 Good morning. We'll now call to order the regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors. It's 9 AM, February 15th. Burke, will you please call the roll? Supervisor Koenig. Here. Friend. Here. Community. Here. Cabinet. Here. First in. Here. We need to have a quorum. Thank you. Before we proceed, I see that we have a number of members in the audience who are not wearing masks. It is county policy that masks are still required in all public places. I'm going to have to ask you to put on your mask, or if you do not, we'll have to recess the Board of Supervisors' meeting for five minutes and continue the meeting entirely virtually. 80,000 people in a Super Bowl not wearing masks. When are we going to drop the charade? Our children are still going to school. We're having on. We're done. We're done with the service. We're done with the service. We will now recess the Board of Supervisors' meeting for five minutes. Thank you. It's all about the connections. All of those, you are all included. You're ruined. I will now resume the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Once again, you just call the roll. Supervisor Friend. Here. Community. Here. Cabinet. Here. McPherson. Here. Koenig. Here. Thank you Chair. You have a quorum. Thank you very much. I will now have a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Is there any member of the Board who wishes to dedicate anything today? Yes, Mr. Chair, if I may. I'd just like to dedicate this moment to Daryl Darling who recently passed away. As many of you know, an absolute gift for social justice, not just here, but across the country, an absolute line of compassion for our community. Always made time for people in need. Always made time to provide advice. Always fought for those that had less and he just passed away. And so I'd like to dedicate this moment of silence to Daryl Darling. Thank you. And Mr. Chair, I'd like to appreciate Supervisor Friend for mentioning Daryl and his tremendous legacy. There's a few other people I wanted to mention who passed away recently and normally we don't do this, but I think it's sort of a testament in this moment of time to how life is short, but people have made profound contributions through their service to our community and we're grateful for everyone. But Dennis Beganley with my uncle taught for 25 years in alternative schools here in Santa Cruz to kids most at risk. Jim Marshall who ran a preschool program and served on childcare advisory council for decades. Sylvia Keras who emailed us all regularly about mental health issues in this county. Donna Dunderdale who ran Maiden Santa Cruz stores and products and sold the brand of Santa Cruz to the community and visitors alike. Colonel Edward Leskowitz who served in the military for made a career for the US Marine Corps and raised a family here in Santa Cruz and contributed to our community. And George Escobar who worked for the city of Santa Cruz for 40 years. Someone's always had a smile on his face in public service to the community. And there are many other people who obviously have passed and contributed but hopefully it's a small sample of the kinds of amazing people we have in the community and our wishes to their friends and family as they mourn. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. Supervisor Cabot. Thank you. Yeah, during the moment of silence, I'd like to recognize the passing of Judy Doreen Nelson in South County and all the wonderful work she did for the community. I won't try to list everything she's done, she did. And during the moment of silence, I'll remember her contribution to South County. Thank you. Thank you. With all of those dedications in mind, we'll now have a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. When I move to item three, consideration of late additions to the agenda, additions and deletions to consent and regular agendas. CAO Voxen, do you have any additions or deletions? Yes, Chair Koenig and members of the board, there's on the consent agenda, there's an addendum, item number 62, there's additional materials, letter of support for California micro business, COVID-19, relief grant program, packet pages 982 through 986. And then on the regular agenda, item number 12, a staff request that this item be deleted, remove packet pages 66 through 82. And that concludes the corrections, additions to the agenda. Thank you, CAO. Yes, and for item number 12, we will some of the water districts just requested additional time to review this item. And so we've called a meeting with all of the water districts and departments throughout the county to review this. So thank you. I will now move to item four, announcement by board members of items removed and consent to regular agenda. Yes, Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull item 62 just for additional discussion. All right, we'll pull item 62 and that will become item 15.1. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for our afternoon session. Okay, I guess it's not a removal of an item, but I just want to make an announcement that we, the Santa Cruz County from the California State Association of Counties has announced that we have received merit awards through our Santa Cruz County's treating addiction through peer mentors and county, the county's operational plan strategy into action programs. Those are recognized as getting merit awards from the California State Association of Counties. Thank you to all our employees and everyone who made this recognition happen. It's indeed an honor to get these awards. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Any other items that folks would like to remove? All right, seeing none, we will now move on to public comment. Any person may address the board during this public comment period. Speakers must not exceed two minutes in length of time and individuals may speak only once during public comment. All public comments must be directed to an item listed on today's consent agenda. No closed session agenda yet to be heard on the regular agenda or a topic not on the agenda that is within the jurisdiction of the board. Members will not take action or respond immediately to any public communication presented regarding topics, but may choose to follow up later either individually or on a subsequent board of supervisors agenda. And clerk, do you want to provide any specifications for how people can participate today? Yes, thank you, Chair. Esta noche os repetirá en español. Now is the time for the public comment. If you wish to comment and are joining us in tune online, please use the raise hand feature. If you are dialing in, please press star nine to be placed in the queue to speak. We will call you by your name or by the last four digits of your phone number. We ask that you please state your name at the beginning of your comment. Once you begin speaking, the timer will begin. The countdown timer will display on screens and will end automatically. If you're calling by phone, once again, it is star nine to raise your hand, star six to mute and unmute your phone. Ahora es el tiempo que la junta directiva de supervisores recibirá comentarios al público. Si usaría dar su comentario y se ha unido a través de Zoom, por favor, busque el icono de la mano en el fondo de la pantalla y hazle click para levantar la mano. Esto lo colocará en la fila para hablar. Cuando sea tu turno de hablar, te llamaré por tu nombre o los últimos cuatro números de tu teléfono. Por favor, accede y comience a hablar. Si seas unida a través de teléfono, por favor, marque estrella nueve para levantar la mano. Para accesar tu micrófono, por favor, oprime estrella seis para activar y desactivar tu micrófono. Al fin de tus dos minutos, tu micrófono será desactivado atmáticamente. Gracias. Okay. First speaker, Carol, your microphone is available. Good morning. This is Carol Bjorn. I wanted to let you all know that we are still here in the chambers waiting to see at least Manu face to face. We have a lot of things to say. We actually have minors here, very young people that would love to speak. And so we'd really appreciate the time and opportunity to give to them to speak. Here's the problem. As we approach the two year anniversary of the COVID state of emergency, the argument that we must or we have to follow CDPH guidance becomes increasingly harder to support as each day passes you all the schools, the school districts and the county office of education have a much harder time justifying following guidance due to an emergency. Instead of the emergency services act applying, the administrative procedures act should apply. This is because the mandates and guidance look more like regulations from an executive agency and CDPH is just using the guise of emergency to implement its regulations. Unfortunately, the CDPH did not even attempt to follow the legal requirements outlined in the administrative procedures act, which begins at government code section 11340. That act requires that guidelines be adopted according to specific procedures in order to qualify as regulations that have the force and effective law. None of these guidelines or mandates have the force and effective law. Let's stop acting like they do. In addition, I brought to you all my hard copies of a wonderful letter that's been sent to the state assembly, the state Senate signed by over 100 educators in the state of California, asking that all of the testing, all the masking, all of the mandates go by the wayside. This is ridiculous. Our children's mental health is suffering. There was literally a suicide in Scott's Valley two weeks ago and all of our children are suffering. They have depression, anxiety. They want to be kids. Let them be kids today. That was great. Thanks. All in user three, your microphone is available. As a reminder, it is star six to unmute your phone. Oh, good morning, board and county of Santa Cruz. My name is Linda Black and I am calling to talk about the fact that only 80 rebuild permits have been issued out of over 900 homes that were lost in the CZU complex fires in August of 2020. That means that there are over 800 families out there still not living in their homes, still unable to rebuild for whatever reason. And I sincerely hope that this board is going to take this seriously and make some steps to make it possible for these families to rebuild. Not only are these families without homes, that means these families are also putting extended pressure on our very limited housing market as it already is. And it is beyond a shame and a calamity and really very disgraceful when I'm seeing the reasons for not being able to rebuild the countless requirements and the countless permitting processes that these people must go through. And I know that there are variants available and there must be some sort of emergency variances possible if we can have this health emergency to protect our health. It seems like we can certainly have some sort of a housing emergency setup so that some of these things can be waved for people to get back into their homes. And it's, again, I'm still not hearing whether or not these people are being charged permit fees. If they are still being charged permit fees, those fees need to be waved. There are millions of dollars in the general fund that we all pay in property taxes. Where does this money go? It seems like a perfect place for this money to be used would be helping these people get back on their feet. And I am just appalled to see the article in today's Sentinel that only 80 people have been given the right to rebuild. Thank you. Please look forward and make a change. Thank you. Elizabeth, your microphone is available. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you. Good morning. This is Elizabeth McCombs. First of all, I wanted to tell you that each of you and Sheriff Jim Hart, Superintendent of School of Theresevot and the Public Health Officer, Gail Newell, have had now in your possession for several weeks documents that were mailed certified to you, which are addressing the criminal conspiracy of coronavirus. And yet nothing has been done to stop these crimes of being committed on the people here in this County under the guise of a health emergency. These documents are also in the hands of every State Attorney General and State Senator. Yesterday, a group of concerned citizens, including myself, filed a proposed criminal indictment with the Santa Cruz County Chief Prosecutor. These documents were researched and penned by Dr. David Martin. They're similar to what you receive. It also included a 300-plus page dossier citing the crimes. All of the evidence is contained therein to start a criminal investigation, which will lead to indictments and arrests. So I just wanna say it's really, it behooves you to read that document that you receive certified because as elected or not elected officials in the County, you are criminally complicit in this indictment if you do nothing about the crimes for fraud. So much has happened over the past two years. It is almost impossible to keep track of all of it, but every action in this board and the public health officer and the school intended have taken based upon this hoax as it created the fear, which has driven a lot of what Carol was just talking about. So the real harm is being done and all of you responsible, I'm just encouraging you to grab that document or talk to the DA and do something. Thank you. Colin, user two, your microphone is available. Hi, this is Marilyn here. Thank you to the previous speakers. And I'd like to say also stop all these mandates, stop this fraud and harm to the community members under a so-called emergency guide. I'd like to read from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s keynote presentation at Wise Traditions 2021. The title is when money intersects