 I will now call the December 8th, 2020 regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. Good morning. If people in the hall could please quiet down as all noise funnels into the chambers. Thank you. Super, excuse me, Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Here. And Chair Caput. Here. Before we do the moment of silence and prayer, I'll turn it over to Bruce McPherson. I think you have something to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to acknowledge the past who are living in our community for three years today. Here's today, one for his Chris Owl, a manager for Owl family properties, specifically for Kingsvilley shopping center in Scotts Valley. He was a wonderful family man and a competitive BMX racer. Our hearts and thoughts go out to Mr. Owl's immediate family and extended family and for the whole Fifth District and Scotts Valley community as well. Very highly respected man and family. Also to Claudia Brown, whose name is synonymous with homeless services here. She served 13 years on the housing matters board of directors, nine as the board chair. Her work on behalf of people experienced homelessness will be sorely missed. We know that. And we send our condolences to her family and the housing matters organization. I don't know how it could have housing matters could have been as successful as it has been without Claudia Brown leading the charge. We thank her for her tremendous services that she did for that organization for 13 years. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Please join me in a moment of silence or prayer followed by the pledge of allegiance. Yeah, Mr. Palacios, do we have any revisions or late items? Yes, we do. On the regular agenda item number 18. 18. There's a correction. The item should read consider resolution to support the County of Santa Cruz filing a formal complaint against PG&E with the California Public Utilities Commission and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of Supervisor McPherson and Supervisor Coonerty. On the consent agenda item number 37. There's additional materials. There's a revised memo packet page 900. And that concludes the revisions and corrections to the agenda. Okay, thank you very much. Let's see. Do any board members wish to pull items from the consent agenda? Chair, I'd like to pull item, I think it's 45. The appointment at Tricia Weber to put it and make it 8.1, which is after our acknowledgement of Gail Pellerin. 45, are we okay? Yes. Okay, we're fine. So we pulled 45. I'll pull for comment, also number 33. And I will... Chair, why don't we make that either 18.1 or 16.1? 18.1? 18.1. What number? 18.1. 18.1. And so the one I'm pulling 33 would be 18.2. No. That'll be 18.1, what number is your... So chair. Mine's gonna be 8.1. So chair, number 45 is now 8.1. Number 33 has been pulled and is now on the regular agenda as 18.1. Okay. And we'll do that after the proclamations. 18.... So number 33, that is now 18.1. That will be the last thing that we hear today after the one, during the 130 session. All right. And we'll, do we do any comment now? Or we just go into public comment. If any other supervisors wish to pull anything? Yeah, any other supervisors? Okay. We'll go then to public comment. Now is the opportunity for members of the public to address the board regarding topics on today's agenda, consent items, closed session agenda, and on topics that are not on the agenda. But within our jurisdiction of the board, if you cannot stay later to speak on the regular agenda, you may address those items at this time, but you may only speak once on a topic. Each person, if you can make it as quick as possible, will allow you to have up to, well, three minutes. But if we have a lot of people that are gonna speak, we have to get going. So I might shorten it. Chair Caput, there's a lot of stuff on the agenda today and a lot of people on public comment. I would recommend two minutes under public comment. Yeah, well, let's go in the beginning. We'll go three minutes for the first few speakers and then we're gonna go to two minutes after that, okay? Go ahead. Morning, supervisors. I wanna talk about your involvement with the coup d'etat and the destruction and the implementation of tyranny inside the United States. When I ran for Leopold's seat some years ago, I talked about the Georgia guide stones in which Bill Gates, Ted Turner and a rest are advocating a population of 500 million. Inside there, I talk about the vaccinations that are coming. If you go to the CDC, you'll find that deaths from all causes and we've got more population today than 15 years ago, it's the lowest this year so far in December, the year hasn't finished. Also, the test itself, the nasal checks include a hydrogel with nanoparticles that are used and designed to put what they call terror grippers inside the brain. Any virus you can get from the mouth, it's all connected to the nose. They wanna deliver it right at the base of your brain. This information's been out since 2015. Operation lockstep by the Rockefeller Foundation is following exactly the plans for a dictatorship and a culling of the world population. Bruce McPherson is the representative for Santa Cruz for the Soviet called Ambag. He's also, his name's engraved on the Community Foundation which has a social justice award for Chinese communist agent, Hugh DeLacy who has two memorials on the courthouse steps. It was Bruce McPherson that bought the dye boat machines knowingly that they had a back door and he's also on the California elections of board together with our head of elections. When I was down there, the windows were drawn. There were no observers. I was surrounded by a couple of police and again, I've been told that they have a dominion coordinator. Now Eric Comer who's vice president of dominion in a video you can see today where he's advertising that can be manually adjusted. This is no way to protect America. Bruce McPherson received thousands of dollars from a Chinese communist triple agent. Ryan Coonerty takes a trip to communist China and we got Zach Friend, a director of Predpole. He's a director connected with the intelligence agency. He works for two people that are now registered lobbyists for the Chinese communist. This outset is outrageous. And this man that only wants you to have two minutes, he is a board member of the community foundation that favors his red Chinese communist. And he's one that put in the Rosenberg laws that strip the people out here of participating in this government. Good morning, board of supervisors. My name's Eric Riera. I'm the behavioral health director for Santa Cruz County and I'm here this morning to thank two of our staff who are leaving county service for their service to the county and the residents who live here. First is Vanessa Burci. Vanessa is our public guardian. Vanessa is retiring after close to 20 years of county service. And I wanna thank her and present her this proclamation from the board of supervisors for all of her work for the residents of the county who cannot speak for themselves, who require a conservatorship to protect them. And she's been instrumental in serving those who are underserved in our community. And I wanna thank her for her years of service. And I also wanna thank Shayna Zirlin. She's our chief of substance use disorder services. Shayna is leaving at the end of this month for a position with the department of healthcare services as a chief, Medi-Cal behavioral health. She will be sorely missed. She was instrumental in establishing our drug Medi-Cal system for the county. And I also wanna thank Shayna for her years of service with the county. Thank you. Chair, if I might add, I don't wanna thank Vanessa for her work. She has been a great advocate for her clients and has provided a great resource for people in the community. Our office has benefited every time we work with her. And I just appreciate all the efforts you put in to make it safer for seniors in our community. Thank you very much. And I just wanna say that it's been a pleasure and an honor to serve these clients that we have. And I've always gotten along great with you, Mr. Leopold, and I appreciate your service as well. So thank you very much. And it's been an honor. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jen Herrera. I'm the chief of public health in the health services agency. And I'm honored to be here today to thank the board for the proclamation celebrating the accomplishments of my dear colleague, Dave Kramer Erner, who retires at the end of this month. Dave Kramer Erner has worked for the County of Santa Cruz since June 21st, 1999, providing 20 years of dedicated and thoughtful service. He started as a physical therapist in the California Children's Services Medical Therapy Program in the health services agency. And his passion and service driven work ethic was quickly rewarded as he was promoted multiple times through his 21 years, now ending the County of Santa Cruz career as a senior health services manager. Dave has played a major role in the ongoing advocacy for children with special healthcare needs through the CCS transition with the whole child model pilot program. And has committed his career to serving vulnerable children and families with a passion and determination to improve health outcomes. Dave has served as a kind, thoughtful and supportive supervisor and manager to his team, providing leadership and mentorship to others while still fulfilling his regular duties for HSA. He has a wealth of knowledge about the County and is skilled at meeting any challenge frequently becoming the go-to person who willingly helps no matter what the issue, most recently mobilizing for the COVID-19 pandemic response. And has built solid relationships across the many County departments and community stakeholder partner agencies characterized by mutual respect, loyalty and trust. Dave officially retires on December 30th, 2020. And after a 21 year career and while we are sure we will surely miss him, we know he will enjoy his time relaxing with his family, experiencing new places and continuing his avid cycling and musical endeavors. So thank you, Dave. We'll really miss you. Thank you. Thank you to the board for this honor and for the honor of serving Santa Cruz County for these years. And I've never been more proud to be part of the public health division than I have been for the past year. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Good morning. My name is Barbara Chamberlain and I am representing the Cabrillo Host Lions this morning with a little bit of history lesson. In 1976, the Lions club was looking to build a community building in the Aptus area feeling that it was very badly needed. And they finally, they had no money, of course. They finally went to the county about an unused piece of property by the creek and offered to build a building there for the community, for the Scouts, for the Lions, for the seniors. And they finally did it. They did it with volunteer labor. The men worked through 1977 every weekend for a year to build a building. And then they dedicated it and it was given to the county. Since then, the Lions club has done a great deal of work in the other parks, probably at least $50,000 worth of work. The Lions club is a community service organization. And one thing we do want to have on record is the history of the park, which was developed by the Lions and the building to serve the community. After about 10 years, the Lions were given only two meetings a month at night and four weekend days. They use these very properly. They never abuse them or anything like that. And their object is to help the community. And we're very proud to do that. But we do want the board of supervisors to have this on record that the Lions club did construct the building. They were honored to do so. They did it with volunteer labor. Thank you very much. Morning, it's nice to see all of you, including some members that aren't normally here. Good to see you Carlos. My name's James Ewing Whitman. December 7th is quite a monumental day for all of us. 81 years ago in a day, something very tragic happened that really changed the world, but it was all predetermined and it was planned. I lost three different human beings that I care about and love on December 7th as well. One was due to suicide. Another had his third heart attack. And my son's grandmother that he never met, Bill Knight Weigel died of ALS. So I might really, you know, I kind of pay attention. The more I seem to be learning, the more I'm interested in learning more. I really appreciate some members in this room, particularly law enforcement, that are really doing an excellent job of keeping the peace and seeing the bigger picture. So I don't know if any words that I can say are really gonna have any difference, but there have been different strategies going on in our society for hundreds of years that are greatly affecting human health. You know, I enjoy being in these rooms. You know, if I categorically disagree with about 85% of the information that's being shared, that's probably accurate. So what can we do as citizens to work together and to invite law enforcement and youth and the elderly, all to make this place a better place for the future unborn children? It may not be that being in these circles is really seeming to do that much because we have a pretty strong wheel that is very corrupt. So I'm gonna suggest that citizens in this county and in other counties in the United States that we all kind of get together and we look at the agendas that are going on in the city and county councils throughout the United States and we create kind of a game. We call it jurors prudence exploratory recall committee and we're inviting law enforcement and members of the public and politicians to join us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning supervisors. I'm Nicole Young from Optimal Solutions Consulting. I'm here today as a parent and also on behalf of First Five Santa Cruz County as their consultant that coordinates the Triple P positive parenting program, Five by Three and their newer work to create a countywide network that prevents and addresses adverse childhood experiences. And David Brody I know would like to be here today also with me but he is at another conference today because we're here, I'm here representing First Five to thank you in advance for designating January 2021 as positive parenting awareness month for the ninth year in a row. So we're very grateful for that. Normally we use this as an opportunity to remind us all that parenting is, you know, it's hard, it's demanding, it's exhausting and it's incredibly important. And it's one of the most valuable jobs any of us could ever have in our lifetime. And we often joke that there is no manual that comes with babies or kids, we wish there were. And it's incredibly difficult and often isolating to figure out how to be a positive parent. And it's never been more true in times of these multiple compounding crises like COVID, the wildfire, continued racial injustices. So it's also important for us to recognize the value of your support in calling attention to the importance of positive parenting, designating this month in particular as a time to recognize that. And just also want to acknowledge that the state of California is taking Santa Cruz County's lead and also recognizing January as positive parenting awareness month throughout the state in January. So we have a lot to be thankful for and take credit for for leading the way throughout the state. And I just want to end by encouraging or urging you to keep the needs of children and families at the center of all of your community recovery strategies. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, speak people who are in the hallway and in line to speak. If people could please remember to social distance. I know we're very full and busy. So if we could do our best to social distance. Also, even if you are in the hallway, face coverings are mandatory. They must cover your nose and mouth. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'd like to ask for three minutes, please. Cause I prepared three minutes and I deserve that time. So I'm just going to go. I'm going to take my three minutes. You're the best. So in order for Santa Cruz County to be within the law of the California Emergency Services Act, the requirements of that law have to be met. Section 8558B of the California Emergency Services Act requires that the state of emergency by reason of their magnitude are or are likely to be beyond the control of the services, personal equipment and facilities of any single county, city and county or city. According to an article in Lookout Santa Cruz, it was a lookout exclusive with Dr. Gail Newell. The interviewer asked Dr. Newell, has there been any point during this pandemic that Santa Cruz has been close to running out of hospital capacity or ventilator ICU bed capacity? Dr. Newell responded, we haven't been anywhere near that. We've barely scratched the surface of our capacity. Dr. Newell, about her own admission is operating outside of the law, outside of the California Emergency Services Act because we were not beyond the facilities and capacity of our county. In fact, we've had other people from other counties come into our hospital. All of these, all of the local health orders therefore are null and void on their face. They should be voted on by this body today. They need to be removed, revoked and rescinded today. We're outside of the law. If that were not enough to show you that the local health orders should be repealed today, there's an executive order by the governor. It's executive order 60-20 that we all need to read because it allows the local health officer to have less restrictive health orders. Please have your face covering over your nose. Of course, thank you. Okay, so please read that executive order 60-20. Please read that and please apply it. I mean, for the benefit of our citizens here. Finish it. The last thing I wanna say, the PCR test, if the threshold, if the cycle threshold is above 35, it's an inaccurate test. And this was found by court in Portugal. Hopefully you've all read this court case. Jason, I hope you've read the court case out of Portugal. They threw out the PCR test because if the threshold cycle is above 35, those results are no, they're inaccurate. It's 97% inaccurate. And so we're basically, we're using those test results to shut down our county and it's false. All the test results are false, okay? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good morning. Bye. Thank you for letting us be here, I appreciate it. This is a notice from the state of New, oh, thank you. This is a notice, okay, thank you. This is a note, can I get my time back? State of New, California, notice to all California is chapter two, grievance 33. New California is a new state in development, exercising its constitutional right to form from the state of California, the process to form a new California is authorizing codified in article four, section three and four of the United States Constitution Statement of Intent, the citizens of New California have decided to remedy the abuse of power by the government of California by exercising their right to form a new state provided in the United States Constitution, article four, section three and four. We determined to live under the state government in the United States of America under the Constitution of the United States, New California's Declaration of Independence, January 15, 2018, whenever any form of government becomes destructive and it's right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government. When a long train of abuses and acts to seize and hold the people's power without legal authority and pursuing invariably the same object that clearly demonstrates a design to reduce them under absolute despotism. It is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Mark Doring, Senator Pro Tem, Santa Cruz County, the order of the day, hearings for collaborators, we the people of the Unified Counties of New California seek the removal of the California state governor. We are determined to stop the one man rule of a Puyoos Lanamus Craven dictator whose words and actions are a grave danger to all US citizens living in California. To the astonishment of the entire on looking world, corrupt politicians and many collaborators are all engaged in a coordinated plot to overthrow not only our free elections in the United States, but the United States itself as a republic. California is the epicenter of this activity and has been the proving ground for the means and methods that are now being employed by the leftist nationwide to steal the elections across the nation. Thus far within punitive. Dismantling of the deep state must begin here with the creation of the 51st state, New California. We exercise the cancer of corrupt politics that threatens not only to destroy this state, but our entire nation. Wherever this corruption is found and regardless of party affiliation, it will be routed out. California's corrupt politicians have put their names and signatures to the fraudulent ballots harvested by their fellow communist collaborators and in doing so have become participants in insurrection, rebellion and treason. Evidence is mounting that their ties to China and his global communist insurrection against the legitimate governments are substantial. And they are financial as well in ideology and that the warfare that is being waged upon us is of a cyber warfare nature as well as involving espionage, sabotage and recruitment by foreign enemies of their networks. I'm Julie Kelly. I'm Julie Kelly of. Sorry, you have to have your mask on. Yeah, there you go. I'm Julie Kelly. Bring your nose also. Please, thank you. I'm Julie Kelly of New California State. I'm Julie Kelly with Grammys for New California State. California's corrupt politicians have put their names and signatures to the fraudulent ballots harvested by their fellow communist collaborators and in so doing have become participants in insurrection, rebellion and treason. Evidence is mounting that their ties to China and his global communist insurrection against legitimate governments are substantial and that they are financial as well as ideological and that the warfare that has been waged upon us is of a cyber warfare nature as well as involving espionage, sabotage and recruitment by foreign enemies and their networks of organized conspirators. The tyranny that California is suffering under is as great as what the colonies were subject to under King George which precipitated the throwing off of that tyrannical government and the creation of our own union of states in order to secure the liberties which are inherent in all human beings by virtue of the nature of their creation by the creator. We the people do here by revoke the signatures of these criminals who feign to represent us and we will have our day in court. Justice will be served. New Californians lead the nation in petitioning the federal government to recognize the insurrection that is unfolding before us and to use the tools and devices of modern warfare to combat these threats including the use of military tribunals insurrection. The government of California, the current socialist governor dictator and mono party system along with local officials are following a coordinated design. Am I done? Okay, thank you. Sign. Miss up. Good morning, supervisors. Carlos, great to see you, Jason. Melanie Sobel, general manager of Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter and I have with me today, Mary White from the equine evacuation unit of Santa Cruz County. Supervisor Caput, thank you so much for signing this proclamation that officially honors and thanks all the volunteer partners that we have worked with during the fires that helped us care for over 4,500 animals during this time. We had foster volunteers that took over a hundred animals into their homes in a matter of two days to make room for the 500 animals that came into the shelter from people that were evacuated. We had volunteers from equine evac unit plus our volunteers at the fairgrounds caring for over 2,000 animals that were displaced from the fires. We had businesses donating food to feed our volunteers and staff and we had veterinarians that came for to donate their time. We had the community support was incredible. People don't eat dropping off literally tons of pet supplies and food for us to care for these animals and really want to highlight Mary Sullivan and equine evac unit who literally went into the fire zones brave the fire to rescue these animals out and then went back in multiple times with our officers to shelter in place for animals that were left behind feeding and watering them. And I'd like Mary to say some words please. Good morning. It's Mary Sullivan White. Just to give you some numbers we evacuated everything from horses to Panagonian Maras. If you don't know what those are you'll have to Google it because I didn't know what they were. We evacuated over 700 animals in the first four days. When we went to the feeding in place we fed 1,800 over 1,800 animals. 1,409 of them were chickens. Thank you. I want to say thank you to the Sheriff's Department and thank you to everybody for supporting us. Go ahead and finish up. Oh no, I'm done. That was just thank you. Thank you too. Thank you for your work. Thank you very much. Good morning. Before we start my time I'm just going to explain to you that we are going to combine our time together. I'm going to play you. I can't do that. Well I'm going to, okay, I can start and then I'm just going to pass on my phone to her. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to play you a very important audio file from a pathologist and a manufacturer of the PCR test to the government in Ottawa, Canada. So we can start now. Did you just know that the Supreme Court just ruled on November 25th, 2020 that even in a pandemic the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten? You guys have a job to do. This is our building and you work for us. And you need to do what's right because if you don't, we're going to hold you all responsible. My brothers and sisters, human family is what we're talking with. I know you guys are the politicians and we are the private individuals, the men and women also, but there's a great awakening happening my friends and it's about where our rights come from. So when I ask you guys, where do you guys get your authority? Where do you guys get your authority? Is it the Constitution? Where does the Constitution get its authority? Is it the Declaration of Independence? Where does the Declaration of Independence get its authority? If you look at it, it says just powers come from the consent of the governed, which means if I don't consent, where did you guys get your power? Because our rights, where they come from? Do our rights come from you guys? Or do they come from God? Do they come from the creator? Or humanity or nature, whatever you choose to believe in. These are serious questions. Do you guys have an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America? Did you guys swear to uphold that and protect our rights? I didn't, but I think you guys did. So you guys aren't enemies, but you guys might be confused about where your loyalties lie. And I know politics means poly, many, and ticks as bloodsuckers, but you guys are probably good people, right? And so what we're talking about is a great awakening of personal sovereignty. My friends, the kings used to rule and say, I can rule because I'm the king, because God divine me. And then people started saying, that kind of sounds like a bunch of baloney. And they said, we got to come with the Constitution of the Republic. Now you elected us. So you guys are the elected officials. Now that's all going away. Statism is falling apart, my friends. My rights don't come from you guys. My rights come from God. And humanity is awakening to it. So I invite you guys to consider being on the right side of history, you know? Well, you guys aren't bad people. While I was talking about the oath you did sign, members of the legislature and all public officers and employees executive legislative and judicial executive accepts such inferior officers and employees as may be by law exempt shall before they enter upon duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath. I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the mental reservations of purpose and evasion. Wait, Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California that I take the obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. But what you did not sign and is required by the Constitution of California, I do further swear or affirm that I do not advocate nor am I a member of any party or organization political or otherwise that now advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States or the United States or the state of California by force, violence or other unlawful means that within the five years immediate preceding the taking of this oath or affirmation I have not been a member of any party or organization political or otherwise that advance the overthrow of the government of the United States or the state of California by force, violence or other unlawful means. I will not advocate nor become a member of any party organization political or otherwise that advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States or the state of California. You are all de facto. Yes. Every one of you, all of you don't even have a position. Chair Caput, we have to ask people if they've already spoken, they need to leave the chambers. So the only people should be in the chambers are either seated or waiting to speak. Other people should leave the chambers. We can't have a crowd in here. Okay, they did. Thank you. You can keep the six feet distance and the other people on the lobby. I'll also say that if we have other people take off their masks again, we will clear the chambers and do the meeting virtually. We're the only group in the only institution locally doing in-person meetings, but we have to have compliance with the mask rules. So if we have that behavior again, we will clear the chambers and we will conduct this meeting virtually. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, go ahead. I'd like to thank you all for your. Sorry about the beginning. Okay. I'd like to thank you all for your service to the community. And I just want to point out some things about what happens with lockdowns. Before COVID, worldwide lockdowns that destroy businesses, decimate tax revenues and deepen debt, leaving people destitute and stripped of constitutional rights, invasive contact tracing, immunity passports and so on would never have been accepted by the people of a free society. Yet after months of the nonstop fear mongering on the mass media, this policy goes on, even though eminent scientists who disagree are not allowed time on the mass media to make their points. Instead, the same public health officials recommend to the politicians in an unprecedented power grab as President Eisenhower noted in his farewell address. In holding scientific research and discovery in respect as we should, we also must be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological leap. Lockdowns have caused profound disruption, traumatic births, disruption of the social and emotional development of children, massive disruption of education, reduced life opportunities for young adults with a growing mountain of debt, people living out the last few months in isolation, suspension of much of what makes us human and gives our lives meaning. Plus, how many deaths have been caused by fear, stress, joblessness and poverty? Post-traumatic stress is showing up in children and so on. Since I only have two minutes, I thought I'd have three. Kids are now six hours a day online because of the shift in online that studies show the more social and emotional commitments people have, the stronger their viral immunity. That's being cut back by these mandates, supposedly in the name of public health. Let us prevent. Yeah, thanks for letting us comment today. I'm gonna continue in what he was saying in the United States today, nearly 80% of deaths attributed to COVID-19 have been people over 65, while over 40% were living in nursing homes. Protecting the vulnerable would clearly have a robust impact without shutting down the rest of society. There's also a great danger in the direction that mandates are heading. New Zealand is creating quarantine camps where people who test positive for COVID are held against their will until they test negative. In Germany, the Infection Protection Act became law on November 18. This law grants the government authority to issue any edict it wishes in the name of protecting public health. Just as the enabling act of 1933 granted Hitler a free hand in governing Germany. Yet anyone who points out, this is called, that points this out is called a neo-Nazi or conspiracy theorist or an anti-vaxxer. So, you know, I got bad advice or I didn't do enough research or I was just following orders from Gail Newell or Governor Newsom, didn't cut it in World War II. It's not gonna cut it now. You have a responsibility to take care of all your citizens. Overwhelming evidence shows that the best ways to support health are nutrition, exercise, fresh air, sunshine, social connections, sleep, and a few affordable supplements like vitamin D. Those are the ways to support health. Anti-social distancing, lockdowns and masks, those are not legitimate health measures. Please do your homework. Please take care of all your citizens. The lockdowns are killing us. Good morning. I wanna know if you're aware of what you're doing. Can't you see the lies that are being told to all of us? I keep asking myself, what could be the reason why you appear not to see this? Are you being threatened or coerced in some way? Are you profiting in some way? Have you heard anything shared with you over all these past nine months? We've shared so much, so much information from doctors, virologists, and other experts as Tim just played. I mean, Nick just played. The virus was never identified. That masks don't work and are harmful. That the PCR tests give 97% false positive results. This is a virus that no one knows they have until they're tested. That has a 99% survival rate. Most of the people who've died are in their 80s or 90s with other chronic health conditions in care homes. 32 of these people since September here in Santa Cruz County. That's like 75% of the people who've died. These people have died due to the tragedy of loneliness and separation from their families. What you are doing has nothing at all to do with public health. This should be obvious to you and it needs to stop now. Our community is being destroyed by your actions. Shame on you. You are all personally liable for what you are doing and the ways you've harmed the community and you will all be held responsible. Soon there's going to be an extremely harmful vaccine that will permanently alter DNA that contains aborted fetal tissue, mercury, and other toxins, which people are being threatened and coerced to take while drug companies will make trillions. We're gonna, we'll go to about five or 10 after 10 and then we'll have to cut off the oral communication till the end of the meeting that we have today. But go ahead, you have, we have time but we were running out of time. Okay. You can go ahead, thank you. Thank you very much. And Chair Caput, I wanted to bring up a point. Item 33 was taken off the consent agenda and I think that it got put on 18.1 which will be the end of the meeting and there are many, many people in the hallway who came to speak on this. So I think maybe you meant to put it on 6.1 if it's possible at this point to correct that. I think that would be very fantastic for the people out here who actually still have jobs or have children at home who need to get back to it and would like to have the opportunity to participate in the civic experience. So something to think about. But I came here today to talk about a couple of things. First of all, I'm wondering how many of you know how many children have commit suicide over the last few months. And I'm wondering if any of you are even aware that an 11 year old commits suicide during his on school is Zoom distance learning session just within the last couple of weeks. These are very real deaths and it's every loss, every human life lost is a human life lost. But when an 11 year old child is so depressed from being separated from all of their friends, other family members, they're not allowed to see their grandparents, the voice of wisdom in many young people's lives. That's really a travesty. And it's councils like this that cannot stand up for their community members that have to take responsibility at least in part for this. Anyway, I only have a few seconds left here but I'm gonna tell you something a little bit about the Pfizer vaccine that is looming ahead of us. And I'm doubting many people are aware of this on your board. But the vaccine contains a spike protein called syncytine one vital for the formation of human placenta in women. If the vaccine works so that we form an immune response against the spike protein, we are also training the female body to attack this protein which could lead to infertility in women of an unspecified duration. So you need to think about this, okay? D- Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I'm a resident of Viralaptaus. I also wanna ask that consent agenda item 33 be relocated to item 6.1 to allow the public to speak in a timely way. Moving to 18.1 was directed by director Leopold Supervisor Leopold and Supervisor Caput I ask you to take charge of this meeting and move a consent agenda item to 6.1 for the public benefit. I also wanna take issue with CAO Palacio ordering that everyone who has already spoken leave the room. That's never happened. This is a public meeting. We do not know what they're here to speak on. They may be here for other items as well. So I object to that false policy trying to get people out of this meeting. I wanna thank, in case I can't stay for the very end of the meeting, I wanna say that I do not agree with suspending public meetings. They're very important. And that is what item 33 is all about, going to virtual meetings. How will people without internet access participate in local government? How will people who cannot go to a public library because they're all closed participate in local government? There must be an alternative that works for everyone if you're going to shut down these public meetings. I also wanna comment. Thank you, Supervisor Leopold for moving Tricia Weber's installation to a more public place. She is a marvelous person and I'm really glad that she will replace Gail Pellerin. They're both good people. Tricia, I really appreciate and I trust her. I also wanna say on item 47 that the raw water main, that the water for firefighting on the North Coast could be accomplished with using raw water. There is a pipeline that the farmers there use. We don't have to use expensive. Bruce Tanner to the supervisors, friend, Coonerty, Caput and McPherson and the departing John Leopold. County Administrative Officer Carlos Palacios and Santa Cruz city manager Martin Bernal. This is a lawful notification of your violations in Santa Cruz County. We will be monitoring and maintaining a record of your response to this letter or the lack thereof. We hereby require you to cease and desist all unlawful orders under color of law, but not limited to published and written and spoken subject matter that are unsubstantiated and unconstitutional in addition to any foreign emolument that has propagated the trespass of rights upon people in this county. The World Health Organization, the CDC members of the executive branch and or any other agency cannot create law. You have a fiduciary duty and are held in the public trust not to work in concert with or be involved with the trespass upon guaranteed and protected rights. This includes intentional misrepresentation of facts and falsification of documents. Under the circumstances, Santa Cruz County health orders slash guidance fit the definition of domestic terrorism under 18 USC 2331 quote to intimidate or coerce a civilian population and quote. Further, it would equate to felony perjury of your sworn and subscribed oath of office at a minimum pursuant to article 20, section three of the California constitution. Additionally, using your public office for any unconstitutional unlawful advantage profit or gain in any manner, including procurement of federal funds is a violation of the Hobbes Act and would equate to criminal. Tim Welch continuing. There have been intimidating. I think my mic is down. Can you turn my mic up a little bit? There has, there have been intimidating phone calls and letters contacting employees and employers by county health officials officers and contractors infringing upon rights and commerce, which is also a violation of the Hobbes Act. In addition to the fourth amendment violation of unlawful seizure and count of county businesses. Further you and your official capacity or anyone professionally affiliated with you acting under color of law and depriving rights and working in concert with other state officials depriving rights would equate to civil rights damages pursuant to 42 USC section 1983 and 1985. Paritying, mimicking and repeating lies about N95 masks and other face coverings does not make them true. Multiple major studies in the last 10 years by doctors at the top of their field have concluded that this type of mask offers no protection against any virus. See the attached. These random and controlled studies have been published in the most highly respected medical journals in our country. To the contrary, many studies show that wearing a mask for extended times can cause negative and damaging health conditions. In conclusion, we require you to immediately remove your public requests and requirements that order or suggest any rights violations that pertain to liberty or commerce contrary to clearly established law. Thank you. Hello, my name is Beth Roby. You could pull the microphone though. The mic, you could pull it down again. I'm sorry, my name is Beth Roby continuing with the document that Tim was just reading. This is a notice of violation, a notice to you of your violation of my constitutionally protected rights or any other rights I may have. Violations of due process of law as is required by statutes. You are following conspiring orders, mandates of officials that do not have the authority to issue. Therefore, they are participating in a conspiracy as set forth in local and federal law. You will be held personally responsible for your actions under the racketeering RICO statutes as set forth in this notice. In addition, you are required to provide us with criminal law and or civil statute passed by the legislature and voted into the laws statutes by the people. The Law Statute Act mandate and demand signed into law that applies to us personally. Warning, US Criminal Code Title 18, Chapter 13, Sections 241 and 242 makes it a felony to use or conspire to use color of law to enforce a code or regulation which results in the violation of a person's rights. Violators will be prosecuted. Title 18, USC, Section 241, conspiracy against rights of citizens if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privileged secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States or because of his having exercised the same or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege to secured. They shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned, not the more than 10 years or both. And if death results, they should be subject. Hi, my name is Cheryl. Title 18, USC, Section 242, deprivation of rights under color of law. Whoever under color of law statute, ordinance, regulation or custom willfully subjects an inhabitant of any state, territory or district to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured or protected by the constitution or laws of the United States or to different punishments, pains, penalties on account of such inhabitant being an alien or by reason of his color or race then are prescribed for the punishment of citizens shall be fined not more than $1,000 or in prison, not more than one year or both. And if death results shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life. Title 42, USC, Section 1983, when two or more persons conspired to use force, intimidation or threat or to injure a person and deprive themselves of the rights and privileges as a United States citizen, the party injured may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation against anyone or more of the conspirators. Please see the 64 names on the attachment. Thank you. Thank you. Monica McGuire from Corralitos wanting to underline that that is the item that has been sent to all five supervisors and several other people high up in this county who have been degrading and removing our rights throughout this eight month period as they have for close to a decade. All of that is viewable by watching prior Board of Supervisor meetings. They are all on video and anyone who doesn't already know about how many ways you have entirely ignored us, entirely not represented us, made sure that we did not have our rights of many, many sorts. They can go and look up the truest supervisor of this county, Becky Steinbrunner, who has been writing in the Bratton online blog for many years all of the very easily referenced ways that you have broken our own local codes and laws. All of the ways that you have ignored us as we have come to you asking that the Aptos Village Project and so many others where there's just ridiculous amounts of broken laws would be addressed that you never addressed. Becky Steinbrunner is the Steinbrunner States column on Bratton Online, B-R-A-T-T-O-N, online.com. And you can also see her and many of us speaking at these Board of Supervisor meetings at the beginning of most of the videos for five years. You can see how you people at home, please look them up, please notice that there are now very few ways to have our voices heard whatsoever and they're being further shut down now. Today, the public comment icon to actually submit something for public comments was not existing on the agenda again. The multiple times in ways that our voices have been shut down, I have stood here screaming since you took off the microphone on me to make sure that you understood we are not okay with you not reading letters that are sent in. We are not okay with you subverting our rights and pretending that we don't exist. You are our employees. We have hired you for $189,000 apiece. That's more than you should get by far and you have not done your duties of seeking what we need and want. I don't know how many of you will go with five more, at least five more speakers and then we'll have to go to the end of the meeting. Okay, go ahead. This is not really a war on a virus. This is a war on our children and our future generations. So when you go to bed at night and you're thinking of your families, your loved ones, everyone, everyone here, our families, our children, their children, their grandchildren. Think of what kind of world we are leaving for them. If we're not protecting our individual rights and our civil liberties, if we're not protecting those very fundamental things, that's a part of being a citizen, an American citizen in this country. If those aren't being protected, what is the future hold? So the real threat is to our rights, our civil liberties and the tyranny that's trickling down through from the 1%, we all know this from the Occupy Movement, right? It's trickling down and now we, the 99%, are feeling the grip with our businesses shutting down, with our children not even really receiving a real education anymore. And the saddest part is that many, many children, this will be a scar for lifetime. This will be a scar for future generations. If we don't stop, we need to stop the nonsense now. We need to open up our schools. We need to open up our businesses. Many of them won't be able to open up, but it's not too late for some of them that are still hanging on by a little tiny thread. I met a woman recently who her daughter was at Aptos High. She got straight A's. Now she's on Zoom and she has straight F's. Not many of us know someone who's been affected by the virus or died, but we all know someone. Hi Marilyn. Hi, thanks to all the previous speakers. And also I want to ask that you put the item 33 immediately after public comment. And don't comment on it now. It's gonna stay at the end of the meeting. That's the way we gotta go. That's a shame, because a lot of people will not be able to stay. Otherwise you won't be able to speak on the item later. Thank you. Essentially democracy is being undermined in every way we see. I wanna recommend Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s website, children's health events.org. There was an interview recently with Daniel Pinchbeck and Kennedy quoted meta-biota, which evaluates pandemic risks for insurance companies. 10,000 kids are dying a month in Africa from the lockdown, not from COVID. You can see the details on its website. The cost of the lockdown by the end of this year will be $97 trillion. That money has been shifted from the middle class to the internet titans. That's part of what's on there. Also an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on children's health defense.org with David E. Martin on Fauci's checkered past. And he says, Anthony Fauci's behavior is racketeering. He controls the means of production and he allocates the market beneficiaries for these vaccines. He picks the winners and losers. He has a lot of patents. And the last point is go to freethesky.org about global Wi-Fi and 5G. What is the environmental price tag to the earth and life? And it opens with a quote from Henry David Thoreau. Thank God men cannot fly and lay waste to the sky as well as the earth. Thank God. Hi, so I see my time is up. She'll walk at the end there. Okay, you'll for right, we'll go. He'll be maybe the last speaker is, is that okay? I think he's here to speak about the first item on the regular agenda. So why don't you make the speaker before him the last speaker? Anyway, we'll hurry up, go ahead. Hi, so first I want to say I agree with pulling item 33 and making sure that that is fully discussed in public. And I also want to say that I am here today and I do not want to be. I have no desire to cause any stress for any of the supervisors or gear new or anybody. I'm not interested in causing you guys stress or harping a bad day or whatever. However, it is very clear that you are failing in your responsibilities. What is happening today is simply not acceptable. You are perpetuating fear such that children are being taught to be afraid to hug their own grandparents. That is simply not acceptable. You will be held accountable. I am not interested in doing that, but you will be held personally accountable. The costs of the lockdowns are not acceptable if we were interested in health. We would be teaching people how to live actually healthy lives. We would be supporting people who are vulnerable but not causing stress for all the citizens in this county. When we know that stress is a huge contributor to poor health. It is time for you to stop, for you to make amends, go back and to not further what is going on here in Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate this public meeting. I have here on my computer, I know it's really small for the camera, but you can find this on the internet. This is a picture of Governor Newsom at the French Laundry Restaurant November 6th. Governor Newsom. Here is some articles, top executives with California Medical Association joined Governor Newsom at French Laundry Party. Wednesday, November 18th, 2020, is the articles written Napa County, California, top officials at the California Medical Association attended a birthday party alongside Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this month. Has the state experienced an uptake in coronavirus cases? Dustin Corcoran, the California Medical Association's chief executive officer and Janice Norman, a senior vice president, or among a dozen people at the dinner at an upscale wine country restaurant. CMA spokesman, Anthony York, said Tuesday the California Medical Association represents 50,000 doctors in the nation's most populous state and has recently tweeted messages including stay at home and wear a mask. None of the people at the dinner are wearing masks since photos obtained by Fox 11 at Los Angeles news station. Newsom and state and local officials have urged people to stay within their own households. If people must visit others, they should meet outside, include no more than three households where masks stay socially distanced and limit their time together, according to state guidelines. The revelation is causing some doctors to worry that both government and the medical profession could lose credibility with the public justice. The state is imposing new restrictions in response to surging infections. Let's take a may lose credibility out and put have lost credibility in. I think the whole COVID issue can be explained by this one event. Can anyone believe that the top elected official in the state, Governor Newsom and the top California Medical Association executives made an honest mistake, which they regret. Does anyone actually believe they had a momentary lapse in judgment, all of them together at the same time? Don't you think one of them, say, Dustin Corkin would have said to the Governor Newsom, you know, this is really dangerous. We're endangering our family and our lives. We should stop. Good morning. First, we wanna discuss Governor Newsom. As we all know, he's completely out of bounds. He is not following the Constitution. California used to be a golden state, prosperous, decent schools, travel friendly, freedom encouraging, as long as you respect the rights of others. This Governor Newsom is intentionally taking this glorious state down, indulging poverty, allowing certain mayors to allow cities to be trashed with used needles. The financial district of San Francisco, for example, used needles, human excrement, and garbage on the streets. It is unsanitary and visually disgusting. Several lawsuits are brought against Governor Newsom and the judge ruled that he was to follow the Constitution, no more lockdowns. But he disregards this, and he is homebound California's. I believe so that we can't get together during the holidays, as we would with our families and our friends, to talk about the atrocities that are being done to us and our freedoms leading us into more or less a communist state of reign. I also think he's doing everything he can to put us into poverty, that's a very communist rule. And retailers, they make their most income from the holiday sales. And he's basically not allowing people to run businesses that are not for food, gas necessities. This whole COVID is ridiculous. Viruses are not considered living. They do not reproduce. They don't produce energy or give energy. In fact, the germ theory of Louis Pasteur is being reexamined as he lied about his findings in his home French laboratory. And now, more, we are following. Okay, go ahead, Shalak. Good to see you. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I love Santa Cruz, and it's sad to see so many people hurting, you know? But my name is Shalak Cabanes. I've been a resident of Live Oak for about 20 years. I just want to say I'm really sad. And the board, and thank you so much for your support as chairperson of the Mental Health Advisory Board, we've had amazing support from not only Supervisor Caput, but also from Leopold. Leopold, I first got aware of his service with the Santa Cruz AIDS Project. It wasn't very popular, but he was there supporting the right decision, the humane decision, whether it came to needle exchange, if it came to, I got to volunteer with the youth shelter during Shelter in Place and supporting that, that John Liddon, whether it was helping the voices of parents in Santa Cruz with wraparound services. John Leopold has just done an amazing job of coming and doing the caring humane choice, not always the popular choice. And it's gonna be an impact, and I really been amazed to see how much the board has supported issues around behavioral health. And as we can see, it's really apparent that those supports need to continue. So thank you so much, John, more than anything. Thank you so many for your 12 years. Even your more service to Santa Cruz County. When I first went up to John, I used to introduce myself as someone's host partner because everyone knew my partner, they were amazing. And after a while, John knew me and he invited me to have my voice heard on the mental health advisory board and became chair. He's been very great at advocating for the community to speak up and take charge and take interest. And so I'm so thankful for the board and so thankful for your service. Thank you very much. But you've had a lot to do with the success of the mental health advisory board along with us and wanna thank you. All right, thank you so much. Thank you so much, John. Yeah, this'll be the, okay, thank you. I just, this is Jesse Roberto. I'm gonna speak again later. But for public comment, I just wanna say, I do respect everyone's right to freedom of speech. However, as a parent, I believe strongly in respect. And so many years have been here during public comment. I have watched you all be emotionally abused and I do not believe in that. I do not believe in personally attacking each one of you who work so hard for us, who I've gotten to know as individuals as humans and you deserve the respect and the compassion that we give for everyone. And I think that's just a more mature aspect to take. And so thank you all for your service and for sitting up here year after year and taking it beautifully, thank you. Thank you, that was a nice way to end the, that was a nice way to end the speakers. Appreciate that, okay. Really interesting choice. Do you have a quick comment? Okay, make it quick, please. We've got a lot of people waiting. Thank you so much for all of your help. I appreciate it. So, Kell appreciates it and I thank you and I'm not done with you yet. Thank you, Judy. Thanks for all you do and thanks for being a great advocate for Soquel merchants. Okay, too bad. Okay, thank you everybody. Yeah, and now we'll go to action number six. Mr. Chair. That's right, from the board and on the consent agenda. Go ahead. Did you want me to go? Yeah, Bruce, go ahead. Okay, quite a public comment period. And I just want to say a few things about a couple of measures that are on the consent agenda. The housing matters hygiene bay, number 29. I'm particularly glad that this project is moving forward. It's desperately needed. And I want to thank the CAO, Carlos Palacios and his staff for working with the city of Santa Cruz to make this happen. Number 30, the coronavirus relief funds. I really appreciate this update every meeting. At the beginning of October, we had $14 million to spend on, that was remaining in this fund and by mid-November, that had been reduced to seven and a half million. But I note that there's still five and a half million to spend in the next several weeks. And I don't know if I might be able to have these questions answered very briefly. Do we have a sense of what's going on very briefly? Do we have a sense of what we're going to spend it on next? And second, if we don't use all the funds as expected, is there a backup plan of how to obligate those funds by December 30th, by the end of the year? I just don't want to send any of it back. Is there somebody that can give me a very brief response to that please? Good morning, Supervisors McPherson. I appreciate the question. I'll take the first part of whether we have a backup plan or not first. And the answer is yes. We intend to, if there is any money left over that was not spent in the original CRF plan, that we would draw down public safety categorized costs. And we would basically pull a report to understand what our public safety related costs were from March through December 30th and be able to draw down any funds from there and allocate to that particular category. That essentially would offset general fund costs and reimburse the general fund, which we can then use later in this fiscal year. As far as what's remaining on the plan, we do know that we have quite a bit left from our food disbursement programs through Great Plates as well as our continued operation of our different shelter costs as well. Those are the big ticket items that are still I'm going on through the rest of this month as well as our contracts with our community partners around rental assistance and housing assistance funds. Those are also being spent pretty rapidly here this month as well, as well as a few other smaller items that are still wrapping up this month. Okay, thank you. That's giving you some reassurance. Thank you. And I know at Great Plates, I think we're serving 800 people a day on that. What a phenomenal program that has been. So thank you for everybody who's involved in that. Number 31, the legislative agenda. I want to thank all the departments who contributed to this as well as the other board members. And I support the primary focus on continuing on the COVID crisis and fire recovery, which are priorities for the California State Association of Counties, of which I'm on the board of directors. I also want to support the efforts to identify additional funding for code enforcement in CAL FIRE tier three areas. Another important goal of CSACs will be the possible statewide vegetation ordinance to improve fire resiliency. And that's going to be high on the list of CSAC. And I think it's particularly important for our county and many others who have been impacted by fires this year. And lastly on the legislative agenda, the topic of unfunded mandates, I believe we should be keep pressing on this issue, but with the state so far in its overall financial picture that is not pretty right now. I think we can get more funding back on these local issues that is owed to us literally when the state budget picture improves. And finally on items 76, 77 and 80 through 89. A big huge thank you to the Public Works Department for managing all these projects related both to prior years ago, storm damage and now fire cleanup and recovery that we've just experienced recently. The Public Works Department is doing a phenomenal job on managing this work simultaneously. And I know our residents and the board are grateful to the Public Works Department and for the hours they put into it. And again, thank you to the voters who approved measure D to improve our local roads primary. That was the top priority of that measure. And I just want to say thank you to Public Works for all its work it's doing under some very, very trying circumstances. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Any, John? Thank you, Chair. I'll only comment on just a couple of items. On item number 48, I want to thank my colleague, Supervisor Coonerty and encourage our board to support the creation of an advisory body to address racism as a public health crisis and systematic and institutional racism in our county. I've been working with a group of committed leaders and volunteers in the community who are looking about ways in which we can make our community better. I want to express my appreciation to the County Administrative Office and especially Sven Stafford, who have organized a group to do some equity management planning and to look at the next version of the strategic and operational plan to include equity measures. Having this advisor group to help with that will make the plan better. And I appreciate the support from my colleague and I encourage it from all of you. And the other item, which I will comment on is number 62, we're approving 19 full-time equivalent positions to staff, our COVID emergency response efforts. I just want to take this moment to thank our public health staff who has been in crisis mode since March 6 and has stepped up in so many different ways. They are working incredibly hard. We are now getting ready to experience yet another surge. This one may be the greatest that we faced since the beginning of this pandemic, but they have been on alert for 10 months. And the idea that we are now going to be rounding a curve where there's going to be more work to do, I just want to express my appreciation to our health services staff for all they do to help us through these very difficult times. We wouldn't be in the position we are in without your support, advice, and help, and all the different ways that you've helped us out this year in COVID, the fires, and preparing for what the next problem will be around debris flow. So thank you for your work. Thank you. Yeah. Zach? Sure, thank you, Chair. I would like to, first I just want to say that I need to vote no on item 23. And I'd like to also speak to item 48. I appreciate Supervisor Leopold and Coonerty bringing this item forward. It's a very important item for our county. And I look forward to what the ad hoc committee brings forward. I'd like to echo Supervisor Leopold's comments on our health staff. We have a few items in regards to both health as well as our human services department. Both of these teams have been working very long days and very long hours, a lot of it behind the scenes, but I recognize that the work is exceptionally difficult, exceptionally stressful. And there's a lot of competing demands, but a lot of the positive outcomes that we have in our community are a direct result of the leadership from those two teams. And I just wanted to make sure that you know that the board supports you in everything that you've been doing. On item 73, there's a number of items that Supervisor McPherson had noted regarding public works, but item 73, I just wanted to compliment public works for their continued work with Rule 20A and the undergrounding in general. The more of these areas that we can get undergrounded, the better for a lot of reasons, including safety, especially up in the hills. And this includes some projects potentially that could be occurring up in fire prone areas. And so I just wanted to compliment public works for continuing their work on the undergrounding's issues as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Thank you. Sorry to keep you waiting, Ryan Coonerty. No problem at all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments and a little additional direction. First of all, on item 30, which is a coronavirus relief fund, as was mentioned, I think this is an incredible investment in the safety net of our community with trusted community partners that can make sure it gets to the folks who need it the most in these difficult times. I don't want to thank staff for their work to make sure that these investments are made in this moment. On number 31, it's a legislative program. With the consent of my colleagues, I'd like to ask that we continue this to our next meeting. I don't think it'll impact the state legislature, but I have some questions and I know we have a long meeting today and I'd rather just work on that and have it come back to the board. On item number 40, which is the ratification of the SEIU contract, I want to take a moment and just thank the workers of our county who are doing extraordinary work in difficult circumstances and have been willing to make sacrifices so that we can balance our budget and make sure we're in a good financial position going forward even as we navigate all these difficult challenges. Item number 47, I look forward and I want to thank staff to working on these additional fire hydrants on the North Coast that can be an important resiliency measure in order to make sure we have the resources our firefighters need when these unfortunate fires occur. Item number 48, I want to thank supervisor Leopold for his leadership on this. And I look forward to working with the community and staff and their supervisors in order to make sure that we as an institution address racism as a public health crisis. On item number 68, which is the homework bound program, I would like to add additional direction that we get a report back in six months on the progress of the program and that the next report include utilization data and the funds used and unused. And then on item number 69, which is the childcare fee, just want to take a moment and thank staff for having this pot of funds to invest in childcare in a moment when so many childcare centers are struggling and the impact that has on working families. I'm glad we have these funds available to assist that important service in our community. Mr. Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. I have one additional comment. I apologize. I actually need to recuse on item 74, which is a rail trail item. I have heard my principal residences within 500 feet of the rail line. So I have a financial conflict. So item 74, I'd like to recuse from and again, a voting no on item 23. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. Yeah, I'll just make a quick comment on item number 31, which is our legislative priorities. I'm losing confidence in our two-party system as far as at the federal level with the legislative and the executive branch arguing over the stimulus money that people that we all know locally and nationally, for that matter, that are struggling to make ends meet. They are waiting for stimulus money and we're watching these two parties bickering over how much or when to do it and people are starving out there. They have to pay mortgages, small businesses are going under, we're gonna see more of just the big box stores taking over everything. And the monthly bills that people are struggling to meet, PG&E, water, garbage and food, for that matter, they're actually facing economic collapse and failure. And anyway, the two parties have got to get together, they've got to get something passed. And for this delay in the stimulus money coming forward is actually in my opinion, child and behavior and the bickering has to stop. Thank you. And then that will take us to- I will move the consent agenda as amended. There you go. Second, Coonerty. Okay, Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Passes unanimously. And we can go to item number seven. It's up to you, John, if you'd like to do it now or would you like to have a little break? Let's do it now. And let's do a break after that. All right, sounds good. Presentation of a proclamation, well-deserved honoring our first district Supervisor, John Leopold. The board members and I are honored for this opportunity to publicly recognize Supervisor John Leopold for 12 years of outstanding service to the County of Santa Cruz. And first I will invite John's staff to come forward and share their remarks. Thank you, Chair. Dave Reed from Supervisor Leopold's office. Before we have the honor and thank you, Chair, for allowing us to read the proclamation today. I wanted to take a quick second to share with everybody a little bit about John and something you may or may not know, a couple of his superpowers, in fact. The first superpower that I wanted to share with you guys was his incredible energy that he brings to community meetings and to engagement with the community. And I believe this superpower comes from being a twin, so that from being in utero, he's been with people and he's needed to work with those people to listen and get things done from before being born. And so the energy he receives from engaging with the community is astounding and it allows him to serve the community and I consider that an amazing superpower. The second superpower that John has comes from a savant-like memory of music and his love of music. And he's cultivated that from a long history of following his favorite band and other musical interests. But that memory that he has, that savant-like memory for music, carries over to the community and the names of everyone that he knows and is interacted with. And it was a staggering reality to witness how many times I was in a meeting with John and he would remember everyone's name that he may have only met once before and he recalls the conversations and everything that went on. And that enabled him to have a personable and human connection to everybody. When you know somebody's name right off the bat, when you see them walking in the street, when you see them at a coffee shop or in a grocery store and you remember their name, it gives them a connection to you and you brought that connection and passion to your work. So on behalf of myself but also the two other current staff, I wanna recognize the other staff that you supported and have worked with. And so Rita Winnings, Steve Kennedy, Susan Green, Allison Guevara, Rachel Christopher, we've all had the honor of working with you, witnessing your superpowers firsthand and we're so grateful for the opportunity to have served with you and to support the work that you've done over the last 12 years. So I'm gonna start the proclamation and then I'm gonna hand it off as we go so that we all get a chance to share. Honorary, honoring Supervisor John Leopold, whereas John Leopold has provided 12 years of exemplary service to the residents of Santa Cruz County, especially those in the first district he represented and is deserving of the highest praise, commendation and gratitude. And whereas John consistently engaged with, listened to and respected the needs, concerns and challenges facing first district constituents and fought fervently to ensure their voices were heard at all levels of the decision-making process. And whereas John's passionate advocacy for the health of the environment, underserved working families, mobile home park residents, equity for communities of color, a sustainable transportation system, the preservation of neighborhood character, criminal justice reform and the economic stability of local businesses will have long lasting and profound benefits to all residents of Santa Cruz County. And whereas John's distinctive infectious laugh was well known throughout the county building and you often heard his laugh way before you saw him down the hall. And whereas John's unwavering and enthusiastic support of the Leo's Haven playground at Chanticleer Park has led to the first all-inclusive local playground. And whereas John was always first to organize the annual Supers softball and pickleball tournaments, but unlike his colleagues, he was always the last to get injured. And whereas John never missed an opportunity to share stories about his beloved family, especially his daughters Rose and Anna for whom he would drop everything whenever they called. And whereas John's skill and coalition building, political acumen, tenacity and leadership were instrumental in helping the county secure multiple financial successes at the local, state and national levels for the benefit of the county residents, local roads, public transportation, parks and community programs. And whereas in addition to taking care of the planet as an artful politician, John has made his passion for music an integral part of his life, spanning the globe and crossing many state lines to enjoy countless live music shows and always shared his love for the dead. Whenever someone would mention, they were friends with Jerry Garcia. Now therefore, the members of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors hereby thank, honor and commend Supervisor John Leopold for his faithful devotion, tireless diligence and dedicated years of excellence in service to the County of Santa Cruz and look forward to witnessing his new adventures in the many creative ways he continues to serve the community. And for the sake of not being redundant, I also echo all of these sentiments and so much more. I just wanna say Supervisor Leopold that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve with you these last four years. And we worked really hard together for the district and our constituents. And we also had a lot of fun, whether it was putting on a Jack Kerouac re-enactment at the Tannery Arts Center or a benefit concert at the Rio for the monarch services or a campaign rock concert with Melissa out there, Jim Michaels on main. We knew how to have fun. So one last gig together. I'd like to invite everyone to join us on the 15th of December for a virtual event. We're taking John on tour to Fare thee Well and we'll have musical guests from Tupelo, Mississippi, Paul Thorne and any other community leaders who would like to also share their thanks for all of John's hard work. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd now like to invite other members of the community. Good morning, board virtually. You got me out of my pajamas this morning to come and say thanks to John. So John, we'd like to thank you for the 12 years of leadership that has not only transformed mid-county but has strengthened our community through the tireless advocacy to support safety net services across the county. Your steadfast leadership allowed us as nonprofits to actively respond to the pandemic and the CZU fires this year by always actively seeking to invest in those critical resources when emergencies occur and when resources were needed to respond but also to ensure that we maintain them during the times when we weren't called upon. You were by all intents and purposes not only the first district supervisor but a true county supervisor as you actively participated, lobbied and supported projects that will have long lasting impacts in our county and community. Your vision allowed investment in projects that might have been housed in mid-county district but the transformative impact of all lives across the community. From your work at the Live Oak Family Resource Center that established a permanent location for a crisis resource center, we'll at the same time establish a new headquarters for our volunteer center that does so much to strengthen our response and impact to the work across our community. With the Loudon Nelson Senior Center to ensure programming and funding and agreements were continued, allowed for the Meals on Wheels kitchen to remain a non-precedented location to be able to continue to produce all the meals for all our seniors across the county. And of course, for your unprecedented leadership to ensure measure defunding included resources for paratransit services and seniors for the next 30 years to provide reliable connection and transportation across our communities. Many more projects like this exist and will continue to be developed because of your leadership. Projects like Dientes and the Health Care Center to the Boys and Girls Club in Live Oak. These projects would not have been prioritized or accomplished without you. Our community and our agency as community bridges is truly indebted to you and your service. And for me, Ray Cance, CEO of Community Bridges, thank you, John, for all your leadership and for your continued work in our community. Hi, John, my name is Leslie Goodfriend. I am a Senior Health Services Manager with the County Human Services Department. And I'm really not gonna try not to cry, but I probably will. John, we first started working together about 27 years ago. You were then the director of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project and I was a Senior Health Educator at the Health Services Agency. And we worked on HIV prevention activities. And then we fast-forwarded to early 2000s. I don't even remember when we started Cradle to Career. It was somewhere around 2005, 2008. And because of your leadership and commitment to the families in Live Oak, Cradle to Career initiative was born. And I remember countless meetings right over here in the corner with Leslie Conner from the Santa Cruz Community Health Center with David Brody from, or no, it was Mary Lou from first, I'm sorry, from United Way, Leadership from Health Services Agency, Human Services Department, and the Live Oak School District trying to come up with a model of how we could help vulnerable families in Live Oak. And we finally did come up with a model. And because of your leadership, Cradle to Career has been developed and grew into an authentic, parent-driven initiative that helps support parents, help their children, succeed academically and in life. Through the three goals that were developed by the parents, good health, good character, and good education. And I remember those early days when you were facilitating our Steering Committee meetings and we had many monolingual Spanish-speaking parents attend those meetings that they didn't feel that they had a place. And you were so intentional and so good about making sure they had time on the agenda. See, it means a lot to me to really have their voice heard. And John, I still think about that. Every time I meet with those parents. Cradle to Career has shown that through intentional design and authentic inclusion, change can happen. And we are seeing that change every moment of every day. Families are growing and strengthening even in this horrible COVID pandemic. So the children can succeed and the groundbreaking work that you have done is sustainable and will not go away. So on behalf of HSD, oh, it's all right. I'm used to crying. On behalf of HSD, but also myself, we'll miss you. I also wanna say what I will miss and what I've always appreciated just personally is that the board budget hearings, you always called out individual staff people. And that was meaningful and felt like you were really aware that the individuals were doing the work. So I appreciate it. And I know we'll see each other, but thank you. Thank you. My name is Leslie Connor. I'm CEO of Santa Cruz Community Health. And I'm here on behalf of myself and also our board of directors to thank John for his service to the LIVO community. And to our County as a whole. John, as you heard Leslie say, and I'm probably gonna echo some of her comments because I was witness to some of the same innovation and improvement that John really engineered in Live Oak. But John has been a champion for health access, welcoming us to Live Oak when we established our East Cliff Family Health Center and supporting us as we look to expand in Live Oak at 1500 Capitola Road along with Dientes and Midpen Housing. From defending our cause to our landlord as we negotiated a very tentative lease in the early years to joining us at rallies in support of reproductive justice and healthcare as a human right to requesting our guidance on health policy. John has been a steadfast partner. You saw opportunities converge when we opened our Live Oak Clinic and you convened a small group of leaders to figure out how we might adapt proven models like the Harlem Children's Zone to serve the specific needs of Live Oak. You led the group keeping us on course, asking us questions, always deferring to our experiences in the field. And over time, the Live Oak Cradle to Career Initiative was born thanks to your leadership, your encouragement and your beliefs that we can strengthen Live Oak through humble community engagement. Today, you see the fruits of John's labor in a thriving sea to sea which serves over 1,000 kids and their families. John has forged unexpected bonds with parents, people who have immigrated to Live Oak in search of a brighter future. Parents who want what we all want and John listened and he heard, they want their kids to be successful in school, they want their kids to be healthy, and they want their kids to have strong personal and civic characters. John has been a committed public servant. He believes and stands for good government and sound public policy that can improve people's lives. He has been a good listener, respectful of the experiences of frontline healthcare providers, and absolutely essential to the growth and success of Santa Cruz Community Health. I will miss John, the trusting working relationship we've developed over the years that enabled me to bring challenges and concerns to you without hesitation. I will miss your good humor, your integrity, and your absolute commitment to making our community stronger, healthier, and more equitable. That said, I also know John won't likely exit the public policy arena altogether. He has much more to contribute and we at Santa Cruz Community Health will always be willing partners with you, John, in pursuit of a better world. So from all of us, I send heartfelt thanks to you and your dedication to all the people of the first district. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Good morning, Supervisor Caput and John, Karen Delaney with the Volunteer Center. And I'm here to echo what everybody's saying about how amazing John has been to work with for so many years. I could start by saying that the beautiful place we live in at the Volunteer Center, as Ray mentioned, wouldn't have happened without John's real leadership as so many places through Live Oak. And honestly, every time we've asked at the Volunteer Center, I can't even count how many times John has showed up. We're pretty aggressive about asking people, so lots of people show up at our events. But John's my supervisor too. And one of the things that I find so extraordinary is where you bump into people. And the thing about John that I just love, and I think it speaks to what Leslie was saying, is I was far more likely to bump into you in a small neighborhood meeting with foster parents than in a fancy place with people wearing ties. That whether it was back to school night or a tiny fundraiser by parents at Live Oak School or handing out awards to working moms, you are there with people who aren't important, which is really astonishing. At the Volunteer Center, our brand is, we love the people who just quietly go about and make the world better. And we have, when we moved into our beautiful offices, you probably don't even know this, we decided we would decorate our walls exclusively with pictures of these quiet heroes. So you've been on our little Volunteer Hall of Fame for 10 years. It's a cheap frame, but it matched everybody else's. And we thought we did one of the many campaigns we did that you participated in was make your moments matter where for a whole year we went around the community trying to inspire people like, what is it that gets you on fire? So you're holding up a sign saying, I matter to community. And we're just here to say thanks, you really do. You proved that every day. You mattered before you were elected at the AIDS Project, the Human Care Alliance. When you help kids get healthcare, and we're sure you're gonna keep doing it because that's who you are. So thank you. Thank you. And I know I can't hand this to you, but I'll give it to Angela. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, board. My name is Robert Maria. I'm here really just as a citizen. A well-deserved proclamation, John. Kudos to you and your staff. You've received many compliments, well-deserved from the previous speakers. I'd like to echo those. Your help to the community. What can we say? We're gonna miss you a lot. I just wanna reckon back about 12 years ago when you and I probably first met to work on creating a vacation rental ordinance. As you know, we ran into some significant headwinds at the beginning of that. It was interesting learning. I think for myself and then perhaps for you. Supervisor Caput, just a side note on that. About 12 years ago, I did meet with you as well as we were trying to garner support for that new ordinance. At the time, I'm not so sure that you were in favor of that, but suffice to say that maybe John's influence has brought you around over the course of the 12 years. In any case, John, a heartfelt thanks to you. That vacation rental ordinance has made a big difference in the neighborhood and has improved the quality of life for me personally and my neighbors. Thank you again. Thank you, Robert. Good morning, Chair Cabot. Supervisor Leopold, my name is Seth Smith. I'm a partner at Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance and I'm here today to speak on behalf of myself, my fellow partners, Jason Swett and Aaron Newsom and the thousands of veterans that we've served here in the Central Coast area. Your leadership, your mentorship and your counsel has been invaluable to us and to our group and our efforts here in the community. You've been a steadfast example of what it means to lead and what it means to be a good community member and we will hold on to that example long after you've left this office. We wanted to give you a few tokens of appreciation. I'll make sure to give them to your staff. One is just a plaque that highlights what I just said here. The other, as you may be aware, our motto at Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance is peace through cultivation and that is because not only have we found relief from cultivating the cannabis plant for medicine but also relief from the actual process of cultivation itself from a lot of the issues that the war left many of our members with and so with that in mind, knowing that this is your last board meeting in your last few weeks here in this office, we wanna remind you that your work isn't done and that you still have a lot to do and so we've also gotten you a good pair of gardening gloves for you to use at home or wherever you find yourself tending to the soil as we know you will be. And if you're looking for some things to do in the new year, we've got some ideas now that we understand that you're a deadhead. So we just wanted to say thank you from the bottoms of our heart. We appreciate you. We appreciate all your work and your many years of service to this community and to our veteran community. Thank you, sir. Thank you and thank you for your service to our community and to our country really. Hi, my name is Jesse Roberto and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and also my husband who couldn't be here cricket Roberto and he wanted me to make sure to let you know that he's sending all his love and gratitude to you, John and I just know that all these things that everyone's saying is true and we've come to know all that. And I know that when we first met you you could have easily taken an adverse position against us but you didn't. And from the very moment we first met you was about openness and compassion even if we had a difference of opinion. And through these years you have taught us so much on a personal level as well as on a business level and you know, being our mentor you taught us about communication with everyone including everyone in our government. You taught us about compromise which was very important in that time in all times no matter who you're dealing with but especially when you're coming through policy you taught us about listening and listening to others listening to every side no matter how painful that is no matter if you wanna yell and scream but just listen and take what you can from what these other people are saying that you may not agree with and work with that because you have to we're all here and that's huge I can take that into anything that I do now and so what I thought in my life personally like Cricket was always the political guy I was never meant to be in politics I thought until I met you and started this whole process with the county and part of that is just if you're in cannabis you are now political but I am so blessed to have this time to have you as my supervisor as Cricket's supervisor too he wants me to include him so I bless and to really take active participation in what it means to be a citizen in Santa Cruz County and what it means to have a voice and to learn to trust that our government and the people in it are listening and you gave me that trust in Santa Cruz and open that door to allow us to get to know all the amazing people that work in this building and I'm not quite sure if you had been more harsh as our supervisor if I would have been turned off I mean there's all sorts of possibilities but you were that doorway for us to really see that there are beautiful people here and that care and our being of service and just hearing and seeing you in action is priceless so thank you so much for just everything the compassion we appreciate you we appreciate you giving your full heart to everything that you do and your scene and your love because of it so thank you so much and this is just a beautiful gift for you and I'll give it to Angela and I look forward to seeing you and working with you out in the community. Thank you, thank you for your leadership. Good morning again Melanie Sobel Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter supervisor Leopold I'm here on behalf of myself and the shelter I'm both a resident of your district as well as work at the shelter which is in your district yesterday was the 10th anniversary of me starting my position with this county just want to I agree with all the sentiments that have been expressed earlier but really wanted to point out your invaluable support from day one since I started this job you were extremely accessible and approachable and helpful I felt I could always come to you for guidance and information and you made my job so much easier and I appreciate you came to every single one of the events that I invited you to over the 10 years whether it was hundreds of people at our grateful Shelter Festival that you emceed to our little grand opening of our dog play yard you were there and you never refused and I greatly appreciate that and I appreciate the fact that you understand and respect the value of the human animal bond and how animals enrich people's lives in our community and I it's been such an honor and a privilege to work with you and I thank you thank you your leadership has been fantastic at the animal shelter. Good morning Board of Supervisors Fernando Geraldo chief of probation and I'm here to honor John and give a big shout out to John because you we owe you many shout outs you've always recognized the work of the department and my staff and have a deep understanding of what they do in their critical role in public safety. You've supported us through the most significant criminal justice reforms in history and your leadership was really needed at that time them talking about AB 109 realignment prop 57 prop 47 and the list goes on but really and I also want a few words from my predecessor Scott McDonald former chief who was the chief during realignment and he really wanted to thank you for your leadership during that when we are when we are radically shifted our system and he doesn't ever remember a community forum that was as well attended as the ones you held during that so he really wanted to thank you but really from the bottom of my heart and the probation department we thank you for your support and here's one big shout out that we owe you a lot John thanks a lot and we wish you well. Thank you for all the work that you and your staff do. Hi Tony Sloss on John's staff I have a sandwich there between Dave and Angela didn't get a chance to say a few words. I joined your office about six years ago with the idea of getting to know what were the issues in the first district and how could I help local government and I started out by sitting in on your constituent meetings and what an education that was you know you would get 10 different questions on 10 completely different topics and it was so impressive you were knowledgeable about almost everything and the things you couldn't answer you would make a point to get back to them and that's what I was there for as well and so I learned so much about the issues in the first district and the county. People that I met at those meetings were would just voice over and over how much they appreciated your listening and your responsiveness. And there were so many issues you took on during my time they are vacation rentals charging into such a controversial topic and taking the time and the meetings to bring sides together and come to a resolution something else like pickleball and a group of people came to you looking for help getting pickleball nets to put up and over time I started hanging out with those people more and to a single one they kept saying how much they appreciated your listening and they came from such a range of the political spectrum and but they all supported you because of how you conduct yourself. You really put your principles into actions taking on the idea of housing at risk transition age youth in Soquel was not an easy one to take on but you had no hesitation to look after the needs of those young people and you knew what was right and you helped the community to find a way forward and accept that. Others more mundane tasks like finding new funding sources to put up flashing crosswalks and finding fire egress funds for a community up in the hills to extending internet access up in the mountains. You were there for people and they really appreciated that. And lastly the big one that I was involved with yawn was the FAA and the jet noise issue and that was over a dozen public meetings a hundred hours just on that one issue and what supervisor thinks they're gonna become an air traffic controller and take on the FAA but you were there and working as hard as you did and as strategically as you did you came out with a great resolution that the super majority of the select committee supported. So you've just earned a lot of kudos for a lot of things and it's been great working with you, learned a lot and saw your upbeat attitude every day coming in. It's been great. Thank you, Tony. Thanks for all your work and your friendship. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board of Supervisors, thank you very much for this opportunity. John, I want to start not by thanking you but by thanking Teresa and Anna and Rose. These jobs include the whole family, as you well know. And thank you, Teresa, Anna, Rose, from a distance Rose. Thank you all very much for your public service as well. If I was still a member of the Board of Supervisors then I would not only sign this proclamation but maybe issue a member's proclamation just by myself to thank you as well. But I can't do that anymore. If I was still a state legislator, I'd do the same thing but the frame would be way more expensive. The sentiment would be the same but the frame's more expensive. But since I can't do that any longer and if I was still the county treasurer tax collector I would at least try to give you a tax break but since I can't do that anymore I'm going to express my thanks in two words to you. And those two words are public servant. That gets thrown around and criticized and so on in life. My sense, John, is that is you. It is those two pieces, the public part. One of the lessons I learned when I went from being a county supervisor to a state legislator is that nobody knew what I did as a state legislator. I could go to the grocery store and people would say, how you doing in Sacramento? When I was a county supervisor they'd say, oh, I meant to talk to you about this pothole over here. So this life is a public life in being a county supervisor. Different than when you were a Cabrillo trustee different than when you were an ED of a very important nonprofit organization. These are public jobs, especially at the local level all the time. And it is therefore a family obligation as well as your individual obligation. The servant part from my point of view kind of goes like this, that we've been around this. You were a city council member and now a county supervisor. You've been a county supervisor and a trustee on a public body. One of the things you know is that it is not unusual in this world for some folks to become elected officials and over time think that their job is to be the government's representative out to the people. What you have done all the time is realized you're the public's representative to the government. And that clear headed thinking about what your job is every day and who you represent and that you are not the institutional representation. That's why we have a very robust government system that is working for the board of supervisors that way. And the way you have comported yourself and conducted yourself in public life which we all will continue to work together as life moves on here. But as an elected official and especially elected official at the board of supervisors, John, thank you for being a public servant. Thank you, John. Thank you. Fred, I just also want to thank you. Two really important things as I was supervisor. One is your willingness to come testify to help save the Alomar Mobile Home Park when we were fighting that fight and also around the senior property tax postponement program which we put into place when the state took it away. Those are really helpful. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you, John. Good morning, Supervisor Leopold, Mimi Hall, Health Services Agency Director. And I've been here, I've been director 26 months now and I just want to express my extreme gratitude and respect on behalf of not only the entire HSA agency but all of the community members that we serve because it's clear that your tenure, government has a really, really unique role. Looks out for the long term outcomes and protection of our citizens and so you need to have a long range lens and you also have to have an eye of equity and you have demonstrated that in everything that you've done and you've rolled up your sleeves long before I got here and I'm really enjoying hearing all these stories but to the benefit of our programs and our services and the families of the individuals and the children that we serve, there's nothing that you haven't shied away from because you understand the social determinants of health and we had a recent call with you where our staff and I had a chance to express our gratitude in a more private setting and you said something that struck us all which was it's really easy to listen to the voices who want to be heard and are the loudest. The key in your job is to listen to all the voices and you have done that and you've shown that and I just want to thank you and your family for the sacrifices that you've made that are going to benefit Santa Cruz County many, many years into the future. Thank you. Thank you for your ongoing leadership. Chair, chair, before we move on to the supervisor's comments there are a couple of people on the team's call that would like to comment. So the first person I would like to ask would be Jeff Gaffney. Okay. Jeff, okay well maybe he had to step away so I know Mark Stone would also like to make a comment. Okay. Thank you, I'm very happy to be here today. John, John you've been a friend, you've been a colleague, you've been a real true associate for so many years and sorry to see you stepping out of this role in Santa Cruz County because I know there's a lot more ahead of you and a lot more for the county but you don't have to just anybody who watches this gets a better sense of who you are and how you've been an elected official because if you'll notice the wide range of issues it's everything that came to you whether it was a small issue or a large issue you took on and you took on unapologetically, unequivocally and really without even a question about doing the right thing. People come with what seems like a small issue but to them it's a big issue. You understand that and for the larger issues that are sometimes difficult to handle you never shied away from those bigger issues and Santa Cruz County and certainly the first district is so much better because of your willingness and how you approach the job, no hidden agendas. It's always very clear who you stand on things and why and even when you need a chance to learn and figure something out you do it in a very open and public way and the county and all of your constituents have benefited so much for it when we wrapped up redevelopment which was a very difficult thing to do. That agency would have suffered and the impacts would not have been the same without your determination, without your advocacy, without your understanding of what the state was trying to do unfortunately and what the county needed to do and what your constituents wanted. You were the one that held all the meetings with within the district in the redevelopment agency to know what the priorities were and you ensured that that happened when we had the opportunity to get the rail trail and Caltrans was being reluctant and so the California Transportation Commission was being reluctant. You didn't take that as an unsurmountable challenge. You overcame that, you went to Caltrans and you and I kind of beat them up. You beat them up in a way that made them realize that their position was untenable. So that was a big issue but then all of the small issues and whether it's broadband or access in the communities or getting roads done or kind of funding to various programs, you've stood up and you've made sure that all of that happens. It's been my honor to serve with you for so many years. I know that you're not going anywhere and that we'll continue to work together and that's just a blessing to me. I'm honored to have been your friend for so many years and I wanna wish the best to you, to Teresa, Rose and Ana as you find your next adventure and I definitely wanna be a part of that. So I do have and I don't know that it's gonna show up here very well just given everything it doesn't but it's not gonna show up but a state resolution honoring your service which is I think very appropriate and we'll get this in your hands as soon as we possibly can. I'm sorry, not able to be there just given all of the restrictions and how this happened. So I'm happy to at least be able to connect electronically with you, wish you the very best and just say congratulations on such an incredibly impactful term of service for the last 12 years. You are definitely gonna be a very hard act to follow. Thanks, John. It's been one of the great pleasures of my career to get a chance to work with you first on the Board of Supervisors and then as a member of the State Assembly you've been a great friend, great ally and we've accomplished a lot together. So thank you. Okay and next, Jeff Gaffney is now on the line. Sorry about that, we had some technical difficulties. So, surprisingly well I just wanna thank you for being the ultimate champion in our parks and in the parks for the County of San Cruz. I did earlier have an image of Leo's haven behind me but we lost that. So that was what I was trying to broadcast one of their landmark amazing accomplishments that I've had in my career and I got to be a part of that and that's a direct result of your efforts. It was said earlier and I'll say it as well that you often were a voice for those who didn't have a voice or a voice that could be raised for people who couldn't raise their own and so that not only is true for our community and for the County but also for the employees who work in our organizations and for that I am forever in your debt and thankful for you being able to do that for our community and for our employees, so thank you. Thank you for your leadership at the parks department. It's really been different with you in charge. Thank you. And Chair Caput, Chair Caput I just wanted to make a statement before the board members begin their statements. On behalf of County staff I want to thank you, John for your service and I want to personally thank you as well. It's been an honor working for you. I have one time one weekend I got this idea that I was going to count how many elected officials I had worked for in my 30 year career and I stopped around 60. I got tired. And that includes some Maxine Waters and John Vasconcelos when I first started my career. So I've worked with some of the best and you are one of the best. I will say that two things stand out to me about you and that is how hard you work. I think people don't understand what it takes to be a good supervisor, a good elected official. It's an incredible amount of work and you do it and you've always done it and I appreciate that. And the other thing is that you're very committed to the community and community input and listening to the community. And that itself takes a lot of dedication and a lot of patience and a lot of work. And because of that you have always stood up for those who are disenfranchised who don't have a voice in the public. You've always been made that a priority and that always has touched my heart and I appreciate it so much. So thank you for the opportunity to work for you and I wish you the very best. And I know that I speak on behalf of all county staff and wishing you the very best in your next phase of your life. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. John, that's really hard to follow for one thing what Carlos just said. But those are heartfelt thoughts that are echoed by everybody here at the county and I've shared with you some personal thoughts offline and one of the first things that I remember about you and having contact with you on was when you actually came out to my neighborhood as your resident and me and a number of other people and you helped us actually clean up a large encampment that was actually literally in our backyards and fill up a huge dumpster of waste. And it just, it was just so telling that it's just, that is what you're about is being with the people and helping folks on the ground at the grassroots level get things done in their communities. And there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said other than thank you very much for being you and thank you very much for all your service to the community. Thank you, Jason. It's been an honor to work with you. Chair, we have web comments. I don't know if you want me to read them now or after the supervisor speak. It's up to you. Okay. Would you like me to read them now? All right. Okay. The first comment comes from Mariah Roberts. Good morning. I'm writing to thank John Leopold for his work, championing our community, the places, organizations, people and values we hold dear. In 2012, the site which is now home to Leo's Haven Inclusive Playground at Chanticleer Park was a large undeveloped field and neighbors had just begun to organize. John arrived at our first community work event on his red scooter with dark sunglasses and a grateful dead T-shirt. He proceeded to spend a full day with work gloves and shovel all the while asking questions and listening. Our campaign eventually raised two million in private funds to create the park we know today and John advocated at every turn. Beyond the long list of accomplishments that can be seen, I want to call attention to the human infrastructure of leadership John has helped to build. As a young working mom, John invited my voice into the mix, then worked as an active partner to bring shared ideas to fruitation. I have seen him proactively and consciously open the same door for many others. More recently, he has championed the board, adopted resolution, acknowledging racism as a public health crisis and has held space for essential workers and conversations to address equality across systems. The approach is building a foundation for others to succeed and will continue to serve our community for years to come. We thanks, with thanks in regards, Mariah Roberts. The other one comes from Ken Davenport. Dear Supervisor Leopold, thank you for your service. Thank you for speaking up and asking the hard questions when others are silent. Thank you for representing your constituents. Many blessings to you in your next chapter. And we have one more from Ashley Schweckart. I apologize, Ashley. On behalf of mid-pin housing, the Watsonville Development Office would like to thank Supervisor Leopold for his steadfast and unwavering commitment to increasing affordable housing for the residents of Santa Cruz County. We appreciate his partnership and his passion. He has been a champion for all of the low income residents of the community in need of an affordable place to call home. In particular, John's proactive and hands-on community outreach process, attending every community meeting, and tirelessly answering the public's questions provided a truly positive impact. His leadership will not be forgotten, and we are incredibly grateful for your many years of public service. Thank you so much, John. And that's all of the web comments. Okay, thank you. All right, I'll go first and then let your colleagues also comment. John, you've had a great impact on the Board of Supervisors. You've been an outstanding representative of the people of your district and the county as a whole. And your work, I think, is something to be admired. I wanna thank you and I wish you all the best. And I think we're gonna be seeing you again. Thank you. Thank you. Take care, God bless. Appreciate it. And we'll go with Supervisor Coonerty. Great, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I was realizing that 20 years ago, I was John Leopold's intern at Working Partnerships as he sought to figure out how to transform the rights and opportunities for working people as technology emerged as a tremendous force in our region and our world. I'm sure that connection will now be used against me in endless public comment conspiracy theories forevermore, but I appreciate John taking me on back then. And it's been a wonderful seven years to work with you. I know we've had far fewer Van Morrison concerts than you had with my predecessor, but getting the opportunity over the past couple of years just to work with you as you really created entirely new opportunities for health and equity, obscure Lafko decisions, parks, and the overall functioning of our county in a way that serves everyone who lives here has been a real honor. I've learned a lot. I learned how to zealously advocate for my constituents. I've learned how to really develop a open and accessible public process when we make decisions. I've been reminded and learned at every meeting that the first district bears all the burdens for the rest of the county in ways that we could never imagine. And we should all be so grateful to the first district at all times. And but I want to say, you know, in our tradition, there's a Yiddish word, mench, which is somebody who is of service to others. And every day in your time on the board and in your work as in the community before that, you've been a mench. And I don't expect that it will stop, although, but I do want to say, I think it's just yesterday you were posting a photo of you and your girls out walking in the woods. And I know that you've spent nights and weekends serving your community tirelessly over the last couple of years and to have that opportunity, to spend time with your family, to spend time in the community. I wish you the best. And that'll be a true blessing for you and your family going forward. Thank you for the opportunity to serve and for your friendship. That's an honor to serve with you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair. And Supervisor Leopold, I've told you some of these stories, but I wanted to share some of these with the community because there's a reoccurring theme here. Supervisor Leopold was the first person to reach out to me when I was running the very first time. And he asked, what are you gonna do on election day? And I said, well, I mean, I don't know. I'm gonna be out doing various things you do on the campaign. He said, look, you're just gonna be totally stressed out. Let's just go out to lunch. And I said, well, my mom's gonna be in town. He said, well, bring your mom. I want to talk to her. And of course, we go out to lunch in Supervisor Leopold's district. And I was basically an ancillary person at this lunch. John and my mom were just hitting it off like they'd been friends for 40 years or something. But it was very telling to me about somebody he had never met. And he took a remarkable interest in my mom and in my background at that time. I mean, John and I had met, but not my mom. And it was very telling then about the kind of elected official he was. He has this ability to connect with everybody. And he has this ability to always do it first. John is one of the first people you will always hear from on anything. Really a Vanguard, a leader on these issues. And when my son was born, he was one of the very first people to reach out to me to not just congratulate me but to also talk about how I could be, I could balance being a father and also being an elected leader. And Rose and Anna, I cannot tell you how many conversations I'd be having with your dad about some serious policy thing where he would just want to break into stories about how amazing you both are, how proud he was of you, how much he loved you and how you can balance that public and private life in a way. And it really is a model for those of us that have young kids. I know Supervisor Coonerty feels the same way. We've seen how John has done it. He's been able to balance putting his family first while also not sacrificing this amazing amount of time and energy put into his district. And I think it's given me a model in a personal private model that is something that I can use. And it's been very effective. And he's also reminded me repeatedly when we would see each other out on nights and weekends at various events, we would do together that the family is primary. Don't miss these opportunities with your kids growing up. That you're not doing your family any services by also not being there for them. And so I have that balance in my mind and that voice in my mind a lot. But lastly, I believe that I'm a better county supervisor serving alongside Supervisor Leofold because we didn't agree on every issue. But he always respected my position and I always respected his, always. We would, on issues we disagreed with, I always knew he came prepared and I would learn things from his position. We may reach different conclusions, but it wasn't because of lack of information. He was at most times, I would say, probably the most informed member of the Board of Supervisors on any given issue. Always did his research, always did his homework. And I always, and I wish across the country, more electeds would do that kind of work. And always after the meeting was over, if we'd go into closed session, I could expect a slap on the back or something. I mean, as always a reminder that even if we disagreed out there, that's just a disagreement on that issue. It's not personal. And talk about a model that we could look at from a state and national level right now between electeds in this country in general, that people can disagree and still maintain that ability to be friends and respect. So, Johnna, I appreciate serving with you and I believe that my district was better off having you help challenge me even early on and also provide guidance early on about how to be a better father and elected, how to be a better representative in general and be responsive. But you also made me really think about the positions I took and made sure I was really informed on them and made sure that I knew what I was talking about when I took positions. And that makes everybody in the county better. So you helped elevate other people on the board because of the positions you took. And I think that that's a legacy that I'll live on. And I'll close with this. A lot of the things that you led on including some of the transportation funding, some of the parks funding measures which you're always out in front on the fire funding, they don't pay immediate dividends and future electeds tend to get credit for things that actually the stage was set well before them. I remember my predecessor telling me that a similar situation. And so for the next 10 or 20 years, a lot of the things that people are gonna see in the county from road improvements to new parks being built to adequate fire protection are because of work you did. And you may not occur while you're on the board but they have your footprint in your handprint right on them. And I hope that the community recognizes that although these positions come and go and people come and go, the work that people put into this including the work you put into this does have lasting positive effects on the community. And I'll recognize that as we continue on in the county about that you set the stage for a lot of these transformational changes on transportation, fire protection, parks and other issues, criminal justice reform and other issues that others may not recognize. But I appreciate that. I bet you it's been an honor to serve with you. I'm looking forward to supporting you in whatever your future endeavors may be. Thank you. It's been an honor to serve. And I've always appreciated your sense of humor as well as your sharp focus on policy. It's always been good to debate the issues with you. Supervisor McPherson. Well, thank you. And so much has already been said but I think one thing that stands out is I can't believe the energy this young man and he is a young man compared to me and what he does and how he gets things done. It doesn't matter the subject, health and human services. And so much has been mentioned at the last impact as Supervisor Friend just mentioned like the redevelopment agency. We got everything, this county got everything it could out of that. And it was because of the leadership of John Beopold and so many other things that he has done. And probably the major thing that I've been closely aligned with John on is the transportation and particularly measure D. I mean, we took as the campaign committee and looking at what should be included, we just said in essence, every mode of transportation should be included and that's why it passed. And we saw that it's from those who ride bikes to drive cars to get on the bus. And I've been able to appreciate the real advances and all of that Metro with the Regional Transportation Commission and so many other things that have happened in our transportation network that we're seeing happen today. And as we're going to see tomorrow, literally in the improvements that are going to be made, I can also say that about other issues that have come up and have come before the voters that John has been very much involved with in the library. I mean, our library system was going to really be broken up literally or much of it eliminated at one time. With the leadership of he and his former colleague and my predecessor, Mark Stone, I remember, no, we're going to keep the libraries that are in place and we're going to make improvements to them but we're going to go to the people and have them vote on issues. And it's because of his leadership and many others but those types of issues that our library system is solid and intact and it's growing and it's better because of people like John Leopold have taken a leadership position in that and it's been mentioned with Parks and Leo's Haven as well and the Parks issue that was put on the ballot. So many things, wide and varied. And John never rested on his laurels. There was so we got that done, let's move on to do and address the next one. And I just loved that he always, he liked a challenge, I think. And he won the race, so to speak, in so many issues that he should be feel very good about, I want to say I just have enjoyed serving with you on the County Board of Supervisors and I'm just wishing you the best that you can have in the future. And you're not going to forget Santa Cruz County and believe me, Santa Cruz County would still like to have your input on what is needed because you've been a leader in so many various aspects of our community and so many important areas. So thank you, John and God bless you and I wish you the best in your future. Thank you, it's been an honor to serve with you and great partnership who have been our leadership around Measure D, we've accomplished a lot. You've got an opportunity. Yeah, thank you Chair and thanks to everyone for the kind remarks and well wishes. I'm humbled by the comments and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to the community that I love. I did not grow up aspiring to be a politician. I'm a son of two parents who both worked in the public sector and I saw how hard they and their coworkers worked to meet the needs of the community. They always said that to be part of the community is to provide service to the community. I learned that lesson and became involved with my new home when I moved here 35 years ago. Whether it was Little League, public school activities serving on the board of my temple, helping out with electoral campaigns, I found this community to be engaged and active for the issues that they cared about. Those I met along the way inspired me to run for the office of county supervisors and with those and so many others I worked daily for the last 12 years. This job would not be fun and certainly not fulfilling if it was only about advancing myself or acquiring power to make others to do my will. My background in community organizing showed me that success is generated from working with others on our shared goals. As a member of the board of supervisors, I saw this time and again. From my first year, I worked to engage the public in decisions of the board, hosting workshops and even bringing the board to meet in Live Oak twice. The community responded well and I'm meeting to decide what would be our last plan for our redevelopment agency. Nearly 200 people showed up to testify and hear the board's decision. A colleague at the time remarked that she had never seen this many people gather in support of something. Usually the big crowds came, she said, when they were trying to stop something. And that's an important point to recognize. If all we do is try and stop those policies and developments which represents some kind of change, we can be guaranteed that we will be successful in doing nothing. While that might seem romantic that we can keep everything the way it is, it's unrealistic to meeting the needs of the community. Therefore, I spent my time as a member of the board organizing around what was possible in order to make it reality. Some of those things are tangible, a new Boys and Girls Club, Felt Street Park, the ironic gulch path, purchase of the rail corridors. Others are important policies like our work on vacation rentals, plastic pollution measures, stopping fracking or developing budget priorities. Working with the community, I have been fortunate to develop new ways to support families and build infrastructure to support all of our community. Over eight years ago, I convened a group of talented leaders and together with a set of incredible parents, we created the Live Oak Creative Career Program. Now operating in three elementary schools in the Live Oak School District, the program has provided the tools to help families achieve their hopes and dreams for their children in the areas of good health, good education and good character. To witness the transformation of parents and hear how the program has broken the isolation that some felt and built community, it's one of my happiest moments. To work with the Summit community to band together and leverage existing law to provide cable and internet coverage to hundreds of homes was not only satisfying, but prescient in this year when we have come to rely on digital connections. And to witness the incredible energy and drive of two mothers who had an inclusive vision for a spot where all children could play together was amazing. Chanticleer Park and Leo's Haven have set a new bar for the kind of partnership that is possible if we're committed to working together. Watching the community engage in these projects or policies, especially in this age of pandemic, we might forget that our chambers would fill for critical issues. There were overflow crowds to discuss the Vacation Mental Ordinance. There was forceful debate about the plastic bag ordinance. I still feel a little bad that in one of the first meetings with some of my new colleagues in 2013, the chambers filled to discuss gun shop regulations. The mood was intense, the debate was heated. Certainly a rough welcome for new colleagues. But we persevered and we passed good policy. And lastly, who could forget the pungent aroma that was part of nearly all of our early discussions about cannabis regulations? But it isn't just what was happening in our chambers. In those early meetings about redevelopment, where we had dozens of meetings where we never had less than 50 people and most times over a hundred, in discussing the coming criminal justice reform measure that would be AB 109, over 250 people crammed into Live Oak Elementary. In discussing the Housing and Healthcare Project on Capitol Road, there were over a hundred people at every meeting. This is a community who cares and we are a better legislative body when the public is aware and engaged in the issues before the board. To be