 On February 1st, this meeting is being conducted in a hybrid fashion here in the board chambers of 701 Ocean Street and via teleconference on Zoom. Burke, will you please call the roll? Supervisor Friend? Here. Coonerty? Here. Caput? Here. McPherson? Here. Tonic? Here. Thank you Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you. We'll now have a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Are there any board members that wish to say a few words? All right, then we'll proceed. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, and we do it in the best of all, and we do it in the best of all. This is item three, consideration of late additions to the agenda, additions and deletions to consent, and regular agendas. Just Chair Koenig and members of the board, we have a couple of additions to the regular agenda, additional materials. On item number nine, there's additional material, a revised attachment A, organizational chart, DPW slash planning, and on item 10, there's additional materials, attachment A, certificate of sufficiency, and attachment B, greenway petition. That concludes the corrections to the agenda. Thank you. When I move to item four, announcement by board members of items removed from consent to regular agenda. Are there any board members who would like to remove an item from the consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll proceed to item five, public. Yes, Supervisor Cavan. I have nothing to remove from the agenda. I just wanted to say that I would love to be in person at the meeting, except everybody in my family, it tested positive for COVID, that's about 10 days ago. I honestly had no symptoms, all my kids except for, Robert, my son didn't have symptoms, Robert was sick, and everybody's doing fine. My wife also had symptoms, and the only thing I had was the runny nose, and when you have a nose like mine, that was the problem, I guess, for a while, so thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that, and I'm glad to hear that it hasn't impacted you too greatly, and we're wishing you a speedy, and your whole family a speedy recovery. You bet, everybody's fine, they're all back to school, everything's going good, thank you. Thank you. Well, now move to item five, public comment. Any person may address the board during public comment, period, speakers must not exceed two minutes in length, or the time limit, and we're established by the chair, which will be two minutes, and individuals may speak only once during public comment. All public comments must be directed to an item listed on today's consent agenda, closed session agenda, yet to be heard on regular agenda, or a topic not on the agenda that is within the jurisdiction of the board. Board members will not take actions or respond immediately to any public communication presented regarding topics not on the agenda, but may choose to follow up later, either individually or at a subsequent board supervisor's agenda. Anyone wishing to address the board may now approach the bench. Chairman, Mr. Manu, that's the first campaign promise you violated, you were going to give people three minutes, I'm sorry to see you join the Panetta team. I'm talking about the COVID group that has been pushed and it's a eugenics program. We can find the red shining ties to both Zach Friend and Bruce McPherson. We find Neil Coonerty was trained at the London School of Economics, you're talking George Bernard Shaw, and those folks, they says we are driven to the conclusion the community has a right to put a price on the right to live. Many are not fit to live until them in a decent way. Some of us are driven to prescribe a lethal chamber for a solution for hard cases. He talks about nature, that the hindermost are slain. He says, we have to do that for the public also. He says, perhaps the government will acquire the right to sterilize those not considered as desirable parents. Listen to that board of school board people, they're under the Panetta machine. They're enforcing these masks on children which is detrimental to them. And then they go on to that the people, the Palacios, the Prime Minister's bishops and those whom the state considers desirable might become fathers of half of the next generation. The matter of course would be in the hands of the state. Political unification of some sort of world government would be required. Get rid of AMBAG, it's a Soviet, it's a parallel government. And I didn't hear any of those people that attended the director's meeting report to the people here and they're sitting at home, they're not here at all. And I find this totally outrageous. Get rid of AMBAG, have every one of those meetings on community TV, you're installing a government tyranny making contracts with ICLEI, which is a front for the UN and the World Bank. You do not represent the people as you were elected to do, you're not upholding the constitution. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. Good morning, my name is James. You know, I wonder how many counties 3,100 in the United States are run like the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors. None of you gentlemen are fools. None of you are idiots. But do you really care for the citizens? You don't have to care for the citizens as you guys are part of a corporation and the corporation is just concerned about its profits. Over the past two years of this scam demo, I cannot believe the lack of logic that you guys have been following. I mean, let's give a real large homeless population in Santa Cruz. Don't you think that if this was actually a real issue that those individuals that may not have the same privileges of other people being as clean as stuff? Don't you think this would have affected them greatly? Well, have we heard about it? Certainly if it had happened, it would have been profited on and all this fear mongering going on. So a lot of citizens used to show up here and talk about stuff and it seems like they were talking to dead ears because you guys are just supporting a corporation. It's just not USA Incorporated. It's Vatican City and it's the Bank of London. What constitution are you guys following? I hear there's six different constitutions. So when the Organics Act was passed in February 23rd, 1871, that created the corporate personhood. So what are you guys really representing? I'll talk on agenda item eight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Whitman. Chair Conak, if I could take this moment to introduce to you our new Health Services Agency Director, Monica Morales became our new HSA Health Services Administration Director, Agency Director rather, a few weeks, a week ago, I think, or two weeks ago. She comes to us with an amazing amount of qualifications. She graduated from UCSC, also with Columbia University with an MPA. She has worked in our county before, Santa Cruz AIDS Project applied to survey research. She then went to the Nevada State Division of Public and Behavioral Health, where she was a Deputy Bureau Chief. Then she went to the State of California, where she has risen to the Deputy Director for the Center for Healthy Communities, which is an agency where she oversaw with over 500 staff and half a billion dollar budget. So I'm very pleased to welcome Monica to the county. She also shared the distinction of being a native of Watsonville, which is really a cool thing as well. So board, welcome Monica Morales. Thank you, Carlos. Glad to be here. Very honored to be back in my community and really help try to work on the recovery and really move forward with some other health policy that we know we need in our community and our different sections of the county. So thank you, Carlos. You direct Morales. Anyone else here in the chambers would like to address the board? Do we have anyone on Zoom or via telephone who would like to address the board? Yes. Samantha Hart Farron, your microphone is available. Okay, can you hear me? Okay, great. Thank you, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. I'm speaking on agenda item number 24. My name is Samantha Farron. I'm the attorney who has represented Ms. Fabiola Del Rial, the fiance of Fallon Santa Cruz County Sheriff Sergeant Damon Gutswiller since Sergeant Gutswiller's death. I wanted to thank Supervisor Friend for his request for agenda item 24, which is requesting the board to issue a letter of support for Senate Bill 850. Senate Bill 850 is something I'm deeply passionate about and that I respectfully encourage this board to support. On June 6, 2020, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Sergeant Damon Gutswiller was murdered in the line of duty. In the months following Sergeant Gutswiller's death, Ms. Del Rial and I navigated many differently glass specs relating to Sergeant Gutswiller and his estate. Specifically, the issue that continually surfaced was that although Ms. Del Rial and Sergeant Gutswiller shared a life, a home, a young child and had another child on the way, the fact they were not legally married presented unfair treatment in the eyes of the law. Senate Bill 850, introduced by Senator Laird, seeks to amend California government code section 21541, which by its current text unjustly reduces the full benefit amount that Gutswiller children are entitled to receive from CalPERS because their parents were unmarried at the time of Sergeant Gutswiller's death. If the goal is to provide for the children of safety classified public employees killed in the line of duty, then such goals should be realized regardless of parental marital status. Children cannot control their parents' marital status, nor should they be penalized for it. In my role as a lawyer to Ms. Del Rial, daughter to a sheriff and wife to a firefighter, this bill is closer to my heart than any other professional piece of work I've collaborated on in my career. Our police and firefighters risked their lives for the communities they serve, but what is often not seen is the tireless support of their families that stand behind them on and off duty. We need to do better for those families and more specifically for those children. Senate Bill 850, seeks to do that and I respectfully request that this board issue a letter in support. Thank you. Thank you. Sheriff Jim Hart, your microphone is available. Thank you. Good morning, Board. Jim Hart, Sheriff Corner. And I just wanna echo what Mrs. Farron just spoke about, but I wanna comment on item 24, which is requesting your board to issue a letter of support for Senate Bill 850. Ms. Farron and I have worked closely with Senator John Laird on this bill that will correct an inequality in the current system when a public safety officer is killed on the line of duty. Sergeant Damon Guswether was murdered on June 6th, 2020 and he left behind a fiance who was eight months pregnant and a young son. In addition to having a child together and one on the way, Damon and his fiance also own a home together here in Santa Cruz. After Damon's death, we discovered that there were antiquated laws in place that only provided full benefits to the children of a fallen officer if the officer and their partner were married. We all know that families come in many forms and when a public safety officer is killed in the line of duty, we need to support the children of that officer. Children should not be penalized because of their parents' marital status. I'd like to thank Supervisor Friend for supporting this bill and I hope your board supports the bill as well. I also wanna thank Senator John Laird for getting involved, recognizing the inequity of the current system and pushing this bill forward. Thank you. Fair part. Carol, your microphone is available. Good morning, my name is Carol Bjorn. I'm just curious where Gail Newell is. I sent her an email the other day it says she's out on medical leave. So it'd be great to get some clarification around that. Further, a few weeks ago, Governor Newsom cryptically announced that we would know the end of the state of emergency when we saw it. I've been patiently waiting and observing for that message to come through and it came through loud and clear on Sunday at the NFC championship game in Inglewood, California of all places. Among 70,000 of his closest friends, Newsom was cavorting with Magic Johnson an immune compromised individual and neither of them were wearing masks. Also in attendance were San Francisco Mayor London Breed and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti. Thank you, Governor Newsom. Your message that the state of emergency is now over came through loud and clear. And now I would like to ask all of our Board of Supervisors to remove any and all COVID measures, guidance, orders, mandates in Santa Cruz County today based on that information from Governor Newsom which was communicated at the NFC championship game Sunday. Next, I would like to strongly oppose agenda item number eight. It's not entirely clear, but it appears that if passed this item would include the installation of cell towers including 5G in certain areas of Santa Cruz County. There've been no studies on how 5G affects human bodies. Similarly, there are no studies on how continually wearing a face mask affects a body, how continually undergoing PCR tests affect the body and how the COVID injections affect a body. So I would just like to ask you all to let's stop the experimentation on human bodies but start with by voting no on agenda eight. I would also like for you to strongly listen to Marilyn Garrett. She's a wealth of information on 5G. Please give her the time and respect that she deserves and meet with her. Thank you. Ms. Bjorn. I'll use her to your microphone is available. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett. Thank you Carol for your comments. I am thinking back to when Supervisor Koenig, you were running for office and we were in the board chambers at the same meeting. And as you had a cell phone in your hand, I was compelled to share information on the dangers of the cell phone radiation. And I have been going to the board meetings for 20 years with evidence of harm and documentation. Before me, I have a statement I've read in 2019 and I'd like to read this again for the record quoting then Mayor Renate Senem of Nevada City. She said 4G 5G in the public right of way, he quote is the corporate and hostile takeover of our public right of way. And with no concern for public health and the environment unquote, as this hostile takeover progressives, we are under continuous assault with microwave radiation warfare frequencies. I presented board members with a copy of a DVD I asked them to review. And I have an extra copy. I want to get to you, Supervisor Poneg, titled 5G Apocalypse De-Extinction Event. There are liability issues for the county and fire dangers from these cell towers and tennis. Crown Castle and Verizon according to its 2014 SEC filing Security and Exchange Commission does not have liability insurance for health effects. If residents do radiation cause illness, I would like to finish due to 4G 5G. Thank you, next please. Color 5907, your microphone is available. Good morning. My name is Kristen Sandell. I'm a district five resident and I am commenting on item 10. I oppose any action to adopt the Greenway initiative today by this board, not just because I support development of the rail corridor for public transit by rail, but because the initiative is preamble, which is almost signers would have read is misleading and doesn't reflect its actual text. The text strikes out all language regarding development of the rail corridor from the county general plan. And it's disingenuous to say the rail corridor's future would be preserved by this initiative or removing any mention of rail transit from the county's general plan. And it appears to subvert the will of county voters who passed measure D and have shown consistent support for the development of electric light rail. Why did the county spend 10 years in considerable public money acquiring the rail corridor from Union Pacific to now determine its future by the signatures of 16,000 people representing only a fraction of the county's 273,000 residents. If the Greenway initiative has merit, please clarify the preamble's language and put it to a public vote. Thank you. Please send out. There are no other speakers. Thank you. And we will now proceed to item six, action on the consent agenda. Do any of my colleagues have any words they'd like to share on items on consent? Yes, Mr. Chair, I'll start. I'd only would like to speak to one item, which is item 24. I don't think I can say it much better than Ms. Farron or Sheriff Hart said, but this is actually legislation that we have been working on ever since at the Santa Cruz PD, both Detective Butler and Sergeant Baker were killed. At that time, Detective Butler was in a similar situation as Sergeant Gutzwaller and Fabi. And it really does correct in inequity. I mean, just in our own community, the two line of duty deaths that we've had in this last decade, both families have been significantly impacted by this really antiquated and unnecessary punishment that the state code has. I would like to commend Senator Laird for taking the lead on this. And I'd also like to commend Ms. Farron who's been actually fighting for this for quite some time on behalf of local law enforcement officers to ensure that the state inequity is addressed. So I appreciate, I know that the board will support this. I appreciate the chair and his willingness to write a letter to our legislative delegation in support and any kind of testifying or any sort of support we can provide for Senator Laird moving forward on this is very important. Just think about the families and what they go through when there's a line of duty death and then also think about how long it takes in behind the scenes on some of these financial matters and just imagine if you or your kids were ineligible for a benefit just because of this antiquated rule this will correct that moving forward not just in this one individual case but for families across our state moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Caput. Yeah, thank you. I want to thank Supervisor Friend for putting item 24 on the agenda. I supported 100% and I didn't know, I didn't know we had all these rules that complicated a very clear issue of someone does die in the line of duty that there would be a complication with their children receiving benefits. So anyway, thank you for putting that on. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. Supervisor McPherson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to welcome Monica Morales who is our HSA Health Services Director. A challenging job has been for the last few years especially and will be now going forward too. So welcome to Santa Cruz County and thank you for your service. On item number 18, the ARPA, the American Rescue Funds, I want to thank the CAO for bringing this up. Given that theme of the Federal Emergency Management Agency may be denied between $15 and $19 million in shelter and care expenses incurred by the county related to COVID, I appreciate this cautious approach that would regard in the remaining funds until we have clarity. I hope FEMA will recognize the burden that local government has undertaken and for doing the right thing in terms of providing the most at risk in our community during this pandemic. On item 23, the plumbing code, I want to thank Chair Koenig for working on this issue with my office in an effort to reduce barriers for developing more housing in our community. On item 24, extending the retirement benefits which have been mentioned. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. This is critical as well-deserved into something that just has to be done. And I do too thank Senator Laird for bringing this forward. On item number 30, the alert welfare fire cameras. I want to thank our office of response, recovery and resilience for bringing this item forward. Once again to our board for having the courage to file the PUC action, excuse me, against PG&E last year for its tree removal activities. The settlement of that action is helping to fund an important fire prevention program. And I look forward to the additional efforts being undertaken by now by the county to bring more resources online to detect the report and report fires as early as possible. Excuse me again, it's especially important at this time. We just had the dryest January in our history in Santa Cruz County. And we have to be very astute on our fire threat that we have in Santa Cruz County. And finally, well, a couple more. The item 35, the CalAIM program. I want to thank the health services agency for bringing this item. The importance really can be overstated in terms of our ability to more comprehensively respond to the needs of the mental health and substance use disorder within the population experiencing homelessness in our county. And on that item, I would like to give or offer a distilled direction be given to the importance of this program and how it's succeeding. I'd like to provide additional direction for the health services agency to return to the board by October in six months this year with a status update on how the program is working. And finally on item 37, the Quail Hollow Ranch. Thanks to the parks department for pursuing this grant. And thank you to all the wonderful volunteers at Quail Hollow, a magnificent place in my fifth district. I hope we can build a trail that enhances the enjoyment of this special place and continues the public education about the habitats in the area. It's a phenomenal park. You're welcome to come to it anytime. And again, I want to thank all the volunteers who have made it such Quail Hollow, such a great park. Thank you. Thank you. To provide the community. Yeah, thank you. Just a few comments. First, I want to thank Supervisor Friend and the Sheriff and everybody at David Gutzwaller's friends and family who have advocated for this justice that will hopefully help not only in this community but other communities where officers die in the life of duty and their survivors get the benefits they deserve. And number 35, I want to support Supervisor McPherson's additional direction. This is an important program and I think it's important that we see how we implement it and the impacts outcomes we have in the community. And finally on item number 42, I want to appreciate this project to create permanent, supportive, affordable housing in Mid County. It's much needed and I think it's a good project and I'm happy to see it move forward. Thank you. I have just a couple of comments. I would like to echo my colleagues appreciation on item 24 in particular thanks to Supervisor Friend and the Sheriff for bringing this forward. On item 30, I want to thank the Director of the Office of Response Recovery and Resilience, Director Reed. It's really exciting that we could have as many as three new fire cameras operational before the start of the next fire season. And in particular, thank you to Silver Mountain Winery in my district as well as a generous donor who is making a camera at that location possible. On item 32, I think it's exciting that we're looking at receiving additional funds from AB 109 to fund correctional officers. And while that might not sound all that great to the advocates for more balanced spending for our social justice programs, really that those funds will help to go towards staffing our medium security unit, the R unit at Roundtree and the minimum security Blaine Street facility for women. And so those are really facilities that take the incarcerated individuals best interests in mind and prioritize community and education. And I'm glad to see that we'll be able to reopen them with these funds. On item 35, the additional HSA positions and rolling out the enhanced care management program, I support the additional direction. And I'm also hopeful that we're able to create some sort of housing program to support people who are enrolled in enhanced care management. As that'll ensure that the dollars we invest in this program go as far as possible. And finally on item 41, approving the final maps for the dwellings on SoCal. I just want to point out that it's been over a year since the tentative maps for this project were agreed were approved and we're now approving final maps. There's certainly, it just demonstrates that the process can be approved. I want to thank the director of public works for helping to work on that. We still have a lot of ways to go and I'm sure we'll be talking a little bit more on that topic when it comes to item nine. With that, a motion would now be in order on the consent agenda. I'll move the consent with the additional direction. Seconded. Seconded by Coonerty. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please call the roll or to vote. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Koenig. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. The consent agenda being passed with additional direction, we'll now move on to item seven. To consider approval and concept of ordinance amending chapter 9.28 of the Santa Cruz County Code relating to stop intersections, designating the intersection of Larkin Valley Road and Marmonte Road and the intersection of Larkin Valley Road and White Road as multi-way stop intersections. Schedule ordinance for final adoption on February 15th, 2022 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CIO Director of Public Works. We'll now have a report by Russell Chen from our Public Works Department. Good morning, Chair Koenig and members of the board. Again, my name is Russell Chen with Public Works. I'm here today to present the ordinance for your approval to install a multi-way stop sign and Larkin Valley Road at Marmonte Road and also at White Road. We've received complaints from the residents of Larkin Valley area that is difficult to see approaching vehicles when entering Larkin Valley Road from Marmonte Road and also White Road. So we've decided to have the intersections evaluated. We had two of our traffic consultants evaluate the intersections and based on the manual of uniform traffic control devices, both studies concluded that the intersections meet the warrant for multi-way stop control based on inadequate site distance. So before you today is a board memo with the following recommended actions. One, approve in concept. Ordinance amending chapter 9.28 of the Santa Cruz County Code relating to stop intersections, designating the intersection of Larkin Valley Road and Marmonte Road and the intersection of Larkin Valley Road and White Road as multi-way stop intersections. Two, schedule the ordinance for adoption on February 15, 2022. And three, direct Department of Public Works to install all necessary signing and striping to create the multi-way stop intersection 31 days after final adoption of the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chen. Any questions from members of the board? Mr. Chair, I don't have any questions. A great appreciation to Mr. Chen and the entire Public Works Department. I know this makes it sound like I've been in local government too long, but boy, I'm getting excited about the idea of these stop signs getting placed down in these locations because we've had people requesting this for quite some time and the due diligence that Public Works did, they stuck with it even through the pandemic. Working with CHP, working with Metro and others that have been concerned about it. A lot of people are diverted off as I know that Supervisor Caput knows under Larkin Valley Road, especially when Highway 1 traffic is blocked. And if there are two very dangerous churns coming in that area, there's Marmonte in the top there on white. And so I think that this will be a significant safety improvement for that area. It's also, from what I can gather, been universally requested and supported from that neighborhood. And so I'm appreciative of that. I also look forward to working with Public Works on letting the community know that this is coming. This is obviously a change in that area that people haven't experienced for the last 40 years. So we're gonna definitely need to make sure that we notify people through social media and traditional media and signage in that area that this is coming down the road. But again, great appreciation for your Russell for your work on this. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions for members of the board? Seeing none, we'll proceed to public comment. For any member of the public that wishes to comment on this item. There's none here in the chambers. Is there any on Zoom or- Yes, we do have David Dait. Your microphone is available. Second call for David Dait. Oh, hi. Supervisor, can you hear me? We hear you, thank you. Okay, cool. I'm very familiar with this intersection. I think the most dangerous approach is coming up Larkin Valley towards Marmonte. And the member from Public Works, there's inadequate line site. Well, the line site's obscured by vegetation. So have they considered actually going in there and clearing out vegetation and improving that ability to see as you're approaching that intersection seems like a more rational approach to improving safety at that intersection before just jumping into a larger scale project. That's all, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dait. Call in user two, your microphone is available. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett. And that sounded like a sensible idea from the previous caller to cut away some of the vegetation. These country roads, putting in big signals, kind of, I don't know. The question is, are they really necessary? And one thing I don't like is all these signals they're putting in, they're all these surveillance cameras all over. And it's just questionable to me. Whereas here I have brought to the board's attention as neighbors on my road. I live off of Freedom Boulevard by Redwood Heights Road. There have been a number of collisions because Redwood Heights Road, it's at the top of the hill, it curves. And there should be a slower speed sign, not 45 miles an hour. And it seems like a very simple inexpensive thing for the county to do to prioritize that speed around that curve has to be maybe 35, not 45. So this is, I wish I could hear more people like the previous neighbor, pros and cons of this. It just sounds like a large, expensive project. And is it really needed? That's my thought, thank you. Station, we are discussing multi-way stop signs, not signalized intersections and no cameras are being contemplated. Okay, good. There are no other speakers. Thank you. Then we'll return it to the board for action. A motion be in order. Supervisor Caput. A move for approval or second to the either way? The second Supervisor Caput's motion for approval. All right, we have a motion by Supervisor Caput, a second by Supervisor Friend. Any further discussion? Burke, roll call vote please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Koenig. Aye. He motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Those multi-way stops being approved, we will proceed to item eight. Consider grant award and agreement with Crucio Internet in the amount of $500,000 to provide broadband access to underserved and unserved areas in the County of Santa Cruz, adopt resolution accepting American Rescue Plan Act funding and approve transfer of funds in the amount of $500,000 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the director of information services. And for a report, we have Tony Batala, our new director of ISD. Chair Koenig and members of the board, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce and welcome Tony Batala as the new director of information services. Tony has a breadth of IT experience in both the public and private sector. Most recently, Tony served as the city of San Leandro's chief technology officer and head of IT for over eight years, directing the city's information technology and innovation programs and overseeing operations, including systems management, networks, telecommunication, website, GIS and security. During that time, Tony helped the city meet its smart city, broadband, fiber optic and other innovation priorities, engaged stakeholders both locally and nationally and developed internal external partnerships to support the city's technology priorities. Prior to working for the city of San Leandro, Tony worked in the private sector for many years as an IT manager and systems engineer, including leadership roles in the bio pharmaceutical industry. Tony has a bachelor's degree in information systems from the University of San Francisco and a master's degree in business administration from the University of California, Los Angeles. So welcome, Tony. Thank you, County Administrative Officer Palacios. Certainly a pleasure to be here and look forward to presenting this item and working for the county. And with that, I think I'm gonna go straight into the item at hand. And it's always a little terrifying as an ISD director when you have computer technology because if I don't know how to work it, I feel like everyone's like, you should know this. Okay, so let me try, let me give it a shot. I've been trained, so let's see. I'm gonna move it around. There we go. See, I jinxed myself. It is famously difficult, here we go. Okay, so for the agenda, today we're bringing an item for the board of supervisors to consider for a grant award to Cruz IO for $500,000 to expand broadband to underserved areas in the county. I'm gonna give a background of this process and then an overview of the proposal from Cruz IO and then the recommendations for the action. So the background is in April of 2021, the board directed staff to set aside $500,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act to expand broadband. After that, the information services department conducted a request for proposals and received several proposals in return. And through the process, they determined that Cruz IO was the most qualified proposer. And so that brings us to now where we're bringing the item back for consideration for approval. So about the proposal, Cruz IO was established in 1989. They currently serve approximately 10,000 people, 7,000 locations, they have fiber and wireless service. Importantly, they were a key partner, main driver of the Equal Access Santa Cruz Program. The proposal that they gave to the county in response to the RP is an expansion of the Equal Access Santa Cruz Program. And I'll come back to that in more detail. But first, just an overview of their technology. So it is primarily a wireless service. So the proposal is to expand their wireless service throughout the county, which includes putting what's called a point of presence or a pop on top of rooftops. So you want to have rooftops that have good line of sight that expands their wireless access. And then subscribers would get a smaller antenna which would pick up that signal, convert it into Wi-Fi in their home. So that's kind of just the general overview of how their technology works and what the proposal includes. So the Equal Access Santa Cruz Program is a partnership with the Community Foundation Santa Cruz. So this is primarily funded through donations. It's donor-funded. It does expand high-speed wireless, as I mentioned. There are 13 locations currently all throughout the county. Each location serves 150 to 200 households and that was $15 a month for qualifying households to subscribe. So if the house meant any kind of, you know, qualification, they would get service for $15 a month. This is high-speed internet. It's been a great program. So the proposal at hand for the $500,000 grant would add 20 new locations throughout the county. There are several potential partners that are already lined up for sites. So you have the Housing Authority of Santa Cruz, Liva-USD, Pajaro Valley, Mid-Venicella Housing, Indian Housing. Several partners are ready that they can use to expand. Again, the service will be planned to be $14.95 a month. It will be county-wide. And again, there's some prioritization of sites that are more ready than others, meaning you have partners that are ready to sign up and ready to expand right away as the funding becomes available. But certainly there's more locations that are up for discussion. The total serviceable subscribers expected with this funding is 4,000 throughout the county. So 4,000 households would get internet service through this expansion. And the timeline to completion is 12 months, which is again, one of the great advantages of this wireless technology, which I didn't really touch on, was that it can be expanded for a fraction of the cost of fiber or other wireline service and much faster. So the process to build out a wireless site and expand service, it's faster and cheaper than the alternatives, which is one of the key reasons why the Cruz IO proposal was so strong. Okay, so the next slide. Okay, I might've jumped ahead there. Okay, so in addition to those sites that I mentioned, there were some sites that are more ready than others. And that's how I would frame it. They're Cruz IO who was on the call today and available for discussion and to answer questions, as well as ISD staff who were deeply involved in the process to get here and did a fantastic job, I will say. There is a pretty expansive list of potential sites. So there's about 34 sites that Cruz IO has identified. And that's what you're looking at now. Those sites are throughout the county. And again, they're at varying degrees of readiness, so meaning that in order to bring a site online requires not just a technical survey to see does it have the line of site required and does it have all the electrical requirements and good rooftop and all that. But there also needs to be an agreement with the property owner. So the property owner has to make that site available and there has to be a contract in place. So some of these sites again are more ready than others. That said, I think these sites are all here with an understanding that there's at least some possibility that they could be included. So the final list of sites is not determined. And I think that is something that staff would look to be more further involved to flesh out with direction. So that is definitely an item for discussion. And in addition to that, there's future funding that is expected, more federal funding, as well as additional programs like the Affordable Connectivity Program, which is a continuation or an expansion of the FCC's Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. And that cruise IO was an approved provider through that and is applying to become an approved provider through the ACP program. That means that they will be able to be subsidized by the FCC for providing this low cost service. So in one respect, they are subsidized through the Equal Access Santa Cruz program. That's how they offer the low cost service. But in addition to that, they'll also be able to be reimbursed by the FCC by providing this low cost service. That's just kind of the funding of how these programs will work. But certainly at the staff level, we're tracking these programs and future funding available. And there's definitely more to come there. So that brings us to recommendations. The recommendations say from staff are to approve the grant award to cruise IO for $500,000 to expand under their proposal, authorize the director of ISD to sign, execute the agreement and adopt a resolution accepting American Rescue Plan Act funding and approve the transfer of $500,000 to the ISD budget. So as I mentioned, we have both ISD staff who went hands on throughout the RFP process and got us to this point and did a fantastic job. And we have representatives from cruise IO for any questions. Thank you, Director Patala. Thank you. Are there any questions from members of the board? I see Supervisor McPherson. Yes, thank you and welcome joining to the county family. We're getting bigger and better. We can tell just by the information we received already this morning. Thank you to the information services department to begin with and to see IO staff for working on this board initiative relative to the American Rescue Plan funds. And it's very critical and it's been a big priority of ours for a long time, especially in my fifth district in the mountainous areas that we have in the terrain. You've answered one of my questions I had pretty much for what's the process of determining the localities. And I know if there's a technological survey and they're going to need property owner approval. So I don't know what more you might add on that, but I did want to say, ask, once the service areas are determined, will residents be required to select cruise IO as their internet service provider in order to take advantage of the new connectivity? Thank you Supervisor McPherson. I think that the short answer is yes. In order to subscribe, there would be a registration process typical to any service you would sign up for. Cruise IO is here, if they do want to answer that in more depth, but I think the short answer is yes, there would be a- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At first, I'd just like to add a debt of gratitude to the board for supporting this initiative that I brought forward with Supervisor Coonerty a few months ago. There were questions at that time from some of my colleagues about how this process would play out and whether it was duplicative of some of the other federal funding and state funding opportunities coming down. But as you can see, as a standalone, this is an outstanding first step for significantly increasing broadband access for underserved communities throughout our community in a very short amount of time. I'd also like to give some real appreciation for ISD as well as the CAO staff for creating an RFP in a quick amount of time and really doing the due diligence to find out the best way to serve these residents. I do have some additional direction when it comes time for a motion that I'll just outline here because I think that there's a couple additional things that we could do as the new ISD director alluded to. I think it's important that we continue to engage with board offices throughout this process when these sites are being finalized. Since there's a larger list of sites, it would just be useful to ensure that there's continued engagement with board offices on where those sites are within each of our districts. These don't have to be particularly long conversations but just a general engagement to ensure that we're engaged throughout the process. There's gonna be a lot of it excited and interested community members as this process continues on. And the second component of this, and I think that this might even be more important, is that we anticipate anyway, it hasn't been finalized, a pretty significant infusion of federal infrastructure funds coming, potentially millions actually for broadband expansion in our community. And I wanna be sure that we have a process in place that we don't delay the deployment of those funds for broadband expansion throughout our community as well. That could mean something as simple as doing the same process we just did for this. It could be ISD and their expertise coming up with some sort of process on how we're gonna deploy it. It could be hiring as there are a number of