>> Great, thank you. Good
morning. We are reconvening
from closed session, and I, as
for folks that weren't here,
last time we met, I wanted
to reaffirm our commitment
to civility. And at the start
of every board meeting,
I'm going to remind everyone
what our commitment is
on civility, and I'll read the,
our civility statement. And
then I have opening remark real
quick,
and then we'll get right on
along to the agenda. So, the
commitment to civility is the
Board of Supervisors has
adopted rules and procedures
for which include our
commitment to civility.
To assure civility
in its public meetings,
the public is encouraged
to engage in respectful
dialogue that supports the
freedom of speech and values
of diversity of opinion. Board
members, staff, and members
of the public are expected to
establish and maintain a
cordial and respectful
atmosphere
during discussions, and foster
meaningful dialogue free
of personal attacks. Members
of the public must adhere
to the speaking time limit.
The board welcomes comments
including criticism
about the policies, procedures,
programs, or services
of the county,
or the acts or omissions
of the board. Speakers shall
not use threatening, profane,
abusive language which
disrupts, disturbs, and
otherwise impedes orderly
conduct of our board meeting.
The county is committed
to maintaining a workplace free
of unlawful harassment and
mindful that county staff
regularly attends the board
meeting. Discriminatory
statements or conduct that
would potentially violate the
Fair Employment and Housing
Act, for example,
statements or conduct that is
hostile, intimidating,
oppressive,
or abusive is disruptive to our
meeting and will not be
tolerated. So, good Tuesday
morning, Tuesday, March
24th. I wanted to just also
acknowledge the terrible news
that we heard from last week
about Cesar Chavez. Many are
still in shock and grappling
with the news. That someone we
respected highly and thought
of in favorable light has shown
that that is not true. It's
rocked the foundation
of what many people fought
for tirelessly for many years.
To the survivors,
we believe you. We honor the
immense courage it took
to step out
of darkness and speak, speak
about what happened and not
remain silent anymore. If
you're a survivor, I want to
remind you that there are
amazing resources
in our community like Family
Justice Center, Verity, YWCA.
Laura in the county family
emailed last week and she
reminded me
of our founding principles as
in our country, that is,
we are a government of laws,
not of men. And it's a reminder
that the activism is more than
one person. It's a hope and a
fight for a better future
for us, for others. One person
doesn't take away all that has
been sacrificed and achieved
and transformed. The farmworker
movement was a collective
action by thousands
of women and men to support and
uplift our farmworkers,
and that can't be undone.
With that said,
later today we are going to be
presenting a gold resolution,
if you'd like to stay around,
for our farm workers
in recognition of Farm Worker
Week. I have given direction
to staff to visit, circle back
with nonprofits and our labor
leaders to identify the county
holidays we celebrate As
previously established,
Tuesday, March 31st will be a
county holiday. And
with that, we are going
to shimmy on into our agenda.
Those were my opening remarks.
Thank you all for being here.
And again, you can come back
for the Gold Resolution after
about 1 o'clock. And oh,
pledge. Look, just me shimmying
on by. Let's, I can't even
think of who should lead.
Let's just all do it together.
Yay!
>> Right, that's the best way.
>> That collective action.
Good job.
>> I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United
States of America and to the
Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God,
indivisible,
with liberty and justice
for all.
>> Thank you. Okay.
Now we're going to move on
to approval of the agenda.
Item 2A added by addendum.
Item 45 removed
from regular calendar
to consent. If there are any
changes, if not,
can I get a motion?
>> So moved.
>> Second.
>> All those in favor?
>> Aye.
>> Any opposition? Seeing none,
the motion passes. Thank you.
Okay, consent. A public comment
on consent calendar items 3
through 35 and number, oh nope,
45's gone. Oh yeah, 45.
Sorry. If there's anyone to,
that would like
to provide public comment
on consent calendar items.
>> Yes. Good morning,
everyone.
>> You'll have 2 minutes.
>> Thank you. My name is
Duane Dewitt. I'm from
Roseland. Number 13 is very
important. Excuse me.
For a number of years,
I've known a man,
and he's an 85-year-old veteran
with a disabled son,
and he's facing eviction
from his home. And this would
be a terrible thing
to have happen,
and he could perhaps become
shelterless,
I'm very supportive
of this program Committee
on the Shelterless. And I'm
hoping you might also be able
to read today's Press Democrat
because there's a story
in here
about this man who lived
in the home for 54 years so
far. And, excuse me,
he's also an Army veteran
that's done a lot
of good things in his life.
One
of the dilemmas that we face in
this current administration and
current business climate
nationally is a very cutthroat
business approach towards the
way regular folks live. It's
very difficult
for an elderly person
to be able to find housing that
they could afford should they
lose what they have, I'm hoping
that you folks could become
supportive of any efforts to
keep people sheltered. I'm very
supportive of the fact that you
people also help to finance
legal aid and other types
of activities. We're just
in a very difficult time,
and I understand it may get
worse. I'm hoping that you
folks will have the compassion
to reach out. I don't know
specifically what district this
gentleman's in, but it's over
to the southwest of Santa
Rosa. It's
in the right district
for the city of Santa Rosa. We
need people to step up and help
our elderly. Someday I'd like
to be there myself,
not just stepping up
but being elderly. And it takes
having a place to live
to be able to do that, please,
if you can in any way, shape,
or form,
have your workers reach out to
this 85-year-old veteran. I
haven't mentioned his name
for privacy, but you can read
the newspaper article today,
front page, Press Democrat.
Thank you kindly.
>> Thank you.
>> Good morning, board Patrick
McDonald, I'm the housing team
supervisor at Legal Aid of
Sonoma County. I don't think
Mr. Dewitt even knew that I was
behind him, but, I, our office,
has represented the gentleman
that he's mentioning in the
Press Democrat, and so I can
also be a source for questions
if you have any based
on that story. I'm actually
here to speak in support
of the proposed funding
for the Keep People Housed
program. Legal Aid of Sonoma
County is part
of the coalition for Keep
People Housed, which allows
basically bridge funding
for folks who are
at imminent risk
of losing their housing
to make sure that they do
in fact stay in that housing.
We've been working
within this program
for almost 2 years now. It's
been an essential lifeline,
and I know that I don't have
to explain this to any
of you, right? But you never
get adequate credit for all
of the folks that you keep
in housing, right, and the cost
savings that are associated
with those upstream
investments. The Keepable
Housing program is absolutely
such an investment. The county
saves enormous amounts
of money by ensuring that
people do not end up
on the street, right? And once
folks fall
through the cracks,
the amount that is required
to get them back
into housing is basically
about 10 to 1 compared
to what it keeps what it takes
in terms of funding
to keep them in housing, it's a
tremendous upstream investment.
We're proud to be a part
of it, and we thank you
for your support.
>> Thank you.
>> Good morning,
board. I wanted to speak
on the Litten tribal mitigation
funds. I'm requesting for
Supervisor Gore to recuse
from this item, being that
during his run for Senate, he
received approximately $5,000
from Larry and Tristan
Stidham, each individually,
as well as Chairman Mejia. And
so that is a conflict. I'm
specifically concerned
regarding the NGO funds. I see
that $600,000 will be allocated
to Russian River Russian
Riverkeeper. However, as I
speak
with enrolled tribal members,
they're not aware of the
Potter Valley Dam
decommissioning,
and it appears that Russian
Riverkeeper advocates
for policy, under Winter's
Doctrine, I was actually
at a meeting to advocate
for tribal water rights
recently in Alexander Valley,
and Supervisor Gore and several
other individuals
at that meeting had me escorted
out by 3 deputies
for sitting there to try
to find out
about tribal water allocation,
under Winter's Doctrine, The
Round Valley Tribe is
guaranteed water. However, the
other tribes are filing motions
to intervene, and we have no
idea what the allocations will
look like, there seems to be no
genuine concern regarding the
fact that we will have valid
water supply for everybody.
It's been extremely
controversial and extremely
upsetting outside in the
Alexander Valley where certain
individuals are represented who
happen
to be wealthy vineyard owners,
yet we're excluding BIPOC
people that we claim
to serve, I thank you
for listening. God bless you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hello, good morning, Chris
Cabral, CEO from COTS,
just here to say thank you
for supporting the Keep
People Housed program. He
already did a great job talking
to you about the upstream
investments and how great it's
been
for the community. I just
wanted to throw a couple
of stats at you that I think
are really impressive,
over the last 12 months,
we've been able to serve over
800 individuals with less than
a million dollars, which is an
incredible investment
for the community. And
something that's really unique
about this program within the
homeless services portfolio is
that more than half of the
households we serve are a
female head of household
with children, it's really,
really important. It's a really
critical program
for the community, thank you
for your support,
and it's nice to see all
of you this morning.
>> Thank you. And
before I forget, if you,
if anybody needs headsets,
please let us know. We have
some out here on the table.
Welcome. Thanks
for coming back.
>> Thanks for that. I'm here to
say that I'm putting my
comments on one side because I
just wanted
to acknowledge that David
Manning has approached me and
provided me with plan sets,
and I really appreciate that,
I'm here just to acknowledge
that my request has been
responded to.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks.
>> Chair Hermosillo, and
members of the Board of
Supervisors, my name is
Gregory Ferrin. I'm here
in support of 3 items
on the consent calendar, 7,
13, and 29. Improving the
operation
of your commissions,
helping keep people housed,
and appointing a friend
of mine to your behavioral
health board are 3 examples of
the progressive actions you all
take every week that are on the
consent calendar that you know
are meaningful, and I want
to thank you for them. They are
examples of the work that you
do and you're going
to continue to have to do,
and we all need
to help you do that. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Good morning.
>> Good morning.
>> My name is Rose Hammack. I'm
the current chairwoman for
Yakima Indian Education and
Development Corporation. I'm
here with our vice chair,
Angelica.
>> Hello, my name is
Angelica Smith, and I'm the
vice chair at Yakima
Educational Center.
>> We just wanted to come and,
represent our board of
directors and thank the
community
for the support we have a lot
of plans to use the funds to,
get our building back up to par
and provide more education
resources for our Native youth
and families,
and looking forward
to finding opportunities
to welcome the community
to our property over in
Forestville. Thank you
for your support,
and thank you
for having us today.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Karen Alvis, and I'm
also here to speak about the
Litten Funds. I'm representing
People for Parks from
Windsor. They are the nonprofit
that is supporting a mural
project we're doing in
Windsor, and I'm really proud
to be here with Rose Hammock
and Angelica Smith, who are two
people that are consulting
with us on this mural. It's
called Water is Life, and we
are excited because this mural
really has crossed over, not
just, a partnership with the
Town of Windsor Public Works,
but also with the Native
community. And so, yeah,
so thank you very much
for considering this item.
>> Thank you. Any more public
comment
on consent calendar items?
Seeing none. Is there, sorry,
anybody want to say anything?
Comments? Discussion? No?
Okay.
>> If just a couple comments on
consent calendar is now an
appropriate time. Yeah, I just
wanted to, it's beautiful
to see the members from
Yakima, and,
now is not the right forum, but
it's just a beautiful history
that I've learned. I've been
there too. Some of the
community events that you all
have hosted, some
of the most beautiful, deeply
resonant drum circles that I've
just been an outsider. And it
was just beautiful
to see the welcoming aspect
of that, of being invited
from other members. And this
property,
for those who don't know, is,
is right next to Schoene
Farm. It's Forestville, but
it's a property that accesses
the ocean. And it has an
amazing history
of the repatriation you know,
the battles and when there's
protests in Alcatraz and land
take back. And I know, you
know, it provides vital
services, but the buildings and
other things,
there's just a lot
of need there. And while you
get programs, money
for programs to run programs,
you don't get stuff for that.
So, you know, my hope is that
even as a board member who's
stepping off this board now is
that this is a part of a start
of a long-term partnership
because we have many new parks
going down in the area
down there, new trails, you
know, respecting traditional
access and rights. And I would
just, if there's ever an
opportunity when the work's
being done, is
for other board members,
not just myself, to come
out and see what's happening,
because I just think it would
engender just much more, you
know, a wonderful place
to learn, and I just,
I just thank you. I also, you
know, there was a claim,
I want to state that even
though these are called the
Litten funds,
these are county general funds.
They are not tied specifically
to the Litten tribe or
whatever, once again,
more false accusations from the
same person who stalks me all
the time. It's really good
to see you. You know, it's
interesting when you file
hundreds of complaints that are
really not investigations.
They just keep getting sent
down. It's fascinating how
people work with that. So, wow,
I hope that God finds the
people who talk about God
but don't really follow
in his footsteps, amen. Thank
you
to all the other projects.
Russian Riverkeeper stood up.
They're doing amazing,
amazing things. This is
for a 3-year deeper dive
into the Russian River
watershed. This is just really
magic stuff. And the goal
at the initiation
of this process was, was to
allocate these dollars towards,
the area in and around the
Litten, housing development.
Once again, those are general
funds that have been sitting
here for a long time. And so,
it's beautiful
to see those projects.
There'll probably be some more
allocations. These have been
really engaged with community
about assessments. So, and
Karen Alvey's If you're still
here, I want to just thank you
for being here and being a
champion in that area
of all things good. And I know
everyone's going
through a lot, and I want to
let you know that we're praying
for you too and your family.
Amen. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Supervisor
Hopkins.
>> Yeah, I just was looking and
it wasn't, I'm not seeing, or
no, okay, never mind, I do,
I do see it. It wasn't
in the summary,
but I was just double-checking
on the VB 707, Item 7
resolution. I hadn't seen the
Coast MAC, but I did find it,
so we're good. I want
to make sure both of our MACs
were covered. I actually want
to say thank you to County
Council for that item,
and this is, I think,
is an opportunity
to increase recruitment for our
municipal advisory councils,
especially thinking about the
Sonoma Coast where we've got
about 55 miles and folks
sometimes have to commute, you
know, late at night
in the winter, big storms,
all the way down from the
Bodega Bay or vice versa. And
so really appreciate that item
coming forward. I also wanted
to commend Supervisor Gore for
the excellent work and really
building community
through those funds. And wanted
to give a shout out also
for item number 8, where we are
also funding a number
of amazing CBOs. I get to work
in my job with really,
really good people,
and what you just saw today you
know, testifying on behalf
of the investment. That's the
magic. That's where all the
good stuff happens,
is when folks work, you know,
across community groups,
across cultures
to bring beauty and improvement
to the community,
I just wanted to honor that and
commend my colleague
for the work that went
into that agenda item.
>> Great, thank you.
Supervisor Rabbitt.
>> Not to rain on the parade,
but I'll be voting against the
magic as item number 8, which
is the tourism impact funds
because those same funds are
not available to me
in my district for the magic
in the South County. Thank you.
And I don't need
to pull the item,
and I just wanted to let Noel
that I'm going
to register a no vote
on that.
>> Great. And with Supervisor
Hopkins, just want to note that
those items actually will be
funding some work in the
South County. Um, it is funding
Rebuilding Petaluma
organization as well.
>> So, as I read that item
though, that Rebuilding
Petaluma contract is
within the D 5, again, I think
this is a discussion that we
need to have. These are labeled
tourism impact funds,
but really it's a return
to source that needs
to be addressed
at the appropriate time. And
hopefully there's 3 votes
to change that.
>> Well, now that we've
properly been rained on,
considering items 5, 10, 14,
16 through 19, 21, 22, 24,
require 4/5 vote. Do I
have a motion to approve?
>> Move to approve.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> All those in favor?
>> Aye.
>> Any opposition? Recorded.
Great, that motion carries.
Item 3 through 35, number 45.
And then is there a roll call
vote for the Sonoma Valley?
You want to do a motion? Is
there a motion?
>> Move the item.
>> Second.
>> For items 25 and 28, Mayor
Wellander is absent.
Supervisor Coursey?
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes. Great, thank you so
much. And with that,
we are going to move on
to public comment
on matters not listed
on the agenda but within the
subject matter jurisdiction of
the board and board members'
reports. If there's anyone who
wishes
to provide public comment,
good morning, you will have 2
minutes.
>> Okay, good morning. My name
is Paul Zerrer. I live in
West Sonoma County, about 12
miles west of the Sonoma
County Airport. I want
to be very clear, I support our
airport. I support air travel
in Sonoma County, and I'm not
here to ask to reduce flights
or restrict operations or
discuss rates. I am here
because of recent changes in
flight patterns that are
causing real harm to dozens
of communities and thousands
of people. Until recently,
the departing flights
from our airport followed the
Highway 101 corridor, where
background noise and traffic
in city life runs to around 60
to 75 decibels. Aircraft noise
blended in and people barely
noticed. A new FAA procedure
called Redhead 1 changed all
that. Now almost every
departure banks west and tracks
directly over rural West
Sonoma County. Today, jets
flying 2,000, 3,000 feet at
full thrust throttle are
passing over Sebastopol,
Graton, Forestville,
Freestone, Occidental,
in thousands of residents and
homes and farms, sometimes in
less than 5-minute intervals.
Acoustic science tells us that
noise isn't about volume, it's
about contrast. A 75-decibel
aircraft over a 65-decibel
highway corridor is barely
perceptible. The same aircraft
over a 30-decibel rural
landscape is 45 decibels
above normal. It's a jackhammer
in a library. And noise
complaints have gone from
1,135 in 2023 to, get this,
26,494 in 2025. We're asking 3
things. Petition the FAA
for a dispersal procedure
between Redhead 1 and Charlie
8 corridor. No fewer flights,
just share the burden. And
commission a formal Part 150
noise study. And 3, the FAA
approved Redhead One under a
categorical exclusion.
>> Thank you. And your time is
up.
>> Thank you. Do what you can.
We appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
>> Hello. I thank you
for all your efforts and time.
My name is Guy Gullion. I live
at 16,600 Coleman Valley
Road, 1.7 miles west
of the tranquil hamlet of
Occidental. There is no finer
place in the world than West
Sonoma County. Idyllic, serene,
peaceful, a place of healing
in a world of pain. Or rather,
it was such a place
of healing,
and we mourn deeply the loss.
Tragically, in February 2024, a
new departure route named RRHD
or RED was imposed by the FAA
without due process. What had
been a dispersed departure
route roughly tracking the 101
corridor south, where the jets
were just another sound
in the urban mix,
has been replaced by a narrow
jet engine highway creating a
shattered landscape and
soundscape of 18 and counting
jets departing Sonoma County
Airport. It is an indifferent
conveyor belt of industrial
waste just thousands of feet
above our head. West Sonoma
County Jet Noise Coalition is a
group of hundreds
of people who've been meeting
to address this issue. We are
bet, and we have a petition of
over 750 signatures
on change.org begging anyone
with the power
to change things
for the better
to please do so, because it's
getting worse rapidly. This is
where the Board of Supervisors
comes in. The FAA controls what
the planes do in the air. This
board controls how many are
on the tarmac at the airport.
We agree with your March 2025
letter to the FAA,
and we thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Kenny Meyer. I'm
here to talk about Thomas
Lutke's case, Sonoma County
versus Thomas Lutke, SCV
272556, another case from
Sonoma County that reeks
with fraud. You, Linda
Hopkins, code enforcement, and
Broderick, the civil judge,
refused to acknowledge an
18-inch sewer pipe running
through Mr. Lutke's septic
tanks across the property and
into the Petaluma River. This
18-inch pipe runs
through the hills of Petaluma
gathering sludge and
contaminants and runs through
Mr. Lutke's 3 septic tanks
bringing sewage and pollution
directly to the Petaluma
River. If you go to permits
from Sonoma and look up the
permit history of 3698
Petaluma Boulevard, you will
not find the address or any
permits
on the septic or the pipes.
The county, mainly Tyra
Harrington, took all evidence
of the pipe and Mr. Lutke's 3
septic tanks off the books.
Took, including the address.
Broderick, the civil judge,
refuses to see the 15 permits
that Mr. Lutke has pulled to
demolish these septic systems
and the 18-inch pipe. Mr.
Lutke intends
to take this case to court if
necessary. I will be hosting an
open house to show the
constituents that protect the
river your lies and gross
negligence. Your days of lying
and harming the good people
of Sonoma County are quickly
coming to an end.
>> Thank you.
>> Supervisor Gore, you are
horrifically racist. It's
disgusting. Yeah, walk away.
>> Personal attacks.
>> No, no.
>> Personal attacks.
>> Please stop. That's
disgusting. Absolutely not.
>> That's interrupting the
meeting.
>> No, I'm not.
>> You're interrupting the
meeting.
>> Let me talk.
>> Pause her time. I'll remind
you about our commitment
to civility. If you would like
to comment respectfully,
please go ahead.
>> Okay. Wow. This is why I
don't want to live here in this
county where we declared racism
a public health crisis and I
have Latina leaders telling me
to be quiet
to appease a racist white man,
Dolores Huerta, right
before this PSA came out,
Ruth Sanchez actually filed a
lawsuit sued
against the foundation in
September of 2025 because she
claims that
$95,000 in grant funds were
misappropriated. She was
working over 60 hours a week
without meal breaks and what
have you. So your former equity
officer, Alegria de la Cruz,
she was the government affairs
director for the foundation.
She also was on the board. So
all of a sudden, Alegria
leaves. She and Supervisor
Gore founded the equity office
here. And Alegria got run up
out of Salinas because she
served
on the agricultural board,
sold out the farm workers,
and then came to Sonoma county
to do the same thing. So when
he just left,
we were discussing the
Agricultural verification pass,
which Dolores Huerta, her
foundation, supported. They
wrote a letter
to support that. So Alegria
advocated for that.
Supervisor Gore supported it.
So when our people here,
they evacuate
during the fires. The farm
workers are
forced to continue
to work and inhale smoke,
and it is absolutely harmful,
Dolores and Alegria made that
happen, you have no sincerity
regarding victims
of sexual assault. I,
I'm their advocate. I'm
in court. You know this,
Supervisor Hermosillo, please
stop scapegoating the sheriffs
with things like the
agricultural verification pass.
Sheriff Ingram is absolutely
wonderful, as is his staff.
They're one of the only
departments whenever I have
concerned, they get back
to me the same day. And I also
appreciate County Executive
Rivera. She's been very kind
and wonderful,
a wonderful leader
for your community, I thank
you, God bless you. But that,
that was disgusting,
Hermosillo.
>> Seeing no other public
comments on,
matters not listed
on our agenda, oh, Supervisor
Hopkins.
>> Yes, I just wanted
to say thank you
for the feedback,
and then we can't get
into a discussion, but
with respect
to the airport noise,
we have been
in communication. You know that
we held a joint meeting,
between D4 and D5. I do want
to note though that the number
of flights is actually
determined
by the general plan,
and we are in the process
of updating the general plan.
It's in,
I believe the circulation
element, if there is interest
in that issue,
it would be good to sort
of work with Permit Sonoma and
attend meetings on the general
plan update process,
just wanted to mention that
for the record. And we continue
to advocate with the FAA,
and we'll share information to
the group leaders who I know,
I also added myself to the
Facebook group,
so I am monitoring the concerns
on, you know, at least a
multiple times a week basis and
hear you and feel you, and,
and we're working on it.
>> Yeah, I just want
to add a little context
for that
for the other board members.
This is in partnership
with airport management, with
John Stout,
with the consultants. There's a
lot of work that's gone
into it. We are
at a point where, you know,
sometimes we talk
about disruptions
around the airport
in the sense of like, you know,
there's a different level of
nuisance versus full-blown
changing operations and these
planes banking at 100, 200,
300, 400, 500, you know,
It's, it's huge. It's, we have,
we have, we have gone
from having like, like
on annual, you know, hundreds
to thousands and thousands,
8,000 per year, even airport
management,
they're putting a lot
of staffing time
into managing. And this change
in the redhead approach, which
was really a federal decision
out of for helping the Bay
Area, and we just got kind
of the crap at the end
of the, the avenue. There is
the study process going
on that's being revised
by the Aviation Commission that
will probably come to us,
and that is going
to propose a new plan
with the FAA. Outside
of that,
we have an interim request that
Airport Manager Stout and
others are working
on and informing the Aviation
Commission, which is really
to put more pressure
on the FAA to go to,
to just go back
to what we were doing
before they made that change,
before they gave us the,
the ripple that is rippling
through our community from, I,
I would really say that
Supervisor Hopkins and I,
there's a difference between
times where we've had neighbor
airport neighbors and sometimes
we haven't been able
to address it. Like, I've had I
mean, you have all kinds,
but these are very germane,
very real, very disruptive.
They've really impacted new
cities, new routes,
not just the rural neighbors.
And so just want the board to
know that there'll be more that
comes forward,
but we're doing, we're looking
to do some articles. We're
looking to do the collection
of signatures, put pressure
on the FAA to allow us
to go back to what was what's
working instead
of just the bureaucratic no,
I'm glad you, you were here
for that. I think I just wanted
to take the opportunity
to talk with the board
about the action,
which is a combined effort.
>> Thank you so much. And
with that, we're going to go
on to, seeing no more comments,
going, to item number 36,
department head personnel
service agreement
for executive director
Community Development
Commission, and we have
Janelle Crane and Michelle
Whitman. Thank you, welcome.
>> Good morning, Chair
Hermosillo, members
of the board, CEO Rivera, and
Council Myers. I'm Janelle
Crane, the Human Resources
Director, and
with me here today is
Michelle Whitman, and I'm
pleased
to present a first amendment
to her Personal Services
Agreement as the Executive
Director of the community
development commission. Ms.
Whitman was appointed as the
executive director on April
18, 2023, and this amendment
extends the term
of that agreement through
April 18th of 2029. The
executive director of the
Sonoma County Community
Develop Commission is appointed
by and reports to the county
executive and is responsible
for organizing,
directing and coordinating the
Community Development
Commission's programs and
operations. This first
amendment to the Personal
services agreement places Ms.
Whitman's salary at the I step
of the salary range, which is
$240,186 annually, again
with a term ending on April
18, 2029, and maintaining
eligibility
for other county benefits
in accordance
with the salary resolution.
And Ms. Whitman is here, and
I'm here if you have any
questions.
>> Great. Thank you. Public
comment on agenda item number
36. Yes, Supervisor Gore,
you're right. We'll get
to that
in just a hot minute.
>> Chair Hermosillo, members
of the board, my name is
Gregory Ferrin. As most
of you know,
I've been involved
in homeless housing and housing
in general for a long time and
been an advocate of trying to
bring the city and the county
and everybody else together.
You also may know I'm also
on the Housing Authority
for the City of Santa Rosa.
And in that capacity and
in other capacities,
I've worked with Michelle and
with the Community
Development Commission
for a long time. And I'm happy
that she's going to continue
to work with us. We've got to
build a bigger continuum and a
lot more people collaborating
if we're going to get
through the next few years.
