about a headwind earlier with the TK that
there's a fallout with the TK. They're not the way that they design their business, you know,
and the laws that we have, especially, you know, different state laws, there has to be specific space,
that allows for enough events to be in these centers. They just have so many headwinds on them.
The climate, the political climate that's out there, there's a lot of fear in our child care centers right now, too, with things that are going on.
So, you know, they're the unsung heroes in our community as far as I'm concerned, and I just ask that everybody on this board site on this, and if not, then I appreciate they'll all those who will. Thank you.
Okay, thanks. I'm still, I'm still wondering, I mean, yes, absolutely there are headwinds, yes, affordability is huge issue.
So I'm still struggling to figure out how making this exemption in sequela is what's
standing between the provision of childcare and not or how in what way the sequela is
derailing the progress of childcare right now.
Vice chair, Leslie, I'll go ahead.
Well I'll keep going on.
I'm the staff wants to say, is the staff have anything you want to say on this?
You want me to just talk about, I don't want to put you on the spot, and I'll go ahead and
Okay, CEQA is, you know, CEQA is a very important policy, but it's been some years
now that people have seen ways to use CEQA to weaponize CEQA for things that they don't
want in their neighborhood.
When I was on city council, it was Heritage House and Valley Verde.
It was in my district actually.
There was a lot of pushback from the local, from the residents.
I did everything I could, because I knew that for the public good and well-being,
but the public and those who are the most vulnerable and disenfranchised,
are the homeless and house and those, you know, that they need houses.
So they can move forward with their lives.
But that was really important.
But they were, they used Secret, and it worked for them.
Sequas worked a lot in a lot of different ways to stop projects that are really in the better in the greater good for the community.
When we saw this happen in the city of Napa, in your district, it was a church that had 1,000 members at one point with a home across the street that was overflow for childcare, not childcare and the church and childcare and a home across the street.
You don't need a one-to-sequite lawsuit, all you need to need to do is file a single lawsuit.
These child care providers don't have the bandwidth or the finances or the wherewithal legally,
to be able to say, to be able to open up a center in that space.
You know, there's a legislation as before, which is the affordable housing on faith land act.
You know, there's more churches that are looking, what they can do with their space, schools,
as a harvest mill school that's going to be available.
But I just, you know, I think that we need to give every opportunity for child care providers
to be able to open their center for identified need that we have in this community
and not be worried that someone's going to file a SQL lawsuit.
Because again, they don't need a one, they just need to file it, and anybody can file it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Mr. Hater, would you like to say a word?
Thank you again for the opportunity to help address your question.
I think there's really two ways that the current sequa impacts child care here in
an app account.
The first is a chilling effect.
I am sure that every single child care operator in the county saw what happened to the
love P.D. elephant and they were successful, but it took a big community lift.
to took a seven figure sum from the county supervisor to get across the finish line, even though
they got across, I am sure that there would be cautious to enter that realm again.
This would eliminate that challenge.
Secondly, I think there's a direct financial impact in the money that the county before
that could have been a hundred plus child slots paid for a year directly paid for for someone
are subsidized. Additionally, you love ET Delafin. They had a pay for their council. They had
a pay for the county's council. I'm sure there's a number of other direct costs that
they had. I know that they put substantial subsidies for many of their and scholarships for
their students that otherwise wouldn't be able to attend. So those are direct slots that would
be increased that if they didn't have to pay all their legal fees. And that would be expanded
upon anyone else. I would have further expand. They could also have put that money into further
expansion more child care slots or another child care facility down the line, we know it's not a high profit margin business.
It's really a it's a lot of labor.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Peter.
Okay, so I'm not seeing anything anything else lighting up here. So I'm going to go ahead and ask for a motion to approve the letter and support of California Senate Bill 297.
moved? Second, as amended? Oh, indeed, yeah. Yes. I'm going to let me ask, are you okay with
that amendment or do you have a way to, that you want to finish it? Are you okay with
that amendment? The amendment is fine. Thank you, Supervisor. Thank you. Thank you for your
work on this. Yes. So, as amended, thank you. Okay. So, I have a motion as amended by
to provide our vice chair, LSEO, and seconded by Supervisor Cattrell.
All those in favor?
Yes.
I may chair, make a comment on the motion that is pending.
I will say that the California State Association of Counties has already sent a letter
of support, so in as far as that we are members of CSAC and actively involved in CSAC
has already been transmitted. In addition, the first five association of California, which
are first five division, is a member has also signed on board. I will say, you know, I do, I understand
the desire to support in this space. I will just say, well, I will be voting in favor of this.
I will say we do need to be cautious and to not enter spaces of writing the letter on everything
where our associations have already stepped into that space, because
per our platform, we are to take positions on things that are unique to us.
This is not a unique to us scenario, and so I recognize that one of my
colleagues has requested this, but I do not feel that this would be something
we're not going to stand out in any unique space.
If there is desire to support, I do believe that it's more in the future, I would say it's
more appropriate for us to individually send letters, but we need to be very, very cautious
as to not send a letter on everything.
We need to look at, you know, when do we have money at stake, when do we have a specific policy
that is at stake. And while we have, you know, with...
And while we have supported child care in this space that would have benefited, that issue is
moot. So I would just say I will, I want to just be cautious for how we proceed with these
letters, also knowing while we did include in our platform, child care as an economic development.
that's how I see it. Economic development and child care are not county responsibilities.
And so we also need to make sure that while we have the great luxury of having an
recognizable name and that we can advocate in this space, we should be judicious in how we do that.
Thank you, Supervisor Ramos.
And I will, I guess, reiterate or expand that I certainly do support the provision of child care and anything we can do to help with that as an entity of government.
I'm certainly open to exploring possibilities.
You know, and as much as we can find child care for our employees, child care for our clients.
You know, I went to Sacramento just the other week to do something.
And I was walking into one of the state buildings and there was a child care facility in the building that I've passed on the way in and I was like how magical is this that everybody knows that they're taking care of kids every time they walk into work, whether they have kids or not in that child care facility like that's a great way to do it.
So yeah, and universal child care, you know, certainly willing to to discuss that and explore that further. So I just want to be really clear about my support for child care generally.
Okay. So let's see. So we have a motion a second on the floor. All those in favor. Any opposed?
No. Seeing that motion passes unanimously.
And we are going to move on to item eight.
be a proven adopter resolution,
amending napkins policy manual part one, section eight,
and a proven adopter list of proclamations
later for presentation in 2026.
And Mr. Legislative analysts,
if you'd like to present information on this item,
you are welcome when you're ready.
Thank you.
Members of the Board, my name is Andrew Maiz,
County's Legislative and Policy Analyst.
