 Bruce, I think we're all ready to get started here. I think it's set up. Okay. We're ready to go Good morning and welcome to the March 9th 2021 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors It is 9 a.m. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Good morning. It's my desktop for us. I'm on my laptop now All right ready for the roll Please yes. Thank you Supervisor Koenig here friend here Coonerty here Caput here McPherson Here, thank you. We will now have Thank you. All five members are here. We will now have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance You know for me I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America And to the Republic of which it stands One nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Okay, we will go to item number three consideration of late additions to the agenda Editions and deletions to the consent and regular agendas. Mr. Placios. Do we have any additions? Corrections Yes, we do chair McPherson and members of the board on the regular agenda item 11. There's additional materials There's a revised memo packet page 135 In addition, there's a correction the item should read Consider directing the planning department in conjunction with the Office of Recovery and Resiliency To return to the board on April 27th 2021 with a proposal to incorporate a set of pre-approved accessory dwelling units On the planning department's website on or before June 30th 2021 for use by CZU fire victims and the general public as Outlined in the memorandum of supervisor Koenig and supervisor McPherson On item number 12. There's additional materials. There's a notice of objection Insert after page 148 and then an item 13. There's additional materials attachment B SB 45 bill text insert after packet page 151 that concludes the corrections to the agenda And mr. Chair you Yes, mr. Supervisor Coonerty, thank you So I'd like to suggest if it meets with your agreement and the rest of the board that we combine items 8 and 9 since they're similar and We hear them as one item That's fine to do. I don't think there's there should be any objection to that. These are on the list of Housing issues homeless issues were faced today, and I think combining those would be fine. I don't think there would be any objection Mr. County Council is that that seemed proper to you I Don't think that that should create a problem at all So we will combine items 8 and 9 on the agenda Okay, is there any announcement? I'd like to welcome by we are being broadcast by community TV And I'd like to welcome Ian who is handling those chores for us today at the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meeting Any other any announcement on item number four any announcement by board members of items removed from the consent or regular agenda to the regular agenda? Don't see any We'll go to item number Five public comment. This is the time for any person who to address the board during the public comment Not exceeding two minutes and we will have a timer clock for you to see how much time you have left when you're speaking Comments must be directed to items on today's consent and closed session agendas Or yet to be heard items on the regular agenda or on a topic not on today's agenda But within the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors We'll take public comments for now for up to 30 minutes and if this Necessary additional time for public comment will be allowed after the last item on today's agenda and that will be an afternoon session we're going to have a discussion on the pre Budget the budget for 2021 to 130 today so that would come after that do we have anybody that would like to speak to us public comment? Let's share we have six members of the public wishing to address the board during public comment Hey now's the time for public comment Thank you if you wish to comment on joining us through the zoom link Please find the hand look icon at the bottom of your screen and click this to raise your hand This will place you in the queue to speak when it is your turn I will call you by name or the last four digits of your phone number Please accept the unmute and begin speaking once you begin speaking the timer will run and you'll have two minutes It will end automatically at the end You're calling in from a phone. Please dial star nine now. This will virtually raise your hand. Thank you caller one nine nine nine Good morning. This is James Ewing Whitman. Can I be heard? Yes, we can hear you Excellent though. Oh what a mangled web. This was the title of the Santa Cruz grand jury. I believe in 2020 so why do I write what I write about who I write about because I am selfish and want to live another 40 years in this county. This is a local quote from a community member From a local community member politely engaging with a checkout clerk at the local health food store One of the staff mentioned ten of their customers took the IBM Nazi Microsoft injection One male healthy and in good shape physically one hour after the injection had a heart attack and stroke and died Another had a stroke shortly after the injection the other eight customers who were injected are all having serious health Complications, you know, I wrote this this morning quote. We are all homeless all youths Let's all useless eaters under Rockefeller Western medicine's profits over cures and on healthy monopoly in Transition the United States of America by 1920 but further established after the Nazi scientists further their Concentration camp proven results into the UN and World Warth World Health organizations This is a particularly good brief read the history of the farmer Contel cartel published in 2007 After reading this many community members might share not just this but many other links like it as the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisor meets as the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors meets to meet today March 9th 2021 only presenting 483 pages of agenda 2130 the situation of homelessness is on the agenda for and for items Are we call sharing in late? 2019 in the city of Santa Cruz Council that we are all already homeless due to the wireless weapons already installed Caller 1401 good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Good morning board of supervisors and everyone listening. I'm asking you to follow I'm asking the board of supervisors to follow the lead of Mill Valley, California and pass an ordinance prohibiting 5g Mill Valley didn't wait for the federal government and you don't need to either In fact, you have a leak ethical and legal duty to protect us I'm going to play for you a clip from Dr. Sharon Goldberg's testimony to the Michigan Senate subcommittee on October 4th 2018 Cut let me go The 5g is not a conversation about whether or not these biological effects exist. They clearly do 5g is a conversation about unsustainable health care expenditures Why do I say this? We've been sitting on the evidence for DMR and chronic disease for decades And now we're seeing all these epidemics appearing So diabetes is the first epidemic. I think most of you know the statistics. They're very scary One in three American children will become diabetic in their lifetime and if they're Hispanic females the number is one in two So what does this have to do with wireless radiation? Wireless radiation in other electromagnetic fields such as magnetic fields and during electricity have been clearly Associated with elevated blood sugar and diabetes. That is what the peer-reviewed literature says is not opinion The closer you live to a cell tower The higher your blood glucose that is based on hemoglobin a1c measurements So the idea with small cells of putting themselves closer to people's homes and bedrooms Scientifically is very dangerous. They're from an economic perspective. It's dangerous Carol borne you'll have two minutes to speak winter microphone is unmuted This is Carol Bjorn Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the local adoption of the proclamation of a local health emergency Dated March 10th 2020 related to COVID-19 When this resolution was adopted by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors one year ago It was supposed to exist for a period of 60 days Unless continued or terminated by the board. Why is this local health emergency order still in place? As I told the board in June of 2020 the California Emergency Services Act requires an imminent threat and At that time I said if you've been dealing with COVID for three months There's no imminent threat after three months. You should know how to preemptively treat it Now here we are a year later and there's even more evidence that there is no imminent threat COVID-19 can be treated preemptively and it has a 99% recovery rate The local health emergency and local health orders are now only being used as a tool of our county government And here's an example the California Department of Public Health Does not require schools offering in-person instruction to do active health screenings including temperature checks at school I'm going to repeat that the state agency the California Department of Public Health Does not require schools offering in-person instruction to do active health screenings including temperature checks at school Yet our local County Office of Education requires that why? Since you all adopted this resolution a year ago You all need to rescind it today So that county agencies such as the County Board of Education Do not create more strict requirements than the state requires This is a tremendously great disservice to the sons and daughters of the men and women of this county and it needs to be rescinded today Caller 2915 you'll have two minutes to speak with your microphone is unmuted as a reminder all callers are able to speak once per item Good morning, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you I first of all want to thank you Miss Berg for putting the zoom access information front and center on the board's Agenda that is so helpful and I really want to thank you for doing that I also want to ask the board at the time You in January said that you would have no more in-person meetings. You did say that you would revisit that decision in March I've not seen any action on that and so I would like some discussion about that With the constituents when the in-person meetings will return. I would also like to ask Related to items later on your agenda regarding housing that this County consider adopting as Monterey has a Flagging and staking ordinance There is a lot of building proposed on the horizon and on the horizon We need to see what it will look like a flagging and staking ordinance will simply do that and Bring people's attention to projects in their neighborhood in a timely manner when they can help And really make a difference The fourth thing I'd like to talk about is this County's participation in the state board of forestry Fire safe rulemaking efforts. I want to applaud miss Paya Levine and mr. Reed For the testimonies they've given to those boards it is helping Santa Cruz a lot and I am very concerned that these new rules will Really make it hard for people to rebuild in the CZU fire area and I'm grateful for Their efforts. I'm also grateful For the two Town hall meetings next Monday and Tuesday for the CZU fire people those are being hosted by cal fire And I'm happy that's finally going to happen And to that end I ask that this board consider funding Thank you. Jeff gaffney your microphone is unmuted Jeff gaffney your microphone is unmuted. You'll have two minutes to speak Thank you. Thank you Good morning chairman McPherson and fellow board members this Jeff gaffney the director for santa cruz county parks I wanted to take a moment to recognize one of our employees park maintenance worker erin randoff It's not often that we get to have positive things said about public employees And at the board meeting so I want to make sure that we do that and We recently had the opportunity to get a very sweet and kind email from a constituent who Recognized erin for his efforts and he was out so abel duran was the person who sent us the email He was out at a felton covered bridge park With his wife. They were enjoying a covet safe meal where they can in parks like people have been lately He went home and realized that he had lost his wallet His wallet had four hundred dollars cash in it that he was going to pay his utility bills with It was also a brand new wallet his wife had given to him for valentine's day Fortunately, erin was working that day and found the wallet and was able to get it to the sheriff's office who in turn returned it to abel who was worried of course about identity theft and driver's license having to replace all that kind of information and These type of small heroic efforts that our staff make are not easily or often recognized and it was Is very kind of mr. Durand to take the time to send us an email And let us know his thoughts and appreciate the efforts of our erin randoff Our maintenance staff And I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that there's a lot of people like that in our workforce a lot of people that in that county employee employment who make those efforts every day and and thank erin and Hope you guys have a great meeting Thank you Thank you john showalter Color has dropped off jackie who say your microphone is unmuted What? Yeah, I guess I guess I am on now My apologies My name is john showalter and i'm the chairman of the association of faith communities Uh the afc is a coalition of 26 congregations assembled to organize the efforts of those Faith communities in service to the poor. We are pleased to speak to the board today in support of the proposal Put forth by suburbizer coonery The new approach is needed The proposed policy charges county staff to create guidance and policy for the establishing camps that allow neighborhoods And potential operators to know what to expect. This is good The policy recognizes such camps can become in a variety of configurations and structures Along from flexibility and creative solutions The policy has the county identify any public or private spaces That might accommodate an acampment again good any site must be suitable for the purpose and sensitive to the neighborhoods The wider we look the greater chances of compatibility This policy does the above with the understanding that we need to build and operate multiple sites to accommodate hundreds of units That have stable funding This is good as it recognizes that the force The force to sleep Excuse me those who are forced to sleep outside are not confined to the cities of santa cruz and watsonville They have seen as vastly encouraged the county is finding the political will to address the reality That the unhoused are more than a two-city problem More than a short-term problem more than a market problem requires more than 10th in a port-a-potty It may be needed for a while. This won't be easy Some have demonized the homeless ignoring the 75 who had to address before they became homeless They flame away on next door and burn away. I'm gonna run out of time. I thought I was going to have five minutes Oh, well Thank you all Okay, use your microphone is unmuted Hi, thank you My name is jackie bussey and I am a public school parent and i'm a pediatrician in our community And I want to talk briefly about reopening our schools There's a lot of discussion going on about the technicalities of getting our kids back to school But I want to just get back to the big picture A year ago when our schools closed. I think it was the right thing to do Don't hear any sound Oh I don't have audio Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? It comes in and out Sorry about that. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you Okay So I'll try to go quickly here. Um, I am a public school parent and a pediatrician and I want to talk briefly about reopening our schools There's a lot of discussion going on about the technicalities of getting kids back to school But I want to just touch on the big picture A year ago when schools closed. I think it was the right thing to do We assumed covet would be like other respiratory illnesses With kids being the primary drivers of transmission that they would be at high risk of severe disease And that schools would be super spreaders, but we were wrong We have known for quite a while now that schools can open safely with simple basic mitigation strategies There really is no scientific or safety reason that our schools should still be closed Schools all over the world the country and even in our own state have been open for months with extremely low rates of in-school transmission Yet our kids are still at home We're about to go back to hybrid which is long overdue But I was devastated to learn that our county is also planning hybrid instruction for next fall This is totally unnecessary and will cause ongoing harm I am very worried about the long-term impacts of another year of inadequate schooling Not just for our kids But for the parents in our community and frankly the future of our public school system We need to prioritize getting our kids back to school full time as soon as possible It really is unconscionable to continue to keep kids at home just on a technicality Thank you so much for addressing this issue. I really appreciate the time Thank you Melissa, you're my microphone is unneeded I don't see anything restarted at this point. Is there one more thing your microphone is unmuted. I didn't Be able to be able to contact the person who wants to speak Can you hear me? All right You can hear you. Um chairman person. Uh, it looks like stephanie may be having some connection problems Okay, um Was there one or two more speak? Supervisor what I can do is I can take pick it up from um, Stephanie So I will not be able to share my screen however with the timer. So if Community tv could simply run your own timer. We would appreciate that Speaker whose number ends in three two five six. You will have two minutes to speak Please go ahead and you are unmuted and start you will have two minutes Speaker three. Oh, good morning Go ahead. Yes. Good morning Hello. Good morning. This is ellie black A couple things I wanted to touch on today and some of them were touched on already by other speakers and thank you for that The most pressing is the situation with the protesters at trader joes and other places Uh, the wording in the central article recently where law enforcement was requesting that the public Um, help them track these people down finding their home addresses car Identification take pictures of them, etc. Is very troubling to me. This is um This is something that's not appropriate in a in a free society This has been done before in history and it was never With good consequences no matter what someone's perspective is on the protesting um My own included I don't believe that setting the public on one another is the correct way to do things These people as far as I'm aware do not hide their these. I believe their events are public And the fact that law enforcement was fully aware of this situation ahead of time and it shows not to show up Is a very glaring question in my mind Instead what we could be more productive for the community is to call a public Forum and have the people who are doing these protests Speak with the leaders in our community and have public input on this. This is obviously something that affects people in a very uh emotional and visceral level and there's a lot of fear and that's that's Needs to be addressed in a for a constructive outcome to this situation So I hope you all are considering that I'd also like to speak to uh the fact that We were told that in-person meetings could likely resume in march It is now march And uh would like to see that followed through with as far as it being something that we can go back to because public participation Thank you color 1851 your microphone is unmuted. Hello. This is monica maguire calling and uh asking that you again hear the many requests that you look at the local picture here in santa cruz county But as well, there's still the bigger picture that includes uh real science debate and conversation that could be taking place such as with the former director vice president and chief scientist of fiser who Was quoted in the article in november of 2020 still very very valid today under life site news.com the article entitled fiser Says no need for vaccines the pandemic is effectively over It's all still true that dr. Michael yaden who Spent over 30 years leading new and allergy and respiratory medicine research in some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies Then retired from fiser as the most senior research position in this field He said there is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the that the pandemic I've never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You don't vaccinate people who aren't at risk from a disease You also don't set about planning to vaccinate millions A fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn't been extensively tested on human subjects The british nationals comments come at the end of a comprehensive criticism of the scientific advisory group for emergencies They they have in the uk, but again it fits with everything that we're doing in this county and Those are all of these government agencies are playing a predominant role in determining public Lockdown policies etc Including all of the ones that have continued all of these months and should be looked at The this article like so many others is asking what we've all been asking Could we look at the local need? We have a point zero zero nine percent death rate and that's only with the Collin user you will have two minutes once your microphone is unmuted Thank you speaker. Your microphone is unmuted. Um, it's a shame. We don't still have three minutes on public comment Thanks to bruce macpherson cutting off the public at two minutes This is maryland garrant despite what the telecom industry says and their assurances of safe amounts of exposure to radio frequency microwave radiation No such safety Limits exist as dr. Sharon goldberg has stated wireless radiation has biological effects period this county is planning to upgrade all the existing wireless sites to 5g As the planning commission discussed last month I'm going to continue with some comments of dr. Sharon goldberg testifying in michigan Press home with diabetes really is chronic kidney disease Um End stage real disease the worst complication of diabetes We've seen with dialysis Human dialysis is an automatic qualification for medicare. Um, and if you don't qualify for medicare We still have to dialyze the patient and the state ends up paying in many different instances so Real failure is one percent of medicare, but it takes up seven percent of all medicare expenditures Uh, I don't have time to talk about this anymore, but once again We have so the other epidemics that clearly from science with electromagnetic radiation Are related to mental health and this is this is straight from Up and this isn't my opinion. This is science And those of us who aren't positions what is thank you chair that concludes the speakers for public comment You're on mute bruce let me chair your We will go now to item number six action on the consent agenda I'll ask the board members who will start anything that you would like to comment on the or take off of the consent agenda Just a few comments. Um, no, uh, nothing to to pull Just on item 26 That's super This supervisor tony now speaking Okay, go ahead. Thank you chair On item number six 26. I want to thank my analyst Amy me a kusu for volunteering to serve as my alternate on the rgc Our experience as a senior analyst with public works here in our county for many years before joining my office makes her very well positioned for this On item number 31 I want to call attention to this nearly $300,000 contract with janice to provide treatment and housing payment assistance services It's great that we're seeing more financial resources But we also know from programs like fit that there's a shortage of housing for programs like this And so creating more low-cost housing opportunities in our community Will ultimately help state money like this go further And I also look forward to seeing some of the data that's collected from this program and is highlighted in the award On item number 32 about the local area management program or lamp Definitely something I heard about a lot on the campaign trail as well the issues we've seen I want to thank you. Thank environmental health for the update It's been a huge need in our In our community in our county since our we lost authority in may 2018 to approve anything other than low risk systems And the need to go to the state is adding a huge amount of time and expense to projects So the fact that we furthermore anticipate going from 16 percent of all septic systems being seen as as needing advanced treatment to 30 to 50 percent is really a Staggering potential increase And you know, especially given my understanding that advanced treatment systems can cost as much as $80,000 So, you know, I think as evidenced by the extensive comments from the community on this week, we know this is a big issue And so I'm really looking forward to exploring alternatives as well Not a day goes by it seems these days when someone doesn't ask me when the county will be considering composting toilets as well So, you know, I hope that we'll address that in the future On item number 33, I just want to You know express my gratitude for the great place delivered program I know my neighbor has benefited greatly from that program and it really put her at ease throughout the the pandemic And finally on item number 37 I want to thank public works and connolly engineering for the successful completion of the north rodeo gulch storm damage repair project The project was much needed to ensure safe safe egress on public On north rodeo gulch and the fact that it went less than half a percent over budget is incredible. I'd say it's that's pretty much spot on So thanks again That's all Supervisor friend. Do you have any comments on the consent agenda? Thank you supervisor McPherson chair McPherson And I'd like to build a little bit on supervisor conics comments on item 32 And I appreciate those comments and I agree with these concerns Supervisor conic and myself as well as supervisor McPherson have a lot of the areas that are impacted By this I did have a question. I'm not sure if there is somebody Here from uh, that can actually answer it But while we're producing a draft lamp, do we actually have an expected timeline on the completion of it? Obviously, there's a lot of steps still to get this completely certified and so I just wanted to see if there's a timeline that we could start providing to constituents for completion on On that item, so I'm not sure if there's somebody that could address that or if not It's just a question that maybe I could get addressed offline But if there's somebody here, I'd like to be able to get a sense of what the expensive timeline is on 32 Um Very good. I uh, we've each had comments on that so far and I'm going to have some as well. I will ask Our environmental health director, uh, Marilyn Underwood to comment on Just keep in mind your question and I have a couple questions on that as well So, um We will tee up Marilyn Underwood of environmental health to answer some of those questions After every each board member has addressed us on the items on the consent agenda Supervisor Coonerty, do you have any concerns or any comments you want to make on items on the consent agenda? No, mr. Chair. Thank you very much My mute is going off and on again. I'm trying to correct that as we speak You didn't supervisor Coonerty, uh, you didn't have any comments on the consent agenda. Uh, no, thank you, mr. Chair Okay, thank you supervisor Captain No, uh, thanks Thank you chair You do you have any comments on it? No, I'm okay. Everything's fine. Thank you. All right I uh, and I just have two issues that I want to address um, the first one is on item number 32 as has been um addressed by Supervisors Koenig and friend, uh, it's on the uh, the local agency management program which has been underway since the state had some direction in 1999. So this is an ongoing project Uh, and I want to thank environmental health for its work It appears uh chair McPherson's computer is frozen momentarily. We do have Uh, it up here trying to work on his computer um So I imagine we'll we can wait a few Take a two minute break. I'm gonna make Excuse me, mr. Palacios I'm going to take a two minute break To correct something here. That's what it's probably going to take So can we just uh Take a brief recess for a couple minutes and then I'll come back on right away Okay, we'll go ahead and take a two minute break then and we'll resume very shortly Okay Thank you. We can hear you chair Okay, so we will reconvene the The marks that mean 2021 of the board supervisors. Thank you for your patience There was one question from Zach friend and a comment by supervisor Coney as well Uh, I just want to thank the environmental health department. First of all It's worked on this project over the many years. This started with state Regulations that were imposed in I think 1999 Uh, these changes changes are really being driven By our state and regional policies With the water regional boards and so forth and we know that they have a significant impact on our property owners In addition, I I'm going to be asking this of maryland underwood our director of environmental health And I think she will answer a supervisor friend's question as well There's a range here that we have in this A number of parcels impacted and it's between 8 512 thousand But for the 30 to 50 cent of permits that will not require enhanced treatment systems That will be triggered when there is our repairs or just when new and upgraded systems are being installed um, I just wasn't sure What that that What that really meant and then on the estimated number of parcels affected by the various proposed changes Is there some duplication on this 8 512 and 12 000 Uh, in other words, will some parcels be affected by one or more of the changes in the regulations that were stipulated in the the agenda item Is uh, maryland underwood, uh, our director of Environmental health is she available to answer some of those questions? Chair McPherson, um, maryland, uh, underwood is available and so stephanie if you could Elevate maryland Um to a panelist and then she can respond to the questions that Uh chair chair mcpherson and other board members have asked Thank you maryland your microphone is unmuted He has been promoted. Thank you. Good morning supervisor mcpherson and board of supervisors Um, let's see if I can answer all your different questions. I think the easiest one may be as well Maybe the easiest one is the timeline At this point we think we will be needing to put the document out for a second round of public comment and we will have a At least some sort of opportunity for the entire community to speak on the On the document the lamp the local area management plan And then we hope to have it to the regional board for their june meeting And so that's about the timing right now that we're looking at as far as comments on the The the document in the document we state It is estimated the percentage of permits required enhanced treatment will increase from about 16 to Either 30 to 50 percent and actually in asking john ricker a little bit more about that john ricker as you know Is our recently retired Environmental health coordinator position and he actually largely wrote this document the local area management plan He actually thought it would be more like 30 to 40 percent So again, that's enhanced treatments being not required on 16 but up to 30 to 40 So an increase about 15 to 20 percent again There will be a fair number of systems that will not require that upgrade to enhanced treatment systems But some will for sure and and again the reasons oftentimes are Changes in our standards From when the parcels were first subdivided That require especially if a small parcel is too close to a stream and the there will not be adequate setback Groundwater separation. That's the separation between the bottom of where the The sewages or this liquid is just positive on the soil and the top of the groundwater at the high groundwater time So again, something that's really has been found to be very important to protect our groundwater As we all drink that groundwater in many cases And so some of those will definitely affect people and require that they get enhanced treatment as far as Supervisor McPherson your question about the various numbers that are laid out of different systems that will be affected by the changes There definitely is overlap and again, john ricker asked him what he thought instead of you know, eight to 12,000 It would be like four five to eight thousand parcels that would be impacted. So again reflecting that there is some overlap These changes that are in the local area management plan Are addressing issues that they seen not only in santa cruz county, but also statewide where there's The are our previous ordinances We're not protective enough of groundwater and surface water And again, we depend primarily only on our own groundwater and surface water to to provide us drinking water here So that's why some of these we do have to meet minimum standards that the state has set And also protect again importance of our our groundwater and our surface water I do welcome, you know a continued dialogue on this as we move forward and a dialogue with the regional board who ultimately Has to approve our local area management plan Very good. I think those are adequately any supervisor have further questions on that Thank you mrs. Andrew for that that detailed response it's taken a long time to get here and I guess we can Look forward to discussing this further in June before the board of supervisors My only other comment was on item number 39 the east sigine road repairs I want to thank again as I do just about every meeting that we have for the board of supervisors for the work of our public works department for the storm damage repairs that go back to 2016 17 We really do appreciate the work that's going on despite many many infrastructure Demands related to fire recovery that we have today. So thank you again public works. It's a very important road There in my district and east sigine road With that we will move on to Or excuse me. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Pardon me chair. I would like to call out that item 27 requires a four-fifths vote. So the maker of the motion is aware Mr. Chair, I'll move the recommended actions and also just very briefly just on the dr Underwood comments if if dr. Underwood wouldn't mind working with each of our offices on the outreach To our constituents. That'd be useful. I think that we could help with that outreach I just want to be sure we have a very robust public outreach plan on that, but that's not direction That's just a suggestion on that item. I'll just move the recommended actions Okay, um, call the roll, please I believe you're on mute miss grahra, but if you Supervisor conan. Yes Supervisor friend Hi Supervisor coonerty. Hi supervisor carpet And supervisor big person Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously and you didn't get supervisor conan on there I didn't hear you say that I think he said I so it's it passes unanimously Okay, thank you. I'm moving right along to item number seven We have a presentation by the community action board of santa criss county on its work with the disaster relief for immigrants or dr. I a program Is outlined in the memorandum of uh supervisor carpet and I will say in advance The community action board has been in santa criss county for a long long time for decades And it's just does phenomenal work to those who Need help the most in my opinion and they do it year in and year out and they they really handle Their tasks as efficiently as can be expected and we do very much appreciate what they do year Throughout the years. Um, I don't it's uh, who is going to be making the presentation on that tomorrow Okay Mr. Campbell, yeah, you brought this to the okay. Thank you And thanks for your comments too bruce um Yeah, it's a pleasure to introduce maria lena De La Garza and polina moreno of the community action board To speak with us today They're a great asset for especially south county Because we have documented we have undocumented people living here. We have for farm worker families And then we have the complication of blended families were Let's say half of them are documented in the other half or not We have many families down here in south county where Some of the children were born in mexico or in different countries and Uh, then the other children were born here. So some are citizens and some are without any document documentation at all My children that I have They go to school at many white public school with uh In the fourth and fifth grade with a lot of kids And some of whom are not documented And some are of course and then Uh also in our neighborhood, uh, we have we have also everything that I mentioned earlier It's uh Cab is especially with when I had a good relationship with uh doug keegan And he retired and now I believe somebody you can introduce Who took over immigration matthew. I believe this is name. Is that correct? Yeah, okay And uh, so anyway, I'm going to turn it over to maria lena and good to see you And uh, you can tell us I you or you were born and raised in washingtonville or you definitely raised in washingtonville Thank you supervisor capet. It is an honor and a privilege to be with all of you today Thank you chair McPherson and and welcome and hello to manu who we've not met before Um, yes born and raised in south county greg and washingtonville to be exact So it's always an honor and a pleasure to come and speak to you about some of the work that we're doing Not only in south county, but throughout the community Thank you for your kind words and for acknowledging 56 years of service of the community action board in our county And so we we are having some technical difficulties on this side. Marina moreno is one of our directors I'm not sure if can can you see her Do you see pagina moreno on your screen? I'm not sure how to do this and so he has been elevated and she can unmute herself And help with your presentation Excellent. Okay, so we hopefully we can do that. Um, but I will move us forward So so we want to talk a little bit about what our our experience was uh, uh over the summer last summer being one of of 12 agencies selected by governor newsom to distribute Economic resources for families who did not qualify for federal relief or unemployment And as you can imagine marina, can we put up our our power point? Yes, very good. Thank you And under our under cab and our immigration services program There's a new initiative that well not so new anymore that you've heard of hopefully The thriving immigrants collaborative and if we can move to slide four barlina, that wouldn't be helpful And the thriving immigrants collaborative was born in the city council chambers of in at the city of watsonville When we were talking and debating whether our our community should be a sanctuary city Really important conversation that happened on all levels of the jurisdictions And in particular in watsonville We we went to the podium and we said, you know, it's a given We must be a sanctuary city in this in this time. Um, remember it was right after the elections Four years ago four and a half years ago. Um, and there was a lot of anti immigrant sentiment and rhetoric Circulating throughout the nation And in our state But we said we need to do more and and it's not just about being sanctuary But it's about how do we come together to help our communities thrive? And how do we help our immigrants thrive and that was where the thriving immigrants initiative was born You can see on the screen who some of the steering committee partners are And where where we are committed to do better and be better for immigrants in our community We have not only our steering committee members, but a a reach of over 200 partners that include our human services agency And our public health partners through the county who are committed to to to understand What the needs of immigrants are and to to be responsive to those needs Please next slide please I'm going to introduce paulina who led the special project of the disaster relief Assistance for immigrants over the summer. It was a huge undertaking We had about eight weeks to distribute 2.5 million dollars regionally and i'll let her speak to the to the details of that work Thank you, marielena and good morning everyone as marielena mentioned. My name is paulina moreno I'm one of the project directors here at community action board and and we're just thrilled for the opportunity to be with you this morning To share with you a little bit about what the disaster relief assistance project meant for our community and talk a little bit about some Lessons learned and next steps that we're hoping to engage in conversation with you I am having some in and out coming out of my I'm getting notices of my internet connection is low. So I may be Having to turn it off if it does get too slow. So I want to Just say that and and apologize in advance for that but very quickly if you all can remember Back on april 15 of 2020 governor newson Made his announcement with the creation of 75 million disaster relief fund For assistance to undocumented immigrants as a result of the covet 19 Emergency, you know, this is historic and unprecedented in in our history Never before has a state taken a stance to make sure that we are inclusive of all in our economic relief Regardless of immigration status. So we want to commend our governor and also the the organizations that have been advocating on behalf and with immigrants Asking for inclusive policies that don't discriminate based on immigration status. And so for the very first time, you know, we Were one of 12 cbo's across the state that were selected to implement what we Internally called the drape program It really it was an opportunity to reach 150,000 undocumented Californians In in in six weeks as Marielena mentioned people who were eligible were adults Who could receive $500 direct assistance with a maximum of $1,000 in assistance per household And really a household is is defined as individuals who live and purchase prepare meals together as defined by the state And really some of the eligibility criteria You know people were obviously adults people who were over the age of 18 But they were excluded not eligible for any state or federal covet 19 relief efforts And of course had experienced some hardship as a result of covet 19 and so What we want to share with you is part of what The the lessons learned When it came to community engagement We understood and we we know what the impact of covet 19 was or is continues to be for undocumented community Specifically who have been excluded from any relief efforts now There's been much more advocacy to make sure that even people who In the first round of covet relief efforts if there were mixed status families They were excluded from receiving any type of stimulus support Now there's conversations to do away with mixed status families and so One of the things that we learned in terms of our community engagement is that when there's a need There isn't really such a big need to do aggressive outreach What what is needed is really funding for the infrastructure to be able to respond One of the things you know that we quickly learned is that we needed a communications person that could Not only be in conversation with our elected officials who were constantly reaching out to make sure That you know, they they were receiving calls from their constituents Concerns that they could not get through the hotline concerns that You know, they just wanted to be part of the process and so On top of everything else that we needed to administer there was A really concerted effort to make sure that we were keeping our elected and just the general public Updated with information about what was happening with the disaster relief program It and our response to that Because we understood the needs is that we contracted interpreter Excuse me interpreters to make sure that we could Connect with the community beyond English and Spanish But also in indigenous languages and multiple languages outside That our immigrant community speaks You know, we launched a hiring committee We we brought on board Over the course of two weeks or less 18 new staff who are bilingual, bi-cultural Compassionate We're born we're from this community raised in this community who understand the cultural nuances Of what it means to connect with People from the community who are in need And really I think to our benefit that it requires an agency that's committed to equitable practices I think that it's by no You know Luck that community action board was one of the agencies Selected to do this work In the central coast and so we'll talk a little bit more about what that Breakdown looked like I wanted to share this because I think it's important part of our effort at at cab has really been To advocate on behalf of the central coast When it comes to immigration services legal services resources coming from the state there's You know, we get over overseen from the larger counties and so for us it's a continued push to make sure that The state understands that there are undocumented Californians living in the central coast and we represent a huge percentage of people who are also not only providing And essential workers in our county but are also in need And this is what the breakdown looked like across the state Really the state organized us based on region We were delegated as part of the central coast that was divided in two And we really had about almost six and a half weeks to launch this program The application assistance began on May 18th and it closed on June 30th of 2020 And I just want to briefly talk about the stages of drae, you know, there were various stages to Be eligible for this this this program Not defined by us but defined by the state and so, you know, there was an intake process which really For us spoke to the need I want to share that, you know, when we launched on May 18th In the first hour our system crashed because we received 35,000 calls in the first hour There was absolutely no way that our phone system could Take the capacity and the Of the number of calls that we were receiving we were not the only organization across the state that crashed within our or even within the first day but we quickly, you know Did our homework processed with companies that could take on the the the capacity for the amount of people that were calling us our website Our facebook our social media within the first hour was, you know, received 47,000 hits um, and so really The the the need was out there and it just spoke to, um, you know The process for for doing intake was be a phone, of course because of covet, um regulations um part of the documentation, uh, there there were some Very serious challenges in terms of barriers that we've heard to technology not only lack of but use of technology Because um, we were following covet 19 safety protocols. There was a need to make sure that Everything was done via Email or zoom But we did set up in person Drop-off centers where people could connect with us and and provide the required documentation to move forward One of the things that that I do also want to highlight around the documentation piece is that many of the Not only were there challenges around technology, but there were challenges around having access to something as basic as a ID with a picture on it something as basic as as being able to prove that you reside where you say you do And so those were additional challenges that came and that unfortunately We could not work around and and some people became ineligible as a result But I do have to commend my team for really being creative in finding solutions to Address some of those challenges whether it was teaching people really how to send an email Via a text message describing to them how to use, you know, their their cell phone And and and just training basic training to our community was was pivotal in this effort The The disbursement component was really an opportunity the majority of it happened via mail So people were mailed out once they became eligible or in excuse me I'm stepping one. I'm skipping one important step, which is really the approval process You know in addition to the 18 staff that we hired to process calls So the the hotline was answered Month through saturday from 9 a.m. To 7 p.m In addition to the 18 staff that were constantly answering the phone the hotline We had our admin and directors team really focused on approving Applications so that we can move them forward And and so for us it's really how do we create systems that are equitable for people? And and that's not necessarily that disadvantages them because they don't have the required documentation to prove That they are in need of a service And so the disbursement again happened primarily over mail But we did have several in-person pop-ups pop-ups throughout the counties that we were tasked with serving Where we also brought in a number of interpreters to help us provide support And to help people activate their cards People received their their assistance via A visa card and so it was an opportunity to also You know a lot of our community members had not used a visa card Didn't know how to activate a visa card Didn't trust that there was actually money in that visa card So we set up a help hotline We were one of the first organizations that set up a help hotline to be able to support people and activating their card And again, this is really just a breakdown we were tasked with providing assistance to 4500 individuals across four counties Santa Cruz County Monterey San Benito and San Luis Obispo Again, the system that was set up by the state was a first first come first serve six system Which again might be a fair system, but as you can see it's not an equitable system You know and a possible solution could have been maybe setting up phone numbers for different areas of the county So really this is what the the breakdown looks like across Are the four counties that we were tasked with approximately 20 percent of residents in Santa Cruz County receiving this type of assistance And I won't go too much into depth into what the data is telling us because As as i'm sure that you're well aware these are not this is not anything new I think that for us what is Important to highlight that this is the first time that a survey Of undocumented people and and and what are their needs and what is the impact? um This is the first time that we have data to support what what I think we already know And what this tells us is that you know immigrants Not only have the same needs and aspirations as other californians and and that immigrants contribute in the same way But for us the big difference here is that there's a lack of pathways to access resources that other people may have access to And i'll just go next to i'll turn it over to mariela Thank you paulina that was a lot of information and i'm just in closing We want to talk about the lessons learned equity and and and reinforce what you heard in paulina's presentation First of all the needs far outweigh the resources available. We know that COVID-19 response technology strategies do not work for all And we need to be really careful as we begin to to move in technology driven Systems that they create further gaps, especially for our indigenous speaking communities We need to amplify the voices of impacted community members and compensate their time to help support this work Current systems are not represented of nor accessible to indigenous speaking communities I want to reiterate that we have a hard enough time as a county Responding in spanish I don't think that our board of supervisors meetings has a spanish interpreter And if I do we do forgive me i'm not aware of it But but but how do we push beyond that because our people in our community that have no access to you Or to to learn about have access to learn about what you're doing in support of their needs trust in relationship building is key We talk about trusted messengers, right? We learn that through our census work And and we know that that's what works in communities of color And what has been missing is strengthening the infrastructure for trusted messengers You know trusted messengers have big hearts and big souls and are activists and inaction in this community And we need to help support those infrastructures I want to talk about the process of inclusion and right now county board of supervisors We are looking at an equity plan. We want to operationalize equity not only in the county system But all systems. How do we look at inclusion in a different way? How do we create systems that elevate the work and how do we partner with agencies led by people of color Governed by people of color to be responsive to the needs of people of color That's on you board of supervisors You can do that just like five years ago. You had us restructure the core system You can include metrics of equity in that system so that we can ensure that our responsibility We need to have tools and we need to partner with with for example, el consulado mexicano so that we can get ideas for people We can practice What the state showed right at the best practice for pro immigrant movement What it you know, we can ask ourselves. What is our local responsibility for our families and for our most essential workers You know, we need interpretation. We need access to technology The the the the need is vast And all it takes is you know one step at a time. You just you just Adopted a resolution that racism is a public health issue Well under that resolution the pro immigrant movement needs a space We need a bold space to continue to advocate for this community because the needs are huge I want to thank you board of supervisors for allowing us to share our information ballina. Would you go to the last slide, please? You know this this work is is will continue cab will continue To work with partnership to move this work forward a last slide please ballina and just to put on your radar on on May march 18th march 18th 9 a.m. To 11 a.m. We will be following up with a community immigration forum A year ago. We held one of the last convergence Allowed before shelter in place at cabrio college where we had hundreds of community members come together We're having to follow up online virtual coming up march 18th, and we invite you We want to thank the human services agency for partnering with us along with the latino affairs commission for getting this work out and Continuing this movement. Thank you for your support Thank you for being bold and courageous and thank you for understanding that you have to push us You have to push the systems to change and to be more responsive. Thank you Thank you for that really condensed presentation phenomenal what you're doing. I mean you were Unknown unknown. So that's what would be the the outcome of this COVID-19 impact in particular. I mean you've had you've had to serve thousands more in our community our county And I think you said you added 18 staff members and I think it's Really a testament to you and what cap does here in sanat first county that you were one of the few counties that have been recognized by the state as Implementing some of these programs and you are correct There are so many things we want to do and we need to do and we're going to continue our efforts to get that done I think you're right in communication So people know and feel confident that they They can have a place to go to and find a place where they can be assisted I just want to say there are more than out there But the thousands that you've assisted without your really dedicated support to do this They they would not have that assistance that they have received so far. So I can't overstate Maria Elena and and Pauline and your whole staff, please tell them How much we as the county board of supervisors do appreciate their work? I know they're hard-pressed and like every other Body or subject that I can think of They they need more funding and resources. We were going to will continue to work at that But I just want to say because of your dedicated efforts And your recognition of what you have accomplished over in the past over these past when out 56 years That's why you have been recognized to the extent that you have in today So it's it's just my hands off to you and I know that's from all of the county board of supervisors And I would welcome any comments from the county board Board members. Does anybody have any other comments? Yeah, mr. Chair I do have something to just add Maria Elena and Paulina those numbers were just staggering I mean the number of calls on that for I mean it really floored me I I felt like we needed to pause and really reflect On two things one not just the need but to Talk about your organization being a trusted member I mean because in order to get that many calls that's that really proof positive that people feel confident in your ability to deliver but Those numbers really did floor and I think it's important for the community to see that Be it from the state federal local level we set a policy and even provide a funding But in some respects it really does leaves at that point. I mean it this this next network is where the action really takes place and I appreciate that and and And would like to hear more about some of your thoughts over the equity metrics as well just personally offline and and again just to echo supervisor McPherson's comments about the appreciation But I think that it's worthy of really making sure those numbers get out there because they were just really Stunning to see the level of need Especially because there's a debate right now as to whether they're still continues to be a need not by this board But by others across this country and and there's no greater metric than that. So thank you for your work on that Thank you I think the other board would like to make a comment Supervisor Kevin I it was mentioned The word trust And I I think that that's a key with cab The community action board when When I refer people To go and talk to them I tell them you can trust them And they're not going to be taken advantage of because there are Some lawyers that are out there that will say I'll help you with immigration And they charge a couple thousand dollars and then Or more and then they don't get anything done And then the people really that are undocumented they can't take them to court They're not going to walk into a courtroom and say I was taken advantage of and I have no paperwork So they're they're afraid to stand up for the rights But sending them down to cab We know they're not going to be Mistreated and also Uh, I was I'm amazed that it's kind of on a donation part if you want to donate so much money for the paperwork Which is uh, you know, maybe a hundred dollars for a packet of papers that they do down their community action board If they don't have the money they don't have to pay it So, uh It's it's just really a great asset And I think with the census And the redistricting that will be coming up Uh, Zach friend, uh in your area, you're you're probably going to get a a greater portion of south county Because we go by population And the young population of Watsonville is greater than uh, most of the Other areas of Santa Cruz county Uh, it doesn't matter if the population and the census is With papers or without it goes by population alone not by number of voters or whatever So anyway, my my actual area will will shrink in south county Zach friend years will actually grow So it'll it'll be a great asset to Not only the whole county, but especially south county that The farm worker population i'll just say That you do great work With them and uh, Paulina and uh, Maria Lena and I don't know All you have to do is work a few days out there in the field and Especially in the summer and you can you'll realize that how difficult it is And how hard the work is and we really appreciate everything that Uh People are doing uh in our in our county. Thank you very much. Take care of god bless you Thank you Supervisor captain for all the work you consistently do in the south county for your constituents And I I want to make it clear that when we do have redistricting which we are going to do this year Uh, the an equal number of people will be in each district. Some of the lines may change So people think there's more people are going to be in one district than another It's uh to be evenly allocated Supervisor conic. Do you have any comments Yeah, just uh, just wanted to thank you Maria Lena and Paulina for the presentation and also echo Supervisor friends comments that I would love to see your suggestions for some metrics of equity You know that we can I I think we'd all like to incorporate some of that into our work And so very much look forward to continuing the dialogue On what we can measure and how we can improve Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty Yeah, I just want to thank cab for the amazing work they do and Stepping up at this moment when Big parts of our community needed them the most and because of their leadership not only locally but in the central coast and statewide We were able to help people when they really needed it And then I just want to say Maddy goes to show the strength of cabs organizational ethos That before we've been out of the crisis, they're already thinking about the lessons learned What could be done better next time ways to improve and ways to really not just To focus on the specific delivery of services but actually change our systems to make them more equitable and like the others said I look forward to to good conversations and You know challenges about how we can how we can promote equity Uh in all of our systems and uh, and I just want to appreciate cabs efforts Thank you Um, are there any comments from the public? Yes, chair. I have one speaker Collin user you will have two minutes to speak with your microphone is unmuted Your microphone is unmuted Hi, um, this is maryland gara and I want to thank community action board and Supervisor capid for bringing this presentation forward to the public so we can hear the attishful voices of people very much affected by Um, what is going on with all this lockdown? I taught in watsonville For about 20 years semestian calabasas school bilingual classes primary grade and the accounts of the Arduous work in the fields and exposed to toxic pesticides We had parent conferences and it was just Heartbreaking and I am looking at this universal declaration of human rights That reaffirms faith and fundamental human rights and article 23 Says everyone Has the right to work to free choice of employment to just and favorable conditions of work and to um protection against unemployment and this Lockdown shutdown of everything Without any scientific justification Of course has affected people in poor communities Most but everyone is affected. I want to refer people to children's in health defense children's health events dot org And that's what I always tried to do as a teacher You call her 1999 your microphone is unmuted Yes, good morning. This is james ewing wittman. My comments will be brief I did listen to this and I took about a page of notes I appreciate what maryland just said um And I just took a page of notes. This is amazing. I'm done. Thank you Thank you chair. There are no more speakers Okay, once again, I want to thank maryland, uh, our screeds and maria and pauline for their presentation and To let us know some of these astonishing facts that have developed Particularly in the recent years. So thank you for everything and we will accept your report and We will we will listen to what you we have listened to what you had to say So we hope we can act on it in the near future to the best of our abilities. Thank you very much Okay, now we are going to go to items number eight and nine that have been combined and We do have a scheduled item at 10 45 and that might come a little late because I think we should address these. We don't want to wait for 20 minutes I'm going to read number item number eight This is consider housing for a healthy santa cruz as strategic framework for addressing homelessness in santa cruz county as a framework for guiding county investments and collaborative work on homelessness Direct the human services department to provide a framework and six month plan progress report and gaps analysis to the board by august 10th 2021 and every six months thereafter as outlined in the memorandum of the director of human services We have an item number a strategic framework for addressing homelessness in santa cruz county Be a six month work plan january to june 2021 see community presentation summary And then a framework for survey results summary An item number nine We will consider directing the housing for health division of the human services department to work with other county departments Exploring the creation of policy recommendations related to the development and siding of temporary shelter safe sleeping and safe parking opportunities to identify and prioritize available public county and private property outside the cities of santa cruz watsville capitol and scott's valley that could be used for temporary shelter operation at At least 120 units for homeless households shall be located within the urban services line of the unincorporated area of the part of the county And during the six month work plan update include information on any barriers to achieving these goals As outlined in the memorandum of supervisors coney and supervisor conerty uh, we are going to open this in a moment just i'd like to make some Just general comments on our how we've been addressing homelessness. I want to begin by saying There's been an enormous amount of work by our staff and community members to get to the point where we are today and having A strategic framework and work plan for how to achieve our goals You know now for many years we we've heard the refrain the county needs to do more And I think we have answered that call time and again over the past few years in our coordination of state and federal funding to expand services and sheltering um, we're also managing Now a part of Through a dedicated office of our human services department under director randy morris Where there is truly needs to be grounded as a matter of public health and well-being for all In addition to this framework The board is is also scheduled to hear other items today from board members related to affordable housing And I anticipate these are going to be complementary to the overall framework as we work to prevent homelessness By diversifying our affordable housing options. Um, so with that, I think I would like to hear from introductory comments from either supervisor or both supervisor coney and And coonerty did either of you What to make a comment at this point? Uh, yeah, thank you, mr. Chair. Um, I just want to take a moment To echo what you said, which is, you know, we are housing more than 600 people More than we were at this time last year Um, the county has identified positions And taken a much greater leadership in terms of coordinating services and providing services Um, often with the assistance of federal and state funding related to the covet crisis, um, and uh, and I think that what we've What's been missing is despite all this effort Both a real, uh dedication to creating systems that work And strategies that work For the people on the ground as well as for the community As well as identifying spaces outside of the cities To help solve what is a community-wide if not national Crisis of homelessness this neither the cities nor the county will be able to address homelessness It is the national crisis that's precipitated by a failure of a safety net failure mental health substance abuse treatment Housing it's we're we're the sort of the last resort A response of a result of big system failures that are going on But I think with today's efforts and with the leadership of the human services department Dr. Robert Ratner, um, and uh this board's effort to find appropriate places To find to have shelter in the unincorporated area I think we can do a lot better and i'm optimistic. Although this is a major challenge that we can um We can do better in both addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness As well as the community who is feeling the very real impacts every day Thank you. Supervisor Koenig Thank you chair. Yeah, I'll um, you know just to add that our goal of Supervisor Coonerty and my proposal is really just to address the fundamental fundamental question of supply How do we create affordable housing options? I mean, you know, we've got to have something in between The unmanaged encampments we see today and you know the $400,000 new construction That is, you