 Mr. Chair, I think we're all set to go. They say we're on. Okay, good morning, everyone. It's nine o'clock, May 11th, 2021. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Clerk, please call the roll. We can't hear you, Stephanie. Good morning, and welcome to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors May 11th meeting, pursuant to the provisions of Governor Newsom's executive order N-29-20. This meeting is being held virtually. The county welcomes the public to participate in today's meeting using the Zoom link provided on our website at SantaCruzCountyCA.iqm2.com. Click on today's date and then the agenda. You'll find the Zoom link at the top of the page or you can type it in as it appears on your screen. If you wish to participate by phone, you may do so by dialing 1669-900-6833. The meeting ID is 840-7832-7816. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact the Clerk of the Board's Office at 831-454-2323. And for the roll, Supervisor Koenig. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. Caput. Here. McPherson. Here. Thank you, Chair. You have a quorum. Thank you. We will go to item number two. The moment of silence, pledge of allegiance. But before we go to the pledge, I think Supervisor Coonerty wanted to acknowledge someone in our community who just passed away. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanna take a moment and honor the passing of Roberta Smith. She was a fixture on the North Coast, active in a ton of different volunteer organizations. She was also an accomplished geologist and just a wonderful person to be around. She passed away this week and I ask you to keep her family and friends in your thoughts during the moment of silence. Thank you. I also have a acknowledgement of somebody who just passed away. Really an icon and a tremendous person from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Bill Doyle. He was in the Marine Sciences and he really got together to start the Friends of Long Marine Lab. I mean, he was a tremendous Marine Scientist himself but he was the one that really established Friends of Long Marine Lab, which I was a member from its inception. And I thought it did more to bring the community of Santa Cruz and UCSC together to have a better understanding of the operations of the University. We had the President of the University of California, David Gardner here at one time. Bill Doyle was a phenomenal person. He died at the age of 91 and he was really a special person for this community, for the University of California at Santa Cruz. Anyone else who might have a comment? Okay. We will go to item number three, or excuse me, we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, any consideration of late additions to the agenda, additions or deletions to the consent or regular agendas? Yes, Chair McPherson and members of the board. On the consent agenda, on item number 30, staff requests that this item be deleted. And on item number 33, staff requests this item be deleted. And that ends our corrections and additions to today's agenda. Okay. The announcement by board members of items removed from the consent to the regular agenda. Seeing none, we'll go to item number five, public comment. This is an opportunity for any person to address us, the board, once during a public comment, not exceeding two minutes. Comments must be directed to items on today's consent or closed session agendas, yet to be heard items on the regular agenda or on a topic, not on today's agenda, but within jurisdiction of the board of supervisors. We'll take public comments now for up to 30 minutes. If necessary, additional time for public comment will be allowed after the last item on today's regular agenda. Do we have anyone who would like to address this under public comments? Yes, Chair, I have several members of the public that would like to address the board. Speakers, as a reminder, you have two minutes. You'll see a notice on your screen to unmute your microphone. And once you begin speaking, the timer will begin. You'll have two minutes, which will end automatically. Carol, your microphone is available. Good morning. How many Americans have died after taking the COVID vaccine? So just to, before I answer that, just to compare, a lot of people get the flu vaccine regularly. So for example, in 2017 through 2019, about 160 million Americans received the flu vaccine. In 2017, 85 people passed away after receiving the flu vaccine. In 2018, 119 people passed away after receiving the flu vaccine. And in 2019, 203 people died after receiving the flu vaccine. So how do those numbers compare to the death rate after receiving the COVID vaccine? So from the same governmental source where those numbers came from, between late December and April, 3,362 people died after receiving the COVID vaccine. And also let's just compare that quickly to the attacks on September 11th. About 3,000 people died at that time and our country was mourning those deaths. And I don't see this information getting out and I don't see people mourning the deaths of these people, which is unusual. And then further, why is the county saying that this COVID vaccine is safe when more than 3,000 people have died after taking this vaccine? It just begs the question of what's really going on and why is the county incentivizing people to get the vaccine? Why wouldn't the county encourage people to be fully informed of the benefits and risk of the vaccine in a private consultation with the doctor of their choice? And why hasn't the county informed people that there are other treatments available, like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which have a much lower risk? For anyone listening that would like to know more about these less risky treatments, please go to americasfrontlinedoctors.com. America'sfrontlinedoctors.com. America'sfrontlinedoctors.com. Jean Brockleback and Michael Lewis, please identify yourself when your microphone is unmuted. Hello, we can hear you. I'm Jean Brocklebank, speaking on behalf of the Freedom from Fireworks campaign. We wrote to all of you last Friday and are here to remind you of the nine specific 2016 directives regarding fireworks passed unanimously by this board and to ask that they be implemented once more well before this 4th of July, when it is quite possible, thousands of people will be celebrating their freedom from COVID regulations by causing destructive mayhem throughout the county. This year, fire hazard is on everyone's mind. To that, we add health impacts of breathing polluted air filled with chemical toxins from fireworks, toxins that contaminate all waterways leading to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Add to fire hazard and environmental health the intense barrage of the harmful noise of fireworks, which affects people, especially veterans with PTSD, as well as pets and wildlife. Therefore, we ask that the 2016 directives be reissued for 2021, introduced in a consent agenda item on your May 25th meeting and include these additional directives for this year. Add Airbnb properties to vacation rentals, a press release once a week starting in June. Request Caltrans to use its digital signs on Highway 17 for one full week ahead of July 4th. And for next year, these additional two directives reconvene the apparently now defunct annual fireworks task force meetings of all jurisdictions of law enforcement officials, fire chiefs and state parks that used to occur each February and to draft a social host ordinance regarding fireworks, possession and use that would be included in the permit for vacation rentals rather than relying on letters to property owners. Thank you so much for considering our requests. Garrett, your microphone is unmuted. Brett Garrett. Good morning. This is Brett Garrett from Santa Cruz. I deeply appreciate the County's recent resolution in support of regarding net energy metering and promoting clean energy. I hope you'll take this a step further and pass a resolution to oppose AB 1139, which is anti-solar legislation at its worst. AB 1139 claims to be an equity bill, but it will hurt everyone by increasing transmission costs and by reducing distributed resources, resulting in less resilience and more environmental damage. AB 1139 obliterates net energy metering by changing the basic solar production from a retail rate to a wholesale rate of compensation. Furthermore, it imposes a monthly grid access charge that will actually results in some solar customers paying higher utility costs than if they had never installed solar in the first place. Fixing the duck curve requires more batteries, not fewer solar panels. Net energy metering reform should be oriented toward encouraging more energy storage, not discouraging solar panels. So please oppose AB 1139. And closer to home, I'm very concerned about Central Coast Community Energy's proposal to make some changes to their rate plans that I don't agree with. It's a sort of reverse Robinhood. Take more money from the smallest residential customers who don't use much energy and provide excess saving to non-solar commercial and agricultural customers. Please oppose the fixed monthly charge of $4.5, which disproportionately impacts low-income customers. And please oppose all provisions that harm solar customers. Yeah, so please, again, oppose AB 1139 and some of the, I'm concerned about the three CE changes. Thank you very much. Paula, 2915, your microphone is available. Good morning, Mrs. Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Good morning to the supervisors and to the public who's participating. I request respectfully that the board install some message by which people like me who can only participate in these meetings via telephone so that we can fully see the budget presentations next month. There are many good discussions that come up during those budget hearings that revolve around screen and slide presentations, but those of us at home with only a telephone to participate will not be able to see them. I would very much appreciate, as would many other elderly members in the community, if there is a way for us to come to the county building or ask the public libraries to set up a dedicated screen whereby we can see those and hear those presentations and participate. I would also like to ask, and I wanna thank you on item consent agenda item 16, regarding changing the way that your salaries are adjusted. Many thanks to Supervisor Caput and Supervisor Friend for making this change. I think it's much more equitable. And I know Supervisor Caput and I have agreed for many years that the board should not be voting on their own pay increases. So tying it to the rate of the judges, Superior Court judges is fair and I wanna thank you for that change. Item number 50, I'm happy to see that some more of the rural roads in the District 2 area will be repaired from the 2017 storms. This will not only improve infrastructure, but will improve the safety of any fire evacuations that might need to happen. Colin, user one, your microphone is unmuted. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett and we should have three minutes like we've had over the years for comments. I have a brand new book in front of me titled The Truth About COVID-19 Exposing the Great Reset Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal, Why We Must Unite in a Global Movement for Health and Freedom by Dr. Joseph McCollum and Ron A. Cummins with a forward by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Just put out by Chelsea, perhaps just a little bit from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s forward. Instead of citing scientific studies to justify mandates for masks, lockdowns and vaccines, our medical brewers cite who CDC, FDA and NIH captive agencies that are groveling sock puppets to the industries they regulate. Multiple federal and international investigations have documented the financial entanglements with pharmaceutical companies that have made these regulators cesspools of corruption. Then he goes on to talk about medical physicians ruling. The medical profession has not proven itself an energetic defender of democratic institutions or civil rights. Virtually every doctor in Germany took lead roles in the Third Rights Project to eliminate mental defectives, homosexuals, handicapped citizens and Jews, so many hundreds of German participation. Barry Scott, your microphone is unmuted. Thank you. This is Barry Scott. I live in Aptos and I wanna thank all of our supervisors for doing a tremendous amount of good work in the community. I wanted to speak quickly to the passenger rail, electric passenger rail business plan that failed by Tied a bit a 6-6 vote and encourage our commissioners to look at page 13 of the business plan, which includes the streetcar option. My profile image shows the TICM streetcar that received by a unanimous vote of the RTC a license to provide a demonstration on our tracks between Boardwalk and Capitola that would have happened in May, but COVID prevented this from happening. It's planned for later this year and we think a streetcar option, which is permitted within the business plan, could come in at something like half the cost. A second thing I regret to need to bring up has to do with our representation on the RTC and I was reading a letter sent to you from Alex Yazbek regarding a request that Manu Koenig step down from the RTC or be removed from the RTC because of his likely conflict of interest having come from Greenway, an organization dedicated to removing the tracks, regardless of what the community has expressed they want and the fact that he seems to own the property within 1,000 feet over by Simkins of the corridor would suggest that he has a similar conflict or potential conflict that Supervisor Friend had. So I'd like to join Alex in requesting that this conflict be investigated and perhaps Manu recuse himself from decisions on the rail corridor. That's all I have. Thank you. Dayton Reardon, your microphone is available. Hello, this is Dayton Reardon. We have been an owner of a condo at 396 Ocean View in the Freedom Sewer District since 1970. There's a bond proposal and the amount of 2.3 million to redo the sewer district. It's very old. Back in about late 1970s, early 1980s, our PDMA Association donated a large parcel of land from Leechfield for this sewer district to the county and a number of new houses in a development were added to our sewer system since that time and also a number of condo units at the end of Ocean View. And it just seems to me that I would ask the board to look into this issue. We've been trying to get information from the county about that transaction and how it might impact this bond issue and we only have one option. Well, two options for our sewer district. One is they're sending trucks in to pump the tanks all the time, which is an expensive endeavor for the county and the sewer district. The option on the table is to do some upgrades to the tank and the Leechfield, 2.3 million. There's another option that we wanted the county to explore, which was to connect to a sewer district two miles away, which will solve the problem permanently. And I'm just wondering if the board could look into that for us or instruct the county to look into that for us. And I'll thank you very much for your time and appreciate your time and efforts on behalf of the county. Thank you. Jonathan Gettleman, your microphone is available. Okay, I just unmuted myself. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Good morning. My name is Jonathan Gettleman and I'm an attorney with the Law Office of Cover Year on Gettleman. We represent a gentleman by the name of David Klein in a federal litigation that's on the closed session agenda. Mr. Klein was badly injured by Santa Cruz County Sheriff's officers in Felton Covered Bridge Park in 2017 after being unnecessarily tased and landing directly on his head on the concrete from standing. This happened during a welfare check of a senior mother who had fallen earlier that day on her way to the park bathroom. We are before you today because David is developmentally disabled and homeless. The drawing out of this litigation is causing irreparable damage to our client. The evidence we are asking you to review today in closed session will demonstrate the substantial value of the unconstitutional violence inflicted upon David. The three most important categories of evidence for your review today are one, the video. It's labeled Ethan Rumrell and it's ending in zero zero. So that's the particular video we would like you to review. You'll see the assault occurs within several minutes. At the start of the video, it's important to note prior to the assault, David Klein was calmly talking to officers for 40 minutes. The video starts with police threatening to take his independent mother to the hospital against her will. Second, all three recipient witness statements, they uniformly denounce the police aggressiveness and unnecessary violence from a reasonable onlookers perspective. And third, the report and CV of policing expert, Scott Defoe. He is nationally renowned and very qualified. He precisely explains the constitutional violations, particularly the excessive force with bullet point supporting facts. Thank you very much for your review. Eve Robertson, your microphone is unmuted. Eve, you'll need to press to unmute your microphone. There you go. I'm trying that you're unmuted. We'll move to Collard 1999. Good morning, my name is James Ewing Whitman. I'm, wow, I'm pretty down on the list considering I got on at 901. First, I'd like to thank Carol for your observations. She was the first speaker. In regards to consent agenda item number 17, which reads adopt ordinance adding chapter 12.32 to the SC code relating to listed limited density owner built rural dwelling dwellings. Proving concept on April 27th. This seems to have to do with the last chance area. This kind of relates to freedom from fireworks. I spoke about this on September 15th of 2020. Back to freedom from fireworks, constructive mayhem should be a subtitle. How about the ran corporation that has controlled Congress in their constructive mayhem since 1948? Creating such a following of fiduciary trust malfeasances where the eugenics agendas of agenda 21, 2030 were adopted in 1997 through the seeds agenda by this county. I'm gonna quote Augustine of Hippo. Right is right even if no one is doing it. Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. And this is from best quotes ever. We've been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems, but at some point maybe we will wake up and recognize that it was the politicians who created the problems. Now this is a quote by Ben Carson, but Augustine de Hippo who lived before Christ said many similar things. And I guess I'll just finish. A mistake does not become an error unless she refused to correct it. Thank you. We're going to attempt Eve Robertson again. Your microphone is available. And as a reminder to callers, speakers are allowed to speak once per item or to the consent agenda. Thank you. Okay, Eve, I'm showing you, you are unmuted. Your microphone is showing as available. Okay, Chair, I believe this person is having difficulty with the application. They are showing as unmuted and able to speak and we're still not hearing them. We'll go ahead and end public comment with that person. There are no other speakers, Chair. We'll close the public comment period. We'll go to item number six, action on the consent agenda, items 13 through 50. There's been a few deleted already, but Supervisor Koenig, do you have any comments on any consent agenda item? Yes, thank you, Chair. On item 22, the Santa Cruz County Tourism Marketing District Plan. I just want to thank Maggie Ivy and the team from Visit Santa Cruz County. It's fantastic to see such a high opt-in rate from local hotels ranging from the Shamanad to Ocean Echo Inn. And this marketing is really going to help with the shoulder season of spring and fall for our local hotels. On item 24, the Gross Santa Cruz County Revolving Loan Fund. It's very encouraging to see that we'll soon have as much as $2.7 million to make available to small unincorporated county businesses. And of course we should be doing everything we can to support small businesses in these difficult times. On item 31, I want to thank Richard Rubin for applying to be the consumer representative on the Emergency Medical Care Commission. He brings 31 years of experience in the Aptos and Selva Fire District, 13 years of experience in instant management with the U.S. Forest Service, and the additional seven years of experience as a primary instructor in emergency medical technician. So I think he'll serve us well. On item number 39, the Three Year Tobacco Law Enforcement Prevention Grant to fund the Sheriff's Tobacco Prevention. The Sheriff's Office will be conducting compliance checks and penalties for shops that sell tobacco products to minors. And I think it's great, we're aiming for 90% compliance. My question would just be what level of compliance we're at now so that we establish a baseline and can measure the effectiveness of the program. And then finally on item 45, the Collaborative Renegotiation of the Contract with Housing Matters to purchase 10 more pallet shelters with heat funds. I think this is a great amendment to the contract and I commend the Human Services Director for working out this deal and increasing our supply of emergency shelters, particularly the pallet shelters from 30 up to 40. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Brennan, you have any comments on the consent agenda? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just a couple of brief comments, just to appreciate the work of county staff on the very initial county proposed budget information. Definitely some good news on some of the state and federal components. I recognize we're still pretty deep in the hole so we'll be looking forward to, not just what the board had directed for additional information and the additional million dollars at the last meeting, but also just to make sure that what we're doing does adequately rebuild those reserves and contingencies given the emergencies we saw this year. I think that that is prudent that we do that as soon as possible on our rebuilds, not just maybe even a five-year plan but something a little sooner. I'd like to echo Supervisor Koenig's comments regarding the TMD on item 22 and the work of Visit Santa Cruz County, clicking through at all the jurisdictions. It was remarkable to see how much support there was for this and how far we've come from the beginning of the implementation as well as the expansion to the vacation rentals. I think it's a very important program and a very important component for both employment and visitor serving accommodations in our community. Thank you, Mr. Chair, that's all. Good. Supervisor Koenig? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanna briefly, as Supervisor Koenig pointed out, item number 24, $6 million for small businesses and a revolving loan fund for businesses that don't have access to other capital through other means. It's a great investment in small businesses that have been hit really hard over the past year and a half and I think will pay benefits both in jobs and revenues for years to come. Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Thank you, Chairman McPherson. Just wanna know, on item number 44, thank the Salvation Army for the wonderful work they're doing down here in Watsonville with the homeless shelter and all the work they're doing. It's been a very difficult year, of course, for them and everybody else, but they're just doing a great job down here. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of comments that I'd like to make too. Item number 21, on the fiscal year, 21-22 budget, I'd like to make some comments about it. To thank and congratulate the county staff who contributed to the budget this year, most especially our retiring budget manager, Kristina Mowry, and we're gonna try to keep her here if we can. I don't think it's gonna happen, but once again, we have a budget that is very accessible and transparent. We all know this has been a particularly difficult budget to prepare due to the ongoing uncertainty related to COVID and the fire recovery, but we have done an excellent job of preparing the best we can with what we know right now. I'm especially grateful that we will receive the $53 million as part of the American Rescue Plan, and I look forward to working with the board to ensure we restore our losses the best we can, supporting our workforce and our community as it recovers. I also especially appreciate the cautious approach to the recovery that we've set aside funds for potential expenditures that we still won't know FEMA may not reimburse us for the total amount that we wish, but as well as driving the plan to bring back the reserves to 10% level, extremely important. And I look forward to our budget hearings in June and learning more about how our departments have creatively solved problems and served our community, despite all the many challenges of the past year. And I especially want to point out to our CAO and Carlos Palacios, who's tried to manage this, he has managed this to the best of his abilities and those abilities are much appreciated because we are on the right track, we're being cautious and we're going to be looking ahead though to see what we can do to serve the people of Santa Cruz County for the best of our abilities. Also on the item number 24, the Revolving Loan Fund, this is a tremendous opportunity. There's $6 million potential total for the four cities and the counties, the county due to get almost half of that, about 2.7 million. I would like to give some additional direction if I could to come back to the board in June 8th with a report on how this, how it will determine the eligibility, where the maximum and minimum amounts could be, what are the reporting requirements? A couple of questions that I will send on to the CAO's office. That would be very much appreciated if we could get some more information on that. I do appreciate Jennifer Mout coming to our library advisory commission. We've got a lot of good things going on our libraries throughout the county and Carol Berg to the housing authority of that side of number 38. That's very much appreciated. And like Mr. or Supervisor Caput, I really do want to say thank you in item number 44 to the Salvation Army. They've really worked for several years to provide sheltering services to our community. And without them, we simply would not have been able to maintain our shelter capacity before, during and after COVID. So I really appreciate the Salvation Army and working with us has helped immensely for us to help shelter people in Santa Cruz County. With that, I would entertain a motion with additional direction that I mentioned. Is there anybody who could consent agenda with additional direction? Second. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Please call the roll. Thank you for clarification was the mover, Supervisor Koenig and seconder, Coonerty. Thank you. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Friend. Hi. Coonerty. Hi. Caput. Hi. McPherson. Hi. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Okay, we will now move to our regular agenda, item number seven, to consider the selection of Janice Cirilla as the artist for the Animal Shelter Renovation Phase One Public Art Project, adopt resolution accepting unanticipated revenue in the amount of $16,700, approve the independent contractor agreement for an amount not to exceed $15,000 and authorize the parks director to sign agreement and take related issues as outlined in the memorandum of the director of parks, open space and cultural services. We have a contract with Janice Cirillo, a resolution AUD-60 insurance for Janice Cirillo Public Art Proposal Exhibit One and administrative ADM 2921. I think that is our parks superintendent, Jeff Gaffney. There's Janice there too. It's nice to see you. And thank you very much. Look at those animals behind you. Hey, Jeff, Mr. Gaffney, our parks director. Thank you, Chairman McPherson and fellow board members. You previously had approved the concept of placing public art out at the Animal Services Campus as part of the renovations out there. And so we had, in December, 2020, we had our arts commission formed an art selection panel and they had an open competition that was advertised for the creation of the public art. And so now as a result of that, it's actually, I'm gonna have one of our commissioners, Margaret Niven, it's my pleasure to introduce Margaret as part of the selection panel. And she will go over the selection process for the project with you and who they selected and why. Margaret? Yes, good morning, thank you. The Arts Commission is pleased to recommend a proposal for the Animal Shelter Public Art Project for your approval today. The art selection panel comprised of community members, professional artists, county arts commissioners and a representative of the Animal Shelter met on February 26th to review proposals and interview two artists. The artists were asked to bring detailed drawings or a maquette to further define their project proposals. After much deliberation, the panel chose Janice Cirilla to continue in the selection process. At the March 1st meeting of the Arts Commission, the commission reviewed the panel's decision and voted to recommend that your board approve the selection of Ms. Cirilla as the public artist for the Animal Shelter. Her beautiful artwork will be installed throughout the cat and rapid housing areas and the new community cat room. I'd now like to introduce the artist, Janice Cirilla, who will give a brief presentation of her fabulous proposal and answer any questions you might have. Janice? Hi, nice to meet everybody. I'm very honored to be chosen for the project. Obviously a big animal lover and I like to rescue and foster animals. So it's like definitely up my alley and I'm going to be creating some actual just paintings that's going to be on the wall and as well as murals that will be applied directly to the walls in the rabbit and in the cat space. And I'm also considering creating like a interactive art piece that could be something like for the unveiling of the art that kids and animals can put their stamp on, so to speak, so that'd be something kind of fun to kind of bring the community together and just everybody come in and enjoy the art and check out the animals and just. I think we have the ability to share some of what the project will look like right now. Is that correct? There we go. So just so everybody's aware, this is what the proposal will be looking like and here are some of the proposed sketches for placement. Yeah, so basically like the large cat or you can see like in the top two views like figure like a giant mural on the wall space and like in the rabbit room and in the cat room and then wherever there's in between doors and windows wherever there's small space, that's where I could just place some canvas art, like headshots of animals and the two bottom images are just some ideas representing as well. Just, you know, my style is basically giant headshots, so trying to be true to my art style. Looks great. Thank you. Supervisor McPherson. Well, thank you, and thank you, Janice, if I may use your first name. You know, animals give us all, we all have pets or relatives or pets or friends and it's just a calming soothing of impact on everyone and your paintings, your artwork, just add to that or really, it's just really a great addition for us and we really appreciate what you have done to help people through these trying times. I think it's gonna be a real calming effect for everyone. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Any other comments from board members? Supervisor Pony, did you? Sure, yeah, thank you, Chair. I just wanna congratulate you, Janice, on winning the competition and it's fantastic that you are an animal lover yourself and we'll be able to bring that into your artwork. I know the animal shelter will look much better with your contributions and I'm really excited to see them and I would definitely encourage you to create an interactive portion as well. I think that would be really exciting to see. So thank you and good luck with the project. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other supervisor wants to make a comment? I think we all agree this is gonna be a great addition. I'll entertain a motion. I think we need to consider to accept this, please. Motion. We do have two speakers to this item. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me, Stephanie, I can go ahead. Thank you. 2915, your microphone is available. Good morning, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Good morning and thank you to the artists who have submitted these beautiful pieces of work and congratulations on winning the contract. I'm happy to hear that she is planning to incorporate an interactive component for the public. To that end, I would like to ask that the art commission encourage students to display their work from schoolwork just to keep it a fresh display of art and something that would directly involve the children, the local community, to have revolving artwork displays that the kids submit and display. I think that would really keep this artwork in the public place idea alive and involve the children and the community directly. So I hope that your board will look into that, the art commission will look into that. And I think that would be a real asset in addition to these lovely works that Ms. Savi is going to do. Thank you very much. Calling user one, your microphone is available. Congratulations, Janice. I definitely like to see your work. I'm just on a phone here and I have a couple of questions. What is the address of where your work will be displayed? I mean, it doesn't say on my regular agenda. And the second question is, it says in parentheses after your name, what is an e-sign? I'm a low tech person. I'm speaking to you on a landline. So I'd appreciate the response to those two questions. And again, thank you so much for your offer. The artwork is going to be at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter location. It's gonna be, I think they're adding an addition that will be the cat room. And I believe that they, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe they're gonna be utilizing another space in the building to become the rabbit room. And I don't know about the e-sign thing. I think that's, I don't know. That's on 7th and Rodriguez, right? I'm sorry? 7th and Rodriguez. Yes. And that's 7th and Rodriguez and LIBO. Yes. Thank you, Chair. There are no other speakers to this item. Okay, I'll entertain a motion to accept. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Coonerty, friend, please call the roll. I think it was Supervisor Koenig. Thank you, Supervisor. Okay, so I have the mover is Supervisor Koenig, seconder Supervisor Friend, and for the vote, Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Coonerty, friend, please call the roll. I'll entertain a motion to accept it. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gaffrey. No, I said thank you. Have a good break. Okay, great. Thank you for doing that. That's great. Okay, we will move to item number eight. Consider approval and concept of ordinance amending chapter 5.47 of the Santa Cruz County Code to delay implementation of the mandatory charge to follow the Act of 22. Schedule ordinance for final adoption on May 18, 2021, and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CEO Director of Public Works. We have an ordinance amending Santa Cruz County Code 5.47070. Be amendments to SCCC 5.4707, strike out an underlined copy. is going to present this to us. Good morning, Supervisor McPherson and rest of board. I'm Casey Colas with Public Works Department. On December 10th, 2019, the board adopted an ordinance adding chapter 5.47 to the county code to address litter and pollution and single use disposable cups. On August 4th, 2020 due to concerns about the COVID-19 virus, the board amended the ordinance to delay implementation until January 1st, 2021. The COVID-19 virus continues to be a major health concern in Samcours County. Many businesses have closed and others have made substantial changes to their operating procedures to keep workers in the public healthy and safe. While there is hope for an end to the pandemic in the near future, an additional delay to implementation of the ordinance until January 1, 2022 is recommended. So the recommended actions are approved in concept ordinance amending chapter 5.47 of the Samcours County code to delay implementation of the mandatory charge for disposable cups to January 1, 2022 and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on May 18th, 2021. Thank you. Thank you. Any confusion with the board? Yes, Mr. Chair, I have a brief comment. I'm in support of this. I appreciate the work of Mr. Quasso and the entire public works team. And I understand that