 Okay, we'll call to order and we'll do the roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Supervisor McPherson. Here. There you go. And Chairman Caput. Here. We're gonna have a moment of silence and a moment of prayer, but before that, Supervisor Coonerty would like to say something. Thank you, everybody. I just wanna take a moment to recognize that while we are today meeting about one crisis in this country, we're facing another crisis with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And I think I'd ask during this moment of silence that we think about George Floyd's family, his friends, his community and people of color who are angry right now and afraid and grieving and just take a moment to keep them and our country in our thoughts. Thank you. Pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Yeah, I wanna thank everybody for being here and for your cooperation. I know it's a very difficult time and thank you for wearing the face mask. We still require all of that. And I know it's not easy for some of you and but we do require it and hopefully everybody will comply. If not, we'll have to call a recess. If somebody, you know, isn't wearing a mask. Okay, thank you. And we'll go consideration of revisions and late additions. Yes, we have on item number four, additional materials, a revised memo, packet page six, attachment E, packet pages 13 through 144, revised attachment E, replacement packet pages 16, 17 and 22, clean and strike out and underline copies 26, 27, 28, 31, 36, 41 and 42. And we do have the special meeting today and it's number four. And that's a consider approval of attestation supporting a variance from stage two, COVID-19 restrictions associated with the governor's resilience roadmap for California and authorize the chairman of the board to sign approval letter as outlined in the memorandum of director of health services. And that brings us to A, so we'll have Gail, good to see you, Dr. Noll. The AO staff and community members, it's good to see so many involved community members here in the room. I have appreciated the support of the community and hearing from the community, even when they don't support what we're doing, that's very valuable. And I'm happy to see so many members here today, as I said. Today we're gonna talk about where we stand in stage two of the governor's recovery roadmap to reopen our economy. We're walking a fine line between economic recovery and protecting the health and safety of our public. It's been very difficult to make appropriate decisions in this unprecedented time of this pandemic. I'm gonna start today by reviewing some of our data with you this morning, because there have been significant changes in the past two weeks. So if we can go to the slide deck, please. Next slide. The invisible clicker. Oh, there it is. The page down to get the next things. So we've had a significant increase in our case counts and case rates in the last two weeks. It's something we're keeping our eye on and of course it's concerning to us. We still meet the state's criteria for a variance. And that's why we're here today is to consider moving forward with a variance attestation application. In the past two weeks, we've had an additional 60 or so cases. Almost all of these are related to four family clusters in the South County. Most of them surrounding Mother's Day events across multiple households and some across multiple states. This is worrisome as the governor still has his stay at home order in place and my shelter in place orders are still in place and gathering with members outside of your household unit is still in violation of these orders and is considered a high risk behavior. I know we all miss our family and friends and loved ones and gathering in person with them, but these are high risk for our community, these kinds of gatherings. And I beg the community to be careful and thoughtful about what you're doing because you're saving lives when you follow the orders. So of our 205 cases, which include the two previously reported deaths, 30 have required hospitalization at some point during their illness. 137 have recovered, which leaves us with 68 active cases of COVID in our community. Two weeks ago, we were under 30, a week ago we were under 40, and now we have significantly more. Our demographic breakdown is available on our data dashboard at sanacruzhealth.org slash coronavirus as always. It's updated on a daily basis. Demographics are there, including gender breakdown, hospitalizations by chronic underlying medical conditions, race, ethnicity, and age. As well as geographic data reflecting distribution in the cities and unincorporated areas of the county. You will notice a significant difference in the past two weeks in the race, ethnicity, demographics of disease. Whereas two weeks ago, our demographics reflected an equal opportunity virus, a virus which was affecting all people equally, regardless of race or ethnicity. That has significantly changed with those clusters in the South County. Almost without exception, our new cases are all within people of Hispanic ethnicity. And the geographic distribution has changed to include Watsonville as a significantly higher per capita rate than any other area in the county. Next slide. You can see here on both the bar graph and the cumulative case count, the orange graph, that we've had significant changes in the past two weeks. It's visible to the eye clearly on that bar graph that the last two weeks, we're on a totally different curve than we have been. Again, we still meet criteria for the variance application, but it is something that we're concerned about and are keeping our eyes on. We have been able to keep up with the necessary testing, contact tracing and sheltering during this time. But again, we're on the brink of not being able to do that. However, we are increasing our capacity as quickly as we can. On the orange graph, you can see that our curve is getting steeper. That means that our doubling time is decreasing. That's one of the indicators for the variance. Again, we continue to meet criteria, but it is a trend in our county that we hope does not continue. So let's talk about the reason we're here today and go to the variance attestation application, which is before you. I wanna remind you that you will need to join me in attesting that this information in this packet is factual and that you agree with the application and supervisor Caput as chair, you will be asked to sign a letter of attestation along with mine. A little bit of background. On March 4th, Governor Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in the state of California due to COVID-19. He has followed these with a series of executive orders, which very much mirror my own locally. On April 14, he announced that he would begin reopening when six indicators were met. On April 28th, he began reopening by announcing the four stage resilience roadmap. On May 8th, he announced that the state would enter into stage two of the roadmap. And I issued an order that placed us squarely in alignment with the governor at that time. So we entered stage two of the roadmap at the same time that the state did. A reminder that the state sets the base for counties. I can be more restrictive in my health officer orders than the state, but not less restrictive than the state. There's a reminder about the four stages of California's resilience roadmap to reopening. Stage one was being prepared to reopen. So this was the two months we had to prepare by ensuring we had adequate personal protective equipment for all of our essential workers, especially our healthcare workers. Ensuring that we could ramp up our testing capacity to meet our community's needs. Ensuring that our communicable disease unit was adequately staffed with contact tracers, educating and informing the public and other folks who need to know the information to move safely on. As I mentioned, we moved into stage two, which encompasses lower risk workplaces on May 8th, along with the governor. The governor has opened new businesses during, since that time, a whole series of, through his daily press conferences announcing, many times we do not know what he is going to announce or perhaps we learned the night before, as health officers and health directors, but usually without advanced notice. And as a result, I've had to work with county council to constantly scramble to catch up to the governor's orders. For this reason, I made the decision that it was best to move along with the governor in reopening. And on Tuesday, I issued a health officer order, which would allow reopening in sync with the governor all the way through stage four. This means that my intentions are to allow us to open as much as possible, as much as allowed by the state. I'm a little limited in this in stage two in that I need to apply for a variance in order to fully open stage two along with the governor. That's why we're here today. So the governor has reopened much of stage two for the entire state already. There are a few areas for which a variance is required. One is for restaurant dining. This includes both tables inside and outside. And if we submit our variance and it's approved and posted, I will have a health officer order in place awaiting that and our restaurants will be able to open with modifications and there's very clear guidance laid out by the state. The other services in stage two that require a variance are haircuts. And I know many of us are anxious to have our haircut. Barber shops and hair salons will be able to open to offer services to hair only. So we still can't get facials or eyebrow or eyelash services but we can get our hair services done, not just haircuts but hair services of all kinds. A reminder that I am not able to reopen any more quickly than the governor allows. So we will not be moving into stage three services yet much less stage four. Stage three services are the higher risk workplaces and stage four is the end of the stay at home order. I think I've covered most of these but the variance attestation application form is the only way that we can fully move through stage two. Initially the variance opportunity was released on May 8th. At that time Santa Cruz did not and still currently would not meet those criteria to apply. The counties that did apply and were approved were small rural counties with no or few cases. We thought we were four weeks away from being able to apply on May 8th. Our intention was to apply as soon as we met criteria. However, the governor issued a surprise announcement on May 18th saying that he would loosen criteria so that many more counties could meet them and get a variance. We immediately began to scramble to get our variance application completed. We've worked very hard since we had the ability to apply and here we are today with the completed variance attestation application of which we are very proud. And I'd like to thank my dedicated and hardworking staff for working over the holiday weekend, many hours of overtime along with me and Director Hall to get this application in place today. We meet all criteria to apply. We do not need to offer explanations for any area in which we fall short. Many medium and larger counties are now attesting with demonstrated capacity. And in fact, the only counties who haven't applied are those who have agreed to remain together as a block. And that would include the central seven Bay Area counties who are not intending to apply for a variance. So that includes two of our neighboring counties, Santa Clara and San Mateo. A reminder that these counties were the epicenter of this national COVID pandemic in our country and they continue to struggle still with very high numbers and case rates. In addition, Los Angeles because of its huge population does not meet criteria. Imperial County does not because of problems with disease control at the border. And Tulare County does not because of multiple outbreaks in their skilled nursing facilities. Monterey County has an application pending. They submitted theirs on Tuesday and it is still in the approval process. Here's a graphic of the main readiness criteria to apply for this variance. The boxes are checked on all criteria. You can read them there, but I'll briefly go over them. They covered the epidemiologic