And I look forward to working
with her and her staff greatly.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Seeing no other
public comment,
I'll bring it back
to the board. Supervisor
Hopkins.
>> I just want to say that one
of the greatest joys of being
in my position is getting
to work
with people who have the heart,
the natural talent,
and the experience
for the work. And you bring all
of that, and you do such a
wonderful job stewarding this
department and really working
with all of our county and city
partners. And so thank you so
much for your dedication and
for what I know can sometimes
be long days and sleepless
nights and appreciate the
sacrifice that comes
with it as well.
>> Supervisor . Vice Chair
Coursey .
>> Thanks for all you do,
Michelle. Chair Hermosillo,
when you're ready. I'll move
this item.
>> Great. I just want
to supervise. We will get there
in just one second. Look
at us.
>> I can't help but just say
thank you
for all the great work,
Michelle. And I'm a big fan and
I'm so glad that you are
in this position.
>> Just great work.
>> A lot of moving pieces,
especially with all everything
at the state and certainly the
federal government.
But you've been on top of it
constantly and just totally
appreciate your work and look
forward to continuing working
together.
>> And I super seeing none.
None. Yep. Right. What does one
say? I just want to thank you
for your collaboration, your
leadership, your commitment
to our community. Some of the
work that you do is really
essential to ensuring that
families remain stable
in their homes. And it's a lot
of hard work that is often hard
to leave at the office. So
thank you
for all that you do. And
with that,
is there a motion?
>> Yes.
>> Second.
>> We'll call vote.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Absolutely.
>> Chair Hermosillo.
>> Yes. And with that,
Supervisor Gore had started.
Thank you so much.
Consolidated fee hearings,
item 37. We have Andrew
McLaughlin. We have. Oh, you're
going to kick us off. Great.
Thank you.
>> Good morning. Go for it.
Take it away.
>> Thank you. Good morning,
Chair Hermosillo and members
of the board, County Council
Myers and CEO Rivera. My name
is Andrew McLaughlin. I'm an
analyst in the operations and
budget unit
in the CEO's office. I work
for Peter Bruland, who
in years gone
by gives this presentation.
But he, he handed me the
winning lottery ticket this
year so.
>> I can see him just staring
at the back
of your head right now.
>> Not judging,
not listening critically.
>> You'll be just fine.
>> Did you pre-plan any jokes
though? That's the big thing.
>> I lack his immediacy
of wit, and I do
like the pencil,
but maybe I'll. Maybe I'll get
there next year.
>> Yeah, you calculate you're
ready.
>> I'm ready to go with my
pencil. So, yeah, we'll walk
through the presentation I have
prepared here. You not really
strangers
to what we're doing here today.
Every year,
departments that charge fees
for services bring items
forward to make adjustments
to their. To their fees. Our
office consolidates those
items, bundles them up and
presents them here today. And
so what I'll be walking you all
through today is an overview of
those items as briefly as I
can, a discussion
of the changes, the additional
revenue that's expected or not,
and then we'll make a
recommended action. So
off we go. There we go. So,
yeah, why do we do this? We
bring this fee hearing package
item forward in the spring so
that departments can include
the additional revenue that
they project to receive
into the recommended budgets
for 26, 27. So the timing is
good at this time of year and
we consolidate and bundle
everything for efficiency and
transparency. Talk about each
department that's bringing
items and where those cost
increases may be happening.
It's, it's. Yeah, it's board
policy that where permissible
by law. The fees that
departments charge should cover
all their costs of operations
unless they're otherwise
directed by your board. Fees
offset costs for specific
benefits. I'm coming forward
to permit Sonoma to get a
planning permit or an
inspection permit
for my home, or I'm going
to the sheriff's office
to get my fingerprints done for
a concealed carry weapons
permit. These are specific
services that are provided to
specific individuals or
organizations, not
to the general public. And
that's where you can. That's
where you can charge fees this
year. As you can see,
the types of changes that are
occurring are mostly fee
increases. There are some fee
decreases and there's some
elimination
of fees. I'll be focusing today
on the increases primarily,
and we'll look at some
of the other changes as well.
But there are about 1,000
changes of increase,
decrease or elimination. And
that's about what we saw last
year as well.
In round numbers, it's about
1,000. This is a good slide
to focus in on the rate
of increase. The blue half are
those fees that are increasing
by 3% or less. And those
increases are tied to the
salary and benefits costs,
primarily countywide. So that
is what we would really sort
of expect
to see are the majority
of fees tied
to those that type
of cost going up by
about the same amount. There
are some other larger
increases. You can see
about a third
of fees are increasing
by more than 10%. Why is that?
That is because the costs
for certain services, certain
supplies, insurance contracts,
all those have gone up more
sharply. And so those are
typically where we're seeing
larger percentages. And we can
dial in on those when I go
through each department here.
This table shows the projected
revenue that each department
anticipates
for the coming fiscal year.
And this is
in descending order
of revenue. Permit Sonoma
expects to get about 1.2
million. Public infrastructure
for the airport only expects
to get about a million. And it
goes down the line
from there. Health services,
about 300,000. Sheriff's
office, 25,000. Ag weights and
measures, about 20,000. And
there are two fees that our
office brings forward
on behalf of the sheriff. And
I'll talk about those too.
Those are going up by about
$9,000. And this amount
actually is almost exactly
identical
to what the amount was
increased by last year. It's
about 2.6. So here we go.
We'll start with Permit
Sonoma. Of the 614 fees that
are increasing, more than half
of those are currently
subsidized
by the general fund. 221 fees
are increasing by around 3%,
76 are increasing by 7 and
another 268 are increasing
by more than 10%. Permits
Sonoma is interesting in that
there has been an existing gap
between the rate of cost
recovery and the actual costs.
And this year these increases
are an effort to close,
incrementally close that gap.
So they're not going all the
way to full cost recovery,
but they are trying
to edge closer and recover more
of their cost
of doing business. The general
fund subsidy that has been
in place for Permit Sonoma will
remain in place, and I made a
note here that permits them. A
staff will plan to talk
about this more during April
budget workshops and you'll
hear more about their efforts
along those lines. They are
bringing one new fee this year
for the fully burned hourly
rate for a new professional
geologist position. We'll move
on to Pie, which is the
airport. You probably already
know that the airport is an
enterprise and operates
at full cost recovery. They
don't receive any discretionary
general fund support. They have
87 fees increasing. The median
rate is 8% this year. Last year
was about 6.8%. The airport has
done sort
of a similar systems comparison
to other airports
in the region, Santa Barbara,
SLO, Monterey, et cetera,
and found that they are
about middle of the pack
for their cost of business and
the fees that they're charging.
They are recommending the
implementation of 13 new fees
for terminal advertising,
ground leases,
special events. Most revenue
that they are anticipating is
associated with terminal rates
and charges and rates
for advertising signage. Now
we're moving on
to health services.
In their package,
they are recommending 183 fees
to increase
across four service areas.
Animal services,
the public health laboratory,
environmental health and
behavioral health. Most
of that 183 are increasing
by 3% or less. Again, those are
tied to the county staff
salaries and benefits costs.
Some are increasing
by quite a bit more than that.
And that's very specifically
because pharmaceutical costs
have increased,
vaccine costs have increased.
Other animal care supplies have
increased by more than 3%. And
so you see large increases
there. The Very specific
reasons why those are going up
that much. Health services is
proposing 15 new fees this year
for among other things,
cannabis dispensaries,
local farmers markets,
food safety and soft serve
inspections, frozen yogurt.
Okay, we'll go on
to the sheriff's office. The
sheriff's office charges fees,
as I mentioned earlier. One
example is fingerprinting for
concealed carry weapons
permits. They charge fees for
like arcades, gaming, gaming
centers, a number
of other fees. Most
of them are going up
by that sort of nominal 0
to 3% level. Larger increases
are due
to updated time studies. We've
seen increased costs for
vehicles and fuel and there are
several fees that are going up
to recapture some
of the costs associated with an
upgraded telecommunications
network. The overall
anticipated revenue at the
Sheriff's office is 24,000 and
that's net
of increases and net of other
decreases that are occurring
through their department. Ag
weights and measures. Here
again, as you can see,
most fees are going up by
about 3%. Couple are going up
by way more than 10%.
But there are specific reasons
for that. One large increase is
because of a new contract
for the ACELA permitting system
in use
over there and another one
for the Certified Unified
Program Agency Hazardous
Materials Information System.
Most
of the revenue that they expect
to receive in this coming
fiscal year is associated
with the Land Stewardship
Division, specifically Vesco.
This is the Vineyard and
Orchard program. Here's the two
fees that our office,
the county Executive's office
brings on behalf of the
Sheriff's office. These are the
fees pursuant
to state law that are
associated with the jail. The
first one is the jail booking
fee. This fee is, is kind
of unique. It's never been
charged because it can only be
charged if the state fails
to appropriate a certain amount
of funding into its enhancing
Law Enforcement activities sub
account at the state. Well,
they've never,
they've never not done that.
So we've never charged this
fee. It is legally required
to go up
by the CPI locally plus 1%.
For this year it's 4.3%. The
second fee, and I should
reiterate, is not going
to be charged. The second one
is the jail access fee.
Again, per state mandate,
this fee is charged to local
law enforcement agencies when
they exceed a rolling
three-year average
of non-felony sort
of misdemeanor offenses. And
even certain misdemeanors are
excluded. Domestic violence
misdemeanors, DUI misdemeanors,
anything. That's not that.
This is meant
to deter local law enforcement
from bringing people
to the jail sort of
unnecessarily when they could
just as easily cite and release
them, give them a court date.
And, you know,
it's interesting
to see how the rolling
through your average is the
rate at which local law
enforcement is exceeding that
average has gone
down as we come out of COVID
It's more difficult
to exceed your rolling
through your average,
basically. And so the sheriff's
office and our office
anticipates not that many
agencies going
above that threshold this year.
So the. The revenue that we
expect to receive
from that fee is quite low.
$9,000. I can't believe I'm
here already. Those are all the
departments that have brought
fees
in this consolidated package.
There were six of them just
to review last year. The
regional parks was part
of this. This year,
I think they are going
to be bringing their own items
in a few weeks, I think in
April. But the items
before you today, we recommend
that you approve them as they
are. And I think that's all.
Take questions or anything
else.
>> Great. Thank you so much.
With that, I'll bring it
to CEO Rivera.
>> Thank you, Chair, and thank
you, Andrew, for taking
on the baton this year
in our office. It's a great way
to get to know about the other
departments and really be able
to support across different
assignments.
>> Yes.
>> And thank you, Peter,
for laying
out such a great template
for years before. I want
to thank not only the CEO
of staff, but also the
departments who are here to
help answer questions and
listen to the conversation and
deliberations for this. As
Andrew stated, this is, if you
will,
your first action associated
with starting to lay
out the financial plan
into the 26-27 budget. So thank
you again,
and I'll turn it back to the
chair so she can open the
hearing. And
like I said before,
when it comes back
for board deliberation,
we do have representatives from
the departments who will be
able
to answer questions the board
may have. Thank you.
>> Thank you. And with that, I
am officially opening the
hearing. And if anybody would
like to make a comment
on the hearing for all items
37 through 43.
>> Chair Hermosillo, members
of the board, my name is
Gregory Ferrin. I want to give
you a little story that gives
reality to what this is all
about and how important this
hearing is. 50 years ago, when
I was a student body president
at College of Marin, students
came to me and said they're
charging two bucks a page
for transcripts,
which wasn't the cost
of actually making the copy,
but it was what they had
evolved with no hearing and no
examination. So I took them
to court. I filed a writ
of mandate in Superior Court
in Marin County and a judge
agreed with me that no one had
ever looked at it,
and he ordered four years'
worth of free transcripts
at every community college in
California as a result. So it's
important that you look
at how you charge fees,
what you charge them for and
what they're paying for. And I
thank you for this hearing
because it helps give light
to the public about what it is
they're being charged for.
Thank you.
>> Good morning. Ron Busch,
Sonoma County Fire District I
just want to address the fee
study that you're doing or the
fee increase for the Sonoma
County Airport. I'd like to
express my ongoing concerns
regarding the increased
funding, operational and safety
costs associated
with the STS,
particularly as we begin to
expand the commercial and
private aviation activity. The
activity levels continue
to grow and so does the demand
for fire service, emergency
medical response and hazardous
materials readiness.
At present,
a significant portion
of the costs are being absorbed
by the taxpayers of the
Sonoma County Fire District.
Without dedicated or
proportional funding mechanisms
tied
to the airport operations,
STS continues to head towards
1 million passengers annually
and the risk only increases.
These are high risk,
low frequency incidents. When a
commercial airlines lands hard
with 77 passengers,
there's nobody there
to take care of them.
Currently, SCFD receives no
revenue from the county of
Sonoma to respond to STS. When
a commercial airliner has an
emergency fire and emergency
rescue response is provided
by the taxpayers of the
Sonoma County Fire District.
That means we strip
around five or six companies
around the outside
of the airport. We're
in support
of the increased fees to STs,
but nowhere does it address
funding to the district
for emergency response.
Currently, SCFD does not
receive a penny
for any responses that occur
out there. We respectively
request some transparent,
detailed accounting
of true costs
of the response,
providing those services along
with comparisons
to funding models used
in similarly situated airports.
This is a matter of fairness
and physical sustainability and
ensuring that critical life
safety services remain
adequately resourced to the
communities that we serve. So I
just want
to real briefly say that we are
in total support. We're in good
collaborative conversations
with STS and airport
operations. However, we
received $0 to respond to the
airport currently and we'd
like to revisit that
at some point. So thank you.
>> Thank you. Anyone else?
Public comment
before we bring it
to the board for questions,
comments, deliberations,
Supervisor Vice Chair
Coursey.
>> Thank you. Have a couple
of questions for Permit
Sonoma.
>> If T. Scott Orr can skip
to the dais.
>> Good morning. Good morning
from Listening to Andrew's
presentation, it sounds
like permit Sonoma plans
to wean itself
from the general plan
to some extent, whether that's
full cost recovery or somewhere
nearer full cost recovery. And
I think it's important
to highlight that and want to
make sure that I understand
correctly that
in the next few years,
we should all expect
for those fees to more
of those fees to go higher than
the 3% and maybe higher than
that. Maybe you can talk a
little bit about what those
increases might look like and
how long that process is
expected to take.
>> Okay, thank you
for the question. So
for the increase this year,
it's largely to, you know,
fill the gap between the fee
nexus study that was approved
as part of the consent calendar
this morning, which will take
about a year to complete, and
then that will inform the board
on whether we do want
to shift towards that model of
full cost recovery or continue
to utilize some
of the general fund
to help bridge the gap between
what the fees ultimately end up
being and the cost
to provide service. So while we
are taking the incremental
approach this year, ultimately,
we'll bring it back in front
of the board
for the full discussion
about whether we want to go to
that full cost recovery model.
So the decision being made
today does get us closer,
but it doesn't kind
of mandate any future decision
by the board regarding that.
>> You'll bring the results
of that fee study back and
check to see what the appetite
of the board is.
At what point,
how long do you expect that
to take?
>> So the fee study process
will take about a year. So the
intent is that we finish
in time to inform the fee
process and budget process next
fiscal year. So the fees that
are reflected in that fee study
would inform fiscal year 27-28.
>> All right, in.
In your report on this, you
said that there would be a
shortfall of about 3.7 million
by the end of this fiscal year
and potentially as high as
$4.5 million by the end
of next fiscal year. Was that.
Are those numbers the result of
these actions today or has if
we approve this,
what's brought forward today,
do those numbers change?
>> So Interim Assistant
director Michelle Arellano will
correct me, but I believe all
of the estimates were with the
expectation that the
recommended action was taken
and that they were approved.
>> Correct.
>> She says correct.
>> Good. Good job. Thank you
both.
>> Any other questions?
Comments from my colleague,
Supervisor Rabbitt?
>> Yeah. No, thank you. Thank
you, Andrew, for all the great
work. I appreciate that. Thank
you for the briefing that you
provided me and to Peter
for joining that as well. Fees
have always been
for me an important topic. And
I appreciate the fact that many
years ago we brought forward a
fee policy that basically had
departments justify any
increase
over admittedly the higher
of the two, which is the Bay
Area CPI and or the county cpi.
And you mentioned that. I mean
the county or the Bay Area CPI
I think for the last 12 months
was only two and a half
percent. I mean it was higher
previous years. Going forward,
I do think it's important
to kind of keep note
of that because so many
of our fees are not driven
by any market force. There are
a few veterans building rentals
and over the years we've had to
adjust those because we became
noncompetitive with other
options. I don't know if the
same, well,
the airport perhaps
in hangars,
people having the opportunity
to go to other airports,
municipal airports and whatnot.
So I just think it's important
to kind of keep that
in the back
of our mind as we go forward.
And you mentioned, of course,
there's been an incredible
increase in overall costs,
especially the insurance
conundrum. But that insurance
conundrum is also embedded
in that two and a half. And
even if you look at wages and
benefits and whatnot,
it's also embedded
in that and people had
to absorb a lot
of those costs. It will burst
through at some point in the
future as economics dictate.
But I do think it's important
that piece I'm supportive of
going forward today. I
appreciate the fact that
departments kept things within.
I think everyone expects things
year over year to go up. They
may grumble as we all do. I do.
But
at the same time we all expect
to make more money year
over year. So we can't be
hypocrites
about costs going up. It's when
they go up, you know,
really high
for the same service. And just
to be able to look at that with
a fine-tooth comb and make sure
that we understand that. And
every year I know that we have
fees, we have regulatory
obligations that are passed
down
to us that increase our fees.
And I know that some of these
fees are also are dictated
by other material costs like
health lab stuff that's
happening and just the ability
to buy all those materials. So
with that said, I also very
much appreciate the quality fee
studies that are not numerator
over denominator because I
think that for years after
Prop 13, I think that was the
crutch that a lot of cities and
undoubtedly the county used
to set fees. But if the fee is
set correctly, it can be
adjusted correctly going
forward based upon the County
CPI based upon the additional
material costs. And it can be
something that we can really
turn to someone and say, this
is why that fee is justified
going forward. So I just wanted
to put that out there. The
other thing we talked briefly
about,
and I know it's not going
to be a topic today,
but I do want
to mention it within. And I
think I mentioned it also to
Director Orr within planning
and the 100% cost recovery
model of projects that are
controversial, that may have a
lot of neighborhood input,
which may translate into a lot
of neighborhood questions that
then get billed at 100% to the
applicant and the consequences
of that and the transparency
of that. We just need to think
about how to put guardrails
around it so that you're not
susceptible
to a savvy neighborhood,
basically making a project
wholly unaffordable
by peppering planners,
attorneys, whomever it may be,
with so many questions that the
applicant cannot write the
check to continue the
processing. I think that we
have a vulnerability there
personally that we need
to kind of look at
with some sort
of policy direction. Lastly, I
do think while 100% cost
recovery is fine
for certain billings or fees,
building, for instance,
a building permit totally get.
It should be 100% cost recovery
should be the minimum amount
of time spent
to process the fee. So the
efficiency still matters. But
there are community benefits,
especially on the planning side
that I think. And the reality
is, I think we do planning and
the regulatory process
within planning,
really more so
for the community, the
neighbor, than perhaps even the
applicant themselves. They're
part of that. But it's a shared
responsibility, which means,
to me,
it should be a shared expense.
And that's just a kind of a
philosophical thing that I've
always had,
and especially as an architect,
seeing that in different
jurisdictions be used in
different ways. I think there's
a. And I. I do believe that the
county is so much better at
this than many other
jurisdictions, which is great.
But I think it's always
something to kind
of keep your eyes
on as we go forward. So I
appreciate the opportunity
to get those things
off my chest. And again,
thank you
for all the work.
>> Thank you.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Thank you. I just want to
say that I appreciate the fact,
and I'm looking at Christine
Sasko, that we are not having a
conversation
about dairy fees today. So that
was nice. So I just had
to say that. And hopefully that
doesn't kind of create any.
Any friction.
But one thing that I wanted
to ask. I don't quibble
with any of the fee proposals
before us today. And I don't
have any concerns about the Ag
weights and measures fee
increases,
but I did have a question
about timing. And I'm wondering
if this might be something that
we could delve into further
on the Ag Workshop that's
coming up. I have heard
feedback and concern
from growers who, partly,
in some cases,
they actually haven't been paid
for grapes that they delivered
to wineries in the past,
that it's hard for them
to afford to pay a Vesco fee up
front when they are removing
grapes under financial duress
right now. And so the question
is, you know,
while still holding onto that
fee, is there an opportunity
to apply for that
in the future? Right. You know,
without having to do it at the
time that the grapes are
removed? So it's really kind
of a question
of timing and not
of the dollar amount collected.
The other thing is that not
everyone knows whether or not
they will replant grapes
in the future, and that kind
of depends
on the way that the market
goes. But this is kind
of a. A process,
not overall amount. And so I
was going to ask Ag
Commissioner Andrew Smith if
that's something that maybe we
should discuss at the Ag
Workshop. Does that seem
like the appropriate place
to do that? It's not something
that's exactly
before us today, but I think
that it's related and perhaps
we could have further
conversations about this. And
this is partly to also avoid
what we have had concerns with
on the orchard side
of things, where you actually
have abandoned orchards that
then become pest magnets, which
actually creates then a concern
and actually increases pressure
for spraying
on adjacent properties, which
is something that we don't
want. Right. Is sort
of more pesticide application,
because there are these places
that are just collecting
agricultural pests because
they've been abandoned.
>> Yeah, we could definitely
talk about that. If the ad hoc
wants to discuss that
at the workshop, I think we
could also discuss it outside
of the workshop. There's
definitely concerns. I think
I'd bring it up during a topic
around fallowing,
because there's interest
in pulling vines ahead
of applying for a replant
permit and we do allow crop
swap, or if we can prove that
someone's been cultivating the
land
with alternative other crops
for five years previous,
that they do qualify
for a replant permit. And so
we'd want to work
with council and dig into
Vesco and see what we can do
without bringing any liability
on the county.
>> Great. And then another
question, because I know I've
had conversations about sort of
what counts as a crop swap and
I believe that it was sort of
anything that does involve
cultivation, but, like,
would a regular row cropping. I
mean, sorry, cover cropping
count, for instance,
as long as you are sort
of planting out bell beans,
even if you're not necessarily
harvesting them,
but you're just turning them
under
to maintain the space
>> Yeah that's definitely
something that we should
discuss when we're talking
about fallowing, say,
in an ag ad hoc workshop.
>> Great. Because I think that,
you know, in many ways,
those are best practices.
Right. And so we actually want
to support that and not make it
more difficult to do what are
really best management
practices for the land,
for carbon sequestration and
all of those things. And we
definitely don't want
to end up with situations where
we do have derelict vineyards
the way that we have had,
unfortunately,
some derelict orchards of. In
properties that just end up
breeding lots
of coddling moths. So.
>> Absolutely.
>> Anything to add
on that one? Or just sort
of table that for with April
7th. Right. So it's just right
around the corner. Yeah.
Great. Thank you.
>> Any other comments,
questions? Seeing none, I will
officially close the hearing
and bring it back
to the board. And we're going
to do a separate roll call vote
for each one. Is there a
motion? Sorry.
>> Move to approve.
>> Is there a second?
>> Yes.
>> Great. Thanks. Separate
votes for each one. 38.
>> For item 38. Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins?
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> Number 39 motion. Do you
need a motion for all
of them separately?
>> Okay.
>> All right, kids,
since they're separate items,
>> Is there a motion?
>> 39 move to approve.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> There you go.
>> Yeah.
>> Roll call votes for all
of them?
>> Yeah.
>> Hearings for item 39.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt?
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yep.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> 40 moved to approve.
Second
>> for item 40. Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins?
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> 41. Move to approve.
>> Second
>> We got on the ball.
>> Item 41. Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> 42. Move to approve. Did I
just do 42? No. Did I?
>> You did 41.
>> This is 42.
>> 42.
>> I am keeping track right
now.
>> Second.
>> I should second. There you
go.
>> Item 42. Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo.
>> Yes.
>> Number 43, move to approve.
Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> Supervisor Coursey seconds.
Roll call.
>> Item number 43. Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> Thank you, Chair and board
members. Thank you, Andrew. We
are going to have regional
parks fee study separately. So
those will come back later.
>> Yes.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. And now we're
going to item 44.
>> Thank you. Next time I would
like a joke, please. Or three.
>> Energy independence program.
We have our auditor,
controller Eric Roger,
Kathleen Parnell. Terry. Hi.
Good to see you. And Brianna.
No.
>> Good morning, Chair
Hermosillo, members
of the board, CEO Rivera, and
Council Myers. Introductions
were already made. We all
represent the Sonoma County
Energy Independence Program
in various capacities,
and we're here
before you today with the
semiannual bonding
authorization for the Sonoma
County Energy Independence
Program, also known as SCEIP.
The recommended actions before
you today will allow the
program to continue
to fund SCEIP assessments
from April 1st of this year
through September 30th of
2026. And the recommended
actions include resolutions
to issue the Skype revenue
bonds and authorize the
treasurer, county Treasurer,
myself and the Sonoma Water
Agency to invest in those bonds
as long term investments. I
would like to add that we came
to your board in July of 2025
with a recommendation to wind
down residential Skype as a
result of the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau
rulemaking requirements. And
that action was approved
by your board. As of March 1st,
of this year, the program is no
longer entering into
residential contract
assessments. We currently have
seven residential contract
assessments waiting
to be bonded, and we anticipate
that those will be bonded
hopefully before the
authorization period expires
in September, but it may go
beyond that depending
on the individual projects.
And lastly,
staff does continue
to monitor commercial activity.
And we will return
to your board
with comprehensive update on
July 14th of this year. And
with that, we are available
for questions.
>> Great. Thank you. Is there
any public comment
on item number 44? Seeing none.
I'll bring it to the board if
there's any questions.
Comments? Thank you. Thank you
for your work. Is there a
motion to approve?
>> Move to approve.
>> And thank you
for your work, sincerely.
>> Okay, thank you. And do we
need a roll call vote? All
those in favor?
>> Aye.
>> Any opposition? Seeing none.
That motion passes. Thank you.
And now we are moving on
to item number 46, the
ordinance
to amend proposition provisions
in chapter 14 of the Sonoma
County Code, including
provisions concerning cannabis
dispensaries,
repealing obsolete provisions,
and adopting a resolution
to establish environmental,
health and safety fees. And we
have Director Sullivan,
Christine Sasko and Vern.
>> Oh, thank you.
>> Chair.
>> Yes.
>> I don't see any issues,
but I recused myself earlier
on an ordinance thing
around dispensaries. And so I'm
going to step out and let you
guys have the fun and septic
systems together as one. Enjoy
your deliberation.
>> Come back swiftly for
Measure O. Thank you. And
pizza.