public health policy. I've been working on the intersection of money with public health policy for 40 years long before I got into the vaccine bracket. I was suing Smithfield Tyson Boat Pilgrim, Frank Perdue and more big factory farms and factory farm companies than any attorney in the world. I spent a lot of time working with farmers unions in 20 states traveling all around and eating good food. I've learned the connection, the rings between the soil and democracy and good health, human dignity and all the things we ought to be caring about. I love the fact that the mantra of the Western Aid Price Foundation, you can see this talk at westernaidprice.org, is about being wise about the traditions that connect us to the 20,000 generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops. That wisdom ultimately connects us to God. The word wisdom means knowledge of God's will. It means an instinctive knowledge about the difference between right and wrong. See. Thank you. Caller 2915, your microphone is available. Hello, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. No one else seems to have reported to you this morning the problem that I had in accessing your meeting this morning using the ID code that is printed at the top of the agenda. Zoom reports it is an invalid number when I called the supervisors office. The lady was kind enough to give me the correct number. So I want to make it clear for the record that there may be people trying to get in that cannot. So, and thank you to the kind lady in the supervisors office that gave me the correct number. I also want to applaud the efforts of many of your speakers here before me that are fighting this charade, if you will, of all of the mask mandates and the harm that it is doing to our youth. It is troubling. So please do read that document that you have been given and take action on behalf of the people and especially our youth. I also want to applaud the speaker talking about only 80 permits being given out so far for this easy you fire area. I have friends that are trying to build up there and it is appalling what they are being told they have to do and cannot do and we are not helping them rebuild. So I urge your board to consider removing all permit fees for these people and allow them to get back into their homes. Cal Fire is also a big hurdle with access being blocked in many areas. Your board requested and after action review of the CCU fire from Cal Fire and I've not seen it supplied and I did write your board and ask if you have received it. I've not received a reply yet. Thank you. Surge Cagno your microphone is available. Good morning. My name is Surge Cagno. I'm the secretary of the mental health advisory board. Good morning chair Koenig, supervisor Caput as a member of the mental health advisory board and other members of the board of supervisor. Disappointed. I'm sorry, I'm hearing other voices at the same time. As a reminder to all participants, please be sure to mute your microphone. The mental health advisory board is proud of the report which you'll be voting on as item number 32. We act as a group. We act as a group diligently supporting the equitable access for quality mental health services in our county. To further this goal, we invite you to our meeting this Thursday at 3 p.m. We'll be having a presentation by Dr. Kenneth Minkoff, co-chair of a nationally recognized report titled The Roadmap to the Ideal Crisis System. We've invited law enforcement from the different jurisdictions. We've reached out to mental health, different departments within the county and other shareholders for an ongoing series of town halls where we can do an evaluation of our crisis behavioral health systems, find the gaps and find solutions together collaboratively which address the issues of each of the jurisdictions. A flyer has been emailed to each member of the board of supervisors, but you can also find it on the mental health advisory board County webpage. Thank you very much and have a great day and stay safe. Thank you, Mr. Cogna. Next speaker, Julio Neri and Verade. The microphone is unmuted. Yes, thank you. I'm actually here just to translate for a couple of our promotores of the salute. Okay, thank you. Justin Norgren, who just dropped off, Angelica Caballero. Angelica Caballero, now it's your turn to speak. You can leave your comment in Spanish and Julio will translate it. Okay, very good. Good morning, my name is Angelica Caballero and I'm promoter of the salute of the County of Santa Cruz. As a promoter, I've helped a lot in my family. Well, now I know what resources there are in the community, but above all, it has helped me to create awareness in our community and help. We have helped many people to create trust on COVID vaccines, because at these times, when it started, there was a lot of distrust, insecurity and a lot of fear. As a health promoter, I'm honored to know that it has helped many people to not spend the same time they didn't have the opportunity. In my family, there was a close family that died. Unfortunately, the vaccines were not available yet. We went through very difficult times with all this COVID. Being a promoter, thank God, helped me a lot. I want to say that I'm grateful for this program and that I will continue to work and continue to promote the vaccine because I know it's the best option. And the immigrant community in Spain has had a lot of trust in us, because just like them, we are family mothers. I have a 19-year-old child at the Livebook School, and I think that has given them confidence to believe and to let themselves be helped by what we have learned. I think it's all very grateful for giving me the opportunity to talk. Thank you. First of all, thank you. Good morning. My name is Angelica Caballero, and I'm a promoter of Salute to the County of Santa Cruz. One of the things that she enjoys about being a promoter is that she can guide families to resources in the community. And also, she feels like this role has helped her create relationships with people around her by guiding them to resources that they need. One of the things that they're actually promoting right now is to make people understand the importance of getting vaccinated. So, on her family side, she has a couple of family members who passed away, and that was because the vaccine was not available during that time. So, she sees her role as an important piece to the community because this builds trust within the community members, especially around the Latino community. Thank you, Ms. Caballero. Diana Valdes, your microphone is available. Promotor Valdes, your microphone is not available. Would you like to give your comment in Spanish? Yes, if you can hear me, good morning. Yes, good morning. Okay, good morning. Thank you. My name is Diana Valdes, and I'm also a health promoter here at LiveWalk, at the Contado de Santa Cruz. I want to say that I'm very grateful for the Contado de Santa Cruz, for the health of the Contado de Santa Cruz because they have given us all the support to get to where we are. In my community, there was a lot of insecurity. We didn't know who to get close to or who not to have the services that people needed. And I think that nowadays, we are building trust, we create awareness among the community. As my colleague said, the Latino community, the Hispanic community, the immigrants, it's a very important point to touch on that because many times, as immigrants, people don't want to get close to asking for help or to ask for the resources they have. So, I was very happy to know that for part of us as promoters, we can make sure that the resource reaches the people who need it. On the other hand, I'm also very happy to hear that there are people who are talking about mental health. Nowadays, through the pandemic, mental health has been an important part of the community. Not only in mine, but worldwide. I think with all of this that we've had, the children, the adults, the mothers, the parents, we have a lot of anxiety, fear about what is happening, but we have to know that there are resources and that those resources are here for us and that we, as promoters, are here to help them. Thank you very much and thank you for listening to our words. Her name is Niana Maladez. She's also a promoter in the school district to cradle to career. She is very thankful to the public health for the support and all the resources that they provide. One of the things that she also mentioned was about the importance of how Latinos and immigrants feel comfortable approaching them because they can get them to the resources. One of the things that she mentioned is that sometimes Latino communities are hesitant to ask for help. So by building this connection with Promotora de Salud a member of the community can help them guide to those resources. One of the things that she really liked about people mentioning during this meeting is about mental health. The importance of mental health and how a lot of our children are being affected by this pandemic. But she wants to tell people that there's resources available because it can be to the county, it can be to other special clinics across the county and to feel comfortable asking for support and help. That's one of the things that Promotora de Salud are doing. Making people feel comfortable about approaching the proper resources that the community members might need. Thank you, Mr. Alibaz. MotoG Power, your microphone is available. Hello. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a chance to speak to you today. First of all, I am going to make some assumptions about you. You are as all intelligent, educated and well-meaning people who want to do what is best for our children. I ask you to use this intelligence to listen to what I have to say and use common sense to come to this logical conclusion that the school mandates on children should be dropped. First of all, I will briefly discuss the mask mandate. At the beginning of the emergency, we knew very little. Many studies over 50 now have been done on the effectiveness of masks of all kinds. Even the best of masks have been found to only be nominally effective at stopping the spread of the so-called virus. Recently, a study by Brown University has been 23% died in young children's verbal and language skills development. I see this as our precious 5-year-old granddaughters. This is due to masking. The push for children to get the MNRNA gene altering shot should be stopped immediately. The so-called vaccine does not block transmission. This has been admitted by our own CDC. There has been inadequate studies on the shot and how they affect us in the future. What we are seeing in our world today is governments using tyrannical measures to control the people. It is about control, not health. In addition, money is a huge motivator. Billion dollars has been given to the schools. As you know, there are strings attached. With the facts we now know it is common sense to put a stop to these measures. Thank you. Caller 1999, your microphone is available. As a reminder to star 6 to unmute your phone. Good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I'll deal with it. You know, there used to be five kids in here. They could do a much splendid better job as supervisors than all of you. The law enforcement that's in the building on the fifth floor really was very polite and are doing what they're supposed to do supporting the public. You guys don't really support the public. I thought we had three minutes. I guess we don't. This is what I came here to say. But any fact checkers use the entity to directly check the facts about the entity and accept that entity's answer without actually digging deeper integrity can be diminished. For example just on February 11 David Martin's use of public information that uses facts from those involved in the VAX products that are creating the greatest crimes against all human beings on earth so far. Directly linking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a young global leader to directly profiting from the VAX inoculation and then using police and military to cover up his lies. Where would this lead as far as the other 12,000 young global leaders under the direction of Klaus Schwab under the direction of Henry Kissinger? Is it possible that these frauds are being done by more than these 12,000 individuals down to every city and council person who's aware and sworn oath to their country's sovereign citizen? Thank you. Thank you Mr. Whiteman. Lisette Santana Vasquez your microphone is available. Hola, buenos días a todos Soy mamá y promotora de salud mi nombre es Lisette Santana y quiero compartirles que cuando inicié como promotora de salud durante la capacitación lo acepté porque pensé que esos temas y tópicos que íbamos a aprender durante la capacitación me iban a funcionar como en mi rol como mamá pero no fue hasta después de que mi hijo tomó la vacuna y él se sintió completamente seguro feliz y vi que no había ninguna él estaba bien, que estaba sano pues compartimos este testimonio con nuestras familias tengo mi bebé a un lado y solo puedo decir que ser promotoras es un enlace a la comunidad y es un enlace a informarnos y compartir esa información de una forma segura porque ahora hay más mamás que se están preparando para ser promotoras y está aumentando el interés de la comunidad acerca de este tema y queremos seguir siendo ese enlace de la comunidad hacia el sistema de salud promotoras es poder navegar en un sistema de salud seguro y acercarnos y combatir esos temas tópicos que hay en la comunidad me siento, gracias mi nombre es Lisa Santana soy mamá y promotora de salud durante su experiencia muy bien bienvenida a que en el principio tomó la vacuna para desarrollar algunas habilidades como mamá pero después de que su hijo tomó la vacuna y