[1:08] Good morning and welcome to the September 28th, 2021 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, please go the roll.

[1:18] Supervisor Cone.

[1:19] Here.

[1:20] Friend.

[1:22] Coonerty.

[1:23] Here.

[1:24] Out there.

[1:25] Yeah.

[1:25] First thing.

[1:26] Here. Thank you, Chair. You have a quorum.

[1:28] Thank you.

[1:29] We'll now have a moment of silence.

[1:31] And then the place of allegiance.

[1:36] Mr. Chair, if I may dedicate the moment of silence for a one brief second.

[1:39] to the passing of Bill Matthews, and absolutely wonderful, wonderful person kind, gentle,

[1:46] soul, brilliant, loving father and husband who just recently passed away. Please keep

[1:50] Cynthia and the entire family in your prayers and thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[1:55] President

[2:13] Lee Jens, I would say to Mayor, if you'd have a good

[2:18] Republic, we're going to ask you, Stan's, a nice nation, under

[2:21] gun, individual, and most of the already injured.

[2:26] Great.

[2:31] The consideration of late edition to the agenda, or the yes, Senator

[2:36] Regular Jendas?

[2:37] Yes, Chairmanperson and members of the board.

[2:39] On the regular agenda item number nine, there's additional

[2:42] materials. There's a revised attachment A, which replaces packet page 74. On item number 12,

[2:50] there's additional materials. That can's degree results memo 2021 attachment A insert

[2:57] after packet page 163. There's an addendum to the regular agenda, close session,

[3:12] and

[3:12] of litigation pursuant to paragraph 4, subdivision D, section 549, 5 6.9, 1 case, and then on the

[3:22] consent agenda, there's additional materials on item number 26, ADM 29, attachment C, insert

[3:30] after packet page 317. That concludes the corrections and revision to today's agenda.

[3:36] Thank you. We item number 4 announcement by board members, if they want to have any items removed

[3:42] from consent to the regular agenda?

[3:45] No, I'll make a quick comment, though, a number.

[3:48] We'll wait until after the public comment,

[3:52] just for a minute.

[3:54] You have any, say no.

[3:58] We'll now move to public comments, Stephanie.

[4:00] Do you want to go ahead?

[4:03] Now's the time for public comment.

[4:05] If you wish to comment and are joining us through Zoom,

[4:07] please find the hand icon at the bottom of your screen

[4:09] and click the icon to raise your hand.

[4:11] This will place you in the line to speak.

[4:13] If you're here in chambers, please line up at the podium.

[4:17] When is your turn, I will call you by your name,

[4:19] and you'll see a pop-up on your screen.

[4:20] This is if you're on Zoom, and you'll need to unmute yourself.

[4:23] Please accept this and start speaking.

[4:26] Your microphone will meet automatically at the end of your two minutes.

[4:29] Now, this is the input that we're going to activate.

[4:31] Supervisors.

[4:32] So, see you in the comments.

[4:34] If you would like to comment on Spanish,

[4:36] then we'll see you in the comments.

[4:38] See you in the comments.

[4:40] and it's the only one through this Zoom.

[4:43] Busque, busque, busque,

[4:44] the icon of the hand,

[4:44] in the bottom of the screen,

[4:46] and click to raise the hand.

[4:48] This is what I call it in the field to speak.

[4:51] When I say to you,

[4:51] you'll have to call it for your name

[4:53] or the last four digits of your number of phones.

[4:57] You'll have to see a screen

[4:58] in front of your screen,

[4:59] asking if you want to activate your microphone.

[5:02] For sure, accept it and you'll have to speak.

[5:06] If you have joined by phone,

[5:07] please tell Star9 to raise your hand.

[5:10] Yes, the University of the University of Arizona,

[5:12] please mark it as three or nine.

[5:14] Your microphone will meet at the end of your two minutes.

[5:17] The final that the source of the minute

[5:18] was to make a microphone off,

[5:19] Sarah, this activated automatically.

[5:22] Thank you.

[5:22] I'll make a comment to the comments must be directed

[5:24] down today's consent or closed agendas.

[5:27] And you have to be heard out of it on the regular agenda.

[5:29] Or on a topic not on today's agenda,

[5:31] right within the jurisdiction of the board.

[5:33] Supervisors will take comments.

[5:35] It's just going to be a little different today.

[5:36] We have a Senate, California Senator John Laird

[5:39] going to address it at exactly 9.30 and probably will be speaking for 30 minutes or so.

[5:46] He has to leave by 10. So, we'll take public comments now and if necessary, we'll just add

[5:51] on after Senator Laird has finished his comments. Thank you. Go ahead.

[5:56] Well, good morning. I'm Nancy Macy and I'm today speaking as chair of the Valley Women's Club's

[6:02] Environment and Mental Committee. It's great to be here in person. It's been a long time.

[6:06] I'm here first to thank the board for their formal complaint to the CPUC regarding PG&E's destructive

[6:12] tree clearing.

[6:14] Clare beyond this right of way without notice to property owners immediately after the

[6:19] CZU fire lasting for months and leaving the mess behind.

[6:23] We appreciate the courage and concern that demonstrates and come in the excellent work

[6:29] by the county council's legal team.

[6:31] We want to be sure that you and the members of the public make note of the fact that every formal complaint that gets

[6:39] adopted by the CPC's administrative judges is assigned to one of the five commissioners to oversee the complaint proceedings.

[6:50] And Santa Cruz County's complaint is being overseen by the president of the CPC Mary Bell Batcher herself.

[6:57] That means they're paying attention.

[6:59] We thank Supervisors McPherson and friend for their request now on the consent agenda that the Board

[7:07] and List of CPC to investigate the dozens of recent power outages.

[7:13] It's pitch in is simply trying to retrofit the old equipment.

[7:18] Oh, excuse me, it's important to investigate the to do this because we wonder if PGD isn't simply trying to retrofit old equipment

[7:27] when modern computerized equipment should be used as happening in Southern California.

[7:33] This is important to ask, and you may want to state that you will no longer tolerate

[7:37] the antiquated distribution system that is the fundamental reason for PG&E's destructive deadly wildfires.

[7:47] I brought you a couple of pages from PG&E's website entitled Community Wildfire Safety Program.

[7:54] You'll see that in the previous three years, PG&E hardened 24 miles of Santa Cruz County's

[8:00] electric distribution system, some of which actually burned in the fire.

[8:05] PG&E hopes to complete nine more miles this year, but wait, the poles are being replaced

[8:10] with wood poles, and the new wires we've seen are bear wires, thus still vulnerable to almost

[8:16] all wildfire ignition drivers.

[8:19] This piecemeal effort is not the comprehensive overall modernization needed in this

[8:26] counties high utility associated wildfire threat areas.

[8:31] That should include steel core, triple insulated conductor, not bear wire.

[8:36] And this is being done in Southern California by Southern California Edison successfully

[8:41] preventing wildfires.

[8:43] Thank you for the opportunity to be here in person.

[8:46] It's a pleasure to see you all.

[8:48] Thank you.

[8:56] I thought it was waiting for a mother May I here.

[9:00] I have this in article, Gary Richard Arnold.

[9:03] When I have this in article here in Wall Street Journal by Joe Biden, which he says he

[9:08] learned to love the new world order and how he's going to replace a world order on the ashes of

[9:13] the United States. And that makes sense since the borders were wide open and the COVID scam is

[9:21] really exercising communism. COVID is communism. The community foundation is a matter of fact,

[9:29] which has a Justice Foundation named after a highly famed Chinese communist by which

[9:36] you have which which you still maintain the backs out here on the courthouse steps because

[9:41] you're so, and I ideologically together with that. The community foundation had Lady

[9:47] the side, which one fourth or one third of businesses crashed inside the Santa Cruz County.

[9:54] I choose paid by a secret donor. Carlos Flasio is the California, the county administrative

[10:00] officer. I was a member of that board in his pictures taken next to Margaret Tru or I forgot

[10:08] her first name. There are so many people that are involved in this communist activity, it's pathetic.

[10:13] The Zach Ren worked for two people at a former that are red Chinese lobbyist.

[10:20] Mr. McPherson, of course, got $30,000 from a triple spy front page U.S. news and

[10:25] world report.

[10:27] McPherson was also involved in creating a alternative, a counter government, a parallel

[10:33] government called Ambegg, both the paparonian and the Times in the office reflected the

[10:43] And after I said it was similar to something they would see.

[10:47] I'm paraphrasing that goals would have done inside the inside of Nazi Germany that people were taking literature out of other people's hands.

[10:58] The promoters, which was Sam Far, Stas and Ruth McPherson staff.

[11:03] Anyway, there's a full intelligence report on communist activity in the state of California.

[11:09] It includes the attack on the police, both inside this magazine here when it names those

[11:15] police that are endangered by Antifa, indivisible, and a bunch of others that includes

[11:21] California forward of which Bruce McPherson has been a proud member of and was founded

[11:26] by Leon Penetta who gave military and policy information to a Chinese communist spy

[11:33] that

[11:44] you

[11:45] Yes, it's a spark and so it'll actually be the time that's coming from my phone.

[11:51] Okay,

[11:54] morning, my name is James Ewing women today, September 28, 2021.

[11:59] I have spoken briefly here upon several subjects in front of this coctacostrophy Board of Supervisors

[12:05] Santa Cruz County.

[12:13] International disease codes were law enforcement can bill for choking a community member to death.

[12:19] And the military can bill for providing an injection that kills the community member.

[12:23] And at the time of about a year ago,

[12:26] where any two medical experts can provide the ability

[12:29] to lock up anyone indefinitely.

[12:32] I've spoken about the contact tracing.

[12:35] I've spoken about the August 2021 CZSU fires,

[12:42] where I have proof that these are from directed energy weapons.

[12:46] I'm afraid only to be silent.

[12:50] Maybe sharing tonight on a radio program

[12:52] certain details about how to detox from these kill stings, which we are breathing, drinking,

[12:59] and eating for decades.

[13:03] What does the bill in the Linda Gage Foundation, the Community

[13:06] Foundation Santa Cruz County, and the Aspen Institute doing playing a role in Santa Cruz

[13:12] County politics?

[13:15] Simply planning to profit heavily off the genocide of 95% of the world's population

[13:20] by 2030. This may be accomplished much sooner. Who are the leading mass puppets in this county besides

[13:30] the three men in front of me, but two that are speaking on Zoom in John Leopold, who my left is

[13:38] Carlos Pinedos, a violent, attired gun who used to be the executive CEO of Kaiser Permanente,

[13:48] Margaret LePaz. Susan Tru is the CEO of the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County.

[13:56] What role then does Gayle Nuel play? And what role then does the sheriff corner gym heart play?

[14:03] Thank you.

[14:07] The other comments from the public.

[14:15] Thank you.

[14:16] Carol, your microphone is available.

[14:19] Good morning.

[14:20] My name is Carol Bjorn.

[14:21] I'm here to ask you to post any COVID-19

[14:24] VACS mandates in this county.

[14:26] I hope you all have had a chance to see the

[14:29] FDA that by Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long MD.

[14:32] She was a field surgeon for 10 years.

[14:35] She holds a master's degree in public health.

[14:37] She's been trained by the combat readiness center

[14:40] and has trained in medical management of chemical and biological casualties.

[14:44] She has also a board certified in-flight aerospace medicine and board eligible and occupational medicine.

[14:51] Based on observing, studying and analyzing available data, information samples, experiences, histories, and results of treatments and inoculation.

[15:00] She has formulated a professional opinion documented in her affidavit. In the affidavit, she said, the shots carry M RNA that causes the recipient to create trillions of spike proteins. This is a problem for five reasons. First, it turns out the spike proteins are not remaining locally in the injection sites, but have been found circulating in the blood and virtually all organs of the body. Second, the spike proteins themselves have been shown to be pathogenic.

[15:29] Attaching to endothelial, pulmonary, and other cells, forming clots and attacking heart cells.

[15:36] Third, the spike proteins and their lipid nanoparticles cross the blood-brain barrier,

[15:41] with unknown long-term effects on the brain and high concern for chronic neurodegenerative disorders.

[15:47] For these spike proteins interact with many signaling pathways,

[15:51] which may trigger tumor formation, cancer, and other serious disease.

[15:55] Fifth, according to Pfizer's Japanese Distribution Study of LNP Accumulation, unexpected sequestering

[16:03] and reproductive organs, and explained, raise very serious long-term concerns.

[16:08] Further, the labels for commonality and bionotech clearly state that the vaccination

[16:14] should not be given to individuals that are allergic to the ingredients.

[16:18] One of the listed primary ingredients of these injectables is PEG, which is closely in molecular

[16:23] make up

[16:28] all or two nine one and five or microphone is available.

[16:35] Good morning. This is Becky Steinbriner,

[16:37] can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I want to speak first to consent agenda item 36,

[16:47] where in the board is going to, finally, and thank you for taking this action demand that

[16:53] how fire issue and after action review of the CZU fire.

[16:58] How fire is an odd done this?

[17:00] It says in the report, the county has done your own study,

[17:04] regarding county fires, interactions.

[17:07] I would like a copy of that report

[17:09] and request that you make it publicly available

[17:12] as an attachment, perhaps, to this agenda item.

[17:18] I have filed many public record debt requests.

[17:22] trying to find the after-action review and that's how I determine finally it has never been done.

[17:29] And I appreciate you including the Car Fire after-action report there as a model.

[17:36] Thank you very much.

[17:38] I hope that you will pursue this and give Car Fire a deadline.

[17:43] Otherwise, I think they will continue to ignore this very important piece of work that needs to be done

[17:49] to improve future responses in any disaster in the county. I would also like to speak to item

[17:55] number 45 regarding water. I'm confused why Mimi Hall wrote this rather than our county

[18:03] water resources managers here at Orion. That needs to be explained. There has already been action

[18:11] by your board to require metering. It talks about perhaps this is the time to do that in the staff

[18:18] analysis. But on August 4th of 2015, your board already required that, and that was

[18:25] supposed to have been completed by October 1st, 2017. So I would like to ask your board

[18:32] to request of staff a status report of the Metering Action

[18:41] Collin User 1, your microphone is available.

[18:47] he's press star allowed in their sentence anyway.

[18:56] This is Marilyn Garrett, can he hear me?

[19:00] Yes.

[19:02] How rude it is to cut off people in mid-sentence.

[19:07] And I noticed she don't do that to those who are there in person.

[19:12] Very discriminatory.

[19:13] I did appreciate Nancy Maydsey's excellent statement.

[19:18] well as James and Carol Bjorn. When we have declared emergency, it's the architecture for

[19:28] oppression with this permanent emergency and we have destruction of livelihoods and destruction

[19:38] of democracy.

[19:42] I want to read an excerpt from children's health defense. This is a notice.

[19:49] for employers, universities, and other institutions mandating COVID-19 masks, and from July 14th,

[20:02] this serves as notice that the mandate for any individual to wear a mask against COVID-19 as a

[20:19] by a late federal law. All COVID-19 masks, whether surgical and 95, or other respirators,

[20:28] are authorized under an emergency is authorization only. They are not approved or licensed by

[20:36] the federal government. You can see there's some children's health events and just a little bit

[20:49] the Food and Drug Administration status and authorized face masks must be labeled accurately

[20:56] and may not be labeled

[21:02] all or 1965 or microphone is available.

[21:12] This is our nine to unmute your

[21:14] thumbnail.

[21:19] Good morning, can you hear me? Yes. Good morning. I'm just here to voice my support for the

[21:26] the fire victims. I ask the board to please reconsider the mandate that's going to require them

[21:37] to put the covenant on their title. It seems that it is harder for them to be built and

[21:44] will have initially said than I just asked that that be reconsidered and that more support is given

[21:51] Thank you, the Fire Survivor. Thank you.

[21:59] 5907, your microphone is available.

[22:07] Can you hear me?

[22:10] OK. Hi.

[22:10] This is Kristen Sandell.

[22:12] I'm a resident of the moment.

[22:13] And we have had nine non-PSPS power outages

[22:18] in September 7.

[22:20] Each last thing between three and 18 hours

[22:22] and all without any significant wind or weather of any kind.

[22:26] Teaching is increased in the fast trip sensitivity

[22:28] that system is making life for people

[22:30] here extremely difficult. And it's purely stop-gap measure to avoid updating their infrastructure

[22:36] with triple insulate lines, which would not be tripped by a squirrel or a stray branch.

[22:42] It's a dangerous for people with medical equipment needing electricity. It's devastating for

[22:46] local businesses, and it's costing all of those hundreds of dollars in gas for generators,

[22:51] spoiled food, and lots of water for people on well systems. It's not working as a means of

[22:56] for a risk mitigation when actually upgrading and hardening the system as Southern California

[23:01] as a medicine has done is the correct solution. Please do everything you can to address this

[23:07] very dangerous situation. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and thanks for all of your

[23:12] work on this issue.

[23:17] Dahlia, Eperson, your microphone is available.

[23:23] Hi, yes. My name is Dahlia Eperson.

[23:26] I am running from Congress in November 2022 against Canada by the way. I want to seek again

[23:33] the mask bandits. Everybody who wants to mask, God bless them like the mask. But those of us who

[23:41] don't want to mask, we don't feel the need to mask, always retain the choice, not to mask.

[23:50] We've already seen some devastating effects for children who are being masked and we also are seeing

[24:00] effects or adults including pneumonia, bronchitis. And of course there's always the

[24:07] exceptions, only the exceptions. My sister has extreme asthma. She can't have to

[24:12] mask. So the mask pandas are simply a denial of choice and you're also telling us

[24:20] that we're too stupid to decide for ourselves if we should mask or not. That is such an

[24:29] breach of government. Any kind of that, any kind of mandates like that, where a freedom

[24:36] of choice is taken away is not the American way, it's an overreach. And so I am really

[24:44] speaking out against it and really pleading with you guys, not doing not to do another

[24:53] our vast mandate.

[24:57] Thank you very much for your time.

[24:59] Thank you.

[25:02] Thank you, Chair.

[25:03] Another speakers.

[25:04] Okay.

[25:05] I'm going to go to.

[25:07] I think I'll go ahead now introduce.

[25:09] I just want to make clear that we do not have a mask mandate in the county.

[25:16] We request that our county employees do be vaccinated.

[25:19] I think about 90% of them have been if they're not there.

[25:22] They need to have a weekly test, but we do not have an outright mandate.

[25:26] I'm going to make that clear.

[25:28] Now it's my pleasure to introduce my friend and colleague Senator John Laird.

[25:34] John is not a stranger to most of us or you.

[25:37] He has endless energy and worth that ethic and makes friends everywhere he visits.

[25:41] He was elected to the State Senate last November and serves on a legislative committee,

[25:47] which in my experience is almost unheard of.

[25:51] The Secretary of Natural Resources under Governor Brown for eight years and prior that represented the Monterey Bay area in the state assembly for six years.

[25:59] He was a trustee of a real college. He was a council member of the city of Santa Cruz and he has made public service as Collins insgraduated from UCSC in 1972 after John's presentation he will leave for time for questions, but the senator has a busy day and has to leave by 10 o'clock.

[26:18] So I welcome you Senator Laird, it's great to have you here.

[26:21] Thank you.

[26:22] Thank you very much, it's great to be here.

[26:24] It's first time I've been in the room since you've been socially distancing.

[26:29] So it is an interesting setup, having spent an incredible number of hours in my life in this room.

[26:38] I'd like to maybe go through a bunch of things and then answer questions and just as with you social distancing.

[26:46] I think this was a strange time to land to the legislature.

[26:50] We were not allowed friends or family at the swearing in.

[26:53] Only 33 of the senators were there.

[26:56] They didn't even allow the chaplain in.

[26:58] I gave the prayer for swearing in day.

[27:02] This entire time we've never been allowed more than three staff members

[27:06] in our Sacramento office at the same time.

[27:10] In fact, I got an award from a quality California a few weeks ago.

[27:14] it was the first time my nine staff members in Sacramento had all been in the same place together since I had been in the

[27:21] the Senate and as Chair McPherson said, I'm on an incredible number of committees and it is really helped

[27:30] represent this area. I'm on the rules committee which does confirmations and on the state

[27:38] I walked them all the way through Big Basin and what they were planning to do, and there have been

[27:44] all hosts of confirmations like that, where that's been good.

[27:48] I'm the Senate lead on the joint legislative audit committee, which is put in the middle of the

[27:53] EDD meltdown, and I have a bill that will address that.

[27:58] The chair of the Natural Resources Committee socially distanced for four months, so I ended up

[28:06] what you put on myself and a lot of issues here, and I chair the education budget subcommittee

[28:13] which is half the budget and I was working with leaders in Santa Cruz County in education

[28:18] and County Superintendent Fair Sabah and it was one of the lead negotiators in the school reopening

[28:24] issue. So I hit the ground running and this budget was different than any budget I've ever experienced

[28:34] because I was budget chair for most of my run in the state assembly and we had 75 billion dollars above

[28:43] revenues that were projected. And so half of that or the equivalent of half of that went into reserves or was returned to the public.

[28:53] And then the other half was used to address real long-term intractable issues. So we lowered the age for Medicaid to 50.

[29:01] We added, we'll add 100,000 students to grants in the higher education system.

[29:11] We increased childcare slots and increased rates for the reimbursement.

[29:16] There's $12 billion over multiple years for homelessness.

[29:21] And take to 12, budget is just higher than it has been at any time in the University of California

[29:29] and CSU of real concern to our community which was caught during the initial COVID budget.

[29:38] Not only was brought back to its pre-COVID levels, but had a 5% increase, so there have been

[29:44] major things that were addressed as part of that budget.

[29:49] And I think there's some that are real effect locally.

[29:54] Yeah, obviously, there's a tremendous amount of money for fire prevention and there's an...

[30:00] A number of us that had a real effort that that go local way, that there be grants and that go to local areas across California.

[30:08] There's a water package, which addresses a lot of issues with regard to water.

[30:13] And it's the one disappointment I had in the budget. I had a special pot carved out for central coast route projects.

[30:21] And I got moved into next year. It is in the budget, but it's next year. I'm working with the Finance Department to move that up.

[30:28] because eligible would be, for projects would be the pipe from the big-dation

[30:35] water district to the San Renzo Valley Water District would be upgrade of wells in the

[30:40] Santa Cruz system that would be projects in the Pajro Valley, Monterey Peninsula,

[30:44] southern Monterey County, and San Luis Obispo, even though this is it within the

[30:50] purview of Santa Cruz County, like San San Antonio and San Antonio, the 9% and 14%

[30:57] capacity. One is a dead pull, and the other one is not allowed before, or releases, unless it's an emergency,

[31:06] and that goes into the silliness river basin, and so everybody that's on silliness river water

[31:11] is tremendously hampered. Right then, we're at the second year of this drought, where we were at

[31:18] the end of the fourth year of the drought that was in a few years ago. So that's dramatic.

[31:25] And with the partnership of Mark Stone, there's 14.5 million dollars, of course, the same

[31:33] cruise area to address homeless issues, and my real point was, is that if you look at the

[31:39] homeless programs across the state, it's done on a recap of the basis and it's really targeted

[31:44] to the urban areas, and if you look at the homeless population in the last census that was

[31:50] all in Santa Cruz, the per capita population of homelessness was higher than Oakland San Francisco,

[31:57] Los Angeles in San Diego and yet the money does not come to the area. So we did a slug of one time

[32:04] money with the idea that we tried to budget for impact and hope in a year when we absorbed the other

[32:12] money that's coming from the budget that real progress can be made and I know there's a meeting

[32:16] being set up between the city and the county and and some of us to talk about how that will be implemented and so, so that is coming and another thing through the education budget subcommittee.

[32:33] The University of California funds cooperative agriculture extension which provides research assistance to our farmers in the area.

[32:40] And that has been contracting and contracting over 15 or 20 years.

[32:47] We did a huge slug of an increase to bring it back to where it was 15 or 20 years ago.

[32:53] So cooperative agricultural extension can be of two service to the farmers in the state and the region.

[32:59] And I really worked on that personally to make that happen.

[33:04] If you look at the bills, fortunately, everything is timing and it's nice to be here on the

[33:11] day that DeSentno has a headline about the Povera River bill that the governor signed on Friday,

[33:18] and SB4-96, and I work for Supervisor Thrend on that, and I've been working with Congressman

[33:25] Panata.

[33:26] It is big because if you look at the Povera Levy Project, where there is five-year flood

[33:33] protection right now and the project would bring it to a hundred-year flood protection.

[33:38] And as a county employee in 1995, I had to go down and to shift of

[33:45] proctoring out of the hundreds of people that were dislocated and housed at the fairgrounds.

[33:51] And that is literally what we face if we don't upgrade this and they are historically disadvantaged

[33:57] communities in the state share was capped at 70 percent. And so additional money kept being

[34:03] gotten for the project. And all it would do is display other money and not get to 100 percent.

[34:10] So what this bill does is allow the state to pay 100 percent. And in reality, in implementation,

[34:16] you can even technically get 209 percent if there are overruns or other things. So this is big

[34:26] on the farmers or residents of the Parkrow Valley that will now be done by the state.

[34:33] So that is really good news and I think it really will help then it was a hard bill and I

[34:39] had to take amendments or negotiate amendments that really said this was unique in a way to get

[34:46] it signed and to insert the Department of Water Resources Director in the process who coincidentally

[34:53] I have pointed to the past, so that is a very good thing.

[35:00] Additionally,

[35:03] I have a bill on the Governor's desk with regard to fire.

[35:07] And I have not appeared in front of you since the season, you fire a year ago,

[35:13] which was a horrific and which we are all still bearing the brunt of crime

[35:17] to bring people back, trying to deal with all the impacts of that.

[35:21] at the state where there were forced practice rules and the national draft wouldn't have allowed

[35:27] people to rebuild and we worked on that. I've been working with PG&A as I mentioned to the

[35:33] Valley Women's Club over the weekend at the risk of popping to a non-popular thing. The only

[35:40] meeting I took the last week of session when we were just meeting 14 hours a day in really busy

[35:45] was with the new CEO of P.J. Me and she came to my office in the camp at all and I met with her

[35:52] for half an hour. I was encouraged by one thing. She headed up to Utility and Michigan and she

[35:58] has that Midwestern sense of ability and affect that I think is good. But as I said to the valley

[36:04] women's club, she's taking over a ship that is sinking and pointed it in the wrong direction

[36:10] and while there's commitments to do the right thing, she's going to have a tough time making good

[36:15] them and making them happen. But we as an office have been working with PG&A for a number of months,

[36:23] and we have pressured them into a green or more notice and cutting down trees in the emergency

[36:29] and for taking the trees away if it's okay with the property owner and trying to let the county

[36:37] in a settlement make sure that that's there and enforceable and then we can move on to vegetation management

[36:43] And we can move on with the public safety shut-offs because let's have been going on in the last few weeks is just in a hardship to anybody in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

[36:52] And so I wanted to bring that voice to that meeting and make sure they know and the fire bill that I have on the governor's desk right now when we do fire prevention.

[37:03] We basically at the state level to whatever we put in the budget for a year for prescribed fire or.

[37:10] It feels management and this would say we would have a five year or more plan, we would know what we exactly have as targets for that period of time and fire prevention.

[37:22] We would have a transparent public process report on exactly what has happened, so it's not up to the press to dig it out.

[37:30] And I think that will be great progress, and I'm hopeful that the governor will sign it.

[37:38] Additionally, I have a bill on a desk with regard to the Williams and Act.

[37:42] And even though I would like to state to be a full partner again in the Williams and act with local governments.

[37:48] And since before I was even,

[37:51] The resources I've turned after I left the legislature, the state has pulled back.

[37:57] This relieves some of the reporting requirements and other things to make the support system manageable.

[38:04] And we put money to a program that I started at resources for agricultural conservation.

[38:11] is not just a part to deal with Hong-Hag land and preserved in that use and then the employment development

[38:20] department has been a complete meltdown and we are during the COVID crisis and we received an audit

[38:28] from the state auditor and it's interesting because one of the recommendations was,

[38:32] is there be a recession plan that in fact the minute a recession is tripped there's a plan

[38:39] completely in place on how to expand to deal with the increased needs that people have when that happens.

[38:47] There was an auto-recommendation in 2010 to do that, and it wasn't implemented by the then governor,

[38:55] or the next governor, and now the thing has happened under a third governor.

[38:59] And so I have a bipartisan bill that's on the governor's desk that requires an ongoing recession plan

[39:07] updated public participatory, so that this never happens again this way. I also have a bill in

[39:16] the governor's desk about cannabis testing and having equal standards that it comes out of a lot

[39:22] of entities here so that there's not a disadvantage. I have a bill that's sort of been signed with regard

[39:29] to when I had a design crazy project. It was our dream that people would live to hold that

[39:35] it was not happening, now 50% of the people with HIV in California over the age of 50.

[39:43] And so the bill, and the governor signed it already, puts as a category of special need,

[39:49] older Californians with HIV and make sure services are informed of surfaces, and there's outreach

[39:55] under the older Americans to deal with that. And then I had one very fun bill,

[40:01] which is the governor appointed the first woman to be ahead of the highway at all and yet the entire

[40:08] statute refers to he and him as the commissioner of high-light patrol. So I have a bill that

[40:14] fixes that and once I got into it, how far is that all our statutes say firemen, so to

[40:19] how fire in all the conservation core statutes say core men I put that in. And then I work with the

[40:26] general of the National Guard and it turns out their statute is so screwed up that we just

[40:30] agreed to do a bill next year not mess it up with this. So the governor has signed that bill as well.

[40:38] And then maybe two other issues before. Oh, and one other bill that really directly affects you,

[40:44] that's on the governor's desk is that there's a mandate for landfills to move to organic waste.

[40:53] And it has been considered cities and counties have been really stressed by it. And so I have

[40:59] bill that does a one-year holiday on enforcement of that mandate, even what's been going on,

[41:06] even though people still move toward it, and that was used to leverage money, so there's

[41:10] 70 million dollars in the budget for the local grants to implement that now. So it is great on both

[41:16] scores. I got an award from the League of Cities last week for doing it, and we're confident that

[41:22] the governor will sign that. And then the two sort of high profile bills this year,

[41:29] We've had to do with housing SB 9 and SB 10 and they both had some measure of overriding local land use.

[41:41] We go allow for additional units of housing SB 10.

[41:45] They took amendments to make it voluntary, but it also has a provision that allows boards of supervisors and city councils by two thirds vote to override.

[41:57] citizen approved measures on housing, and then SB9 allows for ADUs additional to be built on single family zoning and the amendments were taken in that bill that allow local governments to override this requirement if there's health and safety historic or other things and so when those came to me for the final vote.

