 I'll now call the June 2nd, 2020, regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Will the clerk please call the roll. Supervisor Leopold? Here. Friend? Here. Coonerty? Here. McPherson? Here. Chair Caput? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum, we have everybody. Okay, we'll have a moment of silence and prayer, and then we'll follow with the Pledge of Allegiance. Chairman Caput, I'd like to make a special recognition. It's just with great sadness that I announced that victory to the lumber owners, lumber company people, personnel and their friends announced the death of Homer Bud McCrary on Sunday night. At the age of 93 years old, along with his brother and family, they grew from 1946, a company that has five retail building stores, a functional operation and a wholesale lumber division. Bud McCrary was a special guy, I can say the least. He was self-educated but owned more than 10 U.S. patents. Amazing feed. But perhaps Bud's greatest legacy was his contribution to forestry practice on the Central Coast and the entire state of California. He helped pioneer the style of forest thinning, battering and clear cutting was the way that they did business in the prevailing practice. Big Creek Lumber really put that practice into place. It was followed by Santa Cruz, from Santa Cruz, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and throughout the state. We gotta appreciate much of our forestry that we have in this great county of ours and this great state because of the practices and the leadership and the foresight of Bud McCrary. He was a mountain of a man, a gentleman and a scholar in every sense of the word. And I just think that we should remember him in our prayers. Santa Cruz County and the people of California can really be thankful that Bud McCrary came along to protect that forestry that we have, we appreciate so much today. So I'd like to have you, everyone, keep his memory on their minds when they say their prayer today. Absolutely, thank you. I didn't know. Yeah, I know. Great guy. All right, congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, Mr. Palacios, are there any late addition? Yes, they are under the regular agenda, item eight. There's additional materials. A revised attachment A packet pages 56 revised attachment B packet page 98, revised attachment C packet pages 128 and 129, revised attachment D packet pages 171, replacement attachment F packet pages 177 and 178 and attachment M insert after packet page 185, attachment N insert after packet page 185 B. And then on the consent agenda, item 19, there's additional materials. There's attachment D packet pages 273A. And then item 30, there's a correction. The item should read, approve four year expenditure agreement in the amount of $1,292,020 with beacon health options for inpatient psychiatric utilization management services for the health services agency, behavioral health and take related actions as recommended by the director of health services. There's additional materials, revised memo, packet pages 441 and 443. And then on item 43 added, this is an agenda to the consent agenda. Item 43, there's direct county council on the department of public works to negotiate a license agreement for the use of a portion of Daveness Avenue parking lot for local restaurants, can sit stint with states approval of the variance from stage two restrictions of the state's resiliency roadmap and return on June 16th to 2020 with Daveness Avenue parking lot license agreement for ratification and with a process for implementing agreements for use of other county owned parking lots or other properties by local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic as recommended by Supervisor Leopold. There's item A, board memo printout. That concludes the corrections and additions to today's agenda. Okay, thank you. Let's see, do any board members have anything to pull off of the consent agenda or a regular agenda, I guess? Any comments? No comments on the consent agenda? We'll get the comments later, but I have nothing to pull off the agenda. Nothing to be pulled, right? Doesn't sound like anybody else does either. Okay. Public comments. Now's the opportunity for members of the public to address the board on topics that are on today's agenda, consent items, closed session agenda, and topics that are not on the agenda, but are within the jurisdiction of the board. If you cannot stay later to speak on the regular agenda items, you may address those items at this time. I wanna ask everybody, thank everybody for being here and cooperating. I know it's a problem to wear the mask, but if you look around, we're all putting up with that. And if you're not gonna wear the mask, I'm gonna ask you to leave. Okay, I'm sorry. I'll have to do that. You could wait outside if you want. And then when your time comes to speak, you can come in. And please address the board and not address, you know, individuals and people, department heads and things like that. Thank you. And we're wearing the mask. It was brought to my attention earlier. That's our respect for everybody. We're trying not to pass it on to you. We're not wearing the mask to protect ourselves as much as we're wearing the mask to protect the public in general. Thank you very much. Go ahead, you got three minutes. Hi, my name's Tim Thompson. I live in the Santa Cruz mountains. I've been living up there for 37 years. I was here two years ago to speak out against the cannabis growing regulations. I'm really against the lowering of the acreage from, I think it's two and a half or five acres down to one acre. I live on an RA parcel. And from what I've read, this would entail, road building, forest clearing, greenhouses, right at the property line, which in my case would be 10 feet from my bedroom. I wouldn't want my family, my 12 year old son to be smelling marijuana growing months on end. Not to deal with the traffic up there, the crime that's related to it, just pushed on us by the planning department for the profiteering of the dope growers. Not to mention the road insides that kill the wildlife, the illegal diversions from streams. I feel that a big land use decision like this should have an environmental impact report. This is ridiculous to have such a huge change in our zoning of our properties. I live in a neighborhood. It's not a place where they should be growing cannabis. A cottage grow, that's a joke, it's industrial. There's no way about it. I think it's appropriate in a place like in ag lands, but not in RA, probably not in SU and probably not in TP. Apparently my experience with the planning department is their enforcement is abysmal at best. There is a cabin in my neighborhood where they built a wall on top of a foundation that had no footing. I complained, made nine complaints, no action whatsoever. That wall finally fell down into the street when I was driving up during a driving rainstorm. If I was five seconds later, it would have killed me. I told a Mary Bolster grant that her department failed miserably for, the other thing is too, there is another cabin that's near where I live and it was deemed unsafe to occupy. I've made at least nine complaints over the last 10 years. That person is still living in the house. Nothing has happened with that property. There is an illegal structure, somebody living in a place called Happyland. I've made two complaints and all they told me was, well, you can go up there with our enforcement crew. They said, why would I do that? Put myself at risk. Did I hear from them ever again? No, that's after two complaints. So the only time that they have done anything was when they followed my brother, had a truck full of lumber to put a foundation under existing house. They stopped him and they penalized him. It cost him $17,000. And my experience is the only time the county does their job is when they smelled money and they smelled money that time, big time. So I have absolutely zero faith in the planning department whatsoever. There, the laughing stock, everybody knows it. The record is invisible. Thank you. Good morning. I am always an advocate for sharing information and asking questions. I'm here to talk about face masks today, which we were mandated six weeks ago to begin wearing, although it is not required in the state of California. This is our own ordinance, our own requirement, which is being justified by the CDC and the California Public Health Recommendations as the reason. So this is the CDC who in February told us not to wear face masks. Also the Surgeon General who stated that face masks should not be worn as they have not proven effective. But now he's being, a video of him is being shown on the CDC website suggesting we make a face mask out of an old scarf. So the CDC of course has already has said, changed their mind, said yes, we should wear face coverings, but provides no evidence of this. They have some listed studies but they have nothing to do with face coverings. The California Department of Public Health, which is also the reason for our face coverings, says that, quote, there is limited evidence to suggest that the use of cloth face coverings by the public during a pandemic could reduce disease transmissions. But they also have provided none of this limited evidence that they speak of. So being the person I am, I decided to do my own research, look for my own evidence either way. What I found was abundant evidence that face coverings not only do not prevent the spread of COVID, but they harm our health. They reduce oxygen intake, they increase carbon dioxide, which causes fatigue and headaches. I think you can ask anybody that wears a mask all day long and they'll tell you, and you may know this too, lowering the immune function. These studies are all in prestigious scientific journals. Most upsetting, I read a story that was reported in the New York Post. The death of two boys dying within a week of each other while wearing face masks during gym class. So in my, I mean, we don't have to do scientific studies to know these things. These things, you know them. I mean, all you have to do is look inside and ask yourself, you know, there's also the other things such as the increase of fear and judgment, social, further social isolation at times when we don't need these things. So I just ask, well, we have this indefinite timeframe set up for us. I've heard a year, a year and a half, two years thrown around. Let's have a limit to this. Our numbers were low when this was implemented. They are still very low. Please, I ask for your help. Thank you and your consideration. Hi, my name is Ann Swedberg and I live in the Aptos and I'm here to object to the item 13, which is increasing our taxes for CSA 48. I think it's a really unreasonable time to raise our taxes. We passed in 2020, just January, we passed a separate assessment for CSA 48. Prop 172 was passed to help fund local fire protection. Measure G was passed for this very purpose. I'm not sure where any of that money is going, but we believe that we should not be, you should not be raising our taxes at this time when businesses are struggling and people are out of work. It's really not good thing to do. So I ask you please not to pass the CSA 48 increase. Thank you. Monica McGuire, Corralitos. I'm coming with a heavy heart and wearing black for the absolute horror at watching what's going on in this country due to a death that should not have been and all the mayhem that has ensued. I feel deeply, I'm very upset. It's so hard to sleep even knowing what's going on. Gratitude for the leaders of Santa Cruz City who made the front page of the Sentinel because they actually spoke for us as we have come to you asking you to do. I'm asking you again, please speak on behalf of the county about what we cannot say without fear of putting our law enforcement in danger and all our people in danger. Normally this county is filled with people who want to protest and advocate for what we know is safer and better. And we can't do that right now because of what you're asking us to do. And everything Satya said is what I've been saying for close to three months now. And yet the science is not being followed despite the claims that that's what you're following. That is so contradictory and upsetting and harmful. Also, I know that people in Watsonville, Mr. Caput are quaking in their boots because I have met enough people, Latinos who have been beaten simply because of the color of their skin by the Santa Cruz police force that they are terrified. I know that a member of the board of supervisors called ICE on the people of Watsonville just to terrorize them years ago. I know that these things are against most of our principles. But until and unless you actually speak up for us because we're not allowed to right now, we are more pained and terrified of what else is coming, of what else we don't have any control over. Please come to each of us as you're supposed to and ask for our input in all the ways that you can. That your jobs are to come to us so that you are representing us. You are not coming to us. All we get are supposed town hall meetings where we are talked to. Again, we have asked for the ability to give our input and you have ignored that request over and over. I don't understand that. I know that you are good people who care. I trust you're doing your best. I do. I really believe that's what people do. But if we dilute ourselves and think that it's okay and that the ends will justify the means or shirk our actual jobs, which your jobs are to come to us, ask us for our needs, our fears, our desires, and then represent us to the rest of the county. And that has not once happened in my 23 years of living in this county. Please start that part of your jobs. Bruce Tanner. In this room last Friday, county officials maintained a unified front saying that they're basing their actions against the rights, livelihoods, and mental health of the people of Santa Cruz on what you called science. But despite the fact that many of the comments to you in these meetings have pointed to the real scientific research which has flooded the internet, which contradicts the county's official story on the pandemic, you seem unable to look at anything that contradicts the narrative you cling to and proves that your actions harming the people you purport to represent do not follow common sense and are in fact unscientific. You say that the pandemic is making you violate our lives, but the truth is that this narrative you're receiving from unnamed sources that you clearly obey is leading you to do this violation of us. Your excuses for what you're doing are empty and fraudulent. You are complicit in conducting deliberate psychological warfare against us. You want us to believe that suddenly all of the people of the world are no longer responsible for our own lives and health, but are now merely quivering protoplasm that is unable to maintain its own health and is a constant pernicious threat to what you call public health. You claim the authority to control our lives to mitigate this threat, a threat which will never again go away. Rather than basing our decisions on the spiritually informed understanding that everything we experience in our lives has an important purpose and that we as free beings have the agency to meet any challenge and live in harmony with our families, friends, and neighbors, we're now to accept that random outside forces will be attacking us from now on and that we need government that is you to irrigate to yourselves the power to defend us at any cost to our lives. You want us to see anyone who does not accept your edicts based on this assumed authority as our enemies and potential threats to our very lives. In short, you want to remove our agency to live our lives as free women and men. You have shown that you're willing to use the power of the state that you claim to represent to force us to suppress our understanding, impulses, and intuition, and to cower in fear. This despite the fact that we see that your edicts and agenda are based on empty lies, we must ignore what we see and obey. Most importantly, we must remain silent in the face of this crazy making aggression. Good morning. My name is Rebecca Mills. You may recognize me, not great. So I have appeared in front of the board previously as an advocate about mental health, incarceration, healthcare, and the intersection of those things. I may still be a member of the County Mental Health Board, although I haven't been able to attend our recent meetings serving with Mr. Caput. And today I'm just representing myself. I was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky to a father who was active duty in the Army. I lived in Fort Ord as a preschooler. I lived in family student housing at UCSC as a kindergartner. I was a student at Westlake Elementary. I was diagnosed as an intelligent person at a young age and provided gifted and talented education. I took college classes while I was in high school in Virginia at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria. My original passion was biology. I did a senior project at the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Then I attended the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which some people say is the best science institute in the world as a physics major. And during that time, I commuted to Claremont Mechanic College in Pomona to do Army ROTC, going to Camp Pendleton for field training. In the summer, I had an opportunity to do paratrooper training at Fort Benning. Got my airborne wings and got to see some of the amazing people that choose to serve in our active duty armed forces and train with them, some of whom have probably died in our useless wars. I chose to leave the California Institute of Technology. I earned a Bachelor's of Science in Economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The study of economics is actually the study of the allocation of scarce resources, branches of which include cost-benefit analysis and game theory. Recently, I was involuntarily, psychiatrically institutionalized after being stopped for a rolling stop by police, Santa Cruz police with canines, guns, et cetera. The government said over $20,000 denying me my rights while my vehicle racked up $1,700 in impound fees. I was not getting, they claimed I was gravely disabled, unable to care for my own food, clothing, and shelter when actually that was never the case. And finally Judge Gallagher ruled on a writ of Hubey's corpus that they had to let me go. This is a very broken system that kills people. It killed my friend, Vicky Brown. It killed my house. Someone who lived in supported housing next to me, Cola Constantine from medical neglect. She was a beautiful person who had paranoid schizophrenia. She left these flowers behind. If you don't know the system, this is- Are we ready? What? I should start. Okay. I'm very grateful to the previous speakers who I agree with. And I wanna recommend videos to view. I think real existential threat is the radiation and the environmental devastation. 5G Apocalypse Extinction Event. I recommend saying 5G Apocalypse Extinction Event. Also 5G Trojan Horse. And this week starting yesterday through this seven, the 5GSummit.com. This is Josh Del Sol's website and he's interviewing some authorities on the dangers of 5G. And Chairperson Caput, this is from Take Back Your Power website. This is the documentary on the smart meters and wireless radiation dangers in which you are in that film. Takebackyourpower.net. You have a camping overall, I guess they call it. You know, the insects are being decimated by all this radiation. And here's from Arthur Fursenberg's, one of his newsletters. And that's selfonetaskforce.org. Melbourne, Australia on 111919, a 5G antenna was placed 250 meters from Angela's house, she writes. And the next day we saw bees dropping on the driveway then dying. I managed to film one trying to collect pollen, but it was hanging upside down and could not make it to the center of the petals. Then it rolled off the petals to the ground without the pollinators were doomed. And I recall seeing also in the film, Take BackYourPower.net, beekeepers testifying at hearings when the five, when the so-called smart meters were installed, beekeepers who had flourishing hives and then the bees dying after that. We do know what is poisoning us. There's a lot of evidence of the pesticides, the chemical pollution, the radiation. We all have, for instance, strontium 90 in our bones. There's a whole list. Why don't we stop these polluters at the source? Locked down, shut down the polluters, not the bees. Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I'm not going to wear my face mask. It makes it difficult for me to breathe. And I've heard that in many of the speakers this morning. We should not be required to have our masks on when we speak to you, our elected representatives. Supervisor Caput, I again want to thank you for calling the special board meeting last Friday. I really appreciate your leadership in taking that role. I was disappointed the board did not further add requirements to remove the beach closures and to stop the prohibition of short-term vacation rental use and hotel use. These added restrictions, which are completely up to our health officer, not elected officials, being backed by law enforcement's daily, seven deputies patrolling the beaches to ensure that people are following the rules of no lying, standing, sitting, anything like that is ridiculous and is killing our county. It's making us unhealthy. It is further putting our economic condition in shambles and you are aware that this county faces a possible 40.5 million dollar deficit. If we get no funding from state and federal sources, but Supervisor Caput, again, I want to thank you for your leadership in calling that. I also want to again protest that CAO Palacio commandeered the meeting. He is not the Sergeant at Arms. That direction to close the meeting should have come from you, Supervisor Caput. You give direction to your meetings as chairman and law enforcement, present in the room, follows your orders. It is not the CAO's duty or right to shut down meetings and to participate in ways that he has been doing, including instilling censorship on the public. I have just learned that no consent agenda items were pulled this morning. I wrote all of you and asked that. I think it's important that everyone wear their mask when they're inside the building. This is a basic community need. No, it is not. It's all right, we're six feet from someone. They're six feet from everyone. Please. Why are you muting me? I'm being told here that I am told I have to be mutified. You need to wear a mask when you're inside this building. It's out of respect for the other people in the room there. Okay. It's important that people wear masks. This is about not transmitting the virus. It's about your care for community and care for not infecting other people. You can choose not to wear a mask, but that has to be outside this building. When you're inside the building, you need to wear a mask. Is your job than any other member of this camp? Please, you had your three minutes. We'll wait for the next speaker, I guess. No, it's out of respect for the other people in the room. I think there's a speaker here, Chair. Hello. Okay. I just, after all this discussion and complaints about mask wearing, I'd like to assure the county administration that I personally have no problem with it. I have some education in biology and virology. And I started wearing high grade masks. The reason I have this one is because I was a general contractor that was exposed to asbestos and all sorts of toxic materials. Masks are effective. I could wear them all day long without getting a headache. So thanks a lot. Appreciate it. You're welcome. We need to clear downstairs. Okay, we'll go to the website. Do we need a recess? I believe there are other people downstairs that would like to speak. So I don't know if we need to. Chair, if you can't clear Ms. Steinbrenner from the microphone, we're gonna need to declare a recess. Because there are other people who want to speak down there. I heard there were only two. I was told there was one more. Okay. We'll see if somebody comes up. That's a question we're waiting. Okay. We'll come to the microphone. Hi, my name is Michael Tyree owner of Scotts Valley Gym. I just didn't know if today's agenda was gonna talk at all about gyms reopening timeframe or what's gonna be required. Was today's meeting gonna be anything about that? Yeah. Yes. No, there's no items on the agenda that's gonna talk about that specifically. You can make a comment and express your interests in gyms, but we're not taking that up as a subject matter today. On Friday, we held a special meeting to go as nearly as far as everything opened in the state allowed by the state. And we're not dealing with that today. Okay. Do you know when you will? When the state allows gyms to open, we'll likely allow the state to open. Okay, thank you. Okay, there is nobody else. But we do have some web comments. Okay, thanks. The first one is from Richard Gallo. Dear Board of Supervisors, I am a resident of Santa Cruz County and a volunteer state ambassador with Access California. I wanted to inform the Board of Supervisors that the commissioners serving on the Santa Cruz County Mental Health Advisory Board needs kudos for serving on behalf of the mental health community. You have supervisors to support SB 803, peer certification to expand and support peer services for and on behalf of the mental health community. The County needs to look at funding, whether it's getting the value for the money and serving people with disabilities in Santa Cruz County. I do not support central co-center for independent living unless they can show the numbers in serving the disability community with the housing and disability advocacy services. The County needs to use their resource funds including interest, excuse me, including interest earned with the Mental Health Services Act, funding during COVID-19 and evaluate program funded by MHSA. The community planning process is incomplete and needs to be completed to include consumers' feedback about services being funded and gaps in the programs and must be used before state takes back the reserve funding with MHSA funds. Supervisors need to follow the general standards set by the MHSA. You need to thank MHSA coordinator who is doing a great job despite juggling between two assignments. Mental wellness is possible with regards, Richard Gallo, status ambassador, Bay Area, region ambassador, Access California, a program of CalVoices and that is it for online. That is it for online. Now we're probably ready for comments from the board. I'm happy to make the first comments. We'll go with, I have an order here somewhere. Any comments from Supervisor McPherson? Yeah, Mr. Chair, can you hear me all right? Okay, first of all, on an item that's not on the agenda, I wouldn't have liked to have mentioned it before. I want to congratulate and thank the people of Santa Cruz County, but in particular the people of the city of Santa Cruz for the peaceful recognition of the terrible incident that happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What followed was terrible, but what initiated it all was the worst. And I just want to thank the city from Mayor Cummings to the police chief Mills and everybody who was involved for its peaceful recognition of this. We just need to address this pointedly and more seriously in the future. And I hope we'll all do that. Certainly I think we have a great chance to do that in Santa Cruz County. For on the items on the consent agenda, I just wanted to recognize the CalFire agreement. Item number 19 for too long, County Fire has been underfunded, understaffed, and there were legitimate concerns about the condition of the outdated equipment that it had. But thanks to the voters who passed the revised CSA 48 tax assessment earlier this year, we can all rest a bit easier that the County Fire has the necessary resources to serve the two CSA areas covered in this contract. So thank you very much to the voters in particular. And then on items number 35, 6, and 39 concerning roads. Again, I want to thank the public works department for bringing these items forward. We continue to work through on our storm damage roads and particularly there's some serious ones in the fifth district, my district and throughout our County. This is also a good time to remind our members of the public that we maintain 600 miles of roadway in Santa