>> Good morning, Chair
Hermosillo and board members,
CEO and County Attorney. My
name is Nolan Sullivan,
Director of Health Services.
As Supervisor Gore mentioned,
we have a great presentation
today on cannabis and sewage.
We will be talking about an
ordinance update and
association. None
of these fees were included in
the fee hearings we just heard.
We're bringing them separately
today because the ordinance and
the fees go hand in hand. So we
have our subject matter expert
here, Christine Sasko, who's
going to tell us all
about some updated changes to
indoor consumption lounges and
a variety of things that come
along with that. And then we
have Vern here to answer any
technical questions that come
up on the legal end
of things. So with that,
I will hand it off to
Christine.
>> Good morning.
>> Good morning, Chair. Chair
Hermosillo and members
of the board. I'm going
to go ahead and start talking
about the changes to the
cannabis health ordinance. So
we're looking at adopting a
resolution introducing the
ordinance. And there's two
different changes here. One
would be in chapter 14, which
is the health and sanitation
ordinance, and we're looking
to amend provisions
around cannabis dispensaries,
and this would allow for
cannabis consumption lounges,
and then also make other minor
updates to that ordinance. And
then looking at an amendment
in chapter 24, which is the
sewage, sewage and sewer
disposal, and it's
for septic haulers. And
in that program, we're looking
to eliminate the requirement
for a bond and make minor
cleanup changes there, too.
And then as a second part,
we're looking
to adopt a fee resolution to
establish environmental health
fees for the cannabis lounges
associated with this item. So
state law AB 1775 came around
in 2024, and it authorizes
local jurisdictions to allow
for
on site consumption lounges.
To do this, local jurisdictions
must modify both their zoning
and public health ordinances
to permit the cannabis lounges.
Sonoma county recently revised
the local zoning land use
ordinance to. To allow cannabis
consumption lounges. So now the
health ordinance must be
updated to allow cannabis
consumption lounges also. So
the current situation, the land
use ordinance now allows
cannabis consumption lounges,
and it allows those in the
unincorporated areas and. And
then the public health
ordinances, chapter 14, which
is health and sanitation,
that prohibits
on site consumption currently.
And then Chapter 32, the
Smoking Ordinance, prohibits
indoor smoking uses,
which includes cannabis. And so
as a result,
lounges cannot operate within
unincorporated county right now
due to without these ordinance
amendments. So in chapter 14,
the current code allows retail
sales,
but no on-site consumption.
What we're proposing
to change is to authorize
consumption lounges. And this
would be part as part of the
permitted cannabis dispensary
storefront retails operations.
And then they would be required
to have the health cannabis
lounge permit. They'd be
required
to have land use approval for
the appropriate jurisdiction if
required, and then compliance
with a document of health
officer requirements and then
approval from department
of cannabis control. So within
the health officer
requirements, we list health
and safety requirements. And
some of the more strict
requirements and protections
that are put in there are, you
know, a very advanced
ventilation and filtration
standard that's required of the
consumption lounge and then
also of the area
around the consumption lounge
to make sure that that smoke
does not leave that premises.
There's a physical separation
required from the retail area
and then employee protections
for secondhand smoke
for those working in the
consumption lounge area and
then protections for
neighboring businesses and
residences. So any shared walls
or that, and then a consumption
lounge can also not sell or use
or have anybody use tobacco or
alcohol within that lounge.
And then odor control and
operational standards are set
forward in these health officer
requirements. There's a signage
requirement. They're not
allowed to have those sandwich
boards and such out front
to advertise people
to come in. And then there's
employee training requirements
on like ID checks and all those
safety practices. And this is
modeled
after the state regulations.
And also San Francisco and city
of Hollywood have allowed
consumption lounges
for a while, so we modeled off
of theirs too, the impacts
on the cities. Vern, do you
want to grab this one?
>> So the health officer
authority applies
within the cities
by agreement, and the chapter
14 is currently enforceable
within the cities as an
extension of the health officer
authority. There's been
negotiations and discussions
with the cities about how much
county authority exists
in the form of ordinances
within city limits
with discussions with policy
and what is being suggested.
There's not a desire
for the county
to throw its weight around,
but it is a desire
to implement a program within
the cities if they want them.
So in this particular case,
this part of chapter 14 will be
effective as proposed if the
cities opt in
to having cannabis regulations
by the Department
of health services
within city limit.
Separately, there's a
discussion about clarifying the
legal relationship between the
health officer and the cities
in a memorandum of
understanding that will make
sure that everybody's on the
Same page about the extent
of the county authority
within city limits.
>> Thank you. So now we're
going on to septage vehicles.
So chapter 24, we're looking
at doing a cleanup,
this cleanup. Currently our
regulation requires that
haulers have a performance
bond. What we've realized is
this,
the regulations have changed.
It's no longer a requirement.
And the enforcement through
penalties is a much more
effective process for us than
these performance bonds. So
we're eliminating the
requirement for the performance
bond and then we will use the
enforcement and penalty process
in its place. And there's no
changes
to public health protections
through this ordinance change.
And then the second part of
this is environmental health
fees. Normally, environmental
health fees are done through a
time task analysis or a fee
study. And we set fees to
recover the reasonable
regulatory costs
of running the program
in compliance with Prop 26 and
then also health and safety
code. And so what we're looking
at right now is these are new
fees for a cannabis consumption
lounge. And this would be our
plan review fee,
which is based on a 10-hour
minimum plus an hourly rate.
And then the plan review fee,
which would also be for
like minor remodels. And that's
at a five-hour minimum plus
hourly rate. A site review fee
is at a two-hour minimum plus
hourly rate and then additional
review hours. Our hourly rate
right now is 2, 261 an hour.
And then the annual permit
would be 2,483. And then the
fiscal impact of adding this
program would be an estimated
increase of revenue
for fiscal year 26-27 of
$19,060. And
for fiscal year 27-28,
an estimated increase of
19,632,000. And there's no
general fund impacts with this
and it's a fully fee supported
program. So bringing it back.
Our requested actions are we're
requesting that the board adopt
the proposed resolution
introducing the ordinance
amendments and finding a CEQA
exemption and then also
adopting the environmental
health fee resolution. I think
that's. I should go back.
>> Thank you. And
with that we'll go
to public comment. Seeing none.
I'll bring it back to the board
if there's questions.
Comments? Supervisor Rabbitt?
>> Yeah. I just want
to say thank you for working
through this. Thank you,
Vern, for working
through the. The city issue as
well. What? There's only two
cities I know of in California
that have their own public
health officer. Right.
Berkeley and Long Beach. And I
think sometimes our cities here
kind of forget that there's a
collaborative approach that we
need to take
on certain issues. So thank you
for all that. I appreciate that
approach. I'm curious because I
don't want to be a hypocrite.
And we had this discussion, I
think, during the briefing. Do
we have legal
like cigar and cigarette
lounges in the county?
>> So we do. I don't believe
that any are
in the unincorporated area,
but I would have
to confirm that it is a. Not a
function of local authority,
though, because it's exemption
in the state smoking law. So
those are specifically governed
by the state smoking law, and
which includes a preemption
provision. So interestingly,
we don't have authority
at all,
nor do the cities really
over that, except maybe on a
business license basis.
>> So all of our. So what
you're saying is that every.
All the times that the lung
association used
to come and try to get us
to get an A plus or whatever
on the ordinance,
that was really just. We're
always following the state law
necessarily, do we. We don't
have any
of our own laws that add to
that.
>> I would not say that. I
would say that we deserve our a
plus. We have.
>> I just don't want to be a
hypocrite saying that you, hey,
you can go and smoke
in one lounge, but you can't,
you know, And I do worry,
obviously. I mean,
smoke is smoke in my book. If
it's unhealthy,
it's unhealthy. So that is my
point and I appreciate that. I
take it that as we go
down this path, is there. Are
there performance metrics for,
I take it that the air exchange
would have to be adequate
for the capacity
of the lounge, the maximum
capacity and everyone exhaling
at once or something to make
sure that we can provide some
sort of safety. I do worry
about the employee safety,
but I suppose that's going
to be between the establishment
and their own employees,
and we don't have any liability
within that. Did I say anything
wrong?
>> No. I would say Christine
and I facilitated a
conversation with Permit
Sonoma about just what was
appropriate given the nature
of this. And
after a discussion with
Deputy Director Nathan
Quarles, the decision was made
that an engineered H VAC system
is required on these. That it
actually has to be not. Not a
run of the mill sort
of contractor. And that that
has to do with just sort
of the higher level of
complexity that you were
pointing out.
>> Yeah, again, I'm supportive.
I just had those questions and
or comments and appreciate the
work. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Vice Chair Coursey.
>> Thanks. Thanks for the work
on this. It feels like it's
been a process I think we.
We've discussed this
at least three times
over the last six months or so.
And from the lack
of public comment, I'm assuming
that things have worked out
with the community that's
interested
in this. I didn't hear anything
about the outdoor areas
around these lounges. Is this
all to take place indoors, no
consumption patios or anything
like that?
>> A lot of the outdoor areas
are covered
through the permit Sonoma, the
land use ordinance and the
mitigation there. As far as the
smoke and smoke not leaving
that outdoor patio,
that will be part
of the discussion. I mean,
how you keep it confined
in an outdoor patio is going
to be difficult. But as far as
setbacks and that all that
approval will go
through your land use.
>> Okay.
>> I would add one. One detail
just to highlight it for you,
Supervisor, which is that the.
The county's smoking ordinance,
chapter 32, does have
applications outdoors
in a lot of.
In the unincorporated area.
And what the ordinance does is
make events exempt
from chapter 32 if they are
permitted by the Department
of Cannabis Control. So there
really won't be help permitting
of things like the fairgrounds.
I'm anticipating that would be
an example. And then the
smoking ordinance also has
designated smoking areas that
are required in certain outdoor
smoking situations, and that
ordinance will still apply.
>> Okay. And as far as
employees in these lounges,
how does. How does OSHA Cal.
OSHA figure into that?
>> They are required to comply
with OSHA requirements.
In a nutshell,
I believe that that's part
of the plan that's required
to protect the state law
on this did make it mandatory
for these businesses
to allow their employees
to wear masks and at the.
At the business's expense. So
the legislature had that in
mind when it authorized this
use.
>> Okay. It is addressed. All
right, thank you.
>> I would just add that
Chapter 32, the Smoking
Ordinance still is applicable.
Like in the front
of the business and
around a business. There's no
smoking allowed
out front.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. I did. I did have
one question. What outreach has
been done with our city
partners and what city partners
have been chatted with?
>> So we've spoke with the city
managers and city council and
done outreach there,
but we've also done a lot
of outreach through the
community groups and the
different tobacco. Tobacco
groups in the area and also the
cannabis working groups and
their legal representatives.
>> And is it all cities
in the county?
>> So chapter 14 does,
by default
of the health officer, apply
to all cities in the county.
What's different about the
cannabis subsection is it's
going to require the cities
to opt in. So in a sense,
whereas we are have
historically taken the position
that our existing cannabis
permits are valid and are
required in the city limits
in all cities. Yes, this will
require that the cities opt in
to these permits,
particular requirements. We've
had extensive discussions
through the city managers
meetings, city,
that is the name
of the group, I guess,
and then also through council
with the city attorneys. And we
don't have a list
of cities that are anticipating
to opt in, although I will say
that the separate MOU that I
mentioned, the city of Santa
Rosa, has already said through
their council that they are
going to opt in. And some of
the other cities have more
detailed questions. Frankly,
it's an interesting legal
question because city attorneys
typically do not deal
with health
for the reasons that
Supervisor Rabbitt identified.
So, you know, it's an ongoing
discussion and there have been
extensive discussions
with each
of the city attorneys and
with all
of the city managers.
>> Thank you.
>> I want to thank the staff
because they have been
judicious
about taking advantage
of when I am invited to the
monthly city managers and think
once, if not twice, certainly,
I think. Christine, explain
with the help of Vern
to the city managers. You know,
how they've been trying
to weave in the conversation as
surprise. Rabbitt said that we
have, you know, smoking
cessation and no smoking type
of thing. And also businesses
that are were designed to do
some lounge cannabis
consumption. So I'm very
grateful for the way that staff
brought it up because we are
maintaining our no smoking
in the unincorporated area,
but we are not. We're not
foregoing that opportunity
for the cities who want
to opt in. So we have been in
constant contact and been able
to educate them
along the way because as Vern
said, the public health officer
portion of the business is not
something that the cities do.
>> Thank you. Great. Thank you.
Seeing no more questions
for my colleagues. Is there a
motion?
>> So moved, Rabbitt.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> Can I get a roll call vote?
>> Supervisor Rabbitt?
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore recused.
>> Supervisor Hopkins?
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes.
>> Thank you.
>> And with that, Director
Sullivan, don't go far. We're
moving on
to measure O and we have
Director Sullivan, Aleya
Tantarelli and David Heidt.
>> Make sure that he comes in.
>> Sio Rivera is going
to wrangle. Supervisor Gore.
Give us one second. Stop it.
That's aggressive tone. Right
now. We're all ready.
>> All right. All right.
Well, good afternoon now.
Supervisor Hermosillo and
board. Thank you so much
for the audience today. Saving
the best for last,
which I really appreciate. So
thank you for that. We have a
really great presentation today
for you on Measure O. We do
recognize that we're standing
between you and lunch, so we'll
make this education educational
but expeditious. First thing I
want to point out,
and I see some
of you reading it,
we have our brand new hot
off the presses. They're
probably still warm. Annual
Measure O report, full of
really great stats and data and
sharing all
of the wonderful things
with the public that we do.
And so this is kicking
off sort of our public
information campaign on all of
the wonderful things that are.
That are Measure O. So if you
have any questions there or
comments or concerns, please
let us know and we will dive
into our presentation today.
So. So I am Nolan Sullivan, the
Department of Health Services
director. I am joined here
today by David Hyatt and
Aliyah Tantrelli. And I wanted
to thank these two really quick
before we dive in. These
presentations oftentimes come
to the board and they look
packaged and simple and clean
and easy to follow. These two
have put in probably hundreds
of hours of work. They are
expert cat herders and really
have just done a wonderful job
sort
of wrangling the enigma that is
Measure O. The ad hocs,
the oversight committees
meeting with different
electives and just. They are
the smartest,
most dedicated people that I
get to work with. And I'm just
really proud
of their work today. So I want
to thank them before we dive in
today because they're awesome.
Next slide, please. We are
going to dive in and talk
about all sorts
of different things today.
What I hope you will take away
from today and what I hope the
public will take away today and
I hope the press will take away
from today is the impact that
measure I was making every
single day in Sonoma County.
You know, one of the things
that is really hard with the
behavioral health system is
to explain what a dollar does
for a psychiatric bed or
substance use treatment or
crisis system of care and
really explaining the sheer
impact and value that it is
providing all over the place.
Lots of our different electeds
and constituents are concerned
about where Measure O is going.
They have questions. They're
right. I understand why they
have questions. But it is
making a tremendous difference
in the county. So much so that
it is pumping about 55 million
back into Sonoma county to fund
our critical behavioral health
safety net. And of that $55
million,
it helps us leverage so 33
million as direct Measure O
expenditures. And we're able to
leverage an additional 20/
million dollars in Federal
money. So if we didn't have
Measure O,
not only we would not have the
30 million that we spent,
we would not have 20 million
extra dollars in federal
revenue that we're able
to draw down. So a huge gift
for. For us. We're going
to talk about a couple
different things today. We're
going to talk
about who the county serves.
Oftentimes people say we're
like the behavioral health czar
of the county. That is not,
in fact, the case. And we'll
talk briefly about that. We'll
go really quickly into what
Measure O is. We'll talk
about the expenditure plan.
We'll tell you all about where
we expended and where we
received revenues
from EZERO this year. We'll
talk a little bit
about the gross expenditures
by program. I do want
to spend some time on the fund
balance. I've got some good
news and some bad news there.
We'll talk
about that today a little bit,
too. And then really next steps
and kind of where we're going
to head with Measure O will
close us out. So the first
slide here, please. I started
with this slide on purpose, and
I think it's really important
to ground the conversation
whenever we're talking
about county behavioral health,
on what the county is actually
responsible for. So this chart
that you're seeing ahead of you
is really the behavioral health
system of care
for the entire county. So
We've got about 470,000 people
here in Sonoma County, and
everyone gets to their
behavioral health care, whether
that be mental health care or
substance use care
in different ways. And so
oftentimes you'll hear folks or
you'll hear the community,
or you'll have people come up
to the dais and say, county,
you need to fund X, Y or Z.
You need to do better in this
behavioral health category.
The county runs a mental health
plan through Medi Cal, and we
are required to serve the SMI
population only. And I want
to be very clear about that.
So the county's mandate,
what we're funded for, for what
we get medical revenues for,
what we can use Measure O
dollars on, is about 4,000
people in Sonoma county that
are on Medi Cal that are very
mentally ill or are really
struggling
with substance use. And then
about 200ish folks that are
in jails. So they're either
in the jail, they're
in the court system, they're
in some sort
of correctional setting. So
oftentimes you'll have folks
say, why don't you fix
depression or anxiety
across the county,
we don't have the resources,
we don't have the mandate, we
don't,
we don't have the charge. Our
responsibility is that 4000-ish
people and 200 folks
in a forensic setting. And so
really just setting the stage
there. I know many of our
school district partners have
come and asked for funding.
It's just not our purview
to give dollars out
across the board. Again, we
have this very small population
who is super expensive
to serve. But again,
these are folks that are
in lock facilities. They've got
bipolar disorder, really
intensive behavioral health
needs. Second
to that is our mild
to moderate population. This is
the rest of the folks on Medi
Cal in the county. So again,
mild to moderate, lower levels
of anxiety, depression, ADHD,
kind of basic behavioral health
needs. And they're on Medi
Cal, they are serviced through
their managed care provider
which is Partnership or
Kaiser. So just
like you or I go to the doctor
if we need antidepressant meds
or we need anxiety meds
through Kaiser, et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera,
folks then go through
Partnership or they go
through Kaiser
to see their regular doctor
to access that care either
at an FQHC, at a Kaiser
facility or wherever they get
care. And then there's about
350,000 people, the general
public, they have care
through a variety of different
means and that's private payer,
that's
through their work insurance,
that's through a variety
of other tools and
in some cases uninsured. We do
have some responsibility
in the uninsured category,
but that's a tale
for another day. So again
grounding this discussion,
the county's responsibility,
what we're funded for,
our mandate is 4,000 people
that are really sick. And this
is children and adults or
about 200-ish
at any given time that are
in some sort
of institutional setting. So
this is where those measure o
dollars should be going and
this is our responsibility.
Next slide please. So again,
a quick measure overview. You
guys have heard this several
times before. This was a voter
approved quarter cent sales tax
that was approved in November
of 2020. It was dedicated for
10 years, and it is dedicated
to mental health, substance use
and homeless support. We get
about $30 million a year. It
fluctuates a little bit up and
down, but generally it's
about $30 million a year. And
this funding is not
discretionary. So
within the ballot language,
the board is confined
to what is written
in the ballot that was approved
by voters. And there are some
very specific ways that we have
to spend that Money, Some very
specific ways we have
to account
for that money and some very,
very specific reporting
requirements. One
of which is today is to have a
public hearing and discuss our
expenditures. Next slide
please. This is the expenditure
categories that are stipulated
in the actual measure. So we
cannot deviate from this.
Things do kind
of fluctuate a smidge. But
in general the measure
of dollars have to be spent by
the voter approved categories
that are on the ballot.
Behavioral health facilities
coming in at 22%. The big, the
big expenditure here really is
emergency psychiatric and
crisis services at 44%. And in
fact we're seeing that category
continue to grow even though
it's the largest category
today. Mental health and SUD
outpatient services at 18%,
behavioral health and homeless
care at 14 and a little teeny,
teeny bit for transitional and
permanent supportive housing.
So a lot of times folks, they
measure O as a homeless grant.
It really isn't. And so I know
the campaign rhetoric, or maybe
whatever happened way back when
the campaign was run,
promoted it
for homeless services. We
cannot spend those dollars
unless they're out
of that 2% pot or
to some degree the 14% pot.
But that's a bit
of a stretch. So unfortunately
a lot of folks are sort
of misinformed in that space
and that causes some
frustration
with our partners as well. We
do have the ability
to adjust funds
within these categories
in a single budget year. It
requires a 4 5th vote
by the board. And periodically
we do come and ask
for a slight adjustment. We
don't think we'll need to do
that this year and we haven't
had to do that for some time.
But we do have the ability
to start switch
between categories in a single
fiscal year. I suspect
at the latter stages
of measure O, we're going
to need a lot more money in
that emergency psychiatric and
crisis services column and less
money in the others. So we will
probably come back
to the board for that.
But again we have that ability
with a 4 5th vote
by the board that is
in the ballot measure. And I
think that is my last slide.
And I'm going to hand it off
to David to talk
about the finances..
>> Yeah, good morning. What we
have here is the gross
expenditures by category. As
you see, this is a little bit
of a shift for us
in reporting that we've done
in previous years. Typically
we've used net expenditures.
So this shows basically what
we've spent before we have any
reimbursements like FFP,
federal financial
participation. And really
because we want to shift
to this, it shows you the
overall impact that Measure O
has on the community. Here we
break it
down a little bit further
by subcategory as laid out in
the expenditure plan or
individual programs. Probably
something better suited for
offline consumption here. A
little difficult
to read maybe. And this
actually really demonstrates
well, one of the reasons why we
have chosen to look
at gross expenditures. Because
the reimbursements vary a lot
between programs. So it gives
you a good overall view once we
add in reimbursements,
but it can really undersell
some of the programs that
receive a lot
of reimbursements. So you see
the total expenditures
down the bottom as reflected
in the previous slide,
and then the reimbursements.
And once we end up
with the net expenditures
really in line
with what we have spent
in previous years. So speaking
of previous years,
what we have here is
combination
of net expenditures,
is the line going up there,
and relationship between our
fund balance and revenues. You
see, with the early years,
it took a little while for us
to get caught up as programs
were spinning up
to bring the fund balance down,
bring expenditures up. So as it
expanded, we've allowed us
to support a broader and more,
excuse me, mature set
of ongoing services. And now
you see how the fund balance is
projected to decline
over the next couple years,
both this year and into next.
These are both kind of point
in time estimates. And overall,
what we reflect here is the
plan progression, building up
services, using them
over time as we move
into full implementation.
>> Right, and now we're going
to talk about the individual
categories today. And again,
I'm going to try and make these
slides not look so graphy and
boring and explain what they're
actually funding. Right. And
this is the story that we all
need to tell. What does this
mean to the average resident
of Sonoma County? Right. So
measure O every single day is
helping some
of the most sick, most
behaviorally needy folks here
in the county. And if we didn't
have this resource, quite
frankly, the behavioral health
team would be sunk. And so in
the behavioral health category,
last year, we spent $15
million, and that $15 million
was able to serve 208
individuals
in psychiatric hospitals. And
again, these placements can be
a million dollars
for a single placement,
a million dollars
for a single client. So if we
did not have this funding or
these contracts or these
abilities,
these are folks that have
schizophrenia, bipolar, really
severe behavioral health
issues. And oftentimes they're
homeless or they're
on the streets or in and out,
or they don't have access
to these services
in these facilities. And
in many cases,
we don't have medical revenues
to cover these for a variety
of reasons. And we also don't
have enough realignment fund
balance to really cover these
expenditures. And so, you know,
talking to cities and talking
to our constituents
about the value this provides,
these are 208 people that are
really ill, that are able
to receive treatment,
that are hopefully able
to recover, that are able
to heal and get back
into care. Once folks have
their immediate kind of
psychiatric crisis stabilized,
they have to step down,
right? So you don't just get
out of the psych hospital and
go back to your normal life.
It takes some time. And so
we've got a variety of
residential care facilities as
well. So when folks step down
from that crisis,
maybe it's a psychiatric break,
a psychotic episode,
an attempted search suicide,
they stabilize,
then they are able to go
to a residential care facility.
Right? And so at that
residential care facility,
they're able to again continue
their treatment plan, get
better, recover,
and hopefully get back
in the community.
In some cases, they may never
recover. So in some cases,
folks have behavioral health
issues where they need to be
in a residential care facility
for life. And these are folks
that are conserved. You've
heard these stories
in the newspapers. You've heard
these heartbreaking tales
from parents trying to treat
their adult children or
children trying to reach their
older adult parents trying
to find a place to keep them.
This funding paid
for 328of those placements.
And again, they're very
expensive and they come
from every part
of the county,
every incorporated city,
from the unincorporated, again,
paying for services
for folks. 81,448 bed nights
just last year. Right? That's a
huge number
of beds that we're able to pay
for in this service. And then
again,
getting folks transitionally
housed, right. Maybe you get
out of residential facility,
you're kind of getting back
on your feet. You know, how do
you actually integrate back
into society? And so again,
serving 325 clients,
really going
from probably the worst moment
of their life back
into society. And so without
Measure O, none
of these services would exist.
And again, I know the public
doesn't see it. Many of our
city council peers don't see
it. Sometimes the police chiefs
don't see it. But Measure O is
paying for a whole shadow
system that really makes a
tremendous impact every single
day. Next slide, please. This
is the big dog in terms
of spending. And this is where
the spending unfortunately is
rapidly growing. This is our
emergency and psychiatric
services tab. We spent about
$30 million there. Again,
almost the Entirety
of what we earned in measure O
last year was spent just
on this one category. And
again, this also includes the
medical revenues that we bring
back in. But I can't underscore
enough how much this category
is growing off the charts.
This thing funds all,
all sorts
of different things. And we'll
talk a little bit
about CAPE and Mobile Crisis
on the two subsequent slides.
But this funds our entire
crisis system of care. So
whether it is our CSU,
which we've talked a lot about,
the costs there are going up.
We've almost reached $10
million. And that provides a
resource for folks to go
to when they are in crisis.
Right. It's an emergency room
when you're having a behavioral
health or substance use crisis.
The residential crisis
services, which we talked
about a minute ago, you know,
folks need to put place
to stay. We're
in their crisis. You can't just
stay in the CSU. You've got
to find a place to step down.
And unfortunately,
we're spending about $10
million on in patient hospital
treatments as well. So this is
again, if you've got a loved
one or a family member that is
experiencing psychosis,
a severe bipolar disorder,
a mental break, it's a really
scary and awful situation.
This is paying
for those resources for people
to be treated locally. And
again, working
in several county systems.
This does not exist
in the counties that I've
worked in in the past. And
again, it's sort
of this hidden system
behind the scenes.