[42:23] given all the amendments, I voted for SB 9, but I voted against SB 10, because I thought

[42:29] the override of local ballot measures was a bridge too far.

[42:34] And I had conversations with the author about specific local initiatives about Major J about

[42:42] the Watsonville initiative about annexation, about Major O, and the Green Belt major in Santa Cruz.

[42:49] And the author said that it had to be uniquely about housing, but I was still concerned that that was a type we written.

[42:58] And so I am concerned about that provision.

[43:01] The governor has sent those bills into law.

[43:05] And then lastly, and I know this is of great interest to supervisor Cunity.

[43:12] I sent a bill to the Regents on Sunday about the long range development plan.

[43:17] It seems like it's relatively short notice that it was just going on via agenda because I think it was hard for the city in the county to take formal action before the deadline for letters last weekend.

[43:30] And in my letter I deferred to the city and the county on the practical issues of transportation, housing, water, fire, the things that I think are the granular issues that are most at issue.

[43:43] And I held two up for the regents and the first one was is I tried to set the context for this because I sat next to a regent at an event.

[43:53] We said, oh, everybody knows it's just an empty thing in Santa Cruz and I said long long long long.

[43:59] It is much more nuanced and complicated than that.

[44:02] You basically have an exemption from local land use no requirement to mitigate and you have a university of 20,000 people within a city of almost 60,000 people, which creates amazing problems within that lack of a requirement to mitigate.

[44:21] And so and I said, this does not exist this way with any other the other nine campuses that aren't here for you see.

[44:28] And I think that has to be recognized, and then secondly, that given the Constitutional exemption that the University of California has, they have no requirement to do what they say they're going to do.

[44:41] And so I really urged the regents.

[44:44] I did something when I was in the legislature the first time that if a university campus got bond money for a building.

[44:53] I have language that still on the books that say they have to mitigate all the impacts from that bill,

[44:58] ring before they can get money.

[45:00] And that sets up a framework that should work for this client. If they really should face this, lay out what they're going to do each phase and not move to the next phase until they've mitigated it and have a major of enforceability in that. And this is not just the issues of growth. This is the issues for faculty and staff and students of having academic infrastructure in place and not just growth.

[45:30] So that they don't have an experience that's appropriate in this either.

[45:35] So I have personally sent that to individual regions.

[45:38] I filed it with the entire Board of Regents.

[45:41] And I have been working with them.

[45:43] The Housing Project is proposed up there.

[45:45] It was a split-photo approval.

[45:48] And I just don't understand why in a 3000-unit housing project,

[45:53] they can't take the 150 units that are controversial

[45:55] and move them to another place in the project.

[45:58] It wouldn't make the opposition go away.

[46:01] We support 3,000 units because they need it,

[46:04] but just don't do it in a way that causes opposition

[46:09] and leads into the LRDP with bad feelings.

[46:14] And so I am uniquely positioned as chair

[46:17] of the education budget subcommittee.

[46:20] The Chancellor of the CSU system and the President

[46:22] of the UCC system are my new best friends.

[46:25] And now I've been using these conversations to raise these issues so that they are clear on what it means.

[46:33] I want to go longer than I wanted to, but I want to give you a comprehensive update on what's going on.

[46:39] How it fits here and in whatever times remain.

[46:42] Whatever time you have left and I just want to make it.

[46:45] I want to thank you for everything you're doing in so many areas.

[46:49] it's very much appreciated and I know you're very highly respected and people listen to you

[46:54] up at the Capitol, for where that I want to thank you too for the supporting the expansion

[47:01] of broadband, a high priority and the legislative list of this county and the county

[47:05] state association of California, the state association of counties, expanding broadband

[47:10] and these fire threatening days is going to be critical so we can have a communication

[47:16] with people in the rural areas.

[47:19] One thing that I decided, I was watching 60 minutes and they were talking about these new

[47:23] helicopters that could see at night where the fires are and they could pull the thought

[47:28] 3,000 gallons of water in minutes and for some reason they haven't been able to transport

[47:33] of their headquarters.

[47:34] I think in Orange County the way I understand it, I just wanted to, if you could look

[47:38] into that to get the Department of Forestry and the local fire agencies to get their act

[47:43] together so we can get those when we when see how she sees you happen there is the fire is going

[47:47] on all over the place I understand but they weren't used to their full ability let's put it that

[47:53] way so let me just speak to that for a moment yes happy to look into it and and when I was resources

[48:01] secretary the entire fleet of helicopters was Vietnam era helicopters and we went through an

[48:09] was the process where I think we might have even been sued for two years to basically come up with

[48:16] a new RFP and to start the process of replacing every helicopter. And so before we left the

[48:23] administration, we bought the first one. And then Gavin Newsom to his credit, got there and

[48:31] realized he had a little bit of a surplus and the best thing to do is to spend it for one time

[48:36] things and not build on going expenses. So he took the helicopters that were supposed to be

[48:42] purchased over five, six or nine years and moved them all forward. And so it's just a question

[48:49] of when they're delivered. And to be honest, I am not sure of their capability with regard to

[48:55] night flight, because that was not an absolute requirement at the time. But I think that they can

[49:01] they did for that that because the issue, the other issue that you mentioned that's worth talking about

[49:09] is when the CZU fire happened, a million acres were burning across the state, and they did not commit

[49:17] resources here for three or four days while it was burning through rural residential areas.

[49:21] And even though I was a private citizen, I was pounding people in Sacramento about it.

[49:26] And we have a mutual aid system that relies on fire departments across the state responding and a lot of them are holding their fire units because they felt like they were in danger.

[49:38] And so the real question is as well as making sure that never happens again.

[49:44] And we have already approved additional conservation core, additional firefighters, we're trying to

[49:51] We jigger the prison firefighter issue, but that is front in the center.

[49:57] So anyway, I didn't mean it, but

[49:58] Okay, I'm going to go to supervisor friend and community first for

[50:02] Requestions, just because you

[50:04] Medjust some issues that were in their district specifically supervisor friend.

[50:09] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Layard. Thank you.

[50:12] Obviously, for everything you've done in regards to the Paparoa, one thing you didn't mention,

[50:17] this was the continuum.

[50:18] Actually, we were building upon work that you had done when you were in the legislature previously.

[50:23] It really had set the stage for the possibility of even what you were able to get through the governor.

[50:28] Most recently, to underscore what you were saying.

[50:33] This fundamentally changes the trajectory of what's possible on the Paparoa River,

[50:37] we're moving a significant burden from two disadvantaged communities in both counties.

[50:43] It allows me to work more with the Biden administration to show that we absolutely have

[50:48] the work with all to make this project happen because of this state investment in previous

[50:53] meetings with the Office of Management and Budget and Previous Administrations just even

[50:57] having the 70 percent was clearly a unique identifier for us being able to now show that

[51:03] we have 100 percent of the local share because they have a lot of projects, Army,

[51:06] or projects or the locals are unable to actually deliver on their end of the deal after congressional

[51:14] appropriation.

[51:15] So, this really does show that we're in a very unique position across the country to

[51:19] do it.

[51:20] And it's a due and no small part to you as well as just some of the members who have us in

[51:24] stone.

[51:25] We would like to invite the three of you and anybody from the administration that would

[51:29] be interested.

[51:31] We'd like to work with your team on setting up a tour, not that you need to know more about

[51:36] the proper river, but we think it would be good to bring you out there again with anybody

[51:40] that you think would be useful from the administration to really continue to highlight

[51:44] this project.

[51:45] And as well as anything that you think would be useful from the governor's office in regards to

[51:49] the Biden administration, we do have obviously a congressional and federal delegation on board

[51:54] but having none of the governors taken a position on this individual project if he has

[51:58] interest in or your recommendation of the administration reaching out to our federal administration

[52:03] on this.

[52:04] That would be useful too.

[52:05] Thank you. I'm just happy to do that. Happy to to tour and reach out on tours and in what he was referring to is in 2006. I did the build that allowed for share at all from the state for this project and then his budget share mature. The money was in the flood bond went to the voters that year. So it's been a very nice continuum and nobody ever thanks the department of water resources had for anything. So my guess is she would jump at the chance to tour this and do that.

[52:36] Thank you.

[52:38] Thank you.

[52:38] Supervisor Coordey.

[52:41] Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[52:42] Thank you, sir, Lair, for joining us.

[52:44] And thank you for your work and the most difficult times.

[52:48] It's usually very difficult to govern in the state of California.

[52:52] The last year and a half have been extraordinary.

[52:56] And I appreciate your focus both on statewide efforts.

[52:59] But also remembering where you came from and helping the communities in your district.

[53:05] All the all your bills have been and work and advocacy has been tremendous and as you mentioned, we really appreciate the money that you delivered for us to address homelessness, which is as you pointed out a far out of proportion to many communities.

[53:22] our size. And I appreciate your efforts to say that the City of Accounting need to work together

[53:30] to find solutions and we will do that and then we'll be looking for longer-term funding to

[53:39] ensure that we can continue these efforts and make sure we're doing the problem solving that

[53:45] that is needed at the individual level to address each person experiencing homelessness,

[53:50] there needs and there are the opportunities we have to help them out of that condition and then

[53:56] reduce the impacts on the community. But I'm just so grateful for your constant communication

[54:01] advocacy and recognition of the of the real issues we've faced on the ground.

[54:06] Thank you. And let me say we've been working closely together on the North Coast issues and

[54:11] to both of our advocacy, the coastal conservancy allocated $100,000 last week to that process.

[54:18] I wish it had been a little more, but it was enough to really launch it in a way that we can address those issues.

[54:25] Absolutely, and I see, and I thank you to state parks for partnering to get us the rest of the way there.

[54:31] And thank you for your advocacy and your letter on Thursday as a Registment Forward.

[54:37] I assure your desire that we have to have a binding enforcement of growth to provide the infrastructure necessary.

[54:46] So, the students can be successful, you're not creating educational access if students show up and they're experiencing homelessness or skipping meals struggling to find housing or classes.

[54:58] It's imperative that if we're going to create educational access and we're all committed to it.

[55:03] As you pointed out in your letter, this is not a nimbee.

[55:06] The community is not taking a nimbee position.

[55:09] We understand the need for growth in an economy based on a knowledge-based economy.

[55:15] But it has to be real access, which includes building appropriate housing and infrastructure, as well as producing water and traffic impacts.

[55:28] And I was surprised at the level of hunger that was an issue amongst students.

[55:35] And you just mentioned it and one of the things that hasn't been heralded in this budget is that when institutional

[55:42] meal sites couldn't deliver meals at the time of COVID.

[55:46] Food banks stepped up and the National Guard came in and did it and in this budget

[55:51] we got $300 million to go directly to food banks to continue that effort into the next fiscal

[55:57] year and when I was up at campus it turns out that the cowel coffee house is now what they

[56:03] refer to as a non-transactional cafe where people have the ability to eat and when I was

[56:11] there I said how wonderful would be to serve in the legislature

[56:14] with somebody that was non-transactional whenever right over

[56:17] to head to some of the students.

[56:19] Thank you.

[56:20] Thank you very much for joining us.

[56:21] Thank you, Chair.

[56:22] Thank you, Senator Laird.

[56:23] Your experience and really shows in the way you've been able

[56:28] to address so many of these issues in a very tactical way

[56:31] and bringing more resources into your district,

[56:35] specifically our county as well as addressing many

[56:37] of the environmental challenges we're facing today.

[56:40] And I would just want to ask you briefly since you have dedicated so much of your career to our environment.

[56:46] What do you see, what do you currently pursuing or what are some of your colleagues pursuing proactively to help reduce our emissions statewide?

[56:55] That is a great question because this budget did great things for water and fire to deal with the impacts and the government are designed to build.

[57:04] That will set up collaborative up and down the coast to take the next steps to deal with sea level rise.

[57:11] But that's all on the adaptation side and resiliency.

[57:14] That's not on the emissions side and the legislature did not do a good job this year.

[57:20] On the emissions side and the airborne is doing its next coping plan in the next 12 months,

[57:27] which is to line out the ways that we will meet our goals.

[57:31] We had a goal of 33% electricity in the renewable portfolio by 2020.

[57:37] We met it and the next goal was 50%.

[57:40] We had the Kyoto Accords put on California in 2006.

[57:45] And so we went back to the emissions of 1990 by 2020.

[57:48] We met that goal but then we have a next goal.

[57:51] And we have a series of other ones.

[57:53] Wind energy was just signed into law and added as a goal.

[57:57] And the question is, what we do on the granular level to meet those goals, and one of the hardest ones is the transportation sector is where significant amount of the emissions comes from.

[58:07] So I think that that's where we're going to spend a bunch of time on additional charging on additional subsidies if possible for electric vehicles, different things to help us move to the next stage.

[58:20] but stay tuned because in the two weeks we've been on a session, that's the one thing about next year

[58:27] that I've started to talk to stakeholders and colleagues about it because we have to be ready.

[58:34] So, and look forward to working with you on that. Thank you.

[58:37] Okay, so Vice-Captain, any questions?

[58:43] Yeah, I'd just like to voice my appreciation for all the work you've done for the residents

[58:52] live there, the whole river of 100-year flood prevention project.

[59:01] There's been many years people have been looking forward to getting something done

[59:06] and your work on this has been a major push forward and I can't thank you enough.

[59:16] Thank you. I don't know if there's any questions from the public that he does have to

[59:21] and a clock and he has a deadline. Is there any, is there any questions?

[59:25] I can speak your songs in. How many?

[59:27] Two. You want to say, John, I do. You have to do it.

[59:30] I'll do it. I'll do it.

[59:31] Make it briefly.

[59:32] Leave me. That's the lengthening. As long as I have brief questions.

[59:35] I'll do my best to have the brief answer.

[59:39] Colonies are one. Your microphone is available.

[59:48] This is Maryland, Garrett. Hi, John.

[59:53] Hi, I applaud your heroic decades long efforts on behalf

[59:57] It's a month or two, and...

[1:00:00] The context of what I think is a corporate dictatorship. Please help stop AT&T corporate plans to

[1:00:10] and copper, landline, safe and reliable service.

[1:00:16] We depend upon copper, landlines for our lives,

[1:00:22] basically it's the only thing I have.

[1:00:25] And my second question is, are you speaking

[1:00:31] and how can we contact you during this time

[1:00:34] in the county or are you speaking elsewhere?

[1:00:38] Thank you.

[1:00:39] I'm speaking all over the place and and you could go to my web page and call Santa Cruz office and if anybody was listening there's also one in Monterey and San Luis Obispo or the capital office and and they'll like you know places I might be speaking or answer whatever questions you have so thanks for calling.

[1:01:02] I'm a person, your microphone is available.

[1:01:07] Hi.

[1:01:07] I've been reading and researching that our power grid is already lacking.

[1:01:13] I mean, brownouts, blackouts.

[1:01:15] So if we're going to increase our electric car production,

[1:01:20] I don't see a path.

[1:01:22] I don't hear a plan about how we're going to fix our current grid situation.

[1:01:28] We can't handle what we have right now.

[1:01:31] And Sun panels aren't really a long-term answer because Sun panels, every time it rains,

[1:01:39] there's an ingredient in there that has leaks arsenic into our soil every single time it rains.

[1:01:47] That's what Sun panels do.

[1:01:49] That's a side effect of Sun panels.

[1:01:52] So can you let me know about the electrical grid and what the plan is for this?

[1:01:58] Yes.

[1:01:58] Let me speak briefly to what is a very complex issue.

[1:02:03] And there are plans to make sure the grid would be resilient

[1:02:07] and would handle those needs.

[1:02:11] And there are really long-term goals of microgrids

[1:02:13] to try to run a more regional basis,

[1:02:16] make sure that there's enough electricity regionally.

[1:02:19] And there are different things that are being added to balance everything off.

[1:02:24] So with wind and sun,

[1:02:26] then batteries are required to be able to cover the time when they are least providing things into the grid,

[1:02:33] and I think over time, it's going to be the opposite of what we've come to be used to,

[1:02:40] because if solar is really available during the sunlight hours, we're going to be asking everybody

[1:02:46] to use electricity during sunlight hours as opposed to putting it off with fossil fuel until

[1:02:51] such time as it's dark or light at night.

[1:02:55] And so there are real plans to meet the need

[1:02:59] through a very complementary alternatives

[1:03:02] in a micro grid.

[1:03:05] And it will be a transition,

[1:03:07] but that's where we need to be.

[1:03:10] Anyway, I know we've run out of time.

[1:03:11] So thank you.

[1:03:12] Thank you Senator Lair for everything you're doing.

[1:03:15] We'll keep in contact with you,

[1:03:16] whether you want it or not,

[1:03:18] but you have been very receptive to it.

[1:03:20] This is Santa Cruz County. You don't have to ask people to go right.

[1:03:24] Okay. Thank you, Senator. Have a good day. Thank you.

[1:03:29] Hey, we will.

[1:03:31] Maybe I should go back. Are there any other.

[1:03:34] Public comments.

[1:03:35] Yes, there was one.

[1:03:37] One more.

[1:03:41] Thank you.

[1:03:41] Your microphone is available.

[1:03:44] Thank you. This is Becky Steinburner. Can you hear me?

[1:03:48] Yeah.

[1:03:48] Thank you. I will follow up with Senator Layard in his quarters, but thank you for having him here this morning. I appreciate that overview very much.

[1:04:00] I would have asked him if he would help support your effort to get考fire to provide an after-action review of the CZU fire. That's important.

[1:04:11] And he can use his influence to make sure that it happened.

[1:04:15] So I will follow up with him on that.

[1:04:18] I'm concerned about the lack of calfar resources in this county.

[1:04:23] As of two weeks ago, there were only seven calfar engines in this county.

[1:04:30] Most of them have had been sent out to strike teams elsewhere.

[1:04:34] When calfar goes, most of our type three fire engines that are the best to take up.

[1:04:40] into the rural mountain areas with substandard roads,

[1:04:44] those leaves, they take them with them on the strike teams.

[1:04:48] County fire only has two type three engines.

[1:04:52] So I am concerned and I hope that Senator Laird

[1:04:55] will help get more resources that can stay more locally

[1:04:59] in our area to help protect our citizens.

[1:05:03] Thank you very much again for having him here

[1:05:06] and I will follow up privately.

[1:05:08] Thank you very much.

[1:05:09] Okay. Thank you.

[1:05:11] And now they're speaking.

[1:05:13] We will now go to the consent agenda item number six.

[1:05:18] Are there any remarks from the board members?

[1:05:22] Yes, thank you chair.

[1:05:24] Of course on item 36 that is wanted to thank you chair McPherson as well as supervisor

[1:05:29] Cleanerty for bringing this forward.

[1:05:30] It's been mentioned several times, but the after action report on the CZU complex fire is definitely much needed.

[1:05:36] And then on item 45, acknowledging the drought emergency and

[1:05:40] requesting a 15% reduction in use, I just wanted to use the opportunity to make it perfectly clear what situation we're in.

[1:05:47] I think Senator Laird mentioned it as well, but we saw 77% of the average rainfall two years ago, 53% of the last year.

[1:05:55] And our drought today in the second year of the drought has already worsened it was with four years of drought previously.

[1:06:02] And we are expecting 70% of the 70% percent chance that we'll see another dry year this year.

[1:06:09] So please, please, please.

[1:06:11] I hope everyone will do their part and reduce water use at least 15%.

[1:06:14] We've been historically very good at that in our county.

[1:06:16] And I hope everyone will continue to care that forward.

[1:06:19] Those are all my comments.

[1:06:20] Thank you, Chair.

[1:06:21] Thank you.

[1:06:22] Supervisor Friend.

[1:06:24] I thank you, Mr. Chair.

[1:06:25] Briefly, just like to welcome Dr. Bill of Social Sciences on her appointment on item 35.

[1:06:30] on item 37, I appreciate the chair joining with me and the comments from Ms. Mayce and others.

[1:06:38] We received so many letters in regards to the PG&E issues, not just to my district, but to

[1:06:43] Verizon. For instance, district, we held two town halls, although to be fair, they were really

[1:06:49] controlled by PG&E, and so there was a lack of back and forth quite frankly at those town halls,

[1:06:55] but there was a remarkable turnout.

[1:06:59] I have to say that for our two world,

[1:07:01] these two world portions are a district

[1:07:03] to have that level of number of people

[1:07:05] to turn out on these webinars

[1:07:06] goes to show the import of this issue.

[1:07:10] Less than 24 hours after PG&E held the webinar,

[1:07:13] at least in my district, it's

[1:07:16] finding that they had made significant changes

[1:07:18] to the fast trip sensors and changing

[1:07:20] their health sensitive, they were that area last hour,

[1:07:24] Again, so clearly what they're doing isn't quite meeting the market at this point, and as

[1:07:29] Chairman First and I believe that realistically, the only way to amplify the voices to get the

[1:07:34] CPC involved with the situation to actually look into this process.

[1:07:40] I mean, PG&E has got a lot of challenges throughout the state.

[1:07:43] It's no different here, but people rely on this power.

[1:07:47] I received an email from a constituent yesterday who has cancers.

[1:07:51] She requires an in-home treatment that requires power.

[1:07:54] There's been the power's been so episodic.

[1:07:56] It's been unreliable for health reasons at home.

[1:07:59] It, if we're losing food, just village,

[1:08:02] they're unable through their septic as well as their well system

[1:08:05] to operate either water or any sort of sewer-based system

[1:08:08] because of loss of power.

[1:08:10] People that have been working remotely,

[1:08:11] which is something that this board has been encouraging,

[1:08:14] have been unable to do so.

[1:08:16] At this point, the average power loss

[1:08:19] And my district anyway is almost seven hours at a time that it's gone, and there's absolutely

[1:08:24] no notices to win at all occur.

[1:08:26] And if you look outside, we don't even have the weather that normally causes these kinds

[1:08:29] of power losses at this point, so I can only imagine what could happen.

[1:08:33] And not just with PSPS, moving forward, but just with the winter in general.

[1:08:37] So there's a really problematic situation with no solution presented quite frankly from PG&E

[1:08:42] at this point.

[1:08:43] And so we're encouraging our colleagues who've been absolutely so supportive in the past

[1:08:47] on this to help us work with the CPC to do some sort of additional oversight.

[1:08:52] Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[1:08:53] Thank you.

[1:08:54] Thank you.

[1:08:58] Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[1:08:58] I have no comments today.

[1:09:00] Thank you.

[1:09:00] Supervisor Capit.

[1:09:02] Thank you.

[1:09:03] Thank you.

[1:09:04] Number 35.

[1:09:06] I want to welcome Nancy Billisuch to the

[1:09:19] Green Valley road to East Lake Avenue,

[1:09:24] who Lehan road.

[1:09:27] That's gonna help out a lot in the traffic.

[1:09:30] And then this is related, I don't think 47, I don't think 50.

[1:09:36] The intersection that,

[1:09:37] who Lehan and I were 152 near the Lakeview Middle School,

[1:09:45] that'll be a great improvement there

[1:09:47] for the traffic also.

[1:09:49] Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of items I wanted to address. I remember 24 the new updated operational plan for fiscal years 2021 through 23.

[1:10:01] This is a great pamphlet. The importance of this operational plan really cannot be overstated. It's really the roadmap to what this county's going to do.

[1:10:11] effectively guiding what the staff has, we get community input, and staff input of what

[1:10:16] our priorities, and it's really encouraging to see that we're able to complete 73% of the

[1:10:23] objectives that we're set for in the past two years that we set for ourselves. I think it's a tremendous

[1:10:29] accomplishment and I want to compliment the CAO for putting this in place to begin with when

[1:10:34] It became our CAO, our Carlos Flausios, and every one of the county employees who has participated in this.

[1:10:41] It's critical and if people want to know where the county is going or what its plans are, this operational plan will give you a great idea.

[1:10:48] And it's not a long read, so I encourage you to look at it.

[1:10:52] Also on the autumn 2036, a supervisor, Coonerty, and I brought this forward because we need to be fully prepared to learn

[1:11:01] And our lessons from the last fire and what we can do to learn from what happened to CZU

[1:11:10] complex fire.

[1:11:11] We have the county fire has conducted an evaluation of the local collective response for

[1:11:19] the CZU.

[1:11:20] And now we're requesting Cal Fire to conduct a similar review of the state's response.

[1:11:25] They did have a town halls, but it wasn't what they called the conventional hot wash.

[1:11:31] And we think we deserve that, and we want that, and we thought that we were going to get it in the first place, but we're requesting it again now to have them come before us.

[1:11:42] On item number 37 the CPUC to investigate the fast trip outages.

[1:11:48] Thank you supervisor friend for bringing this item forward with me to work on with my office to get PG&E to schedule a community meetings, which we did, but as you said, it was on their terms.

[1:12:01] But I think an investigation by the Public Utilities Commission could provide more information

[1:12:05] and perhaps some requirements of how PG manages the wildfire prevention efforts.

[1:12:13] I think there's a lot more answers we need and for what they're seeing how they're going

[1:12:19] to correct some of the issues we're facing now.

[1:12:22] On item number 41 housing matters, I want to thank the housing matters, they're really

[1:12:31] providing some critical sheltering in our community.

[1:12:33] There's sheltering 125 people in one year.

[1:12:37] And that means not sound a lot like a lot

[1:12:40] when we have identified in the last census,

[1:12:42] I think, towards about 2,500.

[1:12:45] But the amount of work it takes and the amount of cost it takes,

[1:12:50] I don't think people understand how costly

[1:12:53] and how dedicated an organization or the county has to be

[1:12:58] to make this happen just for 125 people.

[1:13:02] But it's too many return to the streets.

[1:13:05] And as we know, but we appreciate the good work

[1:13:07] of housing matters, their team and investment.

[1:13:11] They are making on their campus to provide these additional 125

[1:13:15] units.

[1:13:16] It's very much appreciated.

[1:13:17] They had a great effort to raise funds to address that.

[1:13:21] And as was mentioned by Supervisor Koenig on the drought,

[1:13:25] We're in a deeper situation than we have been other, and the impact that has on the ground

[1:13:33] water levels.

[1:13:34] We have now some ground water agencies, the mid-county has completed its plan.

[1:13:40] Now we have one, it's going to be completed for the Santa Margarita, and we need to have

[1:13:48] that done by the first of next year.

[1:13:50] So the state doesn't come in and tell us how to manage that.

[1:13:54] So we are very much impressed and pretty hopeful

[1:13:58] that we can have a plan that meets our efforts.

[1:14:01] And we do encourage you.

[1:14:02] Please reduce your water usage by at least 15%.

[1:14:06] What we save now is going to be so much so valuable.

[1:14:09] If we have another drought, come to Sember, January.

[1:14:13] We need a lot more help in that.

[1:14:15] So I do appreciate that.

[1:14:18] I think that would do it for the, and thank you for that, with that I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

[1:14:30] All move.

[1:14:32] I think the term of person, this is small potential modification on your item with supervisor

[1:14:38] Cunary on item 36 for the speaker, Ms. Steinburner's comment.

[1:14:43] Maybe we just also direct the board to chair to run a letter to the Department of Forestry.

[1:14:48] And also just CCR or legislative delegation or state legislative delegation in case they

[1:14:52] can help with that process.

[1:14:55] So hopefully you consider that a friendly amendment to just add that CC on to that letter.

[1:14:59] Yeah, I certainly.

[1:15:00] I think people don't know how much we've communicated, so to speak, with PG&E and CPUC and others to try to get more answers.

[1:15:12] Thank you. Yeah, except that amendment for sure.

[1:15:15] Thank you.

[1:15:16] Thank you.

[1:15:16] I'm sure we'll too.

[1:15:18] Okay. So the maker of the motion, are you okay with moving the consent agenda as amended then?

[1:15:23] Yes.

[1:15:24] Yes.

[1:15:24] Yes, I think the motion was from directly from supervisor cap. It's just confirming you're okay with that amendment that is an agenda that my name

[1:15:33] That's okay. Yeah, you said yes, okay. Thank you

[1:15:39] Okay

[1:15:39] Any other comments

[1:15:43] All right

[1:15:44] And for clarity supervisor friend is a seconder

[1:15:49] It's a razor cone egg

[1:15:50] I

[1:15:51] Friend

[1:15:52] I

[1:15:52] Security?

[1:15:54] How did?

[1:15:56] Make fair soon.

[1:15:57] I think you must incapacitate unanimously.

[1:16:00] Okay, we will now move to the regular agenda, Senator Laird having already addressed

[1:16:06] us.

[1:16:07] Item number 8 is a public hearing to consider the report on the year 2022 growth rule adopt

[1:16:14] a resolution established.

[1:16:15] We have received a 0.25% for the year 2022 in the unincorporated portion of the county

[1:16:22] and authorized a planning staff to file a the sequence notice of exemption as outlined

[1:16:26] in the memorandum of the planning director.

[1:16:28] We have a resolution to adopt the growth role for 2022, the sequence notice of exemption,

[1:16:34] a year 2022 growth goal report, planning commission resolution, and planning commission

[1:16:40] staff report of September 8th, 2021, and here to present to this will be Natasha Williams,

[1:16:48] a planner, a sustainability and special projects for our planning department.

[1:16:52] Good morning, Supervisors.

[1:16:56] The county's growth management system was instituted in 1979 following the adoption of Measure

[1:17:02] J to address the resource and public services impacts of population growth in Santa Cruz County.

[1:17:08] As part of the growth management system, each year the county is required to set an annual

[1:17:13] growth goal for the upcoming year that represents a fair share of the state's growth.

[1:17:18] The 2022 growth goal report is before you today for consideration.

[1:17:31] Its report examines various factors used in establishing the year 2022 growth goal for the

[1:17:37] unincorporated area, and includes analysis of population growth trends, resource constraints,

[1:17:44] The status of this year's allocations, the county's housing needs, including progress towards meeting the county's required regional housing needs allocation or arena.

[1:17:53] A review of the demolition permits and density bonus projects approved in the past year as well as the ADU annual report.

[1:18:00] This year's report also includes a discussion of the permanent room housing project applications, as well as impacts of recent state law on the county's growth management system.

[1:18:15] We've noted in the growth goal report, the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County had an estimated negative 0.43% growth rate last year.

[1:18:26] All jurisdictions, except for Scott Spally, also saw negative growth rates, and the county as a whole has seen declining population totals in recent years.

[1:18:34] The state this year also decreased by negative 0.46% sorry in 2020 and that is the first annual decline since the state population estimates have recorded.

[1:18:47] Population estimates for cities and unincorporated counties are determined using the housing housing unit method, which means that the number of new housing units constructed each year plays a large part in determining annual population estimates.

