 2021 last regular meeting of this year for the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. Hobbit. Here. McPherson. Here. Thank you, Chair. You have a quorum. Okay, we will now have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Supervisor, have any comments? I have a moment of silence. The Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance. The United States of America. The United States of America. The United States of America. The United States of America. We have consideration of late additions to the agenda and additions to or deletions from the consent of regular agendas. Yes, Chairman McPherson, Member of the Board. On the regular agenda, item number 16, there's additional materials, attachment G, request for postponement D, Halem and attachment H, Rihon Roberts Corporation owner opposition to request for continuance. On the consent agenda, item 31, there's additional materials, revised attachment A and mid-year policy and procedures updates packet page 812. Item number 74, item should read, accept the report on late renewals agreements and approve a renewing agreement with an increased budget. Additional materials, there's revised memo, packet page 1632 through 1634, attachment I, ICMA packet W1776CAB.EPP, insert after package 1644. Item number 86, staff request that on the 60 HST project room key attachment be deleted, packet pages 1861 and 1862. On item 88, correction, attachment C, revised draft, revised affordable housing guidelines, clean should add the word less than to read as follows, section E2CI. Refinance loans may have a term of less than 30 years, as long as the front and back ratios can be met with a proposed loan, the correction is found in page 31, packet page 2059. Item number 92, correction, item should read, approve plans and specifications for the Live Oak Library Annex Project, set bid opening for 2.15 p.m. on February 1, 2022, authorize the deputy CAO director public works to award and send the contract direct public works to return on or before April 26, 2022, for the rat ratification of the contract award, approve amendment agreement with toll, Nolan Tamm architects for the work on the Live Oak Library Annex Project, authorize the deputy CAO director of public works to sign the amendment on behalf of the county and take related actions as recommended by the deputy CAO director of public works. There's also additional materials, revised memo, packet page 2177. That concludes the corrections to the agenda. Thank you. Now we go to item number five for public comment. Any person may address the board once during the public comment, not exceeding two minutes. Comments must be directed to items on today's consent agenda or closed regular session agendas, yet to be heard items on the regular agenda on a topic on today's agenda, but within the, not on today's agenda, but within the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors, I will take not comments now up to 30 minutes. If necessary, additional time will be for public comments will be allowed after the last item on today's regular agenda. I would like to make a couple of comments before I go to the public. If I want to call it to the public's attention, item number 47 to announce that our consent agenda today is an item to advance the county council to the next step on the publicly posted salary schedule. Okay, now would you translate that now, Stephanie, please? I'm sorry. Ahora es el tiempo que la junta de actividad recibirá comentarios del público. Si usaría dar su comento y se ha unido a través de Zoom, por favor localiza el botón de hand y marque de click. Here, si estás en chamber, por favor, y forma una fila en el centro de la edificio, vas a tener dos minutos para hacer sus comentarios y si me ocurre, no se apagará automáticamente. Thank you. Ron? Yes, it is. Okay, great. Good morning, my name is Carol Bjorn. I'm here to make an announcement. CDPH is never going to unmask you all. I'm speaking to the supervisors. I'm speaking to the union members that are here. You guys, if you're waiting for permission, you're never going to be unmasked by the state of California. There's always going to be a new variant. There's always going to be a new booster. This is not going to stop, okay? It's within our power to stop it and we need to stop it today. And all you have to do is follow the money. There was a letter from, well, first of all, I just gave a public records request response from California Department of Public Health. I've given it to you before. There's no isolated SARS-CoV-2 virus. The CDC doesn't have it, neither does CDPH. So you can't say that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes the disease of COVID-19. Therefore, all these mitigation strategies are meaningless. And all you have to do is follow the money. So the head of the CDPH, Thomas Aragon, sent a letter to Gail Newell on March 2nd, 2021. And it was with regards to the COVID-19 ELC enhancing detection and expansion. This was funding of $11 million that covers the time period from January 15th, 2021 to July 31st, 2023, okay? They're already projecting out until 2023 for funding for this. And this was to support testing, case investigation, contact tracing, surveillance, containment and mitigation for a virus that hasn't been isolated. I just wanna ask you all, please today, we really need to stop the propaganda and the lies. We need to really go with strategies that are gonna actually boost the