 Thank you to everybody. And we'll turn it over for the roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. Here. Supervisor McPherson. Here. Yay. Chair Caput. Here. Thank you. I'll turn it over now to Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. I want to just take a moment before we begin our meeting. In this time of COVID, we sometimes miss the opportunity to recognize happenings in our community and also passings in our community. And recently, we lost a valued member of the community, Ben Kelly, in a tragic surfing accident. And I wanted to take this moment to honor Ben's life and recognize him for his contributions to the community. His family is here. And I just wanted to share this proclamation that we've drafted in his honor to acknowledge that contributions. This says, whereas Ben Jones Kelly, a native of Orange County, who was born on May 21st, 1993, moved to the Pleasure Point area of Santa Cruz several years ago with the love of his life, Katie, who he just celebrated his third wedding anniversary. Whereas Ben and Katie made their Christian faith and love for Jesus an integral part of their daily life, worshiping at Calvary Chapel in Capitola and at Twin Lakes Church in Aptos. And whereas Ben and Katie started a digital marketing company called Authentic Approach that focused on serving people and helping small businesses build their brand online. And whereas Ben began his love for the craft of hand-shaping surfboards while studying in college at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, where he met Katie and which ultimately led to the creation of his brand, Ben Kelly Surfboards. And whereas just as he believed God was his shaper who used grace and love as his tools, Ben designed and hand signed every board to commemorate the crafting process before handing it off to a new owner to enjoy for years to come. And whereas Ben practiced his belief that surfing was so much more than just catching waves, it was about the people he met and the continuous grand adventures that made it fun while blessing others along the way. And whereas Ben made a lasting impression on his community and set an example through his adventurous spirit, his humble attitude, his readiness to admit his faults and his giving and accepting of grace and his striving to live and love better. And whereas on May 9th, 2020, Ben's life tragically ended too soon when he set out to surf in the Monterey Bay waters at the beaches, a stretch from Sand Dollar Beach past Manresa and La Selva beaches with a few of his closest friends. Now therefore, I John Leopold, Santa Cruz County First District Supervisor on behalf of the entire Board of Supervisors, hereby proclaim May 21st, 2020, which would have been Ben's 27th birthday as Ben Kelly Day in Santa Cruz County and urge all citizens to join in the celebration of his life to honor, love and remember the loss of a legend who epitomized serving the community and always helping a friend or a stranger in need. Ben family is here to accept this and give them an opportunity to also say a few words if they'd like to. And then we also have a great local musician, Keith Greninger here to sing a song. Please accept this proclamation as our way to honor Ben and his great life and what he contributed to make Santa Cruz a wonderful place. We offer our deepest sympathy and to you and your family. Thank you so much. Yeah, I've been so overwhelmed by, okay, do I talk this? I've been so overwhelmed by the way that the Santa Cruz community has come alongside me and Ben and really supported us. And just the way that Santa Cruz has a, we were only here for three and a half years since this all happened. And we just really, really thank you the way that Santa Cruz has just come as like family to us. I really appreciate this and it just, God bless you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, Katie. And I'd like to invite up Keith Greninger. Keith is a local musician who also lives in the first district who offered his services and has a way of touching us with his songs in such a fantastic way. We want to take this moment to honor Ben that way. The tears that you have seen come softly on the ground. The quiet sadness born of everything we crave. These dreams without a sound under something real. Something to hit them soft. The spring will reach across the darkness of these. Well, the deeper we're gonna through the heart under something real. Something to help. I would just like to ask that we honor Ben Kelly today when we take our moment of silence and remember to live our lives, love our family and friends and honor our faith in any way that we practice it. If anybody else in the family wants to speak they can come up, take as long as you want. Ben was our shining light and each of us was so grateful to know him for each of us. This loss has been great but in particular our Katie has suffered a devastating blow. We grieve but it is not without hope. We know beyond a shadow of doubt that Ben is now in a much better place. He now sees Jesus. I'm not belong before all of us who know Jesus will be there and live with him forever and for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you. Thank you for the family being here. Thank you to Keith Greninger for marking this moment through song and we will remember Ben always. We'll have a moment of silence and a moment of prayer for everything and also for Ben and his family and then we'll follow that with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. The flag of the United States of America, the invisible. Mr. Palacios, are there any late additions or changes to the agenda? Yes, thank you. On introductory items, item 3B, staff request that this item be deleted. On consent agenda, item 30, there's correction, the end of the item should read to expand housing and disability advocacy program, payment assistance services extending the term and increasing the payment amount by 371,908 for a new two year total of 859,931,000 and take related actions as recommended by the director of human services. There's also revised memo. That concludes the revisions and corrections to today's agenda. Thank you. Do any board members wish to pull consent items to the regular agenda? I do not. I don't hear anything. So we'll proceed to public comment. Now is the opportunity for members of the public to address the board on topics that are on today's agenda, consent items, closed session agenda, and topics that are not on the agenda but are within the jurisdiction of the board. And also if you cannot stay later to speak on regular agenda items, you may address those items at this time. I will first call for public testimony here in the chambers and then from the community room. And lastly, the