 Good morning everybody and welcome to the August 27, 2019 Board of Supervisors meeting. I'm going to call the meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the role. Good morning Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Caput. Here. Person. Here. Chair Coonerty. Here. Please join me in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. Do we have any late additions to the agenda? Yes, there are some revisions. On item, on the regular agenda, item 8, there's additional materials. They're revised attachments B and D. Packet pages 77, 89, and 90. On the consent agenda, item 16, there's additional materials, revised attachments A and B. Item 28, there's additional materials, revised attachment A, and item 40, there's an additional material, revised memo packet page 515. Thank you. Great. Are there any Board members who would like to remove items from the consent agenda? Okay, seeing none. We will now move on to public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about items that are on our consent agenda that are not on our agenda today but are within the purview of the Board of Supervisors on our closed session agenda and also our regular agenda if you can't stay because you have to go to work or childcare or have something else that you need to get to. So please line up if you're able and welcome and thank you. Good morning. I have bad news today. I'm Olivia Martinez. Hold on one second. Hold on. We're just checking to make sure the microphone's on. Okay. Now hold on just a second. I don't need more time. It's okay. Thank you. So I just wanted to thank the leadership of Matt Machado, Steve Wisner and Kent Antler for the work they've been doing with SEIU. We had started labor management meetings six years ago and in the last year, even though everybody starts with some difficulty with me, we've been doing some really good work working together. They responded really well to a lot of issues. They've been very proactive in handling a lot of the issues that we have at public work. So I just wanted to mention that I think they're doing a really good job with labor relations. So thank you. Thank you. That's you. That's nice to hear. Hi Pat Malo. I was just a little concerned that the quarterly report from the cannabis licensing officer is on the consent agenda. We've spent, I've spent, you spend hours and hours and hours in this room on days where things were going better in the cannabis licensing world than they are right now. And we took the time to discuss that as a community. I think something that's really disturbing in this report is that it seems that the cannabis licensing is no longer focused on licensing to pay for their program, but going out and doing enforcement and collecting fines. And, you know, if we had one in conjunction with the other, we might have a leg to stand on here, but it seems like folks weren't allowed to be able to get into this program. It's become too burdensome and now because they can't get into this program, haven't been able to rise to the occasion. We're saying that they're unlicensed and, you know, not trying to get along, but we had hundreds and hundreds of registrants. We had thousands of legal businesses under your last ordinance. We had hundreds and hundreds of folks paying taxes and now we have a handful of people still with state temp or state provisional licenses now going forward. And I think that there's only been a couple if one actual license written by the cannabis licensing. And I know we've all spent so much time on it. I know we all probably regret a lot of that time we've spent on it. I know I do at this point, but it's the system we tried to set up is failing right now. And so I think it deserves more than consent agenda. I don't know if it's too late to pull it, but yeah, just as a community member, I'm concerned. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is John Jankovitz. I'm the district fisheries biologist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife covering Santa Cruz County. I'm here to comment on item 41 on the consent agenda, which is directing the chair to write a letter of support to the state fishing game commission in support of the department's effort to establish a low flow fishing closer for steel fishing in Santa Cruz County. Essentially, I'd first like to start by thanking the board for establishing this letter and supporting the regulation change. I would like to make a few points. What item is that? 41. I'd like to make a few points that this is not a unique regulation change. Essentially, every coastal stream in California has these low flow regulations established for streams. It's also not a new regulation in freshwater fishing regulations. Article four, section eight, it determines that the department has the lawful ability to stop fishing at any time due to inadequate passage for steelhead. This is simply putting a number to the books for fishermen and the community to establish a good low flow fishing closure. And the goals of this closure is to enhance protection for the listed species in our waterways. It's also to limit the take of juvenile fish in the river. This is adult fishery. And during low flow conditions, there's an increased take of juveniles. It's also ability to reduce weighting in the stream during low flow conditions, which can disturb salmon nests and steelhead nests in the system. It's also a way to simplify regulations throughout the state. Again, this is kind of a statewide initiative, and this is a small piece of that. And a main point is to not eliminate or severely reduced fishing in Santa Cruz County. The department's very supportive of it and realizes that there's a community that is engaged in the river and wants to be out there fishing. In regards of these facts, I'm looking for support. And so I appreciate the board's support of these measures. I also have support from the city of Santa Cruz, Cal Trout, various fishing groups, and also various consultants that work in the river. So I just want to express my support and clarify a few points. So thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jim Coffes from Ben Lomond. And I'm also here to speak to the quarterly report from the Cannabis Licensing Office. And I was kind of pleased to see that there's a lot of numbers in that report. But there's so many numbers that it creates a little confusion into what's really going on. And so I thought I'd give you a little synopsis of my take on what those numbers mean and maybe raise some questions about what they mean. And the first one that really jumped out at me was that there's $750,390 in civil fines that have been assessed to date. And I'm very curious about whether or not those fines, if there's any belief that any of those fines will be paid or if they're going to be paid. The report indicates that about $19,000 has been collected in fines. I'm curious who paid those fines and for what reason did they pay them in order to stay in the process or did they just pay them out of the kindness of their heart. The other numbers, there's a number of charts that show actions by the CLO and the Sheriff's Office. And I thought I'd put those into perspective because they keep changing all the time. We started with 500 or 600 registrants and then went to 70 or so letters of local authorization. And these are primarily cultivation applications. To give you a perspective on that, today there are two provisional licenses in Santa Cruz County in the unincorporated area for cultivation. Now Santa Barbara County has 867, Humboldt has 765, Mendocino has 340, Monterey has 350, Trinity has 119. Santa Cruz, the total county including Watsonville and the city of Santa Cruz has 24. So Santa Cruz is way, way behind in terms of production capacity compared to the rest of the state. And so that doesn't bode well for the future of either the economic stability of the cannabis trade locally or tax revenue. Thank you. Before you start the clock, I've asked two supervisors to pull an item from the consent agenda. Supervisor McPherson, would you pull item 77 from the consent agenda? The supervisors already had their opportunity to pull items. That was that was item number four on our agenda and they no one chose to. So now is your opportunity to speak to those items. Right. Supervisor Caput, are you willing to pull 77? I protest this process because when in the agenda is the public able to ask the supervisors, you've already closed that book and this is a new change to your policy. As a public citizen, I don't think it's working well. So item 77 has to do with Lompico Road delaying by almost two and a half months, a repair authorization. After in the San Jose Mercury News, it was shown on front page that Lompico is number one at risk during fire evacuations. I would like to see this county step up to the plate and expedite that repair rather than delay it by two and a half months. I think it's a critical issue and should be discussed other than just an item on the consent. Can you stop the clock, please? Well, hold on just second. So so Miss Steinbrenner, first of all, as you mentioned, you asked two supervisors to do it. Both supervisors had an opportunity. They chose not to do it. You've also had a back and forth. The email with our public works director about about this item where he answered your questions and explained the reasons why it's taking time. So at this point, I think it's best if you want to just speak to this item or whatever items you want. All right, I'll speak to the item. Thank you very much. And thank you, Supervisor Caput, for giving me this. I believe it's deferred anyway, right? It says to return direct staff. I did look at it November 5th. But the issue is that it's being delayed. And the issue, did you all get the cut? Thank you, Supervisor Caput. Did you all get the copy of the article from the San Jose Mercury News that I brought to your office, Ms. Ritter, was kind enough to make you each a copy? In this article, it says Lompico is number one in all of the 23 Bay Area cities, localities, that were studied by street-like data analysis, did a nationwide analysis triggered by the problems at the campfire. Lompico is number one in the Bay Area. That is the only one in Santa Cruz County that was identified in this study. I think it is negligent of the county to delay any repairs on this road. There would be over 2,000 residents according to people who live there that could be trapped, that could be a repeat of the campfire. If you choose to delay this repair today, to me, it says that you are willing to accept the liability should there be a wildland fire and a devastating evacuation occur, that you are negligent because you have delayed, by choice, to get this repair expedited. I am just putting that on the record, and it is astonishing to me as a rural dweller that you would do this. I understand there is paperwork problems, but I also understand that the county has on contract a consultant to handle the paperwork. I also understand the county has on contract five engineers to do this work with all of these storm repairs. I don't think that claiming there is a problem with paperwork that requires a two-and-a-half-month delay is, I think it needs questioning. I have communicated with Mr. Machado, and I don't agree at all. I am out of time. I just want to quickly say that 172, proposition 172, money needs to be allocated. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Good morning, board. My name is Robert Holdridge. I provided some documents to each of you last Thursday. Did you receive them? To your offices? Mr. Fran? How did you? Well, that's all right. I can turn it up. I delivered some documents to you last Thursday. Did you receive them? Do you agree that's a matter that should be addressed? Perhaps not in this venue, but certainly addressed. Do you have any agreement at all? It's a Facebook posting regarding a matter of public safety. Do you want to address this issue now, or can we address it in the future? Anybody? Sir, this is a time for you to speak to... Anybody, do you want, I would like the matter put on agenda then. Sir. Are you willing to put that matter on agenda in the future? This is a time for you to speak to us. I'm not going to engage in a back and forth view. Right now, this is your time to speak to us about whatever items you want. Okay. It's not on the agenda, but some items, documents I provided to you. Are you willing to put that on the agenda for a future meeting? Or you cannot respond. Thank you very much. A matter of Facebook posting where it deals with a lock and a bush master, someone who was known to the county, just a matter of public safety, I was just thinking that maybe we could avoid a potential disaster. Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Thank you. I'm going to leave. Hi, my name is Brent Harrison. I'm not really sure how this works, but I'm sure most of you know that the rainforest is on fire. And I was hoping that each district could plant like a minimum of 100 new trees, just to stand in solidarity with the rainforest. Great. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else would like to speak to us about public comment on public comment? All right. I will close public comment and bring it back to the board. There is. Okay. This will be our final speaker. Off the bus where I had an interesting conversation with a disabled man who had worked with a PG&E subcontractor cutting the trees and he described this tree falling horrible poor guy. Another one of PG&E's disasters. Let me see. I've been here many times, hundreds of times about the dangers of microwave radiation sources that are just proliferating here and asked you to take appropriate action to protect the public from this known harm. And so far it's fallen on deaf ears as the radiation contamination increases and increases. And you can see it with these detection meters. And the evidence is overwhelming. So I really don't understand how people think their children and future generations and the birds and the bees and everything is going to survive this microwave non-slot. I gave you copies of 5G apocalypse, the extinction event. I hope you've watched that very well substantiated. And it starts out it's important to understand what 5G is doing and what they say it's doing. We're told on the IEEE beamforming document that's Electrical Engineers Association that this technology cooks your eyes like eggs in World War Two. We all need to understand these are military weapons. These are assault frequencies. If you know nothing else, more than that, that's what you need to know. It's next page. Microwave radiation warfare. That's what it is. And I asked you to also sign on the document called Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space to have everyone try to stop this because we're in big trouble. And I want to invite you to this. Anyone else who wants a fire? There's an expert from the Carolin Institute in Sweden, Leo Hansen, who is speaking on EMFs, electromagnetic frequencies and health. Where do we have, where do we stand? Adverse health effects of modern artificial electromagnetic fields cell towers, cell phones, Wi-Fi. Please attend this and send someone from your health department. Very serious. Thank you. Thank you. Here you go, Ryan. Yeah, I just wanted to say on 33 and 77, the key word is defer. That it's being deferred till November. And we are looking at it. So it's not like we're making a final decision right here. So that's I just want to make that come. Sure. So so we've concluded public comment. And now it's an opportunity for members of the board to speak about items 16 through 81 before we take action. And Supervisor Caput, are there other, do you have any additional comments you'd like to make about the consent agenda? I'm okay. Okay, I have several here that I would like to about the cannabis licensing, cannabis licensing operation. Progress has been slow, as we all know, has been mentioned. But I appreciate the efforts that are kind of a slicing operations have done to date. I hope that we can speed up the process. There were predictions that this would be going to be a big money maker, among other things, but hasn't been realized yet. We're putting a lot of resources into this and will continue to do so. I think we need to really get with it, as was mentioned. I just would like to ask your Sam Laforte, if about when you, the negative aspect of the monetary situation here. When you see, do you have a good horizon, what's in the horizon for when are the tables might be turning on this? I think the cannabis licensing office currently, we're looking at about two years out to see our license fees continue to increase. And the reason it's such a long projection is because once a use permit is approved, oftentimes there are build out and infrastructure improvements that need to be made in order for the site to become operational. Some people who have gone through the use permit process are projecting between nine and 15 months to make those improvements before they can become operational. So that's why I think that that two year time period is realistic. And then one thing to take note of is the cannabis licensing office is funded based on licensing fees and administrative costs associated with running the program that are recoverable fees and not based on cannabis business taxes. Cannabis business taxes go directly into the general fund. Last year we had our operational expenses were $1.3 million and cannabis business taxes totaled just over 3.4 million. So we were able to intake nearly $900,000 in cost recovery and licensing