 Good morning everybody. I'd like to call to order the September 19th 2023 meeting of the Board of Supervisors if we could begin with a roll call, please. Certainly, Supervisor Koenig. Here. Cummings. Here. Hernandez. Present. McPherson. Here. And Friend. Here, and we'll begin with a moment of silence before the Pledge of Allegiance for the important member would like to dedicate this morning's moment of silence. Please, Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, I'd like to dedicate a moment of silence to Bill Brooks, William Rawlings, Bill Brooks, who guided on September 6th at the age of 80, a very interesting man who was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but came to Scott's Valley at an early age with his family, graduated from Santa Cruz High, Cabral, and from San Jose State universities, and then upon graduation in 71, he was hired by a USCSE to be the first person college Versar to organize college eight to become the environmental studies college. He ran the entire administrative and financial operation of college eight from 1971 to 79 and then started Brooks properties and did a lot of developments and buildings, homes and condominiums, also known for collecting and driving classic cars. He would get these classic cars, fix them up to a T go to the concourse to elegance over in Pebble Beach and then sell them two years later and get another one and very interesting individual and a real good person for that gave a lot to Santa Cruz County. So, Bill Brooks. Rest in peace. Thank you. We'll have a moment of silence, please. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good morning, Mr. process or any changes to today's agenda. Yes, sir, and chair friend and members of the board are a number of corrections on the consent agenda. Item number 15 there's additional materials. There's a revised memo packet page 116 is replaced that the analysis paragraph five sentence to should read. The FY 2022 23 final year and available fund balance will be presented by January 2024 within the annual comprehensive financial court for the fiscal year ended June 30 2023. Item number 20 there's additional materials revised attachment packet page 268 is replaced finding three paragraph one should read the code compliance section tracks complaints by type, including a summary of the number and type of complaints that have come in. How many were found valid how many were resolved without citation citation or posting a notice of violation. How many were posted with the notice of violation and how many were brought to hearing. Item number 35 staff request that this item be deleted from the agenda. This is packet pages 504 through 515. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. process or any board members like to remove an item from consent to the regular agenda. Seeing none will now open it up. For public comment, it's an opportunity for members of the community to address us and items that are not on today's agenda but within the purview of the board of supervisors or on the consent agenda or if you cannot stay also for the regular and closed session agenda. Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning. My name is James doing Whitman. It's nice to be here and be addressing all five supervisors that internationally controlled county manager who controls all of you and our county attorney. Yeah, I'd like to remind you guys and also put all five of you seven of you on notice. I've been in this room and I've witnessed a lot of dialogue about unfortunately police brutality with the Santa Cruz police department. I've also witnessed a lot of dialogue in the city council on that subject. I've also witnessed the Santa Cruz County deputies auditor report. You know, pretty much providing false information. So it's my understanding that I'm not going to be the only one that is going to suggest all of you to watch a six minute and 41 second video where upwards of eight Santa Cruz police officers. Over six minutes of that six minutes and four just and you should pay attention buddy. What do you care about. Yeah, right. I wonder what you actually care about. So this is a six minute and 41 second video where over six minutes of that presentation a 13 year old girl is being totally abused by the Santa Cruz police. I don't know what the remedies are for that, but I don't actually want to personally watch that six minute and 41 second video again because it's so disgusting. I don't know how any individual would have stood by to see that happening including the child's father. So I do know that in this exact council that a different situation happened with two individuals that were taken to another county and those two children have returned to their family. So I'm really want to hold you guys accountable for this because maybe you haven't seen that video, but you all should. So thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Hi, good morning. My name is Penny Ellis and I'm here to strongly support bill AB 626 that legalizes the sale of prepared meals for micro enterprise home kitchen operations, otherwise known as me goes. And increasingly our time and energy and money are spent on fast food made by automated corporate systems instead of people. And this erodes the humanity of caring for each other through food at its core AB 626 is a bold move to form symbiotic relationships between community and food. Health nutrient dense food is fundamental to all life and AB 626 will create a safe and regulated diverse food system that's connected to the culture and the needs of the community that it serves. Mika's promote good citizenship through creating jobs with an affordable legal path to individual economic empowerment. And that is the thing I really kind of wanted to talk about is that currently we don't have any kind of progression for people who want to get to a food business, you know, to start their own business at a reasonable cost and AB 626 really opens it up to that. You know, who has 150,000 food truck even or something. So it's really important. We're asking for a two year pilot program to test it out. And the state has approved $8 million in grant funding for this, $3 million for the Department of Environmental Health and $5 million to help start Mika's in our community. We've, you know, I want to thank Jay and Brown and Bruce McPherson and Zach friend for championing this bill. And it's been a long time coming. I've been working on this for five years. So anyway, it's happy to be here and happy to have you on your agenda. Thank you for sharing those thoughts. Good morning and welcome. My name is Linda Brass. I live in Aptos and I'm here also to speak in behalf of support of AB 626. I'm going to give a little more personal spin on it. I had a restaurant for a number of years in Oakland. And while I am not really physically mentally or emotionally prepared to work in a restaurant on a daily basis, I still would like to share my culinary abilities with my friends and neighbors and be able to sell food from my home legally. I think that this provides an opportunity for people just coming into the food business to see what they're doing and figure out how they want to be a part of it and to sell their delicious dinners. And I certainly know that it would be a great thing for me to be able to add to my senior income to be able to sell a meal once or twice a week. And it also gives our neighbors and friends interesting and delicious food to have and gives it to them with something extra, which you're not going to get most of the time in a professional environment, which is also a big hug. So I'm here to hope that we can get this pass in Santa Cruz County. I think