 All right. Good morning, everybody. I'm going to call the May 14, 2019 Board of Supervisors meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the roll. Good morning, Supervisor Leopold. Here. Fred. Here. Caput. Here. McPherson. Here. And Chair Kennedy. Here. Now we're going to ask you to rise and we're going to have a moment of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. And today we have a full agenda, so I want to remind folks we don't want you to get parking tickets. So if you need to go out and monitor that time and move your car so you don't get a parking ticket or you can always buy a pass and park all day and not have to worry about it. Now I'm going to ask the RCAO if there are any late additions or deletions to the agenda. Yes, there are a couple of changes to the consent agenda. On item 26, there's additional materials. There's a revised attachment A packet pages 449 and 450. And then item 31, there's additional materials, a revised memo packet page 523. Thank you. Great. Now I'm going to ask if there are any board members who would like to remove any items from today's consent agenda. I'll make a comment later, but I won't remove it. Okay, great. Moving on to item number five, this is public comment. So now is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about items that are on our consent agenda, on our closed session agenda. If you cannot stay for one of our regular agenda items and to speak to us about items that are not on today's agenda, but are within the purview of the Board of Supervisors. I'm going to ask anyone who would like to speak to please, if you can, line up. We are ready. Morning. I come before this board today to speak about the application to certify a most dangerous program naming itself the Harm Reduction Roadshow. While there are some fairly alarming statements contained within this application, none are as preposterous as its primary claim that this group of unqualified charlatans plan to provide health services to underserved areas of the county. I find this statement to be ridiculous. Two of the four mentioned sites are within easy walking distance of existing county services. The other two are located at or near parks where children play and none are located within districts one or two. This is interesting as knowing the locations of the county's existing Surrend Services program, neither of these districts are being served by the county at all. It's not due to a lack of IV drug addicts. I read the arrest logs. If through your silence you support a program designed to replace health care with tuna casserole and a smile, then you need to leave public service. Thank you, next speaker. Morning. My name is Tony Crane. I represent a group in Aptos in objection to the second story program that was put in our neighborhood. I'm going to provide or read for you the original resolution approved by all of you, signed by Supervisor McPherson, allowing the Santa Cruz Health Services Agency to request a grant for peer respite. And it says, be it further resolved that the county of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency agrees to abide by the terms and conditions of the grant as set forth by Chaffa. So for a year and a half now, I have provided you with irrefutable evidence that they lied, that they committed fraud in getting the money. They continued to lie to the public in order to keep the money and that they never should have gotten the money in the first place. Yet they continue and at one point you promised that that program would leave our neighborhood and they are there still today. So again, I've provided everything I can. I've spoken here. I've read internal emails that very specifically shows them being dishonest to the public to you guys. Yet you just sit and let it happen and I don't get it. I believe you guys probably took an oath to abide by the things that you sign, yet here we sit, it's still there. And maybe it didn't read what I sent. Maybe you're not listening to what I'm saying. But what I'm telling you, there is no question that these lies occurred. So I hope you guys are going to do something about this because if not, you are just complicit. You have all of this information and next week I'll be providing another email that will be very interesting to you. So see you then. Next speaker. Hi, my name is Donna Moore and I'm here about damage done by the Sheriff's Office on a domestic violence call on my property of apartments in Watsonville. And I went to the risk department and sent a letter to you with all the repairs for the door and the frame and the locks and everything that they kicked in the door for the problem that was occurring. And I haven't heard anything and I don't know what to do from this point on. They said to come and talk to you about it. It's been about six weeks since I sent the letter. And I called Mr. Capet's office and talked to Ramon and he said to do what I'm doing. So I don't know. I need some advice as to what the next process is. You filed a claim with the county. I did. I sent it to the board, the letter and the receipts. And I tried to get the police report, but they wouldn't give it to me. They said that you could. I did get a case number, but they wouldn't give me a copy of it to bring. So could someone advise me where we're at? Ma'am, this is right now. We can't interact with members of the public on as they bring up items, but we will make sure that somebody either from risk manager's office or from supervisor Capet's office gets back to you with an update and next steps. Thank you. Do we have our contact information? I assume. Good morning, board of supervisors. I'm Carol Siegel. I am the employment manager for the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, but I'm here today on behalf of the workforce development board. Thank you, Bruce. I'm in the fifth district. I love what I do in my work and I get to expand that love of hiring over 1500 people. And in my work with the board, I've been chair now for the last couple of years and on the board for 12 plus years. The work that we're doing just shores right up to the things I love to do in my day to day with the seaside company and seeing people prosper and finding work that's meaningful and that businesses need. Board of order, I believe this is a design talker. You have people that are working for the county, assuming the public's time. Sir, you've now been warned we're not going to interrupt people while they're... Board of order. Okay. You don't bring up points of order, so you've now been warned one more outburst and now have you removed. I'm sorry, ma'am, please continue. Thank you. We're working on, since healthcare is a booming industry, we have a program called Slingshot that brings in all the stakeholders. Real College launched in January of this year a community health worker training that we're very excited about. Apprenticeship readiness, 10 students graduated this January for built on the Monterey Santa Cruz Building and Construction Trades Council. And they're now ready to go and apply for jobs with the trades. We also have a hospitality and tourism project that we're getting stakeholders together and there really are career fields in the hospitality field. It's not just that beginning worker, but there's a lot of great careers. So these are exciting things to upshore our community that we're very excited about. And I just want to tell you that it's joyful to work with the Workforce Development Board and thank you for your work as well. Thank you. And I just want to thank you for your work on the Workforce Development Board and for coming today and apologize for the interruption. No problem. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Maritza Lara with the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County. I'm here to first thank you for the leadership you provide in workforce development through the Workforce Development Board and its director Andy Stone. As you know, California's healthcare system is facing a crisis due to a shortage of the right kind of healthcare workers. Addressing this gap at the local level cannot wait. This past year, the healthcare industry partnered up with Workforce Development Board to bring our first to a region, the First Community Health Worker Program. Workforce is a regional issue and the Slingshot Initiative allowed us to work across county lines with our partners Moneray County Workforce Development Board, Cabrillo College, Harnell College and CSUMB. This work is in alignment with the state vision of a scaling engagement of community health workers at the state level. This program not only creates a workforce pipeline for community members, but it also improves the healthcare outcomes for the most vulnerable populations in our community. Thank you for your visionary leadership and for your support to develop the workforce through the Workforce Development Board. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Rob Morris. I've been on the Workforce Development Board for six years. I'm currently the vice chair. The Workforce Development Board creates programs and strategies that provide residents a pathway to better wages and meaningful work. With agricultural and tourism being the big part of our community, we see low-wage, low-skill jobs growing at a faster rate than the economy, than the rest of the economy. This must be addressed. I think we're all aware of the growing discrepancies between cost of living and regional wages in this county. Under Andy's leadership, we're looking for ways to help the unemployed or underemployed get meaningful work and the opportunity to grow and thrive in this community. That means connecting them with the skills and resources that will match what our local employers are looking for. So linking job seekers with the right tools is not simple navigation. You have to go through a myriad of bureaucracies. One of the programs that they've got is the administrative data pilot, which helps these job seekers get through that bureaucracy. Understanding what local businesses need is critical. One of the partnerships that we have, a local sector partnership, is understanding what those local businesses need, helping determine how to help job seekers reach that. We have a layoff aversion program looking at companies that actually have employees. Let's keep them viable and let's look for ways for them to actually expand. So all of these programs are just phenomenal and they're doing a lot for our community. And I just want to thank you for your support and hope that that continues. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Brett Garrett. I just want to say thank you for supporting public banks with Item 31 on the consent agenda. I'm strongly supporting AB 857. Thanks. Jeff Nordahl, can I speak on cannabis today? You won't be able to speak later, but you can speak. Okay. Anyway, this is my only shot and tell you true that I got a race off to an architect this morning to work on our cannabis site. But I just wanted to say thank you guys very much for the ordinance that you already wrote that allowed for growing outside the commercial ag zone. I do want to report some good news. Here's our SC labs results. And sure enough, when we're able to grow up in the mountains in a pristine area, all of our lab results ever since we started growing up there have come back 100% clean, non-detected for every single pesticide, every residue, every contaminant, non-detected. So there really is value to being outside of the commercial ag zones, which there's, I mean, a time and place for everything. But the number one question we get from customers is they want to see our lab results and make sure everything is clean. And by being able to grow in these pristine environments, we're able to guarantee that not be susceptible to pesticide drift and residual pesticides. So thank you. I know that also I believe the nursery license is up for discussion right now and strongly encourage that. That's where Santa Cruz really shines in innovation with genetics and such. It doesn't have a big footprint, environmental-wise, but we can really, we've got some very skilled breeders and genetics people here in Santa Cruz. So that would be highly appropriate to have a nursery license here in Santa Cruz. So thank you. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Melissa Freebaran. I'm a first responder nurse. I'm here to speak out against the harm reduction road show currently who has a state application pending to hand out thousands of more needles in our community. Since May of 2018, this road show coalition has been handing out thousands of needles in Felton, Watsonville and Santa Cruz because of the complacency of local politicians and the support with a lack of understanding of what it takes to address the opioid epidemic. We need to fix the county syringe program. We don't need 100,000 more needles for 150 people to be floating around in our community with lack of access to HIV, hepatitis C testing. One of these medical care issues are going to be solved by allowing a dental hygienist, a fake nurse and UCSC students to be treating one of our most vulnerable populations locally. And the silence of this board is deafening when we are in an opioid epidemic and people are dying every day. The grand jury recommended that you guys put the funding behind the syringe program that you guys operate a mobile service. And what you did is you went behind the public's back and you allowed this woman to hand out needles with no public comment, no ability to weigh in. Chief Mills is against this. Sheriff Hart has spoken out against this. I appreciate McPherson and Coonerty standing up, but I want to know why Friend, Leopold and Capit, you have remained silent when over 3,000 members of your community have signed a petition and hundreds more have called your office. What's it going to take? Drug addicts deserve care by medical professionals. That's why I'm here and I will continue to show up. Good morning, board. My name is Damon Bruder. I'm a concerned citizen. I would like to echo the sentiments of Ms. Freeburn. I'm a recovering addict. I live in the city of Santa Cruz. I have empathy for the addicts. I have empathy for the community. I don't feel that we need a redundant needle dispersion program. Our county is working really hard with the public and has been for the past few years to modify and improve the county syringe services program as it exists. We've made great strides. We've made great headway with that. We do not need a redundant program coming in and completely circumventing and undermining everything that we've done, everything that you have done to provide harm reduction for our most desperate people, the people that need it. This roadshow application circumvents any county oversight, city oversight, public input. It makes it so that they can do whatever they want with no accountability, no transparency, no oversight. Where is the reduction? It seems like more harm. Right now that program has poached over 70 people per month from the program, the county's run program. That's over a 50% loss of people being seen by medical professionals in a medical and private setting trying to get them the best care possible. Yes, addicts are going to be addicts. Yes, they're going to use needles. We need you all to stand up and take a stance for our safety, for our community safety, for our addicts safety, for our children's safety. I appreciate the stance of Mr. Coonerty and Mr. McPherson. Thank you for going public. The other three, please take a stance. Let us know where you stand on the safety of our community. Good morning. My name's Olivia Martinez and I have here a petition on behalf of the social workers at Work and Child Protective Services. I'm going to try to read this in three minutes. Dear Board of Supervisors, the Human Resource Department mission is to strengthen our community by protecting the vulnerable, promoting self-sufficiency, alleviating poverty, and improving quality of life. Family and Children Services Division is specifically charged with protecting vulnerable children from in-home abuse and neglect, providing alternative living arrangements for children. Our task is not an easy one, nor it's one that the weak of heart. It is certainly not glamorous as each day we are faced with overwhelming heartbreak and trauma. For those of us who enter into this profession, we are passionate about social justice and we hold a deep commitment towards helping those in need. We are relentless in our efforts to create positive change for families and children we serve in the Santa Cruz County. Unfortunately, to keep the promise of our mission, we, the social worker staff, must work extremely high-stress, dysfunctional work environments. Social workers not only in Santa Cruz County but across the state and nation are exposed to high caseloads and constant and unrelenting criticism and conflict in Santa Cruz County. Social workers experience these conditions on a daily basis from within and outside the department and it negatively impacts the ability to help the families and children in the community. What they are asking basically is for manageable workloads, appropriate staffing for all programs and a service delivery model consistent with other counties of similar size in the state. They thank you for listening. I'm going to give you copies of the petition but this is a real big issue in the county. In LA County, two children died. There's a really concerns that you have so many staff members leaving the CPS County services. Since 2010, you've had over 50 CPS social workers leave the county and I have proof of all of this which I will provide. Thank you. Next speaker. Hello, my name is Rachel Spaulding and I would like to speak with you briefly about cell facilities in Santa Cruz County. Local officials have admitted that the telecom industry plans to install more than 40 cell, small cell antennas per square mile in our community in front of our homes and in all of our neighborhoods. The thousands of existing U.S. cell towers violate federal emission limits, some by as much as 600%. What's installed these towers are not monitored. The industry may broadcast at any level thousands of peer reviewed studies by scientists independent of the industry, conclusively prove serious long term effects from current exposures to wireless technologies, especially for our children. New generation technology 4G and 5G is exponentially more harmful as it uses shorter microwaves and differently pulls frequencies. Please join your neighbors in resisting the cell tower roll out. It is up to us to protect ourselves, our children and our environment. Thank you. Thank you. Down to two minutes I see Marilyn Garrett, part of wireless radiation alert network and EMF aware. You just heard a statement here that coincides with information you have received over the years from me. Since I retired from teaching in 2000 on the dangers of wireless microwave radiation and the health impacts, we are often assured that things are safe. This is the 40th anniversary of the three mile island nuclear disaster in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And I've heard you state supervisor Leopold that you were living there at the time and had to be evacuated. I think you were 14 at the time. Radiation is a hazard causes cancer and other debilitating diseases, whether it's non ionizing or ionizing radiation has a different way of working, disaster health impacts are the same. Going back and I want to refer you to Barry Trower. And I would think somebody who's been through that you said it was a, forget the word, a pivotal point in your understanding of what was going on that led you into politics. I would hope that you would take a leadership role in stopping the 4G, 5G wireless technology and the studies go back to 1932 or earlier of the harm. I refer people to Barry Trower. Thank you, your time's up. Thank you. Next speaker. Gary Richard Arnold. We know why the drugs are why you pass out the needles and why this is a sanctuary city to coordinate and not have trouble with the gangs and the cartels. That is your responsibility. And I think it's outrageous that the other four board members of the supervisors allow Mr. Coonerty who is left in awake of the city of Santa Cruz that their speaker time has been cut to two minutes automatically permanently now. Mr. Coonerty is in charge of these huge censorship. In the meantime, you continue to work on setting up a parallel government. The head of the trilateral commission or the founder of it together with Rockefeller, Packard and Alan Cranston whose aid was Kamala Harris. He says regionalization. There is a whole state of California has been regionalized called CalCog. CalCog. Locally it's called AMBAG. Mr. McPherson has been in charge and running that operation for decades. Brzezinski says this regionalization is in keeping with the trilateral plan which calls for the convergence of the East and West ultimately leading to the goal of a one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept and it's a fraud when you turn around and pledge to the republic. You don't believe in the republic. Absolutely not. I find that we've got Diane Feinstein is member of the trilateral commission. We've got Packard that funds the community foundation that loves Hugh DeLacy who was a pro-mau representative just as Rockefeller was. You're continued not the community TV not recording those secret meetings at AMBAG for years is outrageous because there's 12 cities in three counties that can pay for it. Your work in the dark and secrecy is outrageous Mr. Coonerty. Thank you. Your time's up. Next speaker. Yeah I just want to remind members of the public what it is to be a good flag waving Americans because we are good people. I truly believe that. People always tell me smile victorious. You have a great smile. So I want to be able to do that. I can offer that. It's free. I want to be able to say there's a lot going on in the political life of our community. Censorship is running rampant. You know on today's light item agenda on the consent agenda they have over 30 33 light items I believe right and members of the public are not able to participate in weighing on the the fairs of our government. This is not effective government. This is arbitrary government where the we're a change in language is in is a change in reality. Zachariah friend. Right. You know I got to say this. You know this is a social agreement between the establishment the human society. I'm a human unit and there's a lot of other people. You know you guys want to usurp all the benefits and privilege of government. You know the human service department they come in here Alan Timberlake she comes in here with no shame whatsoever. She comes in here and she brings our hustle. All the design talkers come and fill up the light. The fill it all up. Right. Right. And we can't even do public comment because Ryan Coonerty has a lacquerty to want to truncate the public comment. Put the design talkers at the very end. No I you know I don't got time to be sitting around hearing them. But the political dismembering is a real act committed by the establishment and this is a violent act being committed now allow members of the public to weigh in on the consent agenda. Then not only that but then we got the radio station throwing off Georgia Peach and hey she's entitled to her political dissent. I got cussed out by MZ because they banned me from calling in just supporting her radio station. And also I want to be able to remind members of the public that Anthony J. Hilder passed away and I want him to be able to thank him for his activism. Thank you. Are there any other speakers who would like to speak to us today? Seeing none I'll close public comment and bring it back to the board. We're now going to take action on the consent agenda. These are items 17 to 48 listed and I'll ask Supervisor Friend if you have any comments. Thank you chair. Good morning. I just have a couple brief comments to thank public to thank public works for items 41 and 42 just in regards to measure D. I appreciate the work that you've been able to do in getting low bids regarding this. That continue the measure D work as well as to continue the storm damage work that we are still digging out of for the last couple years. I appreciate the work that public works does every day. Good morning chair. Just a couple items to comment on on item number 27. It's very important that we purchase new machines that are certified that will have a paper ballot and that provide ways for people to check on the system. I appreciate the work that our county clerk of elections Gail Pellerin does every day to encourage people to participate in the electoral process. On item number 29. It's a bylaws change for the mobile and manufactured home commission and I just want to thank all the people who serve on that commission. They work very hard to meet the needs of people who live in mobile and manufactured homes in Santa Cruz County. We have a number of good owners and we have a number of of owners that that I wouldn't put in that category. And they serve as advocates for people in parks and I just appreciate their work and I have the great honor of serving as a liaison to the commission and I could appreciate their work when I go to the meetings on a regular basis. That's all I had. Thank you Mr. Chair. I have several items. First of all I'll abstain from item number 31. I just think we need to comment on the two plans on item number 20 or the operations plan item number 24 and our budget. I wanted just to make a couple brief comments on it because there's some these are new. We haven't had an operational plan and for those of you don't it just is a strategic plan that we've been working on the employees and the community about what the strategies ought to be for the county and meeting some specific objectives. And this spells it out very clearly. It gives us a roadmap of where we want to go and how we're going to get there and I think it's really a great step in holding the county more accountable to the public for the services that we provide. I want to thank especially our CEO Mr. Palacios that when he was first assigned to be our CEO or named our CEO he said let's put an operations plan together as well as a strategic plan and it's really going to pay off in dividends. I think it's really improved the morale of the county employees and I really appreciate us having that in place. Also a number item 25 we have the budget we'll be discussing for a week long at the end of June and I want to thank the CEO's office again and specifically Christina Maori our county budget manager for their work on this two year budget cycle. This is the first time the county is going to have a two year budget cycle. I think it's going to really significantly increase our transparency and the public's ability to find out the complexities of our county operations. It really amounts to a prudent approach of how we were going to maintain our 10% reserve, invest appropriately in our internal and external affairs and recognize the county that we have some real fiscal challenges ahead that will be upon us big time in the next few years. But I do want to point out one big concern that I do have and that's the loss of the federal reimbursements for the storm damage repairs to our roads. We suffered some significant damages during those floods or the storms of 2016-17 and we could lose a total of $35 million if we're denied routine extensions for those road repairs and getting federal assistance in them. The House of Representatives has approved legislation that would turn this around but it needs support from the Senate and eventually from the White House itself. I want to thank our Public Works Director Matt Machado for traveling or working with me to discuss this issue with our congressional leaders who recognize our situation and it's going to be a significant concern to us. If this extension is not approved so we can apply, we can tell them what our needs are and significantly Santa Cruz County of all the storm damages in those storm years, this county suffered half of the damage in the whole state of California. That's how significant it is to this county. So we will be continuing to work on that. And follow up on item number 27, the voting system replacement. I'd like to ask if I could, our county clerk Gail Pellerin to explain. I was involved in this years past about our voting systems and the Help America Vote Act when it was implemented. We were about ready to be, our systems were just going to be uncertified in essence. And what does this mean? We're going to lease these operations, these new system that will have a paper trail and so forth as well. Right. Our current system has been decertified. So we are looking to upgrade our system to the new model. It's going to be more secure, paper based and we'll be coming back to your board probably June 11th or June 25th with a contract. Okay. And it's a big contract. It's a million dollars and we're going to be leasing this system. We're looking at leasing it correct. Because we're hoping to move to the vote center model after 2020. So that would be a model where every voter is mailed a vote by mail ballot. And then we set up these vote centers 10 days prior to an election. But for 2020, we're going to keep the polling place model. And we'll be putting up more same day voter registration centers for people to ensure they have access to the vote. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation. Thank you. Also on item number 33, there was a great tribute in the last Lafko meet, the local agency formation commission to the outgoing, how many years was it, John? 38. 38 years. Pat McCormick was with Lafko. Tremendous asset looked throughout the state for advice and good advice from how to operate local agency formation commissions. I think Pat McCormick has made a lasting impact on local agency formation commissions and what they do. And I really want to thank him for his contribution to this county and to the state of California for a better understanding of how local agency formation commissions operate. He's been a real asset to everyone. And finally, it was mentioned on item 41, the road repairs. I really appreciate the public works department getting on that with the funds that we have. And I want to thank those who supported Measure D in November of 2016 again. We wouldn't be able to do half of what we're doing right now or the public works department is doing right now without the passage of that measure. So thank you very much. It's a long road, excuse the pun, to get our road repairs. But we're doing the best we can to address the most heavily traveled roads in the county first. And believe me, we all get our calls from our constituents about the potholes in front of their homes. We know they're there. We're going to get to them as soon as we can. But it's a long process. And finally on item number 43, I just want to point out that the Felton remembers parade Memorial Day celebration. It was going to be Saturday, May 15th in Felton. I think the parade begins at 10 o'clock. We invite you all there. It's a tremendous, very inspiring and uplifting parade that the whole community celebrates. And everybody in the Santa Rosa Valley invites you to participate or come by and say hello and appreciate our veterans in particular. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And I've been requested by County Council that you give the reason that you're standing on number 31. Yes. I am a director of Lighthouse Bank and I think that I shouldn't be voting on those types of issues. Perfect. Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Thank you. With item number 20, adopting an ordinance repealing the Santa Cruz County Code relating to abandoned and wrecked vehicles. On private and public property. I understand that we're not changing it on public property and right of ways and roads. I had concerns when we voted on this before and verbally I was told that we are now putting it pretty much solely in the health issues as far as abandoned vehicles and everything on private land. I hate to put you on the spot here, but the part that bothers me too is public property and there's no change on that. Yeah. Good morning, Matt Machado, Public Works Director. To answer your question, what is going to do is the repeal of this ordinance will take the burden off of the county to pull vehicles from private lands and even public lands. But then there's still the code enforcement in place to where we can still mitigate those vehicles if they become hazards or health and safety issues. So we still have provisions in the county code, but it'll be through code enforcement and not through the ordinance that you see before you. There will be no change to mitigating abandoned vehicles in the public rights of way though. Right. Okay. Thanks for your explanation, but I still have a problem with this because of neighborhood issues and people complaining. I know it's a rare occurrence when people do bring this to the board, but in my district four, it's been brought up about three times. And we were looking at a number of vehicles just abandoned on property and neighbors saying, look, you know, this is an eyesore. It actually reduces the value of the neighborhood. And in all three cases, we were able to get the owners to actually remove the vehicles. And in one case on Kerr Road in district four, that's a public right away. And we were able to finally after about a month to remove two vehicles that were, you know, parked there for over two years. So and I don't know if that would change. I think it would. So the work we do in the public right away won't change. I will comment that in the on the private property, the work that you've seen done won't change. This ordinance hasn't been used in anybody's memory. And so we talked to our staff, County Council, and we just hadn't had the need for this particular ordinance because code enforcement has been addressing those needs on private property when there's abandoned vehicles. And so if your example, if that removal did occur, maybe it was through pressure on the property owner, but it was probably also pressure through the code enforcement process. Well, I think it came down to health violations to running around and oil dripping from abandoned vehicles. Right. So that won't change through this. The deletion of this ordinance won't change those types of efforts. Right. Right. Okay. I appreciate your answer. Okay. And anyway, I just see it as in some cases, in one case, they were blocking the vision of oncoming traffic on Carlton Road. Cars parked on private land, but right on the edge of near the road. And they cooperated, but I just, I'm going to change my vote on this. I'm going to say no on item 20, just because I like it the way we have it. And I'd rather not weaken our ability to get some of these vehicles and abandon, like even RVs in one case. And then RV on the roads. Thank you. So I'll be voting no on 20. Okay. Just two quick comments items coming on item number 24 is the operational plan. I want to note how excited I am to see these multi-departmental teams working together and collaboratively to come up with outcomes that we can set and track. And hopefully mostly achieve over the coming years. I look forward to working with the staff over the next month to really dig into each one of these goals and get some questions answered and maybe change some focus. But I think I really appreciate this is a first step going forward and the collaborative collaborative efforts that have driven this entire process. And then I'll be back in front of the board for a deeper discussion on June 25th, I believe. And then secondly on item number 31, which is the public banking. I just want to give a brief shout out to we have these local activists who took on this complex issue that built a broad coalition. And the same things happened in counties by counties across the state. And they're taking on the big banks and coming up with a potential model that will allow for more public investment and more use of public dollars for funds instead of large CEO pay packages and shareholders, shareholder funds. So it's a good effort and I hope the state legislature listens to our call into the many other grassroots groups that are working on this. I would like a motion on the consent agenda. I would move the consent agenda. Motion by Leopold. Second. Second by Friend. All those in favor please say aye. With the exception of number 20. Correct. Okay. So all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed. So that you have Supervisor McPherson abstaining from item number 31 and Supervisor Caput voting no on item 20. Moving on to item number seven. This is a public hearing to consider a resolution confirming the fiscal year 2019-20 benefit assessment rate and service charge reports for the CSA number 53, 53N and 53S for the mosquito abatement and disease controlled as outlined in the memorandum of the agricultural commissioner. Welcome Mr. Hidalgo. You might want to check to see if your microphone is on. Thank you very much. Morning supervisors and staff members of the public. I'm Paul Binding and I manage the mosquito abatement vector control division under one Hidalgo the agricultural commissioner. He's the director of our program formed. We were formed 25 years ago as county service area of 53. I'd like to mention that Pat McCormick was quite instrumental in helping guiding us through the process back then. On April 16th your board set today as a public hearing for the annual confirmation of the three benefit assessment rate reports that will provide operational funding for CSA 53 in 2019-20. These rates have previously been approved by your board. One remains the same as in 2018-19 and the other two have been increased by the consumer price increase as it proved in previous elections. These rates have been posted in local newspapers and the rate reports made available to the public at the clerk of the board and on the mosquito abatement website prior to today's hearing. If approved the rate reports will be forwarded to the auditor controller by August 10th to be included in the 2019-20 property tax assessment role. We recommend that your board open the public hearing, hear any objections or protests to the proposed three assessment rate reports for CSA 53 which are the north and south county mosquito and disease control assessments and the original mosquito abatement vector control assessment. Then please close the public hearing and adopt the resolution confirming the benefit assessment rate reports for the CSA 53 for fiscal year 2019-20. We at the agricultural commissioners thank you for your ongoing support and welcome you staff and the public to our open house to be held sometime in the fall to be determined to showcase our public services and our facilities at 640 Capital Road. Thank you. Thank you. So first I'll ask if there are any questions from board members. Well Chair I will just say that I went to the last open house of the mosquito and vector control and there were many great food and I could have eaten some kind of worm but I still encourage you to come. Sounds like a party. So now I will open the public hearing. Ask if there's any public comment. Seeing one. I have an historic article here that is relevant today and a photo of DDT being sprayed at a public beach. And it says DDT powerful insecticide harmless to humans and pesticides poison more than pests. There are non toxic ecological methods for pest control that organic farmers use. I question is there's any assurance of safety of what things you're using for mosquito control here. But I was part of a lawsuit in 1969 to ban DDT 50 years ago. And we were sure DDT was safe just like I read from that. And there's a press conference here and a lawsuit brought by California legal assistance and the environmental defense fund to ban DDT. One of a handful of pesticides that were banned. But this article points out how many millions of pounds of these toxins have been put into the environment with no regard for human or environmental safety. I am objecting to another tax on a property owner on our property for poisons to be used on our property. I'll leave you with us. Thank you. Thank you. So. Okay. This will be our last speaker. Is anyone else like to speak? Yes. Yes. I'd like to speak. I wasn't prepared to speak on this subject. But I would like to point out that during the light brown apple moth fiasco we experienced here in Santa Cruz County where many people got sick. And we had massive bird kills and die offs that we were assured that this was just a moth hormone and that it didn't have any toxicology effects. And we found out later that in fact there were huge toxicological effects and that the governor was in bed with the chemical producers of that spray product. So I would advise you and encourage you to really look at this and look at all the ramifications because we don't want to have another one of those fiascos that was a real nightmare for our community during the light brown apple moth event. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes public comment. I'll close the hearing and bring it back to the board for action. Chair, the mosquito vector control unit does incredible work in our community. Sometimes it involves spraying for something, but a lot of times it's prevention work, getting rid of standing water, working to make sure that we don't provide places for mosquitoes to lay eggs and reproduce. I really appreciate the work as we face so many different challenges by invasive pests, whether they be the new Egypt mosquito, I probably got that wrong, or West Nile virus. We really depend on the work that the folks in this unit do. I really appreciate the work that you do. And I would move approval of the recommended actions. Motion by Leopold, second by Friend. A quick question. Sure. We give notice to the public when we're going near residential homes and whatever that we'll be doing some work. What's that? Yeah. The question was, do we give notice when we go near neighborhoods? There are so many sources all over the county. We were actually exempt from giving notice through the Department of Pesticide Regulation and have a cooperative agreement with the California Department of Public Health. But when we do a helicopter application in the sloughs and inland lakes, then we do put out a notice and make sure that media finds out about it and the local landowners and residents find out about it. Okay. And Chair and members of the Board, I would mention that just like Supervisor Leopold mentioned, I appreciate the kind of comments. A lot of what we do is education and teaching the public on what they can do on their own properties to abate mosquito problems. So certainly what the agency does is a lot of education and getting the public to participate and help to abate any potential issues. When we do have to apply pesticides, we certainly use these toxic materials and those applications are in conjunction with integrated pest management practices. So it's a whole array of different methods that we use and we don't rely solely on the use of pesticides. And the majority of our larbicides are armory approved, organically approved. Great. So we have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? unanimously. Thank you very much for your work. It's important work. Thank you. And our community. Moving on to item number eight, there's a presentation of the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force as outlined in a memorandum of the Chief Probation Officer. Go for it. Good morning, Chair Coonerty and Board Supervisors. I'm Fernando Gerardo, Chief Probation Officer for Santa Cruz County. I'm here to introduce two outstanding community leaders who have taken on an important role in seeing that our Youth Violence Prevention Task Force, strategic plan is fully operationalized. That plan was developed in 2015. We were last before the Board seeking your endorsement of the plan. With me today is Julie Burr from the Youth Violence Task Force Prevention, and she's the coordinator from the United Way and also Sarah Emert, who is a community organizer from the United Way. And the last five years of Task Force has been nimble and able to shift its focus to supporting system change and providing capacity, connections, and resources to a growing number of organizations for greater collective impact. Thank you for your time and your support, and I'll hand it over to Julie and Sarah. You might want to check if your microphone is on. What's that? Yeah, a green light will be on. Thank you, Fernando. Do we change slides here? Yeah. Okay, just keep working. Oh, keep working. Okay. I'm Julie with United Way. Thanks for just had to get settled in a bit. As you know, United Way is a collaborator and a convener. And for this initiative, it's also the agency that staffs our countywide Youth Violence Prevention Task Force. I want to start by expressing my gratitude, my deep gratitude for all of the county support for our initiative over the past four years, including probation, the CAO, behavioral health, human services department, and all of you as supervisors. Santa Cruz County Youth Violence Prevention Task Force is unlike any other violence prevention effort across the state and likely across the nation. Often, they are part of local government, usually within cities, not counties, and have large operating budgets and huge teams of staff that do the work. And here in Santa Cruz County, we recognize that we're really doing this work differently. We're doing prevention work differently, and we're working together differently to address prevention, and we're really in doing that needed to identify our role in how we do this work locally. So in my presentation today, I'll do a brief overview of the role of our task force, talk about the outcomes of the activities that we are currently working on, and then talk a little bit about each of those activities so you have an idea of what we've been up to. So the role of Youth Violence Prevention Task Force, again, this was something that we really had to grapple with and identify over the past four years once our strategic plan launched. And what we landed on is that we are about connections, making new partnerships, building and strengthening relationships, and really working together differently. We're about capacity building, so increasing opportunities to educate ourselves and our partners and community members on how to do prevention work across the county. And then also looking at issues of resources, so alignment and the leveraging of resources that will help move us towards our plans, goals and results. And when we look at resources, we also look at expertise and time and supplies and things other than money, so it's really comprehensive. Starting with outcomes. So when we launched our strategic plan, these are two of our strategies that really rose to the top, the first being increasing knowledge of and access to pro-social activities. Within that strategy, we have two activities that we have ongoing, including our Emerald Bay Apartments Project, which the outcomes that will affect are decreased juvenile arrests, decreased youth on probation, increased graduation rates, increased opportunities for meaningful participation. The other activity we have is a prevention focus, really looking at middle school aged youth. And for that, we're really hoping to affect increased opportunities for meaningful participation. Our other prioritized strategy that we're working on and have been working on is strengthening community and law enforcement relationships. And we're doing that through our Dialogues to Change project. Again, I'll dive more deeply into that, but really this is looking at hoping to affect decreased juvenile arrests and increased trust between members of the community and law enforcement, members of the community including youth. We're also looking at increasing access to trauma informed and culturally appropriate services. We're doing this a couple of ways. We are a straight outreach program and the outcomes associated with that are decreased juvenile arrests, decreased youth on probation, increased graduation rates, and increased opportunities for meaningful participation. The other activity related to that strategy is restorative justice in schools. And so for that, we are affecting outcomes including decreased suspensions and expulsions and increased graduation rates. The last piece of the work that we wanted to highlight today was our systems capacity building. And with this, we have a leadership cohort for advancing equity and cultural responsibility. And for this, we are hoping to have the outcome of decreased incidents of bias related harassment and discrimination. These are just the top level outcomes we've highlighted. There's a lot of overlap and interconnectivity, but these are the ones we wanted to highlight today. So diving into the work that we're actually doing. Emerald Bay is a project that came about in response to violence in spring of 2017 in the Soquel corridor between Dominican Hospital and 41st-ish. And this project is really an example of what it looks like when we tap into the collective knowledge and resources of our members and we truly partner with community members differently to have a really coordinated response to violence when it occurs in our community. And again, this was a moment for us as a task force to say, what is our role when violence occurs in our community? How can we be responsive? What do we have to bring to these issues when they arise? Part of this project, a resident committee was formed that allowed us to work with service providers in this resident committee to prioritize the resident's needs and their voice and also build their capacity to be leaders and organizers for change in their community. And in March, a weekly homework club was established to address their top need, their top identified need of academic support for the youth living at Emerald Bay Apartments. I want to acknowledge Supervisor Leopold for his dedication to this project, his leadership in this project and for the op-ed he wrote in the Sentinel in March that really outlines the scope of this project and the work that's been done. And I also want to say that this project really spurred the task force to think about a coordinated critical incident response and how we as a county can be more responsive in a really holistic way to events of violence. And so through Project Thrive, which I'll talk more about, we're looking more deeply at that in partnering with the Sheriff's Department, Watsonville PD, to look at a critical incident response. The next activity I want to highlight is our prevention focus, which is really prevention with middle school aged youth. And this came about in response to the Santa Cruz County anti-crime team last February, maybe last year, expressing the need to focus prevention at a younger age, really reaching youth before they're in high school, recognizing that gang affiliations are happening younger and younger. And so what we did in true Youth Violence Prevention Task Force fashion was to start with data and research, really look at the data, look at the research around best practices, research the why for working with youth at this age, what are the psychological aspects of working with youth, social aspects of working with youth at this age, and tie that with best practices. We created a fact sheet for this, which was part one of the project, and I've included in a packet for each of you a copy of