Cruz County. Much of it was damaged in the previous storms of a couple of years ago. This is a big task with limited funding and this reminds us of the importance of measure D that was passed by voters of Santa Cruz County. And related, but not on the agenda, but I think it deserves recognition that on last Friday, May 29th, six and a half miles of highway 17 between Las Gatis and the summit in the Santa Cruz mountains. We have now a shaded fuel break. People have seen this who commute, I know they've been watching this for months that the project began in August, the end of August. This $9 million project was the largest one of its type and most complex of Governor Newsom's 2019 priority list for wild fire protection. I want to thank CalTrans, the state of California for getting on that. I also want to recognize that the Santa Clara County Fire Safety Council will continue to lead work on complimentary projects near the highway to strengthen the brakes of fuel effectiveness. There will be some continuous removal of hazardous trees that make awesome delays, but the main part of the project is done and it was a collaboration built with cooperation on multiple agencies, the state, the county and at local levels as well. It's an important fire safety measure that needed to be done and I congratulate the state for getting that done so quickly. Thank you. That's all. Supervisor Friend. Thank you Chair. I do have a couple of brief comments. First on item 24, I'd like to thank Supervisor Leopold with joining with me. And I'm confident that the board will support our action, which is to direct the chair to write a letter to the governor as well as the Senate assembly and our delegation here opposing the elimination of funding for community-based adult services. These programs like Elder Day Locally are an absolute essential safety net. It's quite remarkable that the governors may revise as proposing to eliminate this. A lot of money is leveraged with this relatively small investment across the state and it really allows a lot of people within our low-income seniors, especially within our community to live locally with dignity. So this is something we need to take a strong stand on and I appreciate Supervisor Leopold joining with me for this item. On item 32 briefly, which is just to schedule the public hearing on the vacation rental amendments, I appreciate that the planning department came up, came through with this and I also appreciate the actions of the planning commission on this. I'm looking forward to these coming to the board. We really do need to do what we can to protect the local housing stock. And I imagine that my colleagues are experiencing what I'm experiencing, which are a lot of complaints associated with vacation rental. So I think this is an important action that we can take in the coming weeks. On item 34, which is regarding a grant applications for the congested four doors program. I can't thank enough public works and especially Steve Wiesner for his leadership on this. There are some pretty significant improvements that are proposed for multimodality throughout the mid-county area. In fact, this would be one of the largest improvements we've made in that area in decades. And so we've been working with him actively. I know Supervisor Leopold has as well. This is a lot of credit really deserves to be given to public works for their leadership on this. And we hope that we can secure these grants and work forward on these improvements, both in the mid-county and for Supervisor or Chair Caput also for you for the Highway 152 and Hulahand Road project. Just finally, on the deferral of the award of the design bill contract for the Aptos Library, obviously any deferral is disappointing. I know that August is just after our July recess. I hope that there isn't any additional delay on this. I know the community is still looking forward to it, even given all the challenges that we're facing right now as a community with COVID. I mean, as Supervisor McPherson had noted, we're still doing a lot of work out there and we're excited through Measure S to get this moving. We've had a lot of community outreach, special appreciation to Damon and others that have been working on this. And we're hoping that we can, that August is the absolute latest state that this pushes to. Thank you, Chair. Professor Coonerty. Thank you. I just have one brief comment and additional direction. On item number 38, which is to ratify a motel lease for people experiencing homelessness. I wanna appreciate the county staff and the city staff who move quickly to find safe places for people experiencing homelessness to be during this COVID stay. We've more than met the capacity required by the state and we should commend their efforts in making that happen. Given that we know that the shelter place, the shelter and place order will eventually come to an end and these leases and the funding associated with them will also come to an end. We need a demobilization strategy that incorporates the housing resolution work of focus strategies that focus strategies are recommended even before the pandemic. So I'd like to add additional direction that the CAO's office come back at budget time with a demobilization and a housing resolution plan. So that we're prepared for the future in helping these hotels and expanded shelter clients, secure stable housing going forward. That's it, thank you. Thanks a lot. Okay, Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. I have a number of items to comment on and one to add additional direction on. On item 19, I will join my colleague in recognizing the good work of Cal Fire and especially with the shaded fuel break work that we also mentioned. Cal Fire was instrumental in a demonstration project in the Summit area around the Loma Prieta School District building that are very appreciative and the South Santa Clara County FireSafe Council was also very helpful along with County Fire. They are a great partner and in these days where we worry about something other than COVID, we worry about fire and they are an important part of our County Fire System. On item number 20, I just want to express my great appreciation to the Parks Department for all their work on the completion of the Chanticleer Park Phase One Development Project. Fortunately, we were able to have an opening of that park before the COVID pandemic fell upon us and we had hundreds of people join us in the opening of that wonderful park unlike any other in Santa Cruz County. The hard work of park staff in order to make that happen is greatly appreciated and I appreciate their ongoing work to provide recreation services to people here in Santa Cruz County. On item number 23, I would ask the board to join me in supporting the nomination to create the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in San Luis Obispo County. We have seen the benefits of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. We know what a difference it has made in preserving such a beautiful location as the Monterey Bay and the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would accomplish many of the same goals. On item number 24, as my colleague mentioned, joining with supervisor friend to ask the governor and the legislature to not make the funding around community-based adult services. And not only do these services provide critical support for families and especially people who couldn't afford other services but it's actually the kind of upstream investment you need in order to avoid long-term costs as people would be put in more expensive facilities. Pennywise and pound foolish and I hope the legislature will not go along with the governor's suggestion here. On item number 32, I'm glad to see that we're finally getting a hearing on the amendments around the vacation rentals. I would like to add an additional direction that county council come back at that meeting with an interim ordinance under government code section 65858 to place on hold any new vacation rental applications until we're completing their review and adoption of these new ordinances. I think it would be helpful, especially we're spending a tremendous amount of resources trying to make sure that all vacation rental owners follow the rules of our shelter in place order and to add new ones to the system right now doesn't seem to make sense. On item number 34, I will also express my appreciation to public works. This is a tremendous, this would be a tremendous investment in Mid County safety to receive these funds and build buffered bike lanes and other projects in the Mid County. As we've seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people have gotten out of their cars and onto bicycles and other forms of transportation. And we need to be able to support that kind of behavioral change and make sure it's safe on our major routes. Being able to access these funds should they be awarded would make a huge difference in the safety in the Mid County. And I really thank the staff for going there. On item number 40, the shared mobility services, it's completely understandable with the change in ownership of jump bicycles that we can't do a contract with them right now as they reorganize under their new corporate entity. But I'd like to direct the public work staff to come back with the associated ordinance before our September 15th consideration of this item because the ordinance does not have to be tied to the contract and it sort of sets our goals of what we wanna see in that contract. So I'd add that as additional direction. And lastly on item 43, I hope the board will join me in a way in which we can help local businesses while the COVID pandemic requires that we reduce the amount of people in restaurants and other businesses to ensure that we don't spread the virus. We should be creative about the way in which we use outdoor space and letting businesses use their own parking lots which will be considered in our first item on the regular agenda. But for those who don't have parking lots of their own, but there are county owned property, we should be a partner with these local businesses to be able to help them survive and thrive while we live under these restrictions. The first one here would be for the Daub and Biss parking lot in Soquel. We are also working with the parks department on placing picnic tables and other tables at the heart of Soquel Park to support businesses on the other side of Porter Street. But this would be very helpful and I encourage the support of my colleagues. Thanks for public works for taking a look at it in County Council for helping us figure it out. Thank you. Yeah, item number 25, this is Chairman Caput. I wanna welcome Pat Foreman for her appointment to the In-Home Supportive Services Advisory Commission. I wanna thank her for stepping forward. Item number 34, it's hopefully we'll get that 3.65 million dollars for Highway 152 and Hulahan Road. I wanna thank the public for being so patient to see work being done in that area. And then item number 42, the Freedom County Sanitation District for the phase one, replacing all the sewer lines in that area around Freedom Boulevard, Airport Boulevard and Green Valley, $607,000. And it's gonna be a great improvement to that area for the people. Thank you. Well, I'd be prepared to move the Consent Agenda as amended. Okay, we have a first. Second. And we have a second. Was that Supervisor Coonerty? Yes, it was. It was, okay. We'll call the roll. Roll call vote. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend? Coonerty? Aye. McPherson? Aye. And Chair Caput? Aye. Passes unanimously. That'll take us now to item number seven. Consider resolutions supporting the use of temporary permits and directing other measures to allow modifications to business operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the planning director. Thank you. How are you doing? Okay. Chair Caput, members of the board. Out of practice. All right, this item is before you because as we're all aware, we're making so many changes to how we work at the workplaces and at home. And so the County of Santa Cruz and by the way the cities are also doing very similar thing is having a series of actions that we're recommending so that we can be as supportive as possible to our businesses and our communities, economic health as well as physical health. So the first thing that is recommended is that you adopt a resolution and you would authorize and direct staff to implement the existing temporary permit provisions of our County code in a manner that would allow for up to six months for businesses in any zoning district to propose modifications to how they operate. And clearly there's a lot more physical distancing that needs to occur. And so this will allow people to come to the County through an easy level three process. It's an administrative permit. We're proposing that you waive the fees and they can propose how they might use part of a parking lot or make some other adjustments to best support operations. We've developed a pretty simple application form along with a self-certification that outlines some of the requirements they need to be mindful of and that will be available online and can be submitted and issued electronically. How long that will take to issue will of course depend on the nature of the proposal. If it's just tables and chairs, there's no building permit required, no food or alcohol, that'll be very straightforward. If there is extension of food uses or they want to use the public right away or public properties or they wanna serve alcohol that might involve getting a form, a license from ABC. But in any event, it should be all be very straightforward because it's a temporary type of activities and uses, not all the normal standards and requirements that we apply to permanent uses will be applied. We'll be primarily looking to making sure that they maintain their ADA path of travel, that their arrangement of the space is safe given nearby vehicular activity that they are complying with food safety and other safety protocols. Of course, including the COVID-19 protocols. So that's the recommendation with regard to the short term going ahead and using our existing code provisions in a little bit more flexible manner so that we can quickly take in and authorize these modifications. For the longer term, you may recall that we've already had developed some changes, some amendments to our temporary permit provisions. Currently really, they only mostly speak to outdoor sales, Christmas trees, and pumpkins. And it's only for commercial districts. But the provisions that have been drafted, which we're suggesting that you go ahead and initiate and we get those code amendments started so that they can be in effect by the end of the year, that would allow temporary uses in any zoning district. It would allow for 180 days with extensions and even all the way up to three years for the temporary arrangements to exist. So we're asking that you initiate those amendments at this time. They would be considered by the Planning Commission in July. They'd be back to your board in August. We would then submit to the Coastal Commission and hope for certification by the end of the year. So we will have those permanent, if you will, changes to the temporary use provisions. Now, because all of the adjustments in our lives are not only occurring in the workplace, but they're also occurring at home. I would have imagined that the extent of working from home had gotten to where it is. But you may recall, but it has. And so people are modifying all aspects of their lives. We had also drafted in the code mod some changes to our home occupation provisions. Not a lot of changes, but a couple of the key ones that we thought was worth going ahead and initiating at this time were ideas that came out of the economic vitality strategy process. In that process, we heard from our stakeholders that they really felt that one or two employees ought to be able to also work at the home occupation. So if it's an engineering consultant, they wanna have a junior engineer, work with them at the home occupation that that would be allowed. As well, for classes, sometimes people cut hair or they'll do art classes or cooking class. You can do that under our current homework, but right now you can only do one person at a time. So the code mod was very modest. It says you could have two people at the class at the same time by right without needing a public hearing and all that. The other thing that we're anticipating, we've already gotten some interest is people who are now shifting to a home. They find they don't quite have the right office arrangement. And just as with ADUs, now people are thinking about not a full-on ADU, but building a home office as an accessory structure. And so we had made a few, again, minor changes to our accessory structure provisions. There are no kitchens, so they're not fully units or anything like that, but sort of like an art studio or a home office or that. Currently, you can have a toilet in that facility, but you can't have a lavatory sink. And this is the type of thing where we make it clear that you can have a lavatory sink as well. So very minor adjustments, but just they made the provisions more workable. So the, at this time then, it's recommended that the board adopt the regular resolution directing the how we would administer the existing temporary permit provisions. And then also direct the planning department to initiate the code amendments as described. And then with respect to use of public lands, we just wanted to point out that we have existing procedures. The Department of Public Works administers the encroachment permit procedures for uses of public ride-away or the parks department issues, special event permits for uses of public parks. We own public parking lots as Supervisor Leopold alluded to, a couple in Soquel that are actively being worked on. So we do concession licenses and leases. We do special event permits. We give encroachment permits. So we just wanted to also sort of highlight that that is also an opportunity is that a more flexible use of public properties and rights of way to support these modified business activities and community activities. And so those are administered again by the Public Works Department. And if you have any questions about that process, we do have someone from Public Works who's available to speak to you. And that concludes my remarks. Chair, I just have some questions. Thank you for the presentation. I'm very interested in having a simple process for business owners who are just this week opening back up for the first time in months. And so having a simple process that people can access it become very important. So I want to make sure that it really is simple and that there is one point of contact and it's as simple as possible for people to be able to take advantage of this because now that they're open, days actually make a difference in terms of them being able to have the space in order to do the business necessary to keep their businesses afloat. So if I come in and I want to use the parking lot at my brewery or restaurant, I could submit something online. Yes, we'll have an online form, a simple application. We've created a self-certification form, sort of a check the box that runs you through what are the things you need to think about making sure you don't affect ADA path of travel, putting you on notice that you might need some review depending on what you're doing from environmental health, that type of thing. But pretty simple, we want to make sure we maintain public access and the safety but very simple and along the same lines as the vacation rental permit we ask for a diagram of the site plan doesn't need to be professionally prepared but just gives a diagram. And so someone will be able to print out these forms and PDF them in. We have assigned two planners, Lozan Jeffs is a senior planner and we have Sheila Bagley who's a little bit less senior and they'll be working as a team to make sure that these things get processed quickly. We've also had a meeting and coordinated with the other departments and those departments have also designated sort of team leaders, if you will. And so for environmental health, that's Olga Zuniga for the encrotron permits that's Travis Rieber in DPW and then there's a parks planner as well if it comes to that. Yeah, so I just want to stress how important this is for local businesses and how important it's gonna be for us to move quickly. You had mentioned in your comments that they would need to get ABC approval before we would give them the permit. And do we have any idea how long that take? I mean, because it's less than 48 hours is what we've heard. There's a pretty simple form that's available online from ABC. I forget the form number and then bring that with me but it's just you go online to ABC and there's a form that you can fill out if you're modifying your app, your business so that you're having outdoor service, then there's a form and it's $100 is what I've heard and it's processed within 48 hours. So it should be quick. We understand that people, businesses are going to start making these modifications and as long as they're working in good faith to attain the right certifications and permits, that's fine. Yeah, I mean, in order to make these spaces nice, I mean, a parking lot nice that they want to, I think the ABC requires some kind of fencing or gate or. Some sort of a barrier from what I've heard. It's not the same thing as like a building code that it has to be 42 inches higher or anything like that but it has to be a meaningful barrier to separate the alcohol service area from the other areas. Yeah, so I hope that we will, I hope that we can offer the same thing, 48 hours or less for review of our part of this because some businesses will have to invest in outdoor furniture, whatever the barriers are, everything else and there's a lot going on there in order to make it happen. That's why we've put together a special team that they'll be the ones and we've got a special form and our intention is to get them out as fast as possible. Yeah, the last thing I would add is it would be really helpful if our economic development department did some outreach with chambers of commerce and others in the community to let people know about this simple process because I think it would be very helpful for people to try to follow the simple rules rather than doing things on their own and then we have to get into enforcement action later on. So I take out a word that we're gonna move it quickly and I look forward to this change being able to be put in place to help out local businesses during the pandemic. Well, we looked forward to taking a look at all the creative ways that businesses are gonna propose their modification and they're really, we'll look at anything. We not necessarily can approve everything but we'll be open to considering any modifications that they wanna pursue. Chairman Caffett, the Supervisor McPherson, I'd like to thank their planning department for bringing these items forward and many of the questions I had were answered. Thank you Supervisor Leopold. It just really makes sense for us to provide more flexibility and creativity with our public and private spaces to support our economic and social wellbeing. I also appreciate maintaining our ability to condition temporary uses based on our public health guidance and compatibility with surrounding areas. And I especially appreciate the work to advance our code updates on accessory structures and home occupancy as it relates to workers at home, which we're gonna see more of I'm sure in the future. I can't think of a better time to update those provisions when many of us are working from home during this shelter in place. I think the planning department has done an excellent job of accommodating and addressing the needs of this unusual circumstance that we're in today. So I just wanna say thank you to the planning department. I think these will be well received. And I really do, I think it's important that we get the message out to our business partners throughout Santa Cruz County, as was mentioned by Supervisor Leopold. Thank you. This is Supervisor Coonerty. I wanna appreciate the planning department for bringing this forward, both the short-term and the long-term changes. And I guess I just wanna add my plea to Supervisor Leopold's comments, which is the business owners are under tremendous stress. They're often operating their business full-time because they can't afford employees. They don't have the luxury of time or money right now. And to the extent that we can keep this as easy and simple as possible, it makes me nervous that we have several different departments involved. And to the extent that things can be self-certified or simple check-offs, it's really, it's essential that this, what I've been saying all along is that this process can be less than one page and less than one hour. That should be our goal. And so for all the different department, for the total permit process, not for each department, but we really wanna make this as simple. It's a, we're dealing with a emergency situation and we have to have this be as simple as possible. So thank you. And Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. And just to add on, I would like to also thank the planning department as well as County Council for a very quick turnaround on this and for the emphasis on flexibility. If there is a silver lining on what's going on, just knowing that we're looking at ways that we can be flexible during this emergency to ensure that these local businesses not only stay in business, but also they're doing this in order to ensure greater safety for the community. So it meets the balance in both needs. I think that it's gonna help provide a framework for us as we move forward as well. I'm absolutely supportive of this. And to, in addition to Supervisor Leopold's recommendation about Economic Development Department Outreach, I think that we should have our PIO also do some media outreach today on this. I think that this is something that we absolutely need to, as of today, make sure that the community at large knows is available to the business community so that they can start getting those applications in. Thank you. People to be outside and working on taking part in the mass or the service. So anyway, it's good to see this all happening. And also, like I said, the outdoor dining. I saw one restaurant yesterday. They were setting up for outdoors. So I guess that started Saturday. Okay, okay. I didn't have the answer for when it started. Thank you. Hi, this is Dr. Underwood, Director of Environmental Health. And I just wanted to add a few comments about, again, I appreciate the leadership of the planning department on looking at this issue as we start to reopen. Just a comment, just any food facility that already has a permit for this. Again, we carry out state law. If they already have a food permit, dining outside is certainly fine. We just have some concerns if they start we're taking beverage service outside and things like that, but we can work with the folks. The other thing I do think is a concern is bars wanting to open and they're not allowed to understate or the health officer unless they add food. There is some flexibility there for them to do that. They can engage a catering truck to work with them. They can also apply to us for a host facility permit that would take a bit of time, but as long as they meet the requirements in their state law for certain things, like restroom accessibility and some other things, they could meet those as well and bring caterers in to provide food and thus be able to also open. And I will just say, I know we've had a lot of questions and other people have had questions about how to do this safely. We do have two really nice documents on our website that help people think about how to open up a food dining restaurant safely and think about some of the COVID related things, but as they do that, so again, those tools are available for them in English and we hope them have them in Spanish very soon as well. Dr. Underwood, anything you can do to help speed this along will be greatly appreciated. Right, as I say, right now they can just do it as long as it's dining outside and they already have a food permit with us, so. Yeah, well, I'm sure there's gonna be alcohol requests that's where a lot of businesses make money. I heard of that when we did the closure and the pickup service and everything else. And I know that the