saw how happy and secure her son felt para que la motivación aún más she feels like this is a bridge with two guys community members over to resources that they provided across the county and that's one of the things that she really enjoys about this and she likes the fact that there's more promotoras getting involved and it talks about how great the program is and how uncomfortable feel are trusting those promotoras to identify them to the resources they need so they feel like this is a great program she just wants to extend her gratitude and thank the public health for the support and of course all of you in this meeting and that's because we could have done this without you so thank you so much thank you Ms. Vazquez last call for speakers as a reminder it is star 9 to raise your hand or please press the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen Kim Smith and your microphone is available yes this is actually Justin Orgren stars having technical difficulties can you hear me yes okay and you know I'm here for my son and my son Hunter is now going to speak and tell you all what he's experienced in this county I am Hunter I am here today to tell my story of how I am being treated in school I have missed four days of school this month because I have not taken the vaccine or again to be tested weekly because of that I spent an entire day in the office away from my class for the next three days I was isolated from my classmates in an abandoned classroom with staff's tests that looked like a zombie apocalypse I was not on time for what I eat lunch with other students I ate on I had a I had a sesame I was on with a substitute teacher that does not seem right to me I am here because the schools do not make sense I am here asking for me and all the kids to stop this nonsense the schools COVID-19 policies are hurting us more than they are helping us thank you yeah thank you Hunter there are no other speakers wishing to speak at public comment thank you clerk then we will now move to item 6 action on the consent agenda are there any members of the board who would like to comment on items on the consent Supervisor Caput you are on mute Supervisor Caput yeah thank you I will make quick comments on number 22 the Pumper Valley Health Care District we will be taking applications for people to actually serve on that district board and how important it is the county that the Watsonville hospital basically stays open I would hate to think of all the patients or people that are in need going from Watsonville all the way over to Dominican or center hospital if you think you are busy now a lot busier in the future if we don't keep the rocks in the last wall and number 32 the mental health advisory board report thank you Serge for your comments that you made earlier number 46 we will be doing renovations on the Freedom Boulevard health clinic and facility out there also with counselors and there's also a health clinic and dental work that's being offered to people in South County thank you thank you Supervisor Caput Supervisor Kennedy sure thank you just two quick comments first on I number 23 which is forgivable loans to women and minority owned businesses I just want to thank staff I thought this was a really good approach and use of the funds and supporting child care providers during this time during any time it's critical post COVID it's essential to get our economy back up and going and give the resources to kids that they need I do want to urge that if all the funds are not expended that we look at it maybe a second round of funding $10,000 as a forgivable loan but the hole is deep and these providers may need more support and so if there aren't enough applications we should look at a second round and then on item number 61 which is a long-awaited Davenport water line I just want to thank Department of Public Works Ashley Trujillo and Kenny for their work this was an incredible opportunity to leverage these state funds in a way Davenport ratepayers who pay among the highest water rates in the state of California will not have to bear the cost for these critical system improvements so thank you to everyone who's put in many years of work in order to make this project happen thank you Supervisor Anderson thank you a couple items on item number 26 the SEIU agreement I thank our labor partners and our county leadership who work on this agreement I'm glad we've come to a resolution that will maintain the services for our community our work source has been essential in providing services during these two years of the pandemic as well as the SEIU fire and they will continue to be critical as we mitigate and navigate the new challenges that we look forward to improve our services in the future on item 27 this is essential to complete cleanup efforts from the SEIU fire I appreciate the feedback we have received from the companies in the field who are involved in the ongoing cleanup and for the board's support of this extension on items 28 through 37 these are the commission reports several of them this is a great opportunity to thank all the members of our county commissions and committees for their services to the community and to the advice and expertise lend to the county I also want to thank members of our staff who guide these advisory bodies and provided the necessary support to make their efforts worthwhile there's hundreds of people involved in the more than two dozen committee committees and commissions we have probably about 40 of them in the county so thank you each and every one of you for your input and on items number 43 at 44 the whole person care and substance abuse disorder services I just want to acknowledge how critical and complex these programs are and how important it is that the board and the public understand that these services entail and what are their outcomes I wish we had more time to dedicate to them today as they represent some of the biggest quality of life concerns we hear about regularly from our constituents I have some additional questions on item 14 this afternoon related to behavioral health and the relationship between those initiatives and these two pilot programs discuss on the consent agenda on items 43 and 44 and finally again the items 56 to 58 the storm damage repair my ongoing thanks to public works for its continued efforts to address the storm damage repair most notably in the fifth district in today's county dealing with bean creek road and Charlie road and we have to remember that the storm damage work comes in addition to the scheduled road maintenance managed by the public works each year and we know the community is grateful for these efforts is above and beyond the call of duty and I really appreciate public works for their continuous works there to get us back on track and on the road again thank you thank you supervisor friend thank you Mr. Chair just one brief comment on item 22 which is a very important item on our agenda regarding the process for creation of the initial board for the new health district obviously great appreciation for everybody both the local and state delegation that has worked to make this happen but this first board is an absolutely essential that we choose a diverse and qualified group of people to help lead during this transition I'm honored to be joining with Supervisor Caput and some of our workable professional staff in order to help guide that process we encourage members of the community that are interested in applying to be sure that they get their applications in on this and we can as Supervisor Caput noted provide for essential health services not just for South County but throughout the region by maintaining the stability of this hospital and district thank you Mr. Chair thank you this is item 23 this is a really great use of $400,000 to support women minority business recovery and it's really shocking that we lost 105 early childhood education facilities during the pandemic so this money will really go a long way to getting both families and businesses back up to speed it's great that we're working with El Palo CDC and can actually distribute these funds by the end of the year so thanks to staff for that and then on item 55 the 2022 tree trimming project I'm glad to see that we're allocating $500,000 to tree trimming my office many requests for tree trimming and I think it'll be money well spent given the increased fire risk that we're seeing so that's all my comments any one who would like to make a motion on the consent agenda sure I'll move the consent agenda second motion by Supervisor Friend second by Supervisor Coonerty any further discussion none clerk please roll call thank you and for the record this is for item 17 through 61 item 62 has moved to the regular agenda Supervisor Friend Coonerty Caput McPherson Konig thank you motion passes unanimously thank you the consent agenda being passed with the exception of item 62 which we'll hear as item 15.1 we'll now move on to item 7 consider the general fund mid-year budget report with updated estimates for fiscal year 2021 2022 an update on fiscal year 2022 2023 impacts as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer and we'll now yeah CAO Palacios thank you chair Konig and members of the board I'd like to present to you Marcus Pimentel the county budget manager will be giving the presentation today I wanted to note just in summary that we have a lot of good news and things to be thankful for chief among them is that our major revenue sources as you'll see in the report have fully recovered from before the pandemic so we're back to pre-pandemic rates of revenue for our major revenue sources so that's a good and healthy sign but on the other hand the worry that we have is mainly related to our response to the pandemic and the CZU fire where the county incurred millions of dollars of expenses over a hundred million combined and our big issue is you know how much are we going to get reimbursed from FEMA what expenses will they disallow when will those reimbursements come and so they present a challenge for our budget as we go forward into the budget here and that's why we continue to recommend caution as the board has shown in the past and luckily the board has been very very prudent and cautious in the past and it's allowed us to have good reserves but anyway you will see in the presentation that we do have some outside risks due to mainly our response to the twin emergencies of the CZU fire and the health pandemic with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Pimentel will give the presentation to the board Good morning Chair Koenig and members of the board before I begin I just want to make sure you can see the presentation on your screen again great so thank you County Administrative Officer Carl Spaw for those opening remarks what I hope to do for you over the next coming 20 minutes or so is to summarize our detailed major report that really is a bridge towards the release of our upcoming proposed 2022-23 budget again this is just a summary of what is in our monthly report this presentation will focus on the update to our 5-year forecast that really occurred for this fiscal year talk about our financial status including some peer and state-wide comparisons that illustrate how we are systematically unfunded as a county I'll conclude with identifying our financial liabilities near-term opportunities and certainly be available for questions or comments this is an informational presentation and we're beginning with a dialogue towards our 22-23 proposed budget updated forecast before what has changed since January is the 21-22 fiscal year update we are now projecting a structural imbalance of a net $7.7 million in the current fiscal year this is based on receiving estimated actuals from our departments and incorporating some of our near-term liabilities and commitments such as the amazing step forward to keep the Watsonville Community Hospital open we will be revaluing continually this forecast and I expect to have some slight revisions when we develop and present to your proposed 22-23 budget it's left without action this year 7.7 million but we will not let that happen staff plans to return on April 22nd 2022 with essentially a mid-year 2.0 that we hope to provide some update on possible corrective measures should that imbalance continue with these measures without these measures without taking action and if the $7.7 million worst-case scenario were to happen in balance we would still remain above our 7% minimum reserve funding level again we could remain above our minimum 7% funding level what keeps me up at night is when I think about it as a percent of payroll when we look at our general fund payroll reserves about 6.5 paid periods when we factor out some of our health and human initiatives that we like to use those reserves for we really get down to covering just over three payroll cycles that's not to alarm you, that's just to give a different perspective as a sense of operations impact again we'll provide a little bit more information on this in our major report and we'll be coming back on April 26th including things like the status of ARPA and some of our risks and our FEMA staff determinations as we looked a little bit deeper into our cost segments over the last many years we kind of see a trend of course pre-pandemic and post-pandemic pre-pandemic we are averaging about $8 million a year in new net contributions to sustain our county departments now that's great and that's phenomenal it's been able to keep our services going but we've not been able to invest in areas including those identified in community priority polling nor to help identify and fund some of our issues within our aging facilities and infrastructure we hope that to be a theme about coming up with new solutions to for both