[Captioner present]
>> It is 9:01.
We're going to call to order the meeting of the Mendocino County
Board of Supervisors.
Supervisor Klein is going to lead us in the pledge today.
We'll open the podium up to public comment on non agenda
items.
>> Good morning, supervisors.
With the chair's permission we would like to address item R
five on the agenda this morning .
At noon yesterday voting on the tentative agreement
between the county and SCIU tend to were closed.
We are proud to announce an overwhelming 96.9% approval.
We would like to thank the bargaining team the Contract
action team and the membership for their time,
and active participation in negotiation activities.
We would like to thank the management teams
and heads of all departments for supporting an environment where
staff felt safe to engage in their constitutional right
to participate in collective bargaining
and we would also like to thank you the Board of Supervisors
for listening in for bargaining in good faith.
No unfair labor practices were filed this time around.
Marked improvement over last time.
We almost had it done on time.
We know how much we all don't love retro contracts
but it gives us something to work towards in two
and a half years so thank you very much.
We urge you to vote yes on item R5.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Good morning.
Lisa wiki.
We are here today to support and celebrate Sarah
being here in her new role.
We are very excited about that.
I wanted to share with you that we've
done some great work with the County of Mendocino
with Caltrans and P G and E and different organizations
and here for a resource for you as you
rock all the multifaceted different projects you all
have to do so I wanted to share that
and we are excited and happy to be a support here.
Number two, we would love to be Agendized.
We had 40 North Bay Construction Corps high School seniors
from the County of Mendocino graduate this year.
They are out working.
Some of them are employed and we would
love to come if you would give us a little bit of time
maybe only ten minutes on the agenda
to share with you about that program.
It is a county wide program but I think you have a lot of hope
and some pretty amazing young people
out there wanting to be a part and stay in this county
and work so I wanted to share that.
And third, I can't help it but from the Construction Trade
association we are obviously nervous about any change that
happens in planning and building so anything we can do to make
sure that permits still get out the door as expeditiously
as we can and done the right way.
We are excited and would like to be a part of any changes
you make there.
Thank you very much and thank you for your work.
>>.
We will get you on the agenda.
Thank you.
>> Good morning.
My name is Edward F. I'm just a citizen here
and originally I was going to speak
on behalf of the emergency ordinance
on the moratorium for data centers.
Data center processing centers.
I started doing research on this and there
is a mountain of research out there on it
which I'm sure you will discover in the process
but since today it's not on the agenda it's moved forward,
I just want to mention a couple of things.
First of all when these guys come
looking to build a data center they're looking for cheap land,
water and power and if they can't find it,
they will build power plants and they will declare eminent domain
for power line installation and they will buy properties.
They were spending at one point, one rural landowner,
they were paying him $45,000 an acre just as a sample.
But so they create a lot of noise
and they create air pollution.
They pollute all the water they use
which is millions of gallons of water a day.
More than the city of Ukiah uses in a day of potable water.
They return the water unusable.
They also have noise pollution that will go a mile.
It sounds like it constantly blower all day long 24/7.
So.
Okay.
They like to use non-disclosure agreements
to prevent local officials and workers from sharing information
until the public input opportunity has passed.
They've looked for any loophole in local ordinances
to legitimize their process and so all I can say
is I congratulate you for taking this on
and I really hope you are successful
and whatever you do with the ordinances and this moratorium,
make it airtight because they have expensive lawyers.
They can find any loophole in order
to get their foot in the door.
Anyhow thank you very much for doing what you are doing.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> Yes.
Just for the speaker's knowledge,
that is coming back on September 1st.
>> Anyone else in the room?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing no further comment online.
>> Thank you.
We will move on to consent calendar.
>> Proper notice has been established in all
correspondence of any received has been sent to your email.
>> Supervisor Haschak has asked for C 26 to be pulled
for a separate consideration.
Is there any other item that needs to be pulled?
Supervisor Mulheren
>> Thank you.
I would like it if county council could provide
a brief comment on item C nine related to any
that the board received because (Indistinct)
>> With the chair's permission, we received a Letter requesting
item C9, which is the certification of the election .
The certification of the election
has to go through pursuant to state code
whether the board approved it or not is sort of irrelevant.
It would go through as certified anyway.
The issue was related to the third district
and whether there was residency there and with regard
to the mandates of the Registrar of Voters
in terms of the candidate, they are not
required to verify or determine if a candidate meets
the qualifications.
They are by law entitled to rely on that candidates declaration
under penalty of perjury, and they do not
have any kind of investigative unit.
Again, if citizens have concerns in terms of residency
there are actions that citizens can take
but not that the county would take.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> On item C6 just for information supervisor Klein --
Cline and I were meeting with the Council
and we are happy with the outcome of it.
Part of the changes made to the contract are the accounting
of actual expenditures for inland versus the coast will be
laid out and provided to the board in quarterly reports
and also the California Welcome Center will be funded with
a $10,000 matching funds and so the issue came up
because the inland hoteliers that we were talking to were not
happy with the representation from B and so we think this is
a step forward.
>> I just want to echo those comments and appreciation
for the collaboration that did happen between the various
stakeholders.
There wasn't necessarily agreement at the onset
but I think we are in a good place now
and we are going to continue the conversation
and make sure that we are getting the best
results for our community.
>> Thank you.
We will open the podium to the consent calendar.
Any public comments?
>> Good morning.
I Lucatelli chief probation officer.
I wanted to quickly before addressing item C19I just
wanted to take a minute to offer chief Probation Officer Marlon
Washington of Marin County and his sudden tragic passing
during our state Association meeting two weeks ago.
This was definitely heartbreaking and unexpected.
Prayers to his family and the Marin County Probation
Department.
C 19 is a proclamation.
Probation Services Week July 19th through July 25th.
If the board wouldn't mind I'd like
to just read the proclamation and make a quick comment.
Probation Services Week is observed annually to recognize
and celebrate the important work performed by probation
professionals throughout the nation and whereas probation is
an alternative to incarceration and the Mendocino County
Probation Department delivers pretrial release monitoring
supervision and rehabilitation services to justice involved
individuals being diverted from incarceration and reentering
the community after incarceration and whereas
probation professionals play a unique and essential role
in our justice system and communities as trained experts
with instruction in areas such as trauma informed care
cognitive behavioral therapy and emotional intelligence
and ensuring they are well equipped to address the complex
needs of justice involved individuals and whereas
probation is a connector in the justice system bridging the gap
and maximizing
the resources available within the courts
local law enforcement behavioral health schools crime survivor
organizations nonprofits and the community
to reduce recidivism by carefully balancing
direct human services and research based programing
interfaces probation staff protect the public safety
via proactive interventions.
They are diverse trained professionals
who provide supervision and treatment resources to protect
and help people, families and communities address the problems
that drive crime and whereas the probation staff respect victims
rights and work to provide services
and protection for victims and warehouse probation
professionals are firm, consistent and focused
on rehabilitation as they hold adult offenders
in delinquent youth responsible for their actions,
provide opportunity for behavioral changes
and suitable incentives and sanctions
and Whereas the Mendocino County Probation Department provides
cost effective community based alternatives to incarceration
by offering evidence based programing and connecting
individuals to essential services such as mental health
care,
substance abuse treatment and housing support and lastly
whereas the association focuses on supporting and advocating
for policies that help justice involved individuals transition
back to our community safely with a balance
between opportunity and accountability
and assure these policies will effectively
address diverse needs of Mendocino County.
I just want to take another minute
to thank chair Norvell and Vice Chair Williams
for sponsoring this proclamation.
I'd like to thank my staff, these public safety
professionals who play a critical role in the long term
safety of our communities.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, sir.
Supervisor Williams.
>> Question for County Counsel.
Just a reminder I was a candidate in the election
we are certifying.
The county doesn't see any conflict there?
>> There would be no need to recuse yourself.
>> Thank you.
>> Anyone else in the room?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing no further comment online.
>> Okay.
Back to the board for discussion and action
on the consent calendar minus C 26.
>> Move approval.
>> Second.
>> By Supervisor Cline, Second by Supervisor Haschak.
We all vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
>> Through the chair it appears interim CEO for C26I wanted
to make one comment that it's going to require a 4/5 vote
because it's a budget appropriation.
The agenda says majority but it is a 4/5 >> Thank you.
Supervisor >> With this appropriation of funds
it's an extra $90,000 Going to the IWPC.
A couple of years ago we were contributing 70 or 80,000 then
it went up to 125,000 and then we were asked for another 90,000
on top of that and our resolution that we passed was
in support of the IWPC and what their position is in the work
they are doing to create water security for the county and I
totally support that.
I just want to make sure that when we approve this,
we are approving along with the money, our position in support
of the IWPC and their actions because we've
had a lot of controversy lately about IWPC
versus the Elsinore Water District coming in
and Trump administration getting involved in this.
I think that for local control, IWPC
has the path forward for water security in Mendocino County.
So I'm moving approval of this action for the 9000
with Support of the IWPC's position and control
of local water resources.
>> I'm going to ask you to hold that motion until public
comment.
Does anyone else have any discussion on this item?
I'm going to open up comments to the room?
None.
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing no comments online.
>> Back to the board for questions or discussion?
>> I will make the motion that I just made.
>> Can I hear the motion again or maybe the clerk can read it
back?
>> I was going to ask for a clarity statement.
>> Okay.
So the motion is to approve the 900 $0 from the water agency
fund with support of the IWPC's position and local control
of our water security.
>> Supervisor Cline
>> Can we make a recommendation on policy in addition
to approving this budget item?
It seems like we are trying to conflate two different issues
that are completely separate.
>> So I think the motion is to do the appropriations,
which is listed as the agenda item.
I think the board can -- they can't direct what IWPC but we
are a member there.
They can ask for direction or request.
I don't think they can condition the appropriations
on that mandate so based on what we are doing here.
But they can ask for a letter to go
over stating their request for that position.
>>.
I guess for me I think, with board approval of the resolution
that you are mentioning, I think that's the board direction.
I understand where you are coming from but I do struggle
a little bit with putting in -- seems a little bit like
a political opinion into a motion for an appropriation
of funds so I do struggle with that.
I think the board passing the resolution and then this board
supporting the $90,000 says exactly what you are trying
to say, in my opinion.
Supervisor Williams.
>> I don't have a problem advocating for local control
and I think we should approve that.
I support the 90,000 so I will second the motion.
>
>> It is $90,000 and it's a political statement about where
we stand because this is taxpayer money and they want
to know hey.
If we are giving the money through this entity,
we support what they are doing.
So that's the statement.
>> Supervisor Haschak, who is wanting to know?
You just said that they are wanting to know so
who asked the question?
>> Certainly people are talking to me about it. .
>> Do you mind sharing any more information?
>> It is not really relevant to the discussion we are having
but -- >> It was relevant enough to bring up for an appropriation
following a policy that the board has already approved.
>> Well, I don't think it is I need to tell you who I'm talking
to.
>> Interesting.
>> Well.
Can you tell us who you're talking to?
>> Thank you.
We are going to move on.
We've got a first and a second.
A first by Supervisor Haschak, second by Supervisor Williams.
We will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
All right.
Moving on to regular agenda item R1 discussion
and possible action including acceptance
of informational reports from the assessor registrar of voters
auditor controller district attorney Sheriff treasurer tax
collector and various department heads or >> Good morning, board.
I just wanted to give you some additional information.
You do have the information that we reported to the state
for the June 18th report that I am anticipating that we are
moving the auction up till spring.
Hopefully sometime between January and March.
We do have several factors that impact that, many of which
I can't get into.
They are personal related but they are not
performance related.
I wanted to give you some additional information.
I did meet last week with one of the vendors that
provides the collection services for the TOT and bid.
I've asked them to go back and give me some information.
The fee schedule doesn't quite work for what
we have in Mendocino County.
They would consider the campgrounds
a hotel which pushes them into a much higher fee category
and I know because the board does dedicate the TOT
camp to fire we would like to minimize the cost
impacts with that.
I did just inform Scott from the Tourism Commission or sorry,
Tourism Alliance outside that the initial response if we were
to go bid only would be considerably more money
than they are paying right now so I'm trying to work
through some of these details.
It really would require the county
to be willing to move the full TOT collection also to them
which I'm not opposed to but I would
like to work out the real cost and benefit of doing that.
One other area I would seriously like to consider
is moving the business license renewal and collection
piece to them as well if we go with that particular vendor.
That may indicate a need for an increase in our business license
fee but our business license fee is really very low,
because it is just an annual renewal of $40 per month
it does not include any type of gross revenue percentage
or anything like that so I do hope that if we see that
as a good move that the board will support
a potential increase to that fee.
That would definitely allow staff
to focus on collecting secured and unsecured taxes rather
than business license which frankly is not
a very good revenue source for the county at the moment the way
it is structured.
I just wanted to give you those brief updates.
I'm not sure if you have any questions for me.
>> Supervisor Mulheren.
>> Thank you for the advanced receiving the letter.
I'm a little bit caught off by the business letter.
Are we bringing back a complete restructure or just
an increase in the fee?
>> The business license renewal at $40 is not very effective
to the county in general but it does require a significant
portion of one of our staff people to actually send
the notices out and do the collections for that every year
and so frankly it's a service that particular vendor provides
throughout the state and is very efficient in terms of kind
of coordinating adding new business licenses and collecting
that.
The overall implementation and fee structure
if we ask them to do more services
is better overall than if we just ask them to do one piece.
So if we just ask them to do the bid collection
that is actually quite a bit of money just for the bid piece.
If we roll that into the TOT and bid
there's another good savings to that
but if we give them another function like business license
it continues to spread some of those other fees
to actually make the whole contract more favorable to all
those different pieces.
>> Okay.
And so again, thank you for the letter
that you sent out to the state so
that we had a little bit of time to think about it.
I think the outstanding property tax is obviously
a concern to the county to bring those funds in but it also
is really a concern to our constituents.
Some of them feel like there is an unknown out there
whether or not they will be receiving this bill so I just
wanted to make sure that you have everything
that you need from the board.
Is there anything that we can do to help this
happen a little bit sooner?
Basically like how can we help you?
>> I'm sorry.
Are you referring to the auction piece?
Everybody has received a bill for the auction piece?
Right?
Those are defaulted properties so there is not
an additional bill going to the constituent.
They have not paid the bill but the confusion
that I think a lot of taxpayers have is this $30 million
that was referred to by the state is not $30 million
that is going to go to the county general fund.
It is not.
It is money that is for the teeter plan
and so if the teeter plan recovers all of that revenue
and also all of the interest and penalties through auction
or payment, there is potentially money
that may be transferred to the general fund
if we are above the threshold required for the tax loss
reserve fund.
But that is not $30 million.
It might be a couple million dollars
but it is not $30 million so I just
want to be clear that when we talk about That $30 million, is
it is not revenue to the general fund.
>> Right.
What I wanted to talk about is that everybody included
in that should have received a bill so there should not
be any surprise bills moving forward.
That is a concern to people and they are not
expecting to have a large property tax bill.
>> Yes.
I would not even be able to quantify
that if they had not been given a bill so if they are
on the default list they've been given a bill in the system
they've also been given a notice of delinquency permit
that happens every year.
The delinquency publication happens every year.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> With the business license fee have you looked at jurisdictions
in other counties and what they are doing for their licensing
fees?
>> I'm not sure exactly what the question entails.
Whether you are just talking about collecting?
It is not my office's role to really determine
if you want to change the entire fee structure of the business
license because that is a significant impact
to the business community.
I do know there is some contention obviously
that certain actions taken to expand territories
may impact the business license because the business
license in some jurisdictions is based on gross receipts
or revenues and so that significantly changes
the business license cost.
Presently Mendocino County you are not
basing your business license fee on receipts or anything else.
Everybody pays the same amount whether they make a lot of money
or whether they make no money.
I'm not researching that in terms of that may be something
you want to direct other staff to explore.
Certainly that is something somebody else would do
but my office just collects the fee
that has been determined by the board that is due for business
license renewal.
>> Okay.
So it would be on us to provide some direction.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Good morning.
Katrina Bartlam assessor county clerk recorder registrar
of voters.
I do not have my state audit report done yet.
I'm working on it and have been working on it
but it is not ready to send yet so I wanted to let you know.
Since the election, we've had some problems
in our office related to personnel.
Our key personnel, our Registrar of Voters is out on a medical
and she will be out for another couple of weeks
so we have had to limp along.
It is a tough job for both of us to do and for just one of us,
it has put us double Dutch we were able to certify
and everything on time but it has put us behind.
Also right after the election after we certified,
we got a call from the Secretary of State's office
that there was a potential recount for the governor's race.
61 candidates and that would be a manual recount.
They have seven days to respond --
we had seven days to respond to the person who asked
for the recount, which all 58 counties did with an estimate
on how much this would cost a day.
In Mendocino County it would cost about $3,250 a day and we
estimated it would take us about 27 days minimum to complete
this.
When you have a recount, part of it
is the person who asks for it has to pay for it
and that is all within the election law.
And so he of course wanted it to be free, no charge.
The Secretary of State's office set him clear on that
and we all did that.
So he finally responded to me on Monday,
last Monday when we would have had to start
the recount by Thursday.
We would have had to send out an email to every candidate telling
them that we were going to start this on Thursday
and how long we thought it would take and everything else.
So the person who asked for it never --
he never sent any money.
He was going to start it in Shasta County
if he had deposited the money and that didn't
happen so the recount is off.
But it took me several days to prepare for that.
I had to get employees ready to come in on a day's notice.
Extra help employees who helped with the election
to start with and so it was quite an endeavor
to find out that we didn't have to
but I was worried that if I didn't prepare for it,
it would have gone forward and we would have been behind.
So we've been a little busy.
We certified the election.
We closed the roll and I promised
to get my report to the state and I've reached out
to the head auditor that came to the county,
but I'll have it done within the next couple of weeks.
>> Great.
Thank you very >> You're welcome.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
>> I just wanted to thank Miss Bartlemy for all the work
in your office for the election.
It seemed like things went really well so thank you.
>> Good morning chair Norvell members of the board County
council clerk of the board and members of the public.
My name is Megan Hunter auditor controller
and I'm here today to provide a brief update on the state audit
responses that were provided in June.