health of the people here. That means breathing fresh air, getting plenty of exercise, vitamin D, eating organic foods and vegetables. Instead of micromanaging everybody's life. Thank you. Thank you. Morning, my name is James Ewing Whitman. I can pretend to be a docile, passive slave by wearing a mask. Maybe my words won't seem that way. You know, anybody can look at these flags that are behind Mr. McPherson. They have gold fringe. Our constitution was destroyed in 1871 when USA became USA Incorporated. So for anybody to think that these members actually support the public, really should learn to inform themselves. You know, I was greeted to a doctor, Tom Cowan, who through the scientific method contacted 135 different organizations to find one isolation of any virus ever. He was able with a couple of physicians to practice the scientific method where maybe a trillion dollars have been spent on the whole virus propaganda. And with $42,000, they determined that it was all basically crap. So we're in pretty dark times, you know. Most of the public thinks that the elected officials are actually doing anything, but they're really not. They are just answering to the city and county administrators who are answering to several layers above them. So this is one of probably the best book that I've gotten in a few years. And it's called The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates written by Matthew J. Trevella. You know, we are all lesser magistrates. Are these individuals actually helping our children with these dictates? What is Western medicine? What is this mask actually doing? There are lots of toxins in these vaccines and they're making a lot of people sick. So thank you for your time. Good morning, my name is Jeanne Casaneva. I'm a juvenile deputy probation officer here in the county. I'm also the founder and program director of the Stegas Youth Soccer Academy. I'm here today to thank the county and the county supervisors and the probation staff for their ongoing support and contributions to the Stegas youth and the program. The Stegas provides opportunities for youth to engage in pro-social activities, community engagement, service project, mentorship and leadership, academic support and of course soccer. We serve the most at risk and vulnerable youth. We recently have come back under the umbrella of the county of Santa Cruz. During the transition and COVID, we've been faced with many challenges and we'd like to acknowledge the community foundation and Santa Cruz for their ongoing grant funding and also the members of Rise Together, all the support that we've received from leaders of color that are also making a great impact in Santa Cruz County. This summer, we had a two week summer soccer camp targeting kids ages six to 14 years old and the most vulnerable. The camp was held at Pajaro Park, Pentalei County Park, we served 196 youth. We had 19 paid position, five college students, 14 high school students and additionally 18 high school volunteers. We had several nonprofits that donated 418 hours, a big thank you to the Freedom Lands Club for providing the campers and high school students yummy food and at the end of the week barbecue. Jacob's heart for donating winter coats, lunch boxes and the COE for donating backpacks filled with school supplies. We could not have, we would like to thank honorable judge Guy and county supervisor, Greg Caput for attending the in-person and supporting the youth in our program. Lastly, the cap could not have been possible without the financial support of the Pajaro Valley Health Trust, Deandre James and staff B on a Rocha. We have funding and a large amount of funding from the Annie Casey Foundation. It is on your consent agenda today. We wanna thank you for this ongoing support for the Azteca's youth program and all the support that you've given to our most vulnerable youth. Thank you. My name is Skyla. This message is completely about safety efficacy of COVID injections. So you can make informed decisions if you were ever faced with the prospect of needing a booster shot to participate in society. This 1976 swine flu vaccine caused before it was pulled off the market, less than 50, less than 50 deaths and they pulled that vaccine off the market because it was not safe. Do you know how many have been reported from the COVID-19 vaccine to VAERS over 19,000 deaths? And we are still pushing this on our children and our adults to participate in society. As a mom, as a small business owner, as a member of our community, we need to make change happen. We are relying on you people here to make choices that affect us all. We know that this is a money game. We know that there is a trail that everybody can follow. We see where it goes. We have to make change happen. Debate and conversation are parts of a healthy culture. Censorship and marginalization are not. Please open a public discussion with local experts so citizen councils can present you with nothing but scientific evidence. We have the evidence to show that these vaccines are harming our children to make them mandatory to go to school, to make it mandatory to wear masks is harming us all. You are putting our children and people's lives at risk by allowing them to take this vaccine. And we will be holding every person here accountable for your actions. Thank you. Hi, Kristen Hurley here. I've done a lot of research in the last couple of months last year plus, but at least in the last few