 Hi, good morning everybody and happy New Year. I'm going to call the January 14, 2020 meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Caput. Here. McPherson. Here. Chair Coonerty. Here. Now I'm going to ask you all to join me in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. Good morning, from the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Mr. Palacios, are there any changes or late additions to our agenda? Yes, on the regular agenda, item number seven. There's additional materials, a revised memo packet page 17. On the consent agenda, item 21, there's a correction. The item should read approved in concept December 10, 2019. And on item 26, there's additional materials, a revised attachment, A, packet pages 301 to 303. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I'm now going to ask my fellow board members if there's any items they would like to remove from consent agenda today. Okay. Seeing none, we're now going to move on to public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about items that are on our consent agenda, on our closed session agenda, on our regular agenda, if you can't stay because you have to get to work or you have other obligations, or items that are not on today's agenda but are within the purview of the Board of Supervisors. How many people would like to speak to us about today about those items? Okay. I'm going to ask you all to line up here. We're going to have two minutes per person. When the green light goes on, then there's a yellow light with a minute left and a red light means that your time is up. It looks like we have some younger visitors today. If they wanted to go first, they should feel free, or if they just want to hang out and enjoy the show. Yeah. Remember that we have young visitors. Yes. And I'd ask speakers who speak today to remember that we have young years in the audience and have their language reflect that. All right. Please come forward. Gary Richard Arnold. I don't think you should be holding a nursery. We have serious business here. Anyway, I want to congratulate Ryan Coonerty. He went to the London School of Economics, which is the Fabian Socialist School, their emblem, is literally a wolf in sheep's clothing. It was the largest defeat of the Fabian Socialist in the last 30 years that have pushed for a European Union. They're pulling out of it while at the same time this Board of Directors is setting up a parallel government through a cog, a council of governments, no less. That is also, I've got a brochure behind me here by the British Fabian Society that advocates regionalism. It's funded not by the poor, but by the rich, the Cecil Rhodes, the Rothschilds, the City of London. When the European Union Forum Gorbachev called it the new Soviet, and that's exactly what we're getting into here by AMBAG, which is the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments. You'll never learn about this in the Sentinel, the good times, or the Pajeronian. You look back at their origins, it was Harvey Weinstein from Chicago that put in these times and good times and has another paper down in San Luis Obispo. Weinstein bragged about driving around the Rosenbergs who betrayed this country by selling the atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Bruce McPherson also has approved, and Mr. Capit has approved, of billionaire stakeholders at the secret meeting of AMBAG, and it's really a front for the United Nations and the World Bank. Mr. McPherson's head of communications right here says that his former business's previous is ICLEI. ICLEI is a front for the United Nations and the UN. And also please note people that we were supposed to be given three minutes. This happens every time people want to participate in the government, and they're warned not to talk because of their children. Thank you. Good morning. My name's Bojana, visiting Smorgenthaler. I'm here representing the Spanish Ranch Road neighborhood. And I'm actually here to, first of all, wish you all a happy new year. Thank Supervisor Leopold particularly for really accelerating and helping some of the work that has been done on our road. After a couple of decades of neglect, we have a great deal to do. And the work that has started is really a wonderful step, and I just want to recognize and thank you. I also would like to ask that greater emphasis be placed on addressing the needs of rural roads. There's so much more that needs to be done on an ongoing basis. And we know that so much money goes right now to all the more urban roads, and I understand that there's more traffic there. But we are actually in the state of losing safety, property values, and the continued degradation is making it more expensive every year. So to all of you across all the districts in the mountains, thank you. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Patricia Miller, and I'm here to address the Aptos Village. I did email Zach Friend, Supervisor Friend, to have this 61 taken off the agenda. Our concern is what phase two is going to be. Right now I'd invite all of you to go there and look at there's no parking. If this phase two is considered to have more condos, the closing of an entrance to a business, this is wrong. All of you should go out there before you vote for this, and look at what happened now. Phase one has been kind of a disaster. We do have a new grocery store, but a lot of times you can't park to go there. So I ask you all, please, before you put this, this should not be on the agenda. We did ask, like I say, I asked Supervisor Friend, did not have any comment from him, did not hear from him. So again, I invite you all to please go out and look at it before you start approving more condos. Thank you. Bye-bye. My name is Tony Crane, representing the Estates Barragas neighborhood in Aptos regarding the second story program that was implemented in our neighborhood. We're going on three years now of this complete debacle. The good thing is the longer it goes on, the more mistakes you guys make, and the more you reveal yourselves as unscrupulous in my opinion. The latest legal interpretation I got sets of precedents. This ridiculous legal interpretation of the laws has resulted in setting a new precedent of zoning for short stay, mental health facilities serving hundreds of guests per year in a residential neighborhood. It's not legal. And I think you know it. I think you're smarter than what you put on paper. And you know that it's not legal. More importantly, for three years, you have been in possession of evidence that in implementing this program, county employee, county and encompass employees have broken the law, including fraud, theft, misuse of taxpayer funds and obstruction of justice. And you have done nothing for three years. We've been coming before you to tell you to do something about this. Make it right. Don't set new precedents for sure, saying that something like this with hundreds of people that rotate through a house like a vacation rental should be legal in a residential neighborhood. Knowing this for three years makes you complicit in this. So now, in my opinion, you have broken the law. You have broken your oath to your constituents to uphold the law and the voters will be hearing about it in the next, this upcoming election. I just don't understand why you guys continue to sit in your hands on this, knowing what has gone on. Thank you. Morning, my name is Peter Wagner. I'm up on Ormsby Cutoff. My question first is, is this the right time to talk about SCA 48 or do I wait till 10 o'clock? You can do either whatever's best for you. But you can only do it once. But you can only do it once. Well, since I'm here, I'll do it. I fully support the statement of the second speaker about the deplorable condition of the Hill Roads and urge you to do something because safety is a concern there. But this is about SCA 48 fire funding, fire protective services funding. The first question I have is whether in any way you have shifted the revenues provided by the property owners up there to other parts of the county and therefore created an underfunding situation. We need evidence that that is not happening. The second comment is that the formula that we were told about for establishing the proposed tax assessments look to be very profoundly unfair. They are certainly obscure. I looked at all 19 parcels on Ormsby Cutoff and the tax assessments range from 97 cents per year to $681 per year. That is just untenable. It is completely obscure and without that I don't see how we can vote. Good morning, Happy New Year. I'm Debbie Hinky from Bonnie Doon. I'm asking you to rescind your vote in support of the CSA 48 proposed weighted ballot prior to the tabulation today. It is faulty and misrepresented. The first notice I received was a flier in the mail in September that grossly misrepresented the number of homes and outbuilding damaged in the 2008 fire. That fire came within a thousand feet of my property. Then I received notice in the Battle Mountain News of the misrepresentation of the gross misjudgment of the budget shortfall. Some millions reported shortfall in the county fire budget but it was less than or Cal Fire. It was less than 80,000 which is pocket change. Skeptical, I continued investigating when I found out about the weighted ballots. And the ceiling caved in. At that point, the average bill was supposedly only about $151. Then Lonkey had an assessment of 58,000 plus. And I don't know if you saw my op-ed but 384 homes would have to negate a positive vote by Lonkey. That's a third and two-and-a-half of Bonnie Dune homes. I wrote to the legislative analyst office to see if there had been any challenge to the weighted balance since it seems unfair that the wealthy, those with more or whatever, have a larger vote than the average person. I did not get a response but I did find some interesting things and legal challenges that will undoubtedly come up as more has been exploded. At the time, I don't feel guys have been forthcoming. Measure G was touted as fire, safety, first response. Started thinking about first response which is part of fire. And I think it's grossly unfair to tax people for first response when it could be anybody in the area. I have a letter here and I did email one but I'd like to leave this with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning, board of supervisors. Michael Stewart Duffy, 2613 Monterey Avenue. To quote Christ, because I see all the kids in the audience and I don't want to offend anybody. But Christ said, suffer not the children to come on to me. Just remember that. Because he was a guy who was pretty smart and he liked kids. But society said no, don't say that. Don't say that to the children. Don't speak the truth to the children. They won't understand. Kids understand. 2613 Monterey Avenue, I've lived there all my life. Folks are done. And I've come here before to ask help. Never really seen any. I want to know once again I'm bringing up the fact that the property has had a fire on it. I had a studio which had a lot of original artwork. That's been destroyed. I've gone to the sheriff's department to try to get help from them. Gone to where it was on. The sheriff's department was on Santa Cruz, on the side street. And they keep on changing where they're at. They change from Aptos. They change, they keep on changing. And it's kind of hard if you want to go to the sheriff's department to get help when you have problems like people stealing stuff from you and breaking in your house. Stuff like that. I'm kind of wondering, is there any place, I went to rural legal aid last week and they aren't really helpful. Is there any place, is there a lawyer that's on call to the government or whatever like that or for an average person that doesn't have a lot of money that is having people steal from him and cause problems and harassment and destroy property? Is there a place where an average person from the public can go to actually get representation? I thought you guys did that, but thank you. Yeah, beep, beep, beep, yeah, thank you. I'll get an answer. Okay. Maybe you could just call the cops to call the sheriff's department. Sir, time's up. Thank you. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. Happy New Year. Catherine O'Day speaking on behalf of Save Our Shores. I'm addressing item 37, I believe it is, on the consent agenda, which is opposition to HRC's proposal for an additional needle exchange program while Save Our Shores is strongly in favor of a needle exchange program as an important element of helping both homeless and drug addicts to stop their habit. We believe that should be done by a well-sanctioned medical organization such as the County Board of Health and that that program should possibly expand, but having a community organization wishing to distribute needles that is not a one-to-one exchange is a safety hazard for people who care about walking on our streets, care about walking on our beaches, care about walking on the river levee. We have picked up so many needles resulting from irresponsible discard that we worry constantly about the safety of both our staff and our volunteers. So please oppose the proposal from HRC to increase dramatically the distribution of needles in our community. Thank you so much. Good morning, supervisors. I'm actually here to speak on item number 44, request for proposals for medical care in our county jail. I urge you to really pay attention to this item number. Every couple of years you approve California forensic medical group to do the jail medical care in our local county jail. And I want you to know that it starts there with helping people with addiction issues and actual recidivism, and if people will end up in the prison system eventually. And this corporation, for-profit corporation has multiple lawsuits. There are senators actually investigating them for various issues. And I'm curious why our county has not been tapped to take it back over. They already provide the behavioral services and it would really make sense if the county provided also the medical because those go hand in hand. My time's not, sorry. So I would urge you to really take a look at CFMG as a corporation and also meet with your medical director, your new medical director because the prison system is undertaking a huge undertaking with a methadone program. And that would really be beneficial if we started it at the county level in the county jail system before a person receives a five-year sentence. They could actually get help when they first come into the system. So I really encourage you to follow that request for proposals and take it very serious with Sheriff Hart. We've had multiple deaths that could have been prevented if we didn't use a for-profit corporation. So thank you. Good morning. Before I start, I'd just like to say that when Ralph M. Brown was around, he didn't wish to exclude anybody. It lifts my heart to see you guys here. Consent agenda item 33, the District 3 nomination for the Advisory Commission. I'm a District 3 resident and I really support that nomination. Great choice. Item 37, I oppose the harm reduction coalition's application. It was a wonderful memo that you two wrote. I urge a 5-0 vote on this. The only reason I can think of why anybody wouldn't support this letter in opposition to the harm reduction coalition is that if they didn't read it or the political chits are more important than the community's health. Thank you. Good morning, Becky Steinbrenner. May I first ask because I arrived late were any items such as item 61 pulled from the Consent Agenda this morning? No, they weren't. That's amazing. I cannot do that myself as a citizen and I'm beholden to my county supervisor to do so. Item 61 is not an item that should be on the Consent Agenda. It is the final approval of the Aptos Village Project Phase 2. Consent Agenda items are supposed to be non-controversial supervisor friend. This project is anything but. There has been no public outreach, no communication with the public. I did not receive any communication regarding my request that it be pulled. There's been no process here. There is a serious legal problem clouding this phase of the development and that you have all been made aware of by the owners of the Bayview Hotel Access that you plan to close so that you can give Barry Swenson Builder their free access to their gateway to the project. This is wrong. The Phase 2 traffic improvement plan currently out to bid by County Public Works is a two and a half million dollar improvement project that is meant to mitigate the traffic that you're hoping will come to these tenants of the Aptos Village Project. This is taxpayer money gifted to the developer. The problem with closing this in this access is that it is stated clearly in the 1876 deed that you cannot and you're ignoring that and it will bring you legal action. As you know, Supervisor Leopold, I have seen the communication with you and the owner, you know about this. Supervisor Friend, you know about this and I'm asking you not to approve this project to postpone it and clear up this serious legal matter. Thank you. Hi, Alex Vartan, Live Oak. A brief comment on the vacation rental, short-term rental changes that are being considered. I just think that given that the permits right now are valid for five years, but there is an automatic right to renew them. If you're considering further limiting the permits, I think from a fairness perspective, the people who already have a permit should go back in the hopper with everyone else on the wait list. The neighbors and really the public too who need housing, which is a good reason to limit the permits are the ones who bear the burden of the extra parking requirements and the loss of housing. But to let the people already who have a permit just extend automatically, I think is a little questionable from a fairness perspective. So I think they should go back in the hopper and there should be a random drawing and thank you, appreciate it. Marilyn Garrett, retired teacher. I come here to advocate for health and the well-being of children by alerting people to the dangers of wireless microwave radiation. 30 Wi-Fi access points in this building or antennas on the roof and emitting dangerous radiation. And your job, your responsibility is to see that the public health and well-being is protected. And sadly, I don't see that very much. Becky Steinburner's points about the Aptos-Philip project are very well taken. You're aware of that. The consent agenda items, you have censored the public from being able to address you on these items as of about a year ago. And I saw an email from Rachel Dan basically it was to censor Becky Steinburner and me and any other members of the public who have critiques of what you're doing. Another departure from any, it's less and less democratic process is what I see the public being excluded and by two minute coonerties, setting two minutes instead of the three minutes I've seen here for 20 years since I've been coming to these meetings. Another departure, I looked at this agenda. We have a new chair of the board. What I recall from previous meetings is the chair new chair facilitates the first meeting in the new year. And I am puzzled why you are facilitating this meeting until I don't board team. I've never seen that before. Anyway, we need to stop this three, four G, five G takeover of the public right of way. We need to do it now. Thank you. Good morning supervisors. Welcome back. Happy new year. Damon Bruder. I'm just wanna mention item number 37 on the consent agenda. The opposition of the HRC application I think is very important for our community because we need to maintain oversight and accountability at a public level. We shouldn't have people just doing whatever they feel like without any oversight by the public or the safety of the public in mind. We've taken great strides and people are working really hard to work with the Surin service program that is in place that's run by the county to try and dial it in and make it the best possible for both the addicts and the community. And by allowing the HRC application to go through without an opposition, I think it would be a mistake. It would undermine everything that we've done and it would give away any control that we have for the safety of our children, our people on the beaches. So thank you for your efforts. Just please take that into consideration. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Laurie Negro and I am a co-owner of the Access onto Soquel Drive consent agenda number 61 this morning with the Bayview Hotel. We share 15 feet each, I believe. Anyway, I'm asking this morning that you pull that from the consent agenda for further discussion. I've been meeting with Barry Swinson's brother as well as Jesse Bristow and other members of the Swinson group to try to come up with some sort of solution. As to this point, we haven't. There's also the issue of who owns the railroad crossing. My title company believes that I do. My attorney believes that I do. The RTC believes that they do until that settled it would be a shame for Parade Street to be allowed to go through and my access to be closed for the railroad not to run. And I hope that's not the case because I'd certainly think that would be a shame. So there's just a lot of issues that are unresolved. They should have been resolved by now, but they're not. So I ask that you again pull it and consider further discussion on this matter. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Eric Rodberg. I am a name party to the 2008 Comprehensive Settlement Agreement that ended the litigation over the 2005 LRDP. Today on the consent agenda item 36 you have a joint item with the Santa Cruz City Council and that's a hire and advocate to advocate kind of against the university's unbridled growth plans without any mitigation. I support that. However, I think that the magnitude of the problem is not apparent to most people including probably you as supervisors. The price of housing on campus is truly outrageous. It's not just a little bit more expensive. It's crazy. $9,528 today for a four bedroom apartment. That doesn't include meal plans. And the campus housing west, the proposal which I have the doubt on the back. It's hard to read, but similar pricing. The university claims that the 8,000 additional students that they're going to bring in with the new LRDP they're gonna house them all. That's not possible with this pricing structure. Nowhere in appendix A of the scope of work of Ms. Bostic is this issue addressed and this is key. So I'd like you to revise the scope of work to include the crazy pricing because the problem will never be solved. This is a fantasy. EVC, Kletzer, I challenge her in this at a public meeting. She said, oh, we'll deal with this. I said, do you have a plan? She said, no. So it's fantasy just like the 2005 LRDP. If you really want to address this, you need to address this issue head on. Also, in the scope of work, Ms. Bostic has a list of community groups to engage with. They're heavily weighted towards the measure and proponents. Now, I think that's great to engage those folks, but this is a matter of vital importance to the entire community. So we need to expand that list. Thank you very much. Happy new year. Three things that I wanted to mention. Number 28, a lot of thanks to the CAO's office about setting up a proposal, a workable proposal for a safe intake site for the people for the winter shelter, for Laurel Street. Would ask in it, it says that it's only the registered clients and would ask for anybody who wants to get into the program also. The person would have to give their name and their birthday towards staff to be able to see if there's space, but they wouldn't be a registered client. So they wouldn't be allowed to do that unless you said potential clients too, which would not be just anybody off the street who would be causing problems. They'd actually have to give their names. So it would ask for that little change on it. On number 37, which is about the letter for the harm reduction, I would say that if we're truly trying to keep people safe, then offering the services that staff are suggesting to limit a secondary exchange is fine if the county is actually offering all of the services that people are talking, that the staff are recommending. And on 68, I'm on the County Mental Health Advisory Board with Supervisor Caput and thank you for the South County site for mental health. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, my name's Tim Delaney. I live up on the summit and I'm here to turn in my ballot for the fire tax. And just letting you know, these are the things I care about. First 10 amendments, water rights, property rights, taxes and the electoral college, all right? I'm coming here to tell you all about myself a little bit here as a kid, okay? When adults are not doing the right things, for you as a child, okay? And you have to get out of that situation and people are going to prison for that, okay? That's pretty awful. That's called the situation. That's like a war, okay? The only thing that I had to get out of my situation was American capitalism, those first 10 amendments, okay? The electoral college, things like that. That's how I got out of it, okay? I hear everyone sob story here across the entire country and I'm just telling you, I'm tired of it. I don't want our system of government being taken down by a bunch of people crying and whining like a bunch of little babies, okay? You need to get off off your hind tails, work and take the opportunities that are in front of you, okay? If you wanna wipe it out, then children like myself that were caught in these horrible situations will never be able to get out of it. That's why I'm here today and that's why I'm voting against this tax that's being hurled up against me on the mountains. I'm very lucky that I was able to get out of it and I want that kind of situation to be available to other children all across our country. I don't want American capitalism to be taken down because of the charade that's going on around the country. Thank you very much. Howdy supervisors, Benjamin Cogan. I am on the ballot running for County Supervisor District One. There is a candidate night, tomorrow night at the Aptos Grange 730, who wanted to invite all you guys. Some of us will be there from state, Congress, supervisor and it'd be great to have you guys. I'm opposed to the 5G rollout. I was in Spain for the holidays with the family and they're rolling the 5G out in Spain as well. It's a global phenomena. The radiation is dangerous for the kids. It's dangerous for humans and adults, animals, insects and birds. And they'll have the routers distributed like every six blocks because they need them that close with the infrastructure. I'm also opposed to the regionalization, AMBAG and how they're appointed officials and the decisions affect the policymaking here in our local government. And Bruce McPherson, I know you're part of AMBAG and you're also a supervisor. And that's like two hats. It occurs to me as two hats and would request that you just choose one supervisor or AMBAG would not be affiliated with both since they make policy that affects our local policy. And they also have ties to gender 21 and gender 2030, COGS, Councils of Government, as one gentleman spoke earlier. So we really need to protect and defend our local government and you guys are our representatives. I also stand with Becky on what she said about the Aptos Village Planning Project and to pull that item as well. Anyways, thank you very much for your time. Hope to see you at Candidate Night. Maybe address what I say and maybe add to it and create something new. Yes. Got six seconds. Aptop Scrange, 7.30 Wednesday tomorrow night, 2.55 Marvis to drive Aptos. Hi, my name is Jeannie Dawson. I've been a risk... Sorry ma'am, you may want to just bend the microphone down a little. Okay. Hi, my name is Jeannie Dawson. I've been a resident of Rio del Mar for almost 50 years and of course I've seen many changes. I'm here basically to voice my opinion on the quantity of vacation homes that we currently allow. My own personal opinion, which is probably not shared by a lot, but that vacation homes are basically a commercial venture and they're not compatible to residential environment where we're trying to raise our children and grandchildren. And I just urge you to maybe put it up against a vote to the public to say, how do we want our neighborhoods to be and what we want them to look like? And I'm just concerned that the current direction that we are taking. So I just ask you to reconsider what we're doing with the vacation rentals. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to us? Looks like some folks come forward. Okay. All right. So with no one else to speak, we'll say goodbye to our guests and bring it back for deliberation and action. These are items 17 through 69 on our consent agenda. So first I'll ask, if any board members have anything they'd like to offer? Sure, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have several remarks of what we haven't been met for a month. So there are several items. I want to just have a brief comment on number 27, the housing matters, mobile hygiene. I think this is really meets our concerns about offering services through housing matters. I'm glad that we have the heat money to address this for a few months at least. Hopefully we can see a more permanent resolution here soon. On the number 28, the North County emergency shelter station. I want to thank the CAO for working with employee groups to identify a more suitable location. I trust we will be monitoring that. And this is a visible demonstration, I think of the county working with the city to partner and managing homelessness. On item number 34, the renters choice protections. Thanks to our housing division and housing advisory commission for taking this on. I look forward to the recommendations that are going to be coming in the future. Many of our residents are now just one paycheck away from a serious financial difficulty. And this could mean that rental housing could be made easier and allow families to stabilize their housing needs. Item number 35, thank you chair for the work on this. The last few years have revealed big challenges with PG&E and our power supply. I support keeping all of our options open about how best to serve our customers and keep them safe. So this is a good recommendation from our colleague over in Santa Clara County of Santa City of San Jose. But there's, it's a complicated situation and I don't know the exact answer to it. We'll know that more about that after some court decisions come regarding PG&E. Item number 37, which has been addressed by some of our speakers this morning. I want to thank the chair for collaborating to bring this item today. I know we wrote a letter to the state and I have received probably more emails on this issue than any since I've been on the board of supervisors for seven years. My biggest concern is that HRC's plan could reduce the number of clients who might otherwise take advantage of our county syringe services program staffed by health professionals who can direct clients toward treatment and other intervention. I want to make it clear that I do believe that the syringe exchange program is a critical method to reduce the spread of our disease and I know that there's many in our public that don't understand why we do this in the first place but it's to protect the public health in general. And I'm glad our one for one program takes in more dirty needles than it cleans, than clean ones distributed each year. But the reality is we must bring the services in this county which far exceed the needles that are found here in this county and we need to bring a better balance. So we're protecting the general public as well as those who have drug addiction problems. So I do thank you for that and I would advise anybody who wants to write or their concerns about this. We have received them as I said, but right to the state to address your concerns as we have directed from our responses to the emails we've received. The Cal Housing, item number 50, the CalWorks Housing Support Program amendments. I think that ensuring low income families that they have a program to assist them in keeping their housing or to find new housing is vital to preventing homelessness that we're experiencing to a great degree here. It's also important that the county expects its nonprofit partners to meet and perform its objectives and services for what they provide in our county goals and objectives that we have in this pressing problem. I do have one question that maybe somebody on the staff could answer. Are there, are the navigation services offered by families in transition and housing manners limited to families that have section eight vouchers? And if so, why? And can anybody answer that for me? Good morning, Emily Valley from Human Services. No, they're not limited to families with vouchers. Okay, good. We provide navigation services to all the families in the program. Okay, thank you very much. Item number 54, very controversial one in my district and particularly the Santa Rosa Valley. I wanna thank the gray bears for being willing to provide this service to our community and the public works for bringing the plan forward. I'm a little disappointed in the tone of the staff report but I trust the Department of Public Works and gray bears will work collaboratively to address any challenges that arise as a result providing these services. For those of you who might not be aware of this as was mentioned in the report, there may be a greater energy and infrastructure cost to the county for providing these services for CRV but they really do pale in comparison what the cost could be to the private retailers throughout the Santa Rosa Valley and throughout this county. To have a CRV redemption at the Ben Lohman transfer station will go a long way toward solving what has become a big problem county wide and especially in the fifth district but statewide as well which, but my district we lost all CRV at three locations in the Santa Rosa Valley. With that in mind as I reviewed the one strategic plan element identified in the report, I would also add that this also addresses our strategic initiatives to support local businesses, community vitality and customer experience. There's one additional phrase I'd like to add to the recommended action is just to add as a six month pilot at the end of the sentence on the number one recommended actions because this is a six month pilot program and wanna see how it works and how we can improve it if need be. So I would request that we add that to the end of the recommended actions and number one. Item number 57 on storm repairs. We are doing the best we can and the public works department is to be commended for the work it has done under some very difficult situations. As we know, as you might have read in a recent press release from the county in 2017 storms, this county requested extensions of for 84 projects eligible for $42 million. 40 of these projects have been completed in total in that 2017 storm, this county experienced more than $140 million in damages to our roads. We are trying to extend that so the Federal Highway Administration does hear our requests and I'm glad to hear or see and hear just recently that Congress with the bill from Congressman John Garamendi passed that measure and so we have an extension that will probably help us in 30 of those projects that I mentioned. That was a critical move. We should thank Congress members, Panetta and Eshoo who represent Santa Cruz County for their support of this important measure for our county. I'm almost, I'm getting there. On item number 63, the ecology action contract. I want to commend the Human Health Services Agency and the public works for collaborating with one of the most innovative nonprofits in California now in its 50th year. This plan identifies gaps in the current bike and pedestrian transportation infrastructure to inform where we should and prioritize our funding. This is going to be a very, very important issue in our whole transportation plan in Santa Cruz County. On item number 64, I'm really happy to see that the Boulder Creek Library, we're going to have bids for that. The Felton Library is going to have its ribbon cutting next month sometime. This will be the construction on the Boulder Creek Library will start soon thereafter so I'm very, very happy to see that. And finally on the correspondence which don't usually address but I want to thank the commission on the environment for its letter regarding the public power safety power shutoffs. The advice regarding the resources to make our county more resilient are spot on and thank you for the commission. I really appreciate mentioning the recently launched $25 million on an interruptible power supply fund established by Monterey Bay Community Power that will have outreach to some more rural communities. It's going to be very important in what we do in the future and we hope we never have another power shutoff but we need to really address it as quickly ahead of time. So I thank you for your patience and your time. That's all I have. Okay, Supervisor Caput. Thank you. Item 38 and 39, I'd like to welcome Steve George, a reappointment and Violet Lucas to the Pajaro Valley Public Cemetery. Is your microphone on? Could you check? Yes it is. Maybe I'm not speaking to it. There you go. That's better. Thank you. Okay, yeah. So that's about it. That's it. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Good morning, Chair. There's a couple of items that I just want to comment on. On item number 28, the location of the North County Emergency Shuttle Station. I appreciate the work that the CAO's office and our personnel office has done to identify a site after hearing concerns. I want to ask that you continue to work with our employee organizations to make sure that this site works well. I think it's a good opportunity but we want to make sure that everyone around the county building feels safe. On item number 34, this is a very interesting idea about the renter's choice policy, about lowering financial barriers for renting in an apartment. I would like that as part of the work with the Housing Advisory Commission to just reach out to the realtors. I don't own property. I don't know what the issues are but it'd be nice to get their perspective to make sure that we're not creating something that won't be honored here in Santa Cruz County. On item number 35, I appreciate my colleague, Supervisor Coonerty, for bringing this resolution in support of transforming Pacific Gas and Electric into a private customer-owned utility. This is part of a regional effort and we have to do something to change the dynamic with this investor-owned utility who's not representing the interest of the public. On item 36, I'm glad to see this is moving forward. The university is moving forward so we need to move forward to make sure that we have the staff in place and the strategy in place to make sure that university growth doesn't overwhelm our community and that the right mitigations are in place if the development happens. On item number 37, which is the letter opposing the application from the Harm Reduction Coalition, this is one that I took a look at very closely, read a lot of emails from people. Seems clear to me that public health is not something that's done to a community, it's something that's done with the community. And it's very clear to me that the Harm Reduction Coalition has not done the work, the community outreach to build trust within the community in order to provide these services. Therefore, I'm gonna sign on with this letter. The only fault that I would point out with this is that I don't believe that the county program is a robust program. We did add a small amount of hours to it in December, but I think that we could better meet the needs of the community and thus remove the need for volunteers to even be out there if we had a better, stronger program. But I don't think that you can do public health in a way that works against people's interests. You have to work with people. On item number 40, I wanna thank the Department of Health Services and our tobacco cessation efforts about this update, about the ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The work that has gone on with other jurisdictions is very strong. And we need to reduce the use of flavored tobacco as a way of encouraging kids to start using tobacco. And I think the action that the board took was good. And I'm glad to see other jurisdictions joining in with us. On item number 50, which is adding almost $1.4 million to families in transition to help with housing services for families. This is greatly needed in our community. And I appreciate the work of our staff in order to make it happen. And I know it will help out many people in our community and particularly families. And there's a great need out there. On item number 55 and 56, I appreciate the work of our public work staff to address work on Spanish Ranch Road and Highland Way. These are both critical roads for people who live up in the summit. I also appreciate the efforts that public works has done to try to meet needs with the limited resources that we have up in the summit area. We need to keep on doing that. We need a better plan. And I will continue to work towards making sure that we have funding for our roads and our rural areas. On item number 57, we're deferring this item, but I wanna acknowledge the work of our public works director, Matt Machado and my colleagues who went to Washington, D.C. to lobby FHWA to extend the request that we had like they have done in every other disaster and in part because of the long time it takes to get through the federal permitting process. If we were to lose this funds over pettiness because California didn't vote for the president, we would be catastrophic to our road system program. So I really appreciate the work that everyone did to help make this happen. And Santa Cruz County roads will be in better shape because of it. Also, I wanna thank the members of the board who are on the Monterey Bay Air Resources District for item number 62, which is revenue to help with signal prioritization on SoCal Drive. I think that will really help with some of the changes that we wanna see in place there. And I think that's it. All right, Supervisor Friend. Good morning, Chair. Thank you. I just had a couple of brief items on, Item 35, I appreciate you bringing this item forward. Supervisor Coonerty and I serve on this regional group. This is regarding PG&E and it really does need a stronger look into turning it into something other than it currently is. On item 57, I appreciate the comments of Supervisor Leopold regarding FHWA. A significant amount, in my opinion, of the things should go to Director Matt Machado for his work. We did travel to D.C. Actually, a couple of times in Sacramento, this has been quite a heavy lift. 100% of the delay was due to federal process and 100% of the right reason we haven't been able to build was because they weren't giving the extensions, but at least as of last week, we've received the extensions and we're ready now to move to construction on essential areas in my district, Valencia, Trial Colts, and a number of other locations that, but for the federal delay, we would already be under construction and people are desperately needing those areas to be fixed and now we can move toward construction, so I appreciate the work of public works. I don't think people recognize how much work is done behind the scenes on this and how much process there is from pre-engineering design, environmental, and more. There's a lot of work that has to go through the federal process and it's unfortunate that they delayed basically by a year when all of a sudden done this construction from being able to happen. On item 60, this is a cooperative agreement between the city of Capitola and the county of Santa Cruz for storm drain maintenance and flood control improvements. This is a long time coming and I just wanted to thank, again, public works for their work on this because we needed to have clarity on this between the city and the county and this is actually going to really help us moving forward on that clarity. It's something they've been asking for. That's it. Chair, I just also wanted to take the opportunity to remind the board and the public that this Saturday at 10 o'clock, January 18th, we're going to be opening Chanticleer Park and Leo's Haven. This is really a community project. It might be located in the first district, but it's really a park for everyone in Santa Cruz County. Everyone in Santa Cruz County has contributed towards it and it's also going to feature a speaker, Haran Gurma, who is the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School. And she's going to be talking about inclusivity and breaking down barriers so people can work together and that's what that park is all about. So 10 o'clock on Saturday, the 18th. Right. And just a couple of comments for myself. I'm number 35 PG&E. I think it's been mentioned. We have a broken system right now. We need to change the governance and the model to better align incentives between our power and grid supplier and our communities. So we'll be joining a lot of other communities in that conversation. I'm number 36, which is the hiring of an advocate jointly with the city around university growth. I mean, the reality is we are in a housing crisis now. If UCSC adds 10,000 more students plus faculty and staff, there is no policy that we can implement to help working families and other people continue to live in this community. So it's incredibly important that we make our voice heard to reduce the impacts of university growth. I'm number 37, which is the opposition to the HRC's application for syringe services. I just want to take a moment and thank the community. People have been working hard to spread the word and to make sure their voice is heard at the local level and let's hope it's heard at the state level. But your advocacy made a really big difference with not only us, but with police chiefs and other elected officials. And hopefully it'll make a big difference with the state. On item number 43, which is the auto theft grant funding to do auto theft prevention, anything we can do to reduce crime in our communities and especially something that can be as impactful as having your car stolen or broken into is a big opportunity and I appreciate this collaboration among law enforcement agencies. Item number 47, which is a report on the flavor tobacco ban. We've seen these companies use this as a way to hook young people with their products and I'm really glad that the board with the cities was able to move forward to ban that and to hopefully reduce that impact. Finally, item number 50, which is the families and transition funding. I think this board has taken now several really concrete and important steps to reduce families homelessness in our communities. We can't have that kind of trauma visited upon the children of our community and I think this funding with this housing navigation could make a real big difference in reducing the number of families experiencing homelessness in our community and I appreciate the staff's effort to do this work. So with that, I'd entertain a motion. I move the consent agenda as amended. So we got a motion by Leopold and a second by McPherson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, that passes unanimously. We are now just in time for our 10 o'clock scheduled item which is a public hearing to consider County Service Area 48 proposed assessment rate for fiscal year 2020 and 2021. Direct the elections department to tabulate the submitted ballots. Direct general services to return on January 28, 2020 for certification of the ballot results and take related actions as outlined in a memorandum of the Director of General Services. So I'm now going to open the public hearing and I think we have our Director of General Services here to make a brief presentation. Thank you, Board. Michael Beaton, Director of General Services. Is your microphone on? Yes, perfect. I'll get a little bit closer. Perfect. On October 22nd, the Board approved a Proposition 218 ballot measure for the consideration of a assessment for the CSA 48 district. County Service CSA 48 includes the communities of Bonnie Dune, Davenport, Loma Prieta, Corleitas, Los Cumbres, and the wider South Skyline area. County Fire provides a range of fire suppression protection, prevention, and other fire and emergency related services to properties within these areas. In order to proceed with the benefit assessment process under Prop 218, requires a public hearing which is set for today to take testimony, request ballots, and close the public testimony portion of the hearing. Following the close of today's hearing, election staff will begin the tabulations of votes received, and we'll report back on January 28th, 2020, with the tabulation and certification of ballot results. In today's audience, we have County Fire staff, as well as representatives of SCI and elections staff. SCI is available for any member that wishes to cast a replacement ballot. So with that in conclusion, we are here to conduct a public hearing to consider all objections or protests, if any, on the proposed benefit assessment for fire protection services within CSA 48. Request submittal of ballots to be submitted to the clerk in the elections office for CSA 48 for 2020-21 assessments. And then close the public testimony portion of the public hearing and continue the public hearing to January 28th to allow for the tabulation and certification of ballot results. And again, staff are here available for any questions. Right. Now is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about this item, unless you've already spoken to us during the public comment period of the meeting. Hello. My name is Steve Holman. I lived in Bonnydoin for 43 years, and I've spoken to your board previously about my concerns regarding this election. I'm not going to go over all the items, but I do have two letters to submit to the clerk today that I brought with me. One thing I do want to bring to your attention is that the county through the general services department and Cal Fire running county fire as contractors have spent $158,000 on studies and strategies and polling and balloting to try to force feed us something that we really don't want. Thank you very much. Thank you. And sir, you already spoke to this item today. I thought I had to get another chance. No, no, we only do once. You can either speak one or the other. I appreciate it. No, we're not going to we have a rule especially after what I went through in life. It would be great. Just another minute. We're not going to have we're not going to have different rules for different people. So you're saying that I have to accept a deadbeat father as president or I wouldn't go back to women, right? I have an opinion that you've already had your time to speak. And so now that's great. I understand people turn me under the bus as a kid. And I appreciate chamber. Thank you. Next speaker. I'm Marina Sams Wiley. I live off on Traving Road. My concern about all of this measure G was passed for a multitude of reasons for 5.75 million annually and that the money was used to pay for employee pensions and other general things when it was supposed to be used for fire for the emergency response system, paramedics, emergency preparedness. That money needs to come to us. We're paying for it. Pay for it on our taxes. Want you to remove all the restriction and permit fees for and give homeowners a rebate incentive to remove all the blue gum, eucalyptus, all eucalyptus, acacia, pompous grass, which fire department calls pompous grass, torch plant because it'll just burn high oils makes a create problem. And as dictated by CDF fire department and stop because to me it's double dipping already paying once now you're asking us to pay again. This money will pay for my groceries and then don't use the and give the homeowners two to three years to take them out because when David Tree comes in they only trim off the top part so they have a cash cow to come back every two or three years to keep trimming the top of the eucalyptus. When the poles and the electrical lines were put in everything was clear. People planted plants or the blue gums took over and the creating a mess. Had the caltrans taken out all of the eucalyptus all stuff bare to the ground eight feet off the freeway my home would have been lost in the traving fires and all my neighbors. It's coming that the insurance companies are going to be cancelling policies for fire hazards. It came to my neighbor Lindsay Booker that they were going to cancel his policy if he didn't remove the eucalyptus trees because he was told to and had to he removed enough trees that he didn't lose his house. So these are things that the should be done to care to cover all of this and giving the employed the homeowners the opportunity or the blessing to take the trees down without having to go through that monstrosity of a permit process which cost my home. I tried to take them out but I was told oh no you need a tree removal not just land clearing which cost me my house my dogs my everything fortunately I wasn't I was over the hill still it's a process that all of you can fix by making it easier to remove the hazardous materials thank you thank you speaker Hi I'm Nancy Montgomery I live on the summit off of Adams Road and I'm here first of all to thank the firemen for the job they do I did vote against this parcel tax I'm really quite upset about it we have two parcels on the bottom my home and it was assessed $184 and 95 cents for this parcel tax and we have a separate parcel and it has been assessed $39 and 95 cents my husband and I got one parcel to vote on when they combine the parcels we got one vote and between us for two properties that we own and this tax is going to be over $200 a year and it's going to go up and what I'm opposing is the amount of the tax which was not fair and also the process there was supposed to be a public hearing I think in November and I came it was cancelled we didn't have any chance to talk to you or anybody we got to go today and the votes do today so I think that was a violation of our voting rights thank you and again this is not about our firemen because they're wonderful but it's about the person in the community with the tax some right to vote and we've been violated thank you good morning I've written you an extensive message about this pointing out several legal concerns that you seriously need to address before you take any action and I protest this proposed benefit assessment for the reasons that your speakers before me have stated and also those that I have put in my email to you I am concerned that the letter of recommendation from the fire department advisory commission that I believe caused you to have confidence to move forward with this was a flawed process Mr. Carey Pico the district 2 representative on the fire department advisory commission does not live in the CSA-48 boundaries he therefore legally cannot make any recommendation of support for attacks in the CSA-48 in my email I gave you the case number in which this was supported by Superior Court an issue like this Judge Paul Burdick sided with the resident in San Lorenzo Valley that required Fierson's name to be removed as a supporter of a tax measure that does not affect him he does not live in the district you have to carry that through on this also Commissioner Lehman was not even at the meeting but yet he was shown to vote in support of it that has since been corrected in the online minutes illegally by the secretary you can't just change the minutes when it is pointed out that something isn't right this process has been flawed all along there's been changes to the website the quality of information after the votes went out the ballots went out and probably after people already voted there's no way to really understand the calculations and property owners who have partial acreage were taxed for the full acreage rounding up always rounding up even if it's 0.1 0.4 acres it's rounded up to the nearest whole number this makes a huge difference if you're being taxed commercially at a rate of over $600 an acre in my email I pointed out examples of that of county owned property and the taxpayers will pay handsomely if this is passed because of this practice SCI has chosen to take of always rounding up acreage the process has been confusing and vague and not transparent just this morning I forwarded an email to you in response to a question of CAO that I posed comparing my assessment with parcels in my neighborhood we're in there may I have one more minute please we're not going to have people at different times we all got your email please deny this it is an unjust and illegal process and you need to vote in 172 funds $18 million is there thank you unjust illegal process I think Becky should have more time but you don't want to hear these things so you censor her she's one of the most well researched astute critiques of what's going on with our taxpayer money this should be voted down and I wish this board would look at what is equitable and just and vote accordingly I'm very disturbed by the actions of this board including with this item I urge a no vote on it sir I'd also like to speak to us seeing none I'll close public comment I'm going to ask whether there's anyone who would like to turn in any remaining ballots sir so any remaining ballots please you can turn them in right here sir did you want to speak to this item yes okay so you have three I'll reopen public comment and this will be our final speaker and I didn't send in any limited thing for you to read but there is an outstanding action by this board that's about 135 years old which directly pertains to far protection and that is a surfacing and establishment of a road which is particularly summer road going on the north part of the brim of the county and if that road had been built 135 years ago it would have been vastly made and facilitated fighting of the recent fires and known all the 60 or 100 fire houses that were burned would be in possibility of changing and being saved instead the fire trucks had to come up there and wait up to half an hour to get by the one lane road and it had to go very very slow too even as your personal cars will have to go very slow to this very day and like two miles an hour depot holes it's something you have already acted on and it should be put into effect and it's compartmental