 Good morning. I'll now call to order the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. It is April 26th, 2022, 9 a.m. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Supervisor Friend. Here. Supervisor Coonerty. Here. Supervisor Caput. Here. Supervisor McPherson. Here. And Chair Koenig. Here. Thank you. You have a quorum. Thank you. We'll now have a moment of silence and a Pledge of Allegiance. Does any board member want to dedicate the moment of silence to anyone or anything? Yes, Mr. Chair. I'd like to briefly mention the passing of Phil Trounstein, who is really I know Supervisor McPherson would know a statewide and national figure who happened to live here in Aptos, who recently passed away, served in as Gray Davis's Chief of Staff, ran the communications program and journalism program at San Jose State, which led to a number of wonderful journalists across the country. He passed away last week. Just keeping in your thoughts. Thank you. Just recognize the passing of two men in the South County, Jess Tabasa and Ponceano Hernandez. Thank you. Thank you. We have any addition of late additions to the agenda or no corrections today. All right. Great. Thank you. Move to item four announced by board members of items removed from consent to regular agenda. Any board members that would like to remove an item from consent to regular? And Supervisor McPherson, did you have a question? Yeah. I'm going to share. Excuse me under public comment. I'd just like to report on the annual legislative conference of the California State Association of Counties in Sacramento is a two day conference where we visited legislators and got the updated on the legislative action that's taking place in Sacramento. The biggest issue by far was homeless in all 58 counties is very complicated and costly. And it is something that is really troubling to every one of the counties. And how do we get it? And I know a lot of people say we'll just send them over here, but they're saying send them over there. So it's just very difficult to get our arms around it. And I think we're on the right track in trying to address it in Santa Cruz County. A related issue was the the the aggressiveness the state is taking and trying to get into local land issues. It's a very big concern, whether you're urban rural or suburban County. The regional housing needs allocation are called arena is being released now. And if, for instance, in my one of my cities in my district, Scots Valley, they the state said, you know, you had 600 housing units that you should have been building in the next three or four years. Now we're going to say you should build 1200. Well, they're not going to get close to that. They're doing a very aggressive job. What they put on the county is doubling our efforts to it's they don't punish you, but it's something that there is a demand. It relates to homeless, of course, because we want more affordable housing in particular. But the last time I remember way back in 1980s, it was don't build it and they won't come to Santa Cruz County. Well, it kept coming. And we have a housing crisis here as they do throughout the state of California. But for the local governments, it's it's really a concern that they're going to try to really push it down our throat and put triplexes or duplexes and single family residents zoned homes. So it's something we're going to be facing here. I like I said, I don't think the state's going to punish you if you don't make your numbers and we don't get anywhere close in the Santa Cruz County in the unincorporated area to meeting our allocation in the last arena numbers that they put out. But it's going to be a real challenge for us to to reach that goal. And the state is getting very, very aggressive in trying to come and tell us what to do in our on our zoning issues. Along with that, the planning I attended, I wasn't able to attend all the conferences of the breakout sessions. I did go to the coast of planning and the coastal we have 15 counties on the coast of California on our 1100 mile coastline. They're they're developing a five year plan now with 17 separate agencies about how we take some particular actions on sea level rise in particular and the concerns there on transportation. The focus was on electric vehicles. And the big question is how reasonable and how quickly we can get to meet the goals that we put now not only in the state level, but the federal level as well. There's a lot a lot of issues that we have to address there. And one of the things that it was a theme from the county's perspective is give us some flexibility of how we can reach our own goals because we're doing it in different ways. We have a sustainable plan and we're working on different aspects of it, tiny homes, ADUs, so forth. So those are the things that we want to address and we can do it best without the state telling us how to do it. I think health care that there's very important. They're getting on the master plan for aging. It's a 10 year plan and they want to meet the needs of the aging population in this state. It's growing percentage. Those are 60 and over. Much more quickly than those 25 and under. So we need to address some of those issues to give the aging population more flexibility or not flexibility, but more opportunities to have some activities, get transportation lines close to them, activities close to them, and so forth. One of the things that we were there was really discussed also is the untreated schizophrenia, psychotic disorder. I don't know how else you might want to put it, but how we address that both from a community aspect and from a law enforcement aspect of really meeting the needs of those who are needing some real issues, trouble that they have. It's really been more pronounced since COVID-19 and how do we get to a program that we can address some of those people that need that help? And I think we have an outstanding human services and health services departments. We have great leadership there. I think we're addressing it in some of its again complicated issue, but it's one that is coming to the forefront and one that we really want to address. With that, I just wanted to say some of the highlights. There were many more, but those are some of the things that I picked up in the two-day legislative conference in Sacramento. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Now move to item five, public comment. Any person may address the board during its public comment period. Speakers must not exceed two minutes in length and individuals may speak only once during public comment. All public comments must be directed to an item listed on today's consent agenda, closed session agenda, yet to be heard on regular agenda or a topic not on the agenda that is within the jurisdiction of the board. Board members will not take actions or respond immediately to any public communication presented regarding topics not on the agenda, but may choose to follow up later, either individually or on a subsequent Board of Supervisors agenda. Anyone wish to make a comment? Please approach the podium. Good morning, Chair Koenig, Board of Supervisors. I'm Jim Hart, Chair of Corner. And as you may be aware, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. And I want to thank Chair Koenig for signing this proclamation, acknowledging the good work that the Alpha Theta chapter of Omega New has been doing with our safe clinic for many, many years. We've been in partnership with Omega New for a long time now, and they do things like buy medical equipment and purchase supplies, and sometimes even put a fresh coat of paint on the clinic itself. And it's been a fantastic partnership between government and this group, and I can't thank them enough. And I also want to recognize Dr. Lauren Zephyro, who's our forensic lab director and program coordinator, Claudia Yamaspidea, who have turned around, was a very struggling program and is now a robust safe clinic that is servicing survivors of sexual assault here locally once again. So on behalf of the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office and the Board of Supervisors, I'd like to hand this proclamation to Omega New. Thank you very much. Chair Koenig and supervisors, my name is Beverly Vogel, and I'm here with six other members representing Alpha Theta chapter of Omega New. Our support for the Safe Room program began in 1998 when it was housed at the Watsonville Community Hospital and continued until it moved to Valley Med in San Jose in 2017. We are very proud to be involved once again in supporting this program when it returned to Santa Cruz County in 2020. It's been so great to have this amazing resource for survivors of sexual assault and abuse back on this side of the hill. Omega New's fundraising efforts have allowed us to keep the safe room supplied with essential equipment, as well as working with monarch services to supply survivors with clothing and other much needed items. The members of Alpha Theta chapter of Omega New look forward to continuing our support of the Safe Room program in partnership with the Sheriff's Office and Monarch Services. Thank you for this wonderful recognition of the Alpha Theta chapter of Omega New. Thank you, Ms. Vogel and the whole Alpha Theta team. Morning, supervisors. Wow, we have a four of a kind. I haven't seen this in months. It's great to see all of you. Just in reflection on a few things that I've heard this morning, I suppose I had a list of other things I could have shared, but was thinking in an effort, in a keen effort to build more bridges than walls. I'm really happy to see you, Bruce. And the subject that you brought up, I don't know where you were, but it was talking about schizophrenia. There's a great deal of information that that can be solved almost overnight with diet. I don't know if that was addressed by anybody you were talking to, but there is a lot of information where it can be solved by diet, as many other things can. So, you know, I think in an effort to try to build more bridges than walls, I'm just going to thank all of you for being here. And Greg, I'm looking forward to going out to lunch and talking to you about some stuff. It's great to see you too. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Whitman. Anyone else in the audience who would like to address the board? Yes, please approach the podium. Good morning. My name is Laura Spindola, and I'm with the Victim Witness Assistance Program at the District Attorney's Office. I just wanted to say hello and remind our community that this week is National Crime Victims Rights Week, so each year we have a week in April where we recognize victims of crime, and it's this week. We're actually holding a virtual remembrance tomorrow. It's a remembrance video of victims of homicide in our county. It'll be available on our county's district attorney's page and our Facebook page. So I just wanted to invite you all to watch it and remind our community about victims of crime and invite them all to watch it as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Picklum. Anyone else in the chambers? Is there anyone on Zoom? We do have speakers on Zoom, yes. Please. Call in User 1. Your microphone is available. As a reminder, it's Star 6 to mute or unmute yourself via Zoom. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett, and I have some serious questions. Has the government, media, or the corporations ever lied to us? Did you know the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2010 ruling deemed vaccines to be quote, unavoidably unsafe, unquote, medical procedure with inherent risks? Did you know that fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported? According to the 2010 HHS funded report by Harvard Medical School, vaccines for health or profit is the title of a document from LearnTheRisk.org compiled by Brandy Vaughn, who was a former Merck Pharmaceutical Sales Executive and founder of Learn the Risk. Unfortunately, she was found dead last year at age 42 after having been threatened. The book starts out medical freedom is a human right. First and foremost, mandatory vaccine laws are a violation of the basic human right to voluntary consent without coercion to any and all medical procedures, tests, experiments, and preventative measures. The Nuremberg Code was established following World War II based on the fact that all medical products have an inherent health risk and serious side effects, vaccines included. This county needs to uphold Nuremberg. Brooke Wright, your microphone is available. Thank you. Hello, board members. My name is Brooke Wright. I'm the director of programs and strategy at environmental innovations. We are contracted right now to run the county's green business program, and you may be familiar with it. It's a free program for businesses to receive technical assistance, and it often lowers business utility bills and it almost always lowers their greenhouse gas emissions as well. Business owners often report that our program is a positive experience for them in a landscape of regulations, and it provides a positive experience for them to work with government agencies and with their utility providers, including but not limited to green waste, free CE, water districts, and more who are all partners to our program. I just wanted to make sure that you are all aware that in addition to our free services, we now are offering businesses between $500 and $2,000 of cash and rebates. And for businesses that are in the county, excluding the cities of Watsonville and Santa Cruz, currently we have $7,500 available in the form of $500 cash incentives, and they expire at the end of June. So if you have businesses in your district that you think could benefit from our program and that you think would enjoy being part of our first mixer, which we're hoping to host this summer, and definitely being recognized by you at your meeting in November, please let them know about these funds and connect them to me or our team. Thank you. Ms. Wright. At this time we do not have any more speakers. All right, great. Then I'll bring it back to the board. We'll move on to item six, action on the consent agenda. Any board members? I wish to comment on any items on consent. Yeah, I'll serve. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to comment on item number 17, their FEMA reimbursement. First of all, I'd like to mention the substantial investment that the county has made in responding to the COVID crisis by funding shelter and food programs. All told, the county has incurred $130 million as outlined in this report. It's a phenomenal figure. This is a tremendous response for the county, for what it's doing, especially a county of our size. And I want to thank our Health and Human Services teams as well as our CAO and other administrative personnel and the emergency response people for all the work that they've done to save lives and reduce the spread of COVID in Santa Cruz County during these past two years. It's unfortunate that we may not be reimbursed for about $17 million, and I think that's correct. The CAO might correct me on that, but I think that's the figure, and maybe up to $19 million for those expenses. And we may have to tap our American recovery funds to meet that, to cover those expenses. Other counties, as I mentioned, when I was up in Sacramento, they're in a similar position, and we hope we can all eventually see a better outcome through the FEMA process and through the discussions with our state and federal lawmakers. And I will say those representatives for our county in the state and federal level have really worked hard to get those funds for us. On number 44, the Unified Permit Center Manager. I want to congratulate the CAO and the Community Development and Infrastructure Department for this initiative. That's the old Planning Public Works departments together. We need a dedicated manager to ensure that our efforts are streamlined in the permitting process. And I especially want to thank Carolyn Burke from our Planning Department for serving as the UPC project manager to get this up and running. She's done a tremendous job under some very trying circumstances. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's two brief items on item 22. I'm looking forward to the continued discussion regarding the modifications on setbacks and commercial cannabis, obviously in the CA zone. Still have the same concerns that we've had during the extensive discussions previously, but the board saw as an opportunity to review the latest proposed ordinance and hopefully we can come to a place that would be good for the entire community. On item 42, Disappreciation of Public Works, this is on the Measure D resurfacing project, the Contract Award for the year. Every summer we do these projects and every summer we have some communities within our districts that are very pleased with what's happening. And it's just nice to see that this continued commitment from the voters on Measure D is continuing to lead to local road works projects. And also, I appreciate it was also good to see the extent of roads are able to get done this year. So it's just appreciation on Public Works. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the eternal sadness of my colleagues, I have no comment on any items today. Thank you. Just a couple of comments on item 20. I want to say I'm pleased to renew our vote for renewal of the contract with Community Television and thank them for everything they've done to help make our board meetings more accessible and also congratulate them on diversifying their own income streams with a cool new co-working space over on Soquel Drive on item 41 to ratify a contract with CRW Industries for the Live Oak Library Annex. It's great to see that as Scott's Valley contractor won this bid, I know we can't choose based on local, have a local preference, but I'm glad to see they were the most competitive bid. And also with a bid that's $200,000 under the engineer's estimate, that's incredible in today's environment. And I want to thank voters for approving Measure S in 2016, the parcel tax, which is providing nearly $6 million in funding for this project. I want to echo Supervisor McPherson on item 44 to accept and file the report on the UPC manager position. Having a new Unified Permit Center can't come soon enough. One of the things I consistently hear at my town hall meetings, particularly as the Park Avenue project home key, has been an issue and a talking point recently. It's just how frustrated everyday residents are seeing large projects like that move quickly when they can't possibly, it's taking years for them to build a simple ADU or improvement to their home. So I'm really excited that this position is going to be much more customer service centric. And hopefully that is a culture that we can expand upon in our county here. I want to finally on item 47 and 49 to approve plans for Northardale Gulch Storm Damage Repair and Schulte's Road Storm Damage Repair. I know these improvements or repairs will be very well appreciated by constituents. I was just out at Northardale Gulch last Saturday for a Firewise meeting and everyone's very excited to see these projects move forward. So thank you to the Community Development and Infrastructure Department. Do you know further comments? Is there anyone? Mr. Chair, I'll move the consent agenda. Motion by Supervisor Friend. Seconded by Supervisor McPherson. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk roll call vote please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Supervisor Caput. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Koenig. Aye. Thank you. That passes unanimously. Thank you. And we'll move to item 7, Presentation of Awards to the Santa Cruz County Fire Department Firefighters of the Year. And for presentation on this I believe we have Nate Armstrong, our Cal Fire Chief, reaming in from the Schulten office. Take it away. And good morning Chair Koenig and members of the board. Hopefully you guys can see us all right. Thank you very much for the opportunity as the Chief County Fire to be here to honor a couple of our exemplary county fire firefighters. And also thank you for the opportunity to for us to join you remotely so that our families of our honorees can be here today as well. This has been about a 10-year tradition where we honor one volunteer firefighter and one paid firefighter from Santa Cruz County Fire of the Year. And this year's honorees are no departure from the the tenants that we hold very dear dear to us. So I'd like to bring up very first Zach Estrada. Zach Estrada is being honored this year as the volunteer firefighter of 2021. Zach is a longtime resident of South Santa Cruz County. Zach was also born into the fire service like a lot of us, but Zach didn't let that stop him from building his own reputation. He's never been leaned on that and his own hard work, positive attitude and work ethic have made his own name. Zach has been a member of Company 41 out of Port Oliva since 2019. He very quickly promoted to a driver classification where he's able to drive the rescue vehicle and has been working on his qualifications to become an engineer to be able to drive the larger fire apparatus, the engines and water tenders and so forth. Zach has worked tirelessly within Company 41. We have a it seems to be a long-standing tradition in Company 41. It's hard to hold on to our company officers, fire captains and so forth as they all tend to get full-time firefighting jobs someplace else. So Zach has really stepped up and taken that role to fill in those gaps of that company officer role as we've had turnover within that company. I think we'll hold proclamations for the end, but I'll just have Zach stay up here just for a minute. Just kind of a testimony to Zach's involvement. He's just gotten to be that what everybody just expects that Zach's going to be there and Zach's going to take care of it. We'll bring Captain Whitaker up in a second, but just as a quick little kind of testament to just how well Zach's gotten to be known as being the go-to guy. We had a fire in Corralitos a couple months ago and my first question to our Cal Fire staff is always like, hey, how many volunteers do we have show up and Captain Whitaker said, well, Zach of course. So it's just got to be a foregone conclusion that if something's happening, Zach is going to be there. And it's my very proud privilege to present to you a volunteer driver, Zach Straub. Thank you. So Captain Brian Whitaker is a 15-year veteran of Cal Fire and he spent that entire time here in the San Mateo Santa Cruz unit, the majority of which has been in South Santa Cruz County and working with Santa Cruz County Fire. I came to this, to Santa Cruz County in 2017. Brian was one of the very first folks that I met on a fire. He was one of the, he was the captain on the fire. One of the first fires I came to and I was instantly impressed just with his level of professionalism, his attitude, his demeanor, super calm. He is always that go-to guy. The one thing I'm always trying to impress upon folks is our Cal Fire folks that work within County Fire have a full-time day job working and doing Cal Fire business. And everything extra that they take on for County Fire is truly that. It's extra. And I don't know anybody, a lot of our paid staff that takes on more than Captain Whitaker. He's recently gone to the Appleton in Wisconsin. He doesn't know it yet, but he's finding out right now. I'll soon be asking him to go to Boise, Idaho as he's taken on the specifications of our fire apparatus and traveling around and making sure that those things are being built the way that we want them to. He's taken a ton of his own time to make sure that our equipment and other items are standardized throughout County Fire. And just a testament to Brian's work ethic, I recently asked him to take a temporary reassignment that for all intents and purposes would have been an easier assignment from where he's at. And most people would have jumped all over it, but he told me no, which I wasn't super happy with. But the reason was simple. He said, Chief, I got way too much going on. I got way too many projects here that I want to see you through. I couldn't possibly leave right now. And that's just how Captain Whitaker is. So it is my privilege to present to you our 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Paid Firefighter of the Year, Captain Brian Whitaker. And proclamations from Chair Koenig for Captain Whitaker and Volunteer Drivers at Strada. And then stand here for one photo and then I'll turn it back to you both. Thank you, Mr. Strada and Captain Whitaker for all your hard work, for never shying away from doing the tough job and for setting such a fantastic example for everyone in our community. Thank you for keeping us safe. We'll now move on to item eight, presentation of recognizing members of the community who have participated in the Volunteer Initiative Program and the Sheriff's Volunteer Program. And Carlos Palacios, our CAO, I believe has some opening remarks. Yeah, just a little background. The Volunteer Initiative Program is a partnership between the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz and the county, matching interested community members with volunteer opportunities throughout county government. The county is extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated group of volunteers supporting our efforts. We're very happy to welcome Volunteer Executive Director Karen Delaney and Sheriff Jim Hart, both of whom will be making brief remarks and presenting certificates. Also with us today is Christina Thurston from the Volunteer Initiative Program. I'll now turn it over to Karen and Sheriff Hart to make their remarks. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Supervisors, Chair Coney. We are delighted to be back in person again, recognizing volunteers as part of Global Volunteer Month. This is supporting volunteers in this way and welcoming them in to bring solutions. Isn't something that counties and cities are required to do, but it is one of the smartest things that counties and cities can do. And while volunteers, in my experience, never seek the limelight, for those of us who have a limelight, it is really imperative, more so now than ever. And as a data gal, I'll tell you why, that we take this opportunity, not just this week, not just this month. When people volunteer, science tells us they're happier, they're healthier, they live longer. Workplaces where people volunteer, the institutions themselves are more cost-effective, have a higher quality of service and better morale. When workplaces engage their employees in volunteering, they have better retention and higher productivity. Communities with high volunteer rates are safer. They have higher voting rates. They have higher donations to nonprofits. That volunteering and the people who volunteer actually strengthen our democracy and are one of the things that build civic infrastructure, that help us bind our communities together. We all know very well and are concerned that there are a lot of things that tend to fray that civic infrastructure. So it's really important that we say thank you to these wonderful human beings. We also have a moment here, much like back in the 80s when we started this program, a recent study of research for millennials, two-thirds of millennials said coming out of the pandemic and the challenges we face, I need and want to do more to build my city back, to build my county back. We have a moment really to join us and we're inviting you to join us in making this a civic decade, right? To really, as much as we're doing, try a little bit more to talk about volunteering, to seek out volunteers, to hold them up as the heroes and sheroes that they are. So we're delighted for this partnership. We're delighted to be here as part of our Global Volunteer Month and we can't thank you more for choosing to do something that over the several decades has made our community so much better. Good morning, Board Member Jim Hart, Sheriff Corner. Prior to COVID, we had about 120 volunteers working throughout our office and because a lot of them are elderly, we suspended much of the volunteer program during COVID, but now the intention is to bring it back about June 1st and we have substations throughout the county and we have in Boulder Creek, Felton, Davenport, Live Oak, Aptos and South County and we just did a full interior remodel of the South County Substation Supervisor Caput, so you got to stop by and take a look at that. It's going to be a real nice place for our volunteers to work out of, but our volunteers come from all walks of life. Some are college students who are wanting to get into law enforcement and this is their first step to do that. In fact, Sergeant Gutswether started out of the Sheriff's Office as a volunteer, as to have a number of our deputy sheriffs and professional staff and correctional officers. So it's a program we rely on. These volunteers keep our substations open. They volunteer in our forensics lab and our corners division, our missing persons division and they do a great job and they really develop relationships with our staff and in some cases the elder folks mentor our young people and help them along. So it's a great partnership with the community. We really are looking forward to getting back to full force for their volunteer program and I want to thank Karen Delaney for all her leadership and running the county program as well. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Christina Thurston. I'm the Volunteer Initiative Program Coordinator and it is an honor to be a part of this amazing group of people we're recognizing today. I'm grateful to live in a community that's full of the hardworking people like these volunteers. This past year our volunteers supported COVID-19 vaccine efforts, maintained county parks to ensure they were safe, cared for animals and provided crucial services for the betterment of our community. The volunteers that we will honor here today represent the Volunteer Initiative Program Health Services Agency, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, Animal Services, County Parks and Behavioral Health coming together to make a difference. We recognize our award recipients this morning. I will read the name of the honoree and a member of the board will give a brief overview of the honoree's volunteer service. Those attending in person may come on up and receive your certificate and I know we have many people virtually. So our first honoree is Kim Coach Campbell and Supervisor Koenig will read the remarks. Thank you. Kim Coach Campbell. I'll give you a moment to come up here. Kim is a Health Services Agency volunteer and has been volunteering with the Peer Support Specialist Program and Syringe Services Program since 2019. Kim used his personal experience, education and training to connect with patients and provide them with the appropriate care. He has helped many people by bringing them into clinics to get connected for substance use disorder services, integrate behavioral health services and primary care services. Kim uses the tools, techniques and best practices he learned through the Peer Support Curriculum to help others in our community. He has also advocated and spoken to the Board of Supervisors meetings and presented his story and county services at outside events, which inspired others to seek services. Kim loves what he does and has helped many people find hope, encouragement and a better quality of life. Thank you Kim for your service to our community. I want to thank the Board of Supervisors for being recognized in Santa Cruz County and give you just a brief rundown of where I came from. My prior life was not a very good life at all. I spent the majority of my life in state and federal prison. I was convicted felon, I was a bank robber, many other things that I'd rather not go into. Nothing super violent though, okay, even though bank robbery is not an unviolent situation. I ended up coming to Santa Cruz about five years ago when a federal judge went out of his way and got me into recovery and I came down and went through the recovery house here, Santa Cruz residential program and transferred from there to a sober living environment and became employed. I went through the situation of starting down in Watsonville, working at the canneries and just getting back on my feet. I'm also a client or a patient on the medicated assisted therapy program here in Santa Cruz County and I can't say enough about it. It has afforded me the opportunity to rejoin society and to become a real person instead of the fake person that I was. And since I have become very involved with the program through M line and my supervisor, Danny Contreras is in the back of the room, is here with me as a big, big part of my recovery. Danny's helped me immensely get my life together. I'll change my way of thinking and being able to operate and work with the community. Our job over there and my job at the needle exchange is not just exchanging used needles for new needles. That is part of my job which reduces the sickness and diseases and different situations like that in our community. There's no getting around that. But there's a lot of other things that we do over there, such as wound care kits, all kinds of supplies that we can get to the homeless out there that are objected and having trouble with drugs and alcohol. And I also am there to help if a person exhibits behavior that they want some help to get into recovery. At that point, I take a person's side and minister to them the best that I can. And if a person becomes willing enough, I'll walk them down, bring them down to Danny's location in the online area and we'll get them started in a situation of recovery by getting examined by medical staff and included in a program that may fit them, getting them off the street and into recovery and possibly getting them started back in the direction by which they can take care of themselves in the initial part of the community. And that goes right along with paying taxes, wrote a check for $2,500 the other day, Donald Sam, and getting back to society sometimes isn't all it's built up to be. But I definitely want to say that Santa Cruz County means a lot to me. I grew up in and around the Bay Area most of my life. Santa Cruz has always been a spot that back in the day, it was surfing, restaurants, thanks. And what's happened to Santa Cruz has happened to San Francisco, it's happened to Los Angeles, it's happened to major cities from coast to coast. I was going through some of my peer mentor stuff the other day and I took a course some four years ago to become a peer mentor recovery person. And during that, the statistics were 91 Americans die every day from an opiate overdose. That includes prescription opiates in heroin that comes out to around 33,215 people per year. That was in 2019. I hate to make this announcement, but as of 2020, last year 100,000 people overdosed on narcotics. That means they're not with us any longer. That roughly works out to 273 people per day. When I come across statistics like that, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we have an epidemic besides the COVID. We need all the help that we can get. And that goes right down to people like me that finally get their senses about them. One way or the other and you through recovery to sit down and help and help other people that are having problems. And there's a lot to learn about it. Most of it is listening. I can listen and listen enough. I can help the person make decisions for themselves. They make the decision. They have to make the decision. At the short, I want to thank everybody. This means a whole lot to me. This means that I don't know about that. Thanks. Thank you, coach. Our next honoree is Ralph Milginick and Supervisor Friend will read the remarks. Thank you. Ralph is a parks and open spaces volunteer who has been volunteering at Felton Discovery Park and Quail Hollow Ranch in the great and beautiful Fifth District since October of 2020. Ralph assists with landscaping and beautification projects at these sites and he accomplished two large projects at Quail Hollow Ranch which have made a significant impact on the aesthetics of the park. One project was to enhance the entrance to the house with new brick paver paths and fresh landscaping. He also added downspouts to the rain gutters and buried drainage piping to direct the water away from the house. Another project Ralph took on in this park was the building of two privacy screens to improve the view from the house as well as the wedding lawn. He took on these huge projects and was more than willing to put in the necessary work to complete the tasks. Ralph has become a crucial volunteer at both sites and it was a pleasure to work with and we thank you, Ralph, for all that you've given back to county parks. Congratulations. Thank you. I'd like to thank the Board of Supervisors and just take one minute to recognize Jesse Williams and Margaret Ingram. They're county parks folks and they are an absolute delight to work with and they're very much a credit to the county of Santa Cruz. So thank you very much for being so nice. Thank you. Our next honoree is Phyllis Shrieve and Supervisor Coonerty will read remarks. Hello. Phyllis Shrieve, I'm sorry, just a barking dog for one second. Can you go to one other speaker then I'll come back. And Phyllis is joining us virtually. Our next honoree is Meta Rhodes and Supervisor Caput will read the remarks. Did you get the... Meta Rhodes is a parks and open spaces volunteer. She has been volunteering for three years and has reported