[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:09] Good morning and welcome to the County of San Luis Obispo's Board of Supervisors meeting for December 12th, 2023, here in the Kachosaji and Government Center. I'd ask you to please rise now and join me in the pledge of allegiance.
[0:25] A pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
[0:37] Some
[0:43] announcements.
[0:44] Hearing devices are available on the left side of the dias.
[0:48] Board chambers are T-coil compatible for hearing devices.
[0:53] Speaker slips are available to back of the chambers on the right side of the dias,
[0:57] and anything presented to the board must be turned into the clerk for the record.
[1:02] With that, I'm going to ask the clerk to read the changes to today's agenda.
[1:07] Addendum to item number six, request to review and approve appointments of board members to various committees and commissions.
[1:14] Staff is amending the item to add the San Luis Visco County Integrated Waste Management Authority, IWMA, as an appointed committee and moving the item placement from consent to board business to discuss the appointment of one representative and one alternate to the IWMA.
[1:30] This item will be heard as the first board business item of the day after public comment item number 23.
[1:36] Requirements of the Brown Act have been satisfied as notice was posted prior to the assembly time notice requirement.
[1:41] Okay, thank you for that.
[1:43] Now we are going to go to the consent agenda, but all items except item six, which has been moved to, right?
[1:51] So, I'm going to open public comment, we have no public comment, Mary Christmas.
[1:59] So, we are going to close public comment and ask the board members if they would like to pull anything or have discussion.
[2:08] Supervisor Gibson.
[2:09] Move approval of consent ebbs and item six.
[2:12] Okay, we have a second motion and a second Arnold.
[2:17] Okay, any other comments, discussion?
[2:21] Moving on then, roll call.
[2:23] Supervisor Gibson?
[2:24] Yes.
[2:25] Supervisor Arnold?
[2:26] Yes.
[2:26] Yes, Supervisor Teeth Leigh?
[2:29] Yes, Supervisor Pauline?
[2:30] Yes.
[2:31] And Chairperson Pasham?
[2:32] Yes.
[2:33] Okay, we are going to take a five minute break to sign the resolutions because we worked
[2:38] really hard, so we'll be right back to come forward
[2:47] and Supervisor Pauline will be doing
[2:50] the honors today.
[2:52] Thank you, Chair.
[2:53] It would be my honor.
[3:02] Resolution recognizing Elizabeth Santa Ball upon retirement for 23 years of service to
[3:07] of the County of San Luis Obispo.
[3:08] Whereas, Elizabeth Sandevol started working
[3:11] for the County of San Luis Obispo Public Health Department
[3:13] from 1985 to 1991 as an intermediate typing clerk.
[3:18] She moved out of the area and came back to work
[3:20] for the Public Health Department on August 20, 2000
[3:24] as a senior typist clerk and now as an administrative
[3:27] assistant three until her retirement.
[3:30] And whereas, Elizabeth designed and created pamphlets
[3:33] and flyers, coordinated sponsors for various outreach
[3:36] which training events and county health fairs.
[3:39] And whereas, Elizabeth worked hand in hand with general hospital maternity
[3:43] ward's data system that tracked all babies delivered.
[3:46] And whereas, Elizabeth worked in different public health programs such as tuberculosis,
[3:51] communicable disease, women, infants, and children, immunization,
[3:55] California children's services, childhood led poisoning, prevention program,
[3:59] child health and disability prevention and medical therapy program.
[4:03] which programs didn't you serve in?
[4:06] And whereas, Elizabeth can do, and positive attitude,
[4:11] was a role model for staff in times of innumerable staff shortages
[4:14] and temporary reassignments, and through H1N1 influenza
[4:18] and the COVID pandemic.
[4:20] And whereas, in a time of hysteria,
[4:22] Elizabeth did a lot of behind-the-scenes admin work
[4:25] by submitting H1N1 administrative statistics into the state registry
[4:29] and did much preparation for H1N1 school based clinics and public health department point of distribution sites during October to December of 2009.
[4:38] And whereas in 2009, the immunization program started the adult hepatitis vaccine program,
[4:45] and Elizabeth completed all orders and reports to the state and
[4:49] trained staff from Grover Beach and San Luis Bisbo sites on how to complete their own orders in the future.
[4:55] And whereas, Elizabeth has processed thousands of child health and disability-
[5:00] Committee, prevention, PM 160 referral forms for the CHDP program yearly from 2010 to 2017, and assisted public health nurses in identifying children who need care coordination services. And whereas, Elizabeth has worn many hats and worked different positions throughout the different public health programs to alleviate staffing shortages. Always with a smile on her face, providing outstanding support to the team. I can see that smile now.
[5:29] Whereas, Elizabeth has shown to care deeply for staff and also the children she has built a connection with at the medical therapy units.
[5:37] She is the first point of contact with families, which means she is widely recognized and leads a positive and warm welcome to everyone.
[5:44] And whereas after contributing 23 years of dedicated service, Elizabeth has decided to retire to spend time with her husband, Darryl and her son Josiah.
[5:53] And, whereas, on behalf of the entire children's medical services team,
[5:58] we would like to express sincere appreciation to Elizabeth for her years of contribution to public health.
[6:04] Now, therefore, be it resolved and ordered that the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Luis Obispo,
[6:10] State of California, does hereby recognize Elizabeth Sandevol and
[6:13] commends her for her 23 years of dedication to the county's mission.
[6:17] be it also resolved that Elizabeth Sandivall is wish the best of health happiness and fulfillment in her retirement.
[6:24] Congratulations.
[6:25] Thank you.
[6:53] Come on up everybody.
[8:11] Thank
[8:23] you, thank you Supervisor Prashong and the Board Supervisors.
[8:31] This is amazing.
[8:34] I was 25 years old when I started with the San Luis Bistbol Public Health Department.
[8:39] I know that I was the youngest employee at the Pasferables Public Health Department.
[8:43] And now, I think I'm the oldest, and I don't know how that happened, but
[8:49] it did, and it was very fast.
[8:51] Like I've learned so much, like Mr. Paul Dean said,
[8:56] I work many, many outreaches and departments and very fulfilling and just love my job.
[9:05] I loved everything about it, working with the public, working with the kids and
[9:09] the children, and learning so much.
[9:12] I was from, well, baby clinics in Cambridge, to the most recently, medical therapy unit,
[9:18] at the Pass Roles unit, and San Luis de Dispo.
[9:24] I will close this chapter of my life with a great appreciation for
[9:28] our public health agency and our public health workers.
[9:31] From administrative assistance to our public health nurses, occupational and physical therapists,
[9:38] for our medical therapy aids, medical assistance doctors, and so much more.
[9:43] Employees and many other dedicated workers in our public health agency.
[9:48] I believe we provided tremendous service to our local central coast community.
[9:53] My plan is to spend more time with my family, my friends, and my children.
[10:00] I would love to learn how to grow a garden without killing the plants. That's a really big goal. I will spend more time in the kitchen cooking for my family, my friends, my co-workers because I will still see them, and my church, which I love to do. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to work with such wonderful people and wonderful co-workers. I plan to travel and check things off my bucket list.
[10:28] I have made life long friends and have wonderful memories with my co-workers.
[10:37] My heart is full and I'm very happy.
[10:41] Thank you so much.
[10:42] Thank you.
[10:50] We're going to have additional public comment now, so please.
[10:53] Thank you.
[10:54] My name is Francesca Peterson and I have had the absolute pleasure of working with Liz.
[11:00] She has been an absolute star on our children's medical services team for over a decade and obviously collectively with the Public Health Department and the county for over two decades.
[11:10] She always has a smile on her face as you see and an outstanding positive attitude that is contagious and brings everybody's spirits up.
[11:19] Liz exemplifies our whatever it takes culture and has always stepped up in our time of need to do absolutely anything that's needed by our team and our programs and our clients.
[11:30] Liz is an outstanding representative for public health and the County of San Luis Obispo.
[11:34] She has coordinated and attended many outreach events over the years, and
[11:38] always works hard to serve our community and our clients.
[11:41] Liz is our right hand, and I'm feeling it.
[11:45] She anticipates needs, she takes initiative, she problem solves, and
[11:49] she provides excellent support to our team.
[11:51] Most recently, Liz stepped up into our medical therapy units as the first point of contact for our clients.
[11:57] greeting them with a warm smile and a welcoming atmosphere, filling in for
[12:02] therapy aids that are out of the office on leave.
[12:04] Liz learned new tasks and took on some very complex duties to meet the needs of the medical therapy unit,
[12:10] of our physical and occupational therapists, and our clients and their families.
[12:15] Liz has always done an exemplary job and she will be greatly missed as a key member of our children's medical services team.
[12:23] We wish her the very best in her well-deserved retirement.
[12:27] I
[12:31] have one more speaker's lip, Dr. Penny Bornstein, and if you'd like to speak on this item, please submit a slip.
[12:39] Dr. Good morning, Liz has moved back to her seat, which is appropriate because she likes to be in the background.
[12:49] But she's one of these unspoken heroes of the public health department and the county at large.
[12:54] I really got to know Liz first when I came, because we were on the cusp of the 2009 pandemic.
[13:03] It was a pandemic.
[13:04] It was H1N1, anyone remember that?
[13:07] Fortunately, that one really was reasonably well contained, and we didn't need 100 disaster
[13:16] services workers.
[13:17] We only needed Liz sound of all.
[13:20] So I just wanted to say a few words of thank you to her.
[13:25] I know she's gone on since then in the subsequent 13 years to do wonderful things in children's medical services in lead in the medical therapy program, children's health disabilities prevention program.
[13:39] and we are all grateful for her, her can-do attitude and her wondrousness as she works with staff and clients.
[13:50] So thank you, Liz.
[13:56] Any additional public comment?
[13:58] Seeing none, I'll close public comment.
[13:59] I'll bring it back to the board for comments.
[14:02] Supervisor Ortiz Leak?
[14:04] Okay, I'll start.
[14:06] Well, Liz, I really loved everything that you said and of course, everything we learned about you today.
[14:11] And you're really the kind of person that really illustrates the importance of what government
[14:17] can do for people's lives.
[14:19] So many times a lot of critics think that nothing happens, or we don't do anything, et cetera.
[14:25] And your touching of families and children in so many ways is so critically important.
[14:31] And so on behalf of those kids and those families, thank you very much for your service.
[14:36] And go out and spread your joy into the next chapter of your life.
[14:41] Supervisor?
[14:42] Yeah.
[14:43] And Elizabeth, I do.
[14:44] I want to wish you well in your retirement years.
[14:46] Everything you listed sounds really fun.
[14:49] All the things on your list.
[14:51] But I had to smile when I was reading that
[14:53] you back in the day were checking
[14:55] or working the data system for general hospitals
[14:59] maternal
[15:00] That was such a fabulous, both my kids were born in general hospital, and I remember how great it all was. So, I guess our lives must have touched back then, and here we are all these years later. So, thanks for all your years of service to the county.
[15:14] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and best in your retirement, as the resolution was read, I was struck by the incredible variety of things you have done all in the service of this county's children.
[15:31] And for that, I thank you, and indeed you have a full heart, and you have displayed it admirably over so many years, so congratulations.
[15:43] Supervisor Paulton.
[15:45] Thank you, Liz.
[15:46] And your dedication to our county is clear.
[15:48] Thank you for sticking with it for all these years and serving in the way that you did and do enjoy your retirement.
[15:53] And Liz, I'll just tell you, I think you're a superhero.
[15:56] And I, a doctor said to hero, but I'll just call you a superhero.
[15:59] So thank you for your years of service to this community and for everything you've done.
[16:03] Thank you.
[16:04] With that, we're going to move on now to item 21.
[16:08] Item 21 is a presentation of a resolution.
[16:11] previously approved on October 31st, 2023, and I actually read it at an event in the Tascadero,
[16:19] recognizing a decade of service by Muhedra Staxion, educating and serving the Latino community about breast cancer.
[16:27] And so is there a representative from the organization here?
[16:35] Okay. Well, we're going to read it, move forward. So, Board member, we'll read the resolution
[16:42] and so we'll have a supervisor, Donna or T's leg, do the honors.
[16:46] Thank you. And thank you for bringing this resolution forward, Supervisor Prashan.
[16:52] This resolution, whereas breast cancer remains a major disease afflicting nearly 240,000 women
[16:58] per year, and whereas information and advocacy about breast cancer have increased over the
[17:03] past few years, including the encouragement of mammograms and other preventative measures.
[17:08] And whereas certain racial groups, including Hispanic women, experience disproportionate
[17:13] rates of breast cancer, and whereas building community is essential to overcoming such a
[17:17] difficult disease, given the isolation and uncertainty.
[17:20] And whereas Mujeres de Auxion of Paso Rolles has taken on an active role over the past decade
[17:28] providing support, services, education, and advocacy to close the gap on breast cancer.
[17:33] And whereas the staff of Mujeres de Auxion led by co-founders Yasinia Escavera and Brenda
[17:39] Escavera have invested significant resources, planned events, supported families, and partnered
[17:45] with community and government organizations over the past decade to leave a meaningful impact.
[17:50] Now therefore, be it resolved in order that the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Luis Obispo, State of California, does hereby recognize Mujeres, the axiones, longevity, and legacy, and expresses appreciation toward their dedication to creating a community supporting Hispanic populations to increase knowledge towards the prevention of breast cancer.
[18:11] Thank you.
[18:12] I
[18:16] think we should do a picture with the board here, and we'll have you hold it up and we'll just do a quick picture.
[18:23] I know it sounds good.
[18:42] Thank you, thank you.
[18:46] Is there any additional public comment on this?
[18:49] Seeing none, I will bring it back to the board for additional comment from the board.
[18:55] Okay, I'm supervisor or to use leg.
[18:58] Well, I think what's really important here is that recently,
[19:02] Cuesta College did a ethno studies on health accessibility
[19:08] for Latinos and particularly non-speaking Latinos
[19:14] coming from areas of indigenous areas of Mexico.
[19:19] And when you have advocacy groups like this,
[19:22] it really bridges that gap in order to help make sure
[19:25] that people get their, one, get the education on the mammogram, for example, as well as
[19:31] finding out what's the best way to build that trust with the health department and those
[19:37] communities.
[19:38] Because oftentimes they come from areas where they don't have those kinds of services and
[19:42] they don't really know how to access the services or have the same level of trust to know where
[19:48] to go for the information.
[19:49] So this is a very important effort that the Mojarris de Axion provides.
[19:53] And I will add my my words to this too because I did present this at their big gala that they had
[20:00] I've had in a taskadero, as I said, about a month and a half ago, and it's very, very important. One of the things I think that was really resonated in the doctors that spoke at this, where if you have symptoms, please do not ignore them. And that was one of the things that in the Spanish-speaking community and Latina community of our county, a lot of people have in the past ignored the symptoms and it has caused worse problems. So I think that was really important, and they do really important work.
[20:29] If you don't know about this organization, you should follow them on Facebook or Instagram or look them up online.
[20:34] They do incredible work in our community, so thank you for being here for that.
[20:40] Okay, we're now going to be moving on to the next item, which is item 22, which is a submittal of a resolution recognizing Beth Raub, Becky Cripe, and Eliza Bassinger of the District Attorney's Office for a slow moment in the county of San Luis Obispo.
[20:58] And I'm asked Jeanette Trumpeter to come to the podium and do the honors.
[21:03] Good morning Chairman Pashong and board members.
[21:06] We love doing these presentations, we'll take a slow moment.
[21:10] We have 3,000 employees a little more than that in our employee here at the County of San
[21:16] Los Obispo and many of them are just like Liz who we honored today who like to stay in the
[21:21] background but do amazing work and that is the quest of the slow moment to pay tribute
[21:26] to some of them who just rise to the occasion of their roles as public servants.
[21:33] If I say the name Kristen Smart, you guys would all probably remember that name.
[21:38] She was the victim of a horrible crime nearly 26 years ago and frankly maybe some failures
[21:44] and stumbles of we as a community in the early days following her disappearance.
[21:49] It's a heavy lift to prosecute a case more than a quarter century later but we have some
[21:55] Great prosecutors and investigators that made that happen, but we also have some behind the scenes employees who are part of that heavy lift and you probably never heard their name so that's who we want to honor today in our slow moment.
[22:12] There are about 3000 employees working for the county of San Luis Obispo, and among those, there are those who go above and beyond in their commitment to public service.
[22:21] Their exceptional work may not make headlines, but it is worthy of recognition.
[22:27] We want to take a slow moment to do so.
[22:30] In the high-profile murder case against Paul Flores, we saw some county employees making
[22:35] headlines daily and worldwide.
[22:37] Those on the front lines became almost familiar faces, but the prosecution team included some
[22:43] crucial behind-the-scenes support staff.
[22:46] I am a legal clerk and a witness coordinator.
[22:48] I make all the flight arrangements. I reserve the hotels.
[22:54] In this particular case, we subpoenaed like 99 people and we actually put
[22:58] I think 55 people on the stand. I'm a paralegal at the DA. So I was given the
[23:04] task of organizing and processing all the discovery, all the evidence for the
[23:10] case. There was over 1.5 terabytes of evidence that we had to sift through and
[23:17] organize and discover. So I'm the victim advocate. We are the explainers of the criminal justice system
[23:27] basically. We are, you know, keeping them updated on the case and we are most importantly informing
[23:34] them of their rights. You have to prepare them for what they're going to see in the reality. You know,
[23:39] it's not like on TV, right? These three women were the skeletal support for the heavy lift of
[23:45] prosecuting Paul Flores.
[23:47] I had to issue all the subpoenas and communicate with all the witnesses.
[23:53] Making sense of 26 years of evidence and 26 years of frustration and grief
[23:59] from those who knew and loved Kristen Smart.
[24:02] And they knew how to guide us because we came in blind.
[24:05] We had no idea what the justice system
[24:09] entailed and stepped by step. Slowly but surely they walked us through every step.
[24:18] It was an unprecedented prosecution that came with unique challenges. For example when we're
[24:23] going to trial in the judge, rolled there was a two juries. I didn't even know that was a thing.