analysis into fire protection is inappropriate as being so much in arrears in correcting the problem that you've already decided to fix and it's been brought up several times in the courts and they ruled in favor and against the county in their lack of making the improvements that they have already approved thank you that now closes public comments I'll ask once again if there's anyone who has a ballot they'd like to submit this is your opportunity all right I'm now going to close public testimony and public hearing and bring it back to the board for action well is there any action for us to take other than waiting for the ballots to come in you have to direct the elections department to tabulate the submitted ballots and continue the public hearing to January 28, 2020 to receive certification of the ballot results so moved motion and we have a second all those in favor please say aye opposed that passes unanimously thank you very much we're now going to move to item number seven which is a public hearing to consider a resolution approving amendments to the unified fee schedule the UFS as outlined in a memorandum of the CAO do we have any staff to present or just ask questions okay maybe I'll now ask if members of the public would like to speak to us about this item please come forward I'm sorry I had some someone speaking can you please repeat I think this is the vacation rental this is item number seven this is approving amendments to the unified fee schedule oh yes I do have something to say about that thank you I have concerns with the fees that are charged for members of the public to appeal items to various plan commission and to your board I also I feel they're too high I feel they're unreasonable and I feel it is they're nothing but a deterrent to the members of the public who want to take an exception to harsh or improper actions I also feel that we need to reduce the fees for most of our permitting processes in order to allow people to build affordable housing in this county thank you thank you that concludes public comment I'll bring it back to the board for deliberation and action these are mostly modest changes to our fee schedule some of which are required by state law I would move approval of all the recommended actions motion by Leopold second by friend all those in favor say aye that passes unanimously item 8 is to consider a report on the recently enacted state laws related to housing including information about compliance with permit streamlining options and necessary code amendments and take related actions as outlined in a memorandum of the planning director good afternoon chair committee members of the board my name is Stephanie Hansen principal planner in the planning department with me today is Daisy Allen senior planner in our group as you know California is in a housing crisis and the state legislature has taken upon itself for several years running to provide new legislation both the sustainability group and the housing division in our department are looking closely at a series of laws that were passed late last year and went into effect early this year and Daisy has prepared a presentation summary of this and she's going to go over those with some special attention to some of the bills such as SB 330 that are of particular importance thank you okay so thank you very much I apologize in advance I do have a cold the purpose of today's presentation Stephanie said is to review recent housing legislation specifically that impacts land use policy and development review here at the county I'll discuss the housing crisis and provide a little bit of context about where the bills are coming from and then I'll provide an overview of the legislation and just to let you know we gave a similar report to the planning commission at their meeting last week do I need the keyboard use the keyboard alright I know California is facing a housing crisis this is a crisis both of supply and of affordability housing production has fallen short of accommodating population and job growth most new housing that is produced these days is unaffordable for many existing residents residents looking for housing may be forced to choose between spending a high percentage of their income on rent and commuting long distances to work which impacts quality of life, transportation economy in some cases residents may have to settle for living in unpermitted or substandard housing and in some cases may be forced into homelessness ultimately in California these trends have begun to lead to out migration from the state so state lawmakers have responded to this crisis over the past few years with bills aimed at removing barriers to housing production and encouraging the production of accessory dwelling units as well as multi-family housing in California the legislature is also focused on protecting existing residents from rising housing costs as well as providing housing for specific populations such as low income residents agricultural employees and those needing supportive housing the 2019 budget included a $1.75 billion investment in housing supply policy work and then also a $1 billion investment in addressing solutions to homelessness the 2019 legislative cycle which concluded October 13th produced a new package of housing bills that went into effect January 1st and just last week as you most likely know the governor released a proposed 2021 state budget with continued focus on housing and homelessness so we expect to see more on these topics okay so I'll now provide a brief overview of the state housing laws that are presented in the memo attachment A in your packet is a table summarizing these laws as well so the report covers state laws as I mentioned that directly impact county land use regulations and procedures it does not cover the new state laws on other housing topics such as homelessness landlord tenant rules 2019 building code housing finance and other state housing programs although there's a lot of sites you can go to to find that information so first regarding housing development streamlining there are two recent bills that provide for streamlining review process for housing projects one is SB 35 which actually went into effect in 2018 and the other is SB 330 which just went into effect this year so SB 35 provides a streamlined review process where eligible multifamily and mixed use projects are reviewed for compliance with the county's objective planning and zoning standards according to the timeline that's presented on this slide and then after that review is complete applicants move forward with obtaining building permits so these projects that are eligible for this process do skip the usual discretionary review process as well as CEQA review in Santa Cruz County no project applicants have yet requested SB 35 streamlining and actually there's only been two projects statewide so far however this year the Department of Housing and Community Development HCD did come out with a guide to help local jurisdictions and developers navigate the SB 35 process so we may see more projects coming in staff has prepared an SB 35 guide procedures and an application form for applicants so those are attachments B and C of your packet and the county's zoning code as well as our general plan to determine which standards are objective and would be reviewed for SB 35 projects so those lists are provided as attachment D and E in your packet and those lists will be updated periodically as we continue to make updates to our county code and general plan and you'll note that SB 35 projects are prohibited from being reviewed in public hearings however the law does allow for contractors to comment on projects only regarding compliance with objective standards so with that in mind staff's plan for handling these projects if they do come in is to bring them to the zoning administrator planning commissioner board whichever level they would usually go to for review on the consent calendar and then you'd have the option of pulling those items from consent if you'd like to comment on objective standards compliance the planning commission was receptive to this idea and they also provided feedback to some kind of public noticing for SB 35 projects that would have usually required public notice this might take the form of just a notice on the site itself or maybe some kind of informational notice to neighbors depending on the scope of the project okay so then regarding SB 330 this is also known as the housing crisis act it's went into effect January 1st of this year and it is a five year bill that sunsets January 1st 2025 in comparison to SB 35 which offers a ministerial review or building permit process for projects SB 330 does not offer that but it offers various streamlining provisions within the discretionary and CEQA review process for eligible projects there's actually two different parts of the bill that do different things so first on this slide I'm presenting the part of the bill that makes temporary changes to the state housing accountability act as well as the permit streamlining act housing development projects have an option to participate in a new optional preliminary application process and if they do the housing counties standards and fees that are applied to that project are vested or frozen on the date that the applicant submits that application provided that the applicant follows a specified timeline for submittal of their project materials so it requires some timelines for both the county as well as the applicant it also makes changes to the discretionary application process for all housing development projects that's related to historic resources determination the total number of hearings allowed project approval after EIR certification as well as legal options for emergency shelter and low income housing projects and I was going to mention that we've also prepared a pre application form for SB 330 as required by state law those are included in your packet and then we also have an internal planning department committee we expect projects to be going through this process so we will be guiding applicants and planners and refining our project especially our process especially as we get more guidance from HCD the other part of SB 330 which confusingly is known as the housing crisis act is the establishment of a new section of government code this act this section of the code only applies within unincorporated Santa Cruz county in certain affected areas that are shown in blue on this map so these are areas that are census designated places that are wholly contained within census designated urbanized areas it's a very strict definition in the census that's being used for this law so that it ends up applying to Paradise Park, Paso Tiempo Live Oak and Amnesty so within these areas over the next five years the act does not allow any change in general plan designation zoning or development standards that would result in fewer housing units being able to be constructed on a parcel unless the housing potential is concurrently increased on another parcel the rule applies to individual projects as they come in as well as application of policy and regulations to these parcels we cannot impose moratorium or restriction on housing development within these areas this does impact our implementation of the growth goal so we cannot implement the growth goal limit on housing permits within these affected areas while the temporary building permit is in place other aspects of measure J that are unrelated to limiting building permits would still apply in recent years the number of building permits for new housing units has not come close to the county's growth goal so it's not expected that this provision of SB 330 would immediately impact the county's volume of permits that we see coming in for new housing however we will still be tracking building permit issuance in these affected areas we cannot impose or enforce non-objective design standards that are established after January 1st of this year so that would impact our new design guidelines that we're working on the general plan update that we're working on over the next couple of years as well as non-objective county code standards however it's important to remember that SB 330 is only a five-year bill so these non-objective standards would apply in these areas after the five years finally we cannot allow demolition of residential units unless at least as many units are going to be replaced and then regarding accessory dwelling units there were six new bills on accessory dwelling units this year that served to further encourage and streamline ADU construction building on previous bills that went into effect at the state level in 2017 and 2018 the provisions of AB 881 AB 68 SB 13 and AB 587 are incorporated in the proposed ordinance that was recommended by the Planning Commission and is scheduled to be reviewed by your board on January 28th I'd be happy to answer questions about these but I'm not planning to present further on these until that meeting we have prepared a worksheet summarizing these bills which we have available to the public and it's provided as attachment I in your packet regarding density bonus law AB 1763 allows further density and concessions for 100% affordable projects for these affordable projects the law now allows four rather than three incentives or concessions and for any project that is within a half mile of an existing or planned major transit stop which are the dots both orange and blue that are indicated on this map the law allows a height of three stories and no maximum density and we will be coming before your board with an ordinance modifying the county code to align with this law shortly and then regarding agricultural employee housing building on AB 571 from 2017 new bill AB 1783 further clarifies the rules and regulations regarding agricultural employee housing creates a streamlined review process and includes this type of housing within the definition of employee housing with associated tenants rights the county's agricultural employee housing ordinance which your board just passed in December was written to be in alignment with the state law so we are we are all good there regarding permanent supportive housing per AB 2162 which went into effect in 2019 the state now allows supportive housing by right in multifamily and mixed use zones if the project meets certain criteria SB 744 which went into effect this year further clarifies the allowances for supportive housing that were in 2162 and then SB 450 is a five year bill that allows conversion of motels to supportive or transitional housing without CEQA review staff is investigating options to update the code to better define supportive and transitional housing and to explicitly allow supportive housing by right in multifamily and mixed use zones as is mandated by AB 2162 so you may be seeing an ordinance on that as well regarding large family daycare SB 234 revises statutes to require jurisdictions to treat large family daycare homes as residential use and we will be preparing an ordinance updating the county code accordingly and then finally there have been a number of bills over the last few legislative cycles regarding housing element compliance and reporting that we wanted to discuss with you the Santa Cruz County housing element is updated every eight years the current housing element cycle is set to 2022 in the graph on this slide the orange bars represent the county's housing production goals that were established based on our regional housing needs allocation or RINA and the gray bars represent the actual housing production this is as of April 2019 which was our last report to HCD the county is behind on meeting RINA goals for the current cycle we should be more than halfway to our goal at this point and as you can see from the graph we're behind in all income categories except moderate income units up until now this lack of housing production to meet RINA goals was not tied to any legal requirements for the county the county's only requirement related to RINA was to identify sufficient vacant and underbuilt sites in the housing element that could physically accommodate the amount of housing required in the RINA however the next update of our housing element in 2023 the county will be required to take a closer look at these potential sites for housing development our inventory of sites to meet the RINA may only include sites with a realistic demonstrated potential to be developed during the eight year housing cycle sites that are identified in the housing element and are not developed in one or two housing cycles are not allowed to be used again in subsequent housing elements with certain exceptions so the housing element must identify sites by income category and if any site is developed at a lower density or a lower income category then what is listed in the housing element an alternative site must be fully entitled for those housing units within 180 days the next housing element must also include policies and implementation measures specifically related to affordability of ADUs staff feels that the county is meeting this requirement already with the housing program and my house my home program but there may be other opportunities there and then recent bills also impact the county's annual progress report that was required to be submitted every April to HCD starting last year this report included more detailed housing information to enable HCD to start tracking provisions such as entitlement and building permits by income level we must also track specific information related to the county's surplus lands and then HCD has been given more funding and tools to hold cities and counties accountable if we fail to meet RENA requirements HCD has also been tasked with creating a digitized public inventory of sites that are suitable for residential development which they will be synthesizing from our annual reports as well as inventory of state surplus lands and that concludes my presentation great I'll ask if anyone has any questions Mr. Friend I don't have any questions as much as I just want to compliment this remarkable presentation this is actually one of the most informative presentations I've received on housing I really enjoyed reading the presentation I feel like it's something that really does help clarify what's going on in the state and I want to commend all the people in the housing division that worked on this because we get a lot of questions as to why we're doing things as you can imagine in Santa Cruz County people aren't always comfortable with change or growth when it comes to housing but I think that having the understanding of what's being required from the state is an important component I thought you all did a very good job of doing that I just wanted to compliment you on it, thank you Mr. President Leopold thank you for the presentation it is very helpful to have all this information in one place these are some complicated bills it has a history 30 it has a lot of different elements to it I'm sure there will be litigation that happens from it as communities seek to interpret how they are responding to it what I generally feel as though the county has been moving in the right direction so we're not behind the curve on these pieces we seem to be moving in concert I like to keep the local control as much as possible and so to the extent that we are thinking about these elements and actually approving projects that will go a long way to making sure that we control our destiny instead of letting the state control I did have questions about two bills AB 1763 which is about