other jurisdictions are doing similar actions to this as well. I'm still interested since especially because we have kind of a long time before implementation, I'm interested in that continue discussion about the allocation of these funds via a ballot measure specifically to environmental programs. I think that there's definitely, you know, people again when they pay these fees, they think that it's going into something other than just back to the business. I think there's an ability here to have a shared money between the business to recoup costs, maybe even make a little bit on it, but also fund much needed environmental programs, especially with some of the additional waste that we've seen from single use products that's really exploded during this pandemic. So I'd still like to see as we move into an election year next year that the implementation come part and parcel with that. But I do appreciate this and support the delayed implementation until January of next year. Thank you. Okay, taken. Any other comments from board members? Chair? Yes, Supervisor Coney. Thank you, Chair. You know, it's a, of course we want to do everything we can to reduce plastic pollution and we're really, it's incumbent upon us here in the Monterey Bay area to be leaders for the rest of the state and the country. And we have been in the past and certainly we will be ultimately when we implement this fee on disposable cups. That said, we really also need to work with businesses. I mean, after all, this, the only enforcement mechanism we have on this will be reports from people shopping in these businesses. And so we want to create a situation where businesses feel supported and willingly comply. I think this is a very difficult time this year to try to implement new regulations. And it would probably ultimately lead to less compliance and a bit of a rockier start for this program. So I do think it's in our best interest to delay the implementation. And I agree with Supervisor Friend that there could be some opportunities to ultimately use the fee collected to support waste reduction practices throughout the county. And look forward to working on that in the future. Very well. Any other comments from the board? Say none. Do we have any comments from the public? If I have two callers, call in user one. Your microphone is available. This is Marilyn Garrett. And I am looking at this zero waste news that is published by the county for winter 2021. And there is a ghastly picture here with the title Plastic Plague COVID-19 unleashed a tidal wave of plastic waste. So the county has actually mandated with all of these lockdown, supposedly measures to protect our health, more plastic, which is really destroying the planet along with other things. And I remember hearing news in July of 2019 that $180 billion was put into new plastic production. And there are micro plastics everywhere circulating in the air. So this is color 2915, your microphone. I don't know if we only gave her one minute. It started at one minute, 48 seconds. Oh, excuse me. It was running in the back. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Color 2915. Hello. This is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I support recycling completely. And I really think that pushing this out to January 1st, 2022 is too long. Since it is being delayed because of COVID, why not tie it to the county's movement in safety, public safety and the governor's edict regarding COVID restrictions? Which I understand could be lifted sooner than January 1st, 2022 in large measure. So I would like to see the board instead tie it to that rather than keep pushing it farther out. As you've all seen and heard, there is a vast increase in the landfill and in the trash cans in front of the county building of disposable food containers. And this could help reduce that. If we do this now. At the very least, I think that beverages should only receive plastic lids upon request. I received a plastic lid on my drink that I didn't need. I didn't want, but they plopped it on there. And that just adds additional plastic to the landfill. And I agree with supervisor friend that we really need to make it clear to the public how this money will be spent, how it will be used and exactly what it is that the program will support. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are no other speakers for this item. Okay. Well, return this to the board. Action. Mr. Chair, I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Friend and Caput, please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Caput? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We will move to item number nine to consider adoption of a resolution authorizing the issuance of one or more series of pension obligation bonds to refinance the outstanding obligations of the county to the California Public Employees Retirement System for CalPERS with respect to the county's safety plan and safety sheriff plan, authorizing a judicial validation action and proving the end directing related matters as outlined in the memorandum of county administrative officer. We have items A through K that you not think I need to mention each one of them, but there are issuance of the POBs, the payment, the budgetary impact and so forth that have been in the agenda. I will, I don't know if it's Christina Mallory, our budget director, or is it Marcus Penn-Mintel who will be presenting? I think it's Marcus Penn-Mintel. Actually, it's both of us. Good morning. Okay, all right. Chair McPherson, this is Christina Mallory our county budget manager, and I am joined today by Marcus Penn-Mintel who has joined our office this year and leading several projects as we continue to manage through the emergency. Marcus has over 20 years experience in finance and administration and a previous finance director for the city of Santa Cruz and the city of Watsonville. And he is currently working with our, he's taking the lead on this project and he's currently working with our financial advisor, Suzanne Harrell from Harrell & Associates. So they will be providing details on this particular project. And as we consider pension obligation bonds. And I also wanna mention that Jones Hall is our bond council on this project and Juan Galvin is available in case there are any questions as well. So next slide. We wanna just sort of give you an overview. This presentation is gonna sort of summarize the detailed information provided in the board report. There is quite a few attachments and we'll summarize the debt management action, highlight what are pension obligation bonds, their risks and options and perspectives that we considered. This agenda item allows us to continue the process towards returning to your board in August to finalize the amount. And at that time, consider whether to authorize staff to issue the actual pension obligation bonds and approve the associated policy on retirement obligations. So next slide. So as your board knows, the board approved the County of Santa Cruz debt management policy in 2017 that created the Debt Advisory Committee. Their roles include regular reviews of our county debt and make recommendations on debt financing to ensure that property diligence is completed. So the county is fortunate to have a debt team that is fiscally prudent and experienced in debt management and issuance that includes over 70 years of county experience in debt and pension obligation bond subject matter experts. In the course of our regular debt review, which we do annually, the county's pension unfunded liabilities was determined to achieve substantial savings from a refinance if we considered using a pension obligation bond. Bond rates, as you know, are historically low right now. And a recent pension obligation bond was issued at 2.7% for another agency, which is substantially lower than our CalPERS current interest rate on our pension at 7%. And this is projected to conservatively provide significant savings if we were to consider a pension obligation bond. So I'd like to turn it over to Marcus at this time and Suzanne so they can provide further information. Thank you, Christina and good morning board. I'm honored to follow Christina's lead in and thank you for that. Like any project that we would do, we began with the end in mind on this one. We know that there's a lot of public concern and just cautionary advice around pension obligation bonds. So we've, as Christina outlined, we've taken this step very cautiously, very thoroughly. And relied on our industry experts, our many, many years of experience and our own county staff and so much better experts. And we arrived at this recommendation today that bases that starts with the end in mind, what are our goals? What do we want to achieve? And primarily what we hope to achieve is stabilizing our future payments and cash flows. In addition, we want to diversify some of our risks. And we've done that by how we structured this bond proposal. And we want to increase our funded level of our pension plans, which overall will stabilize the entire system, especially the county's plans for a safety plan. And when we look forward to the years ahead, we're looking at the approximately $69.9 million savings over the life of this bond issue. We're looking to how some of those future savings