But the voters of Sonoma
County have really created a
very robust crisis system to
treat folks that are extremely
mentally ill. And I can't
stress enough how many folks
we've served. I won't go
through all the stats
to you there, but again,
for the Crisis Stabilization
Unit, we served about 655
clients last year. The Mobile
Support team. So Mobile Crisis
is broken
into three different teams.
Mobile Support Team is the
county's team that covers the
entire incorporated and any of
the cities that don't have a
team in response. Covers
Santa Rosa, within Santa Rosa
city limits. SAFE covers
Petaluma, Cotati, Rohnert Park
and Sonoma State University.
And you can see the call rates
there. So again, 1,469 total
dispatches
from mobile support team.
5,800 calls for service
within response, 13,000 plus
calls for safe. The one thing I
want to point out,
there was an article in the
paper last week and I'm not
making a judgment call are
saying what happened or didn't
happen, but a lot
of times when someone's Having
a mental health crisis, you
want a mental health crisis
responder to respond,
not a police officer. Right.
We've seen in this county
in the past, oftentimes law
enforcement gets put
in situations where they've got
to use their firearm. We have
really awful results. 71%
of the responses from the
mobile support team were done
without law enforcement. 4800
calls in Santa Rosa were done
without law or were law
enforcement diversions. So
again, diverting to a mental
health crisis clinician. And
we're not collecting all that
data just yet for safe,
but we'll share that
at a later date. So again, the
community years and years ago
asked
for an ultimate response. They
asked to keep people safe.
They asked
for something different
during the time of George
Floyd and after. And we have
produced that here
in the county. Doesn't always
work 100%. Right. We saw that
last week. But again, 71%
of the calls without law
enforcement is something
to be proud of that this board
has a established and sort of
launched a couple years back.
We'll talk a little bit about
Cape on the next slide. And
again, 292 individuals served
at our inpatient hospital here
at the Los Guilicos campus.
Next slide. I wanted
to do a specific call out.
>> Yes, hi, sorry, Supervisor
Hopkins has a question.
>> I had some questions
about sort of MST
in response and safe. Should I
wait until.
>> We have a slide come up
next.
>> Okay, great.
>> Thank you.
>> So I want to talk a little
bit about cape. And the reason
I wanted to bring this up today
is we've had a variety
of requests come
from different school districts
to fund their behavioral health
programming. So I wanted
to frame the discussion
on who the county serves
with that first slide.
But I also want
to talk a little bit
about what we're actually doing
on school campuses. And so the
CAPE program is essentially a
mobile crisis response program
for our high school Systems and
some junior and elementary
schools. We service over 34
campuses last year,
and we were able to respond
to 56 different crises, 33
on campus crisis responses,
and then 23 phone
consultations. We had 109 early
intervention referrals and
2,240 prevention participants
through education and outreach
activities. So again,
you have a lot of your
constituents and partners
asking for funding to support
programs. I wish we had the
most money to do it,
but I want to remind the county
that we are injecting our
services into 34 different
campuses across Sonoma
County. This is a full listing
of those campuses. And there's
actually a couple more that
actually aren't on there. But
we are actively staffing these
campuses with county employees
and we're really trying
to do our best
to backfill that crisis level
of care.
>> Thank you. Vice Chair
Coursey has a question
for you.
>> This does this represents a
broader population than the
4000 that you mentioned
in your one
of your first.
>> It does. It does.
>> These are young people who
are in need of some help. And
we're not asking them to call
their insurance company.
>> This is any student that
needs it. We're responding to
100% any student that needs it.
And then we do our best
to connect them
to follow up care through
whatever insurance they have
afterwards or
through us if it's Medi Cal.
So this is a no. It doesn't
matter if you have private
insurance. Medi Cal, no
insurance. We don't ask. We
just service the state
situation. We don't have enough
data yet. But I'm hearing great
anecdotal stories
about significant reductions
in youth suicides
on campuses. And again,
any child on those campuses can
access those services. This is
not all of our schools.
Right. So we'd like to continue
expanding this program and
frankly, we're going to
struggle a little bit
financially
over the next couple years.
This is one
of the programs we may have
to pare back or reduce because
of funding issues. But
at these campuses today, any
student can access these
services and sometimes we even
have help staff. Great.
>> Thank you, Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Just to follow up on that.
And you said that's not all the
schools, but that's 20 and I
don't. Outside of Rancho and
Rona Park, Petaluma City
schools not represented
at least on this. Are they one
of those schools that aren't.
>> They are not a major
participant yet. And so again,
it's dollars and expansion is
the problem for us. The Cape
team was actually pulled back a
few years back and then sort
of re expanded. So. So we would
like to continue to expand.
Unfortunately, these are the
main programs today and we do
have some outreach
at other campuses,
but this is where the bulk
of the service.
>> What's the obligation
of the actual of the district
for expansion? Yeah.
Financially or otherwise.
>> Right now, the county is
covering it pretty much 100%.
>> Okay.
Look forward to that further
expansion.
>> Any other questions
on this slide?
>> No.
>> Okay, great. So again,
I just want to state, you know,
I know that a lot of our school
districts right now are having
success,
significant financial issues.
The first place they're going
to look to cut is their
behavioral health services.
And it's awful. It is the
number one place that students
can access services,
whether they're insured,
medical, et cetera, et cetera.
However, the county is doing
our best to chip in
through cape. You know,
it's not enough, but
with a finite system
of resources, this is what
we've got right now. So just
wanting to put this out there
for the board and the public
that we are
in fact investing millions
in our local schools for their
crisis response systems. We've
got a long way to go,
but we've got some dollars
in the game.
>> Another question
for you.
>> Sorry just before we leave
this. Does In Response or SAFE
MST respond
to schools as well?
>> Generally, no. Generally we
prefer that as CAPE. However,
in areas where we don't have a
CAPE team member or we don't
have adequate coverage
in response,
MST or SAFE could. They
certainly could be dispatched.
The CAPE clinicians really
though are children's
clinicians. Right? This is what
they went to school for,
this is what they do. So we can
cover both. It would not be
advisable to say remove CAPE
altogether and have MST and
those different groups kind
of COVID It is sort of two
different population basis,
but
in a pinch they could.
>> Yeah, I was just wondering
about, you know,
potential holes in the system
and whether they can be filled
that way.
>> Good question.
>> Thank you.
>> Next slide please. This is a
very simple slide, but this is
a very rocky situation that is
sort of waiting
for the state budget
to come out. The mobile crisis
system of care
across the county,
as I mentioned earlier,
is comprised
of three different systems.
To date, we have invested
about $12 billion just
in our partners alone. This is
$12 million going directly
to cities, going directly
to our partners outside
of the county
through the SAFE and
In response program. That
doesn't include a lot of
in kind staff work as well.
In fact,
we provide eight clinicians
to the city of Santa Rosa
in kind to run their
in response program. As I came
on board, just hitting my 10
month mark, one
of the big things for me
to dig
into was mobile crisis. The
costs continue to escalate. We
went from a few hundred
thousand dollars to almost $6
million a year just over the
last two or three years. And
the costs continue to grow.
One of the areas that we're
actively focusing
on right now is billing Medi
Cal. So as it stands today,
there is a Medi Cal mobile
crisis benefit that pays almost
$4,500 per instance per call.
The only system today that is
able to bill Medi Cal and is
actively billing Medi Cal
for those Calls is MST. And so
right now the county system is
doing that we are working with
in response and safe
to get there. Safe can bill
for a much lower Medi Cal
crisis benefit, but it's not
the mobile crisis benefit. We
we're talking hundreds
of dollars, not thousands
of dollars. And so one
of the requirements for both
of these programs
to really continue to receive
county partnership support or
funding is they have to build
Medi Cal. We just don't have
the measure of dollars
to continue to grow it. We
don't have other revenues
to continue to support it. And
most of the cities don't have
the money either. The problem
with this is in the governor's
proposed budget back in
January, there was a
stipulation added sort of at
the last minute that makes the
mobile Medi California crisis
benefit move from mandatory
to optional. That sounds fair
enough, right? Give counties
more choice and a semblance
of choice. It actually reduces
the reimbursement rate
by thousands of dollars. And so
it is a major blow
to this system of care. And
frankly,
we're keeping all eyes on the
may revise to see what happens
in the budget. If the governor
in fact keeps that change
in the budget, it will most
likely kill mobile crisis
across the county. I just don't
see any other way we can fund
it. There's not room
with measure O. And so that's
something we're sort
of waiting for. There's been a
lot of advocacy so far. We've
written our own legislators;
we've worked
with different advocacy groups.
We've worked
with our lobbyist and Will and
his team. We are sincerely
hoping that the governor
changes his mind on this
because this system has
provided real benefits for
Sonoma County. And without
Medi Cal sort of being the
central funding issue, Measure
O just isn't going to cut it. A
couple other things that I want
to add is there is a lot of
duplicate and there's probably
some room for synergy and maybe
a single system here. We're
sort of edging
to that right now. You know,
we all run 24/7 operations,
which was a big part
of why the cost increased. We
all have our own dispatchers,
which is kind
of redundant as well. You know,
we've got lots of different
staff and duplication and
policies and processes and
staff and technology
in some cases in response. And
safe specifically are using a
lot of their programs
for homeless response,
which is fantastic. But that's
also not really what measure O
is for. And that's definitely
what Medi Cal can bill for. So
to some degree, you know, we're
not really doing direct
homeless response for MSC. It
really is a pure mobile crisis
clinical program in response.
And SAFE both have components
and providers that do some
of that homeless work,
which is great, but it's also
not really an area that we have
the funding to support. And
then lastly, as of today, the
only teams that have verified
clinicians are the county EMST
team. And in response, it
doesn't mean SAFE doesn't want
to. They're working towards it,
and we are working hopefully
on iteration of a deal that
will get us there. The reason I
bring all this up again is
there's just a lot
of discussion from our city
partners wanting more funding.
There's a lot of discussion
at the state level
about overall Medi Cal funding.
And this will be a very hot
topic over the next couple
of years. To be frank, we're
running three duplicate
systems. Doesn't make a ton
of sense to me. I think there's
probably a better way
to do this across the county
with partners
with the cities together, but
this is an area where the costs
are growing out
of control and we are starting
to lose key revenue sources,
and measure just does not have
the fund balance to support.
So I do anticipate more
of this information coming back
to the board. I anticipate
you'll hear
from city managers,
city council members. This is
an area that. That we are a bit
concerned. I'll pause here
for questions.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> Thanks. I apologize
in advance
for a preamble followed
by a leading question, but,
you know, I will say that I had
heartburn when we initially
funded these programs. Maybe it
was PTSD from working so hard
on fire consolidation,
where we're trying
to get towards fewer systems.
And I'm like, yeah, here we are
creating these systems with
their own unique identity and
branding. And yet, you know, we
approved this and we supported
it, really, in the hopes of
inspiring further collaboration
with the cities and really also
just supporting their vision
for their communities. That
said, it's crazy to me that we
don't have consistent access
to services across the county
and that we are funding these
all and that it. You know,
if you call in on one side
of the line, right,
you don't have access
to homeless services, but you
have everything else cross the
line and suddenly, okay,
homeless services, but, you
know, you don't. You can't
actually get any reimbursement
for the funding, right? Then go
on to another line, right,
and you have the homeless
services, but not even access
to clinicians and only partial
reimbursement. So I just feel
like we have to move away from
a system which creates de facto
inequities. It's, it's not
fair. And it also,
I think creates confusion.
Right. And, and so I,
I just feel like it's, it's
very, very problematic. And I
think that we need
to have like, you know,
these tough conversations
with our city partners
of how do we get to sort
of a one team,
one dream approach. Because,
you know, we,
and we had this conversation
of like, you can't have
like platinum,
gold and silver depending
on where you live,
like what do you have,
have access to? It's sort
of antithetical to, I think,
our vision,
which is a safety net that
really, you know, meets folks
where they are and provides
equal access
to services no matter what side
of the line you are in,
what city. Right.
Unincorporated incorporated.
So I guess my leading question
is like, how do we get
to that? And then I guess the
other question is, but I guess
it doesn't matter if the whole
system crumbles because,
and the state just kind
of drives a stake
in its heart. Is that,
is that kind
of the message that I'm getting
from you?
>> Yeah. There's two pathways
today. I think the first
pathway is really the pathway
that you discussed
in the first section
of your statement. And we are
getting on board today
to issue one year contracts
with the hope of longer term
contracts that drive us
toward a single system. So
today we don't have the same
reporting data, we don't have
the same policies and
procedures,
we don't have the same
staffing,
we don't have the same billing.
To participate or
to receive county funding for
Participation as of July 1st or
forward this year, you have to
be billing medical and you have
to have the similar data sets
and reporting that we're
requesting. That one year
contract will
at least get us all
on the same page. We'll have
apples to apples data. We'll
all be billing medical
to some degree. And that puts
us in a position
to have a larger discussion
for the next couple of years
in terms of a single system,
collaboration, et cetera,
et cetera. And I,
and I also want
to say that our partners at
Safe and Mobile Crisis, or I'm
sorry, in response, they do a
wonderful, wonderful job. I'm
not saying the county does a
better job. I'm not saying the
county does a worse job. And
frankly,
I don't necessarily care if
it's MST,
if it's safe or it's.
In response to your point,
we need a Single provider
across the county. You know, if
we had three ambulance
providers in the county
in different little pockets, it
would be an absolute nightmare.
And so we're,
we're working towards that.
And I think the city partners
have come
to that realization. Many of
their electeds are also saying
the same thing. So that's
great. So I think we're
on that path where we're kind
of moving slow and soft and
collaborative, which is good,
but I think we're nudging
in that direction. The nuclear
option, unfortunately,
is if the state budget goes
through the way it was
proposed, it really isn't worth
discussing any of this because
we just don't have long term
revenues to support. So we can
do our best with measure O
for the next couple years. It
won't cover the full cost of
the program and honestly it's
capped already and then it's
set to expire a few years
out as well. So that's pretty
much game over, most likely
for MST, unless we decide
to inject a whole lot of
funding that doesn't exist
today from cities and
from the county. So we're sort
of waiting to see what happens
with that. May revise,
hopefully that stays intact.
We do have at least a year
Runway. The benefit runs
through the end of next year.
But is it really worth
developing systems, hiring
staff, doing all this stuff
for a benefit that's going to
go away is the big question.
>> So if the state funding goes
away, do we just have
to revert to what now feels
like a very antiquated model
where it is only always a law
enforcement response or is
there some opportunity
to say, transport right. To,
you know, a facility
like I just. What does that
look like?
>> I think we'll come back and
bring the board options if
in fact that is the case. And
it may look like something
like Instead of having 247
coverage, maybe we have peak
hour coverage. Right. Or maybe
we have one vehicle that
services the entire county
versus a fleet of vehicles,
so response times grow. It may
be, you know,
if you give us this much extra
funding, we can do X or Y or Z,
but we just kind of won't know
until we know we do have some
plans. I don't suspect it will
completely unravel,
but it won't look anything
close
to the way it looks today.
>> And then last question,
just
since you mentioned that, you
know, a couple of the models
have actually heavily tilted
towards homeless services. How
do you feel when we look
at the county in terms of, you
know, homelessness, outreach,
team access? Right. Because if
These. If some
of these teams, at least,
are sort of focusing on that
inside these city
jurisdictions,
then what is happening Right.
In the other cities in
unincorporated communities that
is, is or is not equivalent?
Because that seems like another
really important thing is how
do we ensure, again, that sort
of equity of service, you know,
access in terms
of homeless services
across the county?
>> Yeah. I think, you know,
the Swiss army knife approach,
I think is the absolute best
practice if you can do that.
And I think in many cases, you
know,
within response and was safe,
they are running programs where
if it's a nuisance call,
if it's a homeless call,
if it's a mental health call,
if it's a gray area call,
that's probably not law
enforcement, they can respond,
which is great. And I think,
honestly, having programs
like that are amazing. But
Measure O is a behavioral
health funding source,
and you can't bill Medi Cal
for those other things.
Right. So MST only deploys for
clinical crisis calls that are
very rigid and there's a set
criteria. Would I love
to have like, the Swiss army
knife approach
across the county? Absolutely.
But how do we fund it is the
big question. So, you know,
again, if you can go back one
slide, really quick,
one more. Sorry. The reason I
want
to show you this is you look
at the number of calls there,
right? Mobile support's 1469.
They are literally covering the
entire county. It's the
unincorporated,
but also several cities. The
populations
for mobile support team in
response and SAFE are roughly
the same. Same the number
of citizens
in those districts. If you look
at the call differences,
though, so 1500
for mobile support team, 5800
for in response, and then
13,000 plus for safe. Those
calls are not apples
to apples, Right. So one
of those is an apple. One's a
banana, one's a cucumber. And
so the 13,000 calls they're
seeing for SAFE are not the
highest need clinical calls
that MST is saying. I'm not
saying those are bad calls.
They're wonderful. But we are
not providing the same services
today. And it's expensive,
right? It's expensive
to respond to those calls. So
that is a big part of the issue
is we are offering three sets
of services
across the county. More is
always better,
but more costs a lot
of money.
>> Thank you so much
for that.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt.
>> Thank you very much. I
appreciate all the work and
appreciate the. Well, yeah,
I appreciate the conundrum
we're in and waiting
for the state
to see where they go. And I
take it that. And I know that
part of this was collecting the
data. And again we had the
Supervisor, Coursey and I,
and you were there as well,
had the meeting down in
Petaluma talking about safe,
which is a great program. When
we, you know, to be truthful,
right when we started this
thing,
MST predated everything.
Jeremiah Chass, I think was the
instigator or the impetus
there. And then, you know,
the idea was to have this
one-year pilot program. The
great thing is that everything
got there was a lot
of ownership by the cities of
these programs and they love
them. Well, I understand why
and I live in Petaluma and I
know that those 13,000 calls,
a lot of them are the homeless
outreach piece where for me
personally that's also helping
the city out and the city then
should be a financial partner
in that. And I was going to ask
if I know you're collecting
data but do you have any data
yet that starts to talk about
of those,
what percentage overall are
truly, you know, mental health
crisis calls versus homeless
check.
>> We really don't and we
probably won't until starting
July 1st with a new MOU and new
data requirements. And again,
we're tracking data completely
differently.
In some cases we have it,
some cases we don't. And that's
just the way the three systems
were sort
of set up unfortunately.
>> Yeah, and the last thing
I'll say,
I mean I as my colleague said,
I'm all for opportunities.
They should be equal throughout
the county. This is said that
earlier on another item
but this is true for here. You
know, I don't know if, I don't
know if there's a plan C or D.
But many years ago I think
including when I was
on city council in Petaluma, we
had non uniformed police
officers roam the river
at that time checking in
on folks and maybe there's a
way to embed or some other less
NGO led and maybe more towards
a grant funding for whether
it's law enforcement or
through the sheriff's office or
through whomever that if there
is a call that they can respond
to. Again, just looking for
other alternatives because I
think that you're right if it
goes away because
of the state budget crisis,
people will be clamoring to
find alternative sources and
it's a big ticket item that is
going to be tough
to find those dollars. So
appreciate that. Thank you.
>> Absolutely. I guess the only
thing I add really quickly too
is the board could direct us
to spend measure of dollars
elsewhere. I mean it's pretty
much fully expended today
but you could Say we want you
to cut program X to give mobile
crisis more dollars. And that's
a choice we could make. The
problem is there's no extra
fund balance or extra money.
So we'd literally have
to decide where do we want to
cut throughout this
presentation
to give more dollars elsewhere.
And that's the decision point
that could be discussed as
well. Next slide, please. And
so we're kind of rolling
through here. And again, these
are the much smaller categories
of Measure O's,
mental health and substance use
to outpatient services. I won't
go too far
into the weeds here,
but again, this does a lot
of work in providing access
to substance use disorder. The
opioid settlement funds,
frankly, have been a godsend
in this area and have allowed
us to sort
of reduce expenditures
to use those dollars instead.
Those dollars are finite. And
so we're, you know, kind
of squirreling away a nest egg
for some time away.
But we were able to spend
about 3.7 million and treat
hundreds, almost 1,000 folks
for mental health and SUD
treatment over the last year.
Next slide, please. And these
are the two smaller categories.
So again,
there was a very small
component
of behavioral health,
homeless and care coordination,
about $5 million. This went
to a variety of areas. This is
the primary funding source for
our heart and soul teams here
in the county. We were able
to service 250 chronically
homeless individuals this year
and get 86 individuals
permanently sheltered and
housed. And again,
we had some other funding kind
of go out to a variety
of different places to
emergency shelter and a few
other components as well. This
is an area where I feel
like we can probably bill more
of our internal staff time to
grants and other funding
sources. And so through future
budget processes,
we are trying
to become less and less reliant
on Measure O for our internal
homeless services and more
reliant
on behavioral health funding,
billing, Medi Cal and other
homeless grants that are
related here. So this is an
area we have some opportunity
to maybe squeeze some savings
out over future years. Next
slide. And then the last one is
the TES portion of Measure O.
It's the transitional and
permanent supportive housing.
And this predominantly went
to supporting Project Home Key
project this year. 312 beds.
Seven sites are actively
in development
across the county. But, you
know,
if someone needs a small amount
of money
to close a gap or they're, you
know, got a bridge financing,
this is a great tool for us to
provide a couple hundred
thousand dollars or up
to a million bucks
to help kind
of close that deal
to get some PSH beds. So again,
a Very small amount actually
spent
on homelessness and housing.
Even though a lot
of folks feel like Measure O
was a homeless and housing
grant, it really wasn't based
on the language in the
in the voter approved measure.
Next slide. This is an area
that I want to point
out is a little nerve wracking.
And so whenever you have a
sales tax measure, you start
collecting the sales tax
after it passes. It takes a
while to really ramp up,
right? So you've got
to hire staff, you've got
to establish contracts,
you kind of have
to get the program running. We
had a very,
very high fund balance in
Measure O
for the first couple years of
Measure O. And again,
that's kind of normal. It takes
time to get staff on board. It
takes time to get contracts,
takes time
to get those billings in. We
are fully in the swing
of things now. And again,
like the Measure O machine is
pretty much fully expanded and
running. We started this last
year with a $35 million fund
balance and that will drop
down to 13 million by the end
of the fiscal year. So again,
we are spending down that fund
balance very fast. There is not
a secret pot of Measure O money
hidden somewhere. We're not
squirreling away Measure O
money
to support other things. It is
a very expensive program.
Now. We're spending pretty much
what we're taking. In the end
of 2627, we project that fund
balance to drop even further
down to $10 million. And
at the end of Measure O
in a couple years from now, we
project that we'll actually end
at just about zero. So we're
about negative $600,000 today
with our future projection
through the life of Measure
O. So again, ending really
with no fund balance, no
change, no. No extra there,
we're kind of right on track.
So that's a good thing. We're
not over expending. We're right
on budget. But I think the
notion that the county has
extra measurable to hand out,
we really just don't. So if we
want to fund things with
Measure O, we have to cut
things that are being paid for
in Measure O,
basically is the moral
of the story. Next slide. And I
think a couple things coming up
in the future that we wanted
to call out. We're really
excited about this. We talked a
little bit about external
Measure O funding requests
today. A couple that have come
through and I think a couple
of things coming up
in the future that I went
to call out,
we're really excited
about this. It has been decided
that we will not take kind of
One off funding request,
they have to go through a new
NOFA or public process. So I
know there's a lot
of community needs. You often
get emails from constituents or
other folks asking for Measure
O funding. It has to go
through a NOFA. And
to remind folks,
this board just gave out $10
million last month in Measure O
funds, all
to community partners,
cities and other groups.
That's probably the last time
we'll be able to give
out a big chunk of Measure O
funding, if any more Measure O
funding
through a NOFA process. So
unfortunately those external
requests at this point are
pretty much DOA. Unless we
start cutting other
programming, we are hoping
to bring sort of Measure O
on the road. We know there's a
lot of concerns
from your peers
on city councils. There's a lot
of confronts
from city managers. What are
you spending the money on?
Return to sender. You know,
what is the county doing
with all these funds? I hope to
have a presentation very
similar to today that really
explains those psychiatric
beds, the emergency system
of care, the crisis
residential, all those things
that a typical city council
member, city elected or just an
average constituent wouldn't
think about. But frankly, if we
lost tomorrow would be
absolutely devastating
to the county. So that is
coming up soon. Again, big
thank you to the ad hoc
for helping guide us
through that process. We kicked
that off in June with the
Mayors and Councils
association, which is great.
So we'll get a draft
to this board at some point
in time before that. And then
lastly, we are ultra focused
on Measure O renewal. And so
again, Measure O has the
possibility to be renewed. It
produces about $30 million. I
would say it makes a
significant impact,
a vital life or death impact
to hundreds of residents in
Sonoma County every single
year. So we are working
with the county
Administrator's office and
folks to start prepping for
that renewal campaign and
getting all those ducks
in a row. We've got a couple
years out, but that is
something we certainly intend
to put back on the ballot. We
hope the voters will grace us
again
with their vote and continue
to support this vital benefit.
But that is
on our radars as well. And then
last but not least,
I just wanted to thank,
thank our Measure O oversight
committee. So Measure O is
required to have an oversight
committee that reviews every
single cent
of expenditure that Measure O
expends and makes sure it
matches the guidelines
in the voter approved measure.
We've got Mr. Fear
on here today. Who sits
on that,
that oversight committee.
Thank you, Gregory, for that,
your service. But I want to
assure the taxpayers we are
spending your money wisely.
And there's literally a group
of appointed officials
literally looking
at every single expenditure to
make sure we're spending money,
those dollars wisely. And then
lastly, the ad hoc Supervisor
Gore and Supervisor Coursey,
you guys have been invaluable
at providing us guidance and
input and feedback and kind
of helping push us through this
process. I know you're fielding
a lot of requests
in other areas, but we really
appreciate your support. So
with that, I think I am pretty
much wrapped up. I promised I'd
be expeditious,
and I wasn't. I apologize.
But our last slide here,
we've got questions,
and I ultimately just want to
thank the voters and the
taxpayers of Sonoma County.
Without their support,
we would not be able
to serve thousands of people.
And it is providing some of the
most intensive needed supports
to people in Sonoma County that
really, really need it. So. So
thank you to them. And that
closes my presentation.
>> Thank you so much. And
with that, we will go
to public comment.
>> Chair Hermosillo and members
of the board, I'm Gregory
Ferrin, and as Director
Sullivan indicated, I serve on,
on your behalf on the
Oversight Committee. There's
absolutely nothing that the
Oversight Committee would
disagree with what Director
Sullivan indicated. We've been
totally briefed,
we've been totally involved,
and we've done our best to make
sure that the voters get what
they expected and where we have
to make changes,
we support that. If there's any
one particular area that I
personally still have some
qualms about,
which is substance use. But I
know that the department's
working real hard
on reinstating that services,
those services to our county.