state guidance that you have to have a bona fide meal. I think that's what their language is. So having some kind of food allows them to do that and it could be the difference between whether these businesses stay or not. We've got to keep the local businesses. Yep, so we'll be looking forward to working with them. Thank you. Okay, do we need a motion or anything? I wouldn't move the, oh, I'm so sorry. Is there any other public comment? Is there anyone who speaks? Hello. Dancing some background noise. Is anyone in the upstairs room speaking? No, no, no. Is it my turn? Yes, yes, it's your turn. So much for modern technology. Ain't it grand getting radiated and not so good. I'm listening to this and I just, it's mind boggling. You call this simple and this is supposed to help businesses survive and thrive. This adds more complication and you know people's livelihoods have been destroyed and that these businesses, many of them will not come back. And I just heard you have a lot of discussions and don't cut me off, Mr. Palacios, about consent agenda items. And it says right here, consent items are routine business that do not call for discussion. You just spent as the kings of the county, the male board of supervisors, lots of time discussing consent items, which you Mr. Palacios have censored the public from weighing in on and therefore being able to offer valid information to the public. I consider this such hypocrisy. I'm almost falling out of my chair. You just heard about the masks and you've heard it before about how they really don't offer protection. Viruses circulate all over and your acronym, your acronym SAVE stands for slow S, slow down the virus, A, adapt to the new normal, which is all these further restrictions and seizure of the commons, what belongs to the public. The V stands for vaccinate, which is something hazardous. And the E stands for what was I forget the last one, but I consider what you're proposing here is not helping businesses at all. And we need genuine help. We need to be able to breathe and to stop things like this 5G, 4G wireless radiation, stop the chemicals that are being slathered all over everything and called disinfectants when they're actually toxic chemicals. Thank you, Marilyn Garrett. I'm Monica McGuire from Corralitos again. Stunned as well at the contradictions that we're hearing and the lack of public input. The factors throughout this meeting, like the last one where we were kicked out for a nonsense reason and where we are constantly having to fight just to have the hope that people will wake up and begin to take our public rights into account in our very, very limited lives now. Our freedoms have been cut so dramatically and our need to reach out to each other is cut dramatically by this continued insistence that people should be meeting in small groups at most and to think that someone could survive with their small business teaching two people as opposed to only one is ludicrous, as Marilyn said. And there are too many ways that you have continued in your bulldozing forward rather than take the very gentle and polite requests on all our part to take public opinion and desires and needs into account on a large scale. This is what we are asking for continually as we are asking all our fellow residents to come forward and make their voices heard to you because you keep saying that we are all going along with you and it's not true, but people are so discouraged about coming to meetings like this and so discouraged about speaking when their voices are completely muffled, all the more by a mask. This is the most important time of our lives. As Bruce Tanner said, it is a spiritual exercise. Again, more people in Santa Cruz are aware of this than any other place I have ever lived certainly and most of us who know that this is a spiritual important experience to allow us to recreate ourselves as humankind. We have the ability and the need to act like the spiritual beings that we are having a physical experience that requires us to grow and move in new directions. So in one way we're asking for you to just do what was always correct, which is to take the public's voices and opinions and care, but it must be in the new ways that now we have to invent since you're forcing us to harm our immune systems, everyone that you are forcing to wear this. It is apparent to me in the supervisors that there's a degradation to the health and ability to do their jobs. It is apparent in all sectors of our economy. The worst of all are the first responders or anyone who's forced to do any kind of physical labor with this on. We will see more deaths by far if this continues. Chair, I'd ask that we make sure that the comments are related to the actual item in front of us, which is about permits for people to be able to use their parking lots. Thank you, Becky Steinbrenner of Aptos. I am on medication right now, preparing for surgery that makes it difficult for me to breathe. So do not censor me again. Under item 12 of the County Health Order, regarding face. Go to the web. Actually, I'm sorry for number seven. I apologize for number seven. We do not have any web comments. I mean, everybody's going by the rule right now and you're not so. Your microphone may not be on. No, your microphone may not be on. No, I'm not speaking to it, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna go to the web comments. Becky, if you're not gonna cooperate. Okay, just, yeah, let's just go to the web. It done, there are none. Okay, my understanding is that you're not choosing to speak because you're not gonna wear your mask and everybody else is. It's a respect for the, okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. Go ahead, let her speak real quick. Turn back on the microphone. Yeah. The code modernization that was begun in 2015 and has required environmental review, but it has been languishing and I feel the planning department, I feel the planning department is using this opportunity to, I can't continue. Why don't you have a seat, sit down. Thank you. Yeah, usually you go right up. Okay, so they know you wanna speak. Okay. Yeah, with my head. Okay. Yeah. I'm light headed. Okay, what? It's very sensitive, it just wants to speak and they'll still pick her up. It'll still pick her up. You wanna speak? I'm sorry, just very light headed. You can keep speaking, they're saying the microphone is very sensitive. I can't. Okay, I'm gonna, it's okay to stand here and I'll speak. So sorry. Fine. Okay. She needs to breathe and she needs to breathe, she needs oxygen now because of this. I'm sorry, I feel nauseous. I'm gonna just move back. Is there a million oxygen? You call the fire department, she needs medical. There should be. No, I just need air, I just need air. Okay. I'm not putting this on, I'm on medication, preparing for surgery, this is rude. It's not a treat. And I have the ability under item 12, it's simply to take it back. It's okay, no one's gonna move you, right? Okay. Okay, I'm just gonna move back. Okay. I'm ready to speak if that's okay. Hi, I'm Jujie Tyroller and I have, I am also self-employed and I also work in Santa Cruz and I work, I'm from Larkin Valley, Watsonville area. And with my massage therapy, there's no way for me to be able to open up because Governor Newsom also says that, it's a touching thing, I can't touch anybody at this point. And the truth is that all of us are gonna suffer because none of our youth and our children, our infants, they're not getting enough touch. And it's not just the parents that do it. And so I'm just asking for that, the idea of having two people in a class, this is, it makes no sense. We have a lot of outdoor areas. There's hardly been any evidence showing that COVID is contagious outside. And you can have 10 people or 12 people in a class in a public area. They were allowing us to gather in groups of 10. And I think that that should be where it is. And if there's bigger gatherings and there's enough room to keep six feet apart, even though I disagree, I'm going to obey that. I would like more chances for public to come out and speak. I took off from what I was doing. My father-in-law just died, and it was very difficult for me to get here today, but I think it's extremely important that you know that there's way more community that are very uncomfortable with the laws that are being set. And the reason why we live in Santa Cruz is because we felt like the county supervisors were having our back. We're actually listening to us. And I know you're up against the state and what they want and other counties, but I think we need to really say, okay, let's take a stand. We're listening to our community and see how it goes. And I'm not saying open up everything at once and have people take off their masks, but for sure a lot of people are unable to breathe with a mask on. I tried to walk up the five flights of stairs and I'm in relatively good shape. And still it's very difficult. I'm not a runner. I don't live in a high mountain. You know, we're at sea level here. So please give us oxygen. We have fresh air. We have beaches. In addition, I am not willing to get a vaccination that has not been tested and tested well. I don't want to test it on people and I don't want to test it on animals. It's awful what we're doing. We're combining different DNA and RNA and destroying our entire civilization. And us and we should be thinking about generations to come. Well, there won't be any generations to come if we keep screwing with science and that's real science. Start listening to the doctors who are being silenced just so the agenda can be made so the pharmaceutical companies can make money. And this does interfere because the vaccination is extremely important. It doesn't work. In front of us and that we stop speakers if they're going off the subject. We're not allowed to talk about things that aren't on the agenda. We had an oral communication period. We need to honor that and deal with the subjects that are in front of us and the items that are in front of us. Okay, thank you. Okay, there's no web questions, okay. I would be prepared to move the recommended action. Second. We have a first and second. If there's no more discussion, we'll go to a roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Anderson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Passes unanimously. Takes us to number eight. And that is public hearing to consider ordinances amending Santa Cruz County Code chapters 7.128 and 13.10 relating to non-retail commercial cannabis regulations and making findings of exemptions from CEQA. Schedule these ordinances for second reading and final adoption if we adopted. On June the 16th, 2020 and take related action as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer. Okay. Supervisors that are on teams, if you could please remember to mute yourself. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning board members. I'm here to present to you good morning board members. I'm here to present to you proposed modifications to various portions of Santa Cruz County Code chapter 1310 and 7.128 related to non-retail commercial cannabis. We're gonna test check your microphone. Is the green light on? My green light is on. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I will scoot closer. So I'm here to present proposed code modifications related to chapter 1310 and 7.128 associated with non-retail commercial cannabis based on your input at the January 28th board meeting. At that meeting staff stated that the last 17 months of code implementation in the use permit process have revealed the time consuming nature of the use permit process and complying with the conditions of approval. The process is taking much more time than expected especially for our existing commercial agricultural operators. Therefore, we're proposing modifications that will help streamline the process as well as reduce the barriers to entry. These proposed amendments aim to implement the objectives of the board while adding proportionality to the approval process. Now, as you recall the cannabis licensing process includes both a use permit and a cannabis license as operators have been going through the use permit and licensing process. We have noticed some patterns which make the process arduous. First, cannabis cultivation has been defined for the purpose of a use permit as a commercial activity rather than an agricultural process. This creates a large financial barrier in order to comply with commercial development regulations. For example, one operator with existing greenhouses have shared their construction cost estimates of $2.5 million to comply with the conditions of approval. For another site, the operator is looking at $250 to $275,000 just to comply with drainage improvements required for commercial development even though the site is fully developed and all work has been permitted. In addition, with cannabis defined as a commercial activity farming operations can't just swap crops or change out a current crop for cannabis with ease. Now the state allows for the planting of industrial hemp which is the same plant and requires no use permits due to its definition as an agricultural commodity. In addition, cannabis operators interact with a number of state and local agencies besides the planning department and cannabis licensing office. These include the Water Board, Department of Food and Agriculture, the County Ag Commissioner and the Department of Fish and Wildlife. All of these organizations have a number of regulations that an operator must comply with creating a permitting barrier for small operators who have limited experience with regulation. Our proposed changes do not affect regulatory oversight in any way but instead seek to recognize cannabis cultivation as an agricultural activity in the commercial Ag zone and ease some of the barriers for smaller cottage licensees which made up a significant portion of our earlier registrants. Now the environmental protections included in the cannabis program remain unchanged by the proposed amendments to County Code. The best management and operational plan or BMOP requirements cover all aspects of siding, water use, fences, energy efficiency, biological resources, et cetera. Specific to cultivation operations there are added environmental protections required from the Water Board and these protections are based on a tiered permit which classifies the threat level based on total disturbed area, slope of the area and proximity to water body. The Water Board requires the cultivation site to implement a variety of prevention and mitigation measures, very similar to our BMOP. Based on the threat level, cultivators are required to submit a variety of documents. These plans alone require the same technical expertise as the stormwater pollution prevention plans, the state requires of high risk construction projects and industrial facilities such as mines and ready mix concrete plants. Professional engineers, geologists and stormwater experts are required to prepare these. Now coverage under these permits also requires monitoring and reporting of stormwater discharges which is in line with those required of most large construction projects. At the county level, we require will serve letters from all water suppliers and share well users, while at the state level they require coverage from the Water Board for surface water diversions and all sites are required to notify the Department of Fish and Wildlife for analysis of their water source to determine if it's applicable for a 1602 permit otherwise known as a lake and streambed alteration permit. Like all commercial farmers, pesticides are regulated by the Ag Commissioner but unlike all others, cannabis has a very limited amount of pesticides which can be used on the plant because of strict residual testing requirements. Harmful pesticides are all but banned due to this testing and agricultural chemicals are inspected quarterly and they're evaluated against the hazardous materials reporting thresholds. Now, the staff identified a variety of areas within county code to be amended, including the use charts, clarifications within cannabis uses sections, minor setback modifications and definitions as well as some language cleanup. Now with regard to the agricultural use chart the CDFA defines commercial cannabis cultivation as an agricultural process but the term commercial cannabis cultivation has resulted in us seeing cannabis cultivation as a commercial development rather than an agricultural process. This differentiation of growing plants but being commercial was furthered by the fact that cannabis is an agricultural product and not a commodity as defined at the federal level. In an effort to align the goals of the board to utilize existing greenhouses with the state acknowledgement that cannabis cultivation is an agricultural process, changes to the agricultural use chart are proposed to let cannabis cultivation occur as principally permitted in the CA zone within existing greenhouses and outdoor cultivation sites. This proposed change conforms to 1310 312 A which defines principally permitted uses in the agricultural zone district. Now we've removed hoop house cultivation because hoop houses under 12 feet in height do not require a permit and we utilize the compliance inspection program to ensure compliance with this and various other aspects of county code. Now these changes to the use chart do not affect licensing and oversight for cannabis cultivation and distribution operations in the CA zone. Now following along the same thought that cannabis cultivation is an agricultural process we've aligned the greenhouse replacement reconstruction and structural alteration changes with existing greenhouse code. And similar to many commercial ag operations distribution occurs from the farm either directly from picking the product and sending it to a central packer and distributor or packing the product into consumer ready containers and sending it on to retail outlets. So the proposed change to distribution is about aligning cannabis farmers with other farmers. Oftentimes we hear traditional farmers want to explore cannabis operations only to be priced away from the crop due to cost associated with commercial development standards. Cottage gardens which are outdoor grows in the CA and A zone are proposed to be principally permitted because they have a 500 foot size limit which is the same size limit as medical cultivation allowed by the county and state. The outdoor requirement for the grow was not previously noted in the youth chart presented to the PC, a footnote clarifying that the grow must be outdoors has been added to the youth chart. And notably medical cultivation sites of the same size do not require any permit, any oversight at the state or local level, no minimum parcel size or setback requirements. And lastly is the inclusion of transport only distribution as a principally permitted use. Transport only is a very limited operation which allows a licensee to move cannabis products in between state licensed cannabis companies. These are restricted because they cannot store any cannabis goods at their facility. They're just transporters moving products between businesses. Proposed modifications for the commercial youth chart include level one approval process for cultivation and non-volatile manufacturing operations within the C4 zone principally permitted use in the proposed for distribution within the C4 zone and also within the C2 zone with the caveat it must be paired with an existing retail operation. This approval level would only be for existing legal structures. And this conforms to the defined principally permitted use in 1310332A, which for the C2 zone includes community serving large scale retail uses and small scale commercial services which aligns well with the proposed change of allowing distribution when it's ancillary to retail in C2. So cultivation manufacturing operations will require building permits. So all structures will be brought up to current code and these are some of the most secure businesses we have because of the bank like security requirements, odor controls and no signage to indicate what's happening in the building. Lastly, transport only is proposed to be added as a principally permitted use in the PA, C2 and C4 zone district. PA was included because of the restrictions on the transport only operations aligned this license type with the principally permitted uses in PA which includes professional and administrative offices. The existing restrictions on new structures and development remain the same in this zone district. The industrial use chart modifications are similar to the changes discussed in the commercial zone district and these restrictions on new structures and outdoor cultivation remain unchanged. These changes are meant to be consistent with the commercial zone district because the majority of M1 sites are located in the South Rodeo Gulch industrial area which has mainly mixed commercial and industrial zone parcels. Additionally, the principally permitted use in the zone districts include small light industrial facilities for M1, light industrial in general for M2 and mining agricultural and timber harvesting in M3. Within the residential use chart, the timber and the timber production use chart, the proposed changes are consistent. Cottage gardens which are grows in the, which are outdoor grows in the RA, SU and TP zones are proposed to be principally permitted because they have the 500 foot size limit which is the same size as medical cultivation allowed by the county and state. As previously stated, these medical cultivation sites do not require any permit or oversight at the local or state level. The intent of this change is to align the cottage garden license with the existing home occupation standards and the existing medical rules to ensure human health and safety are maintained with these small cultivation sites. They can only be considered principally permitted if the existing residential structure, if there's an existing residential structure on the property and there is not any electricity used in the cultivation of the plants. The transport only distribution option has also been added to the RA and TP on the home, based on the home occupation standards and their restrictions placed upon those operations. Similar to the cottage garden requirements, a residential structure must exist on the parcel and any vehicles associated with this operations must have dedicated off street parking spaces as required within HOMOC standards. The bulk of the remaining changes within 1310-650 are associated with the BMOP being the sole responsibility of the CLO to approve and verify its implementation. This changes based on the practical reality that the CLO is inspecting these sites quarterly and is best positioned to ensure compliance with the BMOP requirements. Additionally, the actual language of the BMOP states the BMOP requirements shall be administered by the CLO and later in the same paragraph, the BMOP states the CLO will determine what requirements apply to Canvas business operations. The cottage license type was originally approved by the board to allow small artisan mountain growers to have an entry point into the commercial market. But due to costs associated with use permits, county fees, professional engineers and architects plus commercial development standards, these types of licenses are not feasible for people to pursue. The cottage garden license allows the same cultivation area as the medical cultivation gardens and those have no fees or oversight from the state. We're proposing lowering the parcel size because there is no minimum parcel size for the same size medical garden and staff feel that this minimally sized operation aligns with the current home occupation standards and the purpose and intent of the zone districts. In order to assure the alignment, a cottage garden license via principally permitted use is only applicable to sites with a residential structure and it must be an outdoor cultivation using no electricity as earlier stated. Additionally, the site must comply with all security requirements and ultimately the sheriff will continue to sign off and approve on security plans. Lastly, allowing people into the market is beneficial for the community because of oversight and it reduces potential criminal activity associated with unlicensed cultivators. Consideration for this change was run past the sheriff's office and they expressed that it would be better to have people in the commercial system where oversight and tracking occur. Now the PC recommended that the changes to the minimum parcel size in the RASU and TP zone districts remain at 2.5 acres. Their concerns have been summarized in the board memo and include concerns about commercial activities in residential districts, speculative real estate artificially driving up costs, odor and a good baseline for these operations already existing. Staff analyze these concerns in the memo and have recommended the minimum parcel size be reduced to one acre based on the following information. The licenses are limited to 500 square feet same as the medical garden with no oversight from the state or county. This type of small scale agricultural operation appears to align with the purpose of the zone districts. By allowing cottage licenses as a principally permitted use there is no land entitlement, just a license paired with a limited amount of money to be made by these operations. Therefore a speculative real estate bubble does not appear to be a reality. Licenses for cottage gardens are not land use entitlements. The green rush the county experienced in the 2010s and teens is over and many of the big players driving the speculative valuations of cannabis companies are going broke. For example, Tilroy Incorporated CEO thinks at least a dozen more of the large companies will file bankruptcy this year. And this is after Tilroy lost $184 million last quarter which was a celebrated downward revision from their assumed $210 million they lost. Well, canopy growth estimated over a billion dollars in losses last quarter. They're currently, and to provide additional perspective there are currently 40 industrial hemp operators cultivating roughly 137 acres of hemp and their operations have given the county valuable objective data on odor. Three odor complaints were received by the CLO and planning and the ag commissioners office combined. And large swaths of Brown Valley, Larkin Valley correlates at large and portions of the summit had the aroma of cannabis as observed by staff. Lastly, with regard to a good baseline the baseline for cottage licensees and people applying for use permits is zero which may reflect some of the goals of certain PC members. Other non-retail modifications currently cultivation RASU and TP zones is restricted to those that can prove cultivation occurred prior to January, 2013. We're proposing removal of the 2013 restriction because there's not a clear mechanism to accurately implement this requirement. When this requirement was approved with the original adoption of the non-retail program it appeared to be punitive for young people people who decided to move and all the registrants who never grew cannabis. Those registrants have viewed this as specifically punitive because they weren't willing to take risks associated with the legal uncertainties of prop 215 and felt that they were restricted from the program because of it. Now these changes will increase the total amount of parcels eligible for licensure in the county but the increases only for the small cottage garden. Licenses as the 2013 restriction was always impossible to implement. For context, after 17 months of use permits and licensing, we have eight sites in SU, two in RA and two in TP. We have a lot more than 12 medical grows occurring in the mountains. We estimate the current total to be well north of 3000 medical grows and the change in minimum parcel size for cottage licenses will increase the number of parcels as noted in the board memo. For these zone districts, all of the other restrictions remain in place including a ban on cultivation in the coastal zone and one mile buffer and the minimum parcel size for those larger sites. That's why the figures attached included the coastal zone and one mile buffer being excluded from the available parcels. So with regard to setback modifications their practical changes that are needed to meet the goal the board has been saying, simplifying the approval process and issue license. There have been multiple sites