 Good morning everybody. I'd like to call to order the regularly scheduled February 14th 2023 meeting of the board of supervisors. Madam clerk if we could begin with a roll call please. Supervisor Koenig. Here. Cummings. Here. Hernandez. Here. McPherson. Here. And friend. Here. I would like to begin with a moment of silence. Does any board member like to dedicate a moment of silence? Supervisor Koenig please. Thank you Supervisor Friend. I'd like to dedicate this moment to Buzz Roberts. I was a blood member of our community. He passed away over the weekend and he taught guitar. He was a loving husband and he survived by his wife Kate Roberts. Thank you. Any other members? Okay we'd like to dedicate this moment of silence please. Please join us in 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, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good morning Mr. Palacios. Are there any changes to today's agenda? We have no corrections today. Thank you Mr. Palacios. Are there any board members who would like to pull an item on consent and put it on the regular agenda today? Okay. Seeing none we'd like to open it up now for public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the community to address us on either items that are not on today's agenda but are within the purview of the board of supervisors or on the consent agenda or on the regular agenda if you're unable to stay or even on the closed session agenda if you're unable to be here for that time. Please step forward. Good morning. Welcome. Hi. My name is Carol Bjorn. Happy Valentine's Day to everybody and because it's Valentine's Day I thought I would just give a quick reminder of our relationship and I'd like to do that by reading government code 54950. In enacting this chapter the legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this state exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them and I think that sentence bears repeating. The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people in delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is good for them to not know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments that they've created and then my second point has to do with the cell towers. So I'd like to ask for a moratorium on any cell towers in this county until an appropriate health and safety study be conducted and Supervisor Hernandez I know there's some cell towers going up in South County right now and my good friend Diane had reached out to your office to meet with you about that. I know Marilyn Garrett calls in every time you guys have a meeting and she talks about the dangers of the cell towers. If you go outside this building and look at all the trees around the building they're dying and it's because of all the cell towers and Wi-Fi on top of this building. So if it's happening to the trees imagine what it's doing to the people. So I'd like to ask for a moratorium on any cell towers in Santa Cruz County until you guys know exactly what the effects of the trees the people and the animals and the environmental concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. Good morning Supervisors and thank you for your service and welcome aboard Supervisor Cummings and Hernandez. I have the honor and privilege of working and being chair of the Mental Health Advisory Board for about a decade now. I'm here to tell you we've submitted the California Mental Health Data Notebook that's required every year. This year it focuses on services that we lost due to COVID. You know our staff are doing amazingly great work very understaffed and doing the best that they can with the impact that not only COVID but that the rains and the fires have had and how you guys have had to be there to help us. I also want to point out and thank you very much for the approval of Tiffany Kendrell Warren. She and Karen Kern have been working very hard interim directors and having her step up and how closely she's worked with the board has been amazing. I also want to say thank you for keeping the Watsonville Hospital and that goes into my time and working forward on the Youth Mental Health Crisis Stabilization Center which is going to be an amazing asset to our community and I believe it's they're looking at it at the Sarah Center near Santa Clara. So thank you guys very much for your service. Any questions feel free to reach me mental health advisory board. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Good morning sir. Welcome. Good morning. I'm Lou Brazil 72-year resident of this county and a contractor in this county for 45 years. I am here representing my client who I'm trying to build her house that burned above the Boulder Creek Golf Course and I don't know if this county has ever known what an emergency is but at best your planning department and for leaf are in the way right now. Now you've got a thousand people out of their homes for all going on three years now. Now you've got flood and landslide victims and many jurisdictions in the state lift their regulations for instance Ferndale and their 90s earthquake. Waved all permits and fees and told people get in your homes do whatever you have to do. We're here if you need us just give us a call. For some reason starting with the floods in the 80s and the earthquakes and now we've got this fire the county of Santa Cruz has never been an emergency oriented people. You've always got in the way. Now if you want to know my exact experience of my 45 years in this county 72 years actually I was born here my phone numbers 408-590-2946 I would highly suggest Mr. McPherson and Mr. Cummins call me because this involves your area of the county and I'm highly highly disappointed in the performance of this government especially when I spend thousands of dollars of my client's money to get her in a house and you guys spend her money like drunken sailors please call me you have to know what's going on thank you. Thank you sir anybody else like to address us this morning good morning. Good morning my name is James Ewing Whitman those are some interesting initials so on the consent agenda you know item 19 there's a ambag meeting and it relates to that on February 27th 10 to noon it's one of the you know overseeing governments that people don't really talk about so how about three sevens 1917 1937 and 1987 so in 1917 what kind of changed is city council members and county boards of supervisors became under the control like puppets of city and county managers I'm sure that the attorney can confirm that I to have some information it's not with me so you know it kind of reminds me of Pinocchio you guys are kind of on strings you know the tales that you guys tell you guys would have noses the sizes of the longest freight trains that are run by diesel electric you know and talk about sustainability 51 seconds you know hemp seeds that oil can be replaced diesel kerosene or jet fuel we can thank William Randolph Hearst for getting rid of hemp let's see I have 30 seconds left you know there are some lies in this county that their noses could just go around the world I'm thinking of Carlos Palacios it's really pretty sad you know there's many ways to stop the conversations in a room you know we all have creator energies and are all fifth elements we're all part of earth fire wind and earth fire wind and rain and that fifth element is love it is valentine's day so you know imagine snow white sitting on Pinocchio's face tell me a lie Pinocchio tell me a lie thank you mr woman can we get to finish that good morning can I give this follow up on my last conversation for you good morning some of you know how long I've been trying to bring a structure in the county different than for high school that would be page 25 so I have a letter that I had talked about I had the video of how was it five years ago where I spoke to that time the board I haven't changed but I'm 84 years young I haven't given up that letter that is being given for you later is from Susan the former administrator as you know like you Carlos and it was back in 1985 please read it if you didn't take action when I spoke for the three minutes of creating a county-wide structure for youth please think through what each of you could do that I can't and so on the other side is basically what I'm going to read as an open invitation because on the 30th of this month the founder of the united farm workers they're still trying to pass legislation I want you to know that the latino affairs commission not that we're dealing with one population they couldn't even get a quorum and they meet only every other month you have an opportunity at Cabrillo because they'll be electing their student senate you judge your society by how the young people get involved in a democracy so best I can you can't do it in three minutes but if I got seven seconds is that accurate four seconds there we go thank you please look at the other side of what you could do thank you thank you very much good morning Gary Richard Arnold morning German supervisors I think we heard ever since we've got some new supervisors here before people are talking about three minutes ever since Ryan Coonerty it seems like the Panetta machine has chopped people's communications to you by two minutes also people could be able to reach you you know you all have the same damn phone number and before just a few years ago um there was a planning department there was a planning appeals board this board of supervisors abolished it and pointed themselves that's why people are suffering out here and not having representative government you belong to a secret parallel government called cow cog and they are complaining about the california constitution I don't know whose dues it's coming from but ambag which is a cog a council of governments it's no more than a soviet meets and they only have that's 13 cities and three counties you know how many agendas they have for the people that show up last time they went six you people are cheating the American people you belong to cow cog that is lobbying against the california constitution I don't know how that's damn legal and and in the cow cog they even have a flag pacifica Bruce McPherson's communications director is advocating a a soviet nation called pacifica on the west coast they're they're attacking the constitution's anachronistic and it leads to costly elections people these people don't believe in elections they're meeting secretly and they're funded through ickley which is a front for the both the world bank and the united nations and these people are evil they're lying to you they're not elected representatives and for god's sakes get your own telephone number and one for your assistants like they're used to be your your pimps for the global government thank you is there anybody else that'd like to address us right now direct public comment okay he's seeing none will close public comment we'll bring it to the board fraction chair we i'm sorry that was my mistake sorry madam quick is there anybody online yes chair thank you we do have speakers online call in user one your microphone is now available maryland garrod and thanks to the speakers and carol fjord reminding you that your responsibility is to represent the public at your meeting on january 10th i urge the new supervisors especially