the plan transit stops the plan transit stops I these might be in the ambag report but my colleague Supervisor McPherson could help me out that we're not close to having 15 minutes level of service at anything soon we would take a great influx of resources for us to be able to get to that level as far as I know there's really only one street in all of Santa Cruz County that runs in a 15 minute timeline and that's Bay Street in the city of Santa Cruz heading up to the university so I'm just trying to get a sense of although it's planned it doesn't appear to be on the horizon so how does that all work if it's aspirational but not realistic in the short term right and various different bills reference different high quality transit stops major transit stops they define these terms in different ways you may have noticed over the years this particular bill 1763 allows for 100% affordable projects to be built up to three stories and without any parking within a half mile of either existing or planned transit stops as specifically defined in the law and so that is what we've mapped here so within the unincorporated county those are certain stops that are along Soquel Drive yeah I know that's the 71 and as I say it's aspirational I don't know I think the service there is good now we would consider it good I think it's a half hour but to get to 15 minutes would take a lot more resources so I'm just yeah and it's not based on the current conditions or the whatever resources would take to get there it's just based on what's in the ambag goals for their 2040 report one of the things that has been talked about is looking at our major transit corridors where we're where we're looking to place increased density and a three-story building is what we've talked about as part of the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan if we could we put into our code that requirements that project like this have to provide bus passes to the residents you know I would we are actually looking at addressing some of these issues in the sustainability update and the reason is that there needs to be a very strong connection between transportation and use the county has an existing transit demand ordinance that we really haven't implemented well so we're going to kind of raise that in importance as we're looking at other transportation improvements and there would be several options in there for new developments to have to provide a transportation demanding plan on how they're going to address their transportation impacts would be one of the possible solutions I'm not looking to add additional costs but if you build a project with no parking spaces along a major transit corridor we want to make sure that people have that can actually use the transit that's right and so I would want to make sure that we were able to do that I look forward to that discussion and on SB 450 which is sort of the transitioning of these hotels motels whatever hostels into into supportive housing we've taken some part of that with recently in terms of taking a look at the some of those motels what do we call that permanent permanent room housing permanent room housing permanent room housing permanent room housing is that enough or do we need to do more I don't know that we need to do more I don't think we need to change our code because this is a temporary kind of crisis related bill and it simply exempts certain types of projects from Sequa so it just impacts our process on certain types of projects but I don't believe we need to actually change our code and with this supersede the coastal commission and we did the PRH that's an interesting question on pretty much all of these bills as far as I'm aware the coastal act supersedes state law kind of run up against each other but being in the coastal zone allows you some freedoms to meet the coastal act and address these things in a different way which you'll see in the ADU ordinance coming before you at your next meeting I appreciate that the information this is a board report that I will keep printed out because it's very useful to as a resource so thank you Supervisor Oak Pearson I want to thank you for your understandable summary of these 46 pages as was commented by colleagues this is an excellent overview of what we face and my major concern in all of this is the erosion of land use planning in planning I know the state has identified housing as its major issue to go after but planning is land use planning is probably the biggest issue that we have to face year in and year out every year from what I see that we would need we just did some issues we've addressed ADUs and density bonus but it looks like we're going to need issues in particular that's correct summary I mean does it just mean more in general yeah in summary it's less control here at the county level and the growth control issue really doesn't affect Santa Cruz County yeah I'm generalizing but I'm just yeah in terms of limiting our issuance of housing permits within affected areas per SB 330 we haven't come close to our growth goal for the past number of years okay I share the concern of my colleague Supervisor Leopold about the transit stops because realistically where we are and some of us are on the metro board it's going to be the metro board it's going to have to provide that service and if they don't have the money to do it they're going to let us know how we can accomplish that I just I just was looking at this Public Policy Institute of California a very highly regarded research firm in California and it says the governor signed the 18 bills in 2019 and I know that it looks like more to come but just to show that Santa Cruz County is not alone in this concern it says that housing is especially unaffordable in coastal areas where two thirds of Californians live so we're right in the middle of it and California is going to count on all 58 counties to address this just looking at this it says that California needs an average of 180,000 new units every year but we're going in the state the wrong way the numbers in 2018 were 104,000 residential permits and 95,000 are projected for 2019 so it's going to be really nervous I'm just wondering if we're going to have the staff in the planning department to accommodate the rush if it does come I guess we're just going to have to wait and find out but that's a big concern to me our service to the public in general but the planning department hasn't been historically known and especially in the years of past to get things done quickly and I'm just wondering there's some timelines on this I'm just concerned if realistically we can meet the goals that the state is putting upon us it's a big concern of mine and I just really do appreciate you're giving us this outline we're going to be discussing it further I know we're going to be discussing it for a long time but I think this is the most critical issue we're going to be facing because it has such an impact on everything else from transportation to water and so forth down the line I'm just concerned about if we have enough people to accommodate this and just if realistically we're going to be able to meet it we're going to have to find out that in the next particularly five years I guess thank you Supervisor Caput thank you for all your work we're talking about affordability and I know we need a mix there's moderate income above moderate income and then there's low and very low income above moderate income that requirement for that family unit what is that right now about 150 or 150,000 or more right I'm not sure yeah sorry we don't have those numbers in front of us it's quite high though yes it's quite high market rate most people that would be unaffordable but I understand we do need to have a mix and you don't have the figures for very low income or low income but I would imagine they'd be probably down at I'm guessing about probably for working families and all that probably about 50 or 60,000 a year yeah where do the teachers and newly hired police and fire where do they fit into this being able to afford housing very good question and of course the state is doing what they can to try to put pressure on not only affordability and providing certain amounts of affordability but on the other things that make housing expensive and that's what you're seeing in these bills there are certain efforts that really try to address workforce housing and of course and it's the other part is ag employee housing at maybe a lower income level so it's really these bills are trying to address these things across the board because that is an issue and as you've heard from the school district when we were doing the ag employee housing ordinances school districts can't afford to hire the teachers that they need to serve their community so this is where these bills are trying to make some inroads there thank you so yeah I just want to add my thanks it was extremely helpful it's what we're looking for it'll be interesting to see how much the legislature sort of iterates on these or are they just going to keep trying entirely new things or are we going to adjust and change and respond to the markets as they change the timeline for the daycare compliance what's the how long until we bring our code into compliance with that well the state law went into effect January 1st so that's in effect and we will be bringing an ordinance to officially bring our code into alignment with the state law as soon as we can within the first quarter of 2020 is what we anticipate okay great is there any member of the public would like to speak to us about these items thank you for your report I'd love a copy of the summary you did because it sounds quite complicated whenever I see team lining options I think it's like for big development typically this morning as I was getting ready to come to the meeting I see it refers to the home housing crisis act there was a report about moms for housing in Oakland who had occupied an unoccupied home that had been occupied for a long time that big investors had bought up to you know increase the price and they were being arrested and they had a lot of supporters there this is indeed a crisis but I think it's also a structural crisis and the military was out and forced to arrest them homeless moms really something there's a book called home records and I heard a report on it and it's about Wall Street bankers and the housing crisis and people's mortgages who did reverse mortgages losing their homes about 8 million people I think so this is a structural problem and I've told you I've shared with you before an illustration I have and it says are you feeling sad and depressed and there's a young medical person there with his clipboard and he's crossing off things in the clipboard you may be suffering from capitalism these symptoms include homelessness unemployment hunger I think we have a capitalist structural problem and I don't think this solves it unfortunately because it's structural I'm Paul Kerrick I own three parcels and I'm addressing your issues that were so well summarized on state law unfortunately the federal law was completely left out of that summary the federal law starts back in the 1700s with the land patents and in case you didn't know most of Santa Cruz was owned by the federal government and either by taking over in the result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred directly from unclaimed land by the Spanish and Mexican governments previously and in that as unclaimed land they inserted the the that housing be developed as in a condition for a claimant to occupy and own that land and you'll find that on most of the property titles in the state and also in the state in the county of Santa Cruz and this is something that preamps any California law and should be addressed in any summary thank you thank you speakers seeing none I'll close public comment Aina s had one other question on SB SB 828 in AB 1771 it talks to issues about identification of housing sites and addressing issues related to overcrowding job housing balance and regional versus local power and allocating housing you know we particularly feel the job housing balance because the Silicon Valley creates a lot more jobs and they do housing. Hopefully through this bill that they will actually be more aggressive in building housing over there, but the impact on our community is real. And will this, I feel like part of our challenge here in Santa Cruz is that we get these numbers from AmBag, but we're affected by the Silicon Valley and how do we get that to work better and do these bills help us in that respect? Anyway. They help in the sense that they are also mandates for the communities that are on the other side. And while you can see that some of these things won't have an immediate effect on our community in terms of we have a whole slew of areas where you can now build very high density housing. There are the communities on the other side, San Jose in particular, where they really may benefit from those things to a greater degree. And hopefully if they can increase that part and we can work on the jobs part of our jobs housing balance, we can get somewhere in the future. Yeah, I mean, if you look at our job numbers, you don't see big increases. Maybe if the Kaiser facility will be approved, that will be a big jump, but we don't see dramatic changes in the number of jobs here. But we approved a 20 housing development, 20 unit housing development on Jose and Rodriguez a couple years back and 19 out of the 20 houses were sold to people who live over the hill. And so I would argue that's not really helping us deal with our housing issues. It's just making us a bedroom community to Silicon Valley. So anything we could do to any legislation that would help us with that and making them actually provide the jobs. I mean, provide the housing where the jobs are would be greatly appreciated. Right. And so we don't have an action to take on this item. Before we move on to item number nine, we're gonna take a 15 minute break. I know there are some members of the community who wanted to present, do a PowerPoint presentation and so maybe coordinate with the clerk to make sure we're ready to go. Mr. Chair, there is action on that item. There is action. I'll move the recommended actions. Okay. Second. Motion by friend, second by Leopold. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. We will now take a 15 minute break to 1115 and we'll come back and take up item number nine, which is the vacation rentals program. Well, thank you. We are back. We will consider item number nine, which is to consider a report on the vacation rails program, including options for additional restrictions on the number of vacation rentals in the live oak, C-Cliff aptos and Dabaport swat and designated areas, consider staff recommendations for the establishment of a vacation rental waiting list program and provide direction for amendment of ordinances or other actions as outlined in a memorandum of the planning director. And we have, it's okay. That's okay. Get right started. Okay, great. Good morning, Chair Coonerty and members of the board. As you may recall, last June, following a report on the status of the vacation and hosted rental program, staff was directed to return with a report and recommendations regarding the status of expired permits to develop a model for additional restrictions on the number of permits in the Lota, SEDA and DASDA, which are the three designated areas in the county. And to consider establishment of a waiting list program. So regarding the status of expired permits, I looked at the initial permits that were issued in 2011. So the ordinance was adopted in 2011 and following adoption, 316 permits were issued. Of those, 53 were issued outside the three designated areas. And in that area of the county, permits do not expire. In addition to the 53 permits, 150 permits were issued in the SEDA and 113 permits were issued in the Lota. Permits issued in the designated areas expire five years after issuance. But what's tricky is that provision was not adopted for all three designated areas at the same time. So they're on different expiration cycles. The expiration provision was adopted in the Lota with the initial ordinance adoption in 2011. And so those 113 permits have gone through in expiration and renewal cycle thus far. They all expired in 2016. And of those 113 permits, 104 were subsequently renewed. So the majority of permits have been renewed. So the next time those will come up for renewal is 2021. Later, the ordinance was adopted to add the five year expiration provision in the SEDA. So the 150 permits issued initially in 2011, they actually come up for expiration in May of this year. So right now we're currently getting applications for those 150 permits. So to summarize, 307 of the 316 permits issued in 2011 have subsequently been renewed. I also wanted to add that we've had other permits, permits from 2012, 2013, and so on that have been issued and subsequently renewed since 2011. So I would say for the most part we see renewals come in on permits that are issued. And the program has steadily grown since 2011, as you know. So back in June, in light of the current housing crisis the board expressed concern that the number of vacation rentals which has been steadily increasing is removing housing stock that would otherwise be available for long-term residency. So to address this concern, the board asked staff to return with a recommended action plan to restrict growth in the three designated areas. As of last month, there were 740 vacation rental permits issued throughout the county with 648 of those issued in one of the three designated areas. In addition, we have 250 hosted rental permits issued throughout the county. So as you know, vacation rentals in the three designated areas are subject to both block and area-wide density limits. 