stability of COVID-19, worker protection, especially for those deemed essential during stage one, testing capacity, containment capacity, hospital capacity, the ability to protect vulnerable communities. Those would include our residents, our community members who are incarcerated, who are in skilled nursing facilities, who are in other residential care settings, who are in migrant housing and other congregate settings, including our shelters. We also have submitted triggers for adjusting modification and just a reminder to the supervisors and our community members here and listening in that we may have to dial back some of the reopening if there is data to support this. So our plan submitted to you today, our application includes very specific triggers that would make us look at adjusting this modification. On a call with the California Department of Public Health last night, we learned that the state will be announcing today a watch list for counties who are on the edge of no longer meeting criteria. That watch list will indicate that California Department of Public Health needs to work closely with those local jurisdictions to ensure that those criteria continue to be met. If they're not met, the state may mandate that we roll back some of our reopenings. I hope that doesn't happen. I'm sure with ongoing community support and commitment, we can continue to save lives. Again, much of this I've covered, but we, in addition to readiness criteria, we have an extensive containment plan, which is submitted as part of this application that includes many of the same areas that I've already outlined. It also involves special considerations. So for example, agriculture, and we have a work group around agriculture that's across county jurisdictions with our neighboring counties, involving the ag commissioners and the Farm Bureau, growers, workers, owners, and operators. The other special consideration in our community is that of tourism and travel. We all know that we live in a county of exceptional beauty, and it's a magnet for tourism, and much of our economy revolves around tourism. Unfortunately, travel and tourism are one of the most dangerous activities that can happen during this pandemic. And a reminder that the governors stay at home order and my shelter in place order are still in effect, and non-essential travel is not allowed. Another part of the containment plan is community engagement. This has been ongoing with a series of town halls that many of you as supervisors have hosted, and also the county administrative officers. So thank you for those. In addition, we have an ongoing working group now with the Economic Recovery Council, with members of the business community, where health officials, including myself, work with the business community to advise them on how to safely reopen. We need to consider the relationship to our surrounding counties as well. I've already mentioned that San Mateo and Santa Clara continue to be hotspots for this virus. Monterey and San Bonito are doing better, and we continue to work with them as a tri-county region. So the documents in front of you today include a letter waiting for signature from the chairperson of the board, a testing to the contents of this application. It includes letters of support from all three local hospitals, a testing to their readiness, including specific criteria. It includes my health officer orders, frequently asked questions around those orders, and press releases around those orders. It also includes a letter from me explaining our plan to move through stage two, and an outline of our triggers for modification, and that's the next slide. Very difficult to see, but this will be publicly posted and available, and it outlines in three different areas criteria that we will follow on an ongoing basis. If any single criteria of those is triggered, we will notify the state and keep them in the loop. We will consider modification if one or more criteria is met in at least two of the three areas. And the three areas are epidemiology, so our data around the virus, healthcare systems, so our healthcare partners readiness to meet these, and the public health response, our ability to test, trace, and shelter. Lastly, our plans to move through stage two. As I mentioned, there is a supplemental health officer order ready to sign, assuming we apply for variance today. This new order will be effective upon state approval and posting a variance attestation, and it will allow the opening of restaurants for both indoor and outdoor seating with modifications, barber shops, and salons. And again, I wanna thank the community for your support and participation in working to save lives in Santa Cruz County. And I especially want to encourage those who are most vulnerable to continue to stay at home. As we reopen, we will have more cases. We will have an increase in case rate, and it will be more dangerous for the vulnerable folks in our community to leave their home. So I encourage people over the age of 65 and people with chronic medical conditions to stay home as much as possible. And I'm gonna turn it over now to Health Services Agency director Mimi Hall. Thank you. Good morning, honorable Board of Supervisors, and thank you, Dr. Newell. What Dr. Newell has just done is walk you through the process of applying for a variance attestation and also the criteria to meet it. But we wouldn't be doing our due diligence as public servants and public health professionals if we didn't walk you through the elements of the containment plan and how prepared we are as a community. It's also a chance for the Board and the public to better understand public health practice. So a public health crisis requires a public health approach. Save Live Santa Cruz is a plan to monitor and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 during the reopening of our communities. And it's a result of, as Gail said, Dr. Newell said, the governor's lifting orders. So our goal is to work with our partners throughout the County of Santa Cruz using a framework that we have developed from the best public health practice and research and knowledge around. So save, oh, I have to look forward. Okay, thank you. So what Save Live Santa Cruz stands for is to slow the spread of COVID-19, adapt and adjust to the changing data and also the changing economic needs until we have a vaccination or therapeutics. And then once that happens, we need to continue elevating public health preparedness. So these four significant state and national frameworks were used in order to develop our own Save Live Santa Cruz County plan. And it's California's roadmap to reopening, which has six indicators and the triggers as well as the criteria that we're looking at align with California's six indicators. We also are aligning with California's roadmap, the four stages that Dr. Newell mentioned. And we also looked heavily to Johns Hopkins University's public health principles for phase reopening during COVID-19, which is a guidance for states, governors. And finally, and probably most importantly, we look to the research and the publications by Resolve to Save Lives. They have a COVID-19 playbook for not just the nation, but for the entire world. And it's a global health initiative outlining an adaptive response to COVID-19. So as I said, a public health crisis requires a public health approach. So it's important to know that our public health division in the health services agency plays the lead and central role in making decisions about how we respond. And the vision and the mission for our public health division drive our COVID response as well as everything else that we do. So our vision is very straightforward and simple, better health every day for everyone. And it's no different in the time of COVID. And our mission, which is how we achieve that vision is to collaborate with the community to protect, promote and improve the health and wellbeing of everybody. So our public health agency, public health division values have been used to develop the containment plan that we have before you. And those values include collaboration, which we've been doing since before COVID came to our community, but we understood that it could become a worldwide pandemic, a community focus. So we look at each of our communities, not as a single one size fits all, but as communities that have different needs, different desires and different experiences. And also we want them to have a voice in our work. Everything that we have done has been out of compassion for the people that we serve. It has not lost on us the amount of economic and social impact that has resulted from the measures that the nation and our state and our county has taken. There's something called an incident action plan that we use in our department operation center. It's a system that the entire nation uses to respond to crisis. And we have five major objectives. One of our objectives is to respond to COVID through an equity lens true to the values that we have in our public health division. And finally, everything that we do, we seek to do with quality and respect. So how did we develop this containment plan? The same way that we do all of our work when it comes to tuberculosis control, tobacco prevention, and we look towards the 10 essential public health services. These were developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And they were also used as the foundation for the national public health performance standards. And we actually use them day in and day out. And this is how we practice. So you can see that monitoring health, diagnosing and investigating disease, informing, educating and empowering our communities, mobilizing partnerships, developing policies, enforcing laws, linking people to care, ensuring that we have enough people in our workforce to do the work that public health needs to do in evaluating outcomes. Not only are those things that we do every day, but they are central to pandemic response. And we've used that science and those public health principles in order to develop our containment plan. So Dr. Newell talked a little bit about the containment plan, which is required. And I think it's one of the most important pieces to communicate to the public of how we are going to proceed. She also talked about the fact that we expect to have increased cases. We expect to have more negative impacts from a health standpoint. And so the goal isn't to prevent all new cases or to prevent all deaths. I mean, it's a lofty goal, but it's not realistic. Our goal is to be able to be prepared for the eventual impacts of our communities trying to get back to normal. So one of the things that we must look at criteria or no criteria from the state, but this is a state criteria, is epidemiological stability. We have 13 testing sites across the county now. And combined, they have a current daily testing capacity of 570 tests per day. They don't operate seven days a week. Most of that, some of them do. Most of them operate five days a week. So we have a weekly test capacity of between three and 4,000 tests across the county. We also have a coordinated testing strategy so that different tiers of people can become tested when they need it, how they need it and where they need it. We're also working on developing mobile specimen collection. So in a very short amount of time, there will be mobile specimen collection teams that are able to go to congregate settings, skilled nursing facilities, perhaps shelters, perhaps farm worker housing. And that's the next step of our plan to increase our capacity to contain. The other piece of containment, again, whether the state requires it or not, this is what we need to move forward. And that's contact tracing. So we currently have 15 trained staff and nine of those are bilingual in Spanish. And we have 26 staff and volunteers that are currently in the state's virtual training academy, which is our requirement to assure that our contact tracers are well-trained. And they will finish that academy on June 4th and six of those are bilingual in Spanish. We have 14 pending staff and volunteers waiting to join the next cohort of the state academy and two are bilingual in Spanish, one in Farsi and one in Japanese. We're also working on screening, going through the screening process for 