 The Carol Kelly Visiting Hours are now over. And the rowdy crowd here today. Welcome to the January 9th meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. If you could please sit down. Could we start the meeting with a roll call? Supervisor Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. Kepit. Here. McPherson. Here. Please join us in a moment of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance. The United States of America and the Sugar Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with the religion of justice. Good morning, Mr. Palacios. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Yes, there are. There's one revision and one edition on consent agenda item number seven. This is the minutes. There's additional materials. There's revised first page attachment A. There's a clean and strikeout copy available. Also, there's an agenda, which was item 39.1. This reads direct staff to review the Trump administration's offshore oil drilling plan and submit comments in strong opposition to offshore drilling and to explore legal and policy strategies to oppose the proposed offshore oil drilling as recommended by Supervisor Coonerty. There's a memo from Supervisor Coonerty as well as a couple of attachments. That's all. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Now I'll see if members of the board want to speak about or pull anything off the consent agenda. Good morning, Supervisor Caput. Good morning. Thank you. I'll just comment on number 21. I think this is wonderful that we will approve an agreement with the Community Action Board for evening center youth services. I think that's going to be a great asset to the county. And then that's pretty much it. I want to thank everybody and say happy new year. Happy new year, Supervisor Caput. Good morning, Supervisor McPherson. I just wanted to address the offshore oil letter that Supervisor Coonerty has put up there. This has been a long battle. It's a never-ending one. I remember at the anniversary over at the aquarium about the sanctuary, how former Congressman Leon Panetta said this was a long battle then and it never is going to end, it looks like. So let's just keep our guard up and make sure we can protect our coastline and our coastal waters. Thank you. Good morning, Supervisor Coonerty. Hi, good morning. Happy new year, everybody. Just a couple items to comment on and then one to provide additional direction to comment. Items number 20 through 22, I want to thank the probation department for really looking at new ways to resolve conflicts and give people alternatives and create alternatives to the criminal justice system. Item number 32, I want to thank the parks department for going after the explore the coast grant. I think that's a really tremendous opportunity. As was mentioned, item number 39.1, which is opposing the Trump administration's desire to drill not only off the California coast, but off of the other coasts of the United States. This would be devastating from an environmental point of view. It'd be devastating from an economic point of view. We need to continue to fight it and make sure that our voice is being heard in Washington and that we are exploring every possible avenue to oppose it. And then finally on item number 12, which is a report back on a series of questions I had following our homeless strategy that was given to us. We got a report back and it was helpful in part in answering questions, but it didn't answer all the questions that I had previously asked. So the additional direction, and I passed out to board members, but I'll read through it so the public has clarity, is in order to obtain information requested on item number one on the number 14th agenda, direct the CIO to return in two weeks with the total 17, 18 board approved homeless funding, as well as a list of all the locally funded assistance programs, please include the number of people expected to be housed by each one of these programs. On item number two, in order to obtain the information that I had requested on item number six, direct the CIO to report back in two weeks with policies and procedures for housing navigators, including the requirement to explain voucher portability and provide a clear information on the typical length of time it takes to secure subsidized housing in Santa Cruz County compared to the length of time in at least three other counties. Also provide the board with written information, housing navigators that they can provide to clients. On item number third direction is to convey the board's support for a local residency or preference to the housing authority for their board to make, they're in the process of making that determination right now. And then for direct staff of the coordinated entry system and policy work group to provide a reported budget time evaluating the coordinated entry system and request that the work group reconsider the locally established preference points to augment the VI-SPIDAT scores for the purposes of prioritization. If homelessness is a crisis in this community, we have an important role in setting policy. In order to set policy, we need to have information. And so it's important from my perspective that we get these reports back so that we can make information and then work with the different local governments and the housing authority in order to set appropriate policies to serve as many people as we can. Okay, thank you. Supervisor Friend, good morning. Good morning, Chair. I have nothing to pull and nothing on consent to comment on. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I have nothing to pull off the consent agenda. I do wanna express my appreciation to our probation office. The series of items 20, 21 and 22 are great examples of innovative and effective strategies to address concerns, especially about young people who are involved in the criminal justice system. And I think that we stand as a national model and I'm proud to see this work continuing on. So thank you to the department and all of its employees. In regards to the additional directions on item 12, Supervisor Coonerty, on the requirement to explain voucher portability and clear information, typical length, what's your, I'm trying to understand what that means. Sure, so in other communities, you can be moved into a section eight unit within days. In Santa Cruz County, it can take months, years, or maybe never happen. And what I want our housing navigators to do is to make sure that when they're providing information to people seeking housing, that people are made aware that they can wait here for a year or more and maybe never get housing. Or if they go to, for instance, Sacramento County and San Francisco is doing this. And we can help them get services and find communities they could be in housing next week. And this is not, people can make any decision they want about which community they wanna be in, but I think it's important that they have the information, especially as we face a housing crisis here locally and bad weather and a variety of other things. Yeah, no, I understand the concept of having people understand what the landscape looks like. Right, that makes sense to me. The item included some pieces about, some questions about voucher portability and what that means. And sometimes the other county takes, just takes it off their list or sometimes they send the bill to our housing authority. So I'm just, and it's