15% of qualifying parcels in the Lota and CEDA and 10% in the DASDA may be occupied by a vacation or hosted rental. Further, no more than 20% of a total number of parcels, qualifying parcels on a given block may be occupied by a vacation or hosted rental. So presently right now, we have 12% of qualifying parcels occupied by a vacation or hosted rental in the Lota, 5.5% occupied by a vacation or hosted rental in the CEDA and 3% in the DASDA. Staff believes that the vacation market has stabilized and that these percentages represent a balance of supply and demand. And so for this reason, we're recommending that the board initiate amendments to the vacation rental ordinance to essentially freeze these caps in place at the 12%, 5.5% and 3%. As blocks are beginning to fill up in the Lota and the CEDA, property owners have expressed an interest in a waiting list. And the board in response to this desire directed staff to develop such a list. So we looked at how we would go about developing a waiting list program. And the first thing that I thought would be advantageous is to map the blocks in the Lota and the CEDA especially because right now when a member of the public or a prospective applicant is interested in applying for a vacation rental permit, it's impossible by looking at our information on the GIS whether to determine whether or not a block is full. And that is because of how we treat corner parcels. So staff's recommendation is that the board direct staff to coordinate with GIS staff to map the blocks and assign corner parcels. Once we do that, then applicants and members of the public will be able to readily see whether or not a block is full or has capacity. Once the blocks are mapped, then what we would do is develop a waiting list request form and track those forms in a system. And then our recommendation is to hold an annual lottery for blocks in the designated areas as they become available. So through attrition, once with these 12%, five and a half percent and 3% lower and we have some availability, then we would host the lottery and we would have an impartial drawing. So that is our recommendation on the waiting list. So assuming that staff is directed to draft ordinance amendments today, we're also recommending a handful of minor amendments to the ordinance. The majority of them are not substantive. They're just little glitches in the ordinance that hang us up sometimes by, due to the language in the ordinance. But I did wanna clarify, it was brought to my attention that in the report, I'm recommending amending Santa Cruz County Code section 1310694D3C4. And for the record, the code citation should be amended to read 1310694D4. That section is related to vacation permit renewals. I did though wanna point out one recommended change to the ordinance, which is something that's been brought up time and time again, which is the lack of on-site parking and the lack of a parking requirement in the vacation rental ordinance. And it's been an ongoing issue. So I'm recommending today that the board provide some direction to staff regarding parking and what we've come up with as a starting point is one on-site space for rentals comprised of three or fewer bedrooms and a requirement for two on-site spaces for rentals comprised of four bedrooms. We would also recommend adding a clause in the ordinance provision that would allow people to request an exception to this parking requirement through a level five zoning administrator hearing where we could take into consideration the particular site. So that's parking. So yes, in conclusion, in response to the board's desire to balance the need for vacation accommodations with the impact associated with vacation rentals, staff is recommending that the board direct staff as follows to initiate amendments to the vacation rental ordinance, to reduce the existing percentage caps in the designated areas to maintain current numbers of vacation rentals. We recommend the freeze in the current percentages that are in today to develop block maps and assign corner parcels to specific blocks to establish a waiting list program to require on-site parking for new vacation rentals and to clarify various procedural aspects of the vacation rental regulations through those minor code amendments. And further to direct staff to prepare the amendments, bring them for consideration by the planning commission and the return to the board once we have that wrapped up. And that concludes my report. I'm available for questions. Do we have any questions? Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you for the report. This is something I had requested and I really do appreciate it coming back because I think that the work that the board did originally under Supervisor Leopold's leadership and then we brought that into our district as well in the second district and then eventually Supervisor Coonerty's district was an important first step, but I just don't think it goes far enough. I do have, even on the recommendations, I think that there are some additional things that I would like to see, but I have some questions in advance of that. In regards to the parking requirement, if I were to build a new three bedroom house, what would my parking requirement be? The parking requirement currently that on-site parking requirement is three spaces. Okay, so I guess my question would be, what would- You wouldn't have to have them on-site now. Yes, for a new house. For if you came in with a building permit today for a three bedroom. You would have to have three spaces on-site. Three spaces off the street. Yes. If you came in today. Yes. I think there's been reductions on ADUs and I don't think though on single family. I guess my question would be- That's correct. Just what the rationale would be, it may not have to be three, but I just don't know why we'd have it be one. I mean, why we would change it from, because we have an expectation that there would be more than one vehicle in a single family residence. Or are we just trying to differentiate tourists as sharing a vehicle versus- It's because we have a number of non-conforming residences, especially in the Loda, where it wouldn't be possible to meet the three on-site parking requirements. Should we hold them to today's current standards? Sure. I don't think three. I just, to me, I was thinking more that it should be two as a minimum. I didn't agree with the one car on-site. And since you had an exception component built into the code where people could appeal, I think that just kind of speaking from a top line, I felt that we haven't created enough opportunities for permits to be denied. We haven't really provided the rationale for permits to be denied. And it's frustrating, I know, for the community to actually, and actually even for staff, for valid concerns to be raised without their ability to really condition or even deny a permit. And I think I wanna ensure that, A, we create a set of recommendations that are more restrictive because there's a significant housing crisis. Look, we've had more houses converted in my district in the seven years I've been in office than we've built in my district in 30 years. So it's obvious that we have to do something about this. But on the second side, for the ones that are actually allowed, there should be clear direction on this. I think parking is one of them. I'd like to see a parking increase. The second thing is you have language in here about wanting clarity on the ADUs. That was actually something that I had brought forward, which is that if you haven't, I didn't want people moving into an ADU to rent out the front house or vice versa. But you wanted clarity on whether those that existed before that recommendation to come in, whether they should still exist. But you don't say how many there are. So I have no idea what the extent of that issue is. We have very few, but they do exist because the ordinance was amended to include that ADU clause later. There were a handful that came in in that early chunk of 316 in 2011. I don't have the exact number, but there are- Less than 10? Yes, I would say less than 10. So then for me, I would like to see clarity that if there's a transfer of ownership, that that goes away, that the new rules would apply. So if we're grandfathering somebody in, I don't want then in perpetuity that property owner to be able to transfer, even though it's a de minimis issue, I think there should be uniformity across the code of expectations. Okay. You'd like people to make that choice at the time they renew if they came in under their old regulations? No, if they transferred ownership. Yeah, so if you sold that out. Yes, for transfer of ownership, that's currently the standard is that the current rules apply. Okay. Yes. All right, then it wouldn't be a change to what you're proposing. Okay, no. I think that everything should be done, not the four bedrooms and up, which we've already made statements about previous code, but that we should have all new vacation rentals at level four. I don't think the level two works. We do this in strange level four noticing where there's an expectation of the neighborhood that they can make a difference and realistically they can't. I mean, there's something mailed to them. They're given notice like a level four, but they provide input and they're told, well, this was just to kind of let you know what's happening in your neighborhood. So I think that therefore if it goes to level four, then you actually can now deny mitigate and set standards and there's an appeal capability with the ZA if need be. That would be on three bedrooms and below, would go to a level four and we would keep the stuff for above. I'm interested in additional direction that would come back with at least researching a residency requirement, which they've done in other jurisdictions in the state, which is to say that there was an assembly bill that has it's in the Senate and it's become a two year bill that just applies to San Diego, but it currently looks at trying to end this idea that even Supervisor Leopold had just mentioned in a different regard regarding Jose Avenue and such, where you basically have these just being purchases and investment properties over the hill, which means that by definition, they're being transferred out a single family use, either as a rental or long-term and they will never go back to that purpose. And some communities are grappling with how to create this residency requirement. I mean, you would have to be a San Diego resident to buy a vacation rental in San Diego. You'd have to be Santa Cruz County resident to do the same. They've looked at ways to where you have to live in that home for a minimum of 30, 60 or 90 days during the year in order to rent it out as a vacation rental. There are things out there that I just want you to explore since this is a direction situation that I think would help restrict some of the incentive that we're actually providing for people outside of this county to purchase these as investment properties and take them out of single family use. The five-year renewal I think should apply to everywhere, which is one of the questions you ask. We shouldn't just apply to these designated zones that makes absolutely no sense to me, but I appreciate it. And regarding code enforcement, there have been some properties that have been paying TOT but weren't registered. There have been properties that have code violations that then come into compliance and then apply. And we had this very long discussion on cannabis, right? And other issues that basically said, if you were a bad actor, you shouldn't be given a permit to do commercial activity like this. It doesn't really apply though in the vacation rental world. And so I would, as part of the direction, I would like the clarity that if you have a history or you weren't registered, you weren't paying TOT, you weren't, you had various code violations that leading up to this component that you, that could be a justification. And we did that on the permanent room housing as well as justification for denial of application. I'm trying to provide you with greater just, greater reasons to be able to say no if need be. And I feel like you've been hamstrung by not intent, but just the, the, what we've provided previously. I support the freezing of the current numbers. I think that's good also mainly because I recognize coastal wouldn't support something more restrictive. And we actually need to get something through them in order to get something done here. But I think that that the thought that we could have, where's the number that you said to here? 629 additional permits within the Sequiff-Aptos designated district to still fit the current, I couldn't even imagine. 629 additional conversions tells me that we have to freeze it as is and we have plenty. And as somebody who sees these things everywhere I go within my district, there's definitely no issue about availability of current access for coastal access. And I don't think that argument could be made in good faith that there's a lack of hotel or options of these. So I would like to see the freezing. Thank you. Thank you. Surprise, will there be a problem? Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. And I appreciate the remarks by my colleague. You know, as, as, as the one who originally wrote the vacation rental ordinance, at the time we were trying to deal with a specific problem, which was quality of life in neighborhoods. And 10 years later, we are looking at the housing issue in a really different way. And so I appreciate the efforts to take a look at this, to put some more concrete limits. My colleague just mentioned that, you know, he couldn't imagine 600 in the, in the C-Cliff area. In the Lota, one out of 10 houses is a vacation rental. One out of 10 houses is a vacation rental. That just affects the neighborhood in a negative way. And I'm glad to see us tighten this up a little bit, because I was looking at this number has risen every year in the Lota. And you see it in the neighborhoods. So putting a cap on it makes sense to me. In terms of the parking, I'm really glad to have us have parking requirements. I support my colleague in upping those parking requirements. In the Pleasure Point area, there is not a lot of space for onsite parking. And this has been a big issue over the years as to how many we say they get. And originally it was, well, they were just given two on the street. And then we, through some changes, we could look at it and say you only get one on the street. But I like the idea of requiring it on site where possible. And then if it's not possible on site, it should be a low number that the impact in these neighborhoods is real. And if you have a three bedroom house and you wanna rent it out as a small bed and breakfast or whatever that is, or a four bedroom house, but you don't have onsite parking, it's a disaster for the neighborhood. And then when you have the guests that we allow, that adds to it as well. I also support the idea of creating better standards to figure out a way to deny a permit. Fortunately, we haven't had a lot of issues so far. In fact, in my district, I can only think of one that I asked the planning director to kick up to a higher level of review. Because apparently it's been a problem house before, they applied for their permit, and we were able to put some conditions on it. But the good thing about having permits is it allows us to take away something away, take something away if they do something wrong. I think that I was gonna ask this question about saying that it's a violation to advertise a vacation rental without a permit. Only makes sense if that violation is meaningful to something else, right? My colleague called it a bad actor, but it's just somebody who's not playing by the rules. And at this point, it should be pretty well known that that's required, that someone getting into the business of renting out their house should really check what the rules are. Because there's now, it's not only been here for 10 years, but it's a topic of discussion throughout California and the country. When it comes to, and I don't know whether there's any way to also look at the, we have this problem about complaints, right? If my neighbor has a problem house, there is a number that I can call and that person may or may not deal with the issue. And then there could be a complaint filed. But if my neighbors has some guests and they get into a fight in front of the house and it goes to a call to the sheriff, there's no way to connect that information together with what's happening at the sites. And I don't know whether there's work that can be done with the sheriff's office to get to have some better information there. We are able to obtain reports, call reports from the sheriff and the way that the code is drafted now, it's verified complaints. So we typically, the way that we implement that is if they've been issued a citation because sometimes there are calls made to a residence because someone's being too loud, for example, people hanging out on the deck. But if it's eight o'clock at night, it's not against the law to be hanging out on your deck talking too loud. So you'll see a call record that a sheriff went out at eight o'clock, the issue was noise, they spoke with the residents and they were not issued a citation. So we typically would not consider that as one of the two verified complaints required under the code to look at revoking a permit. So we do have pretty good information that we can get from the sheriff. And that's how it works now. But we can take a look at that a little bit more and see if that should be revised. Yeah, anything to sharpen that would be helpful. Okay. The last issue about the lottery and the waiting list, I think this is a good, especially as if we put these caps on having a waiting list and a lottery system makes sense. But just for clarity's sake, it seems to me that in the Lota, what are the numbers now? We have 271 permits, let's say. So 10 parcels, 10 properties get sold. So every, let's say March we're gonna do a lottery. It seems that we would do a lottery for those 10 permits for the Lota. And if my number was called, we would look to see whether I was on a block, whether it was 20% or already taken or not. We would have to, yes, we'd have to look and see whether or not we'd have to evaluate whether or not the block is full and then whether or not the area is full. So there'd be both criteria. Well, I'm just saying if we had 271, if we're gonna say that's the number and 10 drop off for whatever reason, then we have 10 spaces. Right, but there would need to be availability on the block. But we would just do one lottery for Lota until we got 10 qualified. We wouldn't do it block by block, lottery. No, but you wouldn't be, that's the thing is you wouldn't be eligible to take that space if we stick with the 20% block limit. That's what I'm saying. If my number got called and I was on a block that was already maxed out, you'd just go to the next person. You know, you wouldn't, you... Yeah, it's something that would be an issue. I think for someone that's waiting on that lottery. One thing I explored, one thing we discussed is maybe eliminating the 20% block limit and just sticking with overall cap, especially since we're gonna be mapping the blocks and the 20% that the block percentages are gonna be thrown off by mapping them. That's one potential option, but... Well, I don't, I'm not supportive of that. I like that 20%. It maintains that we have residential neighborhoods and they aren't just an endless row of short-term rentals. Okay. But it just seems like in a practical sense, you really only have 10 permits in the example that I'm giving. I think what you're saying is once we do lower the percentage caps, now there's gonna be pressure mopping up against that cap throughout the Loda, for example. And so an annual lottery for the Loda, for the whole of the available permits, I see what you're saying. Yeah, it just seems to me that that would be easier than doing a block by block piece because you really only have 10 permits and whether they're all on 12th Avenue or whether they're spread throughout the Loda, you still only have 10 spots. 