this fact sheet. And then part two and three included a web-based community snapshot that really looked at programs that serve middle school aged youth across the county so that we could identify where there's location gaps, where there's access issues, including cost and language barriers and other things like that, to really sort of just get an idea of what's already out there and help us identify what's missing. And then we also did, we also did youth focus groups that were conducted in schools and at Juvenile Hall in the Evening Center to find out how they felt about pro-social activities. What's missing, what stops them from participating, really getting their voice and their perspective because we recognize that none of us know what it's like to be in middle school right now and all the factors that impact that. And so we wanted to make sure that we captured their voice in this process. And at the end of the presentation, I would love to hear from you. I mean, we really see all of this information that was gathered for this project as tools that we can use to inform funders and partners and decision makers in making decisions around youth in this age and pro-social activities. And I would be interested in hearing if you had any ideas on how you would want to use this information. So our biggest project and our main focus has really been our Dialogues for Change project. And this is addressing our prioritized strategy of strengthening law enforcement and community relationships. And Dialogues for Change is really, these are circles of folks, youth, law enforcement and community members coming together to talk about issues of race, policing and safety in our county. And we did two pilots in 2017, one with Watsonville PD and one with Watsonville PD and Santa Cruz PD. And there was continued momentum for moving forward with connecting differently with law enforcement, having the space for inclusion and talking about these issues. And so in 2018, Everyday Democracy, which is a national organization that has been doing Dialogues to Change models for a host of issues, they selected two partner communities in the country, one of which was Santa Cruz County to roll out their work around community law enforcement relationships. And so in that, since that time, we've been, I spent last year enrolling with each of the chiefs and we have full participation from all five jurisdictions, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Capitola, Scotts Valley and the Sheriff's Department. And we've also had support from UCSC Police Department in planning, organizing and rolling out of this project. Here's the numbers on the screen. I'll let you look at those. But Everyday Democracy came out. They are experts in this work. They came out and they trained local organizers. They trained local facilitators to do this process to roll out Dialogues circles throughout the county. And we were able to successfully implement five circles, one in Live Oak, one in Santa Cruz, one in Capitola, and two in Watsonville, where we have between probably nine and 17 people in each circle. Again, youth law enforcement and adult community members talking about these really important issues of safety and equity in our communities. We're currently in week six of six weeks. These circles have been chugging along and we're excited to move into the next phase, which is action. So it wasn't just about making connections as individuals. It was about creating change on a larger level. And so these groups are in week six. They're determining their action ideas to move forward. And we are hosting an action forum on June 5th of which all of you are invited. I've also included the invitation in your packets for this event. And really, this is a place where we will be able to celebrate the work that's been done, lift up the action ideas and transformational moments that have come out of this process and begin to organize ourselves into moving those action ideas into reality. The next activity I want to briefly speak on is our leadership cohort for advancing equity and cultural responsibility. Prior to my being here today, how many of you have heard of Project Thrive? Okay. So Project Thrive is a project of the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force. So we talk about it really interchangeably. In 2015, Santa Cruz County was awarded a million dollar grant from the Department of Justice and then awarded additional funding for phase two that will take us through 2020 with Project Thrive. This is a clear example of leveraging the Youth Violence Prevention Strategic Plan to bring additional resources to our community and we're really excited about the work we've been able to do in this project and are continuing to do. In order to truly move the needle on the issues of addressing trauma and inequity, we are working to shift how we as systems and providers serve our community, and that's a big focus for Project Thrive. The leadership cohort demonstrates our commitment to building systems capacity by continuing to work on trauma-informed systems, culturally responsive organizations, and issues of implicit bias. This group has been, we hosted a series of workshops and trainings last year and members from these groups have continued to meet semi-annually at our steering committee meetings to continue to try and move action in their respective organizations on these issues. Lastly, really quickly, a couple of our direct service components for Project Thrive, CAB's Street Outreach Program in partnership with Behavioral Health has to date served 50 youth, and we are also in phase two focusing on restorative justice in schools in partnership with the County Office of Education. And again, like I stated earlier, through Project Thrive, we are also looking at a coordinated critical incident response to further that process. Here today, I've highlighted our role in addressing the issues of connections, capacity building and resources and the ways in which we're doing that, and I want to acknowledge and thank you all. This Saturday is the fourth annual Youth Violence Prevention Day in Santa Cruz County, and so we acknowledge that big milestone and recognize we have, you know, one more year till we're already at 2020. And so I want to plant the seed for you knowing that we're already talking about what does that mean in 2020, and I look forward to having conversations with all of you. We look forward to having conversations with all of you about what 2020 looks like for the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force. So note that. And earlier, I inquired about your thoughts on the tools that were developed for middle school aged youth. I'd love to hear your feedback on that. I'd love to hear from you any thoughts you have on safety needs in your prospective districts or any other thoughts or questions you have. Thank you. Any thoughts or questions? Professor Leibhol. Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the ongoing work. I've had the great pleasure of attending many of the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force meetings and the Santa Cruz Live Oak area. And when we suffered this unusual spate of violence in a very localized area, I appreciated the work of the Task Force in helping bring people together to come up with immediately a summer recreation plan that involved different organizations as well as county parks. And then this great homework support, academic support that is led in part by the wishes of the families who live there and empowering the families who live at Emerald Bay to take a major role in helping design these programs and ensuring it's meeting the needs of their families. I had the opportunity to speak with the Executive Director of the Live Oak Resource Center who told me about the ongoing work and how successful it's been and what they hope to have for the fall again. And there are 35 kids who are in that program and there's more that would participate if there was more resources. So that's a challenge for us all to identify the resources. But I think it's very important to have... I know that in the first district we worked very hard to ensure that there are sort of positive pro-social activities whether it be sports, Boys and Girls Club, the library annex that's going to be built, the Cradle to Career program. But the work at Emerald Bay is a great example of all those things about empowerment of a community to decide what it needs and for us to collectively impact that by leveraging the resources of the nonprofits in our area. So thank you for your work on that. I look forward to continue working with the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force. Thank you. I want to thank United Way and everybody who's been associated with this effort. This is such a positive, proactive program that you're implementing. Who knows what it prevented? We know that there's violence that we read about every day and we hear about it and it's unbelievable. And some of it does happen here, but I know that with the programs that you're providing that we've really gotten away from some of that and we've really gotten a real positive impact. I remember when the Establishment of Project Thrive program came here in 2015. It was really, yeah, this is really good. It gives you hope that we're going to have a real positive impact on those who are associated directly with the programs but how it spills over to other kids in particular. And that's a vulnerable population you're working with. We all know that. Most of us have been parents and we remember those years. There's a lot of thoughts that go into those kids' minds at those ages and junior high ages. But thank you for addressing this problem at the right time and I think it's having a tremendous positive influence on the children and everybody else in Santa Cruz County. So thank you very much. I guess I'll just add, I have no insights into a middle schooler's mind that I think would be useful, but I really appreciate the way you've reached out to the community, especially Emerald Bay, and built that after-school program, the HOMA program. I think that's being nimble and letting the community drive the intervention, which I think is really great. I think the only thing that I'm curious about and you don't have to get it to me now, but the data, what are we seeing over the past three years in terms of some of the outcomes we're working towards and how does that, where are we seeing success and where are we seeing challenges and what other interventions do you recommend to continue to move the numbers in the right direction because it not only impacts quality of life in the community and safety, but it also can save individual lives who are one mistake away from having a lifelong impact. Absolutely. So without any other questions, I want to thank you for your work. And as this is a presentation, we'll now move on to the next agenda item. Thank you. So the next item is to consider a two-year modification to the 2017 to 2021 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act draft regional and local plans and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum by the Director of Human Services. And we have Mr. Stone here. You sort of prime the pump by having some of your board members get us in the right mindset to hear this report. So we look forward to hearing your presentation. Good morning, Chair Coonerty. This should be a green light at the bottom. My apologies. Good morning, Chair Coonerty and members of the board. Thank you for having us here today. I'm joined by my colleague, our new-ish business services manager, Belinda Barr. And today we wanted to talk to you about workforce development programs in Santa Cruz County. So today we have this two-year modification that we're bringing before you, but we also wanted to use the opportunity to give you an overview of our programs. So we're gonna start with the current state of the workforce, dive into a little bit of what the Workforce Development Board does, touch on some of the employment services that we provide. Belinda will talk about our business service offerings. And then we'll jump into some new projects and initiatives that we're excited about as well as getting into the local and regional plan update. So for the current state of the workforce, you can see on the surface that things look pretty good in Santa Cruz County. Last year we looked at an average unemployment rate of 4.9%, which is really low for us. And then we also have seen over the last measurable 10-year period, 6.1% in employment growth. And as you can guess, there's a butt following this. When you dig a little deeper, you can see that it's the low-wage, low-skill jobs that are growing at the fastest pace. And we're seeing significant economic and demographic differences between North and South County and growing discrepancies between cost of living and regional wages. So to give you an idea of what we're looking at, Santa Cruz County, the cost of living is 35% more than the national average, but wages are 10% less than the national average. So you can see this impact in our community every day. The Workforce Development Board is a body, a public-private sector body that creates programs and strategies that provide residents with a pathway to better wages and meaningful work. Really, this is a consortium of a diverse viewpoint of key stakeholders in the community. So not only do we have economic development and business weighing in on our decisions, but we have nonprofit organizations, education and labor also at the table as well. So it really gives us a unique opportunity to come up with solutions that you wouldn't find just with a business-centered group. The Workforce Development Board through funding provided by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act has been able to, and we wanted to provide some numbers from the last year, we served nearly 5,200 people in our career centers, 179 of them received training scholarships and achieved wages upon completion of their training of close to $25 an hour. We worked with 91 businesses to fill over 1,000 job orders, and I wanted to also bring into that there is a behind the numbers. We like to highlight the people that we've impacted in our community, and here are just a few of them here. So employment services, this is what most people know the Workforce Development Board for. And we've divided those services up really into three main groups. So we have career services that are available to the general public. You can think of these as informational in nature so people can come into one of our career services, learn about what jobs are available, access the CalJobs online database, learn about what jobs pay and really connect with some of our partner resources. Individualized services are for people who are enrolled in our programs. So under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act we target low-income adults and people who have been laid off from a job. And so for those participants we can provide everything from one-on-one coaching to those scholarship opportunities that we were talking about. A person can get up to $10,000 for training which we'll cover in most cases the cost of community college education especially when you pair that up with Pell Grants and other federally available resources. And then we also provide supportive services too. So if someone has issues with transportation and getting to their training or getting to a job or if they finish their training but they can't afford interview clothing we're able to help people get those needed materials. Youth services also normally called the Sueños program focuses on youth ages 16 to 24 typically youth that have been disconnected from school so we're looking at high school dropouts and some high school graduates that still are basic skills deficient we're able to assist them with their studies as well as getting connected with a job and just like the adult programs we are able to offer training and supportive services. One of the neat carrots we can offer the youth are a paid work experience which for many youth it is their first job experience and we try to align that with their career interests. We have three career centers in the county one is in Watsonville that's our comprehensive career center on 18 West Beach we are located in the Capitola office of Edd and the Sueños Youth Services program is located in Sequoia School in Freedom. And in business services we help employers with their current workforce challenges and first that may look like recruitment so we connect local businesses to skilled workers through job postings, hiring events and providing current labor market information which could be useful to assessing what current pay scales are. We also help employers with employee training in terms of the cost to improve worker skills through new hires with on-the-job training perhaps a new hire doesn't necessarily have the skills necessary to perform that job initially so we can come in and help improve the skills of that new hire. Also for current employees with incumbent worker training we can help upskill that staff to avert layoffs and as Andy mentioned before we have noticed that the work experience through paid internships is really popular program within business services and we work with the Small Business Development Center to avert layoffs from happening they do business consultations and they're able to identify times when a layoff can be averted and in the event that we aren't able to address that layoff from occurring we immediately respond to those affected employees help them understand their unemployment insurance benefits job search techniques and in the event we may be able to offer training to upskill them into a new role or rapid re-employment and when we engage business we do so through sector partnerships and currently we're working with healthcare technology hospitality and tourism and childcare and some of the work that looks like is first with an overall state of the workforce report which touch on all industry sectors in our county and then we do a deeper dive into sector reports on technology and hospitality and tourism and we also address labor shortages with a career ladder in tech and childcare and then we also partner with the greater economic development effort by coordinating resources conducting joint business retention visits sharing data on workforce challenges work together on a comprehensive economic development strategy to work across jurisdictional boundaries by working with economic developers in different cities Okay so I'm going to talk briefly about a couple new projects and initiatives that we're excited about one of those is we're going to throw some programs at you here so one is the combination of the WIOA which is that Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act program and CalWorks Welfare to Work program so we noticed that the programs were operating in silos within our career centers and there were opportunities to improve services to the public so we formed an operations work group of staff and managers at the county as well as some of our contractors that are providing these services and they have come together with the mission of creating more impactful services and reducing duplication in the career center we're looking to expand the CalFresh Employment and Training program this is a program it's a federally funded program that provides matching funds for community-based organizations to provide these employment-related activities that you see on the screen here so job search, work experience, education, job retention so we have started targeting a few nonprofit organizations in the county that are already working in the space and finding a way to get the to help them access some of these federal resources and then there's the administrative data pilot which probably is a whole presentation in itself but just to give you the brief overview it's a partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service along with the Stanford Center on Poverty, Inequality and Third Sector Capital Partners and what this project aims to do is to make our subsidized employment programs through that CalWorks Welfare to Work program that are more impactful and so it's sketched out here but the basic idea is that the better our clients do the more resources the contractors who help them get into subsidized employment will receive to reinvest into the program so we're really looking at moving the needle for individuals and some of the areas that we're measuring our wages gained as well as employment retention and so we're going to put in the contracts with the community-based organizations some performance-based outcomes that they can achieve and now finally to the WIOA local and regional plan updates so first we'll start with the local plan we held a series of stakeholder convenings I should let you know this is a mandatory process that the state requires us to go through in order to receive our 3.5 million annually in federal workforce funding so we held stakeholder convenings with several partners I would say one of the big takeaways from this was we were able to establish relationships with some of our community partners that we may not have had in the past namely child support services I think it's something that we can now focus we've actually set up a system of referrals from child support services to the workforce development programs for parents that are behind on their child support so there is a potential win-win for both of our organizations on these and then we updated some of the labor market information to reflect the latest state of the workforce report on the regional plan update which as you can see the region extends from Santa Cruz County all the way down to Santa Barbara County we held a workforce corrections partnership as well as looked into expanding pre-apprenticeship partnerships in the region so for the workforce corrections partnership this was targeted around a forthcoming prison to employment grant that the state workforce board is going to be releasing we're anticipating that we'll receive 133,000 in Santa Cruz County of this grant and we've been working in partnership with several community partners but namely probation to expand the AB 109 employment services and have a focus on the gender injustice initiative so allowing women to access some enhanced services here in the county and then pre-apprenticeship partnerships we have run a Prop 39 pre-apprenticeship program for several years now that program is going away and there is some Senate Bill 1 funding available for pre-apprenticeship work which you may know as the gas tax and so we have aligned our efforts now to be competitive to bid for that money when it's released so thank you we have actually four recommended actions for you I'm here today number one is consider the 2017-2021 Santa Cruz County workforce development local plan two-year modification with authorization for the workforce development board to make future non-substantive edits if required by the California workforce development board number two is authorized the chair of the board of supervisors to sign the local plan two-year modification number three is authorized the 2017-2021 coastal regional planning units regional plan two-year modification and for direct the human services department director to submit the approved 2017-2021 Santa Cruz County workforce development local plan two-year modification to the California workforce development board in tandem with the submission of the 2017-2021 coastal region planning units regional plan two-year modification right so thank you thank you that's mouthful but I appreciate your efforts are there any questions folks have John thank you for the presentation I appreciate the ongoing work people who are working in the workforce development community who I talked to really appreciate the work that your office does and how you're connected in with the community and what you share with us today shows that you're working very hard to be involved with all sectors and I appreciate that I just wanted to talk about the two new areas the corrections partnerships I think that that's a great opportunity we know that lack of employment can will increase recidivism and trying to be to more effectively connect people with jobs or job training when they come out of being incarcerated will make a big difference and I'm trying to figure out whether that's only for those coming out of the state prison system or county jails so the good news is the guidance on it has been very broad so we've the guidance is basically justice involved individuals that are out of custody so we we've been working with probation to target the exact group that we're going to target here whether it's and and some of the conversation to this point has been around individuals who may not be eligible for AB 109 for example so we're not duplicating services no and that's really important because what we found with the AB 109 funding is you can help a certain slice of folks but there's a lot more people that could use help but can't access those resources so this funding in this program will make a big difference I think it's great that you're working with probation but I noticed that the sheriff's office wasn't involved the division of reentry services which they just recently created seems to be a good match yes I agree as well so the sheriff's office was invited to our stakeholder convenings and we have shared information with the sheriff's office and yeah we still intend to align with the sheriff's office as we go forward yeah and I appreciate the focus on justice involved women and the gender specific training that can go on to support them that's one thing that this board has shown a lot of support for and the task force that has been