clerk will read the web comments received live during this item. You'll have three minutes to speak. Thank you. Are we not doing the COVID report? We're not. We're not doing an update today. Good morning. My name is Anthony Robinson. I'm a public defender. I've worked in Santa Cruz for 20 years. I'm here to address the situation as it exists with the lockdown that's been existing in this state and just address how Santa Cruz, I believe can adapt to the future of our society. One of the most important things that we are trying to do is save and protect people's lives. And I think Santa Cruz has done an excellent job doing that. I think we have overall some of the best numbers in the state and I commend everybody here for that. I do believe that we need to reassess and look at the big picture. And I think that's something that's been lacking in a lot of the decisions that have been made recently across the nation. What we had was predictive models that came out and predicted about three to 4% mortality rates, which was significant and high and very dangerous. That would have meant with a population of 330 million in this country, they were looking at potentially a million people. We know now that that's not true, thankfully. And I urge the council to look at the science. I think that there have been a number of studies and I would like to submit them at some point and the council can always look at these, but there have been studies that have gone three in the United States. The first was on April 21st in out of Los Angeles County. This is the USC study. And this indicated that the mortality rate was approximately 0.2%. There was another study and done out of Santa Clara by Stanford, 0.17%. I understand my time is running short. There have been six other studies done across the world and they all come up with about 0.2%. Interestingly, the predictive models are now mirroring what these studies are showing and that the overall mortality rate is going to be about 0.2%. And the predictive models are all indicating that what we need to do is we need to look at the other areas of life that are being affected by the lockdown. Higher mortality rates can also occur through suicides. They can also occur through domestic violence. They can also occur through not addressing other health concerns that the hospitals have shut down and not been able to address. And I would urge the council to try to move forward, excuse me, with opening up our economy, with opening up our society. We all know, and it's been well-documented, that when economic downturns and depression hits, we will become, if I can have a few minutes or not minutes, but 30 seconds more. We all know that what happens is mortality rates increase. They increase because people are not able to provide for themselves. They increase because the majority of our society functions on being able to take care of itself. I urge the council to look at ways that we can speed the economic growth, that we can speed opening up our county in order to both protect against this COVID, but protect against the bigger picture of the other possibilities that are out there and are happening. Thank you. If you are on the team's call, if you could please remember to mute your phones and computers. Good morning, everybody. My name's Brenda Brenner and I am the Santa Cruz County Emergency Medical Services Director, and I'd like to introduce Dr. David Gillarducci. There he is. He's the Emergency Medical Services Medical Director for the county. I have a few other folks with us here. Fire Chief Jason Hayduke from the city of Santa Cruz. He's back there. Chris Jones is the Operations Manager for American Medical Response, our 911 provider in the county. Paul Angelo. There he is. He is the Paramedic Liaison Nurse for Dominican Hospital. Mary Straley. There she is. She is the Chief Nursing Officer for Watsonville Hospital and Matt Co-Varanges is the Security and Emergency Planning Manager for Watsonville. We would like to thank you very much for proclaiming the week of May 17th through May 23rd as Emergency Medical Services Week. It's actually recognized nationally. For the past 14 years, you've provided a platform to honor EMS responders. You've heard from grateful survivors of cardiac arrests and traumatic injuries. You've seen the spectrum of EMS from bystanders performing CPR, dispatchers coaching patients through unanticipated home births, EMTs and paramedics on fire engines and ambulances stopping traumatic blood loss or shocking hearts back into a life sustaining rhythm. You've heard from law enforcement officers trained in CPR who have saved lives. You've thanked lifeguards for rescuing people from being drowned. You've recognized flight nurses administering advanced medications from inside helicopters and you've thanked emergency room doctors and nurses for the continued care started in the field and ultimately saving the lives of people who would not have survived. But this is an unusual time. While many in our community are sheltered in place, our responders continue their heroic work going wherever they are needed 24 hours a day, seven days per week, risking their own health and safety to take care of our community. Every day in our county, there are numerous well-trained emergency medical providers ready to immediately respond who can bring care directly to patients. They act as an extension of the emergency department because people in our community still suffer from severe chronic illness, still involved in traumatic vehicle crashes and continue to experience life-threatening cardiac events while sheltering at home. COVID-19 has dramatically changed all of our lives, but it has not changed the dedication of our responders and the commitment of the emergency medical services system to continue to support our community. Thank you again for the opportunity to recognize the importance of emergency medical services week and to thank each of the organizations that are represented here. Does any of you wanna say something? Thank you very much. Good morning, Chairman, Board of Supervisors. My name is Matt Machado, I'm the Director of Public Works and one of the Deputy CAOs. Thank you for declaring the week of May 17th through May 23rd as Public Works Week in Santa Cruz County. We have committed hard-working staff that provide service to the community that is essential, critical, and used daily by every single resident of this county. This service includes county infrastructure, which is the largest asset the county owns. The service also includes functions that we all take for granted, such as water, sewer, garbage, and transportation service. We, as citizens of this great community, expect these services daily. This proclamation and