This matter is before your board,
upon referral by supervisor Ramos,
at your board's January 13th, 2026 meeting, the referral sought that staff return with a list of
annually recurring proclamations for approval by the board, upon further consideration of referral
and discussions both internally and with the referral staff oppose amendments to NAPACONI policy
manual POT-18, intended to bring greater efficiency and transparency to the board's regular functions.
staff pose that moving forward the board approve a list of recurring
proclamations. At the first regular meeting of each year, a change that is in
trying in policy.
Proclamations presented board meetings will by default include
the electronic signatures of all five members, but all five signatures are not
required for presentation. Board members may opt out of having their signature
appear on any proclamation regardless of individual vote.
Board members proposing additional proclamations not on the annual approved list may either
present them individually signed outside of a board meeting or refer the proclamation
to the CEO at a board meeting.
Referrals must be supported by a vote of the majority of the board.
Staff have also included in this item subject to the approval of the change in policy.
A list of 2026 proclamations for approval today, which will in future years be approved
at the board's first regular meeting of each year.
In terms of actions, staff recommend first approval of the amendments to Section 8, and
then a vote subject to that policy change to approve the list of proclamations for 2026,
which will be subject to any amendments from the DIS.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mise.
do we have any public comment on this item? Is there anyone on the phone?
No, okay. I've seen no public comment. I welcome any board questions on this item. I see
supervisor Ramos and then supervisor Gallagher after that. Thank you and thank you so much to staff
for bringing this back and I do have a couple of questions and I'll just say I'm part of the
and why I wanted this to come is that we actually haven't had this list. So it's always a
surprise when the agenda comes out and thinking what what month is it and what are we
recognizing and it would be I think that the purpose here is twofold it's it's one to know
what we are observing and creating these auditory populations for but also it's a statement of
policy and direction and what we're valuing and so I think it makes it's important for us
to understand what that is at the front end and I think the staff's recommendation for
review and January is very appropriate and so when I I would ask you know from from staff's perspective
If we have this list of various proclamations, if you could kind of just explain, where this
list comes from, I mean, there obviously are others, but how did we get to this list?
Is this just brought from the prior agendas?
If I could ask the clerk to step in to talk about the genesis of it.
Thank you.
I'm a supervisor and through the chair I'd ask that if you'd like I can bring this list to everyone's screens for public viewing.
Okay, for transparency purposes.
Okay.
This is the list that the supervisor Ramus is referring to.
This list was given to the clerk by the board's board staff.
So we received this list and not everything that you see here on this list makes it onto the board's agenda.
The request sometimes come in through the clerk which are forwarded to the board staff.
Sometimes this board staff receives requests for having these proclamations at board meetings.
A lot of organizations we have found prefer and like when board members come to the event
social gathering, workshop, et cetera, outside of board meetings, so all these that you see here are different every year.
So sometimes we might see them year to year and sometimes we want.
So I think to supervise around most this point that maybe a reoccurring regular list would be more appropriate to have some transparency and some guidance as to what is coming in no surprises.
Thank you so much, and in terms of our meetings, we have between two and three meetings a month.
How do we decide which ones go on what meetings say the first meeting, the second meeting?
Do we have a maximum amount of target that we're trying to get out?
So an unwritten rule, a general rule of thumb, is most board chairs have preferred to have
three or less. There are some exceptions in the year, which is, I believe in, yes, May,
in May, where we seem to have a lot of celebratory proclamations that month. But the general
standard, if you will, has always been maximum three, and then we kind of take it from their
based on the board chair's preference.
That's, then I have just one question in regards to the policy.
I'm looking at exhibit,
I'm looking at the red line version
where it does say, I think it's E.
Does the chair's authorized to represent the county
at ceremonial functions that are similar events
the board has not otherwise designated one of its members to represent the county.
The chair may delegate public presentations at such events.
Sorry, that's not the right one.
I'm looking at.
Okay, so the question relates to actually see and it's that if it's at the board member,
all five signatures, however, all five are not required, any board may opt out of having
their signature. So my question then comes down to is that a population on behalf of the county
in the board, if it's less than five and how would we, and all I say this to my colleagues
from the perspective of, you know, when we take action here, it's five signatures, it's on
It's an act on behalf of the county, even if we have a four-fifth vote, it's an act on behalf of the county.
And so I just want to make sure we don't run a mark here of Brown Act and representations that we make of the county.
How do we handle that if we're dealing with two signatures?
Oh, I'm like falling over to a county council.
Everyone's involved. I love it.
through the Jared as supervisor Ramos because of the brand act we were trying to come up with
systems that that work and aren't thinking was that the board of proves in January the annual
list that and it's a majority approval that we have the green light to go ahead and prepare these
as they come forward with electronic signatures because otherwise there's this signing
it, you know, Windows of board member actually sign it and it gets into a brown act
conundrum. So you had mentioned if only two board members approve it, it's not approved
as a county proclamation. It takes a majority vote at that.
In the case of two, then two individual supervisors get sent on their district.
You know, let her head, there's support or a particular celebration.
Is that answer your question?
So we do have, I will say, and maybe Mr. Mise, you can help me out on this.
We have, say,
someone who is arriving at an Eagle Scout designation that we get requests
for recognition.
That is not something that we typically present here at the board, but we do participate
in the individual ceremony.
And we do put such a proclamation or recognition on the county standard presentation.
How does that get worded and convey?
Because we still do need to be able to do these recognitions.
For example, we have a retirement, right?
And one of the supervisors may be asked to recognize the retiree.
I just want to make sure that we have the enough space to do the ceremonial functions that
we're asked and also recognizing the importance of five signature proclamations and respecting
the brown act at the same time.
That's where I'm trying to get at.
Supervisor, you've asked a really great question and I think you've gotten at some of
attention that we struggled with in this, because when you put a recognition like that,
uncountry letterhead,
it appears to have the support of the county's board of supervisors.
But if that has not gone before the board for a vote, that would not be proper on a brown
So when you, you brought up two different scenarios there, and I want to address them separately because I think the answer is different for both.
In the case where a supervisor receives a request from a constituent as to an achievement by a constituent or a member of a constituent's family.
There's a special relationship that exists between members of the board and their constituents,
and we wanted to make sure to preserve the ability for board members to continue those relationships.
I'm not sure that they could be that they are properly on the board's letterhead, without vote by the board.
I think they would have to be on an individual
supervisors let her head and council can correct me if that's that's incorrect.
If I may rate if we look at D for D if a board member wishes to present a
proclamation that is not included on the annually approved proclamation was
there are two options available to the board member and it is to individually
sign the proclamation so that would seem that we would need to make sure that we
language that says it is coming from.
And so I just want to make sure we're clarifying that that's still available, as long as it says that it's coming from supervisor Ramos, because I didn't take it to a vote, and it's only one signature.
Yeah, if I may, it's super�er from the literature, this was an attempt on the referral to make this process easier.
I don't, when looking at this list, I see no scenario.
And your five signatures would be automatic because you had a boat.
I see no scenario where just based on my experience with you all and through these meetings,
where one of you would come and say, don't put my signature on that.