[24:30] One trial, two defendants, two juries, a change of venue, gag orders,
[24:34] There's a gradual rains and floods, oh, and a pandemic.
[24:38] Just the headlight hassles involved in this case.
[24:41] Any trial has ups and downs at this particular trial because of, you know, its lane and its
[24:47] severity and its significance just have them all.
[24:50] We were on the top floor while their elevator was down for three weeks.
[24:57] So every time I would have to go do...
[25:00] I do something. I would go down the two flights of three flights of stairs and then up to the court. I had, you know, over 400 exhibits. And we had to have two persons to each of them. One for every jury. So all the evidence in I six boxes. And at Chris grabbed one, I grabbed one. They were at the investigators with us. Clint Cole. And we're all we had to schlep down the dolly. There were so many wrinkles. And our staff had to cancel travel arrangements, renegotiate and get new travel arrangements.
[25:28] movements, move people around, it was absolutely a herculean task.
[25:34] But these three rose to the occasion big time, taking a massive amount of data and details
[25:39] and making it all work for those involved.
[25:42] They came up many times in court when Chris would text me, when did we discover this and
[25:46] I would then look it up on our log and give him the packet number when it was discovered.
[25:52] So it was critical in making sure that we were organized in that respect.
[25:56] especially Mr. Sanger would would comment we don't have that prosecution
[26:00] hasn't provided that you know sometimes things happen in court defense tries
[26:05] to throw you off oh yeah we got challenged a lot that it was something we
[26:09] hadn't provided although we had but I was up to meet and prove it and they did it
[26:14] all 125 miles from home we had multiple fire alarms at 2 in the morning I was
[26:21] on the 3rd of the 4th floor of the hotel and I think that was on the 10 so she
[26:26] We had to walk all the way down the stairs at 2 in the morning.
[26:29] I went up there late May and I got home right after the verdict in October, yeah, long
[26:35] time.
[26:36] Each of us had families and, you know, most, you know, some of us had kids at various
[26:41] ages, kids who had summer camps, kids who were in school.
[26:45] I came home on the weekends, so yeah, and worked on the weekends, and did the laundry and
[26:52] set everybody up, got them all together and then Monday I would leave.
[26:55] And while the case played out in Monterey County,
[26:58] all supported staff at home who were left shorthanded
[27:01] due to their absences.
[27:03] I was still doing a certain amount of telecommuting
[27:05] back to San Luisbos.
[27:07] So my days sometimes were 12 hour days.
[27:10] Zero downtown. There was no downtown.
[27:13] I was very busy.
[27:15] In addition to whatever he texted me,
[27:17] hey, I'm in any cup of this.
[27:18] Hey, lunch, we need to draft this.
[27:20] Hey, we're in any stipulation.
[27:21] Can you make up?
[27:22] It was constant.
[27:23] Yeah, there was lots of no lunch days.
[27:26] There was a few where you just grabbed the granola bar in the office kind of thing.
[27:29] Because I was called upon to do something that I don't normally do.
[27:33] That's not written in my job description.
[27:37] I was a whirling dervish while they were over there.
[27:42] I was working feverishly to get everything done to make that day happen.
[27:47] At the end of that day, we would meet as a team to discuss the day and then what came next.
[27:52] and then we would jump right into the next day.
[27:55] And when I got through it on that home,
[27:57] I realized the level of stress.
[27:59] You know, as you start to come down,
[28:01] you realize, oh, I was living at this kind of level.
[28:04] And all while trying to keep the smart family
[28:06] in the loop of what to expect daily
[28:08] and under the pressure of a gag order.
[28:11] So it's some of that managing that
[28:14] and the information flow was the hardest
[28:17] because we had to be careful to not create a mistrial.
[28:22] It is terrifying that you're like,
[28:25] okay, I'm I going to be the one that throws this down, right?
[28:30] And so that was kind of a terrifying place to be.
[28:32] They knew how to keep the attorney's secrets,
[28:35] even when we begged for answers.
[28:37] But in the end, it was the right thing to do.
[28:41] And they were our guide.
[28:43] I think I did the blind.
[28:45] all the the factors that came in, you know, not wearing the color purple for
[28:50] heaven's sake. That was, and the day that really blew up in court, I was standing
[28:55] there wearing a purple shirt. We had to kind of scrub everything for the
[28:59] color purple, which was a unique experience. I have a lot of purple. It's purple.
[29:06] Through it all, they were a team and put that oath of public service into play
[29:10] big time. Once it became a change of venue they were like well this is you don't
[29:15] have to go if you can't or don't want to so but I there was no way I was going
[29:20] to abandon them. I needed to go. Any point any time of the day and that was kind of
[29:25] our rule of the team was at 6 a.m. or 10 p.m. we ran the group chat and made
[29:30] sure we supported each other professionally and personally. I really wanted the
[29:35] family to have peace and closure in us.
[29:39] And I really wanted their face to be restored
[29:41] in our community.
[29:48] We're in the first degree to the maximum sentence
[29:50] that I can impose by law.
[29:52] It gave me a term in a term of 25 years to life.
[29:56] I mean, I felt like they'd be able to probably see my heart.
[30:00] I'm moving through my blouse because we were just so vested with all the time and the hours and being away from our families. I just was happy to be involved with finally getting to a point where we could see justice for, you know, Kristen and her family. You know, it came together where we had the right people in the right
[30:29] positions to make it happen. If one of us didn't do our job, it was going to fall apart.
[30:35] There is no amount of gratitude. It makes you feel almost guilty to know that people have had to sacrifice so much.
[30:44] It's a little like verbally, but you couldn't ask for a better team than the Becky back in the
[30:49] little reveal film. They're simply the best at what they do. Take them out of the case, and the case
[30:55] would have been less effective.
[30:56] It was very stressful, but it was an experience
[30:59] that I looked back on through that whole thing
[31:02] and think, you know, we did it.
[31:04] Anything you want to add?
[31:06] No, but if there was no this,
[31:07] I miss all three of you very much
[31:09] and hope you're doing well.
[31:16] So we will figure out reading the resolution
[31:18] because we basically says everything
[31:21] that was in the video, but I do want to call up
[31:23] a victim witness center assistant director, Beth Robb,
[31:27] Parallegal, Becky Cripe, and Witness Coordinator,
[31:29] Eloise Abassinger, who worked long hours and helped bring
[31:33] this case to successful conclusion.
[31:42] Congratulations, right there.
[31:52] Are those the resolutions there?
[31:55] Why don't we hand them, and we'll have them.
[31:59] Here you go.
[32:00] You need to get one of these.
[32:02] Becky.
[32:09] Go ahead and open them up.
[32:11] Here you go.
[32:12] It's good.
[32:14] Yes.
[32:27] And if you guys have something you'd like to say, we'd like to hear from you, but I also,
[32:33] Denise Smart and Stan Smart and the family couldn't be here today, but they wanted me to look you in the eye
[32:38] and tell you how much they truly appreciate all three of you.
[32:47] I don't have anything planned to say, but I can't leave a microphone alone.
[32:52] So, I just want to say thank you for this recognition and because of all the work we did as a team.
[33:01] And I just really want to say I appreciate these two ladies.
[33:05] There were so many times that we did, you know, go to the meeting after the day of trial with Chris at like five, six o'clock whatever and then we'd go and have a girl's dinner or whatever and hang out and it was wonderful to have their support and decompress with them and I just really appreciate them and the whole team and I just wish the smarts the best.
[33:29] They are amazing and resilient, and I believe they do have their faith restored in our community for all we did, so thank you.
[33:39] Thank you.
[33:43] I just want to say thanks for the recognition and the honor, and it was a privilege to be on the team that was able to go and fight for that justice for Kristen and her family, and so thank you for today, and I am thrilled to have been on the team and honored.
[34:00] Thank you.
[34:02] Thank you.
[34:06] And I also want to say thank you very much.
[34:08] Would a privilege and an order to work with this amazing team.
[34:19] So we're going to actually go to public comment, but I'm going to do chairman's prerogative,
[34:24] and I'm going to ask Yucinia to bring her team up.
[34:27] We've already done the resolution, but I want to only do a photograph, and then we'll have
[34:32] each of you speak, and then we'll start public comment, but this will be part of public comment.
[34:36] So let's get a photo.
[34:38] Oh, come on up.
[34:40] Let's do for that.
[34:41] Let me mark the video.
[35:18] All right. Thank you so much, Board of Supervisors, for accommodating us. We were making our drive over the grain. It is with great honor that we are thankful to be recognized by such an important body of our county. Mojita's Exxion started from the diagnosis of breast cancer of my mother 11 years ago. And so we're just very thankful for the opportunity where a blessing was disguised in a moment of fear.
[35:48] of something like breast cancer.
[35:50] And we know that women in slow county are touched by breast cancer regardless of their
[35:54] language, regardless of their economic status, regardless of race.
[35:58] And so it has been something personal for Mojira's ex-hion to educate women, especially the
[36:04] Latinac community, which is so crucial to the backbone of our community.
[36:08] So I want to say thank you to our district representative, John Pashon, who was present
[36:13] and at our gala that happened in November.
[36:16] And for those folks that want to participate
[36:18] or don't know more about our group,
[36:21] we recently became a physically sponsored nonprofit.
[36:24] And because of the need for the Latina community,
[36:27] that extends to serving children,
[36:29] that extends to civic engagement,
[36:30] as well as other resources,
[36:33] we now have that physical sponsorship
[36:35] thanks to ecologistic.
[36:36] So Mojitas X, your own women of action,
[36:39] we wouldn't be doing our part
[36:40] if we did not take up space to also touch
[36:42] on a most important issue happening in Barcelona, which is the possible school closure of the 36th Street Campus, also known as Georgia Brown.
[36:52] So we want to take the opportunity to also advocate for education equity, which we know that there is a possible school closure.
[36:59] We encourage the community to be involved, to speak to the school board, elected officials, as well as supporting our community.
[37:08] This is an issue that will impact all of us there and pass a road list.
[37:12] So part of my head is X-ion is not only that we talk about breast cancer, but we talk about issues affecting our local community.
[37:19] And it is with great pride that we represent the North County, which often doesn't get highlighted, or we see a lot of action, but
[37:27] we've seen a lot of transformation happening.
[37:29] So once again, thank you for this honor and we look forward to 10 or 20 or even 50 years more in the community.
[37:35] So thank you so much.
[37:36] Thank you.
[37:36] Thank you.
[37:37] And I just say something really quick and Spanish.
[37:40] Thank you.
[37:42] Thank you.
[38:06] yo el espacio de estar aquí presentes hoy en esta junta mujeres de acción
[38:09] seguimos adelante con 10 o 20 hasta 50 años más queremos darles gracias a
[38:15] los voluntarios a todas las personas que nos han apoyado a través de los 10
[38:18] años y los más años que siguen muchísimas gracias a un especial abrenda e
[38:24] chavarria campover de amaría a guilar campover de y también a yolita flores y
[38:29] también a las mujeres más que no pudieron venir hoy pero estamos aquí en
[38:33] representations de ellas, seguimos adelante, y si se puede, gracias.
[38:43] Just to see if there's a board members would like to add anything additional to that.
[38:48] Supervisor Ortiz-Lay?
[38:49] I'm so glad you made it down the hill, and to come and see us, and to share with us, and
[38:55] know how passionate you are about your community, and about helping all entirely the North County with so
[39:03] So many of the issues that they face, and so thank you for being here and thank you for all your work.
[39:08] And I too will add that, thank you very, very much.
[39:11] You are a shining light in San Luis Obispo County, your organization.
[39:15] Well, how does the axiom does incredible work?
[39:17] And so the community thanks you for all you do.
[39:21] Okay, with that, we are now going to go to public comment.
[39:24] And so we have a number of public comment speakers, I'm going to call each name if you would like to speak in public comment.
[39:31] please fill out a yellow slip and we will get you through you have three minutes
[39:37] and first up Clementine Ellis will be followed by Andrea C. Strand so
[39:52] short
[39:53] sorry good morning my name is Clementine Ellis with Lumina Alliance and in case
[39:59] you don't know we
[40:00] We will provide services to those impacted by sexual and intimate partner violence, including three emergency shelters and 10 transitional housing units across San Luis Obispo County. I really appreciate the opportunity to address you this morning. In addition to providing food, clothing, personal hygiene items, infant care items, and access to medical care and transportation, clients participating in our housing programs receive a wide range of services available in English and Spanish. Those include clinical counseling, advocacy services, support with a point
[40:29] applying for temporary restraining orders, and 24-hour crisis support.
[40:33] Additionally, we provide personalized self-sufficiency planning to support clients in applying for permanent housing, employment, and legal help.
[40:41] With the county's support, Lumina Alliance annually answers nearly 2,200 crisis calls, houses an average of 170 women, men, and children fleeing violence, and provides therapy services to over 380 individuals to support their healing journeys.
[40:56] Unfortunately, like other victim service providers across California and the United States,
[41:00] Luminant Alliance faces dramatic cuts to the Victims of Crime Act or Voka funding.
[41:05] Without Governor Newsom's inclusion of funding to backfill federal cuts using state funds,
[41:09] Luminant Alliance could face cuts between $600 and $800,000.
[41:14] I'm supposed to take a dramatic pause there for effect.
[41:18] We have been reliant on these funds to maintain the quality services we provide year after year.
[41:22] and we are asking the county to prioritize funding to help us continue to provide these vital services.
[41:28] We know that one in three women will experience intimate partner or sexual violence in their
[41:32] lifetime. That's more than 47,000 people in San Luis Obespo county alone. We also know that 38%
[41:38] of victims of domestic violence will experience homelessness as a result of their abuse.
[41:43] Compounding these challenges, victims face an ever more expensive housing market. Last year,
[41:47] Our San Los Abbaspo was named the second least affordable, small metro area in the country.
[41:52] While these facts are disheartening, there is hope, hope and the possibility of breaking the cycle of violence by providing safe shelter and helping individuals and families heal and live lives filled with peace.
[42:03] Our services are essential to those in supporting those individuals and families experiencing violence throughout San Los Abbaspo County.
[42:10] We appreciate the opportunity to address you, and we urge you to continue funding Luminon Alliance shelter operations and wraparound services via general fund support and emergency solutions grant dollars.
[42:20] Thank you.
[42:23] Andrea C. Strand will be followed by, I think it's D.C.
[42:28] Durelister?
[42:30] Good morning.
[42:31] Andrea C. Strand resident of San Luis Obispo County and president of the Central Coast Tax Spheres Association.
[42:37] Well besides the federal government this year's California State Legislative Session and it with a declaration of a war on forgotten taxpayers.
[42:47] The California Tax Foundation recently reported more than $10 billion a year in higher taxes and fees were approved by lawmakers and the governor in 2023.
[43:01] This will increase the cost of living for all forgotten taxpayers.
[43:06] Check out the California Tax Foundation's tax and fee report, it is an eye-opener.
[43:13] And I want to remind all that tax proposals not successful in 2023 in the state legislature can be acted upon and passed in 2024, so be prepared.
[43:27] Then there's the state's $58 billion budget deficit, and also the big attack on Proposition 13, which as you all know,
[43:36] the removal of a two-thirds vote of the electorate required to pass local special taxes and they want
[43:43] to bring it down to 55%, makes it a lot easier to raise those taxes. And this Board of Supervisor
[43:49] Majority supports the lowering of that vote. And I might add that the Board of Supervisors just
[43:55] raised fees and added mandates on many of their constituents. And let's not forget Slocock,
[44:02] San Luis Obispo Council of Government pushing for a county increase in the sales tax, and I might say the $943 million unfunded pension liability.
[44:16] And finally, the majority of this Board of Supervisors voted to raise their salaries by 26% over the next three years.
[44:23] In the meantime, San Luis Obispo, many small businesses are closing and
[44:29] forgotten taxpayers, your constituents are experiencing an increase in the cost of living,
[44:37] whether it be rent, trying to get a mortgage on a new home, trying to pay for their food costs,
[44:44] the energy costs, the heating costs, filling up the car, and the healthcare, and we can go on
[44:50] and on. While this brings back memories of that old song from the Beatles in 1966, maybe some of you
[44:57] They don't remember it, but it was called the text.
[45:00] And they were basically protesting the United Kingdom for their taxes they had to pay. So I'd like to end on this note. Let me tell you how it will be. There's one for you and 19 for me. Yeah, I have because I'm the tax man. Should five percent appear too small? Be thankful. I don't take it all because I'm the tax man. And if you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold, I'll tax your heat.
[45:29] If you take a walk, well, I'll tax your feet, because I'm the tax man.
[45:34] Thank you.
[45:34] I'm the tax man.
[45:36] See you next year, thank you.
[45:38] De-Durlesser is up first.
[45:42] And we followed by Sebastian Salazar.
[45:50] And Dee, I think I have two speaker slips for you, but you only get to speak one time, so come on up.
[45:56] Well, actually, I could have enough to take up the whole meeting, but I was advised to keep it cool.
[46:03] It's kind of a good coincidence that Missy Strand, who I've never met, and I've heard about her for years,
[46:10] brought up some of the things that she did, so I was taxing and the costs.
[46:14] I know you won't smile by the time you're, I'm through, but the where I applaud.
[46:19] But I am one of the people you technically may call homeless, and I have been
[46:23] And often on, for about 13 years now, I'm in my late 60s, and it's been quite a stress, I could probably.
[46:35] Anyway, what I'm here basically is about the attempted and ongoing proceeding closure of the SAF parking at Oklahoma, Kansas,
[46:45] is off of Highway 1, which we might not seem like it has been appreciated by most of us
[46:52] even though it has, and there's been many shortcomings and changes in staff and all that.
[46:58] But some of us that are left now are really suffering and losing sleep, worrying that we will
[47:07] have nowhere to go. Being that the costs are high, being that there are just no places, being that
[47:14] But it's all that a season and people either are not renting, not dealing with this,
[47:19] want to deal with more happy family things.
[47:22] And I myself, if I were to have to be out, I could maybe stay at a campground for
[47:28] a week or two, maybe the month that they let me, then where do I go?
[47:32] Right now I am down, my car is down, there had been promises by Jeff who was the manager there, Jeff Elmachat.
