 I pledge allegiance to the right of the United States of America and to the republic which stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. Good morning, Mr. Plasio. So are there any changes to today's agenda? We have no changes to the agenda. Thank you. Are there any board members who would like to remove an item from the consent agenda to the regular agenda? Okay, see none. We're going to move on to public comment which is an opportunity for members of the community to address us items that are not on today's agenda but within the purview of the Board of Supervisors or on the consent or regular agenda. Also note that the Board of Supervisor meetings are a limited public forum and comments need to be addressed to an item on the agenda or something within the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors and if the comments don't fall into one of the categories, the board will move on to the next speaker. I believe County Council will assist in identifying comments that aren't related to the subject matter or the board but we welcome everybody that's here today to speak on items not on the agenda within the purview, within the consent agenda, or if you can't stay for the regular agenda, feel free to also comment on that. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning, Zach Friend. Good morning all of you. You know, I hope the only illness that Manikunik has is the illness of consciousness and hopefully he's around a lot of youth to share that. I don't know, I got two packets, it's really kind of interesting. I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to say did you get the memo because I took time yesterday to distribute some stuff here with the City Council, the Santa Cruz Police Department, and the Sheriff's Department. Oh, I opened the wrong thing. You know, the subject has to do with remedies and I'll pull that out later. So you know, I'm not perfect. Everybody's made mistakes. I picked up some information and documents in the basement on how to disbar family law lawyers. I picked that up in like 2013 because I needed to. But in 2016, I wrote a document that was submitted to the Superior Court of California, Santa Clara County Palo Alto Branch. I know I gave it to the City Council. I think Justin, you were on the City Council then. You know, it's interesting what you can do with paperwork. That wasn't what I meant to open up. But there's something that's come up that just, it really is the most awful example of peace officers that I don't really want to see again. I did over the past two weeks watch it again. It's actually nine different officers that are participating and watching and not doing anything. So did you guys get the memo? You know, so as far as the remedies, you know, going back to me personally, I disobeyed a court order. I saw my son as 13th birthday. I went to jail for that cost me $30,000. And I, uh, it was recommended that I do a domestic violence class for 52 weeks, you know, men on Friday nights, six o'clock. The only thing I in common with those men is none of us wanted to be there while that two minutes went up fast. Thanks guys. There's more to talk about. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back. Gary, Richard Arnold, Chairman, supervisors. Yeah, I'm more than Diane Feinstein's death. And I'd like to really make it clear to people that the media AP and everybody else recognize that she had a driver that was a red Chinese communist spy. He was not a driver. This is a picture of Russell Lowe when he was signing petitions, so she could be mayor. She was ahead of the U.S. Senate for an intelligence agency people. And that on a, I mean, Zach Friend feel good to his former employers were registered lobbyists for the red Chinese. Bruce McPherson received front page U.S. News and World Report $30,000 from Katrina Lung, her pictures with the premier of communist China. Bruce McPherson and Sam Farr, who's frequently pictured with the U.N. flag, put together the creation of a Soviet ambag and to reinforce its strength. It's called a cog a council of governments. It's no more than a Soviet. And here's a report about visions in action. It was he used his staff, government time, to attack the Constitution. This report comes from the Paternian and the guy says participation, that there was no flag, no salute, no pledge of allegiance. Immediately I could tell it was a tightly controlled organization with people physically being thrown out and counter literature being taken out. If I hadn't personally saw this myself, I would have guessed it was a ghost of Joseph Goebbels. There were only three questions allowed to be asked. And you have destroyed people's time up here right now. They don't get that information. You had two chairs out for all these people here and only three copies of the agenda. You hate the public and you hate the public's participation. Clean it up. Thank you. Give rid. Report on fault. That family government that's so good. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Gary. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning, chair, friend and members of the board. Tammy Weigel. I'm the I.T. director for the County of Santa Cruz. I want to thank the board for the declaration of support of Cyber Security Awareness Month, not only for our employees, but also all the residents of Santa Cruz County. I am now very happy to introduce our new chief information security officer, Chad Herdine, will speak more on this important month. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you. I'm Chad Herdine, chief information security officer for the county. And this is Cyber Security Awareness Month. And since 2004, the president in Congress have declared this to be Cyber Security Awareness Month. And it's kind of a perfect month. I think it kind of all started with open enrollments. Lots of companies have open enrollments. And this was a target for a lot of bad actors as they call them to try to steal data from people. But it also ties into the holiday season. We all know we're about to get hundreds of emails and correspondence requesting donations or both with a sale that's going to be true. And often, many of these emails are fraudulent. So a few things that people can do to improve your awareness and your security, use strong passwords, make them complex, make them long, make them fun, make them yours, make them something you can remember, but you can make them strong. Use MFA, multi-factor authentication. If you can find it, your application offers you a second way to verify it's you, do it. And read your emails carefully. Are they too good to be true? Are they misspelled? Yeah, be cautious. Update your software. Keep all your software and your applications up to date. And as a lot of friends will ask me, what do I do in this situation? So when in doubt, don't. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you very much for having us. My name is Allison Andrews. I am the president of the Valley Women's Club. I don't want you to be confused. Nancy Macy is still here and she is the still the chair of the Environmental and PG&E Committee. I don't want you to forget that. I'm here to represent the concerns in the opposition to the majority of our membership has placed in our command against the pump track scheduled or at least proposed for the covered bridge at Felton. I think you've received a letter from us by now that delineates some of our concerns, most of our concerns and also some alternative ideas. Particularly like to draw your attention to that letter asks that you not move forward quickly on a decision about this pump track until you've had the opportunity to get the input from the community, not just a few, and also to look at the environmental problems and the safety problems in that particular area. Your next speaker is Brianna Goodman. She is a board member for the Valley Women's Club. She is also the research and director of the pump track opposition project for the Valley Women's Club. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning supervisors. My name is Brianna Goodman. I am a fifth generation Santa Cruz County resident and a third generation Felton resident. I'm here today representing the board of the Valley Women's Club of the San Lorenzo Valley. We have sent you a letter respectfully requesting you consider other locations for a bike pump track in Felton. In that letter, we also requested open public process to allow the Felton community to help decide the appropriate act of use to replace the un-maintained volleyball courts. Thus far, we've received very inconsistent messaging from the parks department on this project. We are told flooding is not an issue at the covered bridge park that floods often, but the alternative location we proposed at the Felton County yard is too close to Bull Creek, which runs underground in a culvert in that area. We are told there will be no parking impacts to the cover bridge park, but that locating the pump track at Highlands Park is impossible due to parking concerns. We are told that the decision on whether a pump track will be built at cover bridge is not a popularity contest, while parks also touts the 1800 signature petition likely full of signatures from aggregate group members from outside of SLB supporting this location for a pump track. Please consider the fact there's also a petition for over 1100 residents opposing a pump track at the Felton Cover Bridge Park. Please consider this project directly violates both the Felton Town Plan and the Cover Bridge Park Master Plan. Please consider another location for this project. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Bridget Sant. I'm a 31-year resident of the San Renzel Valley, and I'm also here to talk about the pump track. And from what I've gathered, and many of us have gathered, from statements made by park staff, the major reason they want to put it in the covered bridge county park is because they really don't have to do anything. No environmental reviews, no revision of the master plan for the park and evidently no real input from the community is needed. The project is low hanging fruit for the parks department and therein lies the real problem with this project. This isn't a project that actually takes the real needs of the community into account because no real assessment of what the needs and wants of the community have been done in 20 years. That would take time and money, both of which the park seems unwilling or unable to spend on this. It seems the resistance to this project has been something of a shock to both the parks and the Santa Cruz Mountain Trail stewards who are helping build this. And that is because no real effort has been made to find out how the community felt about this project. Two community meetings that were stacked with people that are on the Santa Cruz Mountain Trail stewards mailing list and therefore supporters is not a fair assessment of the wants or needs of Felton. As county parks, we actually care about what the people of Felton really want in regards to recreational opportunities and the use of a community park that is the crown jewel of Felton. It feels to many of us that they simply see this as a freebie that fills a space they see as unused in a park that they don't seem to have a real feel for or a true sense of how the town views the park and how it is used. Covered Bridge County Park was established to showcase the historic structure of one of the only two covered bridges in the state. It is not a recreation park like Highlands County Park, which contains a skate park, baseball diamonds, a tennis court, and soccer fields. It is one that was designed by the community to be a relaxing, mellow green space, a place where both young and old can enjoy an island of comb in the heart of Felton. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you for coming down for that. Good morning. Welcome. My name is Cindy Masculinus. Keep my getting closer to the microphone if that's possible. Thank you. You can move. Yeah. Hi, good morning. My name is Cindy Masculinus. I've lived in Felton for over 20 years, and this is my first time being in a meeting like this. So thank you for having this. After almost losing our home and our entire community in the 2020 CZ fires, my awareness of how lucky we are to still be here has been heightened. And for the first time, I'm getting involved in the community. I'd like to ask everyone to look at the process of how Felton came to have the large lawn area of Covered Bridge Park. It came from the Felton Town Plan. And that was created when the community was asked what they wanted. Why are the needs of a special interest group being considered more important than those of us who live here and pay property taxes? Quadrupling an active use space and putting up a six foot fence is not the same thing as fixing an existing 2,500 square foot area into something usable, like a pickleball court or a community garden. This process has created divisiveness and it's showing our youth that you can have what you want and not think of others. That's not how we should be conducting ourselves or teaching our kids or running our community. There are no rules being, there are rules being ignored. Covered Bridge Park is on the national historic record as well as the state historic record. Yet somehow there's no environmental impact report or negative declaration being done. Why is that? Not only is this a historic site the wrong location for a pump track is also incredibly unsafe area to get to in Felton. There's nowhere to ride a bike in Felton. So this is a terrible place to put a pump track, please consider somewhere else. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Benjamin Cogan here and I'm here to address my grievances. So as you heard about AMBAG and globalization and regionalization, I'm here to reinstate the Constitution and say you guys work for the people. All of you should have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against enemies born in domestic and now we're in the domestic stage. As you saw with COVID, they came out with the mandatory vaccines which went against our consent are right as the people to choose and they use coercion to force people in their jobs to take these vaccines. Looking back, you can see that the media lied, Fauci lied and people got harmed, injured and killed from these vaccines. There were side effects. If there were side effects, there should have been considerations and we still have a right to choose what goes in our body. That means that the WHO, the WHO, which is globalist control around the world have somehow superseded the Constitution and told the people above you to tell you what to do to tell us what to do. And none of them took an oath on the Constitution to defend our liberties. Therefore, that is treason and tyranny. And since we're in a learning curve, if there is ever another outbreak or whatever, if you enforce these mandates or these vaccines or these lockdowns again, that is treason and tyranny and you should consider that heavily and deeply. And on the side fact, my dad Michael Cogan took two vaccines and died from a brain aneurysm and they put him on a ventilator and the plug was pulled and he was dead. So the vaccines are suspect and get that into your repertoire. And I yield to say, we didn't vote for any of this. There was no political forum held for this. And you guys did this deliberately to the people and voted for it here in Santa Cruz. And I know the predecessors voted for mandatory vaccines. Thank you, Mr. Cogan. Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning. Well, there certainly seems to be a theme here in Santa Cruz. I'm holding my little notebook on the Constitution of the United States. And I've got it open to the Declaration of Independence. All of you did take an oath and to piggyback on that gentleman's comment. I just heard of a seven year old girl dying after taking the Pfizer shot, which Pfizer's paperwork specifically said they knew it caused myocarditis and periocarditis. And that this was an experiment that was going to be for five years going into 2023 and 24. So to me, that sounds like homicide and murder and it sounds intentional. I'm very sorry for that gentleman's loss. And for the first speaker who was addressing safety as many of you, well, all of you know, you all know who I am. My daughter was assaulted by more than eight police officers. I don't feel safe in this community from our alleged domestic violence agencies. I don't feel safe from our police officers. The statistics on domestic violence are that 40% of law enforcement are harming their own families. So we're not safe from the current police force we have here in town. And Sheriff Hart is refusing to do something about it. Aren't you the manager of this county, Mr. Palacio? Mr. Heath, I tried to get a FOIA request to find out who the attorney's county councils were from 1965 to present and who the legal secretaries were. And nobody could give that to me. What's going on here? I deserve those. We deserve those answers. We deserve to be safe. And all of you sitting up here looking down, not listening to me. You need to do something about the peace officers in this community. Children and women and the disabled and everybody else needs to be safe from the police officers. Or you can just start, you know, slashing all those people out. You can decertify them. That's the remedy. You can decertify ad tops. Thank you. Good morning. I'll come back. Good morning. Buenos dias. I'm Marilena de la Garza. I'm the executive director to the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County. I'd like to acknowledge Tom Batley and Kristen Brown, who are here or on the CAB board, serving on the CAB board. And of course, Justin, I just wanted to give you some information about what's happening with the Community Action Board and the storm assistance for immigrants program. You should know what's going on. We were selected with two other agencies locally, Catholic Charities and Community Ventures to help provide economic support for those undocumented families impacted by the storms. That started July 5th and since July 5th, I am speaking only on CAB data. We have received and submitted, we have submitted over $4 million of requests to help support families who are struggling because they've been impacted, either displaced with their homes or because of their work, right? They lost work because of the storms. And of those $4 million of request, $3.2 million have been distributed locally to Santa Cruz County and the Parle Valley. I want to share that with you. The formula that the California Department of Social Services, which the funding came through, allowed for $4,500 per family, 1,500 adult, 500 up to three, per child up to three kids. But I wanted to share with you because you need to know what's happening on the ground and that the needs are very real. And while $4,500 sounds like a lot of money, it's not a lot when you've only worked three or four months out of the year. So I want to thank you, board, for supporting our Thriving Immigrants initiative. I want to thank our county partners for supporting this work. And I wanted to inform you, we're here to answer any questions that you might have about this important work. Thank you so much, board. Thank you. Thank you for those amazing numbers. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Good morning. My name is Carlos Campos. I'm the Communications Director at County Park Friends. I'm here with many of my colleagues. We're a non-profit organization. We are the partner to the county parks department. We share the same strategic plan based on the priorities of our community and work through a non-profit model to activate it through fundraising, pilot programs, and representative expertise. We launched this work in 2019 based on our success creating Neoshaven at Chanticleer Park. Today, just four years later, we have reached a milestone since Neoshaven opened. With this gift today, we have raised and granted a million dollars for park investments at five county parks, as well as access grants, equity permits, and parkRx programming. The majority of our capital fundraising has been focused on Mid County and Life Oak Incorporated Areas. However, our assessment is clear. The next phase of our work will be squarely focused on the greatest park equity issue we have, expanding access to the parks in Paro Valley. We are excited to work with you on this. Today, we honor our colleague, Brenda Gutierrez-Biasa, County Commissioner on Disabilities and Expert on All Things Accessibility. We are proud to grant 275K towards new rubberized surfacing, accessibility improvements, and playground structures at Floral County Park. County Parks Director Jeff Gaffney, I just wanted to say this is a monumental day and the last four or five years we worked together so closely. It's really a special privilege to be here to see this happen in a million dollars, and it's just a start. So thank you for your support. Thank you. It's an amazing accomplishment. Is there anybody else in chambers that would like to address us before we open it up online? I'm seeing none. Madam Clerk, do we have colors online? Yes, we have speakers. Virginia Wright, your microphone is now available. Hello. Thank you. Thank you all supervisors. I really want to thank you for your work and listening to the public. It's inspirational. My name is Virginia Wright. I live next door to Covered Bridge Park in Felton, and I'm another person speaking about this issue. It's really wonderful that a lot of thought has gone into parks planning in mid-county and now is going to be in South County, but there's a whole other district in the San Lorenzo Valley that has not had planning. Instead, the Parks Department decided without any community input to come into the community and build a pump track. I've gone to all the meetings and been very involved as I live next door, and I'm in the park once or twice a day. The parks, rather than doing planning in the San Lorenzo Valley, the Parks Deputy Director and the Parks Director, Jeff, you spoke with, has told us that the Parks Commission has no oversight about the decision to put the pump track in Covered Bridge Park, that there is no need for community engagement at Covered Bridge Park. It's a purely and administrative decision that current and proposed uses meet current park plans according to them. They have said that it's not a popularity contest, that it's like replacing a park bench to take out the grassy area and put in an asphalt pump track. And the only way it seems that we, the people of Felton, can have any input is to come to you and ask you to not approve the MOU with Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewards and to please ask the Parks Department to do the kind of planning they have done so well in other areas. We in San Lorenzo Valley in Felton need that same attention to our park planning. So thank you very much for listening and we will meet again. Thank you. Rachel Sotos, your microphone is now available. Hello. Good morning. I'd like to elaborate regarding a COVID-era Truth and Reconciliation Commission. First, I'd like to just suggest that establishing such a commission need not be cost prohibitive. There certainly would be no need to hire an external consulting firm. As the example of the commission after apartheid in South Africa demonstrates, the first task is simply to create spaces for public testimony. We don't need any external guidance to hear from those who have been coerced, censored, bankrupted, injured, and or alienated from friends or family. We don't need any external agency to leverage the wisdom of those who know about alternative treatments, detox protocols, and lifesaving early interventions. Nor to hear the detailed testimony of those among us who have occupied traditions of power and authority in the COVID era, both in the public and private sectors. It is important, I think, to hear from every local authority to understand their view of the past three years and whether they have opinions about necessary course corrections. I'm particularly interested to know about medical protocols, informed consent, financial incentives, conflicts of interest, data collection, and the legality and constitutionality of emergency measures. Creating spaces for testimony would be healing and would work towards rebuilding trust in our institutions. I would like to see open discussion with alternative viewpoints, particularly from those who are critical of the CDC, FDA, and World Health Organization. We're living in an environment with rising censorship, but there is also a vital discussion happening outside of the mainstream. If we trust each other, we can bring that discussion into the open and strengthen our community and better protect ourselves and each other. Thank you. Thank you. Call-in user two, your microphone is now available. Marilyn Garrett, thanks to the speakers. Don't ruin Covered Bridge Park with an asphalt pump track. This is a treasure of Felton. Leave it as it is. Take action to halt this project immediately. And I'd like to address the 5G Apocalypse. This is from a film called 5G Apocalypse, The Extinction Event. It's important to understand what the 5G is doing and what they say it's doing. We're told on the IEEE beamforming document that this technology cooks your eyes like eggs in World War II. We all need to understand these are military weapons, these are assault frequencies. If you garner nothing more than that, that's what you need to know. It's microwave radiation warfare. That's what it is. You have been provided over the years much documentation on the dangers of the wireless technology. I'd also like to refer you to Dr. Thomas Cowan. He talks about millimeter waves of 5G. Here's just a sentence and what's happening is the millimeter waves are degrading the oxygen in the atmosphere. So they're actually like people are on the top of the mountain. The second thing is it interferes with certain pathways in your microcondium and it goes on. This needs to stop. You need to fulfill your obligation to protect the public well-being, health, and safety. Thank you, Ms. Gareth. Christine Lindbach, your microphone is now available. Good morning. My name is Christine Lindbach. I'm an attorney in San Francisco and our family has owned a home and felt in California since 1955. Having recently sued the San Francisco Unified School District for Brown Act violations, I was rather concerned when I saw what was supposed to be an agenda that was provided by the county of Santa Cruz or the parks department to the people and the residents of Felton for what was supposed to be a community meeting. I would encourage very strongly your offices to review the agenda that was sent out to the members of the Felton community for what was supposed to be this community meeting because it fails the Ralph on Brown Act in various manners. Secondly, the meeting was also not held according to the Brown Act and I believe that in order for you to have transparency, you need to start this entire process over again. For the last 20 years, I've also been involved in land use matters, having filed California Environmental Quality Act proceedings in the San Francisco Superior Court. I'm terribly concerned that this does in fact need a mitigated negative declaration or even environmental impact report because the covered bridge of Felton, which happens to be the tallest bridge that is covered in the United States, is on both the National Historic Register of Places as well as that of the California's Register of Historic Places. There needs to be heightened scrutiny and review here of the existing setting and the impacts of the placement of an asphalt bike track so close to this bridge in the park. You also have the problem of continued maintenance and mitigation of the liability that you're going to be incurring. I'm very concerned that this nonprofit organization is using county land to promote what it's trying to do, which is promote biking, but using your insurance policy. And I'd also like to find out who is going to be doing the constant maintenance and cleaning of this track to prevent injury. Thank you. Thank you. Richard Gallo, your microphone is now available. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. I'm Richard Gallo. I live in LIBO community. You have my email in your packet regarding my complaint of the county behavioral health department not adequately providing sound language interpretation that I requested. Yeah, it was provided, but only one sound language interpreter instead of two, which is not fair for him to do straight two hours of sound language interpreting when he was having difficult halfway, maintaining professionally and providing the service. And he apologized afterward. And I told him it's not your fault. It's the county. The county chose to provide one interpreter in disregard the request of two interpreters, which is normally provided for a reason. The county has a liability and a responsibility to be in compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. As a person with disability, it's really frustrating that 20 something years later after the ADA, a government entity, was still not being inclusive and providing adequate services. I sent the email to the county behavioral health department after that meeting of the Mental Health Services Advisory Board, and yet I have not received a response back as of today. It just shows the lack of carelessness, malice and unprofessional standards that is causing the county to pose a liability legal issue. Please respond to this manner. It is unacceptable to the disability community and to the ASL interpreter who did it straight, professionally as he could. Thank you. Thank you. We have no further speakers, Chair. All right. Thank you. We will close public comment and we'll ask the board for comments on the consent agenda. I'll begin with Supervisor Koenig, who is attending remotely. Supervisor Koenig, do you have any comments on the consent agenda? Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to start by actually thanking county park friends who just made the presentation of this very generous gift of $275,000 towards Floral County Park. In particular, I want to thank Derek Draper, who lives in the Pleasure Point neighborhood near Floral Park and who kicked off the fundraising effort. Also, of course, Yedira Flores and Lillia Chagola, both of whom really helped emphasize the importance of this park for the mixed income neighborhood that it's in and for access for everyone, the necessity of a new rubberized surface, a new playground there. And of course, thank you to Mariah Roberts, Terry Corwin, and our own parks department for really seeing this effort through to the end. You know, our county receives one of the lowest shares of property taxes in the state, but thankfully we have such a passionate and engaged citizenship that really helps us to bridge the gap between what we have and what we'd like to do. And of course, the county has contributed some funds to the Floral County Park project through taking some of our transient occupancy taxes from people staying in short term rentals. And so working together, we can make it happen. I think this is an amazing example of that. So thank you again. I'd also like to comment on item 20, which is the additional investigator in the sheriff's coroner's office to investigate the rise of fentanyl deaths. Of course, I'm supportive of hiring this additional position. It is, of course, extremely concerning to see a 3,150% increase in fentanyl-related overdose deaths from 2018 to last year. And of course, the actual number of deaths we suspect could be much higher if you go to our Santa Cruz Health.org and look at specifically the opioid prevention and response page. You'll see a mapping of where those potential recorded and potential deaths are. So I hope that we really continue to do everything we can to educate the public about this crisis, particularly getting out into our high schools and letting our students know of the risks here. And I hope that all parents will have frank conversations with their students to understand or with their children to understand the real risks here. Also on item 21, the deputy sheriff training recruitment and incentive pay program, also totally supportive of this program. It's great to see that we've really been incredibly successful with the former incentive program for deputy sheriff lateral hires and have hired 14 folks to date. And of course that they all remain on staff. It's incredible. So I hope that this additional incentive program for new trainees will be equally as successful that we're able to fill the 12 vacant positions. And hopefully it's a program that we can learn from and ultimately use to fill other vacancies throughout the county. And finally on all the storm damage items, items 32 through 36. Thank you to Public Works for all of their proactive work here for pursuing permanent projects wherever possible. So that we're really able to withstand more heavy deluges in the future. I just want to point out that whereas items 32 through 35 are all for this past winter storm. It's item 36. They're still repairing old Santa Cruz Highway from the 1617 storms. I think it points out the wisdom of their current approach, which is to put in the best possible repairs as soon as possible so that we don't, we avoid in the future the situation of fixing storms from six years ago at the same time that we're dealing with new challenges. Thank you. That's all my comments. Thank you, Suvazer Hernandez. I'll select a part. In case you compare it to part, part is part. Okay, there it is. So I guess I'll start over. I'm glad to see that we're on item 29 that we're working with our local non-profit providers and collaborating with them on these projects. It's a project that's adjacent to me but in South County as well. We need to make sure that we work on these projects that whether it's rehabilitate these affordable housing projects or farmwork or housing projects that are in our communities that we work with these projects and non-profit housing providers. And with item 33, I'm very glad to see that we're moving forward with our emergency projects, especially with the winter El Niño storms coming just around the corner. So that's it. Thank you, Suvazer Hernandez to provide some more comments. I don't have any comments on the consent agenda today but do want to also express my appreciation of Friends of County Parks for all the fundraising efforts. Just trying to get more open space and kids outside and people outside is just a health benefit for us all. And so just want to thank you all for your hard work and then just want to also thank the staff that work on the incentivized pay programs for the deputy sheriff's trainees and the recruitment. The more that we can try to continue to incentivize people to come and work and stay here and that we can retain our workers, it's going to be really critical to provide me with the services that they want to see. And so I'll leave my comments there. Thank you. Thank you, Suvazer McPherson. Yeah, I've got to chime in on the Friends of County Parks too for what they've done to really make our community better, especially in the COVID pandemic to allow more opportunities for people to go outdoors to have a family recreation spot in their community. It's really a tremendous effort for them and I think each and every one of them should be congratulated for what they have done to improve our park system in the county. Also the item number 20 that was mentioned, the fentanyl crisis. We read about it day in and day out and it's hit home. This is a catastrophe and we need to address it as quickly as we can with the cooperative effort through every law enforcement agency that we have. And if the public can notify us of any suspicion of that kind of activity or the sheriff's department, that would be very helpful. It's very disturbing that the way it's spread and it's something that we need to address as a community as a whole. Also with the road projects that were mentioned, it goes on. I was at a town hall meeting with the sheriff's department talking about law enforcement issues, of course this last week, but always roads comes into and transportation comes into the subject. It's probably something that we all receive more than anything. Our public works department is doing a phenomenal job with the funding it has. I wish we had more money to fix that pothole in front of your street or your house, the street in front of your house, but we're doing the best we can with the resources that we have. And I just want to thank the county for the public works department and also the regional transportation commission for addressing this. We're going to be in the regional transportation commission addressing the issue for projects that need to be in. We're going to get about $26 million, I think, in the county and we have a lot of projects that need to be done. Certainly more than $26 million, about 10 times that much in the county. So it's something that we're doing the best we can with the resources we have in there to be congratulated for that. Thank you. Thank you. I don't have anything additional to add beyond what was said, so is there a motion for the consent agenda? Second. We have a motion from Supervisor Cummings and a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Madam Clerk, if we get a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Cummings. Hi. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson. Hi. And Friend. Hi, and that passes unanimously. We'll move on to the first item of the regular agenda, which is to consider the selection of J. Capella as the public artist for the 500 Westridge Drive public art project and approve agreement with J.C. Design Studio for a not-to-exceed amount of $41,400 and take-related actions is outlined in the memo. The director of Parks, Open Space and Cultural Services with agenda board memo, the contract information, and Mr. Gaffney, welcome back. Thank you. Board members, I just wanted to introduce actually Judy Stabille, who's our arts commissioner that's going to handle both items number seven and eight. So welcome, Judy, and look forward to the art. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Judy Stabille, county arts commissioner for the fourth district. The arts commission is pleased to recommend for your approval the public art proposal for the South County Government Center at Westbridge Drive in Watsonville. The art selection panel met early in June to review the artist's proposals and again late June to interview finalists. J. Capella was chosen unanimously by the panel to continue in the selection process. At the July 21st meeting of the arts commission, the commission reviewed the panel's decision and voted again unanimously to recommend that your board approve the selection to Mr. Capella as the public artist for Westbridge Drive. Mr. Capella's proposal, a 13 foot tall kinetic sculpture, will provide center visitors and staff alike with a sense of surprise and delight as the breeze and light changes throughout the day and moves the different components of the sculpture. It creates a new composition with each breeze. I'd like to now introduce the artist, J. Capella, who will give a brief presentation of his proposal and answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Capella. Thank you for waiting. Thank you for having me. Good morning. First of all, it's a pleasure. I'm very excited to be here. This is my first proposal for public art. The proposal, as Judy said, a bro little model. It's a kinetic piece made out of stainless steel and it's got moving parts. These rotating discs move in the breeze and I think it make a nice addition to the building at 500 Westridge. That's really it. I think it would be nice to have and to welcome visitors. It's kind of fun, a little bit whimsical and provides something that, I don't know, helps make people day as they enter and exit the building. Thank you. An artist, a very few words. We like it. But let me say that just the description of it, I think it's pretty easy to visualize even without what you had provided. I think that supervisor Hernandez and I've done a lot to make sure that this project comes to fruition and just to see that as something to welcome people into that South County Government Center and the new sense of opportunity in South County Government Center. I think it fits perfectly in the greater vision of what we're trying to do down there. So thank you for submitting it. Thank you very much. Is there any other comments? Supervisor Hernandez? You know, when I seen the pictures and redditions on the agenda packet, I was really satisfied and I showed it to a lot of people that I know and they really liked it as well. But is there any conceptual or what it's about, like your inspiration was or anything about it? It's purely formal. I've been working with things that move and there's no deeper meaning to it or symbolism. There was one thing that came out during kind of the process that I found intriguing, but not really there from the get-go is that the building is the Old West Marine headquarters and some of the elements here kind of tie into, you know, like boat propellers and things like that. Again, fairly coincidental, but that connection I think is something that I don't know people might get. That's what I said. I said it was a wind sale too with little barometers. Well, just take credit for it. Okay. That's what elected officials would have done. We'll get you there, Jay. Are there any other comments from board members? Open up for the community for the consideration of the item, please. Others can be members coming behind you, Jay. So thank you. Welcome. Chairman Supervisor, there's a missing indication on the Chamber of Commerce about natural art. And I'm talking about the numerous trees along Moran Lake and the Mr. Gaffney acknowledged that date or 10 trees fell missing houses. We've had one house where a lady and her daughter were. Fortunately, they were in Los Angeles at the time, not this last storm, but before it went all the way down to the bottom of the deal. I think art is nice and I'd love to see them supported, but parks and recreation, and I believe you have a responsibility to protect those people that are living under those dead trees that are planted in waste ground left from the harbor. The roots are two and a half or three feet deep and there's branches continually falling off over by the parking area. They're all trimmed and nice and made safe. And at one storm, I saw some kid before they made it safe. Two trees fell on both sides of him, but those people there have been ignored continually by parks and recreation. I can't get the name of the butterfly committee or whoever is responsible for this stuff. When that went down, the rate payers of insurance paid for it, not the county parks. Anybody can go over there. It looks like part of a scene from World War II. Take care of those trees. It's like a guillotine. It can fall on the, unfortunately, most of them have been falling on the trail, but people walking along there and a lot of them that fell on the trail was during a summer, during a dry season. So please have somebody, I can't get a straight answer out of Mr. Gaffney about who I need to make responsible for this. And I'd sort of like to get the name of that butterfly committee that prevents them from doing normal work. The Constitution says preserving life is your first duty. Thank you. As a reminder, this is an item about the selection of a public artist. So if the comments could be germane to the item, welcome back. Yeah, hello. I think it's, I'm looking forward to seeing this articulating art. I've made quite a bit professionally in my life. You know, as a plug to probably one of the most interesting and beautiful ever-changing aspects of the county of Santa Cruz, it's the art that's on the walls of all five of these floors. It's truly remarkable what the youth have done and adults. I don't necessarily like all the art in this county, but I'm just glad that this is something that hopefully inspires other people as much as all the artwork, the hundreds of pieces that are in this building right now and are always changing. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers on this item? So I think art for any city is a good idea. If the government is issuing money, it's coming from the people. And so make sure that there's something where the people have a say in what they want and how it looks and maybe have an intention statement in what the art is so that people know what it is that is being put in the community. But I'd rather see city beautification than city destruction. And I'd like to see the money going back to the people and definitely can have a lasting impact. So once again, that's money coming from the people, for the people. That's how it's supposed to be. And just check with the people and see what makes the best freedom everlasting result as a monument to a beacon to stand for freedom, justice. So that's it. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers? Is there anybody online? Yes, Chair. We have speakers. Colin, user two, your microphone is now available. Congratulations. I think art is essential. When I taught elementary school for 30 years, I had art activities every day. And I did love to see the art displayed in the county building there from classrooms all over. We need more of that and less money for destructive things like wireless microwaves, technology and tennis everywhere. And when people call in like to come in on anything, your outgoing message as a state, you will be muted throughout the meeting with all your sophisticated technology. Please change the message. I know you want to hear from the public that says press star nine to raise your hand. And when you recognize star six, people call in and they don't know how to get through because your outgoing message is inaccurate. When are you going to fix that? Thank you. Thank you. There are no further speakers here. All right. We'll bring it back to the board for action, Supervisor Hernandez. I'd like to move agenda item seven, the consideration of selection of the public artist for 500 West Bridge. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. We have a motion from Supervisor Hernandez and a second from Supervisor Cummings if we could have a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson and Friend. Aye. And that passes unanimously. Congratulations. We're looking forward to seeing it. We'll move on to item eight in the same vein to consider the selection of Justin Francavia as the public artist for the Heart of Soquel Public Art Project and improve an agreement with Justin Francavia for not to exceed amount of $27,000 and take promoted actions. That one in the memo, the Director of Public Health and Space and Cultural Services. We have the contract in the memo and Director Gaffney, welcome back. Welcome. Thanks again for arts. We got Judy Stabil again. Arts Commissioner going to be talking to you about the next one. Number eight. Hi. The Arts Commission is pleased to recommend for your approval another outstanding public art proposal, this one for the Heart of Soquel Parkway. The art selection panel comprised of community members, professional artists, county arts commissioners, and a representative of the involved department late in May of this year to review the artist's proposals. And the same makeup of the panel would happen with Jay also. So we try and do a mix of commissioners and public and artists. Two artists were invited to interview with the selection panel on June 20th. The artists were asked to provide detailed drawings or a maquette to further define their project proposals. After much deliberation, the panel chose Justin Francavia to continue in the selection process. At the July 21st meeting of the Arts Commission, the commission reviewed the panel's decision and voted to recommend that your board approve the selection of Mr. Francavia as the public artist for the Heart of Soquel Parkway. The artwork selected by the panel and recommended by the Arts Commission features flora and fauna that can be found near and around Soquel Creek. The artist's whimsical imagery will beautify and enliven the parkway. I'd like to now introduce the artist, Justin Francavia, who will give a brief presentation of his proposal and answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Welcome. Hi. Thanks for having me today. My name is Justin Francavilla. I'm excited to be here. I just want to thank the board for their time and consideration and the Santa Cruz Arts Council, of course, for nominating me in this process. The project will consist of 10 bronze plaques. They're going to be heart-shaped plaques. Each is going to be a different color and they're going to depict whimsical and underappreciated animals that make their home in and around Soquel Creek. They'll be approximately 8 by 10 inches in size. And the drying will remain in brass for contrast. Each will be like an acid washed patina background. And 8 of the 10 will be mounted to existing boulders. The boulders will be smoothed out and the plaques will fit snugly into the boulder. And two of them will be installed in new concrete forms made in conjunction with Tom Wilson Concrete of Santa Cruz. And the bronze plaques themselves will remain at Bronzeberg since Santa Cruz with Sean Monaghan. And I love this pathway. I live about two blocks away from it. So I've been many times scouting locations for the plaques and I brought my daughter. Many times to assist me, she goes to Soquel L, which is right next to the parkway. So what is going to be special and unique about these is that I want them to be used by the kids to make rubbing prints from. So in that way, it'll help expose them to the process of print making, art making, and lead them throughout the pathway and learn about a few creatures that they may not have noticed before. And that's about it. I'll leave it to questions. Thank you. It sounds absolutely perfect. I love the way that you've integrated in the local elementary school and the story in regards with your daughter. I'll open it for Supervisor Koenig. It's within his district. Supervisor Koenig, do you have any questions or comments on the item? Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to congratulate you, Mr. Frank Avila. I think this is an excellent proposal. As Chair said, I also appreciate the fact that you've really highlighted local animals, including ones that are sometimes underappreciated. I like the theme Go For Your Dreams and that these will be both sort of well integrated in the environment with natural materials, but also very noticeable. And the fact that you're integrating the local elementary school is really fantastic. I was looking at your website and thought that your daughter might be a student at the local school there. I'm glad to hear that she is. And I really appreciate that you're going to go the extra mile of working with the students to interact with this art and kind of make it something that they have a special relationship with. So overall, great job. I really look forward to seeing this installed. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig. Any other comments from board members? Chair, I did just actually have a general question about the public art. I was reading through the contracts and it said that although the county tries to maintain its public art collection in good repair and condition, the county is not required to maintain the work to any particular standard and that we may even allow it to deteriorate in accordance with the work's temporary lifespan. I was wondering if the Parks Director could comment a little bit about some of the efforts that we make to maintain the public art that we choose to install because, of course, that means there's such a high quality by such wonderful artists. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig. Yes, we stay in contact as much as we are capable with any of the artists and we reach out to them first before we do any real maintenance. But our staff regularly maintain when the time suits them or they're able to in regards to all the other duties and responsibilities they have. So there is regular maintenance that goes on, but any larger scale maintenance. Kathy DeWild, our Arts Coordinator, is in regular contact with those artists and if we're unable to reach them we try to reach out to somebody who has a similar form of art. Is that answering your question? Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other comments from board members before we open up for the community? No, we'll open it up for the community. There are any comments on this public art item in SoCal? Chairman, Board of Supervisors, I thank you for using the art throughout the building, but I noticed when one walks out to the right-hand side here, it's done by Black Lives Matter of which the two founders said that they are trained Marxists and they took that money that was given to people that were empathetic with their stated cause versus their real cause. It's spent on multiple homes and mansions. Who is knowing? We still have. This board of supervisors maintains two plaques to a Chinese communist spy, Hugh Delacey. Anybody can walk out there on the courthouse steps. It doesn't seem to bother you whatsoever. So it'd be nice to know what's going with the art. At least you should put the background of Black Lives Matter out there that they're trained Marxists. I'm not for censorship. I'm for disclosure. Thank you. Is there anybody else who'd like to address this specifically on this public art piece? I'd be specific. My name's James Ewing Whitman. I'll repeat again. One of the most beautiful aspects of this county is the art that's on the walls. I think it's wonderful that there's some funds being provided for more art in this community. When one looks and drives around the county, there is an incredible amount of art on the transformers of all the frequency weapons in this county. It's everywhere. You put a testing device next to those devices. It goes off the scale with the equipment I have. So in the past three and a half years, it's great that this agenda today is so short. It's a couple hundred pages. I don't think the public really recognizes that over a hundred thousand pages have been rubber-stamped. There's a supervisor in this very room that consistently shows up, walks past me, and picks up the agenda. What's really going on here? We're talking about art and art is great. Art is very healing. I was hoping that retired deputy Mr. Clark was going to be here. He's currently a city council member of Capitola. I wrote something five or seven years ago that that talent could raise at least $300,000 in a weekend with less than $120,000 of initial expenses or $60,000 of that stuff could be used for the next time. So I'll wait till I see Mr. Clark. But it's good that you guys are beating around the bush about a lot of things. I'll be here to comment on other items later. Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers for the public art item? Is there anybody online? Yes, we have a speaker. Colin, user two, your microphone is now available. I would like to see artists compensated more financially than this very small amount listed here. There are so many items on this agenda, on the consent agenda for lots and lots of money. And they should be discussed whether the public wants all these or not. And here's this remarkable artist before you. There should be much better compensation. I very much like that he has included school children and doing rubbings. I used to do that. And I had to leave the phone a minute to feed my cat. But I heard you say something about go for your dreams and something about incorporating the creatures. Is this about gophers? And it made me think of a hilarious song by a local artist, singer Russell Brucet, who wrote a song called Mr. Gopher. And it is fantastic. And he wrote the guitar strings indicating the chewing of the gopher on everything and how it'll chew your bones when you're. But I recommend that song for you to look up, Russell Brucet. It's wonderful. Okay, congratulations, Justin. Thank you. We have no further speakers. Okay, we'll bring it back to the board for action, Supervisor Koenig. All with the recommended actions. All right, we have a motion from Supervisor Koenig, a second from Supervisor Cummings. If we could have a roll call, please. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Cummings. Hi. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson. And Friend. Hi, and that passes unanimously. Congratulations. We're looking forward to seeing it. We'll move on to Item 9, which is to consider adopting a county statement on equity to align county work toward building equitable systems to direct the county administrative office to return on it before August 27, 2024 with an update and take related actions as recommended by community and staff equity work groups convened by the county administrative office and is outlined in the memo of the CAO. Ms. Benson, are you kicking it off today? All right. We'd like to welcome. Thank you for waiting. Good morning. We are getting ourselves organized. Do you guys hear me okay? Yes. Well, thank you. We are very excited to be here today. And by we, I mean, we got, we got a lot of people. This was a really, a really big deal. So very quickly, Elisa Benson from the county administrative offices. Our purpose here today is to present the recommendation for the county equity statement and service to ops plan objective 196 to build a countywide equity framework, as well as our recommended next steps for accountability and alignment. We discussed this work back in January and the intention to work with Cares Justice, our circle on anti racism, economic and social justice and county staff to co-create this statement. We wanted this to reflect the experiences and voices of community members and workforce members who are historically marginalized and underrepresented. Today we will present the background process, the recommended statement itself and next steps for accountability and alignment for your consideration. I'm going to provide a quick overview of what we're going to cover and introduce our 10 presenters today, which are representing both voices and experience of community and our county staff. So here at the table to cover background and the data rich and highly inclusive process is Joy Flynn, Rebecca Hernandez, Bibiana Rocha and Maria Rodriguez. We also have Stephanie Baron Liu, Nijib Kamil, Hector Marin, Jen Herrera, who will be speaking from the podium to present the statement and key components. And Sven will then round it out with recommended next steps for accountability and Bella Bonner will conclude. After the presentation, we'll have time for questions and comments from you all and then public comment and then back to the board for consideration. With that, I'd like to welcome Joy Flynn to introduce the topic and background today. Thank you. Good morning. Ibra Max-Kendi tells us that it is not enough to be not, sorry, Ibra Max-Kendi tells us that it is not enough to not be racist. We must be anti-racist. While it would be nice that anti-racist work would come easily and just happen because after all, it's just the right thing. The fact of the matter is it's not, it's hard, but if it's not hard, you're not doing it right. Acknowledging, identifying, and dismantling systems of oppression is mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging. And what's being presented to you today did not come easily or without its challenges and it's, and it is the culmination of CARESJ, county employees, and community input thus far. The foundation of this work is a result of the partnering with Brenda Griffin and Supervisor Leopold to have racism declared a public health crisis in the summer of 2020 in response to both the murder of George Floyd and too many other black people at the hands of police and the clear disparity seen throughout the nation when the majority of those infected and dying during COVID, during the COVID pandemic were black and brown. That unanimous vote in favor of the declaration was a first step in acknowledging that Santa Cruz was not immune to the systemic racism and that it was committed to beginning the anti-racist work of dismantling those systems and therefore be a part of the solution that our nation so desperately needs. Recognizing the lack of any advisory body who could not only, would not only direct and inform the specific actions the county had been directed to investigate, promote, and operationalize but who would also be able to hold the county accountable. Supervisor Leopold moved to create a new advisory body made up of leaders from the black, indigenous, and Latin communities in Santa Cruz County. Initially appointing Brenda Griffin, Hector Marin, Maria Elena De La Garza, Gloria Nieto, may she rest in power, Carolina Martinez, Gerald Cassell, Consuelo Alba, Julissa Lopez, Taj Lahey, Cat Willis, Isabella Bonner, and myself. Minus Taj and Consuelo, the work toward the creation of forming a formal commission on anti-racism, economic, and social justice began by first deciding we did not want to be a formal commission, rather be known as a circle, signaling that we were actively dismantling the power dynamics that are embedded in the structure. We formally, we formed a new identity ultimately, ultimately, which has proven to be the foundational part of the culture we've created. Creating a new name and dynamic amongst its members, both internally and externally, meant that we were actively dismantling a power structure that othered and perpetuated a value culture base on who was deemed worthy or unworthy or who belongs and who does not, and therefore building shared values, community, and trust. A circle recognizes that each person has equal value and each experience is no more or no less important, helping inform and drive this work. A circle affirms one's humanity and dignity and honors the bravery it takes to simply show up. This is equity in action, and it is at the core of where we started. It has taken a lot of labor to get here, and we believe that this equity definition presented to you today will act as a lens for the county to use as a tool to aid in achieving all aspects of the strategic plan, and thereby identifying and dismantling barriers that have previously prevented community members access to any resources that would help improve outcomes. Overall well-being and also aid in the restoration of dignity. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Dr. Rebecca Hernandez, a community workbook group. Thank you again for your time. Good morning. As stated, I am Dr. Rebecca Hernandez. I am Escalero Apache and Mexican American. I serve as the archivist at UC Santa Cruz, where I work with local stakeholders to promote the acquisition, preservation, and use of archival materials that document the diverse histories of Santa Cruz County. Many people tell me how envious they are of where I live, a beach paradise in the Monterey Bay. That is true. This is a beautiful place, but it's also true that I live in one of the top five most expensive areas in the United States, where many people who live in the county cannot afford adequate housing and are food insecure. Additionally, there is a serious lack of diversity on many levels, not only in terms of income, but also in terms of safety, if you are personal color. Jobs available to you if you are a trans individual, etc. The wealth gap in our county is a constant reminder that we live with a have and have not model in our community, creating resentment and anxiety amongst those who live here. The history of injustice in Santa Cruz County is rooted in the same history that this country was founded on. The idea that what is now the United States was a place wide open for people from Europe to come and start again, creating new futures for themselves. This notion of opportunity came at a high cost to the Indigenous people who already inhabited this place. Brutally removed from our homelands, enslaved, taken to live on reservations and forced to attend Indian boarding schools, we learned that we had to be dehumanized to permit others to get that fresh start. Racist understandings of the other also provided European settlers on this land with advantages only they could capitalize on. Right from the start, this inequity shaped what has become the norm in the United States. Most white folks would have access to well-paying jobs, peaceful neighborhoods, better schools and of significant relevance in our county generational wealth. That inequity and its fallout is why I was eager and honored to participate in the county's effort to compose an equity statement. Just like people of color and underrepresented populations all over the country, we look for ways to work collaboratively for justice and equity here. Because of what I do for a living, I know that Santa Cruz County has a rich history that is often overlooked and individuals who dedicate their lives to teaching both formally and informally about the meaningful alternative histories and contemporary life ways we should seek to center. It was an exciting and big undertaking, one that brought together a wide cross-section of leaders. It allowed for us to work together to craft the statement, one we all hope you will not only adopt, but will do your best to practice. Next is Viviana Rocha. Good morning, board. I am Viviana Rocha. I'm the tax collection supervisor in the tax collector's office and I am Mexican-American, oldest granddaughter niece of my family. What this means is that at the age of 10, I became a translator at doctor's offices, pharmacies and county services for my abuelos, my tías and tios since their primary language is Spanish. When I would get home from school, my abuela would greet me at the door with some of you may have not understood what I just said, which is how our Spanish speaking community feels like when they enter our departments and no one can communicate with them. This was a repetitive inequity that kept coming up in discussion during our staff focus groups and something we can strive to do better at. We county staff are committed to equity. I'm here before you today because I want to see the change within our departments and I'm passionate about helping my Latino community who could be my abuela, my abuelo, tía, tío, or primo, who may not understand the services or resources we provide for this wonderful community we live in. Just yesterday, our auditor's office received a call with the Spanish speaking individual who originally requested information about an insurance policy she believed to have with us. But by being able to communicate with her in Spanish, I was able to ask follow up questions to help her. She ended up needing a copy of her tax bill since she had not been receiving it in prior years and didn't want to pay penalties for not paying on time. I provided her an electronic copy of her current tax bill and sent her an email correspondence in Spanish so she can understand what was being provided to her. I am committed to making steps towards change in our department and providing bilingual forms or communication in Spanish as a start to that. It starts with us so we can be a better county for all. As county staff, we continue to serve the public with pride and fairness. I liked being a part of the equity statement because it gave me an opportunity to contribute to a better workplace. But we need to create more spaces for these conversations because that will open up more possibilities for culturally appropriate services as well as professional and career growth for our frontline staff. So at this time I'd like to pass it over to Maria. Buenos dias, world of supervisors. My name is Maria Rodriguez. I am the Alcanza Programs Director, a program of community action work. In this process, 22 community members participated in this community work group. Together we met four times throughout Santa Cruz County over the course of four months. As part of this collaborative work group, each member completed 10 surveys through one-on-one interviews reaching to members of our community who are not typically included in the county outreach efforts to ask them about their views of belonging in Santa Cruz County, their vision for themselves, their families, spaces they felt they belong, and what barriers they encounter. In my role at the community action board in serving those impacted by poverty, families share the desire for supportive collaborations, innovative environments that promote equity and social change that can lead to more inclusive opportunities for the children and their families. As an example, one of our clients, Martin, he is a young adult with a bachelor's degree. He continues to struggle to secure employment. Due to his immigration status, he continues to work in the fields earning low wages, unable to meet his basic needs for him and his family, continues to struggle with transportation, affordable housing, and access to quality healthcare. It is vital to support our community members who are the farthest from the system designed to respond to their needs. People with history incarceration, indigenous speakers, undocumented families, and those earning less than the livable wage. With that, I'd like to pass a mic back to Elisa Benson. Okay, so we're, thank you all here at the tables. We are now going to move to the podium part of the presentation, and I think Stephanie is next. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you. I'll start us off with a deep breath and on my heart and on the floor of my stomach and just good morning board. My name is Stephanie Brown-Lew. I am Mexican Guatemalan and Chinese and heritage. I'm a first generation college graduate, daughter of immigrants and full time working mother to two beautiful children ages eight and one here in Santa Cruz County. I am also the executive director of a local nonprofit that serves parents and educators across Santa Cruz County called PDCR, Positive Discipline Community Resources, and I participated in the community work group. The county's proposed equity statement is, equity and action in Santa Cruz County is a transformative process that embraces individuals of every status providing unwavering support, dignity and compassion. Through this commitment, the county ensures intentional opportunities and access, fostering an environment where everyone can thrive and belong. We would like to highlight some of the key phrases and words that we believe are important as the county works to align its work to this vision of equity. First, the phrase transformative process. This highlights that equity is in fact a verb and action, something that requires doing and not merely thinking about the word transformative underscores the need for systemic change and acknowledges that superficial adjustments are insufficient. It recognizes that equity requires fundamental shifts and policies, practices and attitudes to address historical and ongoing disparities. Thank you so much for your time. I will now pass it over to my colleague, Dr. Najib Kamil. Good morning, Najib Kamil, Senior Administrative Analyst with the Health Services Agency, Public Health Division, Children and Family Health Branch. So I'm going to touch on the part of the equity statement, individuals of every status. Now this acknowledges the complexity of every person, the parts of themselves that they control, and the parts they have no control over. Race is a social construct. It's used to establish status and justify discrimination and inequity. That's why creating anti-racist systems requires that we look at disparities first through the lens of race. It also requires us to have the courage to explicitly name, discuss, grapple with, and feel uncomfortable with this specific topic. Malcolm X states that the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. And here he acknowledges and encourages us as individuals to embrace discomfort and take action in the present to create a better future. Race is only one part of an individual. It requires us, and equity requires us to examine the complex intersection of race with other identities like gender, sexual orientation, age, income, religion, ability. Furthermore, in Santa Cruz County specifically, this intersection also includes people's housing status and immigration status. Two issues at the heart of which individuals in the county deserve dignity, support, and compassion. So I'll end with this statement from Dr. Angela Davis where she says, you have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time. And we at the county must do it all the time. Thank you, and I'll hand it over to Hector. All right. Good morning, board. Good morning, everybody as well. Good morning, community. That's really such an honor to be here with you all to do this anti-racist work as well. The one thing that is also important in terms of providing this equity statement is also providing the dignity that our people are really deserving of. We need to ensure that there's that mutual respect that institutions, local governments have to provide for our people as well. It's