weeks, I've been educating myself about the disgusting relationship that's going on in this country, nationwide, statewide, and countywide, the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and government and government officials like you guys that take money from the pharmaceutical industry to promote your agendas of mass vaccination campaigns, propaganda, et cetera. We're all becoming aware of all of this. It's unacceptable. The government is of and by us, the people, not for you guys to decide what you think is best for us and you represent us. So I just can't help but say shame on every single one of you for participating in what's been going on, for restricting and discriminating against my children, masking my children in school, segregating my children because they're not in compliance and this group's okay and that group's not okay for all of you to go along with it and to take money and use that against our families and us, we the people, is just sickening and we've all totally had it. So shame on every single one of you for allowing it to happen. You represent us. You guys are supposed to be the barrier between if they're shenanigans at the state level or shenanigans at the national level that you know is wrong, you guys are meant to be the shield for us in this community and not go along with it. And what do you do? You allow your public health officer to make us the laughing stock of the nation and only people they have to mask up in their own homes as somebody else from another house comes in their home. That's national news. You know that everyone in other states who don't have crazy mask laws and all this stuff think we're just so beyond outer space. It just, it makes us look, makes you guys look like jokes for allowing that to happen. It's clearly not public policy. It's disgusting, shame on you. Good morning members of the Board of Supervisors, Karen and Colby, proud organizer for SCIU Local 521. You know, it's the holiday season and families are getting together and they're trying to decide who's been naughty and who's been nice. And I hate to tell you, but your management has been very, very naughty. Essential services are understaffed and our community is suffering as a result. Our members are now four months without a contract and your management is to blame. So Carlos, we know you've been naughty, but we're hoping your Board of Supervisors is gonna be nice. My name is Natisha Williams. I'm a policy planner for the county and also a steward for my union. Today I'll be reading a statement from one of my coworkers, Sheila Bagley, who was not able to be here this morning. I'm an urban planner with more than seven years of experience and a master's degree in city planning. I was hired by the county of Santa Cruz on February 2019 just under two weeks before the SIP for the planner three position. Before this, I used to work for the city of Sunnyvale as a planner for about five years. For the last two years of my employment with Sunnyvale, I was very exhausted from commuting to, from San Lorenzo to the Sunnyvale area. So I decided to look for opportunities in the Santa Cruz area. I took a pay cut by accepting the planner three position here, but I convinced myself that it would be better than spending two hours every day commuting to and from work. However, with the already lower salary and the seven and a half percent furlough, I accumulated a large amount of debt and I'm unable to catch up on the cost of living. My husband and I pay more than 8,000 every year to the county for our property taxes. We love living here, but we cannot pay for it by our wages working for this county. I recently got a job offered to go back to the city of Sunnyvale to my old job. This is a lateral move. However, it pays $10 more than my current hourly pay, which means about 30,000 additional gross income annually. And since teleworking has become an option, it's a no-brainer to accept the Sunnyvale offer. And in addition to Sheila's statement, I would like to add in a department that's already understaffed. One less planner means fewer applications processed and a longer permit process time for the public, delaying the construction of new businesses and housing that this county desperately needs. We're literally losing coworkers because Santa Cruz County public servants cannot afford to live in the community they serve. This is not right and we will not stand for it any longer. Good morning supervisors. My name is Diana Verastica. I'm a benefits representative with HSD. I'm here today because I am angry at the long standing negligence of clients in our community. I can't pick one story out of a hundred of clients that I have assisted over the past month. Many of our clients are single parents, farm workers, students and seniors who are struggling to meet their needs. These clients are going without essential benefits because their approvals are being delayed. These delays are being caused by an influx of applications, limited staffing and changes to procedurals. Many of the times our clients are on hold for hours only to be told to call back the next day because it's the end of the day and staff is limited and we are unable to assist them. As a worker and resident of the County of Santa Cruz for over 30 years, I am asking you to show leadership and give me and my coworkers a fair contract now so that we are able to provide essential services for those that need them the most. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Raeanne Jimenez. I'm a work with HSA in the SUD department and specifically I do street outreach. In 2020, COVID-19 began to spread in Santa Cruz along with the virus and illness came fear as people were required to stay home in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Our economy also suffered. During that time, Santa Cruz County employees were given a 7.5% furlough, which of course means 7.5% reduction in our income. At the same time, we were asked to continue to serve our County and our community and keep vital services operating, and we did. While many people were staying home, while many people were staying home, County frontline workers continued to do the same work that we always do. In fact, we increased the work we were doing. We were tasked with serving the vulnerable citizens of Santa Cruz County. We continued to provide health, mental health and substance use disorder services, homeless services and much more. While others were wiping down the mail in their groceries before bringing them in their house, we were face-to-face with vulnerable citizens in our community. People who didn't always have access to sanitizing products and some of them even running water. We educated those community members on how to stay safe. We gave them masks and hand sanitizers. We took tests and vaccines to homeless encampments. Again and again, we provided these services. We made certain these services continued because we believe in serving our community. We were called upon to work during a once in a century pandemic and we did the job with a 7.5% reduction in our income. The County continued to provide services because we continued to provide services. We, the employees of Santa Cruz County continued to provide the services during this pandemic. During a pandemic that has not stopped and arguably has not slowed. Please complete your sentence. All the while the funding for the added services has ended. The pandemic has not, the work we are doing has not stopped nor has the need for these vital services. Now it's time for the County to stand up for us. Stand up for a fair contract if you believe that what we do matters. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I hope I can make it through the mask. This is a momentous occasion. My name is Pauline Seals. This is a momentous occasion. A worker action has prompted a huge support from several community groups including the Sierra Club. For the climate action community, this is an essential pivot point which is turning us towards a level future. We all know that climate change will affect everyone but especially the lower paid employees and their families. After the devastating CZU fires and the days when the air was barely breathable, we all know that climate change is already here and science clearly says that it will get much, much worse unless we act very quickly. Outdoor workers especially will be suffering increasing problems due to excessive heat and changeable climate conditions. There is a monstrous injustice in that the people least responsible will be bearing the heaviest burdens. This is true locally and globally. We all need to act as quickly as possible and the help of local governments is essential. We appreciate there are ongoing efforts by the County but unfortunately they are completely inadequate for this crisis. For maximum effectiveness of future climate effort, the planners need to consult with the workers and that is exactly what SCIU is asking for. They are also asking for better pay, staffing and working conditions. This too is only right. Please negotiate with SCIU. Thank you. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Felipe Hernandez, I'm from Watsonville and I'm here in support of County workers. I have many friends and family from Watsonville that work for the County. County workers deserve better pay and they deserve a fair contract. It's time to negotiate now. After working through the pandemic, through the CCU fires, all workers want is to reach an agreement that provides a cost of living adjustment, better health benefits and equity in our County. We need to respect our County workers. They have sacrificed so much as essential workers the last several years. They work through recessions, furloughs, pandemics, fires and respect begins with a fair contract and better paying. Let's honor our County workers and negotiate a fair contract now. Thank you. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Veronica Velasquez. I'm a senior social worker for the Department of Family and Children Services, HSD. And I also serve as a chapter president for our membership here. You heard this morning from my peers as well as community activists who stand in solidarity with us as we negotiate this contract. And I'm here to let you know that our membership spoke loud and clear and they voted yes on a strike vote to authorize the bargaining team to call a strike. Good morning, Supervisors. It's nice to see you all again. My name is Rico Mendes and I'm the proud Chief Elected Officer of SCIU Local 521. 