[47:40] And to do some car repairs and later to give me a generator because I've been staying there the whole two years without power.
[47:49] So I'm suffering in the heat, suffering in the cold and all that.
[47:52] That seems to have been reneged, it's never been mentioned.
[47:57] And I'm still helping to represent the rest of us that have no place to go and don't really know what else to say.
[48:05] Okay, but hopefully some sympathy comes, we really need the site to stay open.
[48:10] We can improve it, or we can find another site.
[48:14] I'm very let down that another spot was not found for RV people that do plan on keeping their RVs.
[48:22] So it's kind of in the ball court here, so thank you.
[48:29] Sebastian Salazar, followed by, it's either David Richford or Dan Richford.
[48:37] David?
[48:38] Okay.
[48:39] David.
[48:41] Good morning.
[48:42] I am a former resident of the Oklahoma Parking site.
[48:48] I was kicked out for something I didn't do.
[48:50] My trailer was stored away at the toy yard and now I'm nowhere to go.
[48:55] So, I'm on the streets, they promised me to help me with rent while I went to truck driving school, which is not a promise anymore.
[49:03] I also have a ban on my name so I can't even go to the shelter, all for something I didn't do.
[49:09] So, I would like to go back to the site, of course, because I have nowhere to go.
[49:18] Thank you, David.
[49:21] Richford, followed by Shelly, just to Shelly.
[49:28] How y'all doing?
[49:28] Good.
[49:29] My name's Dave Ritchford.
[49:30] I'm also here from Oklahoma State Parking.
[49:35] Unfortunately, I was involved in a bad motorcycle accident on Halloween night and I was in the
[49:39] hospital most of the month.
[49:41] And upon being released from the hospital, I was advised by social services at the hospital
[49:47] that kept calling and said I was no longer allowed on property.
[49:53] I had nowhere to go.
[49:55] My trailer's on property.
[49:56] I can't go in there.
[49:57] My trailer.
[49:57] I can't do nothing.
[50:00] I've got three bread and ribs. I've got my COPD is going to pay wire, and everyone from my daughter let me stay there for a couple weeks, I don't know where I'd be. And right now it's, that place needs to stay open a little while. I've got three people trying to help me find apartments, and there's just none to be found. I've gone, I've been to payments myself. Now I can't do it because I can't already get around.
[50:29] We just think you guys find some way to keep it open for a little while longer to help us out because we do appreciate it and we try to keep it clean.
[50:39] My brother and I were running the food bank in there and we kept going all the way up till I guess this week it shut down.
[50:46] I couldn't do because I'm not out on property no more for no reason.
[50:49] And I still haven't figured out, Jeff hasn't told me why.
[50:52] She just says, bad for my health.
[50:54] Well, get on the streets first.
[50:57] So, I mean, hopefully you guys find some ways to see
[51:00] in your hearts, keep it open.
[51:02] I mean, the holidays are here, and a lot of us have nowhere to go.
[51:05] And we don't want to go back in there and be a new to the community,
[51:09] because they don't need it, and we don't need their harassment.
[51:14] So, we appreciate your thoughts, and hopefully,
[51:17] Let me give us some leeway here.
[51:19] Thank you.
[51:21] Shelly, followed by Michael Mays.
[51:33] I'm Shelly Elder.
[51:35] I don't have what I wrote, but I'm going to wing it.
[51:42] What I want to talk about is when I was reading in the paper,
[51:48] cap slow acts like they have come through for us, they haven't.
[51:53] The last spring they were considered a failure and so since then we're on a landfill.
[52:02] I don't know if you all know that, but we are on an army landfill.
[52:05] And so everybody there is not well.
[52:08] We're beginning to have heavy metal toxicity symptoms and over the last six months I've just
[52:16] been watching other people go downhill.
[52:20] But Capslow, we weren't attending the meetings the last six months, because we haven't been well, we haven't felt good.
[52:29] And they would just say all kinds of things in the paper that wasn't true.
[52:35] They didn't do anything different than they did before.
[52:39] They did nothing.
[52:41] You know,
[52:44] I don't know whose idea it was to close it down, but please do not take into account what Capsule has said about us.
[52:54] I mean, they have, we're like pariahs now, everything they've said in the press.
[52:58] We never even had a chance to prove the allegations of handing drugs through the fence.
[53:08] We want to see the surveillance never showed it to us.
[53:14] And we talked about ourselves, nobody's ever been near any of those fences.
[53:19] I mean, you just don't go near the fence.
[53:22] So if there was somebody handing stuff through the fence, it was not a resident.
[53:30] We had a lot of problems with the security guards.
[53:32] I mean, they were letting people in because they weren't doing their job.
[53:37] They were doing, they would find them taking an app.
[53:42] They found them having sex in the bathroom, or you can find them in all.
[53:47] And people were coming in outside people and doing bad things, ruining our bathrooms, and
[53:54] most likely whatever we were accused of by the grant, you know, whatever was said to the grand jury.
[54:00] But the people there are good, and we've been so threatened, and I'm almost finished, I just hope you take this into account, they did nothing different, they really didn't, they were talking to the press and we weren't, that's the difference, thank you.
[54:20] Michael Mays,
[54:25] okay.
[54:27] Yeah, okay.
[54:37] My name is Elkorin.
[54:41] I've been a volunteer advocate in the park in the Oklahoma site for many years.
[54:46] Previously in the sources.
[54:49] When Supervisor Gibson created the Kansas Oklahoma site and promised it will be
[55:00] We passed away for housing, for permanent housing in a local meeting. I told him, Mr. Gibson, it's not going to happen. And he was very upset with me. He's still upset with me. He said, I want to be on the record to say that your ill-coring is categorically wrong.
[55:18] Well, Mr Gibson, I was categorically very right, and I'm still right to tell you that no
[55:24] housing, you're throwing people back to the street.
[55:28] I've known that people there almost all of them for three years before they went to the
[55:32] site, and now how they've been thrown.
[55:36] Devon Drake has been very busy this week, very, very busy.
[55:40] He's signing all these vacating notice to them.
[55:44] I am there more than that coming every day and for what?
[55:49] You will not accept it going to Prado, you are not participating, you are not accepted
[55:56] going to Santa Margarita Lake to a place where there is no electricity, there is no visitors
[56:05] around, you have no running car to be able to even go there and come back.
[56:10] You have not been participating with us, with the good people of the service provider of
[56:17] Capsule and the county, which are not, there are not good people that are providing services,
[56:24] because I know, there are no services, so we can be clear and say there are no services,
[56:30] and we are going to be clear that we say we need money to maintain the site and build
[56:35] a few more sites like that, because these people, while they are not completely homeless
[56:42] because they have their vehicles, they are houseless, but they are unhoused, but they
[56:51] do have homes, deserve to actually have some amenities and some respect and getting to
[57:00] know them. So now they are being threatened out, but this week, but next week, we had
[57:05] no choice. And as you know, we've unionized, they've unionized months ago, year ago. And
[57:12] we are on the last minute of getting the union attorney to intervene. So we hope that you
[57:22] will stand by the union, you'll stand by them, and you'll allow this site to be open to
[57:29] stay open and people not kicked out. Sebastian was kicked out for a lie. I mean, forget
[57:34] to do process. There is no due process there. What kind of respect people get when they
[57:40] have been kicked out? I was kicked out. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you.
[57:46] But it's not about me, so that's good. Thank you for stopping me then.
[57:49] Michael Mays
[57:52] last call from Michael.
[57:58] Okay.
[58:05] Excuse me. You're not Michael.
[58:10] She can submit that but she can't read it so if you could submit that to the clerk right there.
[58:16] Are you going to read
[58:19] it?
[58:19] And you're Michael?
[58:20] Okay, Michael.
[58:21] Come on down.
[58:23] We'll make it easy.
[58:24] Easy stuff.
[58:27] Thank you.
[58:28] Go ahead.
[58:33] So we've contacted the union attorney because we realized that our civil rights were being taken
[58:39] from us. When discussing this contract, we found out how much the security guards had been
[58:48] neglecting their responsibilities at night. How many residents ran into people that were
[58:53] not residents here, yet they were coming in out of the streets or hanging out at the picnic
[58:59] tables. The guards weren't guarding the entrance or the perimeter. They had found to be napping.
[59:09] having sex in the bathroom or just not to be found at all.
[59:13] And we were being blamed for the people coming in to the site when there was no security
[59:20] and the county was paying for them, security, but they weren't providing it.
[59:28] So we requested to see the surveillance footage and they wouldn't let us see that.
[59:39] So we decided to contact the attorney of the homeless association.
[59:46] The morning of the meeting, residents were being informed of the time that the attorney would arrive.
[59:53] They were informed that when it went to attend, we wouldn't know until later on that afternoon each resident who
[1:00:00] We had informed by the time of the meeting that a security guard named Richard was following
[1:00:07] up every visit that was being held with the resident. And he informed them, if they attended
[1:00:16] the meeting, they were going to be the first to be kicked out of safe parking if they were
[1:00:23] anywhere close to the meeting.
[1:00:25] So what he did was violate our right to assemble.
[1:00:30] And they're turning left because there was nobody there.
[1:00:34] One of the residents who he talked to was so
[1:00:40] that while we have rights, and he told them, you have no rights because you live here for free.
[1:00:46] Those,
[1:00:52] we weren't informed until after the attorney had left before we were informed of what had happened.
[1:01:01] So we felt that this is a direct violation of our right to assemble.
[1:01:06] Thank you.
[1:01:09] Thank you, Naomi Deidreau.
[1:01:14] Okay, Paul Hirschfeld.
[1:01:17] He's on his way here because he's doing it.
[1:01:21] Paul Hirschfeld, okay.
[1:01:22] Gary Kirkland.
[1:01:36] Thank you, Gary Kirkland from Attasca Dero.
[1:01:40] I read an article in the local paper where Supervisor Gibson was a judge at local meeting.
[1:01:51] I think it was a conference at Cal Poly for several students and I want to congratulate him for being and doing that.
[1:01:58] And also, I want to talk about his article and also the recall.
[1:02:08] I hope that Mr. Gibson or Supervisor, I'm sorry, did not tell those students that it was okay to revert to false reasoning when he responded to the recall petition.
[1:02:26] by name calling this, he called, the people who support the recall sore losers and mega fanatics.
[1:02:41] I said on this lectern last week, or the last time I was here, that when I'm in a debate with someone and they revert to false reasoning, I run up the victory flag.
[1:02:54] Also, I hope he didn't teach those students that it's okay to lie in a debate.
[1:03:01] When I was here, when the county was considering taking over the Nippomo Fire District,
[1:03:08] I said I didn't want my taxes going to pay for the Nippomo Fire District.
[1:03:14] And he said that, well, I won't be because I'm a resident of a task of error.
[1:03:20] Well, I contacted the tax collector and said some of my taxes go into the general fund and in this very room, while they were discussing it, they were said the general fund will be used to pay for the part of the
[1:03:36] the Nippomel Fire District.
[1:03:40] Also in his reply to the recall, he mentioned, quote,
[1:03:50] this is an illegitimate use of a constitutional right.
[1:03:56] Now, it's an unsustainuated assertion because he didn't part any evidence
[1:04:01] is to why using a recall is an illegitimate use of a constitutional right.
[1:04:08] What is a illegitimate use of a constitutional right?
[1:04:13] Also in his letter in the paper, he mentioned he doesn't like ridicule.
[1:04:20] I find ridicule to be an effective tool to mold behavior.
[1:04:25] When my students were in high school in junior high,
[1:04:28] Okay, there were students who used drugs, and I'll finish this later about why I use Ridicule.
[1:04:36] Thank you very much.
[1:04:37] Thank you.
[1:04:38] Paul Hershfield.
[1:04:40] Okay, we're going to go ahead and close public comments.
[1:04:44] Appreciate everybody's time, supervised reporting.
[1:04:47] Thank you, Chair Boshan, I just have a couple brief comments.
[1:04:50] I want to respond to members of the public and those who have attended our meeting today, especially from the Oklahoma site.
[1:04:57] I know the circumstances you're dealing with.
[1:05:00] Finally, right now are challenging to say the least. I know that every interaction with our homeless service division staff or cap slow can be perceived through a different lens. I think the common thread is that the county of San Francisco is working to try to place everybody there with an alternative. The homeless service division has been working tirelessly on the wind down plan where 76 people have been relocated. There are approximately
[1:05:29] currently 29 people remaining on the site.
[1:05:32] Seven individuals have been delivered a request to vacate by December 15th.
[1:05:37] All of those individuals are being offered services through cap slow and can take advantage of available spots at 40 Prado and Echo.
[1:05:44] So I know that your circumstances may vary and we're here to assist but it is the goal of this board to work with you and
[1:05:55] And hopefully find placement for everybody, so no one ends up on the street.
[1:05:58] Just wanted to make those comments for the record, thank you.
[1:06:01] Thank you, sorry, nope, no, I'm sorry.
[1:06:05] We're gonna see this as any other comments, not we're then moving on to item number six, which is item number six was in.
[1:06:16] And so go ahead and I'd ask the clerk to introduce the item.
[1:06:21] Ma'am, you can't approach, sorry ma'am, you cannot approach this.
[1:06:25] Thank you.
[1:06:26] We're going to take a 10 minute break and we'll be back.
[1:06:38] Okay, we're going to bring this meeting back to order and I'd ask the clerk to introduce the item.
[1:06:43] This is item number six.
[1:06:46] Request to review and approve the appointments of board members to various committees and commissions.
[1:06:51] And in addition to that, adding that the San Luis Bospillac County Integrated Lace Management Authority
[1:06:57] an already appointment of one representative and one alternate.
[1:07:02] Okay.
[1:07:03] And we have a presentation today from administrative office.
[1:07:07] Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
[1:07:08] Good morning, members of the Board, Rebecca Campbell, acting County Administrative Officer.
[1:07:14] Annually, we go through a process to seek interest from the Board for various committees for the upcoming calendar year.
[1:07:21] Staff has worked with the legislative assistant staff to go through that process and received input.
[1:07:29] So outlined in the report are a list of all the committees.
[1:07:33] I want a note to the board that there remains a concern about three of the committees.
[1:07:39] Those committees are the local agency formation commission, the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee,
[1:07:46] and we're also looking for a primary and an alternate on the Integrated Waste Management Authority which is a newly added committee for calendar year 2024.
[1:07:59] So I'll open it up to the board for discussion and perhaps we can come up with a solution for those three committees. Thank you.
[1:08:08] Thank you. Bring it back to the board here for any questions.
[1:08:12] We'll take public comment on it and seeing none, we'll go to public comment on this item.
[1:08:18] Do we have any public comment speakers?
[1:08:19] We do not, so we'll close public comment.
[1:08:21] Bring it back to the board.
[1:08:22] Board discussion.
[1:08:25] Supervisor T's leg.
[1:08:27] Okay.
[1:08:28] Supervisor Arnold.
[1:08:29] Yeah.
[1:08:30] I'll go ahead.
[1:08:32] I don't know.
[1:08:33] Maybe we could get an explanation on the laugh go what the issue is there.
[1:08:39] and are you saying Rebecca that you don't have anyone stepping up to the plate, so to speak on the IWMA is that what's happening here?
[1:08:50] Okay, so for the LAFCO, let's address that one first.
[1:08:56] We worked with staff for input, the input remained the same, but I was informed of a concern
[1:09:06] that there may be questions or concerns about the appointments.
[1:09:11] So I wanted to turn that over to board discussion on that.
[1:09:15] Okay, I think I've served on the left go board three years.
[1:09:21] Maybe it's two and I'm not, I'd have to look.
[1:09:24] But and I had expressed my willingness to continue.
[1:09:28] So that may be a discussion.
[1:09:32] I will say, oh, in the IWA, do you have?
[1:09:37] The IWA, we are seeking a primary and an alternate.
[1:09:40] It is a newly added appointment for the 2024 calendar year.
[1:09:46] So right now, we don't have interest for either of those positions.
[1:09:50] And I wanted to open it to the board to seek input from the board to see who may have.
[1:09:56] Okay.
[1:09:57] I was just curious what the status was.
[1:09:58] and last.
[1:10:00] I will say the chart is lengthy, but if you go to the bottom, we have four, we have five.
[1:10:09] We have five groundwater-based and management situations, they all have different names, but basically ever since the state legislation, the signal legislation, this county has had the five basins that are mandated by the state that we provide oversight.
[1:10:30] on the groundwater and through the formation of groundwater sustainability agencies
[1:10:35] and most of these groundwater basin, the five that we're seeing are typically combinations
[1:10:43] of different agencies.
[1:10:44] In other words, cities that are GSA's, now we have a couple of water districts that are GSA's
[1:10:50] and some CSD's and so forth.
[1:10:52] So coming together in these particular basins to manage the groundwater,
[1:10:57] San Luis Obispo Basin, Groundwater Sustainability Commission,
[1:11:01] represented by Don or T's leg.
[1:11:03] And I see that we're being asked to vote to continue that.
[1:11:07] Good with that.
[1:11:09] Supervisor T's leg represents that area.
[1:11:11] The Lasosos Basin Management Committee,
[1:11:14] Supervisor Gibson, and Supervisor Gibson again.
[1:11:17] Good with that.
[1:11:18] He represents that area or has for many, many years
[1:11:22] and has the experience there.
[1:11:24] A task at our base in GSA has had very little activity because they were changed to not be a critical overdraft base and so they're not even required to do this work, but they're taking the opportunity having started the work to continue.
[1:11:41] and so I do sit on that, Koyama, Supervisor Pauline, and that is his district and he is representing that, representing the county on that Board of Directors.
[1:11:54] My problem in this, I know you all are getting tired of hearing this but I'm going to ask my fellow colleagues, how can you support this?