know, standard construction options so You know the goal in our proposal is really to create a framework to allow for an all hands on deck approach It follows in lines with what we've seen other cities do like the city of sacramento Eugene organ in seattle, washington that basically creates a framework of guidelines whereby non-profit or faith community operators Can help create a housing community of whether it's of tiny homes or conistoga huts or any other form To provide that that a temporary option. So, um, you know, that's that's all I'll say now Looking forward to the presentation very good. You'll have more comments. I know I think Human service director randy morris would like to address us on this item These items I should say items eight and nine Uh, sure. Good morning chair. McPherson. Am I coming through? Okay. Yes. Okay. Uh, good morning chair McPherson board members into the public watching this. I'm randy morris the director of the human services department. Thank you for framing this We're joining with us in managing this humanitarian crisis, which is very large indeed Supervisor coonity, can I thank you for your comments here and recently in a Media article recognizing that this is bigger than the county But that doesn't mean we can't do better and I think we can do and hopefully If your board approves the strategic plan, we will start doing better Mindful. We also need federal and state support I am going to provide a few introductory remarks And then I'm going to turn it over to dr. Robert ratner who was mentioned earlier Who is the director of the division in the human services department called housing for health That when your board supported in consult with the county administrator's office to shift the administrative oversight of this effort From the cio's office to human services, your board also agreed that we needed to prioritize Putting resources and infrastructure to move such a big plan forward and approve the hiring of a new director That is robert ratner and today is his first day presenting to your board though. He has been here with us since November I do want to just repeat and underline supervisor mcpherson on item number eight specifically And I know we've merged nine on eight specifically There are three asks in front of your board and just break them down because throughout the discussion today. Hopefully You will agree they're reasonable and that will help guide us going forward The first is to accept this strategic plan which has been an effort in motion for many many months and actually more than a year The second is part of this plan is to break down our work in six month work plans Because your board approved the conceptual frame we're working on as draft in november We actually started the effort in january and to get in rhythm with those six month cycles We are asking to be directed to return in no later than august with an update on our work In the first six months and then every six months after this is an important issue to your board to this community We want to be transparent. We want to be held accountable And we also want to be really honest with this community About what efforts we're making and where there are barriers that we can't find solutions and have honest conversation with this community about what we can do about it So before Turning this over to dr. Ratner. I just want to name That homelessness truly is a humanitarian crisis Sometimes these conversations when we talk public policy We lose sight of the fact that we have hundreds and hundreds in this community thousands of people who are Parents and have siblings and have friends and they've lost touch with who are living Unsheltered and this is a very serious crisis with an awful lot of suffering And I just hope that throughout our work. We can constantly remember that And keep focused on what we need to do locally To work on this As supervisor Coonerty said and as I said earlier The fact that this is an issue in communities throughout the united states of america points to the fact that this isn't something that can be solved locally This is something that has arguably devolved over many many decades of action and inaction At all levels of government. So I think to unpack this and get a better trajectory is going to take Some amount of lobbying and advocacy with the federal and state government But I think to our presentation today I do think we can do better and I do think we can get better organized And if I were to summarize what I do think is in our control given the historic nature of this issue It is whether or not we come together and work together as a coalition as a team Or if we spend time and energy that um does exist in this community pointing fingers and sharing frustrations and I think when we do that we fall short of Building a team and building a coalition and hopefully this frame That's being presented to you today will help us organize ourselves to maximize teamwork and minimize some of the frustrations that have existed So I want to share with you just as a brief reminder to your board a reminder to the community And for those newly watching a little bit of the history I don't want to repeat the whole story because it's been very involved But I do think it's worth piggybacking on what you said supervisor McPherson when you introduced this Before my time. I've been here a year I've heard from many people in this community in my last year that up until The appointment of our current county administrator Carlos There was a history of resistance in the county and taking this on as the crisis it is And then we started a new Under a new county administrator Underboard direction to really start building up our infrastructure and taking on our role as a county to work with our city and with our community to be a part of the solution and This is not a struggle unique to santa cruz county the tension between counties and cities is pronounced everywhere Because the state and federal government doesn't give us a lot of clarity about the roles and responsibilities There was recognition very early on that in order to get a plan to address something this complex We want we would benefit from consultants who have experience in this field And your board approved an action that was funded by a combination of human services Health services and the county administrator's office to hire A nationally recognized consultant firm called focus strategies And focus strategies was bought on board and over the last 18 plus months There has been a lot of community engagement and a lot of presentations to your board About that effort to lead to today I do want to take a moment to recognize my colleague Elisa Benson the assistant county administrator. Sorry if I'm embarrassing you Elisa But today is the first presentation where she is not one of the public staff presenting. She carried this heavy responsibility for many years The last time we were in front of reward It was Elisa and myself as we were preparing to transfer this office to human services and Elisa Thank you for all your work and I want the board and community to know we still work every week Robert and I with Elisa to take advantage of the history of all her leadership and work Um when the board decided which was actually just before I started to transfer this office to human services Soon after your board approved the hiring of a director and you made some subsequent actions to help us build up the infrastructure of this office Which have played out over this past year to the point where we are today Uh after Elisa and I presented to your board on november 10th Um, we then want this uh your board and the community to know that we went to all four city councils And we presented the draft plan as well because we are hoping that Not only does the board of supervisors that all four cities also support this plan so that we work together as city and county And what we are in front of you today is the final plan That is a byproduct of a lot of community engagement including feedback from all of your offices All city elected city managers and the community which uh robert will speak to more in a little bit So my final comments before turning this over to robert is I want to take the opportunity to share with you In my year here and in the last many months since this office transferred to my department What i'm going to call some tensions That if we manage them well I think we will maximize the efficacy of our work And I think if we don't manage these well, um, it will compromise our work And I hope you find these um comments helpful because I think if we pay attention to them We work through them and we recognize there is tension In um making decisions, uh, it will help us do better To this community. So the first is in front of you today is a strategic plan And I just want to simplify that term strategy and planning And something as complex and vexing as homelessness that has so many issues and is so big Sometimes bumps against two things uh politics and crisis And there are lots of political pressures on you as elected city electeds. Um, there are lots of issues. There's lots of constituent Frustration shared with your offices and city elected offices, which leads to lots of hopes and wishes and direction And if we can balance that with being strategic and planful, I think will be better off If we just be reactionary and focus on just the crisis I think we might miss the ability to be strategic and planful And we can talk about throughout the three years in our presentation Uh, the second is clarifying roles The amount of time being spent in communities throughout california Delineating what the role of county and city is is a lot of time and energy And I think we can do better to clarify those roles and the reality is Both county and city have a role But being specific about what those roles are is some work we can do and we plan to do that in our planning I also want to name the difference between a policy means And a end outcome that we're looking for there's a lot of discussion in the work of homelessness Focusing on the means to what I think we need to focus on the end and what I mean by that is this Sometimes there's a lot of push to achieve something specifically, which is really just a step To get to the ultimate goal we want to get to and if we're not clear about the difference between the two I think sometimes we get really mixed up and I would at the risk of Provocation point out discussions about encampments Are one of those issues that we need to be careful. We need to talk about I believe this community does not think having encampments is the end goal we want But we need to realize we have encampments and so how we toggle between and deal with the tension Of not getting lost and solely focused on what to do with encampments What we want is everybody to be housed and healthy Not just living in encampments or better living in encampments. So I think that's just an example of one of many The next one is very difficult given this crisis is devolving and getting worse and that is a little bit of patience I in our previous presentation from cab I heard Paulina and Maria Elena speak about the the profound pressure on their infrastructure to handle the volume of work and how overwhelming it was This work is profound and overwhelming And we are in the middle of trying to develop some infrastructure develop some data systems Get some organization so we can better provide information to the community And to do that takes a little bit of time And sometimes that effort we're taking isn't visible because what's visible is just what people see in the community So we will be very honest and upfront in this presentation and in all reports to your board about the work we're doing But sometimes it's not always visible all the work we're doing and we've been doing a tremendous amount of work I have two last statements The second to last is managing expectations I feel like one of our responsibilities as human services is to share with your board and with this community What we have control over getting the facts on the table and helping make informed decisions under your direction about where to prioritize resources we have We plan to unveil today our preliminary financial gap analysis That will expose to your board and to this community Our best calculations of how much money we have today And the distance between what we need to actually achieve this goals of this plan and what you will see is we do not have enough So we welcome questions if not challenges to our analysis But we feel like it's important to be really clear with this community What money we get what we've been doing with it I want to recognize there was a very fair article in the local media a few months back saying where'd all the homeless money go That's a good question We want to be able to share that with the community and not have to wait for the media to ask us But what you will find and what this community will find is we do not have enough financial resources To achieve all the goals and achieve all the outcomes And we want to have that conversation and in the end we look to you as our electives to help us make these Very difficult decisions about where to prioritize the inadequate resources and we will work very hard to get more resources And then my final comment the role of federal and state government I have been in county government for 25 years and extra six years before that and nonprofits and graduate school I have been in many moments in my career where I have seen issues like this that are public policy crises where There are populations suffering And almost every one of them that is this big in this national has never been solved without federal and state intervention So we have to spend some time Not all our time. We have to balance our time working across coalitions regionally and across the state and lobbying For solutions at the federal and state level to really help move this needle And I would just end my comments before turning this over to robber with An experience that I have had throughout my career Often the federal and state government doesn't immediately come in and create an entitlement funding stream to solve issues without piloting Without putting out grants as they do today and you'll hear some of them Sometimes when they recognize the federal state government, there are issues They put money on the table to pilot things and they often look to communities where there is promise Of having that money land and have that turn into good solutions to then make permanent solutions Communities that are at odds and finger pointing and not collaborating and not being a team Are not a good investment Communities that are working together are a good investment So I just invite you all as board members in the community to hold me and robert accountable to be good team members And in turn invite our city partners are elected in the community to work with us I think the future holds the opportunity for more grants more opportunities to bring more resources And we want to in our applications be able to share that we are a team and we're a worthwhile investment for more federal and state resources To help advance some of these causes and i'm concerned That if not, we might miss some opportunities. So I really push all of us to work on this concept of team So i'm going to turn this over to robert robert is a very humble man I apologize robert, but I want to start by saying if you don't know robert I could not be happier with the community hiring process. We went through robert is a medical doctor by training He also has a public health degree And unlike me His last 30 years of work as a medical doctor and public health professional have been directly in the field of housing and homelessness Um, I also want to share that he has roots in santa cruz Family and in-laws who are very connected to uc santa cruz Um, and I want to just recognize him for the great work. He's done He's been out in the public and in the media, but this is his first opportunity to present to your board So I turn this over to robert and thank you for our work together and you can take it away from there. Thank you Thank you for that introduction Right mr. Morse and I uh, just want to remind people that the scheduled 1045 item will be we'll take that up after we complete Addressing items number eight and nine. Uh, dr. Ratner Thank you randy and uh, thank you, um, supervisor McPherson and members of the board I really appreciate the opportunity to Be a part of this community and to work on this really challenging issue of homelessness And I am excited to present to you this work that has been done. Um started two years ago With the work of focus strategies and many members of the community elected leaders To really move away from a reactive approach to this really challenging humanitarian crisis of homelessness to one where we've actually got a framework that we're working from together as a team So that this first slide really speaks to what um, the kind of outlines are and um, I'll go through this material and about 10 And 15 minutes and want to save time for questions for members of the board. Um, this slide presentation gives an overview of this Three-year strategic framework and also highlight some of the things we're working on over the next six months The three-year framework is really looking at the creative the beginning of this calendar year through the end of 2023 beginning of january And it's a partnership. So there's an entity within santa cruz and it was a homeless action partnership Which serves as the official HUD recognized continuum of care Body or council and board for work around housing and homelessness And then our human services department, um stepping in to create this new housing for health division Which i'm excited to be a part of and member of that team and as randy said There's been a lot of work for many people to get us to this point So the overview of what I wanted to cover is um, first I want to make sure we honor the feedback and input we received through the public meetings and a community survey that we put out after the november presentation of The draft of this framework and given overview of the framework itself Can talk a little bit about how the stories we tell about this issue really matter to how we work together as a team And how we work on this challenge together A randy alluded to some preliminary information Looking at gaps so that the framework has specific goals for us in terms of types of programs and we use some estimates of how Much those different programs cost um in this community and other communities in california to come up with some financial gaps analysis and then when I highlight a few of the things we plan to work on over the next six months So in terms of the feedback we received There's a few key points that came out of the community meetings as well as the survey number one was We heard loud and clear that the initial draft we Presented in november needed to be a little bit easier to read and understand So we hope that we honored that feedback with the changes we made There was a strong emphasis on much of the feedback that we really needed to be more clear about how The gap between the incomes of people in our community and the cost of housing are major contributors to homelessness So I hope that you all feel that we address that There was also a really strong Contingent that felt we need to not just focus on the people who are homeless now because we'll never Get to a place where we've actually ended homelessness if that's the only lens that we look at We really need to think upstream and look at how do we prevent people from losing their housing? And get it more into preventive mode A lot of the public wanted us to say more about how health care issues and supervisor community alluded to this A little bit as well. How do behavioral health issues or issues affecting Our behavior and our ability to manage things uh in daily living. How do those things contribute to homelessness? so we've included more material around that and um, you heard in public comment today and randy addressed this a little bit in his comments that homelessness often is connected to the visibility of people living in large groups and encampments And there's been a lot of attention to that issue So um, there was a request and we really want to honor that that we need to do something together with our city partners and community members To figure out how do we address the reality that many people are living? Unhoused and it will take us some time to make progress. What do we do in in this moment? When we have so many unhoused people sometimes living together in large groups And then the last point that came out loud and clear is we really needed to have a bottom-up approach to thinking about this a community driven approach um And we need to include people who've experienced homelessness in the past and people who are experiencing homelessness now And really listen to their voices and understanding what we can do better as a community to help Meet their needs and get them back onto a path into permanent housing So that the overall framework and what we're trying to achieve over this three-year period is uh, 50 percent decrease in the number of households or people who are unsheltered And a 25 percent decrease in the people uh in our community experiencing homelessness And the graphics here on the right show what our numbers were in 2019 and where we want to get to in 2024 Our plan is to really think about measuring our progress with households I think one thing that often gets forgotten with people who are unhoused is that They're not alone often. They're living with children They're living with adult parents. They they want to live with others So really reframing our work of supporting households to move in together and be successful in housing and to thrive in the community The framework has established Through all this community input some really core principles. I was pleased to hear many of you articulated them earlier One is that we want to move from just uh talking to actually taking action getting to a point where we have consensus and Taking steps to move forward with our overall goals We want to keep the people that all this effort is about in mind person centered What is the experience of people who are unhoused at the moment? And how can we do a better job of serving them and getting them on a path to permanent housing? appreciated the presentation that came before Uh with cab and railing. I'm oh, you know the equity and inclusion piece is really important when you look at the data on The populations that are much more likely to experience homelessness We see some fairly clear patterns here in Santa Cruz and around the country There are significant racial disparities. There are disparities in terms of health status There's disparities in terms of the age of people who experience homelessness So we really need to be pay attention to those um disparities. We also really need to think about how do we include people to be a part of our broader community the measure that is attached to this framework that Supervisor Coonerty and Koenig mentioned like how do we Involve the whole Santa Cruz County community and helping to address the problem of homelessness Not just segregating our efforts into certain geographic areas And how do we include populations that have often often been excluded from our efforts? Supervisor Coonerty and others have alluded to the need to be really systematic thinking big picture So not taking one little project at a time but looking at all of our investments whether Our investments are getting us to the results we need and really looking at it from a countywide systematic approach Making sure all the pieces of the things that we do fit together Um, it says date driven, but it should be data driven Um, but I think there's an element of date driven too that we need to be Focused on timelines and hitting our goals and tracking our accomplishments And then the last key principle is being countywide in our scope really trying to bring together our city partners or community members And looking at how we can mobilize all of our different resources The framework calls for some specific Goals related to our performance of our different interventions in the world of a housing crisis response system The chart here on the upper right comes from our strategic framework, but it comes also from the work of focus strategies They developed a model looking at our community's performance overall With helping people to get back into housing and they had some recommendations If we're going to get to those original goals that we established for the three-year time period We have to accomplish certain Measures with our interventions. So an emergency shelter We need to reduce the amount of time people are in an emergency housing situation and increase the percentage of folks who exit from our Shelter programs into permanent housing With our transitional housing, we need to do the same Um, and rapid rehousing as well permanent supportive housing um is a long-term intervention where we're providing ongoing subsidized um housing with Supports to help people to maintain and be successful with that housing So there are no specific goals around that in terms of length of stay and increasing of the rehousing rate But we do have a wonderful partnership with the housing authority of the santa Santa Cruz county and a lot of our permit support housing programs allow for a transition from people from a specialized program To their regular program. So that creates more opportunities for us to get more people into permit supportive housing The three-year framework also has some targets for us in terms of how many temporary housing beds and by temporary housing beds Here we're referring to emergency shelter and francisco housing beds Should we aim for how many rapid rehousing slots should we aim for and rapid rehousing is a program model that combines Short-term medium-term housing subsidies with supports to help people increase their income as a household And housing search efforts to help people get back into housing And then permits for housing which I alluded to so you can see the recommendations are to grow our capacity in all of these areas The focus strategies Analysis recommend that we Invest significantly in expanding our rapid rehousing slots relative to other communities We haven't invested as highly in this approach And there's evidence that for many people experiencing homelessness in our community This can be an effective cost effective strategy to helping folks get back into housing The framework calls for Our areas of action so that the key Areas for our work are building that coalition from the ground up and bringing people together to address this issue focusing on prevention and thinking upstream about how do we Prevent members of our community from losing their housing Increasing people's connections with the kinds of resources that help support them to get back on a positive path in their lives And back into housing And then expanding our permanent housing and part of expanding permanent housing is also helping people to increase their income So housing becomes more affordable in this community The other point that the framework calls out is that we have to do work and evaluate our interventions around whether or not we're getting to the root causes of this problem and over and over again in public meetings people lived experience the number one thing that comes out is The cost gap or the housing affordability gap between incomes of people who want to and have lived in Santa Cruz and what they can't afford We have to find ways to close that gap and there's many different Ways that we can work on that together some are going to be discussed as part of the board agenda today We need to figure out. How do we change our health? care services and practices to support people to maintain housing and to Not end up in institutional settings behavioral health issues are very common health issues that impact people's ability to maintain their housing But there are other health issues that come up in our lives that impact our ability to get and keep housing So we really need to tend to those things lack of supportive connections the experience of Losing your home and ending up on the street Can result in people losing connections in their lives that are helpful and hopeful Whether they're professional or personal and familial So we need to have interventions that help people to reconnect with others that provide support to them And then the last point is actually not really a it's a pilot not a policy or it's How do we as a community don't lose in spite of the federal and state the need for federal and state investment? How do we not lose hope and a sense of purpose in terms of what we do collectively together? Because when we lose hope as a community I think the people who have lost housing also lose a sense of hope and purpose So I think that's key with our interventions key to how we do work It's holding on to a sense of hope and purpose that we can do better and we will do better I wanted to honor the feedback from the community and just talk a little bit about the housing affordability gap This slide comes from the california housing partnership And they did a report on the affordable housing gap in santa cruz county in 2020 And I'll just briefly describe this so the graph on the left the affordable home shortfall Shows the number of extremely low-income and very low-income households in our community extremely low-income is a housing term Generally, it's people living at around 200 of the federal poverty level in santa cruz That's the group that's most at risk of experiencing homelessness And the the gap in affordable homes for very low-income extremely low-income households in this community is around 10,000 a little over 10,000 and for this analysis that they're looking at a community standard of 30 of your income going to pay for housing related costs So if we were to have a perfectly Created housing system we'd have 10,000 more affordable housing units for very low-income and extremely low-income Community members and the graph on the right shows Who are the most cost burden households in our community and not surprisingly? It's extremely low-income households So 75 of people in this income group are paying More than a half of their income on housing costs and that that marker half of your income and housing At the national levels can consider it a severe housing cost burden Which is the group that's most likely to live in unstable overcrowded unsafe Living conditions and to become homeless. So we really need to direct our attention to creating more income growth opportunities and affordable housing for that population if we're really going to prevent an end homelessness This slide is to share with you all How we're doing as a community relative to some agreed upon goals that are set Collaborately between our local jurisdiction and officials at the state level in the california housing community development department Every eight years our community and others throughout the state have to establish a housing element that has some goals around housing production And this slide shows goals that were established Back in 2015 And so the goals that we're working on actually coincide with the framework It's a coincidence that we have by the end of 2023 How many types of housing permits should we be issuing for different income groups within our community? And this shows percentages which can be a little bit misleading because it doesn't show the actual numbers I can make that available To folks who are interested, but I wanted to show the percentages to just show a high level picture Um on the far right, you can see how different jurisdictions in our community are doing with the overall number of housing units But on the far left, you can see the group that's most likely to experience homelessness How we're doing with creating more housing for that income category and and not surprisingly to me at least That's the group where we're struggling the most The goal we had through this process is 734 new housing units for that income population And we have till the end of 2023 to get to that goal And we're at 76 units to date. So if we're really going to make a dent in homelessness We've got to close that gap and that has to be a primary area of our focus together I shared earlier that the stories we tell Really make a difference in terms of how we do our work and how we think about what we're doing um And I I want to put out to members of the board Members of the community some stories that I've heard in my three and a half months here that I think may be getting in the way of us moving forward with a positive agenda Number one is I've heard a fair amount of people say well Let's do that Let's get people into shelter now and we'll work on the housing later In my career what I've seen is we end up focusing on shelter and we never get to the housing later So we really need to find that balance between Using shelter as a pathway to get people into housing, but not as an end result in itself So if we are going to do Managed encampments or some kind of safe housing effort We need to think about how do we resource that so it can be an effective Place for people to transition to something that's lasting and more permanent and it helps them to thrive in the community Another very common thing that comes up in Around the country related to homelessness is that people experiencing homelessness come to particular communities for services And there may be some truth to that and people people do go Where they can get help but there have been multiple research studies and a lot of data that Indicates that that is clearly not the primary reason why certain communities have more people experiencing homelessness It may be a factor, but it's not the primary factor and when we Use that as the the dominant narrative in our messaging I think we get distracted from what's really driving homelessness And that's that gap between what people can afford with their incomes and the cost of housing I think another thing that happens when we're talking about homelessness is the the human rights Travesties that we have in our communities around the country with people living in these large encampments with lots of health and safety issues and challenges Um Those become the dominant ways we think about homelessness I think it's important to remember that in most communities and that's the Truth here in Santa Cruz as well The people we see in