recognition is proof that our staff's hard work is not taken for granted. Thank you, Board of Supervisors, for your support and attention to this critical county service. And just for the purpose of the camera, this is the proclamation. Thank you, Chairman, for your signature and thank you, Board of Supervisors, for your support. Thank you. Well, my name is Ken Stagnaro, I'm co-owner of Stagnaro Fishing Trips here in Santa Cruz, and I'm speaking here on behalf of myself and some of the other charter boats here in Santa Cruz. That's specifically our charter fishing boats. I also have a whale watching tour company in this town as well for many years, but I'm not really here for that today because it probably doesn't apply as appropriate at this time. But I'm here to advocate for my business to reopen in limited terms under the COVID social 19 guidelines. Recently, the city of Berkeley and the city of San Francisco have said a precedent in allowing charter boats to operate under strict guidelines. I believe the supervisors recently have received, all the supervisors have recently received an email from our Port Commission Chairman, Steve Reed. If you can refer to that on page 44, it is allowing charter boats to operate as of this week. And Berkeley began operating last week, two weekends ago actually. Again, under social distancing guidelines. And I have Stagnaro charter boats has the guidelines all printed up, fairly close to the same as theirs, a little bit different, but not much. We believe we can operate safely at a drastically reduced capacity. Our charter boats can hold as many as 36 passengers normally under normal conditions. We're cutting that down to about 10 or 12 depending on the spacing of each boat, how it's set up. Each boat is a little bit different size-wise. But I feel like we can do this safely. And the closest comparison I can make is fishing is listed in the guide, the county order as something that you can access. And people who can do essential travel to go cultivate fish or catch a fish or go to the market and get fish. So that's listed in there as well. So I hope that would support our cause. We don't, you can get on a city bus with 10 or 12 people right now, 15 people on a 40 foot bus. We have a 60 foot boat that's 20 feet wide. Should be, should be plenty of room to do the essential spacing, social distancing. So again, if you could refer to the packet from the Santa Cruz Port District, they're in full support. In short, I have the piece of it right here. It says, it is my understanding that San Francisco has updated health orders effective May 17th. These are referred to San Francisco's frequently asked questions, page 44, allow shorter boats to operate and take passengers subject to the following conditions. And the last sentence, the last paragraph is the Santa Cruz Port District Commission is fully supportive of allowing charter operators to reopen business if they comply with measures deemed necessary to protect public health. Steve Reed, Santa Cruz Port Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. If there's not anybody, yeah, please go ahead. My name is Thomas Conway. Our local government is yet immobilized to halt 5G in its tracks at the risk of being sued by the deceptive criminals in the telecom industry. We aren't allowed to consider health risks in 2020 because of outdated roles created 24 years ago, which don't even reflect modern, well-documented, peer-reviewed scientific literature, which measures cellular tissue damage from well-blown everyday electromagnetic frequency exposures. Ron Melnick's study for the National Toxicology Program and the Ramazzini Institute study on ZELRF clearly show health risks and the government's perpetual insouciance. They should be extremely legal, but the company's profiting billions off of our quality of health and privacy on the FCC. Therefore, I ask you, anyone listening, to say howl no to 5G. These men, Tom Wheeler, Ajit Pai, and the rest of them have purposefully and negligently sold our families, children, and EMF-sensitive individuals to the emergent surveillance state. At the bare minimum, Santa Cruz small cell ordinance needs to be extended to the entire county and Watsonville. Now as the war on the individual's health and liberty, we must be ever ready to stand and face the human threat of totalitarian governance. Since this is documented for future reference, I recommend everyone here to look up Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and share her video interviews. Harvard hired investigative journalist Norm Alster to expose the corrupt telecom industry in the free paper FCC-accaptured agency. Please, research and share these sources. That's how we will raise awareness. We can peacefully defuse this looming threat with our voices and hearts. The threat is having been sold for a sum of cash for an ID number that will track and predict our behavior. The government must know their enemy. To quote salvage editorial collectives landmark essay on climate catastrophe titled The Tragedy of the Worker Towards the Prilatericine, quote, this is the tragedy of the worker that as avatar of a class in itself, she was put to work for the accumulation of capital from capitalism's youth amid means of production, not of her choosing and with the telos of ecological catastrophe. The web of life is microbial, unquote. Please join our group EMF aware SC.org. There's over 300 of us and there's still hope for everyone to stop this evil madness that will be used to spy on us as we slowly oxidize to death, bathed in seas of EMFs. This is the worker under broad leaves in the sloping orchard of Eden. She is alone and her single and never ending gesture is the piece of despair. It we're not right to ever cease lamenting. Thank you. Monica McGuire from Coralitos doing my best to show that these masks are ridiculous and what matters much, much more is keeping our freedom at this point. I deeply appreciate every person who has spoken here and made it clear that again, the people need to be heard. And I'm so frustrated still that it's been all these weeks, these fourth time I've come saying things that the county still says they don't know. The gentleman talking about the 0.2% who actually have died that was predicted by everybody who actually knows anything beyond Western medicine because Western medicine doesn't handle viruses. The complementary and alternative world handles viruses very, very well. And the big statistic I was asking for last week besides all the people who have died of all the collateral damage and suicides and attempted suicides that you're not tracking for us and letting us know how many more people besides the surfer have died in this county. It's really interesting