might be able to help us pay down our pension obligation bonds faster in the future. We know these rates are gonna be in a high six, if not 7% as they are right now. And just a fiduciary responsibility, you look at that highest debt and then you want to bring that down faster. So our goal is, those are many of our objectives and goals. The chart that you see there, that blue line illustrates the kind of the growth in the escalation of our pension obligation bonds. And this is something that all agencies or experiences is not unique to the county. You can overlay this chart on any agency's plan and you'll see that same trend line. Over the next 10 years, those debt service costs continue to rise, rise, rise. And as we've outlined in the staff report, the actual cost of the pension benefit is relatively stable and flat. It's those debt service on the pension obligation bonds. So our proposal would flatten the curve, take that top of that mountain down and give us a longer term stable predictable cash flow. What we've structured in the bond issue is focusing on our two safety plans. The primary reason is we have some active measures within our miscellaneous plan, including discussions with our superior courts about how we might create a sub-plan for miscellaneous plan for superior courts. And as you know, we just heard on the other action item with our Santa Cruz animal shelter. We have an animal services JPA that's an independent body but they're merged in with our miscellaneous plan at the county. We'd like to explore how we might separate those that miscellaneous plan into three parts. And while we're doing that, we didn't want to put any risks or issues in that with this refinancing proposal. So we're focusing on our safety plans that still yield substantial savings when we look out to the future. This action would increase the funded level of those plans from below 70% up to 90% stabilizing those plans and still remain the little bit of an unfunded balance that gives us a hedge against future unknowns that are out of our control, such as CalPERS investment rate returns. And a lot of this is summarized in the report. You hope you read that and really understand that. We want to next go into Suzanne Harreld. I'm going to hand it off to her. Talk a little bit more detailed about the nuts and bolts pension obligation bonds. Suzanne Harreld has been advising the county for a number of years should provide independent subject matter expertise that supplements our own staff resources. And in the last couple of years, along with John Tall, the two of them have supported five different pension obligation bonds across California. So we're really grateful that not only do we have the subject matter expertise in house who's helped us with debt financing, but Suzanne has also had a debt experience in pension obligation bonds. So I'll turn this over to Suzanne and she can talk a little bit about the pension obligation bonds and the risk and the risk there. Suzanne, are you with us? Thanks, Marcus. And good morning to the chair and members of the board. We're going to start and talk a little bit about what pension obligation bonds are. They're primarily a debt management tool. As you saw in the chart where the intent is to replace the escalating CalPERS debt service payments for the unfunded liability with a stable and more predictable bonded debt service payment. The proceeds of these bonds can only be remitted to CalPERS to satisfy the obligation to fund the UAL. And they differ from what the board typically sees in its lease revenue bonds and that due to some special provisions that we undertake for pension obligation bonds, there's no required lease of an asset to secure the debt payments. The bonds are expected to be issued at a fixed rate. The county has a triple A general obligation bond rating. We're hoping to have that affirmed. And that will be that the rating drives kind of the interest rate on the POBs. They'll be structured very similar to a lease revenue bond with a 10-year optional call. And I think that's, I think, Marcus, we can go to the next slide. There are certain risks associated with pension obligation bonds. You know, in a typical refinancing, you're swapping say a fixed rate bond for another fixed rate bond at a lower interest rate. And if that was the end of the story, that would be easy. But because you're remitting the proceeds of the pension obligation bonds to CalPERS and it goes into their investment pool, as you know, every year CalPERS target rate of return is 7%. And if they achieve higher than that, they give you kind of a credit against your unfunded liability. And if they achieve a lower rate of return than that, they add to your unfunded liability. So in effect, we're swapping fixed rate debt or variable rate debt. We do look at the existing debt as if CalPERS was going to earn 7% over the longterm. And that's kind of the baseline assessments and that's where the savings come from. But again, eyes wide open, we need to determine, you know, what does it look like? What is the impact of different CalPERS longterm investment rates of return? So Marcus, I think we can go forward. So there's the National General Governmental Financial Officers Association or the GFOA has indicated they have five areas of concern regarding pension obligation bonds. Some of them are really related to the structure of the pension obligation bond and some kind of statistical rating credit implications of pension obligation bonds. So out of the five concerns of the GFOA, four of them are really addressed through how we structure the bonds. And there's a lot of information in your board letter today about those four. The one that is really that we're focused on is the top one here, where the pension obligation bond when viewed as an investment with CalPERS, meaning you're investing in the pool might fail to earn more than the pension obligation bond interest rate. So again, CalPERS currently requires a 7% rate of return and is charging you 7% on your unfunded liability. We're estimating a 3% interest rate on the county's pension obligation bonds. So there is quite a substantial differential between what they're required to earn versus what your interest rate is. And so we're really, again, looking at this more as a debt management tool, exchanging higher rate interest rate debt for lower interest rate debt. But the CalPERS investment returns do need to be monitored closely. And again, think about the impact of what a lower interest rate does to your overall savings. So Marcus, if you wanna... So this graphic shows two things. So the yellow bars would be the pension obligation bonds and any remaining UAL from just the 90% funding. So that is what your UAL debt profile would look like after the issuance of the bonds. The red line is what CalPERS would charge you at a 7% rate of return through the next 25 years. So you can see that there's a differential between as Marcus was mentioning, there's the escalating debt service and we're kind of cutting that top off by issuing debt at a more level, stable, sustainable amount. Now if CalPERS were to only earn 6% going forward starting today, and you didn't issue any bonds, that is what the black line looks like. So that is what your UAL payments would be if you did nothing and CalPERS earned 6%. And then the blue bars are the added UAL payments, if you issued the pension obligation bonds and then CalPERS only earned a 6% rate of return. And you can see there's still substantial savings during the early years. And it's really only in the later years where you get some debt service that's higher than what the UAL would have been if you had done nothing. And so I think this is kind of bookends like kind of what the expectation should be going in with your eyes open about pension obligation bonds that yes, if CalPERS only earned 6%, it does use up some of your savings, but in the long-term it doesn't do much to increase your payments over what they would be if you did not issue the bonds. Thank you, Suzanne. We're now gonna hit the home stretch. What we wanted to recap with is what's coming next. Today's action continues our evaluation process. And this next slide illustrates a timeline that's coming next. This does not, we are not asking to finalize your actions. We wanna continue our processes. One of them is one of our concurrent process will be going to our superior courts and starting what's called the validation process. Another process will be us continuing to build up our financing package, including our offering statement and conducting a rating call with standard employers. So we have multiple actions that we wanna bring forward and come back to you on August 24th. That is ultimately what we're practicing for your approval today. The authorized concurrent processes that would come back on August 24th and finalize this presentation and our recommendation to you for the safety plans. Including the staff report is this action to authorize the issuance of one or more series of pension obligation bonds to refinancing outstanding obligations of the county to the California Public Employees Retirement System with respect to the county's safety plans and share of safety plans and authorize the confirmed judicial validation action approving and directing the related matters. That effectively concludes our presentation for today. And we're happy to be available to answer any questions. And again, we wanna really point you to the staff report. We put a lot of emphasis on a lot of more detail in the staff report. A lot of attachments, a lot of charts, a lot of modeling is done. And we'll be coming back to you on August 24th to have another chapter of this conversation asking for a final direction. But thank you, Christina. Thank you, Suzanne. We're done. Yeah, I wanna thank you and the whole team and the CAO's office from the finance team for bringing this plan to the board. This is smart way to manage our operations on our safety pensions over time and result in the significant savings as we've seen. The value of our county AAA bomb rating is noticed and I wanna, that's to be given credit to the county through the past several years that we got there, that helps a lot. I also appreciate that the managing the debt in this manner will not negatively impact our ability to bond for other needs as they arise for the potential addressing and existing needs that have no other remedy source. So this is a great, just smart and forward looking. And I really appreciate the CAO's office and particularly the finance team that just presented this to us. Is there anybody else on the board who would like to make a comment? Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mowry, Ms. Pimentel, Ms. Harrell as always. And for the detailed report, the written report, I did have a question in regards just to make sure that I fully understand actually what's being presented here. Did I read correctly that there is a refinance capability at 10 years so that, I mean, should, if for example, it's well below a 7% return in the next five, six, seven, eight, nine years, there is a failsafe in essence because it appeared as though those savings, the risk was actually 10 years out for lack of better terms by looking at the charts, but that also seems to be tied to when we would have a failsafe opportunity for refinancing. Am I reading that correctly? You are a supervisor friend, that is exactly right. We'll have the opportunity to reconsider these issuance in 10 years. Okay, and would there then be connected to this some sort of annual by annual, I mean, what kind of looks would future boards have to know where they are and where they stand in situations like this? I think we, as a normal course of our next actions, when we come back on August 24th, we'll be presenting you some policies, including that will be a policy on managing our unfunded obligations and our liabilities and inherent in that will be regular reporting. We need to stay monitoring, closely monitoring what's happening in the market and what's going on with CalPERS where they're changing in their long-term assumptions. Every three years they're re-looking at their assumptions. So we'll be talking about this quite a bit over the next 20 years. Fair enough, yes. There are assumptions to change frequently and not generally for the better for local governments. So in addition to that, I mean, the way that I view this and I appreciate you bringing this forward is that, I mean, if we didn't do this, I feel like it would really hinder future boards on the kind of options because of the amount of costs that this really would be, the future boards are gonna be faced with and this does free up, at least provide some flexibility for other investments during the course of that time. And the risk based on the 10-year horizon to me seems low. I think there's a much greater risk to inaction in this situation because we know where that kind of hockey stick inflection would go on these pension obligations and how that would, what kind of risks that would face for our government here. So I appreciate your work on this. I mean, I'm comfortable with the work that you've done to mitigate it and the options for the board moving forward on it. Thank you. Any other comments from the board? You're welcome. I'm Mark. Supervisor Caput. Thank you. Thanks, Christina and Mark for the report. If we go back to the 1990s, where somebody, people were trying to deal with, do we give a raise or do we do more for their pension? And at the time it seemed like a good fix, like a band-aid at the time, but now we're dealing with the problem here in 2020-2021. What is, I was looking at the long-range savings and projections, that's what I'm looking for is you're gonna make it a lot better in the future rather than just temporarily trying to fix something right now and later on it'll be worse. But the projections is over in the long haul that we're gonna save quite a bit of money. Okay, my question would be, what would be the worst case scenario? How could somehow this turn out to be something that we don't expect? That's a great question, Supervisor Caput. I think for us we try to demonstrate some of that. CalPERS, there's a couple things that are happening right now that are gonna complicate your question or the answers to your question. One is we're grateful to CalPERS, they're rethinking how they create their investment pools and mitigate future risks. So one option they're looking at is allowing agencies like us who do things that increase our funded status to go into a more conservative pool. So that would mitigate any of those worst case scenarios that by moving our investments into a more conservative, more stable investment vehicle. I think the ultimate risk is CalPERS earns that 0% or negative 5% over a long run. That's just not likely. They've tended to average 6% up to 8.5%, over five, 10-year periods of time, over 20-year periods of time. So I think we've done a good job of that scenario that Suzanne presented to you that what if CalPERS earned 6% over a long period of time, that probably is a big likely negative outcome. And what you saw there is, it really was 15, 20 years down the line when we had a few years that we might be paying more in-depth service, but we still have more savings overall for the plan. So I think we've demonstrated the worst case scenario at that 6% range, still yield savings to us. And there's a few years down the line, way down the line that we might pay a little bit more. But that's on the far end. Okay, the only other question would be, we're actually not locked in at a certain rate. It is a variable. The rate what we're proposing now is to go into a fixed interest rate. We'll lock that rate in after August 24th when we come back to the board on August 24th with final direction for tuition. So after that point in time, we'll be locking that rate in over the period of time. So we'll end up with a fixed interest rate. We will, okay, it'll be fixed. It's kind of like a refinance of a mortgage on our house, right? I remember calling when I did refinance, they said we'll lock you in at this rate. If it goes up or down, you'll be locked in at this rate. And then we did the paperwork. So are we locked in yet, or we have to wait? No, that'll come after, after we come back to the board on August 24th, we'll be looking at rates at that time. Okay, thanks a lot. Take care of it. Supervisor Cronick, you're there. Yeah, yeah, thank you, Chair. It does appear that we're looking at some very serious costs if we do nothing that will really hinder our ability to make essential investments in the future. So, I mean, as Supervisor Friend said, the risk of inaction seems higher than taking this action today. I mean, I think we do have an opportunity here with historic low interest rates. And as Supervisor Caput said, this is very much like refinancing a house. We're seeing huge amounts of refinancing today to take advantage of these low interest rates. And I think it makes perfect sense that the county would essentially do the same thing with our unfunded liabilities. I also appreciate that we're hedging our bets here by leaving out the miscellaneous group by only funding 90% of the safety pool. So, we're not going all in on this and we are providing some room to deal with the uncertainty going forward. And I think if we do see the upside, we are looking at some very significant savings. I mean, over $2 million a year, it's a huge amount. That's close to all the money we have for local road resurfacing in the county. And so, we can definitely potentially use that money to make some much needed investments in the community. So, thank you, Ms. Mallory. And Mr. Pimentel, for your work and definitely support these actions. Supervisor Prudently. Yeah, I just want to echo what others have said. I think we're at a historically low interest rate period. Makes sense to lock in interest, lock our obligations in at this interest rate. And I really appreciate the deliberate approach to this of really thinking it through understanding the risks, looking at options and then pursuing this option going forward. So, I look forward to seeing what comes back in August, but I appreciate the efforts that are being made to help the taxpayers of Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any public comments? I have one speaker to this item. Caller 2915, your microphone is available. Good morning, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I applaud the county's efforts to reduce the debt for the CalPERS pension, unfunded pension. I