over 350 volunteer hours. Meta volunteers independently and does light construction projects for county parks by attending to building repairs and maintenance. Meta's efforts and skills have enhanced the beauty and longevity of county parks infrastructure through her many improvements to the park buildings, landscape, picnic areas, and art installations. At Anna Jean Cummings Park, Meta refurbished the site's restrooms and picnic areas and gave the sky ball art installation fresh paint. She is currently volunteering in Bromber Park in proving restrooms and landscaping. Meta is a huge help with the county parks and is always coming up with fresh ideas. Thank you Meta for all that you have given back to our community and county parks. Our next honoree is Anne Schwartz and Supervisor McPherson will be reading the remarks. Thank you. I would like to introduce Anne Schwartz. She is an animal service volunteer. She has been volunteering with the Healthy Pets for All Free Vet Care Program since 2018 and has reported over 885 hours. Anne assists the shelter in a variety of ways by supporting the shelters front desk staff when they are busy, completing data entry, helping with pet licensing and assisting with events. Anne is also a wonderful foster for cats and kittens. She is always ready and willing to step in and help with a positive attitude. Anne is a wonderful ambassador for the animal shelter and does an amazing job promoting all of their progressive programs. Congratulations Anne and thank you for the support you provide for the animal shelter. She here. Our next honoree is Alen Lacey. Amanda Purcell from the Coroner's Office is accepting on her behalf and Supervisor Koenig will be reading the remarks. Thank you. Aislin Lacey is a volunteer with the Sheriff's Department assists with autopsies performed by the forensic pathologist. Through her volunteering, Aislin has learned about human anatomy and diseases which has been invaluable in preparing her for a career as a pathologist assistant aiding with forensic autopsies. She has a strong desire to learn and has volunteered over 150 hours in just six months. Aislin exemplifies the desired qualities of volunteer with their positive attitude or enthusiasm and her desire to serve our community. Thank you Aislin for your hard work and dedication to the supporting of the Sheriff's Department. Hi, I'm Amanda Purcell. I'm the Coroner Forensic Technician that works in the Coroner's Dean at the Sheriff's Office. I know Aislin is extremely honored for this award and our entire volunteer staff is extremely valuable to us and has been especially through this pandemic with COVID and everything. So we really appreciate you guys honoring her. So thank you. Thank you. Let's go back to Phyllis Shreve and Supervisor Coonerty will read the remarks. All right. Thank you. Hopefully Phyllis, since she works in animal services, can appreciate that sometimes our four-legged friends are a little challenging. So Phyllis Shreve is an animal services volunteer since 2019 and is dedicated over 1300 hours of love and care to the grounds of the Santa Cruz and Watsonville Animal Shelters. Phyllis is the leader of the Green Team volunteers at the Animal Shelter and organizes all the landscaping for both sites. She trains and coordinates volunteers to pull weeds, plant and keep the grounds looking fresh and maintained. Phyllis also educates students who come on shelter tours or summer camps and teaches them about native plants. Phyllis is an integral part of the animal services and has made a positive impact to the public's initial impression of the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. Thank you Phyllis for all your hard work and congratulations on this honor. Our next honoree is Adair Paterno and supervisor friend will be reading the remarks. Thank you. Adair is a dedicated animal services volunteer who started in 2020 and has already reported about 350 volunteer hours. Adair began her volunteer journey by taking high-energy shelter dogs on regular runs and quickly began volunteering weekly to socialize shelter dogs, take them to events and help transport animals to alternate rescue organizations. She's always willing to jump in and help with extra tasks like event planning, fundraising and bringing dogs on special outings to help get them adopted. Adair is an outstanding volunteer because of the loving care she provides to dogs in the shelter and is always willing to go the extra mile to make sure dogs in the shelter are given attention and opportunities get adopted. And thank you Adair for all that you do for our animal shelter. Our next honoree is Chris Soriano and the earth stewards and supervisor Coonerty will be reading the remarks. Yeah Chris Soriano and the earth stewards are volunteer group with the parks department. Chris works for the Santa Cruz County Museum of Natural History and leads an ecological stewardship program in which he engages with local high school students teaching them the importance of habitat restoration, pruning techniques and plant identification. Chris frequently collaborates with local school districts, parks and open spaces and friends have felt in library to ensure the exceptional experience for students. Chris is passionate about educating young adults and is committed to teaching the importance of preserving our county's natural habitat. Our next honoree is Kevin Casey and the workability program and supervisor Caput will be reading the remarks. Thank you. Kevin Casey and the workability program are a volunteer group with the parks department. Kevin supervises young adults in the workability program and coordinates two separate volunteer groups that work at two different county park sites. He teaches his volunteers landscaping and maintenance skills to provide them with work experience and these volunteers have reported over 582 hours of service in just seven months. These volunteers have made a huge impact on the parks that they work in and the maintenance staff are very appreciative of all that they have done. We are grateful to Kevin and his volunteer groups for their dedication and hard work. Thanks a lot. Our final honoree is Mary Ann Paul and supervisor McPherson will be reading the remarks. Thank you. Mary Ann Paul is a volunteer with the health services agency who has been supporting Santa Cruz County COVID-19 vaccine clinics during the past year. Not an easy task by any means. Mary Ann has been especially helpful at the Watsonville health center where she has been supporting staff during the mass vaccination efforts. The Watsonville health center administered over 10,000 COVID-19 vaccines and volunteers like Mary Ann made a huge impact getting this many people vaccinated. We don't know how many lives they've saved and how much they really thwarted the spread. Mary Ann is a responsible, kind, punctual and has a genuine love for our community. Mary Ann, I just want to thank you for your hard work and supporting the community during such a critical time. You and your team have done a fantastic job for the residents of Santa Cruz County. Thank you. This concludes our formal presentation of awards for the outstanding volunteers in the Santa Cruz County. Thank you all for your commitment to our community. I'd like to just say something too about Santa Cruz County. It's always been a native of Santa Cruz County. It has always been a shining light of volunteerism. There are thousands of volunteers. There's thousands of or hundreds of non-profit agencies in this county. Without their diligence and their commitment and their compassion, we would be a much worse county than we are today. And I think that if you ask any of the volunteers, as somebody have said, those who feel best about this volunteer effort is the volunteers themselves. It really feels good. We heard some stories today. So I just want to especially thank, as we all have, the volunteers and the agencies that provide that source for them to do their work. Santa Cruz County is a much better place for that. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. I'll just echo that some of the time I've spent volunteering with the Parks Department has been extremely rewarding, and I look forward to getting out there with some of these honorees to see how it's really done. Does anyone want to add public comment? Good morning, it's James. I want to thank all of you. I want to particularly thank what Karen Delaney described about the benefits of volunteering. I think that's very common. I suppose if there was one segment of these board of supervisors that I would suggest youth listen to, it'd probably be the last half hour. And I know that you guys know I don't often say that. Thank you, James. Is anyone on Zoom? We do have one speaker on Zoom. All in user one, your microphone's available. This is Marilyn Garrett, and I would also like to thank the volunteers, especially those working with the animals. I have a cat, I dare not. And I'd like to extend and applaud other valuable volunteers directly helping the community, especially Keith McHenry and the Food Not Bombs team that has provided a daily meal for over 40 years, and even during these last two years for the hungry and unhoused. And the question is why do we have this problem? It's a structural economic problem. We have the poor and unhoused that were poignantly commented upon by your first speaker because we have the very wealthy and a system that allows that. So I just so much appreciate Food Not Bombs and what a title. When we have money going to the military and endless wars of this empire we live in, there isn't money that should be provided abundantly for other services like the right to housing and employment and food and medical care what we could do with that money. So a special thanks appreciation to Keith McHenry and the Whole Food Not Bombs volunteer team. The county should be officially supporting this effort of Food Not Bombs. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. We have no additional speakers. All right, thank you. Then I don't live any action is necessary on this item. So I'll just thank you again to all the honorees and to the volunteer initiative program and the sheriff's volunteer program for helping to channel all this good community energy. I will proceed to item nine. Now, which is a to consider adoption of resolution to extend accessory dwelling unit ADU fee waiver pilot program through June 2023 and approval of proposed new ADU incentives program and related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the interim director of planning. And for a presentation, I believe we have a senior planner, Suzanne Issa. Here we go. Good morning chair and board members. My name is Suzanne Issa. I'm principal planner with the housing division of the community development and infrastructure department. As the board may recall, we reported to you on December 7th of last year with an update and status report on the two pilot programs that the county has been implementing for the past several years to support ADU development. These two programs include a fee waiver program for ADUs that are designed to be 640 square feet or smaller and an ADU forgivable loan program for ADUs where the owner agrees to rent the ADU at a low income rent to a low income tenant. And if they do that for 20 years, it would be forgiven at the end of the 20 years. We reported sort of our analysis of the results of these two programs in December 7th. The board then requested that we consult with the housing advisory commission and come back with a recommendation of how to move forward with these two programs and or any other new programs. So we brought this matter to the housing commission on January and March of this year. We reviewed with them the same material that we presented to the board in December showing that because it had been a relatively short time period three years for the ADU fee waiver program and more importantly because the state has made a lot of changes and a lot of streamlining bills have been passed such that the process of applying for ADUs is quite a lot easier, faster, less expensive now than it used to be. That just happened to coincide with the period of our pilot program so it made it very difficult to connect any of the changes in permitting trends to the program itself because there was all this other stuff going on in the background. The housing advisory commission also agreed that the loan program did not have really any notable results to warrant continuing it and in addition as we reported here, it has a very high