10 students and 10 promotoras so that we can, again, better serve the community in the diverse community in Santa Cruz County. So the next area of epidemiological surveillance that we have been working on really, really hard is surveillance. So surveillance is knowing the data that comes in, how many people out there are positive with increased testing? Are we having decreased number of cases? And so in order to have good data to tell us what this disease is doing, we have to have a focused surveillance approach. So the way we're accomplishing this is through a number of strategies. First is prioritizing the detection of new infections among vulnerable populations that are most at high risk. And then it's making sure that within 24 hours we start a case contact investigation, a case investigation and contact tracing within 48 hours of all contacts. I do wanna point out that the clusters that we saw in South County that Dr. Newell mentioned that were a result of family gatherings across the Mother's Day weekend, we now have a potential 50 cases just from those four clusters. And we're not done investigating. So this is the importance of our ability to contain quickly to find new positives from each cluster. It's just one of the tenets of our capacity and our response. Finally, we need to understand the transmission trends that we have in our community because every county is different. And just because we're looking at numbers, that doesn't tell the whole story. So the other element of our containment plan is that we have to pay special attention to those high risk settings that can cause an outbreak and cause clusters. And those are congregate settings and vulnerable populations. So in the department operation center, we have a branch dedicated to congregate settings. The three congregate settings that they've been focusing on are skilled nursing facilities, corrections and homeless shelters. Many of you have heard in the media about all of the cases in skilled nursing facilities that are plaguing many of our neighbor counties and states across the nation. It's one of the highest risk settings for spreading COVID and also is home to people who are at the highest risk for very poor outcomes. So we have a whole team that works on for the skilled nursing facilities. We've reviewed every one of our seven skilled nursing facilities, infection control plans. We've done onsite visitation and assessments for all of these facilities. We do a daily poll on their staff capacity and the sufficiency of their personal protective equipment. And we have representatives from one of our seven SNFs in our department operation center, community recovery, disease mitigation and preparedness branches. As I mentioned before, we have a plan to begin surveillance testing of all skilled nursing facility residents and staff on a regular basis. I'd like to add that in terms of protecting the vulnerable, even though this is a public health crisis and it's a communicable disease, the impacts of our response impact everyone in the community. So our main incident objective that I mentioned of an equity lens and all decision-making has been rolled out in the partnerships that we've received across the county, the cities and the community. So I can't say enough how much the community support and action has made a difference in how Santa Cruz has responded to this event. So we have a Pajaro Valley Save Lives Task Force that Dr. Newell mentioned. We also have the Human Services Department DOC and the EOC collaborations to support older adults and those who are more fragile and homeless. And then we also have many, many strategies and actions undertaken by the California Central Coast Alliance for Health, our managed care medical plan, all of our federally qualified healthcare centers and our behavioral health department. So one of the most important elements of are we prepared and will we have to walk back some of our triggers is our hospital preparedness. So acute care surge talks about our hospitals. This is a very concerning area and our hospitals have done a great job from the very, very beginning helping our county be prepared in this area. So we have a dedicated branch called Hospital Surge in our department operation center and very early on that branch started a clinical care task force to work with all of our clinicians as well as our health systems. We also have something called an All County Facilities Coordinated Surge Plan because we knew that we couldn't work with each hospital on its own. We had to look at our hospital system as one organization that could play off each other's resources and fill each other's gaps. And so this coordinated surge plan documents every facility plan, their inventories and it coordinates resources during crisis conditions. All of our hospitals have given up a lot. So when you don't have healthcare that also impacts your community. So people have not been getting elective surgeries, elective procedures, all of these has been suspended and they're slowly coming back but it has had an impact on the health of our community as well as the financial stability of our hospitals which is key to reopening. Many of our hospitals have created triage stations and tents and they have expanded and converted space with the intent to be able to meet a surge in inpatient or ICU care. We continue to have weekly leadership calls with both providers and hospital leadership. So in terms of containment capacity, this is something, again, it's not only for us to demonstrate to the state but it's for us to demonstrate to you as our board members and our community that we're not going forward blind. So locally the county exceeds the state threshold for temporary housing units by more than double. The state has a threshold of being able to have shelter for 15% of your population in your last point in time count. So in our last point in time count we had to combine 2,167 people who were unhoused both sheltered or living unsheltered and the 15% threshold equates to about 325 people. As of May 29th today, the capacity that we have to shelter individuals is 721. And this is as a result of the great work of staff who work on this in the CAO's office, human services department and the EOC. So I am almost done elevating public health preparedness. That is our next step. So as you all know, we're not done. We're going to live in this adapt and adjust phase until there is immunity or a vaccine or therapeutics. And all good science points to the fact that that will be quite some time, 12 to 18 to 24 months. So we have to elevate our public health capacity to protect our community over the next one to two years. So we're gonna have to continually assess and expand our response capacity as needed. We know we are going to need for the next year at least, perhaps to additional staff and volunteers to support sustained containment efforts. You saw the efforts that we've done just in the past three months. These have to be sustained over the next year or two. And we also have to strengthen our foundational public health infrastructure. We're very fortunate that the state has provided additional funds specifically for public health response to COVID. And we found out last week, they're releasing an additional set of funds. And on top of that, we have wonderful support from the Santa Cruz Community Foundation, specifically for our save lives efforts. So I walk through these public health principles for you because again, a public health crisis requires a public health approach and response. I remind members of the board that local COVID-19 response is not a one size fits all. We have counties all around us that have different experiences. We are proceeding with caution of the 22 counties that first applied for a variance on May 8th across all of those counties. Two weeks after May 8th, they have experienced increased case rates, hospitalizations and deaths. A couple of them have walked back their variance and decided that they're going to modify backwards. Sonoma County in particular had a very, very low case rate. In the two weeks after they opened, they've doubled their case rate. And so they've decided that even though they have a variance, they are not going to implement in-store retail or worship. So again, it's a cautionary trail. We're treading into uncharted waters and I hope that you understand that we've done a lot of work to be prepared for what is to come. We are far more prepared today than we were four weeks ago and eight weeks ago and 12 weeks ago. So I wanna remind the board that reducing COVID-19 impacts requires evidence-based measures driven by science, data and proven public health practices. And this includes weighing the social and economic and community impacts with preventing COVID illness and death because we know that it's always a balance. In closing, I hope you understand the seriousness and the gravity of the decision that we're making today and that we are a testing that we not only feel prepared for what's coming down, which is also an unknown, but we continue to increase our containment capacity for this every week that we move forward. I wanna thank everyone, the entire community for the ongoing cooperation with the shelter and place orders and for everyday practicing personal risk reduction for yourselves and for the people around you. I also know that we could not have gotten to the place that we are. For many, many weeks, we were one of the best counties in California in terms of our case rates and doubling time. And that's because we had and continue to receive key support from not only our own Board of Supervisors, but our city municipalities and other community sectors as well. And so for your support in letting public health do what public health does for these last few weeks, we are very, very grateful. We're grateful for your continued support and I applaud you for letting science and good public health practice drive the decisions in Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Chair Caput, I believe they're ready for Board questions at this point. From questions from the Board. Questions from the Board first. Yes. Yes. Okay. We're open up for questions from the Board. Anyone would like to speak from the Board, go ahead and raise your hand. Mr. Chair, this is Ryan Coonerty. My first question was, well, actually my first comment was to thank both Gail Newell and Mimi Hall for their leadership in the most difficult times. They both exemplified public service and a commitment to public health that we can all be proud of. I know it hasn't been easy and I know they've been a target for a lot of the anger and frustration, but I just wanna let them know that they have the Board's full support and I wanna thank them for their service. My question was one of the, in the attestation, there's a, when we show the number of ICU beds, we have 30 ICU beds here in Santa Cruz County. I'm wondering today, how many ICU beds we have with COVID patients and what's that trend? I know we have four or five people in the hospital right now, but how many of them are actually in the ICU? I'm looking at Dr. Newell and she's letting me know, I believe that's a reduction. I think, just for a comment for the community, that's really that number that we should all be focused on because that is essential resource that we maintain and both people experiencing COVID but also any other kind of trauma. But thank you to the public health staff for preparing this report and getting it and the people getting in front of the board today. I appreciate your efforts and now we have a long road ahead. Chair Campiff, this is a Supervisor's deal. I wanted to, first of all, thank our public health staff for the work that they've done. It is very difficult to ask people to change behaviors. We've asked people to change behaviors very quickly for a very long time. And as Director Hall mentioned, that requires people listening to the science and data about the best public health practices. And I honor all the work that our staff has done and thank all the community members who have taken seriously those requests to shelter in place, to wear face masks, to only go out for essential travel and stay six feet apart when you're with folks. It's gonna be a little bit longer till we get back to life to