52,000 members across 17 California counties from San Mateo County in the North to Bakersfield in the South and proud to represent the SCIU members here at Santa Cruz County. Now, there's some important things that we're gonna have to discuss together. I think this board may not know the feeling of what it's like to rescue a child from a dangerous situation as an emergency service response social worker. But this county cannot retain those positions, hurting really families in need and children. You may not know the pride felt by our behavioral health workers behind me that support a fellow Santa Cruz community member to help them make it through their addiction. Sometimes it's many months of therapy or years and see them get a new lease on life. But these workers do know what that feels like or the dedication of a roads worker that knows that the ability for us to be able to get back home or avoid a flood or get out of a fire demands their responsibility to move 12 ton trees out of the road so we can do that. I stood alongside workers just like these workers here in Santa Cruz in Santa Clara County in 2019 and helped lead the largest strike in the United States of America at that time. Now we were much farther away at the table than you are here today with these Santa Cruz workers. That is a avoidable situation for us here. They voted almost 80%, 82% of the entire voting population of this chapter voted to authorize a strike. We don't have to go there. This board is only 2.5% away in raises across three years from a deal as well as a commitment of course to go carbon neutral by 2030. That's how close we are. But these workers are ready to fight and they're unafraid. You know, we have children in our community. We represent aging and adult services, emergency response, community vaccination, support for the unsheltered, behavioral health, addiction treatment, mental health to work and provide to this community. U5 are the only ones that have the power to give new direction so that we can get to a deal and avoid a strike. But we are ready to fight. Thank you. We would rather work together with you but instead do not force us to go on strike if there's a deal to be had. Thank you very much. We'll have 10 more minutes of public comment before we go to our regular agenda. So go ahead, please. Can I come? My name is Crancelani. I'm from Brazil. My mother was walking and celebrate her birthday in June until she's got this pyramid COVID vaccine. I was like a bomb on her body. When my mommy got these bomb experiment coronavirus, she stopped to walk like at 16 years old from St. Paul who's died too. You can say, oh, my mother because she was just turned 74 but how about the 16 years old? How about the 12 years old in the United States? And then I went to July to speak to her doctor. He was talking to me fine until I brought it up about the COVID vaccine and he's walking away from me and let me talk by myself. Now I'm back to United States because I'm American in the States. I vote too. And I haven't been here a lot of American doctors who's not afraid to speak up. The truth about this pyramidal drug. People too, it's not necessary for children. I heard the doctors say, extremely slow, extremely for the COVID. Why inject this pyramidal drug on the children? Do you guys want to make a day die like my mother? She's passed away in September because of this cold experiment drug. Can you understand what I'm saying? I'm Ann Swedberg and I've been in the county for over 35 years. And I'm really upset that all of you have just allowed Gail Newell to just decide for you and for us, you're not voting on any of this. She is just deciding what the dictates and mandates are gonna be. So I feel like you have just abdicated your role as our representatives. You're not representing us. You're allowing one person to decide about masks, masks in our home, which is unconstitutional, and masks on children, masks anywhere. It's just appalling that you have given up your representative abilities. Well, you are our representatives. You're supposed to decide. And you're allowing Gail Newell, one doctor, to decide the mandates and all this vaccine stuff that we all have to abide by. And at least with representatives, we hope that we get represented. I feel that you have really given away your role as our representatives. I'm against any mandates, any mask mandates, any vaccine mandates. I agree with what this poor woman said. There are a lot of adverse reactions to these vaccines. Children should not be coerced and parents should have a right to say yes or no, whether they want their children masked or vaccinated. So I just asked that you would do as what you should do and let people live freely and not be mandating these things. Thank you. Chairman, supervisors, you've been given information before about Dr. Charles Lieber. He was the virology head of Harvard University. He went to jail for building the Wuhan lab. He got million and a half dollars right off, $50,000 a month and all kinds of other perks. He's already out of jail. It was in fact, Marie Strong who founded the Agenda 21 in Rio that called for the United States heading up a secret society to break it down and to walk out. That Agenda 21 was accepted by you. In fact, it was Sam Farr and Bruce McPherson at a futures rally or a DELFA program in the area of Monterey in which both the Apaharonian and the Times said was run like a fascist wood in Germany. California forward, Bruce McPherson is a member. It was founded by Leon Tanetta who gave military and policy information to the red Chinese. That communist spy was Hugh Del Lacy in which you have honoring out there on the courthouse steps. We heard about the community foundation by one speaker earlier. It was Margaret Lopez appointed by news releases by Carlos Palacios. I tried to