The status of our annual financial audit
and some staffing updates within our office.
We did submit our responses to the state recommendations
on time and some of those recommendations
included our policies and procedures
which we are working on a full office manual
that we anticipate having completed in June of 2027.
It will cover basically all of our financial procedures.
We have implemented operational improvements
while continuing to work on our comprehensive procedures manual.
There are several items that we continue to work on.
We are in the process of implementing
an electronic journal entry workflow which
will reduce a lot of the time and backlog of our journal
entries.
We've established journal entry deadlines and county
trainings have been completed.
The departments are showing increased compliance
and are working really closely with our office
to ensure that issues are tackled ahead of time instead
of after the fact.
We've also continued our partnership
with regional Government services who
will be helping in this upcoming audit
as well as ensuring that some of the Gasb standards
are implemented and we will continue
to educate staff on this new standards as they are released.
We've also started working on the reimplementation
of our finance system.
There has been a steering committee established.
We are working very closely with Information Services
and the CEO's office.
We do plan on meeting with a couple
other sites in August who are currently utilizing Eunice
to determine their best practices
and kind of set up a roadmap for our reimplementation.
We have also evaluated a lot of the functionalities
so we can potentially implement those in the process
since this is going to be such a long reimplementation.
It takes probably 3 or 4 years before we will
be completed with the project.
We continue to meet monthly with the executive office
and our communication has really improved vastly
with all of the departments and we will continue
to bridge those relationships.
We've established regular fiscal deadlines.
We have conducted countywide year end trainings
and we've also conducted journal entry trainings.
For our audit, we are on schedule to publish the act --
acfr December 31st.
We've already begun preparing for the audit providing
documentation as well ahead of time
so we ensure that the field work will continue smoothly
and we are hoping to reduce delays and improve efficiencies
in this upcoming audit.
And then lastly I have some staffing updates.
We hired an account specialist supervisor
which was filled at the end of June
and she is kind of getting her bearings and settling in well.
We have a new accountant auditor two who joined the office today
and the recruitment is still ongoing for the Assistant
auditor controller position but we
do have a candidate that we are vetting at this time.
So if you have any questions for me I'd be happy to answer.
>> Thank you much supervisor Williams.
>> Thank you for the thorough presentation
and the collaboration with departments.
>> Can I just ask one clarifying?
I think you said August is the fieldwork.
Is it October?
>> Oh sorry.
It is October.
I put down August.
I was thinking the other thing so thank you.
Which is the normal schedule time.
Generally it's a little bit later in the month of October
but we are hoping to get everything ready for them
before they arrive at.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Mulheren.
>> Thank you.
I just wanted to thank you for the update
and for being here and the same thing.
Let us know if there is anything we
can help keeping in mind the work you guys are trying
to do over there.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
>> Thank you very much.
Madam clerk seeing none other in the room
do we have any staff online?
>> We do have one staff online. (Indistinct)
>> Good morning.
Melissa Hanham County library director.
I wanted to let you know that we are having a library
software upgrade so limited services are
going to be available during the system migration.
We are entering an exciting new phase of modernization
this summer with the integration of a new integrated
modern library system Polaris.
The upgraded system will be shared
through our regional consortium of libraries
helping to streamline operations and improve
services for patrons.
As part of this upgrade, the library
will launch a new online catalog and mobile app.
These tools will make it easier to discover new titles,
browse audiobook and DVD collections
and explore reading through a Staff Picks feature.
Another feature called rollup will allow patrons to view all
available formats of a title including print books,
audiobooks and e-books in a single search result.
To complete the transition the library will migrate data from
the current system to Polaris from July 27th through August
4th.
During this period some library services
will be temporarily unavailable.
During the migration patrons must bring their library card
to check out materials.
The online catalog will be unavailable.
We will not be able to issue new library cards.
Materials cannot be checked in.
Renewals will not be available.
Fines and fees cannot be paid and new holds cannot be placed
so to minimize any inconvenience during the period of June 29th
through July 26th, all due dates have been extended to six weeks.
Patrons are welcome to keep their checked out materials
until the new system is fully operational.
The last day to place holds was July 12th.
All services are expected to return to normal on August 5th
when Polaris, the new online catalog in the mobile app will
officially go live.
>> I'm not seeing any questions thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Seeing no further Department heads online.
>> We will open the podium to public comment on item number
one.
Madam clerk.
Any online?
>> Seeing none online.
>> Okay.
Discussion or motion for acceptance
of the informational reports?
>> Move approval.
>> First by Supervisor Cline, second by Supervisor Haschak.
We'll vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
Item R two possible action including
acceptance of presentation of the 2025 Leadership Academy
graduates.
>> Good morning.
Sherry Johnson human resource Director and I do
believe Mandy will be in soon to share.
It's my pleasure to recognize the 2025 graduates
of our Leadership Academy.
Our 2025 Academy consisted of nine courses offered twice
annually and totals nearly 30 hours of interaction.
Its purpose is to ensure unified effectiveness in our leadership
and equip each leader with a common foundation of leadership
skills and values allowing us to move forward together.
Course topics include high performance organization,
personality styles and emotional intelligence,
leading with effective communication building trust
and teams performance management, policies
and procedures, facility skills and change management.
I would like to congratulate the following graduates
of the Leadership Academy under management.
Rose Britton Jessica Byers Heather Correll Rose Juanita
Dryland Katie Ford John Gall Melissa
Hannah Travis Kilmer Angela Lewis Sarah McBurney
Kathy white.
Supervisors Ryan Cameron Kayla Carlson Nicole French Christina
Griffith George Aubry Hannah Lee Ulysse Lopez Antonio Renteria
Ryan rose Amanda stoner Megan Zaid Mary Logan.
And the emerging leaders graduates.
Lori Brown James Canfield Amber Garces Christy Garde Katherine
Miller Tamara Sams Ana Sanchez and Amanda Tyrrell.
Thank you all for participating.
Your dedication to learning and commitment
to leadership, professional growth and excellence
strengthens our organization and community.
I would also like to thank Katie Ford and Lori
Brown for their lead in the Leadership Academy and all
the HR team for assisting with these courses.
The 2026 Academy courses will be starting August 6th.
>> I'm not seeing any questions.
Thank you for bringing this forward.
>> Thank you.
>> Any public comment on R2?
>> Seeing none online.
>> Back to the board for acceptance of the presentation.
>> Move acceptance.
>> I'll second.
>> First by Supervisor Haschak, seconded by myself.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Item R3 discussion and possible action including
acceptance of presentation regarding rural county
Representatives of California Strategic plan.
>> Thank you for having me here today.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide you
an update on some of our priorities and activities.
One of the things I wanted to say at the start
is please don't hesitate to stop me along the way
where you've got a question or want to provide feedback.
I recognize you've got a pretty full agenda today
so I want to move pretty quickly through it
but do stop me anywhere you have a question.
I don't know if you are able to pull the slides up or not
but I will continue on while that is underway.
Today I want to cover not only RCRC but some of our affiliate
entities.
Over the years we've started a couple
of private and public entities.
I wanted to note at the start that our board adopts
a three year strategic plan and within that plan
I think you would find a number of topics
that are ones you are very familiar with from broadband
to rural health access to economic development
opportunities.
One of the things that is unique about our strategic plan
is that our board has set a dual vision for us.
One is to be the premier advocate in both Sacramento
and Washington D.C. On behalf of rural counties
but secondly is to be their innovative service provider
and so think of us as the entrepreneurial arm
of rural counties.
When there is a challenge too big for a small county they will
come to us to see if we can get economies of scale through
our 40 members and over the years that has led
to the creation of some of those affiliate entities I will talk
about in a little bit as well so that gives you some sense of why
we have those entities but I wanted to start with
our advocacy work and our policy emphasis areas and if you want
to move on to a couple of slides to the next one -- perfect.
Thank you.
Advocacy has long been the cornerstone of RCRC and the work
that we do on behalf of rural counties.
Again I think the topics you would see
are ones you are very familiar with.
What I wanted to draw your attention to
is the one labeled Key topics.
Our board forms ad hoc committees
to address high priority issues.
I want to thank Supervisor Cline.
I think you are on all three of our ad hoc committees this year.
One is recruitment and retention of public employees.
Unusually high vacancy rates have persisted
for a number of years.
One county had a 100% vacancy rate of behavioral health
therapist as an example so are there
ways from a policy perspective we can assist
with recruitment and retention.
The second is predator management ad hoc.
This was really born out of impacts
the wolf population as having but it also
includes mountain lions and bears
and so we've got membership throughout the state
looking at basically our policy around those areas
and interacting with the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
They've had speakers come in and talk to them.
The goal of the ad hoc is to develop updated policy
for consideration by our full board.
The last one is a sustainable Groundwater Management
Act permit this came to life out of recognition
that the legislation has been in place several years
now merging some of the mandatory reporting
thresholds (Indistinct) the legislation did not contemplate
some of the changes that would be needed now
that we have better data whether it is boundaries or off ramps.
Potentially looking at how you fund
those reporting requirements.
The committee is evaluating all of that
and we will look at updated policy
again to bring back to our board on those fronts
from a couple of other areas I wanted to mention.
One is mandates.
We are all familiar with the challenge
the state imposes upon us with mandates
and if you look back in time counties had
a regular process for filing test claims
before the state Mandates Commission
and when legislation becomes law it has the potential to it
is either a new requirement upon counties
or adds a service level upon counties
in order for counties to get reimbursement under the mandates
clause.
They must submit a test claim to the state Mandates Commission
and if one county submits that claim and is approved then
all 58 can take advantage of it.
That test claim must be submitted
within one year of a county triggering that cost
and it was indicated there was a regular cadence of this
historically but then it dropped off over the last 15 years.
We've been working to basically pick up that ball
and run with it so RCRC has two entities under contract to file
test claims on behalf of member counties.
We are working with Sutter County.
We are working with Butte County on a claim.
We are working with Sutter County
and then we also found an arcane provision of the law
called Legislatively Determined Mandates for when a bill is
tagged as a potential mandate we can
file a claim with the Department of Finance or Ldm.
The legislator said this is a mandate.
We can preempt the mandate Commission test claim process
by agreeing on what the mandate should
be so we are doing that for everyone that comes out now.
The Department of Finance has not been thrilled with that
and has kicked them back to say you need to go through the test
claim process but we've accomplished two things
in doing that for my one is it tolls the statute of limitations
so when we file those legislative determined mandates
until such time as the Department of Finance response
we've extended out the statute of limitations
to file a test claim.
Second it puts the Department of Finance and the legislature
I noticed that no longer are we going
to let these mandates slip by without filing test claims
and so for each one that the legislature passes
there is an almost immediate response now
of sending those through legislatively
determined mandates.
Step one of our mandate process is helping
counties file more test claims.
Step two is discovering that not all of the counties
are getting all of the reimbursements
they are eligible for.
We have 5 or 6 counties that did not
get any mandate reimbursement.
We have another nine that are well
below the statewide average for reimbursement.
We put out a test for proposals basically
that all those involved in the mandate reimbursement world
to say give us your best ideas on how
you can help our small counties increase their mandate
reimbursements.
RCRC may ultimately put together a contract
to assist those counties in doing that work.
Those proposals are due in August so more
to come on the mandates initiative.
I just wanted you to know we are putting a lot of effort
into that space.
The last one I was going to mention on this slide
is Jail Medical Services.
We have 25 counties and five regions participating in a study
to look at long term options for providing jail medical services.
Whether you are one of those 25 counties are not,
I think you are going to benefit from the results that come out
of it because those results are going to look
at a variety of options.
If you were to meet the national accreditation standards
for providing jail medical care, what
are the different ways you can provide that care?
It could be regionally?
It could be originally going through the contract procurement
and administration process to procure a private vendor.
It could be originally having a single vendor provide
that service.
It can be regionally having a public agency model
or doing all that same work by county.
These analysis will look at that array of options
and do detailed financial analysis associated with them
so counties can look at that and say okay.
For the long run this may make the best option
because we do know counties are seeing significant cost
increases with renewables not unexpected
when the primary provider went through bankruptcy here
6 or 8 months ago and has emerged from it
but the expectation of the reality
is that we are seeing significant cost increases not
only with that provider as a result but also
a few of the other providers have come into the marketplace
so we know costs are going up.
We know the risks in litigation are going up
and we are working closely with those counties
to know what the long term options are.
That's a quick analysis of some of our advocacy efforts.
I was going to switch to affiliate entities now.
I'll just make sure there aren't any questions on advocacy
and we can come back to it at the end if there are.
>> We have one.
Thank you.
>> I have two questions.
The first is regarding AB 2494.
As you know our county has taken a position that we
are in support and of course it is co-sponsored
by our state representatives.
Assemblymember Rogers and Assembly Member Conley soon
to be Senator Conley, Senator McGuire and I
see that RCRC has taken a position opposing ours.
We are arguably the most impacted county out of all 58.
Now that you see that we have a different perspective on this,
would RCRC be willing to back us?
I understand this decision was made
without consulting our county.
>> That is a difficult needle to thread because while Mendocino
is supportive we have multiple counties that are opposed unless
amended.
Our board policy says that while we support efforts
that will lead to increased wildfire resistance and carbon
sequestration we oppose measures that
are going to put additional impact on timber harvest.
At the end of the day the Senate Committee on Natural resources
was to bring everybody in and try to identify collaboratively
a landing place that could meet everyone's interests
and I suspect that exists.
I do think there are potential amendments that could address
the concerns that are being expressed around durable on site
carbon storage, around the mature forest language that
is in there.
I think there are solutions so I am
hopeful that that will be what happens next
and we will reach an agreement.
>> So I guess my concern is less about the specific instance.
More about the abstract that we weren't consulted.
Is that a way to remedy that going forward?
I understand none of the five of us
were asked what is the county's position.
We didn't have a seat at the table.
We didn't vote in it.
Can you describe what that process
is so we have an opportunity to weigh in next time?
Even if we are on the losing end we
want the opportunity to be part of the conversation.
>> I think that is great feedback we can carry back
to the team in terms of how do we strengthen that going
forward.
Ultimately the idea is to be able to check in
with supervisors that we know have interest in that area.
Doesn't sound like that work to your satisfaction
at this point so that's great feedback for me
to take back and talk to the team
and evaluate how we can strengthen that going forward.
I don't have the exact remedy today
but I do want to work on it.
>> Appreciate it.
The second question is regarding broadband.
We were one of the early members for global State Connect
Authority.
I still think it's the best way to roll out
broadband in rural counties and it's certainly not
on RCRC to fund.
You are helping us with state and federal funds.
It seems after about $57 million is allocated
to Mendocino County we will have collected
zero last mile and our unincorporated which is really
hard to explain to taxpayers.
Do you have any thoughts on how together we
can lobby for true equity?
Equity means it costs more to deploy broadband
to some parts of the state.
Right?
You have children trying to do education.
You have seniors trying to get health care online in places
that cost more and it seems that the state direction has
been spent the dollars to cover as many people as possible which
is the opposite of equity.
It means cherry pick the areas of density
which is exactly what the commercial providers have
done for decades.
Any thoughts on how we can work together
to drive the state towards true equity?
>> I'm going to have a slide on GSK in a second.
The short answer right now is I think
we need to increase the cadence of our participation
at California Public Utilities Commission meetings themselves
to make the statement you just said and they need
to hear directly from community leaders community
interest in that front.
One of the commissioners has said to me
those voices are compelling to them.
There is another county right now
that is on the verge of CPU c taking back their allocation.
Staff are concerned that it doesn't meet
the letter of the resolution.
I disagree.
I say all that to say that it's going to be another lost
opportunity you are describing where those monies will revert
back into a fund and disappear and in all likelihood never
see those funds come back.
We share the concern.
I think we need to amplify our voices at the CPUC.
Golden State Finance Authority is an agency made up
of all 40 counties including Mendocino
that provides financing for an array of uses from if you have
somebody in your community that wants
to buy a home gold State Finance Authority can provide
assistance.
One of the most recent things we've done
is financing so if you have a district or city that
received a big grant but has to put the money out first
before they can get reimbursed by the grant
we provide bridge funding for that.
The latest one is for Plumas County for $1 million.
If you go to the next slide one thing
I wanted to call out the GSFA provides
an assist to own programs so you can get up to 3.5% down payment
assistance at zero cost.
That means there is never payments due.
Interest never Amortizes.
It just sits there.
The principal time is the second until such time you
sell your home at which time the principal only
is due at the end of 30 years you would need to refinance.
The cost of that are borne by Golden State Finance Authority.
It was something our board did out of recognition of a tool
to help increase retention.
I think you've had many people take advantage to buy homes.
I just want to stress it so everyone
knows it is a tool that can be available for them.
Now on the Golden State Connect Authority
this is our newest joint powers agency
that came to life five years ago roughly.
Supervisor Williams has been a board member since its inception
and it came to life because at that point
the state had just passed SB 156 which
was going to put a lot of money out for broadband deployment
and our small county said we don't have the capacity
to go after those dollars so we formed GSCA to do that
and a couple of years later we had pulled down 185 million
for construction.
We paired that with 110 million for private investment
and we are just now in the final stages of putting together
about a $220 million contract to complete
all of our initial project areas that unfortunately don't include
Mendocino County but were awarded into hammer Glen Amador
Alpine Mono and Imperial Counties.
We are already in construction in Glenn County.
So to take a new public agency that didn't exist five years ago
and now on the precipice of 220 million in construction I think
is impressive and we're excited to get that work underway.
There is a lot more to go so think of this as the foundation.
Once we get this system in place the idea
is to start to build out in concentric ways
to get more and more unserved rural areas.
One of the challenges has been exactly what Supervisor Williams
references which is that these areas are costly to build in
and sometimes it seems like the lower risk higher density
projects get prioritized for funding for Mac
I think we are going to amplify our voices with the CPUC.
We have work to do still on that front.
I hope that answers your questions.
The next entity is Golden State natural resources formed
to help the state advance the pace and scale of forest
resilience projects.
We've reached a little over 500 thousand
and now it is declining.
It is declining because those treatments take state
and federal subsidies to occur.
Presently there's large piles of low diameter biomass left behind
that either decomposes in place or is burned in place.