to halt the installation of hazardous 5g radiation of salt and tennis and towers throughout our county and i see that item 14 list cruise aisle receiving five hundred thousand dollars to install we send listing 20 sites where this is um happening and to remind you that no resident and or child has authorized 24 7 in voluntary bodily microwave radiation trespass we do not send to these violations of ours i don't know what's happening with the boys privacy health constitutional property rights halt installation and remove the dangers of these powers murder towers is what they are toxic radiation thank you thank you are there any other speakers online yes chair brian your microphone is now available hi this is brian people from trail now um but i want to recognize the gentleman and i just want to uh you know recognize his frustration and that i think it's important that the county listen to the frustration of the community that have lost their home um it's very frustrating here him come up in front of the board and mention the the pushback and the inability to build rebuild the home so i just really want to encourage the board to think about this individual who took the time to come before you and express his his frustrations and they're true frustrations and i know the board wants to help so just wanted to recognize it and thank him for coming in front of the board thank you mondo your microphone is now available good morning gentlemen i would like to address number eight on the agenda rebuilding after the disaster um our failure to rebuild these lost homes after these disasters is a simple symptom of a larger problem we as a community are made up mostly of small and small homeowners and landlords yet the previous boards for decades have continued to make it more expensive to both build and maintain our housing stock they've done so with restrictive zoning and unnecessarily difficult building requirements as a result our mom and pop contractors have left and now when we need them the most they're no longer here we must address these issues some of them include fifty thousand dollars put in a septic system we have to look into that it's too much money fifty thousand dollars for a geological study for a single home we have to take a look at that tens of thousands of dollars to hook up to a water or other utilities we have to take a look at that permits that are multiple times the cost of national average we got to take a look at that zoning and building codes that are more restrictive even than our neighboring counties we have to take a look at that and honestly though i've been encouraged by the efforts of some of our newest members thank you monu for the tiny houses and the incinerating toilet toilet program believe me uh your efforts in doubling the number of ad use allowed watserville we stand and salute you justin a couple weeks ago you talked about using sp9 and adu policies to help address our arena issues i hope to work with you to use this valuable tool to help us and lastly hope we keep this hybrid i'm at a job site right now it is uh i had to come in i wouldn't have time thank you i'm public comment i'm hearing an echo i didn't hear before is it your sound system we're working we'll work on that is there any other are there any other speakers online no thank you chair all right thank you we will now close public i'm so sorry actually we've had we have one member in chambers and one more online it just arrived all right we'll start with chambers and move back to online thank you good morning welcome good morning thank you so much um and thanks for taking comment early because i have to get back to work uh i live in bonny dune i was displaced after the fires um and was looking to get back in to a lot to build a small house for myself um the stories that i've heard from other people in bonny dune and my experience when i was looking at a lot and learning about the process i ended up not buying in because i was so concerned about it septic system changes costs that i hadn't accounted for and i'm still without a place to be permanently i'm living in a combination of a trailer and a one-room cabin i have friends who've gone through the permit process and while it seems that the permits themselves as far as building are concerned seem to move quickly there seems to be a real bog down in the pre-permitting process and i know people are really frustrated and don't really have the money to handle these what seem to be you know things that really aren't in keeping with what you all had hoped to do as far as helping facilitate rebuilding uh and i can't speak specifically to things other than my experience with septic permitting but it seems like that whole pre-process is a mess and i would really love to see it change because i'd like to get into a lot i'd like to be able to live in bonny dune long term and i'd like to see the folks that i've watched go through this process be able to rebuild thank you thank you for coming down now move back to the speaker online please calling user to your microphone is now available yes i can hear me now yes oh good thank you uh yeah so this is i'm hearing a terrible echo so i'm a little rattled by that so don't start my two minutes yes i i don't no i don't i'm on and i'm on a regular phone no speaker phone okay okay thank you so i'm calling concerning the proposed agenda item 14 uh although i'm not against the board having uh you know approved money for uh internet and a broadband i would like that to be wired not wireless the reason why is because we have been absolutely taken to town by the FCC since 1998 there was a major us court of appeals decision for the dc circuit published on august 13th 2021 the court ruled that the FCC failed to consider non-cancer evidence regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology when it decided its 1996 radio frequency emission guidelines this case that the court of appeals ruled in ruled that in 2021 has been going on for eight ten years here's what the court said the FCC completely failed to acknowledge let alone respond to comments concerning the impact of radio frequency radiation on the environment and people i'm adding on the unpeople to get back to the quote the record contains substantive evidence of potential environmental harm now by environmental they're talking also about health effects health effects the the record for that court case has thousands of studies presented to the court about health effects and biological effects on people on animals and trees thank you thank you for calling in with your comments are there any additional speakers online no chair all right no one in the chambers we will now close public comment bring it back to the board for action on consent supervisor comments thank you chair i just wanted to start i had one comment i had number 33 which is the telecare contract i just wanted to thank the health services director and their staff for helping us with one of our constituent concerns related to telecare and the care that was provided there aside from that i just also wanted to mention that well first happy valentine's day and as part of valentine's day i actually have to go officiate a wedding so i'm going to need to leave after we vote on the consent items so just wanted to make sure that folks are aware of that and my apologies for not being able to be here the entire time thanks supervisor comings supervisor rinanda's do you have any comments on consent please i just wanted to acknowledge that that we have our planning commissioner that's being that's being uh pointed today judy lasin b so i want to you know thank her for all her service as well she's been doing the duty for several years already so she's going to continue to do it i'm not sure how long she wants to do it for but she wants to continue to do it so thank her for her service thank you supervisor conic thank you chair i just wanted to thank the parks department on item 35 for the proposal to create a lifeguard hiring incentive program you know we've seen a real difficulty in hiring across all of our agencies and departments in the public sector as a comp as we've seen the the collision of the covid crisis folks retiring making it more difficult to provide trainings as well as the housing crisis locally and people not being able to afford to live here so we've seen programs like this five hundred dollar incentive program where we're proposing for lifeguards of work in other positions such as correctional officers and actually metro drivers as well they just got a bunch of new applications for recruits there so i'm hopeful we can do the same for lifeguards because just having county facilities closed 40 of the time and and these huge cuts in terms of number swim classes down at 20 of average it's um it's really devastating to the community so hopefully we can turn it around thank you for those comments supervisor conic supervisor macpherson yeah thank you mr chair on item 32 i would like to congratulate um tiffanie contral i'll warn for appointment to director of behavioral health we appreciate everything that she has done on the interim role for the last several months and personally i believe that how this county and how this state nation addresses behavioral health this is important in addressing our homeless problem as building more housing so it's a critical position in the county and i really appreciate her her uh foresight and her professionalism in taking that role i like i too would like to thank telecare on a related note the behavioral health for bringing this item forward to sharing with the board the challenges being faced by telecare and serving those with mental health challenges it certainly is not easy work and we know that telecare has had some challenges retaining staff so i'm glad we can offer this additional resource and monetary support to telecare it's a critical component of how we address our our the the homeless issue as i mentioned and it's it's very much appreciated that they've stepped forward thank you thank you supervisor on first i'd also like to welcome tiffanie contral warren it's hard to imagine a more important role in our county right now than behavioral health director and i believe that she's going to do an outstanding job i'd just like to also thank public works item 39 which is storm damage repair work 2017 storm damage repair work and there's still public works is still sticking on all the significant over 125 million dollars of damage that we had at that time and obviously we had a lot that was just added on but i appreciate the work of mr weasner and the entire team for that so i'll move it back to the board for a motion supervisor comings i'll move consent second we have a motion from supervisor comings and a second from supervisor conig if we get a roll call please supervisor conig hi comings hi hernandez hi mcpherson hi and friend consensus it passes unanimously thank you thank you sir all right we're going to begin with the very first item on the regular agenda which is to consider approval of plans specifications and engineers estimate for the soquel drive buffered bike lane and congested mitigation project to set the bid opening for two 15 p.m on march 16th 2023 direct the community development and infrastructure return