seeking use permits in the C4 and M1 zones but all of them require a level five or public hearing because there's one non-conforming home in the South rodeo Gulch area. This delays the process and creates a burden when the person in that home never provides feedback to all the notifications. Now, the outdoor cultivation setback must be reduced for cottage gardens in order to allow for the parcel size reduction. Measurement methods for setback is proposed to be altered to reflect findings that have been made for various sites. Oftentimes a home or a school is within 600 feet of a proposed site when you measure based on parcel lines but the practical reality is there may be topographic variations distances between the edge of the school parcel and the actual grow can be over 1,000 feet and this requirement slowing the process and by altering the language we can maintain safety and the original intent of the board. We are proposing a few definition changes to add clarity adding the definition of a financial interest holder reducing the ownership percentage threshold and these are in order to do proper due diligence during the licensing process. Based on experience enforcing the ordinance counterfeit language is proposed to be added to 7.128 based on occurrences of finding counterfeit packaging materials at various locations during enforcement efforts. Counterfeit materials undercut the legal market and potentially endanger people by subjecting them to unknown chemicals. There are major revisions to the enforcement sections based on our enforcement experience. The objective is to clearly define the enforcement protocols and find structures. Administrative citations are proposed for civil violations instead of notices of violations and revisions to the fines schedule based on plant counts, packaged product, weight of cannabis concentrate, weight of cannabis flower and weight of cannabis biomass and we've added clarification of liability requirements of liability issues for property owners. In summary, the goal, the proposed changes reflect the board's direction and the challenges the program has encountered. Growing cannabis in a greenhouse or outdoors in the CA zone is an agricultural activity and we need to define it as such or we'll never meet the original and continued vision the board has that cannabis is a crop and should be grown within the existing infrastructure in the CA zone. We have some of the best environmental protections of any locality based on the beam up and when paired with the requirements of the water board, the Ag Commissioner and Department of Fish and Wildlife, cannabis operators are some of the best commercial agricultural operators we have in regards to environmental regulations. The proposed modifications do not change these protections but more licenses and operators will only further the environmental protections and practices the industry follows and utilizes. By streamlining the process for operators in the C4 and M zones, we are following the existing county code for principally permitted uses while meeting the board's goal of simplifying the approval process. These buildings will require tenant improvements so human health and safety will be maintained through oversight from the fire marshal and sheriff's office. Cottage gardens are the same size as medical gardens and by allowing them as principally permitted use on smaller size parcels, we provide a licensing mechanism that supports the intention of the cottage license in an economically feasible manner. Lastly, cannabis businesses are like all businesses. They generate jobs and tax revenue. The proposed code amendments help further align the non-retail commercial cannabis program with the initial goals set by the board. The iterative nature of these changes further reflects the will of the board and the recent direction the board gave to staff. Thank you. Thank you. We'll open it up to the board for questions and then we'll have comments, okay? Do you want me to? Yeah, I just had a couple of questions. I may have more comments later. You mentioned that the ad commissioner has been doing 40 hemp licenses, which is a virtually identical plant in terms of the way it looks and smells. I wonder if you could answer a couple of questions about that. How long does it take for someone to get a hemp license and where have those hemp license, what zoned areas have those hemp licenses been in? So I'll start with the last question. The hemp licenses can be issued to anyone in an agricultural zone district, including TP, RAA, I believe SU and CA. It's really based on the principally permitted uses as defined by 1310, which allows small scale agricultural operations in a variety of zone districts. The process itself, there is a $900 fee. It's a, I believe a three page document and there is a background check. Now the background check was recently implemented. So anytime prior to the background check, you walked in, you paid your $900, you gave them the paperwork and you were done. It was the same day within a couple hours, generally speaking. So now I believe there is a bit of a delay waiting for the results associated with the background check. And if we had any, you mentioned in there that there hasn't been odor complaints, but have there been any calls to the sheriff or any other actions at those 40 sites? I can't give specific details, but I do know that there was a site that was mixed use cannabis on a portion of the site and industrial hemp on another portion of a site. The industrial hemp was very visible from a major roadway in South County and they did experience theft of their industrial hemp on I believe two occasions. That's the only site that it's the only one I'm aware of. Got it. And do you think that most of those hemp licenses have been in the A or CA or have they been in other places as well? They've been, oh, I don't, I have the breakdown for my PC presentation. If you just give me a moment. It's in here somewhere, it's RASUTPA and CA. I believe the majority of them are in the CA, but I know we had a couple in RA, quite a few in TP and a couple in SU. I will try to find the numbers if you have other questions. Well, the other question I had is the state has a license for these cottage farms. How much is, you know, if someone wants to, under your proposal, using, creating cottage farms, what would be the state licensing costs? So that is actually in the PC resolution. In the cottage financial estimates that I provided, the state licensing fee for an outdoor cottage license would be $1,200. So it's, it's, it doesn't sound very much. So that wouldn't be a prior to barrier. The state fees are probably a little bit less than our fees, honestly, will be for that same license type. All right, I'll have other comments, but I appreciate the work on this. I think the goal of making it easier to do in the commercial ag zones is clearly warranted and we've received letters from families in, in ag for long periods of time. And so it is considerably harder for someone to get a permit to do legalized activity in commercially zoned areas in Santa Cruz County as compared to other counties. And I understand the concerns about cottage business and there, there may be some work that needs to be done in terms of outreach and connection with people about what's really going on. But I appreciate the work that you put into this. It's a, it's a clear document. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, Mr. Chair. This is a supervisor, Fran. I do have some questions and some, some comments on this. I appreciate the presentation, Mr. Laforte. I mean, I do want to be clear that what is before us, it really is the largest proposed expansion of cannabis cultivation since the board originally approved this framework. There really hasn't been any community outreach on this. I mean, as you noted by our calculation, it would add at least 2,500 new parcels to be eligible for cultivation, including in rural and residential rural areas. So I'm comfortable with some of the changes that you're talking about for commercial agriculture, but not this entire board item. And I can't support the board item as it's currently presented. I do have some ways on which I think we can craft a better proposal and hope to hear from the community to help inform that. But I have a couple of questions for you and I'm just sort of like a 10,000 foot view. I would caution that there were some pretty broad statements made about what the board's intent is. You know, we had a lot of, we've had seven or eight years of discussion on this, at least since I've been on the board, obviously predating when you were with the county. And so there were a lot of fights and a lot of discussions and a lot of these things were actually hammered out and they're there for a reason. And so we have to sometimes be careful about how we interpret how things are because they actually were a result of a pretty significant public process. I mean, when I mean significant, I mean, hours and hours and hours of testimony, a lot of discussions of the planning commission and the board. So I'm not gonna argue it's a perfect structure of what we have, but I think that we should at least honor and respect the fact that the planning commission and board, maybe their intent can be seen by the end result as opposed to trying to read in to intent beyond the result. So a couple of the questions I did have was one of the key arguments in favor of this cottage license expansion is this argument that people would come into compliance that are currently gaming the system under what I, at least I read from your language are basically fake medicinal arguments. But I don't see why they would, is there any evidence to say why somebody who currently is operating outside of the structure and can continue to do so, even if we lowered the threshold would now come into compliance, what would their incentive be? Because unless a hundred percent of them did come into compliance or a significant number, all we're doing is massively expanding the amount of possibility for parcels and permits while also not addressing the issue that the sheriff's office is bringing up. I think that we currently have a system in place, which has made it so no one has pursued or will ever pursue a cottage license. It's economically infeasible. And we will not be able to provide the board data on whether people are willing to become a commercial cultivator and go down the cottage license path with the current system. So by doing a principally permitted use, our hope is that certain cultivators who, and many of our registrants who didn't qualify because of their parcel size will come into the commercial program. I can't provide the board evidence of what that impact would be, how many people would come into the program. But I can say that there is no economic incentive for spending north of $20,000 to try to obtain local cottage license approval through the use permit process currently. Okay, I appreciate that. I think that it's a pretty significant expansion. I mean, this is my philosophy on it, that it's taking a pretty large risk of expanding a lot of parcels. I mean, way more than are currently eligible in our county. Again, the largest expansion since we've even had this policy in place at all, maintaining cultivation at all on the possibility that some people may come into compliance. That doesn't seem like a very good trade off for either the community, the public benefit, either the environment or the community at large. So I think that that's not maybe the wisest decision, but just moving on to a couple other questions I had because I know we want to get to some public comment. On the hoop house issue, there was a pretty strong statement made by the board that we wanted no new construction in the coastal zone. And, but we're fine with existing greenhouse structures or even existing hoop house structures that are currently there. And so I just wanted to clarify that I'm not supportive of the elimination of this change in 1310-650-C3C, which would allow these new hoop houses when our whole goal was not allowing new construction, but we want to make sure that we emphasize that we allow existing. So I saw from your presentation, you were saying that there's already a by-ride activity if it's under 12 feet, but are you saying you're trying to formalize a process to allow for an expansion of hoop houses within the coastal zone? I'm just trying, the goal was to just align that we don't restrict hoop houses anywhere in the county if they're under 12 feet, because there's no permitting required. So by differentiating them in the code, we weren't necessarily doing anything. We were just adding a layer where we don't stop someone growing raspberries from putting up hoop houses because there's no building permit required. We already have that restriction waved within our building code. So we're just trying to clarify the cannabis regulations with the building code to have a uniform pathway for people. Okay, thank you for that clarification. My last question just deals with there's a subtle but could be significant change on some of the language regarding cultivators to use energy efficient methods. Currently, we require them to do so. We want them to be green growers. It's a countywide policy. As you know, we're doing solar expansion throughout the county facilities, but the language was changed in 7128-170-J to now say that they should make their quote, best efforts. Can you explain to me what best efforts means or why we would be reducing the threshold of wanting them to be energy efficient? Sorry, I want to get to that specific piece of language. 7128-170-J. Oh, yes. So this has become, this is an interesting one. And I'm going to jump into the weeds a little bit. And I'm sorry, but I have to in order to properly explain this. But what we've seen from analysis of data from various cultivators is when they're using LED lights or fluorescent lights or high intensity discharge lights, the difference in energy uses can be significant within greenhouses and hoop houses. So it's, we still require people to go down the road of using the least amount of energy for those facilities. But in our few indoor facilities, we've noticed that people continue to want to use high intensity discharge lighting. And the issue really is that that lighting actually reduces the total amount of energy used in cultivations because it produces heat and drives down humidification within the rooms where LED lighting does not have the heat aspect. Therefore the energy consumption of those rooms is actually has been shown to us and we've reviewed data from various cultivators that they actually use more energy because of the dehumidification and air conditioning capacity required to keep the humidity down. So by requiring LEDs, we've actually, we were actually requiring people to use more energy, which is not the intent that we felt the board had. I appreciate that. Perhaps though, as opposed to saying best efforts, which seems like a slippery slope where people can argue they made best efforts, if the goal is to reduce energy consumption, then we should require reduced energy consumption maybe without being prescriptive of how somebody does it. It seems just counter to everything we've done with the creation of Monterey Bay Community Tower and everything else. This is what our, then we shouldn't allow it to just kind of be upon an industry to make their best efforts. We don't do that on any other industry that we regulate. So it would make sense to be more specific, I mean, in what our goal there is. Those are just my questions. I appreciate that and I'll hand it back to you, Chair. Now they're supervisors. Why don't we open them for public comment then? No, I'm gonna, I have a few questions. Oh, okay, all right. Yeah. I know a few years ago, actually, we had a C4 committee and they looked at all this and I'm starting to wonder if they even recognize what they recommended back then. I think they still can, but we keep changing things. And I appreciate all the work you're doing, by the way, on the report and everything. So you're the only one here to take the questions. Anyway, the changes, is that coming from interested parties that are growing and selling marijuana and how much of the report and changes are coming from the general public. What I'm getting at here is, if somebody has a special interest, they're gonna want changes all the time that's gonna benefit them in their sales and in their profit margin. And you're a little bit insulated. As supervisors, we're not, we don't have that insulation from the public. We get all the complaints later after we make all the changes. So how much of the changes that everything would you say are coming from the general public rather than the interested parties that have a profit margin? Well, I don't think any of the changes that we've proposed for the CA zone have really come from the public other than from the input we've received from the Farm Bureau representative at the previous meetings. And with regard to the general public input, we really value in the CLO our responsiveness to the general public. We investigate complaints and we tried to be very careful in the changes that we're proposing here, which are relatively minor for everything except for the Cottage Garden license. So that's why we've tried to maintain all the protections within our residential zone districts. And the basis for the Cottage Garden change is really the fact that we have a plethora of medical grows that are 500 square feet where we have no oversight. People complain, we go check them out. They have prescriptions, we walk away. We felt it would be better to have people in the fray versus doing it medically. And potentially that material is getting diverted and being sold commercially. We know it's occurring to some extent. Our sheriffs know that. They've found the same prescription at multiple sites, for instance. That's the clearest indication. We know that the medical program may be being, or is being abused by a few people. Yeah, we've reached out to community groups, to the CPP specifically, Community Prevention Partners. We've reached out to industry groups, such as Green Trade. And we've reached out to various commercial agricultural operators. And then we've also reached out to growers outside of the community and to other counties to understand how we can make this program work in the direction the board has said, which are, the biggest change here really is the CA. And it has appeared to staff that the board wanted people to grow cannabis if they were gonna do it in the CA zone. And it has not worked out that way currently. I recognize all the medical benefits and things like that. But I think we're talking about a lot of, it's a serious subject. We're not talking about strawberries. We're talking about marijuana, which one of the things of marijuana, why people smoke it is to get high. Okay, and it is stronger than the marijuana of the old days and all that. It's something you wanna keep away from children. And so it's not like a strawberry. I guess the language in the report, and I'm not blaming anybody for the way they wrote it, except that it sounds like it came from somebody in the marijuana industry, saying that hemp looks like and smells identical to cannabis, marijuana, with the only difference being the amount of intoxicant produced by the plant. I mean, I can say that about grapes. The only difference between grape juice and wine is the alcohol content. So there's a big difference here. Hemp and marijuana are not the same thing, even though they look the same and smell the same. I mean, if I got pulled over for driving and I told the police officer, I'm really only drinking grape juice, that's not gonna go anywhere. So what I'm getting at is when we're talking about cannabis and marijuana, we're not talking about hemp. We're talking about something that gets you high. What about the roads? We're actually reducing the restrictions on roads in order to get to and from greenhouses. Is that correct? We're not reducing restrictions or roadway requirements for the CA zone. Well, I'm a little confused with that question. Fire hydrants and access, if we talk to the fire departments and stuff like that. Yeah, so the fire department was concerned with the potential to use existing structures within the CA zone as a principally permitted use. And the way we've proposed to mitigate their concerns is by utilizing our internal staff who are building inspectors and to assess buildings for safety based on human health standards and current code. So if a building does not meet code requirements, we will not let it be utilized for cannabis operations. And we do know we have limits as inspectors in terms of what our professional capacity is to make those decisions. And we've reached out to the head building official on a few occasions to come out to sites with us to provide input so that we make sure we are meeting the county's best interest and we're ensuring human health and safety on existing sites. We want applicants to know what they're gonna need to do to utilize a site and we don't want a site to be used that could potentially result in something bad happening. So we're utilizing our expertise similar to the way the building department utilizes the safe structures program. Okay. And then jobs, we're talking about people that right now are working in the fields picking food off of the best farmland in the world, basically. It could compare with any of the best land anywhere in the world. And there's gonna be a loss of jobs, right? If more and more of the land goes towards marijuana cultivation rather than food cultivation. And the food industry right now where our pride is for Santa Cruz County, we produce $800 million worth of agricultural products in a year and we're talking about jobs and the packaging, the picking, the cold storage, the transportation, the whole industry. With marijuana, there's gonna be a reduction in that, is that correct? I don't agree with that. I think you'll actually be increasing jobs. And one of the key things that I think the board needs to understand with these changes is we're not in any way increasing the canopy allotment that the board has previously approved. Worst case scenario, it's 2.5% of the minimum or of the parcel size could go to cannabis cultivation. So you're talking about losing potentially 2.5% of all of the commercial ag land. It's unlike Santa Barbara County where they don't have limits. I think the board and the Cannabis Licensing Office did a great job wrangling a usable amount of land so people could be cannabis businesses while protecting the existing agricultural companies that we have. And I believe that cannabis companies probably have more intense labor needs than many different commercial agricultural operations due to the trimming, processing and overall needs associated with maintaining the cannabis because it is a sensitive crop similar to some of the other sensitive crops. But there's a very limited pesticides, that can be used to maintain the crop unlike other commercial ag products or commodities I should say. Sure. And again, you're the only one here so I'm directing the questions to you. It's not personal, okay? I appreciate everything you're doing. I'm just trying to provide you the proper framework to make the decisions. That's all my job is, is to provide you data and analysis and recommendations so you guys can do the hard decisions. And of the 2.5% that we're talking about, about how much of that is in South County, District 4, compared to the rest of the county. I don't have that information. I can say the majority of the CA's own parcels are in- It's about 90% or more. Okay. So it's very, very personal to District 4. And then we have, well, and then when we're talking about the changes, 2.5%, I have no problem going along as long as there's a stopping point. This one is going beyond that stopping point for me. We keep changing the rules as we go along. And it seems like marijuana was gonna generate all this money and it would come in on the South County, which I represent, and it would go to the whole county. What I'd like to see from the beginning was spreading it out, but then with all the coastal restrictions and everything like that, and all the most of the 80% of the $800 million in the ag industries coming out of District 4 and part of District 1, I believe, or 2. 