drop off this book. Coronavirus were dummies and he's instructed his people not to accept anything. He's the one that killed one third of the businesses in this county and other ones are hanging on by their teeth. You need to get rid of this information. I mean, you need to get information. You need a whole public hearing on this. And you talk about Willie Brown's involvement. California forward says 8% of local governments should be done. Willie Brown called for 100%. And that's Kamala Harris' girlfriend for a while. But you're destroying self-government. Happy birthday, Gary. Hi, I'm here to speak in opposition of Governor Newsom's mandate for children to be vaccinated to attend school in person. Children do not die of COVID. The vaccine is much more dangerous to them than COVID. Right now, children are dying from the vaccine. Seven-year-olds are having strokes, heart attacks. You'll soon be seeing more of this. Your allegiance is to us, the voters. Your allegiance is not to the money you're getting to enforce these mandates. We put you in those seats. We can take you out. You need to listen to us, the parents. Thank you. Hi, I'm Kathleen Wolfsfeld. I'm a parent and I'm a healthcare worker. And I'm just here to speak out against the mandate for the vaccine for the children in the schools. As my friend just spoke about, there's children having strokes, heart attacks, myocarditis. The mainstream media doesn't wanna talk about it much at all, but if you watch alternative news or read alternative websites, they'll tell you all about it and it's really sad. I read a study yesterday from Germany that they did a study and that not one child had died from the actual virus of COVID. But of course, children are dying from the vaccine, from having spontaneous brain bleeds and clotting at a pulmonary embolism or whatever is happening to these poor kids. And I just think it's outrageous that it's possible that our kids might be mandated to get this scary vaccine to even attend school. And for me and my family, we're against the vaccine because we don't trust it. And we're watching the science of what's happening to some unfortunate children and their families. And obviously, parents don't want their children to be hurt by the vaccine. They think they're protecting them, but we're here to let you know that hundreds of parents in our county are against this mandate. They're just not able to be here today. I've seen them at other protests that we've had recently and don't be fooled by the lack of people here today. There's hundreds of people in this county that are against the mandates. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have three more speakers and then we're gonna have to move to our regular agenda. Go ahead, please. Good morning. My name is Brie Paling. I come here to share some information regarding the mass mandate and how ineffective it actually is. Most studies found little to no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks in general population, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. A German professor in biology, epidemiology and hygiene found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks and that the proper daily use of masks by the public may in fact lead to an increase in infections. Increasing evidence shows that COVID is transmitted by small aerosols. Due to their large pore size and poor fit cloth masks cannot fit, filter out aerosols. British medical journal found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use. In fact, the who admitted to BBC in June of last year that their mass policy was due not to new evidence but political lobbying. As analysis by the US CDC found that 85% of people and affected with the new coronavirus reported wearing a mask always or often. In most states, corona infections increase after mass mandates. Here is a California chart. As you can see, infection spiked after mass mandate. Furthermore, looking at other states who did not oppose mass mandates in comparison to those that did showed very little difference in infection rates. COVID has always been and always will be a part of our lives. We now live, we now have vaccines and boosters available to those who want to receive them. We have treatments that better handle and decrease hospitalization of those infected. Vaccinated or not, you can contract and spread COVID. This pandemic has become endemic and will forever will be with us. Variants will appear. There is no such thing as life, COVID free. Thank you. Four speakers here, then we have some Zoom, people on Zoom that we want to allow to speak to. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Zuba Gutierrez. I am a healthcare worker from San Mateo County. The reason why I came all the way from San Mateo County is to remind you that the workers are the ones that make the County run. You guys get the big paychecks but it's the workers that actually provide the services to the community and that community votes for you. Second of all, I'd like to say it is extremely disrespectful. These two gentlemen on my left have been on their phones quite a bit when people take time off the work. They, it's really hard to speak in public and you all don't have this time to pay attention to what they say whether you agree with them or not because that won't be with these people. But right, you should still listen and be respectful. This is just to remind you that the County workers, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, all