created to address some of these issues is an example of that so I appreciate that your board is looking at that on the pre-apprenticeship program I had the pleasure of attending a graduation ceremony earlier this year and it was incredibly impactful to see these young people mostly men but some women who have gone through the training who understand that they have new opportunities of employment that they didn't know about before and I appreciate that partnership with our local labor unions and our local schools and ROP programs because those are jobs that we need people who can work in the construction trades or the plumbing trades those are critical jobs for us and having people who are well trained really makes a difference so thank you for that ongoing work just to give this a little stretch I think what you do and your success you have can really help us address or help resolve our homeless crisis that we have here and throughout so many times we hear who are the homeless people are there this and that but there are some that have just fallen on bad luck but I really appreciate your efforts to make that happen for many many people as you've explained here and I think this this is one of those things programs that's going to help us address and hopefully help resolve our homeless crisis that we have here in Santa Cruz County and throughout the state of California for that matter when you were talking about the federal funding and the the application of when the government should the federal government shut down did that hurt your program were you at standstill mode I guess at that point no fortunately we haven't had to shut down for the along with the government our funding actually comes to us through the states employment development department so it takes this journey from the department of labor to the states employment development department to us and the county bills the state on a reimbursement basis so given that the shutdown wasn't for a significant period of time the county was able to keep the program running during that and the state had intended to provide reimbursements during that time as well our job opportunities many of them are directed at tourism agriculture and education is there any general sector that you're seeing that hope for expansion I guess the tech industry but that spills over to silicon valley of course and a lot of people 30,000 a day go over there what what do you kind of see as our best opportunities to expand job opportunities here or they in those segments of interest or do you hope to see some expansion someplace else so yeah we hope to nurture some of the industries that provide high paying high skill jobs that that really can give people the resources they need to live in the county so we have partnered with the tech industry we're working closely with Santa Cruz new tech or Santa Cruz works rather and we're putting together this career pathway looking at engaging individuals from high school or even from like a mid-career change and how can they get into some of these good paying tech jobs thank you thank you I'm going to open up for public comment is there anyone who would like to address us on this item seeing none I'll bring it back to the board I want to thank you for your work also the report had a lot of really interesting data about our workforce that I thought dug deeper than than the traditional macro data we see so it was informative in that way and I think tailoring programs to to to specific populations is a really good idea thank you so there's our motion I would move the recommended actions so got a motion by Leopold a second by McPherson all in favor please say aye opposed that passes unanimously thank you very much thank you thank you for your ongoing work Mr. Machado let's move on to item number 10 which is consider an ordinance for Peelink's chapter 2.35 the Santa Cruz County Code and enacting new chapter 2.35 to implement the uniform construction cost accounting bidding procedures for public projects adopt a resolution electing to have the county of Santa Cruz become subject to the uniform public construction cost accounting act delegate authority to award informal contracts to designated county agents and schedule the ordinance for a second reading and final adoption on May 21st 2019 as outlined in a memorandum from the deputy CIO and director public works thank you and good morning chairman board members thank you for reading the actions but I'll give you a brief report so the item before you is requesting to become subject to the uniform public construction cost accounting act which will increase the bidding thresholds for public projects pursuant to public contract code section 22,000 the act provides a more flexible method for complying with state public bidding requirements for public projects the act was enacted in 1983 by the state of California and today there are 1215 public agencies in California that are participating including 42 counties 57 community college districts 243 cities 326 special districts and 547 school districts the act was identified as a mechanism to expedite contracting for small projects reducing the number of formal bids and reducing the administrative time relative to advertising and filing of reports for public projects this means that we anticipate that fiscal savings should your board will occur as a result of reduced administrative costs reduced formal advertising costs and improved efficiencies and I won't re-read the recommended actions but I am here to answer any questions you may have I want to thank you for bringing this to us it makes a lot of sense and not only does it reduce some of those costs but it also frees up valuable staff time to focus on focus on projects that need to get done is there any public comment seeing none I'll bring it back to the board got a motion by friend second by cap it all in favor please say aye aye oppose that passes unanimously we're into item number 11 which is consider a resolution electing to have the California administered special districts become subject to the uniform public construction cost accounting act county service areas 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9A, 9B, 9C, 9D, 1, 9D, 2, 9D, 3, 9E, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13A, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 53 north, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 as outlined in a memorandum of the deputy CAO and director sold. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. I think you missed 46. Yeah. So I'll just give a brief report on this as well. Thank you for that introduction. So this is a companion to the prior item on today's agenda and this would elect to have the county of Santa Cruz become subject to the uniform public construction cost accounting act. We're requesting that by resolution all county administered special districts also become subject to the uniform public construction cost accounting act. By the way, should you approve this? Both of these would be effective July 1. Great. See if this makes sense. Any questions or comments from the public? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. I move approval. The recommended actions. So I'll motion by Leopold, second by Friend. All those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Item number 12 is to consider an ordinance repealing chapters 5.36 and 7.80 of the Santa Cruz county code and amending chapters 3.04, 3.08, 3.12, 3.16, 3.20, 3.24, 3.28, 3.32, 3.36, 3.40, 4.02, 5.12, 5.48, 7.57, 7.58, 7.68, 7.76, 7.84, 7.9, 7.95, 7.124, and 7.134 of the Santa Cruz county code to correct typographical errors, address organizational issues, align the code with changes in state law, delete unnecessary material, and make additional miscellaneous changes and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on May 21, 2019 as outlined in the memorandum of the county council. Mr. Heath. Good morning, Board. Jason Heath with County Council's office. This is the seventh county code update ordinance. We're bringing to you this time. I apologize about the size of it. A lot of it we wanted to bring is due to the fact that we wanted to bring the personnel package all at one time and that involved going to the Civil Service Commission first, getting their approval of the changes, which they did approve them all. There's a couple of county code miscellaneous provisions regarding private patrol systems and alarm systems that we're asking to be repealed at this point because they're not necessary any longer, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have regarding this. Any questions? Just glad we're cleaning up the bingo rules. Any public comment? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. Motion by McPherson. Second. Second by Leopold. Thank you for your work. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Let's try for item number 13. Mr. Adler, can we do it? We do it. All right. As the board of directors of the Freedom Sanitation District, public hearing on amendments to the district code establishing the 2019-2020 sewer service charges scheduled public hearing on June 11th, 2019 under the service charge reports and related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. Good morning. On March 12th, 2019, your board said... Okay. On March 12th, 2019, the board said today as the date of the public hearing to consider an ordinance which establishes the sewer service charges for the Freedom County Sanitation District that will become effective on July 1st, 2019. The sewer service charges are being proposed with an overall 6.1% increase with the individual maximum of 15.7%. The increase is necessary to adequately fund operations and maintenance for the district as well as capital improvements. And we're recommending that your board adopt the recommended actions. Great. Any questions? Any members of the public who would like to speak about this item? Seeing none, I'll close the public comment and bring it back to the board. I'll move the recommended actions. William Pold, second by McPherson. Thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. And so now, if you want to let the folks outside know, they can come in. We have a 1045 scheduled item, which is... It's time. The call went out. Yes. Come on in, folks. We're ready to celebrate. Thank you for coming out today. We are now on to item number 15, which is a specially scheduled item and a real pleasure for us to do every year, which is this is a presentation of awards to the Santa Cruz County Department Firefighters of the Year. And it is a great pleasure to publicly recognize both a career firefighter and a volunteer firefighter for the year 2018. I'd like to invite career firefighter Michael Urbani up to the podium and volunteer firefighter Douglas Ahmuck up to the podium as well. And before I present their awards, I'd like to invite Chief Larkin up to say a couple of words and to celebrate on this special day. Good morning, Chair Coonerty, Supervisors, Mr. Palacios, members of the public. Today is a very honorable day for me. I'm here with the honor to present to you the 2018 Santa Cruz County Fire Department Volunteer and Career Firefighter of the Year. This recognition is presented to a volunteer and a career member of the County Fire Department that have given of themselves beyond the call of duty while providing emergency response and serving their communities. The 2018 Volunteer Firefighter of the Year, Doug Ahmuck, Engineer Ahmuck is a part of the Company 29 South Skyline volunteers. Doug has been a volunteer for the County Fire Department in South Skyline for over six years. Doug has worked through the ranks to his current rank of engineer. He has been relentless in his efforts to recruit new volunteers, not only in the South Skyline area but countywide. He has committed countless hours to help train new volunteers as well as the current volunteers that are assigned to the companies. Not only does he take the time to work and train with his own volunteer company, he makes an effort to go out to each of the volunteer companies throughout the county and train with those volunteers as well. Doug made it a point to attend trainings not only with Company 29 but all five volunteer companies, as I said, and he plays an instrumental role in assisting with the training of our new volunteers through the Basic Fire Fighter Academy that's put on in a joint manner. He's an assistant instructor and spends many of his free time up there helping out with that academy. He also sits on the Fire Department Advisory Commission as the volunteer representative to that commission and has been the chair of that commission since 2016. Doug has also represented the County Fire Department at the California State Firefighters Association convention that they do and represented the department well. In the 2008 fire season, as we know, it was a banner year for fires throughout the state. Doug actually had the opportunity to participate in a task force in which we sent the county volunteer water tender from Company 29, Water Tender 2951 as part of a Cal Fire Task Force. So he went along with four of our Cal Fire engines and went up to the Mendocino Complex where he was assigned there and helped with the suppression of that complex. And I just want to remind everybody that Doug does all this as a volunteer. He doesn't get paid for it. So that's a yeoman's feat right there in itself. The 2018 career firefighter of the year is Captain Mike Erboni from the Corleitas Fire Station. Mike has served Cal Fire and County Fire for over 18 years. He has worked in several locations throughout Santa Cruz County including the Corleitas Fire Station, the Soquel Fire Station, Saratoga Summit Fire Station, and his current assignment now at the Parra Valley Fire Protection District. Mike has provided exceptional leadership in all his assignments and is a foster of great working relationships with our county volunteers as well as our cooperators throughout the county. This cooperative effort and working relationship that he provides makes him a unique ambassador in building and fostering those relationships throughout his career. Mike sets high standards for himself and the people that he works with. His positive attitude and professionalism resonates with his supervisors and his peers as he was selected our career firefighter of the year. Mike is the go-to guy, has always been a go-to guy. He's always willing to take on new challenges. He's been very instrumental in completing several key projects, not only for Cal Fire, but for the county fire department. Such items as the recent remodel of the kitchen at the fire station. He's instrumental in making sure that project got completed and he takes pride in actually being the color coordinator. He actually picked out all the colors for that fire station, which is not a real thing that us guys kind of do. He's also the lead member of our Santa Cruz County Fire Standards Committee for the equipment that we purchase for our fire apparatus and has played a key role in outfitting several of our county fire engines. So with that, it's my honor to present to you the volunteer firefighter of the year, Doug Almak, and the career firefighter of the year for 2018, Michael Brony. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And you're both welcome to say a few words. Oh, yeah, I'll talk for my note. We're all looking for a few more volunteers and I know the supervisors have a few cycles left. I know that Bruce wants to get up to station 29 and help us with the equipment. But thank you for supporting Santa Cruz County Fire. It's really a unique environment. We have a great working relationship with Cal Fire and I hope to be able to participate for years to come. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Zach, you can vouch for my color coordination, correct? Okay. Thank you all for allowing this award to happen. For me, it's not about me. It's not about Doug. And it's about everyone that works for us right now, but more importantly, the people that came before us that laid the foundation. And that's who this award is for. Thank you. And gentlemen, I think we have a few folks who want to comment on your awards today. So, Sylvester Brun? Yeah, the color coordination in the Corlead is really a very special place to go now. I do have office hours down there and I just want to say for Captain Urbani that you can always get an honest assessment of everything that's going on, have a true conversation with somebody, and also you can learn the character of somebody by how much he cares about, not just fire service, but about the community he serves. It's unquestionable. Every conversation we have, I learned something. Every conversation that we have, I learned about the complexities of your job. But I think we're actually unique to County and Cal Fire in many respects and how some of the issues you have to deal with are more expansive than some of the more urban fire agencies. And you do it on a shoestring budget and everybody up here admires it. Every year we also acknowledge a volunteer and it just, it really takes me back the amount of hours and time that people put in, the professionals you put in, and you're putting your life on the line. It isn't just about the pay. It's this commitment that you have. You've dedicated your life to public service in the same way that a paid firefighter has and it means a lot to all of us, but it really means a lot to those that live out in the community that rely on you as a first line of defense. So you have an unbelievable amount of respect from the people up here on this board and we can't appreciate enough the work that all of you do. Both of you are very deserving for this. So congratulations. Well, I just want to extend my congratulations to both firefighters. You know, Santa Cruz County Fire is a unique three-legged stool, which is cow fire are volunteers in the county. And the fire service, especially in our rural areas, would not be possible without the dedication of our firefighters, both our volunteers and our career firefighters to hear about the accomplishments that you both have is a little humbling for us up here who don't feel like we could do as much as you do. Maybe my colleague, Supervisor Friend, would work on the color coordination a little bit better. But when I also think about the volunteer hours, the extraordinary number of volunteer hours that you put in, I know it's time away from your family, time away from the other things that you might be able to be working on, and we appreciate the dedication that you've given in order to make our community safe. Thank you to both of you for your ongoing work. Supervisor McCherson. I just want to say congratulations to both of you. You are among the best of the best. I really have been associated with those in County Fire. And a lot of people don't know what is County Fire. It's the areas outside of the established fire districts in the County of Santa Cruz. And we really depend on them, and God help us if we have to really need them to the extent that we've seen some of these terrible fires that have happened throughout California. It is reassuring, believe me, to have you and people of your caliber there to lead the teams to have that oversight. We've had a couple of fire incidences and unincorporated areas in the recent past, and they were addressed, and we got on them right, you got on them right away. So I want to thank you. You represent a tremendous outfit of people who are dedicated to public safety, and I appreciate it very much from the people of Santa Cruz County. You bet. Supervisor Caput. Yeah, I want to thank you all for everything you do being involved in the community and also saving lives and saving property throughout the county. What you do is remarkable, and I am curious, too, for the volunteer firefighters are there a number of young men and women. Is that a career path for some of them to become career firefighters? That is true. Okay. I think that's a great opportunity for a lot of people to join you in a wonderful career, and I think we all kind of remember what we know what happened up in Paradise and all that. Without you, it could have been much worse, because you actually, some of you, went up there and helped out. But also, about 10 years ago, I remember looking out, it was around May, 10 years ago, the orange sky throughout Santa Cruz County and firefighters battling flames and everything like that. So it was remarkable for what you've done, and I want to thank you for everything. So I just want to, again, thank you on behalf of not only the five of us, but on behalf of the almost 200,000 residents of Santa Cruz County who rely on you for their safety and peace of mind and first response when they're in trouble. The work you do as individuals, but as you both said, as members of a team, makes a big difference, and so thank you so much. So we're actually going to join you for a small reception in the Redwood conference room. Everyone's welcome to join, and the board will recess for 15 minutes to come back here at 11.15. Thank you very much. Sure, yes. Thank you very much. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. I'm a rural resident in Aptos Hills, and I too want to thank you, all of you, and I really have deep respect and gratitude for all that you do and for your dedication and your selfless community service to making the rural areas of our county much safer. Thank you very much. Thank you. So now we will recess to the reception and everyone's invited to join us in the Redwood conference room. Reconvene for our last item of the morning, which is a jurisdictional hearing to consider an appeal of a commercial development permit application number 171372 to construct a new roof-mounted wireless communication facility at an existing commercial building, Wilson's Tire, as outlined in a memorandum of the planning director. Good morning. Good morning. Nate McBeth, Project Planner. This item is an appeal of the Planning Commission's February 27th action on an appeal of the zoning administrator's approval of application 171372. At that meeting, the Planning Commission approved the application with revised conditions of approval. On March 13th, the Planning Commission's action was appealed to your board. Per county code, the board, your board must determine whether to accept jurisdiction or allow the Planning Commission's determination to stand. Your board can also remand the project back to the Planning Commission without taking jurisdiction. Application 171372 is a proposal to construct a new wireless, new roof-mounted wireless facility on an existing commercial building in Soquel Village. The project consists of construction of two, two-foot-high antennas camouflaged as stovepipes and construction of a four-foot-high roof-mounted enclosure. The project includes ground-mounted equipment located at the north side of the building. The project requires a commercial development permit. The attached staff report, prepared for the Planning Commission, provides more extensive information about the analysis of the project. The conditions of approval are also attached as revised by the Planning Commission as Exhibit D. The appeal letter attests that the Planning Commission's approval of the application was based on error and abuse of discretion, and the Planning Commission did not fairly consider the proximity of the project to a nearby fire station. The appellant asserts that several issues contributed to the oversights and lack of focus on critical issues raised at the appeal hearing. The appellant further asserts that the Commission felt pressure to take action on the application due to the expiration date of the tolling agreement in effect at the time of the hearing. In deciding whether to take jurisdiction of the appeal, your board must consider whether any of the criteria set forth in County Code have been met. Staff believes that there's not adequate cause to accept jurisdiction of the appeal for the following reasons. Planning Commission gave proper consideration to the location of the proposed development as it pertains to the surrounding land uses. Further, the application, the project is located in its own district which allows wireless communication facilities. The Planning Commission is well-versed in current policies and authorities as it relates to wireless communication facilities, and the Commission has extensive experience hearing in considering complex land use decisions, managing large agendas, and lengthy testimony. Further, the Planning Commission was not pressured by an imminent expiration of the tolling agreement at the time of the February 27th meeting. The current tolling agreement is set to expire on June 15th, 2019. The jurisdictional process places the burden of proof on the appellant to convince your board that jurisdiction should be taken with respect to one or more of the jurisdictional criteria. Based on the appellant's letter and administrative record, staff believes there's not adequate cause to support an appeal hearing before your board. Further, the zoning administrator and Planning Commission gave proper consideration to the evidentiary testimony. Based on the review of the administrative record and stated reasons for the appeal, there's not adequate cause or justification for your board to take jurisdiction as enumerated in Chapter 1810340C of the county code. Staff recommends your board conduct a jurisdictional hearing to consider application 171372 regarding the proposed wireless facility and to not take jurisdiction regarding the appeal of the application. I shall have a quick couple of slides to show context. Let's see here. This is a vicinity map here. And project site along Soquel Drive, the fire station that's been raised in the appeal letter is approximately 250 feet to the east of that project site. There's a number of schools and it's right there in the heart of Soquel, so there's a number of commercial businesses in around there. This is a location of some visual simulations that were provided by the applicant. First is looking up Porter at the intersection of Soquel. It's hard to see there on the right-hand side. That is the proposed facility. Closer look at the intersection and looking back down Port Street. Once again, staff recommends that you conduct a jurisdictional hearing in consideration of the application and not take jurisdiction regarding the appeal. Happy to answer any questions. I do. If we can go back to the picture, where is the fire station in relation to this? See the number two there, if you follow that up Soquel Drive, I'm not having it here. It's the white building on the north side. There we go. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, we'll take a comment from the members of the public, the applicant. I looked at County Council, but I think we usually have the appellant to make a presentation. Yes. We have five minutes. I'll have five minutes. Thank you. Will there be a rebuttal time? Usually in these sorts of things, there is rebuttal. Thank you. Thank you. I did distribute. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I am the appellant and I am here today at the request actually of a number of Soquel Village residents and business owners because they are worried and they are worried because the Planning Commission just didn't hear what Chief Hall was going to say at the commission's hearing. I'm not here to say anything negative about the planning commissioners. I respect them very much and I find them to be very responsive to the public's requests and needs and concerns. What happened on the commission hearing was that they were simply, in my opinion, overwhelmed and fatigued by the events of the day, and I'm sure that you can relate to that completely. I want to point out to you that one of the commissioners, Commissioner Jones even commented this is a pretty spotty application and yet they didn't hear with the exception of Commissioner Lazenby the protest that the fire chief put in writing. So I am here to ask you to consider this again and to hear and stand behind Chief Hall and the firefighters and I'm here to ask you your word in resolutions that you have passed to support Anna Eshoo. If your board cannot come to a decision today I ask you to remand it to the planning commission and to again ask that thoughtful, very good group of people to also consider what I'm about to hear tell you today. So I'm not saying anything negative about the planning commissioners. There is new evidence though that you do need to know about that they did not know about. By reading for you portions of Chief Hall's letter dated December 12, 2018 Chief Hall is the chief of the Central Fire Protection District. Mr. McBeth on behalf of the Central Fire Protection District of Santa Cruz County, please accept this letter on behalf of the Fire District regarding our opposition to constructing a roof mounted wireless communication facility at the existing Wilson Tire commercial structure located at 4665 SoCal Drive. We are not opposed to wireless communication and the benefit of having additional bandwidth and reliability, especially for our first responders. Our opposition is in regards to the physical location of the proposed site proximate to our SoCal Fire Station Number 3 at 4747 SoCal Drive. Allowing the proposed wireless communication facility constructed so close to a Fire Station adds an additional unnecessary risk that can be avoided. And he closes the letter with I look forward to seeing this project relocated that is your Fire Chief speaking to you. I'm here today to ask you to do the right thing. I'm here to do the right thing as a member of the public and ask you to do the right thing to deny this application 171372 the Fire Station location given in the staff report and in the Hammond and Edison technical report was not correct. It stated the Fire Station was 400 feet away that is not correct. It's 175 feet away much closer. I'm here to speak for the people who helped me scrape together the $1800 to come to you because they are also worried. And I want you to hear me and what I say because I'm speaking for many many people. I'm also here to tell you that the Fair Political Practices Commission asks that if any elected official has a matter before them that could be can I have more time please this is impossible. No you got five minutes could I please have five more minutes this is I've paid $1800 to come here please you can give us a few more minutes three minutes alright let me continue then but financial benefit you should recuse yourself and I'm asking you to do the right thing I'm familiar with all of your form 700s and I'm asking any of you who feels you have a financial aspect that could be affected by wireless to recuse yourself. Because of the time I'm not going to go into this but I will just thank you Mr. McBeth for pointing out how close the fire station is and that there are five schools in the immediate area I want to also point out that you did not the commission did not address the CEQA exemption problem brought forth to them by Whitmore Park and Attorney Ryan Maroney I want to point forth to you that you signed on January 29th a letter of support of Anna Eshoo saying the FCC rules have no teeth in this state I want you to stand behind what you've said you would support her in doing and deny this I want you to support the firefighters with AB 57 that gives an exemption for a co-location on fire stations I will present the rest thank you you have two minutes in your rebuttal good morning Paul Walburton outside council for Verizon Wireless we have a quite a team from Verizon Wireless here three executives Trisha Knight who brand this entire application for the last two years through the process and Santa Cruz and also I wanted to say that Raj Mathur of Hammett & Edison is here who did the environmental and RF testing as you know in order to take jurisdiction the appellant has to propose evidence there's an abuse of discretion an error that there were insufficient facts to make the decision or some kind of new evidence that would cause you to take jurisdiction and we don't think that there was any new evidence presented either in her papers or appeal papers or today to suggest any of those things you have a very seasoned and knowledgeable planning commission that reviewed this very closely in a very long hearing with all of the evidence they added conditions of approval to address the concerns of the appellant and other members of the community regarding flood levels regarding retesting of emissions and requirements with respect to that and with respect with potential hydrocarbons on the property all of those very thoughtfully reviewed by the planning commission in making their decision and that was after the zoning administrator had similarly made a very thoughtful decision with respect to this application we rise the wireless tried very hard to place this facility exactly where it should go under your code it's in a commercial area where it's an approved use it's camouflaged it's only four feet high above the ceiling with above the roof with antennas that are disguised as chimneys small chimneys and so we think it's just the sort of application that provides critical infrastructure to this stretch of Soquel Road and is required by the community with respect to the fire district the fire department is approximately 230 feet away that's the distance that was measured by Hammond-Nettison Consulting Engineers the RF emissions at that location were calculated by Hammond-Nettison to be less than 0.51% of the federal standard that's about 200 times below the federal standard this same type of facility is built within 12 feet of buildings in San Francisco this is a low wattage small cell facility that provides service into the immediate area and for as much as it stands by its facility we'd be happy to answer any questions that you have but would encourage you not to take jurisdiction there was no abuse of discretion there was no error by your planning commission and we think that this critical infrastructure should be included in the community thank you I just had one question you say it's a low wattage but there is requirements to mark the area around these antennas because getting too close to them for too long of a period might exceed the amount allowed by law so how do I how do I match those low wattage next to the requirements to create that distance around it or mark it? Good question and I'll invite Rajmathur of Hammond-Nettison to come and speak the wattage of this facility is about 2700 watts a normal macro cell site will have 30,000 watts so this is maybe one-tenth of the wattage of your normal 3 sector 9 to 12 antenna facility and so that's why I say it is a small cell it's runoff of what are called remote radio units which are little 40 watt radios that are mounted in that 4 foot area on the roof a macro site will have large radio cabinets putting out as I mentioned 10 times the wattage now the RF emissions come directly off the antennas so if you can imagine the antenna is like a lighthouse and it puts out a very fan thin fan like beam of signal to provide service above the signal and below the signal there's the wattage falls off dramatically in something called the near field effect and so there is an area a fan like area in front of the antenna that goes for about 25 feet approximately in front of 29 feet in front of the antenna so in order to get into that and that's the area that would be the three dimensional perimeter of the public exposure limit so in order to be exposed in some way that would be with respect to the FCC safety guideline you would have to be suspended in air at the height of the antennas for half an hour directly in this thin beam that is actually, as I said, suspended in air over the building there is a short distance between the antenna and the roof where there's markings to show that one would not want to say there's a marking on the ladder as you access the roof and there's also a switch where the power can be turned off in the event that there's a need to access the roof by firefighters or anyone else so the conditions of approval all those requirements are in the conditions of approval so the way that radio frequency energy is distributed the power declines by the inverse square rule so for every doubling of distance you have a quadrupling reduction in the energy that is released and that's why we're able to use a microwave oven because the energy doesn't is dissipated with distance which is your question Raj is a professional engineer registered in the state of California he does work with the IEEE and can answer your question further if you wish I understood what you were saying that basically the danger is being at that level and at that intersection that would be hard to do unless you were flying I'd like to object the applicants clock did not even start he has had unlimited time hold on we're not going to yell out during meetings I just want to point it out you pointed it out both of you are allowed to respond to questions off the clock his time was short he used up his time there's two and a half minutes left on his time however both of you are allowed to answer questions from supervisors as they're asked I have one we're talking about two towers is that correct are we talking about one or three so the small cell is made up of a rooftop box it's about four feet tall it has radios inside it and those have coaxial cable that go out to two antennas and the two antennas are covered with a shroud they're two feet tall it's about 13 inches in diameter in order to to camouflage them so radios going to two antennas one antenna points in two directions up and down Soquel and the other antenna faces south so there's just one so that's a typical cell side arrangement most cell sides have three sectors in order to point the antennas are 360 degrees in this case we separated the antennas on the roof we could have put a single antenna in the center of the roof but that we would have had suffered from the shadow of the roof and it also would have made the roof less accessible so the antennas are sending their signal away from the roof as opposed to towards the center of the roof which is why the only areas of the roof that are inaccessible are the top of the roof so it's perfect normally with a cell tower they're connected to a propane tank and that propane tank will kick in to test whether or not it can be working when power goes off so in our macro sites the site that I was describing there would be 30,000 watts we try to put in a generator like this one there is no generator so there's no generator no propane no diesel no engine or anything that is running to that would run in an emergency in this situation okay thank you very much okay thank you now we're gonna have time for a bottle so Miss Steinbrunner two minutes I thought I would get three three's thank you I just want to point out back in Steinbrunner that there are residences also immediately next to the facility and many many schools immediately next to the facility the new information I want to bring to you is that on 200 Kennedy Drive there's a very large cell facility in the city of Capitola that was never even discussed in any of the applicants materials that was recently modified and with a special beam antenna shoots down into Soquel village so that needs to be included in any consideration for cell reception in the village also there was no at all no requirement at all to do a mock-up for this if the public it only has aesthetics that we can comment on and yet there is nothing presented for the public to even see that is not fair it is not fair and must be addressed and is in part of county code the this site has a lot of problems that were brought up during the appeal to the planning commission there are many underground storage fuel tanks there in a 1968 lease with standard oil it talks about three five hundred and fifty gallon tanks to one thousand gallon tanks and one fifteen hundred gallon tank the planning commission did not pay any attention to this problem and did not require that any contractor who will have to do the one hundred feet trenching along Porter Drive and through the parking lot to have certification in hazardous materials this work will have to be done at night as has been done in recent with Comcast putting in their fiber optic work that will improve internet service in the village and now PG&E's work by the post office it must all be done at night who's going to be there at night if there is no contractor certified in hazardous materials to see that there is a problem the planning commission did not even ask for any exploratory soil borings to be done in the excavation areas that is an oversight that must be addressed because as supervisor Leopold is very well aware of and as I've provided with you there are endangered species of salmon in SoCal Creek if the contaminated soil gets into SoCal Creek with petrochemical things it could threaten these endangered species fish and wildlife should certainly be in on this as should the coastal commission and this in fact is not a sequa exempt project that is why in part Steve Hall chief hall said this is not a good location the fire department is known as the certified unified program agency to work with all agencies when there are contamination problems again I'm asking you for the people for the environment for an issue for chief hall and the firefighters at station three deny this project it is a bad decision for business decision for Verizon it is a bad location for the community and the environment thank you thank you you have three minutes if you want thank you I wasn't aware we hadn't rebuttal but I will quickly say that again the fire department the distance from the fire department that is not none of that is new evidence that's all evidence that was considered by the planning commission and in fact they included conditions of approval the capitol a site that she references was in our materials this is the planning commission packet and part of the purpose of this site is to offload the capitol and capitol a mall facilities which are currently overloaded with with users of our network I think those are the the issues that were raised and again I would have to say that we haven't heard any new evidence that wasn't considered by the planning commission wasn't carefully considered by the planning commission in making their decision and adding several conditions of approval to the to the ultimate conditions of the project was one issue she raised I forgot thank you unless you have any questions thank you okay now is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about the item before us I will remind people that this is a jurisdictional hearing so it's a question as was raised about the planning commission's decision not the overall substance of the of this project the sequel should have never been exempt on this particular project there are gas tanks in there there's about five gas tanks buried in there and you're making a sequel exempt I don't understand this there was a storm drain right there on that corner if you're going to be trenching in there and contaminated soil going into our water ways what are you thinking this is our village we are we're asking you this you just can't be passing this if you're going to be cutting through and there's going to be leakage and going into our Soquel River that is not okay ask these people to go find a different location we're all in Santa Cruz County together this is our county and we have to protect it we have to protect the waterways and we have to protect the steelheads their chest coming back fishing game should be notified about this the coastal commission should be notified about this if you're going to go ahead and approve this in our village and letting them trench at night with with knowing that there's five or six gas tanks under there that is criminal please deny this project and ask them to go find a different place that is not as toxic and that will not affect our waterways thank you is there any public comment seeing none I'll close public comment and bring it back to the board for deliberation action chair I had a couple questions I wanted to ask sure it has it has been an unpopular among a large part of Soquel to have cell facilities and there have been at least three other attempts to put cell facilities in the village that have all stopped not because of action from government but because people have talked to property owners and business owners and telling that would affect their business as everyone knows we can look at the health effects of our radio frequency radiation and so we're left looking at questions about whether we looked adequately at these issues and therefore there's new information in which we need to which we would take this appeal so I have some questions so the the question about the underground tanks I've done some research with staff from environmental health but I wonder Mr. Macbeth if you could say what what the county has done about this issue about underground tanks and what the likelihood of interacting with tanks as part of this work sure yeah the project was originally reviewed by environmental health services and didn't come up on their hazardous sites list there was some correspondence with environmental health staff that did acknowledge the prior use of the site as a service station and recommended a condition of approval that if during construction any evidence of underground tanks or petroleum release is uncovered that environmental health services be contacted immediately and work stop until such time as environmental health can clear that at a depth of about two to three feet for the trenching they don't anticipate that there will be contact with any tanks yeah I think I would not talk to Rebecca Sepley Sepley yeah for environmental health and she said that there was no and she could not find enough information to warrant a greater examination that was her words but I think the condition is important there was also questions about FEMA and whether this is a flood control zone miss Steinbrunner didn't bring it up but but this has been this was brought up in her letter and whether we're constructing something in a flood control zone this is a big problem for businesses in Soquel and so I'm wondering what we did to examine that issue yeah the pretty much the whole of Soquel Village is in the 100 year map floodplain and the the site the ground mount equipment has been elevated to so that it is above the base flood elevation I think that's about 43 feet is the base flood so it wouldn't be impacted by floodwaters I think our floodplain manager yeah Carolyn Burke is here that could maybe speak on a little bit more their review on the project thank you hi good morning yeah so we environmental planning did review this application for compliance with county code chapter 1610 geologic hazards which includes our flood regulations and to ensure compliance with the FEMA flood program so this is in a flood zone that's mapped AE which means that it has a defined base flood elevation defined by FEMA and it's subject to substantial improvement provisions that limit the structural modifications and finishes ancillary ancillary to the structure at less than 50% of the value of the structure so we got a preliminary estimate for what the structural modifications would be in the value of those approximately 28,000 the assessor's value for the structure which is a conservative estimate is 70,000 so it does fall beneath the substantial improvement threshold that will be checked again at the time of building permit application when we have full design plans the current plans are feasibility level only so what's important to note is that the wireless antenna itself is not ancillary to the building and therefore is not included in this in those calculations there was some concerned about the person you spoke to with associated with FEMA I wonder if I want to make sure we spoke to the right person yeah so Michael Hornick was who I spoke with he's our region 9 natural environmental hazards specialist so that covers all environmental hazards I know Miss Steinbruner highlighted his work with earthquakes but he was recently in Hawaii dealing with volcanoes and he actually comes to Santa Cruz to conduct our community assistance visits during which he actually audits our FEMA floodplain permits so that he can ensure compliance with their regulations and in that way he is absolutely the appropriate contact for this okay there were late Sunday I received an email from Glenn Chase regarding the possibility that there might be some sub-diffuge about where things were going to be stored that that tires were moved out and that tires will then be a problem in the village and how do how do we look at that that seemed like a new issue yeah sure as you're aware it is a it is a tire shop but I think in particular the area that's in the right side of this frame it's kind of highlighted there's a small small screened area that's where the proposed ground-mount equipment would be and currently that area is a location where there's some used tire storage and so we have a condition actually that precludes parking areas and aisles to be blocked by any of the equipment associated with the facility or any equipment tires etc associated with the existing commercial use so I feel like that that correspondence that was received it it maybe there's a shuffling of tires that occurs I am starting to see here in the front of the frame sorry that there are some tires out front of the use a long soquel here in the right of the frame and if that's a display temporary it seems more related to the tire the tire shop itself and maybe a compliance issue perhaps but again separate from the proposed facility so if if that's accurate that if the charge is accurate that that now there's no place to store the tires and so they become an eyesore that is an issue that would be dealt with as part of our planning compliance correct there was a question about about visual aids you know that since aesthetics is our only way to take a look at these things that we should require that people make mock-ups we don't require that in any in any of our projects we do require visual simulations like here but we don't actually have the polls or I forget what they're called but yeah there is a provision a county code that requires mock-ups however in this case the zoning administrator waived that requirement there was sufficient evidence with the the proposed the visual simulations to to understand what this project would look like it's very similar to you know parapet that's on any commercial building and this project is so that it is enough of the visual simulations for us to get an idea what the project would look like typically visual mock-ups would be for an area that's maybe highly scenic or an area where it's just a standalone tower okay I do a lot of work with the Central Fire District and I met with Chief Hall about his concerns with this it's my understanding and and council may know more about this than I do but there it was written into law that you can't place cell facilities on the top of firehouses but is there any limit to placing any control we have about placing equipment near fire stations is that part of the law I'm not aware of one yeah council I'm not aware of that I can look it up right now yeah I mean I took a look at the legislation to try to get some sense of it up the firefighters did get it written in there that they could not you couldn't put place it on top I do take issues from our firefighters as earlier