I'm really frightened that we
aren't going to be able
to tell a story well enough
to the public about the value
of this pot. It is, as
Director Sullivan indicated,
the only really saving grace
that I can see. It was
mentioned earlier that this is
magic. If this is magic,
Director Sullivan and his staff
is the wizard of O. And they
are helping keep this system
together. So I urge you
to make the hard decisions on
the recommendations that are
made and keep this and the
entire system alive.
>> Thank you. Seeing another,
Supervisor Gore.
>> I really appreciate being on
the ad hoc. I'm even more
appreciative that we're here
with the rest of the board
members weighing in.
Supervisor Coursey, it's ironic
because we asked
for this ad hoc
at a time when we had a surplus
in Measure O unspent dollars,
and that was the impetus
for the creation
of the ad hoc was to see if
that money was being accruing
too much or if it was
programmatic or if it was going
to be. One time we were having
piecemeal items come back and
being funded and so couldn't be
a different state
of play that once we sat down.
It's really about a couple
different things. Things one
about the renewal of Measure O
and that needing to come back
to the board. I want to remind
the board that whether that
comes back as a request RFP
to go out
for consultants looks
like that. We're trying
to decide if that with county
administrator and others,
if that comes back as a request
for this year's contingencies
or next year's budget.
But I just want the board to
know that that's happening and
engage with the county
administrator and others if you
have serious concerns. We don't
see other ways to be able
to do that. So I just wanted to
put that forth and thank you
all for your efforts. You did a
lot of research and background
on how to put together a look
at a renewal. And I think the
first part
of it is that we absolutely
have to go and tell the real
stories because just
like you have today,
because the renewal of Measure
O is
of the utmost importance for.
For our safety net and our
behavioral health net and our
homeless services. So it did
well last time it's delivered
and it needs to be renewed. If
it doesn't, we have
to be very clear, not
in a way that is just throwing
around fear to people, but that
the behavioral health system
will buckle. Many other
counties that do not have
Measure O, I mean, how many
counties have a similar measure
as us?
>> We're pretty rare. There's a
few homeless measures
out there,
but this is pretty much it for
purely behavioral health.
>> There's some that have
housing, LA, I mean,
bigger places that vote
for things too. There's nobody
of our commensurate size that
has something
like this that's allowed
to deal with the system. One
of the reasons that we needed
Measure O was to fill gaps
from two different sides
of the world. One was just gaps
that we wanted that we
endeavored to move into MST and
other things that we did a full
volition. The other reason that
we had some significant
failures and internal controls
that we had to catch up
on compliance. First question
for you is how are we
on that compliance side
of things
with our internal billables?
Because just as much as we have
to look at other programs like
the SAFE program and others,
they have to spend more money
to get clinicians in it's hard
to hire those kind
of individuals,
but if you don't, per instance,
$4,500 per individual,
that's millions and millions
of dollars. And so that's the
goal. My first question is,
are we able to look at the
public and say that we have the
issues that came up when I
think it was Director Robinson
and we were doing the review of
all our contracts and how we
had low rates
of reimbursements compared
to what we needed. Where are we
internally right now?
>> Yeah, I'm very happy
to report that we are 100%
in compliance on the behavioral
health side or the mental
health side
of behavioral health. So we are
actually completely caught up
on our Medi Cal billings
on the mental health side. We
are about four months back
on the substance use side of
the house and we're making
progress every single day. So
we've made a tremendous amount
of progress in that space.
Secondarily, we have issued
behavioral health contracts
for the first time
in probably a decade
on time this year for our
providers so they can get paid
on time. And so
over the last nine or 10
months,
we have made a tremendous
amount of progress
in that space.
>> Well, I would encourage that
to be a part of our messaging
because you can't have the
sense be out there that
government is failing. And
that's why we're asking people
to extend the budget. We had
done the work prior the
recontracting the contract
with Harvard, I think, and
others, and all
of the analysis,
and restructured all
of our agreements.
But that needs to be a part
of the discussion. The second
thing is, I won't belabor the
things that were brought up
by my colleagues,
but I'll just speak direct
to them that we have a request
from Santa Rosa, very public
request,
that maybe you can state
to me if this is different,
but Santa Rosa City Schools
already receives, as a part of
those jurisdictions listed
funding for cape. What Santa
Rosa is asking us to do is
to fund the enhanced programs,
and I applaud them for that.
But the enhanced program
programs that they went
into as a part of a good budget
cycle and ARPA and other things
like that. Is that correct?
>> Yeah, they're asking
for funding for their core
behavioral health support,
kind of your basic run
of the mill programs,
which are wonderful,
amazing programs. But again, it
is not it. CAPE is not that.
>> And we, you know,
applaud them for that. But.
But one jurisdiction,
even if it's the largest,
asking for millions of dollars
to fund something above and
beyond what the other, what the
other jurisdictions are already
receiving. They have financial
woes. But I don't want that
to get lost
in the politics and
in the messaging out there
to be very clear that, you
know, if we would do that,
then every jurisdiction, all of
the school districts
throughout,
we'd be basically committing
to that because all
of us would be saying, God, the
rural, you know, Cloverdale
for me, Geyserville school
district. You know,
if you manage your. If you
manage your budgets correctly,
if you have the behavioral
health systems,
I know the size changes it,
but I just want to hear
from my colleagues, too,
because I think we need
to send you to be able
to go have these conversations,
knowing what the board has
said. Right. This might not be
policy, but we are. But you're
in a position right now where
all
of you are going and
negotiating with people who are
making requests to us,
and you have to be able
to have our backing to say
these are the lines you need
to hold because
of the programmatic issue. So
I'll just say the same thing.
For safe and on the.
In response side is, first and
foremost,
I know you've had conversations
with them about being able
to bill Medi Cal $4,500 per
instance. You know, but, you
know, there's no way that we
can continue services. If they
want to make a request for
homeless outreach management,
then that's different. That is
not included in the MST or the
cahoots program or any of the
other things that we did.
Right. I just. I think that has
to be clear. And I want
to know what you need
from us as well. If it's a
letter from the board,
if it's a letter
from the chair or all
of us saying,
we had this conversation.
Here's a few things that you
are being given in terms
of future discussions. Because
the goal here is not to get
into a fighting match over
people not supporting measure O
because we're not able to get
them the direct contracts that
they need to do
in their specific cities. The
goal is for us to say,
to be able to move this county
forward or not retract. We need
to have these systems. So I
would love for you to have
something that as a formal
mention from the board and I
would propose that we. This
doesn't have
to be hard language,
but this is something like,
you know,
the board had a hearing with
Major O. We know
of the city's questions. We
know of the school. Send it
to the school districts,
your requests. There was a
couple
of key things that came up
during this discussion that
included, you know,
requests that are coming in
from individual jurisdictions.
We can't, you know, I mean,
like three pillars that come
out and whether the chair wants
to sign that on behalf
of the board or all
of us sign it. I think you have
to be going in
with a picture. So I'm really
interested in my colleagues
about some
of those things because we want
to embrace the cities and the
schools as the future
of this, but it can't be
about just trying to contain
their own individual things.
And then I think
in that letter, too, it has
to be very clear as well,
like whether it's a letter
to our partners or it's a
letter to the public. If the
budget goes the way it does,
the full programming
for MST cahoots models is
under extreme duress. And I
just think we have
to be clear. While not. I mean,
this is not the sky is falling.
This is real. So I'd love your
responses on that or I'd love
my colleagues weigh in,
because I just want
to respectfully engage
with the cities.
But I don't want you trying
to go out, all of you, and make
them happy or the ad hoc
meeting with them individually.
I don't think we can play
politics. I think we have
to set policy and say,
find a way to work together.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Vice Chair
Coursey.
>> Thanks. Seems like we've
talked
about this a lot lately, and,
you know, I agree with
everything my colleagues have
been saying. I think the tone
and tenor of your presentation
is exactly what we need
to be saying
to the community. There is a
sense of urgency here. We are
doing what we can with
Measure O. We're doing what we
were asked to do
by the community with Measure
O. But there are limits
to it. This is. This is not
the. This is not ARPA. It's not
the Sonoma County Rescue Plan
Act. It has its parameters and
it also has a limit to it.
So, you know, we have to kind
of walk and chew gum
at the time. Same. Same time
right now. Keep the pedal
to the metal
with how we're doing this
but understand that we're going
to run out of gas
in a few years and we have
to find a gas station or figure
out how that's going to work
going forward. I think it's
incumbent on all of us
to tell this story
to our constituents, to the
community. I'm not sure that a
slideshow with pie charts and
spreadsheets is the best way.
It's one way, but we need
to also have a narrative way
to do this so we could Talk
to people so we can talk
to groups,
but also individuals. We need
an elevator speech. We need a
700-word op ed. We need an
understanding of all
of us and frankly,
an agreement with all
of us as Supervisor Gore is
talking about,
to say what we will do, what we
can do and what we can't do.
So really appreciate your
comments on that, James.
Supervisor Hopkins was
absolutely right earlier,
talking about as we put the
crisis response money
into the community, the
expectation was that that was a
pilot program,
that it was going
to be consolidated
into one program. Nolan has
heard me say several times,
you know, sometimes we have
to be the people saying no
in this conversation. Nolan
likes to say yes. I. I told him
it's time for him
to be the bad cop and us
to be a good cop every once
in a while.
But we can all be bad cops
on this. When we say we are not
able to keep doing this as we
have been doing it, we have
to get back to something that's
more efficient,
that makes more sense, that is
billable, and we have
to create one system out
of this somehow. So all this
has been said multiple times.
Again, thank you all for,
for your work
on this. I know this has been
on your minds a lot and
appreciate, along with
Supervisor Gore being in there
with you.
>> Supervisor Hopkins.
>> I wholeheartedly agree
with Supervisor's Gore and
Coursey and just want
to highlight that I think
in his last sentence,
Supervisor Gore said something
about policy. And I think that
that's what we need
to establish. And I know that
this is just. It's not an
action item,
it's a receiver report. But if
we could provide directions,
and maybe it does make sense,
you know, for there actually
to be
like a letter that comes back
on consent. So it's not just
sort of the chair signing it
on her own, but it really,
truly is the voice
of the full board of
Supervisor s essentially
establishing that policy. And I
do go back to, you know, fire
services, and we had a policy
with fire services, and it was,
you are not going to get money
unless you consolidate,
period. Suddenly, people
started consolidating. And so,
you know, I sort
of recognize that we need. We
have a need to throw lifelines
in order
to facilitate this process.
And we also did that
with fire services.
But I do think that, you know,
we need to establish a policy
that creates equitable access
to opportunities, you know,
for service,
so that we don't have this kind
of patchwork or differing
levels of service, depending
on what side of the
jurisdictional line that you
stand on. But also,
that leads us ultimately
towards consolidation, which I
think provides some
efficiencies of service
in addition to creating, you
know, sort of a one size.
Not. Not that there's. It's one
size fits all because every
case is responded
to individually.
But it creates consistency
in the approach
across jurisdictions, which I
think ultimately also creates
consistency
for law enforcement and kind
of a better understanding
from the community as a whole.
So I think it's. It really
benefits also in terms of even
like common branding. Same
phone number, same. You know,
it's like one door, right.
That everyone knows and is
aware about, as opposed to, oh,
wait, I've heard about this
thing and I thought it was
mobile. No, it's.
In response. No, it's safe.
And, you know,
I've heard people in the
community actually be confused.
I also just wanted
to take a moment
to say thank you
for your presentation to the
Sebastopol City Council,
because I also learned,
right. That there was a lack
of information or understanding
about the services that the
county, you know, provides,
even
at the city council level. And
so, you know, I think that also
is partly because they're like,
oh, well,
other cities are doing it, so
we must not have any services
here. Right. So not really
realizing that they're actually
covered by the county system.
So just really appreciate all
of the work and also want
to thank my colleagues
for serving
on the ad hoc and getting
into the weed on some really
difficult subjects. Also want
to highly recommend having your
spouse as your NO coach.
That's what my husband, he's
like,
I'm your NO coach. I'm going
to teach you how to say no. So
don't say yes to joining
another board or commission.
Say no. So just passing
on that. That suggestion.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt.
>> You know, thank you very
much, I agree with everything
that's been said. And this is
about geographic equity
countywide. It's also
about setting expectations.
And I think that if there was a
something to look back upon,
it was the expectation
of what Measure O is going
to do. You touched
on that briefly,
but I think it's not too late
on this tour and the
discussions that we have and
really kind
of telling people, cities and
city council members who
of course love their programs.
And now
in the last five years or so,
ever since, certainly like home
key and all these other things,
getting into much more social
service sides, I think of Rona
park,
who historically never was
in that realm,
now is we also need
to make sure that we're, you
know, providing the best
to them as possible as well.
And even the Cost per bed
on a home, key projects which
vary greatly. You know,
what's the policy going
to be there going forward.
But you know, I look at how
Measure M or Measure M, excuse
me, Measure O has been reported
and the messaging and it's a
scapegoat
for never having enough and
for the all, you know, quote
unquote our community's
failures when the reality is
just the opposite that as was
mentioned earlier there are
rare as the county that has the
opportunities that we've had
to do and
to provide those services
to those people. Each one
of them is a life-changing,
hopefully a life-changing event
and touching them
in that way and that rarely,
that message rarely gets put
out. Instead, it's just look
at it as an endless bucket of
money and if you can't provide
it,
it's a failure that is anything
but the truth. And it's
unfortunate that it gets
reported that way. So I think
that the messaging needs
to be continue needs to
continue especially if we have
any hope in making sure that we
can convince the voters that
this is something that actually
you see benefit
from each and every day. And
even if that benefit is not you
personally, it's your neighbor
that is being taken care of.
And it's a, you know,
it's a hard sell
but it's doable. So again,
thank you for all the work.
Appreciate it.
>> Thank you. With that I will
summarize that I agree
with my colleagues. They've
covered all the topics that
that I wanted to mention. It
looks like we have a direction
to go ahead and move forward
with basically a PR campaign to
help spread the good work
that's been done through
Measure O. Bring back a letter
on consent and thank you.
Thank you very much.
With that we are going
to go back to closed session.
We will be back. Thank you. We
will be back
at approximately 1:30.
[CLOSED SESSION]
And we are reconvening from
closed session and a few bites
of food. And we're going
to move on to Gold resolutions
and we are going to start
with adopting a gold resolution
to proclaim March 2026 as
American Red Cross Month. And
for that we have Andy and
Denny is Andy and. Hi, welcome.
Good to see you too. Welcome
you to say a few remarks.
>> Gore and Supervisor Rabbitt
for their service. We expect
that they might not be here
when we come visit you next
March. So thank you for their
service and the remaining four.
We'll see you again next year.
As you all know, Red Cross
partners closely with Sonoma
County
for disaster preparedness.
Your emergency services
department works closely with
The Red Cross. But emergency
responses are not all we do.
We have a lot
of preparedness activities. We
do. I lead a program called
Pedro Prepare with Pedro, which
is a classroom program
for K2 students
to prepare them what to do if
there's a home fire. I also
work closely with Sound the
Alarm, which is the
installation of smoke alarms
in the homes at no cost
to the residents. And we have
done hundreds of homes in
Sonoma County, making them
safer in case
of home fire. A couple
of other programs that we do,
Disaster Assistance Team and
Service the Armed Forces.
Denny Sigman is going
to talk a little bit
about those. But again,
thank you very much for the
proclamation and thank you
for the close work with the
Red Cross.
>> So my name is Denny
Sigmund. I've been doing Red
Cross for a boy
about three or four years.
Andy is my stepdad. My mom also
does Red Cross, and my wife
also does Red Cross. So it's a
family affair. I do DAT,
which is Disaster Action
Team. So when you have a flood
or a fire or somebody loses
their home, Red Cross comes
in and tries
to take some backup and says,
look, there's somebody here
to help you. And it may be
in the form of, you know,
helping them with money,
getting them back-up
on their feet or whatever.
Just shows that someone is
actually there. And then I also
do services to the armed
forces. I'm not military,
but we go
out there and we go help out
with the armed forces and
veterans and showing them that
someone does care if they need
help getting
through the VA and stuff
like that. Red Cross can assign
somebody
to help and go that way. So
that's pretty much. And also I
do stuff with Andy, which is
sound the alarm and still love
it. Still great thing
to be able to help out. That's
it.
>> Well, it's not completely.
One thing that neither of us
mentioned is blood drives.
American Red Cross is the
greatest, largest collector
of blood for hospitals
in the country. We have blood
drives across Sonoma County,
and we encourage Sonoma
County Board of Supervisor s
members of the audience
to sign up for Red Cross blood
drive and help out. There's a
critical blood shortage in
America. Thanks again very much
for the proclamation that
you're about to present.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. And we have
Supervisor Rabbitt that would
like to say a few words.
>> I just want
to say thank you. And I just
wanted to let this. Put this
fact out there. In the last 15
years, there's been 24, 24
locally declared disasters in
Sonoma County. 12 of those have
been state declared and nine of
those have been federally
declared. It is a constant
thing amongst us.
But every step of the way,
the Red Cross is there. So
thank you so much for.
For being there for that.
>> Thank you.
>> And thank you for your work
with Prepare with Pedro. I
appreciate it. And as
Supervisor Rabbitt says,
wherever there's been many
disasters and whenever we've
had it, especially locally,
you all have been there. And I
appreciate the blood dries and
your little thing of juice.
Let's take a picture. Thank
you.
>> Disaster here, every
Tuesday.
>> Thank you so much. And
with that, we are now going
to move on to adopting a gold
resolution honoring the 25th
anniversary of the Russian
River Sisters. And for that,
we have Guard Ian. Sister
Saranda Dabooty, VP Mistress
of Novices. I feel like I
really should change my name.
Welcome.
>> Thank you for having us.
Wait. All right. Hi. Thank you
very much
for this proclamation today.
We really,
really appreciate it. Any
of you
on the board are invited
to our anniversary party next
Friday night. It's Good
Friday. We make it a very good
Friday. Our theme
for our party is still
sparkling after 25 years.
But there's. There's a
beginning part.
>> Silver and still sparkling.
>> There we go.
>> I just looked it up.
>> Thank you, Linda. I
appreciate you always having
our backs. So we will be giving
saint medallions
to new saints. We will be
giving people grants
for their hard work and
Sonoma County and yeah,
I've seen a lot of kiddos here
and I know that some
of them are local. We do a. Or
local to West County. We do a
yearly holiday toy drive where
we give students to Monterio
School, Guerneville School,
Forestville School. The
opportunity to spend $20 at
local businesses and have some
kind of a gift. A lot
of them give it
to their family,
which is totally fine. And
that's us. For those
of you who are here and go to
Forestville School or
Guerneville School. Thank you.
>> And. And it's not just those
three schools. It's also the
associated preschools. We also
have a Nuns of the
above scholarship fund
for graduating seniors of
West County High Schools and
returning students for SRJC.
We do a lot
in the community. A lot
of people maybe don't reckon,
don't know that if they don't
know us. Our anniversary party
is in fact an all age thing.
So if any
of the kiddos here want
to attend, that would be
lovely. I do have brochures if
anyone is interested
in learning more about us.
But we can't do what we do
without the Sonoma County
community. And it's
through everyone's generation.
Generate. Sorry, I have a head
injury. Generosity that we are
able to then give back
to the different organizations.
And I must say, my very first
year, one
of the grants we gave out was
to Monte Rio Little League, and
they came
to us and they said,
we just need dirt. We don't
have dirt for our infield. And
we were able to grant them
$500 to get dirt. And it's just
that simple. If there's a need,
we want to try and fill it. So
thank you so much
for this opportunity.
>> Thank you.
>> Don't go far. Don't go far.
Supervisor Hopkins has a few
words.
>> I just want to say, and I
say this a lot. I do believe it
with every kind of bone
in my body that I have the best
100,000 bosses
in the world. I love working
for West County. You can't have
favorite kids, but I do have
some more favorite bosses. And
I just want to say that the
sisters are absolutely
on that list. You bring so much
beauty and joy and good change
to the community. And if you
all haven't been
to a bingo night, you need
to get to a bingo night because
it is so much fun and it raises
money for the community and it
goes straight back
into all kinds of little tiny
organizations where $500 makes
that difference, right in a
brand new sports field that you
couldn't otherwise afford. And
so just thank you
for being a part
of the community,
for being who you are, and for,
as the sisters always say,
we love you, and there isn't a
damn thing you can do
about it. And that love shows
in what you do. So thank you so
much.
>> Thank you.
>> Let's do a photo.
>> And Beth, are you going
to come up with. Sit
in the back there. Come on.
>> I'll just also say whatever
head injury you were
referencing made you pretty
awesome because it's a blessing
to be with you.
>> Thank you so much. And
with that, we're going
to now move on
to presenting a gold resolution
in honor of National Farm
Worker Awareness week,
which is March 25th
through the 31st. If you were
here this morning, you would
have heard my remarks
addressing the holiday on
Tuesday. And so I and I welcome
folks back
for this gold resolution. And
with that, we have Anadias
representing Rosalynn,
Candido Morales with Latinos
Unidos, Dr. Mariana Martinez,
Anita with Great Day labor
center, and Maria Membrilla
with Sonoma Valley
Collaborative. And who is going
to come to the mic to say a few
words and accept this gold
resolution?
>> Good afternoon, everyone.
So I guess I will be going
first. Bear with me
on the right. Okay. Good
afternoon, Supervisor s. Today
I want to begin acknowledging
Farm Workers Day and Farm
Worker Awareness Week. A time
to recognize the fruit
of my people's labors, their
resilience and contributions
to those who feed this county,
sustain our economy,
and often go unseen. I'm here
to talk about something deeper
than policy. I'm here to talk
about the people. It's easy
to show up to events,
to take photos
at celebrations such as Cinco
de Mayo and Roseland, to stand
alongside the community and
moments that are visible.
But real support for our farm
worker community is not
measured in appearances. It's
measured in actions and follow
through and whether lives are
actually improving. We have
organizations doing real work
every day. Groups like Sonoma
County Library, Redwood
Empire Food Bank, Latinos
Unidos del Condado and very few
others. They provide free
services, support families,
and even create scholarships
for students
from farm worker families.
Latinos Unidos especially is
entirely a volunteer run. No
paid staff,
and just people committed
to uplifting their community.
But that's what real supporting
support looks like.
But when it comes to housing,
we are falling short. We cannot
ignore what happened in Wood
mark Apartments. Housing that
was meant for farm workers that
did not reach them in time.
And many of us didn't know when
the applications were open.
The lack of outreach matters
because while opportunities
pass, farm workers were
displaced, leaving the county,
becoming homeless,
or even sleeping
in their cars and parking lots
of many. If the community has
been informed, many of us could
have helped ensure those units
reach the people they were
built for. At the same time,
we have to talk about funding
and accountability. Farm worker
emergency funds were brought
before this board increased
to nearly $1 million and was
meant
to support this community
in the crisis of time
during the floods.
Unfortunately, the remaining
amounts were given to
nonprofits such as CPI and
code. This raises a serious
question. And then there's the
Ag Pass program. Research
from UC Berkeley has made it
clear that the Ag Pass does not
truly protect our farm workers.
It allows the work to continue
during dangerous conditions,
but not the center
of safety and wellbeing
of the farm workers themselves.
Because at the same time,
farm workers are being pushed
out of housing, farm workers
are leaving the county or
living in their cars. Outreach
is not being reached to the
program or the very people that
these programs were designated
for. And I want
to make it clear
about something else. This
movement was not
about one person. It was
about the people. People
like my grandfather Campesinos
workers who wake up
before sunrise, who labor
through heat, through floods,
through smoke and uncertainty,
who have built their lives and
their local economic or economy
through sacrifice and
resilience. When I speak today,
I speak
for them not as symbols,
but as real people who deserve
to be seen, heard,
and supported. The shirt that I
am wearing today represents
them. It represents a movement.
It represents dignity. What
we've seen recently shown that
government can act quickly when
it chooses to. Name changes
to holidays is one. This gives
me hope. I also want
to acknowledge, acknowledge
Mr. Zeke Guzman, who cannot be
here today,
an elder who has been
in this fight
for years and continues to show
up supporting the community
through Hardines del Pueblo.
The kind
of commitment matters. Some
of you will be moving on
from this board. But
before you, I ask to think
about your legacy. And I thank
you
for your service as you move
on to the next,
to the next movement
of your life. Stand with farm
workers not just today,
not just
in moments that are visible,
but always invest
in outreach, be accountable
with funding,
and ensure that programs
created for farm workers truly
reach them. Because at the end
of the day, it's not
about the programs or
about the money. It's
about our people. And you know,
one thing that I'm super proud
about when it comes
to my district, when you walk
into my supervisor's office,
there's a farm worker smoking
on his lunch break. And that's
Mr. Chris Coursey. So I want
to thank you all
for your service. James Gore, I
know you're on your way out.
Mr. Rabbitt, you too. Thank you
for your time and
for your service.
>> Thank you.
>> As a reminder,
we have headphones. If anybody
needs headphones, they're here
on the table. Just raise your
hand and we'll get you
headphone.
>> Good afternoon.
>> My name is Candido
Morales, and I'm here
representing our president,
Zeke Guzman, who is
on business in Sacramento. I'm
on the board of directors of
Latinos Unidos del Contado de
Sonoma, a community-based
organization incorporated in
1966. Mr. Pasalaqua, an
attorney at the time, was the
one that filled the papers
to go to Sacramento
for incorporation. And Josh
Ortiz, a personality that most
of you know, was one
of the founders as well,
except for George and Mr.
Baudelio Salazar. The rest
of the board
of directors were farm workers,
and they came from Sonoma,
Tetaduluma, Grayton,
Sebastopol, Kashaville in
Healdsburg. Latinos unidos has
a scholarship program,
as mentioned
by the young lady that preceded
Me. And we help students who
are graduating
from high school and also
for people who are already
in college
but need financial assistance
to continue their studying.
And this year,
the presentation
of scholarships will be on
September 20th at the
Guadalupe center
at 2pm and you are invited
to join us. We estimate that
anywhere from 60 to 65 students
will receive a scholarship
from Latinos Unidos. We want
to commend you for the
proclamation that you called
the Gold Resolution. And with
that you are acknowledging the
contributions,
the many contributions
of farm workers in Sonoma
County. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> [SPANISH]
>> If anybody needs headphones,
please let us know and then
give us, my colleagues,
a minute to put on their
headphones.
>> [SPANISH]
>> Gracias.
>> [SPANISH]. So I'm going
to say just a few remarks
on this Gold Resolution and
acknowledge that we don't have
enough headsets for me
to do it in Spanish. So today
we honor Farm Worker Week
in a time where there is a lot
of negative rhetoric from D.C.
and I know that they don't feel
the support that they deserve
nationally, but locally we know
and we see they are the
backbone to our community.