encampments are a very small fraction of the people experiencing homelessness So if we devote all of our resources and attention to those living in encampments We're going to forget a large group of people who are experiencing homelessness And more private ways that we may not see um on a day-to-day basis Randy alluded to this next story. Um, that is also very common nationally Where uh, it was such a challenging complicated issue on some levels It's it's hard When we're not getting to a point where we can see success So it's often the case that people will say well, they're not doing enough The county's not doing enough the city's not doing enough that person's not doing enough I would encourage us to move away from the they to we are not doing enough All of us together are not doing enough and we all can do better So let's figure out how to do that um And that another dominant narrative, uh, is that mental health and addiction are the primary drivers of homelessness And I think it's important that we reframe that A lot of historians who look at how up with the situation we're in and how the Deinstitutionalization of people with serious mental health issues has have contributed to homelessness It's actually not the health problems themselves that are contributing to homelessness It's the fact that we didn't create housing and supports For people who are struggling with these health problems That is a major contributor to homelessness So as our nation our state and our communities help people transition from inhumane Institutional settings in theory back to the community We fail to invest adequately in the community housing and the supports that people need to be successful We still haven't made adequate investments and for us to make progress for people struggling with these health conditions We we need to figure out about how do we match those kinds of wrap around Services that help people to stay in housing with affordable housing for people to live in You can't just have the health care services alone without the housing Another common narrative is that we just need a little bit more outreach for those that want the help and Um, we certainly do need more outreach and we need to be more organized But outreach alone isn't going to help people get on a pathway into permanent housing and into Situations that will help them to thrive and be connected in the community We need outreach that's connected with other resources that people get people on a path So outreach alone isn't going to get us there The other thing I wanted to say about outreach is that um, if you've experienced homelessness or have had struggles in your life It's easy to lose hope And if you have had many experiences where it's hard for you to develop trust with people who are working for government Or with a non-profit it can take a long time to build trust So I'm often in meetings where people say well a lot a lot of those folks out there they don't want help do they and It often depends on what we're offering and whether it's tuned into what the person is asking for and where they're at in their own process of thinking about Engaging with someone on a path to Longer term housing and stability What I found over and over again in my career is if you can spend the time with people and really get to know them and their stories And build that trust that the people who don't want help quote unquote Become people that want to move into housing and really benefit from that support I think another thing that's fairly common And there's a lot of migration happening in california because of the cost of housing A lot of people who are earning pretty decent incomes are moving because of the cost of housing throughout the state and I think we have to be careful of this narrative of Folks experiencing homelessness should move somewhere else that the data from the studies on homelessness That are done every year in this community that include surveys indicate that about Three fours of people experiencing homelessness are from santa cruz and lost their housing in santa cruz before becoming homeless Um, and I think this this narrative speaks to this idea of equity inclusion and inclusion, which is one of our principles How do we create a community that is equitable and inclusive of the diverse range of people who who live? And want to be members of our community. So I think we just need to be careful about this notion that uh, folks should move elsewhere. How do we balance The reality that housing Is largely unaffordable. Um at the moment with a goal to be more inclusive In terms of how we think about residential development and housing development in our community So this is a high level analysis of what our goals are in our strategic framework where we are with resources And um, I'll quickly go through it and happy to answer questions So the blue bar um in each sector. So they're on the bottom the x-axis. There's different interventions We've included in our framework that we feel like we need To help address homelessness one is we need proactive outreach That's really building those relationships and helping to connect people break through those trust barriers And connect people the resources that matter Um shelter and transition to housing those are initial kind of connections creating safe ways for people to get In with support of folks and live in safe situations rapid rehousing permit support housing and affordable housing So for each of these types of categories of interventions, uh, we came up with some estimated cost And then the available dollars refers to our best guess of how much money we have the next Fiscal year for that kind of intervention that's already budgeted And the gray bar Indicates of that money that we have how much of it is one time funding So unfortunately the federal government and the state have been Fortunately and unfortunately the federal government and the state have been sending lots of one time funding allocations to us at the local level To address homelessness, but there's limits to what we can do with one time funding So this graph is trying to highlight for you as board members, but also the community A lot of the money we have currently is one time funding And this graphic does not include the one time FEMA related funding that we have to help with our coven Sheltering effort for folks So at a very high level This graph shows that if if we want to achieve the targets in our overall framework, we need an estimated 65 million dollars annually And next year we're around 30 million gathering all the various not all that is county money So it's cd county federal money that may be going directly to nonprofits And of that 30 million we have about 10 million of it is one time money that will last us a year or two So so the biggest gaps where we Have the most need for additional resources you can see are in the affordable housing column and shelter and transitional housing and proactive outreach And as randy alluded to we're going to have to make some difficult decisions about where we invest our funding Because it it's not likely to get us to that 65 million dollar level In the short term I'm getting close to the end of the presentation one of the highlights some of the things that we have In our first six month plan randy alluded to this and it is one of my personal goals Really working on being more clear and transparent about what we're doing with our money what are our outcomes We have a ways to go to get there But that is one of the things that we've incorporated into our framework finding ways to get information out to the public And to help people understand What what's happening with our efforts? The other item here is related to an board package. We're bringing to you all on march 23rd. We have The very significant effort that we've undertaken with over 200 county staff and community-based organizations to help people experiencing homelessness get into safe living situations during the pandemic The biden administration extended the funding available through fema which only covers a portion of the overall cost of this effort Through september, but we have to start a process of preparing to demobilize that sheltering effort and we Within our team created this term a rehousing wave So we're bringing forward a big package of new contracts and programs to you all for review and approval To get started with a fairly massive rehousing effort to help as many people as possible who are in our Sheltering programs get into permanent housing before we have to close The current covet 19 related shelters The housing authority of the county of sienna cruise has contributed to this effort They set aside 75 housing vouchers, which i'm incredibly grateful for and want to honor and appreciate their board For that set aside And then we have some significant rapid rehousing programming embedded in here as well as some evidence-based practices to help folks experiencing homelessness Our our next six month plan calls for us to really reflect on how we're investing in shelter and transitional housing and make sure We're investing in ways that get the best outcomes for people that align with the goals in the framework We want to have a new structure for how we work together and build a coalition from the ground up We are really committed to working with our city partners and community members to draft And and move towards implementing some guidelines around how we respond together to and support people living in campments A project home key is some funding that will be available from the state to help us acquire properties That we've been using for our covet 19 sheltering effort or other properties that we can use to help close that housing gap And there's this term getting to zero There's some national efforts around the country that have shown a lot of promise when you you focus on creating a list of People by name and by story Folks experiencing homelessness and you work through that list of people One by one and connect them with appropriate resources You can get to this idea of what folks call functional zero where The number of people experiencing homelessness in the given month is small enough that you have a system that can help them get back into housing within that one month period And we are relatively close with some sub populations of folks experiencing homelessness for example veterans We are relatively close to getting to that functional zero level We have around according to our data 80 homeless veterans at the moment and I think with some Focused efforts and work with property owners. We can make significant progress. We also Are at the direction of the board creating a work group specifically around families experiencing homelessness So that's adults with children and really trying to work out. What do we need to get to zero for that sub population? And then having some data that we can share with folks on a regular basis to show the progress that we're making And that is the end of our presentation and thank you for allowing us to go over time and randy and I hear to Take any questions Thank you for the presentation very very well done and I want to thank You for that and for what you've been doing and also for the ceo's office for making this a top priority in sanitary's county I know we're going to be continually looking at the gaps That exist between our resources and our goals and they are great. There are many and they are great But I also think it's equally important to promote our Accomplishments as we go along because we have accomplished some things as I mentioned before and we want to really be Transparent about that. So I know that we're going to have the six month work plans and we'll be able to relay that to that to the general public We have any I don't know mr. Morse if you had anything else that you wanted to say But I think I'd like to get some comments from the board first No, just ready to answer questions. Okay. Very good. Supervisor Koenig Thank you chair. Thank you. Dr. Ratner and director Morse for the presentation I you know the most ambitious goal it seems in the plan is this the rapid rehousing wave and going from 140 units to 490 and You know, I guess my my primary concern is you know, as you described We've got this huge shortage of affordable housing in the community Um, can you just describe a little bit more like what that program looks like? How how are we going to be able to find those additional units? You know, I remember in the focus strategies report here and kind of the shock me statistic that right now we're spending somewhere between 16 and 19 thousand dollars Kind of in that time period of someone being in temporary housing that we're looking for one of these housing slots So that kind of spoke to me of like the difficulty of actually accomplishing this Is there any change in tactics here? Or we you know, we're just throwing more more vouchers at the problem Yeah, that's a great question supervisor konig and I think we'll have to see whether or not the intervention is successful to your point um One of the things that's significantly different with our proposed Rapid rehousing programs is the amount of money we're budgeting to help with the transition of people from the current hotel situation into a permanent situation um And the services model we're promoting is something called the strength based model that's shown a lot of promise around the country for helping people to work on their personal goals and plans and move forward and I think your point about the private um housing landscape because the rapid rehousing model is entirely dependent on finding units in the community for folks experiencing homelessness and using transitional Income supports is one way to think about you give people a little bit of extra money to pay for rent for a period of time And hope that they can increase that income over time I think one of the one of the things we're doing is we're Contracting and you'll see this in our proposal on the 23rd for a more centralized approach to building relationships with property owners So what we're calling the real estate partnership program That's shown a lot of promise around the country where you actually have staff who are really focused on meeting the needs of property owners and making sure that the the supports that people need to be successful are actually there and um actually spending time I've been really surprised in my career to how many people really want to contribute to addressing this problem and What communities around the country have seen is if you actually organize an effort to partner with folks who have property and land You can make a lot of progress. I think the other reality is we're going to have to help people Learn to share. Um, I mean I I have had to do this in my life. I still do it I share my housing with others So to be able to afford an average $2,200 a month apartment unit If you're living on social security at $1,000 a month, you're gonna have to find a way to share a place with people So I think we'll see over time with this effort how successful we are and we may need to reevaluate whether rapid rehousing alone Um is going to work in the absence of creating more affordable housing Robert can I recommend and I hope I'm not embarrassing you you share some of the statistics that you and I have just heard about Your work and your former community and the unsolicited Update you got about the interventions you put in place there with project room key. I think it's worth highlighting I think this is supervisor conic's question. This stuff can work Asterisk you have to track for long-term outcomes, but in the short term your work and your former jurisdiction is working Yeah, well and reyney's alluded all this takes a village So I was working in alameda county and they also were involved with the project room key effort And we put in place rapid rehousing also some expanded subsidies from our local housing authorities And alameda county's helped 400 people get into permanent homes from their project room key sites Which is a really Great success And I think what we'll see over time and how many of those folks are able to keep housing So there's evidence that a coordinated effort with rapid rehousing and some permanent long-term subsidies from the housing authority can really make a difference Right. Yeah, that's that is encouraging that you know having some kind of partnership program is a lot better than having none My you know, I I loved it in the report You kind of highlight these four things that lead to lead to homelessness and You know that one of them is or a couple of them lack of supportive connections and loss of hope and sense of purpose That's really something I've heard repeated The the quote that stuck with me is that a lot of time people are suffering not from A poverty of things but a poverty of relationships And you know, particularly to this point the loss of hope When I visited with the downtown streets team, uh, it was so encouraging to hear people who were part of that program To say, you know, this is the first time I feel like I have goals again You know, if you're you know, if you're probably familiar with the program, but you know, every time but every at least once a week They review, you know hiring opportunities in the community. They promote people You know throughout the organization to greater levels of responsibility And it's really something I've heard echoed, you know, whether it's the homeless garden project You know, even programs like the state's fire camp system Which which puts folks who are previously incarcerated to work helping the fighting fires So work, I think opportunities really help build that sense of self And that sense of hope and I'm just curious, you know, I don't see it explicitly defined in the plan today How, you know, are are we looking at, um, you know, making more funding available to these kinds of programs like homeless garden project Or or downtown streets team and how that might fit in the strategy Yeah, I think that's a great question and I also personally believe that, um, and there's a lot of research to support the idea that Health and wellness is dependent on having meaningful things to do every day, whether it's income growth or volunteerism or helping out with schooling your children at home like that's really important to our overall health And I think part of what we can do as a community is as we we launch these new programs. How do we actually hire people who've experienced homelessness and train and support them to be part of the solution we often are hiring people Who don't have experience so downtown streets team is an interesting It's a great model for how do we involve the people who are trying to help in being part of the solution So I think that's something certainly to look at so within our different interventions thinking about who do we hire and creating work opportunities for people experiencing homelessness We're not talking about it today, but in our Proposals around the coalition that we hope to bring together I think the private sector and the business community and finding what an Educational community finding ways for people to get back into meaningful activities and things That they wanted to do in their lives and have been able to do I think is really critical And the framework itself doesn't call out these kinds of glue supportive services But they're they're embedded in all these different interventions So I think what you're bringing up is really critical. It's critical for the rapid rehousing model It's based on income growth as part of that overall strategy So I think helping people to find work and ways to increase their income. It's got to be part of what we do So look forward to working with your office on Building those parts of our effort Robert I just want to piggyback and make a comment that one thing we government sometimes lose sight of is we think We government are the solution and sometimes we government need to to piggyback on the previous presentation from cab and supervisor Caput saying there's trust sometimes with community organization where there's not with government There are many many things we can do and there are some people who just a little bit of nudge To reconnect with their family or friends with a little bit of support and maybe that's through community partners not government Can help people reconnect and that's a pathway. That's not brick and mortar permanent housing slots It's just reconnecting people with their community with a little help and that's a whole other conversation We could talk about later, but I think that's in part a response to your question One of the multi-pronged approach and actually this is something Robert and I worked on in our former jurisdiction Where sometimes you can just help people come together and help that family come together and get resources to that family So the person's off the streets back with their family and that's not about a permanent supportive housing slot So we can talk more about that over time as well Yeah, that that's great. I mean, I like yeah, you know the question answering the question. Who do we hire? um, it kind of dovetails for me with the um, you know the presentation We saw at our last meeting about substance use disorder and hearing how effective you know People who have overcome Substance use themselves are at helping others And and really made me think maybe those are folks that we could look at it, you know hiring in our sure insurances program or other related services My last question for you, you know, you kind of mentioned it Obliquely there at the end of your presentation about the in the getting to zero work groups But it's you know, something we've heard work, you know For example in bakersfield and how they got to functional zero was this by name directory Um, and so I'm just wondering, you know as we look at like the six month work plan I didn't see explicitly the the by name directory or anything, but of course you talked a lot about h.m.i.s Um, you know, how should we should we associate the sort of a by name directory approach with, you know Getting to zero work groups or h.m.i.s or you know, where where is it in the in the plan? Yeah, thanks for that question. Um, it's not specifically called out But it certainly is embedded in some of the high level items with getting those work groups started We in part because we've made some shifts around how the homeless management information system Contract is structured and now that we have the new division we can have a little bit more Ability to coordinate around that we have staff already working on creating reports of the different Subpopulations of people experiencing homelessness the fact that I can actually tell you company veterans is a byproduct of some of that work Um And in our next presentation of the board, I think we'll be able to Share like how many people do we have on these different subpopulations? I do want to say word of caution about that. Um, some of it is dependent on how welcoming our system is so It only represents the people that come to us for support or how well we are outreaching So it often is not a complete Capture of the universe, but that's the aspiration Is to have a system that's welcoming enough connected enough with people who are struggling That we've only got a representative list of the people who are in that situation Um, so, uh, I think the data dashboard item This is part of what we want to have in our data dashboards is where are we with This he's getting to zero list. So thanks for flagging that. I appreciate it Yeah, thanks. It's great to know. Uh, just 80 veterans in county We're good. That's all my questions. Thank you Supervisor friend Bruce Go ahead and supervisor captain You bet I want to thank all of you for your presentation and Uh, I think some of the key things are what are they doing or what are we doing? And I I just wanted to be right here at the veterans memorial building where I'm working Right right outside the door is a homeless shelter emergency shelter And I'm just going to introduce real quick Two of the frontline workers, uh, there's uh, that are working here every day With people that are really in need And that's uh, Cassandra Tristiano and Jatsuri Munoz. And they're right here with me Uh, they're right on the other side of the door. So let me introduce You know, we want to get that. Okay, uh, go ahead quickly because we want to get some questions and answers and move on We're behind schedule Oh, yeah, right. Um, so we are both surprised with the walk move at all. We are currently um Serving our community members those who are in need by providing them resources with any any help that they need so whether it may be a drug addiction And then also obviously homelessness and then also anything else that they are in need of We our responsibility is to kind of guide them towards professionals that are able to to help them out as much as possible Okay, thank you. All right Thank you. Um Yeah, thanks bruce. Uh, yeah, it's a face on The people that are actually doing all the work Yeah, I didn't want to have a supervisor friend Have any comments? Yes. I do have some questions and comments. Thank you chair. Thank you, mr. Morris. Thank you, dr Ratner Um, let me begin by thanking you both for your community outreach including generously offering your time in my district to to do a town hall with me answer a lot of My constituents questions and also incorporate that feedback into that plan I'd like to be actually begin by saying I fully support what you are bringing forward And uh, actually some of the questions I had were for my colleagues on their item because I wasn't sure if We ever defined actually what a unit was so We talked about 120 units could somebody define what that means Sure, I can Feel that so I mean, I think we're looking at, you know, any housing unit There's not at this point in definition that it's you know for one person or two person You know, we've seen communities use a variety of different structures, you know, I mentioned tiny homes or conestoga huts or You know palette shelters like are currently being used at the the housing matters campus, you know, there as well Of course housing matters has some single person palette shelters and multi-person palette shelters So, you know, I guess right now that you know, minimum viable definition of a housing unit would be something that just houses at least one person and where they could You know live for a That you know indefinite amount of time in a in a way that's you know safe and healthy Okay, so it's pretty broad supervisor conic I mean, but I think that we just want to be sure that we provide what that clarity is because It defines whether or not we succeed based on the metrics that you're outlining Um, I think that based on a lot of the emails that we all receive a lot of people define that unit as a tent and and I wouldn't I consider that to be an inadequate Living situation not something that we should be working toward but working away from Really an element of last resort. I think it institutionalizes an unfortunate living condition that we should be better than So I would like to ensure that the word from the board is that that we're trying to get people into safe stable housing and away from encampments and that sort of living conditions But I think we need to provide that clarity and the item wasn't clear as it was presented It just said 120 units and I think a lot of members of the community clearly think that that means encampments So are you saying that it doesn't mean that within your definition? I would look to some definition around the ability to You know safely store items, you know, like whether that's a housing unit that actually itself locks or You know, potentially it's something where there's lockable storage on site That you know, if we want to introduce more definition into this particular proposal, I'm certainly open to that But yeah, that's those are the lines. I would think along. Thank you And for me, I mean I have some concerns about the item in a sense that it actually conflicts with elements of the three-year plan that we're looking To adopt for example, the strategic plan talks about it being countywide in scope Realistically all the item that's coming forward right now talks about the unincorporated area and they there really are part and parcel and I think that You know, we shouldn't silo the discussion if we're serious about the issue We should start with an aim of housing people Not limiting where that housing can be And the proposal even talks about it within the urban services line, which Interestingly functionally eliminates three of the districts from even consideration on this And I don't under I mean if you if you're a faith-based organization like the Baha'i and Bonnie Dune or the Methodist Church in Boulder Creek And you want to participate. I don't see why the board would Limit their ability to do that. And so I don't Really understand the rationale of why the item that's being brought forward actually limits this because if we're talking about Um, the county having a role as in the unincorporated county, then we shouldn't eliminate You know, 50% of the landmass the unincorporated area So would you be open to eliminating the urban services line requirement only because I feel like it eliminates a lot of possibilities as far as faith-based organizations or other places that that could also work within all of our districts Uh, you know, obviously I can't speak for supervisor Coonerty. Um I'm certainly open to getting rid of it Uh, like I think the intention one of the intentions and including it was just to go after the lowest hanging fruit you know areas that could potentially be hooked up to You know sewer service or just be You know more closely Accessible to services But I think you yeah, you've certainly make an excellent point about a lot of opportunities existing outside of this urban services line And and I mean I would support that change I mean I struggle to support it as currently written for a couple of reasons But I would absolutely support it with that change and an additional change that doesn't Eliminate the cities in this discussion the last time dr. Ratner and mr. Roars morris came forward We specifically supervisor and Coonerty And myself both made very clear that the city's had a pretty major role here Which is why we actually directed them to go to all the cities to have these conversations I think the inventory in the cities is as equally as important as the inventory in the unincorporated area There are areas for example an aptos that that might be better than capitol But there may be actionable opportunities in capitol as was evidenced by the rena numbers that were put forward here The city is actually at least on the lowest income level seem like there's some work that could be done And so I think that what I would also like to see As part of the motion is that we expand it out. We just don't we don't limit it even though even if the 120 units Stays within the greater unincorporated area I'd like to see the human services department in conjunction with the cities put forward inventory of what currently exists there Because we're making pretty broad statements that there's an over burden in certain areas including the city of Watson Watsonville Which I co-represent with my other colleague But also then what other opportunities are there because that actually hasn't been shown I mean, there's no data right now that shows how many units are currently in existence Or these kinds of things within the unincorporated area for example in the last two years I've worked with the faith community in cabrillo to put locations for RVs for safe parking and other situations within my district But I don't know that that's even necessarily known. So Um, again, I'm not sure why we're just limiting in the unincorporated area And so I would ask sort of whether you and and supervisor community are comfortable with at least at a minimum having that inventory for both existing programs and opportunities To not preclude the cities as well So, I mean I so one let me go back to the point about the urban services line I think the idea was that some of the infrastructure costs and then the lack of transportation costs make um Places outside the urban services line more difficult in terms of like what already exists Two-thirds of the safe parking spots exist in the city of santa cruz They're in three different supers royal districts, but they're all functionally in the city of santa cruz City of Watsonville the city of santa cruz have opened up the vets halls The city of santa cruz has opened up the armory. Obviously, that's the homeless services center Pallet shelters now there the encampment outside of the armory um And so I think you know the app certainly open in the motion to expanding it to scott's valley You know requesting action by scott's valley and capitolah who certainly Need to expand it. I think the idea was that you also have permanent supportive housing programs coming forward Uh at the homeless services center uh potentially The staff is working on one on the freedom campus Um, but that if we're gonna if we're gonna really spread that housing Uh and or interim shelter options and I agree with you that Uh encampments are um are not humane and not the direction we want to go Um, but that whether it's tiny homes or huts or other things that that get people Safe is the direction we want to go but I think you know the real purpose of this was really to say There's there's been a far greater concentration in the cities And it's time for the unincorporated areas to to come forward with with available sites So that so that you know, it's a the unincorporate area has the Largest urban population in the county yet doesn't have the same amount of services as the two cities do So then that speaks then to my point supervisor kundry that that it would it would benefit your argument If that data were presented by not limiting it to the unincorporated area So none of that information was provided either in the three-year report or in your board item So I I don't see why we limit Um the the in existence of current programs To just I mean we need an inventory right when we don't even necessarily know where everything is currently located But I think that that inventory should include places like the city of santa cruz to show us once there And should highlight in the city of watsonville and should highlight The burden that you you refer to but I also know that The city of santa cruz and the city of watsonville have been working even with the county on the siting of other locations So I