fees. So overall the program costs just over $400,000 to the general fund, but cannabis business taxes did contribute over 3.4 million to the fund. Okay, that clarifies it some and I hope we can continue to move forward and realize the benefits that we have projected and we accommodate those who are interested in the business. So thank you for your efforts. Thank you also and the was mentioned about the low fishing letter. I'd like to thank supervisor friend for working with my office and the county staff to write this letter and finalizing the low fish low fishing restrictions. So as the letter states these restrictions will create some predictability of anglers rather than subject subject them to longer closures and I'm glad we have their support in this effort as was mentioned and I support this request that we're making to the state. On items number 51 and 2 there's nothing specific but I would like to if there's a representative from the district attorney's office. This is to give us a sense about the biggest challenges that we're facing right now and fighting fraud. Is there somebody from the district attorney's office here that could just give me an update Mr. Atkinson if there's there's all kinds of fraud unbelievable in some respects sometimes but I'd like to know just how we're addressing this and how big of a problem is it in Santa Cruz County. Well as you know the price of real estate continues to skyrocket in Santa Cruz County and it becomes one of the most viable sources for criminals to access funds from elderly people and suspecting people. People who are desperate to do something to try and either save their homes or take care of other pressing bills. We're part of a real estate fraud task force tri-county between Monterey and San Benito. We meet quarterly and discuss types of scams that are occurring throughout the Monterey Bay area affecting real estate. There continue to be a number of scammers trying to outright file fraudulent documents taking people's property. Elder financial abuse plays into it when relatives or siblings try and drain equity. We receive referrals from state agencies, local county agencies. There has been if anything an uptick on the number of referrals in cases that our office has been handling. If somebody has a problem or a suspicious, can you just give us a phone number so they might be able to call your office or whoever is the right person? Certainly they can call our main number 454-2400 and ask for our Consumer Protection Department. They can go online and get one of our complaint forms, fill it out, email it in and upon receipt. We'll either send it off to the real estate department and or initiate a response ourselves. I want to thank the district attorney's office for keeping their eye on the ball in this and just a forewarning to others that are out there. This is going on in our community and we need to be, protect the community as best we can and I just want to encourage anybody that's watching or listening to this that if they have a suspicious activity of this type and fraud that they address it and get to your office. Absolutely. We're open for business. We've even got the recorder's office sending a suspicious recordings. Okay. Mr. Allen, did you want to have a quick statement too? Only that we are working actively on these types of white collar frauds that really plague this community and I think we've obtained well over a million dollars in restitution for victims. So I do think it's an important area. Good. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I just wanted to mention on item number 51 regarding the San Margarita Basin. This last week or this week I took a tour of the basin. Mr. Ricker led the charge and it is amazing how complicated and intertwined our water system is and it's Santa Margarita and Mid County have studies going on as we speak that we're demanded by the state but they're very necessary and I just want to give a positive shout out to the people of Santa Cruz County and their conservation efforts over the years. I think it was mentioned that an average in the Santa Cruz City water system at least who was involved in that tour I think it was the average home used 43 or 47 gallons a day is one of the lowest in the state if not the lowest and thank heavens we've been doing that historically and we're aside from the wet winter we just went through last year. It's good that we did that and we keep eye on the ball and in that so I just wanted to thank those who were associated with that tour very informational and the people of Santa Cruz County are going to be very very pleased if we come up with a legitimate plan that they understand and the reasons why we're doing that it's it's absolutely necessary so then I just wanted to mention one a couple other things on the item number 60 the homeless persons health project. I want to thank all of the nurses and the great work that they do in our community it's a tough job that demands a lot of skill and sensitivity and I'm grateful that we have a medically assisted treatment team that services in our community that have that unfortunately our community that use an alternative heroin is their their drug we know that substance abuse is both a common cause and a reason result of homelessness that we have is projected probably a third of the homeless have a substance abuse problem but I'd like to reiterate how important I think it is that we will track how many of these medically assisted treatment clients come to treatment through our syringe services program and Narcan and Narcan outreach we've as the HS HP HP mobile clinic program has developed I'll be asking and no one they know this is coming about any plans the health services agency has to incorporate the syringe services program as I said before we we will need to work closely with the community to when we're deciding what to do in that regard on item 77 and 78 and in particular the Long Pico project I hear from residents about what is taking so long to repair our storm damage that this county suffered in the 2016-17 floods half of the road damages in the state of California we have a lot of catching up to do and I want to commend our public works department for doing as much as they can and we're we're delaying the ratification of two contracts that was mentioned I'm well aware of that I read that in the front page of the Sentinel about Long Pico road we we all know about the the change in the federal reimbursements as well and I'd like to ask public works if it will to provide any additional information about the delay I think it deserves a response of some type that was made to the questions that we have here and the reasons why we're doing it I think it's self-explanatory but on the other hand it's just a necessary situation that we have under the circumstances I don't know Mr. Machado if you might just want to talk about just to give us a brief explanation of that which you have done to the Steinbrenner and the board as well. Sure absolutely good morning Matt Machado director public works on both of those deferrals we are putting contracts together we did receive bids and the delay though was really due to federal highways given us authorization to advertise so the delay happened some time ago we had these queued up on the calendar early on but because the delayed advertisement it's also delays our award we're working hard we're working with contractors to get bonds and insurance in place so we could bring a complete package to your board for approval of those contracts so it's certainly no delay on the county's part and then the delay that did happen happened some time ago with federal highways authorization to advertise also comment that there's a number of other projects on your agenda today where we're accepting improvements that are complete there's two projects that are going out to bid storm damage projects so there's a lot moving forward and our staff is working hard okay thank you it's it's understandable I want to thank you for that and then the the work on the bear creek that's another road slip out that's been completed and took a drive up into that bear creek road and it really looks good so thank you very much and finally the on item number 79 the Felton library naming I'd like to thank the donors of those who have given to the Felton library and that resulted in these naming opportunities I had a chance to tour the construction site it's going to be fantastic and I can't wait to see the library open probably late January that is all mr. chairman great thank you all right good morning chair I just have a couple items to comment on on item number 30 which is a cannabis licensing office operations report I appreciate getting this information the statistics in here are helpful and you know this board has said we're interested in figuring out how to get to 75 licenses over this next year there there has been progress made towards that and why we see the you know one cannabis license it represents the possibility for 23 others who have to complete the process without doing the land use portion so that can be achieved rather relatively quickly we also have a number of people who are in the process and I think in my conversations with the CLO staff they're working doing everything they can to move that along they have to work with our planning department and work with licensees some of which are new to the land use process so I appreciate the work of the CLO and I look forward to continuing getting these reports and seeing our us advance I also think that we have compliance or enforcement activities that are important part we read all the time about the growth of the black market as well as the regulated market and in order for the the legalized market to work we do need to do enforcement actions against those who are operating illegally and it shouldn't overshadow what we're doing but it's an important part of creating the legalized market here in Santa Cruz County it is also good to hear when we look about the difference between where we are in terms of license fees it's unfortunate to take two years but to know that there's another three million dollars in taxes that we would not be receiving if we had if we did not have a legalized cannabis program that's that's good to the bottom line of the county of Santa Cruz and I appreciate the work of everyone to help make that happen on item number 40 I just want to encourage the adoption of a resolution in support of assembly bill 262 this is a bill that already passed about the bike a clean california act which is important way in which we look at the greenhouse gas emissions from the products that the state of california buys in 2021 they have to put this into effect and the Sierra Club and other organizations are moving forward trying to encourage the state to not move the deadline but start collecting this admission information about products so we know what what we're buying is actually not contributing to destruction of our climate on item number 60 which is the report on the homeless person's health project I like to say this is a very powerful report of an organization that's working on the front line of a crisis in which we have in our community we'll be hearing from another organization shortly but when you look at the information that's included in this report about the increase the number of people taking medication assisted treatment which is one of our goals in our strategic plan it's there's a dramatic increase when you look at the number of people who've been who've been moved into permanent supportive housing it's an impressive statistics this is what community is asking for us to address how to deal with the use the the rise of drug use and its impact on the community how do we move people into housing so they can stay there these the homeless persons health project is out there on the front lines making this happen and I and I just want to recognize all the people who do that work it's pretty incredible on item number 71 I'll just thank the public works department for their work on the Glenhaven Road storm damage project this is an important project for folks in SoCal they've been waiting for this repair to be done and I'm glad to see this moving forward lastly on item 79 I too want to thank the donors who are helping the live oak library happen we're a little bit behind where Felton is but I'm looking forward to a great library annex and live oak in the coming days so thank you for the work of the library to make that happen that's it thank you chair I'd just like to thank Supervisor McPherson and staff regarding item 41 and the board's support of our letter to the commission I'd also like to acknowledge health services on item 57 which I think that that grant is pretty remarkable for a mobile mental health team for the south county I think that that'll do great things for the south county specifically for the children and youth in south county you know there are a lot of items from 63 64 65 66 that are all grants through human services that show some of the breadth of what the county does just like to thank human services sometimes these things just go through quickly but realistically there are remarkable programs behind this on on housing support services on food nutrition services on educational other benefits services from our local partners but also the leadership of human services can't be understated on some of these programs these are millions of dollars that are going to help the most needy in our community and as we saw recently as one of the highest poverty rates in the state when you factor in cost of living one of the key takeaways from that study from the public policy institute of california was that without these safety net programs that number would be even higher uh and that work is being led by human services so I appreciate your work for our community and the voices that aren't often heard here at the board meeting thank you real uh if I may yeah I uh I just wanted to welcome um the people that have volunteered to be on various commissions in santa cruz county michael mcganon nancy coal christina granados and edward mendoza they're all volunteered to be on various uh commissions in the county we get a lot of public input a lot of public discussion through people that have um actually step forward and are volunteering their time to be on these various commissions we we all listen to people that we have on commissions we get a lot of public input and we get a lot of information from them so I want to thank them and welcome them uh to be uh on their various commissions thank you thank you and I just have a couple comments uh to make so one is on item number 30 which is the cannabis licensing um I share the concerns and one of the ways that we monitor and improve process is by getting these numbers um and uh just because we don't hold a full public hearing doesn't mean that we're not all asking a lot of questions about how to move it forward because we do want to support the small businesses uh that are trying to get up and going get licensed in our county and it has taken too long and uh we're hopeful I'm hopeful that we have improved processes enough in order to um in order to to get people up and up and operating legally uh on item number 58 I'd like to defer that item to the next meeting which is the this is the Medi-Cal um uh substance abuse uh report um and uh just because I haven't had a chance to meet with the HSA leadership and get my question answered so defer this to our next meeting on uh September 10th um and finally on item number 66 which is the human service uh human services department um CalWORKS long-term economic well-being programs I think these are just really exciting and look at new ways to track long-term success of people who are engaged in CalWORKS uh in a way that we haven't done before and and support uh performance um in those programs and so I want to commend the HSD department for uh for moving a project like that forward so uh at this time I will now entertain a motion on the consent agenda I want to move the consent agenda as amended with the deferral of us sure 58 defer deferring 58 deferring 58 to our second that okay so motion by Leopold second by Caput all those in favor please say aye opposed that passes unanimously I'll make a quick comment too if you look at the consent agenda 95 to 96 percent of them say approve accept approve accept about four percent say defer defer means we are going to look at it further before we actually say approve or accept thank you thank you um uh so now we're going to move on to item number seven this is a presentation by dairy gas horn of the executive director of the homeless garden project and uh we're excited to to welcome you today good morning I'm Kathy Kelpo I'm the president of the board of directors of the homeless garden project and I'm here with dairy Ganshorn who's the executive director um we're here happily to update you on the project on our move to Pogonip this is a vision that the project and the entire community have had for the past 20 years since the city first included a permanent home from the homeless garden project in the master plan for Pogonip we see homelessness all around us you're talking about it this morning and we know thousands of people in Santa Cruz county are homeless we also know at the homeless garden project that we can do something about it there are a lot of causes of homelessness but joblessness which the project works to address is the number one cause providing someone with a job housing assistance substance abuse counseling and