They are our friends and
neighbors,
and they are what makes
Sonoma County so amazing and
beautiful. And Anna's right.
The farm workers rise
before dawn, work long,
extenuating hours in sometimes
not great conditions. Their
work is not only physically
demanding, but often done
without recognition, the
recognition they so richly
deserve. This week gives us an
opportunity to change that and
really pause and reflect and
express our sincere gratitude
for their contributions
to our community, our community
that we are raising our kids
in. And I agree, appreciation
alone is not enough. Farm
Worker Week also calls on us to
ensure that farm workers have
fair wages and working
conditions and homes they can
move into without having
to jump through hoops. Their
wellbeing is directly connected
to our strength and our
resilience as a community. As
we present this Gold
Resolution, we are recommitting
and recognizing that we
understand and we see the vital
contributions that farm workers
make on our community every
single day, regardless of it
just being one week. I want
to encourage everyone here
to come back, please, on April
7th to see more tangible
recommitments
to our community that is
under attack. And if I may pass
the mic onto Vice Chair
Coursey to share about a
program that also is an example
of our recommitment
to our community. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Chair
Hermosillo. First of all,
I want to say welcome,
and it's nice to see Senor
Morales here again. It's been a
while
since we've seen you here
in front of the Board of
Supervisor s. I want
to acknowledge that, you know,
we've been hearing a lot
about farmworkers
in the past week,
about the farm worker movement,
about the leaders
of the farm worker movement.
Much
of that has been negative news.
Today we get to actually sit
down and celebrate farm workers
as farm workers should be
celebrated. You know,
we have a Farm Worker
Appreciation Week resolution.
We should all appreciate
farmers every day. They are the
backbone
of our agricultural community.
They are the backbone
of our community. And I just
want to mention, when farm
workers actually get a paid day
off, a paid holiday on Farm
Workers Day, then we will
succeed in treating farm
workers as we should be.
There's been mention about, I
guess, performative support
for farm workers showing up
at events for pictures or doing
resolutions. I want you all to
know that this board has
provided tangible support and
will continue
to supply tangible support
for farm workers. Supervisor
Hermosillo talked
about next month. The date is
the
>> April 7th.
>> The seventh,
which is our next meeting,
because we're skipping next
week. At our next meeting,
we'll be deploying two mobile
vans that will be bringing
services out
into the community
for farm workers and others in
the community who are not able
to access health services,
human services, child support
services, other services that
the county offers here
on our county campus and
in county buildings around,
mostly around Santa Rosa and
Guerneville and east county
also. But the idea is
to bring the services
to the people who need them,
where those people are. That
includes farm workers and
anyone else who isn't able
to access services here. We've
also put aside resources and
put our lobbying efforts
into reopening what at the
state level is called the
Farmworker Resource Center
Pilot program, which would
perhaps bring more mobile
resources
for farm workers directly
to farm workers
in the county, perhaps have a
brick and mortar spot for farm
workers devoted directly
to farm workers somewhere
in the county. We're hoping
for the state
to redo that program that
exists
in a few other counties. We've
put some work into that,
and we hope to have more news
about that
from the legislature, perhaps
on Farm Worker Day
on the 31st. That would be
great to have it then.
Anyway, again, thank you
for being here today. Thanks
for your words, thanks
for your presence, and
for all farm workers,
thank you for your work.
>> And with that, thank you,
and let's do a photo.
>> Or so for moving on
to item number 48.
>> You're right.
>> Agenda item 48. So this is a
Z removal
to allow the construction
of an accessory dwelling unit
in the future. It meets all
requirements of the action,
and we offer to wave the
presentation provided public
comment and we can answer any
questions as needed. Thank you.
>> We like those offers. Often
make it more
of a regular practice. Just
kidding. I know. Good job.
We're going to go
to public comment
on item number 48. The zone
change to remove the Z overlay
for Lytton Station
Geyserville. Oh. Open a public
hearing. Officially open the
public hearing. Is there any
comments on this agenda item?
Seeing no one raced to the
podium. I'll bring it back
to my colleagues
for questions. Comments.
Supervisor Gore.
>> How many
of these are left?
>> There are still thousands.
>> And just remind me why did
we approve to not do this
for thousands? But I mean the
only thing that this is doing
effectively is keeping certain
permit processors
in business. Which is. Okay.
>> So through the chair
on the key issues calendar
for November 2026 will be the
comprehensive removal
of the rest of the Z's.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> Will you waive the
presentation then?
>> Thank you.
>> How about a comment?
>> Just kidding. Seeing no
other comments
from my colleagues. Questions
closing the hearing. Bring it
back to the board. Again, no
questions, comments.
>> Is there a motion move
to approve?
>> Second.
>> Do you need. We need a roll
call vote.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt?
>> Aye.
>> Supervisor Coursey?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Gore?
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Hopkins?
>> Yes.
>> Chair Hermosillo?
>> Yes. Thank you. And
with that the motion passes.
Thank you all. We are going
to move on
to agenda item number 49. The
Neighborhood Parks Workshop.
And Director Whitaker. Scott
Orr Misty Arias and Johannes.
Where's Johannes?
>> And I'll start it.
>> CEO Rivera will start us.
Thank you.
>> Are you guys looking
for technical assistance
over there?
>> Okay. Scott has it. Got it.
Very good.
>> Chair is there. I can frame
it and then I'll give it back
to you in case you want
to manage public comment.
>> Yes, please.
>> Wonderful. Thank you. So I'd
like to frame it. This is an
item coming back to the board
to have a discussion about
neighborhood parks which is an
important community asset that
has been sprouting
in our different neighborhoods.
They support health,
connection and quality
of life. And today's workshop
is an opportunity to align and
get clear understanding
from the board
of how we can improve
on this axis and how it aligns
with our plans in the
unincorporated areas. I want
to thank the staff. This is a
multi-department effort. So
this is Wonderful, because
you'll see the quality
of the information. We're going
to lay out the information as
we know it, and like I said,
we're going to provide most
of the time for the board to
have a discussion and provide
us direction. We are looking
for your board guidance,
specifically your feedback
on how to prioritize this,
particularly in how the county
should focus its role in its
limited resources towards this
goal. This is the beginning
of the conversation in
addressing neighborhood parks
needs and will require
sustained coordination,
partnerships and continued
discussion. We expect you will
need more information,
and we'll be happy
to provide it, but this will
give us a little bit more
refined tool
to figure that out. Finally, I
want to recognize that this
conversation did start, start
with the unincorporated ad hoc
committee, which it was one
of the topics of discussion.
The board has heard that in
their scope and it has raised
important questions
about district,
about possibilities of district
formation and the different
ways in which our
unincorporated communities are
finding ways
to create these assets
on their own. So again,
we'll be looking
for your guidance. And
with that, I will pass it back
to the chair.
>> Great. Thank you. And give
me one second.
>> Great.
>> We're going
to do things a little bit out
of order. I know there's some
folks in the audience. If you
are here and you would like to
provide public comment and need
to leave, if you could, please
raise your hand so I can get a
sense for how many folks are
here that needs to shimmy
on out. Okay, great. If you can
get in line, everyone will have
two minutes and then we'll go
to the presentation. I know
we're doing it a little
backwards, but we'd like
to hear from constituents
before they have to run,
if you can. Yes, there will be
after the presentation. So if
you're not in a rush,
hang tight. We'll listen to the
presentation and then we can go
from there. If you have
comments, please get
in line right now. They're not
going
to waive the presentation,
so I'm going to say 10 minutes.
10 minutes. Does nobody need
to speak now? Okay, great.
Thank you. Go ahead.
>> All right. Good afternoon.
Thank you
for the introduction, CEO
Rivera. And thank you, Chair
Hermosillo. Board Members,
Council Myers. So, my name is
Bert Whitaker. I'm the director
of Sonoma County Regional
Parks. And just a quick
overview of our role. So the
Regional park system today
encompasses over 60 facilities
managing nearly 20,000 acres.
These are predominantly larger
parks for residents and
regional visitors
to gain access
to open spaces,
trails and outdoor recreation.
They protect unique county
natural and color cultural
resources and provide access
to our coast and Russian river
and the county wide bikeways
and regional trails we have
developed connect our
communities to one another and
the surrounding open spaces.
Scott, you want
to do a quick intro?
>> Good afternoon,
everybody. I'm Scott Orr, the
director for permit Sonoma.
>> I'm Misty Adias. I'm the
general manager for Sonoma
County Agricultural
Preservation and Open Space
District.
>> And anticipated to be
with us was Johannes Hovric,
our director
of public infrastructure. And I
just texted him. Any word.
>> Okay.
>> All right, so let's talk
about parks a little bit. So
in Sonoma County, we've got a
wide variety of types
of parks. Okay, Just
to paint the picture here,
so we've got state parks,
we've got a number of them,
and they are rather large,
typically over 5,000 acres
in size. We've got regional
park system,
typically several hundred
acres, up to thousands
of acres in size. We've got a
variety of community parks,
typically 10 to 40 acres linear
parks, also known as bikeways
in many instances. And then we
have neighborhood parks. So
with the focus
on neighborhood parks, really
the general themes you see here
is they act as a recreational
and social hub
for the community. They are
smaller in scale than regional
or community parks,
typically less than 10 acres
and often much smaller than
that. They're
within walking distance to
neighborhoods or the population
the park is intended
to serve. And the focus is on
immediate neighborhood needs as
opposed to a countywide or
regional amenity. While
sometimes managed
by the county, neighborhood
parks are often maintained
by local park districts,
community service districts,
local nonprofits, or
neighborhood groups. I'll talk.
Turn over here to Director
Orr.
>> Thank you very much. So this
is another good example of how
the general plan affects pretty
much everything we talk about
on anything, whether it's
airports or today parks. And so
our public facilities element
in Our General Plan 2020 does
reference the importance
of parks. And I do want
to make it clear that we, it
says, assure that park and
recreation. We do have more
than one park. But this is the
verbatim language in our 2020
general plan.
But more recently, this last
summer, the board adopted a new
environmental justice element,
which tasks the county staff
to coordinate
with each other. So we are here
today coordinating
with each other. It's usually a
good sign that we are carrying
forth what's
in the general plan. The way
that the general plan most
directly interacts
with parks is, at least
through my office is
through the permitting process.
So one of the things that will
be an important discussion as
part
of the upcoming general plan
Is, you know, how do we want to
make it easier or reduce
barriers
for things that we want
to see. So one example
of this is right now,
someone needs to go
through a use permit process in
every single zoning district if
they want to make a park
in their neighborhood. So we
know that that's a time
consuming, arduous process. So
it's something that we expect
to talk about
during the general plan.
Another thing that the
environmental justice element
tasks us with looking at is
utilizing underutilized spaces
such as public rights of way.
And so some
of the examples that are going
to be covered today by Sonoma
county public infrastructure
are showing how we're already
doing that, which is another
good sign that the content
in the general plan aligns with
what we're prioritizing today.
And then I'd also like
to add that just
to make sure that someone
from Permit Sonoma hears all
of public comment, I'm going
to be switching with Deputy
Director of Planning Cecily
Condon, because I have a
conflict for the rest
of the day.
>> Thank you.
>> Great. Thank you, Scott. So
across Sonoma County, there are
a lot of local examples
of how parks are created,
created and operated. The
primary provider of
neighborhood parks actually are
the nine incorporated cities
and
in the unincorporated areas.
Public agency led parks include
park districts. We have three
park districts in Sonoma
County and Camp Meeker,
Monterillo and Russian river.
And those are funded
with parcel taxes and
from their service areas. The
regional park system does
provide some
of these services,
primarily because of two
dissolved park districts, the
Del Rio woods and the Valley
of the Moon park and
Rectangle District. The county
does receive some revenues
to help offset operating costs
for those facilities. School
sites in our rural areas play
an important role providing
park spaces and state laws
require those facilities be
available when school is not
in session. Sonoma Water has
ownership
of multiple locations
with park services operated
by regional Parks and recently
acquired a location along
Mark West Creek in the Wikiup
area. And community service
districts that are able
to provide a mix of services,
commonly including water,
wastewater,
parks or street lighting. And
we have three
of those currently
in the county in Occidental,
Grayton and Cazadero. Notable
the Parmito park in Cazadero.
And our county public
infrastructure department
operates the Guerneville Plaza
and the Guerneville Community
Plaza. Development driven parks
are very common
in our incorporated cities,
but there are some good
examples in the unincorporated
areas as well. Most recently,
Helen Putnam Regional Park has
been expanded two times
with soon to have a third
expansion as nearby
subdivisions were created that
improved neighborhood access
to this regional facility.
The Fetter Springs Project
in the Sonoma Valley.
>> Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who
got that check? Did somebody do
the politician thing and like
get a check that they could
donate to right there? Yeah,
that's me.
>> We're not to that comment
yet. We'll get there, James.
>> Thank you, Supervisor
Gore.
>> Yep.
>> So the Federer's Hot Spring
project in the Sonoma Valley is
a modern example
of a development Creating
neighborhood parks that serve
the residents and regional
needs were also supported with
a developer incorporating and
building a section of the
Central Sonoma Valley Bikeway
Trail. Many
of the subdivisions in the
county have HOAs that support
neighborhood parks and projects
like the Sonoma Developmental
center will also have need
for neighborhood parks.
Community driven parks are also
quite common
across many communities with
local control and management
by nonprofit groups. Examples
include the Marquest Community
park shown here
in this photo. Very celebratory
experience. The Riverkeeper
park in downtown Guerneville
operated by the Russian
Riverkeeper, Our Great and
Green park operated by the
Great and Green group. The
Forestville Youth park and
nonprofit the Pen Grove park
managed
by the social firemen. The
Petaluma river park managed
by a foundation, number
of small facilities managed
by the Ecology center and
of course Bear Farm owned
by the city and operated by
Land Paths. Temporary pop-up
parks is not really a formal
category,
but this concept exists
in our communities. These are
temp facilities
with low cost, often used to
test a park or activate an
underused space. And a recent
example here is the Springs
Plaza where some trees and
picnic tables were installed
for the community
to utilize the parking lot
for that purpose. This chart
help details the most common
approaches across Bay Area
counties. Incorporated cities
are where you see the highest
concentration
of neighborhood type parks,
typically developed
with funding
from park impact fees or
by developers
with ongoing maintenance costs
from the General's operating
the city's general operating
funds.
In the unincorporated areas
of the Bay Area counties,
it is common to have local park
district districts, community
service districts or community
service areas. Also,
in some counties,
neighborhood parks are provided
through their parks department
or public works department.
Regional Park agencies and
districts are rarely a direct
provider. We do currently
operate several neighborhood
and community parks. Most
recently we developed Andy's
Unity Park in Southwest Santa
Rosa that is likely
to be included
in future annexations by the
city and open space districts.
Rare rarely play a direct role
in operating or maintaining
smaller facilities but can have
an indirect role such as the
Community Spaces Matching
Grant program administered
by our local AG and Open
Space. And before I turn this
over to Misty, just wanted to
make a final comment here that
it really is important as we've
done this research to see that
across our region, you know,
all agencies tend to see their
partnership and funding roles
growing to meet this needs
because they are very
important. Thank you.
>> Thanks, Bert.
>> So, as Bert just mentioned,
Ag and Opens and base. We have
a unique opportunity here in
Sonoma County because we're a
special district that was
created
by our visionary voters and
to conserve natural,
agricultural and open space
lands. And as a part
of that vision, they did ensure
that funds could go towards
matching grant or competitive
grants for urban or community
open space projects. And these,
these grants. So this is our
community spaces matching grant
program. These grants go
towards to nonprofit, public
agency and tribal partners
to realize open space projects
within or near communities that
could be incorporated cities or
unincorporated communities. We
prioritize funding
for projects that are in areas
that lack open space and parks.
And I'll show a little bit
about how we do that in a
moment. I think it's important
to note that we don't drive
these projects. We really
follow the community lead here
and, and applicants who are
advocating for projects that
are important and needed
in their communities. Our role
is to ensure that the land, it
remains open and undeveloped
and that our conservation goals
are met. And we provide funding
for planning, design,
construction and
implementation.
But these grants do not,
they do not provide funding for
ongoing operations and
maintenance
of these parks. I think, you
know, Bert got
into this a little bit, but
I'll share a couple high level
statistics and I won't go
into great detail
about the projects just
to spare us all some time.
But I did want
to highlight that through our
Community Spaces program,
we have completed 45 grant
projects awarding $33.4 million
in funding for these open space
community type projects. A
really unique opportunity
for those of us who live in
Sonoma County. And we're
currently working, working
on an additional 26 projects
totaling $23.8 million
in funding. And these
on the slide here,
you see some examples
of these projects. This is just
narrowing in
on projects that kind of meet
that neighborhood park
definition that Bert mentioned
earlier. And as Bert mentioned,
these are done in a myriad
of ways. So
with nonprofit partners,
we have Russian River Rec and
Parks, Monorillo Rec and
Parks, we have nonprofit
community organizations. So
for instance, in Forestville
Forever Forestville, that's the
Forestville Planning
association. There are
community groups who have been
created, informed
to help support these projects.
Also, some of our Macs have
been supportive for community
services districts. And I would
say lastly, just that the top
projects are completed. Those
are implemented open
to the public forever.
Forestville is partially open,
but not has been fully
realized. And then the projects
under in development are
projects we have accepted
into the program for funding.
And then pre application. We
have received a pre-replication
and provided technical
assistance for the
Forestville Skate Spot and
Community Park. And that
project has been invited
for a full application.
Lastly, I mentioned park need
in response to our board. So
both our board of Directors and
the County Board of Supervisor
s. Wanting
to know what are the needs of
parks throughout our community
Regional Parks and AG and
Open Space partnered to develop
a digital tool so that we could
help identify communities in
Sonoma county that are actually
lacking publicly accessible
land, open space and parks.
And we did this by using
technology and standards that
have been established by
California State Parks and the
Trust for Public Land, which
analyzes areas that are
accessible
within a 10-minute walk
to a park or open space. And
that means the entrance, not
like a back fence
of the park or open space. And
so you can see that
on the map here, everything in
green is an area that is
actually within a distance of
10 minutes
of a park or open space. And
then also you'll notice
on this map is our portrait
of Sonoma Human Developmental
Index which we also use
to help prioritize projects.
With that I will turn it over
to Johannes.
>> Good afternoon, Board
members. Chair Members of the
Board Johannes
with public infrastructure.
The Department of Public
Infrastructure has been working
for over eight years
on one project and three years
on another project that you
will see here. We have been
working on projects within
District 4 and 5. The
Geyserville community Plaza,
Occidental, Russian river and
Forestville Skate Spot. We have
been tasked with designing the
projects not going,
not taking them all the way to
construction or operations
remaining. So the public
infrastructure is only
designing these projects. We
work with the community. All
the projects came to us and as
grassroots movements
from the community. Searching
for a place where the community
can gather and exercise.
In this case
of the skate park,
the properties are owned
by either road Fund or transit
Fund. There are properties
parcels that are not the most
developable state. Two
of them flood
during the winter,
which is ideal
for the use that we want
to do. We expect that in the
future we'll deliver the
project up to design. And it
will be at some point that a
decision would have
to be made how to fund the
construction and the
maintenance and the operations
of the facility. That is not
the scope of our involvement
at this time. The estimated
cost of construction
of the projects are on your
On the last column,
one caveat. On the Geyserville
community Plaza, that number
reflects on hand funding,
secure funding
for the project,
not necessarily what the cost
of the project is going
to be. We can only expect that
the cost will rise
with time.
>> Can you clarify? Is that
the. What you're referring to
is the estimated construction
cost or is that the other
column?
>> So for the three other
projects, Supervisor
Hermosillo, the cost includes
design and construction.
For the Geyserville project, it
only includes the funding that
has been secured up to date.
And that is funding from MSTI's
program and some other state
program.
>> Got it.
>> We hope that it would come
to a million and a half, but we
don't expect that it could
change. So we haven't estimated
the construction cost.
>> So that is what. When you
say it's secured, it's not the
grant total amount that has
been received?
>> It is.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Great. Thank you. We'll turn
it back to the chair
for discussion.
>> Well, there goes the
discussion. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. We're going
to go
to public comment if you would
like to speak
on this agenda item. Everyone
will have two minutes. If you
could line up
to be efficient. Thank you.
>> Thank you workshoppers.
Appreciate it.
>> Go ahead. Thank you, Chair
Hermosillo, Supervisor
Hopkins, Supervisor Rabbitt,
Coursey and Gore. And also, to
the park workshoppers really
appreciate this important
topic. Thanks for bringing it
to the agenda. I'm Jackie
Brazil. I've lived in
Forestville for 27 years. In
2014, my son and I founded
Forestville Skate Spot
to create a safe local space
for our youth. Today we have a
designated county parcel, a
site plan that keeps it green
and open,
and a community spaces grant
in progress, as you heard. But
we have hit a wall and that's
maintenance
for an unincorporated,
underserved community. The
hurdles to create even a small
park are massive. Forming a
special district or passing new
parcel taxes is insurmountable
for us and not desired
by our community. Our due
diligence is clear. Park
maintenance should be the
responsibility of a dedicated
parks department,
not a grassroots nonprofit.
This is exactly what we
believed Measure M was for.
Unincorporated Sonoma County is
lacking
in public neighborhood parks.
While we love regional parks,
many are 30-minute drive away,
so not within the 10-minute
walkable allotment
of the park,
making them inaccessible
to rural youth. Measure M was
billed as parks for all, yet it
primarily funds larger regional
spaces and city parks but
leaves small town parks behind.
We aren't asking regional parks
to build our park. We're asking
to be your partner as your new
belonging's framework aspires
to. Our community is already
raising funds and we will
provide stewardship,
stewardship for the park. We
only ask that the park's
department handle maintenance.
A two point.
>> Thank you. That is your
time. Oh, okay.
>> Thank you.
>> And then.
>> Good afternoon. My name is
James Williams. I'm a
Forestville resident, a local
business owner and a board
member of the Forestville
Skate Spot. I want
to thank the board
for holding this workshop and
for the support provided thus
far in our effort
to establish a neighborhood
park in our town. Growing up
skateboarding
in the 80s and 90s,
I spent my youth being chased
out of parking lots and plazas.
I'm here today because I wish
someone had advocated
for a safe, dedicated space
for me to skate back then.
Now, as a business owner and
neighbor, I feel it's my duty
to be that advocate
for youth growing up today.
Forestville Skate Spot has been
active for over a decade
raising community awareness and
support,
raising funds and making plans
for an inclusive welcoming
space. What we're missing is a
formal plan
for long-term maintenance. We
believe the solution is
Sonoma County Regional Parks.
They already operate a
maintenance hub at
Forestville's El Molino campus
which is just a two-minute
drive from our site. This seems
to be a common sense, efficient
partnership that bridges the
service gap
for unincorporated towns
like ours. Forestville Skate
Spot is ready to serve as the
long-term stewards
of the park. But we need a
county agency partner
to make this vision a reality.
We respectfully ask the board
to empower and fund regional
parks to take on this role
for our neighborhood. Thank you
for your time and support.
>> Thank you. Hi. You can
adjust the podium if that's
helpful.
>> Hello, my name is Lila and I
would like a skate park in
Forestville because it would be
easier to get to it instead
of driving. Instead of driving
like 20 or 30 minutes to get
to it. And also I would take
good care
of it and not destroy it.
Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Camille.
Lyla is my daughter.
Skateboarding has provided my
kids with a low key,
inviting and inclusive place
to do sports. My daughter feels
empowered and it is a
multi-generational community
sport. Forestville has strong
community engagement across
generations as you can see
by this effort to build a skate
park that has been going on
for over 10 years. I have no
doubt that we will be able
to provide regular,
strong involvement in helping
to take care of the skate park
and it would be treasured and
valued.
>> Thank you. Thanks Bert.
>> Good afternoon. My name is
Oscar A.B. foster. And I live
in Forestville. And attend
Forestville Elementary
School. Our town needs a skate
park where my. I can. Where I
can go skateboarding. And spend
time outside with my friends.
If I want
to go skateboarding now,
my parents have to drive me
to Monte Rio Skatepark. Or
somewhere else even. Even
farther away. If I'm lucky,
I can go over to my friend
Heath's house. And we can
skateboard together
in his driveway. But it would
be better if we had our own
park in Forestville. Where
other kids who want to go
to who want to go to who want
to skate can go. Not everyone
can drive to Monte Rio or go.
And not everyone can go
to his house. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
>> Good afternoon. My name is
Timothy Foster. I am one
of the parents of Oscar. Who
you just heard from. We are
residents of Forestville. I am
here today to encourage the
Board of Supervisor s to act
by removing any impediments.
That exist now and may exist
in the future. That would
prevent the creation of
Forestville's skate park. As
well as other community parks.
And similarly overlooked
unincorporated communities in
Sonoma County. I believe the
skate park and community
garden. Would be a vital part
of supporting our youth. And
develop athletically,
socially.
In supporting our parents
by giving them a nearby option.
To foster the interests
of their young skaters. And
to support the wider community.
By being a place where
neighbors can come together.
Forestville has two other local
parks. The Forestville Youth
park. Is home to several
Little League baseball teams. A
playground. And hosts many
birthday parties throughout the
year. There's also the downtown
Oaks Park. That is home to
Forestville Farmers Market. An
annual Pie in the park
Fundraiser. And on May 9th,
we'll be the host
to the third annual
Forestville Skate Spot 5K Fun
Run. But neither
of these parks are equipped to
serve the skateboarding
community. These parks are
privately owned and funded.
By the residents of
Forestville. Because they are
vital to our community. I
encourage the board
to recognize the value.
Of the Forestville Skates
Park Project and others
like it. And do as the
residents of Forestville have
already done. And support our
parks and support
Forestville. Thank you.
>> Hi. My name is Sage and I
live in Forestville. I go to
Forestville Elementary. When I
first moved here, I joined the
skateboarding club and it has
been so much fun. What I love
most is being with my friends
while skateboarding. I would
love skate park that's
near me, that's not 30 minutes
away. I promise I'd take good
care of it. Thank you
for your time.
>> Thank you.
>> Hello. My name is N.
Sagado. I made this skate park
last year. Awesome. Why? I
think. I wish it. I think I
should. We should have the
skate park is because I don't
have to go all the way to
like monorail skate park or
like go to like Durnville
to go skateboarding and so like
everyone can come together and
just start skateboarding.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> My name is Heath. I'm nine
years old and I live in
Forestville. I think we deserve
a skate park in Forestville
because I don't want to have
to drive 30 minutes to
Monterrey and I just want
to skate with my friends.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay, go ahead.
>> Hello, my name is Leo and.
And I'm six years old. I think
we should have a skate park
in Forestville. It's because.