level of administrative burden, a high cost and that 20-year period of loan servicing and so forth that comes along with it. So they agreed essentially that it was time to try something new. So we brought in a guest speaker for the January meeting. This is an agency, a nonprofit that's been running a variety of affordable housing programs in the Bay Area for a number of years now called Hello Housing. They presented their program which is called Hello Bright which is to support homeowners in developing ADUs on their property. They explained it's a type of technical assistance program and let me see if I can move my slide forward here. There we go. There we go. Just to provide a little bit more on the Fee Waiver program part of our analysis that we reviewed with the housing commission is it is available for these smaller ADUs and the reason behind that was that the theory was that if they're smaller then hopefully they'll be affordable by design and we did see some evidence just based on public listings, rental listings that we could find on channels such as Craigslist, Zillow and that sort of thing that ADUs tend to land, tend to be when they are rented out they tend to be asking rents that generally fall within that low income range. However, the current Fee Waiver program is not means tested. In other words, there's no requirement that the applicant have a need for the assistance or that they commit to renting out the ADU on the general market or that it will be rented at low income levels and so forth. The Fee Waiver program also because it happens so early in the process, it is provided at the time that they apply for the ADU. Not all applications result in a built ADU. Not everybody moves forward and actually builds and completes the ADU. So there's also that thought that just because somebody gets the waiver doesn't mean they're actually going to carry through and build out the ADU. The other concerns are things like a lot of people build ADUs sort of as a convenience for their property, a guest house or maybe for what do they call boomerang kids that go off to college and then come back and that kind of thing. So it's not necessarily going to land on the market as an arm's length rental for the general public to rent out. The other concern we had and we were trying to be sort of creative problem solvers here with our proposal to the Housing Commission is that because of these parameters of the program, we cannot use our local housing funds to fund it because there's not a strong enough link that it's actually producing an affordable housing unit at the end of the process. So in its initial in the initial resolution that approved the program back in 2018, it was understood that it was going to have a negative fiscal impact on the general fund. In other words, these fees when they're paid go into the county's general fund and by waiving them, obviously they will not be going into the general fund, but yet staff still has to provide that service and the county has to pay for the staff work. So our concern about that sort of led to the proposal that we actually presented to the hack to try to kind of resolve that concern. The value of the waiver based on our analysis of the first three years is about $4,800 on average. It depends on the location of the application and as well as the sides of the unit, the complexity of the application and that sort of thing. So what our initial recommendation was to the Housing Advisory Commission was to combine or essentially place the fee waiver program as a component of a new ADU incentives program and that thought was this entire ADU incentives program would be structured so that it would be qualifying for using our local housing funds. So in other words, we would have some means testing or some commitments around the ADU affordability that would allow us to essentially fund the fee waiver program as well as the new proposed technical assistance program with our local housing funds rather than the general fund. So the proposed program would have several components. What you're seeing on the slide here is our revised proposal after getting the Housing Advisory Commission's final recommendation on this. So we're proposing an outreach and education component. Given everything we've learned through the pandemic and the value of using virtual meetings and virtual channels and that sort of thing, we'd really like to build on that experience and be able to do outreach really in a much more modern way than we have in a lot of prior housing programs that we've done sort of before the Zoom era, you might say. So we're proposing that we could do both in-person outreach and education events, workshops and that sort of thing, but also maybe have community TV come in and film them, broadcast them on YouTube, whatever, really take advantage of these new tools to reach a much larger audience and not everyone would have to actually come in person to some sort of county facility or wherever and participate. They could participate from home if that's their preference. So we'd really like to take advantage of these new tools to cast a wide net, to outreach about the program and let people sort of dip their toe in the water to see if they're interested without having a big commitment up front. And then those that decide they really want to do it would move forward to the next component, which would be the technical assistance component. And this component sort of is modeled a little bit after the program that Hello Housing has been running in the Bay Area for several counties. They've been running it in San Mateo and Alameda counties primarily, and in several other cities throughout the Bay Area. And so basically it's a lot of hand-holding. It's like you're sort of a project manager for that homeowner. You're bringing the experience and technical knowledge of professionals who work in the construction field and in, you know, this field sort of. It's very similar to running an owner-occupied rehabilitation program in some ways. So they would be providing sort of walking the homeowners through that all the myriad things you have to do to build something on your property, you know, review the zoning codes, do some feasibility based on their particular property, help them decide issues around design, you know, how do you decide whether or not you need an architect, how do you select an architect, you know, all those things that most folks are not going to know about ahead of time. Cost estimating. Apparently there's a lot of problems right now with some folks who are really taking advantage of the trends of ADUs and tiny homes and that sort of thing and modular and let's say less than reputable contractors that are taking advantage of folks. We may be seeing some of this in the CZU fire area as well where people are showing up getting deposits on contracts and then disappearing, you know. So there's a lot of folks taking advantage of less knowledgeable, you know, homeowners consumers with these types of projects. So I think one really valuable and important piece of this proposed program is that kind of educating consumers about these issues and what to be aware of bringing the resources from the state contractor's licensing board and, you know, things about insurance, how to budget for the project, how to finance your project, all those sorts of things. It's kind of like a wraparound assistance in a way helping them with the building permit applications and then helping them understand, you know, how the contractor is going to be working on their property, all of these issues, even training about, you know, if they are going to be renting at an arms length, how to be a landlord, how to manage property, what are the tenant landlord laws that you need to be aware of for folks that might need it, some tenant matchmaking and also training in fair housing, you know, so to understand what the fair housing laws require of a landlord. We initially did have the fee waiver program as a component of this, but like I said, we've removed that and modified our recommendation. I'll get into that in just a moment. Let's see if I can, there we go. Okay. So eligibility and this is, again, the whole thought process here was about how can we structure this program so we can actually fund it with the special housing funds that we have. So the ADU property, some of these are the same types of requirements we had with the ADU loan program previously. So the property has to be the homeowner's primary residence. They can decide to either live in the main house or the ADU and then just run out the other unit at the end of the ADU development. It has to be in a residential zone. What that means is that the zone is one of our various residential zoning districts in our zoning code. So not, for example, timber, or industrial or commercial, not those types of properties. And it has to be obviously in the unincorporated area. The homeowner has to have sufficient resources to build the ADU. They may do this through a home equity loan, through savings that they have, whatever, but the program specifically does not give actual money to build the ADU or to design it. It's more of the services to help you figure out how to do it and how to do it in the most economical way that you can actually afford. So there will be certainly a lot of savings that could be had from participating in this program, but it doesn't directly give funds to the participants. As I mentioned earlier, there's a landlord and fair housing course that is required of the participants. They will have to agree to rent the ADU with a written lease. Now, that doesn't mean they can't choose a tenant. They can't rent it to a family member or what have you. They could certainly do that, but the program requires that they at least use a written lease just to document for both parties and for the program that it is actually rented out. Now, we've expanded upon what the criteria are in our current ADU loan program, which as I mentioned, was not the biggest hit for a variety of reasons. So we've given three options rather than just one for participating in this program, whereas we only had one for the ADU loan program. So either the homeowner themselves is a lower moderate income household. Now, in consulting with these other agencies running these types of programs, they say most of the people that participate tend to be in this category. So this is not like a big lift. The other options are that if they're not themselves lower moderate that they commit to either renting the ADU to someone who is lower moderate income or to a special needs tenant, that could be somebody with a developmental disability, with some other permanent disability, maybe a senior, and that it would be at an affordable rent for that tenant. So those are the eligibility criteria that we are proposing for this new program. Now, as I mentioned, initially the program had the fee waiver incorporated and so that anyone who qualified through these criteria and decided to participate, if they actually got to the point where they submit a building permit, we would give those participants the fee waiver. And in that way we could fund it like I mentioned from housing funds rather than general funds. Oops, I'm going the wrong way. Sorry. Okay. So in terms of the financial impact of the recommendation that's currently before you, we've done some analysis and have built into our budget request for our department's budget for next fiscal year, a request for 711,000 from two of our local affordable housing funds. These are the affordable housing impact fee fund and the measure J and Lou fund, which was sort of the predecessor fund of the current impact fee fund. And that would be enough to run this pilot program for three years with a qualified program administrator and part of the contract would be that they are committing to actually help 18 plus or minus 18 or 20 homeowners actually build out the ADU at the end of the three years. So that is the program goal. With the fee waiver program, we're recommending a one-year extension of the existing fee waiver program as is. So it's not means tested. It would be funded by the general fund again. And our estimate of the annual cost based on the past three year trends is about 76,000. Now, obviously, the more applications we get that number will go up. Or if we get fewer, it'll go down. So these are our recommendations. We're recommending that the board adopt a resolution to extend the fee waiver pilot program for one more year. And the thought process behind the one-year extension is really that the Housing Commission wanted to preserve the program in its current form, so not with the new criteria and so forth. We thought given the fiscal environment that we're in, it would be prudent to maybe just do one more year and give us one more year to sort of test the data and examine the data and the permitting trends, you know, combined with the prior three years, one more year would give us a little bit more trends to analyze. And then, you know, the board can consider extending it again after that point. We are recommending that the board approve the proposed ADU incentives program as described in Attachment B to our report, as I've described here today as well. And that you'd authorize the planning director to contract for administration of the proposed incentives program, and it would launch in the beginning of next fiscal year. So that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms. Issey. Hi, Mr. Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Issey, and the entire planning staff that's been working on this as well as the HAC. I do have some questions. Actually, I have some concerns. I'm not actually convinced this is going to do anything. I have to just lay that out. I think that most people, the barrier to entry is costs, not technical assistance, especially with the fact that we have a significant streamlining of due-to-state changes. This is $35,000 in subsidy per unit, which is a lot of money. Not guaranteed that the units will be billed. I mean, just if we were to average 20 units, it's not even the 18-word average, 20 over the 700,000, 35,000 per unit. And so I guess my question is, are we surveying, one of my questions, are we surveying applicants that come in that end up not building, have a sense as to why they're pulling the plug on the application? Is it because of technical assistance? I mean, I've never heard that. I've heard people complain about the process, but I've never heard them say, if only I had an advocate to get me through the process, I would have been able to do it. Because a lot of the stuff that are in your reports, both in the HAC report and in this report, talk about cost over and over and over again as a barrier, in particular for certain levels of income of which you would be required to have in order to functionally apply for this or to create the same issue that we saw in the loan program, which is that you would have to deed restrict it for somebody who we saw in the loan program didn't work. So I'm seeing the same issues that we had on the loan program pointing out here with the limitations. We're not reducing the cost. I mean, other than the fee waiver, which you would acknowledge at the beginning was de minimis and so may or may not have an impact. So under what construct are we thinking that the 35,000 of technical assistance is going to, is going to flip the script for a minimum of 20 additional units and whether that's the best use of those funds? I just didn't see it through any of the reports I was reading. Sure. These are great questions. So I mean, I can just say a few things on that. One is based on the experience that this nonprofit has had with their programs so far in the Bay area. They feel like they are actually getting a lot of interest from applicants and that, you know, there's basically more interest than they can serve with the funding that they have. And they are successfully moving people towards completing their ADUs. One of the things I think that is one of the biggest benefits of that assistance is it can help people how to, it can help them figure out how to design and build an ADU that fits their budget, right? So there are more expensive and less expensive ways to build an ADU. One of the easiest ways to save on cost is to do a conversion ADU, where you can really bring the cost down if you have, you know, enough square footage to work with from the beginning. So maybe it's a garage, maybe it's a part of your house. But it's that savings in, you know, don't spin your wheels and go spend a lot of money on architecture to design a detached only to find after you spend 50,000 in architecture that you can't actually afford the 400,000 to build the detached unit. So I think that the upfront education and sort of hands-on assistance can really save people a lot of money. The other thing I can say is just in my experience over the past several years, I have spent many, many, many personal hours working with the one family that did apply for an ADU loan. I also talked at length with a staffer at Cabrio College who has been teaching for a number of years through their extension program, a class for, you know, the general public and how to build ADUs. And she's given me a lot of what she's witnessed with her students. I actually, she invited me to go speak to them. So I did on a Saturday a few weekends ago and they had a lot of questions and people did express the feeling that they feel lost and they just, you know, they've taken the initial class that's offered to Cabrio. They've, you know, read the materials at whichever permit counter, whether it's ours or in a city. And they just don't feel like they know how to take the next step forward and actually, like, get a designer or, you know, do all the logistics that's required. And it seemed like they were really receptive to the idea of this program. Now I can say with the one family that we did provide a loan to, they did experience some of the problems that I'm talking about. Their contractor disappeared right before their unit was ready to be finaled. They still haven't been able to get another contractor up there to final their unit. They've decided before they even drew the full loan amount that they are no longer going to carry forward with the loan because they want to put a family member in there who is not low income. So they're just going to pay us back the amount that we drew. You know, they had enough money in their retirement accounts. They could have just not done the loan program and built the ADU on their own. So it was basically like a temporary cash flow management help for them. But I feel like they could, and I did provide them some of the hand holding that is described in this program, although I did it with us not having any funding or extra staffing to provide that level of assistance. And it seems like that's really, that is what they needed in their case. They didn't actually need the money really that much. They needed education and guidance and hand holding every step of the way. So I mean, that's what I can say based on my experience and the experience of this nonprofit working in the Bay Area. The other issue is we reached out and we looked for ADU programs anywhere we could find them in the state. We reached out to the Housing Trust of Silicon Valley, which used to have an ADU loan program and also previously had a similar technical assistance program. They've since terminated the technical assistance just because the funding ran out. They had one time funding to run it. But I spoke to their staff at that time and they had very positive experience with their program. They've terminated the loan program. It's still a little murky to me why they've terminated the loan program, but in any event they have, they've terminated it and it's been terminated for over a year now. And we were unable to find anybody else in the state really that's got a successful loan program. I've been called and contacted by folks from jurisdictions around California, Santa Clara, Texas, D.C., think tanks, all kinds of people asking about our loan program and how can they set one up. What that tells me is nobody else has done this successfully yet because they're calling us because there's not a lot of other people out there that have run these programs. So sure, money is certainly an issue. And I'm not sure how we can address that gap for everybody, but I think this is a way to help people at least figure out what they can do within their budget. Okay. And let me apologize for not communicating well on this. I wasn't advocating for an extension of the loan program. I think that's been defined that it wasn't successful. The elements of the loan program that made it not successful, I think are the elements that we're putting into this technical assistance program. That's one of my concerns. So of all of the programs that you just described were all of them means tested, all the other technical assistance programs, the Silicon Valley Housing Trust, etc., or were they just technical assistance programs for people trying to build ADUs? My point is that in order to fit this into the housing fund so we don't take a hit on the general fund, totally get why that's being presented this way. You've just significantly narrowed the subset of people that would be eligible for technical assistance, true. And then secondly, and we know that people based on a loan program aren't comfortable with a deed restricted unit, which is one of the three options now, not just the singular options. So we know that that's not going to be successful of one of the three options. So the other two components of who would take advantage of the subsidy, we have a very narrow populace that would be eligible based on their income. Not the number of people in Santa Cruz County, but I'm saying how many people are actually those that are. So from a 30,000 foot view, of course technical assistance, I mean, people want an ombudsman to get them through the process. So I'm not opposed to that. I'm not actually not opposed to even what's proposing for me. I'm just trying to be realistic. I don't think it's really going to do anything. I mean, I think that it needs to be broader, but then if it's broader, then we can't use the housing funds, right, from a technical or legal perspective. But I just wanted to present that as the concern because I think that some of these other programs that we're talking about that have offered technical assistance, maybe to know the same level of restrictions that we're putting on in order to use a specific fund. And I just wanted to acknowledge that. And then this 35,000 per unit subsidy is a lot if it's not actually, well, maybe to some degrees producing the cost because there's ancillary cost, but it's not directly reducing the cost. And that's what I wanted to, that's what I'm not hearing from this is that or the largest number of people coming in meeting the criteria, right, that we're now putting on this in order to make it qualify for housing funds. Or is it everybody that's saying that the process is too expensive to cover some and the disproportionate number of people that build ADUs are also people as you'd even acknowledged in the one loan situation actually had the means is elected to seek it. And I think it's, I think it's a ladder. I mean, I don't know you're in the business, I'm not, but I think it's a ladder, especially with the massive increase in construction costs lately. So do you feel or I mean, do you think that we're going to meet with all these sort of restrictions, the goals that were set forth here with this pretty large amount of money, or do you think the housing fund could be spent doing something else that's going to build more affordable housing is really the ultimate question. Sure. So we have brought in the criteria significantly from the loan program. So the loan program had one option, which is rent the ADU to a low income household for 20 years, or you could cut out sooner, but then you have to pay the loan back. The income levels that we're proposing for this new program because of the concerns around that are higher. We're saying low or moderate. Now the moderate income limit currently for a household of four is around $135,000. That is just published the new limits and it's going to be once the state publishes that data around $141,000. Now I shared these numbers with the folks in the Cabrillo class as well and asked them to raise their hand if they thought they were within that limit and most people in the room raise their hand. A lot of homeowners, they're kind of house rich and maybe not so high income and they can really draw on the fact that they have the land there and use some home equity to be able to bridge that gap. They also may have some retirement savings or maybe there's a family member who's going to move into that unit that will help them finance it or will pay some rent or whatever. I think the moderate income limit is actually casting a pretty wide net. A lot of the folks that we talk to that ask about the limits are like, who earns that kind of money? They're