I will, in full transparency, give you an example,
a situation where you may want your signature pull.
You all work well together, everything's great, but, you know, in the future,
there may be a board that doesn't, and you may have somebody that, you know,
you get a majority vote, and you are in the minority,
and you don't like it, and you can, it will go out with four signatures you can with
holder signature. It's really to address that. That is not the situation here
that we have in the county. On the Eagle Scout, I don't recall in the time that
I've been here doing that here. That would be a perfect thing for you to do at the
Eagle Scout ceremony on your own letterhead. However, if you want to make a
deal out of it, you can certainly do that, you make a referral, to do that, that's a special occasion.
We're a small county, probably pretty rare, that we would be doing that. Also, retirements, very rare.
It's really at the department head level. We've had maybe one, two, since I've been here, rare.
We would certainly work with your board to set that up in advance to make sure that it's done through this process.
But look, going forward at any time,
whether wherever the solicits stands,
whether it's just after it's voted on at the beginning of the year,
or in the middle of the year,
if there is something that your board,
a member of your board would like to bring forward publicly,
you simply make a referral,
you get the support of your majority of your colleagues,
two others, and we add it and bring it back on the date request.
Perfect, those are my questions.
And thank you so much.
I know that this was a lot,
but I just want to make sure we're
we're out acting at all possible moments around here.
Yeah, I appreciate I appreciate all those questions.
Supervisor Gallagher and then vice chair, Leslie.
Thank you.
Thank you for the clarification.
And I think that it makes sense to have this list become
prehensive because as we know not everything's going to
necessarily come into the meeting,
but we want to have pre-approved it in case there's a presentation
outside the meeting or something like that. So there are a couple that we traditionally do that I just
wanted to mention that should probably be on the list. So February, Black History Month, March,
Women's History Month, May, Bike Month, and September, Library, Card, Sign up Month.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for those good suggestions. I'm busy noting them, which is why I'm not talking.
I understand Supervisor Lasio, do you want to comment?
Okay, go ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me for bringing those forward.
Would I want to make sure it is in here in the red line version?
Is that there is flexibility to add
And it's through the process of making a referral and a request of the board support something that we might have missed or something that's new that we want to recognize.
So that flexibility is there. That's really important to me.
If I may through the chair, that flexibility is there. You would bring a referral.
Yes, and that referral would be voted on by the board. I'm a majority vote be required and ideally as part of that referral
You would make a note of when you wanted that
Proclamation to come back
Perfect, and I see I know I see the benefit of having this list
I don't know if you will blessed or approved in advance. It gives staff that like what is that nose?
What's coming and then we can add or have that flexibility
to add if we want, and we have the support to do so.
So I think the support to staff and to sell us flexibility
for us to respond to community,
recognitions, whether it be Eagle Scouts or Retirement or others.
So I'm fine with it. Thank you.
Okay, very good. I want to ask a follow up question on that same subject
actually, which is how much lead time the staff need to get things in order
because I ran into that recently.
myself. So how much leave time would you like us to give you?
Surveyser, I think it depends.
If I could ask the clerk to indicate sort of how often she took the likes,
I think it depends on the topic at issue.
If it requires coordination of a lot of members of the community come in,
more importantly times prefer.
I generally, Madam Chair, I would recommend at least a month, at least a month.
If you have a big group coming in maybe a little bit more than that because your board
staff has to coordinate everything, I just get to put it on the agenda for you, that's really
it.
Okay.
Maybe they would like some more lead time on the bigger ones.
Madam Chair.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Clerk Hoskins.
You've been waiting.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, I just, I, I would just, on the clerk's comments, I would say ideally best practices
the sooner the better, obviously, if you make a referral, the meeting before, the meeting
that you want, we will take care of that and handle it.
Best practices, sooner the better, but I would just say that, you know, there are a few
There are several opportunities for you to honor individuals or organizations, obviously one is here at this board meeting and we have just walked through what's required of that.
The second opportunity is for you, you can give out, as many, you did it, I think the wetlands, right?
It give out, as many, you can give out 7,550 protections on your own to any group that you want.
And sometimes, I mean, we did that for Black History Month this year, we went to the event.
That was very meaningful, I think, at that event.
So, you know, it gives you some flexibility.
I would also say during board member announcements and reports, you have the opportunity to really say anything you'd like and if there are people that you would like to note and honor during your time on that agenda.
You certainly are able to do that.
Thank you. Okay. I also, there's a lot of, there's a lot of conversation going on here.
So I see supervisor control, Ramas, and then Gallagher on the queue.
And then council, if you're, no, okay.
Thank you, Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Mice, for putting this all together, and Ms. Bratton, this is very helpful.
A couple of questions.
So one of the things that we do right now is we get the language from the, for the
proclamation before the meeting so that we can read it through, and then we have a vote
on that.
will that practice continue?
Yes, that's my understanding. We'll still have the draft
proclamation as part of the agenda item. So, you know, even though there's a electronic
signature ready to go behind the scenes, if a board member ultimately wants to change the
language or doesn't support it, we have that opportunity to make those changes that day.
Great, great. Thank you. I think that practice is important because it's one thing to, you know,
support the general issue, but it's important for us,
words matter, right?
So we want to be able to make sure that we can see those going
for it.
And then on the referral, I think what was just laid out
makes a lot of sense that there's, we build in time,
and there is a board vote on that.
I would also just point out that there's a variation
to that the board could approve a proclamation
that we will all sign and also say, gosh, the month is very busy.
Could you please do that off site?
So I think and Mr. Miles, I guess I don't have the item pulled up the specific language right now, but we talked about the fact that the maximum would be three and
the optimum is probably optimal is probably two.
Is that baked into this here?
So, two questions there. First, it is baked in that the chair can delegate presentation.
So, the way that I read that is, the chair doesn't sign that the chair has the authority
to delegate proclamations that are approved by the board. So, if the board approves something,
but it isn't at a meeting that chair has the authority to delegate that presentation.
to an off-site location.
You're doing great, Mr. Miles.
I don't mean the 70 of I'm complimenting you.
You're doing a very good job.
Yeah, we work with the chair to delegate meetings,
but our practice is about three ideally two.
We may have four, but I could tell you on this list
there may be opportunities throughout the year
with a variety of these different things to maybe a better thing to actually go to an event
and make the presentation and in that case it would be a presentation of a proclamation
that would have your five signatures on it as opposed to you alone doing your own thing.
So it may thin out organically because of that any given year, so we will just sort of practice
that way, and in subsequent months and years, your board can always come back to this and
tighten it up and do some things to make it something that's a little bit more functional
for you.
Sorry.
If I may, to that end, we don't have a specific number baked into the policy.
And that's on purpose because chairs vary, and we don't want to have to come back and
change it every year.