to me this is not, this is solely about the housing, and each housing navigator is funded by a different grant for a different population as far as I can tell. So it's just about within that, within their sort of purview providing the information to people so that people can make informed decisions about their housing options in their crisis. And the local residency preference, you've talked about that before and the item seemed to say that there are legal limitations to what we can do there. So there is a legal limitation to what we can do in terms of setting a preference for people to have been in the community for a couple of years. I'm still hopeful that we can look at different alternatives. The housing authority maintains a list and the housing authority board is currently considering whether on that list they wanna take applicants from outside the county or one of the few counties in California that does. So it's my understanding that about half the people on the waiting list for housing from the housing authority do not live in Santa Cruz County currently. Some may have lived here, some may not never have lived here and the board is looking at the housing authority board is looking at saying there's there'll be a preference, 75% of that waiting list will be for people who are in the county. And they're currently living here. We're currently in the county and there's no length of stay per our memo about that but you have to be in the county. So it's encouraging their board to take that action which they're considering doing right now. Okay, thank you for the clarifying information. Now I'll see if there's members of the public who wanna address us about items that are on the consent agenda. It's the consent agenda. So there has to be something on the agenda. Okay, please come forward. And let us know which item. It's item 25. My name's Tony Crane, Aptos resident. So item 25 is approving additional funds for encompassed community services. I want to oppose that on a couple of levels. One, there are currently pending complaints with the auditor controller's office regarding unethical behavior and misuse of taxpayer funds and encompasses included in that complaint. And there's also a current complaint at the state treasurer's office as well. And there's also been recently additional allegations from another encompass, a former director of an encompassed program claiming misuse of taxpayer funds. So I wanna make sure that these things are managed before any more money is given to this entity. I know they provide good services in certain instances but you've been made aware of the allegations that I've made or my neighborhood has made. I am a representative. So all that information has been provided to you. And so I hope you've been able to read that and understand it and know that there are, I think, reputable evidence that there is a problem and it needs to be managed before any more money is given to that to encompass. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to address us about items on the consent agenda? Number 13, Homeland Security Grant Funds. Homeland Security money from my understanding goes to militarize the police and doesn't really help the community feel secure. I was just listening to the news yesterday about how Salvadorian immigrants who've been here for years are now being going to be, what do you call it, rounded up, sent away under Homeland Security. And I think it is wise for the community not to accept these funds that have strings attached. And in my understanding, actually, endanger the health and rights of the community. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else about items on consent? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to our board for action. Move the agenda as amended. Motion by Coonerty. Seconded by McPherson. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Next, we'll move on to oral communications. This is an opportunity to address us about issues that are not on today's agenda, but are under the purview of the Board of Supervisors. She'll have three minutes. Green light will go on when you get the start. A yellow light when you have one minute left and a red light when you should end. Would anyone like to address us on oral communications? Please come forward. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Shemaine Lee and I've lived in Santa Cruz County for over 35 years. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice. I come before you today as the primary care manager from my elderly mother Colleen who has moderate stage Alzheimer's. She lives independently and receives IHSS services from two caregivers who divide up about 33 hours a week. The quality of her life is directly related to the positive impact IHSS has had on our family. I am here representing one of thousands of families who depend on IHSS. I urge you to restore and increase funding to adult services and specifically IHSS staffing. Due to state funding cuts, we are at risk of losing staff instead of hiring more and it's up to the counties to fill the gap. My mother is completely dependent on my help and on federal and state financial assistance. When she was first diagnosed, I took on this care management role and began to interact with the IHSS system, navigating the complexity of becoming an employer, interviewing caregivers, doing background checks and training them to help in my mother's care. It has been challenging but truly my life would be even more challenging if not for the support of IHSS caregivers. The IHSS social workers I've worked with have been helpful but there needs to be more of them who can provide direct assistance to families and clients and their families. Typically whenever I need to contact a social worker at the public authority or an IHSS case manager, I leave a message and it takes two to three days just for a return call if I'm lucky. The social worker who has my mom's case has over 200 cases on her caseload. Wrap your brains around that. What kind of quality service can she provide against a growing tidal wave of need? It is unrealistic to expect that all clients' needs will be met without sufficient staff in place. Instead what they're forced to do is triage, responding to urgent needs first. In the face of such a flawed and underfunded system, recipients and families fall through the cracks. We can do better. If the primary goal of IHSS is to keep people safe at home it makes more fiscal sense to support the program rather than spending money on emergency care services, skilled nursing facilities or behavioral healthcare. The county funding you give IHSS now for staffing will help save money down the road by enabling more people to age in place safely at home. That is the hope for my mother that she can continue to live independently at home for as long as possible with support services in place. Right now California has the largest elderly population in the United States and it's continuing to explode. By 2021 out of every five people in our county will be over 60. One in eight residents ages 65 and up have some form of dementia and are eight times more likely to suffer abuse. There are over 2,700 IHSS clients in the county which is up 12% from 2016 and those numbers will continue to explode as well. Clearly given the aging demographics of our county and the huge rise of dementia related illnesses there's a dire need for more IHSS services and funding for staff. Please help Santa Cruz County families such as my own who are dependent on IHSS. I urge you to restore and increase funding for IHSS staffing. We can do better and I hope you will. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks to the previous speaker. I often think of this bumper sticker I used to have that said it'll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to have a big sale to buy a bomber. Just think of what could be done with the military budget money much of it siphoned out of this county to remedy situations like this woman has described and in terms of dementia one of the causal factors is the wireless microwave radiation related to all kinds of malfunctioning and just to remind you we were in your being microwave from all the various sources of cell phones cell towers and tennis wifi. Sometimes I think if we could just see like we do with cigarettes toxic smoke emanating from all these sources we would get a sense of the damage the toxic shroud of radiation that we are in. And there's more pervasive health assault coming to people's homes by this antenna system for 4G 5G in the public right of way which that friend led the implementation of where I live in Aptos 13 in a square mile with this reading way up to the top and the effects are there. This is happening in the city of Santa Cruz I know you represent that area as well Supervisor Coonerty, there is Verizon came to the city and they have to the county and they plan to put in 90 of these 4G antennas in the public right of way in neighborhoods right outside people's homes. There's a meeting tonight of the Santa Cruz City Council at seven o'clock. Some of the young family with teenage sons has appealed the planning commission's approval of a cell site across the street from their home on Nobel up near the university. I think we need to support the neighbors on Nobel the tank family and support ourselves in resisting this known assault and takeover of what belongs to the public. We should be safe in our homes and not be radiated. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Again, my name is Tony Crane representing the Aptos neighborhood of Estates Bragas regarding the second story program there. Again, I want to repeat that I'm not opposed to the program itself. I'm sure it serves a good purpose. However, I've provided to you the information that we received internal emails showing interactions going on between the various entities that were involved in this and there is clearly unethical behavior behind the choosing of this facility and possibly illegal actions that were taken. So we are certainly opposed to this facility being put where it is. It is completely inappropriate. And part of the misrepresentation is that this is some sort of six person facility which would be legal and wouldn't require zoning and licensing requirements, but it's not that. It is considered a six bed facility and that is not six persons and that is not what the law says. You'll find that nowhere. They've tried to use terms like six persons at a time. Nowhere in the laws will you see that phrase at a time. This is just recently the county mental health and encompass went up to Chaffa and requested a change to the program description, making it a six bed facility with two rooms being elsewhere. That is a breach of the grant restrictions and it's a misuse of taxpayer funds. They were given over a million dollars to increase bed capacity by two. So to keep something at six that was already six and spend a million dollars over a million dollars is just wrong. That request was denied and so they are an eight bed facility. So whether you look at it as eight persons or eight beds, it's a commercial facility in a residential neighborhood period. So I hope that you all have read that information. We are requesting a formal hearing on this matter. Again, I filed complaints at various places but on certain things they're requesting that we go back to the Board of Supervisors. That's what we're doing. I've been attempting to reach out to other people, leaders of these entities and no one returns my calls so I can't really do much about that but I'm hoping you guys will bring everybody together in the room and let's try to figure out a resolution to this before, as I stated in my letter to you. They taint the reputation of Santa Cruz County by continually going to the state and misrepresenting their intentions and misusing the funds and thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Lisa Crane and I'm speaking on behalf of the Aptos-Buregas neighborhood. I'd just like to speak to the vulnerable populations that are ultimately affected by the actions and methods that encompass in Santa Cruz County mental health exercise to bring the second story business into our neighborhood. First, the second story is clients themselves because of encompasses lack of preparation and thorough investigation and lack of transparency in choosing this particular location for their business they have placed their clients in a precarious position. Smoking, parking, traffic and growth issues continue to be a problem for the clients. Second, the elderly and the children in the neighborhood are continually put at risk due to the many safety issues that our group has repeatedly brought to the organization's attention. Programs like second story are important and much needed in Santa Cruz County. However, this does not give the organization the right to bend or sidestep laws and regulations and work without transparency which only results in fracturing the community instead of binding and strengthening it, which is such a shame because the opportunity was there and because of gross mismanagement. Here we are today. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Happy New Year to everybody. I am Dana Snyder. I am also representing the Estates Braggas neighborhood on the topic of Encompass and the county. I would like to voice my opposition and disappointment in the process resulting in the second story program in our community and that's in all of our community not just in Aptos. From the grant application to today there has been a lack of transparency from the county and Encompass in regards to the program, finances, communication with and effect on our community as a whole. In addition to misrepresentation of the facts regarding whether it's a six or eight bed facility in our neighborhood, it shouldn't be difficult to figure out which that is but it seems to be a question that is continually being asked. The program is needed. Second story is effective. It can be effective for its clients and the community as a whole but not in the location where it is currently in our neighborhood. We have very small streets. We have no sidewalks. We have no lighting. We have one way in and one way out. There is no on-street parking and they currently do not have enough parking in their facility to manage the situation especially when they add their staff meetings of 20 or plus people a few days out of the month. Our kids are no longer able to ride their bikes and to play without the concern of the traffic of both pedestrian and vehicle. It's increased tremendously. I no longer can sit at my kitchen table and do homeschool with my family because of the distraction of the people and the traffic that is going by my house on a continual basis. It's unfortunate. I do have serious concerns about how