[1:12:03] Because the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee has had the representatives of that area and those constituents and those property owners since the beginning, and in the course of many years, we were able to complete a groundwater sustainability plan that was accepted by the Department of Water Resources and continue to work with the, with our constituents to always continue to make improvements to our groundwater
[1:12:32] situation. Last year, we were against our will. Supervisor Pashong and I were taken off
[1:12:38] of that committee and you all voted to have Bruce Gibson who doesn't represent a little
[1:12:47] bit of San Miguel, but San Miguel is its own CSD and represents itself on this. So I think
[1:12:55] it says something about this board that you're willing to do something like that. I would like
[1:13:01] to change that, and it wouldn't matter to me if it was supervisor Pashong or myself, but we have the history we've done a good job on, and most importantly, we represent the people that live in that area, and I believe that just needs to change the other thing about that particular situation, the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee, is we have a staff person, playing really, this is nothing to do with playing, it's just that you have elected officials that
[1:13:31] but represent the constituents and property owners in that district, willing to serve, and we're putting the staff, I'm not even sure, I know I could ask county council, but it probably something to look up, I don't even know if that's legal, but I do know the spirit of the signal legislation was for people to have elected representation on these particular commissions and committees, so I just think this board is doing a disservice to the people in the North County by not allowing
[1:14:00] I mean, the elective representatives to continue to be part of the House Robles Cooperative Committee.
[1:14:09] So that's into my field.
[1:14:11] Okay.
[1:14:11] Too much Pauling.
[1:14:13] Oh, well, I just wanted to maybe start with IWMA.
[1:14:16] I'd be happy to take on that appointment.
[1:14:20] None of us seem to be eager for that, but I think that we have a lot of work that can be done
[1:14:27] on that regional body and it would be my pleasure to serve in that capacity.
[1:14:31] Maybe we start with doing that one, we can get to the others.
[1:14:35] Okay.
[1:14:36] Sounds great.
[1:14:37] Supervisor Teas' leg.
[1:14:39] Thank you, Chair.
[1:14:40] Excuse me.
[1:14:41] I'll go as the alternate.
[1:14:44] Do they meet once a month?
[1:14:47] Do you know?
[1:14:49] I believe they meet once a month.
[1:14:51] Okay.
[1:14:52] I think it's six times a year.
[1:14:55] All right, so it don't be sick to meet no
[1:15:00] I'd be willing to be the alternate. Okay, so we have then supervisor Pauline would like to serve on the IWMA, supervisor or T's late would be the alternate on the IWMA. Is there a motion for that? Do you have to take public comment first? Okay. Well, I think we take public comment on all of it. So let's see if there's any other changes that or additions that people would want. I don't hear any discussion of Lafko. I actually had some interest in Lafko, but
[1:15:28] But I think that my play's pretty full, so we'll see how things go, so that's a big one, thank you.
[1:15:36] All right, I'm grateful for you stepping up as the alternate of the IWMA.
[1:15:42] If you hadn't turned your light on, I might have been tempted to do it myself.
[1:15:46] But I would never preempt a colleague who expressed her passion for that position.
[1:15:52] So yeah, you said that, not me, not I, Mr. Chairman.
[1:15:58] So with that, I don't think it's worth a detailed rebuttal to Supervisor Arnold's concerns here.
[1:16:08] We've talked about that before.
[1:16:11] I would simply observe that Mr. Chairman, you and Supervisor Arnold voted to make me a North County Supervisor and it's been my pleasure to serve in that capacity.
[1:16:21] and learned quite a lot, and we're getting quite a lot done on the coordinating committee with the addition of the Australia O-Promar Water District as a partner there.
[1:16:30] So I think with that we could take it as a tentative motion with the supervisors pauling in our T's leg and the I-W-N-A positions.
[1:16:40] We have staff's recommendation on everything else.
[1:16:43] Then go to public comment on this item.
[1:16:45] See if there's any public comment.
[1:16:47] See none, we'll close public comment.
[1:16:49] And bring it back for motion.
[1:16:51] I'll make, oh, a supervisor, you want to do it?
[1:16:54] Oh, under discussion.
[1:16:55] Go ahead with the motion.
[1:16:58] I'll make that motion that we accept staff's recommendation
[1:17:01] in the staff report plus supervisor Pauling
[1:17:05] as I do have a primary and supervisor Ortiz Lake.
[1:17:09] No, I once, once down that road.
[1:17:12] As, you know, to alter, as, let me seriously get the motion done, staff's recommendation,
[1:17:18] per the staff report, plus supervisor, paulding primary to IWMA, supervisor or T's leg, alternate
[1:17:24] to IWMA with my gratitude, and that's it.
[1:17:28] I'll second that motion.
[1:17:29] We have motion to second under discussion, supervisor Arnold.
[1:17:32] Thank you very much.
[1:17:33] So, I appreciate both supervisors or T's leg, and supervisor Paul, Pauling, volunteering to
[1:17:39] go on to IWMA.
[1:17:40] We've never had to have that position on our list before because we all use to serve every supervisor on the IWA.
[1:17:49] I just want to be on the record saying that I am not in support of the way that we've rejoined.
[1:17:59] This board has rejoined the IWA, the prior board had pulled out partly due to the problems over the years of the misuse of funds and
[1:18:09] and potentially millions of dollars, but also the habits of the IWMA had, it had become a habit to be legislating using that word to legislate instead of kind of what I feel like the intention of the creation of IWMA was to just pool resources, financial resources to help both the cities and the county worked together on the recycle mandates and so forth.
[1:18:38] But we left, now we're going back, and it's a different formation.
[1:18:44] So my concern is, and I'll just go on the record saying it, that each one of the cities will continue to have a representative.
[1:18:53] One single person representing all of the CSDs in the county will have a representative's.
[1:18:59] And then the entire and incorporated area, if it's not already covered by a CSD,
[1:19:06] We will have one vote, one single supervisor, and I don't believe that the, I'm not supportive of the formation that new formation that we're entering into with one single vote representing so many people, so many areas of the county, so the county will just end up with one vote on that board of, I guess it'll be nine.
[1:19:28] So, anyway, that was just a little bit of a ramp that I am really looking to my colleague.
[1:19:37] Supervisor Gibson has already commented on how he feels about the Paso Basin.
[1:19:42] But I mean, really think about it because you're elected officials representing district
[1:19:47] and the constituents that voted for you.
[1:19:51] This is just wrong what we're doing as a board, not allowing that Paso Robles groundwater
[1:19:57] the water basin to be represented by the elected...
[1:20:00] That represent them on this county board of supervisors. So, I really hope that this board will support me in trying to make that change today. Okay. Any further discussion? Supervisor Gibson? Okay. Supervisor Paulin. Thank you, Chair Pishon. I just wanted to make a couple comments about IWMA, very brief comments.
[1:20:28] That's obviously, as the Professor Arnold mentioned, there has been kind of a reorganization.
[1:20:35] Only one member of our board will be on the IWMA board.
[1:20:39] I do think that many of the concerns that had been identified by the prior board about IWMA,
[1:20:46] exceeding the scope of state mandates, et cetera, have been addressed through changes to the JPA that now prohibit the board from going beyond state mandates.
[1:20:56] I also see the advantage of being able to reduce garbage rate increases, which we've seen earlier this year that will save our taxpayers about $700,000 per year, which is critical given the fact that we have a budget deficit that we're facing next year, and then of course the benefits of regional cooperation working with the seven cities and the CSDs to eliminate the duplicate efforts of having a separate internal department here at the county.
[1:21:26] Okay, so for those reasons, I support our board rejoining IWMA and I think it'll be a good thing.
[1:21:32] Thank you.
[1:21:33] Okay.
[1:21:34] Supervisor Teasley.
[1:21:35] Thank you.
[1:21:36] I also want to mention in addition to the IWMA is that there was a lot of what was accused
[1:21:48] at one point at the IWMA and some mismanagement.
[1:21:51] I don't think any of it was in Ferries.
[1:21:52] I think it was sloppy management, and it has been very well done cleaned up.
[1:22:01] So while there was probably a good case to take to the itemy at the time, I think that the expense
[1:22:10] that the county has taken in and creating our own at 2 million plus plus the extra that cost
[1:22:16] that we're going to have to pass to the ratepayers made sense for us to go back.
[1:22:22] The IWMA is now under really great leadership.
[1:22:25] There will be no expansion beyond what's mandated by the state.
[1:22:31] And I think that we're all, have learned a lot from that experience as a JPA.
[1:22:37] So, you know, it's, it's, it's unfortunate that it went through that whole rigmarole,
[1:22:42] but it, it did and I think we're in much better shape now.
[1:22:45] In regards to your request to President O'Leham, you know, I know how much you care about
[1:22:51] the basin and know how much you care about the area that you represent.
[1:22:55] I do think that the fact that we had the patent map provided this opportunity is kind of
[1:23:02] ironic.
[1:23:04] And frankly, in the most respectful way, I just want to say that so much of what's happened
[1:23:09] at the basin for so long was not really going in the right direction.
[1:23:12] And I think that goodness that we actually have taken on as a board, we all agreed to get
[1:23:19] Blaine really in and he's done a fantastic job and I think that at this point in time overall that all the basins are really in a better management position because of Blaine and his and the consultant says he's working with and that we're just we're moving in a very good direction at all the basins and so I think that will, you know, I'm supportive of keeping things the way they are.
[1:23:49] I just can't help but ask, want to ask, Supervisor Teeslake, why you would think that the Paso Basin had not been going in the right direction when after many years of work we had created a groundwater sustainability plan that had been for managing the groundwater that had been accepted by the DWR and we were well on our way to, well, we were on our way to sustainability.
[1:24:15] what we were still trying to work on was a more fair distribution of the water.
[1:24:19] So a few of the newer large pumpers weren't getting all the water and we would be able to spread it out like it used to be amongst all the property owners in a more fair way.
[1:24:28] We had an accomplished stat and that's been taken off the table.
[1:24:32] But the sustainability of the groundwater certainly was happening.
[1:24:38] So I just, I want to correct the record because when you say things like that, that's not true.
[1:24:42] I did work on that for 10 years and we did have a sustainability plan that was accepted and we were working on it.
[1:24:49] So it was just actually we were having an easier time than they are down in Kwama.
[1:24:55] So there, but I want to make a correction to that record please.
[1:25:00] Supervisor? Any other supervisors? Okay. Seeing none, I'll just say that I wish that Debbie and I were on back onto the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee, but there are not three votes to let that happen, so I will be supporting this, knowing that that's just where we're going. So with that, I'm going to actually call the question and ask the clerk to go ahead and vote. Supervisor Gibson? Yes. Supervisor Fulton? Yes. Supervisor T's late? Yes. Supervisor Arnold? No.
[1:25:30] And Chairperson Pashant.
[1:25:31] Yes.
[1:25:32] Okay, now we're moving on to item number 24, which is, actually item number 24, we're going to ask the clerk to introduce that item, please.
[1:25:43] Request to receive a file presentation on the County of San Luis Obispo's retirement plan, regarding the unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:25:52] And we have a presentation from the administrative office today.
[1:25:57] Good morning.
[1:26:00] Good morning, board, Lisa Howe, County Administrative Office, the Division Manager, as well as a trustee on the County Pension Trust, and with me here today is Carl Nelson, the Pension Trust Executive Director and really the expert here today.
[1:26:14] Today we'll be presenting on the County of San Luis Obispo's retirement plan, and specifically regarding the unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:26:22] And in prior years, the administrative office in coordination with the Pension Trust has presented periodically updates regarding the Pension Plan.
[1:26:32] Today, specifically, we're presenting due to Board direction to provide an update regarding the unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:26:40] It's important to note that the Pension Trust is an independent trust governed by a seven member Board of Trustees.
[1:26:47] The Board of Trustees administers the retirement plan and
[1:26:52] governs the investment of the plan assets, and the Board of Supervisors as the plan's sponsor determines the benefits as a matter of employee compensation as well as through the collective bargaining process.
[1:27:06] Okay.
[1:27:09] So I will start today on a brief overview of the overall retirement plan, and then I'll hand it over to Mr. Nelson who will discuss the unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:27:18] So
[1:27:23] moving into the county's retirement plan, the plan provides it a fine benefit as opposed to a fine contribution plan.
[1:27:30] A fine benefit plan provides benefits to members for the entirety of the members' life while at a fine contribution plan provides benefits up to a set amount.
[1:27:40] And the plan, as I said, is an independent retirement system under government code section 53215.
[1:27:48] It's not part of the CalPERS State White system, nor is it a 1937 Act Pension Association like 20 other counties in California, and it has a separate governing law.
[1:28:00] And this really allows for more flexibility as well as more local control.
[1:28:06] The Pension system includes San Luis Obispo County employees, but also contracted agencies participate in the system including the Superior Court of San Luis Obispo.
[1:28:18] the air pollution control district,
[1:28:20] Lafko, regional transit authority,
[1:28:24] as well as the slow pension trust itself.
[1:28:27] And overall, the fine benefit pensions
[1:28:30] continue to be a valuable employee benefit,
[1:28:32] as they continue to support our recruitment
[1:28:34] and retention of staff,
[1:28:36] and they are mandatory for all employees.
[1:28:42] So moving into how a defined benefit pension is funded,
[1:28:46] this illustration defines at a high level
[1:28:49] how to find benefits are funded.
[1:28:52] As shown in the blue pipes going into the pension fund, there's both employer contributions,
[1:28:58] as well as employee contributions, so both the county as well as county employees can
[1:29:04] tribute to funding the pension.
[1:29:07] Approximately 40% is funded by the employer and 13% is funded through employee contributions.
[1:29:13] In addition, shown in the yellow pipe, investment earnings fund pension over the long term, and the yellow funnel typically is expected to cover about 60% of the cost of pensions, and that's since the reason we pre-fund as shown to find benefit plans is a very long term process and liabilities accrue over an entire career, and they are paid out.
[1:29:43] for the entirety of the life.
[1:29:46] And the funding plan is smooth over 20 plus years.
[1:29:50] And it's important to note that our pension liability is part of the rating agencies.
[1:29:55] And in the county's funding strategy, to pay off the-
[1:29:59] Thank you.
[1:30:00] The over 20 years, so by the year 2040, it is viewed positively by rating agencies. And even at the current funding levels, the county still maintains the triple A bond rating.
[1:30:16] So a quick overview of the pension benefits. The benefit formula employees receive very based on the bargaining unit, the tier as well as the classification and the classifications are shown there as miscellaneous probation, safety, including sworn and non sworn safety.
[1:30:33] The retirement plan uses an age of entry to determine the appropriate contribution made by the employees.
[1:30:40] And the rate is determined by the age of entry as well as the bargaining unit,
[1:30:45] the tier and classification.
[1:30:47] And depending on the hiring date, employees are placed into one of the three tiers the county pension system has.
[1:30:53] Tier 1 is for any of those employees pre-hired prior to 2011 and it is the consists of the
[1:31:02] highest benefit plan.
[1:31:05] In Tier 2, consists of those hires between 2011 through 2012, but it's also for those
[1:31:12] that have reciprocity from other pension systems.
[1:31:15] And tier three was a result of state mandated PEPRA, which was a public employee's pension
[1:31:23] reform act, and that's for all employees hired after 2013.
[1:31:30] And it's really important to note here that tier two was driven by the Board of Supervisors
[1:31:36] at the time, really being proactive to continue to make the pension system sustainable.
[1:31:43] and Tier 3 and Tier 2 has continued to, in the long run, reduce the overall cost of the county pays as a result of pension.
[1:31:58] So looking at how that has changed, the tiers have changed over the last few years.
[1:32:03] This slide shows 2016 where the number of active members existed in the system and then showing 2022 numbers.
[1:32:13] So, as you can see, the purple box here for tier one was in 2016, consisted of the majority of active employees.
[1:32:25] Today, it makes up a lower percentage and the green is showing tier three.
[1:32:33] So, over time, we'll get continuing to get more and more active employees into tier three.
[1:32:38] Currently tier 3 makes up 63% of all active members, and it's projected by 2040 that all active members will be in tier 3.
[1:32:54] This slide, a lot of numbers here, so I'll try to summarize as briefly as I can.
[1:32:59] This is showing the current contribution rates of the actuarial determined contribution.
[1:33:06] So it's showing it as a percentage of pay for each classification.
[1:33:10] So if you go all the way to the far right column, the total, currently, the total normal cost,
[1:33:20] which is the cost of occurring another year of service, is currently at 21.24%.
[1:33:27] And the amount, the current annual contribution for the unfunded liability portion is 30.56%.
[1:33:37] So a total of 52.81%, and then looking at the lower numbers there, how much of is
[1:33:45] paid by employees? Employees pay 13.34% of their pay to the pension system, where the
[1:33:55] employer, primarily the county, pays approximately 39.47% of the total contribution rate.
[1:34:03] And
[1:34:10] then moving into calculating the defined liability as well as assets for the pension, starting with the actuarial liability.
[1:34:19] Actuarial liability represents the present value of the future pension benefits, and it's accrued up to the present.
[1:34:26] So it's really a snapshot measure, but it's discounted at the discount rate or the expected investment earnings.
[1:34:33] And then the actual actual value of assets is the current based on market value of the pension funded assets.
[1:34:43] However, it is smooth over five years to limit volatility.
[1:34:47] And then when you look at the excess liability over the assets, that's where you get the unfunded actual liability.
[1:34:56] And I'll now hand it over to Mr. Nelson, who will talk.
[1:35:00] All the unfunded liability.
[1:35:03] Thank you, Carl Nelson, executive director of the county's pension trust. The funded status as of the 2023 actuary evaluation, which is based on 2022 data as of the start of the year. The liability for the plan is $2.6 billion, that value the assets on a smooth actuarial basis was $1.67 billion, leaving unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:35:31] UAL of 943 million, and that is a very high level, so highest it's been, this means
[1:35:37] that the funded ratio for the patient is 64.1%.
[1:35:43] What does the UAL mean?
[1:35:47] It's an obligation of the plan sponsor to fund.
[1:35:49] These are benefits that have been negotiated and promised to employees as a former deferred
[1:35:54] compensation for their service, and so it's a long, complicated process to fund those and
[1:36:01] varies a lot from year to year.
[1:36:02] So it's inherently, you're gonna have some sort of UAL
[1:36:07] at any point in any given system.
[1:36:10] It's not an immediate obligation to pay.
[1:36:12] That's an important thing to stress.
[1:36:16] The benefits are paid out over the lifetime of the members.