by april 25 2023 with a recommendation for award of the contract and take related actions is outlined in the memo the deputy ceo director of community development and infrastructure we have the board memo the plans the specs and the notice to contractors and presenting here today we have wrestle chan our senior civil engineer welcome mr chan good to see you back make sure your mic's on the green the button there's a great button at the base of your microphone on the hello chair friend members of the lord my name is rustle chan with community development and infrastructure i'm here to present the soquel drive buffered bike lane congestion mitigation project next slide please yeah right there i thought these are key members of the of the project we have steve leesner myself and tim win with the county of santa cruz and then shallow keith and daniel bloomquist with mark thomas like to give a special shout out to tim win for his efforts and get in the project to this point for ready for construction i'm going to go over existing conditions goals budget project overview schedule and then at the end we'll have questions and answers this project is on soquel avenue soquel drive and it goes from la fonda to state park drive is 5.6 miles in one direction is four lane roadway with two-way left turn lanes for the most part of this project we have high volumes as you know when highway one gets congested traffic spills on to soquel avenue soquel drive we don't officially sometimes call it highway two we have high speeds despite 35 mile per hour speed limits if i also have transit delays due to congestion we have existing sidewalk gaps and ad a ramps that were built to previous standards so those are some of the general conditions um or that we have on soquel avenue soquel drive our project goals our number one goal is safety we think this project will address some of the concerns on soquel avenue soquel drive we also wanted to reduce traffic congestion which will increase corridor throughput reduce greenhouse gas emissions improve emergency response times improve access to housing schools jobs and medical facilities and then we also it'll also promote sustainable transport development and then our other goals improve active transportation connectivity a little bit about um a little background on the project this project is part of the Watsonville to santa cruz multimodal corridor program that this came out of the santa cruz county regional transportations unified corridor investment study and this identified projects on soquel avenue soquel drive highway one santa cruz branch rail line i also want to note that rtc did extensive um outreach in developing this study and for this project we partnered with rtc in 2020 for highway one and soquel drive improvements and we received over 100 million dollars for both projects including 16 and a half million for soquel avenue soquel drive project and this was from the state's solutions for congested corridors grant i want to thank rtc in helping us um get this grant our budget for this project we had um 16 and a half million from the congested corridors grant and mine nine million from county funds for a total of 25.5 million and this includes design right away and construction before we jump into the project overview um just want to let you know the project doesn't widen soquel drive um we're what we're doing was we're reimagining what we can do within the curb space that we have so this project goes again from la fonda to state park drive we have 21 um intersections with traffic signals that we are going to be improving bike pet and signalized intersection improvements we also have bike and pet improvements similar to what the city has done on water street and then i'll go into a little bit more detail in the following slides for the bike improvements we have 2.4 miles of class four separated bike ways it's a two foot buffer minimum with delineators vertical delinears as you can see in the the the picture on the right hand side there we also have 2.7 miles of buffered bike lanes these are class two bike lanes with one to two foot buffers without the vertical separators and then we also have 27 bike boxes at various intersections along soquel avenue soquel drive for the pedestrian improvements we have 0.6 miles of sidewalk gap closures and then we have almost 180 ramp upgrades and this is to meet current ADA standards and then we'll have 70 crosswalk upgrades this will enhance crosswalks and signages for both pedestrians and motorists awareness and then we have 11 midblock crosswalk rfb's or rectangular rapid flashing beacons and for bus and vehicular improvements we have transit signal priorities this will enhance or transit signal or transit reliability and then we also have adaptive signals this will manage congestion and increase corridor throughput and then we'll also have pavement rehabilitation we actually have a micro seal as part of this project and this will increase longevity of the pavement and will also give us a blank canvas for new striping all right so we have a cross section here this is what is being proposed it's part of this project again we're working within the curb the curb existing curb the curb space and well we had to narrow down some of the traffic travel lanes so that we can install a two foot buffer where we can and then wanted to highlight uh cabrio college area um and the top cross section is the existing condition the bottom is what the the bottom cross section is what is what is being proposed by the project and you can see that we're removing parking along the cabrio college area so that we can install a class four separated bikeway and we worked exclusively extensively with real college in the removal of the parking in this area I also wanted to highlight socal drive because of the um constraints that we have here um the the lanes are already narrowed down in this area so we weren't able to actually add buffer or separated bikeways in this um corridor um but what we did was um we enhanced the bike lanes with uh green bike lanes um also enhanced the crosswalks with high visibility crosswalks and then um added some two-stage bike boxes so we're going to be going into construction um in the near future and some of the things to anticipate are some lane closures along the lane closures and then also some shoulders that will be closed some temporary restriping um some impacts to driveways and side streets and then some intermittent utility interruptions but we're going to try to maintain bike and pedestrian access our anticipated construction duration is 12 to 18 months our project schedule um we completed preliminary engineering 2021 final design of September 2022 and the right of way was actually October 2022 and not 23 and uh we're anticipating starting construction this summer of 2023 and I'd like to um a recommended action for this item is approve the plan specification and engineer's estimate and authorize calling for bids for socal drive buffer bike lane congestion mitigation project set bid opening for 215 on March 16 2023 in the department of community development infrastructure direct the clerk or the board to advertise the notice to contractors for 10 days beginning February 19 2023 per the provisions of the Cal Public Contract Code section 20392 and direct community development infrastructure return on April 25 2023 with recommendations for award of the contract questions thank you mr chen let me begin by saying how significant of a project this is for our community and a few years ago uh the deputy cio mr michado and I were able to testify to the california transportation commission for this funding and it's the largest state investment the largest state investment in a multimodal transportation in centrist county's history it helps address significant issues in the mid county of safety uh in particular around some of the elementary schools that have sidewalk gaps and crosswalk issues our county as we know has one of the highest rates of vehicle v pet and vehicle v bike incidents in the state of california and this will help address that and for those of us that represent also the south county this will help on the bus side improve the transportation time and elements along so cal in a way that has never been done before and this is something that what I would really like to appreciate public works for and recognize mr weasner isn't also here right now but these are uh these were direct requests from the community I mean the the vision for this project came from requesting the community over the last decade or so very specific asks you mr weasner and others built that into the project application to the state we've got funded from the state and here we are it's really government working at its finest I'd like to appreciate you on that Supervisor Koenig thank you chair friend I just want to echo that the emphasis that this really is an incredibly important project we talk about housing all the time and the need to build more of it and of course a lot of the potential for some of that housing is in the mid-county area but whenever I bring it up at speaking with the public the first thing folks ask is but we don't have the infrastructure for it where how traffic is already so bad how are we going to add more people here if we don't get the traffic moving and people can't get around and this is always one of the answers on the tip of my tongue because it's such a huge investment I mean these 20 21 automated signals that will help improve traffic flow on you know as you officially called it highway two and I know some of those have already gone in and that there's also coordination with the city of capitol over the the 41st overpass on highway one and of course we're working with caltrans as well so some of those signals are theirs but you know so much work is going into this to make sure that traffic moves better and also that we reduce these bike and safety bike and pedestrian collisions which a supervisor friend mentioned were one of the worst counties in the state for and a lot of those accidents are happening on soquel drive so it's really important to focus on this quarter and I think it bears mention that since I'm sure many of you have seen the construction starting on highway one or at least some of the pre-construction there with the trees being removed to make way for the bus on shoulder and auxiliary lane project and that's really the second piece of this right I mean this massive investment in improved transportation infrastructure for the mid county area and of course the reason we've been able to pull all these state and federal funds right I mean a note on the federal funds that the last portion of that highway project we just received a 30 million dollar grant from the federal government one of only nine mega projects a nation wide and the only one in california and the reason we've been so successful at pulling the state and federal monies is because of our community's vision to build a multimodal transportation network and to then fund that vision with the half sand sales tax measure d that was passed in 2016 so just really looking forward to seeing this project get underway I don't have one question I know the reason this item is coming before us today is because the original