Our goal has been to find a commercially sustainable outlet
for that material so that the proceeds of that
can be reinvested to get more forest resilience projects done.
We are working closely with entities
like Lawrence Livermore Labs and others
to complete an environmental document which will hopefully
be out in August or September that will
look at forest treatment occurring
within 100 miles of two sites.
One in Lesson County.
One in Tulum County transporting the low diameter
biomass to those two sites then converting it to woodchips
and shipping it by rail as far south as Kern County
or as far north as Oregon or potentially Reno or the Bay
area.
That said, that type of commercial user
does not exist in California yet so we are working
to find what are the array of potential users in the future
and it's likely to be someone in the alternative fuels field.
Hydrogen or an alternative wood product and we
are working with University of Berkeley Wood Innovations Lab
to identify what the future alternative innovative wood
products would look like.
The point of our projects is to de-risk the supply side
so if one of those users does come into California
we will have de-risked the biomass supply
side so they can get that material
and have it at their ready.
The environmental document again will come out this fall
hopefully.
Next slide.
Environmental Services joint Powers Agency.
>> Excuse me.
We do have one question.
>> Going back to that biomass idea.
Does that have to do with the pellet plant that was going on?
>> It did but our board last summer basically pivoted away
from the international market in pellets to looking at a future
domestic market that relies on wood chips and there were two
reasons they made that pivot.
One is that the market for pellets
changed while demand remains strong.
Supply had increased exponentially namely
from Vietnam during the time we were
doing our environmental analysis and that
had the effect of softening prices
to the point where it did not pencil out any more.
Secondly there was a lot of concern
with using that biomass to ship overseas
so our board looked at that and the financial modeling and said,
we're going to pivot to the domestic market.
We recognize that as a risk because commercial users don't
yet exist in California but they felt
that was the right thing to do for the long term
and so that is where our work has been devoted since.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Okay.
Environmental service joint powers authority.
This is made up of 26 of small rural counties
basically to help them with calorie cycle regulation
regional Water Quality Control board regulations
so they come together and achieve economies of scale
through that process.
This is our last one.
The rural Advancement Institute is
a 501 C3 the board brought back to life to do two things.
One is to focus on primarily urban legislators
and their staff.
We've held two tours one in Mariposa County
and one in Monterey County and we are planning a third now
in Tehama County and we've had increasing attendance at each
of those to get them out into rural communities
to talk about everything from ag to natural resources
and all the typical issues you might expect
but to familiarize those urban participants with those issues.
The second is to partner with academic institutions
to do research around topics of key interest to rural counties.
The most recent 1st May be of interest to you.
We just finished a published report
with UC Santa Barbara looking at the issue of fire
and EMS capacity in rural counties
and the twin capacities of increasing call volume
and decreasing volunteer availability and couple
that with insufficient funding for staffing
and it's a challenge for many of our counties.
I think if you were to read that report you
would find it nothing new.
Is probably something you are living and dealing
with every day here in Mendocino County
but many in the legislature were fully unaware of that challenge.
Many legislators have no idea when
they are driving from LA to mammoth that they are depending
on a basic life support ambulance system staffed
by volunteers that may or may not be available to respond
if there's an accident on 385 and I just
used that as an example that may resonate with them.
So this report really identifies that.
It's the first I've seen of the California
specific statewide report that does that
and then it lays out recommendations.
Step two is to take those recommendations and build them
out so professors are going to be --
the data is a little uneven across jurisdictions for that
first report so it's going to be reaching out directly
to jurisdictions to tighten up some of the data then secondly
working on those recommendations but doing so in an interesting
way that I think will resonate with the legislature which is
looking at health outcomes.
Part of what we suspect that the report is going to show
is that there are lower health outcomes in rural areas because
of this gap in fire and EMS capacity and health outcomes
is a topic near and dear to many in the legislature
so trying to tie it together in a way that resonates
with terminology and issues they are used to studying
but gets to the underlying issue which is the challenge for fire
and EMS capacity in rural areas so
look to that to come out in the following year.
>> Great presentation.
>> I just want to say thank you to Pat for coming in and giving
this update to the board.
It helps for not only the full board but also
the community to be aware of.
One of the amazing things we get to participate in ,
RCRC is a bright spot.
I love working with your amazing staff.
It's such a great team.
Always having really important conversations
about the most important policy issues facing rural communities.
I'm looking forward to connecting you with our fire
chief association to talk about fire and EMS capacity
as well as county staff working on this issue.
The Sigma work has been really helpful.
It is something that is really challenging
for a lot of property owners.
There is opportunities for us that
are going to come out of the jail medical work
and I could go on and on just the benefit is
huge for Mendocino County to participate in RCRC.
Just thank you again.
>> Thank you for coming today and thank you for that
presentation.
I hope that maybe the executive office can
share some information about the importance of RCRC
and why we participate because I think that especially
highlighting some of the affiliate agencies
and I know that I talk about the home opportunities with Golden
State Finance Authority often.
Because it is really a benefit I think that other agencies
don't offer and especially when as a rural county we are trying
to be competitive and especially when we are looking at law
enforcement and other positions that are so key to our community
that really is a benefit that cannot be seen in other agencies
so really appreciate all of the work that you do for us.
>> Appreciate that and if ever we can participate in a realtor
association locally to get the word out about assistance
programs we're happy to do it.
>> I have no more questions.
Thank you.
Any public comment on this item?
Madam clerk.
>> Seeing no comments online.
>> Back to the board.
We are looking for a motion for acceptance.
>> Move approval.
>> First by Supervisor Williams.
Second by Supervisor Cline.
We will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
Item R4 discussion and possible action
including approval or denial of request from department heads
and elected officials regarding budget
impacts funding and recruitment of vacant or new positions
following the strategic hiring process.
>> Good morning.
Sherry Johnson Human Resource Director.
We have a department that would like
to make a request to the board this morning
and so we have the Sheriff's office.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Good morning .
Sheriff Matt.
I have with me captain Jason Cardillo.
We are requesting to fill more positions
for the Sheriff's office.
Currently we are dealing with some pretty violent crime
and whatnot that you probably have seen in the paper.
More homicides and more issues and we
are running short on personnel.
We have currently eight personnel out on injury.
Several of those folks we don't believe
are going to make it back due to the type of injuries
that they have.
We have a few that we need to dual fill those positions
because I just don't think we are
going to see them back to work.
We also have some injuries that we will have our folks back
but we've got one subject who broke a bone.
We have to wait for that bone to heal.
We have to wait for a subject who had some serious tendon
damage during an arrest.
Things like that.
Right now we are dealing with some pretty serious crime
because the illicit marijuana has blown
up again in Mendocino County.
Particularly in the North.
It has gotten completely out of control.
We have transnational drug trafficking organizations
that are working in our areas.
We are dealing with homicides and things
like that including human trafficking
so we are going to have to start hiring up again.
We need to get these positions refunded.
A big portion of that funding is going to come from the grants
that we've been working on but we are still about 33%
behind on being able to pay for that based on those grants
and so Captain Cardillo will talk about the fiscal impacts.
>> Good morning chair and members of the board.
Jason Cardillo administrative captain at the Sheriff's office.
As you are probably aware and as the Sheriff
stated we are looking to fund the five positions that
have been (Indistinct) as a cost savings measure
that we've worked hand in hand with the CEO's office
to show some cost savings for the county.
As the Sheriff stated we are definitely
in a critical point in time with our department.
At one of the last board meetings
they discussed at 33% vacancy rate
we have at the Sheriff's Office that doesn't include the eight
individuals we had out at leaves that
are going to push that even higher probably into 44 or 45%
vacancy rate.
That is impacting our services to some extent
as members of the board are probably
aware hearing from your outlying areas
the North sectors as well as the coast right now our main area
where we are really struggling for personnel is out of ukiyo e.
50% of our culture service come out of that sector.
We do have some relief in sight.
We've hired three deputies one of them being a lateral we
sworn in yesterday.
We have another three laterals that are
looking to be hired in August.
One on August 3rd and then two on August 17th.
Our hope is for the board to continue
to work with us to get our numbers up so that we can
provide the level of service that the County deserves
and with that being said, we've had
top 64 with the hard work of Lieutenant Eric Clark
as well as Megan Z from our Financial Services Bureau.
They were able to put us in a position where we received this
funding from prop 64 which will cover two full time positions
which would equate to just a little bit less than $500,000
in savings over a five year period or actually fund those
two positions that are $500,000 costs over the course
of the next five years.
One of our key needs at this point
is that our supervisor level.
First line supervisor for the Sheriff's office
would be a Sergeant position.
The Sheriff mentioned we are down
Firstline supervisors in two sectors which
is critical for County council I'm sure can attest
is very critical for the Sheriff's Office
to ensure we have proper supervision of all
our personnel.
Right now we are going on at least two shifts
without firstline supervisors which
is requiring our lieutenants who are tasked all over the board
right now not only acting as deputy sheriffs
but acting as supervisors reviewing reports the day
to day operations of the jail at the supervisor level
and being tasked with day to day managerial responsibilities.
We have one shift out at central sector
right now that only has one deputy and a Sergeant
and it is a day shift and it is one of the busiest
shifts we presently have.
We are having to fill the other shift with overtime
so you've seen or you are going to see --
I've spoke with CEO Sarah Pierce earlier in the week
about the huge amount of overtime
that's going to be coming in from our homicide
as well as having to cover these vacant shifts so we would really
appreciate if you would look at funding those five positions.
It would be a cost to the general fund of a little over $1
million and I understand that the county's position with
the budgetary constraints that we are in but you also have
to understand the Sheriff's position and that we've worked
the best we can with the Sheriff by working with less and doing
more and now we are at a very critical inroads that is going
to be a situation that is going to --
I don't see anything positive coming if we are not
able to continue to recruit for the positions
and have the positions that were allotted actually funded.
As everyone is aware we spoke to this before.
It takes us about six months to get someone hired so immediately
you are going to see some budget savings in that six person
request in that it probably wouldn't be until January
or December, hopefully, that we could actually
look at having those positions filled if we have some interest.
Right now we are having a lot of interest
with laterals specifically.
That is a cost savings to the department.
We could get them over.
We could get them working in a shorter amount of time
and we are not having to invest on the front end in terms
of their training and their academy day
so we are open to questions if there are any.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> With the prop 64 money, what will be the duties of those two
deputies, I assume will be used with that grant money?
That will be used for illegal marijuana
or what is the purpose for that?
>> The purpose would be backfilling the assignment
of two new investigators.
Part of their duties would be investigating illicit marijuana
grows but with that comes the violence associated so they
become generalized investigators that
may have a specialty in the marijuana realm
as well as with the human trafficking entity of it.
>> Okay.
So it is on overall community safety.
Yeah.
>> If I may through the chair We will be bringing an item forward
on September 1st about prop 64 in more detail.
>> Thank you.
>> I'm not seeing any more questions.
Thank you both.
>> We will open this item up to the public.
Anybody in the room like to speak on this?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing none.
>> Okay.
Back to the board.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> Just a question for the acting CEO.
We just passed a balanced budget so this $1 million.
Do you have an idea where this will come from?
>> If I may through the chair so the million dollars is the cost
for a full year as the memo states and Captain Castillo just
said it's probably going to be closer to I would say about half
$1 million once we get him hired and through background.
So I would turn it to the board.
Just public safety is your number one mandate.
We do have a balanced budget right now.
We did balance with one time funds
so there is a potential you could use one time
funds for this year then identify ongoing funding
streams for future years.
The Sheriff's Office was a great partner in our budget
conferences and they did come in and only
ask for what they thought at the time
and now they're coming back and saying that we
need additional positions.
They are looking at other grants as well.
So right now there is not an identified source
except for one time so I turn it back to the board
to see what other funding streams
that you guys may be aware of or additional cuts somewhere else.
>> Okay.
So I think for me I think we've had
this discussion for as long as I've been here with the budget
and staffing and what are going to be the priorities
and we are going to get to a point
where we have to make a decision.
What is the priority?
And I'm willing to make a motion to approve this item
and for me I think today is that day.
We're going to have to decide.
Do we want to fund the Sheriff's office
or not to keep them operational in the way that they see fit
and so I'm in 100% support of this.
>> I will second that motion.
>> Okay.
First by myself.
Second by Supervisor Haschak.
Supervisor Cline.
>> I want to appreciate your comments.
I agree completely we are at a crossroads for the county
where we will at some point have to soon make
some tough decisions on what the county is going to agree to fund
and public safety is our number one mandate and certainly
worth funding.
I appreciate the transparency from the Sheriff and his staff
today sharing about why we came to this request
and look forward to supporting it.
>> Seeing no more questions we will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you gentlemen.
We are going to move on to R5 discussion and possible action
including adoption of resolution and approval of a Memorandum
of Understanding between the County of Mendocino
and the Service Employees International Union Local some
21 for the term of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th 2029.
>> Good morning again.
Sherry Johnson Human resource Director.
It's my pleasure to bring forward SEIU MoU.
And to highlight some of the enhancements.
It is a three year term and we had some language clean up.
We had salary enhancements for three years.
We have a bronze plan which is a high deductible health plan
which is employee only at 100%.
On call premium increase.
Bilingual pay increase, and an additional holiday
adds Juneteenth.
Those are some of the enhancements for the contract
and I do want to say I want to thank you
through the negotiating team me Christina Jeff Jackie Traci
Patrick and also a cash and thank you to this board
and also the county team that works at the table
also with the teams so interim CEO Sarah Pierce HR manager
and we had Luke and Sam from our labor team also.
So thank you.
>> Any questions for Miss Johnson?
Supervisor Haschak.
>> I would just like to say thank you to SEIU 1021
for negotiating and their comments earlier today.
It was really appreciated by the board
and I think this is just recognition
that we are in tough times financially
but our greatest assets are the employees.
>> Supervisor Cline.
>> I wanted to thank all of the stakeholders involved with all
the negotiations.
It's always challenging and my comments
are about this item in the next few items.
I appreciate the Cola for fiscal Year 27-28 and 28-29.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and looking forward
to continuing the collaboration moving forward.
>> Not seeing any more questions.
Thank you.
Anyone in the room like to comment on this item?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing no comments online.
>> Okay.
Bring it back to the board.
Supervisor Williams.
>> Move approval.
>> Second by Supervisor Haschak.
We will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Item R6 discussion and possible action including
adoption of a resolution and approval of a memorandum
of understanding between the County of Mendocino
and the Teamsters Local 856 for the term of July 1st 2025
through June 30th 2029.
>> Good morning again.
Sherry Johnson Human Resource Director.
I am again pleased to bring this MOU and resolution forward
for the Mendocino County Public Attorney's Group.
We do have a four year contract as they have been out
of contract since July 1st of 2025.
It is very similar terms to the prior with SEIU,
but this is a four year term with salary enhancements Colas
and health insurance the same and also adding
the holiday of Juneteenth.
I would like to thank the negotiating
team for the public Attorney's group
which is Frank me and Robert from Teamsters.
So thank you.
>> Great.
Thank you.
Supervisor Williams.
>> Do we have public comment?
>> Anybody in the room like to speak on this item?
None?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing no comments online.
>> Supervisor Williams.
>> Move approval.
>> Again, motion made by Supervisor Williams seconded
by Supervisor Haschak.
We'll vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
Item R7 discussion and possible action including adoption
of a resolution and approval of a memorandum of understanding
between the County of Mendocino and the Teamsters local 856
for the term July 1st 2026 through June 30th 2029.
>> Thank you board.
Sherry Johnson human Resource director.
I am also pleased to bring forward
the MOU for the Probation Unit MOU
and resolution for a three year term with Cole
is actually seen in three years also with the triggers
as mentioned by supervisor Cline modified to the health insurance
and with the addition of the Juneteenth holiday
and I would like to thank the team from Teamsters
with Chelsea, Nicole and Michael and also Robert Maddox
so thank you.
I would also like to say thank you to all the labor negotiating
teams from SEIU and Teamsters for their professionalism,
kindness and passion for the county.
They were good representatives so thank you very much.
>> Questions from the board?
Any public comment on this item?
Madam clerk?
Any >> Seeing none.
>> Supervisor Williams?
>> Move approval.
>> First by Supervisor Williams.
Second by Supervisor Haschak.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Okay.
Item R8 notice public hearing discussion and possible action
including adoption of resolution amending exhibit X Mendocino
County Master fee schedule effective September 19th 2026
unless coded policy require longer adopting fee
modifications for health services.
It is 10:28.
We will open public hearing.
>> Proper notice has been established in all
correspondence received has been sent to your emails or mailbox.
>> Thank you.
The hearing has been opened.
The clerk has announced any correspondence.
We will have staff presentation, public input or comment
from staff can present final remarks
on the Board of supervisors can ask questions of staff.
The public hearing will be closed
on the matter will be sent back to the board
and a public comment will be accepted after that.
Yes?
>> Good morning supervisors.
Ashley law, administrative analyst
with the executive office.
The board requested the administrative health services
emergency dispatch fee be left intact
and brought back for further review
after an original meet and confer with ambulance transport
providers we are bringing back the proposal
to eliminate the current flat dispatch fee
and replace it with a volume based multi-tiered structure set
in relation to the number of calls for service.
Doctor Miller Director of Health Services
is here to provide further information and insight
to assist the board with making a decision on how
to appropriately set these fees.
>> If I may through the chair Before we turn it over to Tammy,
I would like to say that we did update a modified memo from
Health Services.
The last page at the bottom had some incorrect monthly amounts
so that has been uploaded this morning.
Thank you.
>> Good morning Chair Norvell and members of the board.
Tammy Bartolomé, public health services EMS Program Manager.
As explained, before you today are the updated EMS
dispatch fee schedule.
This item transitions our county from an outdated flat rate
to a volume based cost recovery framework so this follows
the direction in April to pause and bring our ambulance
providers into the conversation.
Following those extensive meet and confer sessions
we worked with the providers and came up with a fee schedule
that we believe is fair and sustainable.
To support that goal we built two key balancing measures
into this framework.
An attrition rate.
We applied a 30% reduction to raw Cal fire dispatch data
to better reflect dry runs and cancellations.