10 spots, right. And you would find those 10 spots in legal unimpacted blocks, but you can't give a permit as a block that's already impact, in my opinion. Right. A block that's already impact. I see what you're saying. Thanks for the work. Last thing I would just say, my suggestion is in the course of drafting these, I would encourage a conversation with the realtors. They were very much against this ordinance when we first drafted it. And they've come along to understand that they see value because people need property managers and that's their business. But it would be helpful to include them in the loop because it's way better to have support from the industry than fighting with the industry. Thank you. Yeah, just one question, good points. I just wanna make sure we have, obviously we all wanna have responsible vacation rental owners and renters. But I'm also concerned about, I think it's a requirement that an emergency property response be done within 60 minutes. I'm just not sure if that's realistic. And I don't know, I'd leave it up to those who are more directly involved than I am in my district, but I think an emergency property response time of a matter of hours, I don't know, 24. I thought it was required that someone has to be available to come within 30 minutes. Yes. So you have to find a property manager. If you own a rental or vacation rental and you live in Sacramento, you have to have a local person to be able to respond because this was the problem before is that that person up in Sacramento can't do anything about it. Yeah, I understand that. The 60 minute thing is actually a proposal that we put into the ordinance that if you make that call and someone calls you back for an hour that that can be considered a violation. So it's another enforcement tool. The 30 is a required to live within 30 miles so they can respond within 60 minutes, I think is how it's set out. And it definitely the issues that we experience with folks not being responsive to those calls are typically with rentals that are not managed by a professional management company. We tend to see folks that are trying to manage it themselves and be their own emergency contact are usually the problematic rentals, but the majority of the rentals, especially lately over time have been managed by professional management companies when we haven't had issues. Very rarely do we have issues when calls are made if they're managed by a property management company, but yeah, and it does constitute a violation if they don't respond and we do track that. Pam, I'm not gonna ask for that to be included, but it just seems to be a concern. If it's realistic or not. Sir, Mr. Caput, do you want any questions or do you want to, okay. Now it's an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us. Please come forward and thank you for your patience. I'm getting this item. Is it connected? It is. There we go, perfect. Good morning. Dillery Benson Jones, a resident of the 500 block of Middlefield, thank you. I have a tendency to do that. Just wanted to let you know in order to try and honor our time constraint, we've got a little bit of a tag team going on here to get through this presentation. We wanted to specifically focus on the 515 Middlefield location, which is a current application and our concern about it becoming a vacation rental. So we're here to address the concerns of health, safety and welfare of the neighborhood residents for the 515 location and the application that is currently on file for the block, as well as any additional vacation rentals. Our concern is inadequate parking on and in front of 515 Middlefield Drive. As you can see, these are the types of things that we are accustomed to seeing through a rental in the protruding of the cars outside of the driveway. The fire hydrant eliminates on-street parking to the right of the driveway further reducing the parking availability. At this particular point, please note the second car is further out from the driveway than required. And this measurement indicates that the fire hydrant and where the second car were is basically 9.5 feet distant from the center of the fire hydrant to the side of the car, which we believe is outside of code. Our concerns of street parking at 515, lacking adequate setbacks on both sides of the street, becomes a blind spot in an unsafe curve. Let's see if this works for my voice. Yeah, you good. So what we did in this case here was we parked our cars across the street at 516 Middlefield Drive. The property goes all the way out to the street. There is no on-street parking on either side of the street. So this is what it normally looks like or makes any on-street parking at 515 unsafe for both cars and pedestrians. This is what it looks like a truck driving around that corner with cars parked in front of both residences. The one on the left is 550. So this is what the blind curve looks like coming from the upper numbers. So as they round the corner, additional concern is mailboxes, the post office. The mailman actually has to park his car right at the corner of a blind curve. And that just extends away to the problem at 515. As you can see here with the car parked in the street in front of 515 where there's really no on-street parking, cars will actually naturally move over a crossing the center line causing real danger to someone zooming around the curve to the opposite direction. The other concern is we have no street lights in this vicinity. That's what it looks like at night. So on-street parking with at 515 is just going to make it unsafe for all the local residents. Now here's a question I have. Do you count for, you talk about on-site parking. It's on-street parking in front of the property at that seven foot setback. Is that considered on-site parking? All right, so here's the problem. Are there any rules about basically vacation rules? Really only one drive makes the next person. So with your variance, what he's about to say is that one car is just definitely not enough. It's inadequate, especially in our area with a blind curve and repeated abuses from this particular house of them parking in the street. And so we're going to ask you not to approve this particular permit nor any others in the CECLIF area that do not meet current code statement, standards of residents because we were required at least three on-site, because we have a three bedroom and two off-site. So that's our concern for this particular one. We're also concerned on our street, our block, there's 33 houses or 32, somebody said. With their 20% guidelines, seven are eligible to become vacation rentals. And significant additions of advertising empty spots means that we are not as safe. Based on this, we'd like to say you reduce it to 12%, which would be only four homes. And then in addition, we feel you should consider one vacation rental in the radius. There should be, within 80 feet, there should be no others. So we have a map here, which points out, on Oakdale, for example, there's two, one house is Oakdale, one house is CECLIF, and the house in the middle is Middlefield. And then if you go down to the house, the blue rectangle, that's the one that they're trying to permit, the person in that home, what, at 513 or no, 512, I guess, already has two vacation rentals behind. We understand there's another one that's going to be requesting a permit in the cul-de-sac that we don't think has any parking, and we also have two on the end of the street, and it already has a vacation home behind. So that's our request, that you look at the radius, not just the block. Thank you. And then we have one more for you. Hi, my name is Sharon Silverglade. I've been a resident on Middlefield Drive near 515, very near 515 for over 20 years, and I was really frustrated by the appeal process. I was told it cost hundreds of dollars, and the outcome would be unlikely. The 515 neighbors have not demonstrated good faith with the neighborhood. In the last year, they operated unpermitted. They've hosted large gatherings with many vehicles. There's no notice posted publicly. The garbage has been out 24-7, and there is no property management that is taking care of these issues. Because of the concentration of vacation rentals, there's a burden on our infrastructure, and the parking in front of my home is compromised. It negatively affects the safety parking and the quality of life for our neighborhood, and it should be used as a single family home as intended. That's, thank you for your time. Thank you. Good morning, Becky Steinbrenner, resident of rural Aptos. First of all, I just wanna thank the board and the county policy for changing to allow citizens to put up information like this that's new, and I really thank you for allowing that to happen. It makes it much better for the public. I wanna, I was not able to hear all of the staff presentation, but I certainly support what you've heard this morning from the residents on Middlefield Drive. I also feel that, and because I wasn't here for the presentation, but have heard other complaints at other meetings and even one vacation rental owner being penalized because he didn't pay his transient occupancy taxes. This county has worked out a very special deal with Airbnb, such that all transient occupancy taxes are paid by Airbnb. That's not so with all of the platforms, and that's why the one man was before you because he was fined for not paying his transient occupancy taxes. I would like to ask that the county as part of this process require that any platform offering vacation rental must work with the county and submit automatically the transient occupancy taxes and be not allowed to operate in the county if they will not agree to do that. I also feel that since it says in the report that there is no shortage of hotel space and that actually hotel use is flat and declining that we need to discourage this commercial use in our residential neighborhoods. I would like to see a lower level of Airbnb or vacation rentals in these areas because they shred the neighborhood. And we have to look at the two examples, one just a couple of days ago of a party house that had a problem and was a shooting. We cannot allow that to happen in our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Marilyn Garrett, I also support the middle field. Neighbors in this opposition, the fact that there's a very low rate of occupancy of motels and hotels and the Airbnb and the rentals in the neighborhoods are so problematic as you saw clearly big problems here. And doesn't seem like a good idea. This room with all the wireless microwave, I'm getting out of here. I don't feel so good. All right, that concludes public comment. I'll bring it back to the board for deliberation and action. Okay, I'm going to attempt to craft a motion. Oh, please. I'm sorry, I just wanted to, in crafting that motion, I was just talking to Kathy quickly. It would be nice to get some direction on the parking requirement that you would like us to explore whether or not that would be required at renewal or if we were gonna be grandfathering in at renewal permits that don't meet the parking requirement, knowing that we would be adding this exception clause where they could be going to the public hearing if they wanna pursue a permit, so it would not automatically. Typically, we would only apply, typically we only apply the new requirements upon transfer when they lose their vacation amount permit and then if the new owner comes back or if it's brand new vacation or they have to meet all the current requirements. But so we do need some direction on that matter. Okay, I think it's very difficult for his persuasively upholds districts since basically nothing would conform, correct? Most in that load, most of it wouldn't. And so I think doing it a transfer makes some sense, but the grandfather folks who were in there, it would just, I don't think it would work. Okay, thank you. So the first thing I'll do is actually move the recommended actions because I agree with the recommended actions and then provide additional direction that we had mentioned before, which is on the five year renewal, all permits will be required for five year renewal that all three bedroom or below be required to be a level four review, to research residency requirements that are being done by other communities in the state to see for new permits what could be done for Santa Cruz County residents. The recommended actions already freeze them at the current levels, correct? Okay. Make sure I've got everything else here. Add on the park, well, you have the add on the parking requirements, I should state it, with the more restrictive parking requirements that the board discussed, create the waiting list that you have, and then provide opportunities for revocation or denial, such as code violations, non-TOT, or the things that you come back and the planning commission comes back with. The goal I think of the board is to allow an opportunity on the front end for these applications to be denied, even if the cap hasn't been reached, as well as for clarity on revocation, which doesn't currently exist for people that have problematic locations within their area. Just from a programmatic standpoint, I'll make that as a motion. I would second it. And as a programmatic standpoint, it's actually kind of hard to file a code or to file a vacation rental complaint through planning, and just my personal opinion, I think the code complaint process is very easy because you have a web form that somebody could do. But I think that there should be an online capability that allows people to submit concerns, not something that's immediate that requires a sheriff's response, but something that allows there to be something that can be collected from a data perspective for renewal and revocation associated with renewal. There just has to be a way to collect these kinds of complaints. On the ADU component, the motion's already been made, but I feel satisfied with, do you feel satisfied with the clarity that we provided earlier? Do you need that as part of the motion? Yes, I feel satisfied. It doesn't, in essence, it doesn't change. It's less than 10 anyway, and so. Okay. Yeah, we got a motion and we have a second. Any questions or comments? Well, the last thing I'll just say, the residency requirement is gonna be a tough one. Last time I checked, over 60% of these homes were owned by people who don't live here. Well, that's. And so it's, I'm not speaking yet against it. I'm just saying this is gonna be a big challenge because we see this especially with Silicon Valley money is they bought these homes and now they're trying to maximize the. Right, what we're talking about for new, this will be for new anyway. Okay. And anyway, that would be something you're gonna come back with that information, but I think that we need to moving forward to have a greater restrictions on that. All right, so we have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, that passes unanimously. Thank you for your good work on this. Thank you. I remember 10 is considered our first biannual progress report on the Santa Cruz County operational plan for fiscal years 2019 through 2021 and direct the county administrative office to return in June, 2020 with a second biannual progress report as outlined in the memorandum of the CAO. So good morning to your community members of the board. Actually, it's afternoon now, so good afternoon. I'm Nicole Coburn, assistant county administrative officer and I'm here today with Sven Stafford, a principal administrative analyst in our office. And we're here to provide you with the first update on our two year operational plan. We're gonna start out by giving you a brief overview and some backgrounds on the operational plan and then we'll address some of the updates to the website that have been made as well as updates to objectives based on information we receive from departments. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Sven. Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon board. We're gonna do the entirety of this presentation on the county's public facing website. Back in June, the board adopted the county's first two year operational plan. It included 55 strategies, 178 objectives and was really our first blueprint for achieving the county's strategic plan goals. This is the first of four planned updates and reports on that plan. And as you'll see, once we get into the website, we've tried to really incorporate the values of transparency and accountability throughout. So what's the same about the website? We still have the county's vision, mission and values stated upfront. We still have the six focus areas and 24 goals. These all remain unchanged. The plan guide remains the same so that you can get a little bit more information about all the work that went into creating the plan. And we've maintained the dynamic layout here so that hopefully the public can quickly find the groups of objectives that most impact their lives. So what's new about the plan? We've added two more categories of objectives. So you'll see now we have 180 total objectives. 15 of them have been completed. 149 of them are still in progress and 16 have been amended. And we'll get into exactly what that means. So first our new completed objectives are all have new green hats. You'll see here, if we click into the digital records objective, for example, it deals with the assessor's recorders office providing digital vital records from 1950 to 1980. All the new completed objectives have this verification link and documentation to substantiate that we've actually completed the work. If you click on this one, it directs you to the recorders vital check program so that you can access your birth certificate, birth certificate, whatever you're looking for. And so part of the purpose of having these links is not only to substantiate the claim, but also to direct people to resources that are actually useful and can help them engage more with departments. The second new thing we'll point out is our new amended objectives. So if we look at our water recharge objective from health services, it's about completing an additional project to capture and recharge stormwater. And you'll find in all the amended objectives that we've done strike out underlines so that people can see exactly what has been changed. For 15 of the 16 amended objectives, the changes is related to the date that they'll be completed. Additionally, we've added this little information box here so that people can see even more information about why the delay was caused. For this particular objective, it's due to state grants not being available until this coming summer. So we haven't just updated the completed and amended objectives. We've also updated all of the 180 objectives that are listed here. For example, if we look in our sustainable environment and under our local conservation, our goals, our objectives here, we have one for emissions reduction where the target was to reduce emissions and you'll see the progress is at 141%. So what exactly does that mean? So you'll see the Agriculture Commissioner wanted to reduce its offices, greenhouse gas emissions by 10%. If you look on the bottom line below, you'll see that they have a target of 145,000 pounds of CO2 emissions. The baseline that they were starting from, which is new for all our objectives was 161,000 pounds and they achieved in 2019 138,000 pounds which was actually a 14% reduction. Again, if you scroll over the information box, you get more information on exactly what they're measuring so you can always have a little bit more detail embedded in all these objectives. One final example that we'll share is here under the attainable housing, community development, the second strategy and we have an objective around development permits that's 25% complete. So for some objectives, we had additional measures that were embedded in the key steps. This particular objective is around completing key development applications of which they've completed one of four over the next two years. Key step four also adds a measure around increasing ADU permits issued. And for those secondary or tertiary measures, we've included information again in this target box so you can see the ADU permits issued actually is down 13 and a half percent but that decrease is likely due to state legislation that's taking effect this month that the board heard about earlier today. So people waited until that looks correct and planning still planning intends and thinks that this target will still be met. And so with that, I'll turn it back over to Nicole for a little more information on our objectives. So I just would like to go over briefly some of the updates to the objectives