bids that we received on it were too high and despite you know having committed a lot of funds today we didn't have quite that much and so we're looking at a couple segments of sidewalk as as alternates or basically optional add-ons now I know we had done extensive work with some of the residents along so-called drive near Robinson to acquire easements have we completed that easement acquisition so that if you know even if we don't build a sidewalk and this round of construction it can be done by you know a future housing project or something to that effect yeah we have acquired those easements permanent easements however the temporary easements will have to go back if we come back with a future project we'll have to go back with temporary easements for the construction part but for the permanent we already have those that's great I mean hopefully we can get it done with all at once but if not it's nice to know that we've at least done a lot of the hard work and had had those conversations acquire those easements so that we can eventually build those other segments of sidewalk too thank you thank you for those comments supervisor Connick supervisor McPherson yeah thank you mr. chair this is a big deal I mean we've had the widening of sections of highway one had rail trail discussions that are going on on but this is really as important as anything of meeting the transportation needs of the future in this era of climate change I think it can be overstated how important this is going to be for the future transportation needs of Santa people in Santa Cruz County and I really appreciate the importance of Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and meeting with Metro of which a few some of us are members as well to recognize the need there and probably enhance the more people traveling by bus and and getting there on time and although the project we're proving today is just one piece of a larger multimodal effort it will demonstrate that really we're thinking in the right way of the kind of planning for the future I want to thank the CDI staff for its creative value engineering which you have a great team and Steve Wiesner in particular and I look forward to seeing the construction to start this summer it's going to cause some congestion in the process but it'll be much much worth it in the long run thank you thank you thank you supervisor McPherson supervisor Hernandez well thanks staff for putting this project together and and accessing the money for it too it's we've been as a county really successful at getting these multimodal projects and I have to say that it's really transformative of communities to get these these bike and pedestrian projects because it makes it brings the community out and it brings families out and it makes it safer to walk and bike and that's when people come out of their homes and walk around their neighborhoods walk to the shopping center walk to school walk their kids to the local school and we want to see more of that you know it that's what builds community and it makes it safe of course for people to walk and it makes it safe for drivers as well so I want to thank you for you know all that work and I have to thank you know that we're going to facilitate and fast track the buses that go in and out from Watsonville to to Cabrillo as well we need to make sure that the buses get there on time and students get there on time and I'm thankful that we're going to have some fiber fiber optic laid down there too so that we have some fast internet around that college as well my question is do we I was trying to find a map that has the 21 crosswalks and I'm I'm sure that there's a good significant amount of input from the community when people were asking for the the flash beacon crosswalks as well I know in South Carolina we get a lot of input for like flash beacon crosswalks and a lot of requests for flash beacon crosswalks I know we got a lot of input for Green Valley Road especially around the parks did we do we have a map on there I was trying to find one so the so the map here will show the the rectangular wrapping flashing beacons the new ones at that are green dots I don't know if you can see that we already have some existing rectangular wrap of flashing beacons and then the green ones are the new ones those are the new crosswalks and then the yellow ones are at the existing crosswalks okay so these are all the mid block cross crossings oh I see and so um at the existing intersections um a lot of them are a lot of these are signalized that are on here and then so the ones that are highlighted here are the crosswalks that are mid-lock and we have 11 locations that we're going to be installing rectangular rapid flashing beacons and then we already have some that have been installed already along this corridor Mr. Chen just to help address the question there is a website dedicated to this so tell drive buffered project dot com that you had that your team had created so go drive buffer project dot com that does have the map uh that might be a little bit easier to view than than this right now okay thank you any additional questions Supervisor Hernandez thank you for those comments I will now open it up for the community anybody from the community you like to address us on this item now is your opportunity anybody in chambers please please good morning board I just had a few questions I'm hearing a lot of comments about safety and managing congestion but I'm not really seeing how that's going to improve congestion some of the pictures I saw look like there was a narrowing to one one lane rather than two lanes of traffic and um I've grown up in Santa Cruz County my entire life so I've seen a lot of drastic changes through the amount of people we have coming through here through a lot of the traffic and congestion but this looks like we're going in the direction of a 15 minute city um to Supervisor Hernandez comments about people walking and biking to school is that where the board sees this going so that we're not going to be able to drive around anymore I'm really curious about your answers on all of that thank you all right thank you is there anybody else from the community uh and chambers I'd like to address us on this item uh seeing none is there anybody online that'd like to address us on this item yes chair we do have speakers online Brian your microphone is now available thank you and I'll turn down your voice so you don't hear double Brian people with uh trail now um the great project supported you know I just uh want to recognize the community and thank them for the 2016 measure D we supported it trail now actually we originally opposed it but fortunately Supervisor Zach Friend adjusted the language um and appreciate that Berkey did I do want to throw a little wet noodle on the discussion here that there are three transportation corridors so Cal Highway 1 and the coastal corridor and the coastal corridor has remained closed for over a decade since the county or the RTC has owned it and there are no current solid plans to opening up in a cost effective manner actually building the cost of building the trail right now the plans it's actually cost more per mile and widening the highway the reason is because of the misunderstanding about the legal aspects of rail banking um the commission is not following staff's guidance on the facts about rail banking and we really encourage um the commissioners to understand that rail banking and using the corridor today as a active transportation resource is in the best interest of our community it preserves the right of way it prevents the loss of it to private adjacent properties and it really can create a solution to have that trail all the way to Watsonville yes all the way to Watsonville not diverting so I really want to encourage the commission here and the board here to look at that third corridor and help open it up thank you for your time Colin user for your microphones now available something very disruptive and questionable if it's even needed I'm thinking of a documentary called taken for a ride about how the automobile industry and the oil industry took out good transportation systems across the country destroyed the environment and put in this whole our mass transportation system and are we being taken for a ride now I have questions there's still a terrible echo is this why is this and your voices don't sound as clear as they used to either so here are my questions often I hear the word safety and at closer examination not safe like the radar signs you have put near schools that tell your speed additional microwaves and the trees being cut down on highway one makes me it's a clear cut it's horrible anyway one part of this project involves more wireless microwave radiation with sensors etc I would like to have an answer apologize that you continue to have that echo we can hear you very clearly though any other speakers online that was our final speaker chair all right thank you bring it back to the board I think supervisor McPherson had a comment Mr chin just to make it clear I didn't see anywhere where the four lanes on how so-called drive is reduced to two as a young lady was questioning is there any place where four lanes are reduced to two no there are no reductions in lane only reduction in lane widths you just had to broaden again yeah okay I just wanted to make that clear okay and the question regarding traffic injection reduction the adaptive signal projects will have a significant component to that as well the Q jump or the priority lane excuse me elements for metro as somebody also serves on the air district board the adaptive signals are are significant in reducing traffic congestion as well as the amount of time that people are idling and so I think that that would be and they're very expensive by the way and so this project helping cover that it will help answer that question that you had had in regards to that if there's no other questions from board members that be appropriate now for our motion I'll move the recommended actions all right we have a motion from Supervisor Koenig and a second from Supervisor McPherson if we could have a roll call please Supervisor Koenig hi Hernandez hi McPherson and chair friend hi and passes thank you madam clerk we'll move on to thank you mr chin for that presentation we'd like to move on to item eight which is to consider approval of amendment to contract number 21c 4461 with four leaf incorporated to include recovery permit services for storm damage repair and replacement projects to accept the report on cz recovery permitting process by progress and direct staff to implement strategies to address rebuilding barriers and provide a path for recovery permit applicants to request review of determinations as outlined in the memo that fdcao director of community development and infrastructure we have the agenda item board memo we have the amendment to the contract and with us today we have carolyn Burke who is our assistant director of community development infrastructure and matt machado who is our deputy ceo and director cdi ms Burke welcome good morning thank you chair friend so today we're here to discuss a contract amendment with four leaf for recovery permitting and give an update on cz recovery permitting progress