After consulting with Cal Fire leadership
we confirmed this baseline data already
excludes routine administrative logs like an ambulance checking
in or checking out of service.
By filtering out those status changes
and cutting the remaining workload data by a full 30%
we built what we believe is a strong baseline safeguard
to address non-transport calls.
So I would like to also point out with this 30% attrition
rate being applied, this takes providers
such as MedStar from tier four to tier three,
a cost savings to them.
We also implemented a three year glide path.
We structured a transition for providers
facing these adjustments to give them three years
to come up with the full cost amount
and then as outlined in your packet,
Venice Health has agreed to this structure
so they will move to their transition fee
and they will not need the three year glide
path that we established.
So we believe this framework is a direct product
of our meet and confer sessions and staff recommends approval
of this updated EMS dispatch fee schedule
to stabilize our regional emergency network
and I am available for questions.
>> I'm not seeing any questions.
Thank you.
We will open this item up to the public.
Anybody in the room?
Madam clerk?
Any online?
>> Seeing none.
>> Okay.
Any final comments from staff?
>> Just thank you for reconsidering this and we really
believe we came up with a fair process and we worked really
hard on this so thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you for the extra effort to meet and confer
working with providers.
I will move the recommended action.
>> If I may through the chair, what the executive office
brought forward is our standard fee schedule that shows
the tiers so I think we need to modify the recommended action
to accept the department's proposed changes to have the Med
Star tier three be phased in over three years.
>> So moved.
>> Okay.
It is 10:34.
We close the public hearing.
Please restate your motion.
>> If I may through the chair we would need a modified motion
to accept the department's recommendation to phase
in the tier three from Med Star over three years.
>> Supervisor Williams are you okay with that?
We have a second, Supervisor Haschak.
>> We received a letter from MedStar and was that letter
before this was worked out or after?
Are there still concerns that their viability might
be at risk?
What do you know about that?
>> So they did express concern with the cost of rising gas
another cost increases.
They are concerned of that and that
is where the three year phase plan came into effect
or what we felt was fair.
But as far as viability, fees are going up
and costs are going up and I can't
project what they are long.
Of course nobody wants their fee to increase.
>> Right.
So we've done all we can to present a fair approach?
>>.
We met with MedStar specifically several times.
>> Thank you.
>> Supervisor Mulheren.
>> Thank you.
I just wanted to appreciate the work that staff and MedStar did
together and understand the concerns
that they have and it is challenging
when fees have to increase.
One of the challenges that the community faces,
whether that is ambulance services or businesses, people
that are trying to develop their properties or contractors.
When fees go up it is a challenge
and I think that what the county can do
is continue to have important conversations, come up
with strategies that hopefully can at least be
helpful to the folks that have to pay the fees
and of course to make sure that we are providing the best
level of services that we can and when we are not, to adjust.
So I wanted to express that I appreciate that fees going up
is always a challenge and I appreciate what staff did.
>> First by Supervisor Williams.
Seconded by Supervisor Cline.
We will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you very much.
Moving on to item R9 discussion and possible action including
approval of the appropriation request in the amount
of $170,000 of one time funds increasing the total Bauer Park
Restoration and Improvement Project budget from $2,442,440
to $2,612,440 to fully fund the proposed project improvements
and authorization for the purchasing agent to issue change
orders to the contractor to complete the project pursuant
to Public Contract Code section 20142.
>> Good morning.
My name is Doug Anderson.
I'm the capital Projects manager for the County.
This item is -- we have negotiated a final phase two
contract with the contractor Mars construction,
Mars engineering who has been working on Bower Park since
October.
They have made good progress given the weather conditions
over the winter or now.
We are now geared up to proceed with phase two.
The issues we encountered in getting
to this final agreement for phase two,
given the limited budget resources
we had through the grant, meant that several features
of the project design are not included in the phase two
agreement.
We were pretty much aware of this when we went into this
agreement because our budget -- our contract proposal exceeded
the budget for the project even at the beginning.
So what we've done now is clarified the scope that is not
included in the current phase two,
and we are here before you today to try
to understand if there is any interest in helping
to fund the balance of those features
so that we can include some or all of them
in the final contract that we have
with the current contractor.
Briefly, the items that are not included in the current scope
is the electrical and lighting that we had some security
lighting under the entrances.
The landscaping and irrigation work that was enhanced
landscaping around the front entrance
areas of the building of the site
and then also some important repairs
to the fencing in the park.
We do have limited fencing around the ball
fields and the tennis court that need to be repaired so those can
be used as intended but there is quite a bit of fencing repairs
that is not included.
I just want to make sure that you understand that we have been
able to include in the current phase two is all
of the recreational facilities that were planned in this
project , so baseball, tennis, basketball court
in the recreational playground equipment is all funded
and included in the existing phase two that we have
so at this point we are just looking for your interest
in supporting the final phases of the project that we were
hoping to get done with this grant.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Cline.
>> Question for staff.
What will happen if this phase is not funded?
>> Through the chair, the only thing we are not going to be
able to complete if we don't get the additional funding is
the lighting, fencing repairs, landscaping and irrigation
improvements.
So we have pared it down to those things and those
are things that in our mind we believe can be deferred
to future opportunities permit
>> Thank you.
>> Not seeing any more questions we are going to go to public
comment.
Anybody in the room like to speak on this item?
>> Good morning chairman and members of the Board
of Supervisors my name is Kevin Evans.
I'm the chair of the Walhalla Municipal Advisory Council.
I support and our board supports $170,000.
We would like to see our park completed as intended.
I just have a few questions that I hope can be answered.
Staff just mentioned what amenities
are included in phase two that they are planning on funding
and we support that.
My other question is does the 170,000 if approved fund county
and employee expenses and contract services or is all
of the money going to materials and time?
The other question I have, and I did not see it and maybe it is
somewhere in the line item -- what is the board's plan
to maintain the park once it is completed?
We look forward to your answers.
We would love to share that information
back with our residents in Walhalla and the surrounding
areas.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
Anyone else in the room?
>> Good morning chair Norvell and fellow supervisors my name
is Dave Buck and I serve as chairman of the Recreation
and Parks District.
I encourage you to approve the park restoration.
I would like to remind you of the interest in the long term
success of this crucial South Coast the infrastructure.
Our park has provided affordable recreation opportunities
for decades to people of all ages
and economic circumstances on the South Coast
and in the Bay County Community of Walhalla
providing public access and a broad range
of recreational activity.
There is nothing like this park within a 90 minute drive
for coastal residents or visitors.
MCRPD supported this sport when you adopted the resolution
in pursuit of state funding to renovate and improve Bower Park.
In June 2024 the Board of Directors adopted a resolution
to transfer almost $178,000 in one time state per capita grant
funds to help the county implement the complete project
scope including items that you just heard about today.
This board accepted the transfer by adopting resolution 24110
on July 9th, 2024.
While this previous contribution to the project budget is
strangely absent from the project report
for today's proposal we trust that the county and state staff
have accounted accurately for the $170,000 budget shortfall.
Acknowledging the FC board's proactive partnership
and in compliance with this board certification on January
24th, 2023 please approve the full funding request.
The MCRPD has expressed interest to members
of your board and the County Executive Office staff
in creating a partnership to operate and maintain
our part in perpetuity for the district the extent of funding
available to this partnership is dependent on accurate
accounting of annual property tax allocations
based on actual data used to build property owners
within district boundaries.
All district requests and accounting for the data
have been refused.
A partnership with MCRPD would also be contingent
on demonstrated commitment to operate our infrastructure
Promethean certain funding for the park maintenance
in the fiscal year budget you just adopted is confusing
and concerning particularly in consideration
of your certification on January 24th, 2023.
MCRPD solution of this project and asks that you
keep your long term promise.
Help MCRPD partner with the county to competently
operate and maintain Bower Park for everyone forever.
Thank you for receiving my comment.
>> Thank you Primack supervisor Williams.
>> For the last speaker, I don't know that the full board has
a copy of the refusal.
Would you be able to share that?
>> Of course.
To whom shall I send it?
>> The BOS email at BOS at Mendocino county.gov.
>> For the speakers there's a question about the maintenance.
I kind of went through those numbers at the history of it
very quickly though can you lay it out again?
What you think that the county's obligation is
for the maintenance of the park versus the recreation district .
>> Thank you for asking that question.
The county a number of years back
did a study of all the parks within the portfolio
and came up with a cost estimate.
At the time I think it was about 5 or 6 years now behind us
of about $75,000 a year to maintain Bower Park and that
again was a snapshot at that time.
As you all are probably painfully aware,
costs have escalated astronomically.
Everything is much more so to keep our park
although it may not be as expensive in the early years
given the new work that has been done ultimately
to keep our park it probably is reasonable to estimate
that there is something in the ballpark of 100 grand per year.
The district has approached the county multiple times
at different levels and you've heard
me speak about this informally in these settings.
To partner on maintaining Bower Park
the district has access to a different cost structure,
potential economies of scale that
would improve the efficiency of taxpayer resources
to maintain that park and operate it.
However, the district has learned
through a number of challenging mistakes
in the past to be very cautious of Overcommitting
its financially.
Particularly when it comes to the commitment
of structural funding and that structural funding
is allocations derived from property tax contributions.
The district has attempted to come
to grips with those numbers in a much more accurate and objective
way, most recently through the preparation
of a municipal Service review.
This issue came up as a question and at that time
was also rebuffed, allegedly because the question involves
the scope of work that is beyond the traditional scope of effort
for a municipal service review.
The question remains unanswered about what the district could
afford to contribute and how that partnership could
be structured.
The district continues to be interested
and sees Bower Park as perhaps the best prospect for supporting
South Coast Recreationists yet we need to know how much we can
afford so that we avoid making mistakes that have been made
in the past of overcommitment that have subjected
the district to serious jeopardy.
I don't have a number for you specifically.
I'm very interested in finding that number and with your help,
we will find it and find a way to make sure
that Bower Park stays up and works well for everybody.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Anybody else in the room like to speak on this item?
Madam clerk, and the online?
>> Seeing none.
>> Supervisor Williams.
>> I want to move the recommended action for all
of the reasons stated and also note that I think it's important
to show the state that the county has good follow through.
This took five years and some of that is on us.
The execution was slow and cost inflated
during that time period.
I think the next time we go to ask for money
it would be helpful to show that we
were able to fully follow through
on the original commitment.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Cline.
>> I wanted to quickly note this funding is being proposed
to come from carryover funding so it is a one time cost and I
feel that is appropriate for the scope of the work.
>> I believe we have a first by Supervisor Williams.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> I guess a question for Supervisor Williams.
Do you have a long term plan for after we
get these capital improvement projects done then
how is it going to be maintained?
And then we have our law enforcement expenses
trending at a steeper slope than our revenue.
Not sustainable.
The county museum is not sustainable.
Just about every service we look at provided by the county
is not financially sustainable.
We have a revenue shortfall projected
as far as we can see so I don't think we have a plan here
and it is certainly not the highest priority
but I think we have a lot of taxpayers
far from the county seat that aren't
getting a lot of services.
This is one of the few things that they get
and I think it is more than just recreation.
There is not a lot of public lands available to children
in that part of the county.
So I think the immediate is we need to follow through
on this grant.
The long term how do we sustain it
I think it is a general sustainability question
for all county services.
>> We have a first by Supervisor Williams.
I will second.
Any more discussion?
We will vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
It is 10:52.
We are going to take a 15 minute break and come back.
>> A presentation from Behavioral Health and Recovery
Services regarding the behavioral Health Services Act
provide direction to staff providing direction to staff
regarding county electronic providers and an agreement with
Anchor Health Management Incorporated medical support
services in the amount of 2,200,000.
Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center in the amount of 640,000.
Mendocino County Youth Project in the amount of 750,000.
Redwood Community Services in the amount of $10,664,056
and Tapestry Family Services in the amount of $4,952,300
to provide special mental health services to eligible Medi-Cal
beneficiaries of Mendocino County for a total combined
of $19,206,356 effective July 1st 2026 through June 30th 2027.
>> Thank you.
We are here to talk about behavioral health
services for the county and some of our contracted providers
are larger contracted providers.
First I want to do a quick breakdown of how
the special mental health system works
in the state of California.
As you know the county contracts with the Department
of Health Care Services.
Mental Health Services are a carve out from your main health
care plans and they are contracted through each county
to provide mental health services.
Also there is a couple of cities but most of this
is county driven.
The state many years ago contracted out
special mental health services to the counties
to provide those services with the agreement of also providing
1991 and 2011 realignment dollars.
That is where we fit in.
And it's important that we are what
we call know it used to be more called a mental health plan.
We are now called a behavioral health plan
as this data has really started to merge
mental health and substance use into the same plan.
We have a substance use health plan for many years
but now they're trying to look at that model
as a behavioral health model starting
to see more of that integration even
with our contracts with the state starting
to integrate with both mental health and substance
use information.
As you know we are a carved out system
and so we are funded through Medi-Cal or Medicaid as the feds
would call it.
Medi-Cal in California and the way our services are funded
is that we build Medi-Cal for a service.
It is based on a reimbursement.
We like to say it's like a 60/40 reimbursement permit the federal
reimbursement is about 60% give or take in the county
reimbursement through alignment dollars is a 40% reimbursement.
Generally we can get some 100% but on a basis
it's really kind of a 6040.
When you look across our whole system of care
there has to be a match dollar for us to build services
so we are always leveraging those match dollars
to the Medi-Cal billable dollars we
receive through federal financial participation.
We often get asked if we have -- how much the county general fund
puts into behavioral health and this is behavioral health
as a whole talking about mental health and substance use.
There is not a maintenance of effort requirement of the county
to give any general funds into the substance abuse side
of the House but on the mental health side of the House there
is a general maintenance of effort that was set by the state
many years ago to be able to receive realignment dollars
and draw down Medi-Cal funding and that is set at $28,840
so that is the only general fund that goes into the mental health
system to provide services throughout Mendocino County
through the special Mental Health System.
As I noted, we get federal financial participation
through Medicaid at the federal level
and that comes through the state and then
we have that contract with the state to reimburse for services.
We are also funded through 91 realignment, 2011 realignment
and the Behavioral Health Services Act.
We will touch on a little bit changes with prop one.
Those changes took up July 1st for us and we are walking
into a new era when we look at mental health versus Behavioral
Health Services Act.
As noted, we are here with our main five contractors today.
We do have other contractors that we contract with
and we are still in the process of finalizing these contracts.
The contracts in front of you are preliminary contracts.
We are still working on the Behavioral Health Services Act
piece of those contracts which means it could come back
mid-year or sometime in the fall as we work
on the behavioral Services Act.
As we did an RFP for the Behavioral Services Act
we are still finalizing that.
The state put into requirements that we
have evidence based practices that we
have to meet this year as part of Behavioral Health Services
Act so we are really working on making sure
that behavioral Services Act evidence based practices
are the priority of where we are spending our FSP dollars
so we are still fine tuning that and working with providers
on what does that look like to make sure we are meeting all
of our mandates for Behavioral Services Act
so there could be some changes to these contracts
in the next couple of months.
We also have requests from additional contractors asking
to come into Mendocino County and we
are working on those to provide services in Mendocino County.
With the current contracts in front of you
we have an estimated 3845 clients that will be served.
We usually go over that amount but that is an estimate we throw
out based on current contracts with a total cost
for beneficiary at almost $5,000 per minute we know that
vacillates between the beneficiaries based on whether
or not a beneficiary ends up being conserved or having
multiple hospitalizations versus just having generalized
outpatient services.
We included in here our consumer perception results.
We've been trying to include these so you can see.
This is completed by the client and family members.
It is broken down into family responses youth responses
adult responses and older adults.
It looks at the client rating their services --
how they feel their services were for the year.
This is a multi-page so there is multiple surveys that
were completed.
I only hold a couple for you.
This is program overall outcome satisfaction.
You can see where the county rates
compared to the state rating.
I included in there 2024-25 how adults feel about their service
compared to how we feel about other counties.
This is analyzed by UCLA.
This is not done by the county.
It is done by UCLA for the whole state of California.
Clients can complete this survey either in paper form
and mail it in or they can do it electronically
and a lot of clients are starting
to move to the electronic version
but I would say it's about half and half
that we saw this last year.
These are the results of how many have been
arrested within the 12 months.
Also as you will see here it is 2024 25
it looks at youth and adults and also compares us to the state
and how we are comparing to the state
when you look at our county to the state.
This next slide looks at how many
people reported that they had an encounter with law enforcement.
Of course this is self-reported.
Both of them are self-reported and it includes in there
as I said 2020 425 and the county
reimburses the state on those metrics.
We also require that all of our providers
do a lot of data reporting.
We provide data on a pretty regular basis monthly and then
quarterly , biannually and annually.
We have a quality assurance provider
that meets to see if they are in compliance or out of compliance,
what our timeliness looks like and looking at hospitalizations.
This gives you a day to look at some of the additional data
we pull that we look at to see how clients are doing.
This gives you a report out of how those clients are doing
looking at fiscal year 22 23 through fiscal year 24-25.
It looks at the number of people who
entered the service this year.
Those who utilized crisis service this year,
those who utilized crisis service last year
but didn't need to utilize it this year
and the number of people in the system who
did not utilize crisis service.
The number of people who needed to be conserved.
Those who got off conservator and stayed off
and the number of people that were
housed in the system this year compared to the last three
years.
We also are working -- one of the new requirements with
the state of California is HEDIS.
They roll it out to the behavioral health plans.
They are looking at HEDIS measures and client care.
These four are for the Metro health plan.
The substance use plan has a couple
of other HEDIS requirements.
This is what they are judging on looking at fines and fees.
They have a requirement that would be at 50%
or above in all of our HEDIS measures.
I want to draw out that they rated us
on this last year and then where we fell in those rates.
We were not allowed to release the state rates
so I did do a mean state compliance rate so
that they had a low and a high and so what I was able to do
is I could show our rates and I could show the mean state
rates to see how did we look at from our HEDIS measures
compared to the state's overall mean compliance
rate at the state level of four counties are at.
That doesn't mean that there were not
counties that were lower.
There were and that doesn't mean that there were not
counties that were higher then that mean rate.
This gives you a look at the HEDIS measures.
They don't have 2025 yet released
but it gives you a look at 2024 compared to 2023.