[1:36:20] So that unfunded liability gets spread out over 20, 30, 40 years
[1:36:24] as people actually receive those benefits.
[1:36:28] It's not an immediate obligation.
[1:36:29] It's not a, you know, you can't come in and demand that the UL be funded right away.
[1:36:36] It's really only relevant in that case if there's a bankruptcy and cessation of operations.
[1:36:42] And I don't think crucial government services like County will suddenly cease services.
[1:36:47] Also, UL is reporting the financial statements.
[1:36:50] It's not hidden footnotes somewhere.
[1:36:52] It's a transparently reported kind of thing that the radio agencies pay a lot of attention
[1:36:57] to.
[1:36:57] when they arrive at a AAA bond rating for a county like this.
[1:37:02] UAL is funded through pension contributions.
[1:37:05] You don't do it all in one year, it's spread out over what is currently used as a 20 year
[1:37:09] amortization period, and it's a very systematic funding plans like paying off a bond or house mortgage.
[1:37:17] And the target for that funding plan is to be fully funded by about 2039, 2041 summer in that area.
[1:37:24] There's a graph of how the funding plan is projected.
[1:37:28] You can see it historically going back to 2000.
[1:37:31] A number of things happened during those years.
[1:37:32] There were benefit enhancements early in 2000s.
[1:37:35] There was the 2001.com crash and of course the 2008 global financial crisis
[1:37:40] that caused a huge disruption in the markets.
[1:37:44] And the liabilities continue on.
[1:37:46] The important thing here is that one of the important things here
[1:37:48] is that these are currently at a 6.75% discount rate, and I'll come back to that.
[1:37:55] That's a really crucial number in natural world.
[1:38:01] The other important point here is that the funding plan that's built into the contribution rates
[1:38:05] that Lisa was showing on a previous slide is targeted at closing that gap over a reasonable period, like 20 years,
[1:38:12] and bringing it fully funded in about 20, 20, 20, 29, to 20, 41, so around that area.
[1:38:22] So what causes the UAL to come about?
[1:38:25] Well, we're looking here primarily at the last 10 years.
[1:38:31] We have some good data from our actuary that tributes where the UAL grew in the last 10 years.
[1:38:36] We had a UAL at the start of that 10 year period that, as you saw in the previous graph.
[1:38:41] So that's part of it.
[1:38:43] There's basically four things that cause the OAL to change.
[1:38:51] Investments, the discount rate that we use to compute those liabilities is by definition
[1:38:59] the long-term expected return on the assets of the pension fund investments.
[1:39:04] Their pension fund is pre-funded so that investment returns can fund well over half of the eventual
[1:39:09] cost of those benefits.
[1:39:13] If during a given year, your investment returns are less than that discount rate, it adds
[1:39:20] to your unfunded actuarial liability.
[1:39:23] Keep in mind that that actuarial value assets are talked about as a smooth five-year number,
[1:39:29] so it's not just, it doesn't bounce around all over the place each year.
[1:39:33] We have smoothing tools that actuarial practice allows.
[1:39:35] So that keeps us, that's one of the main contributors to an increase in UAL.
[1:39:45] Another change, the thing in cost it is if your funding plan is not paying enough into
[1:39:52] the system to cover the interest that it sort of builds up on that UAL, it's kind of like
[1:39:57] a mortgage and you have your pay.
[1:40:02] So, currently, of course, our UAL, the UAL portion of our pension contribution rate certainly covers the principle and all the interest and principle each year. In the early years, going back to the start of this 10 year period that we're measuring, there were some lags there where the UAL emersation payment wasn't quite big enough. So, we had a little touch of negative emersation. That's what you definitely want to avoid.
[1:40:26] The current funding plan is definitely geared to avoid that so that it's using the
[1:40:33] 20-year amberjations, a recently short period, or paying off the mortgage is the way
[1:40:38] that it's planned.
[1:40:44] Another source of changes to the UAL is liability gains and losses.
[1:40:51] Those are primarily demographic things, mortality assumptions.
[1:40:55] We've consistently increased our mortality assumptions.
[1:40:58] That's a good thing.
[1:40:59] People expect it to live longer.
[1:41:00] It makes pensions more expensive, and so as actual practice evolves and the life
[1:41:07] expectancies increase, that has to be reflected in your liabilities.
[1:41:13] It's just a point of actuarial trivia here.
[1:41:17] You see the average life expectancy at birth in this country, I talked about in public health
[1:41:22] terms as being around 77 years, that's life expectancy at birth.
[1:41:26] Life expectancy of a 65-year-old, particularly a public sector employee who tend to be college-educated, and that's crowed with longevity.
[1:41:38] Life expectancy at 87, at 65 is that a male will live to probably about 86 or 87, and a female will live to about 88 or 89.
[1:41:46] So you have a longer period of time that you'd be paying those benefits, and those numbers have come up over the years.
[1:41:53] Other changes to liabilities that can affect that are actual inflation.
[1:41:58] We have to assume a certain level of inflation and actual evaluation sometimes it's higher.
[1:42:03] The retirement plan includes cost of living adjustments for retirees.
[1:42:07] They're capped for tier one members, just a 3% of pay.
[1:42:11] And for tier two and tier one members, they're capped at 2% of pay.
[1:42:15] But there are, the years when inflation is above that, so you're paying the full 3%
[1:42:19] Well, cola for tier one members, their years when it's lower and you plan on that as well.
[1:42:26] In recent years, of course, inflation is a little bit higher, so we are slightly above
[1:42:30] our current inflation assumption of 2.75%.
[1:42:36] Another important part about running a pension plan is that we do extra evaluations every
[1:42:41] year.
[1:42:42] It's a very thorough process.
[1:42:46] We also do an experience study every two years.
[1:42:48] Most retirement systems do experience studies every three to five years.
[1:42:53] The 37X systems do them every three years.
[1:42:56] We've always taken kind of a belt and suspenders approach to we want to make sure our assumptions
[1:43:00] are as realistic as we can make them.
[1:43:02] And so we do that study every two years and revise evaluation to reflect that.
[1:43:10] Probably one of the biggest sources of changes to the UAL is changes in the assumptions.
[1:43:16] Here I come back to that discount rate.
[1:43:18] The discount rate is the pre-ordinate assumption that you make in valuable
[1:43:22] abilities because you're just discounting back payment treatment making to people
[1:43:26] for a very long period of time. 30, 40, 50 years. So the discount rate
[1:43:30] uses very sensitive. The only logical basis for setting a discount rate is what is
[1:43:36] your expected long term rate of return on your assets? Because what else would you
[1:43:40] use? You're investing assets to pay those benefits into the future. And the
[1:43:44] The discount rate is a very sensitive number.
[1:43:48] A tiny changes neck and make big swings in the measure of liabilities, which in turn makes big swings in your contribution calculations.
[1:43:57] So it's important to have a realistic discount rate, and they have been coming down steadily over the years.
[1:44:04] In 2014, we had a discount rate of 7.25%, it's currently 6.75%.
[1:44:10] We also made a few other changes to the valuation to make it a little more conservative in terms of handling other parts of the cost.
[1:44:17] So that has significantly increased the UAL.
[1:44:20] That's the largest number in terms of increasing the UAL is changes in assumptions.
[1:44:26] So why have we lowered the discount rate over the years?
[1:44:31] We've always been a fairly conservative county as a culture, fairly conservative boarded trustees.
[1:44:36] These, we've always tried to choose a conservative discount rate that's realistic.
[1:44:42] We follow more conservative investment policy.
[1:44:45] And so, when you look at the discount rate, you talk with your investor consultants.
[1:44:49] You talk about their capital market assumptions, going out 10 or 20 years.
[1:44:52] These are very long-term assumptions.
[1:44:55] And they're looking at, you know, bond yields and, yeah,
[1:45:00] Or casts for corporations and price earnings ratios and all those sorts of things to come up with their capital market assumptions. Then they run that through analysis that comes up with for our asset mix, which is geared to be a moderate level of risk, somewhat conservative. What do you expect for your long-term rate of return? Many years ago, we talked about, you know, 8%, 7%, 4%, that's a reasonable long-term rate of return. Those days are long gone.
[1:45:29] Following the global financial crisis 2008 and the Federal Reserve brutally suppressing interest rates,
[1:45:35] yes, they say the economy, but it was kind of at the expense to the detriment of conservative investors with bond yields.
[1:45:43] Combined that with stock market being at high levels and stock things don't go up forever.
[1:45:48] So stock market is very high, you can't assume it goes on like that forever.
[1:45:52] So, you have a lower expected return stocks, we put that all through the model and come up with what's the return and our portfolio.
[1:46:00] In 2018, that was as low as 6%. It has come back up now. Currently, it is 7.2%.
[1:46:05] This is our investment consultant there, which we think very highly of.
[1:46:11] All investment consultants have similar types of numbers.
[1:46:15] And so, you look at that and the actual looks at what seems reasonable.
[1:46:18] and you pick a discount rate.
[1:46:20] We've picked 6.75% the last couple of years.
[1:46:24] That's kind of a realistic guess as to what the future returns are.
[1:46:28] What that means is that you have about a 50-50 yards,
[1:46:31] are you doing better than that or less than that?
[1:46:33] That's the definition of a reasonable assumption.
[1:46:36] So we try and fund towards that fairly conservative target,
[1:46:40] pretty much all pension systems,
[1:46:42] California and other way elsewhere have been using lower discount rates to be more realistic to what they think they can fund, but that pushes that cost for all the systems.
[1:46:55] This next graph sort of shows just in graphic form, those different sources of the UAL, the 222 million, this is over the last 10 years, is some from changes that we talked about.
[1:47:06] But primarily discount rate, then the 147 million is the changes in liability due to people
[1:47:16] living longer, revising our inflation assumption, things like that.
[1:47:22] And then the 180 million is AVA, that's actually a value of assets, how it's investing our
[1:47:31] terms have been lower than our discount rate over this last period.
[1:47:35] Again, we're pretty conservative investors, a typical pension fund.
[1:47:40] You talk about it having like a 60-40S at mix, 60% stocks, 40% bonds.
[1:47:45] We've always been more like a 48-52 type investor.
[1:47:50] We tend to skew it a little farther away from, you know, not as heavy in equities.
[1:47:54] Again, that reflects just a conservative approach, which I think is appropriate, but it also
[1:48:02] means that when stocks are going really great, you're not participating in all of it because
[1:48:06] you're not over-weighting it as much as others might have.
[1:48:12] This is the same data just spread over the 10 years, so overlaying that is the red line
[1:48:17] for the discount rate as we've lowered it over the last 10 years.
[1:48:20] So that kind of shows where that red line goes down,
[1:48:24] you see the green bar is getting bigger.
[1:48:26] That's the assumption changes that increase the UAL.
[1:48:29] And that's where we wind up at the grand total now
[1:48:32] with $943 million.
[1:48:38] This is a graph near and dear to my heart as an investment person,
[1:48:43] but it illustrates why you smooth things when you fund pensions.
[1:48:47] The green line is the our actual market value rate
[1:48:51] of return over the years.
[1:48:52] You see the big drop in 2008, 2022 was a pretty negative year also.
[1:48:59] So that's how investments returns bounce around.
[1:49:02] Thank goodness you don't fund in reaction to that.
[1:49:05] Otherwise, your contribution is we just bounce all over the place every year.
[1:49:09] Actual practice allows us to use the Actual value of assets smooth over five years.
[1:49:14] That's the blue line and CCS much less volatile.
[1:49:17] And then the red dashed line is our discount rate over the years.
[1:49:21] So that kind of illustrates the benefit of smoothing and managing pension systems.
[1:49:33] I showed you the graph earlier of where we eventually pay off the infunded liability by about
[1:49:40] 2040 thereabouts. Well, what happens to our contribution rates? This is a forecast of the
[1:49:46] country rates. This is the baseline forecast from our actuary from the 2023 valuation with some
[1:49:52] history included, there are two components to paying for pensions. One is the
[1:49:57] normal cost. That's the green
[1:50:00] That's the foundation for it. That's basically the cost of another year's of service being earned by the participants in that pension plan. That you see that green line in the forecast is coming down. Why does the normal cost come down? Because of tier three, the tier one benefits form more generous. The county went ahead and did a preemptive pension reform with tier two in 2011. Negotiate that with their collective bargaining units. And the long term, the long run, as those
[1:50:29] those generations turn over, your cost comes down.
[1:50:33] And so ultimately the cost of a tier two pension
[1:50:36] is gonna be like under 20% of pay as the normal cost.
[1:50:39] That's the basis for it.
[1:50:41] Now to get there, you have to pay off
[1:50:42] the unfunded liability, UAL.
[1:50:44] That's the large area above that
[1:50:47] that you see amortizing, being amortized
[1:50:50] and paid off over the 20 years.
[1:50:53] The question that we discuss all the time
[1:50:56] with our board of trustees and with our actuary
[1:50:57] and with people see this graph is that huge cliff at the end.
[1:51:02] So you mean we're going to just be paying off the mortgage
[1:51:03] and also the house is paid for and then life is good
[1:51:06] and the pension costs 20% a pay?
[1:51:09] Probably, yeah.
[1:51:10] Except that to getting there that I'm sure Lisa as the maven
[1:51:16] of budgets looks at that as an interesting
[1:51:19] and challenging budget issue.
[1:51:23] So the one thought is that at some point, it makes sense to revise the UL
[1:51:31] amortization stretched out a little bit.
[1:51:33] Ultimately, that increases cost sum, but it smooths out that sort of transition.
[1:51:37] And that's probably something that the word trustees will be actually considering in
[1:51:40] about 10 years.
[1:51:42] At this point, it's important that we continue to fund the UAL to make sure that we are paying
[1:51:47] off all the interest on that and make principal payments.
[1:51:51] You don't just reduce it to an interest only alone or worse than that, a negative amortization
[1:51:57] loan, you keep paying that off.
[1:51:59] Now thinking about 10 years, there will be more of a question as you pay off your mortgage.
[1:52:04] The principal payments go up and the interest part goes down.
[1:52:07] At that point, it would be actually really reasonable to consider maybe tapering off this
[1:52:12] cost curve and stretching out a little bit.
[1:52:14] But that's an issue for a number of years down the road.
[1:52:17] Right now we're paying off the interest and that's the important thing to do to be responsible.
[1:52:24] The actuary calls out that the tread water level of funding your unfunded liabilities.
[1:52:29] We always wanted to be at least above that level so we're not adding to the UAO just because we're not paying it down appropriately.
[1:52:37] I'll just conclude with my standard Chamber of Commerce speech about the benefits of public
[1:52:46] sector pensions to the local economy.
[1:52:49] This is a pretty big system.
[1:52:50] We have close to 7,000 participants total retirees and active.
[1:52:54] Right now we're paying $131 billion a year in retirement benefits to retirees and to their
[1:53:00] beneficiaries like surviving spouses.
[1:53:03] The average benefit is about $40,000 a year.
[1:53:07] The average will try to age about 70.
[1:53:10] That in the last year, the average age of time was 59 years.
[1:53:13] I expect that to increase somewhat as the tier three members tend to work longer.
[1:53:20] As a 65 year old, I think working longer is definitely a good idea.
[1:53:25] So, but the important thing is about that $131 million of benefits that we pay out each year.
[1:53:30] 70% of it, it's male to addresses in San Luis Paso County, or Santa Maria, Northern
[1:53:35] Santa Barbara County.
[1:53:36] Basically, 70% of retirees stayed in the area.
[1:53:40] That's about 91 million dollars you're paid into the area.
[1:53:44] Those retirees spend that money, yeah, they say some, but they go out and they go to movies
[1:53:48] and they buy groceries and they buy cars and they go to farmer's markets.
[1:53:52] And that adds to the local economy.
[1:53:55] They didn't just take their money and go away, it's being spent here.
[1:53:58] And that's probably has, when economists talk about economic activity, they use a multiplier factor.
[1:54:05] So if that, when a retiree spends a dollar, the general rule of thumb with economists with retiree pension payments is that it creates about 1.5 times that amount in economic activity.
[1:54:18] They go to the farmer's market, they buy a bunch of stuff, the farmer's market, they hire another employee, and that's where the multiplier comes in.
[1:54:25] So it is a net boon to your community.
[1:54:31] I don't know what other pension system experience, but I'm guessing that less desirable parts of the country do not have 70% of their retirees staying in the area, spending their money.
[1:54:41] So that concludes my comments.
[1:54:46] Okay. Any questions from the board? Supervisor Harle.
[1:54:50] I do have a couple questions, and first, I just want to say thank you.
[1:54:53] Will Lee says always, thank you for being here and giving these kinds of presentations, but.
[1:55:00] All very often because he has his own board to deal with, but I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for your years of service. The county employees here as the pension trust executive director, I think is your full title. You, like I say, you have your own board, and we don't get to see you as much, but behind the scenes you do a great service to everyone here at the county. And I can't help but thank you, Jerry, to Jerry, you're serving on this board.
[1:55:29] after your auditor controller for so many years.
[1:55:33] So thank you because this is like a foreign language
[1:55:36] to a lot of us.
[1:55:37] So we appreciate you to stay in the game and helping.
[1:55:41] But my couple of quick questions.
[1:55:43] I think you said Carl that every year the colon changes
[1:55:49] or that's a variable then, correct?
[1:55:51] In our liabilities on our benefits side.
[1:55:55] Okay.
[1:55:55] And then I think you said that the rate of return presently is 7.2 percent.
[1:56:02] That's a long-term expected rate of return.
[1:56:06] Oh, that's long-term.
[1:56:07] Last in 2022, we had a negative 8 percent return because it was a very negative
[1:56:11] market for both equities and bonds, but the long-term expected return is 7.2 percent.
[1:56:16] In other words, it's above the discount rate, and that's the important thing.
[1:56:18] Yeah.
[1:56:19] Okay.
[1:56:19] And then, so I was just curious, it's interesting.
[1:56:23] All this is interesting, I don't know what 23 then look like on the short term rate of return.
[1:56:32] But do you expect the discount rate to go up the way the world is kind of behaving?