mental health services can and does prevent homelessness dairy's going to talk to you a little bit about the project and the work that we do and the incredible results that the homeless garden project is having here in Santa Cruz hello good morning the project provides job training in the form of paid transitional employment along with support services our trainees work in all aspects of our organic farm workshop and retail operation our 12 month program can serve up to 17 trainees at a time currently at Pogonip over time that will expand to 50 trainees program participants are connected to housing legal and health services and one-on-one social support for accomplishing goals the program also plays an important role in connecting homeless men and women to the thousands of community volunteers who participate in our program each year last year we had 2000 nearly 2500 volunteers at the project we also connect our trainees to growing food for those in need in the community more than 7000 pounds are distributed by the project through nonprofit partnerships with groups such as transition age youth santa cruz aids project homeless persons health project Davenport resource center and more last year 100 percent of homeless garden project graduates secured permanent jobs and 100 percent moved into housing that is why we're really excited about the move to Pogonip and the opportunities that we'll have there to engage more homeless men and women and members of the public in our program we announced a public goal fundraising goal for the capital campaign to build a permanent home at Pogonip just a few weeks ago of 3.5 million dollars and we're proud to be able to share with you today that we've already raised 3.2 million of that which is a huge community accomplishment one that I don't think we even thought we would be successful at doing when we first started we've been through the city process we have permits and are ready to start construction in january as you may know construction was stopped temporarily while the city and the county investigate some potential impacts of skeet shooting that took place on the property back in the 1940s we're optimistic thank you for your support supervisor McPherson Pogonip is in your district that with your support these issues will be resolved soon and that will be farming at Pogonip by 2021 that's our goal just a quick look at the map of Pogonip we'll be farming initially three acres about the same amount of land that we're farming now at natural natural bridges farm and Santa Cruz we'll be constructing a parking lot which you can see on the map that will allow more visitor access to Pogonip for hiking and other uses as well as for volunteering at the project there also be two greenhouses a barn and some administrative offices it'll be the first time in its history that the homeless garden project has had bathrooms and electricity on its site so big things the farm will be very much in character with the history of the site it's been designed carefully to minimize visual impacts we will be growing organic vegetables fruits herbs and flowers and our new farm will have orchards one of our core values is to be good stewards of the land and at Pogonip we will be restoring coastal terrors prairie habitat I want to close by thanking you for valuing the work that we do I'd like to introduce our graduate Karen Chappelle who will speak about her time in our program thank you good morning my name is Karen Chappelle and I'm here this morning to share with you what a transformative and inspirational place the homeless garden project is for so many people in this community under the leadership of our executive director Darry Ganshorn a dedicated team of caring and qualified staff interns and volunteers work together with people like myself who need to find their way out of homelessness I began working for the homeless garden project in July of 2018 before I arrived there I was basically unemployable my background report was such that it prevented me from getting a job with many employers or keeping a job once the report came back from the state so on the recommendation of a friend I went to the homeless garden project farm to apply the process is an intuitive one they ask that you spend a day working with them to learn about the program to see if the work is something that you were able and willing to do what I came to understand is that this orientation includes the idea that we as trainees make an investment in our own lives and futures as well as an investment in the lives of others through the organic food that we grow I spent several days and found joy and satisfaction in planting seedlings weeding and harvesting mature vegetables flowers and strawberries for our csa clients I was hired soon after and had a great year have had a great year there growing organic food and flowers as well as growing on the inside and becoming a whole person again my self-esteem that had been shattered by my homeless experience was restored my confidence built with each passing season my trust in the new relationships that I built brought me back from the edge of despair to being a part of a vibrant and dynamic family called the homeless garden project the biggest lesson for me however was that I was valued and valuable as a human being I had somehow lost that understanding in my journey through homelessness it had been so long since I felt connected with the community that I was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude and renewed hope I still have moments during the day where I stop and give thanks for my good fortune in finding and connecting with the homeless garden project one of our greatest assets at the farm are the volunteers that are recruited and organized by a volunteer coordinator I was so touched by people in this community who came out to the farm to support our project and to meet us so that they could understand homelessness better and take the stigma and fear away from the word I worked alongside many people that I would not have met otherwise and they got to know and appreciate me as a person truly an invaluable gift after having experienced so much rejection and prejudice from ignorant or abusive people I feel so much stronger now than I have before and have future plans for myself that I know I can make happen now that I have such a strong support system I've obtained a second job and I'm working on average 50 hours per week I was hired into a permanent position as the workshop production assistant at HGP so that I can continue to invest in this meaningful project and give what I have received to future trainees I am still homeless but I'm working closely with my housing navigator at front street housing because now I can afford to consistently pay rent thank you for your time and attention I hope that you give this project the support that it so richly deserves having been a part of the solution for homelessness since 1990 thank you and thank you for coming out today and sharing your story so thank you all thank you for that presentation it's a beautiful project in so many different ways physically and in the way it creates connections and meanings in people's lives and opportunity now's an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about this item if they wish Marilyn Garrett I want to thank Dary for all of her decades of work with the homeless garden project and say I've known her for a long time since your kids were toddlers was that like about 30 years ago now close to 30 years ago so I'm very appreciative of your work and thank you for your very moving testimony and I I've said this before but I think of this bumper sticker that says it'll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber and say it'll be a great day when the parks and housing and we have everything we need to have a viable community and people who are housed and fed if the military isn't siphoning off 50% of our money for killing people in other countries so it's a bigger picture I'm glad there's this effort to help the homeless but we really need to have a larger effort I'd like to see the county say the tax money that's going to the federal government for military you can't take it anymore have the league of cities or the county governments stop this kind of robbery and theft from the the community here so and I'd like to see you know one thing that troubles me a little is that you know it's on parkland or hiking areas it's a great project I'd like to see some of these big developments that are taking place instead of those like the aptos village project where I'd love to see this kind of project there so thank you again for your work thank you good morning board members Ellen timberlake director of the human services department I just want to on behalf of our department acknowledge and appreciate the leadership and the work that you've done all of these years sharing your story it's very impactful and I want to just say that we will be here we are here to support your expansion through the cal fresh employment training program you already are participating that but as you move to serve move from 17 to 50 we will be there supporting you because the outcomes that you're producing already are are amazing and we look forward to helping you as you expand so thank you and thank you so much for sharing your personal journey thank you Becky Steinbrenner resident of rural aptos thank you for your good work I have taken my homeschool groups to the homeless garden and we've worked in the garden and we've talked with the the people there and it was it is a magical place and I'm hoping that that magic transfers up to the new site as well there's something amazing about being at the edge of the continent looking out over the sea as you work in the garden and I'm hoping that the wonderful views up in Pogonip will also be inspirational thank you for sharing your story Miss Chappelle that's very very brave of you and I appreciate you very much I think this project speaks a lot to the value of getting people out in fresh air and working in the earth and I know that your your board and different agencies are also working to do a project similar like this to um or similar to this with a juvenile uh uh re I don't know what you call a juvenile hall because there's a lot of value people people a lot of people are lost and and Miss Chappelle you said it so well that you felt valued as a human being and when you can connect with people on a common ground working in the ground working with animals it's a very healing thing that I think a lot of parts of our society have lost as we have moved from an agrarian society to a high technology society a lot of people are lost and getting their hands in the earth is a very grounding thing and it supports a community one of the wonderful things that the homeless garden project does for its volunteers is brings them all together and we all have lunch together with everyone and that is an amazing experience and again supports the community I will miss the great meadow up in Pogonip I've gone for walks in the moonlight with our school kids again and it is a magical place too so I'm hoping that there can be some restoration um I guess that's all I just am very supportive of this project I want to thank you and um hope that it does happen and is carried through with the magic that the site on on the Swanton road has had or swift thank you thank you all right that concludes public comment and thank you all for coming out and sharing your story and information about this exciting project today really appreciate it uh chair I just want to just uh uh say that it's um as I mentioned earlier uh how uh we do our work with a homeless homeless population is something in which our constituents ask us about on a regular basis and the to see the success of the homeless garden project uh and what it's done and how it's helped people individually your story was incredibly powerful um and to hear that you have a hundred percent who are in treatment or in housing um that those are incredible uh statistics uh and is there anything else that we could be doing here at the county of Santa Cruz to be able to support development of uh of this new site um in the Pogonip yeah yes please the most important thing to us is to get the study that's currently being done on the site by county environmental health done expeditiously so we have some answers about that space obviously we don't want to be there if there's a contamination or an issue that would prevent us from doing so but we've talked to a lot of experts and our thinking right now is that if we move expeditiously at least three acres of that land will be cleared so we can start farming by next year and that's how you can help us is staying on top of that process you know sometimes everyone who's working on it isn't aware of how important this is to people's lives like you heard today so if you could just keep reminding everyone as they do their work that we really appreciate the time that they're spending evaluating the site and we need them to just give us an answer as soon as they possibly can thanks it seems like a reasonable request and to hear that you've already raised 3.2 million dollars of your three and a half million dollar goal is is saying that the community is strongly in support of this project so to our environmental health department i hope we can move quickly on this uh so we can get shovels on the ground uh and turning the earth so we can produce great organic vegetables for all the community to enjoy thank you for your work i i i just don't know how how you can describe winter but you've you've got it all i mean self-esteem um the the healthy educational it's all wrapped into a package and when you go out and visit tour this site is phenomenal how energized everybody is and i thank you caron for your testimony i know there are a lot of more people that have that same feeling so just want to say what a great project this is and wish you well and we'll do what we can great thank you so much thank you for your work we're now going to move on to item number eight which is a public hearing to consider a resolution amending the general plan local coastal program land use element noise element circulation element and public safety element and accept the secret determination notice of exemption consider ordinance amending santa cruz county code chapters 13.10 13.12 to create an airport combining zone district and to rezone properties within two miles of the wassenville municipal airport to be included within the combining district ordinance creating a new chapter 13.15 noise planning and ordinance amending chapter 16.01 environmental review and scheduled the three ordinances for final adoption on september 10th 2019 as outlined in a memorandum of the planning director mr carlson are you here to present today thank you chair um this this project involves updating several parts of the general plan in the county code addressing land use near the wassenville community airport noise and environmental review the airport updates also um involve updates the county's local coastal program because the updates involve rezoning properties in the coastal zone that's fine yeah uh the first planning commission public uh the first planning commission public hearing on the project occurred in october 2018 was several several years of work proceeding that staff worked with the wassenville pilots association on the airport land use planning updates and with a noise consultant on the noise element updates at the public hearing in march 2019 the planning commission recommended the board of supervisors approve the project which at that time included a much more extensive update of the safety element the project was scheduled for public hearing before the board in june 2019 and staff requested and the board approved deferring the public hearing and separating the project into two separate independent projects to be considered on two separate public hearing dates so today's public hearing addresses the issues regarding the airport noise and the county's environmental review guidelines policies addressing safety and noise in the unincorporated uh area around the wassenville uh municipal airport would be updated and consolidated in the land use element this involves relocating policies addressing air travel from the circulation element to the land use element and santa cruz county code chapter 13.12 would be amended to implement the updated policies and establish the airport combining zone district as a new zoning overlay on properties near the airport the noise policies and the safety element would be moved uh to a standalone noise element a new santa cruz county code chapter 13.15 noise planning would implement the policies of the noise element and finally um county code chapter 1601 would be amended to establish the county's environmental review guidelines would be the most recent version of sequa and the state sequa guidelines as they may may be amended in the future uh so uh first addressing the airport um the wassenville municipal airport is located within the city of wassenville shown by the shaded area uh but is mostly surrounded by unincorporated county area outside of of that shaded area uh the goal of airport land use compatibility planning is for the airport and surrounding lands uses to coexist surrounding land uses should not constrain airport operations or create unacceptable safety hazards guidelines exist for how to accomplish land use compatibility around the airport the california state aeronautics act requires caltrans division of aeronautics