successful at those meetings and in this chamber, we count on incredible staff through the county family, throughout the county family to make it happen. I have witnessed incredible work by the over 2,400 people that make up the employees of the county of Santa Cruz. I have seen patience and great follow-through from planning and public works, employees on projects and neighborhoods. I have been fortunate to benefit from the creativity from our information services, our county council, parks, our CAO's office. I have welcomed the advice from our auditor, controller, treasurer, tracks collector and assessor's office. And I've been grateful to work with our animal services, especially the opportunity to judge an animal owner Halloween costume contest. I want to give, I also want to recognize that our sheriff and his department for their work in leaning into the changes that we have seen in the criminal justice system rather than clinging to old ways. This year we have seen them assume so many different roles from pandemic enforcers fire affected neighborhood protectors and mourners for the loss of one of their own's. They were an important part of the criminal justice system. And as we heard earlier from our probation director, their key parts to not only keeping us safe but to making sure that our future is better. This year during the pandemic, they were joined in efforts in protecting our community through our general services department and our emergency operations group. Our human services department has consistently sought to chart new courses for their work, whether it be adoptions, adult protective services or developing the core funding program. This year, they rose to the challenge to house thousands during this year of crisis. And of course our health services agency who have a special affinity with who we count on to solve so many of our problems. While sometimes the fears of political considerations are stoked instead of using good evidence based data informed decisions. They have all been incredible leaders during these last 12 months. Thank you to everyone who's worked so hard and helped us meet the needs of the community. Closer to me are the incredible people that I've had to work with the most, my colleagues and my staff. If you stick around long enough, you see all the positions and electives change. Our current board has the great combination of care, drive, commitment and humor to be successful in so many things. Together we have seen the county through tough times, develop plans to help us in the future, created new programs and policies that improve the lives of our community and leadership skills to address pressing community concerns. I've been honored to serve with you all. Some of the unsung but critical people for the board are the board's office staff. And we have been blessed with some great folks, Terry Dorsey, Laura Guerrero, Jillian Ritter, Jessica Rodriguez and now Caitlin Smith. They support us in so many important ways. Thank you to all of them. My staff has been extraordinary and I would have only been marginally successful if I hadn't had these superstars by my side. From Susan Green, Steve Kennedy and Rita Winnings who supported me in my early years to Allison Guevara and Rachel Christopher to my current staff, Angela Chesnut, Dave Reed, Tony Sloss. They have done yeoman service in helping address constituent needs and helped draft the policies and program that I get credit for. I've been fortunate to continue working with those who've even left my office as their stars continue to shine bright and we share the common visions of how to support the community. I'm sure I will be working with all of them in the years hence. And of course, none of this is possible without the strong support from my family. My mother and father were and are outstanding citizens in their communities, working hard to support the least fortunate and provide for future generations. I learned a lot from them about work, family and community. My daughters, Rose and Anastasia, who gave up a little of their lives to be the daughters of an elected official who received calls at any time of the day and needs to be in so many places. Thanks for sharing me with so many. And to my wife, Teresa, who has been my rock, my guide star, and a source of unyielding support during the best of times and the hardest of times. We never know what it means for better or worse when we sighted at our wedding vows. And for the last 30 years, since we took ours, Teresa has been at my side, offering encouragement, love and just the right amount of advice. Thank you for always being there for me. I love you all. So there's no way to capture 12 years of work and I'm sure I've left off lots of people who I've had a chance to work with and programs and policies that I've worked on. Thank you to all who shared your appreciation today since election day and through the many emails and letters that I've received. I apologize to those who I've inadvertently missed in my remarks. I've been honored to be the first district county supervisor. Thank you for allowing me to do so for the last 12 years. Thank you. Is anybody had a chance to speak from the, okay. We're okay. Okay, then I guess we have to roll call. You may need a motion and action on the resolution. Right, okay. And the resolution is sitting up there now, I guess, okay. All right. Mr. Chair, I'd be glad to move the resolution recognized in John Leopold for his outstanding leadership and service for the past 12 years as first district county supervisor. Second. Second. Second, if the clerk will call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. I'll abstain. Okay. Friend. Coonerty. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously with one abstention. And I guess what we'll do, we've done the presentation of the proclamation, right? Yeah. Okay, because I gave it to your staff. And then Gail, it's up to you. If we're gonna, we're finished with this item, we can take a 10 minute break and come back or do you want to go right through? Let's do a 10 minute break. It's been a while. 10 minute break. Then that way John has a chance to talk to all of the people that came to speak and all his friends and family. Thank you. 10 minutes. Bye-bye. Remember? Remember? Okay. And a special order. Yeah, that idea. Hello. Yeah, we'll, we have the honor of doing number eight, which is a presentation of proclamation honoring our county clerk, Gail Pellerin on her retirement. We're delighted to have this opportunity to publicly recognize Gail for 20 years, 28 years of outstanding service to the county of Santa Cruz. Gail joined the county of Santa Cruz elections department in 1992 as the elections manager. She became county clerk in September of 2004. And since then has administered four presidential primaries, five presidential general elections, four statewide primaries, four statewide general elections, 28 special districts and two statewide special elections, impartially, securely and transparently. That includes my run and John's run and everybody who ran. And I always trusted everything that your office did. And Gail has implemented many innovative programs and policies at the Santa Cruz County clerk's elections department that have helped to make it one of the most outstanding departments in the state of California. Thank you so much, Gail, for all you've done on behalf of all the residents of our community. We'll now hear from board members. We'll start with Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. You know, I've been involved in electoral politics in one way or another almost as soon as I got here, definitely towards the 80s. And I remember our previous county clerk, Richard Bidal, and Richard was a great guy, a super competent and friendly, but he was behind the scenes type of guy. And you could always count on him, but he was very guarded about his conversations, especially with people coming in to the office asking questions. And so when he hired this woman from outside the area, who I was told was probably gonna be his, the person he would take over, I thought, well, that was a bold move. I mean, that was, you know, it didn't seem in keeping with who Richard was, but over the years I've had the great pleasure of getting to know Gail Pellerin. And not only has she been incredibly super competent on elections, and, you know, we haven't had any fiascos or criticism or challenges to our elections in all the years that she's been in the job, but she has turned the office into so much more than the elections office. I mean, if you're trying to get a passport, right, we have passport Saturdays and we have this aggressive effort to get people to come in and get their passport work filled out. And if on the issue of marriage, issuing marriage licenses was never considered a political act, and then when the world started focusing on the issue of marriage equality, there was our county clerk's office marching in the Pride Parade every year saying, I wanna marry you. And I thought, you know, that's not something we would have seen from Richard, but I don't think we saw that from clerks around the state or even around the country. And this past election in this crazy world of the pandemic, we get the vote mobile, and the vote mobile is out trying to help people vote. These are all incredible innovations and they've raised the prominence of the office and to a person when they get a chance to hear from Gail and she's been on this year more Zoom, public meetings than anybody, but always out in the community, communicating with people about the role that the clerk's office could play. They walk away feeling, here's someone who really knows what they're doing. That is a great personality and the energy level is infectious. And so you wanna work harder, you wanna engage in whatever the activity is. So I just have a great appreciation for the work that Gail Pellerin has done in her years as county clerk. And I'm very appreciative of that outward facing effort that you have championed as county clerk. And I look so forward to seeing what happens next with you because you don't seem like the kind of person who's just gonna go sit at home or something and wait for something to happen. You're gonna make something happen and I'll be there whenever that happens. But thank you for your 28 years of service to us. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair. Gail, I have mixed feelings about this. I mean, I wanna celebrate the fact that you are retiring that you want to retire and yet it's difficult to think about that organization with all the remarkable positive changes you made to it moving forward without you specifically even though I know you've chosen an outstanding and perfect successor, which we'll speak about later on. But I just wanted to tell a couple of brief stories about Gail and she's heard a few of these. Like one of them is there's really no saying no to you because when you ask it's never really a question. It's more of a statement that you shall be doing X or Y and the things that you want us to do as Supervisor Leopold had mentioned participating in wedding ceremonies including on the first day after the repeal of Prop 8 or maybe it's speaking to youth groups or maybe it's working to ensure a more diverse group of elected officials across our county or maybe it's advocacy at the state or national level for more money. Every single thing that you've done, everything is to make voting easier, to make access easier, to make equality more real for people and to give voices for people that don't normally have a voice within our system and to emphasize to them that their voice matters always and you do it by working what I think is about 23 and a half hours a day. I haven't asked your kids to confirm this but any time I called, any time I sent you a note I received an immediate response and the answer was always that you were willing to do whatever it took to make things better no matter how difficult it was whether it was just a month or so ago when I sent you a text to say I had a panicked constituent that had realized that he had not obtained a marriage license and was getting married in three days and you said tell him to meet me down here in 35 minutes which he did and you accommodated it to much greater things like there were students in my district that wanted to learn more about voting and you would go out and provide mobile presentations to them, I mean putting any of their interests first and foremost and this is not what's happening across the country. We've normalized things in Santa Cruz County we've come to expect great people to do these kinds of jobs that is not the case across the country. Your leadership isn't the standard it should be but it's not and I want people to recognize the exceptionalism and how fortunate we've been to have that leadership because if more places across the country had that kind of leadership it would just be a much better place to not just cast a vote but to have more people believe that they have a role in democracy something that you've prided yourself on so much and that's the professional level and on the personal level your love for your family your love for the community your just thoughtfulness two days after my son was born sending me a future voter t-shirt for him both in a baby size as well as one that when he was he turned five or six which he just did actually turned six that he was able to wear so that you would have different points of time demanding photos of him in both of course but just you always have other people on your mind and know how to build those bridges to ensure that we're all being the best of ourselves so I am it's hard for me to see you move on to whatever it is your next great chapter is gonna be but you've really left a remarkable foundation for Trisha and others to build upon so thank you Gail we are here to continue to support you and in your future endeavors as well thank you Supervisor Coonerty thank you Mr. Chair you know in leaders in public face challenges and over the last four years all leaders have faced extreme challenges as our basic institutions and values have been challenged Gail Pellerin has stepped up and not only met the moment but in many ways defined the moment by engaging in the hard work, the competence and the energy to meet the moment to make sure that every vote is counted that people have access to our levers of democracy that people are able to get a marriage license regardless of their sexual orientation that people are able to get a passport to access to go other places it's been remarkable to watch somebody more than meet the moment, serve our community bring trust, increase trust in an era where trust is being undermined on all fronts and really show the community, everyone in the community what it means to be a public servant and what it means to participate in the democratic process I'm excited to see what you do next I'm excited that you're now my neighbor and I also wanna just take a moment to recognize that not only while you're sort of managing a significant department in the midst of national turmoil and local turmoil as well, your family was challenged and you've chosen to become a voice for suicide awareness and going back to the values of supporting families and loved ones in difficult times and so it's been an honor to work with you and I do look forward to seeing you come down my street but also to see what ways you do you engage our community next to meet our future moments Supervisor McPherson Thank you, Mr. Chair, what gives me a real pleasure to be able to make a statement about an outstanding public servant of Gail Pellerin she really is at the top of her class in county state election officials recognize that throughout and I can make a statement from a different perspective of having the good fortune of being California Secretary of State, I can tell you that when I was in that office overseeing the whole elections process for our 58 counties nobody was asked to their advice more than Gail Pellerin was hers on what should we do about this elections process and in that time there was the Help America Vote Act was a very controversial issue to allow people with some kind of physical or disability or if they were blind to vote independently very controversial at the time it included about getting some voting systems in place and with some advice from Gail and others but we established the strictest voting standards and criteria in the nation in California as this turnover was taking place and to implement those strict criteria was not an easy task and she was at the leadership of that and her colleagues throughout the state recognized that and having her become president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials from 2010 to 12 and they continued to ask her advice as well as her serving on the California's Voting Accessibility Committee since 2006 and she's still on that it's just amazing that her consistency and doing the job that she needs to do and more as was mentioned with the marriage licenses and so forth, the passports, the services that any county clerk's office is supposed to provide but she does it at overtime, double time and consistently and the focus of the county clerk's office in the elections department, no question and she has developed so many great people like the late Judy Weber who just passed away and now Tricia Weber and that was another strength of Gail's that she included her office in the implementation of these new programs and to assure that there was public trust in our elections process in Santa Cruz County and there can be no truer sign of the success and her leadership than the election we just had. I mean, we just had an 86% turnout in Santa Cruz County that is unheard of anywhere and it's because of her and getting the vote and we'll be allowed and getting and encouraging people to vote and knowing the value of voting which is the basis of how our political and government systems operate. I mean, Gail is at the front of the line at the top of the tier and all those measures. I just consider her a dear, dear friend. I just love her sense of humor all the time and believe me, things are not always easy to carry out in that office not because of the personnel, that's for sure but just because of the processes that change as I've said and some of the things we've had to implement over the years I'm telling you Gail Peller is at the top of the list at the top of the line of every county elections office in the state of California and for that matter the nation as far as I am concerned. So Gail, I wanna thank you for having so much and building so much trust and confidence in our election system and for expanding the voter turnout as you have election in and election out. It's been a sincere pleasure to work with you more importantly to know you as a great friend and a true professional in what you do and I wish you, you might be on the other side of this being running for an elective office. I think it's in the tea leaves out there but anyway, if you do or you'll be a great elected official I can tell you that because you've done so much for the elections process in this county and in the state of California. So thank you so much for your friendship, your professionalism and I wish you only the best in your retirement. Thank you very much. Okay. And Gail, I don't know if you remember when I, this is going back 14 years ago I ran for city council in Watsonville and it was so close it came down to a recount and I had my sister and my late brother-in-law with me and they came down to kind of observe and they were saying, what do we do? And I said, well, you got a pen and a notebook just look like you know what you're doing and maybe jot some things down every now and then. And anyway, we're there and this is an all day process. So in the morning I looked at when they were starting to count the vote each ballot actually going through each ballot and I had no idea if things would change or not but after even though it was gonna take all day to count and look at each ballot there were no hanging chads by the way on any of the ballots. And anyway, after about 15 to 20 minutes of this long process I thought the election, I guess I got elected and it's not gonna change because I saw how organized you and your office were you had probably already looked at them a second time and this was gonna be a third time or it was gonna be looked at. So what I'm getting at is after about 15 to 20 minutes I had total trust in the way you and your office were gonna handle it and I talked to other friends of mine that said Gail is gonna do everything fairly and correctly. So I just wanna say trust in who is in charge is very important and I know you always have my trust and almost everybody that I know when it comes to an election and how you do things. Thank you very much. Chair, Assemblymember Mark Stone would also like to speak on regards to this item. Assemblymember. Thank you. Thank you. Gail, I'm very happy to be here and say a few words on your behalf. You've been absolutely incredible. There are times when Little Santa Cruz County really has a major impact on what's happening across the state and even across the country and the standard that you set, the integrity that you have. Nobody's, people will grumble sometimes about elections especially when they lose and that's natural but nobody questions the process that you've put in place. The integrity that you have run the elections department and the clarity and the transparency with which you've also done so and I think anybody who wants to understand what a force you are has to go watch you train the new poll workers to get a sense of your passion and your commitment to fair, accessible and healthy elections. You have been the voice for getting people to the polls. You have been the voice for ensuring that every single vote is counted. Your words all along for decades have been if you want to vote, you can vote. We'll sort out later if that's correct. Here's a provisional ballot. Here's, but please come in and participate in the process. That has been key and that has been important. That is why every elections official in the state knows you. The secretary of state knows you. You have created the gold standard for how to run an elections department but that also translates to your staff and to the other parts of being the county clerk because you've done so much more than really just being an elections official but you've run an incredible department. You have been one of the most solid leaders in the history of Santa Cruz County and we all owe you a great thanks. Absolutely. So I do have a resolution here with me since I'm not there. I can't hand it to you as I would like to do but I will certainly get it to you. It's just a token of the state recognition and appreciation for who you are, what you represent, and how you've really put Santa Cruz elections on the map of the state to show people how it can be done, how it should be done, and that you have always been that leader to make it happen. So I am indebted to you as every elected official in this county is for running fair, clean, transparent elections and for just being such a great help and providing guidance to everyone who wants to get into this or when people need to vote or can the polls be a part of this this cornerstone to our democracy that's what you have always represented. I count you as a friend. I'm so glad we've gotten to know each other over the years and have been able to work together and I know we'll be working together moving forward in the future. Congratulations on retiring from this role. We'll see what's next for you. That's always going to be exciting but this is well-deserved. Thank you, Gail. I'll bring it back to Carlos. Yes. Chair Caput, members of the board, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Gail for her service. I first met Gail when I was working for the city of Watsonville and in a community that was subject to a voting rights case that had to, it was one of the first communities that on the west coast that had a voting rights case and it was about that issue of access to votes to be able to vote and Gail, throughout her career has been so supportive of communities like Watsonville low-income communities, working communities making sure that they have access to vote. Thank you so much for that for all those years of service and I've been working with her for the past six years with the county and one thing I'd like to note is that the county clerk job is such a technical job. It's actually incredibly technical and Gail for all her years of work hides that. It makes it seem like it's simple but it's not. It's very complex, very technical, very legal and she has mastered that body of knowledge and I thank you for that all the years of service that you've given it's been a privilege to work for you and a privilege to call you my friend. Thank you so much. Thanks supervisor Gail, the first time that we started working together was also on an access issue probably over 15 years ago. We were embroiled in a dispute regarding polling place access. It was a very very contentious case and it involved disability access issues and it was through your conviction and your courage and your sense of compromise and collaboration all the great characteristics that people have talked about today that actually helped us resolve that case and move the needle forward to provide greater access for disabled individuals to our polling places in this community and that's just one small example of what you're about. Again your courage, your conviction, your spark your enthusiasm, it's something that is just it's not possible to duplicate and we're really really going to miss you in this building. Not possible to replace you. We're going to be here to help Tricia and your department moving forward and again thank you for all of your service to the community. We miss you so much. And then we'll open it up for a public comment and here's your chance to speak. Good morning, afternoon Board of Supervisors. I miss John so much that I thought I'd come in person and say hello. Actually I know, I know, I know. A couple of words come to mind. Kindness strength integrity, grace I just so many thoughts about how wonderful you have made life for me, for the people in this community how you've made me a better department head, how you've taught me how to be accountable and how you've helped me help others have a voice and think of others in our community and give them a voice. You've partnered with us at Parks and made Parks more innovative and that was absolutely just a trust and partnership and I can never thank you enough for all that you've done for us for in our community for making the community better and honestly for making me a better director and a better human being so thank you so much and in true Gale fashion I have something for you so Okay, thank you Hi, on behalf of the County Clerk election family I wanted to say a few words on Gale about Gale with Gale around Gale because that's all it is it is truly a family down there and from the day that I started there in 1998 why did I go what the heck am I doing Gale is like come on and has always led by example and has taken the hand of everyone there and brought them into the fold and then push them to meet their best potential I've been told many times to go and do things like a phone call tomorrow I need you to go to Sacramento and I always was grumbling under my breath going how could she do this to me but then I realized once I got there that she had a purpose and a reason to have me do that to push me outside of my box it was to make me realize that I could meet that expectation and exceed it and she not only did that for me she does that for everybody that's in the County Clerk elections department whether it's a one time person you know one time volunteer that's there for a couple hours or it's somebody who's been there 20 plus years in everyone in between and I can't thank you enough for what you have done for me what you have done for our department what you have done for our Clerk family and what you have done for the County family and I'm going to I take a lot of your words and I throw them back at people and the newest one that I do often now is what does your code books say so thank you very much for helping and pushing and mentoring and leading and guiding and just on another side note we graduated from the same high school and so hail oh hail to Sanny and Es I'm not going to lie I didn't know if I was allowed to do a speech so I don't have anything prepared so it'll be brief but for those of you who don't know I'm Emily and I'm the great pleasure of getting to be your daughter I know I'm not going to cry it's fine I just feel incredibly proud to get everyone's messages on you it's incredible for everyone who thinks they've been told what to do just wait till she's your mom and she actually gets to tell you what to do it's fun but really looking back at it now I think it was so funny as a kid I never fully comprehended your job and what it means to be the daughter of an elected official like Mr. Leopold said it really is so much of your love and your contagious energy and I just constantly feel so inspired I think to myself so often I want to follow in your footsteps probably not the same career that seems like a lot but you know I want the dedication I hope that when I reach the mountain the day that I retire I can't even imagine how much love you've received and only half of that work if I could just be at only half of that accomplishment as you've made love that you are giving and receiving that's just been accomplishment itself so I think to myself there's very large footsteps to follow and because those are big shoes to fill and there's glass everywhere because you have made huge huge movement for women and politicians in general and Santa Cruz so I love you same household okay we're all hungry right I wrote out some notes and I'll have to get anything so bear with me okay okay I can do this thank you chairperson supervisors Leopold friend McPherson and Coonerty I stand here humbled and with the heart full of gratitude I've never heard so many nice things said about me so thank you so much I'm so glad my daughter stuck around with me today this is hard to wait but thank you for being here I'm hoping my son Jacob is tuning in remotely and they've only known me as the mother who is insanely busy every election season who is passionate about civic engagement who took them to work with me when they were just weeks old who answered phone calls and responded to emails when we were on vacation who insisted that they register and vote when they turned 18 they're super excited to see what retired mom does with all this free time and I want to thank them both for their love and support over the years you're my heart and soul you too Jacob if you're out there when I was the first appointed county clerk in 2004 none of you were here and let's just say there wasn't consensus on how to structure my department or who should lead it after months of interim appointments it was Tony Campos who made the motion to appoint me to serve for the remainder of my predecessor's term Tony will always have a special place in my heart believing in me and going to bat for me that day the first person to take a chance on me was Richard Bedell my predecessor our former county clerk recorder, treasurer, tax collector I was a 30 year old newlywed who left my job in Sacramento to make Santa Cruz County my home he hired me as his elections manager in 1993 and instilled the main values I continue to hold to this day listen to others and respect their opinions never ask someone to do a job that you're not willing to do yourself be honest and transparent in everything you do and you could always close the door to your office and take a nap I remember when my first elections in 1994 when I questioned what was flying out of the ballot counters when ballots were going through the machine I was told I didn't like the flying chads so I took the lead on converting our data vote system to a mock-about system where voters had to fill in the rectangle to their choices rather than punching a hole in their ballot I think it