consultants that do this specific work on strategic planning or broadband master planning, whatever it may mean, we need to have that process in place when the Treasury guidance arrives so that we can immediately move toward the deployment action of this to show that within 12 months, 4,000 households, which is much more than 4,000 people, by the way, are gonna be served with significantly improved speeds and accesses, just goes to show what we can do when money is provided. I think that this is one of the greatest investments that this board can make in both equity and access moving forward. This is the modern day road is the broadband network and it helps equalize a lot of opportunities for members in our community, both from schooling, from communications, from, I mean, over, if you just look at, especially younger members and those that are disadvantaged throughout our community, they're not using some of the traditional communications models that we were used to or landlines, for example. And so some of this communications are essential, not just for school, but for self or reaching 911, for accessing your doctors, for being able to apply for jobs for those that are fortunate enough to work remotely, et cetera. So just changing that philosophy and having that process involved for the federal funding, which I think is gonna be much larger. I view this as step one, $500,000, but we're talking it's gonna be exponentially more with the infrastructure funding. I wanna make sure we have a process in place. So when it comes back for a motion, I'll promise to do it in under 7,000 words like I just did and make it into something that's usable right there. But this is just, I'm passionate about this and I just, I really do appreciate and welcome to our new director for taking the lead on this as well, that we are making this difference in people's lives pretty soon. The last element is, we did receive a letter as you probably saw from AT&T with some questions. I think that the board is part of our additional direction should just simply direct staff to meet with AT&T to answer their questions about the process. There's no reason to delay this action today, but they seem to have some questions that I'm sure that could be addressed by staff behind the scenes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Caput. Yeah, thank you. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the people that agree with Marilyn Garrett. I find it interesting that people move out of the city to get away and they'll move into the country. And then a few will say, hey, it's too dark out here. I want a streetlight. People that do move out of the city to get away, modern technology and everything seems to be following them. So anyway, I'm gonna vote a cautionary no vote on this. I think it's too much, too fast. I don't know exactly where the sites will be. We're talking about cell towers. And I think really in the future, years down the line from now, there probably are some health issues and things like that that are related to high speed internet. So anyway, thank you. Mr. Chair, if I may follow up on that, if that's okay, just very briefly. So because there was an effort to ensure that there was distribution throughout all the districts, would Supervisor Caput be requesting that the locations within the fourth district then be removed because I imagine that your colleagues would be, we have a lot of locations that aren't being serviced. So if you're not interested in the funding allocation of the fourth district, now would be an opportunity, as opposed to just voting no, but still being a beneficiary of the award. I think that if you're not interested in it, being in your district now would be a time to let us know because then we could increase the number of locations in the other districts. Yeah, I appreciate your comment. I just think it's too much too fast and I'd like to see where all these sites would be and how high the towers would be or whatever. We are, it seems like we just take the word of all these, you know, Team Oval and Cruz Zero and others. And I don't think that they're actually showing any concern for possible future health problems that people might have. Thank you. Roger Caput, you've heard of questions or comments? Yeah, Mr. Chair, I guess I'm just gonna return to the broader context, which is this pandemic exposed huge divides, economic divides in our community. And what's been shown is that without reliable access to internet, kids fall behind, workforce opportunities are lost. And particularly in South County, that's a critical issue and providing access affordable, accessible, high speed internet is critical for low income families. And that the opportunity to take this money, partner with Cruisile, which is a local business that's shown his commitment to the community repeatedly with the community foundation that is raising money in order to reduce costs and allow families to be able to access high speed internet. This is really a remarkable opportunity. And I also should point out because I think we have a debate going on in this country, but this is the product of what happens when the federal government decides to make an investment through local communities, allowing us to identify the areas where we can leverage existing resources to make a bigger impact and reduce disparities. And this is one example that we've been able to make an investment and it's gonna have a real impact on lives and opportunity. And we're not building towers, we're using existing infrastructure to create high speed internet that most of our urban areas and those who can afford it, get in our community and making sure that it's applied and accessed equally across our community. So it's a big opportunity, very supportive obviously of it. And I'm excited that we're able to move forward and I appreciate the staff and the partners we have in the community that are making it happen. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. I just have a couple of questions myself. My office looks forward to working with the ISD department and with Cruzeo on the suggesting the best possible locations in the first district. We have gone ahead and mapped some of those to see just as far as the two mile radius that you mentioned, which locations will serve the most people. Is there a more detailed map available of the quality of internet service in the county? I saw one that was very general, but that would also be able to help any recommendations that we make. Thanks, Chair Coonerty. So I don't know of any specific maps that we at the county have developed and the maps that have been provided by the FCC over the years have been disputed as inaccurate. And so there is a process right now for the FCC to update their maps, which we are tracking at staff with the hopes that these maps that they release will be more accurate and representative of the actuality, the reality that people experience rather than the past, which have I mentioned been in dispute. So that's unfortunately the best I can answer at this time regarding specific maps with coverage. And this is a problem, not just here, but nationally, it's always been a challenge to get accurate data on the actual problem. I understand the maps are difficult, but then I guess we'll make those recommendations based on where the most people benefit from these low-cost internet access, which I imagine that'd be the same as the Equal Access Santa Cruz program to people if they wouldn't sign up for Cruzeo, but it'd be about $15 a month, is that accurate? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. And then per supervisor, friends, additional direction on the communication with the board offices. Will you be providing some estimate of the implementation time for the different sites so we can also work that into our own recommendations? Yeah, and I think those sites, again, some are more ready than others, but once a site is identified and an agreement is reached with the property owner, the turn-up time to install it is probably, I would assume a month to two months tops, but we do have Cruzeo here who might be able to answer that in more depth if you would prefer a more technical and specific answer. Sure, yeah, from the representatives from Cruzeo, what kind of a difference in implementation time are we talking about? Is it once one month and once two months, or are there some that are gonna be on the further end of two years? Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thanks, James Hackett from Cruzeo, first of all, thank you everyone for the opportunity, thanks to the board for making these funds available and recognizing the need for investment in broadband equity in the county. Regarding that specific question, where our proposal has a 12 month timeline to complete all 20 sites. Some of those are ready to go immediately, just awaiting final approval. Some of those will be decided and as it's been touched on in the meeting so far, we'd very much like to immediately after this start to set up meetings with the supervisors and staff to discuss the specific needs of your districts that you obviously know better than anybody. Once identified and once agreements are in place, a matter of weeks to connect the sites. Once we've got approval and once we're ready to build, we can get those on the schedule and it's really a matter of weeks, not months to get those up and running and serving the constituents with the high-speed service. Thank you, that's definitely a very exciting part of the proposal is the speed of implementation. And then within that two mile radius are locations or homes that are closer to the center of the installation point that they receive stronger service? No, not with this technology. Anyone within the service area would get the same service in the same speeds. We're conservative at Cruiser with our deployments. So the only thing affecting speeds on this technology would be extending the distance too far or overloading the equipment with too many subscribers, which we don't do on our network. So it's the same service for anyone who can connect within the service range and it's the exact same service just to be 100% clear. Exact same service that we offer at full price all across our network. This isn't a reduced speed capped or in any way inferior service to the service that we offer to every household and business in the county. We think as part of the Equal Access Initiative it was very important to all of the partners that to truly bridge the digital divide this be an equitable service, not a reduced speed or inferior service to what full price subscribers are getting. Thank you, Mr. Hackett. I just wanna say I'm also excited that the Live Oaks Unified School District has stepped up as a partner in this initiative as well as Mid-Pen Housing, which have both have of course on numerous sites throughout the first district. And just one final note of thanks to Cruise IO of course the reason that you're in the position to receive this grant today is really because of you stepped up and created the Equal Access Santa Cruz program during the pandemic to meet a need in our community. No one made you do that, you did it because it was the right thing to do. And it's really much appreciated and I think it's fitting that it puts you in this position to receive these grant funds. So thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome. Is there any public comment on this item? Anyone here in the chambers? Yes, please approach the podium. Good morning, my name is James. First I wanna thank Greg Kappett for not following along with the Jesuit Zionist, Fabian eugenicists. So a community member had said there's not a lot of information out about the actual harm that could happen from these frequencies. Both Barry Traller and Sam Milham have described extensively how deadly these frequencies are to children. Next to children, it's law enforcement. Law enforcement is forced to wear these devices. Children, since Tom Wheeler located under Obama, the last connection into the classroom is a super router that's made to run 300 laptops. So yeah, I really am glad that Kappett had some caution. If anyone in the public is interested in some good information on a recent history of wireless, Lena Pugh, September 2019s, health risks, surveillance and bio weapons. She did that in Silicon Valley. I've mentioned before CNN in 1985 did a presentation where they showed lightning as weapons. Perfect example is the CZU fires. And I've got a lot of evidence of that. Also 60 gigahertz affects the oxygen molecule. Now if we were plants, it wouldn't really affect us but we need to absorb oxygen. So that's just one of the effects. Something that was not really talked about much in this group or not enough are the effects of what's going on with the tracking technology that's in all our foods, our liquids and our domestic water systems. Apparently there's a lot of evidence it's in the vaccines. So 26 gigahertz and 28 gigahertz and 41.5 gigahertz directly affect a really amazing product called graphene oxide. Just not so good for humans. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Whitman. Is there anyone on Zoom or on the telephones? All in user too. Your microphone is available. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. The amount of time you have spent lauding this technology and investing money and the unequal amount of time should be given before the board to a presentation, say by Dr. Karl Merritt or people who are authorities in the biological harm, some of which was just cited by James. This is, where is your proof of safety? And after I make my comments, I do have questions. Cruz, I owe, you said they're available for questions. So I would like to ask them questions. But first, you talk about unserved or underserved. I am put priorities on people who are unfed, unhoused, unemployed and providing money for that. These are the real necessities, not radiation at all. A source of information on this is cellphonetaskforce.org, Arthur Fersenberg and his most recently newsletter, he's done 35. I'm going to read a little excerpt and I would appreciate being able to read it. You've just given what, half hour, 45 minutes to all the pros. Today's cellular and broadband have merged and there is no difference. 