one thing saying a statement, but what does it translate into? What does it physically materialize? What types of resources are being materialized from such a statement? And that's the one thing that the county government can be allies and accomplices in providing so there can be not only equity, but also liberation. The one thing that when we think of equity, we always think of like the three people that are sitting by at the baseball field, looking over at the baseball field, and then there's a wall. And each person is at different heights, and certain people cannot see the baseball field. That's what we think, right? And when it comes to equity, we need to ensure that when we stack the boxes, we need to ensure that everyone is able to see over the gates so they can see the baseball field. However, that is not our only goal. Our goal is liberation, and liberation is the eradication of such barrier, the eradication of such wall as well. And that's the one thing that we can all community come towards to and can also achieve and only that as well. We need to, you know, they see that Chile, which means keeping it real. We got to keep it real with one another and ensure that we all transform these systems in a radical way. It's really easy to say that we're against racism, right? But what are we for? We're for liberation, we're for systems of radical love. And that's where we can all help and ensure that radical change as well. So this is step one. It doesn't stop here. The war continues. And we hope that the county and our community as well joins us in these efforts and struggles. Gracias. Thank y'all so much. And I'll be introducing y'all to Jen Herera. Good morning, board. Jen Herera, one of the assistant directors for the county's health services agency. And I'm going to be covering the part of the equity statement on intentional opportunities and access. Santa Cruz County often ranks as being one of the healthiest communities in California. This past year, we ranked in the top 10, number nine out of 58 in terms of that being the healthiest community in California. However, when we drill down and look at smaller segments of our county by census tract or zip code, we see parts of our community with more barriers to a healthy lifestyle and subsequently different health outcomes. For example, across our county, we have disparities in educational attainment, poverty levels and transportation. By seeing our community members who are struggling the most, our eyes are open to the most severe gaps in our system that impacts everyone. Intentionally centering our policies and programs around those most impacted allows us to create policies where everyone benefits. Equity in action means we have to ensure intentional opportunities and access committing the county to prioritize resources towards those that have the most disparate outcomes. Access applies broadly to our government system, not just our direct services. This year's County health rankings report highlights the impact of civic infrastructure and participation on supporting healthy communities. Civic infrastructure such as schools, parks, libraries, roads and sidewalks help us stay connected and policies that foster belonging make civic participation possible. Civic participation includes the ways people engage in community life to improve conditions that shape their community's future. This includes voting, volunteering and mentoring. We must continue to integrate with the community and rearrange systems to eliminate barriers and unlock our human potential and now turn it over to Sven Stafford. Thank you, Jen. Thank you, everyone. Good morning, Board. Sven Stafford from the County Administrative Office. So far this morning, you've heard from eight of our staff and community representatives that took part in developing the equity statement. And many more here with us today in chambers and watching and listening remotely. Over the past six months, over 1,000 staff and community have contributed to this statement. Many intentionally selected from parts of the community that we often ignore, even though we need those parts to make us whole. Those that participated took a risk by trusting that this process would lead to much more change than an equity statement on a website. So I'd like to mention a couple of the ways that the county intends to keep building that trust. You can think of a strategic plan as a collective impact model for the county, a guide to achieve our vision of a healthy, safe and more affordable community. In January, we will bring to the board for consideration a set of community indicators, measures of well-being that tell us if we're achieving our vision. Those indicators will be broken down by race, ethnicity, and location at a minimum, so that we can align county work towards the intentional opportunities that Jen spoke about in the equity statement. Indicators will also help align county projects such as core investments, climate action, and the community health assessment, and could even help us align with our city education, non-profit, and government, and business partners. The operational plan that we have that the board has adopted are the unique activities that we as departments are accountable to, and that work towards that county vision. Department work catalogued in our equity inventory included in this packet provides a snapshot of dispersed understanding and work towards creating equitable systems. The CAO in continued partnership with staff and community will collaborate to bring our work into alignment with the equity statement through actions that make people's lives better. We'll do this by continuing to showcase and share some of the incredible work that county departments are already doing with support and leadership of the board. We will also continue to build out interdepartmental teams to encourage learning and accelerate results across our six pillars of county work. Those pillars include community partnerships, communications, and education, operations and services, workplace and workforce, plans, budgets, and policies, and county facilities and infrastructure. Over time, we intend to develop standards within each pillar to ensure that every department is asking questions that mitigate bias and work towards systems that allow for dignity. Finally, the county last week kicked off its second cohort of Santa Cruz County Results Count, a 12 month leadership program provided in partnership with the Annie Casey Foundation. The second cohort has 17 leaders, 10 from the county and seven from the community. In our first cohort, we had 15 county participants and one brave community member, Jenny Panetta, from the Housing Authority. Each moving a project aligned towards equitable results and we look forward to presenting more on this work as it progresses. And to close this up, I'd like to invite Bella Bonner up to the podium to speak. Thank you. Good morning, board. My name is Isabel Bonner and I'm a local community member. As we heard today, there are many shared experiences and stories reflecting existing barriers and inequities that exist within our community. CARES-J was created on the values of equity, dignity, anti-racism and humanity. And as you heard today, it's been equity in action that has led each of us through a transformative process that starts from the inside out. The commitment and intentional investment of time and resources that went into the generation of the CARES-J group in this statement are reflected in the thousand community members and voices who took time to share what equity means to them. It's truly a statement that is community-led, values-driven and leads from both the outside in and inside out. And it's the commitment to equity through reconciliation, deep reverence for the wrongs of history, and a commitment to looking forward and moving toward a county where we are all thriving. It is a reflection of the intentionality, courage and honesty needed to correct historical wrongs and imbalances. Equity in action is truth telling, it's reconciliation, it's shared language and understanding, and it's a deep commitment to understanding where we fell short before and where we are all headed together. This work would not be possible for all of those that came before us, those that suffered and continue to suffer under these systems and sacrifices and have been left behind and intentionally forgotten in strategic plans past. This is legacy work shifting systems, this is hard work and this is hard work. And I want to honor and ignore acknowledge all of the voices that came before us, Brenda Gutierrez who we wish a speedy recovery to, and Gloria Nieto who has been a pillar in the formation of our CARES group in this work and spent her whole life fighting for and achieving equity not only in this county but our country. She passed away last September and her spirit and legacy remain in the heart of the work that we do, as do the many other community members and ancestors who deserved more time for thriving. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today and I hope you support this equity statement with open arms and an unwavering commitment to work this work in both your professional and personal lives as community members. It's always the right time to make intentional shifts and actions towards becoming an intentionally anti-racist organization and institution. This equity statement provides the perfect lob to ground our community into this work through shared language and we invite you to adopt this statement and to continue to move this work forward through living out our values as verbs. Thank you very much. Thank you. So that concludes our presentation. We are absolutely here to address any questions around the process, the experience, and when you're ready we would open it for public comment. Thank you. I know that we're most interested in hearing from the community members that are here but are there any brief questions or comments in advance of us having that opportunity? Let me just say also I've been on the board fortunate to supervise McPherson for 11 years. It's really nice to see some folks in here that don't normally participate in the process and it's a good reminder always that the voices that there are a lot of voices that don't participate in the public process that need to be amplified and so I just want to tell you how refreshing it's felt to be in the room right now among a lot of these voices. So I appreciate that. Are there any comments or questions in advance though of when we open up for public comment? Supervisor Cummings. I just want to thank the Board of Supervisors for moving us forward back in 2020 and for their commitment to this work. I think it's really important work in our community and it goes to show for how many people were willing to participate in this and I just also want to thank the staff for doing such a great job of trying to reach the people who normally don't get reached in this community and the reported eye technology is over a thousand people who participate in surveys the range from community members to county workers and I think it's really great that we're getting all these diverse opinions to really bring us to this point where we have a statement on equity for our community. The one thing I did see in the report regarding kind of future steps and some of the data that would be used I know that there was a mention of kind of looking and breaking down the census data and I do want to just highlight that the 2023 Santa Cruz County State of the workforce report has a lot of that data already broken down on who has access to housing who has home ownership where we're seeing disparities in education and jobs and so I think that leaning on that too is really critical so that we can start figuring out you know who is in our community who has access to the best jobs and how we can make sure that we're seeing that through a lens of equity and trying to move in a direction where we see upward socioeconomic mobility for people who have historically been in poverty and so just wanted to highlight that because I think it could be a good starting place and I'll leave my comments there. Thank you. Thank you. So does Hernandez have anything for we open up for the community? Well we can open up for the community. Yeah I would like to hear from the community so please anybody to be interested in addressing us on this item please feel free to step forward. Yeah hello my name is James Ewing Whitman. Mr. Stafford I want to thank you for when you were talking briefly you mentioned race and ethnicity. I don't expect people to believe a word I say but they should do their own research. There's many mammals on planet earth. People can confirm that the Homo sapien sapien has not of the Homo sapien sapien which I mostly still am. The pig the boar or the mouse the D.A. is 97 percent identical to the human being. We are all of one race. There's really some vocabulary issues you know if I had more time we could go back you know specifically in the why in the last 150 years human beings. Human beings were said 150 years ago if somebody were to come into a town square and recite a 250 to 350 line poem 95 percent of the individuals would have had that memorized in one listening to what has happened to us. So you know sometimes it's easier to keep pooling a fool than to convince a fool that they've been fooled that's Mr. Mark Twain. We are all of one race but we seem to be separated and fighting against each other and there's really issues with fertility. That's really the biggest problem going on on the planet and we all should treat each other with respect. We should have some grace you know and allow forgiveness and redemption to happen for people. There's so much stuff going on in here that's not being discussed. Maybe the people in this room don't know that I have better attendance during public comments and other times than any one of these supervisors over the past three and a half years. They used to have good attendance in the city council but they closed that down for two years. So let's keep the dialogue open and I'd love to continue this conversation further. Thank you. Welcome back. Thank you. I would like to share my experiences here in Santa Cruz County as all of you know because I've mentioned it before I was born and raised here. I'm Hispanic. My parents were Hispanic. My mom worked for the county council's office and she had no problem getting that job. I went to Brooknell Elementary. I graduated from Harbor High School. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz. I've not experienced the kind of alleged racism that these groups and the current narrative is being pushed for. Here's my Hispanic daughter being attacked by police officers and once again George Floyd is referenced yet this group is not interested in the fact that my Hispanic daughter was strangled by police officers here because I guess it doesn't fit the narrative and I find that really despicable and I find it really offensive that there are people trying to say that we have a racism problem here in Santa Cruz because I'm not experiencing it. We have such a diverse population here. We have restaurant owners and of every diversity you can think about which is something that I really love about Santa Cruz is how diverse people are, how accepting this community is and I see a lot of desperation and try to fomenting a false racist narrative. Words like equity and transformative. To me that's propaganda to try to usher in some sort of communist style regime into Santa Cruz. We are equal. We have equal opportunity. That means we get to work hard and we get to elevate ourselves into whatever place we want to be and I've done that. That doesn't mean I show up here poor and then make other people pay my way through life and that's what it sounds like is happening here is a lot of people want to move here who don't have money and they want to make the battered middle class finance it and we don't have the money. We're already bleeding to death. A billion dollars and we've got potholes you said you can't get to really this is a bunch of crap to me. Morning welcome. Chairman board of supervisors there's nothing they said that wasn't in agenda 21 under equity and social justice. By the way I think there should be more disclosure. The CIA influence is rampant in here. Mr. Stafford here for instance and Bruce McPherson is connected with California Forward which was co-founded by Leon Panetta who was head of the CIA. Also when I go through the people in here we find that they're from the Scott Kennedy's Resource Center here and it says they're interchangeable with the fellowship of reconciliation and the war resistors league. In Europe it is a communist party a leaflet that was over at the Resource Center says instead of attacking sovious Russia we are we appreciate the contributions and build here in this section of the world an order that has all the values being created by the Soviet Union and that's what this is it's been updated that called 2030 and that's a program that a lot of you people as willing as you are you're being trained by these various people I mean the Resource Center I see a number of people the site the ACLU that was founded by Roger Baldwin you can look it up in Wikipedia he said I'm a socialist and communism is a goal and that's exactly what these people are doing here it has nothing to do with free enterprise uh Cesar Chavez is rolling over in the grave because you haven't taken a stand against seven a half million people coming over the border taking the jobs of Mexican families and and other ethnic people they're the best free enterprises around the people from other countries that come through here legally not illegally from red china and they're not even tested for diseases but you shut down half of the businesses or a big portion of the businesses here thank you all right good morning welcome hello hi my name is Tim Delaney I live up on the summit and uh I am a former I guess I'm a retired communications computer systems engineer for Lockheed Martin so I worked a long time a long time retired and my fingerprints might actually be on Mars on our spacecraft computers my hands were all over on our spacecraft computers anyways I'm not always good about communicating and everything I'm not a lawyer I'm not a politician