normal. Today's action is important and getting us to the next phase, but that we're far from over. The question I had for health staff was on the daily count of tests conducted. I don't know whether there's a lag in the numbers, but on the attestation, it seems like in the last few days, those numbers have gone down and I wasn't exactly sure why that was the case and I'm wondering if you have an answer for that. There was actually a glitch at the state and I think for a couple of days time, we didn't have any reporting. I don't know if you wanna expound on that, Gail. A good number of our tests are done at our state-sponsored site in Watsonville at Ramsey Park and the days of operation of that park are Wednesday through Sunday, so they will have zero tests reported from Monday and Tuesday and I think that that explains the lag as well. Thank you, I wanted to be clear that it wasn't a diminishment of our test capacity but really just a reporting error. The other question I have is about tourism and travel. As we saw here on Memorial Day weekend, we had somewhat less, but still a lot of people from other places because it's hard to change your behavior if what you do on Memorial Day is come to Santa Cruz or go to the beach. I'm trying to figure out what people should expect in terms of tourism and travel and what risk that really proposes to us here in Santa Cruz County. I can start off and Dr. Newell may chime in. Hospitality and travel for leisure, currently in the governor's four stages is not until very late stage three and stage four and the reasons for that are that it does mix people from different communities and different areas and one of our considerations that we had to discuss in our application to the state was where we sit regionally. So as Dr. Newell mentioned, none of the seven Bay Area counties which surround the epicenter of this are doing what we're doing. We run the real risk of folks from those counties coming to ours because we have more available retail. We have more available places for them to visit. But in terms of hospitality, there are a lot of people who send emails to Dr. Newell saying please open this or please open that. It's one of the things she does not have the ability to open that is up to the state. And so we empathize with the hospitality community and campgrounds, but unfortunately her hands are tied in that area. Thank you. And I think it's a good reminder for us all to patronize our local businesses when they can, especially now that we're gonna be opening more up because it's gonna be important because it may be a while before we can see this, the sort of tourist traffic that is normal here in Santa Cruz. I want to again to express my appreciation to the staff for its work, the Communicable Disease Unit for its ongoing work in contact tracing and just the important effort that this is. There's a lot of people who have contact demands and say that Dr. Newell is controlling so much. And I just want to say that the community has control here. If people wear face masks, if they keep that safe social distance, if they wash their hands, if they don't engage in gatherings, that will help us ensure that we have the lack of transmission that will allow us to move through these stages as it becomes possible. So everyone has that power. Gayle has some power, but we all have power too and we should use it wisely. Thanks for the work. Chairman Caput, the Supervisor McPherson, you hear me all right? Yes, we hear you. Bruce, somehow we lost the audio. Okay, you're with me now? Yes. All right. Well, let me start from the beginning. First of all, this is the most complex situation I've ever experienced in my public service life. And it's been the most difficult one to address because it's so complex and it impacts people so directly. But I too want to just say thank you to really the conservative approach that our public health service officers and staff have taken correctly to assure, we will never know how many deaths have been prevented or how many serious illnesses have been prevented because of the steps that we've taken. And to the Santa Cruz County residents, thank you for accepting those guidelines because you're the ones that have made us as safe as we are to date. It's difficult to explain why this can be approved and this can't be, but I think that's been explained and we're dependent on really the state orders, their edicts that they put out of what we can and can't do. And those are ever changing. We've seen five or six changes already. So this is a moving target. And I think our staff and our community of Santa Cruz County have responded very well. One of the problems we have is we live in one of the greatest places on earth and it draws a lot of people and it was stated that seven counties surrounding us are not even applying for this application that we are today. And they come here. We saw that over the Memorial Day weekend and we're gonna see more of that same as the summer months come on. So I just wanna say thank you to our public service, our health service staff. It is hard to catch up to get the testing, the equipment and so forth as quickly as we want it. But as soon as we get it, we are putting it in to service as quickly as we can. No matter what, as we move on and I'm sure we're going to apply for this variance today. But please people, just follow the guidelines around the social distancing, washing hands and wearing face coverings in the weeks and months ahead for sure. Thank you very much for everything that you've done. I know that they've taken a lot of heat in the health services area. We have the supervisors, but nothing like they have done. And you're to be commended for everything that you're doing. Thank you very much. And Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. I don't have any questions for the health staff. I have a couple of brief comments, which is that I view this attestation and the phased reopening that it needs to come with an asterisk that we recognize that by doing these things as Dr. Newell expressed, we will have an increase in cases. And it's similar to a Surgeon General's warning that there are risks associated with the activities that will be reopened and that we're taking in some respects a leap of faith with the community to trust that people can responsibly reopen in a safe way. But I want to echo something that Supervisor McPherson said that I think is very important. Dr. Newell and Director Hall and the entire health staff for that matter have been doing something pretty remarkable in a very difficult situation. But a lot of the outreach that they've received has been pretty negative and pretty personal. And what we've seen across the state as communities have started to really fight over these issues is a breakdown of that civility that our area is really known for. I apologize, my phone went on mute for a second. I just got a note from a Supervisor friend that his phone disconnected. I'm sure he will be rejoining us momentarily. It's nice to know I'm not the only one. That does not require a separate public comment period for special meetings. Please cooperate, okay? And thank you, just wait, you're gonna have to wait. You could consider taking a break or closing the meeting at this point if you can't get cooperation from the public Supervisor. After a friend, I'm sorry. All right, if we can't get cooperation from the public Supervisor, you could consider shutting the meeting down for a few minutes until we can get people to cooperate. Yeah, if you're not gonna cooperate, I'm gonna have to recess. I think Supervisor Friend is back. I am, I apologize about that, my phone disconnected, which I think is a thing right now, a lot of service being used. So just to finish up my thoughts, I just wanted to say that there has been a lot of personal attacks leveled toward health directors and officers throughout the state. And it's a very trying and emotional and difficult and unprecedented time where people are trying to find a balance. And I think that they're both doing a remarkable job in a very difficult situation. And I wanted them both to know that they have my full support and Supervisor Coonerty said, they have the board's full support. But the only way that we are as a community going to pull through this is by remembering that we are a community. And Dr. Newell and Director Hall are part of this community. And are doing everything that they have been professionally trained to do to keep the interests of the community and the health and safety of the community in line. And some of the things that we've seen across the country and some of the breakdowns we've seen even in the state, I don't wanna see here. And I think that we can continue to have the successes we have. And the sleep of faith that I said earlier that we're doing is really putting the trust back into the community's hands to say, you have the power, we have the power collectively to not only keep it safe, but also find a way to reopen this economy. But we also need to maintain a respect for our fellow community members in a way and ensure that the discourse is such that is worthy of this community that we live in. And so I'd encourage people that are there today that continue to write the board and write our health officer and health director to know that the intentions and the heart and the focus by them is nothing but the best. And that I encourage people to continue to communicate in that same way. Thank you, Chair. Any other? That's all. So you can go to public comment at this point. Okay. I just wanna say thank you to everybody and the health department and the human services. How many people do we have that wanna speak? Okay. We'll go with three minutes and please make sure that we have time for everybody. Hi. Thank you. I thank everyone for being here. I feel like I'm a bit like the child speaking truth. I don't want to judge anybody, but I want to say that I feel like we're not speaking about the positives. I have one major question. What about the person on ICU? Do they have any other health problems? Any previous health problems? No need to answer that right now. Also what's not being said, which is also reported frequently as an afterthought in the Sentinel. 98 to 99% of cases have mild or no symptoms, few deaths. Many well respected, well esteemed epidemiologists have repeated this over and over again. There will be many new cases. This is to be expected. This needs to move through the population. It's nothing to panic about. We need to expect this not be concerned. I agree that we need any death is of concern, but we also need to be practical and reasonable. 7,848 tests were negative. That was shown on the screen. Nobody mentioned it. Very, very important. So in the Sentinel today was an article and I'm grateful that Dr. Newell had a chance to say to questioning an extra case of death was reported in the California Department of Health. And it was because they're doing postmortem testing on COVID cases. Anyone who died with COVID was listed as a COVID death even if they did not die because of COVID. This is very, very important. This Dr. Newell stated, if there's anyone who has a COVID diagnosis and has died, it automatically feeds into the California Department of Public Health Database as a COVID death even if it was not a COVID death. Think about the implications of that for the whole country. Think about that. This has been reported before. How can this, I mean, what are these figures that we're basing all this on? I mean, we all have to ask this question. This is extremely important. If the data we're basing, these very important life and death decisions on. I mean, I've been taking this sign around. Friendship saves lives. Sunshine is healing. We cannot be separated from one another for one to two years. I mean, think about that. When I saw that up on the screen, it was horrifying to me. Any person of truth needs to say this. Thank you very much. Hi, good morning. My name is Drew Lewis. This is a letter from 600 doctors on the economic, social, and medical devastation being caused by the lockdown which you have imposed on us and our communities. We write to you today to express our alarm over the exponentially growing negative health consequences of the national shutdown. In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty event. During the mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red, yellow, or green. The first group triage level black includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment. The yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life threatening and the green group has minor injuries. The red group receives highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives. Millions of Americans are already a triage level thread. These include 150,000 Americans per month who have had new cancer detected through routine testing that hasn't happened. Millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease, death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline calls have increased 600%. Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300% to 600%. Cigarettes sales have increased. Rent has gone unpaid. Families relationships have become frayed and millions of well child checkups have been missed. Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial uncertainty is linked to poor health. A continued shutdown means hundreds of millions of Americans will downgrade a level. We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients. The downstream health effects of deteriorating a level are being massively underestimated and under reported. It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term health harm to people's health with a continued shutdown. Losing a job is one of life's most stressful events and the effect of a person's health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental to children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come. The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In use, it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse. Because the harm is diffused, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise. Signed 600 position. Thank you. Two months ago, a doctor in Montana put up a YouTube. She's pretty influential in the state of Montana. And she said her hospitals were being asked to fill out a seven-page form. They would be given $13,000 for every COVID diagnosis and $39,000 for every ventilator used. Well, I spent years in the health field and I can tell you ventilators are very dangerous. It puts high-force pressure on the lung sacs called alveoli. Doctors who have come forth and have been willing to risk Googles and YouTube, same company, censorship, are speaking out about the symptoms they're seeing in the ICUs. Instead of pneumonia as the narrative from the media that is owned by six corporations, the doctors are actually seeing high-altitude hypoxia. That means patients come in, they cannot get air. Areas in the world, including the US, that have installed the 5G installation turned on are seeing patients with the high-altitude hypoxia. They're suffocating, they can't breathe because their red blood cells cannot absorb oxygen if the 5G is on at 60 gigahertz. And I've read patients who have preexisting lung disease they're having the same problem at 40 gigahertz, basically suffocating. Most of the COVID deaths have been in 5G areas, heavily sprayed pesticides, their bodies are loaded with pesticides, horrible air quality and heavily vaccinated. Also, these patients have core mobility, heart disease, smoking damaged lungs, cancer respiratory disease. The fabricated COVID casualties and deaths we feel were planned to scare the global population into subservience and to take a Bill Gates non-tested RNA chemistry vaccine with surveillance chips. RNA chemistry means that anything put inside your body will replicate itself, rebirth itself continuously. And he also has the ID 2020 tattoo that he wants every human being on this planet to take for surveillance and also to report if you've been vaccinated or not. Please do your research, folks. Also in warm hot weather, viruses degrade, that's the nature of viruses. For 20,000 years, we have survived from natural herd immunity. That is, we've been exposed to pandemics, viruses. Thank you. Y'all supervisors are such uncaring assholes. This whole shelter in place is complete bullshit. Like you and you are just terrible at your jobs. We should never have gone to this shelter in place in the first place. All right, everybody is so much less healthy. Like you're just telling me I'm supposed to stay at home. I can't go to the gym. I can't go outside. I can't get sunlight. I can't go to a restaurant. Like I have physically deteriorated. Everybody I know is physically deteriorated because all you tyrants are telling us what we can and cannot do. First of all, some of your business, what I do with my body or my business. Secondly, the First Amendment forbids your stupid health order. You can't prevent people from assembling in a given area. And in order to enforce these awful shelter in place laws, you have to allow police officers to basically be walking fascists. They have to go around and harass peaceful people for being on a beach, for being outside, for like hanging out with your friends. What good is being alive if you can't do anything? You want me to just stay inside, get fat and watch Netflix and masturbate? That's literally all you are allowing us to do. Just stay inside and do nothing. I've gained like 20 pounds. I've had to drop classes because I can't do online classes. I have ADHD. I can't focus. I paid this much money so I could get an engineering degree. And now I can't even talk to my professor in person. I can't even collaborate with like my classmates to work on a project. What am I paying for? Like this is just so stupid what you're all doing. And honestly, your hands are not tied, Dr. Newell. Just grow a spine, stand up to the governor. Like what's gonna happen if you don't do what he tells you to do? He's a tyrant. He's awful. He doesn't care about any of us. He is like a terrible governor. And everybody's just getting screwed over by this. We're gaining weight. We're not happy. We're just staying inside. Our immunity is plummeting. I'm like much less healthy now than I was before the quarantine because I can't go outside. Everybody's gaining weight. I can't go to the gym. I have chronic shin splints. And in order to alleviate them because I'm a big runner, I have to do like upper leg workouts for my thighs, my quads, my butt muscles because that takes pressure off my lower legs. You won't let me go to the gym. So now I have this boot that I've been in for about five weeks because I can't do the physical therapy that I need to stay healthy. You're not allowing me to be healthy. I can't have social relationships. Can't go on dates. I can't go to the bars. I haven't seen my friends in weeks. This is just the worst, most tyrannical mistake ever. And I think we should just move immediately to phase four or whatever it is. Just like, get rid of this. Just go, open up. It's my business. It's my life. And if you're scared, stay inside. Okay, if anybody here is scared of the virus, I'm healthy. I will buy your groceries. I will go to get gas for you or pick up your kids. I will do whatever you need. But don't tell me to stay inside just because you're scared. Your health is your responsibility and you're punishing millions of people because some people might get sick. And again, it's a scam demic. It's not even that bad. Thank you, everyone. Chair, if I could remind everyone, everyone needs to keep their mask on during the meeting. And if we don't have people with their mask on, then we will have to clear the room. So people have to keep their mask on during the meeting. Otherwise, we will call a recess and clear the room. So please keep your mask on. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, this is County of Santa Cruz. My name is James Ewing Whitman. So far, everyone who spoke is not part of the controlled opposition. Do I need to start over? No. Okay. So I've been listening to all this. I've been showing up at this circle at least five times. City council probably the last 18 times in a row. I think I spoke at least five times last Tuesday night. Find myself being affected by what I share and what I write. Once again, my name is James Ewing Whitman. This phone worked perfectly well until Tuesday and died pretty hard yesterday because of what I write and what I say. Fortunately, this broken one that I haven't activated since January 30th, 2018 allows me for now just to have a phone and access. So I'm here like all the other citizens behind me because we care. And I know that all of you care too, but I'm hearing a degree of misinformation from these experts that I could only maybe state as I don't know. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, cross-eyed rats and one-eyed squirrels. I stand before you to sit beside you to tell you about something I know nothing about. That's how I feel. I don't want to be critical of anyone, but I just was. So I'm gonna somewhat apologize. But not really. There's a lot of situations going on that I think are affecting all of our healths and all of our happiness. And there are several agendas that are just not being spoken of. I wrote three and a half pages while Gail was talking. I'm not gonna read any of it, but at least I wrote it. So I'm very concerned about the contact tracing because there's information that these tests are not valid. And there's just tests. I mean, you can look on my Facebook, my name is James and the women that shows that these tests are not valid. Now, masks are really important. I wear masks professionally at work all the time. I have some respirators that have face shields that I know bricks can bounce off my face and I'm still protected. But what is this doing? This is decreasing the amount of oxygen that's getting into my body. And that creates an acidic situation that is poor for every aspect of health. I have 45 seconds. Washing hands. You know, I wash my hands when I need to. I wash them all the time, but I don't use all the chemicals that are so widely used. The six feet away is more like six feet under. There's a military tracking system that can track all of us because we have a phosphorescent glow and they need at least five feet. Don't believe me, do your own research. So I have 20 more seconds. I'm gonna say that we all have the power to observation and do the best that we can at any given moment. But when we're questioned about any subject, I hope that we start thinking because I have had to alienate myself from a lot of people I really love because we can't even have a logical discussion. So I'm glad that we can still stand here and talk. Thank you. Very welcome. Hi. Monica McGuire, Coralitas. I still have the question whether there will be another opportunity to speak, which I believe there should be. So I'm moved by yesterday's news. I'd really like to know what Santa Cruz County is doing to prove and ensure that what happened in Minneapolis and in other places so far cannot and won't happen here in Santa Cruz County. People have the right and need to speak out about violence in other parts of the country, yet speaking out is not an option. And due to your choices, taking over our rights to assemble or be out with signs peacefully, saying we're not okay with violence that we promote peaceful, coming together to say we're abhorring what happens in other places isn't an option now. Therefore we need a strong statement from our local government representatives, the five people who are supposed to represent everyone in this county and be reaching out to us regularly. We need you to show us that we can stay at home by making the statements that you know we would be making. That absence has been terrible in lots of ways, but this is getting more frightening and we don't need more fear right now. What we need is open forums with panels of experts, panels who oppose and show very clear evidence of things that the public has come forward and asked you to take into account over and over, asked each of our supervisors to bring to the next agenda. We have not heard any of our requests for agenda items come to fruition. We have not heard any of our suggestions commented on or brought about in the next gathering. That is not the correct use of the Brown Act. With this many people coming forward and asking, there is a huge question, why do you keep saying you're listening to the community