of those over the next year, year plus so I guess I should speak to the slide when I looked at the pre-pandemic levels we had 37.4 million total and cost increases to our general fund commitment and those were not necessary to expand programs or services, there were some on the fringes it was really to sustain our operation those we faced increasing cost pressures from our need to sustain services through personnel costs and land wages I think a little bit deeper into that 37.4 million this next slide illustrates where those funding sources and financing sources went to 52% of that went to support our public safety response services as we look forward with the inclusion of a public defender's office that will be a huge step forward in reducing systematic racism and other things those commitments will likely increase as we need to continue to invest in those areas that's not this slide is not meant to show any issues with where our funding has been those are some critical core areas of our cost commitments this is to illustrate where our funding pressures are coming from again I just want to reiterate what is not included in this slide and what is not included in a lot of our cost models is funding for a aging infrastructure moving into what drove our forecast to change for this current year when we adopted the budget we were looking at since we have adopted the budget our cost, our net chronic cost for this current year projected to increase by 10.6 million while most of our county segments cost categories are on pace with the adopted budget our health and human services and pandemic response is where we're seeing the biggest change we estimate that the county could incur a net 7.1 million dollars an additional cost and payment denials just in this year alone from our pandemic response and the 5 million dollars committed to keeping the Watson community hospital open that illustrates some of the major changes from our adopted budget to where we thought the mid-year estimate was going to what we're calling a projected alternate that includes the commitment to fund 5 million dollars that is still contingent on action being taken when layering in our revenues and of course the revenues have been improving this current year and over the last several years with slide layers in that impact of our general-purpose net revenues available to fund our county operation we're seeing growth that is not sufficient enough to keep up with these cost pressures looking into our projected alternate forecast this year that includes the funding for health and human services for pandemic response and for the Watson community hospital just this year alone at the snapshot we could end with a structural imbalance of 21.7 million with the 14 million carried over from last year that results with the financing gap of 7.7 million again we plan to return to the board on April 26th 2022 with some solutions to bridging that gap should continue and now we'll move into what our reference is about systematic underfunding some revenue trends and conclude the presentation available for questions this slide illustrates what is talked about in our major report which we'll head a little bit more in the subsequent report on item 8 on the transit occupancy tax that when we look at our core revenue streams and our general purpose revenues especially property tax and sales tax when we look at our peers per capita or statewide comparisons or cities around us we are consistently underfunded systematically in our funding formulas and looking at property tax by way of example with the passage of property in the late 1970s that 40-year-old formula now results in the county getting about $463 per unincorporate unincorporate resident and property tax revenue as compared to our peers and statewide averages that's three times lower than the state average and nine times lower than our peer averages the counties around us and statewide receive a far greater share of property tax than we do in our county and that's just a big in formula from the 1970s there's no fault about it just is something that we have to deal with looking at our property tax and we'll talk about that sales tax underfunding in a subsequent presentation when we started looking at our revenue trends we are seeing positive growth and we are seeing recovery with Carl's box as pointed out many of our revenues have recovered from the pre-pandemic drops we still have gaps in those funding that we were unable to collect but the trends are showing some recovery now the slide above you that you're seeing here layers in our trend line that was the pre-pandemic actual trending growth for property tax that's the dotted line so had pre-pandemic had those growth levels continued in the case of property tax we would be projecting $6.9 million more next year than what we're actually on pace to collect as a whole when looking at the property tax we make a licensee, sales tax and transparency tax kind of our big four revenue streams as a whole when you look at those four revenue streams there are trended growth trends versus our projections we're about 2.4 million short below our trending average property tax is by far the largest one that's short by 6.9 million and it's not a deficit we're seeing growth but the growth is slower than it was the pre-pandemic levels when looking at VLF as the second largest revenue source in general purpose revenues that is trending well but not keeping pace with pre-pandemic growth trends that one is falling short about 2.1 million for next fiscal year sorry that's the slide there so that's our VLF trend trendline as compared to our actual projection for next fiscal year when looking at sales tax that is the strong growth trend and far exceeding the historical averages thanks in large part to the past to measure G the district tax is outperforming our Bradley Burns 1% base tax and I'd love to have a study session on the nuances in that but district taxes in our case tend to collect a higher capital rate than the base sales tax on the whole our total sales tax coming in for next fiscal year is projected to be 5.5 million ahead of the pre-pandemic trend level so that's great but it's also a reflection of caution as our consumer economy is becoming heavier heavier driven and consumer spending and retail and in the last over years consumers are dumping more money into tangible purchases we do expect that trend to slow down people will start going back to services to experiences and we are seeing some evolution of sales tax collection we can talk about it a little bit more later on now again while this is great news on the trend of our sales tax there is a lot of caution in sales tax including what the trend lines are this one is very illustrative of the gap we saw from the pandemic sharp decline in our 2019 and 2020 collections now it has recovered from that pre-pandemic drop but its pace is exceeding what we were projecting on the actual trend level and we are happy to see that on the whole next year we expect to have 1.29 of what we would have had from an actual trended level I hope that makes sense to you it is a different way of looking at revenue trends but I thought it was important to understand what we are seeing growth but some of the growth isn't as great as we would like it to be there is a lot more detail in our major report I will finish with another pure comparison of systematic funding you have seen a little bit about this last year in our report ARPA's American Rescue Plan Act the allocation formula necessarily in our case didn't factor in the additional mandate obligation the county serves when we look at ARPA allocation within our county and compared to a percent of general fund we were funded at 8.5% of our general fund as compared to other cities and agencies around us they were funded at least that level if not substantially higher it's not 35 but 47% of the general fund so in another way cities around us received and some of our districts received a lot more in ARPA funding but not necessarily with the mandated responses and cost that we had to incur in responding to the COVID pandemic that's just a matter of the formula and how it was created we are grateful for the funding but it is far insufficient to cover all of our extraordinary COVID pandemic costs moving a little bit into it wouldn't be a good budget officer if I weren't worried about some things this next slide just covers some big segments of future liabilities that we faced well our capital improvement plan that was adopted for 2021-22 did provide detail on $301 million in unfunded unfunded projects we know there are more costs out there we know there are facilities that are aging faster than we like and we know that there are costs that we're still trying to identify whether we are seeing big significant exposures in the next year the next five years that's going to be some work we're going to be doing over these coming years to make sure we're able to sustain our facilities and services that are dependent on those facilities in addition to capital and aging infrastructure investments we've talked about this a lot and it was the nature of our February 1st board action thank you for that pausing some of our ARPA funding we're facing upwards of 29 million in local costs our general fund might have to absorb from claims that FEMA will not reimburse largely from the COVID pandemic but also claims from the CZU of Fire and Emergency Response and we expect to have more detail on that by April 26th in addition as we're looking down to a large community priority the need to reduce the risk of our those who are experiencing homelessness current estimates for county-wide solutions total 34 to 44 million that's not necessarily a county obligation but we're certainly partnering in those solutions so there's some significant costs that our county is going to need to be a partner in or directly fund in these coming years that we're going to have to have some really strong strategies for again where we funded in different levels or like our peers we'd have a lot more options in providing solutions for these challenges I'll conclude with recapping well Miss Field Ominous you know I've been fortunate to work in this area in local government finance for nearly two plus decades and there are always solutions out there and we will continue to come forward with solutions and opportunities our full cast is full casting gaps we think those gaps are something to work towards and we're going to continue to close those gaps we have solutions in line that will help close those gaps but we are facing some considerable pressure and look forward to partnering with the board with county department staff and with our community in solutions again in the field that you're here with on April 26th with items that will include an ARPA update FEMA claims risk update an update on our reserves and some possible solutions to our budget gap we'll also see much of this information discussed in our 22-23 proposed budget with that I'm very thankful for the county board's leadership I'm thankful for county office, the minister of office of Palos who has seen their years of leadership and passion I'm thankful for my predecessor Christina Mauri who is a great mentor and helping me on board here in the county with that this concludes my presentation you'll hear a little bit more of the storyline in our next agenda item but I'm certainly available for questions or comments Thank you budget manager Pimentel are there questions from members of the board? Yes Mr. Chair I have a brief one if that's okay first some appreciation on the presentation Mr. Pimentel for your first full budget presentation I'd just like to say that I greatly appreciated the integration of the charts into the agenda report as well as breaking down the property tax take we've always heard the percentage of 13% but seeing it broken down an actual dollar figure really in my opinion illustrates the inequities that prop 13 continues to create across the state I did have one question which is in regards to the property tax lag you didn't necessarily provide a rationale as to what could be driving it is it just as simply the lack of property turnover in our region I mean obviously property values have gone up exponentially so is it just the fact that there are no homes really turning over that's leading in part to this post pandemic lag in our expectations under 6 million or so There's probably a couple factors to the obvious ones or we had a huge amount of transaction sales over the in the last 5 years and to a certain extent those don't go so far in limiting the community so it could be just a trend of sales activities slowing down a little bit and the timetable it takes for supplemental changes to come on board and if the recent property transferred over in the last 5 or 10 years that increase in property taxes is negligible certainly if the property was sold that came on the books in the 1970s and it's sold in 2012 there's a huge gain in that but if it sells again 5 years later that new gain is pretty small we also had an impact on the CCU fire and we were expecting and starting to receive some funding to help us with some of those assessed values that declined so those are probably two of the likely contributing factors to that to dive a little bit deeper we'll take a little bit more analysis and we'll do that in the mid-year I mean in the proposed budget those are really good things to point out I appreciate this report it's an outstanding report and I just had that additional question just because I imagine it'll be something we'll be asked I appreciate it, thank you Mr. Chair Thank you Supervisor Friend Supervisor McPherson Thank you Mr. Pimentel and to the CAO for this mid-year report I'm really fortunate to say the