[1:18:59] The DOF also notes that the states unprecedented negative growth rate last year is the result of three major factors.

[1:19:08] The first is continuing declines in natural increase, which is birth minus deaths.

[1:19:13] The second is continuing declines in foreign immigration, which were accelerated by recent federal policy.

[1:19:20] And the third is deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased deaths across the state last year,

[1:19:27] by 51,000 or 19% above the average death rate.

[1:19:33] That's related to the pandemic decline and with federal policy changes is expected that the state will return to a positive annual growth rate in coming years.

[1:19:47] Recent population estimates for Santa Cruz County indicate continuing downward trend of population growth rates in the decades since the 1960s and 70s when the county grew much faster than the state.

[1:19:58] The 2020 census is expected to provide more precise and upstate population numbers for our

[1:20:04] county.

[1:20:05] However, insufficient data was available at the time that the GOF population estimates were

[1:20:09] prepared, so these two years will be included in next year's report.

[1:20:18] The growth goal report also summarizes the current status of the 2021 residential building

[1:20:23] permit allocations.

[1:20:25] This year, 2021 allocations have been granted as a July 1st, if demand continues at the

[1:20:34] will be granted by the end of the year.

[1:20:37] This is comparable to last year when 20 building permit allocations

[1:20:41] had been granted by July 1st, 2020.

[1:20:44] Demand for allocations has remained low compared to previous decades

[1:20:48] and staff and to space there will be more than enough permits

[1:20:50] available for the remainder of this year.

[1:20:58] In accordance with the Housing Crisis Act of 2019,

[1:21:01] Senate Bill 330,

[1:21:03] Santa Cruz County will continue to not enforce

[1:21:05] the Measure Drake Grove goal limit on residential allocations within affected county areas while

[1:21:11] this statue is in place. And originally this was from January 1st, 2020 to January 1st, 2025,

[1:21:19] but the recent passing SBA extends this to 2030.

[1:21:25] In San Cruz County this includes the following CDPs,

[1:21:29] Live Oak, Pasta Tampo, Paradise Park, and a messy as shown in blue on this map.

[1:21:37] All other aspects of Measure J unrelated to limiting building permit or population such as the county's affordable housing requirements are not impacted by this bill.

[1:21:46] And staff will continue to track Measure J allocations and subsequent building permit issuance for reporting purposes.

[1:21:53] The CZU Lightning Complex Fire is another aspect that we've analyzed in preparing this report.

[1:22:02] In addition, pursuant to San Cruz County Code Section 12.02, 0.020.

[1:22:10] All residential units impacted by the CZU August Lightning Fire Complex fires.

[1:22:15] We'll continue to be exempt from the Measure J residential allocation system.

[1:22:24] Based on the analysis detailed and the report staff recommends that the growth goal be set at 0.25% for calendar year 2022.

[1:22:34] In past years, the county's growth goal has been consistent with the state of California's growth rate,

[1:22:38] constituting our fair share of population growth as dictated by a measure chain.

[1:22:43] However, as noted earlier, there were a number of anomalies in the state's recent,

[1:22:47] The state's 2020 growth rate that contributed to population decline and state population estimates are expected to show a return to positive growth in coming years.

[1:22:57] Setting this past year side if you look at state population growth over the last three years the state grew by an average of 0.25% which is commensurate with a recommended growth goal.

[1:23:08] It's important to note that the county of Santa Cruz is in the final few years of the 2014 to 2023 reign of cycle, but currently more than half of the units allocated to a region have not been built.

[1:23:21] Also important to consider is the recent state housing in ADU laws that continue to be refined by the state, including the recent passage of SB 9.

[1:23:33] That increased in filled development in our area.

[1:23:35] potential financial development. Additionally, both GOF and Ambad population

[1:23:40] projects, population projections for cast growing populations in our region.

[1:23:47] And in light of all of this, staff is recommending a 0.25% growth rate for calendar year 2022

[1:23:54] as required by the county code representing our fair share of population growth.

[1:23:59] This growth rate would result in an allocation of 130 market rate units,

[1:24:04] available for the year 2022, allocations will be distributed between the urban and rural areas

[1:24:11] of the county at a 75% to 25% ratio in order to recognize the greater potential for

[1:24:17] infield development in urban areas. The 2022 growth goal report also recommends as in previous

[1:24:24] years, but the unused market rate allocations from 2021 be carried over to 2022 in accordance

[1:24:30] with policy 3.2 of the general plan housing element. This would result in a total projected

[1:24:38] 219 market rate residential building permit allocations available for 2022.

[1:24:44] This has found that establishment of the 2021 growth rate, sorry, growth goal is exempt

[1:24:51] under the California Environmental Quality Act, and a notice of the exemption has been prepared.

[1:24:57] The year 2022 growth goal was also presented

[1:25:01] with plenty of commission on September 8th

[1:25:03] and recommended for approval.

[1:25:07] Trats therefore recommend that the Board of Supervisors

[1:25:10] conduct public hearing to consider the report

[1:25:13] on the year 2022 growth goal and close the public hearing.

[1:25:17] Adopt the attached resolution, establishing a year 2022

[1:25:20] growth goal of 0.25% for the unincorporated portion

[1:25:23] of the county and authorize the filing

[1:25:26] the secret notice of the exemption with the clerk of the board. This concludes the presentation,

[1:25:31] and we'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. I think I'll open up to the public. Is there

[1:25:35] anybody for the public who would like to address us on this issue?

[1:25:43] I'm going to want to make a

[1:25:46] couple of comments myself. I do have public comments. I'll excuse me. Yeah, on the phone.

[1:25:51] Call or two nine one five your microphone is available.

[1:25:57] Hello, this is Becky Steinburner, can you hear me?

[1:26:01] Yeah.

[1:26:02] Thank you.

[1:26:03] Thank you for that report and I'm happy to see the good growth goal report here.

[1:26:09] I was concerned at first that it was much shorter.

[1:26:13] What I don't see is any address of the impacts of dance infill on infrastructure.

[1:26:23] road improvements, mass transportation to serve those areas, especially with new legislation

[1:26:30] that exempt parking requirements for infill development within, I think, it's a half

[1:26:38] mile or so of a mass transportation line. So we do need to look at that. I'm curious

[1:26:45] That's why Ambegg still feels that this area will have an increase in population when

[1:26:53] clearly the trends are going down.

[1:26:56] I would appreciate that discussion on that.

[1:27:00] I also note that Measure J will not be enforced in areas due to SB 330 that are considered

[1:27:09] disadvantaged.

[1:27:10] You may be interested to know that recently the state water board added tapotola to the disadvantaged communities.

[1:27:19] So I think that that should also be included in those areas where measure J will not be enforced.

[1:27:27] Finally, I'm concerned about the counties not meeting the green and numbers.

[1:27:32] I appreciate that there are projects coming along, but the state is moving to penalize communities,

[1:27:41] counties and cities that do not meet those green and numbers, and I would like a discussion

[1:27:46] by the board what they see as being able to award that off. Can we put in those pilot shelter

[1:27:54] communities that the board has set money aside for and really get moving on affordable

[1:28:03] On user one, your microphone is available.

[1:28:14] We wanted to be here at the rest to walk back to sign Bruno, but saying, how rude to cut off people.

[1:28:22] My basic comments are, I understand that the county has lost population by about 3.4%.

[1:28:32] But there are still increased building permits.

[1:28:38] I would like to see Measure J enforced, not exempt from enforcement.

[1:28:47] And also we need public housing, low-cost housing for everyone because we're going to

[1:28:55] Many massive numbers of people out on the street, the unemployment has been taken away

[1:29:03] and they're likely hoods destroyed.

[1:29:06] Where are their efforts for public housing instead of big developments, Mike, for

[1:29:13] Spencer, and what's going on in downtown Santa Cruz?

[1:29:17] Where is the housing for the poor people?

[1:29:21] who is helping food, not bombs, that's what is needed.

[1:29:27] We need a change of structure that provides for the poor

[1:29:31] and working class people.

[1:29:34] Thank you.

[1:29:38] There are no other speakers on the same.

[1:29:41] Okay, I'd like to make a couple of comments.

[1:29:42] Thank you for that realistic overview of housing.

[1:29:48] And it's unrealistic to think this county, honestly,

[1:29:53] is going to meet when I used to serve on Ambegg and do not know at this point but to meet the housing.

[1:30:00] And demands of the state, I mean, they try to show this on our throat, but it's just not realistic

[1:30:04] of what they're trying to have everybody do. And if they penalize this county, they're going

[1:30:09] to be penalized in every city and county in the state, probably. It's really a frustrating

[1:30:14] situation. Everybody sees the need, but let's get real. You know, it's not happening. I would

[1:30:19] like to say that since Measure J was past 42 years ago, there was a requirement for 15% of the housing

[1:30:27] be affordable. And as a matter of fact, 15.6% of all new residential development has been affordable housing.

[1:30:35] So that part of the goal has been met with measure J that we, the voters pass in 1978, I believe it was.

[1:30:43] But these, these growth goals are difficult to meet, given the challenges we face to construct new housing units, especially affordable units.

[1:30:51] And in light of the water and transportation limitations that we have as we speak in a drought

[1:30:58] serenessent in the face, we need new sources of funding if we're going to have these affordable units.

[1:31:05] But another challenge historically has been our own system for processing billing permits.

[1:31:11] And I'd like to ask a question, do we anticipate that the new permitting center might encourage more permits year to year that's going to be in place

[1:31:19] I believe, but the first part of next year, do we expect the consolidation to set targets for getting closer to the growth goal?

[1:31:28] Thank you, Chair McPherson. Perhaps I can help with that. Yes, the intent to the UPC is certainly to streamline the permit approval process, so that permits that have historically taken a long time will take a shorter period of time and therefore more permits can be.

[1:31:48] That's probably the most welcome news I've heard today.

[1:31:51] That is the intent. It may take a little bit of process improvement to get there.

[1:31:58] Thank you. I'll entertain questions from board members.

[1:32:02] Yeah, thank you chair.

[1:32:05] You mentioned that we hadn't met our renegals in this cycle and as chairman Pearson alluded to,

[1:32:11] the numbers from the state in the next cycle are about triple.

[1:32:14] what they have been in this cycle.

[1:32:17] So it does appear like it will be a serious challenge to meet those, whether it's possible at all.

[1:32:23] We, yes, first of all, if you've done the math,

[1:32:27] you know, would even meet the next renacycals goals on market rate housing,

[1:32:32] is it possible that this growth goal, assuming we continue it,

[1:32:37] at this rate, which is required by county code,

[1:32:40] is it at some point going to come in a conflict?

[1:32:41] Yeah, that was one of the factors that we used to determine are growth goals.

[1:32:47] Mike, I'm sure.

[1:32:50] Yeah, we looked at the rena numbers and insured that the growth goal we're proposing would not prevent us from reaching our annual rena requirement for market rate.

[1:33:02] is okay right because I mean I understand that we've really fallen short on the affordable and

[1:33:08] or I should say low income and very low income number of units in the growth goal so that makes sense

[1:33:14] but if you've done that map for the next renacycle and I know that it hasn't actually been allocated

[1:33:20] to our specific area but even if we were just to say triple the amount in the current renacycle

[1:33:26] would this come in the conflict?

[1:33:29] You know, the, the, the, the, the,

[1:33:31] the first goal is set based on kind of the recent trends

[1:33:34] and then what we see coming forward in the next year.

[1:33:38] We do not have our rena numbers yet for the sixth cycle.

[1:33:42] We have an inkling given that, as you know,

[1:33:46] the overall rena number was about three times the fifth cycle.

[1:33:51] So as we continue to absorb that,

[1:33:55] work on our housing element next year we'll really try to figure out how we're going to accommodate

[1:34:00] those units and the go school will kind of track that and follow along and if we can

[1:34:06] if we can possibly get to a point where we are accommodating more growth and are able to meet

[1:34:12] that, then you'll see those adjustments in the next couple of goals.

[1:34:17] I see so you're suggesting that because the state has basically troubled the

[1:34:21] The renegals for most of the jurisdictions that have received their numbers statewide, and because the growth goal is tied to overall state growth that we might see the growth goal just continue to to increase the growth goal is quite low and it's been heading in that trend for for a while as you know.

[1:34:42] I'll try to adjust our policies and regulatory environment to allow better use of our urban lands.

[1:34:53] And that, along with the legislative actions that have been taken this year, the past couple of years,

[1:35:00] we'll continue to see openings and hopefully the economy sticks with us.

[1:35:05] We'll see that growth level rise as it will in the state and other jurisdictions.

[1:35:09] We're hoping.

[1:35:10] Okay, thank you. And just one last question, maybe for county council actually, I mean, is if there were to be a conflict in the future and you know someone didn't receive a permit because because of the growth goal and the number of permits have already been given out is it possible that that we could be sued for this and that it would this even stand up is this limit legal.

[1:35:33] Well, we were sued a number of years ago, back in 2005, actually, around our housing element associated with not meeting our renegol. So the answer to your first question is can we be sued is yes. And we can be instructed by the court as we were in that case to adjust some of the things that we were doing at the time. This is a growth goal.

[1:35:56] You know, and there are mechanisms in place to address when we don't hit our goal, you know, going forward.

[1:36:07] So, you know, can we be sued? Yes, we can be sued.

[1:36:11] But other than that, you know, it gives you a level of abstraction in concept that I wouldn't probably really want to go into.

[1:36:18] Because point or it just wouldn't be reliable.

[1:36:20] I mean, we'll only reframe the question, have other jurisdictions been challenged on growth goals like this and and lost.

[1:36:30] I have not heard of any of any lawsuits around growth goals or being challenged on and and government's losing, but we, you know, we have a with measure J in place, you know, we have a pretty.

[1:36:47] robust and specific code regarding how we address growth in this county that a lot of other jurisdictions to have.

[1:36:59] Okay.

[1:37:00] All right.

[1:37:01] Maybe one last point of clarification.

[1:37:04] I know that the CZ rebuild our exempt.

[1:37:08] If someone were to choose, you know,

[1:37:10] maybe this is five years down the road,

[1:37:13] we've seen, you know, worse case scenario,

[1:37:15] we continue to see natural disasters,

[1:37:18] and so much it shows not to rebuild

[1:37:19] in the exact same location,

[1:37:21] but rather in, that's had a different part of our county,

[1:37:24] with that still fall under the exemption

[1:37:27] from the growth cooler,

[1:37:28] but then count as a new unit that, you know,

[1:37:31] mark the right unit.

[1:37:33] You're saying it would be upside of this TZU in Pactateria?

[1:37:36] Yeah, I based on our the way our resolution is where they don't think that that would apply. I think it would if it's outside of this year, it would not be exempt.

[1:37:50] All right. Well, we'll cross those bridges and get back.

[1:37:54] I think I think before going to supervisor friend, I need to formally close the public hearing. There's nobody else on the phone is that right.

[1:38:01] Okay. I will close the public hearing and then continue our comments from board members. Supervisor friend.

[1:38:06] I just appreciate the presentation. I know just a little questions. Actually, Supervisor Conegast,

[1:38:12] a couple of things that were of interest. So I appreciate it.

[1:38:15] Thank you. Two of the advisory.

[1:38:17] And I'm sure, thank you. Thank you for the presentation and the report on a very useful.

[1:38:22] Just two quick questions. One is it seems pretty obvious that at least in the city, there were like 5,000 students

[1:38:30] or so will probably undercounted because the pandemic.

[1:38:35] So the population numbers may not reflect the reality

[1:38:39] where we're back into, can you have any idea

[1:38:44] or sense of how the pandemic may have affected other

[1:38:47] population counts?

[1:38:52] Yeah, I know specifically, like you mentioned,

[1:38:56] we saw a negative 13% I believe.

[1:39:00] Population growth in the city of Santa Cruz

[1:39:02] And that was, I did reach out to the DLF to understand where the numbers come from and that was mostly attributed to the, the, you know, the pandemic and then the reason that the, the students were weren't here like they normally are.

[1:39:19] Um, so you, he had to, but they attribute it to that to the, uh,

[1:39:24] for the UC's, um, the students being missing. I don't know of any other,

[1:39:28] besides the, you know, increased death rate that they mentioned in the report.

[1:39:32] I don't know any other specific populations that were impacted by COVID that might have changed these numbers.

[1:39:38] And they do have estimates.

[1:39:40] Now appreciate that. And, um,

[1:39:44] My second very question was about the number of ADU applications.

[1:39:50] Given that the state has liberalized rules, and we at the county have also tried to liberalize the creation of ADU's,

[1:39:58] the numbers of ADU's didn't seem to reflect that.

[1:40:02] Do you have a sense of what's going on and what we can do to increase ADU production?

[1:40:11] Yeah, I know that we saw, yeah, I know that we did see a slight increase in the last couple years.

[1:40:21] You know, and since our rates now are in the high 30s, and that's commensurate to what we saw before the 2008 to 2010 housing crisis.

[1:40:33] So the rates have increased significantly and I would say that we will probably continue to see that increase as permits move through our permitting system.

[1:40:42] Okay, so there's nothing you're hearing that is a that is a barrier.

[1:40:48] Probably other than high materials construction costs right now, I know our bones fighting for the same limited number of contractors, but is there is there anything else that you're seeing.

[1:41:01] You know, I think the people will be returning with the revised ADU ordinance next week to the board and whatever actions board can take to help keep these permits ministerial to help make the application process.

[1:41:21] As easy as possible, we'll help to eliminate some of those barriers.

[1:41:30] We'll also be returning to the board,

[1:41:32] believe in December, to look at the three of report on the fewer

[1:41:37] options that we did back then.

[1:41:41] And the board will have an opportunity to look at whether to continue those

[1:41:45] those exemptions and reductions, so all those things could could help, but we just

[1:41:52] recommend not adding to the process in any way if they're all possible.

[1:41:59] Thank you.

[1:42:00] I think we should realize our gap in any questions.

[1:42:05] Thank you for the report.

[1:42:07] Pretty much everything.

[1:42:08] Thank you.

[1:42:08] Your microns.

[1:42:10] Yeah.

[1:42:11] Thank you.

[1:42:14] Okay.

[1:42:15] Okay, we've close the public, I entertain a motion.

[1:42:19] Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Williams, and

[1:42:21] the entertainer motion on move the recommended actions.

[1:42:26] Second.

[1:42:27] Seconded.

[1:42:28] Please call the roll.

[1:42:29] Supervisor Coneck.

[1:42:31] Friends.

[1:42:33] Trinity.

[1:42:34] Hi.

[1:42:35] Tap it.

[1:42:36] My first in.

[1:42:37] Hi.

[1:42:38] Thank you, Mr. Passagina.

[1:42:39] Honestly.

[1:42:40] We will move to item number nine to conduct a steady session on the core investment stakeholder engagement and a request for proposals framework recommendations.

[1:42:53] Direct the human services department to include associated allocations in the fiscal year 2022, 23 proposed budget and take related actions as outlined in a memorandum of the human services director.

[1:43:04] We have some funding areas, a core engagement meetings, and survey, initial proposed funding

[1:43:10] allocation methods and distribution, core hybrid funding description.

[1:43:16] Thank you.

[1:43:17] This has been a really successful program.

[1:43:19] Mr. Morris, our director of human resources.

[1:43:23] Good morning, Chair McPherson board members.

[1:43:26] I'm Randy Morris, Director of the Human Services Department.

[1:43:30] And I'm going to be giving this morning's presentation.

[1:43:31] but I want to recognize that I'm joined by Emily Bali, our Deputy Director, and sorry to

[1:43:37] spring this on your Emily, but I think with her retirement this number this might be her last

[1:43:41] public presentation perhaps, so I just want to take a minute to thank her. I don't have any

[1:43:50] authority to do so despite my efforts, but any I do want to Emily's here to help with question and

[1:43:56] answer because she has been involved every step of the way in this process before I got here

[1:43:59] since I've been here is real link to this street.

[1:44:02] So thank you, Emily.

[1:44:04] And before we bring the PowerPoint slide up,

[1:44:06] I want to make a few introductory comments.

[1:44:10] This effort in front of you today is the first time

[1:44:15] we've been in front of you since February

[1:44:16] when we gave a study session update on this program.

[1:44:19] And there's been a tremendous amount of work

[1:44:21] that's been done by a lot of groups.

[1:44:22] And I want to recognize, within our human services department,

[1:44:25] a lot of the administrative staff,

[1:44:27] particularly our finance staff and contract staff

[1:44:29] who have done a lot of work in the COVID environment,

[1:44:32] the fires, and with all the complexities of what

[1:44:35] played all last few years.

[1:44:36] And there's a lot of work they do to help this program move forward.

[1:44:40] I also want to recognize this is a collaboration

[1:44:42] with the city of Santa Cruz.

[1:44:43] So the city of Santa Cruz, I believe,

[1:44:45] is going to be watching in today.

[1:44:46] And I will be watching in at their council meeting this afternoon,

[1:44:49] because we intentionally coordinate our efforts

[1:44:51] with our legislative bodies, because this

[1:44:53] is a collaboration with both bodies.

[1:44:55] But I mostly want to highlight and recognize

[1:44:57] any of our community-based organizations.

[1:45:00] That are listening in today and might choose to make public comment, because as you will hear, in the presentation today, the last many months we've spent a lot of time engaging in conversations with the providers who receive court funding and those who hope to apply for might not receive today and hopefully the spirit of that collaboration is woven through this presentation.

[1:45:21] A few, a few quick comments, I want to make. I'm very mindful that I sit here a year and a half in as the human services director.

[1:45:29] and this is a program that's been in existence for over three decades, so I think I'm probably

[1:45:33] the fifth director, who is at a role in this program, and I just want to share some of my

[1:45:39] observations over the last six months when I've really dug into this preparing for today and the

[1:45:45] actions in front of you today. The most communities, most counties do not take all of their general

[1:45:51] fund money and organize it in one big bucket and put it out to community providers. So in many

[1:45:57] regards this is quite a gift to this community. Many communities spread it out, so it's more

[1:46:01] diffused. But I also learned in the last many months what how many inherent challenges there are

[1:46:08] in trying to figure out how to take a bit of money that's not enough to help the most role in

[1:46:13] the broader community and put it out in a way that's most helpful. It's been very challenging and

[1:46:17] hopefully what you hear today is our best efforts to make this some make sense. So what this topic

[1:46:23] is about is the program core CORE is the acronym that refers to collective results in evidence-based

[1:46:31] investments. This is the first effort after 30 years of a program called community programs

[1:46:39] that shifted to in those words collective results in evidence-based. Identify that it shifted

[1:46:46] to a collective impact model, trying to get funders to all work under one framework, to build

[1:46:53] in more results, and to have the programs built on more evidence-based and best-practice programs.

[1:47:02] Today, this program represents $4.4 million of county general fund money.

[1:47:09] There's also an additional 1 million plus of city of Santa Cruz money that lives in 83 different

[1:47:15] programs through 44 different agencies throughout the community.

[1:47:20] So it's a fairly large broad-based funding to help

[1:47:24] community-based organizations help the most vulnerable in Santa Cruz County.

[1:47:29] I would like to put that $4.4 million in perspective.

[1:47:34] Our Department Human Services is about $175 million organization and we have

[1:47:40] outside of core $34 million of contracts in the community.

[1:47:44] Why I'm sharing that is, I feel it's really important to set expectations that as much

[1:47:50] as $4 plus million is, we are by definition of safety net program and there are still

[1:47:55] a lot of unmet needs.

[1:47:57] So there's a lot of amazing things our community based organizations do, but I think it's very

[1:48:01] fair to respect the work they do that this isn't enough money to solve all the issues,

[1:48:05] but again, I think it is a great opportunity to have this money to put out into the community

[1:48:11] So today, when we start the presentation, I want to share with you that we did our best effort in a very complicated time with a lot of crises going on to have a very robust and dynamic stakeholder process to get a lot of feedback from the community based organizations so that what's in front of you is a representation of our best efforts to think through how to move this effort forward based on and informed by conversation with the service provider network.

[1:48:38] So, with those comments, Ms. Guerrero, if you could load up the PowerPoint, we'll sort of walk through.

[1:48:45] And if you can just confirm for me to be able to forward, let's see.

[1:48:50] Wait, where's your software?

[1:48:52] Like in person?

[1:48:54] What's that?

[1:48:54] Click the wheel.

[1:49:03] It's not moving.

[1:49:04] You're going to help.

[1:49:05] Thank you.

[1:49:06] Okay.

[1:49:08] So, today's agenda.

[1:49:10] We're going to do a brief review of the process in timeline that's played out before we got here today and what we're looking out on the horizon.

[1:49:19] We're then going to summarize the stakeholder engagement process and highlight who has participated.

[1:49:25] And this all funnels into what's really in front of your board today, which is our recommendations for how to frame the next public procurement process to get feedback from you,

[1:49:35] which then leads to the next steps which is to come back to your board in early November with

[1:49:40] the actual RFP to be released next slide and thank you for the help.

[1:49:45] So here's the summary of the time from I'm not going to read all these but in the spring,

[1:49:51] we had agreed to move forward with your board support after we gave the study session to

[1:49:55] get ready to release the RFP upcoming and we spent the summer going to the stakeholder process

[1:50:02] which will describe in more detail in a minute.

[1:50:04] And today is the beginning of the upper right, the fall,

[1:50:07] which is September 28th,

[1:50:08] we're in front of your board today,

[1:50:10] and the city will be in front of the city council this afternoon.

[1:50:15] We then, in one of the things we've heard loud and clear

[1:50:18] from our community-based partners,

[1:50:20] is to really create a reasonable amount of time

[1:50:22] for them to apply for these funds.

[1:50:25] And so we are recommending that we release the RFP,

[1:50:28] pending your board's approval in early November.

[1:50:30] And ask for responses to be an early mid February to give a reasonable amount of time given the struggles the community based organizations are going through.

[1:50:39] We'll then spend the spring reviewing them and then coming back to your board and the city will go to their council with recommendations hopefully to start the contracts July 1st for new contract term. So that's the basic timeline. Next slide. Thank you.

[1:50:55] So, this is a picture of core, the picture of what the model is, and this is something just as a reminder your board has approved as a framework to use through the study sessions over the last many years.

[1:51:10] so we continue to use this.

[1:51:12] This was the level set that we used

[1:51:15] for all the stakeholder engagement to remind everyone

[1:51:18] that these are the core conditions of well-being

[1:51:21] that we want to organize the programs around.

[1:51:24] We highlighted that these are all interconnected,

[1:51:27] since you can see all the dotted lines.

[1:51:29] And that equity is, of course, front and center.

[1:51:33] And in this network to help make sure

[1:51:37] that we have a healthy and thriving community.

[1:51:38] the next slide. So this is a little bit more information for your board and for anyone listening. There is an attachment to the materials, which gives a great summary of all of the stakeholder work that was done over the last many months.

[1:51:56] And so I'm not going to go through this in detail because those materials are in attachments, but I do want to just highlight that career boards directive we did meet with funders.

[1:52:05] We talked to all the city jurisdictions with one being a city of Santa Cruz who's participating

[1:52:10] about potential for participating and joining in this effort formally.

[1:52:14] Also foundations, we had meetings and you can see the numbers that were here.

[1:52:19] Our partnership with the city of Santa Cruz, they have a community program committee that

[1:52:23] they work with, a subset of their elected officials, three council members that we met with

[1:52:27] as well.

[1:52:29] We then had a number of community partner meetings and you can see the number of participants

[1:52:33] that were involved.

[1:52:35] We then had a combined community partner and funder meeting and we also put out a survey to get responses for how we should prepare this framework that's in front of you today.

[1:52:47] And then in September just before this presentation, the core steering committee, which is existed throughout the life of corn the last three years met.

[1:52:55] We gave a presentation of the Human Service Commission and then we went back to the city of Santa Cruz committee in prep for their meeting today.

[1:53:02] So this is just to let you know that we have spent a lot of time

[1:53:05] trying to get feedback and leave that feedback

[1:53:07] into today's recommendations.

[1:53:09] So next slide.

[1:53:12] These were the two main questions we asked.

[1:53:15] These are at the sort of at the center of what we're

[1:53:18] going to be presenting to you today, which is how can we use this framework,

[1:53:21] the core conditions of well-being, to make decisions about how to put

[1:53:26] this money out into the community.

[1:53:28] And second, how can we make sure equity remains

[1:53:31] at the center and how do you actually operationalize that. So that was what was discussed in all of these

[1:53:36] stakeholder efforts. Next slide.

[1:53:40] What we heard, the first one, a variety of ideas that might be a

[1:53:46] little bit euphemistic for it was very, very difficult to find consensus. I think we walked away with

[1:53:53] an understanding that there are many ways to look at how to recommend to your board to put money

[1:53:59] to the community, given there's so many unmet needs and so many populations

[1:54:04] deserving. And I appreciated the many comments from our community-based providers

[1:54:09] recognizing that this is not an easy task to organize this to take $4 plus million dollars

[1:54:15] to help the community. Some of the detailed feedback we got is there was a great

[1:54:21] appreciation of community organizations who experienced philanthropic foundations

[1:54:25] creating more streamlined applications. I would say every service provider was all in on the issue

[1:54:31] of equity and very eager to work with us and be a participant in this conversation so that

[1:54:36] any of this money helps address inequities in the community. There was a very strong push for

[1:54:43] as much transparency and clarity as possible and a request for technical assistance so that the

[1:54:55] Because all of that was build up to say to give you history and background to say this is what we have staff are recommending to your board and this is what we're asking you to say yes or no to today and this is what we're inviting the community providers who might make public comment to share their perspectives on this.

[1:55:10] And then after today's presentation we'll then work on writing the RFP based on if this framework is agreeable to you.

[1:55:18] So the first recommendation is we want to have a contract term of three years, this allows us to reset this funding cycle to match with the county's two year budget cycle.

[1:55:30] And then core funding.

[1:55:31] So I mentioned in my introduction we currently have $4.4 million and these are four specific actions that we're recommending your board take, which are kind of the ins and outs that then move the base funding from $4.4 million to just shy of $4.8 million.

[1:55:49] And I'm going to take just a minute to talk through each of these.

[1:55:52] So the first is your board prior to my appointment here, had directed the county and the Human Services Department to allocate $150,000 to have a program called SETA side and it was small grants through a different process in the actual procurement cycle.

[1:56:09] So we are recommending that that money be reallocated and built into the core base funding and you'll see when we get to the tiered investment strategy how that sort of folds into what we're recommending.

[1:56:21] Number two is a very specific action because right before the end of the before this presentation a couple months ago a program ran by encompass the core housing pathways program shut down

[1:56:33] It's actually ran at river street and so we've coordinated with encompass and they're welcome to a comment if they disagree or agree during public comment if they'd like but we are recommending because the program no longer exists at $75,000 be put back into the core funding base at $25,000 a year.