it would be amazing. It's working well in other counties and you can see the track record there. And I'm here to hope that we can get this pass in Santa Cruz County. Finally. Thank you. Thank you. Morning. Welcome back. Good morning all. Good morning, all of you. Tina Swithin of One Mom's Battle, alienation industry and unknown people behind custody piece movement of mothers and other groups are identifying targeting and exploiting family court kidnapped children to push their agenda that was recently posted, which seems to be ultimately to invite the unelected United Nations to come in to destroy our sovereignty under the guise of helping us resolve problems here in America relating to family court. This is akin to inviting a vampire into your home for dinner. We're not having it. This is an obvious problem reaction solution playbook. The Santa Cruz County lane girl is currently reading seen a Twins Tina Swithin script being used to push Piki's law SB 331, which is a bait and switch. And what looks like a back end deal to return her to her father's custody in exchange for being the poster child of Piki's law while throwing all other California children into the desk. This week, my daughter's kidnapping video was being exploited to push Piki's law without my consent and permission when I absolutely oppose it for being a Trojan horse, a lie unconstitutional and not factually helping children. The Instagram account Maya dot and dot Sebastian posted the following for the world to read after nearly 10 months of isolation, Maya and Sebastian are home safe with their father. This is the best news we could have ever asked for. It is rumored that Judge Connolly was forced to give official orders after receiving an inquisition from a supervisor that this case was gaining too much public traction. This occurred shortly after the lane girl revealed being raped by a therapist working for monarch services here in Santa Cruz. So all of this looks like a back end deal involving bribery and blackmail of a politician and bribery and blackmail of a judge to return only two children to their father, while leaving my daughter and all other California children in the desk. The exploitation of the lane case is a real clown show Tina charges a minimum of 200 per hour, in addition to the fees charged by her interdisciplinary teams. So only wealthy parents can pay the ransom fees to get their children back while remaining indifferent to the suffering and agony of other kidnapped children. Thank you. Good morning. You're welcome. My name is Bryn Rolls and I'm also here to speak about AB 626 and share my story about home cooking enterprise. When the pandemic hit my husband lost his job and as a way to feed our family I had the idea to start selling homemade soups out of my kitchen to friends and family. Initially, before long word spread and I started getting a bunch of orders from other people in the neighborhood and keep the community for these soups. So I looked into what it would take to make this illegal business and learned that there was no permit in place in Santa Cruz for this type of home cooking. I looked into a commercial kitchen. That was not feasible for me. One, I was at home with my kids and if I had a factor in childcare and the cost to just didn't pencil. So I continued doing this illegally, which never sat well with me, but needed to feed the family. And I really saw what a good thing this was for the community for working parents who didn't have time to cook helped us out. And I just wanted to come here and share the story with you and hope that you will help pass this bill so that other people are able to do these types of things legally. I worked in the restaurant industry for 20 years and I know food safety regulations very well. I don't know that that's true for everyone out there doing this. So in my view, it would just be a win-win to have a legal method. I would have been happy to have somebody come out to my kitchen, inspect it, let me know what I needed to do to get it up to code, pay permit fees, pay taxes, all that stuff I would have been happy to do if there would have been a way to do it. And I think that there's a lot of other people out there in our community that have a similar need. So I hope that you'll help pass this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story. Anybody else in chambers like to address this? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, Chair. We have speakers. All in user one, your microphone is now available. Mayor Laguerre, I'd like to read an excerpt from a film called 5G Apocalypse, The Extinction Event. It opens with this quote. It's important to understand what the 5G is doing and what they say it's doing. I told on the IEEE being forming document that this technology cooks your eyes like eggs in World War II. We all need to understand these are military weapons. These are assault frequencies. If you garner nothing more than that, that's what you need to know. It's a microwave radiation. It's microwave radiation warfare. That's what it is. End of quote. And the LED street lights are emitting 5G. We demand an immediate home to 5G on Earth and in space for the sake of public health, ecology and personal freedom. We don't consent to a few powerful technology and satellite companies dictating and destroying the future of all life on Earth. This weekend, there's a global protest to 5G. And I want to refer people to websonaprise.org. This spring 2023 issue, page 10, an article on 5G and graphene oxide. Thank you. Stop 5G. Thank you, Ms. Karen. User Galaxy A50, your microphone is now available. As a reminder, it's star 6 to mute or unmute yourself. Final call for user Galaxy A50. As a reminder, it's star 6 to mute or unmute yourself. It appears they're not willing, wishing to speak at this time. And there's nobody else online? No further speakers, chair. Ms. Starburn, were you interested in the address? All right, please step forward on public comment. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. I live in rural Aptos Hills. And I want to again ask your board as the board of directors for county fire of Santa Cruz to conduct an after action review of the CZU fire with the volunteers of county fire department of Santa Cruz that was never done. And it is still sorely needed. Even three years after the fire, it will be a benefit not only to the volunteers, but also to our OR3 and general services department for planning for the next disaster. Please do this after action review with the volunteers. To that end, there have been some excellent reports coming out in the San Lorenzo Valley Post about the problems of rebuilding in the CZU fire area. I encourage everyone to read it, especially Supervisor McPherson and Supervisor Cummings. These are stories that are coming out in the San Lorenzo Valley Post in a series. And I do believe that this county needs to take a good look at how these people have been treated. Rebuilds are being treated as new bills when that was not what they were told would happen initially. And this applies to those in the Pajaro flood area and the next disaster. There will be another. So please take a good look at this. And I think this county needs to do a good review of how this has all been handled and mishandled and move forward in a more positive way to help these people and others like them get back in their homes more quickly. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers like to address this term public comment? This is our final call. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. My name is Rachel Sodos and I would like to again suggest that the county established something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to review the events of the last three years. There is a call for a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a COVID commission. It has been before Congress for some time and the scholars and scientists from the Barrington Declaration have also articulated a call, such a call. I think it's important in the interest of truth and healing. There are many people who suffered personally health wise, but also in terms of censorship and the fabric of the community. I think we need to have truth be revealed. I think that this also has political implications in terms of what it means to be an informed citizen and what it means to be a public representative. Because I think we're clearly past the time in which we can just take orders and it's not sufficient for public officials to simply say, I was following the CDC. Governor Newsom has said that California did almost everything wrong during the pandemic. Now there was a lot of silencing. There was a lot of censorship. There were many people, many medical professionals who were trying to speak out and who were censored. Now California has quietly and without a lot of fanfare taken away or rescinded the law that makes it criminal for doctors to speak truthfully against the consensus, the narrative. But there's a lot more at stake here. People want to bring mass mandates back. People want to impose or recommend an untested and unsafe medical treatment. So I suggest this. Thank you. All right, thank you. We will close public comment and bring it to the board to discuss consent. I'll start with Supervisor Hernandez. Supervisor Hernandez, are there any items of consent? No? All right, Supervisor Cummings. Thank you, Chair. I have a number of items. I just have a few comments on and then also will follow up with some of the department heads after the meeting. Item number 19 is the artificial intelligence use policy. I just want to thank staff for all their work on helping us bring that policy forward so quickly. And as we see different types of AI technology come online very rapidly, it's really important that we have policies in place on how we're going to use that technology. And so I just want to thank the staff for all their work on that. And for the board members who brought that item forward. Item number 20 was the code compliance, auto compliance, grand jury report. I just want to thank staff for their work on this and hope that as we're identifying the need for hiring and making sure that we have enough people in these positions that we're looking at how we can better improve recruitment and retention. And I know in the reported called out staffing being down by 50% for the code compliance division. And so to the extent that we can try to help bring more people into those positions and enhance our attention in those positions. I think that we can we can get there and in terms of addressing some of the issues that were raised. The item number 27 is the amended amendment to the agreement with new life community services for residential substance abuse treatment. I just want to thank again the staff for their support on that this is something that's definitely needed in our community. I do think it would be good if we could get some kind of report on how effective these programs are, just so that we can understand what is, what is effective where the areas for improvement. So we're making sure that these dollars are well spent, but I just want to, you know, thank the county for their support of these kinds of services. The last one's item number 33, which is the amendment to the agreement with Community Action Board to provide medical MedCal application support and expand outreach services. Again, it would just be great to get an update or report maybe if it's next year at some point or after this, this has gone through its full cycle just to understand how effective these programs and services are so that we can let the community know how well. The dollars are being spent and who we're serving and how we can improve those services if necessary. And then item number 34, which is the amendment to the agreement with Second Harvest Food Bank for Santa Cruz County. It's great that we're supporting this program as well. And this is from the Director of Human Services. If we can receive any kind of outreach materials that we can share to our constituents and share with our networks, it'd be great for us to be able to help spread the word so we can get as many people connected to those benefits as possible. So I just really want to express my appreciation of those programs and services. And I guess that will conclude my comments for today. So just want to thank everyone for their hard work on all these different programs and services. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig. Thank you, Chair. I also wanted to thank staff on item 19, the AI Appropriate Use Policy. The folks I've spoken to in the technology industry are actually incredibly impressed by the county's approach on this and really optimistic. I have to say I am as well. I think the fact that we have a flexible but responsible policy here is really encouraging. And I also love that we have an inner division working group looking at this within the county itself. Policy communication with industry, and then that we're actually measuring the employees who are using this. It's good to see that about 10% of county employees have tried using AI to some extent, and then we do have sort of users who are using it more intensively and can help guide the rest of us in terms of what's working and what's not. So thank you again. On item 20, the grand jury report again. You know, I just, first of all, of course, thanks to the grand jury for this report. Their reports always hold us to I think a higher level of service and accountability here. I also know that the Code Compliance Division has an incredibly difficult job having worked them on a number of individual cases. And I think that there is some light at the end of the tunnel or, you know, promise of better things to come having just hired a new Code Compliance Manager. I'm really excited that we also filled the position for the Code Compliance Investigator for short term rentals specifically and of course we're still hiring for another additional investigator. So I know that the staff in our Code Compliance Division as well as optimistic at being able to provide an even greater level of service for the public. And finally, on item 23, the MECO's Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations also thanks to Supervisor Friend and Supervisor McPherson for bringing this forward. It's something that I've heard a lot about from my own constituents and wasn't able to make a lot of headway when exploring this with the department before. But glad that we'll, I think, you know, pilot programs an excellent way to proceed and hopefully get a program in place that can start moving more of these businesses forward. I mean, our county is an incredible place of innovation, especially when it comes to food. Odwala was started here, Santa Cruz Organic juices are in stores nationwide, farmhouse culture. So, you know, we have really amazing fresh food here. We eat well and I think it's something that we can export and share with not only our local community but with the rest of the country. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Connick. Supervisor McPherson. I'll repeat a couple of issues that have already been addressed. Number 19 on artificial attendance intelligence with the CEO and the leadership of the county. This is really somewhat scary in a way, but we're really headed into uncharted territory with this technology. And it's important that we keep an eye on the problems that develop as we result the results that we have come up with to utilize it. And especially around the issues of accuracy and accountability. And also, I want to thank Penny Ellis on item 23, Penny Ellis, Linda bras and others for coming in on the micro enterprise home kitchen operations. Thank you, chair friend for co-signing this. We have good models to work with from other counties and designing a program. So I look forward to this coming back in a couple months with more detail and proposing what programs we might implement here in Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll make a couple of brief comments. I appreciate the board support on item 19. This was the item on artificial intelligence that I brought forward a few months ago. Our county will be the first in the region to have come up with a policy and one of the first actually in the state. I've been in communication with the California State Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties that are looking for example policies that they can use for other communities across the country. And it's unquestionably a transformative technology. And I think that the policy that's been proposed strikes this balance between harnessing the potential but also recognizing some of the risks associated with it, particular on data privacy and other elements that the county is taking a very serious look on. So the fact that it's recognized me an iterative policy, the fact that we had some local technological experts in this field to help participate in this process is a model I think other communities could fall across the country. So appreciation for that. And on item 23 as well, joining with the supervisor McPherson on the micro enterprise home kitchen operations just an acknowledgement to both jam brown and Karen Kelly and both of our offices who worked on this for multiple months with community members that have been expressing an interest in this, and also for our health and environmental teams for an openness and a willingness to explore what's possible here. Other communities may have already implemented this. However, it's always good to take a look uniquely to see what's unique within our community and this is just simply to explore the development of a pilot program here in our community to see if it's something that we can do I do think it is something we can do. Those who engage disproportionately in micro enterprise home kitchen operations tend to be both lower income, more minorities more women owned. And I think that as we move forward with equity frameworks throughout the county and all of our policies is things like this that help effectuate those equity policies that we do so appreciation for the county team on that. And for my comments is there a motion for consent. Second. There's a motion from supervisor McPherson a second supervisor coming so we get a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Cummings. Hi. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson and friend. Thanks. We'll move on to the first item of the regular agenda which is to consider a status report on estimated revenues generated from the measure C. general purpose single use cup tax including collection efforts to date and revised spending plan to approve a budget realignment in the amount of $150,000 for reduced spending plan for environmental cleanup mitigation program within the unincorporated county adopted resolution accepting unanticipated revenue of 280,000 for the general fund contingency and direct the CA. office to incorporate the spending plan into the fiscal year 23-24 adopted budget as outlined in the memo of the CAO. We have Marcus Pimentel our county budget manager here. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning and thank you chair friend and board members. I'm honored to present this to you. I'm Marcus Pimentel your county budget manager providing you this update on our single use disposable cup tax. With me today around me today are Ryan Friedrich from our CAO's office our senior administrative analyst who did a lot of deep dive along with the auto controller who led the charge on validating our collections and working on developing an audit program for this tax base. Our presentation is going to cover kind of four quick areas of background on measure C, our collection efforts and results, our early tax proceeds where they're at in these last couple quarters and a revised spending plan from the general fund to support environmental programming. Quick background on measure C that you all are pretty aware of it was adopted overwhelmingly by nearly 70 percent of voters in June of 2022. It allocates one half of the 25 cent fee on single cups to the county as a tax and it's one of its many intents was to discharge use of disposable cups and to bribe the general fund with the funding source to invest in some environmental programs. Since being approved and going live we've had two quarters of results and the auto controller has developed a very comprehensive audit program based on successful audit programs already managed within their audit division. So there are kind of two efforts on the tax collection side one is just basic administration now that was developing the initial forecast. I'll remind you this was a first in a nation tax. We do not have a business license database that we monitor all the businesses in the county and we're trying to reduce a consumer habit that we hope is having an impact. So there are a lot of variables that went into the initial forecast initially we thought about 304 businesses could meet these requirements and 1.4 million cups per quarter which generated 175,000 per quarter for 700,000 year that was our original estimates that led to the ballot measure. That will provide a little update in the coming slides of how those were right in areas that they're a little bit off but we have seen and we hope to see that the market is changing that consumers are reducing their use of disposable cups and that there are other alternatives that are constantly being developed and proposed. So the area that the county led by the community development and infrastructure department staff and the CAO's office to the place that we did really well in projecting a brand new tax model was the per business disposable tax rate. So what you see on the slide are the bar charts of our quarter three and quarter four the actual results and when we looked at the 67 businesses that complied with their tax and we looked at the 67 businesses each of their estimates from 2022 their preliminary estimates of how much this business would do, how much this business would do, our actual per business estimates were spot on. So we hit the number of how much disposable cups were going to be used by the businesses that complied. So our initial estimate is almost equal to the actual results and then in the last quarter the actual results were a little bit higher than our original estimates but not by much. So we feel that the model per business was valid and where we fell short on is the number of complying businesses went from 304 down to 67 and that's where the shortfall lived. But what that looks like is from a total tax revenue standpoint we thought we would receive 175,000 per quarter that's the bar in blue on the left and our actual results were about 40,000 per quarter. So a considerable drop and that's again not by the business to business estimates but it's more in the number of businesses who we thought would would participate 304 down to 67 about 22% of those businesses. We feel confident that we can get up