next slide today we'll start with a little background and how we got here today we'll discuss the details of the contract amendment and then we'll go into cz recovery permitting covering the metrics supporting determining the health of our rebuild our challenges and opportunities and then we'll conclude with recommended actions like in august 2020 um santa cruz county experienced the cz u lightning complex fire just a historic fire that burned 86 500 acres and destroyed almost 1500 structures in november of 2020 your board signed the original contract with four leaf incorporated to provide streamlined recovery permit services in the recovery permit center located in the community room at 701 ocean street two and a half years later in december and january of this year the county was hit by another historic disaster with the atmospheric river that resulted in county wide flooding storm surges and wind gusts that caused widespread damages to commercial and residential buildings and infrastructure today we are here at the direction of the board to consider extending the for leaf recovery permitting contract to include storm damage repairs because of the recent atmospheric river next slide to cover the details of the contract amendment the original contract amount was for 6.26 million and that's to cover streamline permitting processing including unlimited pre-application meetings coordination of permit pre-clearances for septic geology and fire access expedited building plan checks with the 10 days turnaround and construction inspections the payment model for the recovery permit services contract is at four leaf retained 75 percent of most permit fees to provide the service and 25 percent is retained by the county for overhead costs depending on permit volume the county pays the difference between the percentage of fee revenue and the cost of staffing the rpc the proposed 2023 contract amendment does not increase the overall cost of the contract but does extend the contract expiration date to June 30th 2024 and amends the scope of work to include the same recovery permit services for storm damage repair permitting as well as next business day inspections and provisions for cal oes safety assessment program or sap certified inspectors to assist in damage assessments if necessary to address future storm damage within the terms of the contract next slide as directed by the board we will now briefly cover some of the metrics that indicate the health of our czu fire recovery next slide from the permitting side we can view the health of the recovery through the total number of dwelling permits that have been applied for and or issued our best estimate of the number of residences destroyed is the 911 noted by cal county and cal oes inspectors based on field observations after the fire of those 911 dwellings 162 have issued permits 24 have completed construction in our final and 32 are in the building application review process this means 20 percent of the total residences lost are either in construction or construction is complete next slide another way to view recovery progress is to establish how many parcels with destroyed structures have permits issued or in process the total number of parcels that lost structures both residential and non-residential is 697 meaning many parcels could have had more than one residence loss that will likely be rebuilt over a period of time rather than simultaneously out of 697 parcels with excuse me with destroyed structures a total of 195 or 28 percent have issued dwelling permits or permit application in active review 73 or 10 percent of parcels have approved pre-clarances and their next step is to apply for a building permit 101 parcels or 15 percent are still working through the pre-clearance process and 328 or 40 percent 47 percent of parcels have not engaged in the pre-clearance or permit application process to get an idea of how this easy recovery compares to those and other jurisdictions we can look to the Sonoma County lighting complex in glass fires that also occurred in 2020 comparing all three we see that Santa Cruz Cruz County's 28 percent of parcels with rebuild activity is on par with Sonoma County's 24 and 28 percent rebuild activity rates this correlation may indicate that larger cross jurisdictional factors such as the timing of the fires during the early days of the pandemic dire financial outlooks and supply chain and employment interruptions may have influence influence many decisions to rebuild or not rebuild next slide to get more information on what is hindering our local rebuilder's ability to take the next step and apply for a building permit or three issued a survey to the 73 parcels with approved pre-clearances who have yet to apply for a building permit almost 20 percent of those that received a survey responded with the following results 91 percent of respondents cited financial limitation as a governing factor in their consideration to rebuild with the leading financial challenge being the cost of construction the majority of respondents noted that they had received bids of 500 to 600 per square foot those completing the survey indicated that their biggest pre-clearance challenges were around septic design and permitting as well as geotechnical and geologic and their biggest delay is finding a contractor an interesting finding was that only 20 percent of respondents had connected with the long-term recovery group and many had not heard of the group or their mission to provide financial support to rebuilders it's clear that with financial hurdles noted by those rebuilding a greater effort must be made to increase outreach regarding options for financial assistance from groups such as the long-term recovery group we conducted our own pre-clearance analysis that looked at the 101 total parcels with pre-clearances applied for but not issued our findings agreed with the survey respondents that septic and geology were the pre-clearance areas of greatest concern 89 percent of septic pre-clearances were unapproved and 44 percent of geologic pre-clearances were not an approved status only 10 percent of fire access pre-clearances were outstanding at the time of our analysis to determine how to assist fire survivors and overcoming the geology and septic constraints we can revisit the policies created to assist CZU rebuilders in the geologic arena the board approved the CZU rebuild directive on august 10 2021 to allow in-kind rebuilds undertaken by original owners to forego county code requirements for geologic analysis so far 10 parcels have gained geologic pre-clearance based on the CZU rebuild directive because the directive is only applied at the time of building permit application submittal it is unknown how many of the 44 active geologic pre-clearances will be resolved via this the directive but it is clear that this is an important tool for those in areas of geologic hazard and it's prudent to maintain this avenue for pre-clearance and encourage in-kind construction to allow its widespread use in contrast to geologic hazards there have been no CZU specific septic policies created for CZU rebuilding largely because the county septic ordinances are governed governed by a local agency management program that is approved by the state and cannot be altered without their approval unlike the legacy older structures program authorized by the board to consider parcels developed prior to 1986 as legal non-conforming for zoning purposes there's no analogous program to grandfather and septic systems while county septic code allows reconstruction of a resonance destroyed by calamity the septic system must be upgraded to meet current standards and for systems with no septic permit history use of the existing system can require a recordation of an acknowledgement on the parcel title this recordation is a point of contention for many property owners suggestions to help rebuilders better understand how to navigate the septic approval process include clarifying policy triggers for recordation of acknowledgments and prescribing the circumstances under which pre-1986 structures without septic permit histories can use their existing septic system to serve their rebuilt residents next slide our analysis of the CZ recovery process yield some areas to focus on supporting in the months to come as noted by supervisor Cummings that the january 31st board meeting requested requesting this report back rebuilders have asked for a path for review of the pre-clearance determinations made by rpc staff an approach to formalizing this review is to hold a monthly meeting between rpc staff and county leadership to review determinations as requested by applicants and provide a written summary of outcomes to both the district supervisors offices and applicant in addition we can pursue greater clarity on septic provisions and triggers for the recordation of an acknowledgement on title and while the legacy older structures program conference of legal non-conforming status does not extend to septic systems it has remained an important tool for allowing replacement of limited housing stock and should be extended to include storm damage projects as well in the summary we ask that your board consider the following staff recommendations first we ask that you approve the amendment contract number 21c 4461 with four leaf to include providing integrated recovery permit processing services for development permits to repair reconstruct due to storm damage and extend the term of the contract through june 30th 2024 we recommend that you accept this report on the metrics for cz recovery and permitting process progress strategies to address rebuilding barriers and proposal to provide an avenue for cz property owners to dispute preliminary determinations regarding requirements to rebuild we also ask that you direct staff to extend the legacy older structures program previously established within the cz burn area to also confer legal non-conforming status for sites countywide that have been damaged or destroyed by the december 2022 and january 2023 atmospheric river winter storm events are documented to have been developed prior to 1986 and lastly we ask that you direct staff to develop a clear policy regarding the circumstances that require a recordation of an acknowledgement of requirements for use of on-site sewage disposal system with special operating characteristics and investigate opportunities to extend the terms of the losp to specify circumstances under which in kind replacement of pre 1986 structures with functioning on-site wastewater treatment systems can use existing systems without owts upgrade or replacement and that concludes our presentation i'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you miss berg anything miss from michado before we come back to the board no thank you all right thank you um this is you know there's kind of two things that play here and i appreciate that you have it bifurcated as the actions of supervisor koenig and i had brought forward a request for the extension of the contract in the last meeting in large part to ensure that those that were that suffered through the recent storms including many that actually have suffered through a dual issue and supervisor McPherson and Cummings districts had an opportunity to