shocked at how high the limit is. Those numbers actually don't reflect where the average incomes in the county are. The average household income is around $89,000. They're adjusted upwards because the housing costs here are so high that more people need the program assistance than you would otherwise think if the housing costs were not so high. The other change that we're recommending here is that, like I mentioned, there's three ways to qualify. One is the homeowner themselves is either lower mod income. The other is that they'll rent the unit to somebody who is either low or mod that's expanding the pool again and also expanding the amount of rent they can charge for the unit, right, if it's a moderate household rather than low. Then the special needs category, we're not even asking what the income is of that person. So maybe if somebody's mother, maybe it's a disabled adult child, a friend, whomever, it would just be their committing to rent them. The other program design feature is that we're not saying it would have to be a 20-year term for that rental. What was suggested by the non-profit partner that we were looking at was a three-year term that they found that folks were much more comfortable with that. Now, odds are, if somebody starts renting to a tenant for three years and they had a good relationship, they're probably going to keep renting to that same person. So you're probably going to get a bigger benefit out of it than just the three years. But by reducing it from the 20-year term, it takes that bite out of it a little bit. It's not as intimidating for an applicant or a participant to look at a three-year commitment versus a 20-year commitment. We understand the concerns and this is how we've reshaped the proposal to try to address those concerns. But certainly, could we spend $700,000 on a multi-family project instead? For sure, definitely. Okay. I apologize for not surprising the time. I mean, I'm supportive of this and concept. I'm going to vote for it. I mean, I'm just not convinced that it's ultimately going to move the needle. I mean, I think that that's the reality. But given the imperfect set of options we have in public policymaking, I think that it is what it sort of is in that situation. But I mean, I really do want to compliment not just your knowledge on the subject of the amount of work and heart and personal attention that you've given to this over the last few years and continue to give. So I appreciate that. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. Supervisor McPherson. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you to the Housing Advisory Commission and the Planning Department for its work on trying to improve our ADU incentives. It's really a critical element of our low-income housing issue. A lot of thought I know has gone into encouraging more property owners to build ADUs and rent them with the notion that they're affordable by design. And I know that it's especially important in areas where larger-scale developments are not possible like my district in the center of the valley. In December, we have 21. The Board agreed to support maintaining the ADU fee waiver and ask the Commission the hack to take a closer look. The Commission came back with a unanimous recommendation to extend that fee waiver for three years and to support the fee waving fees for ADUs that are up to 750 feet. I agree with that recommendation and I'd like to see the Board carry that through. I think the three-year program would send a message to property owners that we're committed to easing the way for more ADUs to be built, especially with the high cost of construction that you mentioned right now for the foreseeable future. I'm in favor of a long way which I would say a longer runway for that program. So I know that there seems to be overall agreement that the fee that the excuse me the loan program is not working. It just requires too much administrative work. But I think that as the Commission and the Board has signaled previously, I'd like to make a motion that regarding the fee waivers where we already are and extend that for three years and not the one year. I just think it's a better image of what we're trying to do and give it more opportunity. And I'd be glad to make that motion when the time comes. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Heather, Supervisor Caput. I'll just say thank you for the wonderful report and all the work you put in. And I'll second the motion. That'll be fine. Thank you. Okay, thanks. I'll wait till we after public comment to officially accept the motion. Any other comments? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just real briefly, I want to appreciate the time and effort that went into this. I can see the staff's commitment to trying to use all the levers we can to try to make ADUs an increased form of affordable by design housing in this community. And the hacks efforts to reach out beyond our county to see what we can learn. I mean, I'm sort of in agreement with Supervisor Friend. I've been, I was just talking to some small developers yesterday and like nothing they want to build can pencil. They own the land. They're ready to leverage all the new state changes, all of our changes for increased density. And because of construction costs, it's like it just doesn't work. And so when you have $400,000 ADU construction and it takes a year to get a contractor, I'm not sure that much we do on this end can move that needle. But I appreciate this effort of trying to help people early in the process because I think people's frustrations with building ADUs and the market conditions often fall onto the counties, frustration around the county and the process. And to the extent that we can both streamline and provide technical assistance in that process, but then also help people get to a realistic answer sooner. I think that's a public service that is important to not have sort of word spread about how hard it is to build an ADU or frustrating or everything else. And our people spend money on consultants and architects up front only to find out they can't make it work. So I think from a public service point of view, this is helpful. And then hopefully there are innovations in construction and materials and other things that allow the prices to come down and make it a little more turnkey for folks because the conditions are just far too difficult to make it pay off in a reasonable amount of time for most homeowners. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. I agree with Supervisor Friend and Coonerty. I think it's just I have the same concerns about this proposed program that we're just limiting it to a very narrow subsection of the population that is considering building an ADU and for all the reasons discussed, it's just probably out of their price range or very close to being so. I mean, maybe there's a few people that we could help. I also sort of fundamentally am frustrated by the idea that we have a very difficult process, one that has people pulling their hair out all over the community. And instead of fixing the process, we're spending more money to try to help people through the process. And now I know that improving the process with the Unified Permit Center and we're making progress on that, and it's going to take a little bit of time. But still, there's something there that is a little frustrating. And so I mean, if anything, I think the idea of extending the fee waiver program to more ADUs, and I'll just say, I understand that the proposal to keep it at 640 square feet so that we can really track exactly who that's incentivizing to build those size units. I'd rather just see more ADUs built and double down on our efforts for really any size. 750 square feet is the one where we've already got the most incentives. Fine, let's go there. And I understand that that would cost more to our general fund, but the more ADUs they get built, I mean, that's going to increase the assessment on those parcels anyway, and ultimately we'll make that money back in the long run. And furthermore, it incentivizes us to actually spend less time through the permitting process if we're not making money on those ADUs through permit fees. So I think that that better aligns the incentives. I did have one question. So if I understood correctly, if the fee waiver was for someone in those categories of a low income or median income household, then we could use the affordable housing funds to basically refund ourselves for the fee waiver. Did I hear that correctly? The initial proposal was that if we limited to the participants in the technical assistance program, then we would use housing funds, basically budget from this program to pay the fee for that person. So it wouldn't be the fee was waived, it's just we're paying it for them out of the housing fund. The way we currently have the program before you, it no longer includes that fee waiver program because the hack wanted to keep it as is. So that's what we're putting forward is just a resolution to keep it as is for one more year or for three years if that's the motion. Right. And if we had it open, if we had the fee waiver program open to everyone because it was sort of more general program, could we still couldn't pay the fees specifically for median income or low income folks who are applying? We could potentially put that back in the program design. We would have to look at how that affects the budget for the program. That would only cover 18 or 20 participants that actually get that far, maybe a little bit more. I think we don't necessarily have enough in the housing fund either to just say broadly that any applicant that comes forward with an ADU permit and happens to be lower mod income, that we can pay their fee for them. I mean, that would probably be more than we have budget for in the housing fund as well. So we had sized it thinking that it's a smaller group of folks and that we can pay their fees for them from the housing fund. Okay. So there's some potential for program redesign going forward. I mean, as mentioned, my biggest concern with the current affordability assistance programming proposal is we're going to spend money on the training and hiring a consultant and all that upfront, whether or not anyone actually takes advantage of it. So I mean, if there was any way to structure that contract for the consultant to be per unit that they actually help get across the finish line, that would be fantastic. I don't think we're there yet. In the other communities where they've offered these programs, they've had to do a lottery to select the applicants. They've had so many applicants, so many interested folks. Right. And I think Supervisor Friend sort of hinted at this question, but didn't get answered. Were those programs limited to low and moderate income folks? Not necessarily because in some of the communities they had, I guess, enough other types of funds they could use to fund the service without having to dip into their housing funds per se, but they did have requirements that you had to agree to rent the unit. It varies by community. Each community had a slightly different design, but as I recall, almost every community had it where you had to at least rent the unit for three years for either a low or moderate income tenant. So there was some connection to the unit being affordable. I'm not sure what all of those different communities used to fund the program, but I know, for example, San Mateo County, they're in a much stronger fiscal position. It's a much larger county. I used to work up there, so I know their stuff pretty well as well. And I don't think they would have struggled to fund the program with general funds or other funds that they have. So it was slightly looser than what we're proposing because of the fiscal situation that we're in. All right, thank you. I'll open it for a public comment now. Is there anyone on Zoom who wishes to make a public comment? Chair, we do not have any speakers. Okay, then I'll return to the board for action. I'd like to make a motion that we extend the accessory dwelling unit fee waiver program until June 30, or excuse me, April 30, 2025, three years, and expand the program to include ADUs up to 750 feet with the report back to the board for updated data that we have by April of next year of 2023. Supervisor McPherson, I think there are additional recommended actions, so the question would be whether you... Yeah, I did not want to get in. The loan program isn't working. I just didn't want to get into that. So this is the only thing that I want to