today we we honored a couple of firefighters but this is something that falls into the health category and therefore it's not something that we look at as part of this jurisdictional hearing I'm and I don't see anything in the law that allows us to make a consideration that something near whether it's a hundred and seventy five or two thirty five or whatever that is that that that was be preclude that in some way so I understand the concerns that people have under the the limits of what we get to take a look at this issue about FEMA the underground tanks the tires and even the fire chief's concerns are not are not something that is either new or different than what the planning commission considered I I have tried to reach Mr. Dow to let him know that people may choose not to frequent his properties or that property in particular I haven't reached out to the Wilson tire owner to let them know but in the past that that that has been a big issue in the village but as a matter for the board of supervisors in this hearing I don't see that we've met the conditions to take jurisdiction over this I don't know whether we require an action to say we're not going to take jurisdiction do I need to take do I need to take an act do I need to make a motion so there would be a motion to not take jurisdiction I would make that motion so we have a motion by Leopold second by friend all those in favor we're voting on whether to take jurisdiction of the appeal okay you use the microphone definitely have local versus international the local individuals I'm just curious do you have a team of lawyers behind you do you have a lot of money behind you on the appeal and no you could just say no yeah you ask a question so I'll come to the podium Becky Steinbrenner I have no lawyers I'm doing all this on my own as volunteer unpaid other than the money that the residents scraped up the $1,800 that it cost to come before you thank you and you can take remand it to the planning Commission without taking jurisdiction thank you do you have any other questions for now with Verizon I'll ask the same question if we were to vote you know one way or the other Verizon has a lot of lawyers right and and again I would ask to are you local we have members of the team that are local I come from San Francisco but a lifelong California resident but Verizon wireless benefits from state and federal laws that are there for a reason which is that wireless service doesn't end on the borders of communities but really is a statewide and is deemed by state law as a statewide concern and also a national concern that the networks work when you go to New York City or Washington or Texas or to Santa Cruz County and that's why we have these national standards for such things as the health effects and so yes this is the second hearing of the week we were in Contra Costa County last week so we have people who are represent those interests to Verizon wireless in order to make sure that our network is the it's the strongest network I have to add that government code 65964 was passed under AB 57 it does not prevent wireless facilities on fire stations it allow it prevents modifications to those facilities being deemed approved or anything that violates the federal timelines being deemed granted but it does so that to allow for proper access for fire stations but does not prevent facilities on fire stations but that I'll sit down questions you know I I'm not against all cell towers if they're put in the right place here we do have opposition also with individuals that live in our community but we have the fire department that has concerns too and I do have a problem whenever I have a vote to make where someone somebody will tell us that we have to vote a certain way we can't bring up health issues we can't bring up this or we can't bring that I'm gonna vote the way I'm gonna vote nobody's gonna tell me how I'm gonna vote what I can do if it has to be aesthetics I could say something like I don't like you know stovepipes whatever but I what I'm getting out here is we have there's something very honorable noble and admirable about individuals standing up against a big corporation and having to scrape together $1800 which I think is you know too high anyway and I'm surprised that Marilyn's not here I hope she's okay she's doing okay but she couldn't make it huh all right thank you and so I've got to say I'm gonna stand up for the little guy in this and I we have the vote we've already made a motion I don't know if I can amend it I can't I can't make my motion before that motion or what can I do here what would you like I'm gonna say you can move to men however however let me just make a point which is you're not sitting as a supervisor right now you're sitting in a judicial capacity right and just as we wouldn't allow judges to just decide in its guilt or non-guilt based on whatever they feel at the moment you're under an obligation to make this decision based on that the standard before us today which is whether the planning commission engaged in abusive discretion to whether we take jurisdiction or they had a mistake and so so I you can vote however you want to vote but I think you should this that right now you're sitting as a judge and you have you are there's a legal standard that you're you're saying you should apply to so if you make a motion your motion should be related to the legal standard of which this jurisdiction is about not about the parties involved or the different issues around self self self facilities right so basically as a judge the argument is the aesthetics right no the argument before us today is whether the planning commission abused their discretion so if you have evidence that they abuse their discretion then you should make a motion to that effect I have no problem I do have a problem with the word abuse their discretion I would say that they had a lack of knowledge at the time when they made the vote so if that's your mind and so if if you're voting for we're voting right now as judges not to take jurisdiction over this supervisor Leopold made an argument that that he didn't see in this hearing today evidence that the planning commission abused their discretion if you believe that you saw hurt evidence that they that that they abuse their discretion then you can make a motion a substitute motion if you want okay I will make a substitute motion but it's the word abused actually in the in the argument and what's the planning department if you look at page two of the board memo in the packet there are five possible reasons for taking jurisdiction so your motion needs to include one of those five and the reasons that you believe one of the five is relevant based on what you heard here today okay page two okay let me give me just the second hand please please don't yell out I'm gonna ask one more time miss Steinbrunner you've been warned one more yelling out okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna make a motion that we do take jurisdiction over there send it back to the planning the planning department based on number three the decision appealed from is not supported by the facts presented and considered at the time the decision was appealed or was made chair community it so supervisor you're either taking jurisdiction which means the appeal were will proceed in front of this body or you're sending it back to the planning commission without taking jurisdiction you're not doing both you have to do both no you're you cannot do both either take it and you deal with this body deals with it or don't take jurisdiction and send it back to the planning okay if we take jurisdiction we have to sit here and decide right now what we're gonna do no you don't do it today today's just take it don't take it remand it all right now I'm gonna make a motion we do take jurisdiction okay based on based on that facts at the time and also I don't like the word abuse but there okay okay so that's your motion is to take jurisdiction is there a second seeing none that motion dies for lack of a second we now in motion and a second on the floor to not take jurisdiction I'm gonna ask all those in favor as a community just to clarify the motions actually for all the recommended actions because it was to hold a hearing in that kind of set so for the right for to not take for the recommended actions correct which include not taking jurisdiction all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no so that passes 4 to 1 so now we will move on we will recess to our 130 scheduled item which is item number 16 thank you that which is item number 16 to consider proposed changes to Santa Cruz County code chapter 7.128 and 13.10 relating to the non-retail commercial cannabis regulations schedule public hearing on June 11th 2019 beginning at 9 a.m. or thereafter to consider proposed amendments to the Santa Cruz County code and take other related actions as outlined in the in a memorandum of the CAO and we're gonna have Sam I'm so the 40 making a presentation this morning we'll sit this afternoon good good afternoon board at the previous board meeting staff presented that the last 10 minutes of am I not can you guys hear me green light on my green lights on sorry sorry about that at the previous board meeting staff stated that the last 10 months of code implementation have revealed that the time-consuming nature of the use permit process the process is taking much more time than expected especially for our existing commercial agricultural operators at the previous meeting staff identified various areas of the county code which can be perceived as creating difficulty in the process and sought input from the board from that meeting staff's recommendations include incorporation of nursery and processor license types aligning definitions with the state removing general eligibility restrictions and increasing the cultivation area in the CA C4 and M zones and removal of cultivation limits for indoor operations within the CA zone based on those recommendations we're coming to you now with the following proposed incorporations we need additional terms to make the modifications to code work to the code work so we've added several terms to the definition section we've proposed incorporating a nursery license type to allow for immature plant growth cloning and genetic development so that growers don't pay state license fees based on mature plant canopy for nursery operations these types of operations must comply with the eligibility restrictions in the TP and RA zones which the board previously approved we're proposing incorporating a processor license type within the CA C4 and M zones as staff has identified a gap in the market currently we have multiple outdoor cultivation sites which are not processing cannabis on their site due to financial costs associated with complying with fire standards they are shipping all of their cannabis off site for processing causing increased stresses on our roadways and decreased tax dollars for the county we're proposing to remove general eligibility requirements and originally these were in place to protect the local market but we were proposing to remove the registration requirement based on only 2% of registrants applying for use permits currently and just over 10% have completed the pre-application process now we're proposing increasing the cultivation area in the CA zone by differentiating the cultivation area from the canopy the canopy is the mature plant area where the cultivation area is the both the immature and mature plant areas this additional space will provide cultivators extra room for immature plant growth resulting in a total increase of 1.25% of parcel size for single licensees and up to 2.5% of parcel size for co-location sites we're proposing something similar for the C4 and M zones by providing additional space for cultivators to maintain sufficient immature plant stock to maintain continuous flower operations which is in line with other jurisdictions and the state code we're proposing to allow development in the CA zone of existing impervious areas as long as those areas were permitted or legally non-conforming this would allow development of existing infrastructure and hardscape while restricting any additional takes of agricultural soil in the CA zone now we're proposing to change all use permit levels to 3 for existing buildings in the CA C4 and M zones and allow crop conversions in the CA zones to be completed via a level 3 review this will decrease the processing time for a completed application by up to three months in these zones now with regard to the board's goal of having 75 licenses issued within a year staff feels it's imperative the proposed modifications are approved to streamline the process we will continue working with the cannabis community to provide insight to the regulatory process while increasing our understanding of the community's perception on barriers to entry now CLO and planning staff are continuing to improve application materials for applicants via instructional guides and templates and CLO and planning staff are working together to lead a multi departmental process improvement plan to develop a review matrices to help standardized workflow and deliverables throughout the use permit process any questions any questions so far on the question of the 75 license issued in a year you know obviously we see that as a floor not a ceiling to be clear do we have the staffing I look to both the CLO's office our planning staff you know if given how we're moving I'm wondering does it make sense if we're actually going to try to make that happen to bring on some temporary staff to actually move this along so right now in the budget we're maintaining our current staffing levels for the CLO office and one unfunded position is the planner position and the the thinking was if we get more applications and we see the need for that then we'll also have more revenue and the ability to pay for that position in the planning department because I do that budget as well we've added planning staff this year so right now there is a dedicated planner who works on the applications and we have added staff to allow for more staff to be able to work on on the cannabis application should they come in okay so given the low number of applications and pre-apps that we have we we can definitely handle what we've got and if we actually got a lot more applications in we would look about potentially hiring that unfunded position yes the other question I had is in the and the proposed changes that that you're recommending there's no expansion in spaces other than CA C4 and M right yes that's correct there's no there's no expansion in a RA any of those okay thank you okay you bet thanks I I'm assuming we're gonna go through part of it and then stop again now another segment and have other questions is that right I mean this isn't the whole presentation here yeah okay yeah yes this is the whole presentation the cannabis cultivation area there were the increases what one point two five percent in CA for yes the total increase of allowable space on a parcel would be one point two five percent okay our size and it'd be two point five for the co-location sites with multiple licensees and that is the one point two five that means it would be doubled plus 25 percent so or is it just a 1.25 percent of what's allowed right now and how many square feet would that be so so it's it's one point two five percent of the total parcel would be allowed to be used in addition to what's currently allowed so what's currently allowed is two point five percent so we'd be going from two point five percent to three point seven five percent of the parcel size so it's a maximum change of an additional 11,000 square feet for a parcel just over 20 acres and we're not changing the minimum amount of acreage that somebody has to have in order to do this which it stands at now five acres before in the CA zone there there isn't a minimum parcel size the five acre minimum is for the RA and TP okay as you also actually so the bigger the parcel size the more area that could be added up to the previously prescribed limits that the board approved so for a single licensee in the CA zone we'd be going from 22,000 square feet maximum roughly half an acre to three-quarters of an acre and that would be only on a parcel greater than 20 acres okay this is under 7.128.030F is that correct yes I know I'm sorry to put you on the spot there sorry that's okay I'm going there I promise and cultivation licenses under 110C is that area F under a chapter 7.128 it's on page 252 in the packet you don't have that okay yeah that's vertical integration yeah 7.128.110 C has all of the canopy and cultivation area limits which I believe is probably page 330 or no 320 somewhere in the 320s on the packet sorry I don't have the packet numbers thanks is that are you done with your questions okay any other questions comments all right let's hear we can hear from members of the public and I please see a show of hands how many people like to speak to us today okay please line up if you're able and we'll have people my name is Roland Yartsof I'm a resident of the second Supervisorial District ideally we would have an ordinance that would protect the public interest without unduly impeding or encumbering the business community and at the same time being in alignment with state regulations there is one issue and that is in distribution the state offers a type 13 distribution license which is for transport only no storage no vending the county ordinance as drafted does not provide for transport only both classes require that the licensee produce some sort of a cannabis product if a third class were added that were transport only then I or any other entrepreneur who who were so interested could then have a license that would be in alignment with the state's type of 13 as long as we're going we're having a cannabis industry we might as well make it as open as possible to entrepreneurs Humboldt County does this and they do not require specific zoning you can park your work vehicle at your house and use a home office and have only a transport business thank you good afternoon my name is Joseph Roberto and today I'm speaking to you as a member of community prevention partners I would like to address a couple of points that we think the board may wish to consider we support the board in finding ways to expedite applications not only during the use permit process but also during the building permit and construction phases one way to do this is to speed up the turnaround time for review currently there is a 30-day waiting period for each review which can add several months to the timeline this could be reduced to a one to two week review instead and it could take a significant amount of time off the application process this type of bottleneck if not addressed for the use permit as well as the business building phase it could significantly delay the licensing process also it has been shown that regulated cultivation sites which adhere to all the licensing rules equals protection for our environment and our neighborhoods in addition to looking at the CA zones we think that the board should also take a look at addressing the bottlenecks in the other zones as well for example the board could consider allowing properties to qualify without bringing their whole property to code as long it is not a health and safety issue or a fire hazard we are aware that several of the commercial ag zones are also challenged by unpermitted structures it is not just isolated to the mountain zones since this is a county wide issue we think the board can help make this adjustment for all license types on a personal note I want to thank the licensing staff and the planning department it's been pleasant attentive and professional to me personally on my licensing process so thank you for your time thank you my name is Eric Milestone I'm the founder and CEO of Zionty Farms I saw you guys received my comment and email so just touch base on a couple things I left out currently hold a state micro business license for cultivation manufacturing and distribution our cultivation of my allotment is 10,000 square feet under the state license we've completed our pre application which we're seeking 20,000 square feet of cultivation with co-location however right now until we get our use approval from the planning department the county is holding us to a site visit they made in 2017 which is right after I bought the property and I only had 5,000 square feet of active cultivation so only 25% of what the property is allowed under your ordinance is going to be implemented this year so this year we're going to lose out on 75% of our cultivation and manufacturing potential and the county will lose out on 75% of the tax potential of our property also if you could make a zone properties more like CA's own properties that would open up more properties for substantial production which means more tax money for the county and more licensed growers for the community I personally had to take on investors we invested well over two million dollars so far and yet neither us nor the county have been able to reap reap any substantial awards because this process is way too long and strict what we would ask is for that is for that licensees who have completed the pre application process with Mr. Sapanar and are waiting or use approval from the planning department who also hold state licenses to be grants granted some type of conditional use to operate at the maximum allowed limits under their state licenses they hold and the county ordinance that that's allowed by you guys then also on a personal note I you know I see the Santa Cruz requirements as like a social local equity program like in Oakland this will make sure that if big money investors come in or anybody that they'll have to partner with a local cannabis licensee and that will keep more locals in this industry so thank you good afternoon my name is Darren I'm one of the representatives here today for the Santa Cruz cannabis alliance we're a newly formed group of agricultural operators who are engaged or intend to be engaged in cannabis based businesses we're a diverse group of growers processors manufacturers and shippers our backgrounds consist of traditional commodity crop farmers legacy Santa Cruz County cannabis businesses cut flowers berries and other ag related pursuits the entire group currently operates or are attempting to set up operations on County's owned CA parcels our group has over 30 members it intends to be inclusive and will help foster economic vitality to industries and facilities which need a boost today we support all of staff's recommendations in their entirety we ask the supervisor support in streamlining the use permit process for cannabis businesses who've established themselves as good actors as with any startup we're putting a great deal of capital and resources at risk with expectations that a successful venture will be rewarding however paired with the uncertainties of a use permit process with unusual demands on additional capital the balance of risk and reward are skewed against our success we're all on CA zone land with a simple desire to refurbish and revitalize existing facilities we're not attempting to develop a new commercial project like a shopping mall the amount of money time and uncertainty have made our projects almost untenable we hope you all can understand we're really talking about switching out one crop for another and the permitting process should be in line with this simple goal thank you hi Trevor Luxen attorney-at-law like to start by just saying that I think what staff has brought is really great it would be a huge step forward I'm absolutely in support of it it would really really streamline this process that being said I do want to put out there that if this program is going to succeed it can't just be about CA you know there were some goals set out at the last meeting you know 75 licenses within a year something like double that to make this a financially successful revenue generating program to reach those numbers there's going to have to be cultivation going on in other types of zoning zone areas special use residential ag there's just there's not there's not that much available CA space with that meets all the requirements and that you know the landlords are open to cannabis and willing so there needs to be something done for for the people outside of commercial ag good afternoon Robin bolster grant attorney-at-law kudos as to the licensing staff the planning department staff county council and everybody else who helped to craft these changes I think they will definitely help Santa Cruz cannabis industry be more competitive more economically viable if they're implemented as proposed I do have a couple of caveats I'm going to reiterate my pitch for filling the vacancy I understand that the budget limitations but I also have seen the the weight that Mike has on his shoulders processing all of the pre-apps and the turnaround time is is pretty lengthy and it's certainly not his fault we're adding two new license types I support them but they also add layers of complexity to the processing evaluating all the rest of it the state has three licensing authorities we have one second and this reiterate what Trevor said I understand the land use policies that favor commercial ag land over the other zoning types and I agree that that should be the dominant location for these operations but commercial cannabis is an allowed use in several other zone districts there are folks for whom moving to see a property is either infeasible or or not desired for the variety of reasons my concern is that the folks that are on non-ca property may get pushed aside or lose their place in line because they're viewed as automatically inferior not all see a property is