5G provides both voice and internet services and the preemption clause does not say cell towers. It says personal wireless service facilities. That's referring to section 704, the telecom app which encompasses everything. We are back before the Supreme Court after 20 years asking it again to strike down that clause in order to restore to local governments the right to protect our health and environment and impose liability on telecommunications companies that injure and kill people. In 2000, the second court address only the issue of the state's rights. Caller 9902, your microphone is available. My name is Nina Beatty. The name on the docket item today, the agenda item did not disclose that these were wireless antennas that were being proposed for the broadband system. So the public was not informed of the true nature of this proposal. The use of the word points of presence instead of wireless antennas completely hides the true matter before the board. Was there public notification to property owners and residents around these proposed sites? If not, then the public wasn't given their right to do process to understand what was being proposed in their neighborhoods. The board has not given any consideration to Americans with Disabilities Act or the Fair Housing Act or Amendments Act as far as people's access to their homes providing white zones or white paths. Many, many people in Santa Cruz County are disabled by electromagnetic sensitivity. You've had many of them come to the board and to other county agencies over the years and talk about this issue and talk about their lack of access. And people specifically have moved to Santa Cruz County to the rural areas to avoid exposure to this radiation because it makes them very, very ill with heart problems, with nausea, with physical pain, with internal bleeding, with all kinds of problems that result from electromagnetic sensitivity. And yet the county to the state hasn't even done a transition plan to make their board chambers more accessible to people who are electromagnetic sensitivity. And now they're being shut out by this proposal. This is not equitable. The fiber to the premises was paid for by telecom customers for years. And then the recent lawsuit by the group of regulators exposed all the money that's sitting there for Californians and for people in other states to put fiber to the premises of everyone's home. Now at least 3% of people in Santa Cruz County are electromagnetically sensitive. And this is egregious that you would irradiate their homes when they've tried to have safe homes and being a barrier to their homes. The FCC lawsuit in August, there's a New Hampshire report, there's a caller 8204, your microphone is available. I'm also calling to oppose agenda eight, item eight. And a further expansion of broadband into our communities is harmful. I think that the rural areas or any areas you're talking about are best served through hard wire fiber optics to their locations. We want service without the harm that comes from wireless radiation. Our community has been uninformed as to the harmful side effects of wireless technology as I think the members of the Board of Supervisors have been. Either through lack of interest or complete denial of the information available today, your ability to do your job well in regards to making sound plans for our community is irresponsible. How many times has a community member come before the Board to comment on the lack of broadband services compared to the many years of comments made to you by concerned citizens as the harms of this technology? By now the County of Santa Cruz should have developed task force to collect and understand the extensive data on the harms of wireless communication. You would then have valuable information on how to best move forward with plans when you receive funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. There are people in our community who will help you get started in collecting and understanding the data on harms of wireless technology. I see it as your job to bring your knowledge up to speed so that you can be more effective and more effective decision maker in the County. Don't stay ignorant to the real world effects of wireless everything. People wanna be safe as we move forward in the tech age. And I gotta say I appreciate Supervisor Caput. Thank you for the precautionary instinct that you have because with all this funding, you all wanna go gangbusters out into our world and just have all this harmful radiation exposing everyone and nobody else gets a choice, especially homeowners that live around a neighbor deciding to put a point of POP on their roof. So I think this should be a broader conversation to have with the community. Invite Cruz IO, get the board members up to speed before you guys make a vote on this agenda item. Thank you. David Wodkowski, your microphone is available. Good morning, Chair Caput and Supervisors. David Wodkowski, I'm a resident of District 2 and I wanted to first of all welcome Tony Batala as CIO. Tony and I have worked together for a few years now. We have a few projects out of the area and I think it's great that he's coming down to Santa Cruz County. I think he's gonna add a lot to what we're doing here. I wanna just specifically note as a resident of District 2 that I am very much in support of Aptos High School being one of the sites for this. I have children who attend that high school our ability to communicate with them when they are on campus is extremely limited. It's always a challenge. The Wi-Fi network up there is functional but barely so. And I think Aptos High School would make a great site for the planets in this county. That's specifically related back to the incident that occurred in fall where a lot of parents expressed concern about their ability to reach their children during that lockdown. And I think that it's one of the great problems that we have in this district that I'm thankful to Supervisor Friend for his willingness to address this problem head on. And also appreciate his comments that if certain districts don't want to participate, I think that's fine because there's a lot more work than there's funding for. And so if we're gonna divert funds, then again, I agree with him now would be the time to say that we don't wanna go down that road in a particular district. I'm gonna give back the balance of my time. Thank you. Thank you. There are no other speakers. Then we'll conclude public comment and return it to the board for action. A motion would be appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will make a motion and my motion would be for the recommended actions with some additional direction. The additional direction would be number one to continue to engage with board offices as this process continues, including site discussion. Two, to return, have ISD returned to the board in a month with a general process or outline on how we'll distribute federal funding, maybe a strategic planning process, a consultant, or any other suggestions than the ISD director. That can be a consent item. It's just a general outline. It's not meant to be too in-depth. And the third is to direct staff to meet with AT&T to answer their questions about the process. Second. Looking by Supervisor Friend, seconded by Supervisor Coonerty. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, roll call vote please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. No. McPherson. Aye. Onig. Aye. Thank you, motion passes 4-1. The grant being awarded to Cruz IO Internet with Supervisor Caput dissenting. We will now move on to item nine. Consider report on the integration of the public works and planning department to create the community development and infrastructure department as outlined in the memorandum of the deputy CAO director of public works. And I believe all the presentation from director of public works, Matt Machado. Take it away. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Koenig and board members. Oh, good. There's my PowerPoint. Stephanie, will you advance for me when I... Thank you. I'm going to avoid the IT trouble. Good morning again. Next slide, please. I'm very happy to be here, by the way. Today I plan to share a report on the proposed integration of the departments of planning and public works. In front of you is a agenda that I plan to cover, a bit of history, some goals, areas of benefit, some staffing and management structure and implementation. Next slide, please. So the two departments have been co-located here in this building on the fourth floor for many decades. It's really benefited us quite well. The adjacency has allowed coordination and collaboration, which has benefited all the services that we provide. That said, expectations today, back one, please. Did I bump it? Let's go back. Back another one. Oh, oh, oh, wow, touchy. Okay, it's not wanting to back up. All right, give me some advice, Stephanie. Here you go. Okay, there you go, stop there. We made it. Expectations today are quite a bit different than the past with the speed of required communication. And with the regulatory environment, with state legislation requiring a greater collaboration and teamwork effort between land use and infrastructure, that is to this integration plan. We plan to further coordination and collaboration through the integration. Am I doing that, Stephanie? I'm not touching it either. Oh my, we need to back up to the integration goals, right there. All right. This thing back in the cradle. Come on, man. Thanks for just moving so quickly under your leadership. Oh my goodness, gracious. Back one. There we go, right there. Back one. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So we plan to move forward with additional coordination and collaboration through the integration of these two departments. Before you are some integration goals. They will include improved customer service, streamlined project management and delivery. And we hope to achieve county goals such as attainable housing, reliable transportation and sustainable environment. Next slide, please. Our expected outcomes will include improved collaboration, communication, customer service, coordinated land use due to state legislative actions, implementation of our new unified permit center, which we refer to the UPC, and at shared support service efficiencies. Next slide, please. A priority focus area will be the unified permit center. Our goals will be to improve customer service, to provide timely and accurate information, to pursue pre-application reviews, which will help our application process, real-time plan checking for some projects and improve public access. With one counter, having our public work staff and our planning staff working shoulder to shoulder and working together on process improvement, we expect that our goals will be met. We're very excited about that. Next slide, please. Under a unified management structure, our focus will be as shown on this slide, which will include the comprehensive permit processing, efficient timely responses, cost savings, streamlined processes and streamlined decision-making. Additionally, we are crafting an implementation strategy that will provide detail and actionable steps to meet these areas of need. Next slide, please. The integration will result in the new department of community development and infrastructure. This new department will include these four areas, which are area of planning, which includes the UPC division and housing and policy division, public works area, which will include the transportation division and special services division, the capital projects area, which will include project management and real property division. And then of course, admin services, which will provide support services for all areas and divisions. Next slide, please. This is our near-term timeline. It's as follows. Our immediate implementation will include exec team meetings starting immediately so that we can start gaining advantages of collaboration and communication through teamwork. We believe that will be key to other implementation steps, which will include the interim UPC, which I show here beginning within the next one to two months, but in reality, we actually are seeing the first step beginning next week. We're very excited about that. It will include public work staff being stationed at the planning counter to assist in scheduled appointments. And I think that shoulder to shoulder activity where information can be shared real-time with real support, we'll see some benefits beginning immediately. And then next steps will include fourth floor space changes, which is a part of the grander UPC permanent implementation plan. We believe that will be over the next 12 to 18 months. Our architect is currently working on the design. They're also looking, working on cost estimates, which we will keep this board informed through those steps. And then of course, the ongoing timeline will always be process improvement. We will be providing a progress update to the board during our budget hearings in June. And we plan to keep the board as updated as possible on all these actionable steps. And as I wrap up my report, I do want to thank CAO Palacios for his leadership and vision getting us here today. I would also like to thank the staff of Public Works and Planning. Their courage to embrace this change is much appreciated. And I do believe our future is bright with this new change. And I would like to wrap up here with the recommended action today, which is to consider the report on the integration of the Public Works and Planning departments to create the Community Development and Infrastructure Department. And I'm available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Deputy CAO Machado. Are there any questions for members of the board? Yes, Supervisor McPherson. Boy, this has been a long time in coming. And I just think it's terrific, longstanding initiative for us to improve our customer service. And I want to really thank CAO Carlos Palacios and our Deputy CAO, Matt Machado, Director of Public Works and our senior civil engineer, Carolyn Burke, who was on special assignment to work on the Unified Permit Center. And if you've seen the organizational chart, wow, good luck, it's going to be, but it'll work better. And in particular, I appreciate the goal of adapting a common culture in our Planning and Public Works departments as the staff report identifies in terms of approach to our service. I think it's going to be the biggest advantage. The recommended changes are much more than physical change. And I think the public will appreciate the effort to streamline our permitting process much as they have with our CZU Fire Recovery and Permit Center. I did have one question. Is mentioned, the staff report anticipates additional costs related to the necessary renovations, which is well understood. Number one, do you have any estimate of what that might cost? And then will this coordinated effort in the longterm, do you see it resulting in reduced costs or cost effectiveness in this new department? Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Those are really good questions. We do not yet have a cost estimate for the fourth floor modifications. We are working on that and we will be bringing that back to your board as part of our budget proposal or possibly sooner. With regard to reduced future costs, we do think there will be some streamlining and efficiency seen with support services and another combination of project deliveries. I think that if you relate it to the improved customer service, I think we will see some cost savings and that's not direct cost savings, for the value that we get through customer service, there will be some increased value at a longer term cost savings. So I do think there are savings expected in the future, even if it requires a greater investment on the front end to get to those levels of customer service that our community demands. Thank you, congratulations. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Further questions from members of the board? Supervisor Friend? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't really have a question. I just wanna echo the deputy County Administrative Officer Machado's comments about the courage of the two staffs. I mean, it's been over 40 years, you've had these separate departments and changes and always an easy thing to undertake. And the county's asked a lot of its employees in regards to the Primo process and the analysis that we've done to really make sure that we can do things in the most efficient way for the community that we serve. And changes that have been made as a result of that process are twofold. One, they've stemmed directly from feedback that came from the employees. Most of these ideas, including the concept of an integration of the departments in more efficient way to ensure that the community experience these two departments came directly from the employees. And two, I think that if you look at five or 10 years from now, it just makes a lot of sense to have these two departments integrated in a way that they haven't been historically. They are two absolutely essential frontline departments on behalf of the county. Customers engage with them on a very consistent basis. And we've identified ways that directly from feedback from our own employees that we can improve those two departments and that's what we're effectuating starting today. I think that there's a lot, I know there's a lot of talented people within both departments and I'm excited to see that once they're integrated together what can be done to help improve the overall outcomes on behalf of customer service in our community. This is just the first step, but it's not the last step in ensuring that the community's experiences coming into the county is as much more customer centric than it's been historically. And I appreciate not just the leadership of Mr. Machado on this, but that this stemmed up from feedback coming directly from employees as to ways that we can improve. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Any further comments or questions from the board? I'll just say, sorry, I'll just say briefly I appreciate the efforts. I know it's gonna take a little bit of upfront work both in terms of infrastructure, but more importantly in terms of relationships and building a culture and looking at regulations and processes. But at the end of the day when most people come to interact at the county they don't come into our process recognizing or appreciating the various departments they see it as a service that they're seeking. And so having these departments merged together so that when you come in and you are not trying to navigate one, two or three different departments and processes just makes a lot of sense. It's all people see the county as one entity and the more that we can collaborate and break down silos, the more effective we'll be. So thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Thank you. Yeah, I wanna thank you for the report. I believe that this will be an improvement that will make it easier for people to navigate all the different departments and things like that. So we'll work out all the details and look forward to seeing a more streamlined process for people to go in and get things done rather than having them run around to different silos. It'll be a one stops place to go. Thank you. Thank you. I would also just like to commend you, Deputy CEO Machado, the org chart that you'll be overseeing is quite extensive as we saw in the board packet. And as my colleagues have said, I also wanna thank all the members of both the departments, now one department, Community Development and Infrastructure Department and being open to this change and acting the way that is customer centric. And I just had one question. It's really fantastic to hear that some of the changes will begin essentially immediately with folks working shoulder to shoulder at the permit counter. Is there any contemplation of some sort of applicant advocate who will actually see applications all the way from beginning to end? Or is that one of the process improvements that will be considered in the future? So I think you're probably referencing like an ombudsman to navigate these areas. And yes, one of the first items that we'll be actually bringing back to this board is to be looking at a position that we will call our UPC floor manager. And they'll be navigating all the front counter duties and needs. And they certainly will represent the customer in a very positive way to ensure that they get through the process cleanly with the right information. And so yes, we do have that vision to have a staff member that'll be dedicated to that floor management, to that daily operation to making sure that the customers is served properly. That's great. One of many great process improvements to come forward. Thank you. Yes. Are there any members of the public who wish to address us on this item? I see none here in the chambers. Is there anyone on Zoom or on the phones? Yes, there's a speaker via Zoom. Colin, user two, your microphone is available. It seems to me that these two departments have very different functions, public works and planning department. And I understand in Monterey County, their departments were merged. And I don't know if it was the grand jury. The, it was determined that the public wasn't being served and they had to go back and have the separate departments. So that's, it seems to me like less public assistance by merging things. That's how it seems. And I also wanted to say when people call in to the board, usually on the recording, it says press star nine to unmute. You hear that or the star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. It didn't say that. It just said you will be muted throughout the meeting. So I am wondering how many people tried to call in and couldn't get in because of that lack of information to let them know how they could do it. That there's so many problems with the public not being heard here. Okay, that's those are my comments. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. There are other speakers. I think we'll conclude public comment and return it to the board. The recommended action is simply to consider the report. Is there a motion to accept the report or any further? I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Motion by Supervisor McPherson, seconded by Supervisor Friend. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, roll call vote, please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Honig. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. That report has been accepted. The board will now recess for until 1045 and we have our regularly scheduled item. And so I will bring us to a recess and we will return at 1045 to discuss item 10, consideration of accepting a report on the certification of the Greenway initiatives. I will now call to order the resumption of the regular Board of Supervisors meeting. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Supervisor Friend. Here. Coonerty. They are on screen. Caput. McPherson. Here. Thank you, Chair. You have a quorum. There are two members still off screen. Thank you. And when they do arrive, please record it into the record. It will proceed. It is 1045 and we have a scheduled item, item 10, to consider accepting a report on the certification of the Greenway initiative petition. And if certified, select one of three options per elections code, section 9118 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer. Before we begin, I'll turn it over to Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I need to recuse myself from this item. I have a financial conflict. My personal residence is within 500 feet of the rail line and I've received an FPPC opinion that I cannot participate in this item or any item regarding the rail line. So I'll be recusing myself in exiting the meeting during this item. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Now, I believe that actually will reduce us to below a quorum, in which case we will have to wait until Supervisors Caput or Coonerty join us. I do see Supervisor Caput has joined us, but we will proceed. And CAO Palacios, do you have a report on this item? Yes, thank you, Chair Koenig and members of the Board. In July, 2021, the proponents of the Greenway Initiative published a notice of intention to circulate the petition and satisfied other preliminary legal requirements to begin collecting signatures. On December 14th, 2021, the Santa Cruz County Greenway Initiative petition was submitted to the County Clerk Register of Voters Office for an examination of 16,125 signatures gathered. Yesterday, County Clerk Tricia Weber did file a clerk certificate of examination of initiative petition with the number of signatures found sufficient of 13,315 valid signatures with the required number of 11,919. Therefore, the petition has been certified. County Clerk Tricia Weber is available in the chambers if the Board has any questions about that process. Given that the petition has been certified for election code, the Board of Supervisors is required to select one of three options. Option number one is to adopt the proposed initiative without alteration at the meeting at which certification is presented, which is today or within 10 days after it is presented. Option number two, submit the proposed initiative without alteration to the voters by placing the measure on the ballot at the next statewide election, which would be the June 7th, 2022 election. And then option number three is to order a report pursuant to elections code section 911 and direct staff to return within 30 days from today to consider the report. Once the report is presented, the Board of Supervisors must either adopt the proposed ordinance within 10 days thereafter or order an election. As outlined in the elections code section 911, if the Board were to select the option to order a report, the report would consider things like the fiscal impact, the consistency with the petition, with the general plan and specific plans and other zoning codes, its effect on land use, impact on funding for infrastructure of all types, impact on the community's ability to attract and retain business and employment, impact on the uses of vacant parcels of land, impact on agricultural lands, open space, traffic concessions and so forth. The actual details of the report are listed in the staff report. So those are the options that are before the Board today. And then just to note that if the Board does order a report, the response would have to be presented to the Board within 30 days from today, which would be March 2nd, 2022. And then if the Board were to choose to place the initiative on the ballot, staff would return on February 15th, 2022, with the documents necessary to accomplish that. That concludes my report. I'm available for questions as is County Council Jason Heath and Elections Clerk Trisha Weber. County Clerk Trisha Weber. Thank you, CAO Palacios. Are there questions from members of the Board? Supervisor Caput. You bet. I see three options. They did get the signatures and I definitely believe in the democratic process. I don't agree with the proposal, but anyway, that's a different point. Is there a possible fourth provision that we can vote on and make it instead of the June election, primary election, if we could move it to November when more people will vote on the, more people show up in November than June. So is that an option that we can actually consider to put it to the voters and the taxpayers of everybody on the November election? No, Supervisor, that's not an option. If you're bored, votes to place it on the ballot, it needs to be placed on the next statewide general election, which currently is June 7th, 2022. Okay, that's by law. Is that County law, state law or whatever? It's date law. Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, then I'll take it to public comment. We have at least one member here in the chambers. Please approach the podium. Hello, commissioners. My name is David Dait, resident of Lesalba Beach. I've been loosely involved in- Mr. Dait, if you could just keep your mask over here. Okay, okay, that's a little bit more difficult, but so I've been loosely interested in the possibility of a trail in Santa Cruz for probably about 10 years and I've been pretty active for the last seven to eight. Proponents of the train have consistently said that they're acting with the community consensus. And they cite the passage of Measure D and certain little online polls that they've sent out to their members. Here's an opportunity to actually gain a solid community consensus and bring this to the voters and solve this issue once and for all. Another interesting thing is I was going through the filings for No Way Greenway, which is the Ford's sponsored campaign. And over 80% of their contributors came from three different entities. There were Mark Masetti-Miller and his wife, Murphy Miller had contributed $30,000. Dan and Jill Dion had contributed $30,000. And then the director of Friends of the Rail Trail, Sally Arnold had contributed $12,000. There was not a single contribution from a member of South County. There was not a single contribution from any of these interested community organizations. So I think the smoke screen is starting to clear and I think people are starting to understand that the Friends of the Rail Trail and these rail proponents are not acting in the community's interest. So I support the commission or the supervisors to affirm this petition and bring it to a vote once and for all and settle this issue. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Dade. Or anyone on Zoom or on the phones? Yes, we have multiple speakers on Zoom. And just a question for the clerk. Approximately how many people have their hands raised? If you could- There are five currently. All right, then we'll proceed with two minutes. Thank you. Jack Brown, your microphone is available. Hello, and thank you supervisors for receiving this report. I just wanted to ask as a member of the public to please put this on the next June ballot without delay. I was one of the people, one of 170 volunteers, no paid people were going out gathering signatures to get this on the ballot. And I'm really proud of our work and the work of the other 170. And we received a lot of adverse conditions going to farmers markets and people trying to, for the other side trying to have people from out of areas sign our petitions and try to get things out with misinformation. But even with all that, we were able to collect 13,315 signatures. That's a record for any petition going through Santa Cruz County. And I'm just really proud of that. This is the first time we get to have a direct vote on what's happening here on the corridor. There's been indirect votes with Prop 116 and Measure D and Measure L. But this is really going to the heart of the matter can finally end this debate. Please read the Santa Cruz Sentinels editorial today that also backs getting this to the voters right away. Let's not delay it. Let's just get to it. Let's get this over with. Thank you for your time. Down. Kyle Kelly. Hey, thank you chair, supervisors and staff. I at least want to voice my concern for some aspects within the Greenway initiative that are going to have impacts on land use in the long term. We currently have to plan for a lot more homes. And a bunch of what would be transit oriented development will effectively get wiped out. And we're going to end up having to build a lot of car oriented development as a result. One of the provisions within Greenway is that it takes out real ridership potential for compatible developments. Which for those that have been working within the housing space for a long time, this tends to mean that try to favor low density housing. And the reality is we're not going to get out of out of our climate situation without actually building high density housing near transit. We can do that with buses. We can do that with rail. And I'd really like to see us move forward not being kind of the log jam that we've been in. I'm a little bit worried about the fair housing implications of this. So if it goes through and we push through, I'd really look forward to the real dialogue that we can have about how we're going to help move people around in this county and how we're going to drive down vehicle miles travel and create a really well connected community for everyone. So thank you. I look forward to seeing the initiative go to the ballot. Please move ahead with just putting it up and we'll see what happens later. Thank you. Mr. Kelly. Colin, user three, your microphone is available. Only find the public comments most informative and regarding anybody commenting, I'm requesting that on your outgoing message about you will be muted throughout the meeting. State press star nine to raise your hand and be recognized. I just talked to a friend who listened to the meeting but did not know how to do that. So that means the public is less and less being heard and or respected. Additionally, consent agenda says consent items include routine business that does not call for the discussion. So the all male board of supervisors discusses the consent agenda items, but the public is precluded from discussing those items. And since McPherson was chair, the three-minute public comment time has been reduced to two minutes. I think when you came in, Chair Koenig, you said you were going to really listen to the public. I recall that distinctly. So restore the three minutes, restore people commenting on the consent agenda items, this item or any item and make it clear that they can press star nine to raise their hands. And I'd like you to consent to do that right now, at least the star nine. This is pretty ludicrous exclusion. Thank you. It's Ms. Garrett. Lonnie Faulkner. Lonnie Faulkner, your microphone is available. Hi, thank you board of supervisors. Equity Transit is a woman of color founded organization representing underserved groups in our community. We'd like to state that the Greenway petition is deceptive, as noted by numerous democratic clubs, Sierra Club, the Roaring Camp Railroads and many other local organizations advocating for democracy and equitable environmentally wise transit, which includes electric light rail for our community. Greenway volunteers obtain a large number of their signatures for their ballot measure by misinforming the public. Representatives, media sources and organizations receiving philanthropic gifts from Greenway folks are urged to either not speak in favor of rail or worse, stand against our community's effort to implement one of the most environmentally wise equitable transit projects in Santa Cruz County. Our beautiful award-winning 32 mile coastal rail trail is being built right now, part of the 50 mile Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. I am a cyclist, hiker, runner, mountain biking coach and I'm excited to see our trail in progress. It is important to remind the Board of Supervisors this County voted in the majority and supported applying for and received funds from Proposition 116, the Clean Air and Transportation Improvement Act, which allowed us in 2012 to purchase the Santa Cruz branch line specifically for the purpose of bringing passenger rail to our community. Electric light rail is the most energy efficient and least environmentally damaging form of transit ever invented and federal and statewide objectives are focused on prioritizing funding for the development of rail systems across the state and country just like ours to mitigate climate change. We suggest that Manu Koenig recused himself from voting on this issue as Manu has been a Greenway executive and his supervisor as a supervisor has direct leadership in support of Greenway. We feel the democratic action of the Board of Supervisors is to request an analysis per section 911 to determine the measures impact and compatibility with existing code. If the measure comes to public voted is critical to ensure the language of the ballot is informative and accurate as mentioned in the letter equity transit submitted. Thank you so much. Ms. Faulkner. Brian, your microphone is available. Hi, this is Brian from Trail. Now we absolutely support the Greenway initiative. We actually participated in letter and signature collection because we believe it is critical to open up the coastal corridor as a transportation resource. There are three transportation resources corridors, highway one, SoCal and the coastal corridor. All of them need to be open now to enable our community to move. And really what we're talking about there is infrastructure and the supervisors your role is to devote and guide our community on infrastructure investments. You all have been actively involved in understanding the detail analysis, the likelihood of a train on Manresa cliff with the Capitola Tressel pretty much shut down is not viable. You as supervisors should realize that and you need to lead the community with logical economically viable decisions for the community. Honestly, what should be done first in our recommendation is for the supervisors to vote to enact this Greenway initiative as it's as part of the general plan. The general plan has been being updated for six years now, six years. It's still being updated. So let's take that first request, run a vote to see if you approve it number one. And then secondly, if it doesn't pass that then please approve it for the Greenway initiative. You have a job to improve our community through transportation infrastructure investments. Thank you very much. Mr. People. And as a reminder for those wishing to speak to this item, please use the raised hand feature to be placed in the queue to do this. You can click the hand icon at the bottom of your screen or press star nine on by phone. Thank you. Bud Colligan, your microphone is available. Thank you, Chair Koenig and supervisors. My name is Bud Colligan. I am co-founder of the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership and founder of the Monterey Bay Housing Trust, which invests in nonprofit affordable housing for low income residents throughout our region. I am also one of the 170 volunteers who collected signatures for the Greenway initiative at tables at farmers markets on our coastal walkways and going door to door in all five districts of our great County. The Greenway volunteers gathered more signatures than any initiative in the history of Santa Cruz County. Yesterday, the County clerk certified the signatures at an impressive 83% validity rate and significantly in excess of the required number of 11,919. The people have spoken. The choices before you are largely ministerial. The initiative will be on the June 7th, 2022 ballot unless you adopt it now and make it part of the general plan. Greenway actually prefers a vote. The Sentinel editorial in this morning's paper entitled, Voters Can End Endless Rail Trail Debate Reflected What We Have Heard Gathering Signatures. People want resolution and no more delays. A clear expression of the people is the only way to resolve this divisive issue. So you can move forward now or delay another 30 days with the same result. You will find out nothing new that hasn't been discussed and rediscussed in the last 10 years. There is insignificant fiscal impact for an election process that is taking place anyway and is required by law. You can add to more divisiveness or move forward and prepare the people for a vote. It's up to both campaigns to educate the public. That's what elections are about. 13,315 certified voters are asking you to put aside partisan politics. Be clear that you respect the democratic process and move forward now. Thank you. Mr. Colligan. Nancy Macy, your microphone is available. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I'm Nancy Macy from Boulder Creek. I'm chair of the Valley Women's Cubs Environmental Committee. I feel that the correct option is actually number three. This allows further investigation by the board and the staff and still preserves the expected public vote option. This is because a report would be valuable to the public based on what it would investigate which is quite different than some of the things that previously were presented. And even more importantly, it would preserve the public vote option. Then the board can and should put the initiative on the ballot after getting more information making sure the community understands because that is what it was anticipated by the public during the collection of signatures, a public vote. Any change to the general plan such as that in the Greenway petition should at minimum involve informing the public of the change and its ramifications to assure that the change is understood in the context of the petition and then encouraging public participation in the process with the radically differing explanations of the purpose and impacts of the petition of the initiative. It behooves the board to provide the opportunity for public discussion, debate and vote. So for sure, I'm against number one and I strongly suggest number three is the better option. Thank you so much. Ms. Macy. Beauty Giddelson, your microphone is available. Hi, good morning. I am Judy Giddelson from Watsonville and I recommend ordering a report as well. I think that the South County is very underrepresented in the efforts of Greenway and South County is a very low income, very dependent on public transportation. The population growth clearly is upon us. The light rail could really benefit those in South County and the whole community, the supervisors, I believe you could help get all of this accomplished. We could have the rail, we could have the highway working and we could have the train on the tracks, measure D allowed for a lot of infrastructure improvement. And I think it's your job to prioritize a healthy future, a positive way that we can all get along. So as leaders of our community, I highly recommend that you do order the report and give us a way to live healthy in this area with our beautiful nature and not be stuck on highway one, if not take out the train tracks and not ruin that option of putting in light rail that could be very positive for the environment. And thank you for your service. And there were 67% at least of 273,000 people in the County that said they preferred the idea of keeping the rail so that a train was an option. So consider that and please order the report. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Giddelson. David, your microphone is available. Good afternoon, can you hear me all right? Yes. I say a recent Lookout Santa Cruz article begins, members of the anti-train group Greenway have submitted 16,000 signatures. The anti-train group Greenway. Greenway is an anti-train group. Bud Colligan himself has stood right here. Oh, I mean, you know, right here. Bud Colligan has stood right here and shouted, we will not have trains in our neighborhoods. I'll be back. Well, now he's back from Sacramento. And he got a team of expensive political consultants who told them to cool down on the anti-train stuff. So now Greenway says, oh, we're not against trains. We want to put them into a nice piggy bank for you. Look, the Greenway agenda is anti-rail. We all understand that the petition and measure are professionally crafted to be ambiguous or even deceptive. Please analyze this privately funded legislation per section 9111 to ensure that it is accurately characterized on the ballot. So the electorate's confusion can be minimized despite Bud Colligan's expansive and expensive efforts to deceive. Thank you. Mr. Van Brink. There are no other speakers on Sam. Thank you. Then we'll return it to the board for action. Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, thank you, chair. I have somewhat of an extended comment. First, I'd like to begin by acknowledging the clear connection between this item today and the session we're going to have on the Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday regarding the future of the ranch rail line. And frankly, I'm disappointed that after all these years of study and discussion, we continue to have such deeply entrenched factions on this issue about how to best use the rail corridor. To my mind, the divisiveness ultimately does little to solve the fundamental issue of how best to move a large volume of commuters. There are core social justice, economic and climate issues that we are supposed to be solving through this process which often get lost in the debate. And what we need to do is continue gathering as much information as possible in order to make an informed decision based on the facts, not assumptions or selected facts depending on which side of the issue you're on. So for that reason, I will be supporting option 2C and the recommendations that are being been presented to the board today, which is to have our relevant County Department to research the potential impact of the Greenway initiative and bring it back to report to the board in 30 days, which will still allow us to put this on the ballot on June 7th. While I fully respect the process that gathering signatures for an initiative and all who signed the Greenway petition, there are aspects of this plan that have yet to be spelled out for the public. And that includes the definition of interim as a timeline for the Greenway to exist while passenger rail is presented for the future. Voters need to understand the implications of the interior of the, should I say interim, excuse me, interim being defined within the proposed amendments to our County General Plan. Would voters be accepting the Greenway for five years, 10 years longer? We should identify the impact of that ambiguity in our future planning processes. And as I'll end in today's memo to the board, a report would also give us the benefit of understanding the potential impacts of our agriculture sector and the housing goals in our schools and our parks. These are critical sectors in each and every regard and we need some analysis on subsequent public input on this. There is a lot we should understand to the greatest extent of our ability and in order for the voters to make an informed decision to go to the strut and that's why I'm going to support the recommended action and to see that will allow us to come back in 30 days and have more information on this before we make that decision whether or not to put it on the ballot. And that'll still allow us to put it on the ballot on June 7th. So I hope that's the action that we will be taking. And I will be ready to make that motion when appropriate. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson, Supervisor Caput. Yeah, thank you. I want to make it clear putting it on the ballot is something that we definitely have to consider. If I can get a clarification, I don't know if County Council is available right there, but I just want to make it clear that we cannot put it on the November ballot rather than choose. Is somebody from County Council available? Yes, Supervisor, that's accurate. There's not an option right now to put it on the November ballot. Okay, thank you. That's stable. I want to make it clear that I'll definitely vote no. I mean, I'll vote yes to put it on the ballot, but after we get a clarification, I will go along with Supervisor McPherson to look at it closer. I'd like to see the language of how it's going to be written and everything like that, but I do, I want to take this opportunity to urge people to vote no when it finally comes on the ballot. Okay, I don't think it's fair in the South County. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. And so to clarify the timeline, if the Board chooses to study the impacts of the initiative over the next 30 days, would there still, would the clerk still return on the 15th with the ballot question, proposed ballot question where they'll not come back to us both along with the report at the March meeting. First meeting in March. There's a couple of options regarding the dates. The Board could choose a specific date within 30 days to have it back or could give staff the full 30 days to have the report back. The law is unclear on what presented to the Board of Supervisors means. There's a little bit of ambiguity there. So it could be presented to the Board by March 2nd. That's the last date it could be presented to the Board as March 2nd. And then the Board has 10 days to act after that report is issued. So depending on when the report is issued, we may have to have a special meeting to address this issue. Or your Board could take it up at its March 8th meeting, regular meeting. If the Board takes it up at its March 8th meeting, I expect that staff would return with a draft resolution to call the election as an option for the Board if the Board wanted to call the election. And that would still be within the time frame of E minus 88. And I think CAO Palacios has a comment as well. And I would just urge the Board if you do order the report that you give staff the full 30 days to complete the report, which would be March 2nd. And then we would return on March 8th with the item to potentially put it on the ballot, which is a normal regular Board meeting. Right, and at the March 8th meeting, then our options would be either to adopt the proposal directly or to put it on the ballot. And at that point, we'd still be within the timeframe that it would have to be on the next election, which is June 7th. Is that correct? That's correct. All right. Any further comments, questions? Supervisor Coonerty? Sure. I guess I will say, I've told people, Greenway went out and did the work and they collected the signatures and they have qualified their initiative for the ballot and it's our job to place that item on the ballot. I appreciate Supervisor McPherson's efforts to try to bring more clarity and information to a debate that has actually become so disconnected from the reality of what's before the RTC and so overheated for what the foreseeable future of transportation looks like in Santa Cruz County. So I think more information from disconnected or independent authorities at the county on what this looks like for our sustainability plan and other elements of our general plan. In the next 30 days, it's only more helpful in this community conversation we're having. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. Just a few brief comments. I mean, I certainly agree with what's been said that this debate has consumed so much time. Of course, not just here at the Board of Supervisors meetings, but most especially at the Regional Transportation Commission where we regularly have meetings that last five hours or more. And ultimately, this is just one small piece of the overall transportation network and a solution for our community to get moving and get out of traffic and move throughout our community sustainably. So I do think it's incredibly important that we settle this matter. And the best way to do that is with a community-wide vote. I think that ultimately our community shares really, most if not all of the values that lead to this vociferous debate. At the end of the day, we all want equity, we all want sustainability, we all want more opportunity for everyone in the community. Regarding information, there is a huge stack, of course, of studies that the Regional Transportation Commission has done. Spending millions of dollars, thousands of staff hours in time on the issue. I do see the merits of the opportunity to get further. This initiative will impact our general plan and the community. And so I think if Supervisor McPherson is going to make a motion, I would just make sure that we have appropriate clarification for staff on what items specifically are going to be discussed in that report and analyzed. But I'll just end by saying it is high time we put this matter to a vote of the people and the historic number of signatures collected demonstrates that the community feels the same. Supervisor McPherson. Thank you, and in general, I'd like to say I would recommend we approve to see order report pursuant to Alexis Code section 911 to be considered and act upon within 30 days from today. And saying that Councils, should I specify the dates that we want to discuss this to assure that it has the option or the possibility to be on the June 7th ballot? I just want to make sure the dates, should we specify the dates that I'm talking about? I don't think you need to do that, Supervisor. I think the cleanest motion would be to just ask for a report back by March 2nd, 2022, which is the full 30 days. And then staff will calendar the possible actions appropriately after that. Yeah, I'm sure staff is appreciative of this motion but be that as it may, then I will just move the recommended action of 2C to come back to the March 2nd board supervisor's meeting. Supervisor, there's no meeting on March 2nd. So basically what you would be moving is for the report to be produced no later than March 2nd. Okay, thank you. All right, so the motion is for option 2C to produce a report no later than March 2nd. Second. Seconded by Coonerty. I have a question. Supervisor Caput. Yeah, thank you. If, does this take a super majority for us to vote on or it just takes a simple majority and whether or not all five of us are gonna actually be voting on it? In order for the motion to pass, it would have to pass with three votes of the members that are present. Okay, and it would require three, there was some questions on whether or not one or two supervisors might refuse themselves from the vote. So it would require three. Right, that's correct. Supervisor Friend has recused himself on this item. Okay, so it would be three out of four of them. And then the other question I had is if we voted not to put it on the ballot which I think would be an injustice. I mean, the petition's there. But if we voted not to put it on the ballot, then there would be some discussion and after the discussion, and if it was not able to be put on the June ballot, would it then have to be put on the November ballot? I think you know where I'm getting, I'm trying to get it on the November ballot. So if I voted no on actually putting it on the ballot and we didn't have the three votes, then would we have to, can we actually put it on the November ballot? I think the motion on the floor right now is to ask for a report back. So you would be voting on a report back, not on placing it on the ballot one way or another. That motion is not on the floor at this point. I don't think that there is a way supervisor for this to be placed on the November ballot. If the staff returns within 30 days as it is required to do under law, then the board is required within 10 days of that date to either adopt it as an ordinance or place it on the ballot. And so it will go on the June 7th, 2022 election unless the board adopts it as an ordinance. Okay, thanks a lot, Jason. Okay, reasonable. All right, we have a motion by Supervisor McPherson, a second by Supervisor Coonerty. I just have one question for the maker of the motion. Is there any specificity in the report that you're requesting back from staff? Any specific items? There was I believe eight listed and any number of additional items could be studied. Yeah, I think, again, I think we should stick with the ones that were listed. That's playing, I mean, that has to do with the housing, parks and so forth. Maybe I should ask council, should we just stick with that or does it matter? Supervisor, there's a broad variety of things that could be requested, including its fiscal impact, its effect on the internal consistency of the county's general and specific plans, its effect on the use of land and a number of other items. If you are concerned with anything specific to the exclusion of others, you could mention the impact, for example, what you're concerned with the land use impacts you could ask. Certainly I think that the impact on land use would be important, which includes housing goals and probably a spin off and on to our agricultural sector and our schools and parks as well. Those are the points that I would like to really see have a focus, but I'd be open to any other board members if they think that we should have something else included in that, the fiscal impact as well, of course. Yeah, I'm open to the list that was provided in the staff report. I guess my question is both the existing general plan as well as proposed sustainable Santa Cruz plan from a land use, so not only sort of our existing rules, but the rules that we are in the process of revising and updating. Yeah, okay. So we'll go with the proposed, I think there's eight impacts that we wanted to have addressed in that report. All right, so the motion is understood to be to return within 30 days, which is March 2nd with a study of the eight items outlined in the report as well as the impact on the sustainability plan generally. Correct. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the roll. Supervisor Coonerty. Aye. Caput. McPherson. Aye. Koenig. Aye. Thank you, motion passes 4-0. Thank you, that motion being passed, we will have a report within the next 30 days and the board will hear an item at our March 8th meeting on whether to adopt the initiative immediately or place it on the June 7th ballot. That concludes our regular agenda for our meeting today. The board will now move into closed session unless there's objection. Seo Palacios is staff ready at this point to move into closed session or would it be better to wait until then? We're ready to move into closed session if your board is ready and I can bring Supervisor Friend back online. Great, then we'll take a five-minute break and commence closed session at 11.35. Will there be any reportable actions taken in closed session? No, there will be no reportable actions. Thank you. Thank you.