It's because I like to. I
like to. I like to go on my
bike and also I think it's. I
don't think we should drive 30
minutes and I. Sometimes I get
bored in the car.
>> Good job.
>> Hi, I'm Camille and I'm also
a resident of Forestville and
I'm on the board of Volunteer
board of Forestville Skate
Park. Those are my kids. And we
often travel to Maxwell Farm
Skate Park, Monorillo
Creekside park, and the
Carson Warner Memorial Skate
park in Healdsburg. Skate parks
are essential Parks
for youth. They teach my kids
valuable skills like resilience
and problem solving, and they
provide healthy outdoor
activities. Forestville is a
small town and unfortunately,
in the patchwork of special
districts that cover the rural
parts of Sonoma county, our
town doesn't have an agency
that can provide management and
oversight
of public parks. I'm here today
to ask the Board of
Supervisors, Public
Infrastructure Department,
Sonoma County Regional Parks,
to collaboratively find a
solution to fill this gap
in services so communities
like ours can also have access
to public parks. I realize it's
difficult for county agencies
to take on new projects. Many
are overwhelmed. We aren't
aware of all the barriers and
reasons why taking
on management
of the park is so difficult.
We just feel frustrated that we
don't have access
to public parks
in our neighborhood.
Forestville Skate Spot is
willing to be a partner in the
long term maintenance and
operations of the future park.
But we ask that Sonoma County
Regional Parks share openly
their hesitation
with partnering
with us so that we can help
to find a solution. And I
invite you all to collaborate
with us and overcome challenges
and obstacles to establishing
the long term maintenance
of our park. And just want
to say thank you to the Board
of Supervisors, the AG and
Open Space District County
Public Infrastructure
for your support
of our project. And also thank
you to Sonoma County Regional
Parks for your work
across the county on all the
beautiful parks that we have
access to. And we welcome an
open and collaborative
relationship. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Tara Racine. I'm
Sage's mom and we live in the
Forestville School District.
When we moved here last year,
we were thrilled that Sage
could join the Forestville
Skate Spot
after school program. And
for such a small town, this is
an incredibly impressive
organization. It's a positive,
supportive group, as you can
see, focused on building both
physical skills and good
character. As parents,
we love seeing our kids
outdoors, moving their bodies
and connecting
with real people
in real time. It's no secret
that kids today are
in a crisis. Parents need help
physically,
socially and mentally. Due
to the sedentary nature
of digital life. Experts,
doctors and therapists are all
telling us the same thing. Our
children desperately need
to move their bodies,
get outdoors and spend time
with the local community,
connecting with people. The
Forestville Skate Spot
Community park isn't just a
hobby. It's a solution
to those challenges. That's why
I'm asking you
to designate funds to support
Sonoma County Regional Parks
in order to support the
Forestville Skate Spot
Neighborhood Park's long term
maintenance. You have the
Power
to make a massive lasting
impact on a rural town here
in West County.
By approving this funding, you
will help create a public space
in our town unlike any other,
where kids and families can
exercise and connect. Please
provide Sonoma County
Regional Parks
with the resources they need
to serve our youth. Thank you.
And our rural community. Thank
you. Thank you. That's as
opposite goes.
>> I thank you all
for your time. My name is
Mose Portal. I'm a skateboarder
from the Russian river and a
committee member for Safe
Spaces Skate, including having
done work with the Monterey
Skate park and now the
Forestville Skate Spot. The
reason Forestville is
in dire need of a skate park is
because when I grew up here, my
friends got bored and didn't
have a safe place to have fun
or challenge themselves. And we
know how, we all know how
dangerous that can be
for developing minds.
Skateboarding saved me and kept
me from trying any drugs or
alcohol my entire life. And I
owe it so much for that. Yay
for skateboarding. It's helped
me become a man and I want
to see kids, my friends, many
have shown up here today and I
have something to look forward
to in Forestville for years
to come. The location is
perfect, right on
Packinghouse Road as you're
heading into Forestville from
Grayton. And the time is better
than any. The people have
spoken with their dollars
of support and
to the cause and we want
to deliver. So we need a long
term maintenance and operations
providers. Forestville is
unincorporated, so we
respectfully ask that you
address the areas in need with
any potential solutions. I've
been a long time supporter
for upkeep on skate parks and
volunteer myself to be a
steward when this park's vision
is finally seen. I hope we can
work with the regional parks
and the community
to make sure this park stays
in immaculate condition
for years to come. Thank you
for having me here
to speak.
>> Thank you.
>> Good afternoon. My name is
Ellery and I am here today as a
skateboarder, as a member
of the Forestville community,
and as my mom said earlier,
one of the founding members
alongside her of the Forestville
Skate Spot project. For me,
skateboarding has never been
just a hobby. It's something
that's given me confidence,
a sense of purpose,
and it has taught me
to overcome risk aversion
in all areas of my life. It
keeps people like me active,
focused, and as we just heard
from Mose, keeps us out
of trouble. But right now in
Forestville, we don't have a
safe place to skate. And
because of that Skaters are
forced to leave their own very
community just to participate
in the activity that they love.
A skate park isn't just a safe
place to ride. It's a place
that brings people together and
gives youth a positive outlet,
whether you choose
to skateboard or not. As
skateboarders, we also
understand the responsibility
that comes with having a space
like this.
Across communities,
skaters take pride
in maintaining their parks,
picking up trash,
respecting the space,
and looking out
for one another. If and when
Forestville builds a skate
park, we will take ownership of
it alongside the entity that
decides to maintain it
with us. The benefits of a
skate park extend much further
than just to those who skate.
We've already heard from Bert
here, and we've seen what a
skate park can do
for a community. Nearby in
Santa Rosa. The one I'm
speaking of is Andy's Unity
park, and it was built
with the help
of regional parks. It became a
place for youth, families,
and also for connection.
But that space only came
after a tragedy, the loss
of a young boy, Andy Lopez. It
should never take a tragedy
to create a safe place
for young people
in any community. So today we
have the opportunity
to build something positive,
something that supports youth
and promotes community. I ask
you to consider what a skate
park could mean
for this community, not just
for skaters, but
for everyone. Thank you.
>> And let's all be aware that
that young man,
this was a senior project
over 10 years ago,
and he's the guy who kind
of started it all. So thanks,
Ellery, for that. Go
down a little bit. My name is
Lucy Hardcastle. I am president
of what is now known as the
Forestville Partnership
alliance, formerly the
Forestville Planning
Association. And I'm here
to speak on behalf the county
in front of all of you, to ask
to open up your minds a little
bit and see if there is a way
to work together
with community parks. We
probably all know that study
after study shows that people,
humans,
do better when they have access
to nature and the outdoors.
Some of our population, easy
access, state, city, county
parks, Others, not so much,
especially the young and the
elderly. It's important
for us as well to have access
to green spaces where we can
relax, renew, and even play.
You can find a lot
of these spaces tucked
into cities themselves. Little
tiny parks
within walking distance.
But not so much
in unincorporated West
County. As a matter of fact,
almost all
of the open space you see in
west county is privately owned.
It's inaccessible. Some scrappy
nonprofits have carved
out privately owned
but publicly open
to the public, parcels which
very much serve a community
need. But more even important
than that is they create a
strong community
by their very existence. The
forceful farmers market,
the fun runs, pie
in the park,
holiday tree lighting at the
Forestville downtown Oaks park
comes to mind. Also known as
Forever Forestville
for ag and open space folks,
the youth park has served up
decades
of small town community fun.
Residents have spent their
summers at the youth park
playing baseball. Maybe their
first job was working the
concession stand. Family
attends movies in the park.
Easter egg hunt coming up
pretty soon, April 4th. And
thousands enjoy their youth
park barbecue. These
experiences,
as vital as they are
to the spirit
of our community,
are not that easy to create.
Thank you so much. So hope you
can help us.
>> Hi, I'm Bess Da Copestakes.
I've been a resident of
Forestville for 36 years. Both
of my granddaughters were
skaters with skateboards and
very long boards. Everything
you can put wheels
on your feet.
But we always had
to take them other places.
Monoria was one of the best
because it took them 10 years
to establish that skate park.
But you have to get
on a bus if you're an
individual to get there or rely
upon parents
for transportation. Other than
that, we went to other towns
for skates. Forestville is very
oriented towards families.
It's family friendly
Forestville. So everything we
do is family oriented. The
youth park is team sports. The
downtown park is community
gatherings. But we really need
something that's for
individuals and individuals,
especially children who can
come out
of their school and go straight
to a skate park
to spend time, maybe
until their parents pick them
up after school. It's also
accessible to Grayton because
the regional park's West
County Trail goes all the way
from Sebastopol to. To
Forestville and ends right
there. It's an opportunity
for not just Forestville youth
and families, but also for the
surrounding communities because
the buses will go right there
too. It's so easy and
accessible.
But the one thing we don't have
around the whole,
in our whole, all our parks is
maintenance that's paid
for outside
of our volunteer time. And so
we all take care
of our parks, all
of our parks.
But this is one that's probably
beyond us. And that's why we
really need some help. It's a
very structured and serious
infrastructure creating this
skate park. So it would be
essential, in essence,
to have that help from
Regional Parks, which is
already in Forestville
with the West County Trail and
their maintenance yard up
at the El Molino campus. So
it's perfect. Absolutely
perfect. Right. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hello. My name is Deborah
Cabria. I live in downtown
Sebastopol. I was volunteer
with a nonprofit West County
Skate park. We got the Lagoon
Escape Garden built
with the help from Kenyon
Webster, the city planner and
other city officials, the
youth, parents, grandparents
and all the other volunteers.
It brought the youth together
to rally for their park. It was
a wonderful experience
for all involved and continues
to be enjoyed by all. We dealt
with questions that came up and
we all solved them together.
We persevered. What a great
experience and lesson to teach
our children. I believe it's
the most used park in
Sebastopol. We had and have
volunteers that participate
in activities. For example,
the volunteers that were set up
for locking the park
in the evening.
Till this day,
a volunteer locks it
at night and keeps in touch
with city officials. I also
remember being in touch with
Dante who used the public work,
who used to be the public work
superintendent to ask any
questions. I urged the board
to designate and fund Sonoma
County Regional Parks as long
term maintenance provider
for the Forestville Escape
Spot Neighborhood Park. SCRP
already has a maintenance hub
in El Molino just a two minute
drive from our site. This is an
efficient, common sense
solution that honors the intent
of the Measure M parks. For all
funds our community
overwhelmingly supported.
Please provide SCRP the
resources they need to serve
our youth and families. Thank
you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> Greetings. My name is
Timothy, last name is Lane. I
live in Sebastopol and I've had
the pleasure of working with
Deborah and many other people
in Sebastopol to get our skate
park built and maintained
over the years. It's been 18
plus years now and it's been
been a real honor to be part
of that. And I'd like
to thank you all
for your service
to our communities. I moved
to Sebastopol from San
Francisco in 1996. Great place
to raise my kids and I'm now
proudly. I'm going to be a
second grandfather here coming
up next month. And I'm just
deeply grateful for everything
that my children were able
to receive
from the communities here.
Jackie called to kind of get
the ball rolling years ago when
she needed a little bit
of feedback and information
about our experiences. And
these are the small steps that
we take as community to share
our knowledge and experiences
together
to enrich our community.
There's no doubt that, I mean,
it's a tough act to follow when
you've got these amazing kids
bringing tears to our eyes,
you know, expressing themselves
and it's just truly incredible.
I guess the Best thing I could
say here is in Sebastopol,
we've done our best
to maintain the community, or
rather the park and ensure that
it's a clean,
positive environment
for kids. And we,
as a skateboard community,
we do the best that we can to
self police and if something
that maybe is inappropriate is
happening, we speak up. And
that in turn, generationally,
I guess you could say,
is passed on. You know,
there was kids that I had
to put in check 10 or 15 years
ago and I'm friends
with them now. And every time I
go to the skate park,
I've got a new, you know, 14,
20 year old friend or whatever.
So as an old geezer that still
is out there skating,
I'm grateful for this
opportunity and grateful
to be part of this community.
Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you.
>> Good afternoon, I'm
Jennifer Trauman and I am a
Forceville resident and a board
member of the Forceville
Skate Spot. I wanted
to thank the board, the public
infrastructure, regional parks,
for this opportunity
to discuss, you know, this very
needed neighborhood parks.
When I retired 36 years ago,
or no, no, not 36 years ago,
that makes me really old. I
retired from 36 years
of county service. It was
Supervisor Hopkins that thanked
me for my years
of service and she said,
you no longer work for us. We
as the board work for you. And
I never thought
about it that way,
but here I am. So I am
passionate about this skate
park and this project
for our beautiful town. We are
in desperate need of a place
for kids to play and families
to gather. I raised my kids
in Forestville and although
they love the community,
they dubbed our town
Boersville due to the lack
of things
to do. I often drove them up
to Healdsburg to skate there.
It would have been a fantastic
opportunity to have a park
to walk to. The process to
maintain and operate a
neighborhood park is not
realistic for our small team
and limited resources. We did
understand that maybe measure M
could address this. The
infrastructure in place at
regional parks makes sense as
they are equipped with the
personnel and the expertise
to operate parks. The costs
associated with the maintenance
and operations
of our very small park are low.
And with the stewards
of the state skate park
in conjunction
with regional parks, it makes
it achievable and inexpensive.
We highly encourage the board
to consider assigning the
maintenance and operations
of the forceful skate spot
to regional parks. And thank
you for your time.
>> Let's give it up for these
kids that showed up today,
huh? How awesome
to stand up here. You guys are
awesome. So good and well
Behaved, right. Awesome.
Great. So let's give them a
skate park already. Come on.
Right. My name is Eric. I've
been skateboarding, obviously
for over four decades.
Inherently. I'm a builder too,
you know,
being a skateboarder. And so we
know how to, you know,
if you build it right, it won't
need hardly any maintenance
at all. It's
like the easiest thing. What
you need a broom, right? And
the kids skate in it,
are going to take care of it,
Trust me. They're going
to be there every day.
Like they said. It was going
to take them 30 minutes to get
to the closest park. That's an
hour round trip, Wednesday,
school day, whatever. They
don't have time for that.
Right. Get out of school,
hit the park every day, 15,
20, 30 minutes, boom. And
they're going to be awesome
at skateboarding. It's not just
about skateboarding. They're
going to own the space,
they're going to take care
of it. It's going
to give them a pride
of ownership,
you know what I mean?
Like an empowerment. And
there's just so many other
benefits. This is such an easy
thing. And the return
on investment is so incredible.
It's like,
why haven't we done this yet?
Let's give them a park. Let's
give them the responsibility,
taking care of it. We maintain
it ourselves. We take
out the trash, we clean it,
keep it clean because we want
to skate. It's a passion thing.
So let's, let's give it
to them.
>> All right, thanks. Thank
you.
>> Hello, my name is William
Tobler. Thank you all
for allowing me to speak,
people
of the board and the parks,
for taking your time
to come out. I am here to talk
about skate parks and my
experience of 40 years
of skateboarding in the Sonoma
county community. Helping build
private projects and DIY spots
and knowing what it takes
to build, maintain, and keep
those things up. I've been
skateboarding at Santa Rosa
Skatepark since it opened
Sebastopol. I have multiple
friends who have helped build
it and maintain it. And so I'm
also the instructor at the
after school Forestville
Skateboard Program. I've been
doing that since it started.
And work with these wonderful
kids who took their time
to come out today. Missing
school. We all know how bad
that is. And so I would just
like
to let everybody know that we,
we know how to maintain the
parks and we could work well
with you guys to set up a
viable option that is low cost
and low hours, man hours
for you guys to where
skateboarders such as myself
and older generation can teach
the younger ones, as Eric was
saying, that they know how
to take care of it and pick it
up and occasionally you have
chipped concrete and things
like that. And it doesn't take
very much to fix that. So I
would just like
to say thank you
for allowing me to speak and I
hope that we can work well
with each other
in the future. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Robin Shop
Bell and I live in
Forestville. Also, thank you
very much for being open minded
and creative as we work
together
to support the creation
of a joyful, rejuvenating park
in Forestville. When my
neighbors and I voted
to increase our taxes
for parks, Skate Spot was
exactly what we imagined. This
clean,
safe park will be a great space
for connection and recreation,
for building,
strengthening community.
But much
like a free democratic society,
a park requires consistent,
dedicated care and maintenance.
We must secure a plan to upkeep
this park so that it fulfills
its promise into the future.
So I'm urging the board
to designate and fund Sonoma
County Regional Parks as the
long term maintenance provider
for the Forestville Skate Spot
neighborhood park. Thank you
for considering this common
sense approach for maintaining
our newest neighborhood asset.
Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Kim
Lockhart. I'm the co owner
of the Monterio Theater. I'm
actually not here to talk
about the Forestville Skate
park, but we did a fundraiser
for you guys and we know
they're wonderful neighbors and
they're so worth it. And so I'm
happy they're here supporting
their cause. And I wanted
to say that actually
on the same topic,
we would love
to turn the lawn area next
to the Monterio Theater
into a public park. The
Monterio Theater has been there
for now 76 years. We've done so
many events
for the community,
which they love. And we know
they love it because they come
out. So it's movies, it's live
music, it's costume contests,
it's fundraisers,
it's any kind
of school fundraisers.
Anything you can imagine,
we've done. We painted it pink
for Barbie, as you may have
seen.
But when we approached looking
into a grant for community
space a few years ago,
the issue for us since
Monterio Parks and Rec was our
only public agency,
is they also felt daunted
about the maintenance. And that
was the reason they didn't want
to be our partners because it
seemed too much to take on,
even though they're really our
only applicant. So I would love
to ask Bohemian Grove to be our
funder. I think they have a
huge history like we do.
But I do need help figuring
out who could be the applicant
to do the part. As the steward
and maintenance, it does seem
to be the issue that comes up.
So I appreciate any help
with that. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Greetings, everyone. I'm
going
to bring this full circle. I'm
John Koontz, and I live
in the afterglow
of my amazing wife, Jackie
Brazile, and our son, Ellery.
And I'm going to finish the
thoughts that she began just
when the public convent
started. We aren't asking
Regional Parks
to build our park. We are
asking to be your partner as
your new belongings framework
aspires to. Our community is
already raising the funds and
will provide stewardship. We
only ask that the parks
department handle maintenance.
A 2.8 acre neighborhood park is
minimal compared to the vast
acreage the county already
expertly manages. When Measure
M is up for renewal, please
consider dedicating a
percentage of funds
for unincorporated towns like
Forestville, Geyserville and
Occidental that lack their own
park departments. Finally,
Forestville is doing its part.
We pay Measure M taxes. We host
Regional Parks west county
operations at the El Marino
campus. And there you are,
just two minutes away
from our hopeful skate spot.
So we're asking
for inclusion. Please welcome
our neighborhood park
into your county park family.
Thank you guys so much. Thank
you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi. I'm Gretchen Krebs. I'm
here from Geyserville, and I
want to thank. We'll adopt you
into West County. You know,
I feel
like you can join us. I want
to thank you
for having this workshop today.
This is really important for
Geyserville as well to be to
have this subject talked about.
But I want to say wow for us.
So that was really impressive.
I know that Adrienne's
listening in over zoom. So that
is two thirds of our really big
committee that put together the
Guysville Park Plaza. When we
started on this project,
I often heard, wow, you know,
in unincorporated areas,
you have to do things that city
councils would be doing. And I
prefer
to think that we get to. And
it's been with a lot of help
from all of you, from Jimmy
for getting us funds from.
For our Mac to get started
from public infrastructure,
from Sonoma AG and Open
Space. We couldn't have done
any of this without your
financial help and your
expertise. So thank you very
much. But now we are at the
point where we need your help
with maintenance. So, you know,
we are volunteers. This isn't
what we do for a living. We're
willing to learn,
we're willing to work
with you, but we appreciate any
help that you can give us
to work with us. This will be
the only park in Geyserville.
The nearest park
to us is seven miles away. We
do have an elementary school
that gets used as a park,
but when school is
in session,
that's not an option. So
for younger families or
for older adults outside
of the school age,
there's nothing. So we really
appreciate you doing this
workshop. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Seeing no more
public comment,
I'll bring it back
to the board
for questions and comments.
Supervisor Hopkins.
>> All right, I had a bunch
of questions, but I know that
there have been young members
of the audience who've been
super patient. So I'm just
going to, you know, cut
to the chase, which is that I
think either we need
to dedicate Measure M funding
to unincorporated communities
the same way that we dedicate
it to cities,
because that will be on the
ballot later this year and we
could amend the language, or I
think that regional parks need
to step up and take
responsibility for these
unincorporated community parks.
And I'm going
to give some examples. I mean,
I looked
at regional parks list.
Maddox Andes, Unity Park,
Shopland Fields, Kenwood Plaza
Park, Larson Park, Shaw Park,
Arnold Field, Morin Goodman
Park, Ernie Smith. Those are
all small community
neighborhood parks. And I would
actually add Ragle and Maxwell
to those lists because they
basically have a park
within a park,
even though there's sort
of broader open space. They
also have sports fields and
maintain things that are just a
draw to the entire community.
Last year, fiscal year 2526,
Mezuram, 33% of that went
to a $5.3 million pass through
to the cities. As I understand
it, that was based
on population. That means that
the city of Sebastopol,
population 7000ish,
and the city of Katati,
population 7000ish,
get dedicated funding,
and the whole lower Russian
river in excess of 12,000
people doesn't get any. That,
to me, is not equitable. When
we go
to the voters and we say, you
know,
regional and neighborhood
parks, that was in Measure M's
language,
and that's what they voted for.
And when maintenance was
actually called out in the
ballot analysis as an eligible
funding source,
I feel that we need to fulfill
this promise and that if we go
back to the ballot, you know,
and we ask voters
to support us,
and we can't say yes to a
project that has so much
community support, we are not
doing our due diligence so the
other thing that I wanted
to share is that one
of the other reasons, it's
amazing the community
organization that Jackie has
single handedly brought
together. And there are things
that she legally cannot do that
we can do. Like example,
SB1003, which was basically a
skate park limiting liability
bill or as they called it,
hazardous recreational
activity. Immunity only applies
to public agencies. So if she
were a nonprofit. Right. She
wouldn't actually be eligible
for the state law that says if
someone takes place, you know,
enjoys skating and hurts
themselves,
they can't sue you. Right. And
so, you know,
that's a problem. Right.
That's why you really need a
public agency partner. And I
feel like now is the time
to actually deliver on the
promises that I really believe.
When we made,
when we asked voters
to support Measure m,
that's my 2 cents and my
request. I guess my question is
sort of what is the timeline
for Measure M and how can we
look at amending that language
or can we get a commitment
from regional parks to provide
the support that's needed
to take these
across the finish line? And I
do want to say a shout out
to ag and open space. I felt
like
for years we were hammering on
how can you fund unincorporated
communities who don't have the
capacity. You all stepped up
with technical assistance.
Public infrastructure jumped
into the for fray and, you
know,
helped write applications.
Right. Submit applications
to ag and open space. And so we
now have a mechanism
to get the funding. But the
project delivery is still the
challenge. Right. And that
technical expertise, we have
amazing community knowledge.
We also have opportunities
for grants, as I understand
that, you know, Jackie and
everyone has been looking
at opportunities through
various foundations that
support, you know,
skate parks.
But we need someone to kind of
take ownership and move this
thing forward. So I'm just
curious about the Measure M
timeline and also about,
I feel like for you and James
and I kicked this around for
like 10 years. It was like 10
years ago. And we're like,
when are you going to take on
the small unincorporated parks?
And I think the answer was ten
years from now. And so here we
are. And so I'm calling the
question.
>> Thank you, Supervisor
Hopkins. So the timeline for
Measure M. So just
to also reflect on 2018, when
this board, you know, put that
on the ballot for the voters
to consider. The story and the
narrative of that time was we
had a system that had extensive
deferred maintenance. We had an
incredible opportunity because
of public lands have been
acquired to expand access and
to bring those on board
into the system. And we had
this new need from the fires
of 2017 that kicked us
in the head, like we got
to take care of this stuff and
maintain those natural
resources. I'm pleased
to say, in my opinion, the
measure has been very
successful at delivering
on its promises
to the voters. And we are
looking to bring it forward
in May for a potential new
ordinance that would supersede
Measure M, for the board
to consider that for this fall
of 26 election cycle.
To your question around, does
the existing ordinance preclude
regional parks
from getting involved
in this? And I think the answer
is no, it does not. I think
what's important about today's
discussion is an opportunity
for the board
to have a conversation. This is
a big question
with our community,
these neighborhood parks.
There are needs all
over the place. And I would
just my conversations with our
county executive office,
it's been around. What is the
platform of how we can do this
within the financial means we
have available? Measure m is
about $10 million
of regional parks budget,
about 25%. But it is very much
leveraged right now
to delivering on hundreds
of capital projects, many
of them
in the fifth district. That's
going to have impacts. We need
to look at that and have that
conversation and make sure that
we can deliver and actually
speak truthfully to what the
county regional parks,
what the board's going
to be able to do.
>> And to be clear, sort
of my, the way I see it is
either we need
to dedicate funding from
Measure M
to local parks districts, CSDs
or community based
organizations. But really the
problem is that a community
based organization, again,
doesn't have the limitation
of liability. And honestly,
it's challenging even
for public agencies
to get insurance right now.
And so it's prohibitively
expensive if you can even get
it right as a nonprofit
to operate something
like this,
especially absent the sort
of state granted limitations
of liability.
But I just believe that, you
know, parks needs
to either make a commitment
to taking these on or we need
to figure out a way
to fund these areas and
to provide them
with ongoing funding. And I
know they weren't able
to be here today,
but I also had a meeting
with the Grayton Community
Services District and you know,
they went and took, did the
bold thing and created a
downtown plaza and took it
on all themselves. And they
actually need money for
maintenance and they're finding
out, you know, it's really,
you can fundraise for things
like a capital project
to say, you know, build
something,
but it's really hard
to fundraise just
to mow the grass every year.
And we do have community
volunteers, especially in
Forestville, Forestville Youth
park, who just have been doing
these things for decades. And
yet, right. One person retires
or can't do it anymore, and
suddenly you have a budget gap
that you can't fill and no
revenue source to do it. So
I'll just sort of throw it
down and say that I would
really like
to either see a revision to
Measure M or a willingness
to take on things like this
Gate park, because I see all of
these precedents and other
parts of the county's county
where we have actually taken
on small neighborhood parks.
And yet I don't understand why.
The answer is yes there,
and the answer has been no in
Forestville. So I just want to.
I would ask for the support
of my colleagues for one
of those alternatives.