[1:56:52] Number three, the senior's council is the local nonprofit organization that runs the area agency on aging and we have detailed and the report the specifics of why and I'm not going to go through all of them, but it has been my experience that this is an absolute orange compared to the apples of all of the core programs that we run.

[1:57:11] It is a 100% administrative program.

[1:57:15] It is a federal and state mandated entity,

[1:57:19] and it is required to draw base funding

[1:57:21] to draw that federal and state money.

[1:57:23] So just sits aside and different from all the other programs.

[1:57:26] So we're recommending the current contract

[1:57:28] that seniors council has of $131,000.

[1:57:31] Be removed from the base and be reallocated

[1:57:34] to human services for a direct contract to work with them.

[1:57:37] And then the final is in collaboration

[1:57:40] with the CAO's office. We have been authorized to share our recommendation. This would all be pending

[1:57:46] your boards approval during the budget cycle, but at least for planning purposes that we increase

[1:57:50] the core base by $500,000. Like most grants we receive as human services when we apply to federal

[1:57:57] and state grants were used to getting grants that I've stayed flat for two or three or four years,

[1:58:01] so this is kind of the normal way funding works. But we also recognize a program that's been

[1:58:09] to talk about a meaningful face increase.

[1:58:12] So $500,000 is our recommendation.

[1:58:15] So next slide.

[1:58:18] So this is where I mentioned the set aside reference.

[1:58:23] We are recommending that we use the current spread

[1:58:26] of core funding grants that we have today,

[1:58:29] which fall into kind of small medium and large buckets,

[1:58:31] if you will, by keeping a tier of small grants

[1:58:37] in the five to twenty five thousand dollar range for the procurement, but that's where we

[1:58:42] fold the set aside funds into. And then maintaining a tier of medium sized grants and

[1:58:49] large size grants. One of the things we heard from the state stakeholder efforts was that

[1:58:56] the community-based organizations appreciated particularly for small grant amounts having very

[1:59:00] small, streamlined application processes, and we do want to disclose, we mentioned it in the

[1:59:06] member that we are in conversation with the community foundation. We have a meeting later this week

[1:59:11] to explore whether or not we have a sort of an alignment of some of their funding to add to our

[1:59:17] funding to work together on these small grants and if so we'll be able to increase the amount of money

[1:59:22] and we want to know that until we go through our process but hopefully when we come back to

[1:59:26] November we'll be able to confirm if we indeed have some augmentation through community foundation

[1:59:30] partnership.

[1:59:34] So we'll go to the next slide, which is where we're going to recommend how we organize the funding. And if your board approves this approach, it would not only be a small medium and large, but I'll call it an extra large by adding one seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar deeper investment opportunity. I just want to take a minute to explain why we've listed these three options here.

[1:59:57] These three options are

[2:00:00] Our representative of the dialogue with our community-based partners and funders, and I just want

[2:00:05] to take a minute to name each and tell you why we're recommending the hybrid approach.

[2:00:10] I targeted. There was some appetite in the conversation about looking at switching from a broad-based

[2:00:18] funding approach where there's a lot of money spread out in a lot of ways and a question

[2:00:22] whether or not that's really having an impact given it's not enough money. And whether or not we need

[2:00:27] really just get bold and just shift to just two or three very very large grants to really

[2:00:32] make a dent on some very serious issues in the community. But we sort of agreed as staff and

[2:00:37] with our partners that were sort of not at the place to really be able to recommend to your board

[2:00:41] where would we target such a small money? And the impact that would have on a lot of these community-based

[2:00:46] organizations who from these small and medium grants is really meaningful for them. So we are not

[2:00:51] recommending this, but we wanted to share that this was the topic of consideration and actually

[2:00:56] feeds into why we have the hybrid approaches our recommendation.

[2:01:00] The second is to really sort of keep the funding as is.

[2:01:03] Keep the funding very broad.

[2:01:05] And we as staff felt like that is not moving the effort forward.

[2:01:10] We understand and appreciate that a broad based approach is helpful,

[2:01:13] but there's also been plenty of recognition that we really need to consider

[2:01:16] targeting money to have a deeper impact in some places,

[2:01:20] which leads to why we're recommending number three.

[2:01:22] And number three, the hybrid approach keeps the broad approach spreads the money around

[2:01:28] and small medium large, but sort of carves off a little bit of money to create one large

[2:01:33] $750,000 deeper investment.

[2:01:37] We would look at this as an opportunity to let our community partners tell us where they think

[2:01:42] some of the biggest issues are, where the biggest need is through the application process.

[2:01:47] we'd encourage collaboration. This wouldn't have to be one organization. We'd be much more specific in this approach to having equity and racial equity be at the center of something that this money would be worked on and really look at root causes of issues.

[2:02:04] And Ms. Cabrera, if you could click on the blue hyperlink, because this takes us to this is in the attached materials, but we just wanted to let you see visually.

[2:02:15] But this is how the money would be spread around if your board approves this approach and this would then be built in the RFP will bring back to November.

[2:02:22] small medium and large if shows how much county funding which totals to our 4.799 and then you can see the cities funding which in their public materials for their meeting this afternoon is at 1 million plus.

[2:02:36] And you can see that taking 750,000 dollars leaves the amount of money that are listed here.

[2:02:42] So just wanted to highlight that for the community and your board.

[2:02:44] That's what we're recommending for your consideration.

[2:02:47] And if so, this is how it organized the funding and the RFP.

[2:02:51] So if you could, yes, thank you.

[2:02:52] So then the next slide, which is our last slide.

[2:02:56] So here are the proposed next steps.

[2:03:00] I specifically want to make sure any of the community-based organizations

[2:03:03] listening that have a lot of outstanding questions

[2:03:07] about how are we going to recommend in the RFP.

[2:03:10] The application process will look like, how will we make sure it's

[2:03:13] very clear what sort of TA is going to be available to them,

[2:03:16] we're going to organize rating panels and make sure the award-deplunding decisions are fair.

[2:03:22] We will build all of the answers to those questions in the RFP, but we want to create the stakeholder

[2:03:27] process one more time to hear from the community-based organizations directly. We also want

[2:03:32] your board to know that if you get calls and if there's public comment today, this is a place we

[2:03:36] say. We see as an opportunity to sit down and talk this through. We think we developed some very

[2:03:41] good conversations and a good spirit of collaboration

[2:03:44] in those stakeholder meetings.

[2:03:46] And we see no reason why we won't work together

[2:03:48] to come up with the answers to those questions

[2:03:49] and build those into the RFP itself.

[2:03:52] We're proposing, and it's one of the recommendations

[2:03:54] for your board to direct us to return on November 9th

[2:03:57] with the actual RFP itself that gives your board

[2:03:59] one more opportunity to give us feedback

[2:04:02] before the RFP's released.

[2:04:04] And I do want to let your board know

[2:04:06] When we return to your board to accept the recommended actions in the spring, that's yet one more opportunity for you to give direction and make adjustments.

[2:04:17] So just want to be clear today does create a trajectory but it does not limit your opportunity as our elected officials to make recommendations and adjust where things are going throughout the process.

[2:04:29] I mentioned earlier proposals do early mid February and then we would be back in front of your board in May in the City Council in May with the recommendations and then start contracts in July.

[2:04:41] So, I believe that ends the formal presentation and I turn it back to your board and we and will in our here for any questions and look forward to public comment and your questions.

[2:04:49] I'll ask for any public comment.

[2:04:51] Is there any public comment?

[2:04:54] You're seeing none.

[2:04:55] Is there any on the phone?

[2:04:56] Yes.

[2:04:56] I do have several.

[2:04:58] I'm soon.

[2:04:59] Ellen, you're one story.

[2:05:01] Your microphone is available.

[2:05:03] Thank you.

[2:05:04] Good morning, chair, and supervisors.

[2:05:06] I'm Helen, you and story.

[2:05:07] Assistant Director for the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County.

[2:05:11] As you know, CAB has been the county's designated community action agency,

[2:05:15] tasked with eliminating poverty,

[2:05:16] in creating social change for over 55 years.

[2:05:20] We serve over 10,000 low-income individuals annually through youth and adult employment services,

[2:05:26] immigration legal and advocacy services, community building, and homelessness prevention and intervention services.

[2:05:33] Cap has been actively engaged in the evolution of the core investments framework over the last four years,

[2:05:39] with our executive director Marlene Delegarsis sitting on the core steering committee.

[2:05:43] And I and my cab colleagues with me today attending many core conversations and partner meetings over the years.

[2:05:51] We've greatly appreciated the level of stakeholder engagement in the process, as well as the attention and commitment to increasing equity through the core framework.

[2:06:00] CAHPS supports the HSD staff recommendation, including to increase the overall level funding

[2:06:06] for the core base allocation and the option 3 allocation method that will support both

[2:06:12] broad safety net service funding as well as a deeper investment in an equity initiative.

[2:06:18] CAHPS looks forward to continuing to partner with the county and our many fellow community

[2:06:22] base partners through the core process in order to support a more equitable community where

[2:06:28] all can thrive. Thank you.

[2:06:34] Thank you.

[2:06:35] Your microphone is available.

[2:06:41] Hi, supervisors.

[2:06:43] I wanted to say thanks to staff and for your consideration of the recommendation to

[2:06:48] fund the AAA through a separate process.

[2:06:51] You've heard me talk about this before.

[2:06:53] If we don't do it, somebody else has to do it.

[2:06:56] And really the board of supervisors become

[2:06:58] that a fault entity to look at.

[2:07:01] So we think this investment is a good one.

[2:07:04] it saves the county of a variety of funds and expenses, but also allows us to react quickly if there's

[2:07:13] community needs or needs facing older adults. So if there's any questions about that, I want to

[2:07:18] be here to answer those and also just share that this is the perfect time to do this. That's

[2:07:24] as most of you know, the senior population over the last decade is grown by about 50% in the state

[2:07:30] and even greater in Santa Cruz County.

[2:07:33] And the under 50 population is grown by about 1%.

[2:07:37] So we truly are at a just explosion of older adults right now

[2:07:42] and with that goes more demand for older adult services.

[2:07:45] So the timing fits perfectly.

[2:07:48] And it goes a long ways towards stabilizing our organization

[2:07:52] in our role.

[2:07:53] So we're thrilled about it.

[2:07:56] And also I just want to echo and support the things

[2:07:58] that Helen, you and the story just said.

[2:08:01] But just add that age is also an equity issue,

[2:08:04] and looking forward to working together

[2:08:06] with all of you and staff to address those challenges.

[2:08:12] Are there speakers on Tim?

[2:08:14] Hey, I'll bring it back to the board.

[2:08:17] This is just a supervisor Cuderdee.

[2:08:20] Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[2:08:21] I just want to appreciate staff's work.

[2:08:24] And the outreach they've done across the community

[2:08:26] in a challenging time for both our partners

[2:08:30] to provide services for those need as well,

[2:08:33] for county staff to respond to COVID and fires

[2:08:37] and everything else going on.

[2:08:39] When we reform this process,

[2:08:40] there were essentially three goals,

[2:08:42] one was to get more outcomes,

[2:08:45] a better outcome driven process for both these funds

[2:08:48] as well, Director Morris mentioned,

[2:08:51] the other millions of millions of more dollars

[2:08:53] that the county spends.

[2:08:55] The second one was to be able to evaluate and fund new and emerging needs instead of just sort of rolling it over on a more ongoing basis.

[2:09:09] And finally the last piece was to coordinate across jurisdictions as well as other funders.

[2:09:15] And I think I appreciate the work that's been done to reach those three goals.

[2:09:18] this is an ongoing process and we'll need to be updated, you know, every cycle in order to make sure

[2:09:25] with the continue to reach those goals and more importantly, meet the needs of community,

[2:09:29] but I want to appreciate the efforts that have been done thus far, and I look forward to supporting this

[2:09:35] going forward. Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty, or excuse me, Captain.

[2:09:43] Thank you, Chairman.

[2:09:46] You know, you put a lot of work in this and I think we've improved in a little bit and I want to commend you on that.

[2:09:56] Thank you. I've gotten community input and people seem to be like accepting the

[2:10:10] So, thank you very much.

[2:10:13] Thank you.

[2:10:14] Thank you.

[2:10:16] Thank you chair.

[2:10:16] I just want to express my appreciation to Deputy Director Bolly.

[2:10:20] And wish you well in your next chapter.

[2:10:23] And thank you, Director Morris, as well.

[2:10:25] It's clear that the two of you have done a great job listening to the community.

[2:10:28] I totally agree with all your recommendations to the first five but the size of the different

[2:10:34] investments, as well as to separate out the one that doesn't look like the others, the

[2:10:38] area agency on aging, and I look forward to supporting this.

[2:10:46] The Board of Supervisors for years ago approved this approach to be getting a process of really

[2:10:52] aligning the investments to the real needs of the community-based programs and the county

[2:10:58] strategic objectives.

[2:11:00] The staff throws a little to evolve the core.

[2:11:03] Funding model in the next phase is really, really welcome.

[2:11:07] I really want to thank you for your outreach efforts.

[2:11:10] And I want to also commend the community-based organizations

[2:11:13] who've participated so much in this.

[2:11:15] I know they're invaluable with what they have.

[2:11:18] And I also want to thank the CEO and the Director of Human Services

[2:11:22] for creating a regular budget line for to provide local match

[2:11:26] for the agency on the aging.

[2:11:30] One question I have, equity is a real big issue today.

[2:11:37] I'm just concerned, I mean,

[2:11:38] I think equity and age is one of them,

[2:11:40] as was mentioned by Mr. Camp,

[2:11:42] but how are we gonna measure

[2:11:44] if we're doing a better job in that regard?

[2:11:46] Is there a measurements that we were only giving so much

[2:11:50] to seniors and now we're giving more,

[2:11:52] Or what's I'm just, it's probably, it's going to be in the process that you're going to be going through in the next few months.

[2:12:01] But I just want to, I think we have tried to be equitable in the first place, so I just want to know how we're going to improve on that.

[2:12:10] The excellent question, it's a necessary question and question in the moment that I think all public systems who put public funds out are being challenged to be more specific.

[2:12:21] It's an easy word to use.

[2:12:25] The short answer is we will talk about how to operationalize equity and track equity in what

[2:12:31] we bring forward to in November 9th.

[2:12:34] I do want to give some recognition to the community-based organizations who I didn't say

[2:12:39] in the presentation in the interest of keeping that kind of succinct.

[2:12:43] That was a very active part of the conversation, which is how do we operationalize equity

[2:12:47] and we've got some great feedback from them.

[2:12:49] So part of what we want to do is strike the right balance of listening to our community-based

[2:12:54] organizations tell us in the application what they see as inequities in the community,

[2:12:59] how they see they will address those inequities and how they think is reasonable with whatever

[2:13:05] funding they're awarded to be able to show progress on addressing inequity issues.

[2:13:09] So I think we just want to have a reasonable respect and difference to our service providers

[2:13:14] who know the answer to that question from what they're seeing in the community.

[2:13:17] I think what's at the guts of the challenge here is, and the reason I gave the numbers that were 175 million dollar organization by definition, we are completely a safety net program, and there is still suffering in the community, is to try to be realistic that, if this is what goes forward, five million dollars isn't going to solve the issues of equity in the community.

[2:13:37] So, I think we're just going to have to be realistic, concrete, and respect the perspective

[2:13:43] our service providers have in their experience in the application process and setting up

[2:13:48] the scope of work so that we can track the answer to question how is progress being made.

[2:13:54] Yeah, I want to thank you for doing that.

[2:13:56] And it's a big issue.

[2:13:59] Countywide Statewide Nationwide, and I think it would be good.

[2:14:02] When we come in with the final report, just to say,

[2:14:05] to specify how we're trying to under these hearings that you're going to have and recommendations

[2:14:10] that you're going to receive that we're fulfilling our obligation for more equity,

[2:14:18] the best of our ability.

[2:14:19] And I appreciate your efforts, but be interesting.

[2:14:23] And lastly, I just want to thank Emily Bolly for her services for so many years for the county.

[2:14:28] It's been much appreciated.

[2:14:29] what a professional approach that you take to so many different issues of human services.

[2:14:34] So thank you very much.

[2:14:37] Does you have a, yes, Mr. Frank.

[2:14:39] Yes, Mr. Frank.

[2:14:41] Yeah, thank you.

[2:14:42] And thank you to also to Ms. Molly for your outstanding service for so long.

[2:14:46] And I appreciate this presentation.

[2:14:48] You know, we've come a long way in the last four or five years compared to the previous 30 in front of that.

[2:14:54] And for those of us that served on the board for a little while,

[2:14:56] I think it's very telling that we don't have a reep.

[2:15:01] Community Service providers disappointed with the approach that the board is taking right now, which I think is very telling in the fact that the modifications that we made to the program, there's a lot of concerns, four or five years ago, and we went through this process.

[2:15:14] And valid concerns, understanding that the change could be hard, as Supervisor Kennedy noted, the board had a set of goals, and I believe that we're getting closer now to those goals with what's being presented.

[2:15:24] And today I also appreciate the tiered system.

[2:15:28] I think it cleans up from the set aside

[2:15:29] to what the Ford's real goal was was just ensuring

[2:15:32] that some of the smaller or greater change programs

[2:15:37] that may not have either the resources for an application

[2:15:40] or maybe they just need a small amount of money

[2:15:41] or maybe there's a small emerging need

[2:15:43] can be addressed more quickly.

[2:15:45] It seems like that this provides greater flexibility

[2:15:48] than the board had actually done previously

[2:15:50] by locking in a very specific number

[2:15:52] in a very specific process.

[2:15:54] I think that having that flexibility to emerging needs, having the flexibility that you can

[2:15:59] base the amounts that are being awarded functionally on not just need, but the number

[2:16:03] of applications and the amount that people are asking for is important.

[2:16:07] And I think this is overall shift meets the board schools, but more importantly, the board

[2:16:12] schools are always tied to the community need and just ensuring that this might help address

[2:16:16] that.

[2:16:17] Recognizing as a director more said, there never will be an investment that's enough, and as I've

[2:16:23] and every budget meeting in regards to core, I think our goals should be one day or such

[2:16:28] such funding for programs and these programs and cells aren't needed because ultimately

[2:16:33] they're providing a safety net because we're failing in other areas in our world and it's

[2:16:37] so ideally we'd be able to invest in a way on the front end where these wouldn't be needed,

[2:16:41] but I definitely appreciate those that are doing the work to ensure that we can prop up that net

[2:16:45] for those that desperately need it right now. I'm fully supported to this and appreciate the work

[2:16:49] It's been done.

[2:16:51] Thank you.

[2:16:52] This is a study session, but I think it'd be

[2:16:54] a formally we should accept the report

[2:16:56] that from human services to have a motion to accept.

[2:17:00] I'll move the recommended actions.

[2:17:04] Second, second, but community, please hold the roll.

[2:17:07] Supervisor Coneg.

[2:17:08] Hi, friends.

[2:17:11] Hi.

[2:17:12] Apped?

[2:17:12] Hi.

[2:17:13] McPherson?

[2:17:14] Hi.

[2:17:14] Thank you, Motion Passage Jan, Ms. Lake.

[2:17:17] Thank you very much for your hard work.

[2:17:18] and outreach. Item number 10 is to consider recycling and solid waste services progress

[2:17:26] report on zero waste planning and direct public, public works department to return by September

[2:17:31] 2022 with a recycling and solid waste long-term planning progress report and direct public

[2:17:37] works to return by February 2022 with recommendations for proceeding with a protest vote

[2:17:43] to increase the county's CSA-9C assessment and to return with the report on the community support

[2:17:49] for allowing the county to collect a percentage of single-use cup and single-use bag

[2:17:54] charge fees as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CAO and Director of Public Works.

[2:18:01] Today we have Mr. Ken Eller, the Assistant Director of Public Works Special Services, Mr. Eller.

[2:18:07] Good morning, Chair. And board members, I, Chair McPherson said,

[2:18:11] I am Kent Edler, Assistant Director of Public Works.

[2:18:13] I have with me today to my right, Casey Colossas,

[2:18:16] who is the recycling and solid waste services manager

[2:18:19] for public works.

[2:18:20] And also to my left is Go Hawksford,

[2:18:22] who is our recycling and solid waste analyst.

[2:18:25] And so we're going to give an update today

[2:18:26] on the recycling and solid waste program.

[2:18:28] There's a lot of things going on with recycling and solid waste.

[2:18:31] So we want to come here and provide an update.

[2:18:35] So quickly, outline, we're going to go through some of our accomplishments

[2:18:39] So, over the past few years, current programs, future initiatives, we'll talk a little better about SB 1383 implementation, which is really affecting all recycling and solid ways agencies throughout the state.

[2:18:53] Talk about some planning for the eventual closure of the landfill, some current expenses, then we'll get into future needs and future revenue options.

[2:19:03] Next slide.

[2:19:04] The

[2:19:08] case is going to go over the accomplishments.

[2:19:11] Is one of the accomplishments for our initiative?

[2:19:18] Regarding the accomplishments,

[2:19:20] the board has approved ordinances to reduce single use items,

[2:19:24] such as bags, cups,

[2:19:26] takeoutware, which is the skip of the stuff ordinances,

[2:19:30] and the personal care items that hotels and motels,

[2:19:33] plus a ban on polystyrene cups, playware, and coolers,

[2:19:36] Also, an ordinance that required certified

[2:19:40] compostful takeout cups,

[2:19:42] playware, cutlery, clamshells,

[2:19:45] be used at restaurants.

[2:19:46] And the board has also approved an ordinance

[2:19:48] for the three drop-off of sharps and pharmaceuticals

[2:19:51] through an industry-funded program called the Santa Cruz Met Project.

[2:19:56] The county's franchise agreement

[2:19:58] provides two program coordinator, county staff positions

[2:20:02] to do outreach and education

[2:20:04] to increase diversion, recycling, including food waste,

[2:20:08] that businesses, multi-family dwellings, and that special events

[2:20:12] like the Santa Cruz County Fair.

[2:20:14] They have also made efforts to address

[2:20:16] illegal dumping and littering, which has recently been

[2:20:19] focused on the North Coast beaches.

[2:20:22] And Bo King provides more information on the

[2:20:25] illegal dumping accomplishments.

[2:20:28] Thank you.

[2:20:30] Yes, in addition to our road, special crews,

[2:20:32] We have collaborate with community partners,

[2:20:35] Santa Cruz County Parks, downtown streets teams,

[2:20:38] save our shores, Watsonville works most recently,

[2:20:42] and clean teams to coordinate litter

[2:20:44] and legal dumping of the pavement efforts,

[2:20:46] which includes also syringe litter.

[2:20:49] We've seen an uptake in a legal dumping

[2:20:52] and in general over the last half year

[2:20:55] and a half due to more daily visitors

[2:20:57] to our community and to our region from COVID.

[2:21:01] A legal dumping is actually a risen throughout the state on the same fine time scale.

[2:21:07] On the North Coast, we've installed five signs at five of our most of our hot spot areas.

[2:21:15] Including Scott Creek, Bonnie Dune, the Davenport Beach's.

[2:21:21] We work with parks and downtown streets and both have permitted back that they have seen the reduction in the amount of litter that's escaping.

[2:21:30] the car accident and we see on the roads. We've also increased capacity and a number of pickups per week

[2:21:39] at all of our public receptacle pickups along the beaches and coastal access and such as this.

[2:21:48] And now Casey will bring us back and talk to us about current programs.

[2:21:54] Greenways. So the Greenways recovery franchise agreement allows for three

[2:22:00] people, the item per site pickups,

[2:22:03] her residential company, our customer.

[2:22:05] This includes items such as furniture appliances,

[2:22:08] mattresses and barbecues.

[2:22:10] This has been effective in reducing the legal dumping

[2:22:14] along county roads of these items.

[2:22:16] We have community partnerships.

[2:22:18] We work with the Parks Department to provide

[2:22:21] other parks for trash and recyclables at Parks

[2:22:24] and Beach Access Areas, the Coastal Watership Council

[2:22:27] and onel C. Odyssey for the county's Green School program, downtown streets team and

[2:22:33] Saber Shores for litter patrols of public space and beaches, and the Gray Bears

[2:22:38] that operates three recycling centers in the county.

[2:22:46] Our also three household hazardous waste facilities located in the county that provides safe and

[2:22:51] legal disposal of hazardous waste for residents and small businesses. Green Waste Recovery

[2:22:57] provides mixed recyclables and organic tripside collection service.

[2:23:01] The county disposal sites provide recycling for guard waste and wood waste tires, mattresses, carpet, and electronic waste.

[2:23:09] Great bears operates recycling centers at the one of us to landfill and then moment transportation that except scrap metal, bottles, cans, glass, cardboard, and paper.

[2:23:19] And the Great Bears Mid County Shannick Clear location also accepts electronic waste and polystyrene foam.

[2:23:26] And both can talk more about the educational and outreach efforts.

[2:23:29] Yes, as Casey mentioned, recycling is always services does manage the green schools and green

[2:23:34] business programs for the green schools program.

[2:23:41] We contract with the coastal watershed council, and they do education outreach at all

[2:23:45] county schools, K-312, and also for the elementary and middle schools, we collaborate with

[2:23:52] and NSLug string band, as well as unions unit that do musical assemblies that have a environmental messaging.

[2:24:04] For the, we also contract with environmental innovations that conducts education and support outreach to current recognized being businesses as well as

[2:24:16] doing recruitment outreach efforts to businesses to bring more businesses into the

[2:24:21] pre-investance network. This year, environmental innovations is partnering with

[2:24:28] coastal watershed council as well to help bring some of the schools to become pre-investance

[2:24:33] as well. The county is also a member of what is the Central Coast Recycling Media Coalition,

[2:24:40] which is it's a coalition of local jurisdictions from Monterey, San Benito,

[2:24:45] and our county and all of the local cities that we tool the money so that we have a more

[2:24:53] more more money to advertise for common environmental interests along the coast.

[2:24:59] And that case he will now discuss some more of our future initiatives.

[2:25:06] So we track off federal and state extended producer responsibility legislation and

[2:25:11] worked with our Santa Cruz County cities through the integrated waste management local task force

[2:25:16] to create ordinances when needed to address

[2:25:19] difficult to handle and of life products.

[2:25:22] There is existing EPR policy for paint,

[2:25:25] mattresses, sharps, and farms.

[2:25:27] You'll have chronic waste and carpet.

[2:25:30] Extended for deusory responsibility policy

[2:25:32] is needed for batteries, plastic, treated wood waste,

[2:25:35] and mixed material items, such as solar panels

[2:25:38] that are very challenging and have hazardous components

[2:25:42] and need to be recycled. We continue to monitor plastic reduction legislation and will bring ideas to your board for guidance.

[2:25:53] Funding will dictate the pace of these efforts as having resources to do outreach implementation and compliance enforcement is critical for an effective program.

[2:26:02] There are several free drop-off, sharps, kiosk in the county.

[2:26:07] Locations are available on the SE Med Project website.

[2:26:12] Public Works is working with health services to evaluate and improve and expand this program as needed.

[2:26:18] Public Works is increasing efforts to divert food waste from the landfill.

[2:26:22] This requires a many our green-maced recovery franchise agreement to include residential food waste pickup.

[2:26:29] And Keith A company contract for increased costs to process and compost food waste.

[2:26:35] Residential food waste collection service is planned to begin and of 2021 with the initial

[2:26:40] start of a few select routes in gradual ramp up to full implementation.

[2:26:45] Public works is working with green waste recovery to provide customers with educational information

[2:26:50] to place food waste in the existing green or ganache cart.

[2:26:57] Next slide please.

[2:26:59] So, as Casey alluded to, one of the biggest things that's affecting the recycling-solved

[2:27:03] waste group is this implementation of SB 1383, which is legislation that was passed a

[2:27:09] couple of years ago when it takes effect beginning of 2022.

[2:27:13] So, SB 1383 at its core is really climate change legislation that's aimed at reducing greenhouse

[2:27:19] gases.

[2:27:20] And one of the biggest focuses on SB 1383 is methane, since it's significantly more potent than carbon

[2:27:26] dioxide.

[2:27:26] And the state has determined about 20% of the methane that's released comes from landfills

[2:27:32] to do-to-the-buried, the buried organic waste.

[2:27:37] So that's if the 1383 is going to affect our program financially in two really big ways.

[2:27:42] First, this case, you mentioned that all customers are going to have to start separating food waste

[2:27:47] from their garbage and put those in the green bins.

[2:27:51] And secondly, we're going to have to process all of this organic waste.

[2:27:54] So we're going to need our facility to do so.

[2:27:57] And we're looking at a location at the Buena Vista Lampo,

[2:28:00] where we can do this.

[2:28:01] And related to this, we're going to have to amend our agreements

[2:28:04] with our franchise and all our green list recovery,

[2:28:07] and also our another consultant that we had key pay company

[2:28:11] who currently processes our organic son and much,

[2:28:13] a much smaller scale.

[2:28:15] Next slide, please.

[2:28:18] So currently, our most recent survey of Buena Vista Lampo shows

[2:28:23] that there's about eight to 10 years of life left at the point of the landfill.

[2:28:29] All of the recycling efforts and initiatives that we've done obviously affects the life

[2:28:34] of the landfill.

[2:28:35] On average, we're currently doing about 100,000 tons per year.

[2:28:41] I'm as what we put in the landfill, but that can fluctuate some years.

[2:28:44] We do as many as 120,000 tons and other years we do 60,000 tons.

[2:28:50] So all the efforts as far as, you know,

[2:28:52] diverting recyclables on some of the SB 1383 requirements

[2:28:56] if we're diverting more, keeping some of the organics out of the waste

[2:29:00] stream. And those efforts will all help to extend the life of the

[2:29:04] landfill. We're also doing efforts such as our Ben Lomen

[2:29:07] transfer station. We're taking that, the waste that comes

[2:29:10] up there. We're hauling that directly to the marina land fill.

[2:29:13] So that extends the life of our landfill a little bit longer. I

[2:29:16] I should also mention that there's some areas that will affect the length of the landfill and probably a negative way is that we're planning for a future transfer station.

[2:29:26] So as part of that planning process, we're designing where the transfer station or actually probably going to need to at the point of this landfill and that's going to take up some of the capacity that we have there at the Atlanta due to roads and sighting and so forth.

[2:29:43] So we are currently working with a planning department right now to work on the rezoning efforts.

[2:29:49] Right now the landfill is it has a split zoning.