free of environmental constraints and not all non-ca property is constrained the county's going to need to be inclusive of all eligible properties in order to meet their licensing goals thank you good afternoon my name is Valerie and I want to applaud all of you licensing and planning and supervisors too for making such great strides and changes our goal here really is positive outcome and to make that positive for the citizens of our community to create a livelihood and for our county to gain revenue from that as well and what I will echo some of the things that have been said here primarily the creating more equity between CA and other like avenues of cultivation in other districts it'd be a really magnificent thing to see happen and it would also be more inclusive of our community it is costly venture it takes a great deal of time and effort and some really good luck to be able to manage this new entrepreneurship that's set forth and I also I just really want to say thank you it's been a long quarter of a century and we've come really a long way so many thanks and I'll cut the short but again thank you hi Pat Milo first thanks to everyone I think there's some really important things you know small steps forward for some of the properties and folks who are left in this but I think there's also a bigger positive thing happening and that's a recognition of that we haven't been successful at what we set out to do was replace a largely unregulated market with a regulated market I think there's some slides in there that have the numbers on it but we've got you know a very small amount of the folks who were legal under the last seven point one two six and the medical laws have been able to make this transition and some of them have left town you know some of them have just been put out of business but you know a lot of people remain out there in limbo and are becoming more and more you know on this left out page and then we're gonna have to you know go about it through enforcement and all these other issues that we're you know all voted for as a community to legalize this stuff and not deal with it through enforcement so I think there's only one thing to do is to really like others have said look beyond just the CA properties and really look beyond just the qualifying parcels right now we have a cottage license type that no one's taken advantage of I think we could build on that and we really needed to offer a real pathway to everyone who wants to follow these rules and I don't think we've done that yet and so I don't think we can really go out and enforce on people with good conscious about it because we haven't given folks the opportunity so I really wholeheartedly agree with this streamlining and stuff I think it steps in the right direction but I think we really need to come to terms with the other piece of this is that we need to recognize that we need at least 75 or at least 150 to pay for the program and we need at least you know a larger percentage of those registrants to be involved in this for us to think it's a success so thank you. Hi my name is Wes Dewhurst I'm also with the Santa Cruz Cannabis Alliance I'm one of the lucky few cultivators still progressing through this permitting licensing process I'd like to thank the board Sam and CLO staff for all the hard work on these revisions the process has been really difficult for all of us the burden of discretionary permits has pushed most operators out of business or into the black market those of us that have made it this far still have significant hurdles ahead of us the proposed changes to 7.128 and 13.10 would go a long way towards reducing those hurdles as well as reducing the barriers to entry for operators still waiting in the wings this is critical for the success of the program and I appreciate your time and consideration thank you. Hi my name is Aziz I'm also with the Santa Cruz Cannabis Alliance and thank you guys for being here and taking your time for this we believe that the changes that have been put in place by Sam the rest of the CLO are great and a great step forward and we should do our best to keep moving in that direction the planning process while not the worst thing in the world everyone has to go through it like as operations go and scaling up comes along in commercial ag properties and with some of the people left it's looking like we're going to need help to ensure a successful harvest this year so treat us like small business owners and farmers not big corporate land developers we don't have millions and millions and millions of dollars so thank you. Greetings my name is Christopher Carr I'm the co-chair of community prevention partners and I just wanted to go over a couple recommendations and thank you for your time our coalition researched permitting processes and neighboring and other jurisdictions in California and identified the following strategies to streamline and expedite the licensing process hire temporary contractors to processes licenses like Monterey County expedite the turnaround time for components of the application to one to two weeks rather than waiting the full 30 days increase the amount of time that cannabis licensing office manager meets with planning and have a dedicated planning staff person for cannabis business applications lower the permit review process in more traditional zones for example in the city of Santa Cruz the process their administration review takes about 90 days in the city of Watsonville it took two to four months use the lab program for permitting consider allowing properties to qualify without bringing the whole property up to code as long as there's no health and safety issues or a fire hazard and then speaking as a farmer and a steward of the earth you know I see our community of cannabis stewards as partners with local government we have a very special opportunity in cultural heritage as stewards of this plan and I think what we have is not quantity but quality going beyond C.A. zones looking at terroir looking at where we cultivate wine and grapes and small farms all across the county there's a lot of unique novelty in these other regions outside of the C.A. zone that is what's going to make us the Napa Valley of cannabis I'm here to help and I'm very grateful for the time thank you hello I didn't prepare anything and I don't want to sugarcoat this from what I'm hearing from folks thanking you all is that we've kind of failed at this effort and a lot of it is encouraging black market cultivation in the mountains which isn't going away which was what was promised with this whole legalization crap end of the day you've got so many hurdles that the one thing I can applaud is that there's you've inspired a statewide ballot initiative to come forward that's going to take this out of your courts I encourage you to do what you're hearing recommended and beyond that your nursery license doesn't allow for flowering and things like this you really need I mean you guys ran an EIR that cost us how much money does anyone even know how much that cost and where is that we never got to see it or hear anything about it is because it endorsed allowing the licenses in the mountains and in the regions where they currently cultivate they cultivate in those hills because in the fog bank it is a horrible spot to grow cannabis and you're not going to keep the tour are in this and that that's a crap region there's a reason why there's not a bunch of black market cultivating I know that's been laid out for you frankly and clearly and I know it's small town shenanigans and money that caused it to even happen like that but these mountains are going to keep growing pot and what you're going to use all the money on enforcement that's not making our streets or parks or neighborhoods safer so I highly encourage you to recognize that you are leading the way and I'll applaud the efforts but we hear what these people are saying because I'm hearing it from a bunch of folks sugar coating it's thanking you that they're failing and they're they're borrowing millions and that you're not generating the money you need so I encourage you to do the right thing I just had a couple of comments and a couple of light questions I'm not sure if we're able to you know ask questions in this kind of environment maybe we can meet later somebody in the campus department with with my team one of them is at the June 8th date looking at some of the details around June 8th some people says details around having to have registrations assigned certain properties by that time certain procedures having to have being completed by June 8th that's one of the things I've been trying to clarify another thing is that I have reviewed the website there are some things that are stipulated on the website regarding June 8th but I've heard other things that I want to share and that way I'm dealing to digitize in light of such I've called the campus department a number of times I know you guys are only open till noon nowadays but I've left a number of messages with different department members in that department trying to get feedback around some of these questions and never receiving any calls back along over weeks at a time so we all have other jobs and sometimes we're sometimes we're not able to be there by noon on that on these days but we work hard to be able to stay in communication with you guys so as long as we can all kind of do that back and forth together and I think that'd be very helpful another thing is that I'm looking at when you guys talking about I noticed today you're talking about D kind of assembling the registration process so those that were that had registrations that are now been with the various types of pre-assessments and stuff going on and how not many people have utilized their registers for pre-assessments are you guys considering kind of demantling the whole registration process my only challenge with that is that those of us that would have had to go through the process of holding on to one of these registers for so long over the last several years it's been work having to file things on time and having to make sure things are coordinated with the county well enough to be able to still be somebody that holds on to one of these registers would all that work basically be now be notified and then anybody that didn't doesn't have a rage cannot come in and kind of just start applying for just being able to cultivate in Santa Cruz the challenge and maybe I'm mistaken about how that works but it would seem that that would be somewhat unfair to the people that have had to kind of do it for this whole period of time under that auspice and then now it opens up to other people that could investment stuff and all that the money stuff shift. Thank you your time's up. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. My name is Paula Walter. I run a collective here. We have been in the county since 2009. We've been official since the beginning of 2011. We've paid all state and federal taxes since then. We've paid all county taxes since the beginning of the county taxes. We're proud to say that we have been current on all our taxes. We would just like a chance to be able to continue. We do not want to leave the county. This is where all my workers live. This is where I live. This is where we are founded. Kind rub collective is in my opinion a Santa Cruz company with the values that we have all instilled in what medical marijuana is Valerie has led the the crusade crusade for us for all these years. I've tried to do my very best to always help people and do the right thing. And I'm looking at a position that we may be able to be forced to leave after being here 10 years legal. We really want to stay in the county. It will do whatever it is possible. We're just hoping for an open road. The rest of us can jump through the hoops. We're willing to do what's needed. Thank you for your time. Good afternoon. Good to see you all. Thank you for your service as usual. I have to echo Brett. I mean it using any measurement any metric. We failed at creating a viable sustainable local cannabis trade in this county and it's really not a fault of planning or the licensing office. It's a priority of the board that cannabis the cannabis trade is not a favored agricultural crop. It's not a favored industry. We've tried to elevate the level of conversation around it. It has had some effect. I mean we have by some measure better than most places in that we have maybe 40 businesses in the county that are operating with a state license. Currently we have none of course in the county with a local license. But we're making baby steps in that direction. I think that until the majority of the board recognizes that this should not be a law enforcement issue but needs to be looked at in a much broader frame and addresses those issues that you hear about over and over and over until that happens. We're going to be back here every couple of months with some new little tweak or some new thing. And we will 75 is a pretty ambitious goal at this pace and with these regulations. Thank you. Good afternoon members of the board. My name is Seth Smith. I'm here representing Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance. We're one of the licensed retail dispensaries here in Santa Cruz County. And we would like to first thank the C.L.O. and the C.A.O. and the county attorney's office for their hard work putting together these recommendations for you. They've been working on this for a while trying to come to terms with what they think that the best way forward might be to make this policy as inclusive as possible. I can tell you that, you know, as you're well aware, it's not very inclusive now. Our own organization was once a cultivator licensed here, at least state licensed here in the county of Santa Cruz. We were one of the pre registrants authorized to cultivate. We ended up consolidating all of our cultivation operations and the rest of our production operations manufacturing and distribution, which were located here in the county down to the city of Watsonville were quite frankly the tax base is much more favorable to organizations like ours. And the regulatory process was far more streamlined. And we were fully up and running there. We have annual license that full state annual license there along with our local permits there. And that would not have been possible here in the county of Santa Cruz in the same period of time or at the same low cost. And so we highly recommend that the board support and adopt these recommendations from the county and try to make this industry here in Santa Cruz County far more inclusive when it comes to the cultivation at least. Thank you. Yes, sir. Mr. Smith, I wondering if you could just let us know if you feel comfortable what the annual sales amount was of that cultivation activity that you took down to Watsonville. Last year that came in around three million dollars. Three million dollars. From cultivation. And at the time when we consolidated all of our cultivation operations down to the city of Watsonville, our organization accounted for somewhere between a third to 50% of the total cultivation revenue base for the for the county of Santa Cruz. And then we left and that dried up. These folks would like to pay their taxes, but they need to be able to be in operation to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Christina Borbay. I'm here as a community member in Santa Cruz County and also as the co-chair of the Community Prevention Partners Coalition. You received a letter from CPP earlier this week. And I did just want to stand here and let you know that CPP is in support of solutions for registered local cannabis businesses to be rapidly licensed in order to meet community goals of health, public safety and economic well-being. You've heard the voices of some of our members here today of our partners in the community and of our fellow community members licensed cannabis businesses are required to follow very specific regulations designed by your board that offer community benefit and bring tax revenue into our community. And small local businesses support local economy and are more likely to be community minded and assist in preventing the cannabis industry from becoming similar to big tobacco and big alcohol, both of which have a history of marketing to our youth. The Community Prevention Partners supports finding pathways for existing registered businesses to be licensed and fully participate in a regulated system that is designed to prevent diversion of cannabis to youth, provide environmental oversight, protect public health and safety, and less in time spent on enforcement. We continue to appreciate the board's thoughtful and intentional balancing of the many factors impacting community's health, safety and prosperity, and very much hope that you'll consider some of the concrete recommendations that were made by our membership here today. Members of the board, my name is Kirk Schmidt. I appeared before you last year repeatedly focusing on all my attention on CA land. On behalf of my individual greenhouses and the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, once again, I appear in that capacity. I appreciate all the changes that were made because they make it much easier for us. We have been in the process since the beginning and are now before the Planning Department, although it's difficult to anticipate when the process will be over. The changes you've adopted will be helpful in that regard because there was a change in cultivation. There was a change in nursery. There was a change in eliminating the historic cultivation requirement, the pre-2013 cultivation requirement. And while it made sense at the time, the long period of time between adoption of this ordinance and now has meant that there are very few of the previous 800 people that are pre-registered that are still there. And for CA land, we need to have more than one grower in our greenhouses in order to make it viable. And so elimination of the historic pre-registeration requirement is very helpful. The reduction in zoning review is also highly important. I wrote you a letter regarding concern about the difference in the definition that still remains between the county ordinance and the state regulation. I spoke with Mr. Laforte about this, and he assures me that the licenses when they're issued will be issued for greenhouses or indoor, and it will not confuse the two because this is important as you proceed with the state. There are also some interesting issues on commercial ag with existing greenhouses in that historically, not historically, every single one of the large greenhouses had a processing facility associated with the greenhouses. Whether those processing facilities can continue to be used for processing cannabis is uncertain because of a state differentiation between whether the facility processed in agricultural commodity like flowers or an agricultural product like cannabis. And the result may change the ability to use or may prevent the ability to use those warehouses or packing sheds for processing of cannabis because of potential adverse applications of the fire code. And I requested you also look at that to simplify that aspect so that it is possible to continue using the processing facilities that exist with greenhouses on CA land. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Dennis. Pardon me, just one second. Is this our final speaker? Is there anyone else who'd like to speak today? OK, come up. And just so you all know, our timer has stopped working. So we'll just signal you when your two minutes are up. OK. Please go ahead. My name is Dennis Farley. And I wanted to say thank you for everybody for being here today. My little talk is about a lot of this effort and time is going for the CA properties. And when it was being voted on to make it legal, I had talked to a lot of people in the CA district. And none of them were really into it. Most of them I know didn't really want it. They were working farming. It was the mountain properties, the TPZs, and the rest of the people who were basically doing all the growing. And because like one gentleman said, most of the CA properties were in fog banks and they weren't interested in it. But now I see 99% of everything the energy is going towards that the TPZ properties are being kicked out. And this is basically where it all started. And I don't think that I have a TPZ, a small orchard. That's why I got it. But I can't get a distribution license because the county and the fire department want 100,000 gallons of water for an office. Just for an office, no lights, just for hoop houses. It just seems a little strange that if I'm going to turn a barn into an office so that I can distribute only my stuff that I have to have the fire department come up and say they want 10,000 gallon tanks of water. They want the pressure from that at 500 pounds per square inch for two hours. Well, I'm not doing anything at all to start a fire or to do anything like that. It's impossible if they're just hoop houses. But it's not the CA who got this whole thing going. It is the mountain people, the people up in the mountains who are doing it. And I know there is restrictions, but I don't know. I just think it's really unfair that I don't see a lot of effort going to help maybe some of the little people up in the mountains. But thank you. OK, I'll try to be brief. My name is Pete Tassiff. A group of us bought a parcel in the South County CA land, a distressed property. It had 13 red tags on the property. We have since cleared those red and I calculate running numbers that is going to cost us Greenland $6 million. To completely this industry could be $150 million industry. So it could be major for this county. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, that concludes public comment. I'll bring it back to the board for discussion and deliberation. Supervisor Leopold. I just had a couple of questions. There were some questions raised here. And I'm wondering if staff might be able to answer them. There was a our first speaker talked about a type 13 license and a transport and we don't offer one. Could is is that something we need to take a look at? Before we address the question, there's one thing I forgot to do at the start of this, which was there were three sentences left out of 1310 that were included in 7.128 changes. Those are packet pages 339 and 357. They were provided to the board members. I needed to read this into the record. I believe that does it. With regard to the distribution question associated with type 13 license, transport only person is not restricted at the county level from applying for a distribution license for it would be the equivalent of a class two license and they would just state in their project description what their operational capacity is. And that would allow them to apply for a type 13 license at the state level and obtain a use permit from the county to cover those operations. The gentleman brought up that he would just like to transport it and have his office in his house, but it not actually store any cannabis there. Is that possible? That it wouldn't meet the criteria for a commercial site, right? So we could potentially let's say if you had a commercial site, if you had an office and a commercially zoned area and all he was gonna do is transport, we could do that in C2 or another zoned area or would it require something else? Supervisor, I could help I think with the answer to that question. We currently do not regulate transport. So there's no reason for anyone to come into the county to get a license for transport. If they went and they got their state license for transport, the state would call us to ask whether we give licenses in that regard and we would say we don't give licenses, we don't regulate it. That doesn't mean we prohibit it, but we don't regulate it. I think there was a decision your board made a year and a half ago or so to see whether or not in the future we were gonna have any kind of a transport industry here that would require you to try to regulate it or get into it and that hasn't occurred as of yet. There may be other things that would implicate somebody doing that license like what we're talking about a home office or home occupation, there may be other county regulations that would be implicated but not a license at this point. So the gentleman could have a conversation with staff they may be able to engage in that business. Well, they wouldn't even come in to talk to staff because we don't regulate it. Okay, all right. If they wanna have a home occupation they would talk to planning staff about whether a permit is required for whatever use they're looking for. Okay. There were also questions raised and I've heard this before so I just want clarification about time to meet with planning that somehow there wasn't enough that the CLO's office and planning weren't spending enough time together. Is that an issue that we should be concerned about? I mean, I know that there's interest in moving things along, right? To move things through the process. Is the question timing or something else? So let me just say that for, when somebody turns in a pre-application the planning department and the CLO office meet in what's called triage meetings on the application. So they're meeting on every single application jointly. We also have joint policy meetings once a month. We have get together as we need to, phone calls in regular meetings. I don't think it's an issue of that we're not talking to each other because, as anyone here from any of the departments can testify, we talk to each other on almost a daily basis for the applicants that are coming in and even when somebody calls with questions if we need to convene with somebody else and check in with somebody else, we do do that. And so do we have a dedicated