No, that makes sense. I just I think I would make the observation that we have when when we do make the time and space for proclamation
It's a very powerful thing and it's great when we have people come interact and when we have a lot of them
It delutes the power of those, right? So we want to make sure that we're making time and also getting on we you know we invite people into this space for a
we're having this discussion as well.
All good considerations.
Yes, we're Professor Ramos.
Thank you.
I thank you all for this input and this is exactly the discussion
I wanted to have and I've been wanting to have three years.
So I'm going to make a recommendation here for language
that there be a section on the agenda
for under consent for proclamations approved by the board
to be presented outside of the board.
So that we have, for example, bike month.
Bikeman gets presented at Bikfest, but we would love to have all five signatures, so if we
add a section in consent that is proclamations approved by the board presented elsewhere,
where the chair can delegate the presentation of that. That would be great. Another example of that
is Grower of the Year. Interestingly, this is where I think we need to look at the power of our
presentation. We, the chair presents the grower of the year, Proclamation at the membership meeting
of the grape growers, but then it gets done here again. And so we need to look at making sure
that the most powerful impact of presentation is there. I do think that we need to look
specifically, I think we need to want to get to this list and give some inputs on this list.
there are some other things missing, but I also think that we need to look at empowering our
chair to make the agenda decision as to what's the right amount. I just think that we need
to have that courtesy and respect to our chair that are all those that will serve here in this
capacity of heard we really don't like more than three. But you know, you do you do you. Beyond that,
If we provide that space for consent approval of a proclamation, we meet the Brown Act requirements,
we can get all signatures, we see the language, and then someone can present that offsite.
I think that's a pretty fair solution to that. Additionally,
when we get through,
When we look at this list, there are a few spaces where I personally have been doing this now for nine years,
feel like there are certain spaces where we have commissions and committees that are doing the exact work that we're talking about.
And I think it is incredibly meaningful for us to meet them where they are and recognizing that.
So, for example, like older Americans month, not every member of the commission on aging
is able to come here, but they do attend the meetings.
And so that would be very appropriate for that meeting, for the chair to be able to go to
the meeting, thank them for the work that they're doing and present that proclamation.
Mental health awareness month, you know, at the Behavioral Health.
Board to be able to take that on. And I think that this is where this list we can add to it. And our staff can work with our department has, I think, to look at what would be most meaningful.
I definitely do want to make sure that those proclamations that deal with our own employees
are prioritized for presentation at the board.
We have like probation, week, piece of officer, memorial, week, public health, week.
I think it's important for us to make sure that we prioritize those proclamations here because
as a supervisor, control said, you know, we, we need to make sure that the power of that delivery is there that we're evaluating our employees.
And we do have EMS month that's missing.
I do see we have wildfire preparedness month, but there is also
air prevention month, I think we've done in October as well.
So that coincides, I believe, with the great Chicago fire.
So just for us to really look at this list,
I don't think this has been said to us as not set in stone,
but it's an opportunity for us to align our values
and include them here.
And I think our department has, should likewise have a say
in this, but I do want to just put that out there.
If we can prioritize presenting these in the correct,
in the most impactful places, which is not always a board meeting where no public is currently attending.
Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Gallagher.
Just wanted to add a few more and just remembering that not everything that's going to come before us,
so not trying to make the meetings longer, but just to have them there in their group, so they can be given
wherever they are. Thank you, Supervisor Romus, for mentioning M.S. Week, Erasmus, and April, and
also national community planning month in October.
Okay, thank you, Supervisor Gallagher,
and let's see, where are we? Where are we? Gallagher, and then? We're at Vice Chair
Laseo, go ahead. Thank you. We're really getting into the weeds here. My biggest concern
One year under my belt as a county supervisor, I know that our board aids work really hard on these with the help of our public information officer and communications team.
We haven't heard from them.
I don't know if Holly or Leah has been mentoring.
She's the board aide for Supervisor Control.
She's been mentoring my board aide, Victoria.
So I don't know if you have anything you want to add or Holly.
You want to add to this discussion.
But this is a moment because we're about to make some decisions here.
I want to make sure we hear from everybody, especially those who are actually doing the work.
Thank you, Supervisor Alessio, Chair Manfree, members of the Board, Leo Doyle Stevens, as mentioned I am a board aid for District 3.
I've also been working here in this county for nearly six years. I've been the lead aid on proclamations and commendations.
I was actually responsible for the redesign and the ad of the five signatures.
When I came on, it was a very simple 11 and a half by eight document that was not consistent at all.
It was the county logo was stretched, squeezed, it was just kind of a mess.
So in my time here, it was something that I was very proud of to kind of unify it to make it very consistent month to month.
This list that you see here, I actually put together this list is based on five and a half years of experience in the
that are requested of this board, and as mentioned, not everything is up here, not all
of populations and combinations are actually asked of this board, so if you don't see it
here and maybe it used to be here, it's because that entity no longer wanted it, such as
EMS week, we also had a couple of others, so this list is, as I said, not completely comprehensive,
But for the most part, it's organizations that want to be here and organizations that the members of this board also have wanted to recognize.
In terms of the proclamations and commendations presented outside of this board, those are typically requested of organizations or individual parties.
In my time here, I created the I didn't personally, the commendation was the thing in other jurisdictions I brought it here.
It looks just like the proclamation, however it's less formal.
That can be signed by all five members or just one.
And those are for when supervisors will go out to events and choose to recognize the individuals who are doing the work there.
to supervisor Ramos's point, yes, individual supervisors can prepare and present proclamations on their own.
And I have a specific wording for that, where it is not on behalf of the board, but rather on behalf of the supervisor representing the district.
So there is quite a bit of strategy here that's been put in over the last six years, at least in my experience.
So this isn't something that's kind of been willy-nilly.
It's a lot of thought and a lot of attention goes to these.
And they ask a question real quick of all the questions.
Yes, how much time do you, is it's your doing a lot of the labor care?
How much, how much lead time do you like to know?
Thank you, that's a really important question.
We technically only need two weeks to get it on the agenda.
However, a lot of commendations and proclamations don't make it to the agenda.
It's more important that we do them out at the event.
And there are, as I mentioned, there are quite a few that are not
on this list that we know that we do annually or one supervisor takes
the lead because it's a priority area of theirs.
So in terms of getting it on the agenda, we'd like to have it in advance.
I know that the clerk team puts a lot of time and effort in
curating their agendas, but if they are not already three, which has been the
ask preference of the chair, then technically only two weeks, but if an organization or individual
wanted to be sure that it were to get on the agenda on a certain date, the sooner or the
better.
If there are annual proclamations and they come back to you, basically take the year before
the proclamations would be a year before and kind of update and tweak it, but you have kind of
a template and majority of the wording done.
Sometimes yes, sometimes now it really depends on the organization and the work that they're doing.
There are some that it is kind of recycled language updated, numbers updated, entities that they work with.
But a lot of work goes into these and sometimes they are rewritten fresh for the year, sometimes they're recycled language.