[1:56:39] That's a judgment that's made by the word trustees in conjunction with the actuary.
[1:56:45] Typically after every two years experience study is the module time to do that.
[1:56:50] And my personal forecast would be, it will be a number of years before that discount rate goes up.
[1:56:59] Again, to be conservative, you want to try and build in that cushion.
[1:57:04] I also don't think there's, it's likely to go down further, but that depends on the markets.
[1:57:10] If we go back to another extremely accommodated Fed policy, which I'm not arguing Fed policy, but that lowers bond returns.
[1:57:18] and so conservative investors like pension funds, you know, suffer because of that.
[1:57:22] Yeah.
[1:57:22] I, a long way of saying, I think you should probably stay about the same, but that's just my opinion.
[1:57:27] Yeah. No, your crystal ball is good, is it? Anybody think?
[1:57:31] And my last question is from that graph that you showed, it looked like the unfunded liability for a long time.
[1:57:40] Since I've been on this board, we talked about it potentially being paid off in 2040, but it looks like,
[1:57:45] And I think what you were trying to say is no reason to worry that could stretch out a little bit,
[1:57:51] especially as it comes down. Who's that? Right?
[1:57:55] Yes. You need to put the fund it. And if you fund it rigorously and stick to that forecast
[1:58:01] of schedule and have it completely paid off by, you know, 2040, you know,
[1:58:05] something. That's where I thought it was kind of.
[1:58:07] It's 2039, 2040. But yeah, it's still a problem.
[1:58:10] Over a year, it involves a little bit. But if you keep with that goal of funding over the 20 year,
[1:58:15] our conversation period, that is the least expensive way to fund it.
[1:58:20] If you stretch it out, that will increase costs, but it also, there's some flexibility to be warranted in that, and there's broader budget issues with the county that can be reflected in that.
[1:58:33] Okay, I really appreciate the presentation, so thank you so much, it's all here.
[1:58:38] I just had the one question, so they did a whole radio show on this, you probably have
[1:58:41] heard about it on Dave Conkelton's show, and we went, I think was it four years ago,
[1:58:46] we were about 600 million, and now we're at 943, so just simply, if you could wrap it up,
[1:58:55] what happened?
[1:58:56] So that went down further, we had that like 7% than 6.75%, the 2022 market happened while
[1:59:06] When we smooth that return, you know, it's a negative 8% return for that year, when we smooth that return over five years, it still has an effect in terms of increasing the gap then funded liability.
[1:59:21] Also, in that period of asset value smoothing, the year prior to that five year period was a good year and it dropped out of the calculation and we added in a bad year at the end of the five year calculation.
[1:59:35] So that had a bigger drop and would have been preferable.
[1:59:42] So that's been the primary reasons for doing it, for doing it.
[1:59:45] Okay.
[1:59:46] And then just finally, there was discussion on that same radio program about the liability
[1:59:51] that the county has to fill this up.
[1:59:54] But we were talking about a plan for 2040, right?
[1:59:57] So, you're in the...
[2:00:00] Oh, I just want to hear it from you. There's no move to come back to the county and ask us to raise taxes on the community to be able to pay off this liability.
[2:00:09] Yeah, the funding of the plan is under control of the Board of Trustees and they're very cognizant. The primary goal of any pension system in California is to fund the minister and pay for those benefits.
[2:00:23] The California statutes clearly have a secondary consideration to consider the impact on the plan's sponsor.
[2:00:31] It's not secondary, it's been tough you paid, they were promised.
[2:00:34] But we definitely have a bona fide interest in controlling the impact on the plan's sponsor.
[2:00:40] So for the birth trustees to come in and say, I'm sure Rebecca's got bags of money in her office that you can pay it off.
[2:00:50] is not something that I would ever see happening.
[2:00:53] She has reached the point where we need to know about it.
[2:00:56] This is San Luis Obispo County, for all.
[2:00:59] It's okay metaphorically.
[2:01:01] Thank you for that.
[2:01:02] Supervisor Gibson, there are most of the bags of quarters, I think, parking meters.
[2:01:07] You know, the manner of unfunded liability gets folks wound up, especially if they don't like public sector pensions of the defined benefit.
[2:01:15] I think that the graph that really says it all is on page 6 of 8 of our staff report,
[2:01:24] and it shows the accrued liability going up and as a red line and below it it shows the fair value
[2:01:33] of the assets of the trust and the actuarial value below it. And if you look where we are right now
[2:01:42] Well, it's pretty close to the biggest gap for the plan.
[2:01:47] But what's interesting is that the fair value tracks very well the expected.
[2:01:52] This plan is working.
[2:01:54] Now, it's working because relative to 12 years ago in that last slide you showed,
[2:02:01] we are actually having to contribute 20% more salary to the pension.
[2:02:05] We being employees to an extent in the county, and I can't off the top of my head figure out exactly how that extra 20% is split, but employees actually were picking up a goodly chunk for a while.
[2:02:21] So that's the real impact.
[2:02:25] It's not that we're going to raise taxes.
[2:02:26] It's that our labor costs have gone up by that much, whatever impact that is to the county's
[2:02:36] revenue stream. That just limits how many people we can employ.
[2:02:42] This has been a topic for a long
[2:02:45] time. It is a long-term issue. I do know the pension trust to be very well-run and conservatively
[2:02:54] managed, and again, back to that graph on page 6 of 8, the plan's working.
[2:03:03] Thank you.
[2:03:04] Supervisor Teasley.
[2:03:05] Thank you.
[2:03:05] Thank you for coming and just sharing with us, and again, having the conversation and helping educate further.
[2:03:13] I do think it's important for the public to know that our employees are contributing more than ever and
[2:03:19] that it certainly takes a chunk out of their check.
[2:03:22] And so that's something that, you know, in the past that was not the case, and this generation is paying for the last generation in so many ways.
[2:03:34] And so I just want to say thank you to the employees for that and knowing that overall we've got a very solid as you say conservative approach, which I think is very important for everybody to recognize.
[2:03:47] All right, so again, thank you for coming.
[2:03:49] Thank you.
[2:03:50] With that, we're going to go to public comment.
[2:03:53] We have one public comment speaker slip.
[2:03:57] Jerry Sybach, we'll come on up and speak, and if you'd like to speak on this item, please get a slip in.
[2:04:04] Yes, my, I'm Jerry Seabach and it's good to see all of you once again.
[2:04:10] I put in a request for to speak mainly in case there were questions from your board.
[2:04:20] I became the chief deputy county auditor in 1983 and until 1990 when then I was elected to be the county auditor controller.
[2:04:33] 91 through 2012 when I retired, and since then I have been honored to be in a pointe of your board to be a trustee on the pension plan as is Ms. Howell, so a board of board he and I want to thank them Carl, Mr. Nelson and Ms. Howell for an excellent job, I think this was a very instructive.
[2:05:00] Thank you for your attention for you. And really, as I said, I have well over 40 years of institutional memory. I've been through these battles, the ups and the downs in many ways over the years. So, if anybody would like to hear an old guy, belly ache about things that happened in the past, I'm happy. I'm here for you. But otherwise, I want to say the pension board and their staff
[2:05:28] It works very hard to try to control these costs, and they do provide an excellent service for our members and our retirees.
[2:05:40] Thank you.
[2:05:42] Okay, well close public comment, don't see anybody else running to the microphone, so we'll bring it back to the board for any further discussion.
[2:05:49] Seeing none, nope.
[2:05:51] Just to thank you all again, this was very informative, and I'm glad it was done in public, so everyone can be more informed about this at all.
[2:06:03] Thank you. This is a receive and file, so it has been received and filed, we appreciate the opportunity for you to be here.
[2:06:09] Okay, we're now moving on to item number 25, and I ask the clerk to introduce the item, please.
[2:06:17] The discussion regarding county and post-conditions of approval on land use permits requiring applicant property owner and demnification of county.
[2:06:27] And we have a presentation from our friends at the county council's office.
[2:06:32] Good morning, Rudy DeNiel.
[2:06:35] My presentation will be so much short today.
[2:06:37] I had previously had a PowerPoint prepared, and due to my lack of tech skills, I didn't get it into agenda.net appropriately.
[2:06:48] So I'm just going to talk to you without a PowerPoint slide today.
[2:06:53] I do want to acknowledge members in my office, John, Brian, Ben, Mia,
[2:07:06] and
[2:07:07] the history of indemnification clauses.
[2:07:10] I don't think I'm going to say anything today
[2:07:12] that's earth shattering or surprising.
[2:07:16] This board did ask me to come back
[2:07:18] and talk about indemnification clauses.
[2:07:21] So I want to just go over quickly
[2:07:24] the overview of the development process,
[2:07:27] the applicant responsibilities,
[2:07:29] the provision that is currently in place
[2:07:32] for indemnification,
[2:07:33] how the litigation process works,
[2:07:35] and then the history of our indemnification clauses and one thing that was attached to your
[2:07:43] staff report was a history of the indemnification clauses since 2000. So we have a history of at
[2:07:50] least 23 years at this point of indemnification clauses we thought we would spare you of going
[2:07:55] back farther. But as you know the development process starts with an applicant submitting
[2:08:01] in their application, they describe the project and the components.
[2:08:06] Here board's policy requires that the applicant is responsible for all the costs and expenses of processing, not only the application,
[2:08:15] but any conditions of approval and any necessary mitigation measures.
[2:08:21] One of the reasons for this policy is that the applicant is to assume the costs of the process,
[2:08:30] And it prevents the taxpayers from having an original fund from covering the cost of the private developer.
[2:08:38] So currently, I'll give you the gist of what the Indimnication Provision says.
[2:08:43] It requires that an applicant defend, hold harmless, and
[2:08:47] indemnify at their sole expense in the action brought against the county,
[2:08:53] challenging either its decision to approve this permit or the manner in which the county is interpreting or
[2:08:58] are enforcing the conditions of the land use permit, or any other action by a third party relating to approval or implementation of this land use permit.
[2:09:09] That language, again, has been consistent since at least 2000, and it's also consistent with other agencies, and I'll talk a minute about how it differs slightly from other agencies, but it doesn't necessarily differ legally.
[2:09:23] As I said, that provision shifts that responsibility to the project proponent and away from the General
[2:09:32] Fund and the taxpayers.
[2:09:34] When you talk about litigation, it's really important to understand that if the county
[2:09:40] gets sued on the approval of a permit, so will the applicant.
[2:09:45] So whether there's an indemnification clause in place or not, the applicant is going to be
[2:09:49] part of that litigation. They don't get out of it. We gave some examples in the
[2:09:56] staff report on when the litigation or the endim of the...
[2:10:00] Justice has come into play and when it has actually benefited the county. First of all, is your traditional litigation. And I, for example, I've given to this board in the past several years ago, the board had approved a land use permit for the Pasilevo Olive Farm. The board and the applicant was sued on that. We implicated our indignification clause. They took lead. They being the applicant, the permit holder, took lead on that litigation.
[2:10:29] part of it was a CEQA challenge as well.
[2:10:34] They were not successful, and this board,
[2:10:38] the permit did not move forward,
[2:10:40] and the petitioners were awarded attorney's fees.
[2:10:44] That case costs the petitioners,
[2:10:47] are the real party in interest,
[2:10:50] and the developer probably $7 to $800,000.
[2:10:54] Had we not had that indentification clause,
[2:10:57] that responsibility would have been on the County of San Luis Obispo.
[2:11:01] So, that's an example of a large project of which we got sued on, which is the real party in interest got sued on, and they took the lead because they wanted to defend their permit and the entitlements that they had received.
[2:11:14] A second type of example, and this one I think is really significant in that the board approves a project.
[2:11:23] You have your identification clause and in the board and the permit holder gets sued.
[2:11:28] And you have a permit holder who is really unwilling to defend the permit.
[2:11:32] They don't necessarily want to move forward.
[2:11:34] In that instance, the county, we have little incentive to defend the permit.
[2:11:41] The permit, when they're issued and they're approved by this board, and you put conditions of approval, that's a vested right that runs with the land.
[2:11:49] And it's the vested right that's put placed on the developer or the project proponent.
[2:11:55] So when we're called to defend that permit and the property owner doesn't want to defend it,
[2:12:02] our incentive is to settle because we don't want to incur attorney's fees.
[2:12:06] We don't want to incur the risk of being awarded or the petitioner being awarded attorney's fees.
[2:12:12] And normally, and this has happened in the past and the board, at that point, reverses their approval on the permit as part of the settlement.
[2:12:20] But what happens and what has happened in this case, in cases, is there's still an award of attorney's fees because the prevailing parties as even though we settled, we achieved the outcome that we sought to achieve, which was we didn't want this permit to move forward.
[2:12:34] So then they look to the county for attorney's fees, and we look to the unwilling project proponent to try and recruit those fees.
[2:12:43] And we've done that, but had we not had the indentification clause in there, we probably wouldn't be able to recover fees and costs.
[2:12:52] And then the last situation which we have had also is where you have a poorly capitalized single purpose developer who comes in once a project, the board approves that project.
[2:13:03] And when the board and that project developer gets sued,
[2:13:09] that person doesn't have the money any longer to defend the county or defend themselves.
[2:13:14] And normally, again, it's like the unwillingness, the county doesn't necessarily have an incentive to defend the permit.
[2:13:23] In that situation, we usually settle as well, and then we look to, and it's very difficult to recover.
[2:13:28] but we look to the poorly capitalized project proponent to try and recoup our losses.
[2:13:37] Sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not.
[2:13:40] But I just think it's really important to understand that one, the project proponent
[2:13:46] is going to be a party to the litigation and they should have incentive to defend their project and their permit.
[2:13:52] Yet, talking about the history of the indignification clause, again I told you we reviewed the clauses
[2:14:01] at least back through 2000 and the provision, I know we've had a comment and we've had
[2:14:08] comments in the past, I just realized there's no one here,
[2:14:15] sorry, the provision has never had
[2:14:21] an expiration date.
[2:14:23] There are some who will argue that similar to subdivision mapback, which has an expiration
[2:14:30] date per statute.
[2:14:32] The legislature has decided that when you process a subdivision mapback, if you get
[2:14:37] that approved, you only have a certain amount of time to contest it.
[2:14:42] They have not done so with regard to land use permits.
[2:14:46] I and my office feel strongly that having an expiration permit or a date basically then cuts off the permit holders' responsibility.
[2:15:00] On to the county, all of the responsibility. And if there's a lawsuit over that permit, over the conditions of that permit, or some other type of action, the county is going to be left holding the ball. There's no question that over time, I think the risk decreases for litigation, that it does always remain through the life of that permit. The provision has never been limited to specific types of litigation. We've heard in the past that then demification clause was put in there.
[2:15:29] just to protect against sequel actions, and you only have so much time to file a sequel action after the approval of a permit.
[2:15:37] It has never been limited to just one type of action, and again, I would say it should never be limited to one type of action.
[2:15:45] It has consistently included defending against the challenge of an approval.
[2:15:51] It has consistently required a defending the county's interpretation or enforcement of the conditions.
[2:15:57] and it has consistently required them to defend against any third party claim.
[2:16:04] Indimification litigation can be somewhat complicated and really where the battle field is is in the interpretation and the breadth of that clause that the person being challenged saying I don't think this indemnification clause requires me to bend this type of action or that type of action.
[2:16:24] So our clause, we have tried very hard to make sure that an applicant knows this is what will be required of you if you were sued on this permit.
[2:16:35] You will be required to defend us on a challenge of approval.
[2:16:38] You will be required to defend our interpretation and enforcement and you will be required on any other type of claim.
[2:16:45] If you look at some of the clauses from the other counties, they aren't necessarily asked specific, but they are as broad.
[2:16:52] They just kind of say, any claim, any type of action, you are going to have to defend the current clause.
[2:17:02] Again, we've heard some comments that it is greatly expanded.
[2:17:05] The current clause is not greatly expanded.
[2:17:07] What is added to the current indemnification clause is specific language in regards to, particularly on larger projects,
[2:17:15] that if we get sued, and you get sued, you will be required to enter into an indemnification agreement with us, and then we say, and here's what the agreement is going to require you to do.
[2:17:28] Again, having an applicant enter into an indemnification agreement is nothing new. You've seen it. We've had it over the years, again, usually on larger projects.
[2:17:38] But it's just one more tool to, as a condition of approval, and it's one more tool to say to the applicant, here's what's going to be required of you.
[2:17:48] We aren't hiding the ball, we're being transparent, we're telling you what the rules of the game are.
[2:17:54] And again, that is also very common with regard to other entities.
[2:18:01] We attached for you, Monterey, Ventura, Sanbarra, Counties, and the Coastal Commission, all are similar, some of the words are a little bit different, but all are similar, so I think all and all the indemnification requirement is a really important protection for the county and our liability, it protects the board in the decisions you make, and it says we say early on to the applicant, if you want this project, this private project,
[2:18:29] Here's what the rules of the game are.
[2:18:31] We're not hiding the ball, we're letting them know.
[2:18:34] I would not recommend that we put an expiration date on our identification clause,
[2:18:39] because again, I think it puts the county at risk.
[2:18:41] And I would not recommend that we get into a situation of trying to negotiate
[2:18:46] the identification clause from the dias in an open meeting.
[2:18:51] Usually, if a project proponent has a concern with the endignification clause,
[2:18:56] because they make contact with us and there have been times where we've made small changes
[2:19:02] to the indemnification clause based on a particular project, but we try and resolve all of
[2:19:06] that before we get to this board.
[2:19:09] So again, indemnification clauses aren't new, they're really an important tool in the process
[2:19:16] of a land use permit and I am happy to answer any questions without getting too far deep
[2:19:23] into the law of indemnification, I will stop there, so thank you.
[2:19:27] Thank you. Questions? I see no questions from the board.
[2:19:33] So, oh, yes. Supervisor Ortizlik.
[2:19:36] Yes, thank you. That was helpful. And I think that the one piece that seems to come across
[2:19:45] for some reason is that there is this potential that one that's a developer, whoever the applicant is,
[2:19:55] could be caught to pay county fees.
[2:20:00] perpetuity.