when you actually don't even listen to those of us who show up here? That makes no sense and we need explanations and we need to be heard in order to feel safe. We have members of our law enforcement who now are probably quaking in their boots because that part of our community has to fear that something more will break open all over this country. We care about those community members in law enforcement as much as we care about ourselves and you're supposed to be caring for us by calling us, asking us to get together in any ways possible and hear what we are asking you to ask and repeat and talk about an answer to. My husband is one of hundreds of doctors in this county willing to be on a panel. We have had no response whatsoever to these offers. These panels for debate are absolutely vital for people understanding what- Thank you. Thanks a lot. Good morning. I think we're all going to need a drink after this. Hi, my name is Rachel Murphy. The mic, the mic. Oh, do I have to talk into it? Oh, sorry. Hi, my name is Rachel Murphy. Just a little bit about myself. I own Calla Hands across the street, which we can't have a drink after because we're closed. I just have a little bit more information. I have a degree in biopsychology from UCLA so I do have some understanding of the medical terminology that we're supposed to be talking about today. I totally understand why we have not opened due to our proximity to Santa Clara and the epicenter. I don't agree with closing the beaches. I do appreciate all the hard work that you guys have done. We do need to address what we need to address today, which is to hopefully sign this variance. I implore you to do so because if we're going to talk about numbers, we're going to talk about the numbers in my bank account, which is pretty much nothing. My employees are broke. I'm broke. My landlord is requiring me to pay rent, just so you're aware. That's over five grand a month. I don't have that money. That money's not coming in, but I will tell you this. I have called the health department in this county a few times and asked when we are allowed to open, what are we going to need? And they haven't really been able to give me some clear answers. So I've done some research on my own and I am willing to do all of these things and then some. I've already bought a portable hand washing station. I've applied to serve outside from this ABC. What we need you guys to do is have a little faith in us, treat us like we matter. I know the people that are going to get sick matter, but those of us who are going to die from this are going to be because we're broke, can't feed our kids, can't pay our mortgages, can't pay our car payments. What happens to this county when we all go bankrupt? Okay, I'm not discounting anybody's concern for their own health. I have two asthmatics in my house. Sign the variance, give us a chance. Let's comply, let's do more, let's prove the numbers wrong. We can be the exception because we already are. Thank you. My name is Marguerite. American Jurors Prudence, second section 98 states that no emergency gives just cause to suspend the Constitution. The supremacy clause in the Constitution states that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. I'm assuming all of you took an oath to that Constitution. When you, the government no longer acts in the best interest of the people, we the people must change the government that is causing us harm. There was mention of the personal attacks and how difficult that has been to certain legislatures. All of us are under personal attack, physical, emotional, and mental attack. The data that you referenced is flawed. The diagnostic tools for COVID-19 was never meant, the creator of the test said this is not a diagnostic tool. It's the first time in history that the CDC has said, has contacted doctors personally, telling them how to fill out or recommending how to fill out a death certificate. So lots of deaths that are being attributed to COVID are not from COVID. As people in your positions of government, it is your moral, ethical obligation to inform yourselves on the truth, not to follow an agenda. Deprivation of rights is a breach of an oath and a violation of law. The County of Santa Cruz has acted as co-conspirators and perpetrators of an illegal human experiment to which an architectured event. There is no scientific data stating that wearing masks and social distancing is effective in protecting our health. There is copious amounts of evidence, scientific research of the opposite, how harmful it is for us physically wearing masks, social distancing, and social isolation, how detrimental that is to our emotional and social and psychological well-being. I would like to tell you that I work in a job at New Leaf Market where I am, I don't consent to this, but I will not be able to work. I will not have an income. It is up to you, all of you, to either step down or change your policies. You are harming the community. You are harming individuals. You are harming children. You are harming adults. You are harming the elderly. None of what you are putting in practice is protecting us. It is harming us. Hello, can you hear me? It's hard to talk with this thing on. I don't wear these because I don't want to. It's not really required. I'm a free person in a free land. I don't need your authority. I don't need your authority because you obviously have an agenda. What the agenda is, you guys must feel like there's an agenda going on because what's happening does not make sense. It defies all reason. Do you know that in Santa Clara County that the comorbidity rate of all people who died of COVID-19 is 89% and it states on there that that doesn't mean they died of COVID. It says we died with COVID. Those are two different statements. Italy dropped their numbers. They are down 12% of what they were. Imagine the United States, 12%. That's 12,000 people. You are shutting down Santa Cruz because of two deaths. I don't care about how many tests there are. People are wandering around not dying, okay? Two deaths and you don't know if there was comorbidities, were there? Uh-oh, so we don't even know why they died, do we? This is fraud, economic terrorism. My kids are sitting at home right now doing their stupid school work and they will never go to another fucking county school. Because this is BS making them stare into the all-knowing eye to get their information so you can watch them all the time. Is this what we're gonna live in? How many of the nursing homes in Santa Clara Valley installed self-towers on the property? You guys do not choose ignorance. Do not ignore easily available information. We've been talking about this for months. We are over it. Our kids are getting sick in the head. And it's because you, you, and everybody else who's voting for this BS, I don't care about the tests. Give me deaths, that's proof. You got nothing going. You take down the numbers in Santa Clara County, that's 15 people after 89% has been reduced. And five more percent, they don't even know. You guys are making up shit as you go along. Open up the Frickin County. I haven't worn a mask one day. I've been an Uber driver, Lyft driver. I've been out in it. I got nothing. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Sir, there's a, sir, could you put on your mask? Sir, can you put on your mask? Again, if people don't wear their mask, we're gonna clear the room and do the meeting virtually. So please wear your masks. Okay. Anyway, you can make your statement. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you for my statement. Having you got my statement, what's gonna happen next? You're gonna force our kids to go to school and wear masks. That is cruel. And we're not gonna allow it. I will not allow it. There is a growing community of anger here. People are becoming a disgrace. I think you need to, you know, you're gonna face your day of reckoning and it's coming real soon. And this was on this, this popped up yesterday from the press democrat in Sonoma County from a gentleman called Mark Esset. He is the Sonoma County sheriff. And he has gone public saying he has had enough of his bullshit. I want you to look, I can't read the whole letter here, but I'm gonna read you a couple of really important things you need to listen to. Is it gonna happen here? Based on what we have learned, now is the time to move to a risk-based system and move beyond blanket orders that are crushing our communities. Simple universal measures can be taken to protect the vulnerable amongst us and to slow the spread of COVID-19 within Sonoma County. Understanding your risk infection and consulting with your doctor or healthcare provider on what prevention measures are best for you is a personal responsibility that each of us must take. If somebody, if you guys are afraid to step outside because they're catching this non-existent virus, stay inside. But our community and our economy is crushed. I work in a service industry that supplies restaurants and it is decimated, decimated. I've got one thing to say here quick. As the elected sheriff, I can no longer in good conscience continue to enforce these public health orders without explanation that criminalize otherwise lawful businesses and personal behavior. Effective June the 1st, 2020, I'm directing all sheriff office staff to discontinue the enforcement of the Sonoma County public health orders issued by the Sonoma County Public Health Department and the public health officer. Do you understand what he's saying? He's telling his officers to stand down and not obey these laws. They aren't laws, they're orders. I am directing the sheriff's office detention division to refuse the booking arrest of individuals whose sole booking charge is for a violation of the Sonoma County Public Health Order. This is gonna get serious when the sheriff's step is telling his deputies to step down. The sheriff too, there's another sheriff. Okay, thank you. I hear you. I know, sir. Are you kill? Can you clear the room? Right. Clear the room. Excuse me, the sheriff, I'd ask that you clear the room. We're not gonna accept that kind of behavior. Dude, I was 10 feet away from her. Okay. We're gonna clear the room. We'll take a. Clear the room. Take a recess and clear the room. Wow. Can I speak? We'll take a five-minute recess. Take a recess and we are clearing the room. We'll resume. We're doing everything now from the community room down below. And I wanna make a statement. We're all in this together and we're getting a lot of pressure from all sides. I know we're not making perfect decisions and nobody is in this coronavirus situation that we're in. But it's not just one or two people making this decision. We're weighing everything, the benefit and the burden of the health for the public. There are a lot of people that, of course, are afraid of the coronavirus and they're loved ones that are in the situations where they're in the vulnerable part of our society. And then also we know the economic strain we're putting on everybody. So if we could just keep everything nice and calm and we're working together, but please don't direct your anger at just one or two people. We're making this decision based on, and we are moving towards opening things up. So what I'm getting at is the benefit and the burden. Both sides are pushing one side on the health situation that we face and we have had 100,000 people in the United States that have died from the coronavirus. And we don't want that to happen here. We have good numbers in Santa Cruz County and we wanna make it stay that way and we wanna get things open at the same time. So we're working through a phase right now and the good news is hopefully we're gonna be able to open up some things. But we're all doing our best and we're all, we're listening to people and we hear you, okay? Both sides, we hear you. Thank you. Okay, I guess we'll go to the community room, right? We are ready for public comment in the community room. People here in Santa Cruz County, our small businesses are dying at a much faster rate than COVID-19. I own a beauty salon. People that don't work in the beauty industry don't realize that we are trained and certified in not spreading communicable diseases. We are trained to not keep our public safe. We are trained and now with