our compliance by 75% in the coming year that's a big number to try to increase the compliance rate but we feel we can get there and with that estimate we arrive at $280,000 a year in available income. So assuming we can chase that all down or anywhere everyone would be 280,000 received in the general fund and the general fund would program about 250,000 of that which 100,000 of parks open space and culture services 100,000 of community development and infrastructure and then 50,000 to board designated programs of $10,000 per district. So that's the recommendation included in this initiative. We will retain 30,000 because we're getting we're trying to increase our collection efforts by 75% so that's a bold number. So we want to have a little bit of a caution with allocating all of it and we also have some administrative and tax compliance costs to cover so 30,000 would be unprogrammed until we really saw where the base was. This is a brand new tax we're trying to find where the baseline is and the compliance rates are going to be. With that, our recommended actions as read by Chair Friend in the beginning are included here and I'm myself our Auditor-Controller, Treasurer, Tax Collector, E.S. Driscoll is here and Randy Friedrich from our office is here available for questions. Thank you, Mr. Pimentel and I appreciate the report on this. This was an item a few years ago that I had brought forward and eventually became a ballot measure and here we are with the goal of increasing the available funding for environmental related programs and cleanup efforts within the county. One of the other things beyond compliance that this also tells me and you briefly alluded to it within the presentation is that there has been a change in consumer behavior which is ultimately the goal here. I mean of all it's nice to bring in funding to the county for cleanup programs ideally what we're trying to do is reduce the waste and it's okay when estimates are off when one of the reasons is that people there's been a consumer behavioral change and I consider that also as a success within the program. I'm supportive of what's being proposed. I'm also supportive specifically the allocation of how the funds are being proposed because it definitely maintains the spirit and commitment of the ballot measure for environmental programs, cleanups, illegal dumping, parks-related cleanups and maintenance. It's exactly within what we were saying. Are there other supervisors with Comments Supervisor McPherson? Yeah, I want to thank you Chair Friend for bringing this forward first in the nation of its type and we didn't get the revenue we were anticipated but behavioral changes I think more important and long. So I just appreciate what we have done here and the community development and infrastructure department as well as our parks department can always use additional resources. We're going to get some and that's much appreciated so it's a win-win as I see it. Supervisor Koenig. Yes, thank you Chair. I'm definitely supportive of the expenditure plan. I think it's pretty reasonable and well balanced. Of course we'd love to have more revenues. So I guess the question is what kind of outreach has been done to businesses today and how what more will be done in order to get to as you said increasing revenues by 75% in the coming year? Great question. I think Edith, Triskler, our control can talk a little bit more but they're now positioned as a lookout to try to get this information out there. Initially we contacted all the businesses in the 304 businesses we thought would be compliant to send out notification of the new tax and the compliance process. I believe since then they've done some additional outreach to the businesses that are not there and they've established some dialogue we've increased some of our compliance but I'll let Edith provide some more context to that. Good morning. Edith Triskler both your auditor controller and your elected treasure tax collector. So let me address both of those items from my two different roles. The audit division was not involved in coming up with the estimate for this tax. However we have used one of our summer interns this summer to really go through and vet the list of people that were anticipated to reach out to the people to work with them and to clean up our list. One of the things that happens is many coffee type purveyors turn over businesses buy and sell and so it's going to be a constant update of for your smaller businesses. We also are working with our larger corporations. I met with two of the different district manager type people to help them realize where they need to be sending their money and that sort of thing. So we have 157 entities that we have been in contact with that have set up their own accounts with our online payment system. Those 157 people have been very good partners with the county and I want to make that very clear that the businesses out there we have not had any significant issues at all. It's really just helping them realize how to connect the tax and who to turn it into. It's a unique situation. It's our first time we have a cup of tax. So really good players. If an entity is not making a payment and we anticipate they should they receive a past due notice and again it's pretty new with this process but we'll be doing individual reach out again depend on the size of the business. But I came up with the estimate of these new 280,000 280,000 and I think it's a it's a reasonable estimate. I do not anticipate that we'll be much over that. And on that point for this estimate of I mean it's roughly 40% of the original estimate. I mean I'm granted you can't hold you accountable for the first estimate since you didn't do it. But is that for this fiscal year alone do you think we'll be able to make greater gains in the future? 157 entities again will have some turnover. Those include the large corporations and various small entities. If new corporations come in, new large entities come in, you might see a change. But we have vetted that list very clearly as did our summer intern. And we believe it's very reasonable. Okay. So you think there was mostly problems with the original estimate of 304 businesses and that actually just the number of participating businesses is in fact or will be much lower? I wasn't involved so I can't speak to how that came to be. Okay. Well obviously room for continued improvement. I mean I guess one last question I find in reading this is realizing I haven't had a lot of that. I haven't been reminded a lot of this tax at the cash register. And so I haven't had an opportunity or been reminded enough times to actually change my behavior. I'd be surprised if the lower revenues than expected are actually the result of a significant behavior change at this time, for that very reason. So I think there could be opportunity for more signage. Maybe that's a good touch point as we go out and talk to these businesses as, hey, here is some free signage that we developed for you. I've been told by the vendors that there was questioning by their customers. And so the vendors that I pay a lot of attention to it because I pay attention to those receipts. I want to make sure they're being charged. I do see a number of signs up. But more from a point of view of this is what we're being charged. Maybe not so much a point of view of change your behavior. Yeah, whatever. You know, do you spend, did you know that you're spending $100 a year on a single use cap charges or whatever it is, even $50? Something like that that totals it up, you know, the cost of one coffee a day might be effective in terms of actually getting people to change their behavior. But