[2:20:02] Do we know of any situation? You gave us a lot of good examples, but those are all things that happen within a certain period of time after the permit is, you know, in flux. And then put, you know, a decision has been made and put into action. But then after the building is built and all of that, are there times that something could happen?
[2:20:29] and where the county is going back to the time applicant, now the owner, and saying you failed here or something like that.
[2:20:41] Is there an example of that?
[2:20:43] Yeah, read and kneel, really, and I always want to be careful to never say never.
[2:20:48] We haven't been sued that I can think the time I've been here years later on a permit.
[2:20:53] But usually what comes up if there's a project development, they're not complying with their conditions of approval.
[2:21:02] It turns into an enforcement action and the county is making every effort to assure that they're complying with their conditions of permit.
[2:21:11] If there are complaints from others that the conditions of the permit aren't being met, we try and
[2:21:16] and work again, determine if it is a violation of the permit or not, and work with all parties involved to assure there's compliance.
[2:21:25] Now, there are times where maybe there are expansions of the permit over time, and people argue over those things.
[2:21:32] But I can't think of a time where we've been sued years later over approval of the permit.
[2:21:37] But that's helpful, you know, I know that people, we have to keep out a look for, make sure that they're not being included in something that leaves them with a high risk, so I appreciate the explanation today and understanding more about the need for continually adapting to the circumstances and also looking at the other counties on what they're doing. Thank you.
[2:22:06] So, yeah, and I will just say, you know, our office does periodically look at all our indemnification
[2:22:12] clauses, not just regard, in regard to land use permits, recently we went over a thorough review
[2:22:18] for our contractual indemnification clauses.
[2:22:21] So, it's something we're constantly trying to update or tweak or address concerns as they come up.
[2:22:27] Okay.
[2:22:31] Let's go to the teams of public comment.
[2:22:33] I know everybody finds this fascinating, we do, I'm not so sure the community does.
[2:22:40] The feed would pension this kind of thing, and I pretty much think that we had more people.
[2:22:45] So I'm going to open public comment, and I'm going to close public comment, seeing that we have no speaker slips and bring it back to the board for their comments, supervisor Arnold.
[2:22:54] So thank you, and thank you, Rita, for your presentation.
[2:22:58] I talked about this over all the years, I think, that I've been elected here, and I'll just say you as a county attorney and John sir to and many your whole office, I feel like you have two jobs, you're the attorney for all things county, and then and then I often hear you use the phrase and rightly so you're protecting the taxpayer, right?
[2:23:21] Right, we have a gazillion lawsuits, it's coming out of the taxpayers' pocket.
[2:23:25] So, for all those reasons, I get this whole identification clause.
[2:23:30] And this, I don't even know what the solution would ever be.
[2:23:33] And maybe it's just a modernization and sophistication of society that we have these problems here.
[2:23:42] But so for me, when I watch people come, especially single-family residences.
[2:23:48] I mean, it's one thing you expect that big projects are well financed or hopefully so.
[2:23:55] And they have, you know, they already have attorneys and they have a lot of reasons to have attorneys and they're ready for those kinds of challenges.
[2:24:01] But all these years, we talk about affordable housing and how can people.
[2:24:05] And when we see the single family residents or some small project come in,
[2:24:10] and they're asking for a permit and permission.
[2:24:14] And I'd laugh about that because I always tell people even when they get frustrated with the whole.
[2:24:21] This is my property and I should be able to do whatever I want.
[2:24:24] I always look to invite district California, it's an example why we need compatibility and
[2:24:30] conflict resolution before things are built and why we issue these permits.
[2:24:35] But I think especially the lay person who has single family residents, I'll go back to this.
[2:24:41] It could be a financial burden, but certainly it's kind of a worry, I think, for people inexperienced with having to deal with lawsuits.
[2:24:52] So coming in, and they expect that we are only permitting if everything's completely legal.
[2:25:00] As their county government, they pay their taxes, and they're going to pay more once they build that house. But they're expecting our expertise to say you can have the permit because everything you're asking for is legal, or you can't because everything you're asking for is not legal in our planning world. And that's what has been bothersome to me that then we say, okay, we're giving you the permit, we're saying you're legal. But if anyone in the outside world comes in to you for what you're building,
[2:25:29] building, then that's on you.
[2:25:33] And so it always kind of worries me, there are rules.
[2:25:36] They have to come ask us for permission.
[2:25:38] We're kind of ensuring them, we're giving you a permit because this all looks okidoki.
[2:25:44] And then, but we're leaving you with a liability and maybe some people can't, we talk about
[2:25:49] affordable, that's, and then this doesn't, for me it doesn't pertain to people that are
[2:25:58] They're not complying with their permit, but the people that are are complying with their permit, they're taking, basically they're taking a risk to come ask us for a permit and then go forward and build something that we're actually as a county government benefit from as well, but they have to take this legal risk that they may be unprepared for.
[2:26:16] So that's been my concern ever since I was elected and still remains to be so if anyone
[2:26:21] ever has a bright idea how we could remove that risk then I would think they were my hero.
[2:26:28] So thank you.
[2:26:30] Thank you.
[2:26:32] So looking around there are no other comments you guys have wooed us all into silence and
[2:26:38] no motion was made so this is a receive and file report and we appreciate that.
[2:26:44] So, this item is closed and now we are moving on to closed session, so I'm going to ask if there's any public comment on closed session, seeing none, I will close public comment on closed session and ask council for a time estimates.
[2:27:00] Yes, I'd say we be in closed session about an hour. We're going to talk about items 1, 3 through 13 and 15 and 16.
[2:27:07] Okay, one hour, and we will reconvene this meeting at 1.30 here, and we have a couple items this afternoon, so we'll see you at 1.30.
[2:27:54] Okay, welcome back, I apologize, we're one minute and 40 seconds late.
[2:27:59] But we are going to take two items here this afternoon, 27 and 28, and we're going to reverse them.
[2:28:07] Chairman Pashon.
[2:28:08] Yes.
[2:28:08] Could I just report out of close?
[2:28:10] Oh, yes, of course you can't.
[2:28:11] Please report out of close session.
[2:28:13] Yes, there was no report out of close session.
[2:28:15] There it is.
[2:28:16] All right, we hit that.
[2:28:18] This is the highlight of the afternoon.
[2:28:20] So we're gonna take 28 first because we have some staffing issues
[2:28:26] and some travel issues of that's okay with everybody.
[2:28:29] We are going to ask now the clerk to introduce item 28.
[2:28:35] A hearing to present needs identified during community outreach and allow for public comment to establish funding priorities for allocating local, state and federal funds towards affordable housing homelessness and community development.
[2:28:49] And we have a presentation today from our friends at the Department of Social Services.
[2:28:57] Good afternoon Chairperson Vishalani and members of the board.
[2:29:00] I am George Solis, administrative services manager with the homeless services division.
[2:29:04] Today, staff will present needs identified during community outreach and take consideration
[2:29:11] of public comments to guide how the county will allocate local, state, and federal funding
[2:29:17] to address housing, homelessness, and community development as part of the 2024 Action
[2:29:22] Plan.
[2:29:23] I will now turn over the presentation to March Castle Program Manager also with the Homeless
[2:29:28] Services Division.
[2:29:29] Good afternoon, Chairman Pashong, members of the Board, ladies and gentlemen.
[2:29:34] The County of San Luis Obispo prepares and submits an annual action plan to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD,
[2:29:43] which describes how the urban county will allocate federal grant funds, including community development block grants,
[2:29:50] home investment partnerships, and the emergency solutions grant to address the urban county's housing,
[2:29:57] homelessness and community.
[2:30:00] Local government needs. The community participation plan for the urban county requires that staff gather public input regarding these needs. Today's hearing is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The purpose of this hearing is to give the public an opportunity to express their views on both the needs of the community and the use of federal funds. Public input will be considered for funding priorities for the 2024 action plan.
[2:30:26] The result of the Community Needs Survey will be presented during this hearing.
[2:30:33] The 2024 Action Plan is the fifth and final chapter of the 2020 to 2024 Consolidated Plan.
[2:30:41] The Consolidated Plan is a five year planning document required by HUD to be submitted by all jurisdictions that directly receive HUD entitlement funds.
[2:30:51] The plan is designed to help assess local affordable housing and community development needs to then be able to make effective funding decisions.
[2:31:00] The consolidated plan is carried out through the annual action plans.
[2:31:07] Community members were able to provide input for the 2024 action plan in the following ways.
[2:31:13] An online survey, attendance at one of two virtual workshops held in October 2023, and today's public hearing.
[2:31:24] The community was notified of the opportunity to present comments through the following engagement efforts.
[2:31:30] A published public notice in the Tribune, two online workshops via Zoom, four posts on the County of San Luis Obispo Government Facebook page,
[2:31:41] 4 posts on the County of San Luis Obispo Instagram.
[2:31:45] One post on next door using the Homeless Services Division handle.
[2:31:51] Distribution of the community development needs assessment flyers to public serving county offices.
[2:31:57] Two DSS community outreach booths, a downtown farmers market, and the day they less warrant this at Mission Plaza in San Luis Obispo.
[2:32:05] a press release asking for community input on slow county housing and homelessness needs.
[2:32:12] All social media posts and community engagement opportunities were developed using culturally
[2:32:18] appropriate language and current accessibility standards and provided in both English and Spanish.
[2:32:24] The seven public outreach avenues directed community members to the county of San Luis Obispo's
[2:32:29] community development webpage. Visitors to this webpage were able to learn more
[2:32:35] about the 2020 to 2024 consolidated plan, the priorities the plan outlines, and how to provide
[2:32:42] input for the 2024 action plan.
[2:32:47] The use of social media and in-person outreach proved to be highly
[2:32:51] effective in engaging with community members and driving them to the County of San Luis Obispo
[2:32:56] Community Development webpage. The message is used for the campaigns focused on the importance of the
[2:33:02] community members' voices and the significance of the plans and federal support to stay on the
[2:33:08] Service Bill County's communities. All publications focused on how the outcomes of the consolidated plan
[2:33:14] and related action plans impact community members and limit the more detailed information often
[2:33:21] tied to federal level community development funds.
[2:33:26] During the public comment period from October
[2:33:29] We were 6th through November 5th.
[2:33:30] We were able to drive 469 visitors to the County of San Los Obispo's Community Development website,
[2:33:37] which yielded a 74.6 conversion rate for the online survey.
[2:33:42] The high conversion rate means that we were able to connect with the intended audience of slow county community members,
[2:33:49] and messaging resonated with those engaging with the content.
[2:33:54] We received 348 community responses to the survey.
[2:33:57] In 2022, we received 54 responses to the survey.
[2:34:05] So who responded to the survey?
[2:34:08] 94% of the responses received were submitted by members of the community.
[2:34:13] 3% were submitted by a local government representative.
[2:34:17] 2% were submitted by a nonprofit organization representative.
[2:34:22] And 1% were submitted by other, or
[2:34:25] people not identified in the previous categories.
[2:34:27] By comparison, in 2022, we had 16 responses from community members.
[2:34:37] Where did the respondents live?
[2:34:40] 38% were from the central county, of those 97% were from the city of San Luis Obispo.
[2:34:47] 30% were from North County, and of those, 47% were from Atasca Dero,
[2:34:53] 44% were from Pasarobles, and others included Templeton,
[2:34:58] Press.
[2:35:00] Anno, Santa Margarita, and San Miguel. 17% were from South County, of those 27% were from Grover Beach, 27% were from Nampomo, 22% were from Arroyo Grande, 10% were from Pismo Beach, 5% from Avala Beach, and 5% from Oceano. 13% were from the North Coast, and of those 45% were from Los Osos,
[2:35:29] 25% were from Morro Bay, 15% were from Cambria and 13% from Baywood Park, 5% of the respondents
[2:35:39] were from other areas.
[2:35:44] Where did the respondents work? 38% were from the Central County and
[2:35:51] of those 97% were from the City of Slow. I apologize, 43% work in the Central County, 14% work
[2:36:00] in North County, 7% work in South County, 3% work on the North Coast, 14% are retired
[2:36:10] and 2% are students.
[2:36:13] Other included those working remotely out of the county, commuting outside the county
[2:36:18] for work or stay at home parents.
[2:36:24] Do respondents rent or own their residences?
[2:36:26] 57% own their own residents, 41% rent their residents, and 2% have other living arrangements.
[2:36:39] In what type of primary residents do respondents live, 65% reside in a single family house,
[2:36:46] 13% in an apartment or loft, 11% in a condo or town home, 5% in a duplex, 2% in an ADU,
[2:36:57] 2% in a manufactured home, and 1% are living in a vehicle.
[2:37:07] How burdened are respondents by housing costs?
[2:37:11] 26% spend 46% or more of their gross monthly income on housing costs.
[2:37:18] 32% spend 30% to 45% of their gross monthly income on housing costs.
[2:37:24] 24% spend 19 to 29% of their gross monthly income on housing costs, 14% spend 18% or less
[2:37:35] of the gross monthly income on housing costs, and 5% don't know.
[2:37:44] 61% are spending 30% or more on housing.
[2:37:51] Those numbers represent nearly two out of three respondents who are burdened by their housing
[2:37:56] costs.
[2:37:57] Has
[2:38:03] it been difficult for respondents to find housing in San Luis Obispo County since January 2020?
[2:38:09] 47% of respondents have not looked for housing since 2020.
[2:38:14] Of the 53% of respondents who looked for housing since 2020,
[2:38:19] 85% found it difficult and 15% easily found housing.
[2:38:28] Why was it difficult for respondents to find housing?
[2:38:32] 157 respondents participated in this question.
[2:38:36] Each respondent was allowed to select multiple answers.
[2:38:40] The four top responses were as follows.
[2:38:43] Available housing options were outside of my budget,
[2:38:47] competition from other renters or buyers,
[2:38:51] lack of housing options near my work, school,
[2:38:54] family or transportation, difficulty meeting income
[2:38:59] or credit requirements.
[2:39:04] Where do the respondents or their dependents attend school?
[2:39:09] 57% did not have anyone in their household who attended school.
[2:39:13] The top two responses were San Luis Coastal Unified School District and
[2:39:18] the Passa Robles Joint Unified School District.
[2:39:25] Survey takers were asked to rank two sets of community development funding priorities.
[2:39:30] the 2020 to 2024 consolidated plan goals and the home American Rescue Plan Program activities.
[2:39:40] We asked respondents to rank funding priorities that are included in the 2020 to 2024 consolidated plan.
[2:39:49] 49% ranked create housing opportunities for residents as their number one choice.
[2:39:55] 32% ranked, reduced the number.
[2:40:00] It is experiencing homelessness as their second choice. 31% ranked that option as number one.
[2:40:08] 33% ranked create suitable living environments through public services as their third choice.
[2:40:15] 24% ranked stabilize and revitalize neighborhoods through infrastructure projects as their fourth choice.
[2:40:23] And 33% ranked improved education and job readiness as their fifth choice.
[2:40:32] We included an unallocated amount of funding in the 2024 Action Plan NOFA of home ARP funds.
[2:40:40] And we asked respondents to rank funding priorities for this program.
[2:40:45] Production of affordable rental housing was ranked number one by 53%.
[2:40:51] Preservation of affordable rental housing was ranked number two by
[2:40:55] by 45%, financial rental assistance was ranked number three by 39%.
[2:41:02] Supportive services was ranked at number four by 43%.
[2:41:07] Acquisition and development of non-congregate shelters was ranked at number five by 57%.
[2:41:18] Respondents were asked if there was a goal not addressed in the 2020 to 2024 consolidated plan that needed to be addressed.
[2:41:25] Most common themes included down payment assistance, improved transportation options,
[2:41:34] infrastructure to support communities, lack of affordable housing options,
[2:41:40] more in-term shelters and services, rent control, limit short-term rentals,
[2:41:47] subsistence abuse and mental health services, workforce housing.
[2:41:51] The
[2:41:56] tentative schedule for the 2024 action plan are as follows.
[2:42:01] Staff are currently reviewing applications received for eligibility and performing the threshold review.
[2:42:08] During November and December, the grant review committees are reviewing and scoring the 2024 action plan applications.
[2:42:16] Today, we are holding the needs assessment hearing before the Board of Supervisors.
[2:42:20] On January 17th, HSOC will review and vote on public service recommendations from the Grant Review Committee.
[2:42:29] And on April 9th, staff will present the draft recommendations for the 2024 Action Plan to the Board of Supervisors for approval and request authorization to submit the Action Plan to HUD.
[2:42:42] Thank you very much for your time.
[2:42:44] Staff are available for questions.
[2:42:46] Questions from the Board.
[2:42:51] Supervisor Ortizlik.
[2:42:52] Thank you.
[2:42:53] you. Thank you so much, Margin George. It's very nice to have you here. You know, I thought
[2:42:59] that the answers were thoughtful that provided they were comprehensive. How much really though
[2:43:06] from the HUD funding can we do in regards to some of the things such as transportation,
[2:43:12] infrastructure, down payment assistance? I suppose there are times though when we do credit,
[2:43:19] But we do help with some apartment down payment assistance that is that true?
[2:43:25] Can you just clarify those categories a little bit more?
[2:43:29] So part of the issue that we have is that home and home ARP can be used for things like
[2:43:36] down payment assistance and development of affordable housing, CDBG, not so much.
[2:43:44] We do have some other limited resources, PLHA, ESG that allow for certain things, but
[2:43:53] the funding is not nearly at the level that we really need to address the issue.
[2:44:00] Thank you.
[2:44:02] So I just wanted to point out that we're already part of a program called the Golden State Finance Authority.
[2:44:08] I sit on that board through RCRC, rural county representatives of California.
[2:44:12] their down payment assistance actually just helped a couple people here in our county recently and so I just
[2:44:20] probably for people that are listening, if you're looking for down payment assistance, it's opened everybody and it's under it's a golden state finance authority and it's actually their 30th year in business and it's part of as I said part of a bigger organization where we sit on the board and I'm one of the board members and I know that they've been active in our community so just so
[2:44:42] something to bring up that it is available out there in other places.
[2:44:47] Okay, so seeing no other questions, we'll go to public comment.
[2:44:54] We have no public comment. Oh, we do have public comment on this item.