the virus, we have even more regulations. I believe that our civil rights are being stripped from us. I believe our constitutional rights are being ripped from us. I believe that Gail has done our community a big disservice by not filing this paperwork on May 8th. We are now in 12 weeks. I have two small children. I have a 17-year-old. We are all mentally going insane. We are losing our minds. We are not getting sick, but we are getting sick inside. And we are tired of being told what we can and can't do. Rules are changing every day, every minute, every hour. We don't know what we're doing. I feel like, I don't even know what day it is. Like, what the fuck? Like, Gail, you needed to fill out this paperwork. You tripped up. I'm sorry. You're doing your work. You have your family. I know people who know your family, but you tripped up. This paperwork should have been filled out on May 8th. We should have been able to open up partial of our county by now. I should be able to be at work. I don't really approve of maybe opening up our beaches. So a mass of people can come into this county and infect us. But we need, as hairdressers, as people, small businesses, we have prided ourselves, Santa Cruz citizens, being a small business community. And we are dying at a greater rate than the virus is infecting people. I know people in the medical industry around all the states that are being pressured to put COVID-19 on those death certificates because of money. I do not believe this is a hoax, but I do believe we are being bamboozled by our government. I cannot stand here and take this anymore. I need to open up. I pay $12,000 a year in property tax. I got told by a police officer that I can have two friends of mine, social distancing, on my own property that I've owned since 2004. My business opened in 2002. I think that is unconstitutional. My civil rights are being stripped. And I don't even know what I'm doing. I wake up, I don't know what day it is. My kids are at loss. They can't hang out with their friends. Thank you. Hello. My name is Maria, and I'm from Watsonville. And I have heard a lot of praise this morning for the health officials that are here. But I want to thank and I want to praise all the people that have been laid off from work, all the farm workers that are being forced to go to work. I want to praise the people that have lost their jobs. I want to praise the small business owners that have lost their restaurants. They have, we have lost livelihoods. And I want to praise those people. And I also want to let you know that there is, as you have seen, there's a lot of physical damage going on to the families, emotional damage, spiritual, and parish damage. Things that will not be able to be repaired. Even the churches. I also want to mention that Gail Newsom did say something about 19 people being trained for the contact tracing. What about, when is that going to happen? When are they going to start sweeping the neighborhoods? Can you tell us that? I also want to mention that there is facts going on that the National Guardsmen have been trained, men and women, to begin sweeping the neighborhoods in your behalf. It's not just the 19 people. So I'd like to hear a comment or a response on that. And then the last thing I want to ask is, the only Board of Supervisors person that is here today, Mr. Caput, if you can answer, and I will leave the last one minute of my time to you to answer earlier, why a lady who had to repeatedly submit questions to the Board of Supervisors, why hasn't it been on the agenda? Just lay it on us. You couldn't do it. You don't want to. Just put it as it is. And that's going to be my last one minute for you to answer that question. Please do. Marilyn Garrett. I want to quote from Arthur Verstenberg again, the idea that we can keep from sharing viruses with one another by wearing masks and keeping a certain distance away from each other is as realistic as putting a mask on a fish and pretending it will protect the fish from getting wet. And that's in a newsletter by Arthur Verstenberg in a section, an ocean of viruses. Viruses are all around. They're constituents of life. There are millions and billions. And this is a myth of safety. So we have to ask the premise upon which all of these draconian measures are taking place is false. There is evidence that this virus was manufactured in a bio warfare lab and there's a bio warfare arms race going on. And I refer you to an article by Sam Hussaini in salon.com. And he discusses how there are these PPP, potential pandemic pathogens. And what they do is take pathogens in nature and make them more lethal. If we wanna stop some major public health problems that really end dangerous, these labs should be closed down. Producers of toxic chemicals should be closed down. One of the biggest worries I have is with the real public health threat of the wireless microwave radiation from Verizon 4G, 5G. This is my acoustic meter that's way up to the top here. That's picking up the microwave radiation. Microwave radiation is lethal to life. It's not natural. And I also am calling on you to have a panel of health professionals who are holistic, who can talk about what is the real, what I consider scientific facts. And I am- That's your three minutes. Okay. I'm appalled at what this county is doing in the name of public health to harm people. Bruce is next. Bruce, you're next. Fortunately, that clock is not working right now, but I do have a timer. You have no way to know what. Okay. Okay. Okay, you could start. Bruce Tanner. Here's text from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, the foundation of the organic law of the United States of America. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. And to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. The unalienable natural rights spoken of above are reserved to us under the Ninth Amendment. The requirement that the governments of both the United States of America and the several states uphold their duty to secure these rights cannot be and is not suspended by any executive declaration of a state of emergency. The Supreme Court ruled in 1953 that Truman could not even take control of the US steel industry in the middle of a war. The duty of this board to secure our rights, including our freedom of movement and rights to livelihood, not to mention our personal medical decisions as well settled and absolute as reflected in the oath of office that you took upon taking office, which says in part, I will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of California, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter and during such time as I hold the office of supervisor. Gavin Newsom's four step plan for reopening California is not only a unilateral declaration by an executive that does not have any power to suspend our unalienable rights, but doesn't have the legislative authority would need to have any impact on the population of California. While researching this amazing plan, I could not find a single instance of any commercial media even vaguely inquiring whether there might be any question about the plan's lawfulness. We have now apparently entered into an unprecedented suspension of long recognized social polity, which is affecting not only Santa Cruz or California or the US itself, but most of the nations of our world. In enabling this, gentlemen, you have clearly violated your oaths of office and your duties to your constituents. How you have avoided violation of your own consciences is quite frankly beyond me. Your three minutes are up. It's time to do the right thing. Your three minutes are up. And begin the work of restoring the social order that you've damaged so severely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Gary. My chair. Gary, you're next. Yes, if you could, I could remind people in the community room, you have to have a mask on. If we people do not put their masks on, we will clear the community room. Thank you. Very good. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. I wonder if we need, we need to have a mask. Okay, so you have three minutes. Okay, this is a plan or scandemic. The first mandatory vaccine was passed October 23rd, two weeks before 9-11. But they screwed up 9-11 so bad, you couldn't get a piper plane inside the little tiny hole that hit the Pentagon. And building seven was reported that had already dropped before it actually did. So they had to scamper. They saved it till now. We're now under Maurice Strong's agenda, reported in West Magazine where he said, he wanted to pull down the whole industrial West. He is the co-founder of Agenda 21, which is County Board of Supervisors, has accepted and adopted. The Georgia guide stone protocols calls for eliminating 6 billion people on earth. Look up Georgia guide stones. It is a Wuhan Chinese virus. None of your health officials can say Chinese virus. Why is that? Mr. McPherson, Mr. Zach Friend. It came from Dr. Charles Lieber from Harvard who received $50,000 a month plus million dollar perks for bringing Chinese to Harvard with a 50% cash and 50% going to the red Chinese banks. There's a 17 page affidavit by FBI counterintelligence that arrested this Charles Lieber, Lieber and a communist Chinese official. In fact, the wife of the premier of red China is on WHO, the World Health Organization, which we should pull out of immediately. North Carolina was working in 2003, working on back Corvina gain of function and its performance as though it could affect human beings. Leon Panetta helped the Chinese Wuhan experiment. This Board of Supervisors, if people need to look up Panetta gate, Panetta has given military and policy information to Chinese espionage agent. This Board of Supervisors keeps two plaques. Everybody here go out and look at the courthouse steps and it's named after Hugh Delacey, who is an espionage agent for red China. Bruce McPherson received $30,000 in campaign funds from a tripled red Chinese communist by Katrina Lung. Zach Frant according to his own biography had worked for two people who are now registered lobbyists for the red Chinese. The red Chinese so-called office manager for Diane Feinstein talked within the last eight months at UCSC right here in town. This is a pandemic. The final solution is mandatory vaccination. Who and the Panetta political machine needs to be broken. Don't vote for another incumbent for your life of you. Don't let your child have a mandatory vaccination. Understand this is a scam and it's more deadly than ever. And this is a plan to ID as we heard one speaker earlier ID, every person on earth, look it up. Don't be a sucker up. Thank you, your three minutes are up. Thank you. Becky, Becky, you're next. Okay, if anyone has already spoken in the board chambers, you will not be allowed to speak again. So Thomas, I think. Hi. Hi. You may start, you have three minutes. Okay, I hope you all remember me from last time when I spoke of the growing presence of surveillance capitalism and the continuous disregard for public health and privacy and safety by the FCC owning telecom monopolies. Because these people behind me, Monica, Marilyn, Satya, they remember me and they all appreciated what I had to say out of the bottom of my heart. We have been talking as friends and I wonder if you are no more astonished than I am by my county representatives in a continual habit of disregarding the informed public and lying to us. Personally lying to me the first time we ever talked. That's unprofessional, but we can save that for another day. Today I'm announcing our arrival. We are here and we will not forget what you have done to us personally. Here's what we need. An independent, meaning non-state, non-corporately funded, diverse team of experts to make official comment on public policies in Santa Cruz. We need a decentralized way for the public to address its leaders in a way we can't be ignored or lied to. We need a way to hold our representatives responsible for their behaviors and lack thereof. Too much time is passed in favor of big business surveillance technology as the heart and soul is ripped out of our special city by planted, funded interests. We are the sovereign citizens of Santa Cruz and we will not forget you. Make no mistake, 5G is a surveillance tool for the state. By tearing, by fearing