I have to say I'm very impressed I'm always glad that I'd have to write that because it's very well done
So thank you for your work and the work is staff that you know the time and everything you put into the problem of proclamations. Thank you
For me, Dickie word really here is a flexibility
I feel like we're coming with so many things that we need to do and so forth we're boxing ourselves into a corner
And I want to make sure we have flexibility that the the chair has some flexibility
So, I don't want us to overthink this or over bake this.
I understand the premise to try to simplify it.
And so I'm supportive of simplifying without boxing us in and making it so restrictive.
We lose that flexibility and don't aren't able to meet the moment when the moment shows up.
And I think it's really important to keep in mind that the groups and individuals and entities that come here.
This is really their five minutes.
This is really really important to them for a year-long work or projects that they've done for decades.
This is their kind of opportunity to be publicly recognized.
And I think it's maybe more meaningful than we remember when we do them over and over.
I completely agree on the behavior health board that I'm on.
This is the biggest thing of the year.
I mean, we have so many committees when they, we do a proclamation for them.
I know that one is specifically, it means a tremendous amount in terms of the recognition
of their service and work.
So, thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
So, I could use a little guidance on how we're moving forward with this list because I've
heard requests from a couple of people on the board here for additions.
I've also heard some conversation about like, there's a reason why the list is the way
is. So are we voting to approve this list right now? Do we need to amend it if there's
going to be changes? What's happening with this list?
Well, uh, supervisor, I've written down the changes with the exception of MS week because I'm
not sure. I don't know that it was mentioned when that is. Um, I've got the list. Uh, we can
approve it with the additions. I can read those out into the record and we can
approve it with the additions.
There is a risk that as Mr. Steve has mentioned we
could, this is just a pre-approval. So we need not present, actually present them.
Some of them may not be presented, but we can have the list pre-approved so that it doesn't
need to come back before the board.
And I think that would be an interest of efficiency.
So if you'd like, I'm happy to read the additions
into the record.
Yes, please go ahead.
OK.
Additions for February.
We've added black history month.
For March, we've added women's history month.
For April, we've added earth month.
For May, we've added white month.
For September, we've added library card senate month.
for October, we've had a fire protection month and national community planning month.
And that is, we have an EMS week too, but I'm not sure when that is.
And for May, we've had an EMS month as well.
For clarification, I heard fire prevention month.
Is it prevention or is it
preparedness?
I wrote down fire prevention month because it's related to Chicago fire.
Okay. Which would be, okay. Great.
And then, and then, say, I heard National Community Preparedness Month, not Planning Month, but was it Planning or Prepared Planning?
Okay, it's planning. Thank you. Okay. Really want to make sure before we.
We can, we can make it approved as Fire Preparedness and Prevention Month.
And then, with the Board, we have a Preparedness Month.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay.
Madam chair, if I may. I'm hearing from Leah back there that in California, it's preparedness month.
Okay. Fire preparedness month. Is that right? Okay. Thank you, Leah. I just want to put that on the record till we get this list right the first time.
Yeah, I would like to get it right the first time. So any Googling that needs to happen.
If I may, I understand preparedness month to be an all hazards month, not just fire. So it is flood. It is high winds.
And that's in September.
And then there is a specific additional request that was made for.
It sounds like more of a domestic fire prevention.
So residential fires, that sort of thing.
And that took coincide with the great Chicago fire anniversary.
Right.
I think in October.
Okay.
Thank you.
Do we have enough clarity around that?
Yeah.
Yes.
Thank you.
Okay.
I really appreciate all of staff's work and for this lively, lively discussion on and item I did not realize would have such.
Oh, yeah.
If you're a advisor, I just wanted to reflect back on what something supervisor Ramos said.
I think it would be good.
Let's go ahead and improve the list.
But then ask the department heads for anything additional, and then maybe we can just bring them back and add them.
I think that would be helpful.
Okay. I'm okay with that. And I also just want to just say out loud I support the
additions suggested by that happens suggested and that this, the language suggested by
Supervisor Ramos on the five new signatures needed for offsite presentations. I really
appreciate how you suggested rephrasing that so thank you. Okay. So with that, we already
did public comment, right? Yes, okay, great. So I will ask for a motion to approve the resolution
and adopt the list of proclamations as amended for 2026. With all the additional instructions
that we have given to Mr. Mise, I make that motion.
I'll second that. Okay, so motion by Supervisor
Ramos, second by Supervisor Petrell. All those in favor? I, I, any opposed? All right, that motion
passes unanimously. Thank you very much. All right, item 8C. I welcome, I want to check it on the
time or people okay continuing on right now without a break. I'm not seeing anybody. Okay, so
yes, Director Gastrograms about it. I welcome you to join us for a presentation. I'd
may see on the Health and Human Services Agency while mobile services program and how that's going.
Whenever you're ready,
good morning, Jennifer Yasimoto, health and human services eat.
And I'm pleased to be joined here with Casey Rockwood. He's a Health and Human Services Management Analyst. And we are really excited to be before you today. Thank you for the time. As your board knows, we launch Bewell Mobile Services on. We had ribbon cutting and you were all there on September 29th of 2005. And although it's been four months, we thought it would be a nice thing to bring a presentation for your board. We actually had an all-staff
Health and Human Services Agency meeting,
and we did a variation of this presentation,
and it was to say heartwarming and uplifting,
probably is an understatement.
We know there's a lot happening right now
directed at the safety net that is regressive.
And we want to highlight things that we
are doing to counterbalance that and be progressive
and show how that we're caring for our community
by increasing access to foundational benefits and services
in a person centered, equitable and thoughtful way, meeting people where they are.
As your board knows, over the years, Health and Human Services has increased the extent
to which we're embedded in various locations throughout the county, from up Valley to
down in American Canyon, nested with family resource centers and also in many of our partner
locations from probation to law enforcement, et cetera.
Be well mobile services is a really good example of partnerships, and also the really hard work of staff and I think through the presentation you will see it literally takes a village to operationalize this, but also really proud of the way in which we're working in a truly integrated way somebody made a point earlier in this meeting around working in silos versus working integratively and health and human services is definitely leveraging our status as a super age.
So with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Casey, and he's going to walk you through our presentation that includes a really lovely video too.
Thank you, Jennifer, and thank you, Chair Man, for you in the board.
So the well-mobile services was inspired to meet the challenges of Napa's unique geography and to increase access to health and human service programs by meeting people where they are at.
Core HHSA services are provided out of our 34-foot mobile office delivered by bilingual staff from across
our programs. B-well became a natural name for the program linking to HHSA's B-well newsletter
and to our mission to serve our community and support its health and well-being.
HHSA B-well mobile services, advances several HHSA strategic plan goals and objectives,
particularly related to place-based services and increasing access, as well as objectives from our
aligned community health improvement plan that focus on serving undocumented individuals and
mixed status households.