to create an airport land use planning handbook that contains the essential elements for airport land use compatibility planning purposes and under the state aeronautics act the county has no discretion with respect to the handbook's criteria um as confirmed by the state appellate court the act requires the county to incorporate in the general plan and county code the height land use noise safety and density criteria that are compatible with airport operations uh one of the first steps is to establish the airport influence area which is defined in the act as all the lands within two miles of the airport boundaries this image uh shows the city limits indicated by the thick black and white dash line and all the shaded parcels outside the city limits in the unincorporated county area are located within the airport influence area these are the parcels that would be rezoned by adding the airport combining zone district designation on top of the existing zoning without changing the existing underlying zoning designations of the parcels the additional zoning designation would trigger application of the airport compatibility policies when reviewing development projects on those parcels this is the map of the safety zones that zones that have been established around the airport runways the county code would be amended to either allow or prohibit certain land uses in each of these zones based on the different levels of risk in each of the zones in each zone the density standards for residential uses and intensity standards for non-residential uses would be the standards that apply to the safety zone according to the handbook or the underlying standard according to the current general planning zoning designation whichever is stricter in general the urbanized areas near the airport the density standards of the safety zones are stricter however once you move out to the agricultural lands further away from the airport the density standards in the county's general plan become stricter and according to the handbook these safety zones do not prevent the construction of a single family dwelling and an ad you on an existing parcel this is a map of noise levels around the airport runways and flight paths showing relative noise levels along the typical takeoff and landing loop to meet the building code requirement for interior sound levels projects located within the 60 to 65 decibel contour line would be checked during the plan review process to verify proper sound insulating construction in the home however all parcels within the airport influence area from the map we saw previously would be required to record a statement of acknowledgement regarding regarding airport noise on the property deed as a condition of issuance of a building permit for a new house or expansion of an existing house the noise level standards are in both the airport land use policies and repeated in the noise elements and the new noise planning ordinance which we'll discuss in a moment these are maps of air airspace protection service surfaces that should be left free of obstruction such as tall objects and trees to prevent hazards to flight the map on the right shows the contours of the airspace protection services above the airport and the map on the left shows where these imaginary surfaces intersect with existing objects like trees and power poles around the runways shown by the red shading and the actual ground surface in the hills northwest of the airport shown by that large reddish shaded area the proposed code amendments in chapter 13.12 include an equation for checking proposed structures to determine if FAA notification is required and the FAA then determines if the structure would present a hazard to flight and if the hazards can be mitigated or not a correction to the equation is required however in a revised packet page 77 was provided showing the correction and another correction to preserve the county's ability to require lowering or removal of over height trees and so in summary the new section a new section would be added to the land use element section 2.25 airport land use compatibility and this is provided in a little bit D of attachment A air travel policies would be relocated from the circulation element to the airport section of the land use element other amendments will be made to the rail section of the circular circulation element as well this is provided in exhibit C of attachment A with a strike through underlined version provided in attachment H new requirements would apply in the airport influence area the safety zones noise impact areas and to prevent hazards to navigation an existing county code chapter 13.12 would be updated and renamed the airport combining zone district to implement the policies and rezone the properties it's provided in attachment B with a strike through version provided in attachment C so that completes the airport third of the project moving to noise the second part of the project involves the creation of a new noise element by moving the noise policies out of the safety element the new noise element contains extensive background information about noise and the county's approach to noise control it does not substantially change any existing noise policies or standards but adds some additional mapping as shown here and policies to be consistent with state general plan guidelines for noise elements the new noise contour maps like the ones shown here will facilitate compliance with state building code standards for sound insulation in new buildings located in areas of excessive noise similar to what I just explained regarding airport noise to better implement the noise element the project would also create a new noise planning ordinance for the main purpose of reviewing development projects for compliance with noise standards the existing noise ordinance in chapter 8.3 of the county code would continue to be reviewed primarily by the sheriff's department to respond to complaints of offensive noise the new noise ordinance includes a list of exemptions and some new requirements it establishes hours for construction activity and exempts emergency work of various types and agricultural activities for example the various noise standards in the noise element and the ordinance reflect the different ways that noise can be measured and how noise is perceived noise can be measured directly at any moment in time in decibels and this measurement can be adjusted or a weighted to account for the limit limited range of the human ear and this would be considered a maximum or instantaneous noise level noise measurements can be taken over time and averaged by the hour and this is sometimes referred to as the hourly LEQ standard you see that abbreviation in the ordinance or over a 24-hour period by waiting the nighttime noise more than the daytime noise to account for different sensitivities to noise at different times of day that's referred to as the day night level average and you see that abbreviation throughout the general plan and noise ordinance or noise data can be measured to show how often over a certain period of time noise levels exceed a certain standard like the l25 standard and that refers to a situation where noise can't exceed a certain standard for more than 15 minutes of any hour for example and the perception of new noise sources can vary depending on existing ambient levels of noise if existing ambient levels or noise are low then a new noise source new noise source were perceived as a greater impact compared to the same noise source if existing ambient levels were already relatively high and the ordinance accounts for this with slightly different criteria to address each of those situations and for the first time the ordinance includes noise standards for mechanical units such as generators and air conditioners when operating these units these these units produce consistent noise levels so an appropriate measurement would be to measure the maximum level in just straight decibels without averaging or adjusting over time a correction was made in the ordinance for the sound level for emergency generators to add the abbreviation for decibels but what might be more appropriate would be to delete the existing abbreviation for day night level average on that standard so that the standard just becomes maximum level similar similar to the existing standard for h vac units in the ordinance um I understand this is complicated um it's a complicated subject and so hopefully I can answer any questions that come up um after I'm done here the new noise element is provided in exhibit d of attachment a and the new noise ordinance is provided in it um an attachment d of the staff report and then finally the third part of the project um aligns the county's environmental review guidelines with the most current version of state law and secua guidelines local procedures for appeals and eir consultant consulting uh contracting would be provided by existing sections of county code and the procedures manual um the amended ordinance chapter 16.01 establishing the county's secua guidelines is provided in attachment e with an underlying strike-through version provided in attachment f and then um finally the staff is recommending that the board conduct a public hearing to consider the proposed amendments to the general plan local coastal program and the santa cruz county code affirm that the proposed amendments are exempt from secua and the exemption is provided in exhibit a of attachment a and adopt the resolution amending the general plan and local coastal program and directing staff to submit the local coastal program amendments to the california coastal commission for certification and approve the ordinances amending the county code and local coastal implementation plan and rezoning properties to add the airport combining zone district in concept and direct the clerk of the board to place the ordinances on the next scheduled board of supervisors meeting agenda for second reading and final adoption and that concludes my presentation great now i'll take questions from members of the board to vice-president uh thank you chair i do have a a couple of questions i appreciate since this falls the majority this falls in my district a little bit supervisor cap it regarding the in essence the sound insulation of the standard for interior noise exposure what would trigger it when you trigger this if there's not a new construction for example what you said is in an expansion of the home or remodel but what's the percentage i mean if somebody's coming in they're getting a deck permit that the termites or whatever it may be had is that triggering in essence that we're putting a new requirement on them from a construction within the home or is it that you are adding a certain amount of square footage the home that triggers it i didn't notice a specific trigger percentage my understanding is it would be it would be triggered if it was a construction project that involved in addition to the home that you had to insulate and so that it's the sound insulation standards that would kick in for the entire home or just the area that you're building no not for the you wouldn't have to re-insulate the entire home it would just be the the portion that you were constructing new okay yeah and so these disclosures would now be required of realtors of the point of sale as well as for any building permit at all you mean the deed requirement in the airport influence area you would have to sign in a i'd read that you would have to that you would have to acknowledge and accept the impacts that may occur due to overflights over the time at the time of sale there's a requirement of receiving a building permit so in essence this is a new disclosure that would be added onto these homes as well as in order to just simply receive a building permit from the county you'd have to acknowledge this yes you would have to make that acknowledgement upon issuance of a building permit for a new home or expansion of an existing home yes and so for those two specific purposes again because a building permit could be for something other than that so yeah it's yeah it specifies in the code language new home or expansion of existing home okay not a new deck or replacing your windows or something like that okay and this is it's helpful for me because it made it seem like i was creating we've been in the process of trying to streamline the permit process and the thought that you'd come in for a new water heater is my college my colleague mentioned seemed a little bit onerous but that's not the case is specific for that so the i guess then the the ultimate impact so to speak on homeowners in the greater area would be the lack of ability for potential future land divisions although that in and of itself through measure j strikes me as unlikely anyway so is there really any kind of and also was probably preferred by the neighbors in that area that there wouldn't be additional land division so is that how you would read into yeah the impacts yes that that doesn't present a big impact because of our existing land use scheme in that area but it actually has had an impact on one land division that i know of that could not move forward because it was located in a safety zone which had stricter density criteria than the underlying existing zoning so that was withdrawn but it strikes me that there's limited discretion as far as the board is concerned based on the handbook and litigation that's sort of driving this from at least the watsonville side is that a correct statement um let me make sure i understand that question can you in essence this has been we're incorporating things that were required to incorporate into the code okay yes i mean i think it's important uh in general for the community to know it's not being driven specifically by board action of as far as putting additional restrictions on people's homes this is of something that has gone through an extensive process and challenge throughout both watsonville and others over the course of the last decade plus and so that what we're doing is incorporating things that were required to incorporate in and the language itself doesn't seem to have a lot of discretion as far as how it comes in yes exactly there was some not there was some unclarity i guess prior to that appellate court decision that mandated that we incorporate these requirements in our general plan without discretion and my last question just deals with obstructions or other hazards to flight obviously we have a lot of property owners that do have trees that that need to be addressed this is something i appreciate that mr. Williams has been addressing on behalf of the airport but what would the actual process be then for us doing notifications or requiring people moving forward uh through this new ordinance um this new change my understanding is there is an existing process ongoing right now but uh in collaboration between the county and the city and property owners to lower remove some trees and i understand our code enforcement division is involved with that as well um however i i don't know all the details on how that is playing out but that's correct i'm wondering what this would change moving forward as far as i mean some have already been trimmed there's already been some that have been addressed but moving forward this seems to create something that is much more specific than it previously existed within the code and so i'm asking what functionally would change five years from now you determine there's an obstruction within the approach how would it how would we address it wouldn't change the approach we're we're trying to preserve the the the ability to maintain the existing approach that we have to require property owners to lower remove the over height trees okay through the language in the ordinance i may have additional questions i appreciate that thank you mr chair thank you chair thank you for the presentation these are two uh somewhat complicated subjects that uh that actually uh are really two different things uh and i appreciate uh the questioning from my colleague about the wasabel airport um i think that's an important issue it's an important county resource um and we should reflect what we're required to as part of the state handbook uh and i and i i emailed a question or two to you about that i won't go into that uh very much i appreciate the work the noise ordinance however is a big change and it doesn't just affect the folks in south county it's a countywide ordinance and i would have preferred if we'd had this as a separate item just to talk about this because this is this is a big change in some ways um uh and so it's concerning to me um the uh we get we all get or at least i could say i get uh lots of calls about concerns about the noise of neighbors construction um uh h vac systems um in part because the commercial areas in my district immediately adjoin residential areas there isn't really a downtown it's there is a commercial area and then the house is literally right behind it uh single family neighborhoods and so there's a lot of conflicts so when i read in the staff report that we're going to have a more comprehensive look at at that i thought well that's good but what i saw on the ordinance i'm not sure um made things better in some cases i could argue made it could make things worse and and so i want to talk about that because uh um i have concerns about it uh for example um on the new uh 13.15.040 uh which is on page 89 of our board packet um it talks about construction activities happening between the hours of 7 a.m to 7 p.m that is uh somewhat