 Good morning. We'd like to call to order the August 7th meeting the board of supervisors we can begin with a roll call Please supervisor Leopold Coonerty cap it McPherson chair friend Here and if you could all join us in a moment as brief moment of silence on Pledge of Allegiance and supervisor Coonerty You wanted to address something briefly. Yes, I during our moment of silence. I hope you'll keep in the thoughts Keeping your thoughts though Zocaly family Bob Zocaly Tremendous local businessman and just wonderful person passed away in July And we just want to send our thoughts and prayers to the family. Thank you. If you'll join us Good morning, and welcome back. Mr. Palacios. Do we have any revisions or corrections to today's agenda? Yes, we do on the Regular agenda item number four There's additional materials. There's a revised memo Which is packet page 14? And then item 10 This was moved to item 3.1 and Item 11 was moved to item 3.2 Regarding the closed session item 13 staff request the deletion of sub item B Conference with legal counsel significant exposure to litigation and Then on the consent agenda item 35. There's a revision Deleted attachment a packet pages six one six through six two three That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Placios. We're going to begin with the Action on the consent agenda do we begin with a public comment just so I can make sure I'm clear public comment All right, so this is we're doing things differently the board has adopted a new policy for public comment This will be an opportunity for members of the community to address us on any item that is not on today's agenda But also any item on consent if you are unable to stay for any of the items of the regular agenda You can also make a comment during this time, but either way you'll be allowed three minutes for any item That's not on today's agenda or any items on consent I know the majority of you are here for the affordable housing issue There will be an opportunity to speak to that during that time But if there's an item that is not on today's agenda an item that's on consent now is your opportunity to address us Good morning Good morning My name is Robin Brune I'm a member of the Valley Women's Club Environmental committee and I'd like to address the board on a matter that is not on the agenda We are concerned about fire safety in our community and we would like to speak about PG&E's a new community wildfire safety program They're passing out brochures. I have a little packet to give the board Conclusion of my remarks, but according to their brochure of their wildfire safety program PG&E intends to cut a swath of trees and other vegetation in the zone of 15 feet on either side of any power line in high fire threat zones a Most of Santa Cruz County is in a high fire threat zone according to the CPUC fire threat map And that is for utility associated wildfires. That's what the high threat zone Tier 3 zone is we're in zone for utility associated wildfires So we do not believe the answer is to cut 15 feet of trees on either side of all of our power lines That will have a decimating impact on our viewshed Graham Hill Road Highway 9 and in many of our beautiful rural neighborhoods in addition to beauty trees provide Prevent erosion and landslides. They mitigate open wind quarters They mitigate temperature entered to use and climate change trees are efficient sound barriers There's lots and lots of reasons. We want to keep our trees We do understand the importance of Mitigating fire risk, but we think that PG&E's program is very Short-sighted and not really effective and we would like to make the following requests of the Board of Supervisors One we'd like some pushback on the PG&E program. We would ask that you direct legal counsel to Research the PG&E program how it's going to impact our local ordinances on Right perian corridors scenic byways Other aspects of our general plan. It's all potentially going to clash with those We would also like that the Board of Supervisors work PG PG&E and ensure that they have meetings regionally Throughout the county before there's any inflammation Implementation of this program to address a lot of questions for example Why are they choosing this 15 feet the by their own brochure only four feet is required, but they're extending up to 15 We have some research that we've done in the letter that we're submitting but Also, where is it gonna? How's it going to impact each individual homeowner? What recourse do they have? To kind of share information and communicate. We think that's very necessary. Thank you Thank you for coming That was three minutes Good morning. Welcome back Good morning, mr. Friend. Some of you know me. I'm Catherine Rockwood from Watsonville Hospital Mr. K put it as met me personally in the nursery. I'm here to just celebrate Worldwide breastfeeding week as and it goes on through the whole month I wanted to share it with you that Watsonville Hospital became designated as a baby-friendly hospital It took us seven years with the help of wick. We would not have been able to do it women and infant care and And all that means people are probably saying what's baby friendly aren't you people baby friendly to take care of babies? It's ten steps to ensure that parents get the Information they need to be successful in feeding their babies It goes from the CEO all the way down to the cleaning people We all speak the same language and I invite you to come out Friday and walk with us three to six in the Watsonville Plaza Bring your wives bring your kids bring your babies bring your dogs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your work I just want to thank you on behalf of my wife When we were at Watsonville Hospital in Dominican, thank you very much. Well, and here's the plaque All right Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Nora Urena. I reside in Watsonville. This is my baby This is baby number four All born here in this county. She's very cute. I wanted to come I Came just to speak on the importance of the baby-friendly initiative where I Before when we have staff in the hospital who were not educated well enough in the importance of breastfeeding and Giving babies their right to breastfeed it became difficult for friends of mine who were experiencing A nikk you stay or a longer hospital stay after giving birth because there was a discrepancy in training So we would have some nurses who were like Catherine and were like, okay, this is what you do to ensure Successful breastfeeding And then other nurses who hadn't been trained well enough And so mothers were getting really frustrated with this bright baby-friendly initiative All the years that it took means that more babies like this one And having a strong successful breastfeeding relationship with their mommas I'm a local doula so I help support mothers during childbirth But I'm also the new co-coordinator of the nursing mothers council, which has been around for more than 60 years here and the Bay Area and in Santa Cruz County, and so we are a volunteer organization Going through helping mothers succeed at their breastfeeding goals, so I want to thank Catherine and Dana and their incredible hard work and thank you for giving our babies The opportunity to thrive Thank you. Thank you. If you could we could keep her for a while Like really into people so Thank you for bringing her in Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Oh my pleasure. Good morning. Dana Wagner community bridges wick program in Santa Cruz County breastfeeding coalition And I have a little poem our breastfeeding coalition is here to be heard to thank this board And to spread the word that Santa Cruz County ranked first in the state for our hospitals exclusive breastfeeding rates All of our hospitals have been put to the test and have shown that their breastfeeding help is the best Each hospital did extensive preparation to earn the prestigious baby friendly designation and All of our members from Watsonville to the north work tirelessly to provide mothers and babies support WIC birth network PAMP salute an alliance help moms to breastfeed with ease and confidence So we thank you today for your recognition of our work and for signing our breastfeeding proclamation So join us in celebrating all that we share at WIS August 10th breastfeeding health fair And I just wanted to add we just heard the word this week community bridges wick program was awarded a USDA national award of excellence for its breastfeeding support Thank you for your support and please join us on the 10th. Thank you Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning, uh, kevin columns. Uh, I live in at a felton address I'm also here to speak about the pgne wildfire community wildfire plan and The way I approached it was to prepare a formal complaint to the public utilities commission I had to do this without legal assistance. So I have no idea. What are the commission is going to put this on their docket or not, but it is I discovered a great deal of information during the weeks of research I did on this topic Those of you who don't live in the in the mountains in other words live in in ordinary subdivisions in heavily developed areas You don't see this down to wire issue like I do Many times I've lived in place for three decades And I frequently see down to arcing wires flash arcing to earth at 12,000 volts It you know, this is a major safety issue But the problem is not the forest itself. The problem is that the utility Equipment itself is what is igniting these fires is what set off the fires north of san francisco In the october 2017 firestorm event and it's generally speaking the main problem and it's In my research, I discovered that finally electrical electrical engineers have resolved this issue Equipment is now available which can detect a parted conductor in other words a broken wire And shut off current to that wire before it even touches the earth this equipment is for sale by several international companies switzerland Canada in the united states and it's being installed by san diego gas and electric So this is not a deep science. This is something that's already underway What's going what the problem is that PG&E doesn't like spending money on its infrastructure And to make a Make that really obvious a public utilities commission investigation discovered that Nearly a billion dollars in funds that were set aside for undergrounding which is another way of Mitigating the problem erasing the problem of the utility caused wildfires a billion dollars was unspent in this program that could have been used in the most fire prone locations to solve this so I'm going to pass out this I'm not By the time it has all those attachments to it It'll probably 200 pages along because there are so many engineering reports and so forth. I need to include to As supporting documentation But the real point is that PG&E has an obligation to upgrade its circuits to standards that where they are not Igniting the fires these fires are not ignited just because there is a forest up there They're ignited because their equipment is fragile uninsulated Made up of old wires failing splices, etc. Thank you. And to what extent the county can help us with this We would much appreciate it Welcome back Hello board members mary joe walker. I'm in uh staying along with the theme of uh, the PG&E Along the theme of PG&E Kevin mentioned that he sees down wires frequently in front of our house My house two times a wire has gone down one time. It was about five years ago. And it was uh down on the ground sparking for two days More than 48 hours. It was during a big storm PG&E was very busy the fire chief had to come out in the pouring rain to you know set up barriers and the second time was just about a year ago and um, It came down and it was uh, the whole street was lit Sparking wires For a long way and there was a young woman coming up driving her car just about ready to go over that wire She probably would have been electrocuted If it weren't for my husband shouting at her stop stop stop and she thought that they were flares that somebody had set up And she was about ready to drive over it very scary Um, okay, but the real purpose I'd like to talk about is uh senate bill 1088 1 0 8 8 you may have heard about it It was authored by senator dodd from nappa which burned of course is known as a utility infrastructure safety Reliability and accountability act Um, it has been amended significantly since it was introduced earlier this year It passed the senate already and is currently making its way through the assembly It has many warehouses in about 30 warehouses Including statements like The investment in in reducing the risk of wildfire Fires has proven cost has a proven cost savings ratio of three to one But the puc has failed to establish adequate standards to reduce the risk caused by utility company equipment Another statement the puc should require gas and electric companies to harden their systems The puc should require gas and electric companies to evaluate and incorporate Techno technological solutions The new law would require the office of emergency services oes to establish standards for investor owned utilities Like pgne to increase their safety reliability resilience utilities would then be required to pass a plan That would include things like protocols for Disabling disclosures actions that would harden their system vegetation management And so on so far they can't I don't have time to list them all There has been some opposition to the bill because there is language near the end of the bill that leads Some people do believe that it would allow the gas and electric companies who have prepared these plans to pass the cost onto The ratepayers, I don't know if it's a good bill But I would like to ask your board to direct staff to look at the adequacy We look at the bill and determine whether it's adequate to require pgne to update their equipment to be more accountability And it will not allow pgne to pass the cost along to us. Thank you Thank you for coming in Good morning. Welcome back. Thanks for waiting. Good morning. Thanks. I'm kimlin mcdaniel keith and i'm here to say thank you for passing The august 2018 world breastfeeding month proclamation. Isn't it nice to have something that's not controversial? I'm guessing it took you two minutes to agree to this. It's such good public health Breastfeeding is so important for mothers for children and for communities And santa cruz is the rock star in breastfeeding. You already know we were rated number one in the state For exclusive breastfeeding the hospital. That's the first time we've been number one We've been number two and number three, but now we're number one Watsonville hospital is our third of three hospitals to become baby friendly And if you don't know what that means, I can tell you we all have ptsd from going through that process It's a very grueling process, but in the end it's the best thing for mothers and babies And Watsonville hospital. We're so glad has now achieved that status also in addition to dominican and sutter And then this latest news community bridges wick getting a national award It's so amazing and they have been path breakers and breastfeeding support in the country for wick programs So there's a lot to celebrate in our community. I thank you for your proclamation I want to make a personal invitation to you to have another feel-good moment come friday three to six watsonville plaza For the wick breastfeeding walk, you'll be so glad you did to see our community come together on something that really lifts us all up Thank you again Thank you Morning, welcome. Good morning. I'm sally williams and i'm appearing on behalf of Margaret ann carota and paul carota on item number 12 And I just want to let you know that we've reached a settlement with the county And the item may be removed The uh, the appeal is being rescinded Thank you. So this is on the public hearing to consider the petition for rescission of the march 2017 tax sale the assessor's parcel number 0409109 Correct, correct with an aftos. You're asking that that item be withdrawn because you've reached a settlement. That's correct, john Thank you. So we will withdraw item 12 when the time comes. We appreciate you coming in to let us know about the settlement Thank you very much. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning Chairman's uh, jack about that. Let me start again. Good morning, uh, chairman friend and the entire board of supervisors My name is steven matzi And I am the 60 plus senior program coordinator for the diversity center of santa cruz county I am honored to speak before you this morning about a group of people that i'm very passionate about And that is our lgbtq older adults And to identify to you how your support through core funding Has enabled us to provide opportunities for them to enrich their lives Bring them empowerment and celebrate who they are But first a few key statistics that i'd like to share with you Imagine growing up during a time where it was illegal to be who you are You fear losing your job Or being committed to a mental health facility simply because you're lgbtq It wasn't until 1973 when homosexuality was removed from the dsm of psychiatric disorders This is the lived experience for many of our county's lgbtq older adults This lifetime of stigma and discrimination Has um led to apprehension in accessing mainstream services They are more likely to age alone They are often estranged from their biological families They are twice as likely to be single in comparison to their heterosexual elders They are three times more likely to have no children This diminished support can lead to increased social isolation which has been well documented To have adverse effects on their physical and emotional well-being But now the great news Through your support through core funding you have helped the diversity center hire me as a part-time program coordinator During this past fiscal year. We have served 743 duplicated lgbtq seniors through a variety of activities Including the five bimonthly all senior luncheons And 12 senior women and men's social event gatherings We have also provided two sessions so far of the wellness based A wellness initiative for senior education evidence-based curriculum But there is more work to be done More outreach is necessary to identify and connect more lgbtq elders to the 60 plus senior program Especially those who identify as latin x and in our south county Our elders have expressed desire for lgbtq specific support groups And we need to continue to bring more visibility to these resilient and diverse members of santa cruz county And awareness to our mainstream community partners about their unique needs So in closing I stand here in gratitude and thank you for the support you have shown myself The diversity center and our amazing lgbtq seniors through core funding and look forward to our ongoing partnership Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Karen ashra and i've been in the county for 40 years I'm a member of the diversity center and one of the first people that attended the pride program Which was really great because You know during my career. I retired maybe a couple years ago I had to work out of the county to support myself here and my property To pay the taxes and such and um, I kind of lost touch with my community and old friends and everything and anyway through the program I really have gained a lot in terms of reconnecting with people and Reconnecting and going to the social events and the luncheons and it's been really great And I really I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate your support Thank you Morning welcome Good morning ladies and gentlemen Appreciate this opportunity to come and speak to you. My name is Enrique Ortiz Villegas I'm 75 years old people say I don't look like it bad. I don't act like it either I'm here to speak about how Stephen Matches program and 60 plus has affected my life As an artist now for 51 years Much of my time has been spent in well Who said I'd say Much of my time has spent in doing my artwork. So I'm alone a lot. Sometimes I've even thought who even knows I'm here in my workspace I've been involved with the the gay community here mostly on the fringes Until Steve Stephen match he came along I was A member of the first gay men support group that he brought to us And from that I met a fellow participant who had the same voice teachers. I did Michelle reward The best voice teacher at cabrillo college now retired Together we put together a song Presentation of hits from maywest K-star rosemary cluny and conny francis as an entertainment for The 60 plus luncheons that steven has Brought us all together for his work with us Has really brought me out of my reclusiveness To help and in forwarding our goals as a gay community And also Helping me to develop further in my community involvement I wish that there were more time um To say how much I enjoy his support I appreciate his passion And concern and high regard for Seniors the gay seniors here in santa cruz county Without that I would still be in my workspace Doing my artwork Um, I think I said really what I wanted to say and and my support for steven I applaud his work and even this morning. I got an email from him asking for spanish speakers To come and help at pride in watsonville. I volunteered this morning All right, so um Again, i'm really grateful to steven. I'm really grateful for the development of the diversity center here in cali in santa cruz county I moved away twice came back twice second time I declared myself a permanent resident of santa cruz. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting Hi, I'm david crane I'm recovering from a hip replacement. So I'm a little Uncity on my feet um I'm a member of the 60 plus Diversity center group And we've all been in this together Uh, I had to learn to live around the edges as a young man I fought for my rights I became successful in life and um Because we're aging. I don't want to see us go back into living around the edges again because of isolation because of lack of services And that's why i'm here to support the diversity center. I thank them so much through Steven's work I Uh recovered from my hip surgery And I've now become president of the residents association agarfield park village And I thank you all for all your help that you've done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Morning. Welcome Morning. My name is bob pitman. I'm a Member of the diversity center Also, and I wanted to Share with you a little bit about um the impact that the diversity center has made on my life And that of my husband david um We lived up in vancouver washington for a number of years and We were losing our housing and We we finally got on to The list that got us into garfield park village Um, but it was steven matzi's leadership at the diversity center that Not just helped us get down here, but helped make the move Something that that made sense to us when we got down here And we were welcomed We found homes. We found friends We were taught how to get around and and we were invited to gatherings and For the first time in 23 years that we've been together We have got lots of friends. We're accepted. We're welcomed and that's not just of course the diversity center, but it's the It's a welcoming spirit of sanacruz as a whole and this community the The broader community has been a wonderful place for us to land and thrive and It's the the the help through the diversity center that has given us a chance to be centered and to uh, to put down roots And for that we we've really appreciated our association with it and Look forward to additional support from all of you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you, steven and the diversity center for this great programming It's great to hear the testimony, but I know how successful the program is i'm glad sanacruz county is part of funding it Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning and welcome back to you. I hope you had a nice vacation My name is bachy steinbrunner. I live in the mountains of aptos And first of all, I want to register protests that you have now combined public comment On items not on the agenda with Consent agenda comment that effectively reduces the total amount of public input time And I don't think it's fair I also want to register protests that now members of the public are no longer able to pull items from the consent agenda for better public Discussion, we are at your mercy to do so. I register that protest now And do not think it's in keeping with a strategic sanacruz plan for better government transparency As a mountain resident I also want to second the comments that you've heard this morning about the pg and the swaths of tree removal I live in a mountain area. I live on a privately maintained road This kind of action will cause severe erosion In all of the watershed areas and for roadways in the county So I urge you to follow the advice that the speakers before me have suggested I also want to say that um I would like your board to establish a youth commission That includes members of all local high schools alternative high schools included And I want to see more involvement from the youth in our community with your decisions and discussions on public policy changes policy making Impacts of things that will affect their lives here in the county into the future That will need to be evening meetings And so then I would ask now that you hold one evening meeting a week A month that could then include a commission of youth from our area schools We need to involve the youth in our community and in our government policy making and I urge you to do so On the consent agenda, I want to just say hooray for the pinto lake bike pump track That's really good news that that's going in something for the youth to do That's free and healthy And I really applaud the county's efforts doing those kinds of things I want to comment on item 39 an additional 825 thousand dollars being spent on the Valencia road emergency culvert repair That big project now totals over six point two million dollars And I want to ask that County public works do regular inspections of culverts throughout the county that one failed And that very expensive expenditure may have been averted had there been some preemptive work or earlier inspections To alert the needed to be repairs there And and finally because I've got one second I just want to say that the cao said the effectiveness of the reduction of consent will be there will be fewer consent poll Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting Good morning chairman friend and board I'm bob Langstead the executive director of the boys and girls clubs of santa cruz county And i'm here today to thank you for your support through core programming. Uh, we now have three sites in the county Uh, we are serving in well in excess of 400 kids every day this summer But more importantly i'm here to thank uh, jeff gaffney and county parks for their partnership And helping us put on the very first live oak fund run for the community on september 22nd We will be co-hosting a run of 3k and you're welcome 3k 5k and 10k Distances so we invite you to join us out at simkins where the start and finish line and after party will all happen It's a great event and it's really exciting to partner With the county parks to put on something like this for the live oak community. Thank you Thank you bob for your work Thank you so far as a leopold's been training very Heavily for that race and so we're anticipating him to take the gold if you want to see me in shorts. That's the day to come Good morning. Welcome. Good morning board of supervisors I'm robby gonzala stow with community bridges wick program And I thank you so much for proclaiming august is breastfeeding awareness month And you heard from my colleagues and friends all the good news and santa cruz is number one in the state for exclusive breastfeeding rates in the hospital Fortunately at three months that drops to about 44 percent and one of the main reasons is because parents return to work and They're not getting the support in the workplace to continue to breastfeed Without a private space free from inclusion laws require federal and state laws require that employers provide a private space In time for parents to pump at work And so we're asking you for your support to help encourage employers to Follow those laws With i'm able to help employers free of cost That's part of my job at community bridges to offer technical assistance with workplace policy training to help employers To implement lactation support in the workplace We have some standout employers in our county one is rider berry farms I've helped assisted them and they support women who work in the fields to to pump while they're at work And I also asked the county to be one of those standout Workplaces with a workplace workplace policy and ensuring that all employees in the county know about the policy And um and have support in the workplace to continue to breastfeed. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome morning Hi, welcome back from your break My name is paul de soma. I'm a live oak resident the issue I am concerned with is the verizon 5g rollout of the infrastructure for the small cell antennas That uh is aggressively being um pushed on communities not just in santa cruz, but in The entire bay area you may or may not be aware that the city of santa rosa In july has placed a pause on any new approval of applications for these installations For a number of reasons one being that they felt verizon was not being a fair partner in communication with the municipality and Aggressively pushing their their agenda Um It's uh obvious that the board is interested in public health Evidence by so many uh approving speakers today So the one issue is is definitely health. There's lots of evidence available to make your own decision about whether this this technology is uh Dangerous or um or not There's uh You know and you can make your own decision about that that's not really my biggest issue My biggest issue is that it's being forced on neighborhoods and in the potential that it's harmful It should be well considered the distances from Residences and and homes and such There's uh, I know that I've been told that there's little that the municipality can do To oppose this, um, I have I would really like to hear three minutes from somebody or any of you On this board as to why you may think it's a good idea to follow through with the plan as proposed by verizon This I want to submit this to public record is a letter from a law firm hired by The emf safety network in um, so basketball It's uh from a law firm that outlines What municipalities can do in opposition or at least you know to uh, not opposed but just to Work with the telecom industry on What they can do? So i'll i'll give that to you John we're going to see you at the constituent meetings and and hopefully talk a little bit more about this And uh, I thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back. Thank you Maryland care a part of wireless radiation alert network The damage of microwave radiation. It's was substantiated And since I've been coming here since I retired from teaching in 2000 you have all been supplied With uh, the substantiated health impacts um, this is a very sad time for me because In 1945 august 6th and august 9th the us dropped nuclear weapons on hiroshima and nagasaki And killing over a hundred thousand each time And the us continues to develop nuclear weapons and we are Nuclear disastrous on the horizon and that's not the stop Now I've read about Nuclear by the way, let me say this before I forget part of pg&e's clear cut Plans seem to be to clear the trees out of the way For this 5g wireless microwave technology from satellites as well as on the ground Uh, I've read about nuclear bombs on poles. There's an article by Amy Worthington called the radiation poisoning of america In it, there's a letter from she opens up talking about these fire lookouts At likely mountain overlooking shousa and these two women who became quite ill with Radiation burns turns out there was a cell tower right there Their jewelry burnt on their skins and blood at normalities One of them lost a third of her body weight radiation anorexia Now part of that article I just can read a little bit to run out of time Painful conditions endured by the families of garcia and jasso and I'm going to give you One of their statements are identical to those suffered by japanese victims Of gamma wave radiation after nuclear explosions at hiroshima and nagasaki in 1945 Five decades of studies confirmed that non ionizing communications Radiation in the radio frequency microwave spectrum has the same effect on human health as Ionizing gamma wave radiation. I think my tremors are totally related to this exposure And they're quoting an expert Dr. Heo eco Who's German medical associations stated the symptoms that result from radioactive radiation are identical to the effects of electromagnetic radiation The damages are so similar that they are hard to be differentiated. Ms. Garrett We need you to protect the public from this onslaught. Thank you. Ms. Garrett Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting Good morning. My name is Eileen Clark. I'm a resident of Watsonville and I'm a member of regeneration, which is a local to Watsonville climate action group we seek to Work on the problem of climate change through local initiatives and we I'm just here to tell you about a survey we did our community survey We surveyed 350 people and we were Happy that we were able to get a cross-section of Watsonville proportionate to the demographics there so which was our goal and and I just wanted to let you know about it and and What our major findings were it was conducted by community volunteers in January and February And so our major findings were that A large majority of agricultural workers find that their work of both themselves and their family members Has been has had a has been highly impacted by extreme weather both heat and and extreme weight rain Long long periods of rain because of loss of work and also health Health impacts they have during up high heat times Another was the pesticides were a huge concern. That was the second a major finding and the third was that People really want a better access to To local organic agriculture So We just here to let you know about that and and we're very proud that we were able to complete the The big complete the survey was We got advice and training from Dr. Shashir Mathur who is Dean of research at San Jose State University social science department And then also I wanted to invite you to come to the local to the global climate action summit You may have heard about this already. It'll be taking place in san francisco september 12th through the 14th and lots of Uh Local officials from all over the state will be there and I'll leave the flyer here for you about it. So Should be a very positive and Powerful Gathering and I hope you'll you'll make it. Can I leave this with Summit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming in Good morning. Welcome back. Ms. Roberts. Good morning Chair and board. Thank you for uh Listening to all of us. I'll be brief. I just wanted to thank you Supervisor McPherson and Coonerty regarding item number 23 on the consent agenda About the resolution to oppose Proposition six, which is the repeal of the gas tax We think that sp1 And the funds that it provides as i'm sorry kate roberts president of the monterey bay economic partnership That transportation is such an important issue that we have taken on just recently As an organization and this funding would be Very important to carry forward us many many projects here specific to santa cruz county as well as the other two Counties that mbapp is Covering a monterey county in san bonito county, but specific to santa cruz county It's um over 115 million dollars in funding that would not come to this county to do road repairs expanding and Widening of roads bike lanes bridge repairs all sorts of projects that are actually identified that would not happen If this money were to be repealed So I just wanted to thank you for your leadership in putting that resolution forth And we're very supportive of that and hope to see that uh prop six get defeated come november Secondly on the housing bond. I won't say anything now. I know there's going to be a separate discussion for that But mbapp has been on the sidelines supporting that effort for a long time And uh, I have some staff here that'll speak later to that, but we're looking forward to seeing that get on the ballot So thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning chair friend members of the board I'm ellen timberlake the director of the human service department And i'm very pleased this morning to introduce you to our new director of our employment and benefit services division kimberley peterson As you all know the division serves one in three residents in our county and we couldn't be any more thrilled To have this division under kimberley's leadership. She's been with the county for 13 years Started as an eligibility worker It's been a program coordinator Analyst and most recently our program manager in our watsonville service center So it is really my pleasure To introduce her to you and the public and I just wanted to take this opportunity So Thank you. Thank you Congratulations miss peterson. Thank you for your work in general Is there anybody else that'd like to address this during public comment? Okay, see none. We'll bring it to the board to go through the consent agenda these items 14 through A number higher than 14 somewhere that I don't see immediately on my agenda But Either way, this is the consent agenda. We'll start with supervisor capitol Are there any comments you'd like to make or any items you'd like to pull from the consent agenda items 14 to 47? No, but I would like a clarification on Maybe it's just an error or something on number 19 Um Of the public defenders offices in watsonville It does say on page 156 That janitorial services are included in the Price for the leasing and then on page 158 it says That the less or can then submit to the To the county to pay for janitorial services So, uh, what what is it? Who who is paying for the janitorial services? That's It's not a big deal, but it it is. Uh, it is money Please mr. Blasio, yes Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know the answer to that We can get to that answer to see if somebody well, here's uh, number analysts Can answer the questions then Yeah, the uh Say my name's fenstafford. I'm an analyst in the county administrative office The costs of the janitorial service are included as part of the lease But as they're charged every month, they're remitted to the county for payment Through the lease. Okay. Is it included in the amounts that we're voting on in the consent agenda? Or is it an unknown amount each month that if they submit? Um, it should be a standard amount every month and it'll be included in the lease But in the event that there are extra services provided, we would also cover those Okay, thank you. And then item number, uh, 20 um, that's the, uh uh, response from the, uh Santa Cruz, uh from the board of supervisors health services Uh concerning mental health crisis integrated response, uh To the grand jury, uh, I agree with some of the, uh Uh responses to the grand jury, but I don't agree with, uh, a number of them And I don't want to get into too big a detail here But, uh So i'm going to vote no on that Item number 20 Item 25 is related to 19. I think that was answered well and then, uh item 34 uh, looking forward to the pump track, uh, at penal lake, uh coming in looks like around October and It's a good program I'm wondering, uh, do we know the exact total cost on that? Uh, there was some money coming in some money coming out I know we got a grant for $10,000 going towards it and So, uh, do you have a Do you have an answer on that? I don't want to make it a big deal Is the question what the contract amount is for or what the net county cost is because because the contract amount is for 108 five Um 108,500 is the con total contract Then there were added expenses, is that correct director gaffney if you want to provide clarification Thank you for being here this morning director gaffney. Thank you chair friend We are still working on the numbers and when we're finalizing the contract We'll have a set amount, but we did have to add an additional $20,000 the bids came in About actually 30,000 over what we anticipated. So that's kind of the going Processed lately it would be about a hundred and twenty eight hundred and thirty Well, we added another 10 from the grant and then we also have another grant coming in So the numbers won't be finalized until the actual construction is done It's it's kind of a process as they go through as change orders come in that sort of thing So, yeah So the current contract those 108 five that the board's actually adopting but at the end We will ratify any changes that needed to come in exactly that'll be fine. Thank you for that Thanks. Looking forward to the grand opening. Yes. We all are it's exciting Thank you. Absolutely Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Good morning. Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, I'm thank to address item number 23 resolution that I Co-signed with Supervisor Coonerty opposing proposition six On the November ballot This would if it does pass it would eliminate About a hundred and fifteen million dollars coming to Santa Cruz county about 15 million of that in the unincorporated area Plus about 65 million dollars over the next 10 years to our four cities Already you've in my district. We've seen some improvements that are being made I think the general public has two With the so-called senate sp1 senate bill one Funding in remote areas like bear creek road Lompico road and james in creek road We just can't take care of our county and the needs especially from the storm damages of the recent years that we've had I do it alone. It's going to take a long time It's absolutely necessary that we keep this and I think it's important to know that State voters overwhelmingly in june passed a state proposition that guarantees that Funds identified for transportation purposes will stay for that purpose. Uh, it's the state has had a A bad record of kind of stealing from transportation Funds to put it in other areas of the state budget, but that will no longer happen So, um, it's it's reassuring to see that that money would stay for road and bridge bikeways All kinds of transportation purposes Critically needed in our county If we want to get our roads fixed, this is going to be a huge step for us to accomplish that In a reduced number of years for sure Um, and then on number item 38 glinwood drive storm damage repair Please the caltrans is helping Make repairs on glinwood drive, which was damaged in the storm of 2011 And that's how how long it takes sometimes to repair these roads without State or federal help that we're getting from this senate bill one that I just mentioned And I know a residents up there appreciated the work that's getting done And I want to thank public works for getting this item for for us today It's very much appreciated and very much needed. So thank you very much Thank you. Supervisor McPherson. Good morning, Supervisor Coonerty. Hi. Good morning, Mr. Chair Members of our community just a couple items to comment on as Supervisor McPherson mentioned and k roberts from the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership mentioned We are encouraging voters to make sure they stay educated and vote no on proposition six This gas tax repeal would have a tremendous impacts on our infrastructure and I think the most important thing is that by Eliminating this funding source it eliminates preventative Efforts to protect our infrastructure against the ravages of climate change Which means we all end up spending more money in the long term and are being and having our roads impacted In the short term while we drive while we try to get across the county on item number 35 And I know many people in the audience are here to support affordable housing and I appreciate You all taking time to be here this morning on item number 35 I'm proud that the county has partnered with habitat humanity to develop a vacant parcel On harper street and to get 11 affordable units for families in our community And that that project's moving forward and then finally on item number 37 the swanton bridge Replacement, this has been a long time in the making of getting that bridge repaired It's important for people to maintain access and also for public safety access And I want to commend public works for moving this Moving that This repair forward Thank you. Good morning surface leopold. Good morning chair just a couple things on the minutes from our meeting on june 26 Which is item g 15 g it was about the The changes in our policy procedures. There are five different things on here. I think number two should be struck It number three says we adopted the the rosinberg rules Number four is approved the consent items requirement about board members and the oral and And consent communication being together and returning and the last five is directing to come back in six months That's was what we actually voted on and there was some confusion as evidence in today's Happening to move around the agenda about number two. So I'm just asking that it be struck On item number 28. I want to Appreciate our interim director of health services and her work in trying to work with janice To help them identify additional sources of fund. They're an important program we've heard from those who work there about the need for additional pay and county working with our non-profit partners To find out how to leverage more money is really helpful To them and helpful to us and I really appreciate the work that you did to make that happen On item number 33. I just want to express my appreciation to the human services department for The renewal of this prop 39 pre-apprenticeship training implementation grant and reading about the grant To get people into these pre-apprenticeship training program and move them into jobs Has proven to be very successful and I appreciate the work Of human services to make sure that we continue this program On item 42. I want to also thank the Our parks department for their continued work on Getting the heart of soquel linear parkway project completed. There's a lot of different parts to it, but I appreciate your doggedness in in terms of making this happen. So thank you And lastly, I will invite all my colleagues and members of the public on september 22nd to the live oak family fund run It's going to be a good time and we're really glad to see that in live oak And thanks to the parks department for making that happen with the boys and girls club That's it. Thank you supervisor leopold. So note that there's a proposed for an amendment on item 15 G I have no additional comments beyond my my colleagues comments on prop 6 habitat for humanity and Pinto lakes, so I'll just ask that one of my colleagues now make a motion in regards to the consent agenda I moved the consent agenda as amended They have a motion from supervisor leopold in a super second from supervisor coonerty We have supervisor cap it registering a no vote on item 20 all those in favor I opposed it passes unanimously without one no vote on item 20 We'll now move into The regular agenda the first item on the regular agenda is item 4 is to consider report and resolution to provide for the submission of a Proposition incurring bonded debt of a maximum of 140 million for the purpose of financing affordable housing projects and programs to the qualified voters Of the county of santa cruz of the general election to be held on november 6 2018 to take related actions is outlined in the memorandum of supervisors friend and coonerty We have a resolution and order calling election for the bond measure Good morning miss reino. Thank you for kicking this item off Good morning chair friend and members of the board At your direction in june and july the county administrative office convened the inter-jurisdictional housing task force To develop affordable housing options that can be created using funding opportunities in the form of bonds By the affordable housing santa cruz group which was led by fred keely and don lane The committee met five times to refine the original program proposed and to develop the affordable housing recommendations presented today in your board memo So this is just a quick snapshot of those in our community that are impacted by high housing costs and may face housing insecurity It affects all levels of income Including moderate income families in our community Most housing guidelines recommend that housing costs Be a standard of 30 percent of income to be spent on housing The more households spend on housing the less they have for other necessities such as food clothing transportation health care In addition, there are fewer discretionary dollars that can be spent at local businesses However in santa cruz county we see a major housing affordability gap and that's the um Change between the market rates housing cost And affordable housing These charts show that the gap at various income levels based on our median income of $77,613 So we have a median home price here now over $900,000 and the average rent here for a two bedroom apartment is about $3,200 So you can see at the various levels of Area median income what the gap is and that's that little red band there Um in the chart for meeting housing needs You can see that for those in the lower income households meeting any kind of housing needs here is almost an impossibility A monthly rental cost of $3,200 is almost 55 percent of the monthly medium income for the area And for a loan income household that same rent would constitute nearly 62 percent of their income A Solution that has been proposed by the local housing advocates Housing advocacy group is to generate funding through a local bond measure This funding could be used to create more affordable housing and homeless facilities and could also be leveraged to help Local jurisdictions become more competitive for state and federal funding dollars This solution has been used successfully in other jurisdictions throughout the united states The recommendations before you today are for a housing bond measure of 140 million With 119 million to be dedicated to creating more affordable housing units Allocated amongst the jurisdictions And 21 million to be dedicated to funding needed facilities for homelessness and that is to be allocated as one regional sum The inter jurisdictional housing task force Determining that the funding should be allocated to and controlled by each individual jurisdiction in order to meet the specific needs of that community Funding allocations for jurisdictions were calculated using the combined equally weighted statistics of population regional housing needs poverty levels and total assessed value These numbers would be updated prior to the issuance of each bond series for the most up-to-date calculation And this slide shows you about what the total allocation would be for each jurisdiction The affordable housing bonds would be financed through a property tax assessment not to exceed 16 dollars and 77 cents per 100 thousand dollars of assessed value Over a period not to exceed 40 years The bonds would be issued in two separate series with the 30 year payback for each series The first series would be for 100 million and issued somewhere in 2019 or 2020 And the second series would be for 40 million and we estimated that it would be issued in 2027 that we could push that out The chart indicates the payback schedule for the bonds For the first series the annual payback would be about 7.8 million or approximately 16 dollars and 32 cents per 100 thousand assessed value And once the second series was issued the annual payback would increase to 8.6 million or a maximum of 16.7 16 dollars and 77 cents per 100 thousand of assessed value And then of course the payback amount drops as the series are a bond series are paid off This chart shows the estimated Payments for 100 thousand dollars of assessed value over the life of the two series of bonds With a peak amount of 16 dollars and 77 cents and then declining over time The regional housing needs assessment projects a need of about 1214 units for the low and very low area median income and about 1768 units if you also include the area The moderate area median income group through the year 2023 It is estimated based on potential projects in each jurisdiction that an estimated 1041 units could be produced using these bond funds That's the conclusion of the presentation and i'm happy to answer any questions that you have Thank you for that wonderful concise Presentation is very helpful. Are there any questions from board members before we open this up for public comment on this item Sure supervisor cap it. Yeah a question. You said not to exceed 40 years That's correct. It would depend on when the second series of bonds is issued So if we issue the bonds in seven years, then it would be 37 total years of bond payments if we issued it 10 years from the time of the first issuance, then that would be 40 years right and then The other would be we're going by assessed value of the property Rather than the market rate at the time of the Taxing it's assessed value. Correct. Okay an assessed value. I I guess the only concern I have is that We have senior citizens that are on a fixed income. Maybe they paid for their house And are their home and then Their property tax would be based on Their purchase price maybe 20 or some years earlier Well assessed value is always typically much lower than the market rate value. Yeah, because that would be under prop 13, right? Okay, and then It's $16 and 77 cents per hundred thousand dollars on assessed value Property just trying to clarify it That's correct We're voting to put whether or not to put this on the ballot and letting the people vote in the county And the last question just to make it clear too is it would require 60 it's a specific tax It's not for something else that the general fund can Take and use for something else. No, there would be a special Fund set up for for allocating these dollars and they could the bonds restrict the way you can use the funding So it couldn't be used for anything other than capital investments for housing then requires six well about 67 percent to pass It's a two-thirds At the vote at the polls it's a two-thirds vote. Yes Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty. Sure. I just want to take a moment before we begin to thank Don Lane and Fred Keeley and all the people involved in creating this Bringing this forward and then the county staff to be able to take What is essentially a concept and figure out how to divide it across five jurisdictions and of the variety of housing needs We have in the community I think this is an exciting opportunity to address a real crisis in our community that's impacting virtually every aspect of our of our county And the fact that we've built in and understand that there's no one solution to our housing problems. It requires Multi-pronged approach requires supporting seniors. It requires Supporting our homeless community creating ad us creating affordable developments It takes a multi-pronged approach and that with this will have Funds that we can leverage hopefully against state funds against federal funds against Other affordable housing funds that we collect In order to get some projects going and help provide some relief to especially working families who are struggling to make it in this community And so I don't want to it It's you know when it comes neatly packaged in a power point Everyone feels good about it, but I want to acknowledge all the people who put in the effort to get us to this point That we can put something hopefully before the voters that that That can help address the crisis in our community Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty. I know that board members will probably have additional comments But I think the most important thing is having an opportunity for the community now to address us So we'd now like to open it up Uh to the community now, uh, just so I have a sense how many people plan to speak to us today Just so I can see how many minutes I should allocate here Okay, so we'll we'll have it at a two minute Uh per speaker. Uh, good morning. Welcome back. Uh, mayor emeritus council member for life don lane Good morning supervisors. My name is don lane and I'm here representing affordable housing santa cruz county I'm joined today by our groups other co-chair fred keely And this is the place in my comments where i'm supposed to make a joke at fred's expense about why he's not standing here next to me But i'll share that with you offline another time However, I will repeat something fred said to me and I agreed with him when he said it This could be the broadest county wide coalition Created around a community issue in recent santa cruz county memory Perhaps it's not really a surprise though that we've been able to build such a broad coalition Everyone is touched by the housing crisis in santa cruz teachers first responders healthcare workers farm workers service workers and so many other members of our community are struggling with housing with the housing crisis employers in retail Agriculture hospitality tech Healthcare see the housing crisis as they seek to find and retain employers employees People in the human services sector and the healthcare sector deal with individual people Experiencing that housing crisis every single day Renters line up for hours and search for months to find any place to live Young families have set aside their dreams of home ownership seniors struggle every day With rising rents and people without shelters struggle for survival every day And at the same time Those that build truly affordable housing are poised to move ahead But are held back by a lack of funding So we have been able to build a broad coalition And we have a few representatives of that coalition who are here to speak with you before I step aside for them I want to just say a couple of things First I'd like to invite everyone here today who came to support the housing bond to either stand or raise your hand We are very proud of the folks all the folks from every sector in every district who've stepped up to help create this solution And second we'd like to thank the county staff members who stepped up over the last few months And to the staff from the local cities that collaborated with them to put together some of the key pieces that you saw today Thank you so much for that help And finally we want to thank the board members of the board Who've played key roles in helping us get to this moment We are here today to respectfully ask that you adopt the proposal before you Please give the voters of our county an opportunity To turn what started as a broad community conversation about the housing crisis Into a specific and concrete solution to address that crisis. Thank you very much And we have a couple members of our coalition who'd also like to Perfect. Thank you. Mr. Laine. We'll call that a Santa Cruz two minutes for you Good morning. Welcome miss palmer. Thank you for being here. Hi. I'm Barbara Palmer I'm a realtor but I am not here representing the california association of realtors. I am chairing their legislative committee And I am not representing the local association because we haven't voted yet But first of all I want to thank this board For doing what everything you can to fix our housing problem and still protecting private property rights You're committed for that number two Is there any way you can build into this some means testing which means Can you take a look we do have people that have been living in these homes for 40 years They're on social security Adding layers of property tax even though this one is affordable to most of us But adding those taxes and layering them on is a concern for me and a concern for the people That maybe It would be a burden not this one tax but as you layer them on in my area We have cabrio college taxes. So just please keep that in mind. Thank you Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting Good morning members of the board. My name is jeffry smidberg I was a county worker for a quarter of a century an active member of sciu My strong union afforded me a generous living wage and helped me purchase a small a small home in santa cruz And guaranteed me some retirement security. So I didn't have to move to los baños when I Leaving my county job I still have time to be active in union affairs And I am vice president of the monterey base central labor council on whose behalf i'm speaking to you this morning The the monterey base central labor council is Our regional union of 80 labor unions, which represents 38 000 working women and men in the central coast region The functioning of our communities depends on local workers Including teachers health care workers service workers farm workers and many others Most of our seniors people with disabilities and those without permanent shelter also At one time we're part of our active workforce Many of these workers are union members even though union workers on average earn 20 more than non union workers Their circumstances are not all as favorable as mine You are all aware of the huge disparity In our community between housing costs and earnings All working people in their families as well as former workers need affordable housing here not in los baños You know there are county workers who live in los baños now and waste a lot of their time adding On the road adding to the congestion construction of affordable rental units and first time home buyer assistance leveraged by the housing solutions bond Will be a good start in tackling our housing crises The monterey base central labor council council urges you to support the housing services bond and place it on the november ballot Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Hi My name is Carmen Bernal In may one of you were asked whether or not this Bond was something that you would consider passing and that particular board of supervisors said I don't know because it may impact seniors It that are on and or anyone that's on a fixed income So I really want you to consider this because it will impact seniors um, one of my neighbors Pays $10,000 in property taxes and of that property tax. She's paying over 1,700 towards bonds measures and for our area Library facility depending upon where you live like in capitol There are nine bonds and measures and library facilities that you pay for in santa cruz. There are 10 We just keep on adding more and more at one point At what point is it enough? Sorry, I can't read this. I printed it too low or told it too small Why was the housing bond established as a bond instead of a measure which could have exempted seniors at the age of 65 How long is this bond for? Well, you did explain it here, but I was shocked at the duration I'm not against housing Mr. A friend you received an email from me and you got my background So you know that I'm not against housing I myself purchased a home through measure j years ago Thank god for that program But I just learned that in the last two years the county has allowed a developer's choice to pay fees Rather than requiring affordable housing units Being as part of the county's new housing project So much for affordable housing Thank you. Please finish up Sorry That's that's pretty much it. I just wanted to let you know my opposition to it I mean when is enough enough? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing Good morning councilmember Garcia. Welcome Good morning chair and board My name is Rebecca Garcia and I'm a native of watsonville And I happen to sit on the watsonville city council and on the latino fair's commission watsonville first began addressing the serious need of affordable housing in 1991 when the city adopted its inclusionary ordinance Today august 7th 2018 The community of watsonville that includes service workers teachers farm workers seniors homeless and people with disabilities are saying it's enough We want affordable housing for all our residents in watsonville We have two to three families living in single households because they cannot afford the rent Some families have to live in substandard housing and in garages So we are proposing to you our county supervisors that you place on the november ballot an initiative To provide affordable housing watsonville has three programs that provide support for affordable housing to middle income and low income residents However, it's not enough to meet all the housing needs the proposed plan Will provide more funding for more people needing affordable housing in watsonville The first program is the inclusionary ordinance which provides 15 to 20 affordable units Our second is the down payment assistance program and the third program is the first time home buyers program These latter two programs are available to low and very low income residents I support the passage of the bond because it will help the city of watsonville Support those individuals and families who struggle to meet their housing payments And I hope you as supervisors also want to support them. Thank you Thank you. Good morning. Welcome councilmember harland. Good morning supervisors. It's a pleasure to be here I don't come here very often, but it's very interesting Affordable housing I've been part of the coalition since the beginning and it's been a very interesting group very broad based What I really like about it is that every city can do whatever they want with the money Whatever meets their needs as you know capital is pretty much built out So we're not going to be building very much unless we can do something with the mall And they're not really interested in doing that right now Because we have so many second homes in town We have a huge decrease in the amount of homes that can be available for rentals We have almost 50 of our r1 areas that are second homes depot hill and the jewel box. It's very shocking We have many opportunities to help though We can buy there's a couple of apartment complexes that I know of that I would love to buy to keep in affordable housing and to turn into affordable housing We have one that used to be mostly section eight and a new owner bought it But I would like to buy that back from them and help them We gave we gave loma vista mobile home park almost a million dollars to buy themselves to keep it low and moderate income housing We gave warfrode manor about four five hundred thousand dollars to keep that in low and moderate income housing We can do we can continue to do that as a tourist destination in a very small town 1.6 square miles and 10 000 people We need housing for the people that work and and are able to can't live in our town I'm very concerned about over developing Santa Cruz County. It looks like we've already done that when you look at the traffic that we have But I think we're working on that And I encourage all of us to be very mindful about development in the future that we don't continue to create problems For ourselves and the future of capitol a santa Cruz watsonville scott's valley And the unincorporated part of the county. Thank you very much. Thank you council member harland Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. I'm kathy sarto I'm a member of peace united church of chrisep by the university which is one of 29 Institutional members of copa a non-profit non-partisan organization of dues paying members like congregations schools non-profits and unions 18 of the copa member institutions that are located in santa Cruz county Are located in santa Cruz county and about 20 of us are here today They have wrangled me to be the sole speaker. So i'm speaking for all of us Many of our institutions have been at the forefront of seeking to make our communities better places for decades Copa copa has been vocal about the need to create workforce housing We helped move the county to pass its first housing element in 20 years We've helped build senior housing at st. Stevens and we've been conducting and continue to conduct civic academies on housing To inform constituents about these complex issues and also to To address resistance The housing crisis affects each of us in a number of ways it affects me personally and that I have five children Who will never be able to buy a home in this county? My eldest is a nurse who works for hospice of santa Cruz One of my sons works at our mental health facility across from harbour high My other son has an mba. I have two daughters still in college These are santa cruises own kids Kids who did everything we asked we asked them to get an education and contribute and give back to society Our congregations are losing members In clergy our schools can't recruit teachers our health institutions can't recruit doctors And nurses et cetera at our copa convention on september 30th. Um, we hope to see you all there We'll be a large housing will be a large part of our agenda And about a thousand people will be present to hear about this opportunity So we would like to ask you to um to accept this staff Recommendation to put this on the ballot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story Good morning. Welcome back chair supervisors. Good morning Uh, I represent i'm the chair of the uh, santa cruz coalition on homelessness I direct the warming center program in santa cruz I've toured the the west coast and I've seen 40 cities and seen what's happening out there at homelessness Money is coming and finally it's really good and I I I like to talk about design concepts It doesn't matter how much money comes into this community if the design is poor We've already been spending all of the money on virtually No positive effect when you look at the homelessness on the street. It's mushrooming in every city We could with no money with better design do much more with less That's what I want to have you thinking about through through november Doing more with less in fact no matter how much money money we spend are we still going to see elderly women and Walkers and wheelchairs sleeping in our doorways. Are we going to have people in the the crevices and under the felton bridge and everywhere else? So what I encourage and and with the warming center program We spend very little money and we we are scalable to infinity not one person has to sleep outside on the very coldest nights We get zero funding for the city of santa cruz a little bit of county funny for watsonville for that We also now a program. We're in our third month called the day and night storage program It's scalable to infinity. We make sure that nobody has to carry around their belongings We get zero funding from government for that, but I want to see you say you can already see the impact on the street Let's build programs Let's actually make a commitment countywide that every single person who sleeps outside Can get the shelter that they need by any means necessary and it's not about money It's about perfect design. We don't want to spend more money and and years later realize that we haven't amounted to anything The new shelter concept is the navigation center But go to san francisco and really see what the bang for the buck is What was the bang for the buck for smart solutions to homelessness smart solution to homelessness? Thank you Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. My name is kate areyetta I'm 70 years old I have a modest home in capitol. It's 800 square feet My property taxes are four thousand two hundred and forty two dollars a year 28 of that amount goes to bonds My social security monthly payment is seven hundred and thirty dollars I pay forty eight point three percent Of my social security money into property taxes Let me say that again I pay forty eight point three percent of my monthly social security payments in property taxes At 28 percent of those property taxes go to bonds I would hope that affordable housing Would not further my burden on my property taxes. Thank you Thank you Good morning. Morning everyone. I'm tom bros. I'm a organic farmer in watsonville and currently also president of santa Cruz county farm bureau and sat on the broad coalition of This bond measure and I I think it's really important to point out that agriculture is facing a farm worker crisis farm worker housing crisis and Amidst labor shortage as well And I think it's really important to recognize through the farm worker housing study that was just released in monterey and santa Cruz that We have an overcrowded situation among farm worker in among farm workers And that 70 percent of the farm workers today are living amongst us in our community And it is really important that we have permanent affordable housing for our farm workers In the sense that we can have an agricultural industry that can thrive that can you know support our community here And so I'm really hopeful that we can With the county also already prioritizing farm worker housing to continue working with everyone and see this bond Be put on the ballot. Thank you very much Thank you Good morning Good morning. My name is joel de valcourt. I was born and raised in santa Cruz And I personally cannot afford to live in santa Cruz with my wife and my son Even though I actually work in the field of developing affordable housing I have been working for about seven years to support and create affordable homes in the greater bay area region And right now is a really really exciting time for affordable housing Despite what is happening at the national level. We have a lot of local governments counties In particular who are stepping up and really investing in their people and their economy and their environment And san Mateo santa clara and alameda counties all did it successfully in 2016 They raised a considerable amount of money for affordable housing and now It has done so much to invest and infuse capital into what is a really challenging federal disinvestment in housing And we can do it as locals. We can do it as a community And I I believe very firmly that this will have an Exceptional positive impact on on santa Cruz county for for residents for people who are vulnerable as well as families who are struggling to afford So thank you very much. I look forward to your support for the bond. Thank you Morning. Thank you for waiting Morning members of the board members of the community. My name is matt nathanson I am the regional vice president for sciu local five to one and i'm a county employee here on my own time Um, and i'm here to speak in favor of the motion before you to put this bond measure on the ballot before the voters Affordable housing from the perspective of the members we represent who are county workers city workers nonprofit workers school district workers Is critical is we you know, we struggle with you at the bargaining table to fight for an affordable wage And then it all gets wiped out and more in the cost of housing More and more our members are living further and further away from their jobs Many of them are county workers who actually need to be available during crisis situations You know, if you think about the floods last year when you needed road workers coming in and the remarkable work people did They need to be close enough to be able to do that child protective services workers, etc This will not this we know that this will not solve the whole problem Affordable housing is going to take many different solutions But this is an option available to you and we need to start working on the solutions It's paired well with there's a state bond measure before us proposition one this year I think this will help us leverage money from that assuming that that passes And then it's really my last comment is after november And these votes have happened. We want to continue to work with the county on other solutions Including things like looking at issues like workforce housing I think that's a way that the county can make us a unique contribution to developing more affordable housing in our community So we look forward to this being on the ballot so that we can discuss it and formally take a position to support it Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning Good morning. My name is erica padilla chavez a native of watsonville and the director of bahadu valley prevention and student assistance And i'm here this morning To share with you the connection between housing and the behavioral health of our children in the paharo valley In our agency we provide behavioral health or mental health services and substance abuse services to over 7 000 Children and their families in the paharo valley As was previously mentioned The housing conditions that many of our families are living in In in south county are requiring families to share two to three bedroom house between a family of four to five families Every individual Should have the opportunity to live in a housing environment environment that provides some sense of security And peace it's a sanctuary a home is a sanctuary and for those of us in the mental health community We have a mantra a motto that housing is first that we can't address the mental health conditions of our Children and our families without first ensuring that their housing needs are met We don't have that access right now by putting this on the ballot You're providing an equitable opportunity for these children to live a very prosperous life So I thank you for considering the many children and families that do need this opportunity so that they can live a prosperous life Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the outstanding work your organization does for the community Good morning and welcome back Okay, real quick I do not believe that you can make housing more affordable By making it more expensive Currently we already pay 500 more in property taxes than they do in the state of hawai If you add on top of that all the various bonds that we have The average person moves every four or five years. So the average price is 900 thousand dollars That's nine thousand dollars a month a year in property taxes with bonds You're looking at a thousand dollars a month just to pay for taxes and bonds the average house is 3600 That's a thousand of it right there just to pay for more taxes But so I urge you guys there are things that we can do that won't cost 140 million dollars that can improve housing The state has passed numerous laws considering the zoning We right here can take responsibility for our own zoning. The state has passed laws We can have multiple houses per parcel. We can have multiple ad us. We can have junior ad us We can have kitchenettes all in a house. Look at the map up there We live in one of the least dense counties in the entire state I personally own three acres. I have seven neighbors that touch my property five of them are one acre or less I go downstairs and I say hey, I'd like to rezone my property or divide it up to the same sides of my neighbors Guess what they say No I said, hey, I'd like to have a couple ad us of the state passed a law that says we can have multiple ad us They say, oh, that's interesting. No, that's too politically difficult to do We don't want to do that and they said oh, or it can pass a general plan I spoke to the sacramental the california department of housing and the people senator wikowski who passed the bill on the ad us They said it doesn't cost a constitute a change in the general plan Heck our even own representative senator stone Voted for a law that got an ad of committee that's going in front of the assembly now That would allow multiple ad us per parcel if our own stone who has a wonderful Approval rate around here can support that. Why can't we so let's get that discussion going as far as moving forward And that'll make that 140 million go a lot farther if we change the zoning. Thank you Good morning. Welcome back Good morning. We'll see I'm norah hawkman I'm with the movement for housing justice Specifically the campaign for rent control in the city of santa cruz We have not taken a position on this bond measure. Many of us have Very different thoughts about it But I want to say this on behalf of 20 000 renters in the city of santa cruz None of this helps them A bit They are dying on the vine They cannot afford to live here They are the people who provide a wide variety of services That you've heard about If you were bored took a position to support The campaign for rent control in the city of santa cruz 20 000 tenants would be cheering Your action On behalf of stabilizing their housing. This is very long term stuff All of those people they will be gone by the time any of this is realized So thinking long term that's great But my daughter and her family who already live in merced Are not going to benefit from any of this I'll probably be 85 or 90 years old by the time any of it comes to pass So i'm begging you on behalf of those tenants You should all be endorsing the campaign for rent control. Thank you Thank you, miss hockland. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Good morning. Thank you My name is dory roe zinda. I'm here on behalf of salud para la gente Salute para la gente supports the bond measure and Serves about 30 000 community members mostly in the pahoe valley and We do that with a commitment to Ensuring access to health care and improving and working towards a healthy community and and a very High contributor to poor health is housing At the santa cruz community ventures who will speak behind me Following me Has a survey that they did in watsonville and found that our our community spends Two-thirds of it spends Over a third of their income on housing Which sounds like a lot But I think when you consider in our community what that really means is they're spending more than a third on their housing In overcrowded and substandard conditions. It becomes something very significant significant and affects people's health In addition about 65 percent are about a month away from homelessness one paycheck Oh, no really seven other minute But I have more to say Give another minute to go. Okay, great. I just want to put a Picture to what it means to have health Conditions that are a result of housing. We have families or children that come in With rat bites with asthma from mold and mildew Pest infestations and this is really the kind of substandard housing that many families are living in within Watsonville and we support the bond measure both to create more affordable housing new housing and especially Rehabilitated housing which is an essential part. We also encourage that as it's implemented that there be local jurisdiction based committees Made up of community members to make sure that the implementation of it Assuming that it passes is Really focused on the equity of the community in which it's being built out. Thank you so much Thank you and thank you for solutes work. It's remarkable Good morning. Welcome back. Thanks for being here. Good morning chair and board My name is maria cadenas. I'm the executive director of Santa Cruz community ventures. We work to create compassionate and equitable local economies here in the county of Santa Cruz Two years ago. We did a study about the affordability and access for housing which uh, dory from salute just mentioned The truth is that the affordability housing gap is real in the county People are spending over 50 of their income Into housing eating away from their opportunity to save and actually create assets and move out of poverty of there or create economic Mobility or interest and is asking you the board to support placing this bond measure on the ballot for november And to consider other housing possibilities that have more short-term impact to our communities as well as taking an account Including the community's voices and decision-making's on planning and design and dancing Conversations dense conversations around how development happens. Thank you again for your time. Thank you Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning. Uh, Laura Segura executive director of monarch services. We've been in the community for 41 years working with Victims of domestic violence human trafficking and sexual assault I am a watsonville resident. I'm a taxpayer and i'm also a homeowner and i am happy to support this bond Housing as a human right and this bond will provide more housing including funding for those who are facing homelessness As funding gets rolled out. I really encourage that. We're really intentional about the policies we develop to ensure that policies are based on equity And a couple things that developments don't displace Families that and we're continuing to see that in in the watsonville community That's also called racialized displacement That also we implement and take a really close look at local preference policies That are that are put in place so that people who are living in our communities have access first access and priority access To the affordable units. So i'm really looking forward to working with the committee And supporting this measure. Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning My name is alina harway and i come to you today wearing two hats The first is as a santa cruz county resident. I lived just north of scott's valley in district five When my husband and i purchased our home, we declared it our forever home We simply love our community and loving this community means taking seriously a shared commitment to helping our community thrive Right now i'm concerned. I'm worried about my friends and peers I'm worried about families and hardworking people who are pushed to the brink of homelessness because of the cost of housing I worry into the future about the fate of my young son and his generation and if they'll be able to stay here I know my concerns are not exclusively mine. The other hat i wear today is that of communications director for nph The non-profit housing association of northern california Reason nph polling found that nine out of ten santa cruz county residents have those same fears that i do They're concerned about local workers low income residents and disadvantaged families being able to find an affordable place to live These concerns aren't someone else's problems When we're concerned about the community It's the responsibility of the community to find a solution to come together to find that The proposal in front of you today is that opportunity to address our problem by creating more affordable housing options and opportunities For santa cruz county families and hardworking individuals nph has been proud to work with the exploratory committee steered by don lane and fred kealy We've attended stakeholder meetings conducted research and shared the technical expertise We've accrued by helping other local communities in northern california pursue and pass similar policies As an affordable housing professional I can tell you that this measure is well modeled for success Visibility and that we work with non-profit home builders who are more than ready to create affordable homes But need local and state funds to bring those opportunities to our santa cruz county community As a local resident I can tell you that I live in a county filled with friends family and neighbors who are concerned about our housing crisis And want to take action to address it but need your vote today to put this opportunity in front of them I hope you will pass this resolution today and allow these opportunities to come before our community Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you Good morning and welcome. Thank you. Hi. Good morning. Good morning members of the board My name is carmen nereda manseer I'm a resident and homeowner in Watsonville, california. I'm also the executive director for the pajaro community development corporation In our organization, we promote equal access to economic opportunity And by assisting entrepreneurs who create jobs and wealth in our community However, this entrepreneurs often cannot afford to stay and live in our Area here in santa cruz county or Watsonville In fact last year one of our entrepreneurs went homeless while when she lost The lease to the home where she lived where her Children she had to go and put children in different houses of People that she knew until it took her months to find housing So for this reason i'm here to support The bond and I just also want to request that in issuing and doing the guidelines for that bond We think about Doing that assuring that there's equitable Community development lens in doing that and make sure that We are also Inclusive fair and that we give local preference for housing access so thanks very much for the opportunity and I also want to Ask I'm going to use this opportunity to ask you to support our work that we do in terms of economic development and creating Jobs and businesses in this community So i'm going to leave this in here for you to attend an event that we have Thank you. Thank you Good morning and welcome back Morning chair members of the board matt werta here Program manager housing program manager with monterey bay economic partnership I'm also a board member with non-profit housing association northern california. You heard from alina hard way earlier and just that's the kind of Of representation that I think you're going to hear a lot more of you already heard today And it's just really absolutely critical that this move forward to the voters under your leadership This is about trying to do The fair share for this community not only to to honor the needs of local community here, but to share and and the really critical Issue that we have an affordable housing and housing overall across the entire region and You know candidly we're just we're not going to see Very much if all at all any affordable housing if this doesn't move forward Because without subsidized Grants and long-term interest loans that this will make possible Affordable housing doesn't get done That's absolutely critical to underwrite the rents and to also provide the assistance for down payments for moderate income homebuyers in our community So this is a critical resource and Again, the other piece to remember is the four billion dollar Housing bond act. It's pulling really well. It looks like it's going to move forward at the state level We will not see our share our fair share here in our region If leaders such as yourself don't move courageously to make sure that we have local matching sources Thank you very much for your leadership. Thank you much for it though Good morning, mayor read. Thank you for being here this morning Thank you chair and board You've heard a lot of really eloquent testimony this morning On the need and the scope of the problem But I want to go back for a second to something that former mayor lane indicated Talking about the breadth of the coalition that we're looking at here that's getting behind this concept It's one thing to have affordable housing and homeless advocates who are before you championing a solution But when you've got business leaders from all across the county When you've got small businesses like we have in my city who realize that we have to do something about this When you've got working professionals When you've got parents soccer moms soccer dads who understand That it would be nice if there was a way that they were going to be able to spend time with their kids and their grandkids Once they got older and instead of moving with them to oregon or to texas or to new mexico Or arizona or nevada if they can find a place for them to be here So I think you've got a a unique moment in time where we can mobilize the people necessary to ensure There's a majority a two-thirds majority that'll pass this Secondly, I think we all know This is public policy that's been done the right way The outreach that's gone into crafting this measure led by fred keely and don lane. It's been done over years not weeks It's involved not handfuls of people but hundreds of people You've got a really well thought out solution a rational response to a very critical problem Third issue even if some of you might have questions about the cost or some of the issues in this bond I think we can all agree just on a basic philosophical level This is the most pressing issue that people in santa cruz county face today And when a well crafted solution comes forward it just almost seems there's an obligation to put this directly before the voters and left The voters have their say And the last thing I would say You know, we are living in a time when depending on what metric you use There is greater prosperity in this country right now than there has ever been in the lifetimes of anybody in this room At the same time we are living in a time where there's unprecedented fear and uncertainty about our political climate And about whether government can work virtually the only thing that people on both sides of the political spectrum can agree on Is that government is working for them whoever them is it's not looking out for themselves Here's a solution that addresses the most pressing problem that people have in a very thoughtful way. Thank you for your time Thank you for those comments Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Good morning. More than thank you for your time and attention My name is katelyn brun and I serve as CEO of the paharo valley community health trust And i'm here to speak in favor of the bond I think that each of you is aware that there's data that strongly indicates that improved housing and neighborhood environments could lead to Significant reductions in the health disparities that we experience north to south county I want to echo mere reed in saying that this is a model approach to crafting a solution That spans the issue of homelessness and housing affordability for for our community I want to speak to my colleague Rebekah garcia city council member in wettsville Saying that we have local solutions that have been demonstrated to address the problem effectively that are simply lacking for The resources needed to implement them and I want to echo tom bros organic farmer To indicate that there's a desperate Housing affordability crisis facing our farm worker population Which is the key constituent served by my organization? And here we have a wonderful opportunity to put this before the voters and do the right thing in terms of creating better access to housing for low income low wage workers Including farm workers and our health care workforce. So thank you for your attention. Thank you I think if your work Morning, welcome back. Good morning champions and supervisors the board. Thank you For being here and you're listening if we can get the screen you had up on the board That would be really great the one with the info you had and I'll continue so So I get nervous. I'm sure everyone else does But it seems like what you're doing is you are adding attacks onto people's homes And then they are paying for other people to have homes And then what that is is kind of like a reverse robin hood You're taking from home owners to make more homes and then their rent prices are going to go up Because they'll have to charge more to get the parcel taxes And the caveat is if people cannot pay For their parcel taxes and you've heard the other people speak if they cannot pay for all these taxes on their homes they run the threat of losing their homes and Affordable housing is a great conceptual idea and I acknowledge you guys for tackling This concept of how do we provide more housing for Santa Cruz and how do we provide more housing for people? but by using taxing of homeowners To buy property and create rents for other homeowners A renter shall I say? The questions I have is where does the money go? Because then it would be like is this going to the state is all the money going to more government funding Is it going to whose pockets are this going? And really what I'd like to put in place is how can we really empower the local citizens of Santa Cruz, california? like maybe make it easier for them to To build on their own property because if they can build on their own property They can provide more housing think provide more housing they can have more money in their pockets If they have more money in their pockets, they'll be a greater contribution to this community here that we have a so dear And the more it gets outsourced to people that aren't locals the more we lose its authenticity and Lastly I wanted to say on the summer you have 21 for regional homeless needs. I think you mean 21 million And that's a big difference Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back. Hi. Good morning Paulina Moreno with community action board Our work at cab focuses on working with Serving the most vulnerable and marginalized in our community That is low income families immigrants youth the reentry community and the homeless among others Every two years a month every two years cab leads community poverty conversations to identify the greatest impacts Of poverty in our county Last year in 2017 the second top need identified by people living in santa cruz county Was rent burden and housing insecurity with jobs in higher wages as the number one need The community is hungry for solutions and this affordable housing bond is one of those solutions So we thank you for your work and we strongly urge you to support it and place it in before Before borders in november. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your work Good morning. Welcome back morning commissioners. Um, Derek tim. I'm a small business owner here in the county and I have to say Usually you won't have me up here asking you to support more taxes But in this case, this is a really well thought through proposal And one of the most pressing concerns as a small business owner is retaining our employees and I've seen it time and time again Small businesses myself and other owners losing employees to the cost of housing in our county We need solutions and this is one part of a larger solution hats off to don lane And fred kealy who have brought together a broad coalition to support this I think they've scaled back from what was a more ambitious proposal They've reduced it by over a hundred million dollars to something that's more digestible. I think to the voters in this county I think it behooves you as a commission to put this on The ballot so the voters can vote on it and I think there's a lot of small business owners out there like myself I'll tell you a story of a employee of mine who was able to successfully get into an affordable housing unit She's been able to stay in this county unlike a lot of workers here And if we can provide that kind of solution to our our employees My business can keep on surviving as can other businesses in our county So so please let the voters decide on this and thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you Morning, mr. Kansano. Welcome back morning. Ray Kansano CEO committee bridges on behalf of the board The co-workers that I work with the families we serve and the 20 000 people we provide service to We're in support of this measure We've been in support of this measure for many reasons. Um, ucsc found the study 70 percent of our community. It's rent burdened We know we have the second Largest percentage of poverty in our community hcaa Did a research study also and found two thirds of our employees are Using some sort of services in our community in order to maintain their living standards here The reality is it's impacting everybody through this process We've been a part of helping craft this and we scaled it back We talked to community members and the original envisioned Number was a lot higher I look forward to spending the hundred and twenty You know dollars a year in addition to help support other community members me and my wife. I shouldn't say just me Um to help support to make sure that we have affordable housing for everybody including Non-profit workers and those that we serve in our community. So thank you. Hopefully for your support. Thank you. Mr. Kansano Welcome back. Mr. Willoughby Good morning. Tim will be speaking for affordable housing now Affordable housing requires three things land money and political will and today you Can tackle two of those you can move this on to the voters to provide a significant amount of money To solve this problem and you can put the political will behind it a unanimous vote Today would be a good note for the community to note take notice of that you support us So we hope that you will unanimously pass this on to the voters. Thank you. Thank you and thank you for your work Good morning. Welcome morning members of the board My name is Lynn Warren I'm a resident of aptos and i'm a former director of the state department of housing community development And I also served as program director for the state's housing finance agency I'd like to emphasize the critical nature of these housing firms would play and accessing these state funds the funds are these applications come from A critical need that is supplied for affordable housing for this county applications for these funds from around the state Are highly competitive and state administrators and sacramental look to The funds that are supplied by local housing I have seen a great number of housing programs around the state Failed to reach their housing goals because of the absence of local money In the fall there will be two Affordable housing related bonds and I can speak from experience that once those bonds if they pass The administrators and sacramental will move very quickly to access those funds and look to local governments and their financing commitments to go forward I really do encourage you to support this bond. It'll make a big difference. I think for the residents of this county Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your service Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for waiting My name is rosalinda marino. I've been a resident of santa cruz county or city for the last 50 years I am taught this bond is not going to help me, but it will help other generations I am a renter and I just received in the mail Last week a six hundred dollar month Raised in my apartment and I am 80 years old and I Definitely want everyone to vote for the rent control in the city of santa cruz So that it doesn't happen to them that I might be come homeless as a disabled 80-year-old in santa cruz county So i'm just urging everyone to vote for this which is in the future I don't know what i'm gonna do. I have called around. There is no this open for senior affordable housing right now in santa cruz So I have to take it one day at a time and hopefully something will come up Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story Morning mr. Kramer welcome back morning morning chair friend and members of the board My name is phil kramer executive director of the homeless services center in santa cruz We have 200 people living in emergency shelter and transitional housing on our campus in santa cruz and we support Another 260 people throughout the county of santa cruz hsc is an enthusiastic supporter of the housing bond and hopefully You are too and we'll see it on the on the ballot in november One of the biggest impediments and challenges we have roadblocks We have to housing more individuals veterans And families that are experiencing homelessness is a sufficient inventory and supply of affordable housing So that's one piece of the bond that I think will be a big help And help us house more people that find themselves in the crisis of homelessness another piece the 15 part of the bond that will go towards Homeless services such as more shelter and transitional housing We're also really excited about that. We know that shelter as a pathway to housing works last year We helped house over 249 people. So we know that shelter as a pathway to housing works So we're really excited about that and hopefully we'll be able to apply that funding to new infrastructure developments shelter And transitional housing programs in the coming years. So thanks so much For everything that you do and and look forward to your support. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Good morning My name is kandace elliott and I wear a lot of different hats in this community I'm the human resources manager for the glass jar restaurant group And we have 150 staff that work in santa cruz and capitol and they live in every district in the county And i'm also a member of the alliance of women entrepreneurs and a board member for the santa cruz downtown association We're all focused on creating a thriving downtown space and housing is a major part of that Until recently I was the president of the board of directors at pahoro valley loaves and fishes Which serves watsonville with nutritious food And i'm a fifth generation californian and my mom and my sister live here in santa cruz And my great grandmother ruth noren used to come here on vacation from fresno like years and years and years ago And and i'm a ceramic artist and I work with locally sourced materials I've been a part of this coalition for the past nine months and i'm very excited that we've come to this point And I'd like to encourage you to put this measure before the voters so that they can decide what's best for this community. Thank you Thank you Good morning. Welcome back Hello, my name is evan suruki and with santa cruz yinbi and we're here to support the affordable housing bond and just further tax reform and bonds of this resort because Uh, you know while we support housing creation Of market rate. We realized that the market rate housing alone may not impact the lowest income Of our population and so but furthermore we do also echo some concerns here and Advocate that you make these affordable housing funds go further by advancing some other things like Upsoning and allowing for more You know density bonuses and you know more opportunities to be more efficient with the land And also streamlining the permitting and also the fee structures so that you aren't charging affordable housing, especially Perhaps as much fees and making it just easy to get through a process not taking a very long time. And so Thank you Thank you Good morning. Welcome back. Good morning I'm bruce hall away from boulder creek um Fred and don and I have had parallel careers uh, I went to Sister high school from where fred went. I went to homestead high school I think fred and I overlapped for a little bit in at dns of college in 1972 Uh, then I went to uc santa barber. I know don went to uc santa cruz Uh, if I recall correctly, they studied politics And I studied economics Um You can't make housing more affordable by putting a tax on housing. That's the fundamental problem with this proposal It's not going to work And uh, when I say it's not going to work. I mean that the negative consequences will outweigh the benefits over time The The chart over there says a thousand units could be built over like 30 or 40 years And if like 2.75 people live in each one of these units, that's about 2800 people Uh, that's about 1% of the current population of santa cruz county So I get the proposal is to tax everyone in the county for 30 or 40 years to help 1% To somewhat help them. You're not going to fully help them. I think this is a drop in the bucket And I think that The lack of affordable housing around here is largely a self inflicted wound It's because local jurisdictions have been pursuing no growth or low growth policies for more than 40 years here The barriers to development have been erected so high now. Maybe it's improving now for the county at least But the the backlog of that 40 years worth of uh of negative development policies is what has caused this problem largely Uh state matching funds the proposal on the ballot in november, I think is 3.1 billion There's another billion for veterans or something 3.1 billion our share of that would only be 21 million dollars Thank you. This is far outside of what we need for state matching funds. Thank you Good morning and welcome back Good morning chair rest of supervisors. My name is robert singleton. I'm the executive director of the santa cruz county business council We represent around the 80 large eight years. So largest employers in the county Every year we poll our members about the issues that are most important to them and the issues that are affecting their business And every year that i've been at the business council, which is six years now housing has been by far and away the number one issue Just cutting right down to it because of the high cost of housing It's really hard to attract and retain talented employees It's really hard to maintain service workers Here in santa cruz county to support our industries that are you know agriculture and and hospitality are two biggest industries So we need to do something to address the housing affordability crisis And while this is a tax on housing, it's a progressive tax that would go towards those the larger houses to help fund Those who are most in need and the business community recognizes that that's important And that's why we're supporting these kinds of issues And that's why we've been involved in the planning of this about initiatives since the beginning with fred and don And so just want to say we urge you to put this in the ballot. Um, thank you for your time Thank you. Mr. Singleton. Good morning. Welcome. I appreciate you waiting Good morning. My name is alex wasky. I'm a program manager with hope services in santa cruz We support individuals with developmental disabilities There are approximately 1 000 adults with developmental disabilities in this county Approximately 600 of which still live in their family homes. This is often not by choice affordable housing is a major barrier to these people leading happy and and fulfilling lives It's also a barrier to us Finding and maintaining a team of direct service professionals that can afford to live in this county So I just want to say that we are in support of this This bond. Thank you. Thank you for your work And we did receive a letter from your executive director in support as well. Thank you. Good morning, mr. Foster. Welcome back Good morning and chair friend and members of the of the board I'm david foster executive director with habitat for humanity monorail board bay I'd like to be on record in support of the On behalf of my board in support of the bond measure Habitat does its part in as its small part in building affordable homes here in the county Using local volunteers. We're currently building home ownership homes in live oak with Support from the county and our next two homes will be reserved for a family with a mobility disability and a veterans family Since the loss of the redevelopment agency in 2011 The availability of local housing funds has plummeted Affordable housing programs simply cannot survive without the local funding Sources needed to be competitive for state federal and tax credit housing funds Please let's make this a unanimous vote. Thank you very much. Thank you for your work. Mr. Foster. Good morning. Thank you for waiting Good morning. Mike Paizano live oak I've been very lucky to be part of Measure all unit up on the campus and now measure jave and live oak and I urge and I vote to help retain workers local And also keep our families local. Thank you. Thank you Morning. Welcome back. Ms. Garrett Marilyn Garrett, I want you to visualize this cartoon and I'm going to get you a copy of it there it's a A man in like Dr. Scarb And he has his clipboard He says are you feeling sad and depressed? You may be suffering from capitalism Sys symptoms include homelessness unemployment hunger anxiety fear we're talking about a system problem of capitalism That's based upon greed And I appreciate Bruce Holloway's comments on economics. Here's some other economics of this Over half of our tax scholars go to The military budget and the congress just approved 717 billion Dollars for more military money I heard someone else say we suffer from a lack of local funds These funds are being siphoned out of this community and other communities to go to Dangerous inappropriate Priorities for profit for the military and big business and big developers This does not solve the problem It's a system problem And I have Reported to this board before and I'll say this again I saw real Affordable housing when I visited the former soviet union Relatives of modern in 1966 After the war They had my Mother's cousin paid about five percent of her income for rent. Thank you. Ms. Garrett. Thank you Good morning. Welcome back mr. Darling. Thanks for waiting You're all darling retired pastor Currently participating in a congregation mother's congregation That's seriously considering building affordable housing on a Plot here in Santa Cruz are in live oak area one of several congregations who are also looking at Means by which we can build on Church a lot of church property I strongly encourage Your support of this measure I also the bond measure I also Appreciate you're putting it before the community for a citizen's vote and I encourage Other congregations to consider whatever means by which we can Encourage and enhance the living conditions of people in our community Including possibility of tiny home tiny houses. Thank you very much Thank you. Is there anybody else like to address us? Ms. Barr welcome back. Thank you very much. Jane Barr Eden housing I urge your unanimous support for this housing bond Eden has approximately 1,800 families on our wait list of the seven rental apartment complexes we own in Santa Cruz county Despite the fact that these wait lists have been closed on all but one of the properties since 2014 and 2015 Nevertheless, we receive inquiries daily The staff estimate of 987 affordable rental units including ad use Will be will not be hard to meet in a fairly short period of time During the exploratory phase of the bond the pipeline projection was put together which estimated That 1,400 units of only new affordable rental housing could be developed over 10 years Our wait list alone could fill the proposed units funded by this bond one and a half times Hopefully the dollars we stretch to build much more housing than this estimate Each drop in the bucket helps and more supply should help slow down rent increases Finally the importance of this local bond cannot be underestimated Anticipating approval of the state housing bond Santa Cruz county will be best positioned to compete for the state funds if Jurisdictions have local funds to commit as a local match. Thank you Thank you Welcome back. Mr. Keely. Thank you. Mr. Chairman members. Thank you very much. My name is fred keely resident of Santa Cruz county and the city. I wanted to clarify one issue the issue of Seniors and the affordability of the property tax system Uh, you probably know that this bond does not need to have a specific provision Exempting low-income seniors and so on there is a state statute Which allows seniors at a certain low income level to defer their property taxes And it automatically applies to any tax that is adopted by the voters property tax based So I wanted to say people have said Gee, this doesn't have it in it It doesn't need to be in it because the state law covers any tax related to property. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Keely is anybody else like to address us Okay, it's being done. We'll we'll bring it back to the board for consideration and action supervisor McPherson Yeah, I'd like to thank Especially fred keely don lane Affordable housing now now millenie sereno I I know that she put a lot of work into this in this last month to make it all fit For those to put into this measure together. I know it's taken many months and there's been many Representatives here and I I haven't seen this rep reminds me of what we did with measure d in the transportation sector when we got a rule In conglomerate of folks together to see how we can address the housing needs of this of this county And the affordable housing need here in this Region in this county is not unlike any every other county in california and and much of the united states as well And I I think we should let the voters decide If they want to invest more in affordable housing I do appreciate That the manner before us is 140 million dollars Which strikes a balance was For being an overburden some Challenge to the property owners today. I mean it was first thought to be 250 million dollars. That would have been a a real Real hurdle for people to give some people to get over but I think if this passes in november I would like to see something In an implementing ordinance from the ceo that addresses how we can in our planning department, which has been overburdened with various challenges and and and That it has to put forth before us But I would like to see that in terms of the permitting process that this gives Special attention. I mean it's one thing to approve this But historically our planning department. I don't think it's been in recent years But it hasn't been you know on put it in the high gear to get something done as far as housing goes If we're going to do this and we're going to address Building affordable housing I would like to see uh somehow we develop in the planning department a format for what is needed to Quantify qualify for this affordable housing measure And so when somebody comes in to the planning department, they can get some quick attention Predictable attention to get something done In essence, I don't want to see These estimated 1041 units take 20 years to build I'd like to see if we're going to do this Let's see Let's get a program and a procedure in the planning department so we can move forward as quickly as possible I don't know what that is and it could be very complicated But I think if we're really serious about this We don't have a history of building a lot of units per year in the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz county I want to make sure that we focus on getting the job done that what the people should they approve this Say they want to do that. We're going to build more affordable housing in the shortest amount of time possible Thank you. Supervisor McPherson. Supervisor Caput Well, we're voting on putting it on the ballot letting people vote on Whether or not they want this tax and uh, I will I'll move for approval Thank you. Supervisor Caput soup soup. There is not a motion yet, but uh, Supervisor Coonerty Yeah, uh, I'm obviously supportive and I appreciate everyone taking the time to come out today Um, in order to get discussion started. I'll move approval of the recommended action Motion from Coonerty So And a second from McPherson was continued conversations. Uh, Supervisor Coonerty, you have additional information to add Okay, Supervisor Leopold. It's hard to keep track. What's uh, where the emotions are being made Uh, first of all, I want to thank everyone for uh, for coming down here today talk with us Uh, I appreciate all the work that has been done in the community Uh, to put something together that has broad support. Um, it's very clear that affordable housing is at a crisis level here in Santa Cruz and We have to do uh, we have to look at all sorts of creative ways this board has work to make things easier For building things like ad use we have thought about our development future differently And not all be single family homes And we need resources to be able to do that Um, the state law sets a very high bar Uh, to pass measures tax measures Um, and it's important to be able to go out to the public and ask what they want to invest in Uh, and uh through that process we we can um be fairly sure Uh, that we're doing what the public wants And so I hear people complain sometimes about taxes, but those were all passed by the people most of them on at a two-thirds level This has a high bar to pass And it will require lots of work by everybody here in this room and lots of other people in the community in order to be successful But I believe that this coalition is strong and effective and uh reaches out into the community that it can be successful I believe it's important to ask people if they if if they've identified affordable housing as a number one Issue that we provide an opportunity for people to weigh in and uh provide resources to help Address the issue. So I support the motion Thank you. Supervisor Leopold I just like to also add my thanks not just to mr. Lane and mr. Keeley, but the work internally of staff that happened behind the scenes mr Raino, miss coburn, miss mccray, mr. Plosios There are a lot of county staff that worked with all the cities on Trying to put something together that could come before us today that would be Legal and also actionable. So I appreciate the work on that And to me, I think that the question that's really before the board and before the community at large is when will we fundamentally turn the page on The impacts of affordability so that the next generation does not face What this current generation faces and when will we also turn the page on the immediate impacts Of affordability On homelessness on working families on seniors on veterans On teachers on public safety so that they too can have relief From impacts that are Forcing people to make very difficult decisions within our community And to the argument that this may take a while to provide some relief Uh, I would say that it's incumbent upon policy makers to make decisions so that future generations don't face the challenges that we face today It'd be like saying that i'm not going to eat vegetables today because I might It's only going to impact heart disease in 20 years I think that you eat vegetables today for a lot of reasons And you make long-term investments in not just a community but in yourself And our board and those that have been involved in this Brought together by the way a coalition of people who have not just historically not been together but haven't been together on this issue That's very telling the people that have come before this board over the last two years to advocate For improved housing access, especially affordable housing access have historically Not been at the table and in fact been against housing expansion If that isn't a clue to the greater community in the state at large that we're at beyond a tipping point on this I don't know what is and one element that helps address it is financing And I do believe that what's before us today can help turn that page for those future generations So i'm supportive of it and I appreciate the work of the community on this We have a motion. We have a second all those in favor I opposed It passes unanimously We're gonna take a the board will take a very brief 10 minute break We'll come back at 11 35 for our next item give an opportunity to clear the room and also take a brief break So 10 minutes Okay Good morning everybody like to call back into session the board of supervisors for august 7th I'd like to thank everybody for their patience. We've had a lot of items today as you can tell on the agenda And the next item that we have here is item 5 which is to consider report on revenue options and funding strategies to address The county's critical unmet needs a resolution to provide for the submission of a countywide measure authorizing a one-half cent increase in the sales tax on transactions In the unincorporated area to the qualified voters of the county of santa cruz at the general election to be held November 6 2018 and a resolution establishing budget priorities should voters approve the sales tax measures outlined in the memo of the CAO we have the resolution calling the election for a sales tax measure and a resolution supporting budget priorities Good morning. Mr. Palacios. Thank you for your patience on this Yes, a chair friend and members of the board Carlos Palacios county administrative officer on june 26 The board received a report on critical unmet needs that had been identified by department heads during budget hearings The board the board directed staff to return today with options to to potentially fund some of these critical unmet needs Today the county is in a sound financial position with a balanced budget Which was achieved without major cutbacks or layoffs as we have seen in other neighboring jurisdictions