wasn't until 2000 election when chads became famous that our voters stopped punching holes in their ballots one thing I'm very clear about is that no one does this job alone elections have been successful and trusted in Santa Cruz County for decades thanks to the elections officials that came before me and the elections officials I worked with over the years I'm especially grateful to the incredible elections team we had in 2020 who conducted our county's most successful election under the most difficult circumstances many of them are here right now Tricia, Martin, John Lynn, Helen Mari, Gina, Emma Daisy, Margarita Stanley, Lily, Lorena got Sam here, Anish, Jana you guys are all amazing and talented and dedicated public employees who made my job manageable and inspired me to always do my best I also got to work with an incredible group of extra help employees who worked tirelessly to ensure a fair and accurate election I hope you know how much I love you and I'm going to miss you I'm delighted that your board will act today to appoint Tricia Weber as our next county clerk Tricia has more than 22 years of experience working for this department and is the most skilled, capable, talented and dedicated elections official in the state the office will just get better under her leadership one aspect of the job I love is to be a part of people's lives at pivotal moments registering to vote, casting that first ballot getting married, applying for a passport or filing a fictitious business name for a new business I have always said I have the best job in the county, I get to run the office of democracy and love it just doesn't get any better than that over the years I've also tried to be creative to offer new programs to better serve the needs of our community unfortunately some of these programs have been put on hold due to the pandemic Valentine's Day weddings weddings in the parks, thanks to Jeff and his team, Passport Saturdays Watsonville Wednesdays where we bring our office to South County one day a month county information nights voting matters, Zoom meetings and our newest addition, the Vote Mobile we were one of the first counties in the state to post election results on the internet many years ago definitely the first to have a website that was easy for people to remember votes count, one of the first to offer weekend voting and we have been a leader in the state to ensure that all voters have access to vote independently and privately and I do think we're the only office that celebrates each Friday the 13th as burger day one of my greatest joys each election is conducting poll worker training I love our poll workers these are the incredible people who take time away from their lives to make sure democracy is delivered to voters training sessions gave me the opportunity to channel my inner stand-up comedian and incorporate funky hats role playing different voter scenarios and ending with a theme song and chocolate always lots of chocolate I really missed having the opportunity to connect with all of our amazing poll workers this last election when we had to move on to an online training format there will always be a special place in my heart for those people who worked at a polling place since we conducted in-person voting over four days this past election I had the unique opportunity to visit each of our 20 voting locations what an incredible experience it was so great to see how each team developed a bond over those four days and came up with creative ways to better serve the voters and to fill their time when things were slow Kaiser did a plank challenge and Bonnie Dune finished a puzzle they worked together like family and provided vital services to our voters it was a beautiful thing to witness as I reflect on the connections friendships and collaborations I made after working almost 28 years for my beloved county my heart is full some of those folks like Dana and Nancy have already retired and I look forward to spending quality time with them in the relaxing world of retirement I am proud to be among an incredible group of county department heads who are passionate about their jobs and dedicated to serving the people of our county I want to specifically thank a few Carlos thanks for always taking my calls and chasing after a no-show inspector when I needed you and your staff Melody, Nicole, Alyssa, Sven, Jason Trish, Christina, David and the others you guys are all rock stars Kevin and the ISD team wherever you are I love you you are a small but mighty department you kept our system secure you set up our hotlines you got us the equipment we needed you insured connectivity at the voting locations you worked miracles Michael and the GSD team thank you for your energy as you always make sure we have everything we need to conduct an election you got that flat tire fix on our vote mobile very quickly and then on top of that you are a rover to make sure sites were set up and working smoothly Melanie I love how much you love animals and elections you are a trooper to help us out year after year Jason and Ruby and the county council team thank you for keeping me compliant with the law writing all those impartial analyses and keeping me out of jail Agita, thank you for staffing the phones and assigning yourself and your staff to other duties during election seasons year after year Mimi, you are amazing managing a pandemic and helping with elections Edith, our auditor controller longest title of anyone you are always one of the first to help out and thanks for paying all of our bills Matt from Public Works and you guys are my superheroes when the CZU fires threatened our voting equipment you guys sprung into action to make sure it was moved to a safe place and Jeff, Jennifer and the incredible parks staff have stepped up to help us every single election by providing a location, staffing the location and then they worked with us to provide weddings in the parks to help us keep love alive during the pandemic these amazing colleagues and so many more I don't have time to mention they stepped up to help us during elections time after time I want you all to know how much I respect you and admire your work it's been an incredibly stressful year battling COVID-19 and balancing staying safe and providing services you are all my heroes and I will continue to cheer you on as I shelter in place in my home snuggling with my dog and my daughter and enjoying a leisurely cup of tea I have also had the opportunity to work with the best city clerks in the state hardworking members of our city councils outstanding staff at the secretary state's office phenomenal members of our state senate state assembly, thank you assembly member Mark Stone and our congressional members dedicated officials of our school and special district boards and compassionate members of our local political parties thank you all for your service I am also blessed to have been covered by so many talented folks working in our media from the fantastic photos of Shamul to the KSBW dynamic duo of Tom and Phil the incomparable Rosie on KSEO the powerhouse Adriana with Univision the vibrant Erica on KZU Dangerous Dan and Sleepy John and KZSC Kay Squids, talk of the bay Erin with KION Todd and Tarma with the register Jacob at Good Times Dondi at Times Publishing all the good folks at Scotts Valley Bannery and I'm sorry if I'm missing some of those media folks but I just want to say how important the work is that you're doing of covering the news and keeping people informed facts do matter so please keep up that good work since I announced my retirement I've been overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support I received from the community my friends and family my friends and family and friends who are now running in the state poll workers have written letters and emails an accommodation from senator Monning and a congressional certificate of recognition from congress member Anna Eshoo these mementos along with the one that our assembly member stone will be providing me will be cherished for years to come thank you all very very much supervisor Caput supervisor Lea Pould supervisor Coonerty I wish I could see your face there and supervisor Fran Thank you for believing in me, supporting my office through the difficult times, being patient as we audited those results and forgiving me when I made mistakes. I appreciate each and every one of you. I am very grateful to each and every one of you. You five guys will always have a special place in my heart. I just wish you were female. Finally, thank you to the voters of Santa Cruz County. Without your support, I would not have had the opportunity to serve as your county clerk. I'm especially grateful that you cast more votes for me than my fellow electives, Shawn, Edith, Jeff, and Jim, but I won't rub that in. But seriously, I am eternally honored and humbled by the voter support I've had over the years when making decisions that can never make everyone happy. I have always conducted myself with honesty, transparency, and passion for the job I loved for the past 27 and a half years. Thank you all for entrusting me with this beautiful gift of serving as your county clerk. I look forward to joining your ranks as an active and vocal citizen of our county. And with that, I'm gonna leave you with a chocolate bar signed with an XO because you can never have enough love or enough chocolate in your life. Thank you all very much. And I do have chocolate for everyone. Chair, is there a resolution that we need to vote on? Yes, we do. I would make that motion to move the resolution. Okay, anybody else wants to speak? Okay, we got it. We got a first, do we have a second? Second. Do we have a second? Second. Yeah, and we're gonna give this proclamation after the vote. And pretty much everything's been said that's on the proclamation. But I do have a question. We're Nagorno, Khabarak, where is the, it's a republic, and where is that located? It's actually in the middle of Azerbaijan. They're currently at war. I've been there observing, called part-set now, but I've been served election there for twice. Okay, thank you. We'll call through the vote. Supervisor Leopold. Hi. Friend. Hi. Person. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. We're going back to 8.1. We'll go to 8.1. I got it. So we're going to 8.1, which was pulled, which was item number? 45. 45. And go ahead, John. Approve the appointment of Trisha Weber to the position of County Clerk, as recommended by Supervisor Friend and Supervisor McPherson. I pulled this item, not because I have any problem with this. I stand strongly in support of Trisha Weber being our next County Clerk as an elected official, or as an office that is chosen by the people normally. I think it's important that we put this on the regular agenda and that people know about the great work that Trisha has done and will continue to do. She's been a leader, not only here within the office, but also involved with the state, the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. And we have recognized her and her work many times in employee recognition awards because of the outstanding service that she has provided. She is always a positive presence in that office, always willing to help out. And I would move the appointment of Trisha Weber as our County Clerk. Okay. Second. Mr. Chair. Yes. Yeah. Supervisor McPherson, I'd like to make a comment too about Trisha Weber. Nobody is more qualified and better suited to serve the people of Santa Cruz County as County Clerk. What all the things that we said about Gail Pellerin, Trisha Weber has been there, the right hand person for much of the time for Gail Pellerin. And nobody knows the department and the process better that she does for our County. And I'm just thrilled that she is going to, we have such a great replacement for an outstanding County Clerk as we who we've just discussed in Gail Pellerin's. I think Trisha Weber is going to do a phenomenal job for us and I welcome her to the County team. Okay. Any public comment? Does Trisha want to say anything? Okay. Thank you. I actually wrote this to be a part of public comment this morning. So I apologize if some of it doesn't sound quite right, but good afternoon, Chair Caput, Supervisors Leopold, Friend, Coonerty and McPherson. My name is Trisha Weber and I'm the Assistant County Clerk. I'd like to thank you all for the recommendation to be appointed as Santa Cruz's next County Clerk. On behalf of the County Clerk Elections Department, I would like to thank you for your support in making elections for Santa Cruz County transparent, accessible and secure for all County voters. And I'd personally like to thank you for all of the support and guidance that you have provided to me over the years and the trust that you have in me to continue to provide the necessary services to our County. I'd also like to take this moment to thank Gail Pellerin for her confidence in me. She is more than a boss, she is my friend. And for all the years that I have worked for her and alongside her, Gail has mentored me and pushed me outside my comfort zone by having me cross train across all functions in our department, encouraging me to pursue certifications and trainings, to serve and chair statewide committees and inviting me to be a part of this wonderful team. I know that I and the County Clerk Elections family will keep moving along the trail that Gail has blazed to keep bringing transparent and secure elections and all necessary services to this County. I'd also like to thank the County Clerk Elections team as well as my County family, the city clerks, schools and special districts and Santa Cruz County for your encouragement and support. They say it takes a village to run an election. I know that's a true statement and I'm so honored and blessed that my village includes all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I guess we'll need a motion, right? It's the motion's been made and it has been seconded. So I'll call for the vote. We'll start with Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Coonerty. Oh. Aye. I'm just keeping you guys on your toes. I apologize for that. So now we'll go with Supervisor Friend. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. We'll go next to item number nine, a presentation of a proclamation honoring Walter, Water Quality Division Director, John Ricker on his retirement from the County of Santa Cruz. John began his career with the County as a student worker in 1974 and advanced through positions in planning and environmental health, finishing up his career as the Water Quality Division Director. He has been involved in decades of regional planning efforts and his dedication to countywide water resources and watershed management has led to the protections for riparian habitat, fish habitat and water quality. John has served on numerous state and local committees and has won several awards, including a Watershed Hero Award from the Coastal Watershed Council and an Excellence in Environmental Health Award for the San Lorenzo Wastewater Management Program from the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health. John is widely viewed as a knowledgeable and approachable person and is highly regarded by municipal water agencies, regulatory agencies, the conservation community, the agricultural community, private well owners and his colleagues. Thank you so much, John, for all you've done on behalf of all the residents of Santa Cruz County in our community. And we'll now hear from board members and we'll go with Supervisor McPherson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is one of the kind of a hidden directorship, if you will, of Santa Cruz County, but we all know that water is the basis of our survival and how important it is to each and every one of us. The knowledge that Mr. and John Ricker has on water issues is phenomenal and it just is, it overheads, it's just outstanding and he knows every place in this county and what impact water of one type or another, whether it be rainfall or droughts and so forth, whether water-impacted occurrences happen, he has a good grip on what may be the result of whatever occurs. But I can't tell you how comfortable I feel when I'm uncertain about something to ask John Ricker what's the answer that he's got the answer every each and every time. It is really something that we're going to miss dearly, although I hope that he stays on as a consultant. I'm on the Santa Margarita Water Management Agency now that is coming up with a report by this time next year, one which has been done similarly in Mid County without the input and the expertise of John Ricker in seeing what this county's future is as far as water goes and it's a challenging subject that we have in Santa Cruz County. We've been so blessed to have John Ricker's input throughout the years and I can say that when I was first elected eight years ago, one of the first people I really wanted to speak about issues of what matters there, whether it be water itself, environmental protection and so on of our waterways, John Ricker is the person with the answer. I don't know how anyone person can replace what's in his mind about the water needs and opportunities that we have in this county. John, you're just a great friend. The guy is cool, calm and collected all the time and even in time of crisis of one type or another. And I just appreciate his demeanor, his approach and most of all his knowledge of what we have and what our needs will be in the future and how we might address them in the most efficient way. So John, you've been a tremendous asset to this county. I look forward to continuing to work with you as we complete some of these projects that are on the online. You're a good friend, a great friend and I really appreciate everything that you have done for this county. It's gonna mean so much for the residents of Santa Cruz County for years and years to come. Your expertise and your way of providing facts and figures in a most complex issue in a very level headed way is much appreciated. So thank you very much and good luck in your retirement but I hope I see more of you in the near future as well. So thank you very much, Mr. Rick. Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I mean, as I was explaining to our state officials during the fire, we are self sufficient when it comes to water. We don't have pipes piping in that resource to our county. And so the management of those systems and for both our environment and our consumption is critical. And John has just been so thoughtful, so steady, so engaged with all different parts of our community as we manage one of the most critical resources we have. I'm grateful for your many years of service. You've done it with, as Supervisor McPherson says, you do it with a steady and competent and thoughtful demeanor, quick to respond, quick to engage with the rest of the community. And we've been lucky to have you and I do hope as what Mr. McPherson says, you'll continue to stay on because your knowledge is so critical to keep at the forefront of our policymaking going forward. But I'm grateful for your service and I wish you all the best in retirement. And Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair. John Ricker, I have to say that it's often tossed around the loss of institutional knowledge and technical knowledge. But with you, I don't think that we can overstate how true that is. You have this ability and it's this sort of sage or guru like ability to explain remarkably technical issues to people like me as elected officials that really weren't designed to understand that level of technicality with the absolute patience of Job. I mean, it's remarkable how you have been able to guide the county and beyond the county. A number of the water districts, conservation resource and other organizations toward what is best for our county on a macro level, understanding the technicalities but being able to understand the interplay also with the players that are enacting these decisions and what our level of understanding is. Never with judgment, always with patience and always with this ability of distillation down to a level and understanding of why it matters to each of us. That's a real skill set. It's not necessarily that everything that everyone who has your level of technical understanding and know how has that ability to communicate either into that level. I mean, I admire everything that you've taught me in regards to what you do, but also when I turn to you for an answer, I know that it's right. There was never a question or a second guessing because it just felt as though your understanding of these issues was almost just superseded anything I could have. But thank you for the way that you have guided the county and so many other organizations throughout the county and districts toward what's right. And thank you also for learning what you've learned so that you can share it with those of us that didn't have the same level of knowledge but in a way that was just so productive. I wish that were something that we could replicate among so many other people. You will be missed for that. And it just is something that is, it's an understated comment of your skill set but it's really, I think one of the most beautiful attributes of what you've been given in life. So you're gonna be missed, John. Your work though is really is unmistakable and I appreciate the opportunity to have worked with you. Thank you, Chair. Welcome. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. You know, Santa Cruz County was at the forefront of looking at things like groundwater recharge and watershed management in the late 70s. And there was John Ricker. I'm not sure whether he was an employee yet or whether he was a student or, you know, if he was a tree, we would call him old growth because he's been around for a long time. And I don't mean that in a bad sense. He's just the county's water management policies have grown as John has grown. And, you know, the Santa Cruz County was at the forefront of looking at things like groundwater recharge way before others in California were looking at it, way before there was a Groundwater Sustainability Act. We included things in the 1980 general plan. We started requiring minimum parcel sizes to protect primary recharge zones. I mean, just some incredible work that John has been part of. And we know that water is, although critical to all of us, it's not always the thing that we agree on. When we're not fighting about transportation or something, we usually fight about water and people have different ideas. And John's been a steady presence throughout all those discussions, even when it was the county that people did trust and led to the formation of other organizations to be able to deal with the coming new money from Prop 50, Prop 50, right, Prop 50. And rather than being upset and just feeling like I don't wanna play with these other folks, John continued to work with everyone. And today he's, I've called him this before, the water sage in Santa Cruz County because he knows where the water comes from. He knows where it's going. He's familiar with all the research that's been done. And he's incredibly patient in being able to share that with folks. In addition to his work protecting our critical resources of water, he also gives his time to the Resource Conservation District where he's done tremendous amount of work there in protecting our natural environments. And he's done a great job of training his staff. And I see we have Sarah Ryan here. I think that's her behind that mask. And he's provided a space for her to take on different responsibilities and be prepared for this transition, which will be a big one. Several years back, that our County Lafco Commission decided to take on developing a set of water policies in which part of the policies were doing education. And we do a biannual event to talk about water. And one of my interest in pushing the Lafco to do that is because John puts together an annual water report that we all get every January that is a treasure trove of information. And for anyone trying to understand what's going on with water in Santa Cruz County to read that annual report, we'll put you ahead of most people in the County. And I wanted to figure out a way that we could actually publicize that work because it's information that people need, especially as we were making big decisions. When we started this, the city of Santa Cruz and the SoCal Creek Water District, I think had just, maybe it was right before the DSAL project blew up that we weren't sure about where things were going. And we held several very well attended events that John was very helpful in putting together, finding great speakers that allowed people to showcase the innovation that water districts are using here in Santa Cruz County to protect the resource, to ensure that we have a sustainable supply. So, and John's calm demeanor meant that even when he was facing personal tragedy with his house burning down, he was still chugging away on all of his water responsibilities. So, John, you've been a great presence here in the County long before I was on the board. Your presence will be felt long after all of us are on the board. And I wish you great success in whatever you choose to do next. And my best to your family, you have a wonderful wife and kids. And I hope you get a lot of time to spend with them and in your newly rebuilt home. So thank you for all your work. Yeah, John, years ago, I used to think dealing with water would be a very, just a technical job and having all the knowledge. But I came to realize that it's also a very controversial position you were in. It brings to mind that old saying that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. And you were in the middle of a lot of things when we were going through the drought. Saltwater intrusion, riparian corridors, flooding, and just so many different things. And you've been a real good manager of all of that. And here in our proclamation, it says you did have an extended sailing adventure. And when we give you the proclamation or whenever you're able to speak on it, and I'm curious to know how long and where you went, okay. So that brings us to any public comment in addition to what we've had, okay. I chair Caput and Board. Proud to stand here to give this and chime in on this proclamation for John. I came here not too long ago to this county to take over the director of environmental health. And John has been here as a mainstay over the years as directors have come and gone. They've also had some directors that had multiple hats were in public health director as well as health officer. And behind that was John giving the mainstay to the division and making sure they kept moving forward. Getting those budgets in, addressing those issues. Also, he took over as land use manager as well oversight. And he's played this very important role in the last year and a half to put together our local area management plan, which we unfortunately will not go to the board, the regional board until January, we hope, but we will be bringing back John to help us usher that through so that we will have a way to again, take on full responsibilities for all the septic systems in the county. But John wrote that document and it's been really quite a heavy load while he's been doing all of his other responsibilities. There's other people gonna speak about what he's done for our water. And you already spoken to it, but I just wanted to let you know some of the other responsibilities that we'll lose. But I think we have some, we're starting over the last year and a half to get some of those responsibilities away from him. But again, we really appreciate what the mainstay he's been for the county over the years. So thank you, John. Next Carlos and Jason. I think we have Sierra's coming. Sorry, yeah. No, you're first. Go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Sierra Ryan. I've had the pleasure to work with John for the past six years as my boss and my mentor. In normal circumstances, we would have filled this room with people wanting to wish John well on this new adventure. Considering that we couldn't, I reached out in advance to a number of his colleagues and I have a bunch of comments that I would like to read from them to John. In no particular order, I'm gonna start with John Ambrose from NOAA Fisheries. That's a regulatory agency. Let John know that I wish him all the best. He was someone who instilled trust and confidence that goes a very long way for a regulatory biologist who is unfamiliar with the streams and rivers of Santa Cruz County, as I was when I first started working there in 2000. John did not come across as the flailing project proponent, but as a calm truth teller. When he talked, I listened. Santa Cruz is losing a great employee and we will be poured for this transition. Thank you, John. You are fantastic. Next, Steve Palmezzano is Director of Public Works and Utilities for City of Watsonville. On behalf of the City of Watsonville, thank you for your tireless efforts to protect our water quality, slews and local environment. You've been an unsung hero for our community and we are grateful for your many years of service. From Linda Wilson from the Water Advisory Commission, no one is indispensable, but John is as close as anyone comes. We all really depend on him. He is incredibly knowledgeable, has his finger on the pulse of Santa Cruz water issues, and somehow manages to remain calm and diplomatic. We have to let him go, but we have to find a way to keep him close. Nancy Macy from the Valley Women's Club, I would very much like to offer my thanks and congratulations for a challenging job well done for a lot of years. Chris Berry from the City of Santa Cruz Water Department, also the Water Advisory Commission and Fish and Wildlife Advisory Commission. John has been a stabilizing presence in this topsy-turvy world of Santa Cruz County water resource management for many years. He has somehow managed to balance many competing interests and maintain credibility amongst disparate parties while working tirelessly for the benefit of the public trust and our natural resources. He has also been a great mentor to the next generation of watershed stewards and I am exceedingly grateful for having had the opportunity to work with him. Sherry Bobby from the Water Advisory Commission. Dear John, it has been my absolute pleasure to work with you for the last 20 years. Your breadth of knowledge is stunning. Your wit and easygoing style adds to the fun. I will miss you and I thank you for everything you have taught me over these years. Brett Harmon from the Scotts Valley Water District. John has been an anchor and a beacon of the water management in the county for decades. I have relied on his infinite knowledge and ability to see the big picture and willingness to get around the table to tackle difficult situations. He will undoubtedly leave a void that is hard to fill but I am so excited for him to close this chapter and start another one. Ron Duncan from the Soquel Creek Water District. I think of John as our local John Muir of County Widewater. His passion and care for the environment and people runs deep. And then finally, I actually have a resolution from the board of directors of the Power of Valley Water Management Agency that they asked me to read on their behalf. Whereas John Ricker, Water Resources Division Director is retiring following 46 years of service to Santa Cruz County, including the Power of Valley. And whereas John Ricker has served with integrity and competence on PV Waters Ad Hoc Basin Management Committee in 2010 through 2012 and is presently serving on the Ad Hoc Sustainable Groundwater Planning Advisory Committee. And whereas John Ricker has served on the board of directors of the Santa Cruz County Resource Conservation District since 2000. And whereas John Ricker has made significant contributions to the success of PV Water over the last several decades and provided thoughtful and meaningful input on water resource issues. Now therefore, let it be resolved that the directors of Power of Valley Water Management Agency express their heartfelt appreciation for John Ricker for his contributions and dedication to water resources management over the course of his career. And then just lastly for myself, I like everyone. I'm so grateful for John's mentorship and his leadership. His steady and calm, we've heard these words many times now. I'm finding steady, calm and honest demeanor and approach to challenges has been a stabilizing force in this chaotic world of water resources. And we will all have to step up to fill the void. Thank you. Hi, Jeff. Howdy, Jeff Gaffney, Director of County Parks. I too wanted to thank John on behalf of the County Parks Department and the citizens of Santa Cruz County for his support and direction and advice and overall balance in helping us develop and protect the natural resources both within our parks and throughout the county. He's always been a great partner and sage advice. All the words that have been spoken are all absolutely true. And also his partnership with the RCD, which has been tremendous for us as well. So thank you, John. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Tim Carson. I'm the Program Director at the Regional Water Management Foundation. We are a part of the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. And I've had the pleasure of working with John for almost 13 years now. John played an instrumental role in the establishment of the foundation. He and a handful of other agency and organization leaders saw the potential for this new foundation as a way to access much needed grant funding for water resources, planning and projects. And that's come to pass. More than $20 million in grant funding awards, more than 80 projects done to date and more funding and more projects on the way. And I can't overstate the importance of John's role in that effort, both as a member of the steering committee to guide that as well as as a member of the board. I've also witnessed his contributions towards groundwater sustainability planning, most directly in our work in the Mid County Groundwater Agency, but certainly as well in the Santa Margarita Basin and down in Pajaro. As previously stated, you know, John is always a voice of reason at the table. He brings this encyclopedic knowledge of local water issues that is really unmatched and certainly has the respect and admiration of all of his colleagues. So when I think of my time working together with John over almost the 13 years now, it's amazing to think that that's just really a fraction of John's tenure at the county and all that he has done here. So he will be greatly missed, but it's really with gratitude and much appreciation. We say thank you very much, John, for all of your contributions and wish you the very best in retirement. And as others have stated, we hope we see you again. Thank you. Okay. Any web comments or anything? We actually have Director Mimi Hall that would like to say a few words, Mimi. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Thank you. John, I hope you know what an incredible resource that you have been for Santa Cruz County. And I know everybody is talking about your contributions to water resources, natural resources and safeguarding the environment, which are absolutely true. The other thing that you've done is you've brought stability and leadership and administrative support from the highest levels to our environmental health department over the years and especially over the last few years. So I just wanted to thank you so much for your contributions to our community as well as our agency and department. And I hope that you find some time to do exactly what you wanna do each and every day when you wake up, even if that means that some of your time means coming back to us for a bit. So thank you for all you've done. Okay. Thank you. Any others? And that's it. Thank you. Chair Caput, I'd like to just thank John personally for your service to the County for being such a great example of a public servant. And on behalf of the years I spent in Watsonville, I wanna thank you for the role you played in helping to save the Parle Valley Water Management Agency when it almost, well, it did implode and we almost lost everything. And then when later, when we adopted our Basin Management Plan, I know that you played a very hidden but important role in doing that. And I wanna thank you on behalf of the Watsonville and South County community for the work you did I know many people don't realize, but I do. And I know what you did and the help you gave us. Thank you so much. John, this is a, this is another heavy hit for the County. You know, when I think about you, it's one thing to have all of the knowledge that you have. It's another thing to demonstrate the generosity of spirit that you show every day in sharing that knowledge with people. I have personal knowledge of that. You've helped me a number of times over the years to understand things, we talk through things. And again, your generosity of spirit in helping others and teaching others and sharing your knowledge has been really, really, really important and helpful. Thank you very much for your public service. Wish you the best in retirement and always. Good luck. Assemblyman Stone, did he get called away? I believe he got called away. I do know he did want to comment too. So I'm sure he'll reach out to you after the meeting. Well, that's very touching. Thank you very much for your thoughts and for the honor today. Maybe I'll relax a little bit and just talk about the sailing expedition since you asked about that. This is actually the second time I retired. I started work here in 1974 as a student worker and actually after the first seven years was a little burned out working on the general plan and the watershed plan and everything else. So I took off at the end of 1981 and sailed out of Santa Cruz Harbor and ended up in Spain three years later. So that was a pretty fantastic trip exploring the areas. Somehow I couldn't stay out of the water issues. I researched watershed management. Watershed management is what keeps the Panama Canal going. I discovered as well as researching watersheds and Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Rhode Island, the Portugal, the Azores, a lot of interesting stuff going on around the world. We're not the only one, but as Supervisor Leopold mentioned we really have been on the cutting edge a lot in this county. I was doing watershed management and integrated regional water management long before the state ever knew what that was. And fortunately, the state has followed our lead and has supported that with funding and with legislation. We did go from quite a bit of conflict to working together. I remember back in 1975, I actually wrote the county's protest of the city of Santa Cruz Water Rights application for the Felton Diversion Dam. It's good to know that we are now supporting their most recent application for water rights and that that includes bypass flows for that dam that are back at the level that we had requested in 1975. So things do eventually come around and we have been working well together as water agencies and environmental resource agencies for a number of years here. I really wanna thank sort of my co-conspirators in setting up the regional water management foundation, Laura Brown and Karen Christensen who are no longer with us, but we're really right there leading the charge, setting that up and setting the stage for bringing all of our water agencies and our environmental resource agencies together and really working closely together from then on. And this community really sticks together. Really, I really found that when my house burned down in 2017 and the tremendous outpouring of support from our county family and the water folks, the cards, the gift certificates from all the different county departments and the water agencies was really heartwarming and really felt supported by the community. I wanna thank my staff and my wife and my colleagues. When our first daughter was born, my wife retired from a management position at HSA and has basically kept the house going and dinner on the table and allowed me to go to all these night meetings and all the trips to Sacramento. So I couldn't have done it without Bernadette's support. My staff has been great. They're self-directed, they're informed, they're energetic and I really feel like I'm more of a consultant to them than telling them what to do. They know what to do and they do a great job doing it. And then of course my colleagues, Tim with the Regional Water Management Foundation and all the different water managers are really work together as a team to move things forward in Santa Cruz County. So I expect everybody will keep working together. It's important to keep sharing information, keeping our stakeholders informed, engaging with our stakeholders even though they may not always agree with us. That's been very successful over the years that approach to do that. I'm very happy that Sierra is gonna be sort of stepping up at least on an interim basis as I step out. She's, that annual water resources report has actually been written by Sierra the last two years. So it will continue in good hands. So again, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. For John Rickard. Second. Second. Yes. Second. And we have first and second and then right after the vote we'll give it, we'll give you the proclamation and I still didn't get an answer where the sailing adventure, where you went to. I thought the research response was the way it was. I ticked it off. Okay. Anyway, we have called the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Unity. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. And here you go, John, we'll give it to you. And Chair, am I correct in assuming we're going to take a lunch break now? I'm hoping that's the answer. Yes. I would suggest that we break for closed session for an hour, if that's acceptable. So we would come back at 2.30 for this 1.30 scheduled items. That'll be fine. Whatever you think. Okay. Right. So we will come back. We'll break for closed session at this time. Did they vote? On proclamation. Oh, they didn't need to vote. Did they vote on the proclamation? Okay. Then we will come back for items 17 and item 18 at 2.30. Okay, 17 and 18. Yes. Okay. This one's for John. Okay. The Board of Supervisors shall, well, no. Shall recess in order to permit the Board of Directors. Of the County of Santa Cruz flood control and water conservation district zone five, to convene and carry out regularly scheduled meetings. This is item number 17. And we'll go back to the other items after we're done with this and others. Okay. I'm ready. Do we need a roll call? Yes, we need a roll call. So I'll go ahead and call the roll. Sorry to keep everybody waiting. Director Leopold. Here. Friend? Here. Coonerty? Here. MacPherson? Here. Jaffe? Here. Bertrand? Here. Chair Caput? Oh, I'm sorry. I said here earlier. Okay. Here. Is Director Jaffe on the line? No. Okay. Thank you. Who's the chair of this? Chair Caput is the director, is the head chair of this. Okay. So you will be running the zone five. Do you have the agenda? No, I don't. I don't have the agenda. You want to take over, John? Well, I just don't know. And may I remind people on teams, unless you're talking, please mute yourself. Way to do it, Greg. If you'd like to. Okay. Consideration of additions and deletions to the consent and regular agenda. No, no item. There are no changes to the agenda. Thank you, chair. Okay. Oral communications. Any person may address the zone five's board of directors during its oral communication period. Speakers must not exceed, well, three minutes. And directed to an item, not if you have something to say directed to something not on the today's agenda must be within the jurisdiction of the board. Board members will not take actions or respond immediately to any oral communication presented that may choose to follow up at a later time individually or at a subsequent district agenda meeting. Okay. Item number four, approval of zone five meeting minutes. I move approval. Second. I'm sorry, chair. Are you going to have oral communication? You read it, but we didn't have any. Yeah. You should at least ask for it. Okay. Do we have any oral communications on this item? Seeing none. Okay. And we have. Now we're at the minutes. Yes. And I made a motion to accept the minutes. And we have a second. So I'll go ahead and call the verb. And that would be directed Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bertrand. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. Number six, well, number five action on consent agenda. Number six as board of directors of Santa Cruz County Flood Control and Water Conservation District Zone five, accept and file the fourth quarter report of the fiscal year 2019-2020, zone five expansion construction revenue as recommended by the district engineer. Aye. Aye. Okay. I'm sorry, chair. These are now consent items we've switched over this year. So all we just need to do is vote on the consent items, which is number six and seven, then we can have the regular. Okay. I would move the consent agenda. Okay. Thank you. No second. I'm sorry, was that Bertrand who second it? Thank you. Correct me what you mean. Okay, so I'll call for the vote now. Well, we'll see if there's any public comment. Seeing none. Great. Director Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. McPherson. Aye. Bertrand. Aye. And chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. And that takes care of number six and seven, right? Correct. Now we can move to number eight. So we go now to regular agenda item number eight as board of directors, Santa Cruz County flood control and water conservation district zone five. Consider approval of the 2021 schedule of zone five meetings as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. So typically we have every quarter we have a meeting with the changes of the rules and regulation. We limited the number of meetings for per year which is sufficient to run the businesses for the items that come up for zone five. And if we ever need additional meetings we can call for a special meeting as well. So the meetings are for March 23rd, June 8th, September 28th and December 7th. And the June meeting is for budgetary. Well, I would move approval of the calendar. Second. We have a second. And I want to thank commissioner Bertrand. You've been here all day waiting for this. I wouldn't have missed the morning part, it was amazing. Okay. We have a first and second if we can call the roll. Director Leopold. Aye. Goonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bertrand. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes your adjournment. Thank you. Going back to the Board of Supervisors regular meeting and agenda and I think we are now on item 10. Correct. Item 10, right? Yes. Public hearing to consider a resolution approving amendment to the unified fee schedule UFS as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer. So we have, I think we have Trish McDaniels, Trish Daniels who's been doing the staff report. Let's give her a minute. She may have not realized zone five had finished. Chair Caput. Jason, just let me know. We had the 130 scheduled PG and E matter that we should be doing before we do the unified fee schedule. So we should go to that item, which is item number 18. So we'll wait on item number 10 and we'll go to number 18. And that'll allow Trish to get out here after we do item number 18. Any action on 10 at all? Yeah. We will take that subsequent. We'll come back to it. We're going to come back to it. Okay. So now we skip to 18. Yes. Skip to 18. Consider a resolution to support the County of Santa Cruz filing a formal complaint against PG and E with the California public utilities commission and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of Supervisor McPherson and Supervisor Coonerty. I'll turn it over to Supervisor McPherson and Supervisor Coonerty for your comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Supervisor McPherson. I want to begin by thanking Supervisor Coonerty for joining me and bringing this item to the board. We do not take this request lightly and we acknowledge that the actions we're going to be asking the board to support are serious, very serious in nature. That's because the violations of the local and state laws by PG and E and its contractors are serious enough to merit action by our County on behalf of all of our residents for their, not only for their safety, but for their property rights and the health of their watershed. And I do say all of our residents because God forbid if the wildfire fires take place in other districts in our County in the future, we need to be on record of holding PG and E accountable for how it goes about its business. Even before PG and E began its operation in the CZU burn area, we faced a great threat of debris flows. That threat has been made worse by PG and E's disregard of best management practices in our opinion, including the lack of erosion control, the disruption of sensitive habitat areas, and the violation of timber harvest laws. As noted in our four notices of violations from Cal Fire, which they have issued to PG and E since late October, as well as the warning letter from the coastal commission last month. PG and E's uncom permitted actions have exacerbated the threat of debris by debris flow by further destabilizing the burned area, the burn, the fire areas that have been scorched. But let's, let's be clear on this. We welcome responsible vegetation management by PG and E to reduce wildfire risk. But that's not what's happened here. These violations as documented by Cal Fire, the coastal commission and our own County speak for themselves. And as mentioned in our report, they're really reckless and egregious, in my opinion. Because PG and E is primarily regulated by the public, the state public utilities commission. We are accustomed to thinking that we as a County cannot significantly influence or respond to PG and E's actions on a local level. But that isn't really the case here. Not only were there documented violations of our local coastal program, but there were violations of the state public resources code, all of which could be investigated by our district attorney for the potential filing of criminal charges and or civil penalties. And by taking the additional step of filing a formal complaint with the P with the PUC, we can seek full reasonable review. We can seek full review by PG and E's, by their own only regulator, that is the PUC. Lastly, I have to say that on several occasions during the past few years, we have repeatedly received pledges from PG and E to do a better job for their community. But as noted in the four notices of violation by Cal Fire, which they have issued to PG and E since late October, as well as a warning letter from the Coastal Commission last month, PG and E's unpermitted actions have, they're just really increasing the situation to make it worse. Not only, I want to also say that on several occasions during the past few years, we have repeatedly received pledges from PG and E to do better by our community. In 2018, they conducted a massive vegetation management with virtually no notice. Then in 2019, their poorly executed public safety power shut off events left thousands of people without power for days. There are prime examples of PG and E's prioritization of freedom of removal and power shut offs over infrastructure hardening. And that's a real concern to all of us. Now we have these new violations when added to the others ultimately represent a violation of public trust in my view. The trust that PG and E has, the safety and well being of our community at heart, which had a shown time again, it does not. I would like to hear from my colleagues and members of the public first, but when it's appropriate, I would like to move the recommended actions that we have put in place. We have letters of support from our Fish and Wildlife Commission, Supervirens, and the Valley Women's Club, as well as more than 90 emails from our residents. I want to thank you for that information or for that presentation allowing me to give that. I think this is a very serious violation and I'll turn it over to Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Supervisor McPherson. That's a great overview of the issues that our community and our environment confronts today. I believe in vegetation management. I believe in PG and E's work to obviously restore the infrastructure damaged by the fire. However, it's got to be done within the context and rules that have been established in order to balance the needs of private property owners, the environment, and public infrastructure. And so I'm obviously supportive of the action. I think it just we need to make sure that PG and E is aligning with the other agencies and complying with the rules that we've established in our community. And most importantly, working closely with the communities and the property owners who have already experienced trauma and do not need to be again having to go through another painful process with which they can't get their voice heard and protect the few resources that they have left. Do board members have any questions? Chair, I don't have any questions, but I think that we have seen in the past that although PG and E is considered a public utility, it acts like a private corporation and it takes great deal of action on the part of local government to represent the needs of the local community to get either the PUC or PG and E to respond to local community. I applaud the activists who've been bringing this to our attention. I thank my colleagues for bringing this forward and I think we should do everything we can to hold PG and E responsible for these actions. Okay. Any other comments? I'll add to that. I support this and I'll help you in the future on it. Thank you. Now we'll see if there's public comment. Okay. Public comment. Anyone wish to speak on this item, please come to the podium. We'll give you three minutes. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go next from Lompico and I'm also on the Fish and Wildlife Commission. I'm speaking for myself. PG and E's position, their excuse is that the rules don't apply because they are not selling the timber. This is disingenuous and insulting for several reasons. They have historically complied with these regulations probably because logging operations, whether it's done for profit or not, has the same impacts to local roads and to our watershed. And two, the CZU fire has made an even more, made it even more important to comply with these regulations at a minimum. Post-fire, the threat of erosion is far greater than ordinary circumstances. Number three, there is no exigency that might justify working outside of the rules. What could be their justification for rushing in and aggressively removing so many trees, particularly when the threat of debris flow is such a major concern? Would any one of you gentlemen be surprised when this work results in a devastating, when the areas that they've worked in result in a devastating debris flow? I doubt it. Why? Because it fits the pattern. Hinkley, San Bruno, Santa Rosa, Paradise, the behavior of PG&E over many decades shows a pattern of depraved indifference for the consequences of its criminal actions. Although this resolution is a commendable step to try to protect our residents and resources, thank you so much to Mr. McPherson and Mr. Coonerty for bringing this forward. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. The problem ultimately is that we are in an abusive relationship with a partner we will never be able to change. If you aren't already, I hope you will explore the possibility of maintaining our own infrastructure for the Monterey Bay community power area. I think this would be a boon to our local economy. It would bring good jobs. It would be accountability. We would have local electives potentially to petition. And I think it would... I mean, ultimately, we're not going to be safe until we end this abusive relationship. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your service on the commission. Thank you. You know, I'm glad I'm James Union Whitman. I'm glad I'm not a bird because I would have just fly right into this. I've never seen plastic so clean. Let's see. Maybe I don't have to speak later for item 18.1. I just wanted to say that twice in the past three months in the city of Santa Cruz, trying to provide some background information like an abstract, I was cut off by the speaker. I am concerned. I'm more concerned during a Zoom call that that may happen because I was listening to these presidings and my phone service was cut off three times for some weird reason. But my comments about PG&E, we kind of need to look into a little bit of history. So it's my understanding that there's a lot more trees being cut that seem to be right. Well, during the son of shrub presidency, and that's in the early 2000s, Dick Cheney helped pass legislation where after a fire, clear cutting was allowed. If you look at the clear cutting that's happened all throughout the United States, when you fly over the United States, it's really quite devastating. So why should we be surprised when it's perfectly legal to do these things? So sometimes these proceedings seem like a wagging the dog kind of situation because, I don't know, it seems like all this stuff is public knowledge. But who actually owns PG&E and who actually has great influence over Congress down to all city and county councils throughout the United States? Well, the Rand Corporation was funded in 1948 and they're mostly controlled by the Rothschilds. And I bring up the Rothschilds because one of the tiny corporations that the Rothschilds own is PG&E. So I think it's great that we're bringing up health concerns for everybody, but there are some other health concerns that PG&E is complicit about. And I know it's not my place to directly speak about those things now. So hopefully this isn't the last time that members of the public are allowed to talk to you guys face to face. That's about all I have to say. Thank you. Good afternoon, Kevin Collins, Long Pico Canyon. I dove into this issue in detail in 2018 when I filed a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission against actually asking the commission to open up its own rules to reconsideration because it had so many fire ignitions from antiquated equipment. And I discovered that I was dealing with this maze of an agency. If anybody's ever heard of the novel The Castle by Franz Kafka, that's the California Public Utilities Commission. Absolutely amazing maze with sub-agencies and after sub-agencies. And what it does best is it's the place where good ideas go to die, basically. So for example, if an electrical circuit is repaired, the standards for which it's repaired are those that existed at the time it was first built, meaning that circuits are never updated until the utility decides to completely reconstruct them. That's why we have so many antiquated, outdated electrical circuits that are so fire-prone. And it's why we will always have public safety power shutoffs until this regulation set changes. I'd really like to thank Supervisors McPherson and Coonerty for putting this item on the agenda because I think Santa Cruz County will be the first county to stand up in this way and insist that, you know, the prescriptions from Cal Fire from the Coastal Commission, our regional water quality control board is getting involved in this matter. And there is no way to control PG&E other than in a broad sense. I'm working with colleagues all over the state. I have a colleague who lives, owns 14 acres on the boundary of Yosemite National Park. PG&E has been trying to cut down his 500-year-old incense cedars for years. They keep pestering him. They cut his gate. They try to force their way in. The same thing happened to people in Bonny Doon and Boulder Creek when PG&E rushed in before the evacuation order was even lifted and started felling all the trees on people's residential lots, whether they were burned or not. That kind of behavior is just beyond the pale. And I really appreciate the fact that my county is standing up to it. Thank you very much. Mr. Collins, since this will be the last time that I'll be sitting up here while, as a member of the Board of Supervisors, I just want to thank you for your decades-long advocacy for the forest up in the San Lorenzo Valley. You have been consistently bringing us good information about what they're doing about trees, and you made us aware of some of these issues as early as anyone. And I just want to appreciate your work in protecting the environment. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, John. I regret to see you retiring from the board, but I'm sure you'll have a future ahead of you. My name is Jane Meale, and I am pro-temperate. I want to pull it down so we can hear you. No, the microphone. Oh, okay. I'm Jane Meale, and I am the president pro-temperate for the Valley Women's Club. And I'm here to tell you that the Board is strongly, strongly endorsing this resolution. The findings of the Cal Fire Coastal Commission and also the other relevant agencies all have supported what we have heard from our members and also the San Lorenzo Valley residents that the way PG&E is removing the trees is life-endangering and detrimental to the environment. For these reasons, I thank you very much for bringing up this resolution and supporting it. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Kristin Sandel, and I'm a constituent from Ben Lomond, and I'm here to urge you to support the resolution to begin action against PG&E. I can't stress enough how important this is. Since the CZU fire was contained in September, residents in the burn areas have been subjected to basically what amounts to an illegal logging operation on their properties, many times without their knowledge or their permission. And against all best environmental practices for fire recovery, we're losing thousands of trees which would have survived the fires, habitat for the surviving wildlife, not to mention increasing the danger of triggering potentially lethal debris flows as California has seen previously. PG&E has repeatedly disregarded notices of violation, four notices of violation from Cal Fire and indicated a really shocking level of contempt for both the residents they are traumatizing and the environmental regulations of Santa Cruz County. I'd like to thank supervisors McPherson and Coonerty for introducing this action to protect constituents. It's time to hold PG&E accountable. Please pass this resolution. Thank you. And I'd also like to take a moment to thank John Leopold for his service, many years of service to the county. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Maureen Flash. I'm a constituent of Ben Lomond. And I just want to say how very proud I am of Bruce Fiersen for the detailed layout of the violations that PG&E has been committing and of giving such a detailed picture on a personal level when one goes up to view these areas that are being impacted, everything that he's saying you can see in evidence. There are trees that are not burned, trees that are mature, trees that are left to further endanger a debris flow to an area. And I'd just like to say that this has already been traumatizing, an already traumatized community. People came back with an energy to rebuild their community. And in the face of this, feel further beaten down by a public utility, well, public service, the PG&E should be a service to the community. And instead, feeling like here's another fight that we have to fight in order to be able to reestablish ourselves. So thank you for your time. And thank you for really standing up for your time. Really standing up for your communities. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any online comments? Do we have any web comments? No, we do not. Please public comment. I'll bring it back to the board for discussion of action. That's right. I'm in person. I'd like to pass it to the resolution to support the County of Santa Cruz filing a formal complaint against PG&E with the California State Public Utilities Commission. That's my motion. Second. Coonerty. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. And Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. And then now we'll go back to number 10. Thank you. Okay. Public hearing to consider resolution approving amendments to the unified fee schedule, UFS is outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer. Mr. Chair, I think there's a second part to that motion about a letter to the district attorney. Yes, Supervisor McPherson, there was a second part to the resolution, but it was not necessary for you to specifically state both parts of the recommendation. I think the motion was read as a, except the recommended actions. Right. Okay. Okay. We are moving on to item number 10, unified fee schedule. And I am, I know Trish just came into the, into the chambers and hopefully she will be listening right now and come right on in. This is a fairly standard year end action that we're taking. And just waiting for Trish another moment. I see that Jeff Gaffney is also on the, on the teams. So yes, Jeff is here too. I don't know that Jeff is prepared to do this. It's one item. We can do it. So let's, you're muted Jeff. A few technical difficulties today, but I'm fully prepared. You guys let me know. Take it away because there's no one else here in the chambers. A modest increase in the hourly rates. We were only able to do prior to this large chunks of time. So giving COVID, we moved hourly rates and kept them within regional standards. That's basically what we're doing now with the unified fee schedule increase. I think we're the only ones on. I don't have any questions. Maybe we should see if there's any public comment. If the chair would like to read the action into record, or if the assistant county council, no, the public hearing to consider a resolution, approving amendments to the unified fee schedule as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer. There's a resolution in the mid year revisions. So I think a chair, you just need to open the public hearing. Well, I'll take that opportunity to open the public hearing to see if there's any comment. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to our board for action. I would be prepared to move the recommended action. That's on item 10. First and second, then now a public hearing closed. And we'll call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. McPherson. Aye. And chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. That takes us number 11. We're going to defer. Is that correct? Ms. Benson. Yeah. I don't think your microphone is on. Yes. There's been a request to defer item 11 to the January 12th meeting. To the next meeting. Yeah. To the January 12th meeting. Yeah. Do we need to take a vote on that? Yes. Then I would move that we defer this item until January 12th. Second. Second. Okay. Any public comment? See none. Call for a vote. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes to defer. We'll skip to number 12. Continue public hearing to consider report on the year 2021 growth goal. Continued from our October 6th, 2020 meeting. Adopt a resolution establishing a growth rate of 0.25% for the year 2021 in the unincorporated portion of the county and authorized planning staff to file the CEQA notice, CEQA notice of exemption as outlined in the memorandum of the planning director. Okay. Good to see you. Good afternoon supervisors. Thanks for waiting. Yes, of course. So as you know, the county's growth management system was instituted in 1979. Sorry. Just ran upstairs. I need to catch my breath. Following the adoption of measure J. As part of the growth management system each year, the county is required to set an annual growth goal for the upcoming year. Your board first considered the proposal for the 2021 growth goal on October 6th and continued the public hearing on the matter to today pending the planning commission's review. The 2021 growth goal report is before you again today for consideration and has been updated with data collected through November 1st, 2020. Take a moment. So this report provides an update on the current status of the 2020 residential building permit allocations. In order to support affordable housing goals, the county continues to exempt affordable housing units, including ADUs from the need to obtain permit allocations under the county's growth management regulations. So these totals only include market rate units. And as you can see by this graph here, this year about exactly 65 allocations have been granted as of November 1st. If demand continues at the current rate, 69 allocations will be granted by the end of the year, which is up from 56 allocations granted last year. However, 45 of these units are part of the permanent room housing projects. So aside from the PRH units, only 20 allocations have been granted this year. And that's projected to be 24 if the same rate continues through the end of the year. Demand for allocations continues to remain low compared to previous decades. And we anticipate that there will be more than enough permits available for the remainder of the year. A total of 186 unused allocations from this year are projected to carry over and be available for 2021, which is in accordance with policy 3.2 of the general plan housing element. As we discussed at the October meeting, the growth goal report recommends that the population growth rate be set at 0.25% for calendar year 2021, which is consistent with the state's recent growth rates and constitutes our fair share of population growth as dictated by measure J. And I just wanted to make a quick note here that the October meeting, the board asked staff if the county has ever set a similar growth rate before. And I just wanted to provide a quick update on that and confirm that the information that I provided earlier was correct based on our research. This is the first time the growth rate has ever been set at 0.25%. And therefore it's the lowest ever growth rate the county has set since measure J was implemented. This low rate is largely reflection of our declining population estimates in our county, as well as the state's population growth rate. Like while California's population is still increasing, the state's growth rate has slowed down in recent years. So the 0.25% growth rate would result in an allocation of 131 market rate units available for the year 2021. Distributed, this would be distributed between the urban and rural areas of the county at a 75% to 25% ratio. With the addition of unused allocations from 2020 that will be carried over to 2021, a total of 317 market rate allocations will be available for 2021. So although this growth rate will be set lower next year, the total number of allocations would still be over three times higher than the demand of allocations we've seen each year over the last decade. And that's largely since the 2008-2010 housing crisis. So the 0.25% growth rate should still be sufficient to meet housing demand for next year, housing demand for housing development next year. Another item that was discussed at the last meeting was the number of unpermitted units affected by recent fires and how that might impact our growth management system. As a result of the CZU August lightning complex fires in our county, we've seen unprecedented levels of destroyed and damaged structures estimated over 900 homes. And although we don't know the exact number of unpermitted units at this time. In light of this disaster, staff recommends that the reconstruction of unpermitted residential units that were destroyed or damaged by the fires are exempted from our growth management system. Exempting these units is consistent with county code since it would essentially maintain rather than increase population in these areas. And this exemption has been added to the resolution before you. As we discussed at the October meeting, Governor Newsom signed SB 330 into law last year to help address the state's housing crisis. And a key provision of this law prevents jurisdictions from limiting the number of housing permits or population within affected county areas. And affected county areas are defined as census designated places that lie wholly within the census defined urbanized areas. In Santa Cruz County, this includes the following CDPs, Live Oak, Paso Tiempo, Paradise Park, and a MESTI, which is shown in blue on this map. In accordance with the new state law, staff recommends that Santa Cruz County does not enforce the measure drag growth goal limit on residential allocations within these affected county areas while the temporary statute is in place. And that will be from January 1st, 2020 to January 1st, 2025. This item has also been added to the resolution before you today. And I also wanted to just add a little clarification to that to make sure that everyone understands that the new state law only prevents us from enforcing our growth management system or growth goal and only in the specific areas shown. So all other aspects of Measure J unrelated to building permits and population, including the county's affordable housing requirements are not impacted by this bill. In addition, staff will continue to track these Measure J allocations as well as subsequent building permit issuance throughout the county, including in these affected areas shown for reporting purposes. So even though we can't limit the building permits, we're still planning to record and report on these permits as we normally would because the data is useful outside of simply managing growth. It helps us understand and identify permitting and housing trends in our region. As noted previously in recent years, the number of building permits for new housing units has not come close to the county's growth goal. So it's not expected that this provision of SB 330 will impact the county's volume of permits for new housing. The Planning Commission considered the proposed 2021 growth goal on October 28th and recommended a growth goal of 0.25% for approval by your board. The Commission also recommended the filing of the Sequa notice of exemption for the 2021 growth goal and a categorical exemption form has been prepared and is included as an attachment in your packet. Staff therefore recommends that your board, one, resume the public hearing to consider the report on the year 2021 growth goal and close the public hearing. Two, adopt the attached resolution establishing a year 2021 growth goal of 0.25% for the unincorporated portion of the county. And three, authorize the filing of the Sequa NOE with the clerk of the board. This concludes the staff presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions. I don't have any questions. Supervisors have comments or questions. Mr. Chair, I thank you. I appreciate your sprint up to the fifth floor that you made sure I just want to make sure that folks know that the rebuilding permits in the fire recovery are not part of these numbers. I understand that there was up to 20 in one day requests for rebuilding in that fire zone at the end of last week. So that's a different set of criteria and just to make sure those people don't get worried that they're going to be limited into what they might be able to do. We're working hard to get those folks who lost their homes on the right path to rebuilding and I want to really thank planning for all its efforts to expedite that process. I think it's going to be a very successful one and I think it's going to be a learning one as well as we move forward in the county. So thank you very much for your presentation. Any other comments? Okay. Public comment. Any public comments? Anything on the web? Nothing. I would do approval of the recommended actions. Second. Okay. All the rule. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Brent. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. Great. Thanks. Thank you. That takes us now to what number 13? Public hearing to consider application 2012-68, a proposal to rezone a 25-acre parcel from special use to timber production located 200 feet north of Empire Grade, approximately a half mile south of the intersection of Empire Grade and Smith Grade, confirm the proposal is exempt from requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the Planning Director. Okay. And we'll go ahead with the report. If you're not at a breath, it means you haven't tried hard enough to get here. Good afternoon, Chair. And this was in the fire? Close to the fire, but I don't think it was impacted by the fires. Okay. Good afternoon, Chair and County Supervisor. My name is Sheila Bagley. I'm the planner for the proposed project, 201-268. The purpose of this public hearing is to consider an application to rezone one parcel of record from special use SU zone district to timber production, TP zoning designation. The parcel is approximately 25 acres in size, located 200 feet north of Empire Grade and approximately half a mile south of the intersection of Empire Grade and Smith Grade. The parcel is undeveloped and historically has been used for timber harvesting. Last harvest was in 1994, when timber harvesting was allowed use in SU zone district. But since then, County Code has been revised to only allow timber harvesting in certain zoning districts, and SU is no longer one of those zone districts that allows for timber harvesting. An owner can petition to rezone a land to TP zone districts that meets the following three criteria that is also known as adjacency rezoning. The first criteria is that the property must be contiguous to another property that meets the definition of timber land. It is zone TP and also owned by the same owner. The subject parcel meets this requirement. The second requirement is that the property must meet the definition of timber land with the minimum growth of 15 cubic feet per year. Per forester's letter, the subject property has an annual growth of 99 cubic feet per year and meets the definition of timber land. The third requirement is that the uses on the parcel, such as watershed, wildlife, habitat, and timber management, must comply with the timber production zone uses. And forester's letter verifies that compatibility. On October 28th of this year, Planning Commission held a public hearing and adopted a resolution recommending approval of the proposed rezoning. Staff has not received any inquiries from the member of the public regarding this hearing. Therefore, staff's recommendation to the board is to conduct a public hearing on application 201268, confirm that the proposal is exempt from California Environmental Quality Act and direct staff to file a notice of exemption with the clerk of the board and adopt the attached ordinance amending the county code and map. County zoning plan and map person to county code chapter 13.10 to change the zoning on APN 06423101 from special use zone district to timber production zone district. That concludes the staff report. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. I don't have any questions. I don't know whether my colleagues have any questions. Any other questions from board members or comments? Any, open it up for public input right now, public comment, anything on the web? We have no web comments. Thank you. I would move the recommended actions for item 13. Second. Okay, we have first and second. We call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Pinnerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. Takes us to thank you very much. Thank you for. Thank you for waiting what about seven hours? Consider for a number item number 14. Consider final reappointments of Julia Hill and Alan Smith to the law library board of trustees for a term to expire December 31st, 2021. Domination is accepted on November 17th, 2020. I move approval. Well, let's see. We have any comments? Any public comments? None. We have no web comments. Thank you. Okay. I still move approval. Okay. Okay. Go ahead and call the roll. I'm sorry. Was that Supervisor McPherson who's second it? Sure. Yes. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Pinnerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Takes us to numbers 15. Consider final reappointment of Thomas Brose to the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency board of directors for a term to expire November 30th, 2022. Domination was accepted November 10th, 2020. Any board members have questions or comments? Are there any public comments on this item, either here or on the web? We have no web comments. Thank you. I move approval. We have a motion by Supervisor Leopold. Thank you. We have a second. Go ahead and call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Pinnerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes. Takes us to item number 16. Consider final reappointment of Michael Manfrey. I know him and he's from the Watsonville area. Howard Liebenberg. Okay. And John Ricker, that name's familiar. To the resource conservation districts of Santa Cruz County Board of Directors for terms to expire November 26th, 2024. Domination is accepted November 10th of this year, 2020. Board members have any questions or comments? Move the recommended actions. Okay. Second. Let me just ask if there's any public comment either here? We have no web comments. Thank you. We have no comments. Okay. Thank you. We have the motion. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Pinnerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Great. Sorry, Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. And I believe that. We have one more. The item's formally 33. We have item number 18.1. Correct. And that, I have numerous phone calls. Well, not numerous. You probably want to read the item into the, you probably want to read the item in. Yeah. Would you like me to read the item into record? Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll go ahead and read it in for you. Number 33. Approve. No. Yes. Item 33. Approve or request to conduct all boards of supervisor meetings. Only virtually beginning January of 2021. Direct staff to return in March of 2021 for a review of this policy and take related actions as recommended by the County Administrative Officer. And this is a temporary measure and we're going to look at it. We're in a very tough time and our chairman coming in Supervisor McPherson is requested to do it, I think wisely for a temporary basis to do it all virtually. And again, it's not permanent. It's temporary and we're going to look at it in March of 2021. And if we have any comments, hopefully they're on the web or they have made a comment. Yes. We do have comments, but I think you might have a person here that would like to speak. Okay. So we'll just, what? We'll open it up to public comment, right? Go right to it. You know, I have a lot of appreciation for all the times I've been in here and I did leave to take care of some personal business, but I was listening to this program. What am I going to? Proceedings as much as I could. It was cut off three times. A concern I have other members of the public have raised. Some people may not have the best access. I know my experience and what the city has seen and crews, their equipment and my equipment doesn't work unilaterally well with all my other equipment. So hopefully that's doesn't happen here. I didn't make the suggestion of what citizens can do to get together to talk about stuff. I'm wondering all the various safe locations where those meetings could be held, maybe even in this very room. So am I surprised that I'm the only person in the room? No. I just want to say thank you. I hope that you guys decide to do it, to open it back up in March. There's a lot of information that things that people are worried about really shouldn't be what we should be worried about. But my invitation is to go out to lunch with at least one member. I'd like to do in that three months. Mr. Leopold, I really do appreciate you. I don't think we agree on everything, but that's pretty normal. I have an identical twin. Oh, all right. So I didn't know we also had that in common. So I just want to thank you guys. And hopefully in three months there's a lot of really good, unexpected things going on. Thanks. Okay. Any web comments? Yes. We have quite a few. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and start the time around some of these. The first one is from Serge. Safety must be a priority during these unprecedented times. Virtual meetings allow the safety. I only, I'm sorry. Safety must be a priority during these unprecedented times. Virtual meetings allow that safety. I ask only that there be a way for public to be able to continue to make comments in their own voice rather than only through these comments. Through zoom or other formats, please find a way so that public can log in and be permitted to speak with their own voice on topics important to them. Controlling time of speakers is possible and participation would be supported for those with the required technology. Someday it would also be miraculous for even those without the financial ability to receive tablets to also participate like the amazing program for elderly through community bridges. Thank you for the priority of safety to of staff and the public and for considering the continued actual voices of the public virtual meetings. The second comment comes from Ruckus Lee. This requested move to a virtual format appears to coincide with District 5 Supervisor Bruce McPherson's assignment to the 2021 chair. The past nine months of in-person public comment during the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisor meetings has not caused any COVID-19 super spreader event in this County. In fact, the public speakers have honored the required social distancing and masks masking during their limited time at the podium twice a month when these meetings occur. The current statewide increase has been attributed to Thanksgiving holiday and expected to decrease within the next six weeks. This is a matter of equity and violation of the intent behind the Brown Act. Those who lack personal computers or smartphones cannot access public computers at libraries or schools to send emails or call to provide public comment. Those who do have the technology are often zoomed out of meetings due to limited personal skills with the technology or because the audio video freezes and the telephone numbers do not work. The next comment is from Claire Machado. Dear Board, I am writing this note to submit my firm and hearty objection to the change of any public hearing to a virtual only format. It is a fundamental right of all citizens to be able to speak of public hearings to provide critical input to all issues that the Board of Supervisors consider. The State of California establishes the laws which do require public hearings. In order to exercise that right, it should not be required for any citizen to try to get online to provide that input. The requirement would create a barrier to access to any citizen that does not have a device that allows them to do so. Public hearings are long and sometimes hard to follow unless you are there in person. How can you hear or see comment or on anyone else's comments or input? How is this going to be addressed in the suggestions of this change? Since the advent of COVID, several public hearings have been held to date. There have been full cooperation of social distancing, mask wearing, and people placed in other office areas to hold the overflow of people to not be in the meeting room to allow for more testimony. There is not one known transmission of COVID from person to person at any form of the Board of Supervisors meeting. Because of the widespread cooperation with masking, distancing, and hand sanitizing, this item seems very unnecessary and premature at best. The constituents of the county should not be dissuaded in any manner from being able to provide public comments, especially by having to try to make those comments by virtual input only. The next one is from Ken Davenport. This is a bad idea. This seems to coincide with Bruce McPherson's assignment. I don't want anyone to get sick. I know some of the Board members are elderly and may be at high risk for COVID. These members should continue to stay at home and be safe, but don't try to limit the ability of people to assemble. Millions of essential workers are showing up on the job throughout the nation. Now more than ever, our public officials need to be open and accessible. The next one is from Jessica Peters. Dear Board of Supervisors, this is disappointing to see and seems to coincide with the appointment of District 5 Supervisor Bruce McPherson as chair. This is a bad idea. There have already been many written public comments from the record, including my own. The people deserve to be heard. Just look how many concerned citizens were here today. You need this input. A yes vote will stifle these voices. Thank you, Jessica Peters. Thank you for being with me for a second. I know there's a couple others, but they seem to have gotten lost in my emails. Hold on one second, please. Apparently my computer is a little tired. It's been a long day. It doesn't want to cooperate. I really don't want to leave these out. Okay. And then this one is kind of long, so I am going to set the timer. It is from Monica McGuire. I am writing to express my shock and dismay at the irresponsible choices made so far in 2020, leading up to the ultimate lie that Santa Cruz County is any form is in any form of danger that could lead to such ridiculous suggestions as this. The proof of entire lack of emergency was already stated again this morning in person at today's Board of Supervisors meeting. There is no good reason to further restrict the rights of people in Santa Cruz County. The fact that so many public written comments from the record is further proof that stopping our ability to be seen and heard in any further ways is entirely ludicrous. Medical freedom is of vital importance. As is recognition of all the damage you supervisors in this county have done to children, families, depressed and suicide-provoked people who have been entirely ignored no matter how many asked that all the collateral damage be counted. Stop harming your own families you are supposed to represent with your irresponsible stealing of money from we the people in so many ways via the guise of supposed safety. Further, the lack of any stated plan of how to ensure that the employees, that the employers, I'm sorry members of the public of our supposedly representative supervisors, it's awfully typical like most of the items on the consent agenda it is unconscionable poor form to give so little information about tremendously important actions. If the supervisors actually do their jobs and connect to the people in each of their districts they will learn that they are not representing us at all in addition to shrinking their duties to do what is best for the greatest number of people they are supposed to be representing start doing your jobs. And that is it for public comment. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, again I'll just comment it's a temporary measure we're not trying to avoid contact and we're not trying to quiet public comments and everything we know we have to respond to you and I am in full favor of personal access to the public but at this time because of the circumstances this is a temporary and I underline the word temporary measure and I think it's reasonable and so if we have no other comment I just will lastly say all of us realize the chain of command is the public the people we represent you're at the top you're the boss we have to respond to you and we're trying to do this the best way we can safely during this pandemic that we're facing and again we do want to hear from you I know it'll be tough on some that don't maybe have a computer or access it in their homes but we're looking forward to getting back to normal and having more personal contact with the public we are not in a ivory tower somewhere trying to isolate ourselves we're just reacting to the health crisis that we do have and that will be it do we need a resolution yes I mean not a we need a motion and a second please I'll move the right hand action and I'll second it okay I'll call the roll Supervisor Leopold I'm going to abstain because that won't be Supervisor Friend before we go on to the call there's a question about access to these meetings there is a possibility similar to our commissions that people could call in correct? that is correct there will be a phone option okay great thank you so bye Coonerty hi McPherson and Chair Caput the motion passes unanimously and our next meeting will be a special meeting on I'm sorry because we had to continue public comment in the morning because it ran so late we have a number of public comments from people who wrote in that probably should be read into the record at this point okay so be it sorry to make it a little longer but it's my last one I can do it and there is quite a few would you like these public comments to have three minutes or two minutes chair thank you okay the first public comment is from Serge Cogno I absolutely support the addressing of racism as a public health crisis I take nothing away from those efforts I wait for the day when we also acknowledge that homelessness is a public health crisis for our community and citizens which systematic and institutional racism has statistical effects as well I ask that the ad hoc advisory navigation programs cause management programs and our homeless shelters as well as looking at the demographics of those receiving quality of life citations due to poverty and homelessness thank you for supporting the creation of equality and access to our services and our workforce the next comment is actually hold on unfortunately Serge made a lot of comments about a lot of different items however due to you only got one time limit I'm not going to read all of them but they will be part of the record online so the next comment comes from Tom McClellan good morning as a resident of the coast road over the years I am now a home I'm sorry as a resident of coast road over the years and now as a home owner there I just want to briefly and respectfully add my voice in supporting of providing a hydrant water tank on coast road for the purpose of fire protection my neighbor and friend Patty Dameron has provided more detail in her comments all of which I support and echo during this year's CZU fire I also observed many fire water trucks come to our street to tap the illegal connection in order to fight the fires in Davenport Swanton last chance etc this is an easily accessible location for water trucks to get water when fighting fires and the nearby mountains providing a hydrant here could save structure and lives we saw this summer fire proposes an increased threat to life and property one which can sometimes overwhelm our capacity to respond adding this hydrant to the coast road location would be a great way to be better prepared to respond to future wildfires thank you for your consideration Mr. McClellan next one is from Ken Davenport to the citizens at today's meeting thank you for your involvement thank you for your passionate comments thank you for your input our elected officials and government employees need you should someone else and also Ken Davenport responding to McPherson being reappointed as the representatives of the California State Association of Counties Board of Directors should someone else volunteer for this duty McPherson's district has a very impactful fire debris flow and many other work issues and actually Mr. Davenport also had multiple times so we'll just do the one Ryan Smyth also said I would greatly prefer you to put your time and energy into earthquake preparedness and Planet X research Corona is all the man's red flag B.S. pray for grace and this was in reference to the coronavirus relief fund programs and actually that is it thank you then that's the end of public comment thank you chair okay thank you thank you very much so that is the adjournment and January 5th I believe is a special meeting but that'll be virtual so yes yes it will when it's a special meeting it'll be about the health crisis that's right and there's one item on the agenda so far to review and consider a resolution to extend the local health emergency and the local public health emergency and also there will be a closed session okay thank you very much so the next regular meeting is at 12 thank you at 9 a.m. and that'll be virtual also thank you