alarming to me because why we don't have anything about construction noise in our ordinance now we do have a noise ordinance that basically says quieter till 8 a.m and after 10 p.m so when i see that now and and and i get calls when the trucks start showing up at 7 30 um and they're idling and they're making a lot of noise and and everything else um and so when i see this at 7 a.m i see that as a big expansion um of the number of hours noise and the trucks will start showing up at 6 30 um my number's in the phone book uh so i'll still get those calls um they'll just be coming a lot earlier uh than before and i'm not exactly sure what the drive is to go to 7 a.m i mean that's it's uh i haven't seen a public outcry for that i'm also concerned about the 7 p.m piece because uh i think people like to see that work done you know if it's going to be in their neighborhood while they're at work and when they come home they have some peace and quiet and so i'm i'm concerned about these hours and i think it's more appropriate to think about construction noise between 8 and 5 i'm also um one of the other uh complaints that we get a lot in our office is the number of days in which people are doing construction and so um here we're proposed six days a week uh possibility of a seventh um and you know people understand that that things are going to be built uh but they they generally need some relief you know they're looking for peace and quiet in their home and uh well as we see a lot of infill development these uh these issues become uh greater and i'm gonna i'd like to propose us taking look at the language here uh to change it to something that's that's that's that might be more amenable uh in section c of this uh exemption piece it talks about entertainment or special events this is i'm very concerned about uh because this seems to be opening up a wide door to activities um that we're now saying are okay that before we might have required a special permit for so when we say um that uh these these rules do not apply to reasonable sounds emitting from authorized school bands school athletics school entertainment events you know those that might fall in into something but when you talk about occasional public and private outdoor indoor gatherings community events public dances shows bands sporting and entertainment events conducted between eight and ten it seems like now you're saying that's now okay we don't have to get a permit for it it's it's uh uh it's it's permitted and i think that's a slippery slope to creating creating a lot of problems and i was uh when i was looking at a comprehensive ordinance i was thinking that we might want to have a little bit more meat on there to know when people need to get a permit and know when they don't if if i'm having a birthday party at my house and and and i have a little music okay that's a one-year activity maybe it's on a on a milestone birthday but when you talk about uh someone who wants to do some commercial activities or whatever else um it can become a real nuisance uh because things like occasional is ill-defined and um you know you're occasional it might be my regular right and i just i'm i'm worried about this language that's in here um likewise it was confusing to me uh then uh when we got to uh 13.15.050 that we had these things where um the general noise regulation on lawful noise and then we had this reference to other parts of the codes with other things that you know weren't referenced it seemed odd to me uh uh to have that piece in there as well um when it comes to things like uh uh HVAC systems uh this is this is also a big issue uh in where the commercial areas uh join uh the residential areas and if we're going to do something about it let's let let's be uh a little bit more thoughtful of it i'll just give you an example the point market and pleasure point has a compressor on its roof that is is less than 50 feet away from the bedroom of the house next door our current rules allow that compressor to go on at six a.m um and they put baffling around it but the people who live behind it will never forgive us um and for good reason it's a it's it's it's right now it's it's legal to do that and if we're gonna if we're gonna try to have a comprehensive noise ordinance it'd be nice to figure out how uh what we can do to protect those um those interfaces of the commercial and residential areas uh to protect against HVAC system that HVAC system could have been placed in a different location that would have been less impactful it was just cheaper to put where what where it is and it's legal to put where it is and so um if we try to push these on the commercial side rather than the residential side if we require a certain kind of sound baffling um uh for residences or at least bedrooms that are close to uh the the machinery we'll get better development and we'll we'll uh we'll not drive people on edge uh the entire time so to me that that's an example where um I think we could use some better language about it uh the the um the other uh piece is the general plan uh amendments and there is some new language and there's new language both in the ordinance about rail noise and in the general plan about rail facilities generally I don't have an issue with the language um however uh I am uh concerned that we're in a public process right now of which the five of us are involved in around doing an alternative analysis about the use of the rail corridor that may or may not be rail and so I'm wondering if we adopt this today what would be the process if after the alternative analysis said that we choose bus well we have to change our general plan to do that and and what would it take to do that maybe that's not a question for you mr carl so maybe it's a question for our attorneys um I don't we committed to a public process and I want to honor that public process so jason heath county council we don't own that property it's owned by the rtc so this is a planning document and we're saying what we're doing in the general plan amendments that we're talking about is we're supportive of these of these things and basically my understanding of the rail facilities language is that they were basically just trying to update it and the planning director may have some supplemental on this but I don't believe that we would have to change what's in the plan in the general plan because we we currently don't have control over it if there was a if there was a decision made by the rtc to do something else with that property that would be done does that make sense no I get that I just we seem to be weighing in on on one version of what these this alternative analysis is going to be looking at and so to the extent that we may not make that as a choice what would it take to change that language in here well what it would take would be to come back and and and do what we're doing right now and hold a public hearing and change it to to amend it back in it and I I'm I totally get what you're saying about that I'm sensitive to that issue and maybe we can hear from the planning director on what her intention was with these changes captain alloy planning director yeah the existing rail policies we tried not to change the intent of those so where there were already policies in our general plan that said support rail planning and recreational use and potential for passenger rail and all that's already in our ordinance so we didn't feel like we should change the policy whatsoever we just tried to update references that you know because it was last written in 1994 and so some of the terminology and references were outdated and and it would be a pretty straightforward thing our intention is always to reflect what decisions are being made at RTC so if by the time for instance that we come and we approve a new circulation element and we know better you know what's going on with rail now we can always bring a change back to this and make sure it all stays internally consistent yeah I just I think it's super important to honor the public process in which we've committed to and I just want to make sure that we aren't backing into something that that would somehow predetermine what that conclusion is becomes important if you did want me to provide any other information on some of your other comments on the noise ordinance I could do that as well okay in terms of section 13-15-040 the exemptions for entertainment or special events the 8 to 10 is our current noise ordinance in terms of offensive or nuisance noise and that's what the sheriff you know frequently responds to when there's loud parties that exceed 10 p.m so it's kind of consistent with it's accommodating our very existing approach and then at the end of that section C where it talks about where there might be the potential for a commercial special event or a temporary use permit or what have you that type of noise it says as long as any applicable requirements for special events permits or temporary use permits are met so it's not providing a license if you will just through adoption of this code for those types of things to occur and to create noise it it very directly links it to a use permit or a special event permits so that was the intent there and then the 050 where it talks about it gives you some references to other code sections those are just existing code sections that relate to noise generated attached to land use and so we wanted to cross-reference it and then the air conditioning and mechanical units that's a brand new provision in in large measure because of you know the experience that get go on in your districts with residential close to it to commercial and some recent uses so this is the first time that we have a noise standard for adjacent mechanical equipment and it says that for existing units adopted you know units installed before the date of adoption of this ordinance it's a 60db threshold and in the future it would be held to a 55 which is a lower than existing type standard yeah so i uh i appreciate that a couple things that i would say is one is if we're going to have what we call a comprehensive noise ordinance it'd be nice if we looked at it comprehensively and didn't just put in put down and writing what it is we already do because we have section 8.3 and if the sheriff is is doing section 8.3 you know the the question remains what it was that we're doing this event piece to me i could give people the impression that they they don't have to get permits because it's it's a principally permitted use if they only do it occasionally and i think it creates confusion rather than clarity in a noise ordinance on the question of the mechanical units to me it would be helpful for us to also talk about placement of these units taking into consideration if there's a bedroom that's on that's that's on this the same plane as the as the units because these this is where the conflicts happen and so i think we could we could sharpen this language and actually get something that will work as i said in that point that i made about the market they could have put it on on on the front side of the building it would have been tremendously less impactful but we didn't require it it was less expensive to put it in the back and as a result we just have a terrible problem that will never go away for the people who live there so i'd like to see that language changed i think those were my primary issues and i'm hoping that the board will that we can direct the the the staff to go and work on the language in a couple of these sections i'm hoping that on the seven to seven piece for construction that's really eight to five that we um that would that we allow a weekend days but not more than three consecutive that we that the idea of getting permission to make sure that it's uh that someone's thought about this instead of just giving a blanket exception makes a lot more sense um to me and i think it'll make a lot more it'll be a lot more acceptable to the community excuse me yeah just good questions and many of which i had to um i do think the time time frame is one that needs to be addressed but just a follow-up is there is there any county requirement that we're making that is more strict than the state code in general regarding yeah anything yeah anything but then in particular noise is a big thing but that's been kind of gone through but uh no what we're we're trying to be consistent with the state's general plan guidelines um they don't the guidelines don't set you know specific mandatory standards um we are adopting the standards that are consistent with those guidelines and not necessarily stricter or less strict okay well i'll start it off real quick with what what is the motivation behind having this here for us to discuss it is it to make is it because of future development uh or is it uh people in the area uh is that uh you know neighborhood complaints what i'm getting at is we do have a state handbook and we have rules and regulations are we making changes because of complaints coming in which i i used to have that area before redistricting uh came in and it'll probably change now it's in district two but i did have that whole neighborhood is it a plan is it because of future plans in the point of vista area that uh developers have been looking at i'm trying to get an idea where the why we're discussing changes right here we are required by existing state law to incorporate the standards in the handbook into our general plan and county code so that is the basic requirement this is existing state law and um that existing state law and some handbook standards are all have already and are all and are already being applied in some cases because they are existing and do apply um what brought it to more urgency if was the history of the um interaction between the watson palace association and the city of watsonville and the court case and the appellate court decision which um establish that we were required to incorporate the standards in the handbook without discretion and use the most strict standards in the handbook right and i and when i when i did have that area i heard very few complaints about you know noise and things like that because people who bought near an airport knew that planes were going to be taking off and landing there always were a few people that would complain but uh it uh again our existing real estate disclosure laws that require realtors to be disclosing that information during those transactions which is outside of our process and it was brought up by uh supervisor leopold about the hours 7 a.m to 7 p.m i didn't catch that in here are we making it more restrictive on the airport or are we making a more lenient the construction hours don't apply to the airport those would apply to building projects that are being done under county issued building permits so that those would establish hours for construction activities yeah because the airport has been cooperative in many ways with the neighborhood and they did work it out with school district in the safety zones landing and all that that that i do appreciate but i i i'm really worried i don't want to and we we've approved the city council also in watseville approved the extension of the north south runway by about 700 feet uh that was supposed to have been done about eight years ago it hasn't been done is what we're looking at here is that going to restrict that extension of the runway because it does talk about runways here no in fact the maps that i showed do incorporate that potential expansion the safety zone maps and the airport influence area uh the safety zone maps do incorporate that potential expansion okay i mean i i'd like to see that runway extended because that would allow for it would be a big help for the safety concerns of taking off and landings so i that is not going to be affected by anything we're doing here no in fact we're planning for okay and then safety zones renovation when we're talking about noise levels uh we it's mentioned in their animal habitat and all that but also the number one concern i guess is the the landowners and the residential areas so is this related in any way to what was proposed a few years ago the Buena Vista project which would be about developers were looking at that land near the airport to build up to uh 3000 homes does anybody can anybody fill me in is that part of the motivation of this whole thing well measure you uh which was approved in 2002 incorporated Buena Vista area into the city of Watsonville sphere of influence and after that there was an attempt to develop a specific plan which resulted in a lawsuit over the general plan in which the court ordered these changes to be made so that this is we're incorporating the changes that the courts ordered to be made to protect the airport protection flight safety zones okay so we're not this is not uh this is not to make it easier for developers what we're talking about on that Buena Vista project no this is uh incorporating the results of the appellate court decision on the general plan and and uh upholding uh state regulations and everything in the handbook right that's okay okay that's uh i just want to make that clear so um and the last uh it says contour maps how do how do we uh a contour map do the contours change we're talking about buildings or are we talking about land contours in the case of the noise levels and the air space protection services surfaces we're talking about lines of equal elevation or equal noise levels and those change as you move away from the airport so that's why you see lines of equal noise levels changing as you move away from the airport and the the