[2:29:54] Half of it is appropriately zoned as as a public facility and the other half is zoned as commercial act.

[2:30:06] So we're working to plan the Department of the Coastal Commission to write those before we get into the permitting process to start constructing the transfer station and really moving forward.

[2:30:19] heavily with the planning and design and so forth. Next slide, please.

[2:30:26] So these we want to get into some of our the numbers of the supports kind of cost and so

[2:30:31] for so on the operational side of things we spent about 15.6 million dollars annually just

[2:30:36] operate the landfill and the point of us to transfer station. About a million dollars is spent on

[2:30:41] recycling, repeat the abatement, streetsweeping, litter cleanups as well as a legal dumping.

[2:30:46] about $800,000. We spent on engineering for our consultants for designing and so forth.

[2:30:52] Green school screen business programs, some of those things that what Bo was talking about

[2:30:56] about $200,000 a year, and then there's miscellaneous capital costs that would include things like

[2:31:02] equipment and then upkeep of our facilities. Next slide, please. So I talk about the need for a

[2:31:10] transfer station as well as an organic processing facility. So you can see as those numbers,

[2:31:14] those are really high numbers that we're going to need to figure out how to pay for.

[2:31:21] We also have some needs at the Ben Lomen Transportation.

[2:31:24] That's about a 30-year-old facility, so it needs some upgrades out there as well.

[2:31:30] I should also note that on the back with the previous slide about the current annual expenses,

[2:31:38] we expect those to be those costs to be going up as well due to SB 1383,

[2:31:43] and we'll have to hire additional staff and so forth for that. Next slide please. So what

[2:31:50] this all means and is that so this slide shows the projected revenue and then what the expenditures

[2:31:57] would be if we're going to bond for some of the costs to do the the transfer station as well as

[2:32:04] the improvements of the enrollment transfer station and the organic facility. So as you can see as

[2:32:10] that projects out if it gets pretty dire.

[2:32:14] And so there's a large funding gap.

[2:32:16] Next slide, please.

[2:32:18] But we do have a plan.

[2:32:20] We've been working with our consultant

[2:32:21] on a revenue measure, which will increase our 9 C funds.

[2:32:25] That would bring in close to $5 million in additional revenue,

[2:32:28] which would get us close to where we need to be.

[2:32:32] What that means for an existing single-family dwelling

[2:32:34] is that the current 9 C charge would go from about $57 a year

[2:32:38] about $140 a year. We planned to bring to come back to the board in February 2022 with more details on this.

[2:32:49] The board has also expressed interest in a possible ballot measure to bring back a portion of the

[2:32:54] single use cup and bag charges to the county. We estimate that this would generate on the order of about a million dollars

[2:33:00] annually. And we have a consultant who's just about ready to start pulling on this and we'll be

[2:33:06] bring back the results of the polling efforts back to the board for additional direction on whether

[2:33:11] or not we want to move forward with that.

[2:33:14] And I'd also like to mention that in addition to these, the green waste recovery customer

[2:33:18] fees are also expected to increase about six to eight percent in the upcoming year.

[2:33:24] Next slide, please.

[2:33:25] And we'll have Bo go over some of our operational justice for the department.

[2:33:30] Thank you.

[2:33:30] Everything that you've heard from us today feeds into the smart objectives to develop further

[2:33:35] cycling and following way services division as part of the county's 2021-23 operational plan.

[2:33:41] These objectives include ensuring syringe litter is collected within 48 hours,

[2:33:47] looking at specific collection routes to target outreach to increased diversion.

[2:33:53] Looking and really advocating for EPR or extended producer responsibility or legislation

[2:33:59] regarding batteries, treated wood waste and solar panels, for instance,

[2:34:02] are designing and permitting compost,

[2:34:05] a compost facility at the point of the landfill,

[2:34:09] also completing a plan for a new transfer station at the point of the landfill.

[2:34:14] And lastly, it includes fully implementing organic waste diversion

[2:34:18] for all businesses, off single family,

[2:34:22] and multifamily residences within the county.

[2:34:27] Next slide.

[2:34:29] So if there's any additional direction from the board today,

[2:34:31] we'd love to hear it.

[2:34:32] And if we need to, we can chip course or change direction, if we need to, before we recommend

[2:34:39] it actions, we really want to express our gratitude for our staff who worked out at the

[2:34:43] one of the Stalempo and the Venoment Transportation.

[2:34:46] It's been a tough year and a half, a tough year and a half for them out there doing with COVID

[2:34:50] and some customers who aren't really happy about the face covering and masking requirements

[2:34:55] as well as some of the state requirements that have been put on us for instance regarding treated

[2:35:01] woodways and so forth. So there's just an amazing group of folks out there, men and women, and

[2:35:06] we really just want to express our appreciation for them. So moving on to the recommended actions,

[2:35:13] so as except in file, recycling solid-less long-term planning progress support and recommendations

[2:35:18] on zero-ways planning and direct the public works department to return by September 2022 with a recycling

[2:35:24] solid-less long-term planning progress support, and direct the Department of Public Works to return

[2:35:31] by February 2022, with the recommendations for proceeding with a protest vote to increase the county

[2:35:36] CSA-9C assessment to fund the county-solid-based facilities and finally, direct the

[2:35:42] Public Works Department to return by February 2022 with the report on community support for

[2:35:46] allowing the county to collect a percentage of single-use cup and single-use bag charge fees.

[2:35:51] And we are available for any questions.

[2:35:53] We're good. Thank you for the.

[2:35:55] I'm a retirement person.

[2:35:56] I'm a retirement person.

[2:35:57] This is Carlos.

[2:35:58] Yes.

[2:35:59] If I could just comment on item number three on their recommendation.

[2:36:03] This is on the cup fee and back fee.

[2:36:07] Issue.

[2:36:08] Just remind the board that we're also trying to coordinate.

[2:36:11] This is a ballot measure.

[2:36:12] They're talking about in 2022.

[2:36:14] And we're trying to coordinate.

[2:36:16] Other county.

[2:36:17] needs such as a possible sales tax or hotel tax also in 2022 so I just wanted to remind

[2:36:26] the board that those are also county wide priorities and I know the department has this

[2:36:30] to the priority and they've integrated into part of their funding plan for these improvements

[2:36:36] but I wanted to remind the board that we've also had discussions about other county wide initiatives

[2:36:41] So we're going to have to integrate these plans into other plans you might have for either hotel tax or a sales tax because it's a crowded ballot as you can imagine in 2022 and so there's going to be a lot of initiatives and I just want to remind the board that this has to really be and it can't be viewed by its own right it's and a ballot initiative that really needs to be thought of and in the whole context of the 2022 ballot.

[2:37:09] And all the other needs that the county has for both it's, especially it's a general fund, homeless initiatives, affordable housing initiatives. And so that's all you.

[2:37:19] I just want to make sure you're reminded about that.

[2:37:23] As you go into your discussions. Yeah, very good. Thank you for mentioning that. I appreciate it.

[2:37:28] The comments from the public on this.

[2:37:32] I have one speaker, I'm Zoom.

[2:37:36] I'm calling you, sir.

[2:37:37] Your microphone is available.

[2:37:56] This is Maryland Garrett.

[2:37:58] As I'm listening, I'm thinking about

[2:38:00] a statement that corporations

[2:38:04] privatize the profit and they socialize the cost.

[2:38:09] Producing all these platforms and other chemicals

[2:38:13] and you just said county spending over 15 million dollars on all of those, and I am hearing

[2:38:21] that there's now more mass in the ocean than plastic bottles. And I quote this book,

[2:38:31] toxic sludge is good for you. Lies, damn lies, and the public relations industry.

[2:38:38] And one of these public relations firm states, the role of our communication is to manage

[2:38:45] perception, which motivates behavior to create business results.

[2:38:52] So one example of that is all this plastic takeout.

[2:38:57] Personal protective stuff, man, boy, what big business results.

[2:39:03] And you're talking about illegal dumping.

[2:39:06] I think the corporations are doing illegal dumping of all this plastic and other chemicals on the public, and we need to go to the source of the contamination.

[2:39:18] And the doctors and the sign-grabbers states, it's intolerable to regulate monitor,

[2:39:26] permit, known and suspected carcinogens into the environment rather than prohibiting

[2:39:33] their generation in the first place.

[2:39:37] We need to stop the toxins, the plastic, et cetera, at their source.

[2:39:44] This is a drop in the bucket, like you're proposing to

[2:39:53] any other speaker sunset.

[2:39:55] Okay, I'll return it to the board.

[2:39:56] Thank you.

[2:39:57] Thank you.

[2:39:58] Thank you, Chair.

[2:39:59] And thank you at all three for the fantastic presentation.

[2:40:03] Just a clarifying question.

[2:40:06] Our CAO will explain that, you know, I,

[2:40:09] the third recommendation here would also need to go to a public photo.

[2:40:12] The second one on increasing CSA nine C funds.

[2:40:16] would that also ultimately be a public vote or is that something the board?

[2:40:19] That's a public vote to be an up to 18 essentially a protest vote.

[2:40:23] So you're saying, like, so there's, I mean, it would be a separate ballot.

[2:40:27] We'd, we'd meal ballots to every, um, every person in the county that would be assessed the, the nine sea charge.

[2:40:34] And then we would counts the, um, the number of, well, we would, if we get a majority protest from all the ballots, then it wouldn't pass.

[2:40:43] So say if there's 10,000 ballots, we know that it's going to be a lot more than that, but say if there's 10,000, we'd have to get 5,000 plus 1,

[2:40:50] 5,000 1 ballots return back, that would be opposing it for not to pass.

[2:40:55] I see, so that's why it's called a protest vote because it passes and wants it to protest,

[2:40:59] it's correct. Got it. Thank you. And that's to come, that's it. That's not right.

[2:41:03] Yeah, okay, right. And then, obviously, some really interesting stuff going on with our composting,

[2:41:13] Is there is there any way that we would incentivize people to compost on site or is there you know, is there going to be an additional charge or

[2:41:23] To individual homes when we collect compostful items, you know, sir. Yeah, how does that incentive system going to work.

[2:41:30] Well, let's get the answer down.

[2:41:33] It's already included in your rate.

[2:41:36] As of now, those rates may go up in the future.

[2:41:39] But the plan is because there's an existing green yard

[2:41:43] trends, yard waste cart, that the food

[2:41:46] component could go in there and be collected

[2:41:49] along with the yard waste and all that material

[2:41:52] would then be composted.

[2:41:54] There is other incentives that we have.

[2:41:57] we fund a workshop for home composting that we have.

[2:42:03] They've been on actually, they have one in person outside,

[2:42:06] COVID compliant just last week and I believe.

[2:42:09] We have four or five of those events per year,

[2:42:13] where we teach people, we have a master composter

[2:42:16] who teaches people how to compost at home.

[2:42:20] Okay, yeah, that sounds like a great program.

[2:42:21] I look forward to attending it at some point, but there's no,

[2:42:25] But if I chose to compost at home, I wouldn't see any direct financial benefit because I'm saving money on my garbage bill or anything like that.

[2:42:34] The way right now in the regular refuse your food waste is going, so you potentially could reduce your service level.

[2:42:43] We don't anticipate that would happen to a lot of people though.

[2:42:46] Yeah, it was interesting to see in the report that organic or that food waste accounts for nearly half really of residential.

[2:42:58] So, you know, with the current eight to 10 year estimate of the, for the landfill, is that that's based on current, you know, the 100,000 average of 100,000 times per year.

[2:43:10] So, if, if we do successfully implement the organic food waste program and are composting all of that could we potentially, you know, close to double the life expectancy.

[2:43:23] I don't think it would double it, I think, you know, say if we reduce it, you know, if we get all that 50% it's certainly going to add some years on to there, we might be able to, you know, add another four to five years on there.

[2:43:38] But again, remember that we're also going to be losing some of our capacity as we design for the transportation as well. So it's, it's a range, it's, it's, you know, the amount that we get in kind of ebs and flows with the economy as well.

[2:43:53] So it's it's it's hard to say and we get we do waste characterization studies every fall and we get the report back in the in the spring so every year we keep on top of that and we can report back to the board annually.

[2:44:05] I think as what is what we normally do is to where we are with the capacity of the

[2:44:11] landfill.

[2:44:12] But there's certainly a valuable capacity if we are available, we can get an extra capacity

[2:44:22] of the more people to take the organic waste out of the waste strength.

[2:44:26] Okay.

[2:44:27] Thank you.

[2:44:27] Thank you for the report.

[2:44:29] Thank you for the team for this presentation.

[2:44:34] And as obviously the way I'm filled falls into my district, this has been of keen interest

[2:44:39] and I have to say that I just appreciate Casey and others continuing to work on an issue

[2:44:44] that in and of itself doesn't have a general constituency behind it in the sense that there

[2:44:49] is in people that are pushing for these kinds of things, but these are the kinds of infrastructure

[2:44:53] investments that the county doesn't make at pre-significant catastrophic consequences on the

[2:44:58] back end.

[2:44:58] So I appreciate that planning.

[2:45:00] The process has continued the entire time we've been on the board. We've made some adjustments in the last five or six years, but the next phase is essential.

[2:45:08] I'm fully supportive of moving forward with the fee on the cuff and bag scenario. This is something that this board has talked about for a couple of years.

[2:45:17] In fact, it took quite some time to actually get the initial report back. The initial report actually estimated a higher estimate than a million dollars.

[2:45:25] we had an over $2 million estimate.

[2:45:27] As I said at previous meetings, I think the majority,

[2:45:29] the community doesn't realize that the money that's collected

[2:45:32] from these fees does not go to the county.

[2:45:34] It just goes back to the point of sale.

[2:45:36] I think having some sort of hybrid approach

[2:45:38] that benefits the business while also benefiting

[2:45:41] the environmental programs would be very important.

[2:45:44] These are the, this is money that the county's paying for anyway.

[2:45:47] So, a way to take that off the table,

[2:45:49] I think would be really important.

[2:45:51] Obviously, it looked forward to what the community survey shows

[2:45:54] in the business survey shows, but I think that this is something that seems like a no-brainer

[2:45:59] to me.

[2:45:59] I mean, this is a feat that somebody's already paying, it's not an increase in any way

[2:46:02] shaped before.

[2:46:03] You can make the businesses whole and you can also pay for environmental programs at the

[2:46:07] same time, reminding that in 2022 we have two ballots, both in a primary and general election.

[2:46:13] So I think that there will be space during the course of the year to allocate money for environmental

[2:46:18] programs while also having a conversation about CO2 or whatever else needs to be happening throughout

[2:46:22] the other ballots.

[2:46:23] Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[2:46:25] Thank you.

[2:46:26] Some raise our community.

[2:46:28] There.

[2:46:29] So first I just want to take a moment and appreciate the efforts to reduce dumping and waste across the county and especially in the North Coast and the collaborations with the streets team and.

[2:46:43] and you'll see how to see to educate.

[2:46:45] It's been really beneficial and I want to just appreciate

[2:46:49] your the proactive activity and the engagement

[2:46:51] and hope it continues and hope to see we see reduction

[2:46:55] and waste left in our beaches and our parks

[2:46:58] and waterways and everywhere else.

[2:47:02] And then I appreciate the conversation we're having

[2:47:05] about the future of diversion and the landfill.

[2:47:10] I think we're all facing a reckoning

[2:47:12] of reduced or more costly resources and the need that we have to make new investments to

[2:47:21] make our systems last for future generations and more resilient and more environmentally

[2:47:29] beneficial. And then finally, you know, I do want to reduce plastic cups and other impacts

[2:47:39] an environment and I also want to be aware as the CAO mentioned of the competing needs of the county and how things

[2:47:47] confid into one another and and I do look forward to the survey of the community and the businesses,

[2:47:53] particularly small businesses who may not have point of sale systems that are able to capture it and what

[2:47:59] what that looks like for them from an implementation point of view. But thank you for all your efforts.

[2:48:05] Thank you. Supervisor Kevin.

[2:48:10] Thank you.

[2:48:11] Yeah, good to see you guys.

[2:48:13] And thanks for your report.

[2:48:17] I apologize if maybe you mentioned it, but I did we lose a couple of years because of the pandemic and everything like that.

[2:48:30] But a couple of years of capacity at the landfill, is that your question?

[2:48:34] Yeah, like two years ago did we have instead of eight to ten years left that we have like 12 years or...

[2:48:44] You know, the study has been coming back at about eight to ten years for the last couple of years.

[2:48:49] We have seen a bit of an uptick in the last two to three years in the amount of waste coming into the landfill.

[2:48:58] and that's good economy's doing really well right now and construction is going really busy

[2:49:04] and throughout the county. So when that happens we see a higher update. So we have lost some

[2:49:11] some additional years or maybe I'd probably say about a year or so capacity. But there's so many

[2:49:18] variables in there. It's hard to say. It's an estimate and it's a range.

[2:49:23] And then there was, over by the one and what's an original airport, there was a composting area there.

[2:49:35] What's that with that right now?

[2:49:39] That's not there anymore, the last time I checked that was, there's a landscaper trucking

[2:49:47] over there that had like mulch and garden products and soil, many years back there was a compost

[2:49:56] in area there next to the the driving range that I believe was through the city of Watsonville,

[2:50:01] but that hasn't been there for several years. Okay. Yeah. And then one question real quick

[2:50:07] on artificial turf, a lot of places put both fields and things like that. What's the

[2:50:18] real high school changed their artificial turf and they put a new one in about a couple

[2:50:25] months ago? They said now instead of going to a landfill with the old artificial turf, it

[2:50:36] actually goes back to where does it go to be recycled or what?

[2:50:44] Yeah, I'm not aware of a facility that takes artificial turf back to recycle, but I'm

[2:50:50] glad to hear it, because I know a lot of fields do have artificial turf, and then needs to be replaced.

[2:50:57] That's, you know, like, that could fill up a, you know, fill up a landfill real fast.

[2:51:03] Yeah, it would be a lot of material that wouldn't decompose and be problematic to landfill plastic materials often difficult to recycle because if it's mixed with other materials, it's hard to separate and it's it's a very involved process, but hopefully there are just all these that can do it.

[2:51:21] we'll get back to, I think on one year's plastic, we kind of lost it a little bit because

[2:51:34] the pandemic and everything like that, you know, instead of people buying using their own

[2:51:43] coffee cup and all that. So I don't know, the plastic is still the biggest problem we have right

[2:51:53] Because it's not as recyclable as the down cycles as you recycle it, it doesn't always get made into another cup because it's made into another product that cannot be recycled.

[2:52:04] So we have your more passing ordinance for compostable to go where.

[2:52:09] So all the cups and the unincarparate accounting and plateware clam shells should be compostable and that's good because once we fully implement the food waste program.

[2:52:19] and those compulsory moment sure else can't go in that,

[2:52:22] but the food waste can be composted.

[2:52:25] And I'll just make a comment.

[2:52:27] I think one of the things I'm thinking of

[2:52:31] is proactively manufacturers are going to have to come up

[2:52:35] with a compulsory compostable material

[2:52:41] and to replace a lot of plastic, I don't know how they're going to do it,

[2:52:46] And it seems like we're going to have to come up with something otherwise it's going to end up

[2:52:53] the little plastic particles you're going to end up everywhere.

[2:53:01] There you go.

[2:53:02] Thanks a lot.

[2:53:04] I do address this.

[2:53:07] You ever changed your regulations on.

[2:53:09] Our landfill has been around for decades.

[2:53:11] And it seems like it's getting more complex for you down the road.

[2:53:14] But I've no doubt that this county is going to develop a good strategic plan so we can be forward thinking as necessary to stay in compliance with ever changing or always new state mandates.

[2:53:29] I don't think it's worth mentioning that the gray bears recycling operations for the county at the benoma transfer station are going very well and I want to compliment everybody in public or superman for making that happen and working so well.

[2:53:42] And my thanks to the gray bears and the public works for its hard work and putting together the structure for those programs and going partnership.

[2:53:52] I do agree with Ms. Garrett.

[2:53:55] The extending extended producer responsibility is probably the biggest thing that can change this whole scenario.

[2:54:01] And it's not going to be Santa Cruz County. It's going to be state and national.

[2:54:04] We've got a really pressure those who are producing these disposable items, shall we say.

[2:54:14] And making them be more responsible or changing their method of operation.

[2:54:20] You mentioned, and I want to thank the Downtown Streets Program.

[2:54:24] It's been a tremendously successful program and getting some of the homeless people to participate

[2:54:30] and cleaning up our streets and rivers and so forth and speaking of rivers and the coastal clean up that we had just last

[2:54:37] weekend that I participated in, the watershed council and C. Odyssey and for what they did along the coast.

[2:54:44] And then for the Valley Women's Club and the Sanomans of Valley Rotary Club and Sanomans of Valley for cleaning up.

[2:54:48] I think they had a thousand pounds of of litter that they cleaned up along the Sanomans of rivers.

[2:54:53] So that's very, very encouraging. I do appreciate your report, your insights

[2:54:59] And the challenges that we have ahead in their opponents, and they're getting more, I do use that word again challenging with the state that we have, but I think that we are certainly on the right track and I really appreciate your report.

[2:55:13] This is just a report, but I think we should have a motion to accept the report.

[2:55:19] I'll move the recommended actions.

[2:55:22] Please hold the roll.

[2:55:23] Supervisor Coneg. Hi.

[2:55:26] Friend.

[2:55:27] Good.

[2:55:30] Thank you, motion passes unanimously.

[2:55:33] We will now take up item number 11.

[2:55:36] The last item on our regular agenda for this morning.

[2:55:39] Consider adoption of an ordinance repealing and replacing chapters 7.207.212.

[2:55:45] 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 5 and 2, 6 of the Santa Cruz County code relating to solid waste as recommended by the deputy

[2:55:52] CIO, Director of Public Works. We have several chapters of this strikeout version of those that I just mentioned 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 26. So I do appreciate this report that we're going to do yet. I guess you're going to be just me. Oh, go ahead. Casey, excuse me. Thank you. Good morning, chair McPherson and board members.

[2:56:20] Casey Klaus of Public Works, the ordinance before you today, consolidates existing county code chapters into one comprehensive chapter for solved waste, which will be the new chapter 7.20.

[2:56:33] This simplifies the county code by combining co findings, purposes, definitions, enforcement and exemption provisions into single sections.

[2:56:41] It also updates language to the line with county's franchise hall or agreements and county cycles terminology for solid waste.

[2:56:49] There are some new provisions in the consolidated code to be in compliance with Senate Bill 1383 regulations.

[2:56:56] This includes provisions for diversion of all organics including food waste scraps from landfill disposal.

[2:57:03] It also expands the universal service area for required refuse and recyclables kerbside collection service

[2:57:10] through the entire unincorporate county, but has exceptions for cell followers and exemptions for low density population areas.

[2:57:21] This ordinance also includes provisions for edible food recovery.

[2:57:25] So, some other important changes include, it has an expanded list of solid waste related definitions,

[2:57:34] standardized trash and recyclable container color and capacity specification requirements,

[2:57:39] and updated language for required diversion of recyclable materials, which include inspection of carts and bins,

[2:57:48] and provision for businesses to provide clearly labeled and color-coded blue recyclables and yellow food waste bins along with trash containers at front of store for their customers.

[2:58:00] These updates to the county-sold waste code support the county's climate action strategy and zero waste plan and strategic plan element for sustainable environment.

[2:58:10] They're recommended actions are adopt ordinance repealing 7.20, 7.21, 7.23, 7.24, 7.25, and 7.26 of the Santa Cruz County code relating to solid waste and replacing them with a revised chapter 7.20.

[2:58:33] And schedule the ordinance for final adoption on October 19th, 2021.

[2:58:39] Thank you. Thank you for that report. Is there any comments from the public?

[2:58:47] Bring it back to you.

[2:58:48] Thank you. Have put on some.

[2:58:49] Oh, excuse me on the phone.

[2:58:50] Yes.

[2:58:50] Calling user one, your microphone is available.

[2:59:08] Take a look at their hands.

[2:59:11] This is Maryland Garrett again.

[2:59:13] I don't think this is zero waste.

[2:59:16] It sounds good, but I think it's forever waste.

[2:59:19] like corporations produced these plastics and they're in the environment forever and we have these

[2:59:28] micro plastics we have pesticide all over over recycling it's a misnomer it's pollution for

[2:59:38] ever more and the plague of plastic especially Ralph Nader had a good quote he said recycling

[2:59:48] is a corporate scam. It puts the public to sleep. Why are we taking care of and paying for

[2:59:59] Thank you.

[3:00:00] Waste and toxins that are poisoning us. They should be prohibited from generating anything that is not proven

[3:00:10] safe in the environment. You're always talking about safety. Toxic chemical, plastics, pesticides, cell phones,

[3:00:22] our radio station is not safe. It should be prohibited. That's my comment. Thank you.

[3:00:32] There are no other speakers. Thank you. I'll bring this back to the board. I appreciate all

[3:00:39] the works once again for this report and the planning how we're going to meet these state mandates.

[3:00:47] And I'm certain that this county is going to meet the moment when it comes to food waste.

[3:00:52] Actually, I think we can lead by example, and I think there's an opportunity here having been one of the initial organizers of my Ray Bay community power and now in central coast community energy I can see where we can have some of this food waste the resource for production of renewable power and I think there's a real opportunity there and I think we're going to be a leader we can be a leader in making that happen.

[3:01:20] Thank you, Mr. Colesat, for the extensive rewrite on this clearly, it was a long past time to clean up our house and ordinances here, and so appreciate the work.

[3:01:32] Thank you.

[3:01:33] Supervisor, friend, you comments?

[3:01:36] You're okay.

[3:01:37] I'll just move the recommended actions.

[3:01:38] Thank you.

[3:01:39] Second, you have any other comments from board members?

[3:01:44] Please call the rule.

[3:01:45] Supervisor Coneg. Hi. Hi. Friend.

[3:01:49] Hi. Hi.

[3:01:53] Make first. Hi. Thank you. Motion testing now.

[3:01:56] It's just past the new hour.

[3:01:58] We were going to go into closed session now.

[3:02:01] Whether it be any reportable items.

[3:02:02] Yes, there may be a reportable item when we come back at 130.

[3:02:05] Okay, we.

[3:02:06] If there is a reportable item, we will report that before we go into the

[3:02:11] report schedule for 130 PM on the Atkins Degree Flow Float has a hudzer study. So this will

[3:02:19] will recess into closed session and return at 130.

[3:02:32] September 28th, 2021, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, we have a scheduled item

[3:02:38] at 130 to consider report and results of the Atkins Degree Flow. First of all, excuse me,

[3:02:44] we had a closed session. County Council, is there anything reportable from the closed session?

[3:02:49] Yes, thank you. This has directed to item E on the closed session agenda. The board approved by a 50 vote, the filing of litigation against an entity that will be named to the later date. Thank you.

[3:03:03] All right, not through the 130 item that's scheduled.

[3:03:07] Consider report on the results of the Atkins debris flow flood hazard study prepared for the burn area.

[3:03:13] of the August 2020 ECCU, Lightning Complex Fires, and take related actions as outlined

[3:03:19] in the memorandum of the Planning Director, presenting will be Carolyn Burke, or Senior Civil

[3:03:26] Engineer.

[3:03:32] Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present the results of the Act

[3:03:38] CZU flood and debris flow studied prepared by Act Engineering, graciously funded by the

[3:03:47] and supported in collaboration with the County of Santa Cruz Planning Recovery Permit Center in OR-3.

[3:04:00] With an overview of the geologic evaluations conducted in the CZU burn area and actions taken to

[3:04:07] assist those rebuilding areas subject to potential debris flow. In late August in early September of 2020,

[3:04:16] the state watershed emergency response team conducted a rapid largely qualitative evaluation

[3:04:22] of geologic hazards and debris flow potential throughout the burn area to determine immediate

[3:04:27] life safety and property risks in a system evacuation planning for the winter months ahead.

[3:04:34] The work report stressed that more detailed study of debris flow hazards was necessary to

[3:04:40] refine and characterize hazards in the identified debris flow areas. Shortly after the county

[3:04:46] requested a more focused study of historical debris flow risks in the Boulder Creek area,

[3:04:52] which was conducted by the California Geological Survey and published in November 2020.

[3:04:58] The county also conducted their own detailed field reconnaissance and geologic

[3:05:03] mapping throughout September 2020 to support emergency planning for the upcoming winter,

[3:05:10] walking drainage basins to understand where mud would flow in the event of a debris flow

[3:05:15] and ensuring that homes in harm's way would be aware of the risk during a triggering storm of

[3:05:20] it. While ensuring emergency response personnel were supported by the county's local geologic

[3:05:26] expertise, many staff were simultaneously preparing to assist those rebuilding and debris flow

[3:05:32] prone areas. County staff consulted with Santa Barbara County personnel to determine the best

[3:05:39] next steps to characterize the debris flow hazard, and it was clear that a quantitative modeling study

[3:05:45] would be required to refine the predicted path of potential debris flows and understand the relative risk levels in different areas of the basins.

[3:05:54] This type of study had been conducted in Santa Barbara County, just after their debris flow, event in Monocido in 2018,

[3:06:02] in plain of firm specializing in such modeling, Atkins Engineering.

[3:06:07] Throughout the fall of 2021, County staff consulted with representatives of the National Resources Conservation Service and Cal OES, conducting field tours and informational meetings to burner support for mitigation grant funding and determine how we could bolster our case for additional support from state and federal agencies.

[3:06:28] March of 2021, planning staff submitted a FEMA hazard mitigation grant application,

[3:06:35] for funding to hire a consultant to conduct a quantitative flood

[3:06:39] in the brief O hazard modeling study in the CZU burn area.

[3:06:44] Post-application consultation with Cal OES staff indicated that the funding review and approval

[3:06:50] process would take more months to complete than rebuilders because of Ford.

[3:06:54] In May of 2021 or three staff approached the community foundation Santa Cruz County to let them know the opportunity to provide valuable assistance to those rebuilding and debris flow hazard areas.

[3:07:08] We have funding the detailed flood and debris flow modeling study. The foundation jumped at the chance to assist and authorized funding for the act and study in June.

[3:07:17] The study was estimated to take 10 to 12 weeks to complete, and Actons was able to maintain

[3:07:23] that timeline with the final product delivered at the end of last week.