least that many of our revenues have bounced back after 2 years of unpredictability and as stated in the report this right is on FEMA's decisions related to our reimbursement for them reimbursing us for the expenses incurred by sheltering and feeding our most vulnerable populations I do want to mention just that we adjusted the property tax assessment for those that were impacted by the fire which was mentioned so we wanted that was something that we decided to do early on and rightly so I think it's also worth mentioning the impact of our decisions to contribute substantially to rescuing Watsonville Hospital which benefits our entire county not just the south county it's a big investment but necessary for the future of our health one question do these agreements are estimates taken to account the fiscal impacts of our recent employee agreements that we just talked about earlier on the consent agenda Yes, Board Member McPherson these two we did include our estimated impacts need to invest in our staff in these models Thank you Thank you Supervisor Caput Thank you Thanks a lot Marcus for your report One question I do have I know Santa Cruz County California 58 counties are unique How is Santa Clara County Do we have any idea how they're doing in Monterey County as far as their property tax and revenue is going right now Great question Board Member Caput I will say unfortunately I don't have a good feeling on that I know overall Santa Clara County is incredibly well funded when we look at their per capita numbers they're one of the top funded counties in the state where their cost pressures are at and if they're projecting deficit I don't know that number but I would expect that they've got a lot of opportunities and that they're not facing anything near the same challenges just in our conversations on the case of FEMA for example from bigger counties we're going to deal with whatever FEMA does we don't have that ability we must aggressively counter push back against FEMA as to Monterey County that's something I could do a little bit more research and understand where they're at from a fiscal perspective that's a great question And then more of a comment rather than a question but rather we need to be really proactive with property tax coming in now and then like Santa Clara County maybe they're getting a lot more but the thing is if all of a sudden the bubble pops and we have a crash like we did not that long ago with property taxes homes dropping in value are we kind of prepared for that as a possible scenario I like to be a little more proactive a little more careful we don't go out and spend all the money we got coming in and then all of a sudden we have another crisis It's a great observation I think our major report I didn't cover that enough but our major report talks a little bit about kind of our perception of the recovery of the economic slowdown that occurred technically we ended a 10.7 year run of economic growth and we had a two month recession one two months of recession I don't think that was a sufficient market correction I'm very concerned that so much of our economy is based on consumer spending and the minute as we're seeing this spiral up inflation interest rates going up and other risks with the retail industry I think that's a good observation that we're concerned about a possible economic slowdown in the next couple of years I think we've done this board has done a really phenomenal job in identifying reserves and preserving them to keep us set up for emergencies such as an economic emergency or a climate based other emergency but as we'll talk about in April 26 when looking at all of our risks our county face economic and climate based our risks are pretty high so we're really nervous that we don't have the bandwidth to really sustain another event in the coming years if FEMA is going to be restrictive in their ability to help us I hope that doesn't over explain your question but we're concerned about a pandemic an economic slowdown and I think we're okay right now but we need to be thoughtful of what's coming ahead I guess the reserves that we did have when we were having a lot of trouble we had to dig into that quite a bit I guess it will be real important that we build that back up so that we're always kind of ready for what's going to happen thank you thank you Supervisor Caput just a few questions the report mentioned our self-insured liability fund is that our fund that we use when people sue the county or is that something else yes that's exactly we do not purchase third party commercial insurance we self-insure for all claims and liabilities we have some minimum funding levels but we have high level exposure so yes that is correct got it and then I didn't realize how much vehicle licensing fees actually contribute to our revenue stream and that's just when people actually purchase a card as they knew with vehicle registration yes and no a few governors ago we had a movie star governor and they did the triple flip in the early 2000s which is a very strange formula but it ended up restructuring growth rates on vehicle license fees so it's no longer tied to vehicle licensing trends it's now tied to property tax growth trends so when property tax is going really well we're ahead of the game and as our recent years maybe a little bit low average we're not doing so well the base still lives on vehicle transactions but the growth rates are now tied to property tax interesting it's vehicle transaction it's a share of vehicle transactions or like a some base rate that then every year is increased based on property tax value correct interesting okay it's a very interesting model there are a lot of interesting financing models in the state yeah which brings me to my last question which is the allocation of online sales taxes so is that is there actually a state law today that is determining how those are distributed or is it just an administrative change I mean and of course my real question is what do we have to do to get that changed to create observation Federal Supreme Court California Supreme Court California voters and California law and staff determination all those drive the allocation formula most recently as an example staff in the state of California have determined that certain warehousing companies revenues that used to come to our county now go revert back to where those warehouses are based that was a recent change that happened in the last 12 months that's a significant hit to our sales tax base on the whole there is still archaic funding methodologies in the state constitution that when our residents in the unincorporated county purchase something online those sales tax don't come directly to the county they go into a pool shared across entire county based on proportional shares of brick and mortar sales so I don't mean to disparage capital that has malls and some auto but they have a small population with a higher retail base so they get a higher proportion of unincorporated county online sales than we do because the allocation is based on brick and mortar sales tax so there's some archaic funding methodologies that technology certainly can identify where that item was delivered but the state still has to make those changes you know I've been part of three rounds of those discussions at the state level and through the previous in the league of California cities and it just ends up there's a lot of winners and losers and it gets very contentious and anytime there's contention within the base then the state legislators typically don't want to touch that if local government agencies can't get together so it's a tough nut, it's a tough one to solve but um so you're saying we're unfortunately not going to be able to change those formulas until the state constitution is changed is that correct yes alright that's frustrating um alright any members of the public that wish to address us on this item caller 2915 your microphone is available hello this is Becky Steinburner can you hear me thank you Mr. Pimentel thank you you have explained some very confusing things very well and I really appreciate it I'm fascinated by this just explained issue of um online sales tax and how it all gets distributed and we really need to let the consumers know that because it gives us all the more reason to shop locally doesn't it and for us to support local retailers I am very um surprised by your report this morning I thought had thought the county was in a pretty good shape with all of the incoming um state and federal help so I'm a little bit surprised by this but I'm glad that you're on top of it and I will look forward to your report on April 26th I want to also echo Supervisor Caput concern of the impending uh of the inflation we're experiencing now in a possible recession and I know how long it took this county to pull out of that one last time it happened so I'm very concerned I would like to know a dollar amount of how much the um property tax by the CZU fire did affect the county's budget a dollar amount I know it's significant but if you can report a dollar amount that would be great I would also ask that um you give a dollar amount in terms of you said that the count this county's reimbursement from the rescue act was only about eight and a half percent of the general fund I have learned to regard percents with a note of caution I like real figures so how much did we actually get and um how has it been used I am very upset still about measure G sale tax were promised that it would be used for fire zero any other members of the public to address us other speakers thank you seeing none I'll return to the board for action motion would be in order I'll move the recommended actions second motion by supervisor friends second by supervisor McPherson any further discussion I'll just add a comment of course I'll support accepting the report today um you know and we'll move on to discuss some other potential revenue measures but um fundamentally we're going to have to be aligned in addressing these inequities in the property tax distribution and sales tax distribution I mean our county continues to suffer from these rates and we have hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded road repairs 100 million dollars in unfunded park repairs um you know and as supervisor McPherson mentioned earlier we're doing great things we've run some merit awards um and uh and all we've got a very small budget you know we could accomplish so much more if we just got our fair share um I've mentioned some of these issues at a recent town hall to some of my constituents and um you know they were outraged and ready to take action so I think the more we get this information out there um the more aligned we get in changing it um the better chance will stand of actually changing these issues we just have no choice I mean some of these upcoming measures we're talking about but um you know they're dropping in the bucket and and they can't fundamentally write the ship um we're doing okay now but I shudder to think what will happen in the case of a serious recession Mr. Chair to build on that one could submit that if we were receiving our fair share these it would obviate the need for these these measures that we're even discussing the next couple of items I mean realistically how often do you hear all of us here I pay X number of dollars in property taxes why don't I have and then it'll be roads public safety parks and why are you coming back with additional well this is the rationale as to why every percentage point we're at 13 right every percentage point that we're able to keep equates to millions of dollars uh that is actually now sent elsewhere as a result or not maintained in an incorporated county so I completely agree that the formulation if there was a way to do it because people are already spending that money here locally and the reality is the money isn't necessarily staying locally some of it does go to special districts and other things locally but disproportionately money is leaving um and people feel that their investments that are being made through property taxes aren't being reinvested locally and they're they're correct because of this structural design thank you any further discussion when we have a motion on the floor clerk please call the roll supervisor friend I Coonerty I Caput I McPherson I Koenig I thank you motion passes unanimously thank you that make your budget report being accepted we will move on to item eight to consider report on the county's transient occupancy tax in the unincorporated area adopt resolution to provide for the submission of a county wide measure increasing the transient occupancy tax to the qualified voters of the Santa County of Santa Cruz at the regular election to be held on June 7th 2022 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer and I believe that county budget manager Marcus Cimentelli will be presenting on this as well yes and again just confirming my first run in a virtual presentation can you see the screen that's up with the TOT measure great thank you I will be presenting with our Assistant County Administrative Officer Nicole Colburn together with many other staff we've been working on some solutions of how we might start bridging some of our gaps and more importantly how we can start addressing some of our funding issues so I appreciate Nicole Colburn for joining us here today I will turn it over to her to kind of set the stage for it to Nicole I presume you're here and ready to go I am online thank you Marcus and good morning board members so why don't you go to the next slide Marcus so on today's presentation we're going to be reviewing the results of our recent polling on community priorities Marcus he just heard a presentation from him on the mid-year budget he's going to