air space protection services surfaces essentially create sort of a bowl shape above the airport and then the landing zones down to the runways and those are line those lines on that map are lines of equal elevation of those imaginary surfaces in the air space above the airport you bet and i'll i'll sum it up here uh i'm very much in favor of protecting our airport i mean uh it's a lifeline to the community of the of all of santa cruz county we go back to the earthquake in 1989 there was really only one way to get in personnel here and it was the watseville airport when we had the tra- trapping fires trapping fires in the county about eight years ago uh the uh firefighters were staging and using the airport national guard was using the airport also so that the other and the other good thing that i'm looking at is they they are trying to be a good neighbor and i understand um too much noise would be uh bad and all we have to do is look at the uh changing of of course the san jose and oakland san francisco uh flight path changes over uh the santa cruz mountain area we don't want that then we're not talking about that we're talking about a local airport that we need to protect and also work it out with the neighbors so that both sides are uh you know okay like they did with the uh pahoro valley high school they worked that out just by changing and moving things a little bit away from the uh uh runways and the safety zones okay thank you okay now it's an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about this item if you're interested please come forward um hi my name is tina tell and i just wanted to mention about the timing for the noise ordinance for the construction i'm just concerned about the construction workers themselves like especially in the summertime it gets really really hot in the afternoon and construction workers have to wear full gear head to toe and um a lot of construction is done in the earlier hours of the morning for that reason in the summertime so i just wanted you to consider that maybe that's a possibility and that's also the same thing with construction workers who um work like on highway nine i noticed during the really hot days we had a couple weeks ago they started working at night because it was just too hot during the day so just um don't forget about the workers themselves and that's my only comment thanks thank you thank you becky steinbruner i'm a resident of aptos but i'm also a part of aries the amateur radio emergency services communication group and i want to thank you um supervisor cap it for really driving home that it is important that we keep this airport here and functioning and i think that putting in the code and requiring real estate agents to make disclosures is a wise move um just a couple of days ago in the san jose mercury news there's a big discussion about the reed hill view airport and the the problems there and i really want this airport to stay i think it's a lifeline for our community as it was 30 years ago in the 1989 earthquake um i do not see any communication in your binder from any members of the public or from the pilot's association i'm happy to see mr rave on williams here in in the audience and i hope that he will speak to you um i think that the watsonville airport does a good job in trying to work with neighbors and above all i really want this airport to stay there and functioning supervisor leopold i want to thank you for your very thoughtful analysis of the county wide north ordinance that this also brings in and the um concerns about extending construction hours um in the aptass village project that was addressed by limiting the hours that the construction crews could be there and weekend construction was not allowed at all it wasn't always enforced but it was not supposed to be allowed so um thank you for that careful analysis and i look forward to seeing this coming back with some of the reworks that you've asked for thank you very much maryland garret noise and safety those are uh key issues of course um i want to talk about my personal connection to that area and i think it was in the map i taught for years at um calibats school and many of my children lived in the area near the airport and uh noise is uh definitely a problem but there are other problems um that are not i think need to be incorporated here whenever i see exemption from california environmental quality act i think um it really needs to be examined what are the environmental impacts of the airport and while i do agree it's important to keep the airport there some of the key problems i see are with the um talk about safety microwave radiation from all the radar is not safe it's harmful and here this thing you know i have this detector of radiation maryland miss garret i excuse me let me have my three minutes no i'm talking about safety but you're not talking about noise which is the topic of this item i'm talking about noise okay i'll incorporate noise into it you can hear radar and that's why alan fray neurologist this is people hear what they think is tinnitus they think they have tinnitus it's microwave hearing and there's a lot of noise from that at the airport as well and so why are you talking about noise and safety but you don't want me to talk about safety and the elephant in the room that you don't look at i have friends who live off hams road the radar from the airport on the detector and we had an electrician come pulsing pulsing every time the radar comes around at the airport and the film you receive called take back your power shows the effect on the insects with this pulsing radar it's it's very dangerous and also a friend has a letter of someone who lives near the airport who figured out why he had insomnia headaches dizziness the symptoms of microwave sickness caused by radar and and and microwave exposure this is a safety issue it's not safe and there's also the firefighters symptoms from exposure to the antennas were like they were in a brain fog noise how good is it for a pilot to be in a brain fog caused by this radiation exposure not safe okay that concludes public comment i'll bring it back to the board to Professor leopold thank you chair i do want to appreciate the work that the staff put in to these changes and i'm i have a question for council as to whether there's a way to break off the airport piece and so we could be completed with that and leave the the the noise piece uh to for some work ordinance 13.15 yeah there there is this this this is a complicated matter it involves four things i think that have been identified it sounds like the board may be wanting to excise one of those matters and so if you were interested in crafting a motion what i would in that are you interested yes i'm that's i'm i'm asking for help in the okay in the direction of the the suggestion would be to adopt all of staff recommendations other than three things which would be adoption of chapter 3.15 noise planning chapter 9 noise element of the general plan lcp and 3 amendment of the gp lcp safety element to delete the existing noise policies so essentially it would be a motion to adopt all staff recommendations other than what was the third one again the third one was amendment of the gp lcp safety element to delete the existing noise policies that was a recommendation that was done in conjunction with adoption of a new chapter 9 noise element of the gp lcp and so it sounds to me like you're wanting to excise all of those actions from the staff recommendation for further work yes and um and as an option i don't think there would be any problem in just deferring the whole package so you know the resolution addresses everything at once and it might just be less work to be honest with you to just defer it all and make the changes needed because we're not going to submit this stuff to the coastal commission anyway and they're kind of intertwined a bit in terms of where language is coming and going from and all that well i'm i want to i think there's a broad support on this board for the airport piece i don't think there's any disagreement with that and so uh i don't want to create more staff time i want to focus on the areas in which i think there are legitimate concerns in the noise element and if and if the department would would prefer us to defer this i'm happy to do that uh with a couple of suggestions of things i think to be honest with you it would be preferable but because to create the documents that extract things and separate things out is just is more housekeeping work um and and it would be in a way easier just to keep it all together and address your concerns about um whatever direction you give us and then bring back the package that that has your board support i think that that um in in deference to the department i will uh my motion will be uh to uh defer consideration of all the recommended actions and direct the staff to come back with revisions to the the noise element uh and ordinance uh around the following areas uh one is uh i didn't mention this earlier but the uh in the definitions we should definitely put ldn in there we have db in there but we don't have ldn and that's a that's a big issue that we should at least describe uh second we should um the construction uh hours uh shouldn't start till eight o'clock my preference and it would be eight to five on weekdays or until seven if the building official in advance has authorized such work um and if the building official has authorized advanced activities in advance activity between the hours of nine and five on saturday that it be allowed no more than three weeks in a row and i i could give you some language of this we don't have to if i'm not trying to word smith it here is what i'm but i'm i'm trying to find uh some way that uh we take into consideration the length of the project the impact of the project uh on the people who live there uh that in uh item 13 uh point one five point zero five zero to look to see if we could get a clearer language on the on the question of entertainment and and other events um and i'm happy to work with you i again i don't want to try to word smith it here on on 13 point one five point zero six zero about the air conditioning and mechanical uses uh that uh that i'd like to see language that deals with um the location of these uh of these units in consideration of bedrooms that are on the same plane or or within 50 to 100 feet i i don't know exactly how to form that but for us to be thinking about that um that uh and then that uh that there might be um concurrent changes that would need to be made in the general plan element about noise based on these i i don't whatever the the full packages so we get it correctly i'll second that okay and i and so i i guess for clarity's sake is we're going to defer the items we want them to come back with languages uh a change in language to 13 point one five point zero four zero zero five zero zero six zero um and the concurrent general plan pieces and there's based on the discussion we had here today at the board if that makes sense um as as part of the motion are you continuing the public hearing we're not closing the public hearing we're continuing to a date certain yeah which date would you like staff to come back um i don't know what the the chair or the or the ceo may have a better idea of what the calendar looks like whether we could do this either on of uh on september 10th uh or after september 24th i don't want to put anything on september 10th would would be better the 24th is very i don't want to do it on the 24th i'm the 10th would be better yeah and i think we can get accommodate that if we if we can work together september 10th so and so i so i look to the clerk is it is that clearer we're going to continue the public hearing changes 13.15 point zero four zero zero five zero and zero six zero and that can yeah as needed also with an understanding that when you bring it back we don't need a whole new presentation on the airport side right so that it can be an abbreviated to just focuses on specific the noise components thank you yeah and and one last thing i'll just add and i hope that county council will just review these sections clearly and if there's any other changes that we should make that clean it up uh that would be helpful too we definitely will yeah okay so uh we're we're deferring this yeah we're we're continuing it until our next meeting sure um as we don't expect any changes with the airport it's only around the noise element the noise so i'm a little surprised that do we have anybody from the airport here we do right there uh i i'd like to get a comment on well we have time now till september i so you don't have to comment now so we've closed comment and we're gonna right that's okay yeah i think it's there is a motion on the table there's an okay and the only thing i want to clarify is it says here a resolution amending then we're talking about a ordinance change is there any conflict between the wording resolution and a ordinance change or two different things they they are and because you're continuing the whole item i anticipate that a revised resolution may be brought back depending on uh whether it's necessary or else and as a matter of fact the changes that you're contemplating wouldn't require a revised resolution the draft resolution would be the same uh at the at the next hearing uh what would change would be the draft ordinances that you would so a resolution is recommending and then the change is a different thing that's exactly right okay and the last thing i'll just add is in the future this is um i i would say this is kind of like a warning um that when we deal with the code modification sustainable Santa Cruz the at that whole eir that we have so many disparate elements in it to try to mash them all together and have a clear discussion about it is very hard and so it's going to be important to take it in pieces that that really makes sense uh so we can so everybody can digest it uh well and that everybody's fully informed um so the airport and noise regulations while there is some tie it would have been great to have these uh separated okay so we have a motion and we have a second all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that passes unanimously it's now 1105 we're going to take a 15 minute break and come back here at 1120 uh to continue with items nine through 14 on our regular agenda uh move to item number nine which is to act as the board of directors for the Davenport county sanitation district consider approving in concept ordinance number 92 to amend title three chapter 3.04 water service and connections of the Davenport county sanitation district code approve a proposed notice of exemption from Siqua and schedule the ordinance for adoption on september 10 2019 as amended by the district engineer thank you thank you my name is Ashley Trujillo I'm the senior engineer for sanitation engineering and um the Davenport's recycled water plant was recently constructed and soon the recycled water will be available for commercial residential and agricultural use the use of recycled water reduces demand for clean water therefore it supports the county's goal for local conservation and ordinance is required to govern the use of this recycled water it is therefore recommended that the board of supervisors consider approving in concept ordinance 92 amending the Davenport county sanitation code consider approving the proposed notice of exemption from Siqua and direct the clerk of the board to place ordinance number 92 on the next available agenda for final adoption and i'm available to answer any questions are there any questions are there any public comments seeing none i'll bring it back to the board i'll move recommended motion by friend second by mcpherson all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that passes unanimously thank you for that we will uh continue as uh the board of directors for the Davenport county sanitation district and considering in um approving in concept ordinance number 91 to amend title one general visions title three water service district in title four sewer service system various sections of the district code consider approving the notice of exemption from Siqua and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on september 10th 2019 as recommended by the district engineer thank you ordinance d91 for Davenport provides clarification on private sanitary sewer owners responsibilities to repair and maintain their private sewer system specifics are given for inspection and repair requirements prior to the transfer title and a provision has been added to allow the seller's responsibilities to be passed to the buyer this amendment was developed based on input from realtors plumbers and property owners the santa cruz county sanitation district board approved a similar amendment therefore approval of this ordinance would serve to align the codes governing sewer systems within the county it is therefore recommended that the board of supervisors consider an approving concept ordinance number d91 amending the Davenport county sanitation code consider approving the proposed notice of exemption from Siqua and direct the clerk of the board to place ordinance number d91 on the next available agenda for final adoption thank you for that report are there any questions seeing none is there any members of the public would like to speak to us seeing none i'll close public comment remove for approval all right motion by cap it second by leopold all those in favor please say aye aye oppose that passes unanimously moving on to item number 11 we're going to