Last year you guys were able to see 2023.
These are all counties where you can see where Mendocino is
and where they are looking at quality performance measures
from the state to see how the counties are doing.
You will see that Mendocino moved up closer to the top
there when you are looking at23-24.
I also included 22-23.
The state is in the process of completing a behavioral health
dashboard.
They just released the first version of it
last week where we can see how work comparing
to this native California.
It does allow you to look at individual counties
but it does allow us to compare to where we are at compared
to the state of California.
A lot of it is looking at timeliness data which we haven't
I think over the next couple of years
we are going to really see those data metrics build out
so we are able to bring some of that data to probably
next year a little bit different than we have this year.
We get asked a lot about outcome measures
and I know we talked a lot about ANSA over the years.
I wanted to bring this today as there
was a question asked of me of can
we tell how clients are doing?
There are a lot of different measures
we can look at about how clients are doing.
The state is looking at which outcome measures they
want to potentially make a requirement for the adults
in the children's system.
We are required to use the cans 50 which is moving the cans IP
and that is what the state looks at for kind of our outcome
measures so I added this slide in so that you guys can
see what that looks like from like I
asked for a random sample.
I did not ask for the best clients.
I said if we pulled nine clients from different providers what
would that show us and you can see it shows our oldest cans.
You can see the oldest two.
The most recent.
You can see the change from did they improve
and the percentage of improvement.
We also are looking at are we seeing improvement
in their cans and ANSA.
We are always looking at are we able to maintain people and keep
them out of crisis.
And that is one thing you will see with the HEDIS measures.
Our clients compliant and are they having follow up care.
I just wanted to show that this is
additional metrics we do look at to see our clients improving.
We didn't cherry pick.
You will see that some of these did have a crisis need
and some did not and we are looking at that
as we look at our whole system of care
and I'm going to hand it over to Karen
to talk a little bit about behavioral health from
and then we have one >> On that last slide is
it possible to give us an indication of how
we are doing on average relative to state
or some other comparator?
>> For the ANSA?
Currently there isn't.
I do believe that if the state comes up and says yes
this will be the outcome measurement we
use I think the state will probably put in our dashboard
those outcomes permit currently the state doesn't
ask for this information and they are still
vacillating between three different outcome measurement
tools they are looking at so not today unfortunately.
>> So how should the board interpret this?
Are we winning?
Are we losing?
What do these numbers mean in your eyes?
>> When I look at our HEDIS measures compared
to our timeliness to access, our percentage rates of how many
people are getting service, our percentage rate for people
getting into service was like 5.38% and I looked at some other
counties and it was 2% so I feel like that doesn't mean we are
perfect.
We always have room for improvement.
We always will.
We will never have enough money in mental health.
There's always going to be barriers at different levels.
I feel like when you look at our HEDIS measures,
you look at our timeliness to access and look
at our ability for people to get into services
we are really up there.
I think we are doing pretty well.
That is not to say we don't have areas for improvement.
We always will.
>> Karen Lovato Deputy Health services.
As far as highlights it wasn't initiated
by proposition 1 in 2024 which created new regulations,
primarily expanding the mental health services
health to the behavioral health Services Act
including substance abuse conditions.
It changed the funding organization
from the prior components to three primary components
with 30% of the funding going for behavioral health
housing, 35% for full service partnerships
and 35% for behavioral health services and supports.
New regulations prioritize funding
for the most severe and chronic conditions or prevention
and they require use of funding or reserves of funding
for evidence based practice where appropriate so
the 30% Housing intervention is for individuals
with serious mental illnesses or substance
use plus chronic homelessness with 50% required
to be focused on street level encampment based homelessness
and a maximum of 25% to be able to be
used for capital facility's development.
Full service partnerships is similar
to the prior organization and it is 35% for behavioral health
treatment and supports with whatever it takes model,
really trying to help the individual overcome barriers
but there are requirements for appropriate for partners
to be triaged with and treated with evidence based models.
The behavioral health services and supports component
with 35% remaining is for all the remaining services
that have previously been funded under MH
with 51% of the component required to be spent on services
for individuals 25 and under with prioritization
of early psychosis intervention with transitioning
and experiencing early psychosis.
The remaining percent is for early intervention programs
that are not evidence based practice
outreach and any other qualified expense.
>> (Indistinct) confusion about what is happening with
the county electronic health record and what is going on with
providers going into avatar and there has been different
directions given at times about everyone going into the county
system or could we create interoperability so we decided
to bring this back to the board for a final decision on how you
guys would like to see what's going forward with that.
We have electronic health record avatar.
We've had it since about 2006 and we've obviously
had different providers using different systems and one
of the things that has changed for us is that the state has now
the dash I guess it's always been required through CMS
M for Medicaid Medicare but not really pushing back on the state
to make sure behavioral health plans are also really making
sure that we had a P data accessible to clients.
So that does create a little bit of a change for us
of having to have a patient portal in a sense
and making sure API data is available
not only to the clients but also to the state
and there are some requirements that we
have to do that within 24 hours, get it posted.
We've been working on looking at what is happening within avatar.
We did create a second system so we have a route one
system and a route two system so that the providers could have
access into avatar without going into the county's
main system because of confidentiality and the fact
that we have rolled substance use and public health
into the route one system.
We needed to have that firewall so created a second route
system.
Currently we have a hospitality center
in Mendocino County youth projects are in avatar
and our other three providers are currently
within their system asking for a hybrid model.
We are rolling out the organized delivery system
for drug Medi-Cal.
Obviously there are some changes with partnerships
so we are working with those new providers coming in
and most of them are willing to go into avatar
and not require a hybrid model so that will help a little bit.
In your Powerpoint presentation we kind of
said these are our mandates of what
we have to be able to provide.
I know there has been some thought of the county has
to provide it but the law actually
says if the county subcontracts we are still
required to provide the data that our subcontractors are
doing.
So even if we are not doing the service
we have to provide the data for our subcontractors.
It has to be posted.
It has to meet the timeliness standards
so we do have to have a patient access API, provider access
API, prior authorization API, interoperability standards
privacy and security public reporting and governance.
These are where the state is getting into on our reporting
requirements.
We are aware there is no guarantee
these won't change tomorrow so we
know what we have to do today.
We know what the state and federal level
they could continue to put new requirements on that could make
us have to expand what we are doing today and it does
seem like every day we have something new we have to do.
I put in there what the county responsibilities are so
that you can see that to make an informed decision
and what the contracted providers must do.
We did a detail of what are the three systems right like if they
just use their own system and did not
have interoperability what would be the impact for the county?
If everybody was an avatar what would
be the impact for the county and then a hybrid model.
What does that look like?
Obviously in all transparency we know everyone being in avatar
is the easiest model.
We also know that that may not be the easiest
model for all of our providers.
So we get a quick breakdown of kind of that our recommendation.
The easiest model is everybody goes into avatar.
We also don't want to not support them.
We know that it can be difficult for our providers
to go through that system so in front of you is two options.
Requiring that everyone goes if they
want to contract with the county for behavioral health services
that they use the county avatar system.
We are currently working with the Sheriff's office
on Tech Care, their health record system
to create full interoperability with avatars
so we have a county record in-house
should there ever be a change.
Or, looking at a hybrid model.
We've kind of outlined what are the impacts of a hybrid model
and what it would require.
We do know that a hybrid model will probably
be more work on the providers but also
we do feel that we will have more work on the county also
and so a little bit of possibly 1 or 2 more staff
needed to meet those needs.
In that we also are making recommendations.
If the board decides on a hybrid model,
these are the recommendations from the department
to move forward with hybrid model.
That is really to make sure that there is an interface, that we
limit the number of hybrid models
so we don't have 20 different providers
in 20 different systems needing to create interoperability
because we have to build it every time between the two
systems.
There is a requirement that it is
done within a year from the contract.
Interoperability has to be built in avatar needs
to be accomplished within a year and then obviously the cost
needs to be double the cost of everything
needs to be held by the provider asking for interoperability.
Those were the main things.
You can see the other requirements in there
and that we definitely have to make sure everything is posting
in there able to stay in compliance with state
and federal regulations so that we are not out of compliance.
The state really is moving to sanctions, fines and fees.
Sanctions we might be able to get the funds back
when we get into compliance.
If they do fines or fees we lose the funding.
That funding is not going to come back
to us so those are things to make sure
that every time we are out of compliance the state
is moving to really starting to do sanctions fines
and fees on counties and that will impact our budgets if we
are not staying in compliance on the behavioral health side.
We are happy to answer any questions.
>> Just real quick, could you help the public and perhaps
the board understand a little bit more about what specialty
mental health is?
And then after that, describe what
you would see as a successful outcome for somebody
in specialty mental health.
>> Sure.
Specialty mental health is different.
So there is what you hear across the state is
mild, moderate and severe and we are the severe provider.
I always say if you were going to see your primary care
and they said you had a heart condition
and they referred you to your cardiologist, that's us.
We the cardiologist of mental health in a sense
that we are not serving them mild to moderate.
If you could go to your primary care you are not coming to us.
If you need a specialist level care like a cardiologist
that is us.
So we are the top tier.
We are serving most of the individuals in the county
and that is our mandate through the state.
That is what carved out meant.
When they carved us out they give the managed care
plans to mild to moderate.
They gave the county the severe clientele and so most
of our clients are not going to -- you know,
their mental illness isn't going away.
They're going to live with it for the rest of their lives.
When we look at mental health success for our client
is we are not expecting that our clients are probably going
to be able to go get a job.
That is probably not realistic but if they
can keep their housing, they can stay out of crisis
and don't need to be conserved, they
are medication compliant and functioning at their baseline
that is success to us and baseline for every client
is different.
There is not a set baseline.
Every client's baseline is different
so we are really working to make sure
we get the client to their best baseline
and that they maintain at that baseline
and that might mean that they have to have high level services
the rest of their life.
That might mean that sometimes for a severe client,
once they're at baseline they are able to step down and become
more of a moderate level client but that is not
the majority of our clients.
The majority of our clients are going to stay with us
and need some form of probable case management therapy rehab
and medication support the rest of their lives.
>> Thank you for that.
Supervisor Williams.
>> Overall I think the contracts are a lot better.
Appreciate the effort.
They are all a lot longer for one.
Took me a while to get through them but I
don't have any questions there.
I would prefer we have one standard for record keeping.
I think this idea of a hybrid system,
I don't think we will get it done in time.
I think at some point we will find there is inconsistencies.
There will be finger pointing about which integration layer
and which vendor is it has a problem
and it will be the county that gets sanctioned
and you see the direction that mandates are trending.
At some point that model may not allow us to meet mandates
so I would think it's smarter from the start
to standardize on one system maintained by the county.
Does the director have any issue with that?
>> We support -- we will support whatever the board decides.
We also know that for our providers it's a lot of changes
so we are also trying to support the providers.
I've -- like I said having everyone in avatar is easier
but it might not be the easiest model for all of our providers.
>> I understand there's a little bit of pain and change
but I'm suggesting this one time change is a long term gain
compared to the alternative of having hybrid systems supported.
Is there any way for us to support our providers
making that transition?
Are there any resources to help them
use our standardized system?
>> I know there is two of them here and they may have comments.
I know that some of the concerns that I think we can support them
with the technology needs and try to be that support.
I know that some of the concerns they have expressed
and so I want to make sure they are heard
is that they also don't just serve Mendocino County
clients so if they come into the county system,
how do they put their non Mendocino County
clients into the county's database
because then we have access to client data
we shouldn't have so that has been the hedge.
They could get their own avatar system.
Avatar is not cheap and so coming into the county system
(Indistinct) really reduces the cost
but it means you're in the county system
so I know that has been one of their struggles.
>> Thank you.
>> Can you talk a little bit about the extra work your staff
has to do through the hybrid model for people who are not
in the avatar system?
>> Yes.
Is our electronic health record manager
and he is our expert so he can probably
give more detail on that.
>> Tony Loomis, health services.
So we would expect a lot of data validation
that we would have to take a look at as far as
if they were in the system and we would have to do that
on the QA side and the manager side
if that answers your question.
>> I guess so it's -- if they're not in the avatar system,
they prevent a paper file to you.
Is that right?
Then your staff enters it into the system?
>> If they are not in the avatar system,
we would start a model where they would administer some
of that data and chart within our system and get that data
to us in that real time.
That is what the hybrid model is proposing
is that they would enter the system
and do the administrative work with their administrative staff.
>> So no extra work for your staff?
>> Again it would just be validation.
They would have to take a look at it
and make sure that it is entered correctly
and then do the data reporting.
>> Thank you.
>> I'm not seeing any more questions.
We will go to public comment.
Staff, you are finished?
Is that correct?
>> Good morning.
Dan Anderson with Anchor Health.
I'm the chief operations officer there
and I wasn't really prepared to comment and talk
on this, so the slides that the behavioral health
director provided, this is the first time
I'm seeing those so talking a bit off the top of my head
here this morning and want to make sure that maybe we
can add some context here.
I want to say thank you to the Behavioral Health Department
for their work on the EHR issue.
We have actually been working on this for several years
and trying very hard to go find a solution to what the board had
actually voted a couple of years ago,
that all the behavioral health providers would go and use
avatar as their primary EHR.
We were in fact ready and planning to do that,
had agreed to that, but when the second root system came out
we realized there were a number of significant barriers
that would be there that would prevent
an organizational provider such as Anchor Health being
able to do the work that we needed to do.
Some examples of that are we would not be able to get --
when you enter client data there is a lot of stuff that goes
in there in terms of their demographics,
their Social Security number and so forth.
Turned out that we would not be able to control
that data, that we would have to get reports built
by the county for us to be able to track the clients served,
the number of services they received and timelines.
All of that data that we used to manage our services,
we wouldn't be able to control that or have access to it.
Part of that is because the county system has
all of the county's clients in it
and so it just was going to create
a significant challenge for us to be
able to manage our services.
Secondly, we don't just serve Mendocino County Medi-Cal
beneficiaries we serve other counties.
We serve folks with other payers,
grants, other funding sources and so what do we do with those?
There was not a system for us as an organization
to do that all in the county system
because those are not Mendocino County beneficiaries so it
created these challenges that we couldn't figure out
how to solve.
Avatar couldn't figure out how to solve.
We kind of ran into this wall here.
So we began looking at what other counties are doing.
We brought in our EHR folks.
We use X and.
We brought in their programmers, their engineers.
Other counties are using a hybrid system.
There is still work going on county
wide to create this interoperability.
It is not ready to roll out yet.
But there is progress being made.
So I guess what we are recommending and hoping
and asking the board to consider is some flexibility around this
as the technology gets developed.
It's not ready to go right now.
LA County is using their health information exchange
as a way to get this information into the county
system in a timely way.
Other counties are using where they are using flat files, where
they are able to provide that information on a real time
basis in terms of patient encounters.
There is a whole range of things that
are going on around the state and my hope
is that the board just doesn't say well the simplest
solution here is everybody go into the county system
without recognizing the challenges and the barriers
and the impact that it will have on your partners
here at the community based organizations.
It's not as simple as it sounds.
If it was we would have done this two years ago.
We've been having weekly and monthly meetings
for two years on this and they are still trying
to figure out paths forward.
Our electronic health provider and their engineers
are part of this conversation.
Say well we could do this or we could
do that but it has to go back to avatar
and avatar says well we can do this
or we can't do that so it has just been really challenging.
So my hope is, and I can provide you an outline and a report
on this that presents our concerns
and the issues and the barriers.
I don't have it in front of me so this
feels like I'm kind of operating a little bit with one hand tied
behind my back and this isn't blaming anybody.
It is just saying that is the problem here this morning.
So if you take a quick vote this morning and say yes
everyone should be in avatar, which is the simplest thing
but it just really creates a serious impact
on our ability to do the work and let
me add one more thing to this.
Anchor has added a mental health rehabilitation center
to our operations.
We do bill through the mental health system.
But DHS requires us to do a whole host of other tracking
and documenting things from physical health exams
to monitoring the medication delivery
so we use what is called an EMAR,
it's an electronic medication system
that tracks when medications are handed out.
We can't do that without a lot of expense and development
in avatar right now.
So to go in and say hey use avatar,
it's not available to work because of the technology
required to make it happen.
That is just one example and I can give you
15 or 20 other examples of how this would require
a huge amount of engineering which is possible
but the technology is not there right now.
>> Sir you've got to roll over but the supervisor does have
a question for you.
>> Without being able to white bar the problem and understand
it I have a hard time with this hybrid because I see the county
has hybrid systems today.
We've seen the problems that have come out of that
so I don't want to create another one of those situations
but I also see the hardship for the organization.
You have clients from multiple counties.
How do you integrate?
You need a system for all of your clients.
We need one for all of our patients
and those are two separate needs.
Could we continue with the mandate
that we are standardizing on avatar but ask you to come back
and present maybe with an engineer what the difficulties
are on a road map?
Maybe we could work with avatar to provide an API
so you could get direct access to your patients that
are in our system and you could backfeed your separate software
and do your own reporting and there
may be a way to do integration in the reverse so instead
of the county working with the hybrid maybe
your organization could work with the hybrid
so you have a way to pull your data out of our system.
There may be options that facilitate
both needs but I don't want to today decide on a hybrid system
because it's creating a long term
trajectory of possible fines from the state
and compatibility with future mandates
and the sort of support headache we
have with our other hybrid systems today.
>> Thank you.
>> Can I just respond to?
I would love to be able to come back
and we actually could bring the engineers from Exom.
I'm not an IT expert so my language and ability to describe
this is probably limited but I would love to bring back
and we've been trying to do this within our EHR work group.
I think there are paths forward here and I understand the need
for simplicity and obviously none of us wants sanctions
but this is a complex -- if it was simple the state would have
solved it and they haven't.
Every county is doing it differently right now.
Every county is and that is because it is just complicated
so I would hope there is some space and time here
for some creative work through here.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Supervisor Cline, did you have a question?
>> It can wait till after the comment.
>> Good afternoon.
Redwood Community Services.
I can say exactly what Dan just said
but I will echo my support on the majority of what
he described.
We are in a different EHR than even anchor health.
We did make a shift a couple years ago.