okay I I'm a doer all right that's the kind of individual I am and uh you know I have a lot of concerns um you know I came from a very low income background and my household was violent it was difficult okay as a 20 year old man you can imagine me in Reno, Nevada and 100 degree heat you know doing smart contracting work you know building foundations for all sorts of people you know for their houses I would work from 530 in the morning till about 730 in the evening and you know you work 530 to one o'clock in the afternoon get over the heat then you're out there the crowbar all day long stripping foundations I worked all sorts of service industry heavy lifting type of jobs you know heavy manufacturing engineering type of jobs and whatnot I spent a lot of time on my feet and uh I worked my way out of that and that's how I I ended up at Lockheed Martin with my engineering physics degree and I was at the center of our Mars missions and our space telescope the infrared space telescope that was so successful so I did a lot of good things the one thing I don't want to see in society is people fighting and taking the books out of our schools and everything okay from you know the very far left and the very far right that's destructive to our children in American society and that's not going to keep us on top of the technological dog pile okay thank you thank you so much have a fine day good morning council member brown welcome back good morning chair friend and members of the board yes my name is Kristen Brown the vice mayor in the city of Capitola but I'm here before you today as a community member to encourage you to adopt the proposed county equity statement I would first like to thank the board members the staff and every single member of the circle for their hard work and dedication and moving this forward we as a community are truly indebted to you for encouraging progress in our county this statement embodies the ideal of inclusivity that our community holds dear and moves us in the right direction towards addressing inequities they're impacting too many of our friends and neighbors in Santa Cruz County equity in action is not near merely a phrase it is a commitment to ensuring that every individual regardless of their background or circumstances is afforded dignity support and opportunity let us lead by example and make Santa Cruz County an intentionally anti-racist institution that strives for equitable outcomes in all that we do by adopting this equity statement we are taking a significant step forward towards a brighter and more inclusive future for our entire community thank you thank you good morning welcome back good morning my name is Serge Cagno executive director recovery cafe I proudly was one of the members who helped craft this equity statement I wholeheartedly support accepting the statement its inclusion in the county strategic plan as our statement says the county ensures intentional opportunities and access to do this it's necessary for collecting data and how many people and what types of each demographic receive our services and the services of nonprofits contracted with the county but there's another data set that's vital to ensure that we're moving towards equity that data relates to people who are excluded from services who are kicked out of programs or banned from services these people that do not these people do not have equal access or inclusion in some ways some county departments do keep data on grievances for medical compliance and for a few other reasons but demographic information was not required and those kicked out were filing grievances in our emergency COVID shelters emergency weather shelters or our contracted shelters or our housing programs it's not possible to ensure equity without this data being collected whether we want to ensure equity in regards to race to gender identity to disability to mental health status this data needs to be examined I would posit that this data will show and allow us to improve our programs those with mental health challenges are among the first and most consistently kicked out of our programs and forced to continue to try to survive on the streets our programs are required to be trauma-informed but without requiring demographic data on exits being collected by our programs and contracted nonprofits it's impossible to ensure equity please direct the inclusion in our strategic plan the collecting of this data many thanks for your work and I wholeheartedly support the equity statement thank you thank you for your work good morning welcome back good morning good morning my name is Yadida Flores I am a mother of four and I would like to start telling you how my days start today so I wake up I turn in the morning make breakfast for my four kids bring them to two differences schools and then get ready to be here today sorry working the care day gave me hope and I am a mother of four and there were different hats in the community I am a commissioner I am a board member and many more things but I make space in my time and my agenda and in the life of my kids to be here today in front of you sorry you're doing great don't worry about them because Kars-Jay gave me hope hope of a better county when my kids can try and be part of a county that cares during my work with Kars-Jay I interview more than 20 people I translate the questions for them and allow them to write in the language because living a better life is good and it's essential for the community to have a healthy community so today the ball is in your car and I invite you all to adopt this because it is right thank you thank you good morning my name is Amy Canis-Alperes I am a proud daughter of immigrants and I'm here to support and encourage you to act on the equity statement I am one of the community members that that was a voice in the statement and I just graduated high school in May and this community I've grown up here and it holds a very special place in my heart but I've also seen it to her a lot of families apart and I've also had to translate for family members and we don't show up here poor we we make a better life and we do it to the best of our abilities with poor healthcare and also conducted surveys for young kids and for teenagers and communities who are often overseen and I think it's important that stepping into my future I want to see this be acted on and I want to thank you all for passing the statement and thank you for your time. Thank you thank you good morning Supervisor Leopold welcome back to the site also acknowledge your work in leading this effort from the beginning. Thank you Chairman Friend it's wonderful to be back I was asked to come today by members of the Cares Jays committee and I'm here to strongly support the equity statement that's before you in 2020 it became clear as we saw actions around the country that we needed to address the systematic issues that of race equity in our country in our county the county was not this wasn't completely new to the county our probation department had been doing disproportionate minority confinement programming for years are we saw during COVID that our public health department also started looking at the disparities in race by by what was happening with that pandemic but I met with Brenda Griffin and and Joy Flynn and they helped draft this the the um resolution declaring racism a public health crisis and I was proud that the board adopted that unanimously that led to the creation of a group that we now call Cares J and it was thoughtfully created to have a diverse group of people and I see uh uh uh several members here today and you know what I think about Hector and Kat and and and um and Joy and Brenda uh are our good friend Glow who's no longer with us or Gerald or I'm sure I'm missing uh uh folks um the idea was to try to wrestle with what we as a county could do um the the county had thoughtfully created a strategic plan and so we had something that we could use uh and I was incredibly impressed by the work and workshops that have gone involving a thousand people I'm particularly happy that that it also involved line staff who are on the front lines who are the ones who engage the public to get their perspectives on this. Lastly I'll just say that I'm grateful that this I'm hopeful that this board will continue to support this activity I'm thankful for the work of the staff I'm humbled by the work of the of the of the circle and I want you to know that as you go through this there are going to be parts where it's going to be uncomfortable we have to take on uh different elements of our own uh internal biases and our systematic biases and I want to encourage you to to to not to not retreat when those happen but to lean into that uncomfortableness uh and I also want to thank you Supervisor Leipold. I'll conclude by saying I'll conclude by saying that uh that the work that you do here at the county should be something that you use and the work that you do and the other committees and commissions and boards that you serve on this is work that we have to do not only in the county of Santa Cruz but in all the different ways in which we work in the community. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Good morning welcome back. Good morning Board of Supervisors my name is Lonnie Faulkner I'm the founder and director of Equity Transit and I'm also in of Indigenous Polynesian Heritage. The very system with which we operate is integrally built on structures and practices which we often do not recognize as inequitable. An equitable system must ensure that we go a step further than simply having representation from our underrepresented community members at the table. Equitable systems must actively ensure that our underrepresented community members are full stakeholders from the foundation through the fruition of every plan every process and every decision that is made in our county agencies. It is not enough to have an equity circle that brings forth recommendations that guide our representative leadership here on the Board of Supervisors and across leadership bodies such as the Regional Transportation Commission the Planning Commission our Health and Human Services and other agencies so forth. In fact when recommendations are made by our circle and our equity stakeholders it is essential that those recommendations be clearly understood by our commissioners and taken seriously rather than simply voted down after months of convening and collaboration. Racism is a public health crisis as is the rise in our anti-LGBTQIA process community. The commitment to anti-racism and economic and social justice supports the commitment to support all of our community members so I urge you to support the statement on equity and thank you for your time. Thank you. Maury and welcome back. How you doing? My name is DeAndre James. I am a Native American and African slave descent. I am not from Santa Cruz County. I came here via Chicago, Illinois and I've been here quite some time. By day I'm the Executive Director of the Community Health Trust of Powell Valley. By night I live in Scotts Valley so I get the pleasure to drive this county every day and work through this county from one side to the other daily and so that's a pleasure I get to do and working in health and nutrition sometimes the word diet is taken out of context and they say oh it's about what I have to give away and so sometimes I feel like the word equity gets put in that same category it's about what you have to give away versus what you have to increase in your life and so adding positive things and positive things in your life is what we need to do and currently do and our symbol of the county says sin reduces which is without prejudice for me this statement is just saying how we're going to live up to that statement how are we going to live up to our seal how are we going to continue to do that because if you haven't taken one day to drive this whole entire county try it eat in Scotts Valley eat in been loman I eat in Watsonville I eat in our row right one day take one day so I appreciate your time and I hope that you do take this statement serious I was pleasure to be with everyone to actually create it and when I saw it I said I got to be here today so for my last 25 seconds I'll give it to Leopold and that's to cancel them out for the rest of the day thank you good morning welcome please yes you're next so um is that okay sure but if you could also you pull the microphone closer to you so we could hear hear you because I can't look at you guys faces I was gonna look at menu because ma'am we can't hear we would need the microphone or we can't hear the people online can't hear you well you know 13th avenue I've lived since 72 since 72 I'm from New York Staten Island I'm a mutt I'm Scottish I'm all kinds of I'm mainly Scottish so this is Christmas and coming I'm doing volunteer work in our town I love Santa Cruz I think all people are created equal isn't somebody say that in the declaration of independence in the Constitution all men are created equal no matter what color you are not black lives matter all colors so I say eat the rainbow and I got in trouble doing that my neighbors have riled up against me I've been into Gale I'm 72 no 73 and I'm going on 30 and I'm saying that I will say what I want to say because I pay taxes and I vote and I'm not going to vote I'll vote for Manu I've known Bruce he used to come to the Babing Brook I served him lunch I've been in this town 20 years 20 years on the east coast I raised my kids on the east coast I have three children and my husband committed suicide four years ago on our anniversary on September 1st our anniversary 53 years of marriage after being you know he's had a lot of things he was a PhD in the university he got taken down with Paul Lee Dr Paul Lee which is a famous name in town also got financially over a PED okay so um and that's a whole nother FBI connection to what I'm supposed to be doing in my life but I've been housing unhoused people and I'm probably going to run out of time which I thought this is what I've been giving out to people who are basically in your chair and they have their legs and they're going around town saying I'm okay I don't need anything and I say yeah come to my house and stay in my backyard and talk to the cats and that's what I've been doing I've got I've been in jail I was in jail with Denzel Washington's daughter who got taken into jail and she sang amazing grace with me in in the holding pen thank you if you want to visit the jail and I tell people thank you ma'am yes thank you for coming and Sharon yes thank you thank you ma'am but thank you for sharing you can see you he's online good morning welcome back it's Shannon Sullivan my parents moved to this county in 1973 I live in Aptos I have been working for the county of Santa Cruz for coming up on 23 years and what I'd like for the board to consider is that this is not the equity statement is not something that's been handed to us or pushed on us as the county this is something that your county workers participated in many of us took jobs working for the county because we wanted to serve and what this equity statement gives us an opportunity to do is to remind ourselves every day about what service really is and about why we're here so I hope we take this seriously I urge the board to accept this and pass this and I urge all of us to remember every day why it is we're here who we're working for thank you thank you morning welcome back thank you for waiting good morning supervisors and community my name is Sarah emmer I'm the director of community impact with united way of Santa Cruz county those that know me and that have worked with me know that I care deeply about equity and community well-being and the range of issues that I've worked on in the community ranging from youth violence prevention housing mental health use substance use criminal justice reform child abuse prevention healthy eating active living really equity or inequity is at the core of many of these social issues that we're seeing in our community I was honored to be invited to participate in the committee to help develop the equity statement and I partnered with the county office of education representative to engage young people in alternative education schools in the process and some of the themes we heard were from the young people themselves were the importance of access to caring adults in school and folks that young people can relate to the importance of access to after-school activities the importance of access to nature and creating a sense of belonging in those spaces and the importance of supporting families because we know that healthy families equal a healthy community I want to acknowledge the county leadership staff and the courageous cares J representatives and for your commitment to equity and action willingness to do things differently um engaging community having challenging and courageous conversations um in being anti-racist we will improve the lives of all in our community thank you thank you and thank you for your work morning welcome morning and my name is abby mustapha and I'm an artist living in Santa Cruz I love it here I love my community I love the work that I've gotten to do and I wanted to acknowledge how much work it takes for people to show up and to actually say about their experiences everyone in this room is having a very different experience and I'd like to acknowledge that but there isn't one experience that is way more valuable than the other it's terrifying to be here right now I've received hate mail that is very very in alignment with a lot of the words and the aggression that have been spoken in this room there I say almost to a T so it is hard to show up and show my face after getting threats like that and that's just my experience we know that there are a lot of people in this room also having terrifying experiences when we have to show up in the face of aggression but I also in all of this want to just acknowledge that we're all having different experiences and that's what this equity statement really really is important to acknowledge and to and it's about equity and just acknowledging how different of an experience we're all having so I do support this equity statement with all of my heart and I also want to acknowledge and respect the experiences of people that are in this