do address in my motion. So you don't want to do the recommended actions with that change in direction, including the creation of this? Yes, that'll be okay. I just want to adopt with the exception of the... Oh, okay. So your motion didn't say that. So I'm sorry. I want to specify what... Yeah. Okay, so it would be a motion... Time limit and the size. All right, then I'll just ask Council if it's clear what the motion is then so I can make sure that we get it right. Because I know what you're trying to do. I just want to make sure the language says it. Right now it's not clear to me. It may be clear to the clerk, but it's not clear to me. Okay, I just wanted to eliminate the loan program that we just extend the accessory dwelling fee waiver program until June 25 or I said June April 25 30th and expand the program to include 700 ADUs up to 700 feet with a report back to the board using the data. Now the other... We can... If we eliminate the fee, we'd rather include the other recommended actions. So I think it's for the recommended actions of the modification of number one? Correct. Okay. If you'd like, I can read back the motion. Okay, so the motion as amended is adopt resolution to extend the accessory dwelling unit fee waiver pilot program to April 30th, 2025 and include ADUs up to 750 feet with a report back to the board by April 2023, including motion two which is approved proposed ADU incentives program, which is the amendment to add the 750 feet and authorize the director of planning to enter into a contract with qualified program administrator for administration of the proposed ADU incentives. Right. At the second by Supervisor Caput. All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, we'll call vote please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Koenig. Aye. This item passes unanimously. Thank you, Ms. Ease. Thank you. No, I got it. All right. We'll now proceed to item 10, public hearing to consider general vacation of fond court, abutting APNs 09021127 and 09021110. Adopt the resolution to vacate fond court and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the deputy CAO, director of community development and infrastructure. This is a public hearing. I'll officially open the public hearing. And for presentation on this item, believe it or not, I think your mic is not working. My apologies. The community development and infrastructure department has received an application to vacate fond court, abutting assessor's parcel numbers 09021127 and 09021110. The row terminates in a dead end at APN 09021127 and does not serve as a public throwaway. Fond court serves primarily to provide access to APN 09021127, which property owner has requested this public hearing. The property owner has experienced hazardous conditions on this road caused by public loitering and waste disposal. The property owner now desires to privatize this road and perform the necessary maintenance. The community development and infrastructure department has reviewed this request and determined that the road is not necessary for present or prospective public use. Any vacation of this road will reserve an easement for utilities. A request for vacation of a public street is controlled by streets and highway code 8300 at sec. This code requires posting notice of the requested abandonment, advertisement of a public hearing, and the hosting of a public hearing. The clerk of the board has advertised the public hearing as required by streets and highway code section 8322. The real property section has posted notices as required by California streets and highway code 8323. And on March 8th, 2022, the board approved the scheduling of today's public hearing. At this hearing, the board of supervisors shall hear the evidence offered by persons interested. If the board finds from all of the evidence submitted that the road described is unnecessary for present or prospective public use, the board may adopt a resolution vacating the road. The Department of Community Development and Infrastructure recommends the board take the following actions. Conduct a public hearing to consider public comments related to the vacation of Foncourt. Adopt a resolution to vacate Foncourt and reserve an easement for public utilities. And authorize the clerk of the board to record a certified copy of the resolution as required by streets and highway code 8325. And I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Finley. Any questions for members of the board? I don't see anybody from the public. I don't know if we have anybody on the line. I'm ready to move the recommended actions. We do have one speaker views in there. All right. Colin, user two, your microphone is available. This is Marilyn Garrard, and I was discussing this item with a friend looking at the staff report. It disturbs me when there is property that belongs to the public, the county that we paid for, that is given to private interests. And when it goes to private interests, it's like with our public funds. And I'm interested in why this is wanted. I heard this stated reasons. And I also recall similarly where on various agendas, county-owned easements have been relinquished, quite a few of them. And just now I was thinking of a meeting I had gone to regarding a property behind the live oak grains where Santa Cruz live oak grains where a property owner had in this case given some of her property for easement for public utilities. And what happened was that they put up a cell antenna. These are putting out radiation, their adverse health effects that are well documented, right at the area she had given up. And she was very upset about that. She was going to talk to a lawyer. She said, I had no idea this would be used for a cell sign. So it sounds problematic to me. There are no additional speakers. All right, then I'll return to the board for action. Mr. Chair, I'd move the recommended actions. I'll second. Motion by Supervisor McPherson, second by Supervisor Friend. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk roll call up, please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Koenig. Aye. This item passed unanimously. Thank you. I'll now close the public hearing. Proceed to item 11 to consider approval and concept of ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Cruz amending Santa Cruz County Code section 12.10.235 to add subsection C, Water Demand Calculator, schedule the ordinance for a second reading and final adoption on May 10th, 2022 as outlined in the memorandum by Supervisor Koenig and Supervisor McPherson. And I will present a little bit of information about this item if you pull up some slides. So what this ordinance would do is adopt Appendix M from the 2019 California Plumbing Code, which is also known as the Peak Water Demand Calculator. Next slide, please. And I should say this availability of this Appendix was brought to my attention by affordable housing developer, Sibley Simon. The problem is that the way that we size pipes today is based on Hunter's Curve, which was designed back in the 1940s, which was well before any of the high-efficiency fixtures that we have today were required. And so even though most of our homes now use those high-efficiency fixtures, we're still using sizing metrics from the 1940s. Next slide. And so what this results in is first and foremost water waste. So even if you've got a high-efficiency fixture, you basically, there's more water stored in your pipes. The biggest way this waste water is that you just wait, you run more water as you're waiting for hot water to arrive, whether it's in your bathroom, waiting for the shower or the kitchen sink. It also leads to higher housing costs in terms of just having to pay for more pipe during construction and those costs get passed on to customers. And in very large buildings where a lot of water can be stored in the pipes, actually the drinking water quality issues with biofilms and stagnant water developing. So you can see here on the right, this can save up to $250 per year in water and sewer charges and up to $2,500 or more in piping costs that could be saved per home by changing the standards. Next slide, please. The peak water demand calculator, it's really largely a spreadsheet with some functions in it. You can see over here on the right, basically you can put the number of fixtures that you intend to put in the home or multifamily unit and then it has various probabilities of use and maximum recommended fixture flow rates for all of those and outputs the size of piping that you'd need. Next slide. And so this basically addresses the problems I mentioned, which are it increases water efficiency, improves housing affordability and also removes the likelihood that you'd have standing water or stagnant water in a building. Next slide. So as far as where appendix M would apply, if we adopt it as a county, it really applies to our side of the water meter. So the pipe sizing within the building, we did have a procedure as to fictional collaboration with all of the water agencies in the county. Thanks to Sierra Ryan, our county water resources manager for pulling together a meeting with all the water agencies. And we discussed the opportunity of the water agencies adopting appendix M as well, which would affect the size of the water meter. They're not prepared to do that at this time because it would affect the way that they charge for water meters and would involve a significant amount of work on their part. In addition, the city of Santa Cruz just updated their water rates. And so they will look to adopt appendix M within the next few years before the next rate setting cycle. But they are satisfied with us moving forward with appendix M to regulate pipe sizing on quote unquote our side of the building within the building itself. Next slide. So the recommended actions today are to consider and improve and concept ordinance of the Board of Supervisors to the County of Santa Cruz, amending Santa Cruz County Code section 12.10.235 to add subsection C, water demand calculator, and schedule the ordinance for a second reading and final adoption on May 10th, 2022. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for bringing this to my office too for consideration and to our earlier discussion on how you use anything we can do to save water, incentivize solutions to proper water use is great and critical at this time. And it's a good way to reduce the cost of construction as well as the water costs and the water demand. So I would move the recommended actions. And thank you for bringing it into the board. I'll just open it for public comment before we accept that motion. We do have one speaker. Sorry. Thank you. Colin user to your microphone is available. This sounds good the way you present it, but I have some questions. The cost to make the changeovers. What is that going to be? And the another point is this seems like a way to impose water reduction use and just cut off people. I we've had some very topsy-turvy water, drought, weather conditions and a program I'm listening to a website to see related to this is called geoengineeringwatch.org, geoengineeringwatch.org with Dane Wiggington talking about and he refers to the patents for weather manipulation that is a big factor in the droughts we're having. I would urge the county to look into that and I just wanted to put that recommendation and raise this question. Could you respond? Is this a way to impose water reduction use where people could just be cut off to a certain determined by the county limit of water use? That's my question. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Yeah, this would in no way cause I'm going to be cut off from their water use and largely it's just having to pipe size and catch up with our high efficiency fixtures that are already in place. All right, I'll return to the board for action. Motion by Supervisor McPherson. Do you want to second? Second. Second by Supervisor Friend. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk roll call vote please. Supervisor Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Traffit. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Koenig. Aye. Item passes unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our regular agenda. Well, the board will now move into closed session. Council, are there any reportable actions that would come out of closed session? Not today. All right, then that concludes our public portion of this meeting. The next regular meeting of the board of supervisors will be May 7th, 2022 at 9 a.m. Thank you. We'll move right into closed session.