think it's important for us to Be aware of where those opportunities are too as far as the the rural services line or outside of the urban services line Um, you know, there's nothing precluding for example a location in boulder creek from taking two units or three units Or four units that would actually then help alleviate the overall burden I mean, I think that we are artificially reducing opportunities by making this statement because There are areas within the urban services line of my district that get a bus one once every hour for example It's not exactly great for access to transportation It's no different from the line that goes to dabbing part of the line that goes up the 35 that goes up to boulder creek So I I think that that we shouldn't do that precluding But I agree with you that if it's a statement of where there's a greater concentration of services then Human services can come back at that six month point and say well as a result of that Maybe 10 units or 15 units or 20 units should be within x location within the urban services line and only two or four or five in another location but Um, but I mean just just note but also from a pure commentary on the overall community This does functionally preclude three of the districts So it's sort of an odd thing to you know cast a vote that that when you just have urban services line I mean, that's that's two streets functionally and supervisor McPherson's district is two streets and supervisor capis district And you know, it's basically 7th avenue in yours. So Well, I think that we should accept that except that what we're talking about a community impact So it's 95 percent of my constituents live in the city of Santa Cruz Who have more than even though we're a quarter of the population Have over half the homeless population and a vast majority of the services So to I mean, I think and supervisor capi and supervisor fearson who represents the harbour west area Our constituents are far more impacted Uh under the current scenario than Then then other districts. So that our districts. This is the this is the the fast most significant crisis Uh that we're facing among them for the majority of our populations So we're dealing with it on it, you know Minute by minute or hour by hour basis And and there's an agreement to do an expansion out. I'm asking you not to limit it I mean, that's that's how I'll support the item if I can see that we get rid of the urban services line requirement Because the board can still make that determination when options come back in six months whether we consider that acceptable or not But by precluding it you've eliminated Even the option and I also think that as far as the inventory component goes we should get a sense Of where current services are and where there are opportunities that include the cities because it does speak to You know the two cities that you mentioned but all the cities in general just being able to have that information I think that information actually would bolster your argument quite frankly And I just I feel like if we're going to be data driven here Then we should be providing that data in a very transparent way to the entire community Yeah, and I think just just to work towards I am supportive but we can absolutely do an inventory, but I think the idea is um, we should do an inventory of where services currently are and then also the unincorporate area of Santa Cruz County needs to commit to 120 Of the units because because there's going to be a perpetual argument to keep saying well, do we already have some services there? Let's just put more more more services there and what this is really saying is Look, there are homeless people across the county. We need to have services in each part of the county To respond to that I absolutely was not disagreeing with that I was completely comfortable with that and I think that the report that comes back could differentiate cities and unincorporated And still have 120 in the unincorporated I'm trying to get better data And also I feel like that helps inform all of us and the community better and secondly I'm trying to not preclude rural services line option Or actually I should say just outside of the urban services line because there may be opportunities In some of those areas for small Things, especially within the faith community so if I understand your You know Effectively your amendment supervisor friend It would be in the second of the recommended actions for item nine to Read identify and prioritize available public and private property as well as county property Strike out outside of the cities of Santa Cruz, waltzville capitol scott's valley Um, and then continued that could be used for temporary shelter operations Uh, also inventory current Current homeless services throughout the county Period and then or I should say provide a provide a list of current inventory as well as potential sites and report back during the six month work plan And progress report on available option Yeah, and then on item three strike the urban services line to include we'll just strike the urban services line I'm so I think just to be clear So i'm not supportive of just sort of opening up item number two to all the areas if we want to I think The commitment in the unincorporated area needs to be clear if we want to do an inventory we need to do an inventory Um, and we can get that report back But let's let's move forward with the recommendation today of 120 in the unincorporated area in the urban services line and we can get a report back on You know outside the urban services line and and also a request to scott's we don't we obviously don't control scott's valley and capitol as land use So we can make a request to those jurisdictions To report on what they what they can do within their within their jurisdictional lines And I wasn't proposing to strike the 120 units I was just proposing to strike in the unincorporated area period I was just proposing to strike that it be limited to the urban services line specifically in the unincorporated area Again, the board would have the ability to make a determination when these sites come forward Whether that's something we feel comfortable with at that time, but precluding that opportunity I just don't understand so i'm completely with you 120 units unincorporated area I'm just trying to say it can be We shouldn't preclude again a church in boulder creek for example if they if it's a a match for five units To at least be considered under the operation in six months I see that director morris has his hands up too, and I apologize that he hasn't had an opportunity to weigh in Thank you. I'm not so much weighing in. I just want to share a perspective To help give us direction so we can comply Um, what's missing from this and and I don't think it was intentional But I just want to put this on the table is there's very likely going to be cost Involved in moving anything forward. So we showed you the financial gap analysis if we do a full inventory to stand up and Make sites available there's going to likely be cost involved Which is going to require us to come back to your board anyways So I think I keep hearing you supervised friends say the full board has discretion We don't plan on moving anything forward without coming back to the board with an inventory With an estimate of what cost would be involved what steps would need to be involved and on this item nine It does say we're supposed to report back on our efforts and bring forward any barriers And I think we're going to have to bring forward where we have money and get your support to execute that money Or where the gaps are so i'm just throwing out there I don't think anything's going to happen between now and when we're back in august To execute this and we would benefit from a full discussion with your board in august To get your direction on where to pick and choose if our resources aren't enough So I hope that's helpful, but the clarity on direction would be helpful I think the both and is um If the inventory is correct, there's a burden on cities and there's Opportunity not incorporated we will bring that inventory back and then we need direction from you where to put those resources So supervisor cunity, I I just don't know. I don't feel like we're very far off except for on the urban services line component because i'm with you on the 120 I'm with you on the inventory Um, I just again if i'm limiting mr. Morris's research to not include that I feel like i've made a mistake of of where we can make that determination pre august And so i'm just asking for that ability to Have him come back with that You know, I think look I I understand your argument I think right now let's try to identify the spots within the urban services line given that there are Services and everything from the infrastructure we need to potential transportation to other things that that I'm comfortable with the direction as is, but i'm willing to You know if we have a motion we can have a we can have a In fact It's getting late. So I mean maybe maybe we're at the stage where we should have a motion But i'm you know, you're more than welcome to uh to offer That that amendment to the motion when when we get to that moment get to that time Yeah chair, do you want I can should should be yeah, uh public comment Yeah, there's one other point I would want to make That I think should be included in this at this great discussion and I think very well taken But I I think we should have it For the unincorporated that no county park be included in the area to be used as a temporary shelter In the unincorporated area. I mean our park lands we we buy tooth and nail to get them established And they are for the general purposes of the All of the public homeless or not homeless And we need to protect those uh and make sure they're protected so they don't become Encampments we have plenty of parcels and we're going to be investigating those but I think we should we should have I would really like to give the additional direction as well That no car county park site be included as an area to be used as temporary shelters In the unincorporated area I just want to protect our parks for the entire general public Uh, so that's that's the direction I would like to have included uh now I will go to the public For comments. I'm sure that we have do we have plenty of people that uh Yes I mean go ahead We have five speakers currently listed six to speak to this item Okay, and uh two minutes. Thank you Thank you speakers You will have two minutes from the point that you're unmuted to make your comments Your microphone will mute automatically. Please remember you can only speak once per item color user for you're unmuted I've been listening all morning For the constricted two minutes you have put the public comment at chair McPherson I did take notes on that very informative and insightful presentation and I'd like to incorporate some of that in my comments you spoke of rude problems and financial gap even before this lockdown Over half our tax dollars go to the military budget And we are left with crumbs to fight over to provide for problems like homelessness and And there's something wrong with those priorities I want to excerpt a document And one of the sections is called social determination of health And the other section walked down Inconvenient or deadly because where it's over 70 million Americans have filed for unemployment claims in 2020 And part of that of course is Santa Cruz county This is the context we're in are now so just briefly Lockdowns are super spreaders of massive fear and anxiety And I've already caused profound disruption of our life Unlike anything that has ever been seen destroyed economies massive unemployment mental and physical health problems restricted Colored 1999 your microphone isn't muted Yes, hello, my name is James Ewing Whitman And I really want to thank dr. Ratner and mr. Morris I'm not sure which one of you is randy in which one of you is robert You guys said so many things that were incredibly positive and useful I'm still not sure if you guys are approaching this from a microvue micro view or a macro view So since I only have two minutes, this might just be a corporate poop cracker But here's three points that I don't think were mentioned I believe it was president Roosevelt who brought community members together hundreds of thousands of them in the united states that ended the great depression of 1929 To the beginning of world war two I think that's a suggestion You know, there's a lot of homeless everywhere in the united states and I couldn't find in my notes But I believe in early september 2020 Wells Fargo bank bought 14 billion dollars in us home loans that were in arrears What's going to happen when all those people get foreclosed on? And now I believe the state of california now has the first right To buy foreclosed on homes in california So once again, I really think that we're moving in several steps. I really think we're moving several steps forward. Thank you very much Thank you speaker abby young you have two minutes Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh greetings to the board of supervisors chair mcpherson and all the supervisors I so much appreciated what you said today. I feel so much Encouraged by your comprehensive approach with the county's taking leadership And dedicating to creating systems and strategies that work Thank you. Dr. Ratner and mr. Morse for your great presentation I did submit a letter which will go to the minutes just saying I strongly support your efforts to provide workable humanitarian solutions for the unsheltered population And definitely strongly support items eight and nine as well as 10 and 11 we'll get to that And and hope we can approve those items and move forward I think All together you're making a very forward thinking and humane comprehensive approach at last to one of our county's most intractable issues We can pilot projects and make things work here and I want to be part of that And I thank each of the supervisors and their staff and housing and human services and the new office for health and strategy Thank you for developing creative solutions And I urge your approval so we can move forward with implementation Hopefully you're part of the solution too. Thank you Thank you. Eleanor your microphone has been unmuted Can you hear me? Yes Okay, um, I don't need the full two minutes, but um You mentioned sort of in your your presentation in various different ways that You know, there's this continuum of care and there's um Uh, you know Not necessarily super clear differences and designations. Um, or you know, a lot of confusion about what Is city and county responsibility? Um, I'm just, you know, kind of wondering if if you have any, you know concerns about The ordinance that potentially is going to go through, you know banning You know camping and basically most parks in Santa Cruz where there currently are You know houses and campments, you know, are you concerned that that's going to Push a lot of people who um are used to accessing resources in those areas away Um, and if that's something that's on your mind or you know, blooming perhaps Thank you. I believe the speaker has concluded color two nine one five your microphone is unmuted Hello, this is Becky Steinbruner from Aptos Hills. Can you hear me? Yes Thank you You know, thank you so much. Mr. Morris and dr. Ratner for this presentation I feel in hearing you for the first time there is hope for real change and um, I really appreciate your good work your fresh energy and Moving forward with some real concrete actions to make a difference and not just continuing adding Outreach after outreach with with nothing really that changes anything for anybody. Thank you so much I also want to thank supervisor Caput for bringing onto Line here the people out in the trenches And that speaks to what we heard earlier from the community action board It won't always be the government agencies that people respond to and trust So thank you supervisor caput for bringing those in I um ask I am coming in by telephones I've not been able to see your slides if you could please put those up in some way In the future on the the website that would be helpful Um, I want the county to consider the property you already own The Burt Scott Park Now which is outside of the urban services line, but there's a house there a large house that needs repair And it could be used for something like this, especially if you incorporate it with a pilot program for ibogaine That could help really address the drug addiction problem That is part of the homeless and and i'm glad that that was all Interwoven because it is You can't address one without the other So the Burt Scott Park the property that county owns on Crestview in Watsonville that is on That the transportation line even the esplanade property that the county has declared excess Why are we selling those? are we Is that the last of the uh public comments? Chair, I apologize. It looks like our um clerk of the board was Um disconnected from the internet. She's having issues I am let me We do have more Comments, I will not be able to share my timer. So if community tv could please time for two minutes. Thank you The first person is john show show Walter You are being asked you are being unmuted. You will have two minutes to talk. Thank you John show Walter. Do you wish to speak? Okay, our next yeah. Oh great. Yeah, I that was buried behind something else Uh, thank you. My name is john show Walter with the association of faith communities It's been interesting watching the sausage being made here And the way that you all trying to work with each other to come together on what seems to be in Contention here is not the three-year Plan that seems to be to go to adopted as it should be But the policy that's being suggested a couple comments is do not preclude tents Uh, it's really a question of cost. You can buy a stand-up tent as people can stand up in them for a thousand dollars Do you want to put any structure more than that? It'll cost you anywhere from three to ten That's a question of how you spend your resources. And this is how camps usually develop. They started tents then you move to structures So do not preclude this In terms of parks, um, let's look at them the impact of a well-run transitional kind can be amenable there are Corners in some of our parks that could be used for this And many of our parks also have existing infrastructure that Is already impacting their use if it's about you just don't want to see it That's a different issue, but whether it's usable land, uh, you should be looking at that the others a political determination um faith communities ability to operate a shelter or camp is uh Largely my law left to them now calorie has proven this and we will be able to move forward as we are able to find someplace to Locate something like this that our efforts are the last three years with six spaces and shelter Suggest that there's very few churches and other faith communities have the land available or willing to serve it up This is going to be A search for a public place and you should search as wide and as far as you can So you now have the data to make the determination how to introduce this new form of transitional camps Okay Thank you and s your microphone is unmuted Thank you very much. Yes. Um, this is ann simonton And I am encouraging the board to please pass this and I would also second of mr. show walters comments about tents Um They we live in a moderate climate They're not ideal We're in an emergency We have no money Let's face the reality because you know, there's a lot of people in this community that are willing to be volunteers to help Create managed camps. I was one of the ones That went into the ross camp and tried to hand out vouchers and I saw what an unmanaged camp is like firsthand I encourage all of you to go to the camps yourself Find out more spend a night on the streets, you know Do something that you could really feel what it means to be homeless I would encourage ratner and morris also to try living on the street for one night and just see what that's like We need action now The future of our health of our county lies in your hands I'm really hoping that you'll at least work on this implementing a permit process as soon as possible So that uh volunteers like myself can have a chance to make these differences and I really believe that You know, we're in a situation where We need to act now. We don't need to wait until august. This is march You know, I know we need patients, but you know, all of us are making six figure incomes And so we need to understand that this is a severe situation We need transitional emergency camps and they could be for fire You know victims they could be for severe climate change coming up It could be for new financial institution that unforeseen possibilities down the road could create There's so much that we need to just maintain In terms of creating these kinds of spaces that will be transitional emergency stop gaps. Thank you so much We call her eight seven eight three your microphone is unmuted. Hi, can you hear me? Yes Okay, my name's good morning. My name is Serge Cagno stepping up Santa Cruz Um, I have two minutes for both of the items. So I guess I'm going to talk really fast I have a lot of appreciations and two asks I have great respect and appreciation CAO's office hsd housing for health Focus strategies both the Cates all of the collaborating organizations and the advocates That gave their input as well as those experiencing homelessness were who added their input as well in the six month plan uh under increased connections, uh for this month, uh, there is a Slated complete draft set of recommendations for county city partnerships related to unsafe encampments For next month. There is Uh, develop proposed action plan for creating and funding fiscal year 21 22 regional proactive multi-dose squaring street outreach teams as hsd director randy morris said regarding federal funding more grants and more investments are give are um Given for cities and counties working in collaborations But tonight the city of santa cruz is actually voting on a camping ban. So Supervisor coonity. I live in your district And you and chair mcfearson I would ask that you support this work plan by talking to the city council And asking them to support the plan by holding off on their ordinance Until the draft of the encampment is written and the proposed action plan next month as well on number nine, um, I also I support that and I would also ask that there is a review of two ordinances 9.70 0.620 which Limits rv parking and 10.16 no camping zones so that those two things are put in alignment with our framework I thank you very much. You guys are great and you're all doing great work. Thank you Thank you as a reminder speakers will have two minutes to make their comment and are limited to speak once per item Color eric your microphone is unmuted Eric your microphone is unmuted. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes great document From the city of santa cruz. Well, the city of santa cruz is currently experiencing record numbers of encampments and public spaces For the sheltered population of only 65 000 and the unsheltered population likely significantly exceeding 1200 Santa cruz is one of the highest per capita populations of homeless individuals in the state of california and therefore in the united states unsheltered Individuals living in encampments are present within the city's limits at much higher rates than are present within neighboring jurisdictions Unlike some larger cities within the state the city of santa cruz generally does not receive significant funding from the state or federal government to provide housing or other services to persons experiencing homelessness Instead the county of santa cruz received significant funding to ride these services and has been legally tasked with riding these services Getting back to the um back and forth between supervisors friend and cunardy I think supervisor friend knows very well that the city of santa cruz in particular has borne a vastly disproportionate share of the unsheltered populations burden in its time for the county particularly unincorporated areas of the county in the cities of Capitola and scott's valley to step up and do a more proportionate share So I don't know what you were getting at supervisor friend, but if it was to protect Your district from bearing some of the burden. I am squarely with supervisor cooney on this cunardy Thank you very much. I support the um The measures before you today And adam's your microphone is unneeded Hello Brent here Thank you. We can hear you. Hi I'm really happy that this issue has kind of circled around after many years. We've been talking about transitional communities I like to call them transitional communities instead of come encampments um, and then also let's uh talk about Tents I don't I think uh, we really have to honor this community's wishes for what they'd like to see in in a neighborhood While I agree that tents are the can be the the most basic Sheltering unit a lot of people really don't want to see those in their neighborhoods There's fear that it's going to bring your property values down. Let's honor that but also We could do better than a tent that is a soft shelled structure. There's many creative construction designs, but at least uh putting a sort of a water sheltering Surface over the tent on top of a deck that looks really good from the outside that any neighborhood would be happy to To to host these for the time being um, again Fulbridge services has been Offering storage laundry showers in a neighborhood without any pushback in an extremely successful way The way we've done it is just reaching out to the community and working with that community So we uh, I really understand there might be some fear interpretation about the concept of encampments in our communities We want to change that story and and build something that is world-class that the the entire country could look to Santa Cruz for for as a new model tiny houses conestoga huts um, and a an empowering community that That serves and and heals our community of people who sleep outside and the surrounding community rather than Something that's constantly, you know on the attack really honored and grateful to see this proposal moving forward And i'm looking forward to working with the county hopefully in the future. Thank you Thank you the last caller sidi your microphone is unmuted Cindy your microphone is unmuted I believe the speaker's having difficulties unmuting their microphone Last call for cindy. Okay got it. Thank you very much for your service and Supervisors the work you do is so appreciated on every level. So thank you first I'd like you to consider some amendments and some thoughts number one I appreciate the amendment for Zero functional zero for families and I would like you to please add pregnant women in that amendment it is just heartbreaking to see a pregnant woman on the streets and and to Think that maybe or to think that something could be done. So please add That number two, I just do not think your 25 reduction is sufficient. I know you're looking at your Budget, but I think a goal can be higher Number three supervisor McPherson. I really love your support for parks I support parks and I see very Many areas in parks that are not environmentally sensitive that are away from visit Visitation areas that Temporary housing no would feel safer with a quality like the previous color call I mean, I I'm seeing a dream of tiny homes that could be Victorian replicas of houses in the city that could really be quality and could not detract from county homes I mean come from county parks and could be out of the areas where people are using the county parks And so I suggest that we look at all the land that we all own in all the parks and say that it's better than being afraid to walk in a park because there are so many people and Who are necessitated to be camping in the parks and we're not knowing if we're safe or not And our environment isn't necessarily safe With campfire. So thank you so much for your work and thank you for the plan and Look forward to progress That concludes the speakers for this item chair Okay, thank you a great discussion and thank you for the presentations too Um, I think we we want to face address an issue here. Um, you've heard my my recommendation for Additional direction on parks That are existing or planned those park sites the one I don't think We can just offhand eliminate, you know, like exact supervisor friends said three districts from being included in this solution so I'm trying to figure out a way that we can at least explore what the opportunities are from non outside of the urban services line of Of nonprofits churches because I do believe that a lot of them would participate in this effort Um May I make a recommendation? I'd like to how about we bifurcate the motion And we just move the recommended that recommended actions on item that were originally an item eight As is and then we can have a discussion on item nine So I'm proposing to bifurcate the motion and I would like to move the recommended actions associated with the original item eight Okay That's that's second It's like uh moved by friends seconded by Um by coonerty, uh clerk, please call the roll now wait. Let's see uh with that well my my uh My proposal would not be included until like item number nine. I don't think so. Okay clerk, please call the roll Thank you for clarification. This is motion on item eight as is supervisor Koenig I friends Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you, and I believe supervisor friends said I bet was muted I'm sorry. Thank you motion passes unanimously for item eight Okay Now we'll go to item number nine And supervisor McPherson, I'd like to defer to supervisor Koenig. I mean this wasn't my item They've heard my my ideas for amendments and and obviously we can vote on those and yours and we can vote on those as State stated that supervisor Koenig Yeah, it thank you supervisor friend. It might be useful to separate uh the The actions here as well, you know, we've got four different actions Start with the uh the first recommend Sorry, can I just just just for time and simplicity's sake what if we uh move the uh recommendation forward with direction That uh that the broader inventory come back with the board and that uh sites outside Of the urban services line Be considered but I would it with but they I would include As a condition that they have water and sewer Access Supervisor Coonerty by definition those in the urban outside of the urban services line don't have sewer. That's the definition So so so let's just say water Have existing infrastructure Okay, okay, can you can you uh, I would like to have my uh Additional direction on parks included in that would that be acceptable? Well, I guess my my question is uh That that there may be I don't know that all the supervisors feel the same way about what's the best spot in their In their community, so I I I sort of don't want to preclude it if if The supervisor if there's a supervisor here thinks that it may be a It may be a workable solution at some level I support the amendment supervisor McPherson. I mean I support the parks amendment that you're making Okay, I just we have a lot of parcels and the parks are established and that they've been Been very very hardly thought for for that purpose for recreational purposes for the overall community So I would would appreciate if um, I don't know if a motion has a motion been made on this yet so if If somebody I don't know if somebody does make a motion I would appreciate it if the The direction to prohibit Or say the no county park land should be included for temporary shelters in the unincorporated area Let me ask Supervisor Koenig, do you have an opinion and then I if Then I'll adjust the motion accordingly Um, you know, I I guess on the one hand, uh, well, I think you know Writing off, you know at this point it seems like casting the the widest net and getting the most information possible would be the best way to go Um, you know that said I uh, and so to that effect, you know, ultimately, you know People are are living in parks today Without services without water without sewer And so, you know To the extent that we could identify and create a better situation My my inclination is not to preclude those sites I do agree with supervisor McPherson, though that there's certainly plenty of Alternatives as well. And that you know, I think that ultimately the list would come back with You know with the number of opportunities So I I guess I'm willing to support The park's amendment To speak Okay, then then what I'm going to do is an attempt to uh, to To bring us to a consensus vote here is uh, I'll move the recommended action with additional direction that uh, existing Uses come back as part across the whole county come part come back as part of the As part of the august report that uh Sites outside the urban services line, but with existing infrastructure Are included and that parks are excluded I'll second the less supervisor conig did you second that? I'll second. Okay. Okay. That's moved by coonerty We clear on that and they're right. I'm pretty sure. Okay. Thank you. Um call the roll, please Thank you. This vote is for item nine supervisor conig Hi friend Hi Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you. Motion passes unanimously Congratulations on a unanimous vote and there's more to come. So thank you Now it is 12 20, but I do think we should address the zone seven issue I don't think it's a long agenda And I would like to do that was a scheduled item for 10 45 I'd like to address that before we go into closed session Or if people what I don't know what the board wants to do with the closed session at the end of the meeting We have still plenty to go. So I would like to go to the scheduled item at 10 45 That is the zone board director's regular meeting. Um, the board of supervisors shall we recess in order to permit the board of directors of the sandsbury's county flood control And water conservation district zone seven to convene and carry out regularly scheduled meetings Supervisor friend, you are a chair of that board. Um, so I'll just hand that over to you Thank you chairperson, uh, madame clerk Do we need additional time to promote some of these new panelists or are we okay? We are fine. I've provided everyone that is in attendance. Thank you All right, but we're gonna call to order the sandsbury's county board of directors for the flood control and water conservation district Also