that you choose to aggrandize one death. My father died. I don't expect you to give me any accolade or apologies about my father dying. But because he didn't die of COVID, he didn't make the news. So these are ridiculous times on top of frightening times. And we don't need ridiculous on top of frightening. The frightening was enough. I really ask that you start caring about all the people who are dying of loneliness, all the people who are being domestic violence to death, much more because they're at home alone with their abusers. All the people of this county require your leadership to do more. And we've been standing here for weeks asking you to do specific things. And as usual, you have ignored us. That's not acceptable. To stand here and give our hearts and give our time and show up is our right that you've been eroding, especially Mr. Palacios, making sure that we couldn't speak to each agenda item, making sure that we can't pull consent agenda items and the board for continuing to agree to everything that the rest of government tells you to do. You had the choice to not follow the state, but you chose to follow the state. You chose every single meeting to not take into account the extreme low incidents very likely because you've chosen not to count the people who have said all along, I'm pretty sure I had this in September, October, November, December, January, or February. We really need to know the numbers of people who were already sick with all these symptoms and believe that they had it and not require them to be tested because the tests have so far been useless and not require that we be moving towards any form of vaccine since it's not only unsafe, even according to Fauci to rush it. But it's unsafe for people to get vaccines because they haven't watched the movie, Vaxed, or the truth about vaccines or any of the other truths that would give people the broader perspective to understand we don't want you. Hi, Marilyn Garrett. I refer to an article by Arthur Firstenberg that was given to you last week under the title of the evidence mounts and under the section on the ocean of viruses, he states, and I'm gonna state it again, the idea that we can keep from sharing viruses by wearing masks and saying a few feet away from each other is about as realistic as pretending, putting a mask on a fish and pretending that it is going to protect it from getting wet. And he elaborates how viruses are important constituents of life. They're all around us, they move with the air, it's inevitable, we're exposed and have viruses in us. Bags the question of what is really going on here since that is a fact. And also, there are predictions of how many deaths et cetera, and I was thinking there are some things that we do know and it is indicated also that this virus may have escaped from a lab. It's in an article by Sam Houssini that I will leave with you and add to the comments that there are bio warfare labs and they're like a bio warfare arms race and the PPP stands for Potential Pandemic Pathogens where my understanding is they take something natural from nature that's already deadly and in the labs they make it more deadly and they are lab escapes all the time. I was thinking there are many things that we know, poisonous, and there's not a word about that or action to stop the poisoning, pesticides, radionuclides, mercury, aluminum, and the producers of those products. And these are found in our bodies and also what's happening during this shutdown. I think we need to have a shutdown, lockdown of the corporate polluters. Lockdown, shutdown, the polluters, not the people like Monsanto, Dow Chemical, you could make a long list. And I will leave you a copy of that article to include with item three B. Thank you. Thank you, thanks Marilyn. Bruce Tanner, this entire so-called crisis is proven to have been planned by a corrupt network of influence. There are many excellent researchers who have found the evidence of long-term advanced planning by foundations, NGOs, government agencies and corporations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the World Health Organization, the CDC, the Chinese CDC, the pharma industry and elements in both the US and UK governments. This evidence includes multiple staged exercises and detailed plans leaked over the years, including one event called Event 201 which was held in New York just weeks before the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, China. This corrupt network of influence is obviously responsible for the eerie coincidence between the measures of control of people that have been implemented, not only in various states and localities in the US, but in nations all over the world simultaneously down to the catchphrases such as social distancing and rules that are used and issued. These so-called orders that have come from state and local executive health officials are not only repugnant to our society's principles of governance and in direct violation of the people's unalienable, God-given and natural rights, but are unlawful under our political ethos. Such orders, even if passed by legislatures, are under settled Supreme Court rulings principally Marbury versus Madison, null and void on issuance, having the effect as if they had never been created. Public officials who create, transmit and enforce such orders are acting outside both their oaths of office and official capacities and are acting under color of law. They are therefore personally liable, both civilly and criminally. When an entire social system destroys personal lives and its economy in the name of public health without any consideration of the morality and collective effects of its actions, it has lost its mandate for existence. You need to end this draconian system of control now, not in stages, or you will face the consequences of your actions. We are waking up rapidly to what is nothing less than the ongoing creation of an oligarchic tyranny. We do not consent to any such system of illegitimate control. Any public comment in the community room? Either. Yes, we have one. Good morning, honorable Board of Supervisors. My name is Mimi Hall. I'm the Health Services Agency Director for the County of Santa Cruz. And I just wanted to echo emergency medical services administrator Brenda Brenners gratitude to the Board for declaring this EMS week in Santa Cruz County along with the rest of the nation. As you all know, we are living in incredibly exceptional times and our EMS system and everyone that works in the pre-hospital and first responder world has been exceptional during these times. And we wouldn't have that without their ongoing partnership and coordination and support of our community's health. And I just wanted to express a deep debt of gratitude to both the Board for recognizing these folks who work in the EMS system, but also to everyone who has been showing up to work every day, regardless of being in a pandemic and especially now. Thank you. We have one more person. Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning. This is Becky Steinbruner. I wanna say that I really want the chairman of the Board to ask County Council if the current COVID restrictions that are being imposed upon our County by an unelected official, the County Health official is legal. As I read the State Health and Safety Code 101080, she only had the legal ability to declare an emergency, which your Board had to ratify within seven days. And you did. Nowhere in that law does it say that she has the ability to keep increasing, changing these modifications that it's killing our County. It is financially harming our society. It is financially and emotionally harming our people. In that law, it states that the Board of Supervisors is in charge. In that law, it states that you, the Board are the ones that consider and adapt and modify and terminate this emergency order, not Gail Newell. Chairman Caput, I want you publicly this morning right here to ask County Council about the legality of this for the people. It is a question that is being raised across the country and certainly within the United States, within the state of California and certainly within the County of Santa Cruz. I'm asking you to ask County Council that question directly and ask that he answer the public here this morning. I also wanna say that it is very difficult for citizens who are not on Facebook to access these Thursday morning 10 a.m. reports that Gail Newell provides. Many of the public are not on Facebook. And I want to ask that the Board direct staff this morning to change any updates that she gives to the County's number that supervisors are using for their tele-town hall meetings, four, five, four, two, two, two. Why can't you use that? So people with a telephone can listen. We don't have to participate, but we need to listen and hear what she's saying. Finally, I want to give you a bit of good news. We all need that. And that is that Aptos La Selva fire district in combination with Central Fire Protection District was awarded a grant by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, one in three of the United States Awards. And I think they're to be commended. They will use this to do fire defensible space demonstration projects and tabletop top evacuation projects. And I think we all should be very proud of them. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, we have one web comment from Linda Shoemaker, referring beach restrictions. The restrictions at the beach have made it impossible for people with young children to relax and enjoy the beach, to play in the sand and water to get fresh air, vitamin D and boost their immune system. For some reason, you have to keep moving even if you are alone on the beach and far apart from others. We have seen lifeguards bothering people who are totally socially distancing. Social distancing is surely the whole point of this law that puts restrictions on at the beach to stop the crowds. Is it bad enough the beach is closed during the best part of the day, but at least before 11 and after five young families with babies should be able to sit with some shade and a cold drink and relax and watch their kids play. I speak as a mother of four and grandmother of five. Have you any idea how stressful it can be to be shut in with kids 24 seven? No school, no play dates, no church. Some people in the apartments with no outside space. Life is uncertain and stressful enough right now. Open the beaches and let everyone benefit from the healing power of mother nature. Those at risk usually don't even go to the beach. Healthy people should have a choice to shelter in place or go to the beach or go to work. When what started as quarantine for a virus is fast becoming a case of social liberty and human freedom. Much that makes life worth living has been shut down even when there isn't a problem. Not because of shelter in place, but so much, but because they're, not because of shelter in place so much, but because there is a very healthy place with the beach and the forest. May those in charge have the compassion for humanity and the wisdom to open things up to avoid the very serious mental, social and economic consequences. That's it. We don't have any others. Okay, thank you. That'll conclude item number five. We'll move on to action on the consent agenda. Do we have any comments from members of the board, Supervisor McPherson or Supervisor Friend? Supervisor McPherson here, can you hear me all right? Yeah. Yes. On consent items, a couple of items I wanted to comment on item number 16 on the performance measurement update. I think by linking the strategic plan with the Premo process improvement work and our operational plan, the county has established a really good framework for to continually improve our services and track progress by transparency. I'm glad the county will use these same methods to track the COVID-19 impacts and recovery. I do encourage members of the community to go to the county website to learn more about this work. I want to once again thank the county administrative office for its work on this. The following item on the focus strategy actions plan, I understand deferring the action on the plan until June is understandable, giving the impact of the COVID on the staff, resources and planning. This pen certainly taught us some valuable lessons about what is possible and standing up to responses for people experiencing homelessness. I would like to give some additional direction on this item, number 17, so we can improve our understanding of the action plan itself. I'd like to provide additional direction that in June, the board be provided a full accounting of the various state, federal and local funding streams that can be brought to bear on homelessness, including which agency controls those funds and whether there are any eligibility limitations. Just like I get a comprehensive picture of what the money has come in, who has overseen it and where we are. And if we could have that presented to us in June, I would much appreciate it. I think the general public would be appreciative as well. On item 27, the director for housing for health, I appreciate the CAO bringing this plan to dedicate more managerial resources to solving our most complex problem of homelessness and approving the coordination between the county departments and our other partners that we have at our committee. As mentioned earlier, I look forward to the focus strategies report in June and expect this new