again, thank you. Thank you, Any other questions? Just I'll add before I turn back to my colleagues that as a reminder, we split this 50-50 in part because businesses still make money on this and as a reminder to them for compliance that this is a moneymaker for them to participate in the program. So as part of our outreach, we should provide that to the survivors of comics. Yeah, start by thanking your chair friend for bringing this forward and for your hard work on this. Somebody who's has a background in environmental science. These are the kinds of things that we really want to see come forward so that we can change behavior and we can invest in protecting our environment. And so I just really want to express my appreciation for this and the community support on us bringing this forward. I only have one brief question. I know that there was a breakdown in terms of the allocations and it was $100,000 for Parks and Rec for cleanup of Parks and Open Space. And so I'm just wondering if that's going to be like Park employees or is that money intended to go to organizations that also help participate in those kinds of cleanups? Because I know Save Our Shores and the O'Neill C Odyssey and other organizations throughout the county kind of help with those efforts. And so I was just curious if that's going to be, you know, if that funding goes to the Parks Department for Parks employees or if that's going to also, or could it also be used to go to NGOs that conduct that same work? Mr. Gaffney, I see you're here if you'd be interested in addressing the questions. Thank you for being here for the item. Good morning supervisors. Jeff Gaffney, Parks Director. We have partnerships that we already have with Save Our Shores ongoing relationships. And then as with County Park Friends, they do cleanup days. With our budget, we have so much garbage cleanup honestly that we do. We can spread it out through any sources that the supervisors would like. So happy to do that. We already spend money in all categories and hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on temptation. Yeah. Thank you. And yeah, I just want to express my support for the recommendations. Supervisor Hernandez. You know, similar to Supervisor Koenig's question, I was wondering, we know we have partnerships with like the green business programs. I've been wondering if we've been partnering up with them because they go out to all the businesses throughout the county, actually throughout the region and talk to them about, you know, environmental programs and how they can be more sustainable as a business. But since we partner up with them, I was wondering if we could partner up with them to see if they can deliver that messaging that Supervisor Koenig was talking about, or even just spread the message about, you know, kind of more of a friendly reminder about, you know, this tax, right, with the businesses as partners, right, with the green business programs. Thank you. Thank you for that suggestion. Well, now open it up for the communities. I remember the community would like to address us on item seven. Yeah, good morning. My name is James Whitman. You know, 50 years ago, local milkman was able to work and support his family and children on one income. You know, I probably refill this at least twice a day, sometimes three times. It's not the only fluid container I use. My point being 50 years ago, things were reused and weren't recycled. So while the county is making some income off this new tax, I'm going to remind you guys of how many businesses were destroyed by directly two of the supervisors who were here at the beginning of this pandemic. Koenig, you weren't part of any kind of council at the time. Justin Cummins, you are a council member and a mayor, and I believe that you, Mr. Hernandez, were at least a council member of Watsonville. So how many businesses have been destroyed? How many regulations protecting renters' rights have been affected? And people with their second incomes renting out their dwellings have, their houses have been foreclosed on because the renters' rights have superseded their rights. So there seems to be a lot of accountability going on. And you guys are concerned about paying for single use cups when people should be reusing their containers. I know that at the beginning of this pandemic, things were changed at a restaurant that I really used and where I used to be able to refill a container between myself and my girlfriend, we'd sometimes leave with over 30 little tiny plastic containers that were of a high enough quality for her to give up saving and cleaning them after she had over 400 of them. So while you guys are talking about these little nonsense things, they're really minimal and talking about your agenda stuff. You know, this has a quote from Brock Chisholm who wrote a document in 1946, which really describes what you guys are doing. There's a longer quote by Stalin. I'm not going to read either one right now, but I think there's a lot of room for you guys to do a lot more work for the actual community. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else who I'd like to address us on this item specifically? Good morning. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. The piece that bothers me is the information that the voters were given when measure C was put on the ballot. Who was it that came up with these figures? And how did they get that data to make those big numbers that really encouraged the public to think, oh, this could be a way that we could help fund some of these environmental projects that everybody wants to see happen. And now we're hearing that it's only 22% of that number given. So if it's a matter of compliance, then I support increasing outreach. I'm happy to hear from Mr. School what is being done. I volunteer with a couple of groups in concession boost. And as you say, Supervisor Koenig, the public's question is always, well, what's that 25% charge going to do? Well, we can't tell them because we don't know. But we know we have to pay half of it to the county. Now, we're in the beginning, we got to keep it all for some reason. What's the deal with the what's the deal with the paper bag 25 cent charge that we're still all paying, but that's not coming back for any environmental projects. So there's disparity there. And I really do have a difficult time believing that 204 businesses have changed hands such that outreach has been made difficult. I'm happy to hear that there's an online method to pay this this 12 cent per cup that businesses have to do. They're already especially the small businesses are struggling with all of the reports and things they already have to do. So I want to see some accountability here as a voter as a citizen. I want accountability and I want to see that this is really being put to use. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers? I'd like to address this on this item. Madam clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, chair. Colin user to your microphone is now available. Marilyn Garrett. This is like putting a bandaid on a gushing wound myth of improvement or environment helping the environment. I have in front of me the county zero waste news put out by the county and green race recovery with some pictures and photographs and it's titled the cost of waste. And I think of how corporations privatize the profits and socialize the costs we pay for their contamination and there are micro plastics everywhere. It even says in this publication the compostable bags don't break down like food and supervisor friends you say changing consumer behavior is the ultimate goal. What about change in the corporate behavior and the corporate policies that are contaminating everything? That's the source. Capitalism kills and this is one example. I'm talking about corporate capitalism and we need to probe into this waste and the production of all the plastics. There is no way this proposal is going to help anything but the continued pollution of corporations. I'm the issue I'm looking at is zero waste news summer 2023. Stop it where it starts. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Is there anybody else online? No further speakers, chair. All right. We'll bring it back to the board for action on the item. Second. We have a motion from supervisor McPherson. A second from supervisor Koenig. If we could have a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Cummings. Hi. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson and friend. All right. And I pass unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Pimentel. Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. Thank you, Mr. Friedrich, by the way. Item eight is a public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Cruz, repealing Santa Cruz County Code sections 13.10660 through 13.10.668, adopting new sections 13.10660 through 13.10664, and amending sections 13.10.312, 13.10.322, 13.10.332, 13.10.342, 13.10.352, and 13.10362 and 13.10372 regarding wireless communication facilities, adopt a resolution accepting California Coastal Commission's modifications to amendments to the Santa Cruz County Code sections 13.10660 through 664 and take related actions, as recommended by the Deputy CAO and Director of Community Development and Infrastructure. We have the board item and resolution and the ordinance both strike out and underline as well as the Coastal Commission's hearing letter staff report. And we have Mr. Carlson here. Good morning and welcome back. Thank you, Chair Friend and good morning members of the board. By adopting this ordinance today, the county will have one set of updated regulations for wireless communication facilities that will apply both inside and outside the coastal zone in the entire unincorporated area of the county. The original purpose of updating the wireless regulations was to bring the county code into compliance with state and federal law and to clarify the ordinance language. The updated regulations that the board adopted last year went into effect outside the coastal zone 30 days after they were adopted. However, approval from the California Coastal Commission was required before the updated regulations could go into effect inside the coastal zone because the updates represented an amendment to the county's local coastal program. The Coastal Commission has approved the updated ordinance, but they made some minor modifications. And when that occurs, the board of supervisors is asked to accept and agree to those modifications. The mods approved by the Coastal Commission don't make any substantial changes to the ordinance, but approved by the board of supervisors. They further improve upon and clarify ordinance language, mainly regarding protection of visual resources. Because all the modifications were negotiated and agreed upon between Coastal Commission staff and county staff, the Coastal Commission approved the modified ordinance by unanimous consent. So the next step in the process is to recommend that the board of supervisors take a series of actions. And that is conduct the public hearing to consider accepting and agreeing to the Coastal Commission's suggested modifications to the proposed amendments to county code and local coastal program that modify regulations related to wireless facilities, adopt the attached resolution accepting the Coastal Commission's modifications, approve and concept and ordinance of the board of supervisors of the County of Santa Cruz, repealing Santa Cruz County code sections 1310.660 through 1310.668, adopting new sections 1310.660 through 1310.664, and amending various other sections of the county wireless facilities, schedule the ordinance for second reading and final adoption on October 3rd, and direct staff to transmit the resolution and ordinance to the California Coastal Commission. And then following that, the ordinance would take effect after the executive director of the Coastal Commission reports the board of supervisors actions to the commission. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carlson. I have two very brief questions about some of the changes. One of them, I think actually would mainly impact my colleagues, Supervisor Cummings District, that they had changed the heights on TPC parcels within the coastal zone, limiting it to 75 feet. Is there a sense that this won't impact? I mean, there's some pretty tall trees in Supervisor Cummings District, and I understand the desire for protecting visual resources, but I think that the North Coast has historically had very limited coverage and also for emergency response, very limited coverage. Do you not have concerns that that limitation will create any impacts? No, we don't, because there is still a pathway to approve those applications in the ordinance. It's just a slightly different pathway with that reduction in height. And thank you. And second to that more, so I would suppose in my district and Supervisor Koenig's district, it has a preference towards DAS systems versus towers in the coastal zone. I seem to recollect on the 72 hour power backup requirements that those aren't included. I just have a concern of although the language says preference, which is always helpful because that gives some flexibility to county staff as opposed to requirement. The distributed systems aren't as reliable and don't fall into the same state standards for power backups during emergency situations. So is there any concern or is it just because the word is preference, you feel that there would be an ability for review from county staff that would still allow for resiliency within the coastal zone under this changed language? I would say the answer is the same as the last answer. There's still a pathway in the ordinance to approve these types of applications. It's just the coastal staff we wanted to have more discretionary authority over them, but there's still that pathway of alternatives analysis. If it doesn't comply with the standards outlined in the ordinance, there's that pathway for the alternatives analysis to show that it's necessary. Okay. Thank you. Are there my colleagues have any comments on the Supervisor McPherson? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm glad to see this moving forward and the county has needed to update these ordinances to support modernizing our communications infrastructure, primarily addressing the visual issue within the coastal zone. But as far as my fifth district up in the mountains, we struggle with consistent wireless service too, as we know, and hopefully these changes will have made these ordinance overall an improvement and go a long way to giving everybody in the county, whether you're on the coastline or up in the mountains, better service. Thank you. Surveys are noted. Thank you, Chair. I had the same question concerned as you as far as 75 foot cap on towers and on the North Coast since the coastal zone goes so far inland. And there's so much of the North Coast is owned timber production zone. Glad to hear there's an alternative pathway though. I can still ensure that emergency connectivity is available there. I also just generally would offer the same hope that this can lead to more and better wireless facilities throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was certainly one of the top complaints we heard all winter long was that it's