known as zone seven for a march 9th Meeting if we could have a roll call, please director conic here Coonerty here Caput here McPherson here Billisich here Lucas yeah and director chair Here. Thank you. Excuse our directors coltworth and alternate Gonzales. You have a quorum. Thank you. Are there any changes, uh, mr. Strudley to the agenda today? No chair from there or not Wonderful move on to world communications It's an opportunity for members of the community to address us on items that are not on today's agenda But are within the purview of zone seven. Are there any members from the community here to address us? On members of the public Registered to sign or to speak to this item. Thank you. All right move on to item four Which is the approval of the zone seven board meeting minutes? Are there any questions or comments on the minutes from any director? All right, is there anybody in the community that'd like to address us on the minutes? There are no public speakers. Thank you. Madam clerk motion would be in order I'll make a motion to approve the minutes second We have a motion from director billisich and second from director conig if we could have the roll call, please Thank you director conig. Hi Coonerty. Hi happens Hi McPherson Hi billisich Hi friend Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously with attendance Thank you. We will move on to the consent agenda, which is all of one item So is there any are there any comments from directors on the consent agenda item? director billisich Um, I was looking at the time is 1045 the right time or is it an evening meeting? Usually isn't it usually an evening meeting? I'm just asking So He's director or dr. Strudley. Yeah, director billisich The the times that are in this board item were coordinated with clerk of the board So as far as that coordination is concerned, these are the correct times to the best of my knowledge Okay, I just usually in june. We have an evening meeting there, but if we're not having any meeting, that's fine. Just wonder. Thank you So I can make a motion to approve In one second any other directors like to comment on consent And if not, are there any members of the community that are that wanted to address this on consent? Did you see anything, madam clerk? There are no speakers to this item. All right director billisich, please I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda Second a motion from director billisich and a second from director coonerty if we could have a roll call, please director conic Hi Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Billisich Hi Friend Hi Thank you mentioned houses with the attendance Thank you. We'll move on to the one regularly scheduled agenda item Which is item number seven the program managers report as the board of directors of zone seven to consider a status report on the pahora river flood risk management project as outlined in the memo of the district engineer dr. Strudley Thank you chair friend members of the board and members of the public I'm here to provide you again with another update on our long-standing levy reconstruction project As you know, we've reached several significant milestones over the past few months. Among them is Preparation for signing a feasibility cost share agreement with the army core which provided authorization For your chair to sign that for the chair to sign that agreement as soon as the core has as ready to that agreement We expect that agreement to to be coming soon Um as soon potentially as march or april later this month or next month. We expect to be Uh able to fully execute a feasibility excuse me a a design agreement with the army core Uh to move us fully into the ped phase with the army core and begin work Um, they have accepted our closeout agreements for prior cost share agreements which will credit uh a large sum of money towards the construction of the project Once we enter that phase Um, and we have reached other significant milestones on The governance side which i'll go into shortly Um, so in addition to um an expectation of beginning the actual work of design very soon We are uh in conversations with the department of water resources as well as our state Delegation of legislators to look at the possibility of authoring legislation that would elevate our cost share With the state of california under our subventions agreement You may recall that our existing subventions agreement and authorization in statute limits the state participation Of non federal costs at 70 of those costs Despite the fact that the project is a very shiny example of a true multi benefit project That notably provides a tremendous amount of flood protection for um a significant population of disadvantage and severely disadvantaged residents in Uh, both monterey county and sanikers county So we are embarking on a number of discussions and have actually developed some some initial pieces of legislation That we are in coordination with dwr as well as senator lairds office as well as assembly member stone and assembly member revas and uh as far as staff is concerned, we would like to extend our Uh, large appreciation to those legislators as well as chair friend who has Guided this process and the coordination with those legislators um, so I think we we do have Fairly good chance of moving the needle here with the state. The question is how much will we be able to achieve and Uh, we won't know until several months down the road as the legislation moves through the process Um as I've uh reported to the board previously we have been Um trying to secure other grant moneys to support the project as well as to support Um other flood risk reduction Uh programs and projects outside the envelope of the of the federal project So notably we are still waiting to hear from the department of water resources on the results of our application To the coastal watershed flood risk reduction grant program Under prop one We do stand I think a fairly good chance of securing some additional funding from that program Um, but it remains to be seen what will come of that. We hope to hear from dwr Within the next month if not few months on the outcome Of that grant application We anticipate um throwing our hand in the ring on a future solicitation Which we expect to be available later this year probably summertime For prop 68 Again, we will be requesting money to support the federal project And the other item i'd like to mention on this uh funding pursuit is um, we are in active discussions with fema and callowas right now for a hazard mitigation grant program and application uh, that would address the absence of Uh flood risk reduction solutions in what's called reach one by the army core of engineers reach one extends from Highly one down to the ocean to monorail bay and the federal Levy reconstruction project does not include improvements to this area because of economic considerations made by the army core. So we are Simultaneously trying to address this gap by positioning a planning application with fema To look at feasibility analysis and other requirements to begin Looking at the potential solutions in that area of the pahora river The challenge here is that is several miles of river and this would if we're successful This would be the largest planning grant sub application sent to fema Under the hazard mitigation program in the country to date. So It's both an interesting um Descriptor of both the potential accomplishment we could get from this as well as the large challenge ahead of us And kind of securing that level of support from fema Um on the environmental review process with cico. We are working Continuously with our consultant team in developing draft Documents and parts of the environmental review and those parts are in internal staff review right now But we expect to have a draft document for in continued internal review Um sometime this spring And there will be more to report on that item as we move through the environmental review process On the governance and finance side, um, nothing has really changed in our description of our potential finance challenges related to the project Um, as it stands now, we're still looking at roughly 10 cost coverage That would be envisioned as part of the benefit assessment district But like I said earlier, we are looking to close that gap So to speak and shrink that requirement down to as little as possible through the legislation that we are championing with the state of california for our subventions authorization um, the last major piece of note, uh, is our progress and milestones that we've reached related to governance as reported to you before and as Recommended by this board and supported by this board was the pursuit of forming a new governing body to implement the capital project As well as other front flood risk reduction projects within the pahora river envelope We have now secured all five authorizations from the five member agencies of that jpa to adopt the agreement So we are working through right now some administrative matters that will position all those member agencies To to be brought together under that jpa's umbrella And to start up meetings and to start guiding the project through that jpa And so there will be more to come on that in the next few months and there may just to give a heads up to the board there may be the requirement for special meetings to be held to To align some of those administrative matters for the creation of the jpa These items would include things like designating The members of the board of directors from those member agencies To the jpa and that would be need to be done. For example, according to The brown act by the member agencies themselves With that i'm happy to respond to any questions you may have and again Thank you for your continued support with this project. Thank you dr. Strudley director cap it Okay, uh, thank you Supervisor friend Yeah mark a quick question You talked about the grants. I don't know how much money we're talking about And so the question has got just two parts to it and that's it Uh, how much uh millions of dollars are the grants were We've applied for and the other part would be if we received some of the money Would that lower the assessment for property owner? The that are in the flood zone that would vote on it Yeah, thank you for that question director cap it So far we have under the coastal waterside flood risk reduction grant program With state dwr. We have applied for approximately 7.2 million dollars of support That would support the project through Um the design phase Um that money as it stands now as as would any other grant funds secured from the state of california or state agencies without the addition of legislation that changes the statute for paharo Subventions Those grant awards would sit within that 70 percent Cost share allocation coming from the state and so would not Work towards reducing The benefit assessment district costs We have not yet submitted an application for prop 68 So I can't give you a magnitude of of the the dollar amount of that grant I expect it would be it will be smaller than the coastal watershed grant because we are going to be applying for support there for elements that sit outside And this gets a little confusing. There will be planning elements that sit outside of the federal project and so They would reduce costs To local ratepayers or ultimately to the jpa once it's fully stood up and administering the project But those would be costs that we would incur as local sponsors to a project Anyways, and they're planning elements. So they actually sit outside of the 70 percent the way the statute works We're probably going to apply for a few hundred thousand dollars to perhaps maybe in the low millions depending on What elements we end up seeking? To include based on final guidelines for that program which have not yet come out from dwr Although we've commented on the draft guidelines So that's grant number two The third grant that we are working on right now is this hazard mitigation grant program with fema Again, this sits outside Of the federal project of the subventions issue This is this would represent costs above and beyond the 400 million dollar levy reconstruction project Because this is targeting solutions that sit outside that army court project We are looking at potential A potential application for just a little bit north of five million dollars to two Feasibility analysis environmental review other items that position us for permitting other environmental topics and Initial design of the project Thank you Thank you director cap it director billisich Yes, dr. Sturney just quickly Do are the are the agencies now starting to approve their members or how is what's the process for that? So i'm i'm coordinating with staff from our other member agencies It was only very recently that the last member agency had adopted the jpa agreement So there will be some coordination that will ensue over the next few weeks or maybe maybe next few months depending on those decisions, but As I understand it there is discussions happening internally with the different member agencies on Who who they would like to select? As to sit on the board, but ultimately That process has to comply with the brown act. So it has to go through the member agency boards or councils for approval So they may be doing it in the next month or the next agenda or whatever they could be doing it anytime now, right? In theory yes, and so as an example for zone seven our next scheduled calendar meeting is the june meeting But that's why I mentioned that there will be a possibility for the need for a special meeting sooner than that So that we can address a number of these administrative matters that zone seven needs to take up on its own To fulfill the the initial startup requirements of the jpa Well, hopefully the cities and others will do that before I mean, we'll just have to see. Yeah, the other question I had is You know listening to the homeless report. It looks like we're going to have some real progress here. Has there been With the people on the Corleadus Creek and the and the South Spades Creek Is there an impact on our levy project and on the plans going forward? Is there any problems there or are we okay the water quality? Etc. I I just wanted to know if you could if you know anything about that Yeah, and it's it's more concerned with ongoing operations and maintenance than it is with the capital project itself. So And it's it's a big concern actually for safety during the winter and spring months when we're Anticipating rainfall to be in the forecast a lot of these homeless encampments are fairly deep within the river channel close to low water And one of our initial concerns is for the safety of those individuals who may or may not be privy to kind of The the rainfall forecast. I don't I don't have a good feel for what kind of information those people have at their disposal And should they have an absence of information? They could get caught in a very dangerous situation very quickly, especially on Corleadus and salsa plateas creek More so than the Pajaro because it is so flashy because it responds so quickly to rainfall and the water levels rise relatively quickly and so our first challenge is is trying to get people out of harm's way during the winter months our second and longer term challenge is Addressing on em requirements in the channels allowing our contractors Safe access to the channel so that they conduct can conduct their work Allowing safe access for our drainage maintenance crews so that they can conduct their work and then third concern is is any potential damage Or additional flood risk that is posed by the presence of of those encampments We have had instances in which homeless have dug into the levy prism Which is an extremely alarming thing to do given the age and fragility of the existing levy system The other thing that's problematic is is for example when those encampments set up beneath bridge decks and present a hydraulic challenge to the conveyance of flood flows underneath that bridge deck it could clog up The bridge beneath the bridge it could Wash downstream and clog up the channel elsewhere and cause backwater flooding So these are the items that we are Trying to address and again, it's more related to operations and maintenance than it does anything else I did see County staff out moving couches and things from under the bridge the other day. So that's a positive thing I just wondered if it you know, how how it affects the overall maintenance of this project It does increase costs You know, we we have line items in our budget that address the need to protect water quality To protect flood risk reduction By clearing the debris out of the channel when it is problematic for flood flow conveyance You know, the the recent activity that occurred there was because of the forecast for rain that Was for last weekend and this week and so Without a lot of confidence about how big those storms were going to be the last thing we wanted were for people to get caught under the bridge And be in an unsafe situation, but we also didn't want the debris blocking the conveyance Under the bridge either should we have A convective thunderstorm roll over the county and the core lead a drainage basin It does add significant costs To us and it presents challenges to us because Although we are beginning coordination with dr. Racken and and the others that spoke from human services We're not experts in how to address the problem We're experts in dealing with flood control And maintenance of the facility and so it's going to take additional effort and requirements to Partner with those groups and to arrive at solutions Well, thank you so much for your hard work and the work of the county Seems like you're on top of it as much as you can be I know that there's been a lot of injunctions and different things happening with homeless camps. Where do they go? A lot of concerns about the people but also Quality of life for other people. So I don't know. It's a big challenge and thank you for everybody to what you're doing You too, zack and greg Thank you director bill sitch any other board members on this item for we opened up to the community Seeing none. Is there anybody madam clerk from the community that'd like to address this on this item There are no speaker says item chair Okay, we'll move it back to the board. I think it's an acceptance file. We'll move it back to the board on for action I'll make a motion to approve the report I'll second that Supervisor cap it a motion from director bill sitch and a second from director cap it if we could have a roll call, please He'd director konig All right unity Hi cap it Hi McPherson Hi Bill is itch hi friend Hi, thank you motion passes with attendance Thank you. I'd like to apologize to those members of zone seven that waited for the last couple hours in order to attend this item. We do appreciate your patience and That'll end the zone seven meeting Chair McPherson. I'll turn it back to you Thank you Thank you. Thank you zone seven board members. Um, thank you. We're at quarter to one and um we've got Four items to go and we've got a scheduled item at 130. Uh, what I would like to do is for To go into a closed session Um, and then come back. We have a scheduled item on the general fund. Um, did your budget report at 130? Uh, so we'll come back by 130 and then we have four other five other items 10 through 14 Uh, they're they're on tiny homes free Accessories well in units, so they're going a couple of them. We're going to take some time We're going to be here from the long haul. So what I'd like to do now is uh, go into closed session Is there is there anybody a board member that has something they have to go to that? That they would like to take a full 45 minute break and then come back and then address The items after um, the scheduled item at 130 Everybody okay. Okay. We'll we'll recess. We're going to close session at this point And uh return at 130 And then take up items 10 through 14 after we discuss the uh mid-year budget review Uh, which is item number 16 on our regular agenda Okay, so we will go into closed session There's nothing reportable for closed session Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay We're going to close session Thank you chair All right, um, we're going to reconvene the uh the march 9th 2021 uh meeting of the board of supervisors the time is about 135 137 p.m Um, hark, please call the roll again Supervisor conic here friend here cap it here McPherson here Thank you. You have a corpsman respecting supervisor community. Okay, I think we'll go ahead um with the Item number 16. It's a scheduled item for 130 p.m And when supervisor community comes out, we just acknowledge that please We'll do Okay We'll consider the general fund mid-year budget report with updated estimates for fiscal year 2021 preliminary requests for fiscal year 2021 22 And an updated five-year forecast is outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer We have a mid-year budget report Our county administrative officer, uh, carlos palacios Excuse me if I may jump in quickly supervisor community has joined the meeting great. Okay. We have a We have all five of us here Mr. Palacios Thank you very much chair mcpherson and members of the board Carlos palacios county administrative officer. I just wanted to provide a brief introduction to our mid-year budget update Very quick overview of what you're going to hear Christina Mallory our county budget manager Give a presentation and more detail on Is that overall the news is good? And that we are doing Better than we had anticipated a year ago and we developed this budget Uh, so that's good news um The cautionary note is that we we still have not fully recovered in other words our revenues Still are have not reached Pre-pandemic levels yet So that's important to note that we're still in a recovery mode from the recession But we're getting better and we hope and Perhaps in the next year or or two will be fully recovered But certainly not now we're not we're not fully recovered The other issue is that there has been significant news about the new stimulus bill that the administration has Proposed and it's on and the verge of being approved by the house. This is the american rescue plan It contains very good news for local government for counties and cities and states and the Thing to keep in mind with that is that and christine will go into more detail on this is that It's very good news for us and that we're slated to receive 53 million dollars from the federal government In recovery funds What's still not absolutely clear yet is what those funds can be used for Prior stimulus funds were limited to only new covid related expenses And that put a lot of Restrictions on how we could spend the money and it frankly couldn't backfill any of our lost revenues with this new american rescue plan Originally, it was proposed That we would be able to backfill lost revenues As every other industry that has received aid from the federal government has been able to do such as transit districts such as airplane airlines And so forth hospitals But local government up to now has not been able to backfill Our lost revenues. So originally it was proposed. It's not clear In the language yet until the house approves that what the final language will be and that is very big for us because We are as as christine will talk about We believe we will be able to reduce The furloughs next year to about by half And still be able to avoid major disruptions to county services If we receive the american rescue plan dollars and there's allowed to be backfill of lost revenues Then it may be possible that we will be able to completely eliminate Furloughs next fiscal year. That's a possibility But again right now We don't know and the bill is not clear or we're not clear yet whether we'll be able to backfill lost revenues and that Really has a big implications for how we develop next year's budget The next thing I wanted to talk about is that we are in the midst of a major reorganization of county government When I first became ceo, we developed a six-year strategic plan We developed then after that after more than a year's work a two-year operations plan Um performance measurement. We're in the midst of a continuous process improvement as well But we are also doing four major reorganizations of county government One of them you heard from today, which is housing for health This was our homeless efforts and we moved those efforts from the county administrator's office to the human services department Established a new division called housing for health. We hired a great new Director of that division Robert. Dr. Robert Ratner You heard from this morning and we're in the process of coordinating and consolidating Many of the county programs that we use To help the home those experiencing homelessness individuals experiencing homelessness With that new division that's been a major lift and we're very proud of the efforts and of that We've done over the last couple years to bring about that new division Second we are in the process of forming the or three office the response recovery and resiliency office Right now, uh, elisa benson is heading that effort up And we are in the midst of hiring staff and getting that That new division stood up that will be within the county administrator's office and it will take over our major efforts to Respond to emergencies so the office of emergency services will be in that new division And we will also contribute to the recovery efforts that are going on And help coordinate those efforts From the cz u fires that we experienced last summer And then we also will consolidate our climate action efforts In that office. So as we work at resiliency and Against future disasters. We also will center our climate action efforts and goals within that or three office And we are in the process of standing that office as well up as well as I mentioned third we're in the process of working on On transitioning the public defender's office From a independent private contract To a county department And you've received reports on that in the past and you'll be receiving a report on the 23rd of march on our progress to date That is another very significant Effort and a major another major reorganization that we are undertaking And then fourth, uh, we will be working over in this budget year On a new community services division I'm not sure what we're going to call it if it will be a community services division or development permit center One stop center basically trying to consolidate those efforts um within the county that In that the cut the community has to go through when they want to Get a building permit Or some kind of development permit And so that would consolidate staff from both the planning department public works department and environmental health as well as fire districts and county fire And so that is another significant effort and reorganization effort that we are undertaking And that will be hopefully in place a next fiscal year and that we're working very hard on So I want to make sure that you know that those major reorganization efforts Are underway and we will be discussing them in more detail during budget hearings in june At this point, I would like to turn over the presentation to county budget manager Christina Maori who'll go over in more detail our mid-year budget report Thank you, carlos and good afternoon Uh chair mcpherson and members of the board christina Maori your county budget manager I'm going to go ahead and share my screen in the presentation Okay As carlos mentioned, I'm going to go over and give you an overview of our this is our mid-year report We gave you a preliminary forecast in january Um, and now we've received uh the department's request and so we have a little better understanding of where we're at We're first going to cover sort of give you an update on our federal aid for the covet 19 response, particularly the american rescue plan and how that affects us We'll give you a brief State budget outlook economic outlook We'll focus on the general fund because that's where your board has the most discretion And we'll look ahead giving you an update of the five-year general fund Forecast and then some options to prepare for our future Those carlos mentioned we've gotten good news recently the uh senate approved the american rescue plan that was previously approved by the house It allocates 350 billion dollars for local governments Our estimated allocation is about 53.4 million dollars And it includes funding for our revenue losses, which we had estimated at 25.5 million dollars Now we're still taking a close look at this the the senate did make a few changes to the original proposal So um our revenue losses and and the amount we can claim may be limited to something less than the 25.5 million dollars And we're still will be receiving uh once the house takes final action. Hopefully tomorrow And the president signs the bill will get the u.s treasury will issue guidance on how funds can be uh claimed Um, but we're we're very excited. Um, uh, we're very hopeful. It's going to help us cover our revenue losses, which Will help us with some of our budget So here you'll see sort of an estimate. Um, we've been providing you updates Previously on the coronavirus relief funds that were allocated through the cares act Which was back in june But we haven't really specifically talked a lot about all of the costs related to our COVID-19 response So this is an attempt to give you sort of an overview of where we think we're at and this is based on the preliminary information and our experience through december But we believe our FEMA Eligible costs are about 78 million dollars um and our costs through december Related to the cares act that your board approved is about 27 Million dollars plus some interest And then we have costs the departments are putting together plans. You saw a preliminary estimate in january But we have costs for our continued response Through september estimated about almost 30 million dollars And then as your board knows you you received a report earlier. We received some rental assistance a which was a separate Funding provided for rental assistance for community members And including the money that the state is going to administer that 16.8 million dollars And then public health has received some very specific funding For their related costs related to vaccine efforts, and that's totaling about 11 million dollars So overall our cost estimates to providing the response Is about 163 million dollars And the funding we've received That we're estimating to receive because we really don't know exactly how much money FEMA is going to reimburse us But we're in this scenario here. We're estimating that we will receive everything that we've spent We know that's not likely and so we are looking at and hoping That we'll get some approvals of some FEMA projects before you're in so we can give your board an update If FEMA is disallowed any of those costs Um, but as we said before we have revenue estimates of our losses of about 25 and a half million dollars Um, so our overall costs are the the 163 million So we have a gap right now based on what we've received so far or anticipating to receive of about 55 million And so the new american rescue plan provides us about 53.4 million. So not quite enough to cover Um, all of our revenue losses, but almost all of our revenue losses based on the original proposal And the state budget outlook the governor issued his budget in january. It's very positive Just like we're experiencing A little bit of additional unanticipated revenue compared to our original estimates. So is the state They have a healthy surplus of about 23 point 23 billion dollars. Um, and they have some increased one time allocations Included in the governor's budget of about 15.5 billion Um, and they're anticipating increasing their reserves by seven and a half billion dollars So we're anticipating the may revise to include some additional funding Um, and as the revenues improve Um, may include an additional 10 and a half billion dollars, which will be really helpful The economic outlook is is looking very positive also. Um, you know with the vaccine in place and and people getting vaccinated It's helping the economy reopen Um consumer confidence is very high. We've seen continued growth in sales tax and transient occupancy tax And we expect that to continue to return Um sales tax has has you as you'll see in the the revenue uh details I'll provide shortly has has nearly recovered. However, um the transient occupancy tax or hotel tax is going to take a bit longer to recover Um, and overall, uh, the equity markets are recovering along the federal reserve actions That are maintaining low interest rates and support for low inflation will help fuel the continued recovery as well So we're going to focus on the general fund budget. Um, since the forecast we provided you in january The revenues the general revenues have increased, um ever so slightly about 1.6 million dollars for total growth over budget of about 7.9 million dollars and that's primarily from um a little bit more uh sales tax uh growth uh transient occupancy tax on a little bit of property tax overall um offset by some some uh reduced revenue we're seeing in our interest earnings um our departments and other net costs are less by about six and a half million dollars And this is primarily from increased revenues that some of our departments Saw some of that revenue is a reimbursement of some prior year costs So that's one time revenue. Um, and in some cases There's some additional revenue being provided one time to help cover some of the costs in the budget So overall we're expecting an increase In the fund balance available by the end of the year of 8.1 million For a total of 12 and a half million dollars to carry forward to 21 22 And here you'll see a summary of the revenues Which is where your board of course has the most uh discretion. These are the general county revenues made up of property tax sales tax Uh transient occupancy tax the cannabis business tax detransfer interest in some other revenues and reimbursements So since the mid-year estimate like I said, it's gone up by about 1.6 million And you'll see there the hotel tax has gone up a little bit The sales tax and the property tax with some minor changes overall And there you'll see the interest uh has dropped A little over a half a million more than what we anticipated in january at mid-year report Um And but overall growth is good better than we anticipated 5.2 percent better than than we originally projected last august So that's good news that's