role will be critical in implementing some of those actions that need to be taken in the near future. Couple more items that the economic development report, this is a really detailed plan that I think the board would benefit spending more time. And I know we will have to revise our expectations about economic development due to the impact of the pandemic response. But I would like to give some additional direction to this item number 29 to schedule a study session for the board to review this plan in September and receive an update about the COVID-19 impacts on economic development at that time with the summary of the recovery council's efforts. I very much appreciate everybody's efforts in being trying to put together a plan of attacks so we can get back working literally. There's a couple of small items in my district on the shade structure for Felton Park. I want to thank the parks department for pursuing this funding for the shade structure at the Felton Discovery Park. It was scheduled to open May 2nd, but of course it has been postponed, but we're still on track to get it opened, hopefully in the near future. And number 41, the Boulder Creek Library, it makes sense that we do some, go out for rebidding of this. I hope it will see some bids this time around that are more aligned with our available funding. I think the public works and our county library system for their efforts and this move forward. We were hopeful to have this up and running at this time, but we'll have to wait a little longer and go out for new bids. I appreciate the public works and the library systems efforts in this endeavor. Thank you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair. I have no comments on the consent agenda. This is Ryan Coonerty. I have just two brief comments. The first is on item number 17, the focus strategies. I support Supervisor McPherson's additional direction. We're in this time of flux, but we're also standing up and running many critical programs and services for people experiencing homelessness. It's really essential that we include the focus strategies preliminary recommendations in terms of governance and diversion immediately and then integrate the focus strategies into our strategies going forward, especially in line with item number 27, creating the director of housing and for health. So I'm hopeful that we will be able to have this report, understand the funding streams and set up a governance structure so that we can be successful going forward. Item number 27, which is the director of housing for health. I'm supportive of this item. Again, I think it's incredibly important that whoever we hire come in under a new and clear governance structure with very clear outcomes based on the funding streams and the recommendations of focus strategies. So we just need to keep all these various operations and events sort of happening along a congruent timeline so that we don't start funding or hiring before we have the pieces set up in order to achieve the maximum success for a large number of people in a situation where we're gonna have limited resources. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. Just two items to comment on. One in item number 26, which is the purchase of some new equipment to do testing for the virus. It just gives me an opportunity to just thank our health staff for their ongoing work to be thinking about the tools that we need to be able to address the crisis that's in front of us and to be able to meet the standards set by the state to allow us to relax restrictions when it's safe. And I appreciate the ongoing work of the department. And then on item number 29, which is the comprehensive economic development strategy, I support the additional motion. And I also just wanna recognize Andy Stone and his staff, they've been fielding a lot of calls and requests, I'm sure from board offices, as people tried to seek unemployment. And although they don't do that, their work has been critical in linking people with those services. And their collaboration with the Small Business Development Center has been very useful to helping local small businesses. And I just wanna recognize their ongoing work that Andy Stone and his staff does every day. That's it. Thank you. I have no comment on the consent agenda. So I'll wait for a motion and a second. I would move the amended consent agenda. Okay. Second. McPherson. Thank you. Okay, I'll do a roll call vote. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chairman Caput. Aye. Passes unanimously. And that will take us to the regular agenda. Item number. Seven. Seven. That would be, let me read it in, continued public hearing to consider certification of the vote results for County Service Area 51 Hopkins Gulch Road, adopt resolution authorizing and levy assessment for road maintenance and operations and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CAO and the Director of Public Works continued from April 28th, 2020. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. And good morning again, Matt Machado, Director of Public Works and Deputy CAO. As you mentioned, the item before you is a CSA 51 certification of votes. Just a bit of background on it for your consideration. On March 10th, the board approved the engineer's report for CSA 51 Hopkins Gulch Road and directed public works to begin the ballot procedure setting April 28th as the public hearing date to take testimony and accept the ballots for fiscal year 2021. At the close of the public testimony portion of the April 28th public hearing, the board continued the public hearing to today, May 19th, and directed public works to return with a tabulation of the election results for the CSA. Ballots were mailed out to the 44 affected property owners within CSA 51 Hopkins Gulch Road. 23 were returned to public works, with 20 of those being yes votes and three being no votes. That brings us to recommended action. I appreciate you reading those actions and I'm here to answer any questions you may have. And we do ask that the public hearing be continued and can answer any questions. Thank you. Or not continued, but to be closed after hearing. Any comments from the board? Mr. Chair, this is Supervisor McPherson. I'm very happy to see the overwhelming positive response from members of the CSA 58 of Hopkins Gulch who returned their ballots. It's a huge support vote for that and maintaining the quality of the roads as we know is critical for our public safety in Santa Cruz County. And I again wanna thank Public Works for its continued effort, not only to Hopkins Gulch to come, but for what they've been doing weekend and week out as we've been experiencing this crisis. So I'm very pleased with the response and glad to see that this is going to improve Hopkins Gulch Transportation Network. That's it. On the community room. Do we need to do a roll call for? No, there's a, we have to go to the community room. We have one speaker. Good morning, Becky Steinbrunner. I'm a resident of Aptos Hills and a member of County Service Area 33, a road improvement service area, and also a member of County Service Area 48, County Fire. I really appreciate this work and appreciate the situation. I have a point of order though and question. I noted that the votes were certified by the Director of Public Works. I found that very curious because in an election, it is the County Clerk and Elections Manager that certifies votes. And that was the case in the recent County Service Area 48 ballot election for a benefit assessment, an assessment district. So I'm curious why it is, in this case, the Director of Public Works that is certifying the vote and not the Elections Manager for the County. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi, Monica McGuire. Becky reminds me that it's a really good idea to speak to what she's bringing up again. There are so many times just like she did before. She says something brilliant and showing how deeply well she understands the workings of this government and this entire County. And her questions are always excellent. And her request of you to ask the County Council earlier about the legality of continuing to have us under the restrictions that we are and the strengthened restrictions was a really good one. And I'm really bothered that we again constantly get no response whatsoever. And you, Mr. Capitar, one who more often does try to respond to us. So I really just want to echo that as she has again pointed out something brilliant about this, why are things being done in a way that makes no sense compared to other things in the past, other votes that get certified, et cetera. It's so important that you take the time to respond to us and listen with real care, especially when it's someone as knowledgeable and capable as Becky, who if only she had won. She got a full third of the vote for running for supervisor, which is amazing considering how much she's been maligned by people who've never met her and or who know perfectly well how genius she is and how great all her recommendations are. And yet they fall on deaf ears. So please, I just want to come back up and say, if you would please ask County Council in front of the audience watching this, what are the legalities? Is she right that she's looked up the clear law that said you all, you five were the ones to ratify what Gail Newell recommended and could at any point say, you know, we need to vote again because the damage to the great grand many compared to the few who we feared were at risk to begin with has borne out. So please do consider asking that question so we can all hear the answer. I mean, we know that it can be gobbledygook and nonsense that we hear back that makes us all think that maybe it wasn't true, but more than likely she's right, she looks up the law really well. So, and again, it's happening across the country. People are asking the legal questions. Why are we being told we can't use our parks and beaches? So I ask you again, as the one person who listens and responds, please ask that for us. Thank you. Do we have any other comments? Do we need a motion or anything? I would move the recommended actions. Second. We have a motion by Supervisor Leopold, second by Super McPherson and I'll do a roll call vote. Ready? Leopold? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Chairperson Caput? Aye. Passes unanimously resolution CSA 51, authorize and levy assessment. We're gonna go to number eight here pretty quick as soon as I find the page here. Public hearing to consider resolution confirming proposed fiscal year 2020 to 2021 benefit assessment rate and service charge reports for county service areas. CSA number 53, number 53N and number 53S for mosquito abatement and disease control as outlined in the memorandum of the Agriculture Commissioner resolution confirming CSA 53, assessment rate reports and rate attachment CSA 53 and CSA 53S and CSA 53N. Are there any questions from the board? On the phone in the chambers. Not for me. I don't hear any, we'll go ahead. Good morning, Chair Caput, supervisors, Mr. Palacio's staff and members of the public. I'm Paul Binding, Mass Man and Manager of the Mosquito Abatement Factor Control Division of the Agricultural Commissioner formed 26 years ago as County Service Area 53. On April 14th, your board set today as a public hearing for the annual confirmation of the three benefit assessments rate reports that will provide operational funding for CSA 53 and 2021. These rates have previously been approved by your board. One remains the same as in 2019-20 and the other two have been increased by the consumer price increase as approved in previous elections. These rates have been posted in local newspapers and the rate reports made available to the public at the clerk of the board and on the Mosquito Abatement website prior to today's hearing. If approved, the rate reports will be forwarded to the auditor controller by August 10th to be included in the 2020-21 property tax assessment role. We recommend that your board open the public hearing, hear any objections or protests to the proposed three assessment rate reports for CSA 53, which are the North and South County Mosquito and Disease Control Assessments and the original Mosquito Abatement Vector Control Assessment. Then please close the public hearing and consider adoption of the resolution confirming the benefit assessment rate reports for CSA 53 for physical year 2021. We at the Agricultural Commissioners thank you for your ongoing support and welcome you staff and the public to read our 2019 annual report to be submitted for your June 16th meeting as a fascinating description of our programs and services at 640 Capitol Road. The County's Mosquito Vector Control Program provides our community with information, education and protection from public health pests and the diseases they can transmit. Responsible management of mosquitoes provides our citizens with an enhanced, enjoyable, outdoor experience preserves property values. Thank you very much. I don't have any questions. Okay, any board members have questions or any comments? Hey, I don't hear any. One person in the community will open the public hearing. Yeah, we'll open it up to the public. Anybody here in the chambers? So long as I took my time to come, might as well just bring out this is very disturbing and upsetting to again listen to an item that no matter how carefully we listen, it's really hard to understand what's going on beyond the muffled