um access the the four leaf contract have access to an expedited process people have just been through so much to try and navigate the FEMA process or the sba process and also the county process so to have um a dedicated component within our structure for storm damage repair as well as on the fire victims uh was very important to us um i recognize that supervisor McPherson had some additional questions associated with this item which is why he'd requested additional direction on some of the report i think the report's outstanding i think helps provide clarity to the board about what's going on but supervisor McPherson i'll turn it over to you for questions on that yeah thank you to advisor friend uh chair friend i want to thank our staff uh for providing the report back to the board and i know we've had many discussions going on and and while the additional information is uh useful i i still don't think it fully addresses the additional direction from our january 31st meeting and i think it's important to have a better to better understand these issues before we move into the storm rebuilding efforts um and i'd like the opportunity to ask additional questions to get more details on how we might help people move along the rebuilding process and i know supervisor Cummings that and he said i could speak for him agrees to do the same and he may be back here soon so i'm in support of the contract extension there's no question about that and uh the recommendations to extend the legacy older instruction structures program on the sites that were uh impacted by the atmospheric storms but i'd like to defer the discussion to the other items to the future study session to give um us and our staff more time uh to evaluate the rebuilding challenges and consider additional strategies now i don't want to have this going forever it's gone on too long as we've heard even today but i would like to uh make a motion to that effect when it's appropriate um and uh i know that uh i would like to have had this decision made today overall but i just feel more comfortable of to address these types of issues and especially the atmospheric storm issue that is compounded this whole issue uh that uh we we delay this until um i go along with the the contract with four leaf but delay some of the further discussions until uh on items two and three of the four recommendations and i know that's not going to make some members happy but i i just want to try to get it right and have a real set view of how we're going to uh proceed in this and i think we're going to be able to do it more quickly if we answer some of the questions that i might have at that time to rise on first and if i could just as a point of clarification you had said that you supported the legacy older structures program that's actually item three that you just said to defer do you mean item i just want to clarity you want to defer one four i'm i'm supportive of two and three i'd like to okay i think that we're we're getting confused with so let me just do you have the item in front of you about what the recommended actions are so the first yeah recommended actions the contract the contract and the four is the direct staff to develop a clear policy so you are not supportive right now of the legacy older structures program extension three i'd like to delay okay i mean i i believe that you had said the exact opposite just now and saw it during your comments and so i'd just want to be a hundred percent sure that that is two and three that you want to delay right okay supervisor conic my understanding is three is is just extending the legacy older structures program that was established in the cz u burn area two sites in the that were suffered suffered storm damage are you sure that's the item that you don't support today are you believe uh supervisor McPherson that you think the legacy older structures program itself needs to be re-evaluated before being extended i'd like to yeah i'd like to have more questions asked on that um just to discuss it further uh we have discussed this with the staff and they've been more than cooperative and uh but i would just like to continue this until march 13th on items number two and three and and approve uh one and four and i know supervisor Cummings uh felt feels the same way but um you know i wish he'll be back maybe to speak for himself here pretty soon can i ask staff how that would impact the amendment uh for number one it strikes me that one and three have are are sort of co-associated in a way um and so i want to ensure i mean if we're got right if we're if we're trying to ensure that okay wait wait let me say well i was what let me let me continue the question so so does three i i said i i would like uh to move the red recommended actions of one and three and defer two and four okay now i'm living you got in a confusing world i got but okay so that is what you that is what you said originally but then the numbers got confused and now i think the world is confused so so so so so one and three i i i know i can make the motion now or wait i think we want to get some input uh but the idea is to approve one and three got it and defer two and four that makes more sense to me got it okay uh supervisor Hernandez you had the comments uh well after they just switched it i don't have the comment no okay so rather than calling i don't believe you had finished yet either i'm by apologize uh my only comment is i wanted to thank staff the item that chair friend and i had brought forward was simply asking for an extension of the four leaf contract and access to the recovery permit center for uh folks who had suffered storm damage and i appreciate that you guys went above and beyond and looked at really all the ways that we could help folks who had had suffered storm damage including extending the legacy older structures program uh which is item item recommendation three um as well as offering the next day building inspections um so to me i'm seeing that uh we're taking everything that we've learned here so far with the cz rebuild process and are extending that to storm damage survivors um and i know that will continue that process of uh of learning and identifying new ways to improve the the process overall i think it is worth recognizing that originally the recovery permit center was something we stood up in response to the cz fires but was was really only for uh residents of district three and five as a result of that localized disaster and now as we see yet another disaster impacting our county every supervisorial district has homes that are going to need to need to take advantage of it so um although we'll just keep getting better at this because it's clearly an issue that's not going away thank you supervisor Koenig and just just for a point of clarity for the community the recommended actions of supervisor McPherson uh when the times come for motion is recommending number one which is approve amendment to the contract with for relief and number three which is direct staff to extend the legacy elder structures program uh to also include uh the atmospheric river events supervisor Hernandez i was going to ask if the motion can be repeated but um you know i think being that it's in in both supervisor Cummings and McPherson's district um but if we make sure that both supervisor and and make supervisor McPherson and Cummings uh meet with staff uh before the march meeting and make sure that they agenda either that they meet with staff to discuss and discuss questions that they have with staff so that we're ready by the march meeting and we can expedite this process in march meeting uh uh second his motion for his items one and three thank you and to move forward with items two and and i'm confused two and four at the march meeting i mean yeah i i agree i mean the direction was specifically to bring this information back immediately you're in the middle of a disaster you turned it around immediately and now the board is punting and i want to apologize to you on that because i think it's an unreasonable ask of staff to have to come back on this but that's my but we can have a disagreement on that but you were asked to do something you did it well and and here we are but the one and three are definitely the most important parts i think to the two of us that brought forward the side of in the first place um and so we'll look forward to moving forward with that today but i'd like to now open it up for the community for discussion on this item rinser by the way thank you for waiting to speak for this i don't appreciate it i'm retired i have some time so um my name is steve homen and i support the extension and refocusing of the contract um my wife and i built our first home in bonny dune i moved in in 76 i'm a registered environmental health specialist and i have experience working for 25 years in three counties including this one and 15 years as a private consultant i was retired uh we had no difficulty with four leaf and rebuilding our home but we were early on in the debris removal and permit process um about the time that we obtained our building permit in the summer of 2021 i noticed that other people were starting to have serious difficulties in obtaining environmental health clearance from four leaf i started helping people as a consultant at no charge since the summer of 2021 i have counseled many czu fire families i worked for 28 of them using the verifiable facts from county permit files the county soon disposal ordinance and the county environmental health policies of the director the decisions of a four leaf staff member have been overturned 22 times by four leaf management three times by the director of environmental health and one time by the director of the department of community development and infrastructure two cases are pending i should not be having to do this work it's four leaf's job to look for creative solutions to try to help people not to throw up roadblocks and look for problems it's a serious problem at four leaf in the areas of sewage disposal and water supply review in-kind replacement homes are too often and properly considered new construction with different regulations i'm supporting and i'm supporting the extension of the contract because overall the work they do is good and helpful and i'm hopeful that county administration is on the path to correcting the problems the problems that need to be addressed used to be just third and fifth district problems as you said sir but now they're with the atmospheric river storm damage their problems for every county supervisor i did send you an email asking for amendments to the contract for responses to be responsive bike time certain thank you thank you mr. home and thank you again for waiting welcome back sir i know you spoke broadly to this item so just try and narrow the comment specifically to the action items that we have i'm going to uh narrow it up to my experiences direct experiences with a four leaf and that is in september 2020 my client and i work really closely together she's an old client of mine so i'm trying to protect her and not spend her money foolishly but we filed her permits in september we were there together i went back in april for more paperwork they couldn't find her file we had to file it again the same