Clicker.
So, to develop the programming and service locations for be well, our team engaged community-based partners
through our Live Healthy Napa County Forum.
We developed a subcommittee of community partners to seek input on program design and location
development.
We met with other mobile service providers in the community to get an idea of best practices
for operating a mobile program.
We looked at our data to see where our clients are residing and where best we can reach
them.
And through this input from our partners and through our data, we are currently at seven different recurring locations.
This doesn't include one off events we might get invited to and be present at.
But we are at seven regularly occurring locations.
In many of these locations, we partner with trusted messengers and other service providers to maximize reach and impact.
For example, at St. Thomas, we're co-located with Port-Thusavierthus and St. Edventus Hospital Foundation for their food distribution event, reaching a predominantly Spanish-speaking population.
We are at two permanent supported housing facilities operated by a boat, heritage house and valley lodge apartments.
We're co-located there with a lay-mobile health clinic as well.
We partnered with up Valley Family Centers during their holiday assistance program distribution
at the Calestoga Community Center and we're looking partner with Canvie at a food distribution
site in American Canyon in March. In February at February 20th, we'll be at Crosswalk Church
and at St. Thomas also adding the flu clinics to those locations and from there on out.
At our, at each location, we operate really as a, as a mini HHSA. So anything that you can access
at one of our campuses, South Campus, or at CSWA, you can access at our BWL Mobile Office.
We have staff there that connect you with Medical, EBT cards, CalFresh, CalWorks. We have behavioral
health staff on board doing outreach and screening and connecting people to access.
But we also have the ability to remotely connect people to any one of our lobbies in case we don't have staff directly there providing a service they have and can connect through, you know, through telehealth to one of our lobby locations.
Here's a snapshot of our services that we provided since opening on September 29th, so through February 3rd, we have reach 120 people.
we've done 36 events. You can see that we are reaching a high percentage of our Spanish speaking
and Latino population. We're able to reach a much higher proportion as population through our
B-well-mobile services than we are at our campus locations and so we're really meeting that
desire to meet our most vulnerable populations where they are at.
We also have incorporated client feedback on board, so I'm happy to report that our clients
are very satisfied with the services they're receiving, their final locations convenient.
We are able to connect them and help them with the services that they are reaching.
And we are very close to a five star rating.
So I want to share a short video that we've prepared here just kind of give you an idea of
impact of our of our program.
HHSA, B well mobile services brings
napaccounty health and human services programs directly into neighborhoods
and community gathering places across the county.
Reducing barriers and expanding access to health and well-being.
Growing up, I would see my mom's struggle to find
reliable transportation.
So being part of this project and having the opportunity to be out in the community, reaching
all those people that truly do need our services, is extremely rewarding.
My family, we've grown up here and just being a part of this community and receiving just
that extra little push that you need to be able to meet your basic needs and be able to
to create a healthy and fulfilling life.
It's made all of the difference and I feel like that should be shared.
And I don't know, Napa has something special and I'm so happy that I get to share it.
Through BWell Mobile Services, HHSA Biling will staff help residents access many of the same services available at county offices right in the community.
So what we are, we are available here to support you for services in which if you want to,
to apply or just get information,
general information about general assistance.
Public assistance will be medical,
cow fresh, cow words, general assistance.
Anything that you can be able to
refer you to mental health services.
We have the eligibility worker inside.
They can process and accept your application at any
time when you're willing to apply for the service.
If you just want to walk by and say hello
and get that information where you're for you.
For many residents, B. Well Mobile Services is their first connection to help.
that they say, and they can get them, and they can't even get them.
And they can't even get them.
They can't get them.
They can protect us, they can't go to the hospital, and they can't get them.
They can't even get them.
They can't get them.
So this is the second time I see it.
And I was wondering what it is.
I wanted to be taking help me.
I was almost about to lose my EVT money for the next month.
So I believe they were able to help me, I believe they are approachable, they're trying to help me and I think it's good for me to find
So I don't have to go anywhere else, so what's easy for me just to come here and have this on site
I would encourage for you to come, you know, all of the people that are here, it's not always a thing group of people
But whatever is here is more than willing to help and answer questions
Don't feel like you have to provide information first.
You can always come in and choir.
You can always come in and ask questions.
We'll answer anything that you have questions about.
We have open to flyers.
We have our website.
We'll help you have an navigate it.
It is accessible and multiple languages.
We'll provide all of the information we need.
You don't have to provide anything to us.
Yeah, we're here with open arms and we're here to help to the extent that you'll allow us to.
By meeting people where they are, HHSA, B-well, mobile services reduces barriers, strength
and stress, and expands access to critical safety net services across Navic County.
Services are available at multiple locations countywide, including third and two to down
town map, every left visit our website to the full scale.
Thank you.
That was lovely.
Is there?
Just to acknowledge, so obviously it takes an entire team of staff to make all of this happen.
I had just an acknowledgement slide that takes from our program, staffing, delivering actual services to the drivers, to the setup team, to our data collection team, communications.
It just takes a lot to put this together.
I want to acknowledge all of the staff that make that happen.
We have a director, you also want to acknowledge our county partners, director, leder, and deputy director,
Sharpe Public Works, director Reagan, the communications team at ITS, Mark Witzow, and Catherine
Bales at the airport for helping us with a parking solution.
And of course, the board for supporting this innovative effort, ensuring continued and
increased access to critical safety net services for all NAFAC County residents.
Just in closing, you know, we know that there are many requirements that are coming for
staying and retaining and benefits and programs.
And so the timing of bringing BOL mobile service on line, I think, could not come at a better
time.
And we continue to get the word out.
So the marketing piece, we're canvassing neighborhoods in the days beforehand and have
been really appreciated of your board and your newsletters and getting the word out through
your reach, because marketing still is and getting people to know where we are, remains
an ongoing challenge, but through videos and outreach and social media, we are doing
our very best and as in the first four months in the launch and we, as we add locations
again using data to source the most ideal locations. This is one of our anecdotes to the
times that we're living in right now, so thank you very much.
Okay, thank you.
I will go to public comment and then bring it back
to the board for discussion.
Are there any public comments on this item?
Don't see any in the room.
Is there anyone on the phones?
No.
Okay, then I welcome my colleagues to comment.
I see Supervisor Catrell followed by Supervisor Gallagher.
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to both for the presentation
and for the whole team, for the video, and just you anticipate my question, which is about locations,
and, you know, it's a balance between consistency, right? We'll always be here, and then also
optimizing the place. So how do you give yourself an on-ramp to say, of course, when you first open the doors
in a new location, you're not going to have the same traffic, and then the second part of that is how, again, can we support you and that, is it helpful to actually list dates and times?
And so that we can start to drill down on, it will always be the second Thursday you can always see.
So any thoughts on those topics would be great.