We have been operating under a contract,
working toward interoperability for this last year
and so I, too, am a little taken aback that there
was a position for the board to make a decision on if we
are doing that or not today.
We've had a significant amount of investment
into what interoperability will mean for us as an organization
but also us as a partner with Mendocino County.
We do operate in other counties.
We do have other grants.
We also are really pushing our private insurance which
has been a mandate within our contract
with the crisis residential treatment,
and to expand our services and access to private insurance.
That would pose a barrier.
Avatar does cost a significant amount more.
If we had the ability to go with avatar when
we made our initial shift we would have.
It is significantly out of range.
The other issue around if we have to be in avatar,
we will have to have another EHR.
We won't be able to work with avatar with our other funding
streams and grants and other counties.
We will have to continue to operate a second EHR
so all costs within avatar within this contract
will have to be like that is a whole other separate
conversation.
I do want to echo the last thing.
I have been hearing our county partners concerns
about this for a long time.
As a provider in the state I have
been pushing for advocacy at the state level
to address interoperability because this is something
that the state needs to take on.
This is not something that individual counties should
be taking on and so under some of our membership organizations
and advocacy we have been pushing
to say we need to be addressing how providers and counties are
building interoperability so we can make this work.
There is technology out there that can make this work
and it doesn't have to be archaic
and it doesn't have to mean that we aren't
going to meet our data points.
We have technology available that
can make this work so I agree.
I just would temper the decision today and try and get
more information because it has a big ripple effect.
So thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Good afternoon Kim with Anchor Health Management.
Again I'm beyond words.
I don't know how to actually say about the presentation
as such but I was hoping maybe Supervisor Williams,
you have a lot of experience in investment
knowledge in this field and in this work
and we have been spending a long time on a lot of effort
trying to come up with something that will help us have our data,
be able to take care of our numbers
and understand what we do so we can do it better,
support and assure none of us have the mandates
and sanctions and the things that were presented here today.
Would it be possible to do an ad hoc meeting
and have you join us?
Your expertise could be really helpful to getting us
over the line.
Before making a real firm decision
based on the presentation here today.
That is what I would ask at this point,
to maybe be able to close the chapter on this.
Everyone has spent a long time and a lot
of work trying to get there.
There is so much more to share and a public meeting
wouldn't be able to meet.
That's my personal ask.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Cline.
>> I want to thank the commenters for their insights
and ask the director what kind of timeline she envisions this.
Appreciate you bringing this to the board for our awareness.
When do you need to have a decision made
around electronic health record?
>> I'm not sure that we have to have a decision today.
I think the question is, every day we are spending
more money both the providers and us to build interoperability
and I don't want to keep pushing for something
if the board is going to push back and say no.
Everyone should be in avatar.
We announced at the Behavioral Health Advisory Board
that this was coming forward about the avatar.
Multiple board members have asked me
why everyone is not in avatar because that
was the direction by this board so I was asked to bring it
back today as a question because several board members believed
that was the direction, and so we've been trying
to pursue interoperability.
Said for several years we have been at the table meeting
every other week with Exium.
We were meeting with credible and that came to a halt
after a couple of months but we have
been trying to move it forward.
The question for us is do we continue
doing this knowing we've been putting money
into building a system.
Because I've had several questions asked of me
why is everyone not in avatar, it really
was a decision of what are you asking for the department now?
Because we are spending money to try to build interoperability
but I've also heard some feedback that I thought everyone
was going in avatar so that's why we're here today.
>> Thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
Comments to my colleagues I think
it might be appropriate for us to have
some sort of ad hoc forum to work on this issue.
It was suggested by one of the commenters
and I'm supporting that idea as we work through this issue
because it is pretty detailed.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Mulheren.
>> Thank you.
I just want to say first that the agenda was properly noticed
and had the presentation that had all of the information
about what the discussion was going to be
today so that anybody would be surprised surprises me.
I will say that I am one of the people that
has been asking why is everybody not on avatar
because that was a board discussion.
I also am aware that the department and the service
providers have been meeting regularly
to try to work through this and I discussion.
The service have been meeting regularly
to try to work through this and I
understand that there are actually maybe even.
Over 20 other counties that are going
through a different system.
Trying to figure out their hybrid model.
It seems like through all 58 counties
in the state of California this is a challenge.
Trying to figure out how service providers and county agencies
can work together to meet the mandates of the state.
I do agree.
This is a statewide issue that we
should be working with our legislation and our NGOs.
And our affiliated agencies on.
To improve.
At the end of the day -- it's the people that get lost
in these systems of whether or not a flat file downloads
correctly.
And whether or not somebody is reporting to the same system.
There is a person that is impacted by that decision.
So -- I don't want to be flippant.
It is just one of the other.
Here is where we need to be.
I think an ad hoc is probably appropriate.
To figure out where we go next.
The board did give a direction.
Was direction that everybody should
be in avatar by 1 or 2 years.
Here we are at this point.
That didn't happen.
A more detailed workgroup I think is appropriate.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Williams.
>> I agree with Supervisor Mulhern.
I don't think our providers are being difficult.
They just want to wait to work with us.
There may be some possibility that we are not going
to touch on in this session.
I'm fine working offline.
The board already made a decision.
Everyone wants to use avatar.
Status quo.
We take no action is coming we are
continuing in that direction.
I would say until such time as we can come forward with a proof
that it's not possible for them to perform
their role in our system.
Does our staff understand why they can't use avatar
for our patients?
And use the avatar API to backfeed their systems?
Do I understand why providers are not?
>> That's what I would do.
Mendocino County patient comes in come I would use the county
system avatar.
And then use the avatar API to read it
into another system come if they want
to do their own data analysis.
>> Some accounts, some providers.
We have two providers locally.
Youth project and hospitality Center that are in avatar.
And then we have some of the drug Medi-Cal providers
that are coming in.
Their model is come they have their own EHR.
They use the county's EHR for when they see county clients.
If they're serving one provider who does medication management
services, they have 30 counties they work with.
They use avatar.
The county's avatar for those counties
that are that county's client.
They have their own EHR.
They also use Smartcare for their other clients.
Depending on, they will use whatever the county
EHR is, they will use that EHR.
They have their own EHR they can transfer data to and from.
>> Exactly.
Is a reason that can't be done in this case?
Um it could be done
>> It could be done.
The community stated they can't pull their own data from our EHR
system.
There's an API to pull.
>> There's an API that goes to the patient access which is
third party application.
That is the mandate.
However, that is a third party that
is not contracted with them.
>> Can we help them with that please?
>> We can look into that and talk to Netsmart avatar and see
those options.
We do know it is that barrier they can't pull reports
without us creating them.
We did offer to create whatever reports they need.
It does mean they're waiting on the county
to create some of those reports.
We can look at the API.
>> They could also pull all of their data from avatar
into another system and do their own reports in that system.
>> Yes.
As long as were written for them to pull it.
>> We would write it in the database.
They would generate it.
>> Okay I agree with Mulhern I agree.
It's not fine conversation.
Is the director comparable with this
taking the recommended action today?
Leaving this part out, keeping status quo until we
are able to have some ad hoc discussions?
May I get one clarifying question?
Do the contracts currently being brought forward state
that there is a requirement?
Do we need to modify?
>> We'll need to modify.
From the perspective of interoperability
we were saying status quo.
Will say they're using avatar until such time.
Unless you guys want to leave them
with the information regarding interoperability?
>> It's up to the board.
My preference would be -- to make the right decision once.
I don't think we have enough information to do it now.
I'd rather keep status quo.
But come open the door to conversations
about general impossibility with integration.
You know.
We may have to update our requirement
if we can't find a solution.
>> If I may comment does this mean we would bring
the contracts back on September 1st as retroactive?
As well?
>> I would recommend if you could, you know --
approve the contracts, knowing will amend them with
the language or avatar.
In other words, they go a month without payment.
I won't be able to pay them.
They are providing services.
It's going to be like a 2 or 3 month lag for payment.
That wouldn't be fair to the provider.
>> Okay.
We also have public comment.
Supervisor go ahead.
>> Yeah.
I agree with that approach.
When you look at page 24 of the slides -- you know,
there's a lot of impacts to the county.
You know -- with the county impact with technology
and infrastructure.
All of those things listed.
The right way to do it is to move towards this avatar.
We thought we were doing.
We are hearing that progress is being made.
At the same time, there is all these barriers that are,
let's keep working on that.
The intent is to move in that direction.
>> Thank you.
Anybody else in the room like to speak on this item?
Madam clerk?
Any other item?
I'm seeing none maybe I'm great.
Back to the board.
>> Can we ask Council is there a reason we just can't amend
and approve today?
Why does it have to come back?
>> So what part do you want to amend?
I'm sorry.
>> Maintaining the status quo of use avatar.
>> It would be amending.
It would be the avatar portion of the contract.
>> It would need to be brought back through cobblestone.
>> Why?
Normal course here we approve contracts.
Subject to amendments made during the meeting.
Why is this any different?
>> As far as I know we've not approved a contract that has
a different schedule that's attached.
I think we would need to appropriately then reattach
the schedule.
>> Different approach.
Simple finance.
What if we were to keep contracts as is.
No amendment today or ever?
And the board clarifies what interoperability means.
It's enabling our service providers
to interoperate with avatar to pull
the data for their own uses.
Right?
They do need some interoperability.
It's a question of do they put our patient
data in separate systems from ours
or do they put it all on ours?
They have interoperability with pulling that data back
into theirs?
To do their own analysis?
I think it's open to interpretation.
We need to solve that problem for them.
I don't need come I don't know we need to modify our contract.
>> The model, that interoperability.
I just want to be clear that's kind of the term hoc
they're going to pay for the build down and stuff.
I don't know if an option is.
I wouldn't go back through cobblestone
if we could just pull the back piece out.
They can prove.
We can try to go back to the office I'm in the mall really
quickly, pull up that pace.
You guys got to prove it.
>> May I?
>> Prefer that otherwise we're approving a contract
that's saying a message we want them to begin spending
their money building out a hybrid system that this board
actually doesn't support.
At least today.
>> If I may to the chair comment you to remove section C.
I think it's exhibit.
Think A is a main and then B is a B. I think it's exhibit C?
We would remove all the avatar.
The interoperability language out.
>> Doctor Miller.
Could you restate what your preference would be in this?
Based on the discussion?
>> My preference is to make sure the contractors get at least
the contract approved today, so they can get paid between now
and September 1st.
I am happy to go back to the office
and have my team just pull out the language regarding
interoperability.
We can bring those back in separate contracts.
Can have that not even be part of this.
We can make sure there are two separate contracts going
forward.
I think that will make probably more sense.
I'm happy to come as long as County council thinks we can.
We just pull nothing but pull that language out, then
bring it in, we can get it back to the board today.
>> I would have to look at it a little more carefully in this
situation.
This is something that we have given to the other parties.
They've signed on.
>> That's correct.
And so if we are changing contract terms,
we do need to go back to the persons we are contracting with.
I'm not sure what you're saying.
Which contract do you want to go forward today?
>> It would be all five of the contracts pulling out a portion
of the contract term is only about avatar.
>> You could approve two.
Youth project.
We could pull these apart.
Youth project and hospitality house or an avatar.
Their contracts are totally different.
There's not a conversation about interoperability framework
they're using avatar.
They've been using avatar for the last year.
They are totally fine.
Those contracts.
We could pull that as a separate.
You guys could make this a separate.
Youth project and hospitality center are already using avatar.
They're in the languages in their.
We continue to use avatar and reimburse
for the number of users they have.
You are only looking at three.
>> Thank you Supervisor Mulhern.
>> Thank you.
I'm just wondering -- at this point --
the contracts have been signed by the providers come up with
the provision in them that they would be using avatar.
It is in
>> They would be using the administration part of avatar.
They would still be using their own system.
>> Right.
It has to continue work with us.
The contracts could move forward today.
>> The ad hoc could work on whether or not the requirement
would be to switch avatar to their actual system.
The contracts could be approved today come as they are listed.
It's the way that we've been operating.
And then an ad hoc could determine,
could bring back to the board, a recommendation about
whether or not they fully implement avatar.
>> Do you agree?
>> Yes.
As long as the board agrees.
There wouldn't be status quo.
Could be status quo to what we're doing today.
It wouldn't be status quo to what the board voted
on which I think it's the same status
quo everyone has to use avatar.
I think you guys have to make that decision.
I would want their contracts to move forward at some level
today.
To make them wait until September for payment
is not realistic.
>> Supervisor Williams.
>> With the contract to move forward as well.
I have full support County council could get it done.
We have very long closed session.
We are busy for hours if you come back and take this
at the end of the day.
Supervisor Mulhern's comment.
I think it's a mistake right now our providers are
expected to use avatar.
This contract tells them no.
You can do a hybrid.
We come back in a month and say we want you to use avatar again.
We have to amend the contract.
That thrashing isn't good for either side of the agreement.
Is it possible to make the change and have the county sign?
The other party can sign later.
As far as we are concerned.
>> I would just need to understand on those three
contracts.
Is there an agreement with our contractors for that amendment?
>> We will have to ask?
If not the contract will go forward.
>> It status quo.
We're not introducing anything new here.
Our agreements have been for the last couple of years.
>> The other suggestion is to amend the term.
And just do a term until October 1st.
Come back and amend after you've had that chance to negotiate.
Just shorten the term.
I think that's fine.
>> Thank you.
Supervisor Mulhern.
>> Thank you.
I think using the term status quo for something that
didn't happen is an awkward way to phrase this conversation.
Because it's confusing people.
Supervisor Williams you were referring to status quo
as what the board previous direction was.
Everybody switches to avatar.
I want to make sure that all five board members agree
that a hybrid model may not be a viable option for the providers.
I am not decided on yet.
In reviewing, there are essentially
half the counties using an entirely different model.
None of the providers have mentioned the county is not
using the state of California.
That other providers that are using avatar system
are also struggling.
Trying to figure out their management of,
with their providers in the county has an agency.
I still have more questions.
And so I would like to see the contracts move forward.
Which is a model that would allow
them to continue to use their system
and share the information with the county.
So the county has information they need.
Can then come come back to the board with no
you must be on avatar.
Maybe I'm alone in that.
That would be fine.
I do want to hear from the other board members.
The way things are being described
can be a little bit confusing right now.
>> That mirrors your earlier idea.
Plus filming an ad hoc to get through that process.
Correct?
Would you like to form that into a motion?
>> I would.
I would like to ask supervisor first.
>> I was going to make a motion.
To approve as is -- items two.
Which is the hospitality center.
And three.
The youth project contract.
And then with the others, we do a short term contract.
For three months.
Can have the ad hoc work with them, to try to figure out that.
>> Second.
>> Miss Miller those contracts would then again have to come
back.
Right?
The providers would have to agree to the short term
contract.
>> Yes.
The providers would have to agree to the short term
contract.
Yes.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
We do have a first supervisor seconded by Williams.
Madam clerk.
Could you restate the motion please?
>> Approve the second and third contract that being --
the youth project and Mendocino County.
Excuse me.
Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center.
And approve a short term contract for the other three,
for three months.
The ad hoc works with the company's.
>> Okay.
Thank you supervisor.
Question
>> I need more clarity.
I'm trying to understand how these short term contracts would
work?
I'm understanding we're under the timeline of today.
I would like to staff for clarity
about what that would really mean in terms of a short term
contract.
>> It would mean that we would go back to the office.
Change the date.
We would just edit the dates.
We would have to consult with the three contractors
like I said.
The two are already in avatar.
Make sure they will agree to sign those short term contracts.
Would mean we would need an ad hoc committee pretty quickly.
We need to make a decision and be back
in three months to this board, so that we are not putting them
without the contract.
And without payment.
Thank you.
>> Okay.
Before we vote --
Supervisor Mulhern.
Could you restate what your motion would have been?
>> Yeah.
My motion would have been to move forward
with the recommended action regarding
the County electronic health record usage contract providers.
The request for the recommended action was to provide direction.
My direction would have been to create an ad hoc
of Supervisor Williams.
To work with Behavioral Health Department.
And the providers to determine whether or not
moving forward with an only avatar
model versus a hybrid model.
What the recommendation from the Board of Supervisors ad hoc
would be.
Thank you.
Supervisor client.
>> I would be supportive of that action.
Maybe you would or not?
I would to.
Supervisor.
Well I'm not in support of that.
I don't want to be on that ad hoc.
I don't have an expert.
Okay.
>> So, yes.
Supervisor Williams.
>> Not unsupportive.
I think supervisor has a good idea.
My only concern is I don't want to sign
a contract for 12 months come up before the hybrid system.
We don't know the answers.
>> Right.
Maybe after some fact finding.
We find there's a solution to use avatar for everyone.
I don't want to put that off for a year.
This idea of passing a contract today until June of 27.
Doing the fact finding and coming back trying to amend it.
Doesn't seem like the best flow.
It would be better to get that answered first.
That's what I think supervisor approach of three month
extension basically so we can do the fact finding.
Can reach the right answer.
Put pressure on everyone to get to that answer soon.
>> Okay.
If
>> If I may?
>> Yes.
>> The motion that's on the table for supervisor Haschak
does not create the ad hoc that the motion itself is
referencing.
A creation of an ad hoc I believe,
would be needed to make, would need
to be in the motion to make the ad hoc.
Is that correct County Council?
>> Couldn't the chair create the ad hoc after the vote?
>> If I could?
There's debate on this.
There's also preference of your clerk of the board.
The preference is that it's part of the motion,
in order to track it more successfully.
>> Through the chair if I may.
Isn't there rules and procedures I believe that an ad hoc
must be formed in a motion.
Thank you for that.
My understanding as well.
Supervisor Mulhern.
Supervisor Haschek has stated he doesn't.
I don't want to put you on the hot seat here.
I would challenge anybody.
Certainly in this room -- or at the county aside from Doctor
Miller and her staff.
To have a better understanding of the system
a behavioral health and substance abuse.
All of that.
So, whether this motion passes or not,
we are going to need an ad hoc.
I would ask for you as well as Supervisor Williams to be on it.
>> I'm not in favor of supervisor motion.
More in support of yours, if that helps.
So
>> I have to say I have got some confusion here premature people
saying they would like to make a motion.