which are all detailed in our staff report but like Sven said, there are 162 objectives that are either complete or in progress and on time. Of these, there are 15 that have been completed as of December of 2019. Some highlights include the clerk elections voter registration centers. If you click on the link there, it'll redirect you to the clerk's voter website so you can get more information. We also have health services groundwater sustainability plan which has been completed and you'll click if you click on the link, you'll go to the plan website where there's more information. In addition to those that have been completed or are in progress, we have 16 objectives that have been amended. I think at the outset of when the board approved the operational plan, we anticipated that not all objectives would be completed on time, some were aggressive. We've also had various factors impacting the completion of some objectives so that has impacted them as well. So of the 16 that have been amended, we have six that are due to delays from factors outside department's control. An example of that is public works sewer upgrades which they have been revised due to state grant timelines. We also have five objectives that have minor delays of six months or less. This includes three planning sustainability update objectives that have been amended to reflect the timing of the EIR, the circulation element, and training and education that will be provided to the public. An additional four objectives have significant delays of more than six months. This includes the public works rail trail objective which has been delayed due to department's staffing priorities and environmental and typographical constraints. And then we have one environmental health objective that was significantly rewritten. The original objective was to reduce health inspection violations by 25%. The department asked us to reframe this objective because of issues that have been identified and they wanna take a step back and really look at the prioritization of inspection tasks. That's the first step in this process. So they're working on creating that prioritization. And then once the prioritization is complete, they're going to be establishing new implementation targets that can be set and measured. In addition, we have two objectives where work was completed and we have created two new linked objectives that connect to that completed work. An example of this is personnel completed objective 54 to identify inefficiencies and job recruitment. And there is a new linked objective to this completed objective that is focused on reducing the time it takes to establish a list by 20%. And so with that, we'll conclude our presentation and we want to let you know that we have our next update coming to the board in June. We will be asking departments to focus on their objectives during budget hearings as well. We'll be discussing accomplishments over the past year as well as any challenges they've been facing to date. And we will also be proposing a process for the next operational plan. We hope to provide you with some idea of what that might look like. And with that, we would hope that there would be greater integration with the two year budget as well as a process for getting board direction as we develop that second two year operational plan. And we're happy to answer any questions you may have. So I'll just start by first of all thanking you. The website gets better and better and more and more interactive and engaging. And so I think that's great. I think we should be working to promote this out to the community as much as possible so that they can understand sort of what we're working on and why and how it interacts with their concerns to the community. So really pushing it out. I also think we should be working to get this out to NACO and CSAC and other, I think other governments would really benefit from seeing what can be done. And the fact that you did it all in-house would be is important. I think it's a model for governments all across the country and the world. So you should be very proud of your work. The only comment I have is I think everything that got amended today is completely fine. In the future, I think the board should approve the amendments. I could imagine that a state grant slips or something changes and maybe the board says, I understand that we might want to wait an extra year but actually because of community concern or because of other things, we actually want to stick to that goal. And so as these amendments come through and there should be lots of amendments because this should be a living document that should iterate to realities. But at the end of the day, the board should approve any amendments or changes or additional goals to the plan. John. I would just echo my colleagues' comments. But I just want to appreciate how user-friendly this website is. I mean, it's fairly intuitive and so you can work your way around it, find information. And I agree that we should share this. We have a lot of people in our social media world as Jason Hoppin will remind me that we have a greater reach in the Sentinel and we should use that in some way to get people to go to this website because there's a lot of great information here and it's really a sign of what county government is doing. So thank you for your work. It's a lot of hard work. So, Mr. President. Yeah, my gratitude to all the county departments for being so aggressive in this and getting it to where we are now. We had a lot of discussion on housing and on the packet page 95, Objectives 120, 22 and 28, it's really updating the general plan to include sustainability updates and it said it's been put back to 2021. Was that just because of the overload, the new legislation combination of all or? Well, we, the EIR, I believe is taking place and there are a variety of factors impacting those three objectives. So together they have impacted the completion date. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I will ask now if there's any public comments on this item. Thank you. Becky Steinbruner, resident of rural Aptos. Thank you for this report. And I agree with the board that it would be of great public benefit to get it pushed out so people know how to find it and use it. I want to commend the interdepartment permit processing team and for their work, I think that will help expedite permitting and that is a big concern and complaint of many of the public. I want to point out that I have some experience with the updated digital digitization of public records from 1950 to 1980. I have done recent research in the records department and staff there, when I brought questions to them that made no sense to me, I did admit that much of the material has been lost in the process of making records digital. So I would really like to see some attention put to making that information whole again and more accessible. I want to commend you on hiring a specialist for the organic agriculture. I'm glad that the Mid County Groundwater Sustainability Plan is done and I have a great concern about how it is to be accomplished. I want to point out that the Aptos Village Public Safety Center does not seem to be used and recent programs being offered at Twin Lakes Church instead of there have me confused when there is ample space at the Aptos Village Public Safety Center and taxpayer dollars are paying for it. I also want to ask that the board have some more say on the delays of projects such as the 41st Avenue Soquel Drive delays, the improvements to the Rodeo Gulch Basin sewer project upgrade being delayed until 2022. That is the area where the Kaiser Medical Facility is planned to go as well as Soquel Creek Water District Advanced Water Treatment Plant, both of which will heavily tax these over capacity systems. Can I have one more minute? No. There's no one else here. I know, but everyone's gotten the same time. So we're going to keep that rule. You're so kind. Thank you. Does anyone else like to speak to us today? That concludes public comment. I'll bring it back to the board. If I could have a comment regarding the approval of the objectives and the board approving them. I think it's something that we ought to think about and it's, I think it merits some more discussion and thought. And here's the reason we put out these objectives to departments and they're aspirational objectives, right? The department set for themselves and they felt very free to do that and to set very big goals. And so I worry that if they start feeling that they're going to be held accountable for every 178 objectives and the board's going to be not approving or approving amending them when they feel like they need to that they're going to start being more cautious. For example, personnel department said an aspirational goal to reduce the time to hire somebody by reducing it by 20%. And they felt, well, that's our own goal. Our own employees said it, we're going to buy it. And the board said, that's a great goal. But if they felt like, oh my gosh, after looking at it, after working at it, we can only reduce it by 10% realistically. I worry and then the board, and they felt like they have to come to the board to get that approved. I worry that at some point there's going to be a chilling effect and departments are going to start saying, oh my God, if the board's going to look at this and hold this accountable for every aspirational goal, we're going to be much more cautious, right? Because we're going to want to not overreach. And yet I've been encouraging departments to really be aspirational about it with the idea that it's a flexible goal and that it's understandable. I understand the board's desire to want to approve these and to have a say in them. So I just think we should have more discussion about that because I think it is that kind of issue is a big issue in some departments in doing strategic plans, some cities or counties, they start where, you know, department heads start being held accountable to these and they start being used as evaluation tools and then people, there's just this big chilling effect and it becomes very much not what we want in terms of people feeling like they can have freedom to really overreach and set goals for themselves. So anyway, I just think it's a big, big issue and I think we had to talk about it and we had to have a discussion with the department heads about it and talk about also about the board's role and, you know, cause these are really detailed, right? I mean, I understand the board approving the big picture things. Just to give you an example of the budget, right? The board approves appropriations for the budget and the positions, but the board does not approve line items. Departments are free to move among line items, right? When they feel like they need to, they have that flexibility. I think in some ways a similar type issue, but I definitely understand your desire to want to approve the actual objectives. I just want to caution that it could have an effect, a chilling effect on departments. So yeah, and I appreciate that and I'm open to discussion. I think in every hearing we've talked about setting goals, I've said, I'm going to be upset if everyone meets all their goals, because that meant that they didn't do a good job of setting goals cause there needs to be, there needs to be stretch and I would, if we come back and in June, we've checked 180 boxes, I think, I think we've, we've gone the wrong direction. So I want to build in where people feel free to try things fail, where people set goals, but there's also going to be times when I think the board sets goals that the departments don't want that are not their priorities. And I can imagine through an amendment process where those goals get changed and the board's going to need to do that or there may be times when there are five different competing priorities and maybe the one, the department would have one priority to reach their goal and want to move one priority back and the board would have another timeline where they want to prioritize one over the other. And so I think, I think if we're going to have a public process where we say these are the county's goals, we as the elected officials need to be able to say that these are the goals that we set. So it's a fine line and it's a cultural change. And so I want to respect that, but also I don't want to be in a spot where something gets amended and I'm pulling it and writing a board letter in order to rewrite the amendment back to what I thought we wanted. And I think that would create a chilling effect as well, right? So anyway, Well, I would just add on, I understand the concerns being raised. And I still think the board has to, we have to push to and trying to find that right way to do it as we enter into this, as we continue to enter into this process is what we have to do. And the CAO and the chair and other board members should weigh in. We don't have to try to figure it out now, but I agree with my colleague that there will be times that we have different priorities in staff and or a slightly different accent on that priority. And we have to be able as representative of the public to be able to make sure that the operational plan is meeting the needs of the community as the way in which we see it as well. So trying to find that sweet spot is the hardest part. Mr. Placis, I appreciate you speaking up and saying that because you have been working with your staff to tell them the goal that you want them to have. So I take very seriously what you're saying right now and the advice you're giving. I think I agree with Supervisor Leopold that maybe now isn't really the time to think to come to that conclusion. I think one way to actually maybe address it is to just slightly increase the number of these progress reports so that the board is checking in maybe on a quarterly as opposed to a bi-yearly basis. And then we can provide that exact feedback because the amount of time between then when these things come up is pretty minimal for when there would be amendments. And that would be an opportunity for us to provide that feedback and to change course it needed to be at that situation, but it wouldn't upset the situation that's currently having, which is we're encouraging them to take a shot, but it would provide a little bit of additional public and board opportunity to weigh in. All right, so is there a motion to accept this report? So moved. Second. Motion by Leopold, second by Friend. All those in favor, please say aye. That passes unanimously. Item number 11 is to consider an ordinance for appealing sections 8.40.020, 9.12.020 and 9.12.040 and amending chapters 7.04, 7.08, 7.22, 7.36, 7.44, 7.48, 7.60, 7.69, 7.71, 7.72, 7.88, 7.108, 8.40, 9.04, 9.12, 9.48, 9.50, 9.52, 9.54, 9.74, 9.80, and 10.08 of the Santa Cruz County Code to correct typographical errors, address organizational issues, align the code with changes state law, delete unnecessary material, and make additional miscellaneous changes and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on January 28th, 2020 as outlined in a memorandum of the County Council. Good afternoon, Jason Heath with County Council's Office. This is the 12th ordinance for county code updates that we're bringing you to clean up statutory citations, amend language, and also take care of miscellaneous items like your board had directed a change to 8.40, the rental discrimination ordinance to include all the categories set forth in civil code, section 51, we've taken care of that here. This particular ordinance takes care of a lot of the ordinances in chapter seven, eight, nine, and 10, health and safety and public works. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Just one. Okay. In section 9.48 in the language changes, I was trying to get clarity on its restrictions for East Cliff Drive and then about, it's only effective until the signs are posted. So right now, is it prohibited to drive a vehicle that weighs over 14,000 pounds on East Cliff Drive or is it only effective until the signs go up? Well, it shall not be effective until signs are posted. So I'm assuming that the signs are posted there because we're not changing anything about that. So if there are not signs posted there, we should let DPW know that so they can get signs posted out there because I know that sometimes signs get removed, they get knocked down or the like. And so the bottom line is with this is that the only way that it's gonna be able to be enforced, the only way someone's gonna be able to write a ticket for its violation is if there are signs out there that post it as such. I'm gonna check on my way home, but I can't remember the sign being there, so. Okay. All right. Is there any public comment on any of this? Seeing none, I'll bring back to the board. I'll move to approve. Second by Caput, second by Leopold. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you for your work on that. Item number 12 is to consider final appointment of Scott Hamby to the Integrated Waste Management and Local Task Force as an at-large County of Santa Cruz representative for a term to expire on April 16th, 2021. Move approval. Got a motion by Leopold, a second by Caput. Any public comment? Seeing none, bring it back to the board. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Item number 13 is to consider final reappointment for Thomas John Batley to the Board of Directors of the Santa Cruz Community Action Board as an at-large representative for a term to expire January 4th, 2021. Move approval. Motion by Leopold, second by Friend. Any public comment? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Item number 14 is to consider the selection of the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for calendar year 2020 as outlined in a memorandum of mine. I nominated Supervisor Caput to become Chair and Supervisor McPherson to become Vice Chair. I'll ask if there's any public comment. Thank you, Becky Steinbrenner. Marilyn Garrett raised this question during public testimony earlier. And I went back in earlier January agendas of meetings. And I haven't seen this done before. Is this a new process? Usually, as Marilyn said, the new supervisor takes over as chairman. And that was because this was not handled in December. It was such a horrific meeting on December 10th. I'd just like to ask again on behalf of Marilyn Garrett why this process is happening here today. Thank you. I would appreciate an answer. Thank you. That concludes public comment. I've never been Chair before, so this is my first time passing the gavel. I'm happy Supervisor Caput will hopefully be supported by our colleagues. So I'd entertain a motion. So moved. Motion by Leopold, second by McPherson. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you. Supervisor Caput, you can now move us into closed session. Okay. And I'll try to be on my best behavior. Sometimes the track trouble, but I'll be careful. Okay, we'll now adjourn to closed session. Is there anything reportable? Yes. Yes. Yes, okay. And we'll also have the results for the election, right? Next time. Okay. Okay, we'll report on closed session. Thank you. This is just a report that the Board has approved the County Joining a Lawsuit Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club versus US Bureau of Land Management at all that's filed in the Northern District of California, the United States District Court. And we will be joining that lawsuit as a plaintiff. Okay. Do we have any public comment? There we go. None, none. Okay. And then I'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you. Thank you.