[3:07:35] As noted in the previous slide, early debris flow evaluation and mapping efforts were largely focused

[3:07:41] on supporting evacuation planning, and were necessarily conservative in the determination

[3:07:46] of hazard boundaries to ensure that all standing structures at risk of impact during the winter

[3:07:52] months were identified and noticed prior to triggering winter storms. Early mapping did not

[3:07:57] differentiate between risk levels within debris flow hazard areas, resulting in a generally

[3:08:03] undetermined level of risk for home sites in these areas. Without further quantitative evaluation

[3:08:09] of debris flow hazard risks and operating under Santa Cruz County Code chapter 1610, geological

[3:08:16] reports were required for rebuilding and identified hazard areas, and communicated to rebuild

[3:08:25] The benefits of a detailed quantitative evaluation of areas at risk of debris flow hazards are numerous from 18 rebuilders and those subject to evacuation in the near term to serving as a basis for long term community protection be a community wide mitigation grants.

[3:08:45] The quantitative modeling of the detailed study results in a refinement of risk areas by not only considering topography, as was done in early evaluations, but also an anticipated volume of material, defining a geographic boundary for areas that would be subject to impact from debris flows.

[3:09:03] Modeling the flow of water and mud also provides volume and velocity data at different points in the flow channels.

[3:09:11] In addition to informing relative risk and potential for destructive impacts,

[3:09:16] this data can also provide the basis for mitigation design on individual lots or community wide,

[3:09:22] such as debris flow nets higher up in the channels.

[3:09:25] Finally, a relative level of risk for different areas prone to debris flows,

[3:09:30] allows for more detailed evacuation prioritization in planning.

[3:09:34] At a detailed flood in debris flows study was commissioned by the Community Foundation

[3:09:38] Santa Cruz County and performed by Actons Engineering.

[3:09:42] Linda Potter, engineering Actons is here to present the methodology and results of her study.

[3:09:53] Thank you. Hello. As Carolyn mentioned, my name is Linda Potter and I'm with Actons

[3:09:57] and I was the lead investigator on this program. Next slide, please.

[3:10:02] The

[3:10:05] purpose of the study was to provide a post-burn runoff and debris risk analysis, and this was done for the watershed that you see on your right, which was impacted by the burn.

[3:10:15] And the work performed consist of hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, which is also known as the amount of water that's expected and where it might go, and also a creation of risk zones and areas. Next slide please.

[3:10:29] The modeling was performed using the Army Corps of Engineers HEC Razz 6.0, which is a publicly available software that's also kind of the industry standard for this type of modeling, and models were produced for both pre and postburn scenarios.

[3:10:45] And the reason this is done is because higher runoff is expected from burned areas as well as a higher concentration of sediment.

[3:10:53] The model employed Rain on Grid, which is actually applying rainfall to the watershed and seeing where water collects and how it travels.

[3:11:02] And is routed on a two-dimensional flow grid to determine inundation areas, depths and velocities.

[3:11:09] And I just like to note that this modeling that was done does not replace any existing FEMA mapping, which was solely done for the purpose of quantifying risks.

[3:11:18] Next slide please.

[3:11:20] The creation of risk zones was done in certain areas of the watershed.

[3:11:27] The risk due to the rainfall vary across the watershed, and we have three types of identified

[3:11:32] risks that may occur.

[3:11:34] This would be debris flow, flooding kind of the muddy water flow, debris flow is different

[3:11:39] from the muddy water flow in physical characteristics and tends to be more damaging.

[3:11:44] And there are also a chance of landslides and landslide initiated debris flows, but note

[3:11:50] but that is not covered by this analysis.

[3:11:53] So this left areas chosen for the creation of the risk stones

[3:11:57] and the more detailed analysis was due to development

[3:12:00] and rebuilding areas and also on certain flow paths.

[3:12:04] So some of the watershed was not studied in detail

[3:12:07] for debris flow, however, the entire watershed was studied

[3:12:11] for flooding.

[3:12:13] And multiple factors were evaluated during the creation

[3:12:16] of these risk stones.

[3:12:18] So all of the previous studies that

[3:12:19] mentioned, as well as a site specific geomorphologic investigation, looking at slopes,

[3:12:27] alluvial fans, and many other physical factors in the watershed. Next slide please.

[3:12:35] There's an example of the risks zones that were created on the right hand side,

[3:12:39] and you'll see some different colors here, with the red being what's expected to be the primary

[3:12:44] debris flow path. And so this is the path predicted by the model, the HEC RAS model,

[3:12:49] And this is going to be the main transfer corridor for water mud and debris.

[3:12:54] This is often the most hazardous area and also has higher depths and velocities.

[3:13:00] The next color you'll see is the orange color.

[3:13:03] These are uncertain debris flow paths.

[3:13:06] So we expect that the high hazard, if a debris flow occurs, the high hazards

[3:13:11] own might have flow breaking out from the main channel.

[3:13:14] otherwise known as Evolgens, and once they leave the main channel, they often do not return.

[3:13:20] So these orange zones or these uncertain to brief up past are created in areas where we might expect flow to break out from the main channel.

[3:13:29] We also have what's called the inundation area, and this is kind of our mud or muddy water area that's also predicted by the model.

[3:13:37] So we expect these to have flood type of impacts during a large event.

[3:13:46] And outside of that we have what's called the unstudied zone.

[3:13:49] So you'll see a boundary there, the yellow color.

[3:13:52] So this would be everywhere where we have the hydrologic and hydraulic model,

[3:13:56] but we did not study for debris flow.

[3:14:00] And then finally the lower risk areas, which are shown in the green color,

[3:14:03] All right, within our study, water said boundaries where we've looked at the hazards and determined them to be lower rests than the other ones.

[3:14:12] Next slide, please.

[3:14:15] One of the other great things that has come out of the study are these depth and velocity grids.

[3:14:21] These are presented on a spatial basis where you can actually find a spot on a map, click on it, and get your predicted depth or velocity,

[3:14:30] which greatly aids in rebuilding efforts to know what kind of hazards you need to design for.

[3:14:37] I'll turn it back to Carolyn.

[3:14:42] Thank you, Linda.

[3:14:43] I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize the exceptional work performed by Linda as lead for

[3:14:48] Atcons Engineering and her team's willingness to go above and beyond to meet the time bound needs of our rebuilders.

[3:15:02] That can study benefits for both those rebuilding and debris flow prone areas, as well as their communities in variety of ways.

[3:15:12] An initial benefit derived from the refined debris flow hazard zones and the actions detailed study areas is an estimated 20% reduction in the number of potential rebuild structures identified as being in a debris flow risk zone.

[3:15:27] when compared with initial state and county mapping in these areas.

[3:15:32] The quantitative modeling employed in the study constitutes the best available data

[3:15:38] for levels of risk due to the debris flows and replaces county debris flow hazard maps

[3:15:44] when screening rebuild proposals for debris flow hazards in the actions detailed study areas.

[3:15:52] Another benefit of actions quantitative modeling is as a resource for the technical

[3:15:57] community working on rebuild proposals, the availability of depth and velocity data for potential

[3:16:03] debris flow conditions provided at a scale that can be used by the consulting geotechnical

[3:16:08] engineers, geologists, and design teams. The scope of the modeling conducted during the

[3:16:13] act and study would be prohibitively expensive if conducted on an individual basis.

[3:16:19] And the resulting data is a valuable reference for technical professionals, potentially reducing

[3:16:24] in the scope and costs of their reports.

[3:16:26] In some cases, the Arkansas data may even eliminate

[3:16:29] the need for additional geologic evaluation.

[3:16:33] That can study establishment of relative risk levels

[3:16:36] in primary and uncertain debris flow paths.

[3:16:39] Characterizes the level of risk for rebuild sites

[3:16:42] that cannot be achieved by qualitative evaluation alone.

[3:16:47] Determining where a mudble travel

[3:16:48] during a potential debris flow event allows those

[3:16:52] building to make informed decisions about where to cite their rebuilt structure and some

[3:16:56] homesites may be able to be relocated out of harm's way. Finally, that can study provides valuable

[3:17:03] source of documentation for future community scale mitigation grant applications.

[3:17:09] During the county's consultation with the National Resources Conservation Service in Cal

[3:17:14] OES staff regarding mitigation grants, it was made clear that those communities that can

[3:17:19] quantify the scale of the hazard in the number of sites that would potentially benefit from

[3:17:25] a mitigation project are more likely to receive funding than those who cannot provide this data.

[3:17:33] My marine uncertain debris flow paths have been referenced throughout our presentation today

[3:17:38] because these zones will be utilized by the county geologist, drain his evaluation of

[3:17:42] rebuild sites. It is worth reviewing the similarities and differences between the two.

[3:17:48] Primary debris flow paths are based on debris flow volume and topography and generally are subject to higher velocity channelized flows because the primary debris flow path is more predictable sites located in these areas are at higher risk of impact from potential debris flows.

[3:18:06] uncertain debris flow paths are based on a change in channel grade and or a channel blockage

[3:18:12] resulting in the dispersion of debris via unpredictable paths. This dispersion means that sites

[3:18:18] in the uncertain debris flow path have a lower individual chance of impact and if affected

[3:18:23] would likely expand slower depths and velocity of debris. It is important to note that while

[3:18:29] the two zones have differing flow characteristics, sites in either primary or uncertain debris

[3:18:34] slope has are subject to potential lay safety and property risks, and are considered geologic hazards

[3:18:40] areas for the county geologic hazards or events.

[3:18:46] With a better understanding of the study

[3:18:48] results, the question of the forefront is what these results mean for those rebuilding and the

[3:18:53] Ackens detailed study areas. Geologic pre-application occurrences will clear rebuild sites if they

[3:19:00] are located outside the Ackens primary and uncertain debris slope has, and there are no other geologic

[3:19:07] hazards affecting the site. For those within the actions to brief those zones that choose

[3:19:13] to rebuild for the CZU rebuild directive passed by the board on September 14, no geology report is

[3:19:19] needed to meet the requirements of chapter 1610. In these cases that I can study velocity and depth

[3:19:26] data may assist the project to your technical engineer and meeting the design requirements of the

[3:19:36] The Ackon Study data may also serve to characterize the previously unknown level of risk,

[3:19:43] described in the Covenant required under the provisions of the CZ Rebuild Directive,

[3:19:47] narrowing the field of risk evaluated by Lenders and Insurance.

[3:19:52] Finally, should one opt not to take the CZ Rebuild Directive Path and instead rebuild and compliance

[3:19:58] with county code chapter 1610. The Ackon Study remains a valuable data source for

[3:20:03] and geotechnical engineers on their design teams.

[3:20:09] During the September 14th board meeting,

[3:20:11] to consider options for rebuilders to not consider

[3:20:14] the requirements of county code chapter 1610.

[3:20:18] There was robust discussion regarding

[3:20:19] the recordation of a covenant on title

[3:20:21] that confirms property owners

[3:20:23] that seem the risk of rebuilding

[3:20:25] in an area subject to geologic hazards.

[3:20:29] Staff was remiss and not providing a broader context

[3:20:31] for this type of recorded document.

[3:20:33] And for the past 25 years, a declaration of geologic hazards has routinely been recorded

[3:20:39] on title as a condition of approval for building an area subject to geologic hazards.

[3:20:46] The document is streamlined and format and content in an addition to assumption of risk

[3:20:50] and indemnification of the county, includes a description of the studies conducted, characterize

[3:20:55] the hazard and where to locate these files.

[3:20:58] To be, we have not been made aware of any significant hardship

[3:21:02] resulting from the stock implementation being on title.

[3:21:06] The concerns heard from the rebuilding community regarding

[3:21:09] the recorded covenant include the fact that the sample covenant provided

[3:21:13] in the board packet described as an exhaustive range of geologic hazards

[3:21:17] that may be present on their personal and of unknown risk to occupants

[3:21:22] and property.

[3:21:23] Bears were expressed regarding how such broad statement would be considered

[3:21:27] by lenders ensures in future potential on buyers.

[3:21:32] To be emphasized, the Covenant provided as an attachment to the September-14th agenda item

[3:21:37] was intended to be a draft document that can be adjusted based on state-specific circumstances,

[3:21:43] and was not meant to be a one-size-fits-all document that must be recorded as is on every property.

[3:21:51] In response to concerns raised by rebuilders, county staff began deeper discussions,

[3:21:56] with individual rebuilders as well as lending and insurance industry representatives to determine

[3:22:02] how the sample covenant could be modified while maintaining the three main objectives of

[3:22:08] notification of potential geologic hazards to future property owners in demnification of the county

[3:22:15] and assumption of risk by those building and potential hazard area.

[3:22:19] Suggested modifications to the sample covenant provided on September 14 are guided by the format

[3:22:25] and content of the current declaration of geologic hazards, which has not resulted in the potential

[3:22:31] negative outcome noted by others. These modifications include replacing the sample covenant with

[3:22:40] the notice of geologic hazards that would narrow the description of potential geologic hazards

[3:22:45] based on the action study and or other investigations which would also be cited in the notice

[3:22:51] as the basis for that characterization. The notice of geologic hazards would include a simplified

[3:22:58] format based on the declaration required as prem practice and eliminate the agreement to

[3:23:03] evacuate from the recorded document. This could be accomplished via a separate non-recorded agreement.

[3:23:12] Next steps, county staff should receive the final act in studying memo. Last Thursday and will

[3:23:18] reassessing the 46 pre-application geologic clearances where site-specific geological reports

[3:23:25] for required, revising those where necessary based on the action study results. In the

[3:23:31] coming days, we also plan to finalize the covenant and declaration format to be used by those

[3:23:36] who opt to rebuild for the CZU rebuild directive. County staff will undertake outreach and education

[3:23:43] efforts among the rebuilding community, including development of a frequently asked questions list

[3:23:50] specific to the Actons study on the rebuild website, and hold individual neighborhood community

[3:23:55] meetings among the basins within the Actons detailed study areas.

[3:24:00] County Geologic Engineering staff understand that supporting our rebuilders

[3:24:05] includes supporting their consultants and their interpretation and use of the Actons study data.

[3:24:10] To that end, County staff will meet with Geotechnical Engineers and Geologists to discuss the study results and determine the best way to make the raster data from the study available for their use.

[3:24:23] We strongly encourage those rebuilding and actions detailed study areas to begin discussions with their geotechnical and geologic consultants right away to determine how the data may inform their design options.

[3:24:35] We understand that these steps take time in everyday counts when you're waiting to re establish your family's home.

[3:24:43] But like take this opportunity to dress a concern that has been raised in the rebuilding community regarding the county's winter grading moratorium.

[3:24:51] The prohibits grading activities between October 15th and April 15th.

[3:24:57] This prohibition does not extend to excavations for foundations, utility, trenching, or minor grading activities, as my panties painted when rebuilding in kind, where driveways and infrastructure are already largely established.

[3:25:12] We will continue to listen to feedback from the rebuilding community and evaluate our practices to ensure we can provide options to keep rebuilders building throughout the season.

[3:25:24] I conclude our presentation today and we're interim planning director, Pia Levine,

[3:25:33] David Reed, director of the Office of Response, Recovery, and Resolancy in our County

[3:25:37] Geologists, Jeff Nolan, are present and available to answer any questions from the board.

[3:25:49] I want to say once again, thanks to the fires of the survivors who have been in communication with this board and staff.

[3:26:00] Another staff, besides at once before you, sure there are concerns about the process.

[3:26:07] Let's spend a frustrating experience.

[3:26:09] Our ultimate goal is to provide relief for our survivors and our actions haven't been that successfully to date.

[3:26:17] We need to make adjustments.

[3:26:20] I hope you want to thank members of the Lending Insurance and Real Estate and other fields who have provided feedback to our process.

[3:26:28] And last year I'd like to thank the board for their unanimous support of the date of district five and three efforts to address

[3:26:39] to be building delay caused by the geological hazards

[3:26:42] code of the county of Santa Cruz.

[3:26:45] And by dropping their climate for the CZU survivors

[3:26:47] to address that code 1610 is referred to.

[3:26:52] We have made all a policy designed to reduce the cost

[3:26:55] of time and stress for rebuilding.

[3:27:00] And to further simplify this, I'd like to see

[3:27:02] us go back to utilizing the standard notification

[3:27:05] of geological hazards and endendentification that have been used by this county for many years.

[3:27:13] I think 20, 25 years without negative ramification to the property orders.

[3:27:19] Since our action on September 14, the Board offices have heard from fire survivors and

[3:27:24] for your experts about the, the original, the covenant related to accepting our survivors from

[3:27:34] 1610, that it was still too honest and potentially harmful. I say, let's just get back

[3:27:40] to the basic basics and help people get rebuilding as soon as possible. I think without further

[3:27:48] comment from me, I don't know if they had doubt that any other board members have anything at this

[3:27:52] point, but I would like to open that to the public to see if they have any comments.

[3:28:13] Thank you.

[3:28:14] Thank you.

[3:28:14] My name is Becky Steinburner.

[3:28:16] I do not live in the CZU fire area, but I know a lot of people who do who did and who are trying

[3:28:22] to rebuild and it's not an easy task.

[3:28:26] I do live in the mountains.

[3:28:27] And so what happens here today can happen to any of us in the mountains in any disaster.

[3:28:33] So I appreciate the report.

[3:28:37] I had difficulties seeing exactly where those

[3:28:41] virus zones are.

[3:28:43] There was really no way to identify where those are exactly.

[3:28:48] So if we could have some sort of

[3:28:51] marker on those, is it along the river, along the road.

[3:28:56] We are exactly in the county, is it with some road

[3:29:00] identification that will help people.

[3:29:04] I appreciate community foundation doing this study.

[3:29:07] I understand is going to help the county get a lot of money that it would not have been able to get,

[3:29:13] because that's what the grand tours want.

[3:29:16] But I have concern about a private entity,

[3:29:20] funding, private studies that will, in fact, affect public policy.

[3:29:26] And I'm not clear about the claim that it would reduce 20% of structures in the debris flow area.

[3:29:37] Does that mean there will be 20% fewer possible rebuild structures affected that were on the list to have to comply with 1610

[3:29:49] or does it mean that 20% fewer of those structures that were there will be able to be built.

[3:29:54] So some clarification will be very helpful.

[3:30:00] And I find it interesting that it focused on debris flow, not landslides, which is something we really do need to know about, but the model that used in Santa Barbara was much different.

[3:30:14] The vegetation was not considered a lot of the topography, but I heard nothing about vegetation.

[3:30:23] The redwood forest is a much different system than the scrub and shaper out of Southern California.

[3:30:30] So the soils and the integrity of the slopes are much different.

[3:30:34] Thank you very much.

[3:30:36] I don't know.

[3:30:37] I don't know if we might have several speakers.

[3:30:40] You just want to take down some notes and if we can answer the questions, would you prefer to answer them right now?

[3:30:45] Wouldn't be your preference?

[3:30:50] If we can answer them right away, I think it'd be good.

[3:30:54] Yeah, so to address the 20% reduction in structures that may be rebuilt, that's it was based on the damage assessments in the in the jail location of the damage assessments conducted post fire.

[3:31:09] And it was a rough approximation because we haven't been able to refine that, we haven't had the data for more than a couple of days now, so it's our best estimate of how many may potentially be rebuilt in those detailed study areas.

[3:31:26] and so from our initial county and state mapping to the refined areas produced by the Atkins study,

[3:31:37] that's where we got the 20% reduction. And then the high risk zones are if you go to our

[3:31:45] the recovery website. There is the Atkins study memo posted and then Atkins study map books.

[3:31:54] There's also an independent GIS viewer for the Ackon study data so that you can actually type in an address and look around and that does have the street names.

[3:32:07] And if you look on the upper right there is a legend that includes the high risk zones if you're interested in that specifically.

[3:32:15] Okay. Thank you. Did you have any of the for the comment?

[3:32:21] It's a very. Yeah, they read director or three. The only other question that was brought up was around vegetation.

[3:32:27] And so it's common that these types of studies, especially in Montecito are repeated on an annual or every other year basis to take into consideration the re vegetation post fire.

[3:32:38] So one option for us would be to look at looking at this type of a study in future years to evaluate how

[3:32:44] Revegitation has changed the risk of for the elevated risk of debris flow.

[3:32:51] Yeah, I just want to I make one

[3:32:54] I'm in a community foundation listen

[3:32:56] We are very thankful that they stepped up and they put $2 million into the study. We didn't have that obviously this was them

[3:33:06] And on scheduled event, so we are very, very supportive and thankful that community foundation

[3:33:13] came to our support and offered the $2 million to have an independent agency to the

[3:33:19] study.

[3:33:21] The next speaker.

[3:33:23] My name is Antonio Bradford and I lost my home in the CZU fire.

[3:33:27] After the last board meeting, it seems the outrage of the community is not falling in

[3:33:30] the fear.

[3:33:30] So I thank the board for continuing this conversation to modify the resolution so it not

[3:33:35] protects the county from liability, but serves the fire communities need to rebuild their homes and

[3:33:40] lies without doing long-term harm. After all, this is to be a contract between two parties and

[3:33:45] it must serve both sides of the table, not just the county. I think that has pertinent that the

[3:33:49] board delay any decision on these new proposed pathways of waivers for two weeks of the community

[3:33:52] and the professionals and the industries related to home ownership have the time to fully

[3:33:56] flesh out with this means for us. In that time, a panel needs to be created so the county can work

[3:34:01] with the fire community rather than against them.

[3:34:04] This panel should include professionals

[3:34:05] from the appropriate industries

[3:34:06] and one or two people from the fire community.

[3:34:09] These are representatives need to be strong

[3:34:10] and vocal advocates from the community

[3:34:12] and not someone who is receiving some kind of compensation

[3:34:14] from the county or otherwise for fire recovery

[3:34:16] since that would be a conflict of interest.

[3:34:19] We need to work together in a transparent

[3:34:20] and honest way to protect all of our best interests

[3:34:22] because thus far it's been incredibly one-sided.

[3:34:25] Lastly, within the resolution itself,

[3:34:27] Pilevine has given herself

[3:34:28] an abundance of discretionary and arbitrary power

[3:34:30] that absolutely must be rained back. Within the code is it stands seemingly

[3:34:34] covenants can be removed from one's D, but it gives no pathways and how to do that

[3:34:38] except by the discretion of the planning director. There needs to be transparent and concise

[3:34:42] protocols that show fire families that choose to get advantage of the covenants specifically

[3:34:45] what they can do to remove it. It cannot be vague or left up to the interpretation of a

[3:34:50] singular individual. The planning director cannot and should not be given that much discretion,

[3:34:54] especially if the best interest of the fire community are truly in the hearts of our elected

[3:34:57] more supervisors. I trust in the last meeting every last one of you has been listening and

[3:35:01] taking in the feedback. Our community and I'm not just taking a fire victims and assist

[3:35:06] the county do better by us. We just want to rebuild our homes and hopefully we're getting closer to doing

[3:35:10] just that. Thank you.

[3:35:19] Hi. I really might down a little please. Oh, sorry. I really thank you for

[3:35:25] taking another look. I know this is a really tiring process to go through. So I agree with

[3:35:34] replacing get ditching the covenant. I'm still not sure why it can be put on the building permit

[3:35:41] because building permits are public records and when you sell your house you disclose that kind of

[3:35:48] information. Also when we bought our house we didn't sign a release of liability so I'm not sure

[3:35:55] why that is necessary and I have some great questions about what you mean by indemnity clause

[3:36:02] because the clause that I saw was really large and exhaustive and puts an enormous burden on

[3:36:10] fire victims for a lot of situations that are out of their control.

[3:36:17] So, and I think I agree with you about the disclosure should be as specific as the county

[3:36:25] can make it based on the Actions report, I really enjoyed reading about that and I hope I

[3:36:30] find it on your site so I can see the specifics and I also agree about if you were denied

[3:36:39] geo-plarence before the akin report I'm glad that you think that we should get that reviewed.

[3:36:47] But I would also like on the disclosure something about the county's intention to

[3:36:52] fund community mitigations and that that would be updated whether it's on the title or the

[3:36:58] when those mitigations take place.

[3:37:02] So thank you again for taking the time.

[3:37:05] And during this ride, and I hope we can make a lot of people

[3:37:10] happy homeowners, including me.

[3:37:12] Thank you.

[3:37:17] I want to stand corrected.

[3:37:19] The ad can study was $200,000, wasn't $2 million.

[3:37:23] I'm sorry.

[3:37:27] Please, I'm sorry, yeah.

[3:37:29] My name is Elena Casada.

[3:37:31] I live in Boulder Creek and I'm one of the lucky ones whose house and neighborhood survived the CZU fire.

[3:37:37] I stand in solidarity with the CZU fire victims.

[3:37:41] I speak on behalf of all of Boulder Creek when I ask you to please support our neighbors who lost

[3:37:47] her house to that awful fire last year.

[3:37:50] You see what happened to them affects all of us.

[3:37:53] It's nothing short of a miracle that Boulder Creek wasn't completely destroyed.

[3:37:57] Even so, it's safe to say that virtually everyone

[3:38:00] in Boulder Creek knows at least someone who lost their homes to the fire.

[3:38:05] In fact, I dare to say most of us know several people who did

[3:38:09] are beloved Holly who runs their ex-center,

[3:38:12] lost her house to the fire.

[3:38:13] Her parents, lost her house to the fire.

[3:38:16] That's the house where she grew up.

[3:38:19] Joko, who owns ease mountain in the moment

[3:38:21] where my husband has practiced yoga for years,

[3:38:24] loss her house to the fire. Jenny, who owns her beloved Chinese restaurant in Boulder Creek,

[3:38:30] loss her house to the fire. Several of my own friends lost their house as well.

[3:38:37] Antonia, Adrian, Cindy, Karen, Brandy, Cherie, many others can very close to losing their homes as well.

[3:38:45] I am talking about the fire coming as close to two feet through their homes.

[3:38:50] So please don't think for a second, we don't care about the CZU fire victims, we do very much so thank you.

[3:39:09] And I'm Connie Lannison here with Anderson Christy Real Estate.

[3:39:13] I am meeting a letter that our brokers wrote and signed by majority of our realtors in our office.

[3:39:21] Dear county supervisors, we wanted to write to you to express our concerns with the resolution and covenant,

[3:39:28] But this easy fire survivors, these restrictions need to be reconsidered to help

[3:39:34] fire survivors rebuild and not be subject to the covenant that has potential

[3:39:39] negative financial implications, below or a few of our concerns.

[3:39:44] The covenant is heavy handed in unfair.

[3:39:47] The covenant indemnifies the county from anything that might happen to the lack of proper permits.

[3:39:53] that it does not endenify lenders with an unknown cost to cure geologic issues and no legal

[3:40:01] protection, conventional lenders wouldn't finance a covenant property when the owners need

[3:40:07] to refinance or for a future buyer at the time of sale. This would drastically impact the

[3:40:12] reseal value as conventional financing would not be available to the buyers. The covenant inadvertently

[3:40:18] effects people who lost their homes while leading surviving neighbors untouched.

[3:40:23] With no obligation to spend money to upgrade their properties to meet current geological

[3:40:27] requirements, with no deed restriction in place, surviving neighbors can refinance and

[3:40:33] fill their homes at fair market value to prospective buyers.

[3:40:37] Much of the CZU burn zone is among the most affordable areas in the Santa Cruz County

[3:40:42] to live.

[3:40:43] So, I'm to teachers, first responders, service employees, retirees, and others who are not as wealthy as homeowners elsewhere in the county.

[3:40:52] In addition, many of the fire survivors were under, under insured to begin with and cannot afford to absorb any additional financial burdens.

[3:41:02] Our fear is that further restrictions and expenses will discourage people from rebuilding and causing to relocate to other areas and reduce the already low inventory of housing.

[3:41:12] We was strongly encouraged you to not realize solely on what the planning department says.

[3:41:17] Rather, give more community input and expert opinions outside of the planning department.

[3:41:23] Thank you very much.

[3:41:25] This is.

[3:41:26] Money land is and I'm Chris Clayton and we're with Anderson Fisty.

[3:41:30] And I also wanted to add that I thank you for sounds like you have been listening to the community.

[3:41:35] And we've been really advocating to all of our realtors and lenders and everyone to speak up and let you know and be heard.

[3:41:40] You know, and so thank you for that. And we hope that whatever you come up with it, it will be reviewed before, you know, by the community again before you decide that's what you're going to do.

[3:41:53] The other thing that I don't know if you're aware of is that we do have a statutory disclosure, but we have a statutory disclosure.

[3:42:00] When we saw a house, it's called a geo hazard report.

[3:42:04] And it's required by the state.

[3:42:06] And now in that, I just had one the other day,

[3:42:09] that it does describe the debris flow area.

[3:42:12] If it is, you know, when you pull up a property,

[3:42:16] it does have it be a parcel by the person number,

[3:42:18] and everything you present that to a potential buyer.

[3:42:22] Again, it's a statutory requirement.

[3:42:24] There's now a category that says debris flow in our county.

[3:42:29] So, and that helps provide information to potential buyer.

[3:42:34] Okay.

[3:42:35] Yeah, I want to thank the real estate community, too,

[3:42:37] for getting in touch with us.

[3:42:39] I've been very kind and kind and really advice as well, received.

[3:42:44] Thank you.

[3:42:44] We're here for them, all of us.

[3:42:47] You know, we have all, we're, I don't care if you are an agent in

[3:42:49] App to us or an agent in Boulder Creek.

[3:42:51] We've all worked with people in these areas.

[3:42:54] It's, it's our first time home buyers.

[3:42:55] I just saw the young couple of property at Burm property and they're in the process of starting to get their permits and they have their power permit

[3:43:02] And they're all excited and I talked to them the other not is they don't sign anything until you know you talked to me

[3:43:12] Here for you guys to reach out to us as well, and we hope to you well. Okay. Thank you

[3:43:30] I'm MC Dwyer, I'm a realtor with EXP and somebody who lost the home that my husband built from scratch with permits about 25 years ago and our mortgages now do every month and nothing has been accomplished other than a powerful permit due to the difficulties of dealing with all the red tape that exists.

[3:43:57] I don't want to repeat everything that everybody else brought up even though I had a prepared statement.

[3:44:04] It's clear that everybody now is aware that these covenants can have unintended consequences.

[3:44:11] And it took us realtors talking to lenders, talking to underwriters, for us to be able to understand them.

[3:44:19] So it would be ideal if we had some input, not only as realtors, but also lenders, because

[3:44:26] they're the ones that get the loans approved.

[3:44:31] As it was written, the covenant would have been devastating, somebody who rebuilt wouldn't

[3:44:38] have been able to refinance, and it's even possible that their lender, once reading the

[3:44:44] having a could have actually called their loan,

[3:44:48] which means they would use all of the fire insurance proceeds

[3:44:51] to pay off the loan.

[3:44:54] And if somebody didn't have the extra money to pay off the loan,

[3:44:58] they could be put into fault.