I don't know.
>> We do have a first and a second.
We're having a discussion on the motion.
The discussion right now is around who's
going to be on the ad hoc.
>> So who made -- >> Supervisor Haschak was the first.
Supervisor Williams was the second.
Supervisor Haschak.
>> With that, I would just say --
if we are going to form an ad hoc,
let's form an ad hoc with Supervisor Williams.
And, supervisor Mulheren.
>> Okay.
>> Can I get one more clarifying question?
>> Yes.
>> If this motion passes we're bringing this back at the end
of the day which is likely past 630 or 7:00?
>> I think that would be the best route.
Supervisor Mulhern.
>> Yeah.
Just for clarification.
Supervisor motion passes behavioral health staff
will have to go back and revise contracts.
Have to get approval to change the three months.
If that happens.
>> Supervisor?
>> Chair.
We basically have some pulling of the motion, you know,
before we vote?
>> We can.
I think my understanding is we are at least 3 to 2 in favor
of Supervisor Mulhern's.
Does that satisfy your question?
>> Yes.
Thank you.
>> We will vote by the >> Yes.
>> Chair if I may clarification --
did the maker and the second want to add the creation
of the ad hoc to the motion that's being voted on currently?
>> Yes.
>> For clarification of the record,
was that Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Mulhern?
>> Yes.
Supervisor Williams has a second.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
Will vote by the button.
>> The motion.
The motion supervisor supervisor Mulhern and supervisor .
>> Supervisor supervisor Mulhern recommended action.
Motion for the recommended action
to accept the presentation from health and Recovery
services regarding specialty mental health services
behavioral Health services act.
And provide direction to staff regarding the County
electronic health record to create an ad hoc supervisor
Smallhorn and Williams.
Bring back a recommendation to the board.
Of fully implementing avatar with our entire system.
Or creating a hybrid model.
>> Second.
>> First by Supervisor Mulhern.
Seconded by Klein.
Supervisor.
>> If I may to the chair.
Is it an approval of the contracts?
>> Supervisor.
>> I think there needs to be a time set for bringing it back.
It's not open ended.
>> Thank you supervisor Williams.
>> Yeah.
Just to clarify a question.
Do we foresee -- this decision that's made about how to move
forward on health records?
Impacting the next contract after June 2027?
Where do we say that information happiness renegotiate
with the providers?
The contract?
So for the ad hoc is formed -- and the answer comes back in two
months.
The board supports it.
Will we be renegotiating a couple of months in?
Or will we be seeing that takes effect
at the end of the contract?
>> I think that will be a recommendation that the ad hoc
brings back.
In consultation with behavioral Health Department
and the service providers.
I think at this point everybody understands
the direction of the Board of Supervisors
was to get everybody on to avatar.
We were going to have a conversation about
whether or not the hybrid model continues.
If the recommendation is that we go to avatar
and the entire board approves that action,
the contractors are aware that is
something that could potentially impact their contracts.
>> Okay.
>> I have a follow up question for county counsel County
counsel agree that we are able to amend the contract after both
parties sign and they perform services we pay within that year
period?
>> So that was my concern.
In terms of both parties signed this contract.
It's very large contract.
I was trying to look at it at the last second.
I'm concerned in terms of the procedure.
Usually, we can't just amend, unless we get their agreement.
If they say no, we don't have any recourse until the contract
ends and start of the next fiscal >>
Thank you supervisor Haschak.
>> Two things.
One is the composition of the ad hoc.
Hasn't been clarified.
The other is why wouldn't we go to a shortened contract
can the maker kind of explain that?
>> Supervisor client.
>> I believe we had a comment from a director of behavioral
health director.
>> I believe all of our contracts have termination
clauses.
We can term without cause.
I would say if they didn't want to amend.
We were saying you had to be an avatar.
We would have the ability to give
a 45 day notice of termination.
I just want to make sure that all of our contracts
have term clauses.
>> My comment has been, we have two of the service providers
represented here today.
We could do a litmus test for if they
are agreeable to this process.
Two supervisor hash and supervisor Williams point.
Make sure this is an okay process with our partners.
>> Seeing nodding heads.
Supervisor Mulhern.
Did you have a question?
Okay.
Miss Bearden can you reread the motion?
You can't.
>> To the chair if I may.
I am missing if portions that I was
going to go back and look at.
If you could restate it.
I could fill in that portion.
>> I cannot.
>> Miss Mulhern can you?
>> The motion is to approve the recommendation,
recommended action from the Behavioral Health and Recovery
Services Department.
And the direction to staff regarding the county
electronic health record is to create an ad hoc
of supervisors Mulhern and Williams.
To bring back for consideration to the board full implementation
of avatar versus the hybrid model.
A recommendation to the board.
>> The second agree.
>> Second agree.
Second being supervisor hashtag you have a client on a motion?
>> Yeah.
Is there going to be a time limit
to bring back a recommendation?
>> No.
>> As soon as it's finished.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
We have first and second.
We will go by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
Thank you Miss Miller.
Yeah.
>> I think that was assumed the contract.
I haven't yet.
I was just looking.
I think we are. .
>> Miss.?
We have a time session for close.
>> If I may to the chair we do not have a time session
for the closed.
We have a time session being back and open at 130.
>> Okay.
>> For the Rotax items.
>> Okay.
We've got come on we can knock out a couple other things here.
>> Yes we can.
We do have a closed session though.
Which I think will take about half an hour.
>> That's not timed.
Is a preference from the board?
Do you want to knock some more work out now?
Okay.
>> We will need a little break though for staff for lunch
as well.
>> Right.
What time is the time to?
130?
>> Closed will be about a half hour.
>> Another 20 minutes.
Does that work?
>> It does.
Staff needs a lunch break.
>> You will keep us on track?
Thank you.
All right.
>> If I may through the chair.
We're looking for an item come on we
can talk about the Board of Supervisors reports.
Or you can do the grand jury ad hoc.
>> Let's start there.
Are 13 discussion a possible action including appointment
of an ad hoc committee regarding the response to the 2526 Grand
jury reports common title from Policy to Practice.
Digging deeper into the Board of Supervisors
oversight of planning building services and continuity.
Compliance report.
Pardon me.
Pardon me pardon me.
My apologies.
>> Thank you.
Would the sponsor like to introduce the motion
to introduce the item?
>> Other than the title, no.
We do have an obligation to report back to the grand jury.
We need to form ad hoc to do that you and I were
the last two.
I prefer not to be on this one again.
I would, my only recommendation is that whatever the ad hoc
comes back with, it is on a regular and not consent.
>> Board discussion.
Supervisor?
>> Thank you.
I wanted to express my desire to see
at least some continuity from the last ad hoc
to this next ad hoc.
Maybe that's not possible.
I do think it would be important to have
someone who is involved with the last ad hoc, continue on.
And then I as individual do not have the bandwidth
to participate in this ad hoc.
I'm still healing from some medical stuff that caused
me to miss the last meeting.
Just preference that I cannot participate.
>> Let's go to public comment.
Any public comment in the room?
Those online can use the raised hand feature.
>> Good morning.
Afternoon.
D Harrison district five.
Hearing Ukiah.
There are several important issues
identified in this current grand jury report.
I believe the most critical is the failure to implement.
4290.
And California Code of Regulations
title 14 the state Minimum fire safe regulations.
I spoke to last year about the failure
by PBS to fully implement.
4290 and title 14.
Importance of you addressing this failure.
Response to my comments, Supervisor Williams
asked the Planning and Building director to respond.
Director Krog stated there appeared
to be a gap between the information
I received from Cal Fire com and what PBS had received
from supervisor Williams made the comment that we quote don't
want to leave this dangling.
Supervisor has stated quote we need to clear this up,
so everyone understanding is the same.
As a result, included in your motion
common clear direction to PBS to contact Cal Fire.
To get the necessary clarification
to fill these gaps comment to come back in a month
or so to report back.
Director Krog acknowledged this direction.
We never heard back from Director Krog on this item.
Now we have a new grand jury report
that indicates this is still an unaddressed problem.
As I shared at the last meeting comment
appears great strides are being made
to in fact implement recommendations
made in last year's report.
And yet come to nothing addresses the implementation of.
4290 title 14 in its entirety.
I did reach out to Cal Fire myself.
Both locally and at the state level.
Cal Fire clarified that one, the definition of preexisting
in the context of.
4290 and title 14 is any structure built prior to January
1st 1991.
In the SRA. In the very high fire Hazard Safety zone come
anything built after July 1st 2021.
And two common order for Cal Fire to conduct 4290 inspection,
they must receive an application.
And three a quote from Cal Fire official.
Is not our job due to the county how to do their job.
The two largest gaps I see here are one, the misinterpretation
of preexisting by the county.
And two, the counties not referring
all residential and commercial structure
permit applicants to Cal fire.
The state minimum fire safe regulations are very clear.
Suggest you read them.
Especially sections 1270 .04.
1270 .05.
1270 .04 States in part, the local jurisdiction
shall provide the Director of Cal Fire
with notice of applications for building permits,
for construction or development within the SRA.
The local jurisdiction shall ensure the applicable sections
of this subchapter become a condition of approval section
1270 .05 States in part, subchapter two
shall serve as a minimum wildfire protection
standards applied in the SRA. And the Very High Fire Hazard
Safety Zone.
Reminds you that since you are at the top of the command
structure, you are in fact our building official.
And the responsibility sits on your shoulders.
When those that you have delegated that authority to --
fail to fully and correctly interpret and implement state
law -- and so jeopardize the health and safety of all
Mendocino first responders and residents.
Of the Board of Supervisors to give clear direction
to that effect please do the right thing.
Thank you.
>> I'm not seeing any more public comment in the room.
No public comment online.
Back to the board for discussion.
Supervisor.
>> Well, I will acknowledge that the speaker had it correct.
We did give direction to have Cal Fire and Director
of Planning and Building come com and kind of address
this issue before us.
Kind of work it out.
That never happened.
You know.
That is on us.
We are not making sure that happens.
>> Is there a motion?
>> Go ahead supervisor.
>> I would like to ask supervisor Hashtag
if he's willing to serve as supervisor Williams on this ad
hoc.
And then I will make a motion.
>> Yeah.
I will do it.
>> I move that we appoint.
>> Go ahead.
>> I have a comment.
You go ahead.
>> I would like to appoint the supervisors Williams and Haschak
regarding response to the 25, 26 grand jury report from Policy
to Practice.
And the Continuity Compliance Report.
>> Second.
>> There's a first and there's a second.
I have a comment.
Our last ad hoc to work on this.
I found it extremely frustrating.
The dynamic between being guided by county counsel
and the grand jury being indicted by different county
Council works with us.
I don't want to experience that again.
If I'm on the ad hoc it should get
to the bottom of this comment come up
with what needs to be done and these solutions.
We couldn't make any progress last time.
The process.
Is this a repeat of the last go around?
Is this a problem that can't be solved by the grand jury
approach, that they generate a report?
All we can work with is that report.
We can have a dialog to clarify?
If there's specific cases that are called out,
we don't know what they are.
We can't get clarification.
We can't have a sit down.
All we can do is rely on our staff
to ask are we in compliance.
If our staff says yes come on we're
going to come back with a report that says we disagree.
We are in compliance.
We are going to have the same public comment
that we are not doing our job.
This county council needs to look
at how we can be productive at solving
the concerns at this time.
>> It's a bit of a compound question.
If I understand.
You are wanting to go beyond what your responses are
to have a dialog?
>> I don't want have a repeat of what we had last time we had two
supervisors trying to solve a problem.
And found that process didn't allow
us to do anything productive.
That's not going to be a good look
if we do that exercise again.
>> So in response.
Responses.
And how they are supposed to be prepared are laid out actually.
In the penal code.
In terms of what you do.
And, many times when a grand jury is doing investigations,
they ask questions.
I find a lot of times, departments
start to solve those problems by having questions asked.
Sometimes by the time a report gets
to the Board of Supervisors.
Some of the issues have been resolved.
There's different ways of doing it.
The Board of Supervisors can have an ad hoc.
Usually it's more staff based.
In terms of getting the answers etc..
And then would work with the Board of Supervisors
to finalize that.
The issues that are brought up in terms
of being able to move forward and do something,
would be something you might agendize
for a meeting in the future.
In terms of using the responses to the grand jury report,
it's fairly limited in terms of legally.
>> So one of the difficulties is the grand jury report is finding
that PBS isn't adequately compliant with state
regulations.
The ad hoc is going to ask the same staff.
Comply with state regulations?
I think that staff is going to say yes.
We are.
Then what?
>> Last time I went to the Cal Fire unit chief and asked can
you look at this.
We're are we doing something wrong?
If not I want to fix it help me.
The response I got was affirming that staff is doing it right.
Where do we go from here to be productive?
>> Again, I think working directly with the CEO's office
oversees the planning department,
would be very important.
And some follow up.
You've got a limited time in which you respond to these.
You might not get all of those answers.
You do actually have to rely on your staff for some of that.
>> So the board, do you want Williams and the on hag,
Williams and Norvell couldn't make progress.
I will do if you assign it to me somebody else
would like to take a swing at it, by all means.
>> I think the fact that you know the issues.
You pointed them out so clearly.
I would support you still being on there.
>> Supervisor Mulhern.
>> Thank you.
I think one of the challenging things for this particular issue
come is that Miss Hallinan has been coming to our meetings
and bringing to our attention.
She is not on the grand jury.
There's nothing that prevents any member
from the Board of Supervisors including Supervisor Williams,
from sitting down.
We could even have staff sit with,
there's nothing against the rules
that would allow us to have a conversation with a constituent.
Versus the statutory requirements
responding to the grand jury I agree with Supervisor Williams
is very frustrating.
Whatever requirements are.
To be clear --
any member of the Board of Supervisors
could meet with a member of the public that has a concern.
>> Supervisor Klein.
>> A follow up question for County Council based
on supervisor Williams questions.
As an individual in reading the report.
Not a part of the response.
Am I allowed to reach out to the grand jury
and ask to engage in conversation around
that specific report?
>> I want to give you this explanation.
This is something that persons don't understand
about the grand jury.
The grand jury they wrote their report does not
come in no longer exist.
They are gone.
They left you all.
You were there.
One report does not move to the other report.
In fact, they are prohibited from doing that.
I have two, when I work with department heads.
They get frustrated that the same questions come year to year
from grand juries.
I always explain, that's because each grand jury
has to start uniquely.
They don't carry over information from one jury
to the other.
Unless it's an ongoing investigation and therefore
if it was ongoing, you would not have received a report.
>> There is still continuity in some individuals that have
continued on the grand jury.
Even at the swearing in yesterday.
They spoke to how their reports are
reflected of their organization year after year.
So even if, maybe not every answer is complete.
My question is, am I allowed to go and reach out
to the grand jury?
And have a conversation with them about the report?
>> I don't really see a process for that.
They hearing this, they could reach out to the supervisors.
Absolutely.
>> Is there a prohibition in state law that doesn't allow me
from reaching out to them?
>> No.
There's no prohibition.
There's policies and procedures.
In terms of what they would follow.
The grand jury and the state rules.
>> Thank you.
>> Careful to not create a surreal meeting.
All right?
>> Again, they -- anyone supervisor could talk
to the grand juries.
Often grand jurors do meet with, and sometimes they
meet with all the departments.
That is something we did.
I would say in Nevada County.
They would set up meetings individually.
You could say to the grand jury, I
would appreciate being able to meet.
Could sort of figure out what their process
would be to do that.
They have various committees.
They have a very specific way of doing
this I'm not going to be offended if they tell me no.
I'm asking from County Council said.
There's something that is restrictive of me
as an individual supervisor reaching out?
>> Absolutely not.
>> All right.
There's a motion.
I'm not seeing any further discussion.
Supervisor Haschek.
>> Just to get clarity on what you're saying.
Each new grand jury files their own report.
This report that we have is a continuation
from the previous report.
>> So to better explain, they cannot pass the items that they
reviewed if they finalize the report, it's done.
None of the interviews or the investigation
move to the next grand jury.
What a grand jury can do is read the public report
that a previous grand jury did.
And then conduct all of its own interviews and investigation
before releasing the new report.
That is where that continuity comes with.
I'm just trying to explain what the process is.
It's not misconstrued.
>> So what you're saying is they recommendations came from a new
round of interviews and everything?
>> A new round from the year before.
Yes.
That grand jury that issued that report in practicality
no longer exist.
Although many of the numbers are still there.
>> All right.
Let's vote by the button.
>> The motion carries unanimously.
>> Thank you.
We are going to move to closed session
I believe we just have one item CS1
that we are going to go to now.
Is that correct?
>> If I may to the chair, >> Thank you item c one.
Any public comment on CS1?
Madam clerk?
>> Seeing none.
>> Okay.
We'll go into closed.
We will return no sooner than 130.
Correct?
>> Correct.
>> You can hazards where you work where you live and where
your kids go to school.
Only plan and prepare page you will find the plan template.
It's important to know what you're
going to do what you're going to take with you.
How you're going to communicate.
Where you're going to go.
How to get there.
>> One great way to prepare is to pack a go bag.
Each member of your family should have their own go bag.
Visit our website Mendel.org to get a list of items
that should be in your go bag.
>> Gathering and organizing important documents before
an emergency is an important part of preparedness.
Visit ready.org today.
Where you could find a list of important documents
that you should have ready near your go bag in case
you have to evacuate.
>> Not every emergency requires people to evacuate.
An emergency kit will have supplies for you
to remain self-sufficient for 72 hours.
Find a list of supplies for disaster kits on our website.
Dot org.
>> A prepared community is a community.
>> It's 132.
As far as closed session item CS one.
Direction was given by the board to staff.
We are going to move on to item R 11.
Discussion and possible action including
adoption of an ordinance adding chapters.
Excuse me chapter 51602 title five com of the County Code
imposing 1% County transportation
sales tax and use special tax, in the unincorporated areas
of the county, with said tax being
used to fund pavement preservation
and corrective maintenance for county roads
to improve road maintenance.
Staffing.
Public transportation.
>> Good afternoon Mr. Chair.
Ladies and of the board.
I'm Howard Deshield.
Your Director of Transportation.
With me here today is deputy Director solid Waste and Water
Amber cassette.