recap just a little bit about the county's financial status particularly as it applies to our transient occupancy tax and cover some of our comparisons he's also going to cover some of our large financial liabilities which you just heard a little bit about and then we'll conclude with the recommendations to add a measure to our June 7, 2022 ballot regarding the transient occupancy tax next slide so we did conduct some polling in the fall and one of the aspects of that polling identified some of our community priorities and as you can see here we were encouraged to see alignment with what we believed are our top economic priorities and these are similar to some of our prior polling that had been done the chart here is stacked based on the items that you can see had the greatest need but also highlight items that felt that likely voters had some need for the county so for example if you look down towards the bottom of the chart where it's just streets and roads you can see that there was a combined great and some need at 82% but the issues that really have the greatest need overall had to do with affordable housing wildfire response and prevention and recovery and mental health services and homelessness and affordable housing next slide so I'm going to turn it back to Marcus we'll take it from here for a few a little bit this is the part where I recorded myself I could just repeat what I just presented to you but we felt it was important to include this in the slide that can also just refer to this just in case anybody from the community clicks in and just watches this segment so I apologize for some of the redundancy from just a few minutes ago but when we looked at our revised forecast in February this current year went from a trended level that we thought was going to finish on balance to a deficit of 7.7 million as detailed in our major report and the prior presentation some big components of that are the county stepping forward to help keep the Wacomal community hospital open with the $5 million pledge some changes in our expectations on reimbursement revenue and costs for a pandemic response and shelter and care services we did see some positive growth and revenue trends and budget savings so on the whole we ended this we revised our forecast for a deficit this year of 7.7 million structural imbalance that we plan to come back to the board by April 26 with the plan to how we might fix that should it remain I want to just kind of move on to not be entirely redundant but just to know that these forecasts there's a lot of work that goes into them overall forecast trend in December and January and we'll be providing some new detail in the February proposed budget the 22-23 proposed budget that we hope has some opportunities from the state budget with their large surplus taking another step forward from our prior conversation about systematic unfunding as detailed in our major report this next slide kind of illustrates from a service perspective not only were we systematically underfunded we're also a county that does a lot more than most other counties when looked at our peers and looked at us from a statewide comparison we have more population served in our county than most other counties across the entire state so they were unfunded because of some historical 40-year-old funding formulas and B we happen to have more population in the unincorporated area as compared to our friends in Santa Clara who have phenomenal per capita county revenue bases they only have 4% of their population lives in the unincorporated area so the county Santa Clara serves 4% of the population where the cities pick up nearly 96% of that in our case we were responsible for just over 50% of the population in our county directly so we act as a municipality we act as a county mandated service level and in those mandates we act as a delivery of services from the state that were required to fund so we have a lot more obligations than our peers and with that systematic unfunding it just puts a lot of cost pressures on us as an example this is a repeat of the slide on property tax again we kept it in here just so it's visible but I don't want to stay my welcome on this one but just in the end when compared to our peers we received proportionally a far greater less in property tax revenue than our peers around us either our county peers are across the entire state three to nine times less than our peers when we look at sales tax this slide is in our our major report to a certain extent we are also under funded and under resourced and Chair Koenig to your prior question and prior presentation about online sales tax that's a big determination in this counties typically are not the retail centers of your community typically those are cities and we typically would be a county would typically provide county-wide services but also a lot of urban services and our county serving half the population would expect that our sales tax would be greater but it's that formula and how sales tax is allocated especially online sales that is to our disadvantage so when we look at the statewide averages we're at $90 per capita the statewide averages is about 20 per capita and when we look at our local cities they're nearly three times the per capita sales tax receipts than we are so even at a sales tax level we are hurt largely by the way online sales tax are allocated in the formulas behind there again this is just a different view but that same recap of some of our major liabilities and our investments gaps and where opportunities lie in the future the capital 2021-22 CFP report detailed $301.7 million in unfunded capital projects we know that number is larger we know that we have agent facilities that are not reviewed and that number is going to grow as we start seeing more of those risk factors come into play we know that we have at least $29 million at risk from a local share that our general fund would be responsible for aka the female would not reimburse from the CCU fire and the COVID pandemic and we know that countywide collectively our county is looking at numbers between $34 and $44 million to help with those at risk of experiencing homelessness or those who are experiencing homelessness how to mitigate that and how to provide solutions so we know our needs are great we know we have brilliant and passionate people behind us to help provide the solutions but our funding shortfalls are just something that are a struggle so I pause catch my breath and make sure I'm not talking too fast one of the considerations we have before you today is to add to our June 7th ballot measure that would increase transit occupancy tax across the unincorporated county by 1% for hotels, motels and inns and 3% for visitors who choose to stay at a vacation rental property these are taxes that are borne by the visitor when they choose to come here they pay the tax and the local establishment or in the case of the BRBO or Airbnb they collect the tax on our behalf and submit it to us our county needs are great and as identified by Nicole Colburn previously our community polling kind of aligns with our own strategic initiatives and priorities we have a need to invest in wildfire prevention and our emergency response as we know we have higher risks from climate impacted emergency events our street repair is not where we'd like it to be we need to invest proactively in public mental health and that in turn over time will reduce other costs the county has to take on and we know homelessness the ability to mitigate those who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness is a huge social determinant of health that reduces our other costs on the tail end of a lot of our situations so we hope to find some resources to start investing in these places and sustaining some of our services and we think it's the right place to look to our visitors today we have a split rate that's a great question we've had some great community outreach with hotel and operators and our vacation rental community to just listen and understand their concerns but also for us to have a conversation about what we see and we see that there are a lot the trend of vacation rentals in our community is increasing as it is in a lot of coastal communities you can look to any of our neighbors in the second home communities a lot of the graphic in this slide illustrates the red dot mapping of where our vacation rentals are in the unincorporated areas and you see a lot of concentration in our coastal zones that's also where a lot of our residential communities live there's a greater impact in what used to be a residential home now turning into commercial property they didn't pay fees related to a commercial property service and B the impacts on neighborhoods are great when people trying to raise a family or have a peaceful living and they have a routine change and who's staying next door so for that reason we feel it's appropriate for our visitors who are impacting those neighborhoods who are impacting our residential housing stock to bear a greater share of helping us provide solutions so that's why we're proposing the split rate at 12 and 14% what that would do in our market is it keeps us in line with where our region is when we look at communities the coastal zone communities there's essentially a 12% that's not higher just in our region yes there are some agencies below us below our current 11% rate but outside of the city of Santa Cruz everyone with the coastal zone is at a higher transit activity tax rate again those taxes are paid by visitors who come to this community so we feel this recommendation does not put as a competitive disadvantage locally so I'm going to, like I mentioned we did keep polling in the fall regarding a potential measure related to the transient occupancy tax we did poll at the 1% increase for hotels, motels and the ins and the 3% increase for vacation rental properties and the polling results came back overwhelmingly in support of the ballot measure at 74% as you can see here based on the poll results that we received one of the most popular justifications was that the tax is being paid by visitors and just the overall impacts especially related to vacation rentals on our neighbourhoods next slide Marcus so here you can see the ballot question that we're proposing on the board this is what we also pulled on I'm not going to read it for you but you can see that it includes the split rate for the hotels motels and ins and vacation rentals increasing from 12% or 14% respectively I will note that the revenue measure would raise approximately $2.3 million annually until ended by voters and with that I think we have the recommended actions for you which are to accept and file this report and then to take the various recommendations to place the measure on the ballot including advising County Council and the Auditor-Controller Tracts Collector of their requirements for independent analysis and submitting the resolution to the county clerk by the deadline of March 11 our office would return to the board if the ballot measure is successful with any necessary actions with that Marcus and I are happy to take your questions Thank you Assistant CAO Colbert and Budget Manager Pimentel Questions for members of the board Supervisor McPherson I can support this increase it keeps the line with other markets supported by our residents about three quarters of them from the point of last fall the estimate for the income the revenue that would come from this I think it's the total of $2.3 million Is that correct? That is correct Supervisor McPherson As a member of the Visit Santa Cruz County Board I know it's important to recognize that this tax is paid by visitors to our community now their tourism is critical to keeping sales tax revenues healthy I think it's been proven that the GOT or transit occupancy tax is not a deterrent to people choosing to come to Santa Cruz County to stay overnight so I will support this and would be glad to make the motion do so when it's appropriate Thank you Any other questions from board members? I have a couple of questions I do believe that other of our staff members on the line can answer them if you can feel free to jump in but I've heard that our tax collector's office has what's called host compliance software but our planning department does not which oversees the vacation rental permits Does anyone know if that's true? I do, you're correct that the controller's office has the host compliance I think it goes by a new name now I can't speak to what planning does or does not utilize as part of its permitting process but if staff aren't on the line we're happy to get back to you with the answer chair Coney Okay, thank you and then I've also received some complaints from constituents that the Citizen Connect app the most recent approved vacation rentals I don't know if anyone knows the last time that it was actually updated We can check with the information services department occasionally they might do refreshes as part of the app but we can check with them on the last time that was updated Thank you My point here is I'm certainly supportive of the idea of increasing the utility most of the constituents I've talked to are also supportive of the idea and on the one hand there's some pretty clear justifications particularly for the higher rate for vacation rentals that there is a higher burden of enforcement and that many of these vacation rentals are operating as a commercial business in residential areas and never paid impact fees so that's a great justification but on the other side when we look at the needs where in our county budget $1 million shortfall this year and this will provide 2.3 of additional funding my concern is that rather than beef up regulation or do some of those neighborhood projects