Yes, on the first one, one of the reasons for being really rigorous in our data collection at the front end is to really look at the locations that we have started and are those locations ultimately the best locations and so we're going to have to have a period of time we think at least six to 12 months where we're at a location to really know and also whether dependent we're in the middle of winter right now people are just maybe not out and about as much so I think we do need to really look at and that's why.
We're tracking it by location as well. And also using data to go to places where we have, we know we have, you know, a concentration of clients and also location. So Walmart was a new location that we source. Obviously people don't live at Walmart, but they're going to Walmart. So it's a combination of where people reside, but also where they normally exist in their day to day live. So the teams being really thoughtful about that because we know we can't be everywhere all the time.
It takes at least an hour and a half to two hours just to move and demo the vehicle.
So we have to sort of make our bank for our buck.
And then we keep a live calendar.
It is always available online.
It is regularly updated as we add locations, but we're not taking down existing location.
So that the public can always find it.
We have it in flyers.
We have QR codes that will launch at the schedule.
Is there anything you wanted to add, Casey?
I'm not.
Great.
And just one follow-up question.
When you're doing that survey, asking people about the services that great, that's amazing,
at 4.8.
But can you embed a question in that gives you some feedback about the location?
Because, again, it's where you are.
That's better than not being anywhere.
But I'm wondering too, I bet we'll learn some things we didn't know, right?
like, oh, this location is handy because it's near a school.
Actually, this location, I don't feel so comfortable there.
You know, things like that.
I don't know how we tease that stuff out.
Yeah, I think we're developed a survey
and can obviously add data fields to it
to have open-ended text for, by the way,
something else we just haven't thought about
or a location that you think would be great.
And then we're getting direct client feedback.
Thank you, Supervisor Control, Supervisor Gallicor,
and then Alasio.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for the presentation.
the video is great, so great to hear from real people that we're serving and see that we're actually
having that great impact and how important it is to go where people are. I thank you for reminding
me of the live calendar. I think we can probably help by taking a look at that each day and maybe
promoting through our social media. Here's where we are today. You guys probably already do that.
could probably repost. So that's a good reminder. Do you sense this data in thinking ahead about
where you might want to go in terms of places in the community neighborhoods? Yes. Okay, I mean,
I thought you did. And if there's time and there's a way to let us know if something's coming up
in our district, I think that's great because then we can help promote that within the neighborhoods
where we we are and what we represent and do maybe a little extra reach in those areas.
That would be great. Thank you so much. Yeah. Amplifying and honing in on just the messaging we need.
Okay, thank you. Supervisor, Vice Chair, Leslie, and then Supervisor Aromas.
Thank you. Dr. Gasmodo and Casey Rackwood. Congratulations on the continued expansion and
touch you're making in the community, looking at your strategic design, I love the words
increase access. As we know, access is such a key area, especially when it comes to help.
Expand, reduce barriers, enhance language access, creating welcoming spaces, inclusive
It includes the activity, thank you, I can say it, and belonging.
I mean, those are great parameters in terms of like how we're going to reach and meet these
folks.
We know that the intervention and prevention is best practice.
It's hopefully meets people where they're at in terms of human dignity and it really prevents
real serious critical situations, whether it be behavior health issues or physical health issues,
to get much bigger to the point of, there may not be a return to that.
So what you're doing, you're not being understated.
I was happy to see the Queen's Children's Mobile Unit because they've been doing this for
a long time and they have, they've already vetted and figured out where families are with
children that are low income, that are underserved, and that need access to health, and oftentimes
it's not just the children, it's the family, so continue to talk to them and get the data
back in terms of what they're doing. I have a couple of ideas, but they can tell you my
information is probably dated this point. I do want to ask you about, have you, do you have
be thought about having kind of a confidential community hotline. Like where people can call you,
while you're out in the field, you may not be in their neighborhood, but where they can reach you,
if we do enough advertising, then you can do we have that? Because you know having a hub, I mean
that would brought me to mind as the testimony about her mom didn't have transportation. And we know
transportation, having a hub for people to know how to get transportation is really important.
But you're a hub of all, you know, health and those areas.
So, you know, the biggest thing which seems so simple because we're in this work and, you know,
I've been the nonprofit area at Filsons 2008.
And so I have just the knowledge of being it for so long, but very few people really even know where to start.
And where to go is a very daunting overwhelming kind of question that people have.
So I'm wondering if there's a, you know, of course there's a calendar, but is there a
of a phone line or something that they can reach get directed?
So I think there's two things, one, if you're at Bewell Mobile Services, obviously we can't
shove 100 programs into the vehicle, but as Casey had indicated, if you come up to the vehicle
and it's not a service that there's a person who can directly connect you and serve you right
then and there. We do have the capability because it's sort of hardwired with computers that
patch into different lobbies so we can have a virtual experience so that's the great thing about
the vehicle. You come there, you can be patched into any of the locations and lobbies and navigators
too that will help connect you to what you need, whether it's something we provide or something
that a community-based organization provides, so that's one piece.
The other piece is we do have system navigators and we developed a flyer that I think I shared
with one board member recently that our system navigators who are really knowledgeable
about all the resources in the community and they will help anybody and navigate you.
So that would be, it's not a hotline, but it is a resource that's just sort of baked into
what we provide to our community.
Okay, I'm just going to say, I do think that they're having the central line or a hub would be great in terms of where to direct people, most likely to non-profits, whether it be the emergency, the domestic shelter, or co-family center, because again, we've been in this so long that, you know, they're folks who are in this community, they don't, they have no idea where to start, and there's no one place for them to go to.
other than 911. I mean, people know about 911, but, you know, they don't want to call 911. They have a hungry baby, or they've got an issue that's, you know, in me, so anyways, just a thought, not to add that onto you, because I know this, this is a big lift already, and I want to congratulate you on this. And thank you for also the reminder of, you know, adding it to my newsletter and social media. In terms of other outreach, have you worked with, like,
do with the food bags, the food bank, and the Salvation Army in terms of getting the flyers out
or information out to those folks that they serve. We have engaged with all of our, so the
good thing about how we've done about this is we've engaged with all of the partners who are
part of Link and also partners that we've met with specifically in implementing and launching
be well mobile services. So I think we pretty well can't visit all of our partners. We have
flyers available as well, QR code. So I think it's a matter of getting kind of the
word out to the individuals that we're trying to reach and also to our existing clients
because one of the things that you probably noticed there, you can apply for CalFresh and get your
EBT card right on-prem. Wow. There is an EBT technology that we've installed. So yeah, that's that's
And again, Link, I want to say it's living healthy now for counties.
So for people, that's a great place to go to.
Thank you very much. Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. I will just say I appreciate the vision that that's all started with was exactly what was repeated back in the video.
And that is that we meet people where they're at.
And I think that that's incredibly important to what our responsibility is here at the county.