Deputy director for our engineering division.
Alicia Winokur.
They are going to be, they work extensively
on the detailed slides.
For the public and the boards information.
The attachments with the item today, are kind of the line
by line budget analysis for ten years.
That's what you're looking at now.
And then the other attachment we have --
is they look at the first seven years of what I will define
later during the slide show, as a 20 year plan.
The corrective preventative maintenance plan.
I just want the public and the board
to know, we can go back to this detail,
if we want to get into the details.
With that, I really want to go to the presentation.
I know the board time is short today.
I want to do this as a quick overview.
Just know that we can address specifics, and get
into the details.
It's all there for you.
The other thing I want to say for the sake of the public.
I know the board knows this.
At the county website for the Department of Transportation,
we have a tab for current projects.
And the current projects tab, you can find the 20 year plan.
You can find all our projects that department engaged in.
The bridges and the safe busses schools.
The traffic safety mitigation plans.
Or projects that we funded through grants from the public
can always go there and look.
Also specific to this potential local sales tax for roads,
we have a tab there that is called
potential sales tax for roads.
There's a fact sheet there.
There's also a ability for the public
to click and fill out a form, were they ask a question.
Dot staff will respond to that question.
Because I know County council is there,
I know she wants me to say this.
We have big disclaimers that our department will not advocate
for or against this measure.
We will only answer technical questions or specific questions,
about the use of the funds.
How they would be spent.
And the details.
We would not advocate.
With that, I guess we'll go to the next slide.
So we were, we were asked to really share
with the public, how the road fund is done.
There are three budget units.
That can be confusing.
3010 is kind of the basic you know,
operational budget unit for the department.
That's where your staff is at.
That is where your equipment is at.
That's the crew you see out there working on the roads.
All runs so that 3010 budget.
The 3010 budget, is where the money gets placed.
Mostly gas tax.
In an incremental property tax.
There are some special smaller contributions.
We will get you a pie chart on that.
30 3030 has been separated out, because that is our disaster
response budget unit.
We used to just say storm damage come
because that's all we ever had.
Here lately, we've seen fire damage.
And even pandemic stuff.
A lot of different things have gone through 3030.
And then 3041.
Is the project budget.
That's the budget unit where the bridges are.
That is our biggest program.
Dollar wise.
Any of the other projects.
Safe bus to school.
Again.
I said the Highway Safety Improvement
program grants we have.
Here recently, we got two big grants
we are going to talk about, which
we're to look at planning emergency routes connecting
routes.
Redmyre road extension.
And the Brook Burrows second access all that
will go through 3041.
It becomes important in a minute,
when we get to talking about you know --
why these different plots.
They're really different functions they don't necessarily
commingle.
If you get money for disaster recovery,
or you get money for projects, it's
not like you can just use that in your operational budget.
In fact, the operational budget ends up
supporting the other two budget units.
3030 and 3041.
In that, if there's any local match required,
or there's ineligible expenses, that
has to be borne by your operational budget
year 3010 budget unit.
Next slide.
So we were asked to so, we were asked to track you know,
how those budget units rolled.
Of course at the end, we've got this huge spike.
Again come I attribute a lot of that
to two really big bridge projects.
We've been working on.
We just finished Acraman Creek.
We've got Lambert Lane and Boonville.
We have those two very large $12 million each
come on for Brooke Trails and Redmyre Road.
That's like $24 million to do the environmental study.
If you really look at the more basic usual budget
for the department, those lines you see.
You're talking really between 20 and 30 million.
That spike in the end is really an anomaly.
Next slide.
So this this is a slide that just shows
the increment of property tax.
Rolls pretty consistently.
I guess it varies a little bit based on assessment.
All right first a pie chart.
Basically the dark green or forest green at the bottom.
The 44%.
That's the basics projects.
We were talking about bridges.
Special projects that we get grant funding for.
And then those upper portions in blue.
The dark blue is our staff.
Their wages what do we call the thousand series.
The 2000 series.
The Orange is material.
The blue light blue sky blue 22% is largely operational.
There's a note in the bottom.
A lot of that is equipment maintenance permit
and internal charges, insurance.
That sort of thing.
The other smaller portions you can read for yourself.
You will note that equipment is really small.
Part of the reason for that is --
when I first started 21 years ago,
we were under a program with the Air Resources Board,
to replace any of our non-compliant equipment that
didn't comply with air quality rates.
The department invested millions over that 20 years.
A little bit at a time.
Their resources board gave us time.
That's why we don't have to buy a lot of equipment now.
We kind of got that all done.
Basically, we are just maintaining that equipment.
Next slide.
Okay.
So if you look at the yellow and the green, this is the revenue.
That's 44%.
It's a snapshot for one year.
It's typical.
Those are the projects.
The rest of the pie is broken out there
on the various different types of taxes.
I know some people get upset with all the acronyms.
Like state who.
That's the highway users tax in town.
The state highway users tax is a different color.
It was basically every time the state increased the gas tax,
they gave it a different name.
A different bill.
Same thing down there on prop 111.
I think that was the last time they increased by increment
the gas tax in the 90s.
Of course the big one.
The one I really want to talk about.
The forest green 20%.
That is the RMRASB1.
That is the 2017.
Last time the state increased gas tax by $0.12 a gallon
with an inflation escalator.
It was $0.12 in 2017.
It's more than that now.
That is the area we try to sequester and really spend
what we call road maintenance and repair account.
RMRA.
Road maintenance repair account.
That's really key.
What everybody will want to talk about today.
Can really the focus of the department's ask to the public.
Or this potential sales tax, is something
that we can do more towards pavement surface condition.
Or the PCI.
Which is the pavement index.
We will get into slides on that.
The public can go back and look at our presentation
on the seventh of this month.
The last meeting where we went in depth
into the pavement condition index.
It's basically a scoring of the roads.
0 to 100.
100 being the best.
Zero being the worst.
We've taken that dark forest green slice of pie.
We developed the 20 year plan.
I think the next slide might help.
Well now this one.
All this slide really shows.
The reason the lines go so close together.
The lower lines are if we stay on our present projection.
We don't actually get calm even though we show revenues
for projects -- we have to spend the money.
Front the money.
Then the state or federal agency reimburses us.
If we don't.
Project gets delayed, or something happens.
And we don't spend money, we don't get reimbursed.
That's part of why those lines run together.
The second set of lines would be if the public granted us
the sales tax measure.
We would basically increase it by about 5.5 million.
The reason they run so close together -- you spend the money.
Then you get the money.
It's pretty much an in and out situation.
Next one.
Okay.
One more on difference between grants and one time funds.
That's bridge replacements is the biggest part of that.
Disaster damage repairs.
The highway safety improvement program.
The second access route.
Fish game sediment.
That's a minor one.
We get money for special projects.
That is earmarked.
We can't spend it on normal summer routine maintenance,
or on pavement condition improvement.
In the past I would say during Arnold Schwarzenegger
administration in the state, they
had a prop one B. We actually got some money for just
routine pavement improvement.
Then later on in 2009 -- the Obama administration.
We got a r a.
The American Recovery and Restoration Act.
There is actually some money there
that would just improve pavement condition.
Those are rare.
The last rounds of all the infrastructure money.
I know I was asked about that.
Why aren't you getting all this infrastructure money to just
improve our pavement condition?
They didn't do that this time.
You know.
The grants are very specific to what they want.
It's rarely ever for pavement improvement.
It's these things.
Okay okay funding sources.
Where they come from.
You know again, most of immigrants are 80 to 100%.
Any percentage is not covered, comes out at 3010 budget unit.
Federal highway Administration.
Caltrans local assistance.
Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Office of Emergency Services.
Even Mendocino Council of Governments.
I might add that the Executive Director Barrett is in the room
to answer questions.
We do get monies through M cog.
All the agencies that are member get a certain amount
of funding to.
That's some of the smaller slices of the pie
on that second slide.
Next one.
Okay the real heart of what I want to talk about.
20 year plan.
Corrective preventative maintenance.
That's the SB one funds that came through.
It's defined road maintenance and rehabilitation account.
The funds.
Basically that 20% forest green slice of the pie
that we looked at.
Is that plan.
That rolled out in 2019 after the 2017 SB one pass.
Was enough money in 20 years, to treat roughly half
of our surface miles.
357 miles.
Total of 690.
You know come a part of our ask and what
we are trying to get to here.
By the way, the amount there 220 million needed for ten years.
That is a published need in the latest.
The one we just completed.
PCI assessment report.
I also advise the public they can always go to save California
streets and roads.org.
They can see statewide, all the counties and cities.
What the unmet needs are.
What their needs they would need to get to pieces of 82 100.
It's a big number for the cities and counties
in Mendocino County.
574 was the number we talked about on July 7th.
There's actually a brand new report that
just came out on that website.
It has that number at 612 million.
Point is, we will never get to 80 or 100.
Those numbers are too big.
So what the department has resorted
to, is trying to spend as it says there on our 20 year plan
comments have hundred and 20, we will spend 65.8 million.
We will do things like you see here.
We will do an in recycle.
That is grinding up our road.
We're utilizing the asphalt and aggregates.
Mixing cement.
That's the white cement you see there.
Reshaping the road and the double chip ceiling at.
Its cost effective.
We can do that for much less than say
trying to achieve a state highway level type 82 100 PCI.
We are trying to get to 50 6070.
Somewhere manageable.
We've got a slide on that later.
Next slide.
Okay.
Here is the evaluation of the first seven years.
It shows.
O. Do I sound that hoarse?
Thank you.
I thought drink was not allowed in the board chamber?
Thank you thank you Sherry.
Sherry is very nice.
So -- there is, you know, what projections were what we
actually delivered at.
The truck right up there was very nice in that --
the Stip funds that came through Mhclg allocation,
allowed us to do a much better job in year six.
We were actually working on Mountain View Road, which
is a real important road when the state
highway is closed down.
If you haven't driven it lately, it is much improved.
We are going to have a slide on what the improvements are.
Next slide.
There is the slide.
This shows how much better the PCI score
has got come in the roads that we treated.
You know -- those scores.
The trouble with pavement is -- it immediately starts running
down.
That deterioration curve.
When we push most of these up into the 90s --
within a few years, they will run down a little bit.
We definitely got the averages up a lot higher than they were.
That is the other problem with road work.
You fix it and then it just starts wearing out.
The other thing about Mendocino County roads --
not just traffic on the road where is that out.
We've got geology.
Especially road like Mountain View road.
At a lot of our roads that are up in the mountains
or are subject to slip out slides.
Geological movement.
Just the weather.
The weather wears them out.
Water is real hard on a road.
It will start decomposing.
Okay we were asked to look at what would
happen with the annexation.
The Ukiah City annexation of 19.65 miles.
Basically, bottom line, you know,
that will result in 410 455,000 per year.
Over the 20 year plan.
Which I liken to a sliver of that green forest
green 20% piece of pie we looked at.
That would be available to us elsewhere in the county.
That's a $6 million piece of pie.
It's kind of nice to get back for the 500,000 uses elsewhere
paramedic okay.
The sales tax.
Obviously it's important to have well maintained roads.
If the roads are in better shape,
they cost less to maintain.
The county crews have a much easier time keeping them
in better shape.
And again, there's the half of the roads that
aren't in the plan that we could cover over 20 years
if we had this additional sales tax revenue.
Let's go to the next one.
This is just a slide that shows that Mendocino Counties
current sales tax rate is 7.875.
If we increase it by a percent we
would be the same as the city of Ukiah.
We'd even be a little less than the other three
incorporated cities in the county.
The taxes only for the unincorporated area.
Not the cities.
The money is only spent in the unincorporated area
outside of the cities.
The next slide.
Okay permanent the expenditure plan, we do a mixture with it.
We think we will get approximately 5.5 million
annually.
That's almost like another piece of forest green pie.
Two pieces of pie.
Roughly we will double what we are doing.
We would preserve good roads.
We always go into an area.
Road can be salvaged or segment we preserve it,
with some kind of preservation treatment.
Which is much less expensive.
We grind them up and do a full corrective maintenance.
That's the only real solution.
If it's past the point that it can be preserved.
We also want to have 10% for restoring some of our road crew
positions.
And bolstering the routine maintenance
capabilities the department has.
Next one.
The benefits.
Again, I can't harp on it enough.
RMA road maintenance and repair account,
is only approximately half the surface roads.
This additional money would let us do the 317 miles that
are not in that plan.
It would restore 7 to 11 positions.
And would improve the county's ability
to also do better routine maintenance.
Along with corrective and preventive maintenance.
Okay.
This slide.
Just one of many you can go look at if you
looked at the presentation from the seventh.
Basically, the good road versus the really bad poor,
failed road.
The crew has a hard time maintaining
the road on the bottom.
There's pothole on top of pothole.
Many of you drive on these sorts of roads.
Around the county.
The crew basically in the winter when
the rains come and it gets wet double
s they just patch them back up.
It's it's not very effective.
It's not permanent.
It just gets us by.
If we had roads more like the fair to good pieces at 50 to 70,
then you get an occasional pothole maybe every mile.
The crew can do a really good job on that.
It just a little bit.
They can take the time to correctly repair it.
The picture on the bottom is just a mad dash.
Just trying to make the road passable.
So this slide demonstrates this slide demonstrates in orange
where we will go, if we just have the funding
source that we have right now.
That does get us from 47 to 50.
With the additional money come if the voters did grant us
the sales tax measure, we can get to 64 again,
that's the average county wide, which means we'd have roads
in the 70s or higher.
And we would have roads probably lower than 50.
It would be, we wouldn't have the terrible 0 to 25 roads.
We have 80 to 100 either.
We would have roads that are manageable.
Roads the crew could repair.
Roads that, the potholes would be spread out enough
that they could take their time.
And keep the road in a lot better shape.
The first seven years of the MRA plan have demonstrated that.
Once we go in and fix the road.
It's not perfect.
It's not repaved.
It's double chips.
The crew is much more able to maintain those.
They're not so bad that the few things that fail
can't be repaired.
Next slide.
All right.
There was one public comment I read.
Comment.
I want to deal with that here.
The tax revenues are definitely in a special fund
that is only for roads.
That state law.
It's locked in.
There will be.
We can do a tax expenditure plan to take the board every year.
Just like we do now for our MRA.
Every year before July usually in April or May --
we have an agenda item.
You can look at the one from this year.
Winning on May 5th.
We present the plan .
The CTC.
California Transportation Commission gets a copy of that.
They post all the counties and cities that get SB one funds.
The roads they're doing or the projects they're doing
are not only posted at our web page which you can read com also
at the state web page.
My feeling on citizen oversight is
that the department could do the same thing for the sales
Tax Commission we could prepare a plan every year.
The only difference is before we would take it,
before the board -- we could go before the standing committee.
We could have public stakeholders who sign up
and get notice to extend that standing committee meeting.
Just like the Drought Task Force works now.
We would go over the details of what the department plans to do.
There could be input.
We could look at the results of the year
before in depth at that standing committee,
before we bring it before your full board
just like we do our MRA.
Next slide questions.
Next slide.
Go to this one.
I'm still going to take questions.
These are the links the public can
use to look at the 20 year plan and to look
at that tab we have in our website for input and facts.
That was long.
I'll drink some water.
I'll take your questions.
>> Thank you sir.
Any questions from the board?
I'm not seeing any.
Supervisor.
>> Yeah.
We had an ad hoc that was working with the department
comment to come up with a more specific plan.
Does this encompass the different plan?
>> Not for me.
There was a lot of work that went
into the ad hoc and meeting.
I think staff did a really good job
at trying to answer some of the questions that I had.
I still have concerns about the county's
overall fiscal transparency.
Taking sales tax to the voters.
I don't think it necessarily provided
opportunities for future opportunities for future
plans I think one of the challenges
that the department has, essentially
a plan is to bring more information back each year.
I don't know if Supervisor Williams has --
>> I felt like I got most of my questions answered.
Some of it has been incorporated into these slides.
There's a lot more the director is able to answer directly.
I think the bottom line is putting
inflation outside we do spend about 60 million
per year per the state.
Not going to spend that.
Worry about 16 now.
If we want better roads we have to pay for it.
The system allocations at state level does not seem quite fair.
I'm not holding my breath for legislators in L.A.
And San Francisco Metro to decide to give Mendocino more.
I think this is our only pathway we want better roads.
We have to self-fund.
I think there's other projects that
are probably dependent on this.
The annexation talk.
I've been a proponent of annexation
that strengthens the county and the city of Ukiah.
Every time we chip away at funding?
This would be a big chip.
5.5 million.
That possibility becomes more bleak.
For a host of reasons I think it's appropriate to move forward
with this.
And let voters and taxpayers decide together pretty
we want to buy better roads?
>> Supervisor.
>> Yeah.
There was a slide on the previous
when you give the presentation earlier.
The other meeting.
About the cost of kind of doing nothing or status quo .
The overall cost increases throughout the years before you
know it, we have a $600 million gap between what we want
our roads to be and what we have .
I wish we had that one on this slide.
Hope it's available on the website.
I think that's really important for people to understand.
We just do what we are doing, we are digging
a bigger hole for ourselves.
>> For the public that presentation is still
on the July 7th board meeting.
They can go and look at it.
I think it was R five?
>> Okay.
I'm not seeing any more questions.
Any more from the staff before we go to the public?
>> Yes sir interim I did want to call it the agenda item also
this one says majority.
It is a 4/5 vote requirement.
I just want to make that note.
I just wanted to thank the staff for bringing forward
all the information.
It was a quick turnaround.
We tried to address everything that was there.
I understand there's still some questions potentially
on general fund.
I wasn't able to get full clarity from what
was being requested on that.
In future, I will just be asking questions
on what data is needed.
I really do believe we are trying to be
as transparent as possible.
We've got more data for the last 3 to 5 years.
I just want to thank the staff for all the hard work
that you guys have done.
>> Thank you for that, supervisor.
>> Yeah.
I also wanted to thank Natalia Barrett and the staff at.
They've done a lot of work on getting these ready to.
It is a collaboration to get to this point.
My feeling is -- we hear people complaining about the roads all
the time.
They are coming to the board meeting from far away
to complain about the roads.
The easy thing to do would be to just say no.