our counties stand beside them. So I would really urge you to start negotiating fairly because it's purple tide. Thank you. Good morning, James Wolter. I come here as a fatherless father. Okay, I see that. Because I don't have my own children and I see, yet I see everyone else's child who has my own, okay? Everyone else is sitting up here telling you guys everything that you already know, okay? I'm gonna break something down for you. You're all complacent in this bullshit, your names, your addresses, everything will be put out there, okay? Remember the Nuremberg trials, your own notice every fucking last one. Just watch the language, thank you. Let's see, we have only two more. If they can make it very briefly, then we wanna go to Zoom, please make a brief. My name is Jessica Soto and I am here as a mother and an active participant in this community. And I just wanna know what you all are doing to actually be there for us as a community. You've got homeless people sitting on the streets on top of each other in tents. Yet you want to inject my daughter who's seven years old just to go to school and have a public education. There are so many hypocrisies in this town that it's just absolutely mind boggling. And like she said, you on your phone, you fall in asleep, you barely paying attention. You said you were gonna change things when we elected you and I haven't seen anything done. I mean the absolute madness and the fact that we have to sit here and try to protect our children against you is disgusting. This is absolute ridiculous, disgusting behavior and none of you are doing anything about it. Gail Newell is not the epitome of health and for me to take any advice from her is bullshit. So I just wanna say that you guys really need to think about what you're doing and protect our kids because you're not getting any younger and there are future. Hello, I'm Karsta Jensen and I haven't been here in a while because I feel like no one really listens to us anyway. I've been fighting these mandates for years. It seems like we're just silenced, no one cares. Everyone's getting their pockets filled by big pharma and whoever. I am completely against the mandates. I've pulled my kid out of public school for two years now. This is the second year he wants to be back in school. I don't want him sitting there in a mask all day. It makes him sick, it's not healthy. I'm completely against these mandates. I want you guys to listen to the parents. There's thousands. Someone said something about hundreds. I think there's thousands of parents in this county who are against this and we want to be heard. And we're almost going to leave the state. Like you guys don't care. You'd rather have homeless everywhere but we're gonna be out of here. I'm born and raised. My grandparents moved here 55 years ago and here I am in my hometown trying to keep my kids safe and happy with this bullshit. This is crazy. You've got to leave our kids alone and just stop this madness. Stop listening to these people. Look at all the other states. All these other states are not following Newsom. Newsom is a complete idiot. So listen to us. Thank you. We will go from now to the Zoom calls. Go ahead. Good morning chair and supervisors. My name is Maria Cadenas. I'm the executive director of Ventures and I'm grateful for your support of item 32 and the consent agenda. As an organization interested in building an equitable economy, Ventures recognizes the value of a representative government and how this can affect economic decisions. The report is Santa Cruz like me was inspired by efforts at the state level to ensure the diversity of our government reflects the diversity of our state. I appreciate your consideration for recommendations and look forward to conversations that ensure the voices of everybody are heard and brought into our boards and commissions at the county level. Thank you again for everything that you do for our county and your support of the work that we're doing through Ventures. Bill Newell, your microphone is available. Good morning. I am here to address the vaccine anniversary, the one year anniversary of the availability of COVID-19 vaccines. But first of all, I'd like to say that I do listen to public comment and appreciate public comment immensely and our freedom of speech. I also value compassion and would hope that our community members look into this liar. We are human beings as well and doing our very best to be public servants. So as I mentioned this month marks the one year anniversary that COVID-19 vaccines became available. I wanna thank the board for acknowledging this momentous anniversary with the proclamation recognizing Santa Cruz County community partners for their pandemic vaccination efforts. To date, 203,962 county residents have received at least one dose of vaccine accounting for nearly 75% of our population. The proclamation lists the many community partners that made this extraordinary accomplishment possible. Of course, a one page proclamation can't list every agency or capture all the hours of tireless work that goes into rolling out a vaccine during a global pandemic. But in broad categories, I'm grateful to our healthcare systems, our community-based organizations, our education system, my team and public health and all the other groups and individuals who played key roles from organizing mass facts clinics to doing one-on-one outreach to our community from