going to help us And then we look at the department costs in the current year As the departments had more experience they fine tune their estimates based on their costs And like I said before this gives you a breakdown by the various government categories. So we have our general government category Overall is seeing a little bit of improvement. Uh since the preliminary forecast Health and human services where we saw the most improvement and that's primarily from that those increased revenues that they're seeing And some of that most of that is one time revenue And then our land use and and community services is seeing a little bit better revenue than what they anticipated They anticipated quite a decline in their their permitting revenue It did get a little bit better in their their recent forecast But still down compared to budget And then public safety isn't doing too bad. Um, they're up a little bit just a half a million dollars So overall the departments are saving compared to budget about 5.4 million dollars And here you'll see the general fund uh contribution summary. This is a summary of of how the general fund How we finance the department budget. So remember the the the departments have their own direct revenues And the difference in the general fund departments between their revenues and their expenses Is the general fund contribution that comes from those general revenues And it also comes from our fund balance that we carry forward. So your board will recall That this year we took over 13 million dollars out of reserves. That's how we had that fund balance available to us And we use that as a measure to help soften some of the impacts and the changes that we would have had to make to the budget So you can see overall like I said, our general revenues are better by 7.9 million or 5.2 percent The total financing is up Just under 5 percent when you include the fund balance And the department net costs are Better than originally budgeted and forecasted And we have some other costs that are slightly better as well So overall you can see there we're able to have an ending fund balance of about 12 and a half million dollars that we can carry forward So to give you an overview of the 21 22 general fund budget Since the forecast we now believe remember you'll recall that in the the preliminary forecast in january We recommended to your board that we Ask the departments for three scenarios because we didn't exactly know which scenario was going to prove to be best So based on the request from the departments and based on our current revenue projections We believe we're in a position to eliminate 50 percent of the furlough The financing estimate has increased overall Now a big chunk of that is one time savings from the 21 22 2021 year carrying forward to 21 22 But we're also including the better revenues as well And the department costs are higher by 6.4 million and this is predominantly I should say primarily from the eliminating 50 percent of the furlough, which is about almost 6 million dollars And then we have some minor changes in staffing As a result And then there there are other costs that are being recommended to be increased for our critical deferred maintenance and our increased restricted contingencies And then we are recommending Based on the financing that we have available to us and carrying over some of that savings Um to increase our reserves by 2.6 million dollars You'll recall that when we take money out of reserves, it's important that we have a five to seven year plan to restore those reserves So we need to start working on that plan to restore the 13 million dollars that we removed from reserves So that we can have it ready for that next event But we're going to do this as we have funding and so right now based on our proposal We believe we have 2.6 million dollars that we can start to restore the reserves with And overall in this particular plan, we're only out of balance by less than a million dollars We we believe we'll be able to reconcile all that before we finalize the Prohose budget and present it to your board in may And here you'll see a breakdown of the revenues and the growth A lot of this is the same continued growth that we we're seeing in the current year And then some additional growth that we're anticipating in Our property taxes Sales tax is going to continue to Be restored prior to the pre-covid levels as you can see there Our tot we're we're not expecting it to be restored completely It'll take another year. We believe for the economy and the hotels to recover from the pandemic And um canvas business tax is still um strong even though it's a little less than what we initially thought And our D transfer tax Is is seeing some growth some continued growth and of course we spoke about interest interest is down We expect it to continue to be down for a while um, so overall our growth compared to the budget Is about 10 million dollars or seven percent growth and remember that This is above average growth and this is because we're seeing a little bit of a bump from the increased recovery And here you'll see a breakdown by the various government categories general government health and human services Land use and community services and public safety and justice So overall the department net costs are going up by 6.4 million dollars or a change of of just a little over four percent You'll notice there you might Be surprised to see general government going up so high This is because every other year when we have an election Where we're not in a general election our election costs are much higher because we're not recovering Revenue from a combined Consolidated election with other measures So there's not as much revenue to offset those regular costs So a good portion of this 2.6 million dollar increase is our elections Which is continuing without that that offsetting revenue Um, and then the rest of that and these other departments here are just the primarily Some of the departments were able to cover some of their increased costs if they had revenues But many of them weren't able to cover the cost of of eliminating the furlough Half of the furlough So um, we're covering that here overall with an increased general fund contribution And here you'll see a summary of the general fund contribution You'll see the increase of the uh, 12 and a half million dollars anticipated from the fund balance with the general revenues For a total financing of 176 million dollars to offset the department costs of almost 156 million Some of our other costs which includes debt service contingencies general fund contribution for um capital improvements and deferred maintenance And then our contribution to reserves And overall we're just slightly out of balance and we'll rectify that before we present it to your board Now if we were to consider as carlo said, you know, we um, we're very We're going to be receiving the american rescue plan and some one time Reimbursement of our revenue losses. Uh, and so until we get that additional information We won't know for sure how much additional revenue we might have available to us um, but if we did decide to Eliminate the furlough completely Uh, we would need another at least another six million dollars To be able to provide financing for the departments without engaging in any position eliminations or layoffs So we want to give you an update. Um on the uh, sort of forecast the five-year forecast for the general fund We still do show growing deficits. Um We've updated the uh, projection based on the proposals and that we've received By looking at eliminating the furlough in 21 22 or by half of the furlough Um, excuse me in 21 22 and the remaining furlough by 22 23 That's what the forecast includes and includes sort of average revenue growth and average expenditure growth And even after all that we still estimate a shortfall Of anywhere between 13 and 15 million dollars And that's even after we carry forward savings each year of at least five million dollars, which has been our average for the last few years Um rising health and retirement costs continue to drive the overall costs Um, and it's important to understand that, you know, our budget is balanced based on Using some of that one-time carryover of the money that we took out of reserves It doesn't look like we're going to need a lot of it this year But we'll need we're planning on using uh using it for next year and hopefully we'll be able to save some of that and carry it forward Um, but we will need to look at some additional revenue options to replace the use of those one-time funds So here you'll see a picture of the five-year forecast of just looking specifically at the general fund contribution The blue line is the actual financing That's available from the fund balance and a combination of the general revenues And it's growing Here you can see in 2021 we have a balanced budget the lines come together And we're proposing that by 21 22 will have a balanced budget And they come together and then you'll see that the gap starts Um by 22 23 with the full elimination of the furlough, which is a total of almost 12 million dollars We start to see our gap And and it continues to go up So just as a reminder There are lots of things that will help guide us as we look to the future We have our strategic plan and our operational plan helps guide our priorities We've got our continuous process improvement to help us create efficiencies in what we do Performance measures are going to help us assess the effectiveness of what we do And we're hoping program budgeting. We are going to be demonstrating that in our proposed budget That will be released in May And then hopefully by the following Fiscal year will provide program budgeting for all budgets But we're hoping that will provide greater clarity and helping the public Understand what's included in the budget by breaking it down by program and service Um the reserves as we know will need to be restored over the next five to seven years And as before we've looked for revenue options to help us preserve core programs and services and replace some of the one time funding That we're using during this during this sort of economic recession to help us close that funding gap And carlos, I believe you want to cover our revenue options Yes, the challenge that's before us is that Assuming that we're able to use the American Rescue Plan Revenue loss category We would be potentially help using those funds to help us reach the gap to restore The remainder of our furlough amounts for the next fiscal year The difficulty is that these are one time funds Depending on the again, we don't know all the restrictions There has been some talk that the American Rescue Plan Could be used over a couple of years And so if we were to use Approximately six million Dollars to cover next fiscal year Then what happens the following right? That's the difficulty Our revenues and our costs have been Rising Basically at the same rate. In fact, our costs have been rising a little Bit more rapidly than our revenues slightly more rapidly. So we've been in a somewhat very tight budget situation Given our normal cost increases And then if you consider that we're using one time funds to cover six million dollars And again, the six million dollars is the net county cost amount We're not talking about our so in our general fund, which is over 500 million dollars our net county cost is somewhere in the neighborhood of 170 Million at this point. I think 160 170 million So that is the area that so six million dollars becomes more significant of that So that'll be the dilemma one one choice would be to set aside 12 million dollars out of the 54 And then use six millions next fiscal year and then six million the following fiscal year So that would allow us two years to try and make up that net county cost Difference to backfill the revenue the furlough amounts. So that's possible But then that that uses up more of the american rescue plan 53 million dollars Other options would be to consider revenue measures in the future One possible measure is our emergency response fee. This is our 9-1-1 Center that helps us to offset those costs right now the Charge is a dollar 47 per landline And it continues to go down because people have switched to cell phones So if we were to and to voice over internet so if we were to reduce the charge but expanded to cell phones and and voice over internet That would allow us to capture approximately another one and a half million dollars In those costs that we go towards our 9-1-1 center So that's an option the hotel tax or transient occupancy tax is another option Currently we're at 11 percent City of Monterey last year in the midst of the recession actually increased their toot To 12 percent they went from 10. They were actually lower than us. They went from 10 to 12 every 1 percent increases by a million dollars There's also the possibility of increasing Of splitting that we think that you could actually split the amount you charge to traditional motel hotels versus hosted rentals such as Airbnb and VRBO and charge different rates So there may be a possibility there as well And again every increase is 1 percent is about a million dollars and then sales tax We're currently at 9 percent sales tax. We're the lowest in the unincorporated area Most of the other cities are either at 9.25 9.5 or 9. I think scott's valley is the highest which is at 9.75 So there's a possibility that we could increase that every quarter cent Indian incorporated area raises about four and a half million dollars annually And as you can see the gap we're going to try and cover is that six million dollars that covers the remainder of the furlough amount So Anyway, those are things that we need to think about as we go forward Into the next budget year I think with that we're we're concluding our Our our major presentation to you And I think christina touched i'll touch on one more point that christina did That we did use over 13 million dollars of reserves that we need to build that up And so we are proposing to include that amount. It's it's something that your board has considered In the years past and that's how we got to our Our 10% reserve because you showed a lot of fiscal discipline over the last Decade and so we're just wanting to continue that into the future and restore the amount That we had Used in in this to get past this recession So with that we'll conclude our presentation and then be open to any questions from the board Okay, thank you mr. Blasius and thank you christina Um well It's it's better than what you thought it might be so that's great It's under those circumstances that we wouldn't have gotten here without Your employee sacrificing through the furloughs to reduce our deficit that just wouldn't have happened I can't tell you how much we all appreciate it the people of santa christ county appreciate it because you've been able to carry out More than your fair share of services additional services Very well, and we appreciate your understanding of that Also, I am glad to see that Washington has given us said it looks like a 53 little amount of 53 million dollars that'll be just so essential and we we are going to have to need that as we move along On part two of the recommended actions Is there any finite financial impact to Extending the period for the health services agency staff through the furlough time We I mean won't we have still captured the full budget impact By june 30th of this year Yes, we will achieve the the budget savings. We need to this fiscal year We're just giving the staff more flexibility to use those furlough hours into the next fiscal year Perfect. Okay. Good. All right, and you answer some of the other questions about Well, we have a little uncertainty what's coming, but it looks very positive In this line this this week. Are there any other questions from members of the board supervisor friend Thank you chair. Thank you. Ms. Mowry as always for that outstanding presentation I learn a lot each time and mr. Plosios as well Um, I appreciate the information obviously we have a lot to learn when we get treasury guidance about what is Flexible or not flexible in this and we do have one time funding I do I would like to say though that um, one of the successes of the 2009 recovery was investment in capital projects not just On a revenue loss basis, and I think that we really do need to take some of this money I noticed that you did mention the contingencies which we've blown through due to the fires and other reasons and you Introduced your diligence last budget year and cautioned us on the reduction of the on the contingencies. I want to acknowledge that We need to build that up. We need to build the reserves back up no matter what and it appears as though We have a plan for that, but I do think that some of this needs to be set aside for capital Uh project investments a because we have massive deferred maintenance and b because it that money goes and stays locally I mean it creates local jobs and it helps Stimulate the local economy in a way that that purely revenue loss Investments don't I don't know what that percentage is and I would trust you too to come up with that But I would like to see something even in the public works or parks world that can can make some investments That are that are desperately needed and in my district. For example, it's no different from my colleagues We we still have a lot of storm damage related Projects that need local funding and we've been taking sp1 funding. It's taking a long time anything We can do to stimulate those projects again creates jobs and also saves money in the long run because The escalating costs of construction So I just like to think about how we creatively use this one-time funds to also create and stimulate local the local economy and jobs associated with that and meet some of our capital needs Thank you. Thank you Supervisor Coonerty Thank you, mr. Chair sort of piggybacking off what supervisor friend was just talking about I do think that an opportunity to invest in both capital projects and also some workforce development Right now. I think Supervisor McPherson and I are hearing from a lot of our constituents are finding hard time finding contractors To rebuild their homes or to build the affordable housing that we've all agreed is so needed And then we've also burned through medical professionals in response to the crisis various crises and so training up People in the trades trading up training up people to do nursing and public health nursing I think partnering with our workforce investment board or cabrillo or the county office of education And really sort of investing in this generation so that we can Create some, you know and essentially an economic foothold for people And much needed services. I think with targeting some of this money the other question That I I think it's that's that if we can Develop some programs with this stimulus dollars or these covet relief dollars I think it could pay out both a short term and a long term benefit to our community In creating some good jobs and needed needed providers in our community The second question is I want to appreciate the staff's management in these very difficult times to keep our fiscal situation Solid and to make sure that we weathered this storm One of my questions was I it said that we may not be able to build in The covet relief dollars into our budget, but uh, but I'm sort of hesitant to to do several different budgets In june and then come back in august and then come back in the fall And so what can we do to sort of even if we don't have a hundred percent of the dollars be able to have A thoughtful conversation of where we want to make these investments and what the next couple years look like because Sort of we've had to do this budgeting piecemeal because of these emergencies and it's totally understandable but at some point we we want to get some Stability back in our projections and so that we can all plan going forward where we want to make investments Yes, we can we do plan to Come to the board with the budget on may 11th. I believe the date is When we will release the budget Unfortunately, we the budget is their train has left the station so to speak And so we didn't know what the american rescue plan at that point was So it is true that it is going to be outdated the minute it's released But for the most part it is a good plan. What we plan to do is introduce a supplement supplemental budget in budget hearings in june Which will take into account all the different proposals for the american rescue plan dollars By then we will have treasury guidance and we will understand how we can spend it And then the board will be able to give us direction on how to spend that and incorporate it into our budget And so our anticipation is to have the board pass a budget at the end of june That will be a complete budget and we won't need to revisit in in august And if I can just add to that carlos You know as soon as we get guidance We will bring a report to your board regarding the american rescue plan Because a good deal of that funding is for this fiscal year And we'll need your board to approve a plan We will be setting some of it aside for next fiscal year And as carlos said we'll put that in a supplemental But this fiscal year portion will need to be adopted the departments um that have been uh You know in the middle of the pandemic have have gone on in good faith And continue to provide certain services that we do need to um You know set up appropriations in the budget appropriately and to make sure that we have that money coming in Um, so we will be asking your board to take an action probably I don't know if we'll have everything all figured out by the end of march, but definitely by april we'll have something to you Supervisor cap it. Do you have any questions? I think uh, I think you covered it very well Okay All right. Supervisor uh conic Thank you chair. Thank you. Ms. Mallory and uh, and mr. Palacios for those great presentations um I think I pretty much understood everything you said. I I think i'm finally starting to get the hang of this so um And it's also i'm sure thanks to the clarity uh and directness of your presentation as well Um, you know, obviously contemplating, uh, how we're going to manage these long-term gaps You know, I agree with my colleagues that we have to think about what kind of investments we can make Um in looking over the revenues for this year. I also want to highlight You know the increase that we've seen in the cannabis tax You know that was due to policy changes that this board made making that permitting process a little bit easier And so I think it's um, you know, obviously Uh, as we consider revenue measures and you know, it's more than likely that some of those are going to be necessary um, but you know, I think we should also not forget that Ultimately, we are stewards of our community and the more our community prospers The more ultimately general money general government will have available to it You know, obviously property tax is the biggest source of of income for our community and so To our cio's point, you know, with the creation of a new community Community development or community You know, basically a new approach to streamlining permitting. I think that's going to be critical To ultimately allowing more people to invest in our community And that that will ultimately see our property taxes increase if we do that effectively So yeah, just uh, I think that there is a lot more that we can do and um, just Let's let's not forget to think creatively and and think about how we can help our entire community Thank you. Thank you. Um, are there any questions from the public? There are no speakers to this item chair. Thank ferson. Thank you. Okay. This is a just a mid-year report And it's better than we could have anticipated No, six months ago or so, but uh, thank you for that report and we will now move on to item number 10 To consider chair chair mcgerson. We had a acceptance file Oh, did we had a couple of I we had a couple of recommended actions on this? Oh, I'm sorry Thank you Okay, uh This mid-year budget report, I'll move the recommended actions Yeah, there were there were two actions and direct the personal director To take action regarding the extension of the furlough period for health services in place So, yeah, thank you Okay, the maker of the motion is uh, kurti seconded by I'll second second by your friend. Call the roll, please You conic Hi friend Hi Coonerty. Hi Caput Hi McPherson. Hi. Thank you motion passes unanimously Thank you, mr. Palacios for that. All right. Now we will move to item number 10 um To consider proposed process and timeline for development of policy and ordinance related to tiny homes And direct the planning department staff to proceed with policy development as outlined in a memorandum of the planning director I think that this Um, great. Thank you so much. Um chair mcpherson supervisors. This is daisy allen with the planning department I'm sharing my screen and so Uh, let me just Just a moment Um, so at the january 26th board of supervisors meeting the board considered the idea of developing a policy That would allow for tiny homes in santa cruz county Including tiny homes on foundations as well as tiny homes on wheels The board directed planning staff to return with a proposed process and timeline for development of this policy So what is a tiny home? Tiny homes are not defined in our code But tiny homes are generally considered in the industry to be Small housing units less than 400 square feet That are either on foundations or on wheels and may be towed to different locations The state of california recently adopted appendix q of the 2018 international residential building code Which includes special standards for ceiling height lofts ladders and stairs And egress windows for tiny homes Uh appendix q is an optional provision in the international building code But it was adopted by california as mandatory actually for all jurisdictions. So it is already in effect here in santa cruz county For tiny homes that are on foundations that are considered buildings The santa cruz county code currently allows tiny homes on foundations that are as small as 150 square feet Tiny homes on wheels are currently treated the same way in our code as recreational vehicles And we do not allow permanent habitation of recreational vehicles except in designated rv parks So in response to the board's direction staff proposes to update the county's regulations for tiny homes In two separate projects or phases Phase one would involve updating the code to allow for tiny homes on foundations or on wheels as primary dwellings or as ad us These code changes could be made without requiring general plan amendments or c core review The county building code already incorporates the provisions of appendix q as i mentioned But there may be interest in adding additional local amendments to the state building code In order to address foundation design or other areas where special building standards for tiny homes might be appropriate Changes to the zoning code will definitely be needed Staff suggests creating a new code section Dedicated to tiny homes in order to clearly define What we mean by tiny homes and delineate how tiny homes are different from other definitions in our codes such as manufactured homes mobile homes recreational vehicles And travel trailers or park trailers which have their own standards There would also be a need to provide guidance regarding the appropriate placement of tiny homes on parcels Ownership of tiny homes and to define when and how tiny homes on wheels Would be considered as housing units contributing to the county's housing production numbers Information will be needed about utility hookups as well as Potential exceptions to our usual dwelling unit standards such as allowing for efficiency kitchens rather than standard kitchens Also, the zoning code section concerning accessory dwelling units will need to be updated To explicitly allow tiny homes as ad use and reference the new tiny homes code section Staff proposes to conduct these code updates concurrently with an update to the county's adu regulations this spring and summer Staff is currently working on updates to the adu ordinance in order to better align With guidance provided in an adu handbook that was prepared by the california department of housing and community development this past fall Uh, so since the topics of ad use and tiny homes are related And it appears that neither of these efforts will require a general plan amendment or environmental review Uh, staff proposes to take the two topics together either as one ordinance or parallel ordinances on the same schedule Um, so there uh would also be a potential for a phase two of tiny home policy Uh phase two would include policy options that would take more time Due to requiring general plan amendments or potentially requiring environmental review Or, uh, you know more extensive community meetings For instance, these policy options might include tiny home villages In other words multiple tiny homes on a single site Our existing regulations do allow for multiple single family dwellings on a parcel. These are called dwelling groups That dwelling groups are subject to density limits and for that reason It's unlikely that tiny home villages would be allowed under our existing rules except on very large sites or in very high density zone districts In the future the general plan and accompanying county code could potentially be amended to allow for tiny home villages generally Or for specific applications of tiny homes such as emergency housing Or transitional housing from the uh for the homeless as was discussed in a previous agenda item today Uh another potential policy area that could be explored in phase two would be tiny homes that are completely off the grid Our general plan and county code does require a public water and sewer hookup for all development located within the urban services line And there are water and septic requirements in the rural area If there is interest in allowing for tiny homes with composting toilets, it will be necessary to amend these policies to allow for that And any updates to our policies that would increase development potential in the county could be subject to review under the california environmental quality act So in terms of schedule The concept of tiny home regulation is new in santa cruz county, especially the idea of allowing tiny homes on wheels Engagement with the community is therefore very important Also, it's important to take the proposed changes through review by the housing advisory commission as well as the planning commission For recommendations before returning to the board With the proposed ordinance Last week we did review the tiny home concept at the housing advisory commission meeting and received positive feedback about the policy idea generally As well as helpful input on issues to consider in phase one Phase one of the ordinance development After today's meeting we have scheduled a community meeting on march 16th where we will plan to present Both the proposed changes to the adu regulations as well as tiny home regulation options And we'll be gathering feedback from the public And then we will plan to go to the planning commission for a study session And then for a public hearing followed by a return to the housing advisory commission So that they can provide feedback on the actual draft ordinance And finally back to the board of supervisors and then on to the coastal commission So staff recommends that the board direct the planning department to proceed With the first phase of the tiny home policy development According to the schedule as proposed And that the board direct staff to proceed separately With a second phase of tiny home policy development later either as a standalone project or wrapped Together with other housing policy initiatives such as supportive housing policy work And that concludes my presentation Thank you very much Supervisor Koenig do you have any comments on this? I know that you we brought it together Yeah, thank you chair and thank you miss allen for the comprehensive presentation It looks really great and I received a lot of positive Comments from folks who saw this I believe the same presentation at the housing advisory committee the other day I just want to commend you for your work on this Um And you know, I think it's sort of as expected that we would need to do this in a couple phases So that makes perfect sense And I think that you know the delivery of phase one in you know late Late spring early summer makes sense as well I guess my only concern at this moment is that the potential that phase two could kind of get lost in In the shuffle down the road So do you have some sense now of the timing on that phase? Yeah you know If we do proceed with this two phase option The only concern we would have from a staff perspective is that We be finished with the phase one project first before we moved on to phase two so Given the proposed schedule that would put us at around august or september To be starting work on potential options for phase two Great. Yeah, that that makes sense. So I I suppose You know if we need uh some kind of action coming up today That I think maybe all that I would add is that when we do ultimately review an ordinance For phase one that at that time you're going to update on potential timeline for phase two And Yeah, I'll follow up with you to make sure I've got the link for the march 16th community meeting and definitely look forward to helping to promote that as well great Thank you supervisor friend Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you miss allen as always for the presentation. I do have some questions These are relatively similar to the ones that I had raised at the last Meeting when we asked for you guys to for the planning department to come back I'm definitely supportive of this general concept, but I think some of the details will actually Really matter during the the process of making these And so maybe some of these questions are things that will need to be explored from the pc and you or maybe some of them You could actually address I mean one of the questions I had is could you have an ad you and a tiny home on the same parcel? Yeah, that's that's a great question. Um, so what we're proposing for Phase one would be no change to our current Density allowances and housing allowances that are in our current zoning code Um, as well as the ad you state law Out in terms of Number of units if you have a single family parcel, you may have a single family home and an ad you As well as