the program has affected the safety in our neighborhood. We have had many incidents that have put our community, our kids and our elderly and our pets, everybody at risk. There's been a heroin arrest in our neighborhood with someone with empty and full needles in their vehicle in a driveway in our neighborhood where our kids play. There was a sticky note on the dashboard with a phone number and an appointment time to go see someone at encompass. That person needs help but it doesn't need to be happening where our kids play. There are much more beneficial places where this facility could be housed. There has been an incident where a person has stashed alcohol in a bush next to the bus stop where they now have been directed because of our complaints of the smoke they've now been directed to go to the bus stop to smoke so they loiter on the sidewalk with their marijuana and their cigarettes with the alcohol and that's right a block away from our VISTA school. My time is up. Thank you for listening. I need to let you know that we have a neighborhood watch program and it's very difficult to decide who's safe and who's not if we aren't able to get to know our neighbors. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Jeff Nordahl here to just report on feedback from the front lines of this cannabis adventure we're on right now. So I'll first identify myself. I am a cannabis cultivator and manufacturer here in Santa Cruz and I've been trying to jump through all the hoops and be a team player with the county and not to be self-righteous here or anything but I just wanna let you know what why I'm involved in the industry is I actually hadn't even touched cannabis for about 12 years. I had a really debilitating case of Lyme disease and it turns out the cannabis was a massive part of my healing path to wellness. So I experienced that firsthand and now I just feel very strongly that it can help a lot of people in need so that's why I'm involved with this industry. But just to give you what's been going on the last, now that we're in 2018, give you a breakdown of just the experience and some other people are dealing with this as well. Going back to early this year, February, when the call went out in Santa Cruz that people should start coming in and paying taxes, I registered immediately in February to start paying taxes, have paid taxes every month up until now and I still plan to. Also, when the EIR process started, I was on the front lines, I volunteered to be a beta test and invited the entire county and the whole new cannabis licensing team up to my property which was a leap of faith to work with the community as a team player. In fact on the EIR cover, the picture of the greenhouse, that's my actual greenhouse and then fast forward to now just this last month, it became very clear, this was no surprise that the state was gonna be issuing temporary licenses but you had to first have a local letter of authorization from your local municipality or the county. This was no surprise, cannabis licensing staff or at these meetings, the state held, everyone knew this was happening and we were also communicating with the county. It came up December, fast forward December 18th, I had the inspection, I passed the inspection and then my letter of authorization just sat. I still have no idea why. I didn't receive it till January 4th, I had to get two board of supervisors involved which were very helpful, I appreciate that but right now I'm completely out of business, I can't transact with any of our local dispensaries. So the question is, now are we on the same team like the people who've jumped through all the hoops, tried to be team players, it's a question, are we working together or are we being undermined and I hope we can work together, thank you. Thank you, good morning. Good morning, my name is Margaret Abelkova, I'm in a professor of physiology at the Flatbentures University and I've come to speak up against, inform you a little more on the dangers of electromagnetic exposure. There's some new research that came out recently that explains some of the mechanisms, right? Currently the EPA standards work are very, very high, what's permissible and it's based on actual physical heating, microwaving your tissues, right, raising temperature and now there's a new study that shows that explains why electromagnetic frequencies have affected much lower levels, it affects something called calcium channels in the cell membrane and pretty much all ourselves have calcium channels in their cell membranes and they are a regulatory mechanism, we have about 10,000 times more calcium outside of the cell than on the inside and these calcium channels will open at particular instances when, for example, a hormone docks onto a receptor or sometimes when a nerve fires, this will open a calcium channel. Well, now what we've found out, what's been discovered is that these electromagnetic frequencies actually tend to open these calcium channels and allow calcium ions inside of the cell where they act as second messengers sort of confusing the metabolic pathways resulting in increased free radical stress, mitochondrial damage and DNA damage and at much lower intensities than what originally we thought these studies are available, if you guys want to look it up on PubMed, it's there, Dr. Mercola has a lot of information on his site and hopefully you guys can take that into consideration when you're continuing to approve more EMF radiation because me, I'm also an acupuncturist in the community and I see the compound effects, especially on people's sort of metabolism and nervous systems that is increasing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Mueller Giesen. I'm also on the Estates Barragas. I'm speaking out again, speaking out in reference to the Encompass project on the Estates Barragas. Thank you for your time this morning. I'd like to start out by saying that I'm not opposed to the program itself. I'm just opposed to the way that it was delivered and in the current location that it's in, I do believe that the program itself has good value. That's why I believe that when speaking about the program, the program should be forthright and people should know and everybody should be, truthful statements should be made. When speaking about the program, but every step of the turn that I've been involved, I've been told to try to take a motion out of this conversation because I'm emotionally to things and so forth. Yet with just about every single person or people that I've talked to, I've been met with hostility. We as a community have been met with hostility and just absolutely wasn't expecting that in the way that we've been spoken back to and in reference to this. And so in addition to just about every instance, they have the parties that we have referred us back to the board of supervisors and said to bring this to your attention. And that's why I continue to do so is to bring it to your attention so that we can work this out with the community in a positive way. I'd like to start with a statement. The statement is false statements with a deliberate intent to mislead. So there's a word that goes with that. And I've been told I can't use that word by different folks and so forth. So I'm gonna use the definition, right? Through the process that this has been going on, there's clear in several different areas with false statements made by Encompass and others to false statements with deliberate intent to mislead. We believe that this is a great program. This program is needed in the community. Then why are there such false statements with deliberate intent to mislead? Why are they continuously misleading the public? Why are they continually misleading Chaffa? Why are they continuously misleading the board of supervisors and so on and so on? So I just go back to what I know as a family member from being born and raised in Santa Cruz. And what I have to teach my kids is not to lie. Do these things right and be honest and be forthright. Don't do things. Don't deliberately mislead people. And so I just want to bring that to the attention and just say that we should do it the right way. We are on board to try to help and get this program in the right location and so forth. But doing it the way that was done is incorrect. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Gary Edwards, Executive Director of ADD, we administer the long-term care ombudsman program and the patient's rights advocate program and both of these are mandated programs which are supported by Santa Cruz County in part and we do appreciate that support. I worked as an ombudsman for a couple of years and found that December was actually a great month to be an ombudsman in facilities because families are coming, gifts are exchanged, decorations are up, music is playing and actually they're pretty nice places to be in. January's another story. You get into January, it's rainy, it's dreary and the insides of the facilities are dreary. The holiday decorations are down. The families are off back doing their thing and may not see grandma or grandpa for another three months, six months, maybe not even till the next December. That's for seniors living in long-term care facilities where activities and meals are planned out a month or months in advance. For seniors living alone, aging in place, it's even worse. I had the opportunity to participate in the Senior Solutions Summit that Seniors Council put on in October and I wanna thank Supervisors Caput, McPherson and Leopold for participating in that meeting. It really brought to my attention the issue of senior isolation and loneliness out in the community. We had a lot of good statistics about, or informative statistics about seniors in the community just a couple of minutes ago, so I won't go back over those. But 18% of seniors in Santa Cruz County live alone and nationwide 45% of seniors report feeling isolated or lonely during the year. And loneliness and isolation among seniors isn't just a sad fact. It's seniors are, these individuals are at risk of developing cognitive decline, developing dementia. They're at increased vulnerability to elder abuse and they're even increased risk of death due to heart disease. So what I would like to ask the board just to bring this to your attention and in budget considerations, program support considerations, as we get into the next few months, if you consider the invisible seniors aging in place in the community, if you took all of the seniors, lonely isolated seniors and lined them up on Pacific Avenue, you would have a visible, you'd be able to see the size of the problem. The issue is that they're in their homes, they're not visible in the community and they're easy to overlook and I'd just like you to keep them in consideration as we move forward in the year. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Victorious Alexander. I'm a civil society activist and I wanna be able to say that I heard a lot of the, a few of the public members coming in here and talking about truth and just being passionate about that, about justice. I wanna be able to remind members of the public, happy new years and to the County Board of Supervisors, happy new years that I wanna remind members of the public that the administrator and administration of justice is affairs of everyone. And being in exile in Santa Cruz County and being a civil society activist and exercising my first amendment rights, keeping political agencies accountable to the American public is shameful. Now they wanna criminalize all political dissent. The legal community is not coming at it right. You know, when I'm speaking out and keeping these agencies accountable, I should be able to exercise my first amendment right without any intimidation, harassment or threat of violence. And I wanna be able to say this of members of the public, you know that I know this is a Christian County and this is a state, a Judeo-Christian state. And I wanna be able to remind members of the public that Isaiah talks about in 59, 15, he talks about when truth falls in the street and equality cannot enter, so truth fails. He that departs from evil makes himself pray. The pro-animalizing of humanity, right, county by county as this trickle down on economic zombie politics kind of permeates all political systems. We have to safeguard community justice. The legal community needs to come out of right. This is not about managing the character of the citizen. This is about the norms and principles of justice because the American public is getting frustrated. Frustrated because we can't find community justice. My, just on my personal issue, my attorney doesn't represent me and I cannot fire him. They're giving me a really hard time. Now two misdemeanor cases have dragged on over a year. Almost a year and a half I can't find closure. Now they want a stockpile or stacked two separate cases of exercise in my first amendment in the courts. And I find it very shameful because the DA is spectacularizing the charges, right? Constantly coming to have he handed. He doesn't have no compassion in really looking at the cases for their merit. They lack merit and no one is standing in the gap for victorious. And I wanna leave you guys with this really great quote from Rabbi Hillel. When there's no man, be that man. Who's gonna be able to advocate for me? When I come to the healing administrators, the county board of supervisors, I need you guys as political bosses to push up on the legal community and say, hey, what's going on with these cases? Why are they dragging on so long and why are you guys stockpiling them? They have no case. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. You know my name, which is in use for a lot of governmental officers and all of the encompassed executives, Abdulaziz Nimbi. The more gentle way, more than one month ago, I ask you for official apology of the Santa Cruz County because of the inappropriate language, some of your employees, governmental employees, employees of the United States of America government, employees of the state of California governments are using inappropriate sarcastic language when they're managing my requirements for justice and for truthness. I haven't received that apology neither one of my 150 plus neighbors have received this one. And on the top of this, I haven't get information what are the disciplinary action you took against Eric Riera, some other officer over here. How did you sanction them? Probably three months without pay is a good disciplinary action for them. I think even more. Did you send letter to Ancompass to stop using that inappropriate language against us? Did you warn them if they continued to use that language? You are going to cancel all the relations with them, all funding with them, and request to turn back all the money they uselessly spent. When I'm going to receive that letter of apology, email or whatever, give me a date. Okay, thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to address us on oral communications? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to our board for our regular agenda. Our first item is item number 41, which is considered a selection of chairperson and vice chairperson for calendar year 2018, is outlined in the memorandum of myself, Chair Leopold. Before we do this, I just wanted to say a few words about the last year. This has been a very consequential year for the Board of Supervisors. There's a lot that has gone on. Individual supervisors have been a lot. Our staff has been very busy, but we started this year with a series of terrible storms that created about $130 million worth of damage, and a rapid response from our staff got roads open quickly, and the Board helped prioritize which roads were damaged and which could be fixed. We advocated very strongly for SB1, and we closed the year by committing another $1 million to our local roads. In addition to that public infrastructure, with board support, the Parks Department moved forward and opened the first pickleball courts, which we all enjoyed, at the end of the budget hearings. Also, board members played a leadership role in helping raise over $1 million for Leo's Havens, which is gonna be the first all-inclusive park facility in the county. The Board supported the efforts of our General Services Department staff to find innovative strategy to place rooftop solar on a wide range of county buildings, and we see the work here at our county building today. The Board has also sought to address the housing and homeless crisis in our community. We approve new rules for accessory dwelling units. We've made changes to our affordable housing impact fees, and we work collaboratively with other jurisdictions on effectively addressing homelessness issues. In our Health and Human Services, the Board supported and we completed the first round of funding for our core investment strategy, a long-discussed reimagining of our community program funding. The Board also created the Thrive by Three Fund to support early childhood education and health, and we held a special meeting at the Museum of Art and History to delve deeper into the issues facing foster youth in our community in a first-of-its-kind exhibition that our staff and community helped create. In the areas of health, the Board supported efforts to seek funding for the Whole Person Care program, which will provide mental health and treatment services for 1,000 people in our community. The Board also chose, at the end of the year, to take some risk and approve the Drug Medi-Cal Waiver program that will help expand treatment services in our county. This year, we also saw the benefit of prudence budgeting and the strengthening of our reserve by being awarded a AAA credit rating, and with the support of the CAO's office, we were able to complete the tripling of our reserves over the last few years, and we did that early, and we stand in the best fiscal position we've been in the last 10 years. At the start of the year, the Board recommitted itself to stand up for all the residents and place policies in place that protected immigrants, and clearly articulated our commitment not to take on the work of the federal government when they attempted to go after those who live here. We work with county council and join lawsuits challenging the sanctuary city restrictions proposed by the Trump administration. The lawsuit was successful not just for our residents, but for immigrants across the country. County council also worked with the Board to develop our strategy to sue fossil fuel companies for their awareness and the dangers of their products to the environment and for their attempts to shirk their responsibility for the emissions caused by their products. Finally, the Board did something we haven't done in 28 years. We said goodbye to our long-serving county administrative officer, led an inclusive recruitment and unanimously hired Carlos Palacios as our new county administrative officer. In selecting Carlos, we strongly supported his efforts for leadership development among staff and strategic planning that involves the entire community. So I'm proud of the year that we've had and as I pass the gavel to my colleague, I'm proud of not only the past accomplishments, but look forward to more consequential actions in the futures. I thank the Board for giving me this chance to chair the Board for this year. And with that, we will take any motion about chair and vice chair. Mr. Chair, I think it's appropriate that we follow our policy of going numerically in order and elect our second district supervisor to be and I'd like to nominate Zach Friend to be our chairman for the year 2008. Would you also like to make a nomination for vice chair? Vice chair would be his colleague to the left and I don't mean that politically exactly, but Ryan Coonerty. It's okay. Ryan Coonerty, yeah, right. Supervisor Coonerty. So there's a motion by Supervisor McPherson. Is the second by Supervisor Coonerty. Is there any member of the public who would like to say anything? Then I'll bring it back to our Board for Action. All in favor? Well, Supervisor Caput. Make a comment. I want to thank you for the past year. You're the second best chairman I've seen in the last five years. All right. We try harder as number two. Yes. Yeah. All in favor signify by saying aye. And the opposed motion carries unanimously and I hand the gavel over to my colleague, Supervisor Friend. Good luck. No speech. So that alone should have you guys clapping that there isn't a follow-up speech. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I would also like to briefly thank a chair emeritus Leopold and his new title that he'll put on all of his cards because for those who aren't familiar with the chair role, obviously it's a ceremonial role. You do run the meetings but there's a significant amount of additional responsibilities throughout the community and he really did represent this board very well throughout the last year serving on behalf of all of us. And meetings don't run themselves efficiently and I feel like over the last year given the level of controversial items that came forward through the county, you really did make sure that we had a very open and inclusive and transparent process and you deserve a lot of credit for that. So thank you for your service since last year. So move on to the final item on the regular agenda today which is item 42. This is a presentation by the California State Association of Counties or CSAC to honor our County Director of Public Works with the prestigious Circle of Service Award. We did receive a letter of Matt Kate who's the executive director and we're very fortunate to have two representatives from Sacramento from CSAC here today. I know that we have Keanu Valentine here from who's a CSAC senior legislative representative who will actually present the award and also if you could introduce your new colleague and for those who aren't familiar with Ms. Valentine we'd just like to thank you for your remarkable advocacy on our behalf. Throughout the state CSAC does so much for this county in advocating for our needs and in the world of transportation and infrastructure you had such a major role in ensuring the passage of key things in this past year so I know you don't get thanked enough but this board appreciates the work you did and we appreciate you coming down from Sacramento today. Welcome. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair Emeritus for members. It's my absolute pleasure to be here this morning again Keanu Valentine, CSAC staff, I work on housing, land use and transportation issues for CSAC and then of course my colleague in the audience, Alex Gilliland. She is our newest hire, has been with us a whole three weeks. She is our external fares coordinator and her new role as it sort of evolves as she gets on board because this position has never existed at CSAC before is to get out and visit all 58 counties, understand what's going on in your communities, building bridges, better bridges between counties and CSAC vice versa so we can be better advocates on your behalf in Sacramento and in Washington DC. I also just wanna know how thankful I am for the opportunities when they do arise, they're not as common as I would like to attend board of supervisors hearings, listen to the dialogue between the board and your constituents and the issues that are facing this county and other counties around the state. They're very grounding for me as an advocate, we can get caught up in the politics of the day in Sacramento but it's really important to remember that we're here, CSAC exists on your behalf to advocate on behalf of all of Californians, the constituents that you represent so just appreciated being a part of the meeting this morning. And so with that I will get to the business of the morning which is presenting John Presley with what I consider a very prestigious award, the CSAC Circle of Service Award for his work on behalf of CSAC in California's counties. This award is a special way for CSAC staff to look back on a year and really identify county supervisors, county officials, county staff, other county affiliated members that have gone above and beyond the call of duty on a variety of issues. And with respect to the fight that we just had to secure additional transportation funding to address the abundant needs on the local street and road system and state highways and transit and all of the other transportation needs that we have in the state, it was abundantly clear to us that John Presley was very deserving of an award this year. He's our most immediate past president of the County Engineers Association of California and he helped us build a critical mass of support that ultimately led to getting SB 1 and ACA 5 passed. His dedication went so far at one point as him picking up the phone and calling every other county public works director to ensure they understood what it would mean if we didn't find success in a transportation funding fix. What SB 1 ultimately would mean for their county, how he thought the public works directors and staff could engage with their board of supervisors to develop that grassroots level support that was really critical of getting something so monumental as SB 1 passed. The last time we increased funding for transportation was 1994, so it's been a long time coming. It took three years of really, really concerted hard effort on behalf of a lot of people in the state of California. His SEAC, the County Engineers Association of California's ongoing partnership with SEASAC provided to be a critical part of us being able to come back and report to you all that with the passage of SB 1. Cities and counties would be receiving on an annual basis $1.5 billion to invest in the local street and road system that $750 million ongoing to counties as direct subventions for you to help address those transportation needs. I find generally that public works directors and your county engineers and staff, a lot of their work goes unnoticed, right? A storm comes through with exception of some of maybe the really tremendous storms that hit Santa Cruz at the beginning of last year. A storm comes through, knocks down a tree, you know, causes some ruckus in the community and they're out there in the middle of the night cleaning it up. And so hopefully when a resident wakes up the next morning, really the problem has been solved and they can get moving with their day. And a lot of that work goes unnoticed. So I think public works directors, John makes lemonade out of lemons and used the December, January, February, March, 2016, 17 storms to his advantage to really make the case for why a transportation funding fix was needed. He's also been a leader in working with federal and state governments to ensure disaster relief. Additionally, beyond SB1, I talk to him very regularly about the continued needs of Santa Cruz County and he is a fierce advocate on behalf of this board of supervisors in this community. So all of that being said, I just wanna thank John again for all of your contributions to our association and to California's 58 counties and the residents that you represent. It's my pleasure, John, I'm happy to say a good friend of mine. So thanks, John. Quite an honor. I'm actually astonished. I did put a lot of effort into this. And Keanna knows, she is like a force of advocacy. She's been working on this for many, many years and we always appreciated her. We were known as the dream team a couple of years ago and we went back to meet with the federal government regarding, and it was really kind of cool that she mentioned that we were the dream team, all the executive board members of the SEAC and I was the secretary at the time and she came back and said, you guys out there, the rest of you in the nation should be aware of what California did in Washington, D.C. on some advocacy efforts. So it's really important for us to continue this advocacy effort. It's, we want to rebuild our roads and this money will generate that ability and it will grow over time. It's something that was really personally to me that we wanted to see our roads rebuilt and that's like a fundamental thing. I think all public work structures look at the same thing. So thank you very much. I want to acknowledge my wife is over here and I have very supportive and I got some of my former executives here, Brian, Suzanne, John Phantom, former public works director, Tom Bulloch, public works director, Carol Kelly, assistant director, but also executive at the CAO level and all my staff are here and they know how hard we work day to day to keep our roads open and keep the sewer flowing and things like that. So it's quite a job and there's a lot of things going on. So thank you very much, Keanna. It's lovely to have you come down here and present this today. So. Well, director Presley, there are some board members and I know members of the community that'd like to also make some comments. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, chair. You know, Santa Cruz is a small county and as a small county under different leadership, you would get overlooked but to have a leader like John Presley who was head of the state organization of engineers who was at a place in his career where he could take the leadership mantle and really do the hard work necessary to help pass a significant piece of legislation is a credit to him. It's a credit to the county and the impact that we will experience is real. We're already seeing it. There's work being done and it's also clear that we're gonna have to fight in order to keep it and it's gonna be important to be able to show that the resources are gonna be used well but John was on the front lines and I'm glad that CSAC chose to give him this award and recognize the outstanding work that he's done over the past year and throughout a career where he's committed to finding ways to pay for the infrastructure in Santa Cruz County. Thank you for your work, John. Thank you, Supervisor Leopold. Supervisor Coonerty. So I just wanna say congratulations. It's easy to sort of get parochial and just think about our own county within our own borders and the advocacy takes a different kind of leadership to see the big picture and to see how medium-sized counties like ours can fit in and make sure that we get the resources we need and I think to have the funds to repair after storm and the initial repairs were being done but really we're gonna look out over the next 20 years a transformational moment because of your advocacy in our, for our transportation systems and I really wanna thank you for your leadership. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. Our CSAC representative, Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, I wanna say congratulations, John. Well deserved and I can tell you as the CSAC representative here, the people in our state capital and throughout the state of California recognize your consistent efforts to make this a reality and that's the great news that had finally passed Senate Bill One but what made it even better was that county voters by a two-thirds vote approved Measure D which included what we became a self-help county and that means within that Senate Bill One and this is getting kind of political but within that Senate Bill One there's money for self-help counties. I think there's about 20 plus of the 58 counties are self-help and John was front and center day in and day out, weekend and week out to push for that too and it was really critical that we did that. With all that, the warning is that there's an effort going on right now to put a measure on this November's ballot to really in essence make Senate Bill One ineffective. I hope that does not pass. It hasn't qualified for the ballot but it may and I don't know what proposition that might be on the November ballot but people should be aware of that that all this effort that was done will be for not if that measure passes in November. So I think I'd wanna make everybody aware of that. I don't wanna put a downer on this. It's a celebration of a great man who has done so much for us and getting our first transportation measure passed in more than 20 years in the state of California and it wouldn't have been done without John Pressley. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. You bet. I wanna thank you and your staff. You've done a great job. And people ask me what goes on in the county? What are the responsibilities? I say sometimes it's a pothole in front of somebody's house or it could be the Pajaro River big project or it could be putting in a new bridge. That's your department. And one thing I just wanna say a personal thing on in the past storm last year, there was a critical failure that was taking on going on in South County. When I first came aware of it, I called your office and somebody had already called your office. And I think within minutes trucks were actually rolling out of granite to construction, granite rock. The response was incredible and I just wanna thank you. More importantly than all this, you're a very good man and I wanna thank you for everything. Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. I'll just briefly say as someone who's had the privilege of attending some of these advocacy trips with you to Sacramento and Washington DC, one thing that Director Presley is very modest. He's not someone, today's award is not something he wants actually or seeks out in any way, shape, or form. And I can imagine he was probably dreading the morning. Probably told his wife this is the last thing he wanted to do. And I think this is really actually part and parcel of public works in general that one of the things that the board used to do is communicating what we do and what the county does. And public works always tells me we just wanna go out and get things done. We just wanna make people's lives better. We wanna make sure that people have the ability to get to work on time, to get to school, or in some respects not even notice what we do because things just work. But there are people behind the scenes, as Ms. Valentine noted, 24 hours a day that are making sure that that is exactly happening and it's under your leadership that this is happening. And even though you don't go out and tell the world what you're doing, trust me, the five of us and a number of people in the community do know what it is you do and we appreciate that. This is an opportunity for members of the community to come up and address us on this item. This is a public item. Is there anybody from the community that would like to address us? I would like to remind you, you still only get three minutes, sir. Oh, well, I think I can keep it short. Tom. Don't worry, sir. I will follow the rules. Tom Bolidge. Sir, sir. See, I didn't talk when he was talking. Tom Bolidge, former Public Works director and proud to be the director that recommended that you hire this guy. And the one with me is the former Public Works director that hired me, who also brought John Presley over from the planning department because we recognized that we needed him in Public Works. Anyway, we're both very proud of him and I'm really happy to see the board recognize the talent they've got here. This is a great Public Works director, probably one of the best you'll ever have. Definitely exceeded anything John and I were able to do with SEAC and CSAC. Although we did a great job on the hospitality committee, didn't we? No, we're really happy with John's work. And we just wanted to be here because it's very rare you're gonna see ex-Public Works folks come down here at nine o'clock in the morning. We did enjoy that oral communication. But thank you for providing John this opportunity to be recognized and keep up the good work, John. Thank you. Thank you, Director Bolge. Is there anybody else that would like to address us during this oral opportunity? Yes, sir. I got pushed up here, John. I'd just like to thank you for your leadership too. And for the award that you recommended me for through SEAC, that was quite a neat thing. So I've gotten to know you over the past few years. Thank you for your support and all you've done. And for all the, yeah. And for your example too, with pushing for that SB1. The times I've spent with him, it seems like that's the thing he's been saying the past three years, SB1, SB1. So it's a good example for all of us. So hopefully we can use the funding to the best of the abilities. And thank you, John, for giving us that chance. Okay? Thank you. Is there anybody else that'd like to heap praise on our Public Works Director? All right, seeing none, there will be a reception out in the hallway here for Director Presley with SEAC, which you well deserve. The board will join you in that reception. We do have a closed session immediately following. Will there be anything reportable from closed session? No. So we will then adjourn the regular meeting in order to join the reception. And then the board in about 10 minutes will go in and to close session. Thank you all for being here today. I don't know.