room that are having very different experiences than me you know nobody should have their child attacked by police nobody should feel threatened there is a difference between oppression and losing a little bit of your privilege and there are times when people who have experienced a lot of privilege might feel like equity or equality is oppression and I guarantee you it is not it is discomfort and I wanted to acknowledge that as well so thank you for everyone who's shown up it can be terrifying and we're all having different experiences and I respect everyone's experience in the room and it means a lot that you've taken the time to listen to everybody and to consider this statement thank you thank you good morning welcome back thank you so much and thank you for your service um so I just want to say I'm a white woman I do not get the threats that were just referenced pointed at me I have power I have privilege I have health I have ability and equity is my issue racism is my issue taking action every day anti-racist action is my commitment and all of our responsibility I am beyond grateful for the colleagues community members county staff who have put so much labor into this work through the Keras J circle and all of the surrounding work I encourage you to adopt this statement it's the opposite of creating division it is a first step towards unity this is honesty this is data driven and this is our community please support this step take this action please lead thank you good morning welcome back good morning my name is Elaine Johnson and I'm here represented as the president of the NAACP I want to thank everybody for taking the time to to open up this space for where we can speak freely and and share honestly about our experience living in Santa Cruz County um you know I speak on behalf of the community who um to the NAACP were concerns about whether being treated unfairly because of the color of their skin treated unfairly and not be able to get housing because of the color of their skin treated unfairly because they're they're supposed to be at the wrong place at a wrong time and though I ask you to adopt these these words that was spoken here today I really want to actually I want more we we have to show up differently in this community we can come here and we can do the work and we can present the work that is needed to make change in this community but but everything everything speaks on action you know I speak from somebody coming from the Bronx New York City I know what change looks like because because I've done it I've lived it and that was one of the reasons why I stepped into this role and so I know that the county of Santa Cruz can do this but it's going to take each and every one of you that's that is sitting behind this glass and sharing it not not just with you know but within yourselves but with really with your colleagues and your friends and your neighbors and all those other people who have concerns with the color of people's skin who have concerns that that's something going to happen if they see someone African American walking down the street and then call law enforcement and find out that the person was just doing what they need to do I think it's incredibly important that we that we start moving the needle forward that conversations are good but actions are better actions are so much better as someone who's lived here for 20 years I'm not going to lie when I walk out of a restaurant and see a man slash my tires still traumatize me to the state and calling me to n word and I've never ever had that experience growing up in New York City so I ask us I invite us let's make this change because we all deserve to be here thank you good morning hello again uh Benjamin Cogan here I want you guys to know that my grandma grandma Joanne Smiglia was born on the ship coming from Italy my mom is full blooded Italian Roman Catholic and my dad is a German Polish Jew his last name used to be Cohen and changed to Cogan when he came here to the states everyone here is an immigrant and came from somewhere except for the Native Americans the constitution gives us life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and it is your job to instill that to us and you are our representatives to listen to us and our rights come from God and they're given to us by our creator or whatever you believe and from my experience we fought hard and I believe in the work and the teachings of Martin Luther King to get here to all of a sudden create some focal point on creating the thing we don't want the real if we're really fighting for equity and we really want to stand for oppression you guys are the ones are preventing us from being free by taxing us property tax by making it so we have to get permits by not allowing natural right to travel to stop and frisk in New York everyone complains how they target black people but it's unconstitutional search and seizure of our personal property if you got rid of the seatbelt law and allowed people to drive their cars which is their personal property we wouldn't have cops harassing people doesn't matter the color of your skin so I'm here just to say as a human being that I'm not paid to be here and I'm not part of the government or anything and the people following Leopold he was the deciding factor in getting rid of the citizens appeals board a check and balance system to keep pure you guys are accountable and not have un corrupted or sorry corrupted government control without the oversight of the people so this group really wants equality they reinstate the citizens appeals board thank you please feel sorry step forward thank you for waiting yes my name is tom batley and as I reach my term limit on community action board for representing county at large I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to represent you with cab um this country was founded on the idea of equality of the idea of opportunity for all peoples as we move forward in history we've had presidents step up like fdr and um um johnson to provide opportunities for all people to have the opportunity to to strive and uh support the communities that they live in cab was founded on the war on poverty and has worked since then to create the opportunity for all people to have the opportunity to be um community members that that are given the opportunity to be part of and heard in the community you have to remember that money and corporations are not part of the community the community itself is only as strong as the individuals that need the opportunities to thrive and be community members so I encourage you to look at this statement and adopt thank you thank you thank you for your work good morning and welcome back good morning I'm Marielena de la Garza and um I've been part of the cares justice group circle when john called me supervisor john called me and invited me to be a part of it I said john are you sure you want me um are you sure you want to hear what I have to say and he said yeah and he welcomed me and he um invited me to be part of the cares justice circle and then I met the activists that were also invited and um some people I had never met before and um it was such an incredible space to uh share the conversation um to share the courageous conversation that needed to happen to move this work forward um and then we saw county partners who were willing to to make the invitation and to do the work and it was not easy y'all it was storming it was a difficult conversation and an uncomfortable conversation and we learned how to work with each other to move this work forward and so I want to say I'm born and raised in this county I'm a product of Watsonville California and I am really proud of that I'm a product of this community my mother was from Mexico my father was Texan um I went to school in LA in a very white elitist school and I came back to serve my community and I've been working in nonprofits for 33 years and I want to say that this statement is important because over racism still exists in this community because systemic barriers still keep people from thriving because segments of this community do not feel like they belong and because there will be voices you will never hear at this podium you will never hear the voices they will never take space but they are here and you have a responsibility to them and this statement is part of that responsibility and I am proud of this work and I urge you and I I am want to express my gratitude because I know you're going to adopt it thank you Madam clerk are there speakers online yes chair we have speakers calling user two your microphone is now available Marilyn Garrett and I want to thank the presenters for their informative and moving input to this whole process I'm thinking racism is a public health crisis racism is integral and embedded in capitalism the profit system from you know when slavery was in existence why why did they enslave people but for profit of the plantation owners so I think we have a whole system problem if it needs to be folk of structural obstacles something needs to be changed in the structure and personally I would be in the room and you talked about equity in the access but the county building and other places have so much wi-fi microwave radiation from all the devices on the roof cruise aisle all kinds of facilities up there that are cancer causing microwave radiation emitting facilities some of you may have a headache or feel nausea or you can't think clearly in that room so there's no equity in access for people who are made ill by these exposures another thing the board could do you stated for the consent agenda items are items considered routine and non-meeting discussion it used to be the public you could just please briefly on every item on the agenda and only you five men comment now that needs to be changed we need to thank you miss Karen and help thank you for your comments are there any other speakers online yes Bernie Gomez your microphone is now available right good morning board chair um and uh those presenters that uh that spoke about equity uh want to appreciate your your hard work you know um and your willingness to come forth into a space like this right knowing that there will be different type of feelings and comments um I am Bernard Gomez born and raised in district four in waltzville my grandpa was part of the bracero program I am a son to migrants right coming from Zacatecas in Calvila Mexico I am an indigenous man of Mexican nationality um and when I think about equity you know I think about um racial equity when I think about working towards equity I look towards what does north county have that south county doesn't have right um equity you know such a contentious and one of those uh it's one of those terms you know that is thrown often you know thrown around often you know um but if we're going to measure in my eyes we're going to measure the success of equity of this statement it's really going to be um how this county is going to impact south county you know for uh generation south county has been left out of uh all decision making right left county has been uh at the forefront of the over policing right has been at the forefront of uh poverty you know just thinking about the current you know 83 percent or 82 percent of waltzville's brown or of color while 73 72 percent of it lives under the poverty line you know so just uh I want to see south county uh uplifted you know with uh yeah thank you thank you very comments are there any other speakers on mine harina marino your microphone is now available hi thank you Buenos dias um so my name is ganina moreno and i'm a program leadership coordinator at meepa i'm also a human services commissioner and a lifelong resident of waltzville and i just want to say to the board like i appreciate you guys for sitting through some of these comments from both sides and i also really want to say a big thank you to the sea school who took time out of their lives to really work to survey real community members and gain their trust so that they're able and feel good to share their real experiences about living in santa cruz county and i just want to say for those who who don't have the trust or access to those willing to share their experiences i want to offer a quick google search you know for um there's a good good times santa cruz good times article that shows that segregation in our county has increased from 1990 to to 2019 and this is according to uc berkeley's roots of structural racism project so there is data to prove it there are numbers and people's experiences and i personally i have lived it i've lived here my whole life and i have been working to to make the sacrifices that my grandma's made to move here to move to waltzville to work in the canaries to try to leave everything they had behind to make a better life and i just ask people you know to really try to dig deep and tap in and to their empathy and try to acknowledge that if it's not happening to you that does not mean it is not happening and to the board i ask that you do move to adopt this statement so that in santa cruz county equity can be upheld in public policy and eventually make it into our daily lives because the idea of this statement of including equity isn't to give unfair or undeserved opportunities but to compensate for different circumstances and consequent needs that are a result of previous policies thank you nancy yellen your microphone is now available good morning supervisors um this is nancy yellen from district one and i want to encourage you to adopt this equity statement and i also have the first action that you can take in order to um achieve that and that is during these meetings you don't do other work you don't look down at your computer you don't get on your phone you don't write you can write notes but i don't know if you know this but when the when the when the camera pans to you you are looking down i'm on a lot of meetings and it is pretty prevalent particularly in the newer supervisors by the newer supervisors so that is my first recommendation um supervisor konig um miss you today but i'm glad you're on the on the meeting thank you we have no further speakers chair thank you and thank you for everybody um do you already spoke sir yeah on this item no we we've apologized i can't open it up for a secondary comment i do appreciate it um we're going to start with supervisor konig just because he's remote that makes most sense i think from a full perspective to supervisor konig do you have any questions or comments on the item thank you chair i do have some comments i want to begin by thanking all the people who found child care took time off of work and found the courage to come out and speak on this important topic today i want to thank all of the county employees that have helped us to get to this point i want to thank the supervisor leopold for everything you did to initiate this work and i want to thank the cares j circle who did outreach to so many people and i think in many ways it's very wise that cares j decided to call some call themselves a circle and not a commission uh while we do have a lofty goal um i think achievable one uh within the county of increasing by 60 the number of a Hispanic and latino south county residents on our boards and commissions i think the very it's true that the very structure of commissions can often be prohibitive uh because of the time that they meet in the evenings um and so we really need to look at ways to move beyond just the commission structure to do more public engagement and i think again it's very wise of the cares j circle to acknowledge that just even in their name on the equity statement i think uh it's really a beautiful statement i appreciate that the uh that it's really driving us towards action the word transformative means that we are going to change from where we are today to something that a society and a group of laws and county code that is more equitable uh and that we are going to intentionally create opportunities and access i also wanted to call out something that was included in the memo for today but that is that racism and other forms of bigotry make life worse for all of us the example given was that in 1850 at the founding of our state uh california imposed a foreign miners tax which targeted primarily chinese and mexican immigrants and the effect was that mexican and chinese miners quit and depressed the primarily european mining economy creating impoverished uh and creating impoverished chinese enclaves and cities the result was that everyone lost from this racist law and i think that as we we should keep that in mind as we look at how racism and bias are embedded in our laws still today and in very subtle ways i mentioned the commission structure but another big thing uh is actually our zoning biggest opportunity gap the biggest equity gap in our community is the ability to own a home and i think we need to acknowledge that our current zoning code was created by wealthy single family homeowners who wanted to keep apartments and buy extension people of color out of their neighborhoods apartments are more affordable smaller homes are more affordable and yet we've made them illegal in broad swaths of our community started having a single family home is wrong but we shouldn't make it illegal to build affordable apartments in large areas of our land so if we really want to address racism i think this is a big area zoning that we're going to have to look at more closely and it's a prime example of how denying people access to housing opportunities is reducing opportunity for all of us because it's making us a bit harder for all businesses to hire people it's making it harder for people to get doctor's appointments it's making it harder to hire the deities and firefighters that keep us safe so this is a great step for today i think that i believe the board will adopt this statement and the development of population level indicators is a great next step things like looking at life expectancy rent burden etc is great ways to hold this board accountable to the values that are latent in this statement but i think we do need to be prepared to feel uncomfortable from what we see uh in those population level indicators and our continued look at uh at how we can make our society more equitable there will be difficult conversations ahead and if we honor these