>> Vice Chair Coursey
>> Thanks. I just want
to say if. If these kind
of decisions were just based
on the tenaciousness over time
of a community,
the sheer numbers that you
bring to public comment,
and the cuteness per capita
of those numbers,
these would be easy decisions.
But Forestville Skate park is
not the only one. Almost we're
the only one here. How easy
would that be? Unfortunately,
we've got a big county with big
needs. I have a couple
questions for you Bert and
company workshoppers, as you
were dubbed earlier today.
First of all, Bert, did
Measure M anticipate new
neighborhood parks?
>> No.
>> As I described earlier,
Measure M really was looking
primarily at the existing
system and these larger tracts
of land that have now been
transferred
from AG and open space
ownership
to county ownership. The
measure language does talk
about regional and neighborhood
parks. And that language really
is crafted, was intended
around the city portion
of the funding going in where
the city's predominant business
is more of the neighborhood
park type facilities.
>> When did neighborhood parks
become a county thing?
>> As we tried to kind
of articulate the presentation,
the neighborhood parks we have
in these unincorporated areas
have evolved. As Supervisor
points out, there's a number
of them in the county system.
And those stories go back
over the 50, what, nine years
the regional parks have been
in existence. But it really,
as far as the mission of
regional park parks and the
last several decades
of work product, it has been
something where we're not,
it's not incorporated
into our cip,
our capital improvement
projects planning,
but it's not currently factored
into our park mitigation fees
for developments where these
things are based
on new populations coming in.
And we've done our best
to support within the community
that has interest in these,
to provide some Technical
support and guidance,
but they have not, you know,
squarely landed on a process
county wide where regional
parks has been directed
to go and figure this out.
And, and it's an evolving
landscape and the community is
changing and something. I think
it's great
for having a discussion
around how we grapple
with this.
>> You mentioned great needs
for. For these type of parks
around the unincorporated areas
of the county. Do you have any
idea
of what the numbers would look
like and how many
of those could we afford
to operate and maintain
over how many years? And I'm
guessing you don't know what
the answer is
to that question.
>> So I think the conversation
has gone the furthest several
years back in the
unincorporated governance ad
hoc where really to look
at that, that the request
for that ad hoc back
to the board during a budget
deliberation was some dollars
for our county executive office
to hire the consultants as
similar to how a city
incorporated jurisdiction would
look at that
to have a comprehensive look
at the county. And that would
tie into the different types
of costs, facilities,
funding structures and things
for the board
to consider.
>> Seems like I remember that
the unincorporated governance
ad hoc also,
and maybe these existed
before that. I was fairly new
to the board, but talked about
district formation and you
mentioned several park and rec
districts that exist. I don't
think any
of those have been created
in the last, I don't know, 50
years. Most of them have been
in existence for a long time.
But is. Is a district, whether
one district or several small
districts, part
of a solution here,
of being able to take
on the administrative task,
the administrative expertise,
the liability issues that you
mentioned, Supervisor
Hopkins, is that part
of a solution?
>> One of the challenges is
actually that our local parks
and rec districts in the
Lower Russian river are
currently paying hundreds
of thousands of dollars
to the county as part
of redevelopment. So they have
an absolute bare bones duct
tape budget until redevelopment
is paid down. And because we
consolidated all
of the redevelopment agencies
in the county into one,
they are paying until the last
project's debt is paid off.
Which means that the Russian
river park and Rec and
Monorio Rec and Park are both
paying into projects outside of
their jurisdictional boundary
because of how the debt
financing was handled. And so
it's many, many years
until they will have any kind
of capacity. And as a result
they've really struggled even
to keep staff and
to perform sort of basic
maintenance. I would still
argue that's partly why I would
argue that, you know, sort
of a set aside. I also wanted
to respond to. I think that the
sort of conversation
about the funding being for
cities was insider baseball,
where it was in negotiations
with city managers and city
councils. I mean,
if you actually read the ballot
question, it just says
to improve and protect Sonoma
County's regional and
neighborhood parks. That's the
first clause I'm saying
about whether you're
in a city or outside
of a city. So I think someone
from, you know, Forestville
voting for that would sort of
assume that it could
potentially support, you know,
protecting and improving a
neighborhood park. And if we
have the opportunity
to build it
with AG and open space funds,
which I believe we will, the
question then just becomes how
do we, you know, maintain it?
But that's. That's the real
challenge with our parks
districts is they are basically
broke from redevelopment.
>> And I. I get that. I was
wondering
about new district formation.
Just an idea. The other thing
Supervisor Hopkins was asking
about, you know, some kind
of a set aside, some kind
of a solution here
in the next measure, M,
whatever letter that turns out
to be. I don't have an
objection to that. I just
wonder what that would look
like. Have you given that any
thought? It's probably not the
first time you've heard
about it today.
>> Yeah, I've not given any
thought other than I think the
conversations thus far with our
city partners have been very
positive in the sense that the
current structure of the
measure is very adequate,
and I would discourage the
board from doing anything
to disrupt the current 1/3,
2/3 funding split
of the dollars. As I said,
in the remaining two thirds,
there's not really a
prohibition, per se,
against spending
on any regional parks facility.
As long as it's a park. It
would be an eligible expense
under the measurement direct
to source dollars based
on population. We have done no
analysis on that.
>> And I also just wonder
about, you know, even if we did
have a dedicated portion
of a sales tax
for neighborhood parks,
for maintenance, whatever,
it's not going to be enough
to deal with all the needs
out there. I understand. And I
remember that Forestville has
been here many,
many times.
>> Bravo, kids.
>> Thank you, guys.
>> Sorry. Bravo. They've been
here many times. They've been
here, you know,
for many years.
But how do you equitably,
really equitably decide who has
access to that money now and
in the future? How is that.
How's that decided? It's a
rhetorical question. That's all
I got right now.
>> Supervisor Gore.
>> I'm gonna throw a couple
things down and then I'm gonna
leave because my daughter is
frustrated about my tardiness
to get her
to volleyball practice. So I
apologize. So a couple things
for me. You gotta pay
to play. We have
to put money towards this,
whatever it is. I think I
appreciate the conversation.
Cause on one side, yeah,
absolutely. What's the budget?
I think what we need
to do is price
out what it would be
to do maintenance on some
of these projects. That's a
completely different question
than the infrastructure and the
investment costs ag and open
space coming
in and doing that. You know,
even right now,
I put quite a bit of the
district infrastructure funds
one time funds into Mark west
park. We're scrapping together
for the golf course park,
which is up in Mark West
Geyserville. We're looking
at all kinds of things
in partnership. So, you know,
getting these up to that area.
I would just be interested,
I don't know, because I'd
rather give you the budget than
come back
to the board and get $80,000 to
create a community services
district to tax Mark west
people who already pay property
taxes and pay the sales tax.
So if to me there's a part
of this that like, I just don't
know. I've always been of the
proclivity that if we needed
to create the districts, we
create the districts and we do
it.
But there is this point about,
okay, now to be able
to create the districts,
we're spending a bunch
of money to create the
districts and then we still
have these liability issues.
And then further than that,
we also are sitting here
in a position where we have
to ask them for more revenue.
And even if they want
to pay it, they're asking,
why would you ask me to do a
supplemental property tax when
as an unincorporated
residential and all my property
taxes already taken
into the county? And you don't
give that back
for a local parks district,
even though we kind of do
to you. So for me, I'm kind
of interested
in the real costs of that. I am
here to. I would never move
before a colleague
in her district. But yes, yes,
yes. Skate park,
I can't ride because I will
die. But like, but, but we,
but,
but I would just say we have,
we have created a solution
space, albeit imperfect
for the, the capital investment
and then some of it
like being land that's. That's
sitting in abeyance as a part
of our county system and
Sonoma public infrastructure. I
mean the smart thing would be
to do is like we got
to come back
to the board or come
through these mechanisms
to do the up, you know, you
know, the initial public access
land purchases. Then we figure
out what the maintenance is.
And even if we need
to say like, okay, I mean,
do we divert some
of the money that accrues into
a district formation account
currently and have that go
towards maintenance instead?
Because I'd rather give you a
check for $70,000 to take care
of those parks per year.
Unless you tell me it's
actually 300,000. Right. I just
don't know what that really
means. So to me, I was going
to ask here today to come back
with a lot of conversations
about CSA 40 or 41, whichever
one is. Which one is it?
Yeah, but one of the fire. The
other 1 is the 41 is the 1
where we basically brought all
these districts in.
Like we can as a vote
of this board approve. And then
we would be the board
of the district. That's the
problem is lafco. If they go
through their own process,
you have to have all these
community groups and all these
things. You don't have
capacity.
But then do we really want to
be once again the board and
having CSA 41 five more
districts or is this a budget
issue? So for me, you know,
I'm open to the conversation
about district formation
dollars rather than spending a
bunch of money on consultants
to try and pass a major to
increase people's property
taxes. You know,
my interest is to solve for
Geyserville and two places in
Mark West. And quite honestly,
we don't have much. We don't
have anything else
in my mind that is a desert
out there that could be a part
of a policy. Like I'd love to
know how much it would be if
you looked at those and said
this is what it would cost me.
And even if we decide that it's
not parks to do it,
then I could fight
for some other way
to do it.
>> Okay, Misty and then
Supervisor Rabbitt
>> I just have a quick
clarifying question
on estimating cost costs. And
Bert and I haven't chatted
about this,
but we do have a lot of other
partners raising the same issue
that aren't necessarily
neighborhood level like Camp
Meeker or Mark westwickiup.
And so I'm just wondering when
you give the direction to look
at what the cost might be,
is it just for these four
public infrastructure projects
or I'm just
in case that gets asked
of us.
>> I mean, I mean for me it
doesn't have
to be a comprehensive list. It
could be something that gives
it a scale. Right. It's very
hard to do that.
But you know, I mean,
I don't know about,
for everybody,
but I don't think we're
in a position to throw a list
of 40 together. And say
everybody that could want a
park in the future. What we
could do is say,
these are the ones
in the pipeline. Right. We are
going. You know, for me,
those are Geyserville and the
two in Mark west,
even though one of them's held
in water agency property. And
it's probably less
of a community park and more of
a hiking trail and weed
management.
But maybe neighborhood.
But if it does become that,
then it would have
to have a different plan. We'd
have to put a policy document
together that says if we're
going
to increase the investment
in the management
of this community park. Is it
really a regional park
at this point, then maybe. Is
there a local ballot major that
does it? But I think there
should be some standards that,
like this is bare label
maintenance and then solving
for this liability issue that I
just think is so relevant. I
mean, that's one
of the reasons that we took
Del Rio woods into the county
family was because they had a
special district. They. They
had accrued money. They weren't
able to manage it. They weren't
able
to get the permits anymore.
They weren't putting money
into the. And we saw it as an
asset on the river. Right.
So, I mean, I would just say it
might be mixed up, but
for me, I'd love to see what
that money would be annually.
Like, I don't know, Bert, if
you're going
to come back and. And be like,
that's to visit and do basic
maintenance and weed abatement,
that's going to be 100,000 a
year, or it's a million a year
for three parks.
>> No, thank you. And as we've
done a lot of research
over the years and trying
to figure out that answer
to that question. It depends.
We can tell you pretty much
what a bathroom costs
to service it, you know,
once a day,
how much it costs seasonally
to go to vegetation.
But different parks still,
even with that,
have different costs
for labor and personnel.
Andy's Unity park,
for example,
our average cost is
about 150k a year.
But some years it's 70, some
years it's over 200. It just
depends on what's going on to
keep that park safe and
appropriate for the public. So
we can. We can definitely work
on getting some numbers,
but there is always a bit
of a range and a bit
of a guesstimate
on the reality.
>> Thank you, Supervisor
Rabbitt.
>> Thank you very much. Always
appreciated conversation
regarding parks. And I go back
to and I'll probably said this
before I originally ran
for office in Petaluma, all
about parks and playing fields
and the lack thereof. And at
that time they had a standard.
And I talked to Bert and
friends about this, I think
just this week because the
QUIMBY act,
which is that method
to subdivisions to pay
for park impact fees of, you
know, they had a total of 5
acres per thousand residents.
And, and for years I've been
honestly trying to get what is
the county's overall park goal
and how close are we
to achieving it. And we used
to talk about it didn't matter
if it was a state park,
federal park, local park, city
park, whatever, regional park,
what is that kind
of goal and how does that work?
And it goes to park deserts. I
believe I must say that I have
a hard time really using what I
consider a city standard
of the 10 minute walk
to a park. Petaluma doesn't
meet a 10 minute standard. I
doubt if Santa Rosa meets a 10
minute standard. Petaluma gets
close,
but it doesn't meet it. You
know, I moved
across the street from a park
because my kids grew up in the
park and I did that cautiously
and it was less than a 10
minute walk.
But I do think that we need to
still have that discussion
about, you know, when,
when I remember early on
in my career here with now,
you know, Mike McGuire, when
Carol didn't see an, an acre of
land that could not be a park
and with all the state land
that was being turned over
right or bought and then not
being able to be afforded. And
the question
at that time post recession,
which was real, is like,
how the hell are we going
to afford to take care
of these, you know,
all these acres? And I know
that some remember that and
that was a huge question that
there wasn't an easy answer to.
We land bank some but it still
had ongoing costs and
maintenance. So I think we need
to continue the conversation
about this overall goal. Where
are those places
within the county? I, you know,
I guess I am a process person,
but I do think that it needs
to be an equitable,
county wide kind of overview of
our park systems and how it
works. And I do think that I
look forward to that. Again, I
think the, you know, Measure M
was 2/3, 1/3. The per capita is
heavily weighted on the,
on the unincorporated side. If
you just do the population
with the amount
of dollars that are coming in.
And then I think we just need
to kind of, you know,
really look for those
additional dollars. I spent
$2.9 million of my community
investment funds, all
on parks. And that's more than
what's shown on these slides
for the parks that are here
from I believe
in two districts. So there's,
there's sources there that can
be tapped into. TOT has a
dedicated park fund. Does that
need to be increased? And to my
colleague's point regarding,
you know, the budget, I think I
asked that same question
in our briefing about ongoing
maintenance costs. And I
totally get it. It's like
on a trail, right? That first
quarter mile is the quarter
mile that'll be the biggest
mess because that's where
people get in. And then once
you're past that,
it's a lot easier. So I think
that we need to kind
of continue going
in that direction. And then
finally, you know,
it always comes down to
financially sustainable
projects where you have one
time funding versus ongoing
maintenance or ongoing expenses
and really trying to
differentiate the two and
having a funding source that is
not limited, you know, I think
when you pass a special tax
like measure M, it's for those
deferred maintenance items,
it's for those one time capital
projects, it can't be for
ongoing maintenance pieces
because it's not guaranteed
into the future. And
at some point you're going
to have to face the music
of perhaps, you know,
there's no guarantees in life
and there's no guarantees
at the polls either. So that,
and I will also say how what's
true too in park world. Tell me
if this is false. Park needs
change over time based upon
where the community is. I can
tell you down my way,
we have an influx
on the west side
of younger families, but we
still have an aging community
overall. You know, I bet you
trails and dog walking trails
are in much more demand now
than the swings
in the playground were. Partly
because I don't fit in the
swings anymore and probably
kill myself. But you know,
there's, I think you need
to look at everything
holistically and I appreciate
having a workshop in order
to kind of bring these subjects
matters up.
But I do think that we need
to kind of have that overall
both a overall land use plan
for the county of what,
what are we really trying
to achieve and how are we
trying to achieve it. And I
again will say that the 10
minute walk thing in the
unincorporated county just
doesn't work for me. You know,
whether it's an acreage per
resident, whether you want
to parse out urbanized areas
and do something that works
within those areas. So at least
we have a goal and it's fair
and equitable
across the county
down my way. I will say Pen
Grove has its own private park.
It's open to the public,
but it's Pen Grove social
firemen. Bloomfield has its own
private, privately owned park
that is open to everyone. And
look at Petaluma. They're
embarking on probably one
of the larger park projects
in the county, in the Petaluma
river park,
which is 100% private. So, you
know, we need to kind
of push all this stuff together
to make sure that we can
continue going in a way that I
think it will be financially
sustainable long term and not
put undue pressure
on park's budget
in future years, but have them
be truly skating forward on a
good financial platform.
>> Thank you,
supervisor.
>> I just wanted to briefly
note that it would appear that
March 24, 2026, is the first
time that Supervisor Rabbitt
and I have agreed on how
tourism dollars should be
spent. I would wholly support
more going into parks
to fund that work. And also
just want to say thanks
for sharing about Bloomfield
and Pen Grove. I had always
thought that it was just
Forestville that was one
of the ones that had this, you
know, sort of only nonprofit,
you know,
not government funded.
But it's. It's great to hear
of other opportunities
in the community and there may
be other opportunities
to support some
of that work as well.
>> Thank you so much. Thank you
for bringing this workshop
forward. I appreciate it. I
think that I agree with a lot
of my colleagues in this is an
important conversation and
making sure that what we are
delivering is a park that meets
the needs of each community.
It will be a little bit
different for each district.
And even in those districts,
those areas. I agree with
Supervisor Rabbitt. Maybe the
10 mile, 10 minute criteria
won't work. It won't work
in the Springs. It won't work
in, you know, Bennett Valley.
And so really assessing the
county as a whole so that we
can prioritize the needs
of the community,
of the county,
and also as part of that,
to deliver for constituents,
how do we incorporate the cost
to maintain those parks? And if
we have to guess
at the maintenance number,
I think we should. It should be
a line item that is part
of the planning for parks for
our community. I also know that
oftentimes when budgets are
stretched, we're asked to dip
into general funds. And those
are safety nets
for the entire community. And I
will restate that this year and
next and maybe the next year
after, we're going to have to
make some really tough choices.
So
of the parks that you presented
in your slideshow, I'd like
to have.
>> Bring that back and have a
more comprehensive plan
in conversation of
like what is moving forward,
get board support and. And know
that we have limited resources
with that. Thank you. I think
this is informational. Yes. CEO
Rivera.
>> Thank you, Chair. So it is a
workshop and it's a workshop
that looks to get direction,
majority direction
from the board. And it sounds
as we would narrow the focus
down to these parks that are
underway, if you will,
to provide. No.
>> Okay.
>> I'm trying
to understand what comes back.
Right. We can come back
for certain. Right. With more
information and some ranges
of costing
of operations and maintenance.
But what I'm missing is what's
the scope of that? And once we
create this scope,
is it four parks? Is it all the
parks, but not including the
regional parks.
>> Right. Because we may still
have gaps in our even current
parks right now,
like the gophers at Raygo
Park. And then what is the
universe. More costing. Okay,
and then what do we do
with that? Do we then present
options such as, okay, the TOT
policy provides this much
for tourism impact funds, but
we can redirect those dollars
now onto parks. I just trying
to figure out what is the
product that would be helpful
for the board to continue the
conversation and if this is a
product that is intended
to occur in time for budget
deliberations. I think I'm also
challenged with that. So
looking for clarity,
>> I just wanted
to also forgot that
in a previous iteration of the
unincorporated governance ad
hoc, I believe this was back
when it was me and Supervisor
Gore, we actually did have a
heat map to Supervisor
Rabbitt's point about sort of
where are the park deserts and
what. And I think that AG and
Open Space has actually used
that data to help prioritize
matching grant projects. Is
that correct? Because we
actually did look
at what's the density
of population,
how far are they
to the nearest community park.
So we do have some stuff that
could be shared with the board
that was already a matter
of public record previously,
I think. Is that correct?
>> And it is a link to the
PowerPoint, the gap analysis.
Okay.
>> On that same page where the
gap analysis is found are also
other enviro screens that
you're talking
about that was. Yep. The enviro
screen, I think, was what I
was. I was talking about. And
then. And then I guess my
request would just be that
we're able
to have this conversation
before suddenly we're having an
up and down vote
on a measure M measure. You
know,
is there some opportunity
of looking
at unincorporated parks? And I
wouldn't Want to exclude if
there are. I mean,
I'm. I'm thrilled to have
Forestville and Guernville
on the list,
but I also wouldn't want
to exclude if there are, say,
needs in Pen Grove or, you
know, I mean, Moreland has
Andy's Unity park, but if there
are any other unincorporated
areas of D3 or, you know,
D1 that don't have, you know,
their funding needs met.
But I, you know, I would love
to look at is there group in
tot that we could potentially
invest in this and
to have that conversation
before it's up or down on
Measure M 2.0.
>> Supervisor Vice Chair.
>> Yeah, I'm good with what
Supervisor Hopkins said. With
what you said. I do have. I
would prefer that we have a
wider scope
of what we're looking at than
just the four projects that we
saw today. I would love
to see a heat map. I would love
to see a list of maybe options
of how to provide maintenance
and operations of parks going
into perpetuity. Because you
break it, you own it,
and just. There's a new park
coming into the Roseland area,
which is in Santa Rosa now,
but it's uncounted property
at Roselyn Village. And we're
trying to give it to the city
of Santa Rosa because we don't.
We haven't identified
maintenance and operation
of that park into the future.
So this is a problem
everywhere. We should be
looking at it on a.
On a wide basis,
wide focus.
>> Okay.
>> Think I got it.
>> We got it.
>> Great.
>> Thank you.
>> It's going to be like one of
those pictures that we painted
something,
and then we're going
to color something. I'm going
to bring it back and see what
colors we missed.
>> We have white out and
Sharpie.
>> There you go.
>> Well, continue the
conversation. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. And now
with that, we are going
to move to item number 50,
permit Sonomas Acts and
Determinations. Waving the
presentation.
>> Second, you need some.
>> We need public comment.
>> It's so fun to keep.
>> So now we're moving on to
I. Item 50 Acts and
Determinations. And if I don't
see anyone in the audience
to give comments
on agenda item 50. With that,
I'll bring it to the board
with any questions or comments.
If not, there is a. Is there a
motion and a second
to approve?
>> Yes, there is a motion.
>> Second.
>> Roll call.
>> [CALLING ROLL]
>> Thank you.
>> And now we are going
to report out, please. County
council, swiftly.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Everybody's favorite part
of the meeting report out for
March 10, 2026. Closed session
the board met
in closed session
to discuss items one
through eight on the agenda.
As previously noted on March
10, item seven and eight were
continued and not discussed
by the Board. On item one,
the Board of Supervisors met
in closed session to consider
the public employee performance
evaluation of the General
Manager of the Sonoma County
Water Agency. No reportable
action was taken. The Board
gave direction to staff
on item number two. It was
conference
with real property negotiator
for the Sonoma County Water
Agency regarding property on
River Road in Forestville APNS
083020097 and 00830 20098. The
negotiating parties were the
Sonoma County Water Agency and
Dermot Burke and Darius
Burke. No reportable action was
taken. The Board gave direction
to its real property
negotiators. And then
for items number three
through six,
these were also conference
with real property negotiators
Misty Arias for the
Agricultural Preservation and
Open Space District regarding
proposed acquisitions
of four conservation easements
on South Sonoma Mountain
described as Grove, Rogers
Creek North, Rogers Creek south
and Skyline
in the unincorporated Sonoma
County, California. No
reportable action. The Board
gave direction to its real
party negotiator real property
negotiators and then today the
Board met in closed session
to consider items 1, 2 and 2A.
On item 1, the Board of
Supervisors met
in closed session to consider
the public employee performance
evaluation Sonoma County
Executive Officer no reportable
action was taken. The Board
gave direction to staff.
On item two, the Board met
in conference with legal
counsel regarding existing
litigation, the Vasilios
Triant vs County of Sonoma et
al matter and the Sonoma
County Superior court case
number SCV 269067. The board
received additional information
regarding
from staff and then the Board
provided further direction to
staff and did not take any
reportable action. And finally
on Item 2A, the Board of
Supervisors met if I can get
to my report with real
Property negotiators regarding
400 Aviation Boulevard, Santa
Rosa, California. The agency
negotiator is Johannes
Hoverts, Director of Sonoma
County Public Infrastructure
and Warren Sattler, the Real
Estate manager for the county
of Sonoma and the negotiating
parties were the county of
Sonoma and the American Ag
Credit FLCA under negotiation
were priced terms and
conditions of a proposed actual
acquisition. The Board received
additional information in
closed session regarding the
real estate negotiations for
400 Aviation Boulevard. The
board provided further
direction to staff and did not
take any reportable action.
That concludes the Report outs
from the closed sessions for
March 10th and March 24th of
2026. Thank you, Chair.
>> Thank you so much. And with
that is there board member
report outs, Supervisor
Hopkins?
>> All right. On Wednesday
11th, we had an immigrant
support ad hoc. On Thursday the
12th, I attended an Ag Council
meeting in Napa on behalf
of the California Air
Resources Board, and
in the afternoon attended the
Santa Rosa plain GSA where we
adopted our annual budget.
Also on the 12th,
attended a lower Russian
River Municipal Advisory
Council meeting. Moving on
to the week of the 16th.
On the 18th, I had a Bay Area
Air District Finance and
Administration Committee
meeting, as well as an
unincorporated governance ad
hoc meeting. And I believe that
concludes my reportable
meetings. Oh, Russian River
Management ad hoc meeting
yesterday the 23rd.
>> Supervisor Rabbitt.
>> All right.
>> Since last we met on
Tuesday, March 10th. On that
Wednesday, March 11th,
I did attend Sonoma Waters
Advocacy Day up in
Sacramento, where we met
with all of our state senators
and assembly members and DWR
and natural resources folks
touting the work that we're
doing here in Sonoma
on water issues. I had
to go back to Sacramento the
next day on Thursday the 12th,
to chair the Seismic Safety
Commission meeting
in the morning. Friday, March
13, had ABAG administration and
joint ledge with MTC.
Wednesday, March 18, smart
meeting. Thursday, March 19,
back to Sacramento
for the association of
California Water Agencies
Leadership workshop. And then I
did spend the night because the
next morning we had our board
meeting for aqua. And then
Monday, because you can't get
enough aqua, had another board
meeting,
a closed session that was
for helping to select a new
executive director.
>> That's it.
>> Thank you so much,
Supervisor.
>> Let's see, going back to
March 12, the Santa Rosa
Plain Groundwater
Sustainability Agency board
meeting, measure O ad hoc
on the 16th, South Santa Rosa
annexation ad hoc
on the 17th, Smart board
on the 18th, Sonoma County
Employee Retirement association
board on the 19th, and an ad
hoc, a transit ad hoc meeting
of the Sonoma County
Transportation and climate
authorities on the 19th.
>> Thank you so much. And I
again attended with
Supervisor Hopkins the
immigration ad hoc on March 11
and March 17, the South Santa
Rosa annexation ad hoc meeting.
And with that, we are going
to adjourn our meeting
in honor of Marcus Zeimer and
Coric Brown.
>> Thank you.
>> And with that, our meeting
will be adjourned and our next
meeting will be on Tuesday,
April 7th.
>> Thank you.