where people will start to feel like maybe there was a fair shake on vacation rentals instead the funds will get sucked just into meeting the basic needs of our county budget and I'll just add that in Monterey the city of Monterey for example is there at 12% today but they also have an additional measure that says 16% of all TOT taxes will go to neighborhood recommended projects and again this is a way that the funds that are coming from vacation rentals which impact neighborhoods are going back into those neighborhoods and helping to support citizen proposed projects so if you look at what 16% of our TOT would be around $2.5 million so essentially all of this increase so I'll just say I think that it wouldn't be appropriate at this time but I think in the future we are going to look at doing some kind of budget resolution if this passes, if voters approve it that it directs some of the funds from TOT back to addressing these concerns around vacation rental regulations and neighborhood impacts Supervisor Caput Thank you My question this impacts more the other four districts of Santa Cruz County more than South County because we don't have a whole lot of vacation rentals in District 4 and so I guess the one concern I had years ago I did have the part of Dunes area and what are we raising the vacation rental from what percent to 14% what is it currently right now I shouldn't know the answer for that We're at 11% Oh go ahead Marcus We're at 11% now Yeah So that's a 3% raise Is that going to be a big deal or what I don't know The industry data doesn't it should not be a big deal typically visitors who pay the tax don't decide where to go based on the tax rates We are a very attractive area so there are decisions or something else but when they pay the tax rate it shouldn't impact where they're choosing to go So if the rest of the board is basically for it I'll go along like I said it's not a big deal in the Watsonville area as far as vacation rentals but my only concern is for the rest of the county Thank you Supervisor Caput Any other questions from members of the board then we'll take it to the public Caller 2915 your microphone is available Hello this is Becky Steinbruner Can you hear me? Yes Thank you for this interesting report I want to thank Supervisor Koenig for bringing up the possibility and I think it should be done in the ballot language itself to build in that a certain percent of this new tax revenue will be used for neighborhood recommended projects I'm appalled to see that in the language of this ballot the first thing on there is wildfire prevention and the second thing is emergency response the third thing is street repair these are the same issues that Measure G ballot language had in 2018 that was put through in the November time when the fires were happening and zero of Measure G have sent sales tax has gone to fund fire protection what guarantees can you give the public that this will not be a repeat of that to build public trust that this money will in fact go to wildfire protection emergency response and street repair I want to see some percentages of the expected revenue dedicated to going to those funds otherwise I have no confidence that it will actually happen this will be a complete repeat of what happened with Measure G in 2018 and there is no citizen oversight of that as was promised Mr. Skull simply said well it's on the website and people can look at it that is not citizen oversight so if you want the public's trust in this you need to build in these percentages just like you did with Measure D and I ask that that happen before your board approves anything moving forward on this $2.3 million is a lot of money and the public wants to know how it's going to be spend and have some assurance it will be spent there are no other speakers comment thank you then I'll return to the board for action a motion to be in order move the recommended actions second motion by Supervisor McPherson second by Supervisor Coonerty any further discussion I think the only thing I'd add is and it's been said in both the previous item and this item is we are facing so many uncertainties and we've seen in the last two years where we needed to have either reserves to whether pandemic or fires or FEMA reimbursement or the closure of a hospital I mean the reality is our world's becoming much more complex and while the county is looking at resilience from an infrastructure point of view it's also frankly important that we are resilient from a financial point of view to be able to respond to emerging needs that will be occurring on a much more regular basis and you know building in some of these taxes that can provide that resilience in our budget to respond to these needs I think is important and especially when it's primarily going to fall on people who come and enjoy our community enjoy the resources and quality of life of our community they need to contribute to maintaining that and so that's why I'm supportive today thank you Supervisor Coonerty any further discussion I would just add I agree with the sentiment of the collard as I've said I think that ultimately in some portion of these revenues should be allocated to reduce neighborhood impacts and neighborhood projects and regulation you know if we were to build that into the initiative language first of all it would make it a special tax that would increase the threshold that it would need in order to pass from 50% plus one up to a two thirds vote and second it would really reduce our flexibility as Supervisor Coonerty said I mean the challenges we discussed earlier in terms of the very low rate that we get from our property taxes that was baked into Prop 13 and as a result it's incredibly difficult to change and so rather than having those rates fixed in an initiative passed by voters it gives us just a little bit more flexibility and ability to respond to the needs of the day if it's something that we address through a budget resolution in the future I do plan to work on that and bring it forward if this measure passes so if there's no further comment, clerk please roll call vote Supervisor Friend Coonerty Caput McPherson Koenig Thank you, motion passes unanimously Thank you, that will now move to item 8 consider a report on the county sorry item 9 consider an update on proceeding with a protest vote for a recycling and solid waste infrastructure charge to fund the county solid waste facilities except in file report on community support for allowing the county to collect a percent inch of single use cop and single use bag charge fees and then we'll continue to use bag charge fees and direct the Department of Public Works to return on April 12, 2022 to present recycling and solid waste infrastructure charges and initiate related Proposition 218 proceedings as outlined in the memorandum of the WDCA Director of Public Works and for a report on this item we have Kent Edler Assistant Director of Public Works Special Services Thank you Chair Koenig and Supervisors and Kent Edler Assistant Director of Public Works in the Community Development and Infrastructure Department I'd also like to ask if the Clerk of the Board can promote Casey Colasa and Bo Hoxford as presenters so at the September 28, 2021 Board Meeting we were given direction to return with an update regarding a recycling and solid waste charge to fund county recycling and solid waste facilities Additionally we are also returning with a report on community support for allowing the county to collect a percentage of single-use cup and single-use bag charge fees We've done quite a bit of outreach on both items in September which I'll be going over in this presentation So I'll start with their recycling and solid waste infrastructure charge So as discussed back in September the point of this landfill is nearing capacity and we have already begun the planning for the eventual closure and transition of the site to a transfer station A recent evaluation was completed two weeks ago and there is as little as eight years remaining However, siding of the transfer station will further reduce the years left at the landfill so a more realistic timeline for timeframe for closure is in the sixth to eight year range which makes the need for transfer station more urgent Due to SB 1383, organics such as food waste need to be removed from the normal waste stream so we're also working on planning an organics processing facility at the point of this landfill In addition to the needs at the point of this landfill the bin loam and transfer station is nearly 30 years old and in need of improvements and maintenance We've estimated the total of these improvements to be on the order of $55 million Currently the recycling the solid waste division has an existing 9C assessment which was put in place in 1982 which helps funds operations and maintenance of the point of this landfill and the bin loam and transfer station The charge of 56 $56.94 per parcel has remained unchanged for several decades so the funds don't go as far as they once did We've been working with our consultant HFNH to develop a new recycling and solid waste infrastructure charge which would fund the new transfer station and compost facility as well as the related operations The preliminary estimate for the new charge is about $110 annually per parcel in the unappropriated county However we've been working with our consultant on continuing the amounts and feel that that number will actually come in a bit lower Probolski research conducted two focus groups in the community regarding this charge where they presented the issue and need for the transfer station and the compost facility the results were positive and there was unanimous support for the facilities and most felt the $110 annual charge was reasonable Probolski research also conducted a survey of 400 residents throughout the county and presented them a new recycling solid waste as well as the estimated $110 annual charge approximately 56% of those surveyed support the building of the transfer station and organics facility 19% were opposed and approximately 26% were undecided The new recycling solid waste charge would be a proposition 218 protest vote meaning that the charge would pass if there was not a majority protest of all affected property owners given the needs of the given the needs of the at the Buena Vista landfill and the results of the survey we are recommending to come back in April to present the charges and initiate the prop 218 proceedings so moving on to the next topic which is the single use cup and bag ballot measure research currently there is an ordinance in place although it's delayed until July 1st which requires businesses to charge customers in an incorporated county $0.25 per each single use disposable cup there's also an existing ordinance that requires customers to pay $0.25 per single use carryout bag we enlisted a firm called TBWBH props and measures to evaluate a potential ballot measure to split a portion of the $0.25 charge and conduct research after removing data regarding revenue generated and the experience and their experience in the community they recommended that we concentrate only on splitting the single use cup charge fee which would be half to the county and then half to the businesses so the consultant used FM3 research to survey the community about a potential ballot measure that would split the $0.25 charge in order to fund the programs they surveyed 600 residents to and they discussed programs such as reducing pollution trash and plastics from entering local waterways coastal waters and beaches protecting water quality address legal dumping helping to prevent wildfires providing environmental education and also providing clean and well-maintained parks and public areas the results of the survey indicated that 66% of likely voters support such a measure additionally Nicole Covern from the county administrative office and I met with representatives from the local business community which are listed on this slide and we wanted to gather their input as well so input received from the business community includes items such as or comments such as that the measure to protect the environment aligns with the goals and values of the businesses some of them felt that the businesses would be on board especially since they can retain some of the charge several thought it would be a good idea to have signage developed that would help explain to patrons that the charge helps fund environmental programs also there were some suggestions that they wanted to ensure that the money gets used for the intended environmental programs and there were also some concerns regarding businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions as well as some questions about the administration of the program overall the outreach from the community in general as well as the business community was positive and item 10 on today's agenda which is the next item is where the board would consider a resolution for the submission of a county wide measure regarding this single use disposable tax so the recommended actions are to consider this update on proceeding with a protest vote for a recycling and solid waste infrastructure charge to fund the county solid waste facilities accept and follow report on community support for allowing the county to collect a percentage of the single use cup and single use bag charge fees and direct public works to return by April 12, 2022 to present recycling and solid waste infrastructure charges and initiate the Prop 218 proceedings and I'm available for any questions. Thank you for that report. Are there questions from members of the board? Seeing none, we'll open it for public comment. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on this item? Well, in user 2 your microphone is available. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett and I have before me a publication from your county zero waste news for the county of Santa Cruz green waste recovery for winter 2021 and what you're talking about is only inadequate to deal with the problem and here's what it states and there's quite a visual of tons of plastic plastic plague COVID-19 unleashed a tidal wave of plastic waste ordered by your county right to use all this plastic the corona virus pandemic has brought an increase in the use of plastic the main component in math, gloves hand sanitizer water bottles and take out food packaging it seems to me that if the mandates are listed for this uh mandating more toxic waste in reality we would be a whole lot better off it says oh deep worry your publication is that COVID-19 has reversed the momentum of a years long global battle to reduce single use plastic and has created an excuse to revert to using plastic for everything this was the case when governor Gavin Newsom temporarily lifted a ban on single use grocery bags over concerns that could be transmitted via contact reusable bags medical experts believe reusable materials pose no additional risk anyway it goes on so you are in your policies promoting enormous more plastic and on the other hand have this item on the agenda there is a contradiction here we need to stop production at its source there are no other speakers for public comment thank you then I'll return it to the board for action a motion for our supervisor for approval I'll second that that's fine I just want to make a comment though thanks public works for bringing this item and I don't understand quite the topic I think stopping this at the source it's a big order larger than Santa Cruz County can do by itself but what we can do is be a leader as we have been for years and years in the pro-environmental waste management efforts through the single use ordinances and we have a responsibility as stewards of the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary I believe to address the impacts of these plastic bags paper cups litter in our waste stream so I'm supportive of our goals to address the future plan for the Ben Lomond Transfer Station in Vista-Landfield which has gone on for years and I'm glad to see the point indicates that our community supports these efforts so I think we're doing what we can at Santa Cruz County and I think this is a good step forward and I'm supportive of the recommended actions thank you Supervisor McPherson so we have a motion by Supervisor Caput and a second by Supervisor McPherson to approve the recommended actions is there any further discussion I'll just add that again appreciation to Assistant Director Edler for the report and of course we'll be talking more about the single use cup charge in our next item as far as the protest vote for improving our waste facilities I too am glad to see that the polling in the case of the public recognizes the need to upgrade our essential waste processing facilities we'll just say these sorts of controversial people feel that they miss the notice that the vote is happening or their opportunity to protest and all of a sudden see their rates increase they can feel like there's a typically you can generate concerns that this is an undemocratic process I mean of course this is an improved process but nevertheless we want to make sure that people are duly notified so I hope that when of course we're not approving a protest vote today but when you come back on April 12 if we do choose to proceed I would hope that we would have some sense of what the mailings would look like so that we can also notify constituents of that this could be moving forward so if there's no further discussion clerk roll call vote please Supervisor Friend Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Alright that report being accepted and filed and public works will return on April 12 to present more information about a protest vote we'll now move to item 10 to consider resolution provide for the submission of a county-wide measure establishing a single-use disposable cup tax for the qualified voters of this county of Santa Cruz at the regular election to be held on June 7th, 2022 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer and for a report on this item we have assistant CAO Nicole Coburn Thank you Chair Koenig I assume you're seeing the screen right now We are thank you Thank you so I'm Nicole Coburn assistant CAO I'm joined today by Ken Edler the assistant director of public works as well together we're going to present to you on our proposed single-use cup tax ballot measure for the June 2022 regular election So today we're going to cover a few areas we're going to I'm going to have Kent go over the problem related to too much trash in the county and then we'll just briefly touch on the current disposable cup ordinance as well as the delayed implementation that you heard about in the last presentation we'll present to you the proposed measure and the results of the polling that we conducted in the fall and then we'll outline our recommended actions So with that I'm going to have Kent talk about trash So as discussed in the previous agenda item I'm looking this next six to eight years the landfill is expected to meet reach maximum capacity and close and the trash problem continues to worsen but the county is we're working to do everything possible we can to reduce ways to increase the lifespan of the landfill every year it's estimated that there's over five million single-use cups that get used and thrown away in this county alone in recent years there's been more litter and trash cans and they're overflowing leading to litter on our roads and in our waterways a large source of this trash includes single-use items that often end up in our creeks, streams and other local waterways which release toxins into our local groundwater and water supply Next slide please In 2019 the Santa Cruz County passed a single-use cup charge of 25 cents for each cup that the measure seeks to reduce litter waste and pollution that applies to any single-use cup provided by a business in unincorporated Santa Cruz County it does not apply to any of the cities Next slide Due to the COVID-19 pandemic implementation of this charge was delayed it was delayed to safety concerns and also concerns around negative impacts to already struggling businesses the fee currently is scheduled to go into place on July 1st, 2022 and I will hand it back over to Nicole Thank you Ken So as Ken previewed in the last presentation we have our existing 25-cent disposable cup charge of 25 cents we're proposing to build on that ordinance and staff are recommending a measure that would allow the county to tax half of that charge and we would allow businesses to retain the other half to help make a cost of implementation so you can see that the charge here being split So the ballot question that we pulled on in the fall can be shown here as seen here the proposed measure would allow the county to tax 12.5 cents of the existing single-use cup charge this measure would raise approximately $700,000 annually the revenue would be used on waste reduction and environmental programs among other governmental purposes we would be using this to fund programs such as protecting clean drinking water sources water quality and marine life reducing pollution trash and plastics entering local waters and beaches helping prevent wildfires cleaning up trash and litter including in storm drains, streets and public areas as well as cleaning and maintaining local beaches parks in natural areas if passed by voters the single-use cup tax would take effect on January 1st of 2023 pursuant to the draft ordinance that we included as part of the board item and really this delayed implementation allows us to develop the administrative provisions for collecting and remitting the tax from businesses we're also as part of this measure of course we would ensure public disclosure of all spending all of the funds would remain local to Santa Cruz county and we would be reporting on the use of these funds as part of our annual auditing process our comprehensive financial audits through our auditor controllers office as well as all of our public budget reports that we go through every year as part of our comprehensive budget process so in the fall when we pulled on this potential measure 66% of likely voters for the June election were supportive of the measure there is initially strong support with foreintending that they would definitely vote yes for the measure per the polling the top parties were protecting water marine life in beaches as well as helping fund fire protection and generally protecting public health so our recommendations for the board today are similar to our other ballot measure adopting the resolution calling for the election of the single use disposable tax advising the appropriate offices of the requirements for independent analysis directing the clerk of the board to submit the resolution to the county clerk to the deadline March 11 and then our office would return after the election with any necessary actions should the tax be authorized and with that Kent and I are happy to answer your questions thank you assistant CEO Cobra are there questions from members of the board Mr. Chair I don't really have a question but first I wanted to appreciate the work not just the staff but of the board for sticking with me I've been a bit dogmatic and wanting this to come forward for the last couple years because as I've said previously I think that most people that pay the single use fees believe that the money does go back to the local jurisdiction for programs exactly like this and I think would be surprised to learn that that's not the case I do appreciate though that there were comments made by my colleagues previously about some of the burdens of administration disproportionately on small businesses and so I think that coming up with this ability to split it really does address both of those issues one and creates a new revenue stream quite frankly on the same types of materials that are causing the damage within our parks and our ocean area anyway and two it ensures that there's more money provided to the small businesses and there would cost in administration so it seems like the right thing to do there's no question that public works and others could use additional funding in regards to wildfire resilience pollution control we had a previous item actually on regarding syringe litter as well and an update regarding how to report that kind of stuff through our mobile app and these are all things that don't have a dedicated funding stream this would allow for a new significant funding stream to help address some of these issues throughout our community so again I appreciate not just staff but the board sticking with me on this item over the last couple years thank you Mr. Sher Supervisor Friend any other questions from members of the board seeing none we'll take it to the public for a comment one speaker as a reminder public comment is two minutes and your microphone will be muted automatically at the end of your time call in user 2 your microphone is available Marilyn Garrett I see this it's a drop in the bucket and it's a myth of resolving the huge problem of the plastic plague the micro plastic oceans of plastic and plastic doesn't decompose you have all these micro plastics and our bodies and the environment I think this actually promotes the use of plastic because the message is keep using it keep producing it just pay a little extra to do it it really needs to stop at the source and that's the production and the petrochemical production but since corporations rule and contaminate us with their plastic and pesticides and cell phones nothing meaningful really being done I believe your words sound good but they're deceptive and supervisor friend talks about a mobile app that's more biologically harmful radiation and there's so many cell phones that are in the plastic waste in the landfill so I am against this and also you mentioned the administrative burden on small businesses there's already burdens on small businesses that are hardly surviving so I vote no on this I do not want to support these corporations producing this by our taxpayer money being good Samaritans trying to clean up the gargantuan piles of plastic put out there thank you thank you there are no other speakers thank you then we'll return to the board for action the motion be in order I'll move the recommended actions motion by supervisor friend second was that supervisor Coonerty McPherson I think it was McPherson alright second by supervisor McPherson any further discussion I'll just add that this it's a great if photos choose to pass this it could be a great opportunity to have some additional funding to address this huge waste problem that we're seeing and you know one great candidate I think for a program that we could fund with this would actually be a reusable cup program things like vessel which was launched in the city of Berkeley basically it would allow multiple restaurants to use the same type of take out cup then it could be dropped off at any of those restaurants or even some other facilities placed around the county of course the challenge there would be that we would then directly undercut the funding stream maybe we would try to launch it within cities or work with cities to do that but find a way to have the greatest impact but I you know despite what the speakers public comment said I think that there are real opportunities directly address the issue with some of these funds so if there's no further discussion clerk roll call vote please I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 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