getting sued, you are essentially selling the secured privacy and health of every citizen in Santa Cruz. I can only hope that is not all we are worth to you. Would it not be possible for every willing citizen in Santa Cruz to take action in a class action lawsuit against the telecom companies who have kept the FCC and regulatory limbo while overstepping health and privacy concerns? You might have no say and you might even stand a profit, but we are a group of friends and our friendship is growing. Soon we will have many people with us demanding back our agency to speak and be heard. At least that's the worst of it that we will be ignored. My heroes have all been killed, poisoned, radiated and shot to death for simply speaking the truth. Fully aware of this danger, I present to you a challenge. If you can prove to me, Ted Gunderson of the FBI was not actually poisoned with cyanide for revealing the satanic ritual abuse and pedophilia in the highest ranks of the FBI. And also that Karen Stewart of the NSA was not gangstalked and long distance be informed with radiation by her own superiors in the NSA. Then I'll go home and shut up because I think of my heroes every day as I claim her for reasons to still breathe in this choked city. Remember the names, Ted Gunderson, Karen Stewart. Thank you. I'm gonna take my mask off because I have difficulty breathing. It's hard enough for me to be here and speak before you. And I wanna register a formal protest against what Carlos Palacios did upstairs, closing down a meeting, vacating the room, forcing everyone to come in here simply because a member of the public wanted to see the name of Gail Newell on her badge. That's why that was all closed down. The meeting is controlled by the chairman, not the CAO. I also wanna say that the Board of Supervisors under health and safety code 101080 has the authority to monthly authorize these edicts. It is not Gail Newell. She is an appointed person. You are the elected people that we elected to represent us. You are not doing your duty because this is up to you. I also wanna say that a neighbor of mine is a nurse at Dominican. One of the two deaths of the COVID deaths, the man died of cancer. He had horrible comorbidities. He died of cancer. She saw it and it was put COVID on his death certificate. This is happening all over the world and it is happening here in Santa Cruz County. I wanna thank Supervisor Caput for drawing this special board meeting together today. It gives the people hope that somebody is listening because we don't think you are. And I wanna ask, yes, while I hear that you cannot be any lax, more lax than what Governor Newsom, the tyrant who is taking away our constitutional abilities here, but you can be more, but you can open the beaches. You don't have to open, you don't have to close the beaches. I demand you open the beaches because Sheriff's Department is paying seven new deputies every day, seven days a week to ride around on the beaches on ATVs and chase people away. Maybe you write them $1,000 citations. Now, under this rule that is enforcement and penal code, it is considered a misdemeanor, but they can write the tickets for $50. They're writing them for the maximum of $1,000. That is wrong. How much are those flashy signs that we saw out on Ocean Street costing the county, warning the people at the beaches? How much that they're closed? How much is that costing? Now, I don't have much time, so I wanna speak directly to this document because I read it all thoroughly. The model on page 43 warns of a huge surge in blue that could overwhelm local hospitals. But why then on the end of the report, page 131, it says the latest median projections as of May 24th suggests less than a peak of 10, 10 COVID hospitalizations by June 15th. That's the peak. That is supposed to overwhelm our hospital. Three minutes are up. Of 433 beds. Thank you, your three minutes are up. I just point out that the counties around us are doing fine and that's stated in the document on page 138 at the end of the report. Please open the beaches and let us live. You're killing us. Thank you. Is there anyone else that wants to speak? If you spoke to the board in the board chambers, you cannot speak again. Is there anyone else that wants to speak? Okay, you have three minutes. What about? Hi, my name is Ellie with the committee to reopen Santa Cruz to save lives. And we've reached a point right now where it's people in the community like myself and 400 plus other people who are trying to save our community. When we look to, we should be able to look to our elected officials to help us in this process. So we're trying to help support small businesses. We're trying to open up community gardens at a time where food security is going to become a very real issue very soon. We're lucky to live in an area where it's temperate and we're right next to the bread bowl and the farmlands and all that. So we're relatively safe, but the food prices are gonna go up, up, up. And that's part of what these trillions of dollars of bailouts that, hope everybody got their $1,200. But when you see you buy a jug of milk and it's gone up a dollar, buy cheese, it's gone up two bucks, it starts to add up really quick. And that's what these bailouts do. So it's just something to be aware of as inflation. And I wanna encourage everyone to work on your community, build your community. You have two minutes. And I would like to ask the board of supervisors to work with me, work with our group and get the community gardens open in whatever way you can help us. This is a very important thing, not only for providing food, but also building community and teaching kids about the things that are important. And there's no reason why that's not a safe activity. It's outside in the sun, working in the dirt. We know that getting your hands in the dirt, getting the microbes on your skin are healthy for you. It actually helps to support and build the immune system. So the idea of banning any activity that's outside in the sun that's healthy is basically ludicrous, especially the number of actual deaths, illnesses that we're actually seeing. This entire thing is really very silly. And I've spoken to many law enforcement officers at this point, face to face. They are not wearing masks. And I look at them and I say, I look them in the eye, I say, hey, what's going on? You know, you guys are obviously not afraid of the virus. You have one minute. So what are we doing here? If you're not afraid of the virus, what does this all mean? What is this? So we need to kind of start to step back and make some better decisions as a community. And I really hope that as we make those better decisions, you, the elected officials, can be along for the ride because otherwise we'll have to look to new leaders. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that has not spoken to the board and wants to speak? Okay, we have no more speakers in the community room. Okay, so now it's any web comments? We have three comments. The first comment comes from Andrea Hudson. Sorry. Okay, wait. So the first comment is Andrea Hudson, Dear Board of Supervisors, thank you for calling the special meeting. Can we please look at how effective it really is for us to keep our beaches closed? I just do not see that it is helping anyone and it really hurts our families that depend on the beach for recreation as well as physical activity, especially when parks with playgrounds are closed indefinitely. It is impractical for those of us with young children to abide by the rule to use the best, to use the beach, I'm sorry. If you'd excuse me for one second. It is impractical for those of us with young children to abide by the rule to use beach only to access the ocean between 11 and five. The ocean is always changing and dynamic and not every day is the best day for water play when you have a four year old. But kids need to get outside every day, adults too. I can tell the lifeguards are not enforcing it and neither are the sheriffs or police that I've come in contact with. Is there data to suggest that people are catching COVID-19 from being in the sunshine on the beach? The reports I've read do not suggest it. I am hoping to gain some support to take another look at holding city junior guard program on Cowles Beach. The kids need to get away from computer screens and out in the fresh air. Enjoying time in the sun and on our beautiful Monterey Bay. Capitola is running a modified program this year and state guards plan to hold one too. Let's take another look at reopening our beaches on June 2nd, at least for the mental and physical health of our kids. We have one more from Hollis Malloy. I own CrossFit Santa Cruz, a fitness facility in Santa Cruz. We have outdoor space and recreation and are looking for guidance. Why is golf being deemed essential while leaving out other physical activities? I can provide social distance protocols and monitor those protocols to keep the community safe. In addition to the CDC says that outdoor activity is low risk and has many benefits. Closing businesses that can provide outdoor fitness may be a simple oversight. I would like you to allow for businesses to provide outdoor fitness. The CDC says that church is a high risk activity. However, stage to allow churches to have people indoors and masks are only optional. I would like you to tell me if we are following the science how to allow indoor activities before outdoor. Please provide guidance and support to local businesses that can provide health to our community in a safe manner. And one more came in while I was reading and I've already read that. So that is all, thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Chair, this is John Leopold. Chair, this is John Leopold. And first, I want to say that I stand strongly behind science and data. I stand strongly behind our health staff, our health officer who's been an architect of a strategy that has prevented the spread of virus transmission in our community and has prevented people from getting sick and has saved lives. We need to continue on that path. I never thought that in Santa Cruz County that we would be fighting the clear science that's out there about virus transmission, about effective tools that could be used to prevent that transmission. The document that was laid out here today has clear information about what's happening in our county, what are good strategies to use so we can prevent the spread and what we need to do in the event that people do not follow the basic rules of preventing virus spread and leading to us increasing restrictions. There are counties like Lassen County who community members have decided not to follow the restrictions, like as they may be, and they are now going back and closing dining restaurants. They are closing businesses after opening them. We don't want that to happen here in Santa Cruz. I think this attestation is a good document. It is a useful document. And it outlines both the progress that we've made as well as the risk we are taking. I commend the staff. I will continue to work with local businesses to make sure that they can use outdoor space for seeding to find other creative strategies to help our local business community. And by the action we take here today, we are helping loads more businesses open up. So I am prepared to move the recommended actions. Okay. And we'll do the second. And then. Second. Go ahead. A second from Supervisor Coonerty, a motion by Supervisor Leopold. Okay. And I will sign the form right after the vote. I just want to thank the wonderful residents of Santa Cruz County for your support and understanding during this current crisis. And I want to assure the people that spoke today that we hear you, but we also hear from both sides of the spectrum. And we want you to know that's why we have the meeting today rather than waiting longer. So thank you. And I will do the roll call vote if you're ready. Roll call vote, we're ready. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Coonerty. Aye. Person. Aye. And Chair Caput. Aye. Okay. So it passes unanimously. And again, we're all in it together. The supervisors, all the department heads and everybody, it's not just one or two individuals. We're all standing together. Thank you. That's it. That's it. Meeting's adjourned.