planner to cannabis? Yes, well, Sheila McDaniel has been I know Sheila. I'm handling all of the applications thus far. Great. In planning. And is several people brought up the issue of the length of the 30-day, that it takes up to 30 days for response about applications and the request for reducing that. And what is- I'm gonna let planning staff answer that because they can talk to you about the review process more cogently. That's a process that is not particular to cannabis applications. That's the discretionary review process that we apply to any application. We have state legislative timelines that say we must within 30 days produce an incompleteness or completeness determination. We strive to do it in a lesser time than that, but because the applications get fanned out to various different agencies to make their comments, it typically takes much of that 30 days. And it's an overall effort to try and reduce that for all kinds of applications. So it's not a question that Sheila is sitting on the application, it's just all the other agencies that also have to respond. There's a lot of coordination that has to happen within that period of time to generate that what we call 30-day letter. Okay. The last question I have is there was concerns about getting information callbacks and that people didn't get callback. Are we actually fully staffed in the CLO office? Except for the one unfunded position. Yes, we are fully staffed. I know at one point we had a CLO or I think we call Sam's job or Mr. Laforti's job, managers, cannabis licensing manager, and then there were two resource planners and two enforcement folks. Code compliance, yes. Yeah, that we're all planning related and then there were two sheriff's deputies. So do we currently have all those positions filled? We have everyone except the one resource planner that was changed to- So we have one resource planner, two code enforcement. Yes, we have one resource planner, two code enforcement, two sheriff and Sam. And then of course, Steve Carney assisting us from the sheriff's office as well. The one position was a resource planner position which we actually elevated to a planner position last year and that's currently still unfilled and was unfunded in the upcoming budget. Okay. Then maybe the question for Mr. Laforti is do we have enough staff to be able to process applications and if we got actually 75 applications in? I think the plan that Melody has laid out, including the additional staff being brought on as the applications come in will get us to where we need to be. Currently we have enough staff. I know people are frustrated with the amount of time it's taking to process pre-applications currently but we have a lot of people jumping through that phase of the application process because we have this looming June 8th deadline which has seemingly spiked interest in moving forward. Okay. So we have had a rush in the last two months. And if we were to adopt these regulations would that June 8th deadline be as important as it is? The June 8th deadline would not be relevant anymore. Okay. And actually one last question. The, you do regular report back to the board and that would be a quarterly report, right? You do a quarterly report. So what would our next quarterly report be? So we just did one in April. So it would be your first meeting in August then. Okay. So I appreciate the testimony we have and I appreciate the recommendations that have been brought forward. I think they make a lot of sense and they also represent the values that we've talked about for a long time. And in terms of our policy goal if our policy goals is that we'd like to see cannabis cultivation happen in commercially ag zones, reducing the barriers to having them in commercially ag zones we've talked about that since the beginning. And if this actually helps make that happen then we're on the right path. And for those who think that should be happening in other areas, it gets more complicated depending on where you are in the commercially ag it should be the easiest to do. And what we've shown so far is it's not so easy. So making it easy in the easiest place to do it will help us figure out how to make it easier in other places if that's what the policy goal of this board is. One speaker brought up concerns about registration and the fact that people have been registered and that somehow this change would disenfranchise them or hurt their chances. And when we look that we've been these registrations have been going on since 2015. 2016. 2016 that they have provided a certain amount of protection for people who've been growing if the sheriff showed up and you had registrations. But since we've opened up this application process to have less than 10% come in is an indication to me is an indication that some of the people in that registration program we may never see cross our path they may have moved to other places. They may have decided that the capitalization needed to open a business is different. And if our interest is to have a well regulated industry that has good actors that contributes to the tax base and the job base. It seems to me that we've given a lots of preference and time for the registration process to put those people in front and only a small amount has taken advantage of that. So it seems reasonable that we remove that restriction. There were also someone made a comment that somehow we that this isn't a favored ag crop. And to be clear it's the state that has defined this and it is ag commodity not a crop. And as if it was a crop there would be lots of laws that would protect us from or promote the idea of just changing over from one crop to another. The state made a decision to call it a commodity which brings it on a different level of regulation and makes it a little less easy. That's not the county that's doing that. That's the state that has done that. Lastly yesterday I had a good conversation with Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Laforte looking over the issues in his letter. I appreciate the time that both spent on that. One of the issues that came up and has been talked about today is the fire requirements especially by Cal Fire. There are different requirements by a different fire district. Today I spoke to Chief Larkin when he was here and he stressed to me that they're looking at this on a case to case basis and that they will look at reasonable systems and not be strict about one way in which to do it but look for ways that can address the fire concerns that they have and so he encouraged a discussion and he told me he's met with CA owners and would continue to do that in order to make that work. I think these are good changes and don't reflect a big change in policy direction but are changes in process that will help us achieve our policy goal and as such I would move the recommended actions and look forward to report back in August to see how we're doing. All right, we got a motion by Leopold, a second by McPherson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of issues, just at the beginning when we got into this a couple of years ago now, one of the main things we wanted to have local oversight not have the state tell us to do everything and now we're kind of doing what the state wants and I think this is a good move to make this ag product, if you will, viable in Santa Cruz County and I think we are moving in the right direction. There have been some calls to me and I think some others too about a problem that's happened in not my district over at Browns Valley Road in Coralitas that it doesn't seem like it relates to the CA program and the notification process and all but I don't think that approving what's on before us now is gonna weaken that oversight or notification process, is that correct? If you noted me, some people are concerned about what's coming next door that they're not being notified about at this point and this wouldn't weaken, I think we've have some bad actors in essence. What we were consulting was the question, the effect of changing the level and noticing specifically. Yeah, the change in the level from five to three. Yeah, there is a difference in noticing with those two levels, with a level five permit application, neighbors and others are noticed within a radius around the property of 300 feet and then there's also other standard noticing lists, the board, for example, gets noticed and with a level three, that noticing does not occur. Okay. The signage still occurs, correct? The second posting? There is a posting on the property indicating that there's a discretionary permitting process. Okay, I'm... I think, okay, thank you. The staff are correcting me. There is not anything that goes up on the property, so it's administrative and there is not that kind of public noticing. Okay. I think we're moving in the right direction here and I want to go with this, but from the complaints that I have received and I think some others have too, I'm concerned that there is not some kind of a notification of some type, but that being said, I think I will go ahead with supporting this. I think also that this request for the review period to be reduced and I think our unfunded position is going to be used up very fast. If we really accommodate that and I think we should to the best of our ability when budget decisions come around. And then one thing that's really, this isn't part of it, but it will be in the near future. I know some of you know I was concerned about the high-tax structure that we had and that's not the discussion of this, what we're talking about in the zoning and so forth, but I think we are getting ready to review that again. Is that correct at this point about our tax structure compared to some of the surrounding areas? We do have changes to the tax ordinance coming before you in June, but they do not change the actual amounts of the tax structure. I just want to say that the cities and the county have all agreed to have discussion at the highest levels of the organization around tax structure for the very reason that you're talking about. We don't want uneven tax structures within the county between the cities and the county. And so the highest levels of those organizations that we'll be meeting to discuss tax structure. I'm looking forward to seeing how to address that because I think that's a big issue part of the reluctance to participate, shall we say, by some. And so I'm looking forward to seeing that report. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Caput. I know we wanted to increase and get up to 75 licenses. I understand that part, but that's not my number one priority. I mean, we can throw the door open and we can do anything we want to accommodate people just in order to get another license on the books. The goal can be that, but anything less than that is not a failure. If we don't have enough now, I'm looking at ways to maybe increase that. I do have a problem with the review period notice to the public and public input. It seems like we're going into more administrative being able to just go ahead and issue things and clear things up. I'm all for more continuing to have the public input and review period that we currently have. So what are we changing there? That's a big administrative change, in my opinion. It's not minor. Go ahead. There are a few things that change when the level changes. One is the noticing that we've described. The other is that who the decision maker is, obviously, is different. For a level three, it's administrative and it's the planning director or staff. At a level five, there's a public hearing at the zoning administrator and then who may appeal such a decision is also different between a level three and a level five. And what's a level four? A level four is there is public noticing but no public hearing. So it's a little bit interim between three and five. Okay, so now I'm gonna be forced to be against this whole thing because I'm all for public notice and public input and review. So that's an integral part of the whole proposal here, right? Yeah. I think the licensing official put it together as a package. Okay, and then the other is the increase, the increase of area and cultivation and everything like that. It says it's not gonna affect the actual agricultural land but obviously it will. I mean, we're talking about in some cases, a cement floor, are we not? Our impervious material put in. So the exception language that was put in there was to allow development of existing impervious area. So that impervious area must exist. You're not going to be able to add impervious area. Okay. Yeah, and that development footprint must include all associated things with the operation, including parking, water, storage, everything. Can I follow to that question before we hand it back to Supervisor Caput? But isn't it a, you would have a, if you did it on current impervious land, you would have a by right ability on CA to build a new barn, for example, that then could theoretically then qualify for this in the future. I mean, you have under current ag zoning the ability to add ancillary structures on ag land that isn't currently impervious. So this is, to me, this is meaningless. This is a statement that you can't change it but you have a by right activity to still build this and then change it under the same code unless I'm missing something. The exception language was written to allow for development of that impervious land that doesn't have the same canopy restrictions associated with parcel size as currently stated in the CA zone. It's more like the C4 and M zone. It will be treated in the sense that parcel size isn't tied to canopy. But the goal was to, the goal of the board was to not have new construction, correct? I mean, historically. That's one of the goals of the board, I would say. I think that that was a balance that was struck but I don't think you would say it was a policy goal, at least not for this supervisor. Okay, I mean, I believe as the one who represents basically all this land along with supervisor Caput, I mean, it was one of the goals was to not have, should there be a collapse in the market, a lot of new construction, which is why we're having some of these discussions with nurseries already, which was a collapse in a flower market. So since it's a by-right ability to construct it, I just think it actually isn't, the end result could still allow new construction as my point on CA land because you would still be allowed to convert ag land into a construction component. Should that be deemed an answer or use? The goals of planning and the CLO staff when writing this exception were to not have any impacts to agricultural soil and that's why the language is so detailed with regard to the additions for this exception. And what we've seen is we've seen interest in smaller CA parcels that it's not financially worth it for people to do these build-outs because the parcel size is so small that the canopy would be restricted so heavily. For instance, one of the few parcels that we've seen this interest was a five-acre parcel and that would be capped at a 5,000 square foot canopy where if they were allowed to rebuild the parcel, its previous operation was an indoor mushroom farm. If they were able to do the build-out, they would essentially go from a 5,000 square foot limit to more like one acre, 44,000 square feet with no tangible impacts to soil because they'd just be replacing the existing buildings. Okay, I didn't mean to surprise the cabinet, please continue. No, no, that's a good follow-up. All right. And then I was looking for it, setbacks. Have we done anything? Is there any change in there on the setbacks? No. Buffer or whatever away from the neighbor. Okay, I didn't see that. And I guess I do have a little problem in one area there that said 1.25% increase up to 2.5 increase in another category? Co-location. That was what? Co-location. Okay, and then co-location, can you explain that a little bit? Co-location is where you have more than one licensee on a property. So the board previously approved co-location sites to be double the size of single licensees. So that's why we're proposing the 1.25 for single licensees, and then doubling that size for the co-location licensees to mimic what the board previously approved. All right, so if you have more than, we're talking about owners or partners? Operators, separate business entities. So if you had two business entities on the same parcel, you would have that 2.5% increase, where if you were only one business entity on a parcel, it would only be 1.25. What's the benefit about that? I just don't see the benefit, but then you go ahead. Well, so for example, if you look at the greenhouses down in the South County, co-location is possible in those greenhouses. So you could have more than one cannabis grower, for example, in a number of the greenhouses. So you could have 10, you could have 12, you could have whatever. So the idea was to use space that was available, but allow for co-location of many different business owners on one parcel, right? Because that land may only be owned by one owner or one parcel, but you could have many business operators there. The reason we did this was we were worried as smaller operations moved out of the mountains, many people couldn't afford to buy an entire greenhouse for themselves, but we thought if we allowed a bunch of small businesses to co-locate, then there was a path for some smaller business owners to be able to participate in this market. And support farmers who have greenhouses that were empty because of the decline in the flower business. Are you done? Questions and comments? I'm done. Okay, Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair. So appreciate the work. I mean, you heard my concerns at the last meeting about this. Those concerns haven't, I mean, they haven't changed on this. One of the concerns I sort of have just moving forward is the fact that I recognize that the CAO's job is to create a budget and actually find ways from a revenue standpoint to meet that budget. I think that the projections, though, that have been provided by the CAO are unrealistic as far as what tax revenues will get. Throughout the state, they're lower than in almost every community than was anticipated. And I have a concern that that is driving a large part of the deregulatory policy that we're looking at right now. And I don't know really where that stops. I would rather have the CAO come back with realistic projections than to have the board changing and modifying our regs consistently in order to meet projections that I don't think that we're ever going to realistically meet. If we don't get to the 75 licenses, then we're gonna still continue to have a shortfall. As Ms. Bolster-Grant pointed out, unless we actually expand to other zones that I don't think my colleagues are comfortable with because it would impact their districts, then we're gonna continue to have this shortfall. So as was noted by Mr. Coffes, I mean, we're gonna continue to be back here every couple months having a discussion about what to loosen in order to meet what I think are arbitrary numbers. Some of the other communities that were even cited as model communities because of their processes are not meeting the tax revenue numbers as well. So I just think that we should figure out what's actually driving the discussion. And if it's really the economics of it, then I think we should actually be right on the tax projections to the best possible way. And I think that they're right now exceptionally high. And the only way to get there would be, actually I don't even know how to get there, honestly. But I do believe that it creates that this sort of arbitrariness on the financial projections creates undue economic burden specifically in my district that I don't think we're ever gonna meet. So I can't, that along with the elimination of the noticing and a few other components are something I can't support. But I'm concerned about this coming back in August on the next update and then there'll be even more de-regulatory components to meet that. So when we get the budget in June, I just hope that the numbers are more accurate this time. I mean, they were astronomically off the last time. We've never been that off on any other projections. We've done anything else. I know it's a new industry, but I think that finding a way to actually get realistic projections I think will help guide the policymaking that I'm moving forward. So can I just speak to the tax projections? So we have taxes that are for the retail market and for the non-retail market. And I just looked at these this morning. So I can say we are completely on track for our tax projection right now for the retail market, which has been about the same for the last few years has not significantly increased or significantly decreased in any way, shape or form. The non-retail market we did over project this year because we anticipated we would have more licensees coming forward for licenses than have come forward. However, we are still ahead of where I thought we were gonna be at this point in the year with the non-retail market as well. So people are paying their taxes even if they may not be fully operational. It's still about half of what we projected originally when we started this process last year. And the challenge is the CBT goes into the general fund but isn't really being used to fund this office. I mean, so the board could make a decision then to use the CBT, which we've had accurate projections on it, we're greater time horizon on to do this, which would alleviate the pressure on the deregulation. My point is that if we're gonna be wrong on manufacturing, distribution and cultivation over the next couple of years, which every other county in the state seems to basically be wrong on too in the state itself, I think it's gonna wag the dog on as far as the policy making that. And that's where my concern is and until we get those numbers right, it's gonna make policy making in this world very difficult. Well, at least for me, maybe not for the board majority, but I think at least for me on this issue, it'll make it very difficult. That's a good point. Yeah, we could debate about what drivers are. You might say that the taxes are exceptionally low, but giving out zero licenses in a year is exceptionally low, right? I mean, if that's what we would say, I hope that we aspire to create a set of land use regulations that people can actually get through and if they're following the law, we'll receive their entitlement. Not to cast blame, right? We have not fulfilled that goal of we adopted regulations in May of last year and we are here a year later with zero licensees, right? So it seems to me as a land use authority that we should take a look at what our process is and what we're making people go through and acknowledge that maybe we have set up hurdles that don't need to be there. And as I said, still meet our policy goals, which is where we have the greatest interest in this plant being grown in a place that's already zoned for commercial ag. And I recognize that you feel that disproportionately affects your district. I don't have as much commercial ag in my district. I do have more of the retail establishments in my district, but that's where we grow plants and that's where we're gonna go grow plants in the future. And when we have both new to commercial agriculture commercial agriculture interest and long-time commercial ag interest wanting these changes, I would say that that's a good thing for this board to take on and wrestle with. And I think this is a good, this isn't giving away the store. This is, these are some good reasonable changes. So that's why I support it. Okay. Last, yeah, go ahead. I'm gonna just make one short comment, that's it. Sure, go ahead. You know, I'm not sure if it's related or not, but you might think we were requiring a lot more from you in order to get things done. I think we've been very accommodating in many areas. I do wish you luck on being able to work it out, try working it out with trying to put your money in the bank. Banks don't want marijuana money right now. And I think that that's really hurting you. And I think, I'm on your side on that. You should have a place to be able to put your money. But when it comes to our board, I think we've been very accommodating. And I think this goes too far. So I'll just briefly say I support the motion for the reasons that were outlined. I appreciate the staff for trying to simplify this process. From my point of view, it does, there are budget implications in those budget, how we, the things that we can spend those dollars on are important to the county. From my perspective, this is sort of just basic good government. It shouldn't take a year to open a coffee shop. It shouldn't take a year to open a cannabis grow in a commercial, commercial ag. It's, we gotta be able to be fast and responsive because when people, small businesses are putting money up on the line, they can't afford to wait a year to make it work. We're gonna end up pushing out a lot of people who are just trying to make a living and stay in this county. And so to me, this is one particular aspect that we have to solve. But in fact, it's endemic to everyone who may be trying to open a small business across the county. There's gotta be a way to get this through faster when you're abiding by the rules and the spirit of the rules. We can't let these processes slow things down, especially to this extent. So anyway, that's my, that's where I am. So we've, we got a motion and a second for the staff recommendations. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. So that passes three to two. So thank you everyone for coming out today. We will adjourn this meeting to our next regularly scheduled meeting, which is May 21st to begin at 9 a.m. in these chambers.