paperwork we filled out in september i went back in august to file some more paperwork they couldn't find her file i got aggressive granted i'm sorry but then she said well i'm not waiting on you because you're too aggressive i said i'm not moving out of this chair until you take the paperwork i filled out for three times now and get it in that computer i'm going to watch you scan it into your system and she did now i'm mr. risotto when i walk in there however okay i don't like the county spending my client's money foolishly okay they wanted a winter grading uh plan i already graded already another three thousand dollars because they wouldn't let me go they wanted an erosion plan i covered everything with plastic another three thousand dollars then the first poor they wanted a concrete test another thousand dollars i mean when does it stop here okay it's just a house it's not a high rise she lost everything she's a single woman a school teacher ready to retire she has lost everything and then the state contractor showed up to clean her house and they screwed up the site they cost they're going to cost her a hundred thousand dollars because they took out a walkway an 80 foot long eight foot wide exposed every walkway and what does the workman say to her personally oh shit we're on the wrong side we got the wrong address we're sorry hey what do we do here now guys i'm asking you you're the supervisors you're supposed to protect protect the taxpayers i was on a school board for six years i protected the taxpayers it's your turn now i don't recommend for leaf i think they're amulet chasers thank you thank you sir anybody else like to address us from chambers on this item good morning welcome my name is chris home and you heard from my husband steve um he spoke about the practical um aspects of building i want to speak about the emotional aspects of building we lost our home of 44 years in the cz u fire we went through the process of cleanup in december we got our preliminary clearance in january we sailed through the process um forleaf was wonderful they they listened to what we had to say steve had 26 questions at the first meeting um she got all the answers to the questions we got our preliminary clearance with no problem we have moved back into our home so we sailed through the process it worked for us what you said at the beginning about building back in kind worked for us we built back in kind however it's not working for my neighbors at all we have neighbors who have waited eight months for preliminary clearance eight months on a site they had a home and an ad u they were there those homes were there for years they had septic systems that worked for years and they've been tortured for eight months by one member of the forleaf group that needs to change that needs to be fixed they're not the only neighbors that have had this problem i have watched steve work with people over and over and listen to people's stories he was retired he didn't want to be doing this but he did it because i convinced him to you need to fix this problem because it's not right for you to say people can build back in kind and then someone on some staff somewhere is making it impossible for that to happen thank you thank you so anybody else i'd like to address us from chambers all right madam clerk is there anybody online yes chair colon user five your microphone is now available listening to the of the two previous speakers is very compelling that you should not approve a contract with forleaf you should rescind it the board of supervisors should represent the well-being of the members of the community not of a corporation that is not benefiting public but harming members of the public and i think also on the agenda you've had 32 million dollars for telecare telecare does not have a good record of taking care of the public what is the board doing if they are not genuinely providing for the well-being of the public do not approve this contract amendment forleaf thank you thank you miss garratt anybody else online we have no further speakers online chair hi i'm james you and women i'll be brief i wish i would have spoken on an earlier item 20 years ago this county had the largest building department in the state and it's the smallest county in the state so i just hope that uh all the people that have had less than perfect things to say about forleaf i hope that um they get really good assistance would be great to have them come back and say hey things really improved so you guys can help the citizens out here thank you thank you mr woodman by the way alpine county has 1200 residents in california so i think we're slightly higher than that we're about halfway through on the population of the second smallest geographic county but you know we'll get those facts is there anybody else in the board chambers i'd like to address us seeing none we'll bring it back to the board for action supervisor mcpherson yeah i'd like to recommend the that we approve action or the action items one and three and for action on two and four and uh direction after schedule study session on march march 14th to discuss items uh two and four second out of clear uh just point of clarification from council study session can lead to action on items correct it's it actually just depends on the action so so we'll we'll um we'll have a study section uh to discuss and if if the actions coming out of the study section uh the study session um are fully and reasonably relate to what we're talking about um we can take action okay so what i'm what i'm hoping for is not to have a study session that leads to another meeting that leads to another meeting so if that can be done then i'll approve a study session component of it okay all right we have a motion to second any additional questions chair excuse me chair if we could just please restate who seconded the motion supervisor Hernandez my mistake it was um if we get a roll call please supervisor conic hi Hernandez hi mcpherson and friend hi item passes as amended thank you thank you i'll move on to item nine which is to consider a presentation an update on the invasive 80s mosquitoes found in santa cruz county in october of 2022 is outlined in the memo of the agricultural commissioner we have uh the board item and attached presentation and we're going to have a presentation from um amanda polson the assistant vector control manager and i believe we also have dave sanford our interim agricultural commissioner welcome back good to see you again and uh please go ahead and begin mind checking to confirm there you go hello okay good morning i'm amanda polson the assistant manager with mosquito and vector control with the county um we are essentially a public health agency under the ag commissioner's office for santa cruz um today i'm here to talk about the invasive mosquito we found in october um and its name is 80s egypti first i'll start with providing some background on the mosquito who it is and why we should care next i'll provide an update on the neighborhood finding we had in ronsonville and lastly we'll cover what our next steps are how do we manage this mosquito moving forward now that it's here so 80s egypti is commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito it's pictured here on the left um to the naked eye it looks black and white and how we tell it apart from our native species is this violin shape on its thorax which is the part of the body that the head is attached to this mosquito is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the world which are highlighted in red and yellow on this map um and you know those are areas with high rainfall and high temperatures and this mosquito is really important to these regions of the world because they can transmit diseases like zika dengue chicken gunia and its namesake yellow fever additionally this mosquito where it's native it's had a lot of time to evolve with humans and our stuff it really likes living in yards um and studies show that this mosquito actually prefers to bite humans over other hosts um and on the right here it shows a container with the mosquitoes eggs and this mosquito likes to glue its eggs to different containers that we might have around the home additionally they can even breed indoors they've been found in toilets house plants uh humidifiers and christmas tree water pictured here is a lifecycle of this mosquito um one thing to note is that it has a pretty fast life cycle it can go from an egg to an adult in about seven days under the right conditions and another important thing to note here and really how this mosquito stands apart from our native mosquitoes is again that container breeding behavior additionally the eggs laid by this mosquito can lie dormant and they can withstand drying for up to a year um and so you know that's a key reason why this mosquito is so invasive if you think about it you know say i live in an area where this mosquito is present but i'm moving to santa cruz county so i might pack my buckets my plants my containers with me and when i move to my new location in santa cruz county all it can take is some rain or my sprinklers going off to then trigger these eggs to hatch and start this lifecycle all over again and potentially start a new infestation in my neighborhood so why is this mosquito so dangerous well at minimum they are aggressive daytime biters we're used to mosquitoes in our area that kind of wait till dusk or dawn to be active but these mosquitoes they're out when we're out um so they're they go after us um when we're outside additionally these mosquitoes can leave really itchy bites um because they're not native we're not used to their saliva our immune systems might react more strongly than our native mosquitoes to the bites and they're really itchy and irritating um and also these mosquitoes bite multiple times before they're full our native mosquitoes they might bite us um get full and they move on to lay their eggs whereas these mosquitoes they've their behavior is they'll bite you you know they'll bite one person in the household they can move on to another person and take a little bit of more blood and a little bit of more blood from another person so you know they're they're in a sense a flying hypodermic needle right if if you're you live in an area where diseases like zika dengue chicken guinea yellow fever are present this mosquito can bite one person in the household get infected with the virus and then pass it on to someone else pretty efficiently it is important to note though that we haven't seen local transmission of these diseases in california um you know thankfully that we haven't found it yet however the potential is there right we do have a lot of people who travel to places where these diseases are endemic and all it takes is returning home to an area with 80s egypti to allow this potential of a local outbreak and we have seen local transmission of these diseases in places like florida hawaii and texas so where has this mosquito invaded i already mentioned hawaii texas in florida but for the most part these mosquitoes are pretty comfortable in the southern united states and if we zoom into california these mosquitoes were first introduced in 2013 in southern california and ever since they've made their way through the central