voice because of the mask. Most of the time, things that get presented don't actually have any there or there in the way that they're presented. And I'm not sure why that is, but I'm sure that if we all took more time to do your jobs, we might figure out what this is about. Mosquito abatement sounds important, but what we know as well is that mosquitoes like all insects are in great decline due to your going along with the national and international push towards all the electromagnetic frequencies and everything that we know are damaging as people have reported again to you today and people have reported to you for 20 years. The lack of insects is actually a huge, huge problem in our world today. So I would love to know what this is actually about. And I was very saddened again to listen carefully and read what I could and see that there is no information in what's being presented or what's being written for the public to look at. Mosquitoes can be abated by disturbing the water that they grow in. I know that much. I have been a consultant to the county of Los Angeles Hyperion Water Treatment Plant where they used that 35 years ago as a great mosquito abatement. And I don't know, most people don't know that. There are things that we all learn in the course of our lives that matter and move forward, but we do know that there are bat populations that have decreased horrendously because of the lack of mosquitoes in places where that's one of the primary foods. Birds and other animals that eat in the food chain are all suffering due to the continued absolute ignoring of how much damage is being done to all beings because of the over emphasis on electromagnetic frequencies where we don't need them. So again, it's just important to bring these things up whenever we can. And I sadly know that you will again ignore everything that's been said as you have for so many years already, but it doesn't change that it really does deserve to be said. So if anyone wants to on a short meeting like this actually give us the information that you're about to vote on, that would be really great. The public needs to learn and you're the ones who are supposed to be teaching us. And just as Becky excellently pointed out, having anything for the public benefit on a private platform like Facebook is not actually informing the public. This is when we're supposed to be informed at these meetings. So I'd love to hear the actual aspect of what's going on. Thank you very much. Anybody else in the chamber? Okay, no. We have one in the community room. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Ms. Becky Steinbruner. I'm a resident of rural Aptos. I'd like to thank Mr. Binding for his good work. He does a good job. And I would also like to thank Supervisor McPherson for making your image public this morning. I see that Ryan Coonerty is on, but we don't see his image. We don't even know if he's listening or at his desk. I see that Juan Hidalgo, the ad commissioner is on, but we're not sure if it's really him. We have no information if Zach Friend is actually there listening. And who it is that's really the voice behind the vote on these public policy matters. I would like to ask that other supervisors not present, other key members of staff also make their images public as thank you Supervisor McPherson for doing for the public this morning. I want to ask, I volunteer as a cleanup person at Pajaro Valley High School in Watsonville next to the sloughs. The cliff swallows migrate there from Patagonia every spring and raise their young. It is an 8,000, 10,000 mile journey. And they come to Pajaro High to raise their young because of the good food source that is at the slough there. Last summer we had a number of birds just die and we took them to native animal rescue and it was determined that they had starved to death. So I understand the need for mosquito abatement in terms of disease control, but I like to applaud Ms. McGuire for her testimony that this is an ecosystem by the sloughs. And because we have chosen to put dense public housing next to the sloughs, we are invading on that very fine-tuned ecosystem. I would like to know what it is that the mosquito abatement district uses to control mosquitoes and is there an ongoing harm to the other animals that depend on mosquitoes as their food source? I would also like to know what the CPI rate is for this increase. I have seen in other CSAs, the CPI is different. CSA 48 is being increased by 3.3% when the San Francisco area CPI on their website is 2.5 or 2.9. So I would like to know what the CPI increase is for this. And I also would like to, I did look at the information and to me it was confusing. There were three different, it looked like assessments. There was a general assessment and then there was an assessment for North County and it's dept assessment at different rates for South County. So what my question was is that is the general assessment charged everyone and then on top of that, an additional one for where you live in the county. Thank you. Okay. Any other public comments? None. Okay. Chair, I just want to acknowledge the work of Mr. Binding and his staff and the mosquito control. To me, it's a public health success. It really, it's people joining together choosing to pay a small fee in order to remove a pest that is a known carrier of disease. And it's been very effective here in Santa Cruz County and I appreciate the work and now as we're all a little bit more aware of the disease transmission, maybe we'll see more people, even more people at the open houses that the vector control does on a regular basis at their locations. For those who are interested, the information about what the CPI increase is actually in the document. It's easily read and it's helpful if people actually read the items to know rather than just the summation that's on the agenda out here. I am prepared to move the recommended actions on this item. Okay. Do we have any other comments from Supervisor McPherson? Supervisor Friend. We need a second. I'll second the motion. Thank you. Okay. We have a second. Supervisor Coonerty. No comment. Okay. We have a first and a second. Is that correct? Yes. There's a motion by Supervisor Leopold and a second by Supervisor Friend. And I'll do the roll call vote. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. McPherson. Aye. Chairman Caput. Aye. It passes unanimously. And we'll have a closed session item number nine. Should we take about a 10, 15 minute, 15 minute break? Why don't we just try to... How about a 10 minute break? 10 minute break would be, is that okay? Okay, we'll make it 10 or 11 minute break. So it'll be 10, 30. We'll start closed session. And there's nothing reportable out of closed session.