[3:45:01] And then foreclosed on. And I don't think that's what we want to see. So please involve all of us. We want to help our co-survivors. Thank you.

[3:45:25] But after noon, my name is Julie Lucia. I lost my home in the following leave neighborhood on August 20, 2020. But you may already know that because I've spoken several times now at the board meetings two weeks ago 25 victims spoke out against the proposed covenant.

[3:45:39] Without any discussion, you passed the item.

[3:45:42] This obviously would already made a decision on how you're going to vote before you've been heard of speak.

[3:45:47] Frankly, it felt extremely disorganized and careless.

[3:45:51] We have never felt less heard and less valued,

[3:45:54] and then supervisor-coating challenged us to asking that we provide evidence

[3:45:58] on how this covenant will hurt our property or property values.

[3:46:03] Is this how we deserve to be treated after everything we've gone through and continued to go through?

[3:46:07] I can bet that none of you would want to covenant on your deed so hard to put yourself

[3:46:13] in our shoes.

[3:46:14] Because you can't, you can't imagine to know what we're going through.

[3:46:20] Then why are these decisions continually being made without input from the fire community?

[3:46:25] It's obvious that the county is extremely concerned about their own liability.

[3:46:29] We see that we need representation and we need to be heard two weeks ago I stood here

[3:46:35] And I ask all of you to hold off on a vote that a discussion needs to be had.

[3:46:40] I'm here asking you again to do the same thing.

[3:46:43] This time I hope you hear me.

[3:46:44] I hope you hear all of us today.

[3:46:46] If you truly care about getting families home, have that much needed discussion with fire,

[3:46:52] families and our real estate and lending professionals.

[3:46:55] In order to make a truly beneficial decision that properly serves all of us.

[3:47:00] It's obvious we have a wealth of knowledge and this county.

[3:47:03] We all need to work together.

[3:47:04] Thank you.

[3:47:13] My name is Allison Breeze. My name is Allison Breeze. I'm a property owner and

[3:47:20] Boulder Creek and while my home was not destroyed I had very strong concerns regarding the

[3:47:27] covenant as it was presented two weeks ago. I'm very glad to hear that that is now under reconsideration.

[3:47:34] I've been following closely the clear consensus coming out of the real estate and lending experts in our area and the profound negative consequences that it would have on our wider community.

[3:47:48] The goal of providing disclosures and protecting homebuyers is important and necessary and the concerns of liability are understandable.

[3:47:59] It's my understanding that the real estate and lending businesses have been working together to craft alternative proposals to present to the board to address these issues in a manner that can achieve the county's goals

[3:48:14] Well, at the same time, without causing

[3:48:17] devastating harm to our community as a whole,

[3:48:20] the fire community needs help, and they do need it quickly.

[3:48:25] But rushing into a flawed solution, without completing due diligence,

[3:48:30] to understand the ramifications will cause more harm than good.

[3:48:35] I urge the board to do that due diligence.

[3:48:38] I'm glad to hear it sounds like you're moving in that direction.

[3:48:40] Listen to the experts in the real estate and lending businesses.

[3:48:45] Understand the full consequences of what you're deciding to do.

[3:48:50] Consider alternative proposals without creating harm to your constituents.

[3:48:57] Because our welfare is your responsibility and your duty.

[3:49:03] Thank you very much for listening.

[3:49:05] I was

[3:49:20] debating on speaking and thank you for all the work that you've done to help move

[3:49:26] this issue along everybody and what everybody has said is so true, but I would like to

[3:49:31] take a point about the fairness and the situation of something going on our title that

[3:49:40] our neighbor doesn't have to have and this is in the event that we go to rebuild and we have

[3:49:47] put this on our title that we're going this geological report, whatever that is from a legal

[3:49:57] standpoint.

[3:49:58] And I'd like the lawyers to really pay attention here, come visit us out on our property, come

[3:50:04] and spend some time with us because it seems like the legal tail is wagging the dog in our

[3:50:10] situation.

[3:50:12] And I appreciate the other supervisors, you know, you guys have spent a lot of time on this,

[3:50:16] and you're going to spend a lot more time on this.

[3:50:19] It's like, let's come together and come up with an effective solution that really solves

[3:50:25] this problem for the people that are suffering by suffering, by suffering too on the fire

[3:50:30] of victim.

[3:50:31] So, I really appreciate the time and effort.

[3:50:35] It's just important that we get it right this time.

[3:50:38] And supervisors, the other supervisors, we're going to be involved to help you someday in whatever

[3:50:43] disaster you go through.

[3:50:45] So please, thank you for your time and effort

[3:50:48] in coming up with helping us create a solution.

[3:50:53] Thanks.

[3:50:54] Thank you.

[3:51:02] Hi there.

[3:51:03] My name is Jessica.

[3:51:04] My husband and I lost our home in the CZU fire

[3:51:07] August of 2020, like others, you already know that

[3:51:10] because I've spoken at these meetings.

[3:51:13] And as she said, I'm not going to repeat everything

[3:51:16] that everyone has already decided you guys

[3:51:18] heard it multiple times, there are a couple things I want to point out that I've find flawed

[3:51:24] in this covenant that you're asking us to sign off on. You asked us two weeks ago to come back

[3:51:32] with information from realtors and lenders supporting what we were stating, which we've done

[3:51:36] today, although I still feel the county should have done that before voting two weeks ago on that covenant.

[3:51:42] Okay.

[3:51:44] Um, a couple of weeks ago, two weeks ago, um, our gentleman here spoke to that was an issue

[3:51:50] of public safety, um, and having it be, just supposed to shoot your homeowners, the risk

[3:51:55] of what they are potentially purchasing, um, and I have some issues with this.

[3:52:01] Um, one, the county is issuing permits for temporary housing on these same properties that

[3:52:06] So if the risk is there now, why are temporary housing permits being issued with no mitigation from either the county or the homeowner?

[3:52:16] And I hope you do not take that statement and then stop issuing temporary housing permits because I could see that happening.

[3:52:23] No, not gonna happen.

[3:52:25] You have it on record. He said it's not gonna happen, guys.

[3:52:29] The other thing is not making houses that did not burn sign it.

[3:52:32] We were in the meeting yesterday, and we were told that by trying to get homeowners whose homes did not burn

[3:52:39] to sign it, that it would be considered an overreach of the government, and that they would just shred that document and ignore it.

[3:52:45] It's an overreach to us as well.

[3:52:49] I think his exact word yesterday were, because we need something from the county, they can make a sign this,

[3:52:55] but because those folks whose homes did not burn, don't need anything from the county, that is why they cannot do it.

[3:53:01] So, I don't think it's fair that because we need something from you all that that be held over our head.

[3:53:09] I took some notes because I had not prepared an official statement today.

[3:53:13] I wasn't playing it on talking.

[3:53:15] One of the things we heard is that the county hasn't had people sign this covenant for many years,

[3:53:19] well over a couple of decades now.

[3:53:21] And that's great and bandy.

[3:53:22] I don't think that must necessarily mean that we should continue to do it that way.

[3:53:25] I think folks all too often get stuck in the, this is the way we've always done that mindset.

[3:53:29] And I think things seem to change.

[3:53:33] The other thing we learned is that the covenant is for geological specifically is always triggered when there's a geological, when there's a permit submitted for for geological.

[3:53:45] I don't think that's true. We had a septic system upgraded and solved in 2004. No geological anything was required of our property.

[3:53:54] And as well as when we first started our house, nothing

[3:53:57] geological was disclosed to us.

[3:54:01] Title transfers go through the county.

[3:54:02] There's no reason that can't be triggered at the time of a title transfer as well.

[3:54:06] You guys know every time a house is purchased, go to the assessor's office,

[3:54:10] because you start just access on them so you know it's being sold.

[3:54:14] And the last thing on here is that the not being able to remove it from our deed

[3:54:20] Once the mitigation is either done, or when the risk is decreased over time, which we've

[3:54:28] all acknowledged is in interactions as well, that that risk will decrease over time as the

[3:54:33] Burwantres come by. The fact that we can't move from the deed and that we might be able to

[3:54:39] revise the verbiage as a little ridiculous for us specifically and it does not count for everyone

[3:54:43] here. The land above us that would potentially be coming down is county owned and we were told

[3:54:49] that the county hopes to have funding within three years

[3:54:52] to start the project who mitigating their land.

[3:54:54] So by signing this covenant,

[3:54:56] we're essentially being held liable for land

[3:54:58] that the county owns and has chosen not to mitigate that risk.

[3:55:03] And I'm not okay with signing off that liability

[3:55:06] of the county, it's your land.

[3:55:08] You should be mitigating it.

[3:55:10] And that's it.

[3:55:11] Thank you.

[3:55:14] And so I just want to do ask,

[3:55:17] I'm not a council or Mr. Reed, to address the difference between the draft covenant and the same, and a geological hazards.

[3:55:29] There's very little difference in between those two things are the draft, the covenant, the notice of geologic hazards that we typically require is called a notice, but they both essentially do the same thing.

[3:55:47] So it's a, you know, I'm listening to the testimony and hearing the testimony the same way the board is, and it's a little different than what staff understands our experience to be over the last number of years in requiring these kind of covenants.

[3:56:04] And requiring this kind of identification or requiring this kind of notices to be reported and not seeing the kind of problems that we're hearing that people are worried that they're going to experience.

[3:56:22] I have to say, okay, yes ma'am.

[3:56:28] Hi, my name is Carol Payne.

[3:56:31] I'm a local broker and I've been working

[3:56:34] in the Santa Cruz Mountain since 1984.

[3:56:38] And I'm here mainly in support of the burn victims.

[3:56:43] And to say that the covenant as it was written

[3:56:47] would definitely affect property values.

[3:56:51] and I want to stress that anything that affects property values affects us all, whether we are

[3:56:59] in the zone or not. Because as things go down in value, it has a domino effect and affects

[3:57:08] all of us in this county. I really appreciate that you are revisiting this and I would suggest that

[3:57:18] You consult with an attorney, a real estate attorney, with the idea of writing something

[3:57:30] that will

[3:57:34] be conducive to real estate in the area, as well as doing what you need it to do.

[3:57:47] Sorry.

[3:57:48] I'm a little nervous.

[3:57:49] Are you fine?

[3:57:50] Thank you. Thank you

[3:57:56] very much to anyone else who would like to address this.

[3:58:00] Do anybody on the phone? Yes, I have to. I'm speaker. Katie Webb, your microphone is available.

[3:58:21] Yes.

[3:58:22] Okay, thank you so much. So my name is Katie Webb and I'm a resident of the Burnary and Swan and I'm also a Board of

[3:58:30] director, some member of the Dow import,

[3:58:32] no North Coast Association.

[3:58:35] I want to speak specifically on the portion of the study

[3:58:38] that examined the brief flow risk

[3:58:39] for the Scott's Creek Watershed,

[3:58:41] which is the primary drainage for the Swanton Valley area

[3:58:44] on the North Coast.

[3:58:46] It's listed as zone 14 in the Acton study.

[3:58:50] There are several inconsistencies

[3:58:51] in how the study treated Scott's Creek

[3:58:53] compared to the other drainage is in the study.

[3:58:56] First, the Acton's report states

[3:58:58] that the debris flow calculations were not completed for the South's Creek drainage, meaning that no refinement or further analysis of the actual risk occurred, even though doing so within the scope of the work of the study.

[3:59:12] Second, on the GIS layer map detailing the study results, the entire South's Creek drainage is mapped without any refinement as being within the high-risk primary debris flow path, as determined by the actions.

[3:59:26] In conflict with this, Scott's Creek is also matched as not having been part of the detailed study.

[3:59:33] Two scenarios, which cannot both exist at the same time.

[3:59:37] Scott's Creek is the only drainage included in the study that did not receive detailed study,

[3:59:42] and therefore refinement of the county's previous worst case scenario modeling.

[3:59:47] I asked the board to return to Atkins to ask them to complete calculations for Scott's Creek

[3:59:53] to achieve the refinement that was originally sought.

[3:59:56] If that is not possible, I ask the big excludes God's creep from theirs.

[4:00:00] And the resulting mapping, entirely to avoid false information about which parcels lay in the primary degree flip path in which to not.

[4:00:10] Lumping's got screeching with the other drainages in the study as having benefited from refinement calculations.

[4:00:16] When it has not is inequitable and misleading, this false mapping and lack of analysis not only affects rebuilding requirements, but also impacts insurance availability,

[4:00:28] the lending opportunities access to mitigation funding and future development potential.

[4:00:34] I ask you to consider these study issues before accepting the report is complete and accurate.

[4:00:41] Thank you for your time.

[4:00:45] Have you ever another call?

[4:00:46] Yes.

[4:00:46] Credence, your microphone is available.

[4:00:52] Hello.

[4:00:53] Thank you.

[4:00:54] I wasn't planning on speaking today, so my comments are going to be a little scattered

[4:00:58] and I apologize for that in advance.

[4:01:00] But when I heard the County Council say that the proposed notice from last meeting versus the historic notices were equal, I felt I had to speak up.

[4:01:15] So just from a very, very simple standpoint, the prior notices that I reviewed are all in the four to five paragraph range.

[4:01:24] The proposed notice from last week has upwards of 22 paragraphs.

[4:01:31] The old notices have a very simple.

[4:01:34] The first paragraph kind of says, this is who I am.

[4:01:38] This is where I live.

[4:01:39] The second paragraph says, we acknowledge there's reports.

[4:01:43] The third says we understand the hazards and indemnify the county.

[4:01:47] The fourth says the declaration runs with the land of the painting director can remove it.

[4:01:52] Very simple, very straightforward. Now I know I'm going to run out of my two minutes before I get through the next one, but the next one, go ahead, go ahead.

[4:02:01] The next one starts with, you know, I am the property, this is where it is, and I'm the owner.

[4:02:07] The second is, you know, kind of some just kind of legal these regarding the national flu insurance.

[4:02:14] The next kind of talks about CZU.

[4:02:16] The way you really start getting into issues is it goes on and on and on and saying the property owner is aware, it says the property owner will pay for county council to effectively protect, you know, pay for how does it go.

[4:02:31] identifies the county and requires them to protect the county for many lawsuits and all that.

[4:02:43] And just I forgot to mention those of you that know me, my name's Treetin Shah.

[4:02:47] I'm a contractor with the community foundation. I've been I was a lender for many years with

[4:02:53] Santa Cruz County Bank and the Chief Court officer there. Just to give you a little background

[4:02:58] for an answer. I'm in. Thank you very much.

[4:03:01] Thank you.

[4:03:06] Mark.

[4:03:07] Mark.

[4:03:10] Yes, hello. Good afternoon. Thank you, everyone.

[4:03:14] Mark Swisher with Cal Poly at Swan Pacific Ranch.

[4:03:19] I would like to first reiterate what Miss Webb had stated regarding the technical content of that.

[4:03:25] report as it relates to the swan area. I asked the board to reconsider, re-evaluate that particular

[4:03:34] geographic area, consistent with the other areas evaluated in the technical report. In addition

[4:03:42] to that, I have a couple of questions that are, excuse me, comments specific to the CZU rebuild

[4:03:49] directive. The first being that the board consider allowing building permits for non-habitable

[4:03:57] or temporary structures through this rebuild directive and allowing those permits to be

[4:04:04] issued exempt from any sort of covenant or title restriction being recorded. In addition to that,

[4:04:12] I asked the board to please consider relaxing the incline restrictions on this directive

[4:04:18] as some property owners may desire to combine structures,

[4:04:23] square footage of structures for more resilient or sustainable development,

[4:04:28] and or rebuild a lesser footprint, square footage wise.

[4:04:34] Thank you for your time.

[4:04:37] There are no other speakers.

[4:04:39] We do have another speaker here.

[4:04:41] My

[4:04:46] name is Renee King.

[4:04:47] I'm in Boulder Creek.

[4:04:49] I was in the fallen leaf neighborhood at one point and we moved

[4:04:53] and of course, the fire did come within two feet to 10 feet from our current house where we live now.

[4:05:01] I'm hearing from the realtors and I went myself and talked to realtors and lenders and I also talked to our insurance broker.

[4:05:09] And one of the things I'm not hearing up here and from the mention last time everybody was here was find up from if insurance will be a problem with that covenant or any covenant and it will.

[4:05:21] The fire families will have a really hard time either increasing their insurance or, I mean, the minute you mention it, it could be that they get canceled.

[4:05:32] That covenant will have a big sway with insurance as well.

[4:05:37] And that is not being mentioned here at all.

[4:05:40] So you need to think about that long and hard before you do that. People already get canceled once they put it in a claim for a fire.

[4:05:48] Um, this, you guys need to think about that.

[4:05:53] Thank you. Yes, we haven't done it. I know the state has changed.

[4:05:56] It's some of it's policy. It's pretty clear.

[4:06:00] It's all. It's all right. Oh, my.

[4:06:08] Oh, what's up?

[4:06:09] My name is Alex Cortinas.

[4:06:11] My dad is the cool brown guy that you tried to film like he don't know two weeks ago.

[4:06:16] But I know you know him.

[4:06:18] But that's all right.

[4:06:20] I prepared a statement and I'm probably not going to read all of it because I don't want to be

[4:06:24] that horse and you don't need to hear all the same things over and over again.

[4:06:28] Unfortunately, I could not be here last week or two weeks ago, rather because who in the world is

[4:06:33] free at 130 on a Tuesday? Why have you not gone out of your way to make yourselves more available

[4:06:39] to the fire community? You can answer that, that's not a rhetorical question.

[4:06:44] Nothing, all right, cool. So, I think the main issue is that everyone here,

[4:06:51] at least on this side of the room is too proud

[4:06:53] to admit that they have no idea what they're doing.

[4:06:55] And it's not your fault.

[4:06:56] But you're in over your heads,

[4:06:59] the blinding departments have never dealt with something

[4:07:00] like this before.

[4:07:01] And I hope that you never have to, again,

[4:07:02] I really hope that there's not any kind of natural disaster

[4:07:05] to be a fire or a flood because it fucking sucks to deal with.

[4:07:08] I didn't even lose my house, my parents did,

[4:07:11] but it's such a miserable feeling to see people suffering

[4:07:14] and you literally can't do anything to make them feel better.

[4:07:17] And you guys made it seem like you would a year ago,

[4:07:19] But my parents still don't have a house.

[4:07:22] Why?

[4:07:23] The reason is because the planning department

[4:07:26] has no idea what they're doing.

[4:07:28] Pile of the in as a undergraduate degree.

[4:07:31] I'm like 100 years ago when college acceptance rates

[4:07:34] were like 100%.

[4:07:35] All you had to do was fill out the form in you there.

[4:07:39] Mr. Chair, can we pause the time?

[4:07:42] Yes.

[4:07:43] I understand the frustration, but personal attacks against people.

[4:07:48] A, are on true and unfair.

[4:07:51] B, make me not want to listen to anything you have to say.

[4:07:54] So if you can figure out a way to make your point without personally attacking people,

[4:08:00] I think we're all going to get in up in a much better place.

[4:08:02] We've heard the comments last week.

[4:08:05] We're changing direction.

[4:08:06] We're trying to find we're bringing in outside planning consultants.

[4:08:10] We've lowered the fees.

[4:08:11] We're working on what we can do.

[4:08:13] It's we're balancing a lot of competing interests.

[4:08:15] But personal attacks are way, way out of line, and unprofessional in this environment.

[4:08:21] Thanks.

[4:08:22] Well, I'm not being paid to be here.

[4:08:23] But anyway, the bottom line is that you guys keep playing games with people.

[4:08:28] And I don't know if it's intentional.

[4:08:30] But at a certain point, one has to ask what the motivation is.

[4:08:33] Because you say that you want to make things easy and streamline the process.

[4:08:37] But then you have these like surprised contingencies where like,

[4:08:40] Apparently now we need to go find outside consultants to prove to you that there's going to be

[4:08:46] impacts when someone wants to refinance their house to get insurance.

[4:08:49] That's something that the board should have researched ahead of time.

[4:08:52] Last meeting, I watched it.

[4:08:54] You all talked so much about empathy, but I really don't think that it's registered with you.

[4:08:59] You really haven't taken the time to fathom what it's like to lose things that you cherish and love.

[4:09:04] Things that you spent your whole life building and working towards.

[4:09:08] I don't really know what that feeling is like either because I don't own a house, but it's

[4:09:13] just really unfair that you guys keep throwing curve balls at these people who just want

[4:09:18] their lives to go back to normal. I really don't think it's registering with you how

[4:09:22] attending this whole situation has been for everyone. I mean, it really seems like the only

[4:09:27] outcome of the situation due to how long you've dragged it on this entire time, is that

[4:09:31] you're just going to end up with more mentally ill homeless people in Santa Cruz County.

[4:09:38] I just, I don't know what I want to hear to be completely frank if I could wave a magic bond

[4:09:45] and give everyone permits.

[4:09:46] I think that that would be cool.

[4:09:47] And I could totally do it.

[4:09:48] But I can't.

[4:09:51] I think the main issue is just the planning department and not they have way too much power

[4:09:56] in what they're doing.

[4:09:57] I think it's great that you've gone and consulted outside firms.

[4:10:02] And I think it's good to continue these studies and do them in the future.

[4:10:05] Come back next year and then you're after see what is growing.

[4:10:08] See how impacts to reflow and things like that.

[4:10:11] But yes, as it was mentioned, the ecosystem and the geology and

[4:10:13] Santa Barbara County is not the same as Santa Cruz County.

[4:10:15] You can't compare them.

[4:10:16] It's good to have something to reference.

[4:10:18] But nobody is going to have all the data for that.

[4:10:21] The real reason of fire of this magnitude happened, unfortunately,

[4:10:24] is really because of genocide.

[4:10:26] The California Indians that live here, the alony and across the state,

[4:10:29] understand that fire is a tool one to be used to bolster ecological health and not

[4:10:35] unfortunately hasn't happened since the colonization.

[4:11:15] So anyway, I'd like to address this.

[4:11:19] I'll bring the conversation back to the Board of Supervisors. I'll be calling the

[4:11:25] Supervisor Coonerty, who's just with the other District 3 that was certainly impacted by the

[4:11:30] do you fire surcharge a community? Sure. Thank you Mr. Chair.

[4:11:37] So this report as core is an extremely

[4:11:40] technical report and a valuable report and we're grateful to the community foundation for funding it

[4:11:47] as a way to reduce some of the burden on fire victims as well as allow us to compete for more

[4:11:53] resilience grants and other opportunities in the future. I think it's important to take a step back.

[4:11:58] It's been 13 months since the county has suffered the largest natural disaster in its history.

[4:12:07] And the victims who are our neighbors, our co-workers people that worked in the Board of Supervisors offices,

[4:12:18] or the CAO's office. These are friends. These are people I grew up with.

[4:12:22] We love ones, people, co-workers, lost their home, and it's been difficult for a variety of reasons for them to rebuild.

[4:12:33] And we have a duty that help people get back home.

[4:12:36] This is possible.

[4:12:37] And as I mentioned, we've been trying by bringing it outside permitting firm by reducing,

[4:12:43] training line in the process, reducing various barriers and fees to make that as possible along

[4:12:51] the way. And as we've worked through various barriers, we've tried to work through them and around

[4:12:59] them. And if the last meeting, I think we try to take a step forward to help reduce another barrier

[4:13:08] And we also got good feedback and helpful feedback from the community, both fire victims and real estate professionals and lenders that are helped us move forward.

[4:13:20] I do want to say that county staff,

[4:13:25] a pile of being, Carolyn Burke, Dave Reed,

[4:13:28] have been at the entire county staff,

[4:13:32] have worked nights and weekends tirelessly

[4:13:35] trying to help people rebuild after this natural disaster

[4:13:38] in the context of COVID, in the context of a lot of different challenges,

[4:13:44] budget cuts and everything else and I'm proud to be affiliated with them and I'm proud of their

[4:13:52] support service. I also want to note many of the people who have spoken today are in a

[4:13:58] surprise from a person's district, a surprise of McPherson and his team and my team have been

[4:14:04] working long, long weeks for more than a year trying to help fire survivors meeting and talking

[4:14:12] people on a most daily basis hearing their pain and their challenges and their hopes and doing what

[4:14:20] we can. So in this context it was mentioned what are we trying to do and the reality is we're trying

[4:14:26] to do a couple of weeks. We have a duty to the fire survivors to help them return safely. We have a

[4:14:33] duty to future home buyers and renters to make sure that they're safe in a world where we're going to

[4:14:39] have more intense floods, more intense fires, more intense debris flows and beyond.

[4:14:46] And we have a duty to the health and safety of our residents now and into the future.

[4:14:52] We have duty to the taxpayers to make sure that if people are by.

[4:15:00] We're passing part of the process that we are making taxpayers liable for future costs down the line.

[4:15:11] And so we're trying to find a balance of all those different competing interests.

[4:15:16] And a way that works with a be lending market and the real estate market.

[4:15:22] It does disadvantage either people now or into the future.

[4:15:26] And so in that context, I want to appreciate everyone who's participated and I'm going to

[4:15:33] and because I think you're making this process better and you're in but there's been

[4:15:38] listened to and improved upon and so I'm going to move the recommended action and then I'm going to add additional direction that

[4:15:46] that the OR-3 planning and other county departments continue community outreach and engagement

[4:15:55] on the implementation of the CZU rebuild directive.

[4:16:01] Thank you.

[4:16:01] The recommended actions for the, the, the, the, to notify, utilize the notification

[4:16:07] of theological hazards, record document, and that our standard practice, what is the template

[4:16:15] rather than a draft covenant that was referenced to on September 14th.

[4:16:22] Yeah, that it's so it's the recommended actions, which is the presentation on the results,

[4:16:29] so the act is to brief flow and the folks in Swanton who brought up issues around that.

[4:16:36] My office will work with you on addressing those questions and comments. And then item number two is to

[4:16:43] the REC staff to consider information from the study

[4:16:47] when implementing the CZU rebuild directive resolution

[4:16:50] 2 to 6-202 with regards to recorded documents

[4:16:54] and agrees that they vary from the covenant presented

[4:16:57] on September 14th, 2021 in order to provide additional options

[4:17:03] to permit to permitties, and then the additional direction

[4:17:07] would be that the staff continue to do outreach

[4:17:11] and run any additional requirements or legal documents past people who are in both the real

[4:17:22] stay market and fire survivors and community broadly to make sure that we don't have any

[4:17:27] anything to do with the consequences.

[4:17:29] A second.

[4:17:30] Okay.

[4:17:31] Second by second.

[4:17:32] Second by second.

[4:17:32] Supervisor Friend.

[4:17:33] Did you have any comments?

[4:17:34] Supervisor Friend.

[4:17:36] I don't know if you can Mr. Chair.

[4:17:43] You've

[4:17:51] been through an extraordinarily tough year, and more so than most people, and, you know, everybody got us gone through something to the past year, but what you've got through is

[4:18:22] Thank you for your participation and being here back this. I think it's going to come back to the board on October 19th and it's that correct.

[4:18:36] But

[4:18:42] that wasn't listed as part of the direction.

[4:18:44] So I thought it would have been, okay.

[4:18:47] Okay, very good.

[4:18:49] Okay.

[4:18:51] Thank you.

[4:18:58] So long as short of as we ease the covenants,

[4:19:07] we will, thank you.

[4:19:12] We will now move to item number 13 to approve the 2021 year

[4:19:16] in financial budget, report and direct the county administrative office

[4:19:19] to return by January 11th, 2022 with a budget update

[4:19:25] for fiscal year 2021-22 and a forecast of fiscal year 2022-23 has recommended by the County

[4:19:32] Administrative Officer. I think I'm interested in my room. Would we present?

[4:19:44] In Chair McPherson and members of the board, Christine Amarri, your County Budget Manager.

[4:19:51] I'm going to provide you a brief overview of the 2021 year in report and a review of the adopted

[4:19:58] to have 2021, 2022 budget, which you will be considered.

[4:20:02] Just one more, let's go.

[4:20:03] Let's just close the door.

[4:20:06] Yeah.

[4:20:06] Thank you.

[4:20:07] Thank you.

[4:20:07] I'm going to go around the far as to make that.

[4:20:12] It is.

[4:20:13] Well, I'm in my mask on, so I'll do my best here.

[4:20:16] Has that better?

[4:20:17] Yeah.

[4:20:18] OK.

[4:20:21] So we're going to provide you a brief overview to the 2020, 2021 year

[4:20:27] in report, last fiscal year.

[4:20:30] And a review of the adopted 2021-22 budget, which you will be considering in more detail on the next item, 14, presented by the author,

[4:20:40] control a treasure tax collector.

[4:20:43] So next slide.

[4:20:45] So here you'll see an overview.

[4:20:48] I'll be covering some of the county expenditure estimates, compared to the final

[4:20:53] actually will focus on the general fund financing and how the year ended and then we'll take

[4:21:00] look at the 2021-22 county budget expenditures as they've been finalized with all the adjustments.

[4:21:07] The general fund financing will look at contingencies, the reserves, and then a summary of

[4:21:13] our challenges and possible solutions. Next slide.

[4:21:19] Here is a summary of the 2021 county budget

[4:21:23] expenditures compared to estimates relied on during the recommended budget and compared to the final

[4:21:29] actuals at year end. The 2021 expenditure actuals were less than estimated at our midyear report

[4:21:38] by 45.5 million of which 56.4 million were obligations in combat at year end that are now

[4:21:48] for it included in the appropriations for 2021-22 adopted budget.

[4:21:55] The general fund had an increase compared to the mid-year estimates.

[4:22:00] Primarily from the increased costs related to the continued emergency response,

[4:22:05] Primarily funded from FEMA and the American Rescue Plan funding.

[4:22:11] The majority of unspent other funds are grant funded and are re-budgeted with the offsetting

[4:22:16] revenue to the 2021-22 adopted budget.

[4:22:21] Next slide.

[4:22:24] Here is a summary of the general fund financing for 2021,

[4:22:29] compared to the estimates.

[4:22:31] Overall, the general revenues budget had 34.6 million more

[4:22:36] in funding received, offset by 20.3 million more in

[4:22:45] 27.5 million better compared to the original budget before any reductions of the year and in

[4:22:53] conferences, which are cared for, which we do have obligations to pay, but it was 12.6 million,

[4:23:00] which are now carried to the 2021-22 budget, leaving 14.9 million in fund balance before any

[4:23:08] other year into just funds, which the auditor is going to cover in more detail. So of that,

[4:23:14] So I know the big question always is, well, how much do we have left over at the end of the year?

[4:23:19] So of that 14.9 million, the other will be addressing gas B84, we did discuss it during budget hearings.

[4:23:28] That's the government accounting standards board.