a junior ad you If as part of this phase one policy project We would be allowing for a tiny home to function as either that primary dwelling or as that ad you And as you say the devil is a little bit in the details because the ad you Size currently is related to the primary dwelling size in terms of some types of ad use So so that's one thing to kind of to think about a little bit Um, there's also of course concerns regarding tiny homes on wheels You know allowing for a tiny home on wheels on wheels to function as a primary dwelling When it can be towed off site and you know where where we draw the line there in terms of When when that that becomes Part of the real property there So so there's a lot of questions to be worked out as part of this project Even the part of even the phase one aspect of it, but we wouldn't be proposing to allow for Um additional density beyond what we already allow in our zoning code Okay, I think that where we would run into some pushback and most likely some environmental challenges would be if that were the case Um, so it sounds to me like it's functionally a replacement of an either or not your words with just how I'm Kind of looking at it that way but in addition to that We we site Uh where ad use can go on a parcel pretty specifically Especially because uh from fire codes and other reasons how we define them as a new construction versus an addition and various things My thought here is that by definition something that is more mobile would be cited potentially in a different location So at least within the urban services line and in particular the coastal zone Um, I want to flag a concern and I think this is something that the planning commission needs to review is to Where they get cited because I can see a situation by which you could ostensibly have You know dozens on a on a given block. I mean or that are being rented out potentially in relatively No setback areas on driveways that are very narrow, right? I mean so you can imagine if like I think about a pleasure point Or a Rio del Mar for example That that would have a very different effect because we wouldn't permit an ad you there It would be a garage conversion or something in the backyard Um, and so we're going to really have to look at Especially on smaller parcel sizes or urban services line area in particular coastal zone where these are cited I think that that's going to be a Are hurdle for us to overcome Um in addition I don't know for like Soquel Creek water districts perspective. Is this a new water hookup? Is this not a net new water hookup from our sanitation district? How do we calculate flow rates associated with it if it's connected within the urban services line? Because these are all things that under prop 218 and other challenges We actually need to know when we're making rates on on those issues So I mean it's much easier in an area like a correlates of my district for example, you have space Versus the urban area even though there's advantages to being within the urban area obviously But these are things that I want to be sure the planning commission addresses Do you Have a sense of how we would assess These properties. I mean so when when we have a an ad you come on that's You know that you get a new assessment under property from a size, but if these are technically mobile How would they be but they're a living unit that you could be your primary living unit? How do we now assess it from a property tax perspective? Yeah, I don't have a good answer for that one yet My understanding you know from doing a little bit of research and other jurisdictions So far and just being at the very beginning of this policy project is that A tiny home on a foundation is considered real property and a tiny home on wheels is considered personal property similarly to a travel trailer or park trailer um But beyond beyond that I'm not I'm not certain if you know if we're allowing a tiny home on wheels to be Used as a primary residence. We might require some level of interim type of foundation alternative foundation construction in order to Allow for that to be considered part of the real property But that's that's a blurry line and I'm not I'm not certain yet Okay, well and I Completely appreciate that honesty because to me these are the questions that just popped up in my mind as to how this would work because I view something on wheels as temporary And if and our code seems to agree But if we're allowing somebody to live there for multiple years or four if not permanently then that's a fundamentally different situation And I think needs to be treated very differently As a new construction and how we look at new construction Again, this is just different within the coastal zone in other areas in the urban services line And so it's something to consider overall I'm definitely supportive of the program But these details are really going to matter because I can see their being Um some pushback including on the sequela side if we don't really if we're not thoughtful about how this is presented So I would just hope that that I mean, I'm not looking for this to be additional direction But just that you're getting board feedback now that these are things that I would hope That the planning commission and hack would consider and planning staff would consider before something comes back to the board Thank you. Ms. Allen. Appreciate it. I got it. Thank you Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty I see he's still there, you know Um I'll come back to Supervisor Coonerty for ask again. Supervisor Caput. Do you have any questions? Yeah, not too many but just a few you answered A couple of questions I had already on your presentation. So I won't repeat them but I was looking at the picture. It showed like a neighborhood of Um tiny homes that it almost looked like the Wizard of Oz and Whatever so Are we talking about certain areas maybe becoming like a neighborhood of Tiny homes or are we looking at it where a tiny home has to be somehow connected to a A large, uh, you know residential home Yeah, that's that's a great question. So You might be referring to the picture in the lower right portion of the screen where there's a few different tiny homes on the same property So this is something that we would consider to be a tiny home village It's been done in some other communities. Um, as I mentioned Our zoning code doesn't Really allow for tiny home village Except on very high density zone districts and in those zone districts We really would want to see more like a for uh apartment style multifamily housing rather than detached housing However, there may be an opportunity to update our zoning code Later as part of maybe a phase two of the policy Project for tiny homes that would allow for tiny home villages But the what we're proposing for a phase one part of the policy project would be Just allowing for a tiny home to be uh used as either a primary residence or as an adu Okay, all right, so if if there's a neighborhood of regular residential homes And there's a vacant lot in that neighborhood somebody can't just go in there and say i'm going to put a tiny home there and That'll be a Right and actually in our existing Code you can already do that with a tiny home that's on a foundation So what we'd be exploring as part of this phase one of this policy project would be Expanding that to in some way incorporate tiny homes on wheels as well Okay, and they they'd all be Subject to private ownership, I guess and I get what I'm getting at is Someone that owns a residential home instead of building an adu They could put one of these tiny homes and then pretty much rented out And we're assuming that the rent would be cheaper or you know with people being With a COVID-19 Of course, there's no control over how much rent that would be charged. Is that correct? That's correct Yeah, so that's one thing we do have to watch out for Okay, thank you Do you Uh, it's supervised recruiting. Did you have any questions on this? Are you I don't I'm sorry I was having a hard time unmuting but I appreciate the The report and I don't have any questions at this time. Thank you. I I too I I support this true too pronged approach Moving forward in the immediate future with an ordinance Or code update that makes tiny homes possible soon And more significant policy would to work on tiny home villages and off-grid options that Are to be studied later I think this is A great avenue that we're we're addressing and I appreciate supervisor conic's involvement in this with me to bring it to the board. Is there any public comments? Yes, I have one speaker to this item. Thank you Thank you. Dr. Holliday your microphone is unmuted Oh, hello. Can you hear me? Yes Okay, um, I am um a small business owner in bin lomond and I am a cdu lightning complex fire survivor and I just wanted to Say how supportive I am of making this available. I am also a tiny home dweller for over nine years And while often tiny homes are associated with people who are currently unsheltered They are an amazing option for people across income levels. So I was able To because I was living in my tiny home While I was working on a building permit that expired. We ran out of money and then everything burned down I was able to open a business and put my resources into the community creating jobs as opposed to being kind of forced to invest in real estate And so it was an incredible option for me. And then the other thing I want to just say um, the technology around composting toilets and greywater systems has advanced a lot And um, like I'm in a position. Um, I'm going to rebuild a tiny house But my septic system is going to cost as much as the house And so I just really want to encourage that phase two to happen for people like me. Um, I live up all the road To be able to address this sooner rather than later and I just want to um, thank you for Pushing forward with this movement because it is um good for people and it's good for the environment. Thank you Thank you. Was that the only other or the only public comment then? Yes, checkman first and that is the only speaker to this item. Okay. Uh, we have two, uh, recommended actions to, uh A directed plan department to draft an ordinance allowing the tiny homes as a primary or accessory dwelling Um and direct the department to proceed with more extensive tiny home policy provisions Some of which have been suggested as we speak today, um Those are the recommended actions. Does anyone want to want to make a motion to that effect? Chair, I first I just had one follow-up question. Sure. Yes The supervisor friend raised about the question of, you know, whether a tiny home will be permitted in addition to an ad you Um, and I understand the clarification that right now they would not Um, I do understand that the city of watsonville recently has allowed multiple ad us on parcels Over, I believe it's 12,000 square feet. I'm just curious in the general scope of the ad you amendments if if multiple ad use You know detach ad use obviously since we are already permit a junior ad you as well as an ad you I'm just curious if that is in You know your your scope of inquiry um, yeah, so so multiple ad us are currently allowed On uh multifamily properties But not single family properties single family properties can have one ad you and one junior ad you We have not gotten feedback or direction to Make a change to that portion of the ad you code, but that's certainly something that we could do We always have an option to be More lenient than the state law regarding ad use so We would certainly welcome that feedback and we will be gathering input from the community at the meeting next week So we may Hear some some similar requests from community members as well Great. Thank you for that clarification Okay, thank you And a super brother conic to that question when we had asked that question previously of planning during our previous ad you process We were told it would require a general plan amendment an update to the general plan I mean, so it's not like it was possible, but would be um It'd be a long it'd be a long time Yeah, that's that's a good point actually because um once we go beyond What is mandated by state law in terms of ad use? Even if it doesn't require a general plan amendment, it would most likely require environmental review to do that work so it would be um A bit more substantial of a policy lift compared to You know minor amendments to the existing code Good point. Okay. Thank you Yeah, I think that's somewhat included in the uh recommended actions Do I have a motion uh to affect to Uh support the recommended actions Chair I move the recommended actions with the um additional direction that uh phase two a timeline for phase two Be presented at the time that we uh review a phase one ordinance Perfect. Okay. I'll second it second by friend. Please call the roll Thank you. Supervisor Koenig Hi Friend Hi Coonerty All right Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously Thank you We'll move to item number 11 I consider directing the planning department to return to the board on april 13th 2021 with the proposed uh a proposal to incorporate a set of pre-approved Accessory dwelling unit plans on the planning department's website honor before june 30th 2021 We're used by czu fire victims and the general public as outlined in the murmur random of supervisor tonic and mcpherson We have a pre-approved adu plans fact sheet Who's going to be presenting on that? Chair i'm i have a short presentation. Yes. Go ahead, please Great. Thank you. Um, well, you know as as uh miss allen just highlighted We're currently in the process of updating our adu ordinance as a county and so I thought it would be timely Along with supervisor McPherson to bring forward Another solution that we've seen work in other communities, which is pre-approved adu plans And um these I think we you know, of course, I'll understand by now that the need um to increase housing stock and to look at uh different options to do so Um using a pre-approved permit ready plan essentially will make it quicker easier and more affordable Um for people to build adu's and you know just for by way of example in the city in the county of san diego Where they have such a program the idea is that someone can come in with a site plan and an energy use plan Uh and the um, you know a CAD file with the with the adu plans that have already, you know Been created by the county and are pre-approved and walk out within 30 minutes You know if they have these other items ready to go with a permit Um, so yeah as I mentioned a number of other jurisdictions have done this uh recently the city of seaside Um, I created a pre uh pre-approved adu program the city of capitol. I just put out an rfp at the beginning of february There's actually senate bill two provided some funding for jurisdictions to do this And so this is why a number of of um different jurisdictions have taken advantage of it Unfortunately that funding recently expired But nevertheless, we've seen In other jurisdictions like san diego that the lift uh is not necessarily huge They actually created their program in about 80 hours in house Um, they're you know, the way some of these programs have gone the the city of seaside sort of had to choose your own adventure option Where they essentially had one base model But as you can see in the um In the diagram here, you're able to choose a few different roof treatments different sightings And uh, you know, ultimately that created a you know individual uh individualized You had basically nine different outcomes that you could arrive at Some of the savings involved, you know, obviously there's um You know just Can average about 10 to 15 thousand dollars. Uh just in savings for for uh architecture and design work on behalf of an applicant Then the uh in this case of the county of san diego They created six different plans in house In their case, they marketed the plans as being, you know, approximately 85 complete So that they still do need a little bit of work Um, but they get you most of the way there and as I said, if you used one of their existing plans, uh, they're committed to Um, you know, potentially signing off on your project within 30 minutes um One interesting thing to learn from their example is they found overall that about 20 percent of of uh applicants for an ad you use their plans as is and then another 20 percent Use their plans in some form and uh Including just taking the CAD file that was provided by the planning department Deleting the actual building plan itself but keeping sort of the notation format and then putting their own plans in there So, you know, one way we can think about this is really as a ease of use tool for people working with our planning department Just to speed up the process of Providing plans that are in a format that we that we want to work with I've heard a lot of A lot of horror stories of people can continually getting their plans rejected because they haven't formatted their bookmarks correctly Or other things things such as that. So again, it's just a ease of use factor That's going to help speed up the process by which new projects can be approved And then some context here in our county You know, of course, we have the or three office is currently working on developing a plan library of pre-approved plans So that fire victims can rebuild quickly But as uh as we know that office is still being staffed Still, you know, hopefully we're soon getting close to to finding a division head there but still short staffed and so We can step in here and Direct planning to assist with this effort And in helping to create some pre-approved plans at least specifically in this case for an adu You know, we recognize that santa cruz has unique Typographical challenges and pre-approved plans should be a foundation up design That may be adopted for specific building sites So, you know once once approved building official would and all relevant departments pre-approved plans would be considered Permit ready and be exempt from permit review fees And would be made available on the county's website for the public to download for free So in the direction, uh, the recommended action Provided today, we've basically you know Given the option to uh to planning to ultimately decide whether they want to go about a sort of build or buy Solution to this as I said, um a lot of other Uh jurisdictions have pursued the buy approach and issued an rfq Or an rfp in many cases like the the city of seaside danville or capitol as I said of all issued rfps And ultimately own the plans Um, we could also build the plans in-house similar to the county of san diego That's all for my presentation and happy to answer any questions Thank you very much for that and I think it makes a really a lot of sense to have free approved options For our residents who want to build ad use especially those considering Doing that as a part of the rebuilding after the fire I think that ad use really hold a great potential for providing affordable housing by design and the sander ones of valley In particular in my district and in rural areas throughout the county and I look forward to getting the support The important tool available as soon as possible I thank you for your work on that supervisor konig. Um, are there any other Comments that other members of the board would like to make? Yes, mr. Chair if I may, uh, thank you both for bringing this forward. I have a brief question I think I know the answer based on the recommended actions, but just confirming that this item is broader than just Uh for fire victims that it does say for the general population So this would apply across the county correct or not across the county but across the unincorporated area I should say yes Okay, then my second question is um, the board may recollect that I had actually brought this same item forward a few years ago Uh during an adu update and at the time the planning department said that this actually wasn't possible We ended up with the adu toolkit in part as a compromise But one of the elements was I was hoping to do that the building department had expressed concerns of having Standardized plans, so I just wanted to check with planning to see if something had fundamentally changed since then Obviously i'm supportive of it I was supportive of it multiple years ago and I brought it up before but I just wanted to see where planning was on this because they'd expressed At the time some safety and other related issues saying that it was uh, difficult. I'd actually presented san diego as the model at the time right The pot ray that you are right But is there somebody from planning that could address that question? Dave miss allen are you there? Are you see? miss allen there? Find me on the line As well for this item Let me check first is miss allen there. There was a question from supervisor friend Yes, i'm promoting her back. Oh god for this item. Yes, npa is also joining us Thank you miss levine. I see that you're there. Yes, I am. Thank you. Um Yeah, um the The development of plans that will assist people to develop their ideas is um is something we've looked at and um And we thought about the proposal that supervisor Konex put forward as well and have a couple comments um One thing that's different in response to your question supervisor friend is that um many more communities have done this in the interim and there's a lot more Uh product if you will available just on the internet and other places for the kinds of structures that you could build with a pre-plan check set of plans and um Santa Cruz does have a lot of things that make it different from a community where you've got you know flat lots And you don't have to think too much about the foundation down but we We can implement something like that of course and we've been thinking that um Um relative to the two suggestions that are proposed today um The department doesn't have the capacity at the moment to do it in-house Not without other commitments. Um, you know suffering so um, we would be I think what's feasible now is to use the consultant option and um For us to do a procurement like that working with general services and allowing enough time for Professionals to propose a package um a procurement would take about three months to do so um the timeline if the timeline could be adjusted Then the um the contract option. It seems like the more feasible one um, of course another topic is that a funding source hasn't been identified at this time um The um the or three has been looking at this topic Uh specifically for the burn area victims But any work that they've done and any program they create can certainly be leveraged to apply to the entire county And um, they have the ability to work with nonprofits And the long-term recovery committee to look for funding sources And also to place this program in the right place relative to the full range of needs that the burn victims have So, um, David reed is here as well from the or three and he can speak to some of the details Uh above a program the kind of program that they've been investigating if that would be helpful And so thank you mizlavin. Just so I I make sure I'm hearing you That's correctly with the board need to approve the consultant contract I mean, I I just think on the timeline It's clear that the april timeline is outlined by my two colleagues is is probably too ambitious But it may be possible though That something could come back to us that procured a contract around that time so that we could get this this thing moving a little bit Is that a is that an accurate statement? I think it would be accurate to say that we could have a contract in about the three month timeline So if we started right now, that looks like the end of june A contract in place or something to the board to Authorize the ability to do it or is that something we could do today? Hmm The the way i'm familiar with seeing it is that we put we we go through the procurement if you give us that Direction today and then we would come back with a proposed contract at the end of that time And then the contract would be implemented by whoever is the chosen service provider so Super Supervisor friend earlier. I had read actually read a correction to this item into the agenda where that said that the Planning department at conjunction with the office of recovery and resiliency Would return to the board on april 27th With a proposal to incorporate a set of pre-approved accessory dwelling unit plans on the planning department's website Honor before june 30th 2021 And so that was the correction that I believe staff had agreed to Thank you. I apologize for that Okay, I think that I I understand that there has been some changes and that's what's different from a few years ago I just I appreciate my colleagues bring this back forward again since there has been some changes and I appreciate You providing that clarity misleving Hey, any any other questions from board members Comments, um, any any comments from the public? There are no members to the public speaking to this item Okay, uh, they recommended actions to direct the planning department to return to the board by april 27th Which is a tight timeline itself with plans with a proposal to incorporate a set of pre-approved accessory dwelling unit plans on the plan plan department website before june 30th 2021 I have a motion to that effect I'll move the recommended actions Oh second Okay moved and seconded Please call the roll. Thank you supervisor Koenig. Hi friend Hi Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously Thank you. The the next item we have on the agenda is um number Our excuse me 12 to consider directing the board chair to write a letter To the legislative cosponsors of a supporting passage of senate bill 45 as outlined in a memorandum Supervisor Coonerty and myself McPherson Senate bill 45 is by senator Porto Tino I wanted to make a couple comments Yes, sorry. This is item 12. This is item 13 Item 12 is the public hearing on the proposed easement. Oh, should I do I say okay? We had the change in numbers. This is item 12 Okay I'm sorry um, so You heard my presentation on item 12 To write a letter Of support of these legislative cosponsors I wanted to Make a few comments about this this measure With um as your representative of the c-sac the california state state association of counties Monday, we had a conference call on this this bill As well as one assembly bill nine or ab nine by assemblyman Jim wood They are both on fire resiliency and watershed protection Just to give you a little differential differential differential It's a senate bill 45 is a 5.5 billion dollar proposed bond AB nine would be 6.7 billion the governor has not Indicated what he would support if anything To make the june 22nd ballot It would have to come be approved by The fall and september sometime they'd probably be labeled as a climate resiliency bill The They this is a regional resiliency coalition that's trying to put this bill forward And our regional area would be led by the coastal conservancy So they're they're both the same subject matter that you might be hearing about Both the assembly bill nine and this bill senate bill 45 There's a differential and the amount that would be on the bill But believe me this will be going through a lot of discussion in the state legislature before or if anything is put on the the ballot in june 22 That's the basics of the basis of what's going on and I just want to keep make you aware that there are some Competing measures and they will be discussed by conference committees in the near future. I'm sure On I don't know if anybody had any questions on this item No, I I'll make a note here I guess we skipped 12 and we jumped to 13 am I correct? but Anyway, we can go back I Well, you know, that's that's correct. Um, we're We're on item 13. We inadvertently skipped item 12. We'll go back to that I'll move to approve item number 13 Okay Second Second Moving second, um, please call the roll Thank you, and I'm sorry. Was that coonerty the second or conic? I think I beat coonerty by Okay Thank you For the vote supervisor conic Hi friend All right Coonerty Hi Capit Hi McPherson Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously now we'll move to item 12 now. This is the public hearing is that correct? That is correct. All right. Okay. I've had it reversed. Okay Um, this is a public hearing on the proposed easement by condemnation across real property located at sister's personal number 029 013 5 4 To support highway 141st Soquel Avenue, Auxiliary lanes and Chanticleer Pedestrian bicycle crossing project and consider a resolution of the necessity authorized county council To institute eminent domain proceedings to obtain possession of the required real property interests As outlined in the memorandum of the deputy ceo director of public works We have a resolution of necessity Exhibit a scwd Exhibit b scwd temporary construction easement It's mr. Ruchado going to be who is going to be presenting on this Good afternoon. My name is kimberley finley. How are you? I can't really how are you? good Good to see you chair and Hello members of the board. My name is kimberley finley. I'm the chief Real property agent with the department of public works I appear before you today to request that the board conduct a public hearing on a proposed easement by condemnation across real property Located at 2505 chanticleer avenue apn 029 013 5 4 And to request that the board adopt a resolution of necessity authorizing county council to institute eminent domain proceedings To obtain possession of real property interests necessary to complete the highway one of 41st of socal auxiliary lane and pedestrian bicycle over crossing project specifically the pedestrian over crossing project requires 8,847 square feet a permanent easement for pedestrian and bikeway purposes and 89 square feet of temporary construction easement over a portion of apn 029 013 5 4 which is owned by socal creek water district The county and partnership with santa cruz county regional transportation commission Has coordinated with socal creek water district for over a year Regarding the design location and timing of the pedestrian over crossing project as it relates to apn 029 013 5 4 Substantial effort and county resources have been expended and an attempt to negotiate terms of acquisition for the required property interests But unfortunately the parties have been unable to reach an agreement The timing of this project is now critical And in order to comply with caltrans rideway certification requirements And meet funding deadlines associated with the 32 million dollars currently allocated to this project The county must move forward with the resolution of necessity Adoption of this resolution necessity will not impair the ability for the county and socal creek water district to resolve Acquisition of those this property without litigation. Um, yes, I think we're good. Thank you so much. Okay And the county remains committed to continuing those negotiations in parallel with the eminent domain process The county has met the necessary statutory requirements associated with the resolution necessity as Pursuant to code of civil procedure section 7267.2 The county has offered just compensation for the real property interests As determined by a certified independent appraiser Which appraisal was reviewed by a third party appraiser and approved by caltrans Pursuant to code of civil procedure section 1240.510 The project will not unreasonably interfere with socal creek water district's public use of the property As it exists or may reasonably expect to exist in the future Currently the properties bear land Socal creek will be performing as pure water socal project sometime in the near future However, public works rtc and socal creek water district have coordinated on design and footprint of both projects To ensure that the pedestrian over crossing project and the pure water socal project can both be constructed on apn 029 013 54 Pursuant to code of civil procedure section 1240.610 The pedestrian over crossing project is also a more necessary public use of the easement area Then the use to which the property is appropriated by socal creek water district as the land is currently bear land Furthermore as a result of the extensive coordination between the county rtc and socal creek water district The upcoming pure water socal project footprint Was designed in such a way that it will not be constructed within the area of the property in which the county wishes to acquire the easement Based on aforementioned the department of public works recommends the board take the following actions number one Conduct a public hearing on their proposed easement by condemnation A cross rule property located at 2505 shanticleer avenue apn 029 013 54 and two Adopt a resolution necessity authorizing county council to institute imminent domain proceedings to obtain possession of the required real property interests And i'm available for any questions. Thank you Thank you. Kimberly any questions from members of the board this is a critical project for the extension of Expanding highway one between santa cruz and state park drive Any questions from the public There are no speakers to this item and it's also been brought to my attention that for item of 13 We did not call speakers. There were no speakers to that item either Okay, thank you Um, okay, uh, then we will close the public hearing and return this item to the board Interpret in motion. I'll move the recommended actions Second Move by coonerty second by conic. Please call the roll Thank you supervisor conic All right friend Supervisor friend Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously and did you get supervisor friend on that? Yes, I did okay All right best unanimously, uh, we will go to our final item of the day Item number 14 consider a final appointment of michelle morton to the community health senators co-applicant commission As an enlarge the patient representative for a term to expire December 11th 2022 the nomination was accepted on february 23rd 2021 Any questions from the board? Any questions from the general public? There are no speakers to this item chair. Thank you Move by coonerty second Second by conic. Please call the roll Supervisor conic Hi friend Hi Coonerty Hi Caput Hi McPherson Hi Thank you motion passes unanimously Thank you That concludes our march 9th 2021 Meeting of the board of supervisors. Uh, thank you for Attending a big long day. We got a lot of things especially in the housing homeless subject. So I appreciate everybody's Efforts to to move this forward as quickly as possible This means adjourned have a good day Thank you