valley as far north as shasta county shasta county gets a lot colder than santa cruz county and they've been able to survive multiple seasons up there and you know i want to take a pause on this slide here and mention climate change if we think about shorter winters more moderate winters and higher temperatures overall this mosquito does have the potential to continue expanding its range so what does life with 80s egypti look like um well what it boils down to is eradication versus management i think with the infestation that we found in watsonville we do have a pretty good shot at eradicating the mosquito at this point um you know but in contrast southern california mosquito and vector controls districts down there they don't talk about eradication anymore they're just trying to manage the mosquito and what that means is attempting to keep mosquito populations low enough where they don't see local transmission of diseases and pictured on the left you know it could change the way we enjoy the outdoor spaces um it might mean covering your picnic areas in your backyard and on the right um this is a psa from greater la mosquito and vector control suggesting that you should wear repellent even to just spend some time in your backyard so what about watsonville well let's go ahead and zoom in we were alerted to this area and the finding um by someone calling us they let us know that they were experiencing mosquito bites more than normal in their backyard um so we set some traps we followed up and sure enough we found 80s egypti thankfully this mosquito only has about a quarter of a mile flight range and so we set traps within that buffer to see how far it might have spread and how you know prolific was this infestation on the right is just a picture of some different traps that we used and all the data really points to this population being isolated um you know we only found adult mosquitoes and larvae within the inner block of this neighborhood they hadn't even crossed the street yet so i think we're lucky i'm crossing my fingers but it really shows that well from the data we have it shows that we caught this early and this is our chance to try and um you know eradicate the mosquito at this time so where are we going with this how do we manage this mosquito moving forward um so we're closely following recommendations by the california department of public health and their principles you know follow integrated pest management integrated pest management is a combination of using education reducing mosquito breeding habitat using mosquito control materials and surveillance so that we can really hone in on this mosquito and try to eliminate it at this time um when we first found this mosquito back in october we did door-to-door inspections through the neighborhood um you know it took a lot of staff time and energy um so i want to thank my staff i also want to thank the neighborhood too um they were really cooperative and worked with us to get as rid of as many containers as possible and protect themselves from this infestation and this is the first time we've seen 80s egypti in our coastal climate so we're not really sure what it's going to look like after this winter um we're hopeful that the winter was on our side um but essentially you know we're we're going to go back in at the end of this month in this neighborhood and see if we can find any evidence of this mosquito anymore what we do know is that this mosquito um its eggs can hatch if we have seven consecutive days of 70 degrees 70 degree temperatures or higher um and so you know we're we're not quite sure where this is going yet and and if they're going to survive but we're going to be looking for them our next steps also include continuing with comprehensive trapping pictured on the left is the neighborhood and each dot in that neighborhood represents a place where we've been able to put one of our specialized traps again we're really thankful for the neighborhood here i mean they've led us into their homes and their backyards um to help us control this mosquito and lastly we also are going to use environmentally compatible control products and what that means for mosquito infect control is using larvasides at this stage larvasides are products that we use to knock down mosquitoes at the larval stage before they're able to become an adult that can fly around and bite people and potentially transmit disease all the products we use are epa registered um and the majority of them are organic and the product we're looking for that's recommended for this type of control is organic it's derived from a soil bacteria that's incompatible with the mosquitoes gut so it's very specific um and used in very small concentrations so with continued inspections comprehensive trapping and using control methods we still need the community's help um it's really important even if you don't live around the detection area um to minimize containers in your backyard bag and discard any containers that you don't need and dump and scrub any containers that you do want to keep because again the scrubbing is because these mosquitoes glue their eggs to the edges of containers and then you know secondly we were notified about this finding from a neighbor who was paying attention to mosquitoes in their backyard so if anybody in the public notices higher mosquito activity than normal please give us a call or report it online um and lastly here's just a list of our additional service we offer services we offer to the community and thank you for your time and i'm happy to take any questions now well thank you i mean they're outstanding work by your team to control it early and also a remarkable amount of credit to the community member that saw an abnormality and decided to reach out so to even have the wherewithal to do that is is outstanding appreciate your outreach are there any board members would like to comment on this or are you all sufficiently scared now i would rather not say anything as supervisor conic please yeah i'll just i just also want to thank you miss pulson for that for the quick work but also through for your continued work i mean not a lot of people realize everything that mosquito and vector control is doing for us on a day-to-day basis um but clearly it's incredibly important and um it's great to know about this issue so that we can make sure more people are aware and have more eyes and ears on the problem i'm i will definitely be dumping and scrubbing uh thank you for all my house plants yeah any other board members that's your brother hernandez and i i just have to say thank you for all the work in south county we did have a that neighborhood that was uh we had a little scare there off east lake uh hacker pass and also when i thank you guys you know i i mentioned in the past i i kind of did know what uh the mosquito vector district did i i researched it and try to get some information from the vector control back in 28 2019 before i went to uh our sister city visit in in holk at the back they had a outbreak of uh dang the mosquito bite i got a big lake and it asked for some materials and you guys gave me some materials and i took over there and and used all the materials that we I brought over from from you guys so thank you for that as well so i did have some knowledge of everything you guys did prior to even being on the board of supervisors and thank you for all the work you guys did the prompt work that you guys did to stop any you know further outbreak of mosquitoes out there in in the fourth district thank you does remember the community i believe this is a non-action item because it says consider a report but is there any member of the community that'd like to address us on the side and please step forward thank you very much first of all i'd like to know where i can find your report i am a scientist i am someone who spends a lot of time outdoors and last year um my sports friends and i were concerned that there were going to be some gmo mosquitoes released into california and we were not told where those gmo mosquitoes were going to be released you stated that this species came to california in 2013 but you didn't say how i think it's really interesting that it's shown up in this neighborhood could have been put there um can you make any comments regarding these genetic modified genetically modified mosquitoes use the word flying hypodermic needle and believe you me we were concerned about what these engineered mosquitoes could do to humans and animals so those are definitely some questions i have um thank you very much thank you any other member of the community inside chambers senator any member online i'd like to address us yes we do have a speaker online call and user five your microphone is now available one carrot due to the previous speaker answer her question do not disregard and questions that are put to you also read about the genetically engineered mosquitoes also i'm reading a book and there's a section here on zika part of what your report says is in correct and i want to point that out the book is called the real anthony fow chi ill gait big pharma and the global war on democracy and public health at robert f kennedy jr page 366 has a section on zika 2016 zika in march of 2016 dr fow chi again misled the public this time into believing that the zika virus was causing an epidemic of microcephaly among newborn babies in brazil one thing we know for sure zika doesn't cause microcephaly zika was endemic to central america and much of south asia for many generations with no reported association with microcephaly dr fow chi critics claim that an experimental dpt vaccine administered to pregnant women in 2015 to 16 in the slums of northeast bill was the likely corporate for the rave way is there any other person online we have no further speakers chair all right we'll bring it back to the board and just to help address some of the questions that were asked actually the um they have a website which is actually ag dpt for ag department dot com and you can click on the mosquito section and there's the reports actually on there the educational materials are on there and information about uh what they use and how they address is actually all available on there if there's something else you'd like to add please yes um can you hear me okay um so i just wanted to clarify the mosquitoes that we found are not genetically engineered um we actually have sent some of our samples to uc davis and they're going to run some genetics to give us a sense of where they came from um because at this point in the united states as i showed the map earlier um we do have a lot of different populations of 80s egypti um so we're curious to know you know where they came from and that might give us some some hints on how they were introduced in our county all right it's a non-action item so that will end uh thank you for the presentation it was outstanding you did a wonderful job and uh we're going to move on to closed sessions or anything anticipated to be reportable out of closed session no and chair if i may just for the record uh supervisor comings did return to us at 1044 in the morning so we'll note that in the minutes thank you all right our next regular scheduled meeting is february 28th in this location at 9 a.m thank you so