[4:23:32] Proclamation that required us to review all of our trust funds and include those now in the part of the general fund.

[4:23:39] So we have some additional adjustments, so points, about 600,000 of those remaining funds were restricted for those special purposes.

[4:23:50] And then we had already planned in the proposed budget to set aside $3 million in to reserves of the amount that we knew we were going to have in excess of mid-year.

[4:24:01] So that leaves us about $11.3 million in additional funding at year end and the question is what do we do with those funds?

[4:24:12] So those funds were allocated as follows and are included in the 2021-22 budget.

[4:24:18] We increased our reserves beyond the $3 million by $4.6 million.

[4:24:23] And that allowed us to achieve our 10% goal with the inclusion of the funding that was provided from the gas B84 reclassifications, which the author can speak to as well.

[4:24:39] In addition to that, we said about 600,000 as discussed was restricted for those restricted funds.

[4:24:46] And then you'll recall during budget hearings, we knew we were going to have savings of about a million dollars from the public defender budget.

[4:24:54] And we allocated that million dollars to establish for the startup costs for the new office.

[4:25:02] So that was part of that. And then we also had about 1.1 million that we allocated to increase our contingencies.

[4:25:09] This allows us to have 1% of our expenditures set aside in contingencies.

[4:25:17] And then the remaining 4 million was used to increase the property and liability fund.

[4:25:23] We discussed during budget hearings that our property and liability fund has had a lot of increased claims.

[4:25:28] And as a result needed an increase in order to have a bare minimum and anticipation of claims reserve.

[4:25:36] So we analyze that every year, well, every other year with an actual report and the actual

[4:25:43] has stated that we should have at least 12 million in reserve.

[4:25:47] So we're going to have four.

[4:25:48] So we're, we need to set some goals to achieve that target in the future.

[4:25:53] But we're making a little bit of progress at this point.

[4:25:57] Okay, next slide.

[4:25:59] Here gives you an overview of the 2021-22 county budgeted expenditures compared to the adopted

[4:26:09] compared to the, I should say, the proposed, the original recommended.

[4:26:13] The increase in the total budget is offset by increased revenues for the general fund of about 86.4 million.

[4:26:20] And this is primarily the continuation of the COVID-19 response costs.

[4:26:25] Funded by FEMA, oh yes, and the coronavirus relief funds, which includes the funds from the American Rescue Plan.

[4:26:33] Additional 86.4 million is provided from a re-budget of incomplete costs from 2021 and adjustments approved by the Board during budget hearings.

[4:26:45] It includes 95.75 positions, which are primarily limited term positions that your board added mid-year last year due to our response to the COVID-19.

[4:27:00] Other funds are primarily the restricted funds include incomplete projects, which aren't naturally re-budgeted from the prior year.

[4:27:11] So here's a summary of the gentleman financing for 2021-22, which is where the board has, of course, the most discretion.

[4:27:23] Our total general fund financing increased by $6.5 million based on adjustments during budget hearings and year-inclosed and unspent costs and unreceived revenues which were re-budgeted from the prior year.

[4:27:38] The fund balance available of 16.7 million includes that increase of six and a half, which is the 63%.

[4:27:48] And that's primarily the American Rescue Plan funding. Your board will recall that we had a supplemental item that part of the allocation of the funding.

[4:27:58] The revenues that we were recovering using the American Rescue Plan funding was helping us fund the 50% elimination of the furlough.

[4:28:06] So that's that's for that additional six million let's need it.

[4:28:12] And then we are the General County revenues increased by 10 million.

[4:28:19] And this is primarily from the increased allocation of the American Rescue Plan funding.

[4:28:25] That was approved by the board and allocated in 2021-22.

[4:28:34] Next slide, contingencies.

[4:28:36] So here's a summary of our contingencies for the adopted budget.

[4:28:41] After all the adjustments during budget hearings in the year and the general fund contingencies,

[4:28:46] help address any shortfalls and revenues or expenditures that could occur.

[4:28:50] And we've had a practice of setting aside 1% of our expenditures,

[4:28:55] which in this case is $6.3 million.

[4:28:58] And then we have some restrictive contingencies this is funding to address

[4:29:02] media adjustments that are approved by the board in any possible emergencies that may occur.

[4:29:10] And any other board priorities that occurred during the year.

[4:29:12] And that's, we set aside 4.1 million, so for total of 10.4 million for the adopted budget.

[4:29:19] And this then shows the increase mentioned earlier, the 1.1 million over the proposed budget.

[4:29:26] Let's slide. Everybody's favorite, this is reserves.

[4:29:29] So I am happy to report that we are at our just slightly above our 10% goal, but it's important to understand a few things.

[4:29:39] Number one, so our general fund reserve policy is 7 to 10% of the total general fund revenues.

[4:29:46] And your board will recall that prior to COVID-19 and the pandemic, we were at that 10% goal for several years.

[4:29:53] And as a result of the pandemic, we needed to use a portion of our reserves in order to provide.

[4:30:00] I'm financing for the general fund. And we have been at that goal, but our minimum is a 7% so we took those

[4:30:08] much out to get us down to the minimum and then made other reductions. The full policy, if anybody

[4:30:15] would like to take a look at it is online and we can, and it specifies how reserves can be used

[4:30:22] and how they should be restored. And it talks about the different types of reserves. So the

[4:30:29] We did take 13 million out and because we took 13 million out of reserves during COVID, during last fiscal year, we needed to have a plan and our plan during the proposed budget was to look at five years to take five years to restore the 30 million and that's why we put at least three million into our reserves originally estimated.

[4:30:51] and because we did better this last year we were able to put a little more. But the real reason

[4:30:57] our reserves went up so much, because without the change in accounting policy, we would only

[4:31:04] be at less than 8% in our reserves. But because of the reclassification of the trust funds,

[4:31:11] we now have an additional 19 million that was put into our general fund reserves. But those reserves

[4:31:16] are restricted for very specific purposes.

[4:31:20] They're not general discretionary type reserves.

[4:31:23] But I just want to alert the board to that.

[4:31:27] And we know we need to continue to build our reserves.

[4:31:31] And as discussed during budget hearings,

[4:31:34] the auditor's office and our office

[4:31:35] will be taking a closer look at that.

[4:31:37] And we'll be bringing a revised policy back to your board

[4:31:41] to discuss a potential increase to the reserve policy.

[4:31:44] And one of the things we could consider as part of that is to look specifically at our

[4:31:53] general county revenues, because those are the revenues that are discretionary revenue.

[4:31:58] And that's the, some policies that counties have looked at, it's not just the total revenues,

[4:32:05] but it looks specifically at the general county revenues, and setting aside within the reserves,

[4:32:10] a portion of those general county revenues for reserve purposes as much as 25% and so just as

[4:32:18] a comparison for information right now are discretionary reserves as a percentage of our

[4:32:26] general county revenues or property taxes sales tax is at 16 and a half percent of something to

[4:32:39] So, yes, we are doing better and we're still coming, we're getting through COVID and we have funding that's allowed for that, but we still have challenges, we still don't know exactly our FEMA reimbursements, how much they'll be, we've claimed approximately 50% of our cost to date and we're still waiting to get a full response from FEMA on all of our claims.

[4:33:05] and to continue to claim the remainder of our costs during the emergency.

[4:33:11] We know with climate change that we're seeing increased demands and potential emergency

[4:33:17] costs could arise there as a result of other fires or debris flows that could occur.

[4:33:25] Our actual revenues that have been estimated, we've used our best estimates and historical

[4:33:32] estimates, but they don't always match. Our estimates are actually final revenues. And we know from

[4:33:40] experience that our department costs will continue to increase and grow.

[4:33:46] And then on the solutions

[4:33:48] and next slide, one of the things that's helped us and we've talked greatly about this is that

[4:33:54] we do budget 1% of our expenditures as a general contingency to help us address any of those unforeseen

[4:34:02] situations that could occur, but we are using one-time funding to fund that channel contingency

[4:34:09] so that's an important thing to remember. And our general fund reserves, at this point in time,

[4:34:15] even though they have some restrictions around them are at 10% of our revenues.

[4:34:20] And we do, as you know, are looking at revenue measures to help fund future gaps in our financing.

[4:34:26] And we do, thankfully, thankfully have the American Rescue Plan funding to help us with all

[4:34:33] of our COVID-related costs and to help recover some of our revenue losses from

[4:34:37] prior years, but is allowing us to make some additional investments.

[4:34:41] And we have that funding until the end of 2024.

[4:34:47] So I think that's it, and our recommendation is to accept and file the report.

[4:34:52] And we will return by January 11th with an update on the current year 2021-22 and also provide a preliminary forecast for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

[4:35:07] And I'm happy to answer any questions.

[4:35:09] Thank you very much.

[4:35:10] I want to thank your entire financial team for managing this county budget on some very unpredictable and unbelievable year.

[4:35:19] And I bet you're about ready to retire and I bet you wish you would have taken retirement a year ago, but I wish you a glad you were here for this crisis that we've been facing.

[4:35:29] And I'm especially appreciative of the increase in our reserves to our board policy level of 10% understanding that this the difference in the discretionary and the general funded so forth.

[4:35:40] But we need to be there who knows what might be coming next and it's really good public policy to have a reserve of that degree of 10%.

[4:35:53] I think our team, the whole team, has a great job of staring us through this COVID crisis end of financial consequences of the fire.

[4:36:04] We're hearing some of that just a little while ago.

[4:36:06] And I can't thank our employees enough for helping us through the

[4:36:09] Linus time and the furloughs and everything else that was

[4:36:12] involved.

[4:36:14] I think this county has come out of this move very, very well because

[4:36:18] the dedicated efforts of our county employees.

[4:36:20] And I just want to thank each and every one of them for what

[4:36:22] they've done.

[4:36:24] I did some very trying and unexpected circumstances that we've

[4:36:28] had to face.

[4:36:29] I would like to ask the R.C.O. Carlos Blasio about, I see us as doing very well and have

[4:36:37] rebounded in.

[4:36:38] Thanks to the state and federal resources that we receive, but just in general, how are the counties

[4:36:42] doing?

[4:36:45] You have an overview of that?

[4:36:48] Yes.

[4:36:49] Ms. Now, we did some research on that with our joining counties, a little bit difficult to compare

[4:36:55] monetary counties much bigger than us, and then we need a so small, but almost like a small city.

[4:37:02] In terms of reserves, both of those counties are doing better than us.

[4:37:06] They have a higher reserve, the San Benito has very high reserves,

[4:37:11] and then moderate county also has higher reserves than us. So it shows that we have set a good goal

[4:37:17] and improving our reserves. And remember, we're at 10, over 10%, but that includes this

[4:37:22] health trust money that was moved because of this accounting rule, absent that money I believe

[4:37:26] it would be near 8%. So that shows you, we still have a ways to go in terms of building up

[4:37:33] our reserves back to where they should be, but on the other hand, we are improving, we're doing

[4:37:37] well, we're very peacefully stable, we've been able to maintain our bond rating this year,

[4:37:43] which is an amazing feat given all that we've been through. So in general, I think we're doing

[4:37:47] very well. And we're doing better than most counties are given on the constraints that we have,

[4:37:52] which is primarily that we're relatively low revenue, low property tax county, but even with

[4:37:58] that constraint, we're doing, I think, a very good job. And I think we're doing well in comparison

[4:38:03] to other counties. But thank you very much. Any other comments from board members?

[4:38:08] It's a rise of funding. It's a rise of your friend.

[4:38:11] If thank you, Mr. Chair, I think him is Maori as always. I know we said wonderful things about

[4:38:16] If the last presentation and that hasn't changed in that amount of time, you will be missed, you know, a lot of times we don't end up in the front page of the paper for budget related things and that actually starts with you and sort of wanted to appreciate your work.

[4:38:31] Very ethical, very appropriate, very professional and we appreciate that.

[4:38:35] I had one question in regards to the FEMA comment there at the end.

[4:38:41] We'd always known that we, in some respects, sort of,

[4:38:45] over-secret reimbursement from FEMA,

[4:38:46] there's generally a factor of maybe 20% or so

[4:38:49] from right on that number of non-reimbursment,

[4:38:51] but your language has said that it would come in lower

[4:38:54] than anticipated.

[4:38:55] Is that lower than the anticipated already reduction

[4:38:57] that we would already anticipate?

[4:38:59] Or is that still the normal factor off of what we generally

[4:39:02] We assume we won't get fully reimbursed by snow then why.

[4:39:08] Yeah, it's still the normal factor.

[4:39:10] We still don't have enough experience yet, based on our claiming

[4:39:14] what FEMA's responsible fully be.

[4:39:17] I mean, we have over $50 million in costs through June.

[4:39:23] We've claimed essentially half that.

[4:39:26] And we've only heard from FEMA proving 25% of that, 25 million.

[4:39:31] and receive just a few million in terms of reimbursements.

[4:39:34] So we have a ways to go with FEMA and we are in constant communication with FEMA and you know it's just taking longer to do these claims.

[4:39:43] And we had a little bit of a delay during fiscal year and we had to redirect our attention, but we've just hired a few more staff and so we're hopeful we'll be able to get caught up by the end of the year.

[4:39:54] Okay, I appreciate that as always, you and the CAO can always lean on us on the federal advocacy side as well, but I appreciate that some of this is outside of pure advocacy, but sometimes it doesn't hurt.

[4:40:06] I appreciate the presentation. Thank you.

[4:40:08] Thank you.

[4:40:09] The Schumerer is your country. Any questions?

[4:40:13] No, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the whole team for getting us through these stormy seasons.

[4:40:21] And it's been good to have a partnership for the federal and state government and also want to recognize all the business owners and workers and everyone else who have shown up and done their best to keep our economy alive so that we could have a tax base and jobs and opportunity going forward.

[4:40:45] Thank you.

[4:40:46] I should raise your cap in any questions.

[4:40:48] Thank you.

[4:40:50] Yeah.

[4:40:50] What do you hear us?

[4:40:52] This is your last one.

[4:40:55] This is my last one.

[4:40:56] Yes, it is.

[4:40:58] And what is October?

[4:41:00] Sometime.

[4:41:01] October 8th.

[4:41:02] Excuse me.

[4:41:04] Well, you deserve a rest for a while.

[4:41:07] I don't know what you're going to do after a little bit of a while.

[4:41:11] Anyway, just.

[4:41:13] the incredible year, everything was upside down, everything was turned around backwards.

[4:41:20] And it was tough to figure out where to go and you managed to know which way to go.

[4:41:26] And that was improve everything and move forward.

[4:41:32] So thanks for everything you've done.

[4:41:35] And I think we're going to be okay.

[4:41:38] So we have an incredible team of people.

[4:41:41] Good. Good.

[4:41:43] Good.

[4:41:44] In a motion to accept the report.

[4:41:48] I'll note the recommend.

[4:41:49] Excuse me.

[4:41:50] Excuse me.

[4:41:50] I'll have somebody from public once.

[4:41:51] I'll speak.

[4:41:58] Thank you.

[4:41:58] Nice to be here in person.

[4:42:01] My name is Becky Steinbrin.

[4:42:02] Thank you for this report and Miss Malbury.

[4:42:04] Good luck to you on your retirement.

[4:42:07] I appreciate your service.

[4:42:08] I have some questions about that supervisor,

[4:42:11] a friend brought up about the FEMA reimbursement.

[4:42:14] A question, is that regarding COVID reimbursements only or does that also include the CZU reimbursements?

[4:42:23] My second question is with a good amount of money in the contingency fund, why don't we have

[4:42:34] enough money to fund projects like the Rio Delmar drainage project that just got scrapped?

[4:42:41] because even with great grant funding from the federal's because the people in vote in to

[4:42:48] assess themselves about $200,000 total to make it go. Why can't that come out of contingency?

[4:42:56] Why can't money for this fund that the study that community foundation had to do?

[4:43:04] Because the county said they didn't have money, but we needed that study to get grants,

[4:43:08] That was $200,000.

[4:43:11] Why can't we use the contingency funds for things like that to support the health, and safety, and rebuilding of our people?

[4:43:22] My last question in regards to Measure G, the countywide sales tax.

[4:43:27] What's the status of that?

[4:43:30] There is no independent oversight as was promised to the voters regarding that.

[4:43:35] I asked about it was called, well, it's on the website and you can come to the budget hearings, that's not oversight, and zero of that has been allocated to fire.

[4:43:45] That was a big thing to pass that and I would really like some discussion about the measure G funds and how the county will allocate that money.

[4:43:56] Thank you very much and again, good luck in your retirement.

[4:43:59] We do answer a couple of those questions.

[4:44:01] Yes, I'm happy too.

[4:44:04] So in my comments earlier about the FEMA funding,

[4:44:07] specifically around the COVID-related cost,

[4:44:10] fire is a separate claim.

[4:44:12] I don't have that information with me.

[4:44:14] The auditor has been more involved in that,

[4:44:17] so may have those numbers for you.

[4:44:20] As it relates to contingencies,

[4:44:22] the use of contingencies are at the discretion of the board,

[4:44:25] based on requests that are made.

[4:44:28] So, and we do have a capital review committee, so if there are funds needed for a particular project, any of those requests go through our capital review committee and are allocated, and we do have very limited funding for our capital improvement projects.

[4:44:43] And so there's a lot of need and requests around that.

[4:44:47] I can't address the specific project so I don't have any of those details.

[4:44:52] Major G is a transaction sales tax that was approved by the voters.

[4:44:58] It's a general purpose revenue.

[4:45:00] Your board did establish certain uses for those funds, and we've been in keeping with those uses. And we have provided a report. It's on the last page of the adopted budget that shows since inception since 1819, the amount of funds that have been received from Major G, and how those funds have been used. Essentially, your board funded the fit program.

[4:45:24] We have funded some park improvements and maintenance staff with those funds.

[4:45:30] We also are funding some of our housing for healthy Santa Cruz or homeless funding is funded through those funds.

[4:45:38] We also are funding specifically the Office of Response Recovery Resiliency that that new.

[4:45:47] And then the remainder of the funds are for county essential services.

[4:45:52] So the majority of those funds are being allocated to those programs,

[4:45:56] and there's very little left at this point in time.

[4:45:59] About 25% being allocated to general county essential services.

[4:46:04] Because it's part of the general fund,

[4:46:07] it's part of the annual audit and process,

[4:46:10] and it is reviewed through the annual review of the financial statements,

[4:46:15] And the order has an outside auditor that comes in and does that review.

[4:46:21] Thank you.

[4:46:22] Thank you.

[4:46:22] Just comment on the contingencies a little bit further.

[4:46:26] The contingencies amount to only about 1% of our general fund.

[4:46:32] And they are our operating reserve.

[4:46:35] So we have a permanent reserve, which we're just talking about, which is the 10% that we now have.

[4:46:42] And those are strictly and very severe emergencies and only used very rarely infected.

[4:46:47] I don't we used them this year, but I don't know we've ever used them before.

[4:46:51] I want to use our general contingency because it needs to be there to.

[4:46:58] Very forward.

[4:46:59] So then the contingencies and the budget are operating reserve.

[4:47:04] And that's our first line of defense for any emergency that would come up.

[4:47:09] So, it's not just a part of money to be allocated, we have that as an operating reserve for any unforeseen circumstances, which may have to give us some little bit of question.

[4:47:21] It's kind of like having a little bit of cushion in your checking account and versus your savings account.

[4:47:28] So that, and you just don't want to spend it, right? Because then you have no cushion.

[4:47:31] And of course, we have to have a balance budget, and so 1% as a cushion.

[4:47:35] We're a general fan. It's a very small amount. It's a minimum amount. And so that's why we have that contingency fund in there. That's why we try not to tap into it as a, you know, just to use to fund things. Thank you.

[4:47:48] Yes.

[4:47:48] Thank you.

[4:47:49] Thank you.

[4:47:50] But four years ago when we had that big storm.

[4:47:53] And it looked like the levy might break at the reverse side drive and the coward road, was that emergency funds?

[4:48:05] We had to give the okay that was about two billion dollars.

[4:48:11] I don't remember that specific.

[4:48:13] It was funded, but that is an example.

[4:48:16] The way we have contingencies to first fund an emergency like that later you might try and get

[4:48:23] actually pay. And that case was granted rock. And it was overnight. We had to make that decision.

[4:48:28] Yeah. Yeah. And we did use some of the contingencies last year.

[4:48:36] Some of our restricted contingencies that we had set aside for anticipated emergency. And that's

[4:48:42] how we funded some of the initial local match needed on the fire response costs. Thank you so.

[4:48:49] Thank you.

[4:48:50] Surprise your query.

[4:48:52] I have no comments.

[4:48:53] I'm preparing to move the right to an action.

[4:48:56] Second.

[4:48:57] Second.

[4:48:58] Do you have any comments?

[4:48:59] Surprise your friend.

[4:49:01] Thank you Mr. Charles.

[4:49:02] I had already made some comments.

[4:49:03] I appreciate it.

[4:49:04] I appreciate it.

[4:49:05] Very good.

[4:49:06] The police call the rule.

[4:49:08] Did I?

[4:49:09] Is there anybody else?

[4:49:10] And for the record, there are none.

[4:49:11] I'll see.

[4:49:12] All right.

[4:49:13] Please call the rule.

[4:49:14] If a raise their code.

[4:49:15] Bye.

[4:49:16] Friend.

[4:49:17] Good.

[4:49:17] Thank you.

[4:49:17] Good.

[4:49:17] Good afternoon.

[4:49:18] Hi.

[4:49:19] Hi.

[4:49:20] I think you motion passes unanimously.

[4:49:24] Thank you.

[4:49:25] Thank you.

[4:49:26] I have a great retirement.

[4:49:28] I've number 14, our last item of the day.

[4:49:31] I'm to adopt a resolution.

[4:49:34] For the fiscal year or 20, I 21 22 budget.

[4:49:38] For the county funds and special districts.

[4:49:41] I'm.

[4:49:42] For the county.

[4:49:45] For the county fund and special district.

[4:49:46] Special Districts, as shown, adopt resolutions, accept an unanticipated revenue related to the

[4:49:52] priority of fiscal year and approve transfers of appropriations related to the prior fiscal year.

[4:49:57] Council various appropriations due to insufficient funding or contingency balance balances

[4:50:03] that hurt to the county administrative office for a report back.

[4:50:09] On any, additionally, in needed actions and take related actions as recommended by the

[4:50:15] to control or tax collector treasurer. We have 14 resolutions, a few worksheets and this

[4:50:25] day adopted budget also of 21, 22. To present this is our out of your controller treasurer

[4:50:32] tax collector and whatever else, either thriscol. Good afternoon, Chair McPherson and members of

[4:50:39] the board. Either thriscol the out of your controller treasurer tax collector. Also with me today

[4:50:45] as Laura Bowers, her county's chief deputy, out of her controller.

[4:50:50] I, of course, want to say thank you to Christina Murray for her presentation explaining

[4:50:53] this budget in detail. I want to acknowledge the exemplary guidance Christina has provided

[4:50:58] to our county and we also wish her well in return.

[4:51:03] The item before you now is the final Santa Cruz County budget for fiscal year 2021-22.

[4:51:10] The student to be adopted includes changes authorized by your board in June during budget hearings,

[4:51:17] as well as accounting changes resulting from the fiscal year-end closed process.

[4:51:22] Specifically listed in government code 29088, the budget must be approved by resolution

[4:51:29] no later than October 2nd of each year.

[4:51:34] Laura has a brief presentation to highlight the budget document presented in your agenda today.

[4:51:42] Thank you, Edith.

[4:51:44] The auditor controller is required to compile the final budget and the forms, formatting, and content are in accordance with California State Controller Guidelines.

[4:51:54] Next slide, please.

[4:51:55] This table presents budgeted appropriations, in other words, budgeted, next slide, sorry about that.

[4:52:01] In other words, budgeted expenditures for fiscal year 2021, 2022.

[4:52:06] The data from this table comes from the schedule one in the budget book.

[4:52:10] As you can see, we prepare the budget not just for the general fund,

[4:52:13] but also for special revenue funds, which include housing funds,

[4:52:17] the road funds, the transportation fund, and part dedication funds,

[4:52:21] as well as what we call less than countywide funds,

[4:52:23] which include the library fund and the county fire fund, and capital project funds.

[4:52:27] Details for the governmental funds are presented in the scheduled lines in the budget book.

[4:52:33] Additionally, this budget includes special districts and other agencies that are governed by the sport of supervisors, such as county service areas for roads and recreation.

[4:52:42] Details for the board-governed special districts are presented in the scheduled 15s in the budget book.

[4:52:47] Internal service funds include the information services department, personnel insurance funds, and the Department of Public Works.

[4:52:53] Details for the internal service funds are presented in the schedule tens in the budget book.

[4:52:59] Enterprise funds are business type activities and include county disposal sites and sanitation districts,

[4:53:05] and the details for the enterprise funds are presented in the schedule 11 of the budget book.

[4:53:10] Next slide, please.

[4:53:12] This chart shows the distribution of governmental funds,

[4:53:15] which include the general fund, special revenue funds and capital project funds,

[4:53:20] budgeted expenditures by function. As you can see the highest percentages of the governmental fund

[4:53:26] budget are allocated to health and sanitation at public assistance and public protection.

[4:53:33] This chart shows budgeted revenues by source that support governmental funds, which again

[4:53:38] include the general fund, special revenue funds and capital project funds. The two highest sources

[4:53:44] of revenue are aid from other governmental agencies which represents funding from the state and federal

[4:53:49] government followed by property taxes. Please note that the aid from other governmental agencies

[4:53:54] has restrictions on how it can be spent.

[4:53:59] This table shows a reconciliation between the proposed

[4:54:02] budget presented on May 11, 2021, and the final budget as we are presenting to your board today.

[4:54:08] The table is reflected in the board letter that accompanies this budget. The proposed budget

[4:54:13] estimated a net county cost of about $10.1 million, while the final budget presents a net

[4:54:18] cost of about 16.7 million and a large portion of that variance is made up of the 12.4 million

[4:54:24] in income rents, meaning contracts and purchase orders for which the county is obligated to pay

[4:54:29] in 2021-22 that carried over from the previous fiscal year.

[4:54:36] And this final table reflects the

[4:54:38] impact that government accounting standards board statement number 84 had on the final budget.

[4:54:43] For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, the county of Santa Cruz implemented gas v-statement

[4:54:49] number 84, which provided improved guidance regarding the identification of fiduciary activities

[4:54:55] for accounting and financial reporting purposes, and this implementation had an impact on the

[4:55:00] fiscal year 2021-22 budget.

[4:55:02] At June 30, 2021, there were many funds that were previously categorized as trust funds and

[4:55:07] classified as subfunds within the general fund. These new subfunds added over $52 million to

[4:55:14] fund balance in the general fund. However, the majority of that fund balance, 33 million was classified

[4:55:19] as restricted fund balance as the funds were restricted for very specific purposes.

[4:55:24] 19 million was classified as a signed for health services. And with that, I'm going to pass it back

[4:55:30] to you to conclude our presentation. Thank you, Laura. And I would also like to thank Laura's team

[4:55:36] It's often commented that our budget is quite large and quite extensive, and I would agree

[4:55:41] with them.

[4:55:42] And part of that is because the funds of the county are equally quite large and quite extensive.

[4:55:47] And we can imagine that a change that was put into place this year, such as Gasby 84,

[4:55:52] created an extensive amount of work for our teams, and I really appreciate their ability

[4:55:56] to step forward and do it successfully.

[4:55:59] So this concludes our presentation of this budget.

[4:56:02] We are available for any questions.

[4:56:04] Thank you.

[4:56:04] Thank you very much again for the great stewardship of over our budget.

[4:56:09] As was mentioned by our CAO, it was relatively very good position under the circumstances.

[4:56:16] And again, I want to thank our employees for stepping up at a time when we really needed them to make some adjustments.

[4:56:23] Especially again to Christine and Maui, our budget manager, our new budget manager, as Marcus Pimentel, you have some big shoes to fill.

[4:56:32] And I'm grateful of really to the federal and state support that we've received in the COVID-19 pandemic, without a bad, we just would have been buried.

[4:56:43] So it's very welcome indeed.

[4:56:46] Any questions from the Board of Supervisors?

[4:56:48] No, then there in the second or third.

[4:56:54] Any other public comments?

[4:56:57] Public comments?

[4:57:03] Thank you very much.

[4:57:04] back at Steinbriller from Appcast Hills. You are right. This is a very complicated budget.

[4:57:11] I'm a taxpayer and property owner in the mountains. And as a county service area 48 person,

[4:57:25] I request that your board, you consider completely removing the CSA 48 special benefit assessment

[4:57:34] for those in the CZU fire area that lost their homes and are not able to live on their

[4:57:41] property, have nothing to protect, and that was the whole basis of that new special benefit

[4:57:48] assessment tax on top of the two fire flow units that everybody across the board in CSA 48

[4:57:57] pays. These people have nothing that will benefit by paying this tax. They have nothing left.

[4:58:06] They should not have to pay anything at all. Now your board did approve reductions and I look

[4:58:13] through them. They make no sense. Some who lost their homes might have been reduced a small amount.

[4:58:21] But I'm begging with you.

[4:58:25] You've seen the people here.

[4:58:27] You've heard their testimonies.

[4:58:29] They've contacted you in their office.

[4:58:31] You've cleared their properties.

[4:58:33] I'm sure.

[4:58:35] Completely remove all of the CSA48 special benefits assessments

[4:58:40] from the CZU fire area,

[4:58:44] where people who have lost their homes

[4:58:46] and their property is in ashes.

[4:58:51] It makes no sense to continue to tax them

[4:58:54] for the benefit of protecting them.

[4:58:56] When there is nothing, they're to protect.

[4:58:59] Wait until they rebuild, and then you can tax them again.

[4:59:03] Let's take it off now, 100% for these people.

[4:59:06] Please, thank you.

[4:59:11] No other questions for the public.

[4:59:13] We do alien on the phone.

[4:59:14] They're an S. Speaker something.

[4:59:16] I'm having a quick minute actions.

[4:59:20] Second, second the second of each of the will.

[4:59:23] Supervisor Konnik, I, friends.

[4:59:27] Good, Judy.

[4:59:28] Hi.

[4:59:29] How have it?

[4:59:30] Thanks, Harrison.

[4:59:31] Thank you, Mr. Pastel.

[4:59:32] Very good.

[4:59:34] That is the last item on the agenda today.

[4:59:37] So we will endure until the next board of supervisors meet.

[4:59:41] Thank you very much.

[4:59:42] Have a good day.

[4:59:42] Good day.

Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting

Agenda

Transcript