kept reading about all of the savings. And as I said earlier, I could not see any of the screens that the presenters made apparent to you. But in looking at the material available, luckily I do have internet service this morning. I was able to read them. I never saw the total cost of the pension obligation bonds until the very end in exhibit A with the resolution. I'd like clarification. I see two numbers in exhibit A, 121.5 million. And then at the end, it says the calculated end bond amount would be 167 million, 250,000, factoring in a quarter of a million dollars annually in cost to administer these bonds. Would that quarter of a million go to the bond company or who gets that money? Who is the administrator of the bond? I also have a question about the superior court validation process. Would that be done in the superior court of Santa Cruz County? I request as a member of the public that we be a prize of that date of judicial validation. And finally, I have a concern about foreign investors buying these bonds and economic and equity in the bond market. Who's going to be buying these and what are... Yeah, I think that's the point. Thank you, Chair. That is the end of speakers for this item. Okay. I think we've got the end of that comment. Also entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I wanted to ask one question, which was, I didn't, I know that some of the other jurisdictions around us are also looking at, this approach, and I don't know if we combined with them, if we could lower some of our transaction costs and, or if it just complicates things. So I wanted to ask that question. That's a great question. Supervisor community, I think it would complicate things of the requirement to go down to judicial validation. Is it, is it uniqueness to the pension obligation bonds that would really be a barrier to doing a joint effort, but it's something that we're, having active conversations with our community partners around about what our intentions are, what our expectations are, and we're trying to share our best information and knowledge and cross-share that with each other. So we're doing our best to work collaboratively, but I think, you know, falling short of doing a countywide, all city one issue, it's just not, it's just not something that's really set up that way. But it's a great aspiration. Okay. That makes sense. I can move the recommended item. Okay. That makes sense. I can move the recommended action if folks are ready. Second. Coonerty and friend, please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. And congratulations again to everybody who works so hard on this. It's going to be a real benefit to Santa Cruz County. We will move to item number 10 as a board of directors of the Davenport County Sanitation District. This is a public hearing to consider ordinance amending Title three of DC code establishing 2021-22 water service charges and ordinance amending Title four of the district code establishing the 2021-22 sewer service charges for the Davenport County Sanitation District. Direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinance on the May 18th, 2021 agenda for final adoption and set Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 9 a.m. or thereafter as the date and time for public hearing on the service charge reports and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. We have several out of the ordinance 97. It's a sewer clean copy. And then there's a strike out underline ordinance 98 clean copy and this is referring to water and a strike out underline. Item number e Davenport charge reports notice of public hearing and F Davenport County water and sewer charge reports. It's on the web link. I think Ashley to hear true heal is going to present this. I got that right. I hope. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Directors of the board. I'm Ashley to hear on the sanitation engineer for the Davenport County Sanitation District. On March 9th, the board said today is the date for the public hearing to consider the proposed 2021 2022 sewer and water service charges. The overall proposed increases for the water and sewer charges are 3.2% and 4.6% respectively. These increases are necessary to cover the treatment, operation, maintenance, and capital requirements of the water and sewer systems. It is therefore recommended that the board do the recommended actions to hold a public hearing upon its conclusion, consider approval and concept of ordinances amending district code, Title III, Chapter 3.08, Article III, Section 3.08160 through 3.08180 for water, service charges, and district code, Title IV, Chapter 4.08, Article III, Section 4.08160 through 4.08180 for the sewer service charges for the Davenport County Sanitation District. Direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinances on the May 18, 2021 agenda for final adoption. Set Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 9 AM or thereafter is the date and time for a public hearing on the service charge reports. And direct the clerk of the board to publish the notice of the public hearing once a week for two weeks before the hearing and a newspaper and general circulation. Thank you. Thank you. Big comments from the board. Seeing none, is there any public comment? There are no speakers from the public for this item. We will return the item to the board. Yeah, I'll thank Mr. Hio, and I'll move the recommended actions. All second. Coonerty, Caput, please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Caput? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Thank you. Sorry, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Move to the final item of the day before we go into closed session. As board of directors of the Freedom County Sanitation District, a public hearing to consider ordinance amending Title III of district code established in the 2021-22 service charges to the Freedom County Sanitation District, direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinance on the May 18, 2021 agenda for final adoption. Set Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 9 a.m. or thereafter as the date and time for the public hearing on the service charge reports and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. Item A is ordinance F-28, a claim copy. Item B is a strikeout underline copy. Item C is a notice of public hearing for 21-22. And item D, the Freedom County Sewer Charge Report on the web link. Again, Ashley Trevillo. Thank you. So again, this is Ashley Trevillo, Sanitation Engineer for the Freedom County Sanitation District. And on March 9, the board set today as the date for the public hearing on the proposed 2021-22 sewer charges for the district. The proposed overall charge increase of 8.3% is necessary to adequately fund the district's treatment, maintenance, operations and capital costs for the sewer system. It is therefore recommended that the board hold a public hearing and upon its conclusion, consider approval and concept of the ordinance amending District Code Title III. Chapter 3.08, Article III, Section 3.08, establishing the 2021-22 sewer service charges for the Freedom County Sanitation District. Direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinance on the May 18, 2021 agenda for final adoption. Set Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 9 a.m. or thereafter is the date and time for a public hearing on the sewer charge service reports. And direct the clerk of the board to publish the notice of public hearing once a week for two weeks before the hearing in a newspaper of general circulation. Thank you. Okay, can I mention the board? Yeah, I just wanted to ask you. Yeah, thank you. Is this the rate increase we're asking? Is this for the work that's being done in District IV and also Supervisor Friend's District that's going on right now? Airport Boulevard and Green Valley Road, Watsonville. So a portion of the increase is to fund the debt payments for the USDA loan that we got. It was a partial loan and grant to do the work that's going on now. And another portion of the increase is to fund the city's project that we were joint partners with that was in Airport Boulevard. And then the largest, well, not the largest, the second largest contributor to the increase is the increase in the city treatment costs due to the improvements that they're required to do with their plant. So we pay a portion of that as well. Right, I remember about five years ago, we were dealing with a possible rate increase that could have been a lot higher. And I wanna thank you for keeping the rates as low as they are right now. Thank you. All right, thanks, Marisha. Any other comments from board members? Or comments from the public? There are no speakers to this item. Okay, we will return the item to the board for action. We have a motion. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Move by Friend, the second by Koenig. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. We will now, that completes our regular agenda. We will now move into closed session. We have two items. Are there any items that are reportable, Mr. Heath? There's nothing reportable today. Thank you. Okay. We will take, it is now 1030. Good job today. We will take 10 minutes and get into closed session in 10 minutes. Okay.