act as the board of directors for the freedom county sanitation district consider approving in concept ordinance number f25 amending title one general provisions and title three sewer service system various sections of the district code consider approving proposed notice of exemption from Siqua and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on september 10 2019 as recommended by the district engineer thank you ordinance f25 for freedom is the same as the one presented for Davenport and it also was developed based on the input from realtors plumbers and property owners and approving this amendment would align all the district codes for the county is therefore recommended that the board of supervisors consider and approve and concept ordinance number f25 amending the freedom county sanitation district code consider approving the proposed notice of exemption from Siqua and direct the clerk of the board to place ordinance f25 on the next available agenda for adoption i'm available for questions all right questions comments i just want to actually briefly say because i know we've blown through these these three things very quickly that uh mr healer actually did a significant amount of work behind the scenes to make this as easy as it is coming forward to us today two of us serve on the sanitation district there are a lot of meetings behind the scenes a lot of work with stakeholders a lot of work with previous counsel on this and that's and we're our we are we are today because you're remarkable work and i want to make sure that that got acknowledged i just want to acknowledge that we've done some public outreach uh you wrote a wonderful out an article that ran on the outtoss times and some other locations of the degree that you mr hoppin can continue that outreach because i think that people tend to find out about this when they're about to sell their house unfortunately to the degree that we can continue that outreach would be great but i just wanted to make sure that the board was aware of how much work had happened behind the scenes because really you deserve a lot of credit for the amount of work behind the scenes thank you any public comment seeing none i'll bring it back to the board for action i'll move the recommended actions second motion by friend second by leopold all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that passes unanimously thank you for your work yeah thank you moving on to item r 12 just consider a report on the proposed recommendations for the recycling and solid waste strategic plan and direct public works to return by august 2020 with a progress report as outlined in a memorandum of the deputy ceo and director public works good morning chair community and the rest of the board my name is kasey colossa the recycling and solid waste service manager for the department of public works i'm joined here today with bill hoxford to give you a presentation on the county's recycling and solid waste services so we'll be reviewing accomplishments from the last five years and discussing plans for the next five years going forward and providing recommendations too so the previous plan accomplishments included franchising franchising the local waste haulers including unregulated dropbox haulers and two small haulers that service the san lorenzo valley we restructured the exclusive franchise agreement revenues we changed them from a disposal base revenue rate model to a service rate model which helped improve our financial stability we completed the next generation exclusive franchise agreement with green waste recovery this included improved provisions for bulky item collection it also included expanded organics collection and included funding for two outreach education coordinators we also now have better oversight of the franchise hauler activities and we've conducted audits to evaluate their recycling and diversion efforts so this graph provides a background of why we need strategic planning in 2007 we had a big drop-off in disposal which coincided with the economy downturn and also the city's moving their waste to the marina landfill this recovered in 2014 as part of the economic recovery but this shows kind of the need to have a more secure funding model not based on disposal only recycling commodities markets have been on a downward trend and there are no longer a reliable source for revenue the county continues to recycle at a high rate and we anticipate this downward trend to project out into the future so going forward we have like a brainstorming session with our solid waste consultants the director of public works and we you know the the point was to identify all the decision-making factors that will will you know be in our the context for our plan so the next five-year strategy will address sp1383 compliance that's the organic diversion requirements including food waste it'll help identify additional revenue sources stabilized disposal site fees and sufficiently fund illegal dumpling litter control and other county beautification projects and programs it'll help to maintain our existing disposal site infrastructure at the ben loman and landfill or ben loman transportation bonavista landfill it'll also look at restructuring the csa-9c property assessment which hasn't been adjusted since 1995 challenges going forward include the decreased market for recyclables the landfill bonavista landfill is nearing closure it's close to its its full capacity we need to have organics diversion compliance and education outreach enforcement and reporting for that and this may require more staffing we need to talk to Monterey regional waste management district so we can assure access to their facility for our disposal needs and continue exploring opportunities with the local cities especially regarding organics diversion so we need a plan for after the bonavista landfill closes this would be a transfer station at the bonavista to continue to allow residents in the franchise holler to dispose of their trash and recyclables we aim to have this bill before the landfill runs out of capacity and this would be within a five to seven-year timeline this allows us options to trickle fill the landfill or reserve space for a natural disaster additionally we need to build an organics facility at the bonavista landfill to handle yard and wood waste and include food waste this would be processed into compost and be marketed to the local agricultural and landscape retailers without a local facility this would require transportation to an out of county facility and include increased cost so we've discussed SB 1383 the organics diversion requirements from the state they have strict requirements which we have to follow and the most impactful of these is to get food waste recycling down to the residential level and include in the curbside weekly pickup so i'm going to turn it over to for more information on some of the programs and budgetary detail thank you so thank you for allowing us to speak here um so we've illegal dumping is up all over the state we've worked on addressing the issue in our franchise agreement we allow now for three bulky item pickups that are on call you can also get four extra trash pickups or yard waste pickups and recycling you can always leave a little bit extra out we did run a illegal dumping campaign last year and we have increased reporting we've had increased cooperation as well between other local agencies including the sheriff and other local partners as well some other other programs that we've been successful in implementing in this county are our plastics bags bands we've also been successful with our sharps and meds take back program and recently we've created an ordinance to help with the hotel motel industry in curbing their use of single single use plastics and in having them have refillable containers for things such as shampoos which will drastically help improve the rate of which we're disposing of single use plastics state also modeled some legislation after this and our ordinance as you know will take effect in 2021 the states will take effect in 2023 other potential programs to further reduce the use of single use plastics are are going to be necessary in the future as well as other problem products such as batteries and solar panels so this this is our operating cost you can see that we've had significant increase in costs over the last few years since 2012 we've had almost a 40 percent increase and a lot of the drivers of this has you know has to do with the loss of the recycling markets increased labor costs and other another indicator that it's going to get worse before it gets better is the fact that aluminum which has been a steady commodity in this in this area is actually been on the decline and it looks like it's going to be declining into the near as far as costs in the next couple years some other issues is or that we we need to stay competitive with our tipping rates but reasonable because the higher there's a correlation between higher tipping rates and an increased illegal dumping as well so we have to make sure there's a there's a there's a there's a point in which we can raise them too high at the face of the landfill so we again do need to work on a more sustainable sort of revenue that is equitable throughout the whole community another issue is just some unfunded state mandates that are coming down the pike including sb 1383 which even though the state does say that there's not going to be any any costs associated at the state level that may be true but at the local level it's not true at all there's going to be a significant increase in costs and possibly some increase in labor as well I threw this in there because this is we recently procured some new equipment this actually is what you're looking at is a picture of all of our mechanics and maintenance workers out at the landfill and in front of it they're standing in front of our new hybrid it's a hybrid electric diesel so we are working towards greening our fleet as we do make some procurement choices some non-disposal operating costs these these are these are important programs that the benefit all of us the benefits community they do take I mean they do take away from our operating costs however we have while we have increased operating costs we still have to make sure that we're cleaning up where the community actually sees what we're doing um these these funds however we can we can raise these costs even higher and we'll we'll use all the money is what I'm trying to say there's never enough um some non-disposal operating costs more are are this is for our long-range planning um we need to plan for the inevitability of change I know we've thought you've heard the magic landfill however we don't have another space to dig another hole there's only there really is last aerial surveys there's 10 to 12 years left at our current rate of disposal the more we can divert and get more things out of the landfill we will be able to extend that one way where that we're we're doing that is also to for every three days that we're able to transfer um from ben loman directly to marina which we we do for every three days it keeps one day of airspace at the landfill we we also do educate um and promote zero waste principles via vis-a-vis the green vehicles excuse me green business and green schools programs uh this is the best way to help to educate the the public by reaching out to them when they're young and as well as uh giving economic incentives for showing that you can save money by having um less less relying on um more bought less land less long lasting uh light bulbs and things of this nature uh so these are our critical capital needs for the foreseeable future um we've we've identified we have current annual costs gift one sorry um and back up a second uh so the average life of of equipment is approximately 10 10 years we have been working towards a more sustainable replacement fund for this equipment and and building up some of our reserves so that when the equipment is at its end we won't have to bond or go out for a loan so much um we have some big big costs coming up uh organics facility will cost approximately 12 million dollars um we might have some savings we're currently in the design phase uh and we're looking at locating a facility at the point of a landfill um which could reduce that cost um we have storm ongoing stormwater improvement issues as well and um we're also working towards a transfer station at point of vista which uh we're looking at in the tune of 17.5 million dollars uh we currently have about seven and a half million dollars saved in our closure fund which is mandated by the state and we're um we're in compliance with that now I can go on to this um this this does show our long our long our critical capital needs for the next for seal the future um we're currently uh as you can see we do have some current annual costs associated with some of these and as we move forward with some of the bigger ticket items uh there will be additional future additional annual costs associated with bond payments and uh it will more than triple the amount of our bond payments once we go forward with those purchases and this this is a graph that explains um a need for the uh more sustainable um revenue source the at the current with the with the fall of the recycling market we're not getting as much revenue uh with increased diversion programs we don't get as much at the tipping face as well and with that we just we get a gap that creates a shortfall for our future needs and this is the second half of our brainstorming um meeting these are you saw the the issues that are in front of us and these are some uh more solution oriented uh issues that we can we're working towards helping helping to solve those issues and now we'll move on to some recommendations over the next five years um and going into the future and some of the issues that we're working on so infrastructure development um like as I was stating we are in the design phase currently of building an organic processing facility which will include waste as well uh we also hope to begin building that transfer station uh within the next six to seven years uh so that by his hymids built we'll still have a few years left at the point of a landfill and as Casey was stating we would work on trickle filling it to uh prolong the the closure however um it would it would just we'd probably have uh we haven't decided yet but we'll probably be working with just having our hauler dump in the in the landfill and uh the self haulers will be able to use the transfer station until it's full we have um so in programs and operations we have two new program coordinators that started back in january and they've been key in helping to educate the businesses and the public about upcoming uh uh third requirements with food waste and just to put it out there of why it's important we start educating now starting in 2024 the state will be issuing fines for non-compliance and contamination so funding um so we we do need an equitable source of funding uh and as your board has said when we came brought you our franchise agreement um with those three years of 12 and a half percent increases uh we you know we we we did say that we're not going to come back to increase rates and we'd like to stick with that uh there is an equitable way of spreading the cost amongst every person that benefits from the landfill and transportation and that is to do an adjustment with the csa-9c this would be the most equitable um way to spread spread this cost throughout the county and if we were to just raise continually raise rates uh it would only it would only affect those people that are customers of green waste which um they'd be subsidizing the people that do actually still use the landfill uh so we find that it would be most equitable to to work on line c um in policy so as mentioned um the more we divert the the more airspace we have um but also as a county policy uh and part of our strategic plan we we were working towards um reducing greenhouse emissions and reducing plastic pollution we do need to expand on policies that shift the burden of diversion onto manufacturers with certain problem materials as such as batteries and solar panels as mentioned uh we also need to continue to implement policies to be compliant with sb-1383 uh which will continue to improve our stormwater compliance uh as well we we also will be continuing to work with our local and regional partners uh to continually improve uh uh local issues including illegal dumping and with that um i oops i open it up to questions thank you sure supervisor pierce you know to begin with i i hate that term unfunded mandates because there's from past experience there's no good ending to it uh and somebody pays the price and we do at the beginning but uh thankfully the state has come back and done that recently but um it just doesn't make any sense uh but i'm speaking from the county up to the state probably thought otherwise before but uh but i am glad that we're thinking and have continued to do or have uh an ongoing um thought about strategically addressing the future waste management needs of our lifespan of our landfill that never seems to end but it is out there now i'm particularly concerned about recycling services and like to see the state provides some solutions for how local communities can adapt to the collapse in the market i think this needs to be addressed in a statewide manner um we've seen i've seen we've seen uh two recycling centers in my district uh crv centers closed and felton and bowler creek uh just this last