Okay, wonderful. Yeah, I'll just add that this was an incredibly helpful update. I really appreciate that you're pro actively coming to us with updates and we're not necessarily having to do referrals to find out what's going on with our program. So thank you so much for bringing this to us today and also for bringing this incredibly meeting full improvement to the level of service we can provide the county. So wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so we will move on to item.
Okay, we're moving on to item 9A, public hearings, adopt an ordinance, consider the adoption of an ordinance,
mending water conservation regulations for landscape design, and I welcome a presentation by planning staff Emily Hedge.
So go ahead whenever you're ready.
Good morning chair and supervisors Emily hedge presenting today. I will go through a brief introduction to the state requirements a little background on the current county code followed by what we are proposing in the text amendment and then the planning commission recommendation you received and the actions for you to take today.
The California Department of Water Resources, DWR, has a state model water-efficient landscape
ordinance, often referred to as the MWLO.
It is a statewide water efficiency regulation for new development and retrofitted landscapes.
It applies to development projects that require a building permit, plan check, or design
review.
It provides a model for local agencies to enforce minimum standards related to landscape, design, efficiency, and water use.
All local agencies must adopt, implement, or enforce the MWLO, or a local WLO that is at least as efficient.
In 1992, these supervisors adopted ordinance number 1029, which added Napa County code,
Chapter 18.18, water conservation regulations for landscape design.
This local program was implemented through the landscape guidelines, which was adopted
by a resolution at the same time.
County Code and the Landscape Guidelines have not been amended since 1992, but during that time DWR has amended portions of the state MWLO in 2009, 2015 and most recently in January of last year.
Since the county code hasn't been updated, there are portions that are no longer as efficient as the MWLO.
In order to comply with the state standards, county staff currently directs people to use the Emily low as opposed to the specifics that are listed in county code.
The proposed ordinance, you have in attachment A, a redlined version, which shows the recommended edits, and proposed B is the clean version, which shows the final ordinance should it be adopted.
The primary proposed change is to include direct reference to the state MWLO, which is found in the county code of regulations.
This one sure continued compliance with state standards.
The direct reference ensures that we don't become inconsistent with state standards, and we also do not have to return for these zoning text amendment changes in the future.
It also results in a more concise code section because a number of the individual lists that are currently in the code in the guidelines are replaced by the direct reference to the MWLO which has that same information.
Additionally, the standardized documents simplifies the review process for staff and our annual reporting.
Under Review for the California Environmental Quality Act, the Proposed Action is categorically exempt under class eight,
actions by regulatory agencies for the protection of the environment and also under the general rule.
At the Planning Commission hearing on December 17, the Commission considered the item and recommended that the Board of Supervisors adopt the proposed revisions.
Today, staffs recommendation to you is to find the proposed amendments categorically exempt from
sequa and to adopt the ordinance amending chapter 18.18. And this will also repeal the landscape
guidelines, which were adopted under that separate ordinance, because that information and
direction is also included in the MLA and that concludes.
Okay, thank you so much. I welcome any public comment on this item at this time. I don't see anyone in the room. Is there anyone on the phone? No, okay. Then I will close the public hearing and ask for any board questions about this item.
I'm noting that this item didn't have a correction memo.
Supervisor Elasio and then supervisor control.
Thank you for this update.
I appreciate it.
And the work that goes into this.
At the planning commission meeting,
it happened, like I said,
I think you said it in October.
Was that a 501 anonymous vote by the planning commissioners
and did any of them have any comments or input on our changes that you recall?
It was 50 and they did not recommend any changes to what we had proposed.
Thank you.
Supervisor Control.
Thank you.
Thanks for the presentation and the update.
This makes a lot of sense to me that it's making for more efficient order in the
to. And then when there are changes, they can happen, you know, we don't have to do a text
amendment, as you pointed out. I have a question more about the fact that this is triggered
when someone walks in the door for a building permit for this list of things that they need from
the county. Can you tell us a little bit how, you know, how we're tracking the properties that aren't
walking in for that. Do we have any education outreach, if there are, you know, helpful conservation
updates in the Milo, how can we get those out to the general public, too?
So, if a building permit were to come in and show landscaping, which triggers the requirements
of it, then we would ask for a landscaping plan and ask for the Milo documentation to go with it.
In our permit tracking system, we note the projects that have a wheelo document associated with it
and we collect the data on the square footage for that and then annually we report a total
of the number of building permits that had this associate landscape plan and also the total
square footage or acreage that was completed.
Thanks.
Let me try to ask the question in another way.
what I'm interested in hearing about are the properties we have a lot of properties out there
that are not, you know, knocking on the door to get a building permit. So may not be going through
the exercise here. So I'm asking questions kind of outside the four corners of the ordinance language,
but about how the department is or how we as a county can educate folks about water efficiently
landscaping, perhaps using this as a guide, it's not required, right? But we're all working
for water conservation. So just interested in that topic.
When we do have discretionary projects that come in through planning, and there's landscaping
involved, we have the opportunity at that time to share with them, and depending on what it is,
it would be required to meet the wheelo.
So at that point, that requirement is provided to them.
The state has a number of, it includes formulaes
and calculations and water data.
It has sort of best quality standard.
So all that information is in their calculations
and what they present.
So as I said, currently we direct people to use that and we're always supportive of,
like you said, water conservation, I don't think we currently have any sort of active
practice of presenting that information, but if a project comes in that meets the requirements of it,
then we would direct people to that. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I don't see any other comments
from the board, so I would ask for a motion to adopt an ordinance of the Napa County Board
of Supervisors State of California, amending chapter 18.118 water conservation regulations
for landscape design of Title 18 zoning of the Napa County Code to achieve consistency with
the California Code of Regulations Title 23, Division 2, Chapter 2.7, model efficient model water
priority resolution number 92-161 establishing the existing water conservation in landscape guidelines.
So boot.
Second, moved by Vice Chair Alessia seconded by Control.
All those in favor.
Hi.
Any pose?
Okay.
That passes unanimously.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
And I'm glad to know that we have aligned our policies.
That's great.
So very good, so our next that concludes the public hearing section of our meeting today and our next item is closed session and we'll be taking up items 10A and 10B in closed session and with the note that we have dropped the third case in item 10A from our agenda today and we'll not be discussing an enclosed session and we will return after closed session for a report out.
I would like to recess to close session at this time.
Thank you.
We have returned from close session.
And before we adjourn, I would like to ask County Council to report out.
Thank you, Chair.
Man, free.
The board met in close session this morning under item 10A.
Name a case, Napa County versus Hoops family, winery partners.
There's no reportable action.
The board also met today in closed session under the name of the case.
Hips Vineyard LLC at all versus County of Napa.
There's no reportable action.
The board did not meet today on the third case under 10A.
The board also met in closed session today under 10B, public and boy discipline,
and dispensal release, pursuant to government code section 54957, there is no reportable action.
Thank you, Council. We will now adjourn to the next Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday,
March 10th, 2026 at.