[2:45:06] Good afternoon board, Wendy Lewis with El Camino Homeless Organization. I'm here today to thank the staff for putting so much effort into this plan and really in such a thoughtful way. They took their time, they worked through organizations like us, the survey, reaching as many people as it did this year. You saw just the change and that just shows the growth as we have added the department and expanded homeless services in our county. So that was the main reason I'm here is just to thank and show that we are
[2:45:36] supportive of the plan and look forward to working with the department next year.
[2:45:40] Also want to update, it was about a month and a half ago that we came, echo came to the
[2:45:47] board for help with funding for adding at 20 additional beds at our passable location.
[2:45:53] Just wanted to update the board that all staff have been hired and those beds have been starting
[2:45:57] to be opened and added to the resources we provide.
[2:46:00] So, your guys support really helped right before winter and the cold, and we will be at 70 beds very, very soon.
[2:46:09] So, I just want to thank the board again for that, show support for the plan.
[2:46:13] And then as of today, we have helped 184 individuals or children back in the permanent housing so far this year.
[2:46:20] So, only possible with the support of the board and the entire community, so thank you.
[2:46:24] Thank you.
[2:46:26] Any other public comment today?
[2:46:28] Seeing none, we'll close public comment, and we will bring it back to the board for any comments.
[2:46:37] There is no action necessary for this to receive the information.
[2:46:42] You've got a challenging work ahead as we try to craft the plan and bring it back for our final approval.
[2:46:51] You know, I think the, as always, the watchward is making wise investments, right?
[2:46:56] We're going to try to see where we can get the most impact.
[2:46:59] That's as obvious a thing as one can say on this dice, but appreciate your work on that and we'll look forward to seeing what comes for it.
[2:47:07] Okay. Seeing none, thank you very, very much.
[2:47:10] This item is no action on this item, but we appreciate the hearing and hearing everything.
[2:47:17] Okay, we're now going back to item 27.
[2:47:21] Hopefully we have everybody here for item 27.
[2:47:26] So I'm going to ask the clerk to introduce item 27.
[2:47:29] I'm hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance,
[2:47:32] redeclaring the shelter crisis in the County of San Luis Obispo and extending the establishment of local standards and procedures for the design site development and operation of emergency homeless shelters and public facilities.
[2:47:45] And we have a presentation again from our friends in the Department of Social Services.
[2:47:51] Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
[2:47:54] I'm Laurel Weyer.
[2:47:55] I am the administrative services manager for the Homo Services Division at the Department of Social Services.
[2:48:02] Next slide, let's, I got this item before you request that the board read to clear the existence of a shelter crisis in San Luis Obispo County and extends for one additional year.
[2:48:21] the suspension and modification of local and state laws for the construction and
[2:48:26] operation of emergency shelters located on county owned or least property or similar facilities.
[2:48:33] The proposed ordinance and update of the building and life and safety standards would remain in place in our county until December 31st, 2024.
[2:48:43] The current ordinance and safety standards are set to expire in December 31st, 2023.
[2:48:50] The extension of the ordinance and safety standards will ensure the county can continue to move forward to increase the number of emergency shelter beds in the county.
[2:49:00] Do the creation of non-congregate shelters and tiny home villages when developed on public facilities.
[2:49:10] The adoption of the ordinance facilitates the opportunity to create a more streamlined process for the creation of these and accelerates the development.
[2:49:19] Next slide.
[2:49:22] While the ultimate goal is to move people into permanent housing, it is clear there is a need to provide more emergency shelter in the interim.
[2:49:30] The most recent homeless point in time count of unsheltered persons, which was conducted in 2022,
[2:49:36] found that the number of unsheltered persons far exceeded the number of shelter beds.
[2:49:40] In the current year, HMIS data and other information from local providers also indicates the number of people
[2:49:48] So coming into homeless services, this year, far exceeds the number of beds and local shelters and
[2:49:54] interim housing projects report far greater need than can.
[2:50:00] From HMIS data, there were over 2,000 people who experienced homelessness and the county in the past year. An example of the current need outstripping the availability is that the Calvin's for Change Project in South County currently has a waiting list of over 200 people for a 200 bed project. And similarly, as Wendy mentioned, the board recently added 20 beds in North County because of the demand up there.
[2:50:29] are also far outstripping the availability of the shelter.
[2:50:36] Also, it's worth noting that these projects do you have a successful housing placement rate?
[2:50:43] And the cabins for change project, for example, is placing people.
[2:50:49] It's approximately over 70% of the people coming into that project are placed into permanent housing.
[2:50:56] So, we are excited to move forward more of these projects and to sustain the projects that have been created slide four.
[2:51:07] The ordinance and standards the board is being asked to adopt today are being proposed under the authority of and in accordance with state law.
[2:51:15] The ordinance redeclares the existence of the shelter crisis in San Luis Obispo County as extends the standards and the modification of the standards.
[2:51:26] I want to note that this modification applies only to emergency shelters located on public facilities within the county's jurisdiction.
[2:51:34] So this does not apply to shelters, for example, operated on private property.
[2:51:40] So it's a limited provision, slide by.
[2:51:47] In conclusion, it's requested the board today adopt the attached ordinance extending the declaration of the shelter crisis by one year and
[2:51:54] extending the county's local standards and procedures for the design site development and
[2:51:59] operation of emergency homeless shelters at public facilities and wave reading of the ordinance.
[2:52:05] Thank you, and I and county council are here to answer any questions.
[2:52:11] The greatest power point of the day.
[2:52:15] Thank you.
[2:52:16] Okay, bring it back to the board for any comments, questions, I should say questions.
[2:52:21] Questions, okay.
[2:52:22] Seeing none, we'll go out to public comment and see if there's any public comment.
[2:52:27] There is no public comment, see?
[2:52:30] They also agree it was a great PowerPoint.
[2:52:32] So we'll close public comment, bring it back to the board for comments and deliberations.
[2:52:36] Mr. Paul Ding.
[2:52:37] Thank you, Chair.
[2:52:38] I appreciate this staff presentation, thank you, Laurel.
[2:52:41] I think this is really important for our county to continue to do.
[2:52:45] The homeless crisis is certainly not over, it's only going to get worse.
[2:52:48] And so we have a lot of work to do to implement our Countywide Strategic Plan.
[2:52:52] One thing I wanted the board and the public to be aware of is we are also working with our representatives through the California State Association of Counties regarding a potential exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act for, or let me clarify that to seek legislation that would help approve projects that are on, for example,
[2:53:13] For example, county owned property that can and have been historically stopped using environmental regulations or environmental laws and that was one of the discussions we had at the CSAC conference around the table with a number of county supervisors from other counties earlier this year, many projects are being held up through that process and so that's one thing that I think goes in tandem with this effort and look forward to seeing us complete our strategic plan
[2:53:42] and build the interim housing,
[2:53:46] permanent supportive housing,
[2:53:46] and emergency shelter capacity we need
[2:53:48] in our community to house the homeless.
[2:53:50] Okay.
[2:53:51] Any other comments?
[2:53:52] A surprise or a kiss like?
[2:53:54] Thank you.
[2:53:55] Thank you for coming in, Laurel,
[2:53:57] and thank you for all that you
[2:53:59] and the new Department of Homeless Services staff
[2:54:02] has been working on this year.
[2:54:04] It's, you know, we've had quite honestly,
[2:54:07] a wonderful team that got handed
[2:54:11] We did a kind of bumpy start with some change in leadership and all that, but I think we're really happy to have Morgan Terrell now in head of that department, and I think that we're going to be heading into 2024 in a very energetic and robust moment for us to really move forward on all that we've learned, and we've talked about it before, but as Wendy noted that her program has put in
[2:54:41] 184 I think five cities almost coalition is somewhere around 200 plus this year that have now permanently housed and so what we know now that we didn't know a few years ago was that a very robust
[2:55:00] The housing can really get people to this next step of self-sufficiency. And I think before it was like, well, if we give them a place, then they should be able to figure everything out. But that's not quite how it works. And so now we're much more engaged and able to provide a deeper dive into putting somebody. I don't want to sound rude about it, but I think it's really important.
[2:55:28] And it's helping people get back together, get their lives back together.
[2:55:32] And when you have a team that can help you do that with all the services right there and
[2:55:36] the housing right there and their own personal space, where they can sleep until they need
[2:55:41] to and not have to force to get up but actually can rest and then get their body in shape and
[2:55:46] then get their health in shape, they can actually go out and regain their life again.
[2:55:51] And so I think this, you know, we're on to some really great opportunities and I think we'll
[2:56:00] go back out into the field in January and we'll be doing our point in time count and I believe
[2:56:05] that's what day, Laurel.
[2:56:10] January, the second Tuesday I think of January if I'm not mistaken because
[2:56:15] it's a board day. It'll be towards the end of January. It's a Tuesday. I believe it's the second to
[2:56:22] of the last Tuesday in January, George is looking it up.
[2:56:25] I can see it has to occur under the HUD rules
[2:56:29] in the last 10 days in January.
[2:56:31] On the last 10 days in January.
[2:56:31] And I know that we scheduled it January 23rd.
[2:56:36] And we have a rain date set, or not a rain date,
[2:56:39] but if there's flooding like we experienced last year
[2:56:42] on that date, we do have a backup date,
[2:56:43] which is the following week.
[2:56:45] That's fantastic.
[2:56:46] And while there's other conversations going on,
[2:56:50] you know, again, we've talked about this in the past, but there's a wide range of individuals
[2:56:56] who find themselves unhoused and lots of challenges out there. But, you know, we're
[2:57:02] paying attention to all of them. Some outcomes don't come as smoothly as we'd hope, and what
[2:57:08] we'd like for everybody, but I can tell you that this team here is, and this board as well,
[2:57:13] it has this as a high priority, so with that, I just wanted to just say, again, thank you,
[2:57:18] and what we look forward to working hard next year.
[2:57:21] Okay.
[2:57:22] Oh, help this item actually, we have some recommended actions.
[2:57:26] So is anybody want to make the motion?
[2:57:29] Almost staff's recommendation.
[2:57:31] Thank you, Laura.
[2:57:32] Was there a second?
[2:57:33] Second.
[2:57:34] Okay, we have a motion in the second.
[2:57:35] Any further discussion?
[2:57:37] We're going to go to a roll call, though.
[2:57:39] Supervisor Arnold?
[2:57:40] Yes.
[2:57:41] Supervisor Gibson?
[2:57:42] Yes.
[2:57:43] Supervisor Ortiz Ley?
[2:57:44] Yes.
[2:57:45] Supervisor Paul Dean?
[2:57:46] Yes.
[2:57:46] And Chairperson Pasha?
[2:57:47] Yes.
[2:57:48] Okay, so we're now gone to item 29 which is the Supervisors remarks and they may ask questions for clarification, make an announcement, report briefly on activities, and so I want to see if anybody has any Supervisor Pauling.
[2:58:03] Chair, thank you. I'll be making a motion. I just wanted to give a little context before doing so.
[2:58:08] So, earlier this week, we had a San Francisco Council of Governments Board Meeting, and one of the things that we adopted was the Oceano Bicycle, or excuse me, that was last week, sorry, Oceano Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Action Plan.
[2:58:22] We also adopted the Community Betterment Safe Streets for all competitive grant programs, cycle two, call for projects, and that is a local grant program that our board is implementing.
[2:58:34] and grant applications are due January 26th of next year.
[2:58:39] So for that reason, I would like to make a motion to direct staff to submit a grant application to slow cog
[2:58:47] under the community betterments grant program cycle two to obtain funding necessary to develop capital funding
[2:58:54] to leverage other state and federal grant opportunities to complete the scope of work identified as near term priority improvements
[2:59:01] under the recently approved slow cog oceano bicycle and pedestrian safety action plan.
[2:59:05] Regarding leveraging other grant opportunities to utilize the CSAC grants initiative,
[2:59:11] as needed to develop funding strategies around potential state and
[2:59:14] federal grant opportunities to complete project implementation.
[2:59:18] For example, if we are not successful, I think we have a county council would like to weigh in on this.
[2:59:23] Good afternoon, Rita Niel.
[2:59:25] I think I would suggest supervisor Paul Dane that perhaps you make a motion to put this on the first meeting.
[2:59:30] I mean agenda in January so that then you can direct staff to fill out the grant because it's not agenda is today to pursue a grant.
[2:59:40] I will modify my emotion accordingly and just complete the last statement there.
[2:59:45] Fire away. Okay, and I meant to state it that way so thank you for clarifying.
[2:59:49] Got carried away.
[2:59:51] She's such a killjoy.
[2:59:54] I had a list of stuff I was going to go for.
[2:59:57] You've been went through.
[3:00:00] For example, if we are not successful with an active transportation program award that staff would pursue the next cycle of the IIJA, which is the Investment Infrastructure Jobs Act, Safe Streets, for all program, or other programs recommended by the consultant. The idea there, and I've talked about it with our Public Works Department, there on board, is just to give official direction. Slow cog is planning on actually submitting the grant application, and then that we could leverage our CSAC grants initiative.
[3:00:29] if needed, so that is the motion.
[3:00:32] Again, to put that on the agenda for January.
[3:00:34] January, any time or time specific?
[3:00:37] The first meeting, because this grant application is due,
[3:00:41] the first one would be due January, I think I said 26.
[3:00:45] And we should ask our acting County administrative officers,
[3:00:50] is there time on that agenda to be able to place this in there?
[3:00:54] As far as I have this schedule right now, there is time.
[3:00:57] Okay.
[3:00:57] I'll second that and with a smile on my face director at the staff to make time on that agenda under discussion if I could certainly
[3:01:09] My interest I think this is this is a good project and a supervisor Paul thing is
[3:01:16] Thought about this long and hard. There's a grander scale
[3:01:19] Effort that might eventually come to pass in Osceano. My interest in this is to make every
[3:01:27] I take every opportunity to take advantage of the federal funds that the CSAC grants initiative is directly targeted at bringing to our county.
[3:01:39] And so Supervisor Paulini and I have discussed this ATP grants which you referenced in there have a long history of breaking the hearts of various proponents of the projects because of the relatively small amount of money.
[3:01:58] So I'm meager and I know staff is aware that we have a look at all possibilities out of the gate, and I know they will be doing the necessary footwork between now and the first part of the first meeting of January to get this teed up, but we have an opportunity through the grants initiative to access some serious dollars to get stuff done.
[3:02:21] and the opportunities to me are particularly interesting in places like Oceano as a disadvantaged community with a lot of things to do.
[3:02:34] So I'm fully supportive of this and hope we can mount a robust application.
[3:02:41] Okay, so I'm just going to ask if there's any public comment on this motion in a second.
[3:02:45] Seeing none, I'll close public comment any further discussion on it.
[3:02:49] Seeing none, let's go to a little call book.
[3:02:52] Supervisor Paul Thien?
[3:02:53] Yes.
[3:02:54] Supervisor Gibson?
[3:02:55] Yes.
[3:02:56] Supervisor Teeth Light?
[3:02:57] Yes.
[3:02:58] Supervisor Arnold?
[3:02:59] Yes.
[3:02:59] And Jeff, or something like that?
[3:03:00] Yes.
[3:03:01] Okay.
[3:03:02] So any other supervisor here?
[3:03:04] Supervisor Donor or Teeth Light?
[3:03:06] Thank you.
[3:03:07] Well, we're at the end of the year.
[3:03:09] And I just want to say thank you to my associates on the board
[3:03:13] here and my fellow supervisors for working together.
[3:03:16] and as we go into 2024, I look forward to that.
[3:03:21] I think we, you know, there's a lot going on this year, and I'm really glad that we've had the good meetings we've had.
[3:03:29] I want to say that there's so many departments that have just really done gone beyond and above,
[3:03:34] and we look where we were a year ago as we were going into these storms that we didn't have any idea what we were faced with.
[3:03:40] We really can say that the public works team really shined, and I really want to call them out for all the hard work they did.
[3:03:46] And I think that even, you know, at the airport this year, we have now served over 600,000
[3:03:52] people, which is nearly 100,000 more than we had last year.
[3:03:56] And so we are really seeing our airport staff and our visit so-cow people do a really good
[3:04:04] job at trying to get visitors here.
[3:04:06] And tomorrow morning, I want to announce you've seen it in the paper, the inaugural flight
[3:04:11] to Las Vegas.
[3:04:12] And so everybody come out because the flight leaves at 8.30 tomorrow morning, and they're heading to Las Vegas, and just in time for Thursday night football, I think it's at any rate, yeah, and then the return flights, I think tomorrow evening if I'm not mistaken, so it's a pretty big accomplishment for this little airport to have as much business as they have going on, and then lastly, as we go into 2024, I would like to call for a subcommittee meeting for
[3:04:41] the offshore wind subcommittee, and I'm hoping that we can do that sooner than later, because
[3:04:46] we really like to get going on some of the opportunities there for us.
[3:04:50] So, I don't think that's a-
[3:04:51] No, that's right.
[3:04:52] Yeah.
[3:04:53] Thank you.
[3:04:54] Thank you.
[3:04:54] Just a pointed message to the chair.
[3:04:56] I'll second all of the-
[3:05:09] Thank you very much, everybody, everybody above and wish everyone the warmest of holiday seasons surrounded by the love of friends and
[3:05:29] And thank Wendy and Austin for all they do for echo, and the echo homeless shelter.
[3:05:34] And you heard it earlier, the 184 families and people have been placed in permanent housing.
[3:05:39] That's an incredible number, so I want to thank them for all they do on a day-to-day basis.
[3:05:44] There's a really, really difficult job they do with grace and honor.
[3:05:49] And we appreciate all you do for the community.
[3:05:51] So with that, Mr. Paul thing.
[3:05:53] Chair, just one final comment, I just want to say thank you for all of your work as the chair of our board.
[3:05:58] and doing a great job this year and then to the whole board and to staff what a pleasure it has
[3:06:03] been as the most junior member of the board to serve with you all for this year.
[3:06:07] All right, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
[3:06:08] And with that, our next meeting will be January 9th at 9 a.m., and so I appreciate everybody and
[3:06:16] have a great holiday.