july uh as is the case of many of the centers throughout the state uh and now many of the privately run crv services are going away too as we've just read about in the last few weeks there are many people who rely on crv or crv for extra income but we know that many retailers would struggle to offer this service if uh even though they are required to by law which is kind of uh interesting in itself as well and the fines for those merchants pose a big burden for especially the small stores um i know that our public work staff has been in touch with cal recycle on a regular basis but i think a letter from this board to head to the head of the uh cal recycle will underline how important it is for us to see a statewide solution to this and uh there i'm sure there's going to be similar a discussion to follow but uh and i would be glad to make a motion but uh to move this recommended action but i'll wait for other comments with an additional direction that we have the chair write a letter on behalf of the board uh to cal recycle copying our state representatives in the legislature to request a statewide recycling recycling and crv solution through legislation or other means um this has got to be addressed statewide and uh we ought to get right on it right now we do have some lead time which is good and i'm glad to see your thorough thoughts on this uh and i'm it's a problem that's in five years is going to be right in front of us uh but it's facing us today so uh thank you for your input and a reality check but i'm just really hopeful that the state will take some action i think that's where the decision has to be made and not with more unfunded mandates so mr caput sure yeah thank you very much uh for the time and effort and everything put into this uh the only complaint i have is uh rather than being proactive a few years back where it seems like now we're reacting and we're almost uh in a uh like we've got to do something now or we're really you know we're really in trouble i think we've seen this coming for many years but anyway we're we're finally dealing with it now with the shelf life of uh point of vista landfill i've talked to people if we do this right instead of 10 to 12 years where it would have to be another site or something else we could actually maybe stretch that out to 20 years is that correct or not if we do the recycling and uh the organics and everything and the plastics if if we get this right how much more shelf life are we giving to the point of vista i don't have an exact number on that but definitely that's the goal is to divert as much material away from the landfill and the result of that will be extending the useful life of that landfill um you know right now projected capacity is another 10 to 12 years we could definitely increase that by the removal of food waste and maybe other plastic items and hard to recycle things that uh currently go the importance of this would be if if we have like we were talking earlier about the airport people and noise and things like that uh moving a dump site would be a huge neighborhood battle no matter where you're thinking of putting it so the the longer we can keep uh point of vista going the less urgent it is to you know have to find another site so it's very important now most of my neighbors that i see and most of the people i know uh residents are very good about putting recycle and uh garbage in different containers i i haven't seen one for organics so that would be a lot of food waste and things like that so i don't know how you can have the household not put the organic in the uh garbage unless they have a composter in the backyard or something like that is that the answer to it yeah we would certainly want to encourage uh at home composting but our thought is we would have uh residential customers put their food waste into the yard waste bin uh yeah it wouldn't be an extra cart it'd be collected with the yard waste um and both those materials together could be composted yeah the only problem i have with the composter in our backyard is the raccoons so but anyway other than that it does work really well um to me the biggest problem we're having is i'll go to a fast fast food place we can we can name endless fast food chains and everything goes in their garbage uh you go with uh these uh some of it is recyclable some of it isn't the lid is not recyclable so then we're getting to the fact of if the distributor gives them something that's recyclable then we could have separate we could require fast food chains to have separate sites for dumping either something recyclable or not and then the same would be true with organics we're talking about tons of stuff that will come out of a fast food uh hamburger or coffee or whatever uh establishment so we're we're dealing with that because that's the biggest problem that i say uh yes certainly um to go food uh to go serviceware we have an ordinance in place the acceptable environmentally environmentally acceptable packaging ordinance uh which requires the to go uh serviceware to be either compostable recyclable we'd like to switch that more to compostable type of uh you know plateware napkins so forth so all that that formerly went in the trash could go into like the food waste uh bin and be taken as food waste and composted uh yeah i guess what what is alarming to me that the fast food chains uh you almost have to tell them that they have to do it because they don't cooperate on their own they've seen this coming for a long time and uh they account for a lot of a lot of the stuff going into the Buena Vista landfill uh and especially organics now the organics actually will break down and that's not really if we do separate the organics that's actually going to be a plus to uh Buena Vista correct correct yeah just a side note i know somebody people in Watsonville the coffee grounds and all the coffee places that's good for your garden and they some people will go there and they'll ask them to you know save the coffee grounds so they go dumping in their garden but uh again that comes down to the fast food chain whether or not they'll cooperate um let's see uh okay on paper recycling uh i think we need to look at i know in uh district four with bingo uh if they separate the paper from the garbage the paper is all recyclable from the bingo now they don't have the old cards they have paper throwaways so uh in just by letting people know that uh the two bingo sites in Watsonville area they're saving uh one is at the church site and they're saving about $700 a month in what used to go in the garbage and what now goes into the recyclable that's a very good incentive to whoever has the site if we can get that out in the other areas of the Santa Cruz county that they'll actually save money by reducing the dumping of their regular garbage and increasing their recyclable so we're not talking about raising the price on recycling uh are we is that part of this are we going to charge more money for recycling than we did in the past no but we definitely we want to consider all the waste streams the recyclable materials the stuff that has to currently go to landfill the stuff that gets composted um we can't just all base our revenue on what goes in the landfill that was our current rate model we want to address kind of the whole service like the stuff you have to recycle and divert may require you know to be a source of revenue to help pay for that service because it doesn't make enough money to support itself yeah and it comes down to having enough containers for the public to be able to put it in one container for recycle at these different sites and also put it in the garbage area uh an example of that would be uh the city of Watsonville Scotts Valley Capitola Santa Cruz when they rent out a facility there's a cleaning deposit but I and people are very good about getting their deposit back I think a problem that I've seen in the south county is when they do the cleaning they don't have a clear idea of where to put the recycle and where to put the garbage so let's say they have a wedding they have a keen senorah they have some kind of a rental if we can if we can somehow make sure that and the cities will cooperate I'm sure but when somebody is doing a cleanup to get their deposit it's very clear that they're told that please put everything in the recycle and then please put the garbage and something else yeah I just wanted to speak to that real quick so we did hire a couple of program coordinators they are going out to the businesses to educate them on all that's going to be is currently required of them and what will be required of them in the future to address those exact types of issues you know actually you're right I want to thank you about four years ago we did it in south county with what I'm talking about we don't have that many places but it was your department that came out and actually talked to the public and said this is what we're going to do and talk to the church that owned the you know site or even the city that owned the site when they rented out so a lot of it is the public's not aware so thank you thank you chair I'll try to be brief the I appreciate the presentation there are these are big issues that we will be facing I was wondering you talked about being sensitive to tipping costs versus increases in illegal dumping what do you do how do you determine what that price point sensitivity is good question we there's there are studies that are are done that conduct that have conducted when when the point when illegal dumping starts increasing it it actually kind of I've noticed a correlation I helped manage the illegal dumping program so I've seen a correlation almost at the beginning of every year when we do increase our rates of a slight uptick in illegal dumping then it levels out once people get adjusted to it but I think that if you were to if you have small incremental increases that people can expect like based on CPI every year that's one thing but if you were to go forward with a rate increase of the size that we need to to to fund these unfunded mandates we'd see a few people would either go to marina or and we'd lose all revenue or we and probably we'd see a much larger increase in the illegal dumping at what point do I think that that would occur I I'd have to get back to you on that I'm not sure of at what cost people is just too much for people I think small I mean we hear complaints about small incremental increases of just of a dollar but again it levels out sure yeah well I think it's obviously something you want to keep track of in the in the presentation you also talked that we spend over $200,000 on street sweeping and I'm wondering is that a how do we run that program is is there beyond construction sites who gets that those services well we're we're mandated for stormwater for stormwater compliance and so we have different routes that they go on to make sure that the that the that the leaves and there's not much anything in the gutters to make sure that keeps our stormwater clean enough to be in compliance with the state state regulations it's also based on we get if we get it's driven by complaints to to us as well if there's an area that hasn't been swept in a while and it's backing up we'll we'll get out there um it's we mainly keep the program running on the on the main arterial roads so you won't necessarily see a lot of street sweeping on on just your small road local roads but the main driver of of the street sweeping program is due to this the stormwater regulations yeah I just uh I've lived in my house that 26 years is only once that I can remember street sweeper coming by and I don't think that unusual I didn't you know I didn't I don't see the I haven't thought of the county of having a street sweeping program so it was a surprise when I saw the street sweeper but there was no notification to people in advance so there were lots of parked cars and it was a lot less effective and I'm just wondering if we have a program and we could say we're gonna we're gonna be in your neighborhood or we're gonna be in this part of town or whatever that is um it seemed to me that you could do a better job of street street sweeping we can work on that internally to work on a program that kind of like to have up in the you know Berkeley in the East Bay areas where you can't park your car on one side of the street would probably be welcome yeah um the the the bigger issue here obviously is how do we pay for uh both the mandated new responsibilities that we're gonna have uh and just the ongoing um upkeep of our infrastructure be it equipment and the landfill and I guess is really a question for our CAO um in terms of uh I don't think we could answer it here today but I think it would be helpful for us to look at our debt capacity and how many different departments have interest in being part of some new debt issuance uh I could think of at least three departments that are you know sort of counting on um uh some of our debt capacity to make infrastructure investments and I don't and we've never really had a conversation about um what's the vision for that and how and and how we're going to manage that but when you hear about 17 million dollar facilities or or or new jail space or new juvenile hall or new health pieces and the housing that we want to do on our sites that I can see that debt capacity going away pretty quickly and I just think it would be good for us to have a a plan or at least start talking about it so we know what kind of choices we're making and and also departments to know where where those limits might be yes I agree and um part of our facilities master plan process we actually are conducting an analysis of our debt capacity right now and so when we do have that analysis we will come before the board and share it with you and talk about the needs of the county and the different options we have yeah I think that's critical because we can be proud that we're reducing our our debt um over the next 10 years uh and we do have to make investments in our infrastructure but uh there's a limit to that obviously um and I just want to go into it with eyes wide open rather than we need to do it and we gotta issue debt um and you know it's nice that we're that uh that we're not looking to the green waste fees as a way to pay for this nine c to the average person's pocket book though it's it it's more money out of the pocket and so uh being thoughtful about that uh and making sure it doesn't tip the the scales uh will be important do you have an idea of a timeline of about when you'd be talking about this we've we've been talking about it for a while internally um with our consultants hf and h who are here to answer any questions as well uh we we've we started this process of studying nine c and um bringing it uh into the you know it's been grandfathered pre-prop 218 so yeah where we've been studying it and and we we had to stop uh for a variety of reasons and we have been given the okay to start studying it again and to uh we could probably have it to your board we're we're looking at maybe uh early next year yeah well I think uh I'm not rushing to raise uh fees uh but I I want to get some senses to when we're going to be talking about that so if the first quarter or second quarter of next year that that seems like uh reasonable time okay great is there any public comment about this item all right seeing none there's no recommended action because I want to thank you for your uh thank you for your work on this is obviously a key issue and we look forward to hearing updates as we go forward mr chair I I wonder if um under the circumstances though for the board to express its concerns about this if we shouldn't um write a letter uh to uh the chair of uh Cal recycle and our legislative representatives about our concerns um you know what uh bringing this uh true fruition you know and what challenges it has I'd like to direct the board to um ask the chair to write a letter can we take action can we take action yeah your own rules allow you to add things to your agenda um I think this is fine okay great so uh so motion direct the chair to write a letter to Cal recycle and state representatives um about our concerns let me just ask a curiosity question what happens to a battery when it ends up at the right site okay well so we got a motion and a second on the floor so let's excuse me I think there is action on this item it's to direct public works to return with the report back okay so you can add it to this so let's so is that okay to add that so that will the recommended action recommended action plus a letter to Cal recycle with our state legislators okay so we got a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye opposed that passes unanimously you'll tell me later on yeah okay all right um moving on to item number 13 is consider a final appointment of captain craig consular to the emergency medical care commission as the outlawed representative of Santa Cruz county law enforcement chiefs association for a term to expire April 1st 2023 move to approve second motion a second and seeing no public comment bring it back to the board all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that passes unanimously uh item number 14 to consider final appointment of robin mackentire to the emergency medical care commission as an outlawed representative of consumers for a term to expire April 1st 2023 uh and seeing no public comment bring it back motion by leopold second by friend all those in favor please say aye hi we'll now move into closed session will there be any reportable action no all right