2, 2. Yeah, so is there a stopping point? That's what I'm getting at. Okay, then we have the energy use. You did talk about a little bit on that. I guess what gets me too is, and what I'd like to see in the future is solar power, some kind of power, because my understanding with PG&E, the bill for a cannabis indoor growth about a little bit bigger than this room around, about the size of this room, it's about $25,000 a month for their energy bill. I take it personally because like a lot of us we tell, I tell my kids, turn the light off when you're not in the room. Don't leave something running when you're not using it. Don't have the TV going if nobody's watching it. The public in general is watching out for conserving energy, and then with marijuana, they're burning up everything that we're trying to save. Do you have anything on that? To put it in perspective, we have one indoor cannabis cultivator currently, and we have proposals for two additional indoor cannabis cultivators. Everyone else is outside. Mixed light, greenhouses, or outdoor grows. And I believe other localities have required solar panels for commercial cannabis cultivation operations. I don't think that's the proper way to go. The power of many is much greater than the power of one, and Monterey Bay Community Power is a prime example of that. When you aggregate resources, you can have everybody go green. When you force the hand of few, those few go green, and it doesn't benefit everyone else. Everyone right now is under Monterey Bay Community Power, is utilizing carbon-free power. I think that's great. I think it aligns well with many of the county's goals. I think that requiring individual companies further disincentivized growth in the industry, and we have to look at the whole here. We have up, what could be three indoor growers utilizing a lot of power. Seems like we could add that requirement, but it's only gonna be applicable to three people. So just for perspective. And when we're talking about the environment, well, this is directed to everybody, not just you. In the past, Santa Cruz County has done everything they could to protect farmland. We have measures on urban sprawl and all of that. The food value of marijuana is what? I mean, I don't even know the answer. I'm imagining the food value, if you ate it, if you were hungry, it would be minimal. Somebody could not survive. So. I have no idea. No one's making that claim. The point is that if we're protecting the best farmland in the world, comparably to anywhere in the world, the pressure, if we turn over even a little bit or more to marijuana grow, our argument then becomes we're not feeding the world. We're not, we're bending to something that does get you high and does make you feel better. And it does have some medicinal benefits, but people can't eat it and live on it. So we have food banks and we have food distribution sites in a time like a pandemic that we're going through now where people are out of work. And we're talking about something that gets you high rather than actually puts food on your table for yourself and your family. So I want to protect farmland and that's my statement. Well, chair, I just want to make a comment because the rhetoric that you just shared is not based in an actual reality. As the staff member has pointed out, we have created a limit on the number of acres that can be used for cannabis production. This is not a food or cannabis fight. This is not, this is not a food or cannabis. We are not jeopardizing food in favor of cannabis. We have a letter from a guy who grew flowers, has millions of square feet of flowers, didn't produce any food. We had no problem with him producing flowers until the federal policy changed around NAFTA and CAFTA and ruined that industry. He's trying to use his facilities, already existing to use the existing space to provide a legal product and jobs. And so we should be looking to figure out how we can support that activity because it's not a question of whether he's gonna grow lettuce or something else. He grew flowers and now he wants to grow a different kind of flower because the flower market that he's historically been involved with has changed. So if we're concerned about taking care of people, we should look at the jobs that are created through this industry, which pays better than farm workers do when they pick strawberries. Most of these folks are being paid over minimum wage. So if we were caring about food on the table, having a job in which that pays better than a minimum wage, that's a good thing. We should be striving towards that. We can't take a moralistic point of view on a policy in which we've asked our staff to figure out a way that can actually meet the goals. This board directed the staff to figure out a way by a vote of this board to figure out a way to get 150 permits. We got a report last month that showed that we're nowhere near that. These changes are meant to try to figure out a way to balance the various interests. Now we can disagree and I'm sure we're gonna hear testimony from the concern, especially about cottage grows. And I understand that completely and we can have a, we should have a good debate about that. But when we're looking at commercial agriculture sites or agriculture zone sites, we should be thinking about what the growers will actually wanna grow. That the testimony we have is that they wanna grow this plant. The Farm Bureau is not coming out saying we're choosing cannabis over food. They're not saying that. Folks who are involved with the Farm Bureau are saying we should support these regulation change. So I just wanna make it clear because I don't think the misrepresenting what's actually being discussed here is healthy towards the debate and we should talk about what our goals are and what we're trying to get done rather than making a broad assumptions about why we're choosing to work on this instead of something else. That's a false dichotomy. Well, that's very easy to say when very little of it really impacts your district. I'm talking about a district that farmland is number one. You go and talk to anybody working in that field right now picking strawberries or berries and they're gonna tell you that's what they wanna do rather than working and losing jobs because marijuana produces less jobs than the ag land is producing right now. Well, that's not what the testimony we just heard. They're very protective. That's not what we heard. You are making a claim not back. It's actually a fact. It is not a fact. There's the great effect on jobs. The whole thing is based on money and jobs. The only reason we're bending over backwards for the cannabis industry is because we want more money for the county coffers. I understand that but we're gonna do it in district four. We'll be producing all that money and it's gonna go to the whole county. It's not gonna go to district four. Well, when we have vacation rentals which provide 57% of our transient occupancy tax. We asked her questions. You interrupted me. I'm just saying the idea that because something happens in district four, the money should stay there. If we drew that out, there'd be a lot less money for district four because if you look at the 57% of our TOT which comes from vacation rentals of which there's 400 or 350 in my district alone that probably generates more more tax dollars than what we're getting from cannabis right now. We don't choose that. That's why it goes to the general fund and we collectively decide how to spend that money. I don't think you wanna get into who's generating the income in order to figure out where the money goes. The money should go where it's needed. Well, anyway, I'd like to see another C4 committee actually look at it because we lost whatever we started with. That was what was supposed to get all the input and make all the changes. But anyway, I'd like to see this put off to a future date. I'm gonna ask for an amendment rather than June 12th if anybody will entertain it that we actually look at this closer. And I'd like to speak with the Cal Fire a little bit more about the roads and access to everything. If anybody wants to... Why don't we take public comment? I think that would probably be helpful before. Okay, anyway, but I did make my recommendation that we put this off to a future date to look at it. It's very, very, very serious for district four. We go ahead, public comment. Good morning, Chair Caput and members of the board. Ken Hart with Swift Consulting. I'm really happy to be here today. Thanks for the opportunity. I wanna address some of the discussion that was happening amongst board members first and foremost. I believe that the county's position has been to support cannabis cultivation on CA properties. And I think in support of that is the fact that on CA land in greenhouses, there is no canopy limit. So I think that that in and of itself speaks to the intent of the county in terms of support for bringing cannabis cultivation to CA properties. At the outset, I wanna say I support all of the changes including the changes to the minimum parcel sizes for cottage grows. I've processed a number of permits for CA parcels and those permits have total about 1.3 million square feet of cultivation. Most of those that number of square feet are in greenhouses and I would say 90% of those greenhouses are currently vacant. And it's because what the point John Leopold brought up was they had been growing flowers and the flower market now is a thing of the past. About six cents per square foot for lease price for growing flowers. So protecting farmland, I think that this to supporting cannabis cultivation, especially in greenhouses on CA property, it does support and protect farmland and it actually does create jobs. I, like I said, we have been involved in a number of use permits and it's been a very, very heavy lift on CA properties. Plants come at great expense and great effort and I think that this change would go a long ways towards simplifying, making it cheaper, making it easier to convert to cannabis. Now the conditions of approval on these applications that I've processed are very onerous and a number of my clients who have obtained use permits are in the process of trying to comply with these conditions. So I guess what I'm assuming that if this were to be adopted and the cannabis would become a principally permitted use, that these holders of these use permits would be granted relief from having to comply with these conditions of approval. Now, when I assume something, I usually get into trouble. So I guess what I'd like to hear from a county representative or representatives is that that would occur, that they would get relief. Okay, I guess I'm out of time. Thank you very much. Good morning, Kevin Collins. I live in an RA-Zoned neighborhood subdivided about 1953. The parcels range in size from about an acre to five acres at greatest. Most of them are less than two and a half acres in size. The proposals for TPSU and RA are really stunning in my opinion. The fact that there being signed a principally permitted use in a residential area for commercial marijuana cultivation is I was just amazed when I saw that. Anyone who has experience as I do in land use regulatory code knows that those codes are only marginally enforced. The Water Quality Control Board has hardly any presence in this county. I used to be on the county's fishing game advisory commission and I know a lot about the department of fishing game. It has totally inadequate capacity to carry out its mandate. So in any case, let me focus on the residential impacts. To make pot cultivation, a 500 square foot grow is worth a lot of money. You don't wanna set off a new set of problems in the residential districts by removing setbacks. These setbacks are defined as to their neighbor's house. So the pot grower can plant his plants on the property line if the neighbor's house provides him the setback by being 100 feet from that line. And if he's indoors, your COLA has a temerity to propose a zero setback on a one acre lot. No county in this state allows pot cultivation on less than five acres. And most require more. So the proposals for, and as far as water quality, you can knock down a quarter acre of forest, tall 150, 200 foot tall forest in this county. You can take down a quarter of it. If you don't sell it, you just drop it on the ground and start growing pot on a mountain side slope. This is a major water quality issue. There's a fire issue. 27 firearms were confiscated during the bus of these so-called medical grows, most of which are likely to be commercially. Everybody in this room knows they're commercial. A few of them I'm sure are not, but my letter speaks for itself. I hope the board will consider the impacts to residential zoning seriously. It's very dangerous for those of us who live there. Thank you very much. Good morning, Mary Jo Walker. I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton. Nice to see you all, everybody. I made up this story, but this will happen all over the county if these changes are proved in the RA and SU zones. My protagonist, Anne, lives in a nice 1800 square foot house on a two acre residential agricultural parcel. She and her husband built it 25 years ago. He died a few years back. Her daughter was going to move into the house with her husband and kids next year and build a granny union on the other side for Anne to live in near her daughter and grandkids. But that whole plan went down the tubes when the county passed some new rules in 2020. Anne's house sits close to the lot line with her neighbors, the Greens. Anne's bedroom is there. The Greens' two car detached garage is maybe 30 feet from her bedroom window. That's fine. Garages are quiet. The Greens wanted to convert the garage to a greenhouse to grow pot, but couldn't because it had to be 200 feet from Anne's house. That was until the county's new rules allowed a zero setback from the neighbor's house, zero feet. So now Anne has a 500 square foot pot greenhouse, about 30 feet from her bedroom window. It smells. They work there at night because they have day jobs. They play music while working all the while Anne is trying to sleep. Anne can't use the bedroom at the other end of the house because that's even worse. Mr. Bloom is on that side. He bought a five acre parcel in 2015 during the so-called Green Rush. He cut some trees and planted a big pot farm. It was all on the other side of the five acres. So Anne didn't have to look at it, but he got busted because he bought it the property after 2013. Then the county passed these new rules. Mr. Bloom got a license for a 2600 square foot outdoor pot farm. That's 50% bigger than her whole house. Not only that, he pushed it over to Anne's property line to give himself a buffer around his house. The required 400 foot setback from the neighbor's house, but somehow he convinced the licensing officer to allow a 100 foot setback from her house right on the property line. She wasn't notified this or anything. So she has to look at this all the time. It's dusty. It smells. There's rodents. There's chemicals. He's using a lot of water from the stream. So of course Anne's daughter doesn't want to live there with her kids. Heck, she doesn't even want them to do sleepovers with grandma anymore. So Anne sits alone in her house surrounded by cannabis, not sure what to do. Thank you. Good morning, members of the board. Robin Bolster Grant, attorney with Rice Luxon and Bolster Grant. Thank you to Sam for bringing these welcome changes, particularly to the commercial ag zones. I've come before you a couple of times. Oh, that was really fast. I've come before you to talk about the perceived failures of the program, which is not attributable to any particular person or agency, but just the layers of regulation that have made it really hard for folks to get through. So we're super happy about the changes. We think we'll see more successes. As stated in my letter to your board, we also support modifying the regulations for cottage gardens. We view this not through the lens of enforcement, that the notion that this is somehow to give folks who have been breaking the law a pass. I don't see that at all. We represent folks who have legitimate medical gardens. And as we've discussed, they're not subject to county oversight, but they often find themselves with excess product. And if they keep it on the property, they're in trouble, they can't sell it. So we see this as a way to help folks to offset the costs of providing medicine to folks. But it's also the case that small farms really are where cannabis got started in this county. And when we came up with this grand scheme a few years ago, it was with the idea of protecting local farms, the folks that had been doing this forever. And a lot of those folks were left out. And so we don't wanna see the industry captured by larger operations. We want the little mom and pop folks to be able to succeed. Finally, with respect to the changes to the enforcement, and this is just, I don't know, I helped to draft the administrative citations ordinance back when I was in the planning department. It's disheartening to me to see the expanded use of that mechanism. I know very well how hard enforcement is and I promised the board robust enforcement. Administrative citations were always meant for minor violations. That was in the enforcement plan that was presented to you. And that was the basis for the citations program. 100 bucks, 200, you know, it was originally envisioned for commercial signage. There's no hearing rights when you are hit with a ticket. It's up to you to appeal. And we're talking tens of thousands of dollars in fines. And again, I totally get the enforcement piece of this but the change here requires that those fines be paid up front before you exercise your appeal rights. And I think that's wrong. That's my understanding. Maybe that's a misreading, but you have to pay the fine. And you can correct me if that's incorrect. But I notice the violation, the traditional way of dealing with folks that have broken the rules requires a hearing before you impose fines. And I'd like to see us return to that. Thank you. Hi, Pat Malo, been working on this for a long time. Thank you, Sam, for bringing these suggestions forward. I think that they're necessary and steps in the right direction. I do think we heard a really honest comment from Supervisor Friend earlier when addressing Sam to not read into the intentions of the county and look at the results as the intentions. And you know, I'm a political realist on my bad days and today I'm agreeing with that. And the results of this seven year process have been to put all the small farmers out of business. There was some talk of pushing it to Commercial Ag in South County, but that's been made too arduous even for them. We've lost, you know, hundreds of registrants who were paying money just to get in line to participate in this process. We have, I think, five to 10 cultivation licenses in the county, I think one or two, or potentially in anything other than Supervisor Caput's district, and you know, I know that wasn't the entire group of the county and participants in this process's intentions, but I think it's an honest comment to read the results as the intentions of this. And we really need to get back on the right track if that wasn't our intentions or be honest about those intentions. I think that the commercial activity in the mountains is, you know, been a green rush for a lot of senses ended in 2015 when other, you know, areas started to get ahead of Santa Cruz and commercial cannabis stuff. I think that's evident through, you know, Sam saying that we haven't had complaints even though we have acres and acres of hemp, the same plant, I know not intoxicating, but the smell is the same, similar. We haven't had complaints. The two folks we have here complaining today instead of a room full of complaints are literally writing fiction to, you know, to flesh out those points. So I mean, I'm here as someone who has lost their job in this. I grew up in this community, you know, and I've gone with you guys on good faith for seven years on this. And I just, you know, I'm gonna still keep going in good faith because there's no other option, but there's a whole bunch of other small businesses who are feeling right now what we all felt like. There's a whole bunch of issues right now sort of involving enforcement with law enforcement to solve problems on a bigger issue. These shouldn't be issues that we're arguing about anymore, especially at these times. So I don't want you guys to lose your jobs like I did. So let's get this right. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody in the community room? There's nobody in the community room. However, I have 12 web comments that need to be read. So if you will be patient with me, please. The first person is from Julia Gondenski. I am steadfastly opposed to the proposed changes from the cannabis licensing officer, CLO, to reduce the minimum acreage requirement from one acre for a cottage license. We have been over this many times before and the one acre size was always what was wanted by the cannabis industry, but was clearly shown to be harmful to public safety environmental biodiversity and neighborhood health while providing no meaningful community benefit. There is no evidence or compelling rationale on which to advocate for this change, except to make it easy for cannabis growers to grow almost anywhere and with little to no enforcement of any regulation. This happened already under the medical marijuana regulations. Do not let it happen again for commercial cultivation. Please reject the CLO proposal to lower the minimum acreage requirement for a cottage license from commercial cannabis cultivation to one acre and RATPZ and SU. The next one is from Eric Hoffman. My name is Eric Hoffman. I served on the cannabis choice cultivation committee representing district three. Our committee was made up of five appointees from each supervisor's districts. Letters on the cannabis cultivation business and retired county officials with specific expertise helpful to designating a workable county wide ordinance. We researched, studied, debated and made decisions to guide the growing of cannabis in a way that sought to protect the integrity of neighborhoods, diminish negative impacts on wildlife and the environment. The threat of fire due to grow activities is real. The impact of the impact of poisons, killing avian and animal predators large and small in great numbers is real. The proposition is a power play for a small segment of our population, the cannabis growers, our expense, our land and our community. I strongly suggest the board reject the COL amendment, which would be disastrous. Please endorse the strong terms, strong terms, the protection of RA, SU and T zones to protect our rural neighborhoods, environment and environment. Next one is Nancy Macy on June 2nd, 2020. President Greg Caput, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, Bruce McPherson, John Leopold, Ryan Coonerty and Zach Friend, members of the board, dear President Caput and members of the board. While we can understand the frustration of the county at the unexpectedly paltry income from cannabis industry thus far and the pressure from growers to reduce the requirements, the county imposed on them, I and many others are feeling absolutely betrayed by the major changes in aspect to the ordinance that negatively impact rural residents. The process was long and labored with major concessions from local residents and environmental stewards. And we strongly urge the board not to use, to not so capillarily throw out the hand fought protections to those RA, SU and TP zone parcel owners. These include reducing the required acreage from two and a half to one acre when the preferred number of acres most rural residents required was five. And something never allowed even for a tool shed, reducing the property of line set back for interior growers, mostly greenhouses to zero feet. We reject the idea that it's okay for someone who has moved here since 2013 should be allowed to grow since that undermines the effort to the, to supporting those existing growers who are seeking licensing and to discourage those who would take advantage of this county's willingness to allow legal controlled environmentally sound growers to succeed and to be good neighbors. We strongly support the points made to our, I'm sorry, we strongly support the points made to articulate by Mary Jo Walker, Kevin Collins, the folks of Bonnie Dune and others who are applauded through their long involved input is being discounted and ignored. Reasonings that have few complaints about outdoor actually underscores the need for distancing since few neighbors are willing to make formal complaints against their neighbors when they have to live near one another and hope to have a friendly relationship rather than an adversarial one. We strongly urge you not throw away the protections that we're so agonizing to achieve. Respectfully yours Nancy Macy. I'm gonna set the timer for this person. They've sent in three emails. So this person will get a total of three minutes to comment. This is from Kathy 10, 0623 Dear Supervisors. Mike, my comment seems to be posted to item number seven. I am writing, referring item number eight, the proposed changes to the cannabis cultivation ordinance. I'm vehemently opposed to the proposed reduction and minimum acreage for commercial cannabis cultivation on RATPZ and SU. It is distressing that a change that could have such profound implications is being undertaken with virtually no consultation with the community. It seems the primary source of data and argumentation has been the cannabis lobby. This is not right. The model of the model of diffused small scale commercial cultivation in residential and timber areas was widely seen as a bad idea in 2018 and nothing has changed. It remains a bad idea for the public wellbeing. The CLO cites no meaningful new evidence to make the case that this change would address the cited problems of continued diversion to the black market and low uptake of the license. Dramatically increasing the scope won't address this and certainly there is no capacity in the county now or in the near future to truly monitor and regulate this. The supervisors are well aware the range is harmful to public safety environmental community impacts. So no to tweaking the minimum acreage on RATPZ SU for commercial cannabis cultivation. Say yes to facilitating legal commercial production on CA and A properties. Thank you, Kathy Toner, a 21 year resident and she has another email. Dear supervisors, wait, I'm sorry. That's the same one. She has one more in here. There's a lot of them to go through. I'm sorry. Okay. I need to add a comment specifically in response to the presentation. One, the CLO officer did not provide any evidence that this dramatic expansion will address the core problems of abuse of medical grows. The CLO officer only mentioned cannabis groups when asked about the public input. Green trade cannabis growers, even the CPP includes a very strong representation of cannabis representatives. By his own admission, the licensing office whose budget is paid for from County taxes, not by the cannabis industry has sought zero input from environmental community fire safety leaders or representatives of on a monumental policy change. Next comment is from Bill Shevlin. Our company is a cannabis company and we have multiple locations in Monterey and Santa Cruz County. Since the beginning of legalization of cannabis via prop 64 Monterey County has been far ahead of Santa Cruz County and has reaped the benefits of jobs and tax revenue. The adoption of the modified ordinance would be a step forward in Santa Cruz County catching up to other counties and cities in California. And the current economic and social climate, local jobs and tax revenues need to be created to support local communities. As a local cannabis company, we would prefer to expand and create our jobs in our local community, but without the proper legalization and support, it is not possible. We will be expanding our operations by adding additional cultivation and manufacturing cannabis jobs. Santa Cruz can make the choice to encourage this type of economic opportunity or can continue to push cannabis companies to operate and expand in other areas. Santa Cruz County is a two, three years behind other counties and has a chance to adopt legislation that can support the emerging emerging industry. It is up to the supervisors to show they support local jobs, local taxes and local business owners. Excuse me. Okay. Next user is Josie Roberto. Good morning. This is Josie Roberto with Ethridge Farms. First of all, on behalf of Ethridge Farms, I would like to thank the board, CAO County Council, all the staff and especially Sam Laforte for putting in the time and energy to help make our cannabis licensing program fully operational. We support all of the changes that staff is presenting here today. One issue that really stands out to us is the cottage license setback. We would like to point out that the 400 feet, the current setback for CG license is the distance of 1.33 football fields and 100 feet, the proposed setback for the CG license is 33 yards or 1 third the size of a football field. When creating setbacks for that, this policy, please keep in mind that a 2.5 acre lot is 330 feet across and five acres and a five acre lot squared is 466 feet across. Even the current cottage license setbacks are extremely difficult to comply with. Therefore, we're making it useless. We believe the board created the CG license to give small farmers a chance to have a small part of this program. We would appreciate it. If you could please keep this in mind when voting today and consider why staff has made these recommendations to the board and help make this CG license fully operational. Thank you for your time and we hope that you all stay healthy and well. Next comment is from Stacy Saida. I am Stacy Saida, one of the owners of Burnett Rose, a small family operated cannabis operation in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Burnett Rose supports the proposed changes of the non-retail commercial cannabis program. Approving these changes will make it feasible for responsible individuals to engage in cannabis cultivation and to generate cannabis revenues for the county while continuing to require cultivation to adhere to the numerous state and local licensing and permitting requirements that protect the health and safety of people and the environment. The process rezoning approvals are sensible for large scale operations but we appreciate the recognition by county staff that some regulations should be modified to reflect reasonableness when applied to small operations. Next comment is from Nancy Macy. Oh, I'm sorry, she already, she sent it in twice. She sent it in three times. This is from, I apologize if you're listening, I'm gonna massacre your name. Khalil Motawli, thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Leopold. Board of Supervisors, thank you for again, evaluating the rate at which cannabis businesses are taxed especially during the global pandemic deeply affecting our local economy. The cannabis business tax, CBT, has proven- That may be for the next item for the number eight. Oh. Nine, sorry. Nine, you're right, thank you. I'm sorry. There's still more on this one though. Okay. I'm gonna edit this one and not read part of this into record because it's extremely offensive. So the first sentence I'm gonna admit and it will be up to the Chief Deputy what goes into the record. We are a diversified South County grower. We grow blueberries and cannabis. We cross train all employees to work on both crops. This allows them full year employment so they do not have to go south during off seasons to pick fruit in horrible conditions in other countries. It's not food versus weed. It's sensible farming using crop rotations and new era of intelligent cultivation. And one more. Kelly Highland, esteemed board members. I encourage the board to approve all of the proposed changes to the cannabis ordinance. In particular, the industrial zone areas are the ideal location for indoor cultivation and other cannabis businesses to be located within the existing structures. I implore you to improve the proposed changes to the industrial use chart. Section 13.10.342B use chart to allow businesses to be able to operate within the county. While the board may have issues with other elements of the proposed ordinance changes, most of the board would agree that the industrial zone areas that can move forward to get cannabis facilities open. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. We'll bring it back for a board action. I mentioned earlier, I'd like to have an amendment of what, if we could put it off, but I'd have to have a first and I can only second that. Is that correct? Well, Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. I do have a motion to make. Wait, I just have a couple of comments for motion is made. Maybe to get an idea where I'm coming at. If you don't mind if I do that before you make a motion, Supervisor Friend. Please go ahead. Okay, thank you. I appreciate Mr. LaFort's efforts to design a safe and equitable program for growers and retailers, manufacturers and consumers. Obviously it's been a tough task for the last six or seven years and it makes good sense to evaluate what role our regulation and tax structure are going to have the disappointing number of places in revenue that we've realized. I do support a lot of what is proposed in terms of redefining cannabis as an agricultural activity, removing the 2013 restrictions and clarifying the commercial and industrial uses. I also appreciate from law enforcement perspective that we need to reduce the number of small scale growers claiming their sales are exclusively for medical customers. That said, I can't support the proposed changes to the minimum partial size and setbacks that would disproportionately affect my district in particular sentiments of Valley. This is a rural residential area with one acre minimums that was not envisioned for such close proximity to agriculture and commercial uses. So I just couldn't be supportive of that reduction. And also I would like to have more input from what we've received some very legitimate concerns from Cal Fire and others about how we address fire prevention and water use and environmental protection as well. When we dramatically increase the number of parcels that would be subject to cultivation especially as I mentioned in the Santa Rosa Valley. So although I understand we have a lot of commercial operations going on already that are disguised as medical grows, I'm concerned that loosening these regulations will be disruptive to our neighborhoods particularly in my fifth district. So I could not be supportive of the overall proposal here. I'm not sure what might be proposed as a motion but the setbacks and the small grow or the setbacks and the minimum size really are appropriate. And I think they need more attention before I would be supportive of them. Thank you, Supervisor Friend for letting me say my piece. Well, thank you, Supervisor McPherson. Hopefully this motion then does actually address those concerns. I will move to reject adoption of the draft ordinance as presented that asks staff to return with a revised draft ordinance on June 16th that does the following. First, that eliminates the proposed cottage garden changes. Two, that eliminates the lowering of the minimum parcel sizes for cultivation as Supervisor McPherson was just referencing. Three, which eliminates the addition of new provisions that grant the CLO unappealable authority to provide exceptions and restrictions. Or that eliminates the proposed change which will allow new hoop houses in the coastal zone. A five, which retains the level five process for setback exemptions and modify the setback to 100 feet from habitable structures but in CA zones only and maintain the current setbacks and all other zones. Next to modify the proposed change in agricultural zones which currently is proposed to go from 10 to five acres to only allow that if there's contiguous parcels that equal 10 acres like we do in TPC. And lastly to modify the proposed change on the energy conservation from modify the language from best efforts to specify a reduction in energy consumption. And additionally, the second direction would be to return in August of 2020 with a report to the board that details the areas in the county cannabis ordinances where the CLO has unappealable authority with regard to granting exceptions to setbacks or other location restrictions for commercial cannabis operations such as within our dispensary ordinance and provide options for an internal appellate review of such decisions at a level below the board of supervisors maybe for example, a public hearing at the ZA for example to encourage transparency and community engagement on these issues and that's my motion. I'll second that motion. And I guess I'll just add that I'm not sure how this got as complicated as it's gotten. Our idea, at least my idea from the beginning was to move cannabis cultivation out of the mountains and out of neighborhoods and into vacant greenhouses where we could create good jobs, good tax revenue and an opportunity for smaller growers to share licenses and find an accessible way into the market. Somehow this has gotten much more complicated but I don't think the solution to fix this problem is to go back and undo the agreements that we had within the community. The idea is to simplify the permitting process in CA and A properties. And so I'm hopeful that Zach's changes, supervisor friend's changes get us in this direction and I'm very supportive of it being back here in front of us at the next meeting because I do think it's crucial that we try to get some operations in these greenhouses up and going as soon as possible. And so I'd like to be able to move forward with an ordinance next meeting and then a second reading so that we aren't delayed by summer recess or have any other delays. I, Supervisor McPherson, that was extensive motion and I do agree I think with just about all of it. I will support it. I think it is certainly a move in the right direction of what we want to be doing. So I will be supportive of it and obviously we'll have a lengthy discussion again I think on the 16th that this passes so I will be supportive of the motion. In regards to the motion, just a little unclear about the hoop house piece as I understood from Mr. Laforte that we don't require any kind of permitting for hoop houses under 12 feet now in any other place except cannabis and are we gonna keep doing that when the motion? Supervisor Friend, just for clarity sake I'm just trying to figure out what the hoop house. I was just making sure you completed your question. I apologize for being slightly delayed there. Yeah, my goal is to just have well actually the board's goal has been specifically to not allow new construction within the coastal zone. And I did hear what you were saying and what Mr. Laforte said. I think though it's still important for us to specify that we're not allowing this type of new construction within the coastal zone for this activity. The other piece that I was just trying to get a handle on is the concerns about the authority of the CLO and making choices. The board had previously decided that that was a good place to be but so I just wanna get clarity about what you're trying to do there. I agree that the board had previously in a very narrow escape and discussion about a specific dispensary as you may recollect in regards to a compassion program created this authority. This item significantly proposes to expand scope specifically on setbacks of and remove the level five process. But secondly, I'm just asking for a broader discussion back at the board about whether we should have a completely unappealable basically land use decision made by an individual. We don't really have that in any other structure. Most other land use decisions including pretty significant components which we have currently given authority to this position to would have an appellate component be it a ZA or a PC or technically to the board. I remember during that discussion that there was not an interest in the board hearing every single issue which is why I specifically said that this would rest at a level below the board but there still should be a discussion. The board should have an understanding of where that authority is or where that flexibility has been given and make sure that we're there. And then secondly, I would support then having a mechanism by which there can be an appellate component to what those decisions are. And I look forward to that discussion. I'm not sure the ZA is any more of a process than the CLO. It just seems like it's a way to drive up cost but not get the goal. But I look forward to that discussion. I can support this motion. I don't completely understand the hoop house argument but I will defer to my colleague who where the hoop houses are about that. I think that this board has been fairly consistent in saying that we would prefer to have cultivation happen in commercially zoned areas. And we have created and then have gone through a series of evolutions to try to make that actually a reality. And when you hear from people who have long standing relationships in the county who have done lots of business with the county who are just trying to transfer to use a different plant but are finding that the hurdles to be extraordinary, we should take that seriously. It's not a special interest. It's actually trying to support local businesses and local farmers. And we could argue about whether there's special interest but I think that's kind of what we've been trying to do all day here and support local businesses. On the question of cotton grows. Well, we have a first and a second. Well, I'm making some comments so I'd appreciate if you just let me finish. So on the subject of cottage grows, I think I completely understand and we'll support this motion about taking this out. I think that it does, it would be worthwhile for us to have a discussion now years into this about what we see happening, whether we can make it better and whether it requires any change. I take very seriously the environmental concerns that were brought up here by people in the room as well as with the comments but trying to also figure out whether there's some way to make that work. I don't know whether there's an answer. We could debate whether what has been proposed is the answer but it clearly deserves more community discussion. We have had groups like the community prevention partners say that regulation of these sites would actually help in lowering the opportunity for young people to access cannabis. And so, and we've heard at least secondhand about the sheriff's office wanting to have some control as well. So I'm not exactly sure what the forum is that to have that conversation but I think it's worthwhile that we try to think there's a good way to do that and see whether we need to change the policy down the line. But otherwise, I support this motion. Okay, we have a first and a second. What is this returning to the board as far as the first and second? Our next meeting. June 16th. May I ask one question of the motion? I mean, we're gonna solve all of these problems between now and June 16th. I'd like to see it put off. At least as I understood, we're taking things out of you. I'm making a comment now. I'd like to see it put off until August. I'd like to know more about Cal Fire's interpretation of the roads that will, the changes and actually I wouldn't welcome some kind of report on jobs. I'm claiming that more jobs would be lost than actually created. And actually something about energy use and that's going on right now. Anyway, I'd like to see it be put off until August. This is Supervisor Friend. I would like to address that. So the Cal Fire concerns were on things that I'm proposing to remove from consideration. So I think that they were concerned about the reduction in parcel size and potentially the expansion of the cottage grows. So the motion is before you would eliminate those issues therefore eliminating whatever concerns they would have which is why I felt that June 16th was a doable date because it doesn't need to be an additional research on that. And setbacks also, right? Yeah. May I ask one question of the motion? Yeah, go ahead. By Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Friend, thank you for the clarity. I will say it's very nice and appreciated to get such clarity and emotion. And I was wondering on the setbacks with regards to eliminating the changes to the setbacks, is there any potential to allow a zero setback for indoor cultivation within our C4 and M1 zones as that is a unique area of the South Rodeo Gulch. And if we proceed with the motion, as you've said, all of the operations there will continue to be level five use permits due to one residential home. And I'm just wondering if that could be acceptable to you in the motion. Well, I'd like to ask the seconder of the motion whether you have a concern, Supervisor Coonerty, do you have an issue with allowing those zones back in? So no, if it's for those zones and if it resolves that issue, I'm good. Okay, well then I'll modify my motion to encourage that for that one section. Okay, I'll read the motion. Actually, the motion is to return in June the 16th, right? And also additional direction to return in August. The direction for June 16th has several parts to it. Four or five, six. More than that. Seven. Eight. I believe the motion is clear from staff's perspective in terms of we will be able to go back to the video and work on it, but it is a lot to say. I will email it also to the clerk's, but it's available. And we always double check it by listening to the record. Are we ready for the vote? I'm ready. Okay, I'll do the roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chairman Caput. Aye. And with that, we'll take, we'll take a 12, we'll come back at 1230 if we could take a little recess, is that all right? Okay, we'll come back. Thank you. Okay, item number nine, right? Consider report, analyzing various cannabis business tax rates as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer, jurisdictional tax rates by operation type and jurisdictional tax rate comparison. I know I got to speak right into it, I guess. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Sure. Thank you. So your board has directed us to return with information regarding cannabis business taxes, including some information on tax rates in surrounding areas. So the, just want to give you, sorry, I can't see the presentation. I had to turn it off. She turned me off. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Here we are. So just a quick background. This is a snapshot of the history of the CBT to date. And you can see that we started in November, 2014 and we've done a couple of things since then. The board has discretion to adjust the CBT rates between zero and 10%. Currently, our tax rate for cultivators, manufacturers and distribution is six and it's 7% per retail. Also just wanted to remind you about the state tax, taxes that are imposed on cannabis businesses. These, the excise tax rate of 15% on everybody. Cultivation also pays some additional taxes. And of course, the sales tax. This is a chart of manufacturing distribution and retail taxes. And we wanted to give you the comparison across a number of jurisdictions. All of these are collected as gross receipts tax. So you can see what's happening generally in the central coast area and where the County of Santa Cruz falls in relation to other areas within our surrounding neighborhoods. So cultivation taxes actually vary between those that are assessed on gross receipts and those that are assessed based on square footage. Reasons vary for choosing one type of tax over the other. For jurisdictions that restrict cultivation to indoor only grows or are land rich, a square footage tax is easier to implement and provides a more predictable revenue stream while placing the risk entirely on the cultivator. Jurisdictions that choose a gross receipts tax find that while this revenue stream is less predictable, it offers a better structure for the industry as it can adjust as operations scale up or down or as price fluctuates. In order to do our cultivation tax analysis, we got a sample size from a variety of actual cultivators within our community and Monterey and the city of Santa Cruz. So this is real data that we used based on how people are doing their taxes. And what we tried to do was look at the variations between the gross receipts and the square footage tax and then try to normalize them between the different methods of collecting those tax. A number of factors such as brand power, quality and additional infrastructure accounted for significant variations in what a cultivator could command as a wholesale price per pound. Data was provided in the staff report which sought to create equivalencies in calculations between the gross receipts and the square footage tax. Based on the sample size we collected, our gross receipts tax of 6% for our indoor growers would translate to an equivalent square footage tax on an average of about $35. I want to be very clear, we currently have very few of these types of operators in the unincorporated county. As you can recall from Sam's previous presentation, there's like three. So these would be sites located in the C4 and the M zones that are strictly indoor only gross. When we compare outdoor gross receipts to square footage charge, these growers actually end up paying far less per square foot, an average of about $1.15. This is less than Sonoma County with a rate of $1.61 per square foot and significantly less than our neighboring county of Monterey who charges $8 per square foot. Though I do want to remind you, Monterey does not have any outdoor gross. They are an indoor only grow county. There are more of these sites coming online in 2020 for us but they make up less total square footage than the existing greenhouse or mixed light operators that we have. So let's concentrate on them since they are our most prevalent form of cannabis growers in the county. Mixed light are greenhouse and hoop house operations, which is our primary method of cultivation here in Santa Cruz County. As with the outdoor cultivators when comparing mixed light gross receipts to an equivalent square footage charge, these growers also end up paying far less per square foot, an average of about $2.90 compared to about $5 in other jurisdictions. So rates can vary as much as cannabis ordinances across the state and there are many variables as we outlined in the staff report which can impact the wholesale price a cannabis cultivator can command in the marketplace. In setting taxes, the board should consider both its revenue goals and its goals for the development of the still emerging industry before making tax adjustments. So I have a question. Okay, I'll try. We'll go with Supervisor McPherson first and then go ahead. Do you have a comment? I don't think he has a question. I'm not sure he has a question. You're ready. Microphone. Supervisor McPherson, get it. Yeah, I thought Supervisor Leopold was gonna be speaking. So go ahead John or Supervisor. Is it okay? Thank you Supervisor McPherson and thank you for the information here. You made a point of saying we have very few cultivators and so small data sets provide big changes. Do we have any idea how many cultivation license there are in Monterey County? I do not have that data right at hand. I can get that data for you. Because as I look at this chart on the jurisdictional tax rate comparison, it seems like in a lot of areas we're 50 to 100% more in our taxes than the other jurisdictions. And other than we want the money, I don't know how we justify that kind of differential and whether there's any examples of any other area where we see those kind of differentials. And again, I don't have data. I don't have live data from a lot of other sources. And so the data set as you can see by the standard deviation swings quite widely. So I'm not sure that I can answer that appropriately. I think the thing to remember is that when we charge a grocery seats tax, it looks very different than somebody charging a square footage tax. And those differences show themselves most highly on indoor cultivation sites, right? That's where the various difference becomes significant between say what Monterey is charging for an indoor cultivation site and what the equivalency gets to be when we charge a grocery seats tax. Like I said, we have three of those cultivators, right? Everybody else for the most part is an outdoor cultivator where they're actually getting a much reduced rate compared to other jurisdictions who have a square footage rate. But our actions and our previous item lead me to believe that we are gonna be making changes to the amount of licenses in indoor cultivation. And so therefore it seems to me that it's important for us to talk about that even though our data set is small, because one thing about cannabis is it's shown a certain strength during this COVID pandemic where the state deemed it essential that people continue to buy the product. And in this era of looking at diminished tax revenue from lots of different sources, trying to figure out both how we earn the revenue that we need and provide jobs, it seems to me that it becomes important. So on the looking at the cultivation piece it seems to be important. And as I look at that data from San Luis Obispo, it looks like it's a 50% greater than San Luis Obispo, a county that we usually compare ourselves to. And Sonoma, it's hard to know exactly how to read these figures, but my reading of it is that it's also a lot more. Another community that we regularly compare ourselves to. But even if you look at the retail taxes, right? I mean, our retail taxes here in Santa Cruz County are extraordinarily higher than most other places with the exception of the city of San Jose. Again, the counties that we measure ourselves against, things like San Luis Obispo, Moneray, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, we're on the high end of all those like-minded counties or like-sized counties that we often commit ourselves to. The similar difference shows up in terms of manufacturing as well, where we're someplace twice as much as counties, again, that we compare ourselves to, or at least 50% greater than one we compare ourselves to. And then in the area of distribution, it's extraordinary because even our colleagues in Santa Cruz County have something that's, ours is three times as much as the city of Santa Cruz. And I know that there's, I've met a distributor there who's hiring 60 people. That, you know, our tax structure is different. These are jobs, especially during a time when we needed jobs. So I think this data shows me that we have a tax structure that is disadvantageous to businesses here in Santa Cruz. And I cannot think of another circumstance or another product in which our taxes look so out of whack with other jurisdictions anywhere in the state as we do with cannabis. And that's why I think we need to make some changes to make it more realistic. Supervisor Caput, this is Supervisor McPherson. As you all might recall, the tax structure has been of a concern of mine from the start. I think we were way too high to begin with. In order to see economic benefits that we're seeing in other jurisdictions, I think we have to align ourselves more closely with their structures to be competitive in this on the non-retail side in particular. I do appreciate the staff putting together this, which I requested some time ago. It is complicated because there's different tax structures. But I think I'm ready to make a motion on this, but I would like to hear from some others. But when you just look at, for instance, the city of Watsonville has a 2.5% tax on manufacturing and zero on distribution compared to what we're doing with six in each of those. In Monterey, San Luis, Santa Barbara all have lower rates. We will be able to track if whatever we do and see the impact on accordingly reports from the cannabis licensing office, whether reduction in taxes has a positive impact on our revenue structure. I'm ready to make a motion, but I would really, I wanna make, like to hear from other members of the board and must they want me to make a motion at this point and then hear from the public as well. But I do think that we should be reducing our taxes, maybe not on all segments of the operations, but I'm ready to make a motion at the right time after some public comment. This is Supervisor Coonerty. I'll jump in here if people can hear me. So this information is good. I think it's relatively unclear. So, but I guess as I look at it, there are different sectors here. So from the retail sector, we've seen year over year growth in that sector that we've seen in virtually no other sector, economic sector. And as in the COVID limitations, this will be probably second to grocery stores, the fastest growing sector in Santa Cruz County. So a two, and just as a reminder, for every million dollars sold, we get $70,000. In order, if we cut it to 5%, in order to get that same $70,000, they'd have to sell $1.4 million effective immediately or we're gonna face a revenue loss. And losing revenue at a moment when we're looking at cutting what I even think are essential services to our residents when there's no evidence that it's hurting those businesses is tough, especially when we maintain a TOT tax on hotels that were effectively shut down, we're maintaining a sales tax on businesses that are struggling to survive and restaurants struggling to survive. Why we would cut one industry that's actually doing well in this economy, cut their taxes is when we're in serious financial trouble is beyond me. On cultivation, we actually did lower taxes and I don't think we saw a particular increase in taxes. What I've heard on the cultivation side is almost entirely regulatory in time. Hopefully we fix that today, but I haven't heard from any cultivator that the tax is the issue that causes them to move. We also lower the tax on manufacturing and I haven't seen any evidence that it impacted the permit applications one way or another. If these taxes are determinative to cause people to relocate and move businesses, it's possible, but if all that means is we're just gonna, if we lower our rates, I would assume the other jurisdictions in order to keep minimal taxes as we've seen with international corporate taxes, we'll lower their rates and then we'll lower our rates and it becomes a very quick race to the bottom. It seems to me that we wanna be in line with most folks in the county and that a percent here or a percent there is not the dispositive impact on these businesses and losing large sources of revenue right now on a recreational product is, when we're facing the budget challenges we face is really not, not a good move unless people can guarantee that we're gonna see an immediate increase in revenue. But again, that takes an enormous, that'll take an enormous growth in that industry and I don't know why lowering 2% on taxes will cause a 40% increase in sales. I just don't see it. A chair, I'll briefly speak to this day. I agree with Supervisor Coonerty's assessment of it and for that matter, the board actually did lower as you know our rates temporarily and we didn't see a significant, the percentage growth that people are estimating with additional reductions. My guess is that if we just lowered it there would be some additional profits. There was some concern originally about equity issues and this isn't doing anything toward that as far as there isn't an additional compassion program for example that would be created as a result of the reduction. And also to Supervisor Coonerty's point, I mean we really aren't doing this for other industries that actually have additive taxes so something that could be akin to it at least to some degree would be the greater lodging industry which has TOT components and has gone down to zero while this industry has not at the same time and there isn't a proposal to reduce that in order to increase people coming back into that industry. So I just find it to be a little bit of a weak argument. Also it ties into a national discussion that I think that ideologically the board isn't normally harmonized with which is this concept that the supply side argument that if you just cut all these taxes we'll see a lot more revenue. It hasn't played out in history in any other economic forum but for some reason in specific to this industry that argument is playing out in Santa Cruz County. So I'm not supportive of a change beyond what the board had already done which was a reduction with the escalator to bring it back to the original rates. Is it okay if I make a comment? Yeah. I appreciate the comments of my colleagues. We should be clear on who pays these taxes which are local consumers. They pay it when they go to the retailer and they have to pay more money. So be clear just like the national debate about who pays these taxes and tariffs it's the end consumer that pays the taxes and to compare it to the TOT tax on hotels seems like a misguided attempt to equate apples with oranges because there is no industry that is taxed as high as cannabis, right? There's a state tax, there's a county tax, there's a sales tax and so the fact that hotels cannot have guests right now has nothing to do with the tax structure has to do with a public health issue. And to me, we should be thinking about ways to support industries that are local that will provide jobs during a period, the next period where jobs are gonna be in shorter supply. I get that we don't wanna blow a hole in our budget. We've had this tax too high since the beginning and our changes that we'll hopefully will make on June 16th will be helpful in bringing new taxes in but the basic equity is just looking at these issues on this chart and you can't say that it's fair in any way shape or form with any other jurisdiction that's on this chart. So that's the part where I think that we need to have some change because we are, to me, when someone's trying to play by the rules we should work to help them play by the rules. If we wanna promote a legal activity or unregulated grows or dealing, we make the legal product so expensive that that becomes a business decision where someone says it's worth the risk because the money's so good. So we wanna create a system where we have a fair tax structure that is generating revenue that's real and that is comparable to many other jurisdictions and not place our businesses at a disadvantage than the neighboring counties. There's no other industry in which we do that. This is Ryan, let me just say, there's also no other industries where we're giving people a monopoly. I would, my wife would happily pay a 7% additional tax if she got to be one of the only jewelry stores in Santa Cruz that my sister could outlaw Amazon and only so be the only distributor of books we would give, she'd be happy to. So it's that while in many ways you could argue it'd be much better for the consumer if you could buy cannabis on any corner from any store, prices would eventually lower. We've given this industry through our regulatory system a competitive advantage that it has resulted in them increasing their sales year over year over year as other sectors haven't. So they are, I don't see anyone being at a disadvantage right now. So Laforte weigh in about the ongoing sales increases. That's, the way I looked at the tax revenue is it seems like it's pretty, it's plateaued in a lot of ways. When Mr. Laforte, could you come forward and just share that information? So sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you and just say I can talk to you about where the taxes have been for the last few months. So retail, the amount of money that we've gotten for retail in March and April was less than we typically see compared to last year's at the same time, right? Which was certainly to be expected, right? Given the restriction in movement. And so, but April was about $100,000 less compared to last year for just retail. The cultivation and manufacturing side stayed steady. So we didn't see any dramatic decrease compared to what we received from them last year at this time. But remember that in that side of the industry is still pretty constrained by who's legal and who's paying taxes. So, but we haven't seen wild increases in the amount of sales that have generated taxes here in Santa Cruz County. We have not. And the amount of tax increases directly retired to the number of license that we've given. Not that their business has been more successful than a bookstore or jewelry store or a retail, other retail established. Yes, and we do not have the capability to see the taxes based on an individual retail location or an individual cultivation location. We only see the aggregate data of how much somebody is paying. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair. Realistic, we couldn't act on a tax cut at this time because it has not been agendized as such. Emotion would be to bring back this along with the other, what the previous item that we discussed just to consider this with a motion in June 16th and we will not be able to act on a tax cut proposal of any type right now anyway. So my suggestion is that we bring this back in June 16th to consider a reduction in taxes and some of the operations, maybe not all of them in the cannabis industry. I would second. So what you're proposing that the tax goes down, is that correct? We're not proposing any, we did not make any staff recommendations. Right. Emotion on the floor. Supervisor McPherson. Yes. Yeah. I'm just asking to bring this item back to the board on June 16th to consider any tax reduction. I believe we still need to go to public comment before we. That's correct. I know that too. Yeah. Just had a quick question. I know we're talking about taxes and how they're higher and lower with cannabis and other people, but what about liquor taxes? Do we have any idea how much is the tax on liquor compared to? I have not done any comparative study of cannabis to alcohol. Yeah. And then they pay taxes to the state also and everything like that. And cigarettes, cigarettes have like, what about $2.50 tax on top of the regular tax? Yes, again, I haven't done a comparative study on alcohol or cigarettes. Maybe the question is, Chair, do we have local taxes on alcohol or tobacco? Do we have special taxing on those two products? Yeah. The other ones are on the statewide. I know, but we don't have any statewide revenue to actually compare our taxes to everybody else, right? Well, I'm just saying in Monterey, they pay the same alcohol tax as we pay in Santa Cruz. Tobacco tax is similar in Monterey as it is in Santa Cruz. The cannabis tax is different because there's a local tax. And then, okay. And then there's a, it's written here, Canopy square footage taxes, especially popular in areas that are land rich due to the potential of producing a higher revenue stream because of the availability of cultivation space. Again, I get back to a district four. We have most of the cultivation space in the whole county, right? You have a large majority of the cultivation space. I'm not saying that it's all cultivated there. Certainly we have a significant amount of cultivation happening in Supervisor McPherson's district. But most of the retail is happening in the first district. The retail section, yes. The retail sector is different. So Supervisor McPherson, are you, while you're just proposing we come back June 16th? Well, yes. I mean, we have to continue with this public hearing, but we cannot make a, we can't move, it's not been agendized as a tax, proposed tax cut. So we'd have to wait until June 16th, but I think we should have continued with the public hearing, but the motion to, in June 16th. The current rate? The current rate for retail is 7% and everything else is 6%. 6%. Okay, so I'm just a little worried. We don't know the number that's gonna be proposed on June 16th. And that was going to be one of my questions. Okay. I don't know if it's appropriate for me to get into that discussion. Maybe I should ask the County Council if that's proper to do at this point. Yes, it's within the range of the discussion that is envisioned by the matter. So your board could have a full discussion about contemplated rates and then ask the CAO to study those and bring your board back an item on the 16th with a recommendation. Okay, if I could, what my idea was is I'm not recommending a change in the retail tax at this time because I'm concerned about the short-term loss it might cause to our tax sector for cannabis, but I would like to recommend or will be recommending lowering the non-retail tax rates of manufacturing and distribution by cutting them each in half from 6% to 3%. That's my idea. As a seconder of the motion, I would also support that. Okay, but that's not part of the motion. It could be direction. It could be direction to bring back a change at our next meeting. But that's what's probably going to be voted on. So anyway, I guess... Chair, we have to get to the public. Public comment. Can we get to the public? Yeah, well, my quick comment is the cash cow of cannabis is not giving us the money that maybe we thought we were going to get. I never thought it was going to be really high, but I heard a lot of people in the public say, well, we can afford this now because you're going to have cannabis legalized and everything going. What I'm getting at is no matter how we deal with this, it's going to keep coming back. We're not going to make everybody happy. And the cash cow is not going to produce what we thought it was going to produce, no matter what we do. Go ahead. Yes, I did. We'll open it up for public comment. Yeah, one of these issues we've been working on a long time. So thank you for hearing it again. And I've said many, many times how desperate the industry survivors that have gone through a couple of points around that. I think that the retail discussion statewide, it's around 30% decrease that I've known. That a few of my friends who have clubs have said that that's what they've seen. Even though people were hoarding in the beginning and we saw the fun newspaper articles, that's not representative. So it's doing better than businesses that are forced to be closed, but it's still on shaky grounds, the retail, the other license types, we really can't measure what the tax revenue potential of a healthy licensed cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, et cetera, are because as the last issue shows, we haven't been able to get licensed to those folks. So I think that we need to at least not escalate back up the rates to 7%. We need to do something on that front. But again, I think we got deeper structural issues than the tax rate. And then another issue that I think has been a core for me as a community member, it's not so much what the tax rates are, but how that money is being spent. I think we've generated $16 million since the inception of the cannabis business, tax, and I think most of that has gone into the general fund except for a small amount going to early childhood development. Santa Cruz city, when they recently talked about adjusting their tax rates, did something that I thought was really great is that they originally had had a 1% tax rate for early childhood development fund when they were talking about cutting their rate from 8% to other numbers on other license types. They didn't wanna reduce the amount or the proportion that was going to early childhood development. They set directing 12% of all the cannabis business tax revenues to go to a fund like that. I think that's what we really need to do. When people voted for this tax, they voted for new revenues to be spent in the community on unmet needs, not to get lost in the general fund, which I know is well-intentioned, but from everyone's perspective, we wanna see this new revenue source used in the community for new unmet needs. That's what many of the cannabis industry supported this tax for, and that's what we need to see. So I think take that into your motion, maybe if we can do it, Santa Cruz city already did. Thank you. Good timing. Any other comments here? Okay, we'll go to the community room. There's nobody in the community room. However, we do have two web comments. The first one is from Bryce Beriesa. No other comments. I'm sorry? No comments. There's two web comments. Okay. So the first one is from Bryce Beriesa. Dear supervisors, one of you mentioned earlier today, the wisdom of not being penny wise and pound foolish. The sentiment holds as it relates to the overlay high taxation of local cannabis businesses. You have an opportunity at this moment to provide us some desperately needed relief. We are deemed essential businesses yet still have zero access to federal funding, stimulus relief, our loans. We have limited and predatory. Excuse me. Options for banking, zero options for banking loans and overbundant with high taxation. 28E and regulatory fees. Despite being able to remain open, many of us are barely surviving financially due to regulatory costs, the black market, high taxation and now COVID. Most cannabis businesses owners are local businesses, operators that invest our money, time and souls into this community. It's people, employees and businesses. I implore you to listen to the guidance and recommendation of staff at the CAO. Look at the recommendation before you with long view in sight. Economic recovery is going to be a slow road. However, your decision today can immediately provide some relief and support to local cannabis businesses. We need it. We deserve to have a thriving, vibrant, positive cannabis business industry in this county. A healthy regulated industry is the best way to deter against the perils, crime and environmental destruction of the black market. Providing a tax parity with surrounding counties and allowing us a small amount of relief to invest in our employees' businesses during this crisis is smart. It's the right thing to do. Many of us may not survive the next year without it. It would be a cultural tragedy to have a local, the local operators that have paved this way to be replaced with the med men's high times and harvests of the world. Companies whose only obligation are to return profits to shareholders and have no ties to this community or history of Santa Cruz. Please give us the resources to thrive and get through these times. We have no options but your support. You have the opportunity today to give it to us. Lower the taxes and allow us to weather the storm and come out intact. We have one more. This one again is by Khalil. Both of them. Thank you. Board of Supervisors, thank you for again, evaluating the rate at which cannabis businesses are taxed especially during the global pandemic deeply affecting our local economy. The cannabis business tax CBT has proven itself to be a stable revenue mechanism for the county's general fund since 2014. The majority coming from the retail sector of the local industry. However, this is not the same industry from six years ago. And therefore we need to adjust the business tax to reflect the current state of the industry. The emerging industry now operates within statewide regulatory framework, which includes a 15% excise tax and skyrocketing compliance costs for businesses. Annual state license alone are upwards of $96,000 a year. Licensed operators have fully committed to this new framework and made good on the tax revenues they have provided to the county. But their ability to stay compliant, continue providing employee benefits and compete against a larger emerging business is quickly deteriorating. Please provide a reduction in taxes that will allow our operators to lower costs to customers, increase volume and sustain or increase the tax revenue to the county. If we want the CBT to remain a sustainable revenue mechanism during a looming economic downturn, the rate needs to come down to compensate for market changes. We have proven ourselves to be a solid partners with the county and we need this change more than ever before to sustain the tax revenues for the county. Take the opportunity to align ourselves more closely with our progressive communities around the Bay Area and allow our local operators to stay local and compete in a vastly different market than when the tax was originally enacted. And that's all for web comments. Well, we have a first and second I imagine, I think. Chair Caput, yeah. Chair Caput, if I could just say that I understand this is a policy decision. This is the thing that you folks do in your work and I certainly will do whatever you would like. I will express my concerns and given the budget situation of reducing the tax rates at this time because it's hard for me to believe that we won't see anything but a reduction in revenues from a reduction in taxes at this point. So anyway, I just wanted to provide my point of view and I know it will accept whatever you folks wanna do. It's a very difficult decision and I just wanted to let you know how that I am concerned about the budgetary impacts, especially given the situation we face in the county in our budget. Chair, could I just ask one or two more questions? How much do you know whether we're getting any tax revenue from distributors at this point? Again, I don't get to see the data that way, right? I see all the retail data together and all the non-retail data together. So we don't get to see how it's broken out, how much is cultivation, how much is manufacturing, how much is distribution. I don't get to see the data that way. So you couldn't say, I mean, do you know how many license we've given out for distributors or manufacturers? Most of our distributors are self distributors and Sam can correct me if he's still in the room, but I believe most of our distributors are self distributors. So they're cultivators who are. So they're not actually paying any tax currently. And the manufacturers have an idea of how many license we have from this. I think we have about four manufacturing licenses right now. And then we have a handful of cultivators. And a handful of cultivators, yes. And do you have an idea of the difference percentage wise between retail and the non-retail? I'm not sure, I understand the question. Well, the motion is to change the tax structure on the non-retail side. The concern raised by the CAO, reasonable, is we're facing tough budget times, so we're worried about any funding source being reduced. So I'm trying to find out what's really at risk here between our retail side, those 12 or 13 outlets that we have, and then the non-retail side. Gotcha. Yeah, so retail last year accounted, I think for about 2.3 million, and non-retail accounted for around 700,000. So this change could have a couple of $100,000 effect if everything stayed the same. If you left your retail as it was. Well, that's the motion that's on the table. I'm just trying to get clarity about what the actual risk is. And I think the leaving the retail as it is has the potential to still impact sales because as the web commentator said, it's the illegal market that has the biggest impact on sales for retail. So as long as there is a strong illegal market out there, their sales are impacted, and then that impacts our tax. So I'm not sure if you just made an argument that we should actually lower the tax in order to reduce illegal sales, but. I'm not making any argument. I'm just saying that's what impacts the retail sales market the most is the black market. Yeah. Well, I mean, and so I believe that the actions that we've talked about today, whether it be in the previous item or this item, is to really create an environment that legal regulated businesses can be successful and that it doesn't provide a disincentive to go illegal or black market. And so when you have a high tax structure, that to me is an incentive for people to choose to do things illegally rather than legally. And I'd like to get to a place where we have legal operators that we can regulate can have a reasonable amounts of control. Okay. All right, Mr. Chair, this is to supervise the friend. I'd like to make a substitute motion to the motion that's on the floor. Obviously I don't support any sort of lowering rates. I don't know that we need to have an additional conversation on that. So I would just like to, I would just like to move the recommended actions, which are just to accept and file this report and not come back then in another week to consider lowering of the rates. So my substitute motion is just for the recommended actions, which is just to accept and file the report. And I'll second that my comment being that I think Bryce and Khalil's points are exactly true. And I think it's true for every business in our community and we could lower all kinds of taxes to help people in this time of crisis. But then we're having a real trade-off. I think we could lower our transportation tax. My guess is that would potentially just cause the current large transporter to move his operations from the city of Santa Cruz to the county, which would then cause the city of Santa Cruz to then cut their taxes to attract them back or to prevent that move. And then we'd have to cut our taxes and pretty soon we're arguing over pennies. So I just don't see the economic case to that we will see increased revenues from this move at a time when we're gonna be cutting really basic services for kids, for parks, for roads, for things that our community very much wants. The taxes at this moment too, I guess. But anyway, we have a motion by Supervisor McPherson. I don't know if there was a second on that. And then the other motion by Supervisor Friend is leave it like it is and not come back on the 16th. So Supervisor, we have a motion on the floor and a substitute motion. If I could ask Supervisor McPherson to restate what the motion is, the original motion that was seconded by Supervisor Leopold because what I was hearing is two different things on the record and I wanna make sure that everyone understands. I see the clerk nodding, the clerk's nodding their head that they're not clear either about what the original motion is. Go ahead. Okay, my motion would be to have staff bring back recommended reductions that I recommended and let me know the impact or... Well, they could use the facts figures, the actual facts figures and they probably can't reject the impact but I'd just like to review those reductions that I said to cut in half the manufacturing and distribution taxes from six to three and the retail to leave the same at 7%. Does that have a second? Well, I seconded that motion. You did. So you would vote first on the substitute motion, take that first. And then if that passes, then that's the end of the item. If it doesn't pass, then you go to the original motion. We go back to Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Friend's motion, substitute motion, you vote on that first. So take a roll call on Supervisor Friend's motion. We'll do that first. Supervisor Friend's first. Yes. Supervisor Friend's first. So we'll do the substitute motion first and that was to accept and file the recommended actions. Supervisor Leopold. Well, wait a minute. County council, we're voting on friends first. Yes, you're voting up. Yes, correct. You're voting on Supervisor Friend's motion first and that motion is just to accept and file the report. Period. Okay. So if I understand it, well, we had Supervisor McPherson explain his. Supervisor Friend's is saying it's gonna stay the same. We're not gonna bring it back on the 16th. That's correct. Okay. And we'll start again with that vote. Supervisor Leopold. No. Coonerty. Sorry. Yes. Friend. Aye. McPherson. No. And Chair Caput. Aye. Yes. Two nos and three ayes. Then we have item number 11. We'll do a couple of these. We'll do real fast and then we have to discuss whether or not we'll have a short lunch break, but go ahead. Public hearing to consider proposed 2021 benefit assessment service charge reports for various county service areas and adopt a resolution confirming the benefit assessment service charge reports as outlined in the memorandum of the County CAO and Director of Public Works. Will this take long? No. It's the same with the request. So just so I'm clear, we're skipping 10 for the moment and go into item 11. Is that right? Yes. So I heard, okay, good. Okay, so good afternoon, Chair Supervisors. My name is Matt Machado. I'm the Public Works Director and one of the deputy CAOs. The item before you is a public hearing to confirm proposed benefit assessment services. On April 14th of 2020, the board adopted a resolution setting June 2nd today as the public hearing date on proposed 2021 benefit assessment service charge reports for various county service areas, CSAs. The CSA rates presented have previously been approved by the board and are outlined in attachment A. The previously approved rates are either remaining at the same level as in fiscal year 1920 are being reduced or increased per the current consumer price index rate as approved in previous elections. With that, the recommended action is that you conduct a public hearing to hear objections or protests, if any, to the proposed 2021 benefit assessment service charge report for the various CSAs, then close the public hearing and following the public hearing, adopt a resolution confirming the benefit assessment service charge reports for various county service areas. With that, I can answer any questions you may have. It looks like a lot of them are all the same, right? Yes, this item includes that all the, or most of them are the same. No changes and the changes that are happening are just the CPI, which is a very modest change. There are a total of 40 CSAs in this action item today. Okay, thank you. Any questions by the board? Okay, we'll go to open it up to the public. Anybody in the community room, no comments? Do we have a motion? Well, I think you have to say opening the public hearing. Yes, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. You would open the public hearing, ask for a public comment like you did. You asked for a public comment and then you would close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action. Okay, but I need to say opening up for the public hearing. Yes. Okay, we're opening it up for a public hearing and comments, any comments? We don't have them. So I'll close the public hearing and then we'll bring it back to the board for action. I wouldn't move the recommended actions. We have us first from Leopold. Second. We have two seconds. Which one gets it? That'll be fine. Okay. Into the roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. It passes unanimously. If we'll go to item number 12 and that is public hearing to consider proposed 2020 to 2021 benefit assessment rates for county service areas number 26, number 37, number 47, request the submittal of ballots for the proposed fiscal year 2020 to 2021 benefit assessments continue the public hearing to June 16th, 2020 and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the deputy CAO and the director of public works. Thank you chair and supervisors. Again, Matt Machado. So the item before you is a public hearing for benefit assessment rate increases for CSAs. On April 14th of 2020, the board adopted a resolution of intention to authorize and levy an increased assessment for road maintenance and operations within the districts you mentioned 26, 37 and 47. These directions were given by CSAs to increase these assessments. Additionally, the board directed public works to mail out ballots to the owners of record within the CSAs in return June 2nd for the public hearing today. The recommended actions are to open the public hearing, hear objections or protests to the CSAs 26, 37 and 47 to request the submittal of all ballots for the proposed 2021 benefit assessments for said CSAs to close the public testimony portion of the public hearing and to continue the public hearing to June 16th, 2020 to allow for tabulation and certification of the ballots. So I can answer any questions you may have. No, I just apologizing. We're rushing you. No. Yeah. It's very important what you're talking about. It's good. Thank you. I'll open it up for public, any comments from the board first? No. Okay, I'll open up the public hearing and we'll also have comments from the public. Nobody in the community room either. Okay, I'll close. I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action. I will move the recommended actions. We have a first from Supervisor Leopold. Second. Okay. But the second was by Supervisor McPherson. What's that? Coonerty. Coonerty, thank you. Either one. Okay. Ready for the roll call? Yes. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Supervisor McPherson. We can't hear you. We can't hear you. Aye. Aye. Okay. And Chair Caput. Aye. Passes unanimously. That takes us next to the closed session, right? No. Well, we have the, we do have the, we have 13 and we also have the, the- Oh, I'm sorry. Capital improvement program. Yes. Public, item number 13, public hearing to consider County Service Area 48, County Service Area 4, Fire Protection Assessment Service Charge reports for fiscal year 2020 to 2021 and adoption of resolution confirming the service charge reports of CSA 48 and CSA 4 as outlined in the memorandum of the Director of General Services. And that's you. Hi. How you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? Yeah. Thank you. Members of the board, this item is before you today as you adopted a resolution at your May 12th meeting to set a public hearing to hear the CPI increases for CSA 48 and CSA 4 for the fire protection areas covered under your cooperative agreement. This is an annual process that's brought before your board to consider the annual increase for the CPI for those two CSAs. Any comments, questions from the board? I don't hear any. Okay, open up public hearing. I'll open it up to the public hearing for item number 13. And any comments from the public? I have one here. Hi. Okay, come on up. Sure. Item 19, or what about the agenda? No, item 19 was a consent item agenda that we already voted on. This is on the CSA 48 contract or the, not the contract, the annual rate tax rate for both CSA 48, which is county fire and CSA four, which is Paro Dunes. To this, oh, very distance widely. And then the, because the benefit assessment shall not be levied up for wild land or watershed fire suppression. Located in the state responsibility area as defined in section 4102 of the public resources code, but the money's gonna go into them while there's currently a firing against the CSA, the CSA 48 that was passed. The public pass was not overvalued. It's counted with just a minimal amount of input by the landowner without having a prolonged discussion of where all this money was going because it was all of our understanding that measure G was gonna go, part of that was going to them for Cal Fire and none of it went and went to go pay for your other financial responsibilities that goes in the general code amounts to go pay for the employee's retirement funds and such. So with the smoke and mirrors and stuff, the money being moved around, more money is being now generated because it was taken away from what we voted on measure G in the first place. So just concern that there's not a benefit to pay all this money in advance and to pay it yearly because if that CSA 48 bond is revoked, where's the money gonna come from next? Okay, so are you commenting that the vote was not correct or? The process of the vote was not correct. And I believe currently there's a lawsuit going forward to try and get it revoked. Chair Caput, I might be able to provide some additional information, Chief Larkin. Yeah, the benefit assessment that the board of supervisors are addressing today is not the benefit assessment that was passed in January. This was a current benefit assessment that was passed in 1997. This is an annual increase for the CPI on that benefit assessment that was passed in 1997. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your comment, okay. Anybody downstairs? There's nobody in the community room, but we do have one web comment. This is from Charles 80. Dear Chair Caput and supervisors, as the consultant representing the two homeowners associations at Pajaro Dance, I am commenting remotely today in the spirit of the times to report that the association have no objection to the proposed rate increase for CSA four. Pajaro Dunes Community Affairs Committee has representatives for both HOA boards and has worked closely with Cal Fire in reviewing budget details, costs and expenses. We greatly appreciate the staff work done by Cal Fire and their positive collaboration with Pajaro Dunes. In some Pajaro Dunes leadership finds that the proposed rate change is appropriate and sufficient. Thank you, Charlie, Eddie, Eddie consultants. Thank you. We'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action. Well, I'll just say that Measure G does go to our general fund. Our general fund does help pay for a portion of County fire. I support this and I make the motion for the recommended actions. I'll second. Can we have more? Aye. Passes unanimously. That brings us to somebody mentioned something else here. We have the CIP, which would, we'll take about, the presentation will be about 15 minutes and then whatever questions the board have. So it's up to you if you want to continue and we can finish it up. You want to take a short lunch break and then? I'd rather continue the item than take a short, I'd rather go to a closed session and finish the meeting and then go home rather than having to eat and come back. Okay, so he'll, he's going to do about 15 minute presentation. This thing? What about the other board members? You want to do this one now or bring it back in two o'clock? Fine now. Okay. Okay. So you want to announce, so go ahead and announce the item. Oh, I don't have it in front of me. That's the one that's on me off. Here you go. It jumps. Okay. Conduct the studies. Oh, it is here. I'm sure I'm sorry. Conduct the study session of the 2020, 2021. Hold on a minute. What? We just had a fail of the community room and we want to make sure even though there's no one down there that it's open. No, but we've just lost everybody on the teams. Oh. So, yeah, I would suggest you take a recess at this point and we come back and however, whatever you believe is appropriate until we can get everybody back online. Five minutes. It's reasonable. Probably about five minutes, yeah. Yeah. So we just take a five minute break. Five minute break? Five minutes. Okay. We'll take a five. Yes, sir. Okay. Should I read it? Okay. Conduct a study session on 2020, 2021, capital improvement program and direct public works to present the 21, 22 capital improvement program incorporating all changes that the board adopts as part of the 21, 22 budget hearings in capital improvement programs related to budget appropriations on or before May 25th, 2021, as recommended by the deputy CAO and the director of public works. Thank you, chair and supervisors. Good afternoon. My name is Matt Machado. On May 19th, 2020, the board accepted and filed the 2021 capital improvement program document and scheduled a study session for today. The 2021 CIP identifies capital improvement projects proposed for the unincorporated areas of the county as well as improvements to various county facilities located countywide. With me today, a few members of our staff are joining to help this presentation. And so I'm going to introduce them today right now and then we'll go through this PowerPoint. I will comment now that the recommended action is to conduct a study session today and then we will receive all of your comments and incorporate those into next year's item. That's recommended action number two. So with me today is Travis Carey, director of capital projects, Steve Wiesner, assistant director of transportation, Jeff Gaffney, director of parks. And so I'm going to lead us off here. So the county CIP is a five year plan. It does forecast our capital needs over five years with fiscal constraint. So it's not all of our needs, but it's the ones that we can afford at this point. And it includes projects for public works, county facility projects, libraries, health, safety and parks. We do get guidance on how to manage our CIP through state code, county code and planning commission code, as you can see here. Our planning, at the planning commission meeting last week, we did receive multiple comments from planning commissioners. We've shared those here, their questions and our answers. I won't read them, but you can see them that there were a handful of comments, questions and answers last week. We do update our CIP annually. This has been a practice for the past couple of years. This year we have continued to update the format. As you can see, we've also identified and added in our county strategic plan components. We've now provided more detailed funding sources and added expanded details to each of our projects. The CIP overall includes 113 projects. That excludes our storm damage projects. Those 113 projects are valued at $803.4 million. You can see the breakdown. The next two slides will further break this down. This is by sheer number of projects. You can see that we do have a lot of great parks, open space and cultural service projects. In terms of value, those projects are predominantly in our flood control and drainage for the highest value. And so next up, I'm going to introduce Travis Carey to give us a brief presentation on our county facilities. You can do it. Yeah, great. Thanks, Matt. Good morning, chair or good afternoon chair and board. Travis Carey, director of capital projects. And I'm very pleased to announce that we now have a fully staffed capital projects division and public works. We have three licensed landscape architects. Damon Adlow is managing the library projects. Nicole Steele is working on juvenile hall and several solid waste projects for us. And Rob Tidmore is our newest project manager working on rail trail, animal shelter and a whole bunch of other master planning projects for public works and around the county. We're also assisted by a real property and Kimberly Finley is our new chief real property agent assisting us with related property agreements to support capital projects. So very pleased to announce that team. Next slide. That allows us to provide a comprehensive project management services for the county. This is an example of some of our projects currently that we're working on. And then in addition to this, we're also doing some master planning services, as I mentioned for sanitation DPW and other long range facility planning for the county. Next slide. This is just a listing of our current library program. So we're currently working on six library projects and the funding here is all measure S and county library funds for all fully funded projects all in various stages of development. And I'll go over a little bit more detail on these. Next slide. So this is a juvenile hall project. It's actually two projects. This is the recreational facility. Next slide. And this is the larger renovation facility. And we've decided to combine these two projects. So you'll see that coming to your board on June 30th for approval of spans plans and specs and approval to bid. And we also have received all permits and the real property agreements are under negotiation almost complete with those funding here is SB 81 round one and round two and also county bonds at this time fully funded. Next slide. This is the animal shelter renovation project. Just getting started on this one. There's been some design work here. The development permit has been issued and we're currently working on an updated engineer's estimate and a phasing plan for this project so that we can maximize our budget with the phased project. Next slide. This is the Monterey Bay scenic trail segments 10 and 11. We call it the rail trail project. Also, this is the environmental phase of the project pre-construction phase also known as we're currently working on a cooperative funding agreement. That's RTC fully funded with measure D. We're looking to come to the board in June and then for approval of that cooperative funding agreement to provide funding for that. And then coming back in August to the board for approval of RFP to select consultants. Next slide. Marvista project, we're supporting the RTC with this project and it's been incorporated into their Highway 1 work. Next slide. Okay, here's the library. The Aptus library is a large design build process. We've actually made significant progress with the design build selection. We've conducted interviews with design build teams. Proposals are actually do this Friday for that from the top three firms. We did make some significant changes to the selection process, which we feel like significantly will improve that process quite a bit. So we're coming to the board August 4th for a ward of that project. Big team involved in that a lot of community input. And we feel like we've really pulled that project together with a little bit extra work, looking at building layouts, parking, the civil engineering floor plans, and a lot of the design elements and community desires for that project. So that's gonna be coming soon. Next slide. Felton library, this project, as many of you know, is complete. We are still doing a little bit of closeout. We did open up the facility just before COVID. We do have a temporary occupancy permit here. So it is an operating library. And we're just working on finalizing some of the closeout activities. Next slide. Another library project, Boulder Creek. We did bid this out. We had a unsuccessful bidding. We're rebidding. And that is actually coming back June 16th to the board to issue a new bid for that project. Next slide. The sale of each library is actually in construction. It's going really, really well. And we're looking at completion in fall of 2020. Next slide. Bivoke branch, it's in the construction documents phase. Primarily interior renovations on the facility. So this is a little bit further out, but making good progress on this. Next slide. And this is the library annex also in construction document phase. It's a partnership with the parks department for some of the operations that facility. So we've been involved with parks and the libraries and looking at how to best plan for this. And this is at the Simpkins Swim Center location. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Steve Wiesner. Thank you, Travis. Good afternoon, board and members of the public that are still with us. I'm going to present some of the projects that public works has in the program section of the CIP. We have many projects in the CIP. So instead of presenting them individually, I'm going to describe the projects by their category. According to the programs that public works is responsible for most of the projects fall within these kind of five basic categories, pavement management, bridge projects, community development and congestion management projects, storm damage repair projects, and then finally community service area and special districts. So next slide, please. Okay, so this is our pavement management program. I think it's no secret to this board and to our community members that we have struggled with identifying funds for pavement management over the past approximately a decade and a half. However, with the passage of measure D and the new waste haulers franchise fee for road impacts combined with some very critical federal highway regional surface transportation funding, the county now has a much more robust pavement management program. And in fact, this summer is going to be kind of a banner year for us. We're putting out the largest pavement management program we've had in well over a decade. So listed here are some of the projects that we've recently completed and some of the ones that we have to look forward to. Okay, next slide. And so this slide shows the bridge replacement program that we have in place and the county is responsible for approximately 150 bridges county wide on our 600 mile road network. And many of these bridges are nearing the end of their useful lives or have some type of geometric or structural deficiency, which requires either some type of rehabilitation or full replacement. So the good news is, is that the highway bridge program, the federal bridge program is still alive and well, and it provides pretty critical funding for these needs. The county currently has 18 bridges in the program that are all in various states of development. We anticipate trying to put out like one bridge a year and we were actually very well poised to do that until we got hit with this 2016, 17 storms. So the program's taken a little bit of a backseat to the storm repairs, but it's still moving forward. And in fact, we just recently completed the full bridge replacement down in Coralitos area. That's the Redwood Rdge bridge replacement. Next slide, please. So this slide encompasses what I kind of characterize as community development slash congestion management projects. They're projects on our road system that are comprised of road widening projects, traffic signal installations, operational improvements, streetscape projects, and pedestrian facility and bike lane projects as well. Some of these projects, you'll notice they're leftover from the former redevelopment agency era and have just a small amount of seed money from traffic impact fees. So we can continue to develop these projects and seek grant funding to hopefully implement them in the future. Others on the list are long-time community development projects that include a myriad of roadway and roadside improvements to modernize or beautify a downtown area like the Aptos Village project or Sea Cliff area project as well. And then other projects are for traffic and operational improvements, such as signalized intersections or right-hand turnpockets and so forth. So they're all at various stages of development and you'll see some of them come to fruition within the next year. Next slide, please. Thank you. Okay, so this page represents the tremendous amount of work that we have accomplished and also we have ahead of us for storm damage repairs. As your board is aware, the monumental task of repairing the many roads that were damaged during the 2016-17 intense winter storms. It's a huge task for our department. It's been one of our primary focuses over the last couple of years. To date, we've completed nearly 42 permanent repairs on these sites. We have over 20 that are either in construction today or will be by mid-summer. However, even with all of that, we still have approximately 155 sites left to repair, which is estimated to cost 75 million. So we're just gonna, we continue to chip away at the stone here. Like I said, it's a primary focus for us in transportation. We continue to work with our state and our federal partners to deliver these projects as they provide a lot of the critical funding. I think as your board is aware, most of the lion's share of our SB1 funding is currently being used for the local match, which is required for these projects. So this program as it moves forward, we'll continue to work with all of our federal and state partners, Cal OES, FEMA, FHWA, Caltrans to make sure that we're able to repair all these roads. Okay, and so the last slide. Public Works, so this represents a community service areas in special districts. And Public Works is responsible to maintain and operate and administer many community service areas in special districts throughout our county. Many of the CSAs in special districts are set up to provide localized wastewater collection systems, treatment systems and clean drinking water facilities. And several of the projects that are listed here will come to fruition the next several years as well. They're all in various states of development. And so with that, and in the spirit of brevity, I'm gonna turn it over to Jeff Gavney and he'll cover parks, open space and cultural services. Thank you, Steve. And thank you, board, CAO's office for having me here. And I wanna commend DPW and Matt Machado and his crew. They're doing a great job and we really appreciate all the support that they've given us with more further ado. We'll go ahead and move along. As Supervisor Leopold mentioned earlier, Santa Clara Park, we just didn't notice completion. It was started with zero money for the most part and through the support of Supervisor Leopold's efforts and the CAO's office and of course our nonprofit partners, especially Mariah Roberts and Trisha Potts, we were able to get this thing done and got it a little bit under budget, believe it or not. And then the timing was pretty good. So really excited about that. Next slide. Fault in Nature Discovery Park, another one that we didn't have any money for. We were able to get that moving along and got it right to open up unofficially on the same day we opened the library. It's a perfect blend of library and outdoor education, really excited about that and happy we were able to get it open. And that was Supervisor McPherson's efforts as well, getting us a few extra dollars from the state. So thank you so much. Moving on. Davenport Landing. I know Supervisor Community has been looking for this bathroom for a very long time. It took us a couple of years. We finally got it replaced and it was very actively used the day it was installed and it looks good and happy to get as many facilities as we can. Always excited about bathrooms. Sea Cliff Village Park. We were able to actually get a skate park featuring here. Supervisor Friend was able to give us a tremendous amount of effort. We also some local philanthropists, both Richard Novak and Roland Rebley were able to give us several hundred thousand dollars. So we were able to get that done. We now have our County Park Friends fund raising for almost another hundred thousand dollars. They have about half of that right now to finish out that park. So pretty exciting. We should be close to getting that done. Moving on. And then Heart of Soquel. Another didn't really have very much money. I had a few dollars but we're able to get large grants from the state and this is a very exciting completion of the town plan in Soquel and it connects up several main streets for walking paths and pedestrian, I mean bike trails as well. So more than ever right now this is a very valuable asset that will be adding to the list of places we have to go for people in our County. Should be actually finished in the fall. Hidden Beach, also with County Park Friends. They currently have a group of local neighbors that have pledged to raise a hundred thousand dollars to match our hundred and some odd thousand dollars that we have and we should be able to replace the playground and it'll be for the most part inclusive as much as it can be. Won't be completely inclusive but we'll do the best we can. Thank you. So with that, we'd like to turn it to the board to conduct the study study session and we'll take your comments and questions and incorporate those into next year's CIP and we're here to and available to answer any questions. Okay. Bring it back to the board for questions. If we could try to make them brief so we can finish up everything. Hello, this is Supervisor Mayer. My person, I just wanted to, some points. You know, congratulations to Public Works, Parks, everybody. It just shows what we can do and with the support of the community too through some tax measures that we've passed, what we can do when we have some resources, what you have done to date and what you have underway when we've had the committed funds to do these projects is truly remarkable. So thank you very much, job well done and I'm glad we were able to get some commitments and get these things going previous to our COVID-19 experiment, what we're doing now, what's happening to us today. So thank you very much. Appreciate it, everybody's to be commended. Chair, I'll just ask one or two questions. First of all, as we mentioned this morning on the consent agenda, this grant application for Soquel Drive seems like it could really be a game changer in terms of safety. It'd be great to add that to this document because I think it's worthwhile and we should trumpet that when we can. Absolutely, we will add that in for next year. The other thing, the question about Capitol Road and widening is something that's gonna require community discussion as well. And so I just wanna put that out there that I understand it's in the book but we haven't really had that conversation with the community yet. And so I know it's on there for 2025. So we need to do that if we're gonna be serious about it. And then just a clarification on the date for the Live Oak Library Annex. So that showed June 2022 as it finished. When does the construction start on that project? Or do we think it's gonna start on that project? So we're actually still working on that. I can get back to you on that question. We are in the midst of a bit of a redesign for a couple of budget issues but the planning on that is going fairly well but we do need to regroup a little bit in terms of looking at the programming and how the partnership with Parks is gonna work in the funding issues that we have. So I'm still moving well ahead. We're in development and construction documents. So I can get you a better update on that project but it is moving along fairly well. We had pretty good design meetings over the last couple of months on it. So it's definitely moving in. Yeah, well, I'd love to get information about what it looks like now. And then the animal shelter, when do you expect that work to begin? That's uncertain in this time. So we're just this week we received revised engineers estimates and that project is looking at some funding issues. So we're looking at how to develop the specs and the plans to create a phased project so that we can make sure we're maximizing the value there and leave the future phases in a good place to when we can do some additional fundraising for that project to fund the entire thing. So I think that we're just about done with plans. We're actually in the development permit has been issued. We're first comments already back from building department. And so we'll hopefully be having an actual building permit but we do wanna make sure that the plans are all up to snuff and then I think we need some direction on the budget with that project and the phasing will likely come back for direction on that. So, and it's a bit of a staffing issue too but it's definitely moving ahead. Our new project manager is managing that project and it's come together. We have a new CM on board as well. I'm coordinating that project with the CEO's office. So we're kind of taking over management of that project. So definitely look at some serious progress in the next couple of months. I look forward to all the things that are listed in here. They're gonna be happening next year and in the years out. Thank you for your work. Thank you. Chair, this is Supervisor Freitman. I just wanted a very briefly thing, public works and parks because in the last three years you've done more on roads and parks and libraries than we've been able to do in the last 30. And as Supervisor McPherson noted, it goes to show what can happen when we have new funding coming in but it also I think has a lot to do with the leadership in those departments. And I just wanted to make sure that you know that we very much appreciate the work that you're doing on behalf of the community. And this is Supervisor Coonerty. I just wanna echo that. I really appreciate the work and the creativity and it's nice to have a little bit of good news. So thank you. Thank you for bringing in some good news today. Any other comments? Okay. I'll make a quick comment. I won't ask for an answer now because of the time constraints but Green Valley and Casterly Creek and then the Hula Hand and 152 and then also Buena Vista landfill transfer station. And I wanna thank you for all the work you're doing. I know we're pushing everything as hard as we can and money seems to be disappearing as we speak, right? With the pandemic and everything like that. But we will get through this and we will get these projects done. Parks, wanna thank you for what you're doing too at the time and those pictures of the kids playing in the parks and everything. I can't wait to see that really open up like it was in the past. I got a lot of kids at home and a couple of weeks ago when the playground areas were closed, they were going, are we breaking the law if we go down the slide? I mean, that's hard to answer, right? And so we gotta get back to normal and the beautiful pictures of that park and supervisor Leo Polz area. What's the name of that one? It's called New Haven. Leo's Haven. Yeah, it's beautiful, just wonderful. We gotta get kids out there and use it. That's what we built it for. Thank you. We'll open it up for the public hearing. No, we'll open the public comment. And if we have anybody, okay, nobody. There's no public comment. Bring it back to the board for action. Recommended actions, I think it's just accepted file. So I would make that motion. Second. Then we have first and second. Bill Cobble. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Thank you, board members. That concludes our regular meeting. We do have a reportable item from, I understand item B. Yes, that's correct. After we have closed session, we will come out and report on that. And now we'll go into closed sessions. Okay. We're reporting on item B in closed session. I'll let, okay. Okay, we're reporting on item B in closed session. And I'll let County Council explain it. Thank you, Supervisor. The board has authorized our office to file litigation in one matter. And we will be following up on that and serving that shortly. Thank you. That's it. Okay, thank you.