one thing to be stuck in my house because the road is there's a slide on my road, but it's another to have no power and no internet or cell service. So hopefully we can help this ordinance will be a good step forward and helping more people be connected more frequently. Thanks. Thank you, Surveys or Cummings. Yeah, I just want to thank staff for their work on this and the collaboration with the Coastal Commission. And just so that folks are aware when this did come to the Coastal Commission, I raised the same questions with Coastal staff because, you know, we know when you live in a region, you know, the impacts of, you know, once you get to a certain area and not being able to have any coverage and the communications that we get from folks about needing better coverage, wanted to make sure that that was clear with Coastal Commission living in this district and having experienced, you know, not having cell service in those areas. And what they Coastal staff had assured that, you know, the alternatives analysis, like if it's something that is necessary because you can't there's no other alternative than there's flexibility within the policy to allow for them to consider cell service towers that are over a certain height if it's absolutely necessary and there's no other alternative. So I'm pretty confident that this has got us to a good place. And I just ask County staff to keep us informed with how this moves forward. And if there's a need to, you know, have conversations with Coastal Commission on how we can, you know, make sure that we're moving forward with improving communications in our, just in Santa Cruz County, but we're able to continue making progress. Any other comments? No comments. Just thanks staff for all their work on this and collaborating with the Coastal Commission. Thank you, Supervisor Hernandez. This is a public hearing. And so now we'd officially like to open up the public hearing regarding this item. Is there anybody in chambers that would like to address us specific to this public hearing? Yeah, so my name is James Ewing Whitman and all of these 3110s. I'm going to question all of them. I'm going to ask if I can have 12 minutes to discuss why I'm kidding. But so I don't know, but there's, it seems like there's so much misinformation, you know, zero G is radio. First G is five licensed frequencies. Second is 10. Third is another 10. And the fourth is another 10. But what people are calling fifth G is really 297th generation. It's a total overlap of the frequencies from 0.3 gigahertz to over 300 gigahertz. So in 1996, Clinton passed FCC 702, where the only complaint could be about what it physically looked like. I don't think I've seen it in this room, but I know that the city attorney Tony Kandadi has put up that picture of basically what it says in one abstract. So what people don't realize is any cell tower under 150 feet is 100% unregulated. We have towers in this county that, if you can just do the math, adding up the number one, number two and number three copper wires leading there, that's 3 million Watts. That's enough to cook this town. I have traveled all over in the community. And although I don't want to, I'll park right next to cell towers to absolutely confirm that that cell tower is not servicing Verizon. So I am questioning this stuff because the jurisprudence in this room, you guys are just rubber stamping things that are incredibly dangerous to people in its education situation. What else? I think that summed it up. Well, what people could be concerned about is the bio digital convergence and all this stuff is connected. When I'm in this room, when I go in this building, I start to get a headache and I wear glasses because of the frequencies in this room. I hope my headache and my vision clear up once I'm out of this building. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Is there anybody else during this public hearing? Thank you, Becky Steinbrunner. I live in rural Santa Cruz County and there is no cell reception and I'm really glad because I like many people in the community that don't get regarded very often and have real problems with the RF frequency. I always take something for headaches before I come here because I always get them. And I know people who do not come here to speak with you because of the high RF in this room and in this building. There are alternatives and I know people in the mountains who use Starlink who need reliable internet service. So don't feel that you are limited to putting up these big towers everywhere to address the needs of emergency responders and others. There are alternatives and Starlink works very well. Regarding these code changes, I note that it is watered down a little bit. I also have concerns about the word preference for because essentially these applications are ministerial approvals. The applicant gets what they want and the public and the county has really nothing they can or do say to change that. I interpreted the TPC limit to be changed to 150 in height when I saw the chart. So I would like some clarification on that alone. I want to bring to Supervisor Friend's attention the dilapidated tower that is at the edge of the coastal zone in Aptos on Old Dominion Court. It was one of the first in Aptos and it is disgusting looking. There are no elements on it in their stand. So these companies have to be made accountable and take them down when they are no longer in operation. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Excuse me. Sorry about that. Is there anybody else in chambers so I would like to address this during this public hearing? I see none. Is there somebody online? Yes. Yes, speakers online. Colin, user 2, your microphone is now available. What is needed is for coppered landlines, reliable landlines to be maintained and available to all. Item 8 is really another example of the dictatorship of corporations, military surveillance, telecommunications, pharmaceutical. This is part of the dictatorship of corporations and the public is excluded in decision making. You are mandating toxic radiation assault. You're guaranteeing that. And that constitutes a health emergency stating that wireless communication facilities, quotes from your staff report will not result in any significant adverse environmental effects is a lie. It's a false claim for all the existing and proposed murder radiation facilities planned. You big good as solved everywhere from these radiation emitting facilities, parks, open space everywhere, cell phones, cell towers, Wi-Fi, wireless, smart meters, all in it, microwave, radio, frequency, radiation, independent research, which you've been provided repeatedly shows this radiation causes cellular stress and damage, DNA damage, blood, brain barrier, disruption, increased cancer and tumor risk. It's a very, very long list. You are prohibiting our right to a health and a future as no safe amount of radiation. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Go for the speaker's chair. Okay, we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for a motion. Is there a motion? I'll move the staff recommendation. Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Cummings and a second from Supervisor Koenig. If we could have a roll call, please. Certainly, Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson and Friend. All right, that passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Carlson, for your continued work over the last couple of years on this. And that will end the regular meeting, but we do have a closed session. Is there anything anticipated to be reportable out of closed session today? No. Okay, then the board will move into closed session.