This is the result of years of good financial stewardship and prudent fiscal management This is just some of the policies that the board has adopted over the years that have resulted in our sound financial position at the current time We've tripled reserves. We've taken decisive action Years ago to reduce pension costs And retiree health costs and all of this has resulted in improved greatly improved bond ratings right now our bond ratings are double a plus for the majority of our bonds and triple a for a general obligation bond We also have nine percent less employees today than we did in 2008 and that's despite having Implemented many new additional programs These are some of the programs that the board has uh augmented over the recent years Chief among them the nurse family partnership and thrive by three both programs designed to help our young population Um whole person care medical drug expansion Very significant in terms of providing Health care and substance use disorder treatment for our population As well as a number of programs aimed at helping the homeless We've done all that while making significant progress in repairing storm damage roads due to uh 2017 winter damage And we've increased funding for public safety Despite those new services, we have critical unmet needs that still have not been met They fall in two categories one are ongoing operational needs These programs would continue into the future and are operational in nature And the others are one time costs that would be for park capital improvements It's important to note that the critical unmet needs that were identified by the department heads Align perfectly with the strategic plan which the board adopted on June 26 They uh fit in perfectly with the goals that were set at that time So let's talk about the ongoing Operational needs they're divided into three main categories the first two regard are regarding mainly our homeless population The focus deterrence initiative offers Programming that would pair public safety personnel deputy sheriffs with behavioral health personnel to form small teams that would go out and offer services to that small subset of the population That is resistant to receiving treatment and services Some of these individuals are resistant to services and engaging in criminal conduct Um, this program would be Something is something that the sheriff and Our health services agency have both talked about during budget hearings And they are here in the audience to talk further about that during public comments In addition, uh, we want to fund the operational costs of a year round 24 hour homeless navigation center one in Santa Cruz And one in the city of watsonville right now. We offer emergency shelter during the winter But we don't offer very much in terms of Day services and we only and we close down the winter shelter During the summer this navigation center would offer year round 365 days 24-hour services in both watsonville and santa cruz who would house Provide services to about 40 adults in watsonville and about 150 in the city of santa cruz And then we have needs to maintain our parks And provide more recreational activities both for youth and seniors And so this proposal would also provide new staffing to our parks department Both to maintain our parks and to offer new recreation services The other main category of needs that we are presenting to you today involve Parks and critical capital improvement projects This is a list of the parks in which There we have plans, but we do not have funding Let me just highlight a few channecler park Which would include leos haven Which would be the county's first all-inclusive playground for children of all abilities And this will include numerous accessible structures and features There's been over two million dollars raised privately for this project And now the county needs to do its part and meet Match those funds to help make this park a reality Simkins swim centers another Need this is a deferred maintenance issue where the aging pool infrastructure including pumps heaters and the deck need to be replaced Um, there's also the opportunity to provide lighting at the pool which would allow nighttime use of the pool That would be a very Important project for us and then you can see that the felton nature park Is um also something that's planned in conjunction with the felton library It would provide an outdoor learning space for environmental literacy programming Interactive nature discovery zones and an interpretive nature loop trail There has been grant funding secured for this project, but we need to find the county match And then there's also funding for an aptus village improvements at the aptus village park and for a possible new park in south county as well So the challenge before the board is how do we find the funds that are needed to fund these critical unmet needs? That also align with the goal set by the board in our strategic plan So we looked at two main options one is a sales tax or transactions and use tax And the other is the hotel tax or also called the transient occupancy tax The sales tax currently in capitol and scott's valley is at nine percent In watsonville and santa cruz. It's nine point two five percent And the unincorporated area of the county is eight point five percent So we now have the lowest sales tax in the county A quarter cent sales tax would bring in two point eight million dollars a half cent would bring in Five point seven million dollars and this would be in the unincorporated area The hotel tax or the transient occupancy tax is currently at 11 percent in capitol a santa cruz watsonville and the county scott's valley is at 10 percent It was last raised in 2012 I know that there are proposals to increase this the hotel tax in scott's valley and Capitol and I believe there will be one in watsonville as well This would bring in a one percent increase in the the hotel tax would bring in about seven hundred and sixty two thousand dollars So staff is recommending after reviewing these options and the critical and meant needs that we have before you To place a half cent transactions and use tax or sales tax on the november 6 ballot This would be a tax in the unincorporated area only Even though the entire voters in the entire county would vote on it Because they are would also benefit from the tax It would be for a 12 year period and it would be subject to annual audits and independent citizens oversight The process would be that if the board chooses today to place it on the ballot It would go in the ballot in november If it's approved it would be in effect probably in the last quarter of this fiscal year So march through june So we would get about a quarter of the proceeds if we put in a half cent So that would be about 1.4 million dollars in this fiscal year 2018-19 So we would have next year in 1920 you would have the full 5.7 million this year You'd have only 1.4 million dollars Here's how we would propose that the budget the board budgeted if it is approved by the voters We we would recommend that about a little more than 400 000 dollars be used for the ongoing operating costs Of the focused deterrence initiative This is where the sheriff deputies and the behavior health would offer services For those individuals who are resistant to enter into treatment and And then we'd also fund the homeless navigation centers Both in watsonville and in santa cruz And then we'd also fund the parks maintenance workers and recreation staff So that would be for that partial year funding for these programs And then we would recommend trying to find the funds to to fund all of these projects which total 4.3 million dollars We think there's a way to do it. We've come up with it Here's the the recommendation we will be making to the board if the sales tax is approved We would recommend using a million dollars of the sales tax in this year Prop 68 funds which are state funds of half a million dollars We believe there's going to be about a million dollars in budget savings from this Last fiscal year and we also were notified that we are going to be reimbursed for sp90 mandate money And we propose using about 1.9 million dollars of that So the combination of those four sources of funding would allow us to fund All of these projects every one of them, which would be a great benefit to the community So in conclusion, that's our recommendation and that concludes my staff report. Thank you very much Thank you Supervisor Caput Just to for the sake of transparency The the tax we're talking about is a 12 year tax. That is correct Okay, it's not a 30 year tax a 12 year tax 50 cents 50 plus one vote to pass it that is correct. Okay to assure that it's going to what we're voting for Putting it on the ballot. I mean that that's separate but People voting for it How can they be assured that it's going to go to what we intended to go to? Well, we put on a resolution Which the board on today's agenda to a company placing the measure on the ballot Which would set out these budget priorities for the board and so you would be on record Approving these budget priorities. Okay, and then I'm going to just read south county parks to provide matching funds To unlock other resources and I'll skip over a little bit to increase park safety Deferred maintenance and establish new Or expanded park facilities. That means we could actually purchase land and add acreage to south county parks that is correct. I like the wording on that and Just uh, I'll make a quick commentary, but I'm ready to vote on this Um, you know, it's a sad commentary On society today when you drive around and you look at what we used to use schools for Parks and rec our kids just going down there to the school to shoot baskets or To play catch or to kick the soccer ball around Uh, if you look around there are fences that have gone up I've noticed the schools a lot of schools are starting to look like prisons and It's a sad commentary something bad happens somewhere else and I really hate to see that and I've been arguing that At least on weekends gates should be unlocked people should be able to use those schools For recreation and The schools are not doing that a lot of They're locked up 24-7 or whatever on weekends and So what i'm getting at is I don't want us to If we're going to expand facilities and we're going to actually do maintenance I don't want to see walls go up all around the facility and locking them out I want to see access people You know able to go down there So I I mean walls do not solve problems They just defer problems and they they put them off somewhere else So anyway, I just want to make sure that Our parks are accessible And I would like to see schools making their land accessible for people to use also their playgrounds For the kids that we see here that they're able to go down there and use them Taxpayers are paying for all this And to have them locked out During Reasonable hours Is not fair to the taxpayer they're paying for it. They should have access to it their kids and family should have access to it also And let's see just refer That's basically it. So thank you Thank you a brief question from supervisor leopold. I know we want to get to the community as well Thank you chair I just wanted to ask Although this will be a tax that's only charged in the unincorporated area The services that are going to be provided here are really countywide the focus deterrent Initiative is really to to work with all of our incorporated cities as well The simpkins swim center is obviously a regional park facility The leo's haven is is going to be the only all accessible park for Handicap children throughout all santa cruz county. So this So everybody's going to get a chance to To vote on this but everybody will also get a chance to benefit from this. Is that right? That is correct Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate everybody's patience Now is an opportunity for members of the community to address us on this item Please feel free to step forward. Can I get a sense of how many people are interested in addressing us on this item? Just to know how long testimony will be. Okay. We'll offer three minutes for each person Thank you. Ms. Roberts. Yes Three minutes. I know you don't have to take it all This is true. Watch out You want to come? Okay I actually wrote something down today because it's a very wonderful celebratory day for our team My name is mariah roberts director of shanta clear park neighbors evesinos See And i'm here to say thank you To you for showing your commitment to the private public partnership that is leo's haven at shanta clear park Thank you for prioritizing parks in your funding decisions And working with us to care for these spaces that we all hold dear through these years of work You have shown us that a partnership with the county of santa cruz is not only possible It can lead to something greater than its parts Prioritizing healthy public spaces opens a free and accessible path for all of us to take charge of our own health To find community to connect with nature and to strengthen our families We have a comment What's your name Anything else about the park And i want the park Back to the boring the boring comment Leo's haven at shanta clear park has supporters from every district in this county From service clubs chambers of commerce community groups businesses medical providers educators I cannot think each of think each of them enough Today, I really want to give a shout out however to the el patio de micasa bilingual family support group from live oak community resources For years since we first organized these families have met every week out at the undeveloped park site no bathroom Led by their teacher yolanda provos de fuentes who I want to grow up and become She is they have raised their children planting and harvesting in the interim community gardens They have found health community and support from each other under a that giant beautiful live oak Whenever i'm weary of this fundraising and all of the hoops we all jump through I go join the families in the park I'm filled back up with nature. I'm nourished by the food from their harvest I'm soothed by conversation yolanda's guitar and the sound of kids playing I hope you'll join me in thanking them today for exemplifying what a public space can offer So I want to say thank you to the el patio families okay And thank you for seeing that value and for following through on our shared commitment to build leo's haven at janakler park. Thank you Thank you Oh We may have had staff here that was here earlier, but they had Okay I know what she said that is uh, it's very important to have A park in the community where the community these children are going to be for many years there and Park is fun if family communities is diversity Is everything and the children is our future, you know, i'm 70 six year old Committed to Do the work for them Because they're going to be here for a long time and I hope that all of you Do the same. Thank you very much and thank you mariah and thank you and all the mothers here You can raise and we use the park every week and we have a beautiful garden if you need care go there Thank you. Thank you for your work yolanda Hola Empoderados para enfrenta los retos de la vida moderna y que más con este parque no gracias por el apoyo gracias por lo que están haciendo para nosotros Buen día I'm going to do a better job now because before I didn't interpret She said that she wants Empowering the children and she goes to the garden because it's a place to Grow the children in a safe place Okay, thank you Okay Thank you for your patience for being here so long Good morning members of the board. My name is will forest I am a resident of the city of santa cruz and employee of the county of santa cruz And the president of the santa cruz county employees chapter of seiu And nowhere near as charming or entertaining or organized as the families who just spoke But one thing I want to say is anytime you're thinking about Proposing attacks There's Naturally, there's some resistance and there's there's some concern potentially on your part that it might fail that it might look bad and so on and so I cannot Because there is no ballot proposition as yet the seiu has not taken a position on it And so I can't speak as to that but what I can tell you is that I have spoken with Some of our members and our leaders and that we're enthusiastic about the prospect of this Proposition being approved by your board so that it can go to the people of the county to make an informed decision and I think anytime that you are Proposing something where you're putting it out to the voters to say hey Do you want to spend money on this thing then the voters are getting to make the final choice? and so I we fully support that and I know that there are not very many ways in which the county has the Ready ability to raise money and the the analysis by the ceo's or my staff Shows that this is one of the few ways that you can go ahead and do that And the purposes for which it is targeted in particular The combination of health services cooperation with law enforcement to Reduce both kinds of issues. We think is an extraordinarily good choice. So I want to urge you all to vote. Yes on this. Thanks. Thank you Thank you Thank you for waiting sheriff heart. Good afternoon. I think yeah afternoon now Chair friend board of supervisors jim heart sheriff corner And I I'm here just to express my support of the board to adopt this resolution to place the half-send sales tax On the november ballot. I talked to you a little bit at our budget hearing about the focused initiative focused deterrence initiative and That Something I didn't say is that in my 30 years in law enforcement. I have never seen The level of mental health calls and substance use disorder calls that our patrol staff receives every single day We're responding over 10 times a day to people who are in serious mental health crisis And that's just in the unincorporated area of the county. I'm sure the city of santa cruz and the city of watsonville are experiencing similar numbers And that's placing a tremendous burden on our patrol staff And and all they're able to do is really place a band-aid on that call in that moment And what this program would do would it would allow us to partner Sheriff's deputies with mental health professionals to work with the district attorney the public defender the courts the probation department to focus on people who Are causing harm in our community who won't accept and don't want help And so using resources that that we have access to particularly the county jail Along with other resources I feel like we can Convince these people that getting help getting off the street and and stop causing harm in our community In our open spaces our parks our beaches and our business districts It will do nothing but help our community In the fifth district. I think the most the most picturesque park in this county is the covered bridge park in the fifth district and That park is Tremendously underutilized because of the number of people who are drinking and doing drugs and acting out And you just don't see that many families in that park the way they should be using it And unless I place a deputy there during the day hours, it just doesn't get used And so I think having a team like this that could really focus on those people For some long-term solutions will have tremendous benefit to the county. So Thank you for your time and I encourage you to to vote. Yes on this resolution. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership Sheriff hard on that issue Good afternoon. Thank you for waiting. Good afternoon. Thanks for having me. My name is Karen Gosling And as a citizen of Santa Cruz county, I'm Extremely enthused by this measure as it's very exciting to see the energy going to something that is so critically important I'm also here as part of Santa Cruz sunrise rotary club And we along with many other rotary clubs have been very big supporters of leo's haven And I'm here with the the crew that was with us behind us to really Support this measure to make sure we get this park built as a as a health care professional and a rehabilitation therapist I know the the essential part of pay play has for children's development and the consequences of not having that And this park is really going to go a long way to ensuring the continued development for all of our children And and we have to have it soon as part of Santa Cruz sunrise rotary. We've been involved in many Public fundraisers or private fundraisers to help put money towards this and we have our final one coming up at the end of september It's our john and ken's most excellent adventure and we have over 75 people Who are training and raising money for this because they really believe in in this park and We're hoping that this could be the final push To get that groundbreaking done on october 13th so As a rotary member as a health care professional and as a citizen of this community I want to thank all of you so much for your continued support Um of the parks and especially leo's haven and thank you for your Creativity and finding ways to make this happen. Thank you And thank you caron for the leadership your leadership and the leadership of sunrise rotary for the project I know that you've already raised a lot of funds and to hear another one scheduled. Hopefully will be the last one Uh, uh is is great. So thank you for your leadership. You're welcome. Thank you Good afternoon, miss corwin Good afternoon. Um, i'm terry corwin. Some of you might remember me from my previous career as a CEO and president of land trust of santa Cruz county Um, i'm enjoying retirement now over a year, but i haven't lost my passion for this community its parks and its environment Um, my kids live here. I have grandkids here And i'm currently serving as treasurer of santa Cruz Friends of santa Cruz county parks there. I'm new um Despite my best efforts and those of some others over the last 10 years and much to my chagrin santa Cruz county still does not have sufficient Dedicated funding to steward its parks and open spaces Our current county parks department ably led by director gaffney Remains at risk of drastic cuts in the next inevitable recession We all remember when the last recession hit in the parks department was radically cut and rolled under public works Because of this lack of sufficient dedicated funding santa Cruz county does not have a strong public agency Such as an open space district or a stably funded parks department that can leverage and partner with nonprofits such as the land trust And or friends of santa Cruz county parks or others Non-profits working in conservation and recreation in santa Cruz county Are at a disadvantage to their bay area brethren when it comes to competing for federal and state funds that require Local matching funds. Thank goodness for our local philanthropic community partially fills that void I was honored to serve on the county park strategic planning working group I helped to facilitate at all five of the community meetings that were convened to receive input on priorities The community has spoken through the strategic planning process And they love their parks and they want to see it stick around The ballot measure before you presents an opportunity to provide some funding It does not solve the problem of dedicated funding But it sure is a good start and I applaud you for considering it. I plan on if it passes If you pass it and working hard to make it pass with voters. So thank you very much. Thank you. Ms. Corwin Morning miss hall. Welcome back Good morning chair friend honorable board of supervisors memey hall interim director of the health services agency I'm here just to speak about the importance of Reminding the board of the gaps that we have in the behavioral health system We enjoy great partnerships with human services department with our sheriff's office and with our local police departments But as I As I told the board during my budget presentation There are so many complexities to the work that we do And we have some serious gaps that are difficult to address Under the funding systems and mechanisms that we have And I really appreciate the work of not only the ceo's office, but also sheriff heart and chief wilson in working with us Back from it seems like the week that I got here in april on on this focused deterrence initiative And just wanted to express my gratitude. Thank you. Thank you for your work Welcome back commissioner. My not Good morning Supervisor friend. My name is kate minas. I live in aptos. I'm The second district representative on the county parks commission The parks commission met last night in watsonville where suppressor cap it was we weren't able to review today's measure But we took an informal poll and we know we're going to have a formal presentation make a formal Recommendation to you As a single person I urge you to approve this motion today. Thank you. Thank you for your work on the uh parks commission Thank you Charlie I'm bruce all the way from boulder creek I'm a lot less worried about this tax measure than the last one You know, this is more in the classic sense of put a tax and provide services It's not trying to you know the other one. I don't think it's gonna work Parks and libraries, I think that's the fun part of local government. Those are the the good services we get I Was in the first class of docents at quail hollow park almost 30 years ago. I did that for a couple of summers So I I do support parks but What I want to point out is that the the elephant in the room as far as the county is concerned is the unfunded liabilities for calpers The city of santa cruz just passed a half cent sales tax And about a week after that passed marcus pennantel the finance director of the city made an eight million dollar Pre-payment towards the unfunded liability of the city of santa cruz and he described it I think he described it as this isn't really eight million dollars This is 15 million dollars because we would have been paying interest on this money for so many years in the future If we did not make this prepayment Um, so every jurisdiction that has an unfunded liability with calpers is paying seven percent You're paying about seven percent interest on that unfunded liability and the unfunded liability for this county is about 500 million dollars So that's really the elephant in the room here. That's And I want to point out that for the city of santa cruz That's their first priority as soon as they get more sales tax revenue. That's what they're going to do That's what they did with it Same thing for the city of scott's valley city manager at the city of scott's valley has looked at their finances And and by the way every local jurisdiction if you look at their calpers reports for all of their pension plans And you look at the projections for the next six or seven years. Everybody's payments going to double Everybody's payments going to double to calpers The city, you know all of our water districts. It's we're all in the same boat But it impresses me that the City of santa cruz finance director and the city of scott's valley city manager recognize this problem And they put that as their first priority and their city scott's valley is also planning to extend their Sales tax. So I just want to remind you about this elephant in the room. Um And another observation I want to make about this you know Gosh, I think it was more than 15 years ago. I was here and bob sir Of scott's valley was in the back of the room He was about 90 years old I think and he was at the time the county was paying about nine percent Towards calpers and I think it's over 20 percent today and he was like a voice In the wilderness, you know warning warning the board of supervisors then that this calpers problem is is going to eat us up and You know, so the county's paying 20 percent towards calpers every year That means that 20 percent of the money that ought to be fixing are roads. Thank you is getting spent on It's just isn't going where it needs to thank you Is there anybody else who'd like to address this on this item? Okay, see none. We'll close public testimony and bring it back to the board Supervisor leopold. Uh, thank you chair. Thanks for everyone who waited to uh speak to this item You know, uh, our county administrative officer pointed out during budget hearings that The county of santa cruz isn't like every other county. There's lots of ways in which we could define that But one of the things that the county of santa cruz is required to do is act like a municipality Because so many people live in the unincorporated area We provide so many services of a city even though we don't have the same funding structure as a city I was grateful several years ago when assemblymember mark stone worked a path legislation to allow Counties to have some of the same tools that cities have To raise funds to help pay for those municipal services We also heard during budget hearings A great presentation From sheriff heart about work that could be done to address a pressing community problem around those Suffering with the mental health disorder And substance use disorder in a new way in which we might be able to attack the the problem And really improve not only the lives of the people in the pro in in that program But the quality of life in santa cruz county Likewise, we have seen an incredible amount of community support for our parks When our when we had a small funding measure on the ballot that received over 76 of the vote Mariah roberts, who was here today has helped lead A fundraising campaign in which nearly two million dollars has been raised To support A value that we all care which is inclusivity and ensuring that we have the first all inclusive park in santa cruz county They they have done that by building a broad array of Supporters from little kids selling cookies on the street corner to service clubs to foundation This park however will be available to all children In santa cruz county and will be a well-loved Park and so it seems appropriate to ask the entire county to help Be part of that fundraising effort in order to To help make that a reality we want to do the we want to start construction By next summer. We also have other critical parks in our system Lastly, we know that as we Heard in our last measure Having resources to be able to to address The issues facing people experiencing homelessness in santa cruz county is Is critical It's important for our community and we have to do everything we can Given that there are close to 3 000 people who are without shelter this evening so i'm a enthusiastic supporter and will work hard to Pass this measure and i would approve i would make the motion For all the recommended actions to put this sales tax measure on the ballot I'll second that We have a motion from supervisor leopold a second from supervisor capis or are there additional comments Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, much of the same. I I just think this I see this measure as a sign of strong fiscal management in the county over the Last decade or so we hit a big recession We had to cut back on sheriff's deputies. We had to put the parks department within the public works department has been mentioned But now we're on we're on good standing and There's no question as was mentioned the pension issue obligation is over It's blooming over us like every other governing agency in the state of california but I think we're really doing the right thing and focusing on this public health sheriff's cooperation issue As well as parks under the circumstances as sheriff hartz said Having deputies respond to 10 calls of people that are in a In a personal crisis of one type of another Is not something that we looked we we realized 10 years ago There's new challenges and it's going to take a cooperative effort and I think we're this is the right way to address that And as well with our parks We have we have a tremendous director and jeff gaffney who's done more with with what he has then Most people could imagine and this whole parks department But now providing this this asset and I really see see parks as a tremendous county asset So people can enjoy their leisure time and leo's haven is just a Star in the sky. It's it's a tremendous Asset for the county of santa cruz. So I think we're filling A void when we had to make cutbacks During the great recession And there's a tremendous need and a different need in that sheriff Or public safety health services agency And there's always been a need for more parks in our our growing county Population so I I think we are focusing on the right things to do with the proposed sales tax and I'll support this measure Thank you. Supervisor coonerty. Yeah, I just want to echo some of the Comments, which is that I really appreciate The leadership of this board and the pre and boards previous and county staff From top to bottom that have really made sure our fiscal house is in order That we have high bond ratings who are able to refinance and save taxpayers millions of dollars So that we're doing more with fewer employees than we had almost a decade ago And by getting our house in order, I think we've been able to You know provide solid services to our residents In addition to starting to do some preventative programs trying to do some innovative programs What I see this measure doing In almost every aspect is spending more on deterrence by having a focused deterrence initiative and I appreciate the sheriff's leadership on this That's going to save not only citizens Time and discomfort and insurance charges But then the revolving doors of the jails and the revolving doors of the emergency rooms By focusing on a few people who cause a disproportionate impact to our community By having a navigation center that that gets people stabilized sooner and gets some attached to resources sooner It also reduces impacts on the community and costs and finally by having parks that are accessible Across this county to all children Is the is a really the most preventative because you're talking about a generational investment We're giving people And families and kids somewhere positive to go and to build relationships and health and quality of life And so I'm excited about this possibility and I'm excited about Bringing forward an initiative that really benefits not only the community now But could benefit the community for generations to come Thank you supervisor cappett To clarify something to make it clear to the public too The when we're talking about voting on this tax for the parks The sales tax in the four cities will not go up That is correct. Okay, then one legal question. It would be About half or more of the voters on this Uh, they won't be taxed, but it is A legal question. They can vote on a tax for somebody else to pay The entire county will vote on the tax because they will be benefiting from it, but it won't be um The tax will not be in place within the city limits of the four jurisdictions in the county Okay, is that would that be the legal opinion also? City residents will pay the tax when they're shopping in the unincorporated area the tax will not be imposed within city limits Okay, so once the bills uh sales tax will stay at 9.25 That is correct. Thank you Okay, well, we have a motion and a second all those in favor I Opposed It passes unanimously I'd like to thank all of you who came out for this item I'd like to ask the board. We have a couple more regular agenda items I believe will be pretty quick and we're comfortable with just going through them All right, so move on to item six, which is a public hearing to consider resolution appointing the county road commissioner as outline of the memo the deputy cao And the director of public works have resolution and the road commissioner appointment. We know that this is just a Standard uh process, but we have to have a public hearing on it. I don't believe there needs to be any presentation Unless whether any questions from board members on this Seeing none. I'll now open up the public hearing. Are there any questions or comments from the community on item six Seeing none. I'll close the public hearing bring back for action. I will move approval the recommended action We have a motion from leopold a second from coonerty all those in favor I Opposed passes unanimously and I move on to item seven also a public hearing to consider the proposed issuance of bonds By the california statewide community's development authority for the benefit of monovista christian school and the amount not to exceed six million dollars and take Related actions as recommended by the CAO We do have a brief presentation on this very brief very big Good morning members of the board Christina Mallory the county budget manager So briefly on june 26 your board set a tep for hearing which is a tax equity and financial responsibility act hearing For today to authorize the proposed issuance of the bonds at an amount not to exceed six million dollars by the california statewide community Community's development authority cscda for the benefit of the monovista christian school Proceeds of the bonds will be used for the construction of a new 16600 square foot multi-purpose building Pursuant to the irs code an elected body Within the territorial limits of the project must hold the hearing to allow for public comment on a proposed issuance of bonds The county has no liability for the repayment of the bonds The proper 14-day notice for the hearing has been provided as required Their representatives here from the financing team are available to answer any questions you may have Jen pin cower from cscda and michael So lorano, I hope I didn't butcher that The headmaster from monovista christian school So it's recommended your board open the public hearing hear any public comment Close the hearing and adopt the resolution Thank you. Are there any questions from board members and I appreciate that you were here today. I know that it's been quite a long wait Seeing none. We'll now open up the public hearing. Are there any Comments or questions from the community on this item item seven regarding this public hearing for the monovista christian school bonds Seeing none. We'll bring it back to the board for action Second we have a motion from supervisor McPherson in a second from supervisor coonerty all those in favor I opposed the passes unanimously again. Thank you all for waiting back there Number eight is to consider a final reappointment of various at-large representatives to the workforce development board for terms that expired June 30th to 2022 we had nominations accepted at our late june meeting and we have previous agenda materials Are there any questions or comments from board members before we open it up to the community on this? We'll open it up to the community any questions or comments on the at-large representatives the workforce development board I move approval the recommended actions A motion from leopold in a second from coonerty all those in favor I opposed It passes unanimously Now on item nine is to consider an ordinance amending santa cruz county code section 2.14050 relating to the authority to approve contract change orders and direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinance on the next Available agenda for final adoption as outlined in the memo the deputy ceo and director of public works We have the ordinance that strike out an underline and the clean copy. Mr. Machado. Welcome. Thank you for waiting Thank you chairman friend members of the board The item before you is an amendment ordinance 2.14.050 contract change orders Section this section of the county code provides authority to the director of public works to approve and execute contract change orders This update to the county code is to make it consistent with the california public contract code The public contract code sections also provide specific limits for which a public works director may approve contract change orders change orders Above the limits require Approval by the board supervisors those limits are listed in the board letter I'm here to answer any questions you may have the recommended action is to approve and concept this ordinance amendment the county code Authority to approve contract change orders and to direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinance amendment on the next available agenda for final adoption I think I have no questions any questions from board members Anybody in the community like to address us on item nine regarding this? Okay. We'll bring back to the board for action I'm glad to see this. Uh, I'm moving forward. I move approval the recommended actions I have a motion from leopold a second from supervisor coonerty It's always good to see mr Wiesner in a suit and tie to know what it took and now we know it brings item nine forward. So all those in favor Uh, I opposed it passes unanimously as a reminder Item 12 was withdrawn by the appellants That was the item on the public hearing for petition for decision. So we don't have item 12 Regarding closed session. Is there anything reportable planned? There is Is there anybody from the community that'd like to address us on the items in closed session before we convene into closed session Okay, seeing none the board will recess into closed session or adjourn into closed session And if there's something reportable as we believe there will be we'll report it at the end of closed session Thank you all for being here and thank you for community tv for Being here today and reporting on it