truths and implement the solutions we'll all be stronger and better off for it thank you thank you suvazha konig suvazha hernandez thank you i want to first of all thank the all the county staff ceo and you know listen to and zen and there's a justice circle and all the community partners involved in this project and i'd like to thank john leopold for his leadership and the bold steps and taking the first bold steps in this process as well i'd like to thank all the supporters here and online you know all the community voices here your presence means a lot and now i want to say that i think that we're off to a great start with this equity statement i believe that the equity statement is a working document and with all the you know great partners that we have here will continue to evolve this equity statement as well to better represent the inequities and the historic um underfunding of communities uh one of the things that i hope we're able to achieve with this uh document is to change you know to raise systemic change right you know that means how we serve the public someone mentioned about language barriers earlier you know but i i think that that's one of the things that needs to be addressed but i think what's really important is uh the framework of funding for for our county and i bring that up because meaning in Watsonville you know there's uh a big flood that happened right and everybody kind of knows a history of that and so for me it's important how projects and items are funded you know prior to the flooding in south county we've seen exactly the opposite of what equity is you know when it came to funding formulas and the criteria of of funding projects the army corps of engineers and the federal government uh looked at they did the opposite formula of equity and they looked at funding communities that were more wealthy and they didn't look at communities of color or underserved communities or underfunded communities they took none of that into into into their criteria but they looked at the the value of the properties and how wealthy those communities are instead and you know the state funding formulas were the same less than that you know just less than a decade as well as well so as a county we need to look at you know funding frameworks and institutionalize it you know we need to evolve systemically just as the state did the federal the federal government as um you know systemically changed the way their funding formulas are to include disadvantaged communities communities of color as part of their funding criteria in order to achieve social justice equity and systemic change I think that this is important for a lot of our different sectors in our community from social services to parks to road projects art projects in our communities so I'm really glad that we're beginning this project this process and I'm glad to be here it's historic and it means a lot to me and it means a lot to the fourth district to begin this process with all of you so that's it thank you supervisor nanda supervisor Cummings I already made a few comments earlier so I won't repeat those but I do want to thank um all the people who came up to speak to us as well today and I just want to thank all the people who are here and I know um there have been some statements made around you know those people who don't get to come into this space and I know there's some people here today who this might be their first time at a board meeting or you know at a government meeting and so I guess the one thing that I just want to encourage is that people continue to come and speak up because you can't be heard if you don't speak up and that can be in different ways it can be sending us emails about your problems it can be showing up to our meetings it can be inviting us to have a coffee it can be us coming to your community it's the we can engage with those people who don't necessarily have the ability to get here at nine o'clock on a Tuesday morning um and so I guess just as you all go back into your communities you know and encourage people to engage because we know that um oftentimes in our schools we're not taught our kids aren't taught you know what does the city council do people aren't taught about what this the board of supervisors does and so we have all these tax dollars and resources the people don't know how to access and it's on us who have the knowledge and have the ability to engage with those people to get them more involved and so um I think that what came out of the KSJ group was just that that rather than going to our friends and the people who we know who are always interested in being involved we went and started touching those people who aren't normally involved and we gave them an opportunity and that opportunity has gotten us what I think is a very tremendous effort on the part of the community and the county to really engage and broaden those voices and so um let's continue that work um I do have a question for staff I just kind of want to know if maybe you can just speak to what's the future of the KSJ group I mean there's a lot of work that went into this but now in terms of moving forward and continuing the momentum on you know making this actionable what's what can we expect and what can the community expect uh yeah I can speak to that a little bit um we will you know we'll continue to be working with KSJ um on you know first of all we're going to go do an after action review of this process and I think one of the one of the big things that we'll do and one of the directions we got from the board um back in 2020 was to think about how to um institutionalize and bring back as as a commission or official advisory body um but what KSJ might look like uh going forward and I think we'll also do that in the context of the count of a Santa Cruz county like me and the restructuring of um of county commissions and just making sure that those are all in alignment uh and so those are the things that we'll be you know discussing with them over the next uh probably you know six to six to nine months I would just add as as mentioned in the memo that work on community indicators community conditions of well-being um that's a space that the KSJ group wants to be part of how do we look at desegregation how do we look at place so we want to have that conversation with them as we look at measures that we want to be accountable to we know there's tons of data out there but we also want to have it be something manageable and having that that set of recommendations back to you in January be informed by community experience great um we'll look forward to hearing what comes next and the work that comes out of this group and then um I just want to say one thing as it relates to housing because that's one of the issues that um really determines who gets to be in this community um I really hope that as we move forward with the housing element you know the measure J program um was you know affordable deed restricted homes that people could purchase and the price of those homes would be regulated so you can't you know sell buy one for 400 000 and sell it for 2 million you know it really keeps those homes affordable and I think it's really important that we continue to see how we can expand on those homes in our community because as renters in this community and when we see people of color that um you know disproportionately more renters you're paying every month money that goes into someone else's pocket and if we have homes that we can access and buy an affordable level even if we can't sell them for a high profit at least at the end when you want to go look for something else you have that money that you can take with you and that's really critical in terms of how we're able to continue to have access to housing because um I know of a number of people um someone from this room who told me about you know single black women who are facing an exorbitant rent increases and on the brink of losing their home or they themselves have experienced a rent increase that is going to make it more challenging for them to live so this idea of just us building more apartments that will allow for more middle income and lower income people to live here is a secure option it's really not because most people are living paycheck to paycheck and um when they get a rent increase it's not always clear whether or not they're going to be able to stay there so I just want to encourage us to look at whatever options we can to increase access to affordable housing that's rental and purchase so that we can make sure that we're keeping people who we care about in our community thank you thank you so far as my person thank you mr chair um I enthusiastically support this equity statement and it's been a long time and coming um and I really say thank you to those who showed up today I know it's not easy to come here on a Tuesday morning to tell to tell us what's on your mind and thank you for your participation and getting this window down to some of the things that we really want to address this is a very uh complicated and multifaceted issue that impacts us all and I'm really sorry to hear that some of you who spoke have even gotten threats in this process that's just not right and communication is the key to this and you telling us and participating in what you think we should be addressing and how we should do it is very valuable and we respect what you have to say I think that um one thing we have to say is uh in the communications issue um we've got to take it home to our around the dinner tables to that's the family unit is where it starts and each and every one of us has to try to push uh out this statement of equity to our homes in in Santa Cruz County because that's where it's going to start and that's what it's where it's going to be most effective we have to be respectful of people have different views because boy uh I have never seen such a divided nation let alone in some respects uh community as we have today is very troublesome but communication is the key and I think some would argue there's too much information because the information we get now and being a former journalist that's really bothersome to me that the news reports we get you hear from one station or the other and you can't believe these people have been to the same press conference come on people get your act together and say how do we solve this and get our act together literally that's going to be the key component of how we do this we've got to start at home and I can see from the the uh uh communication from uh vice mayor brown from capitol I'm what she said every city uh the four cities in this county are on the same page as we are in this I can guarantee that we as leaders and elected representatives get it and I know you don't believe it because it doesn't come fast enough and you're right but some things are happening I'm a member of the metro board and we are redesigning the whole metro system so we have more service to the south county and that is going to be a key component of what we do it's going to be taking effect in December so that's that's something that we need to really address I've seen the most phenomenal fundraising effort of any kind to a public agency when we established or kept alive the Watsonville hospital it was amazing those things are what we need to do and keep keep our eye on the ball and help me make that happen I want to really uh I'm not here to pat ourselves on the back but I think it's really great that our CAO Carlos Palacios and the board of 2018 established a strategic plan and that's why we're here today because we put some components in there a long list of issues that we need to address and we're getting at it it takes too much time I get it I know and you're right but we're getting there step by step and we're going to continue that effort as we did with the 2020 declaration of racism as a public health issue and in 2023 now to define what it means with our county's vision of equity we're getting there it takes time and it takes too much time but thanks to people like you that are bringing this to the forefront uh under the direction or the oversight of the county we're going to get there and we're going to succeed this county is a great time I'm a fourth generation Santa Cruz native and I'm not going to see this thing decline we're going to see this get better and everybody have a more equitable opportunity to succeed in Santa Cruz County thank you thank you see you rather McPherson I would actually just like to begin although I recognize that there's not an individual that worked on this there are a collection of individuals but I do want to elevate somebody who's sitting up here is Ms. Flynn Joy Flynn who I just feel like is always at the forefront of of making this community better and and having no issue ensuring that those that are making the decisions are hearing voices of those that aren't normally at the process and so I just want to acknowledge how effective you are and there are times when an individual often doesn't feel like they can make a difference but I want you to know that as an individual you really change a lot of things in this county so I want you to be acknowledged and Dr. Hernandez you had raised the point at the beginning uh I'm paraphrasing so don't I mean you're a university person so don't get me wrong for misquoting here but um that the words matter but not as much as the actions functionally something you would say and that's true this is uh what we're doing today is a baseline it's a starting point it's a collective we're on the same page you have to be on the same page in order to build something and this puts everybody on the same page for the foundation but that's just a starting point and what moves forward here are how we build in particular uh I think is we move forward on the metrics starting in the new year on looking at all of the actions that we take as a board and I find it interesting that the same voices that come to the board meetings saying there aren't inequities and there aren't racism are the same people that speak against affordable housing projects come to the county they speak against transportation equity projects that come to the county they speak against health equity investments that the county does digital divide issues that the county does but see no through line between those two things because sometimes we define it so narrowly as something that's overt but I think that there's a lot of covert actions that have equal or greater impacts on communities systemically and in the long term that need to be addressed and maybe uh to supervise McPherson's point about the dinner table maybe uh somebody may not be comfortable with being called out on an oversight but we need to reflect on what our actions are behind the scenes that we do from a macro policy level that make these impacts a few years ago at the honor being invited by the great Maria Elena to a poverty conference that we did together uh at Stanford and it was just a wonderful conversation about policy but we talked afterwards about every single action that's taken by local governments and beyond and how they can have an impact on somebody's life and this is what I mean from a metric standpoint of the discussion needs to be from Suvazir Koenig's point of and Suvazir Koenig's point about housing to Suvazir McPherson's point about transportation we're all coming from our own lenses but they have it creates a fabric of equity and quite frankly for 40 or 50 or 60 years this community I would say mostly unintentionally has made decisions that have made it worse for the most disadvantage in our community because some of the most progressive voices don't realize that they're speaking out against the issues that would actually uplift the most needed people in the community and this is something that from a political leader standpoint we have to reckon with and have honest conversations with that it's our own allies think about that for a minute on the national side it's easy but the local level it's often our own allies that are taking actions that maybe inadvertently have significant impacts on equitable outcomes moving forward the advantage of the data here is that it'll provide that framework and benchmark moving forward but I would challenge you as supervisor Cummings did about participation in the process it's less about speaking to those that maybe overtly don't agree with you and more asking those that are even our own allies what they're actually doing on a step-by-step basis in a policy policy basis to shift this because I serve on 13 commissions some local some state some national and on the board of supervisors a huge privilege for the last 11 years and I got to tell you that time and time and time again it's people that I would normally consider myself aligned with like we vote for the same members of congress for the same president of the United States they're the same people that are coming in and speaking against a project that'll fundamentally change a trajectory of somebody's life in this community and not seeing that through line that's where I think we need to do better and I think we can actually change more quickly than some of the more macro level discussions that we have especially with these voices in this room so I appreciate you listening to that reflection and I appreciate those that are in this it is like a room of people that can make real change which is inspiring and thank you all for taking your time to be here today and share your stories and those that got childcare and I mean it's just I mean we gave you our Kleenex but I was ready to use them on your story about your four kids and I mean just this is a beautiful and inspiring moment I think for all of us I'll take it back to the board for there is an action that's requested of us today and so is there a motion from a board member for the recommended action supervisor Cummings? Shall I move the staff recommendation? I'll second. We have a motion from supervisor Cummings and a second from supervisor Hernandez. Madam Clerk can we get have a roll call please? Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Hernandez. Yes. McPherson. And Friend. Aye and that passes unanimously. Thank you all those on the last item on the agenda we have no closed session today correct so the board of supervisors is adjourned thank you.