helping those without technology to make vaccine appointments to providing innovative ideas to encourage young adults to get their shot. A lot of work goes unnoticed by the community and when we do our jobs well, that's how it should be. Thank you again. Joan Goldman, your microphone is available. Hello. We can hear you. Okay. This is my first meeting attending and I would like to know I'm addressing the item number 17 on the agenda regarding the Pippin project. Is this the appropriate time to give my input? No, that's on the regular agenda. Item number 17 is at the end of the day. It probably will be in the afternoon before, we will be in the afternoon before we get that to that. Okay. And you'll take comments from the community at that time. Yes. Thank you very much. I couldn't get the answer earlier. I'll see you this afternoon. Y'all have a good lunch. Thank you. Thank you. SNC, your microphone is available. Hey, my name is Soracha and I'm a parent in Santa Cruz County. I work for MediCal and just to let you know that we're not gonna comply with your COVID mandates and as a Board of Supervisors, you need to stand up for the human and constitutional rights of all, not some of the people in Santa Cruz County. That includes you, Gail Newell. Stand up for the freedoms of our citizens or you can stand down as you have failed in your duty to protect the rights of the people of Santa Cruz. Stop the ridiculous mandates in school. We're removing our child from the public school system and good riddance to it because it's just a tyrannical government camp of a public school that teaches our kids to be slaves to the system and comply with the ridiculous mandates that's currently in place. We should have removed our child sooner to be honest and we didn't, but we are gonna do it now. As the residents of Santa Cruz County, we will be holding all the members of the Board of Supervisors and Gail Newell accountable for every person murdered in this county because of the COVID mandates that you have put in place. So I call on the Board of Directors to remove all the mandates from the county today and remember that we will remember how you deal with these mandates. We will remember it into the future and the whole Board of Directors, Board of Supervisors is corrupt, the state government is corrupt, Gail Newell is corrupt and the national government is corrupt. Thank you. Kathleen, your microphone is available. Second call for Kathleen. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, thank you. I wanted to ask all of you, including Gail Newell, what it will take to stop putting profits over people to see that you are being allocated over $11 million from the California Department of Public Health for the enhancing detection expansion which includes containment, surveillance, contact tracing, mitigation, testing, and then almost $3 million from the CDC for your immunization branch. If anyone looks at the CDC Foundation who heavily funds the CDC, it's basically funding from military banking, tech and pharma. So I wanna ask, you've heard a lot of voices here today and not everyone can make these meetings, but when is the charade going to end? I want Gail Newell to look at the rate of suicide and attempted suicide in our children today. Also, the masking indoors recommendation is such a joke because people who know her personally know that her Sunday dinners go mask free. And so I just wanna know when the script reading is going to end and when you're actually going to listen to the people and do something about this, heavily funded propaganda campaign of fear. And you have the suffering of our children being suffocated and forced to learn at home. We see what's happening in other counties with the mandates, the requirement to attend school needing the gene therapies. We should stop calling these vaccines. These are not vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna are gene therapies. And we have very limited data to know about their safety also for the longterm. And right now they're collecting data to see how these gene therapies affect pregnant women and the unborn fetus. We don't have enough data to be promoting these with the billions of dollars being spent on pushing these out on the population. It is just shameful. And I was brought to tears today listening to people speak up for themselves and their families. And we will pull out and we will hold you accountable. Thank you. This is the last speaker, call in user two. Your microphone is available as a reminder to star six to unmute. Hi, this is Marilyn Garrett. And repeatedly, including this morning's factual and moving testimony from the public. You've been urged to truly represent the public well-being and to stop big pharma and big telecom corporate dictatorship. About two years ago, I provided you copies of the International Appeal to stop 5G on earth and in space. And I called on you to help stop the 5G. Instead, you've mandated deadly radiation. I wanna recommend WesternAprice.org for this triple titled Miss and Truth About COVID-19 Contagious Virus or Microwave Technology. COVID-19 and the 5G connection only till you cut me off rudely. Many epidemiological observations from biological studies indicate that the disease called COVID-19 is actually radiation poisoning caused by exposure to microwave used in 5G wireless technology. The biology COVID-19 and radiation injury, the symptoms are the same. Fever, chills and drive cough, loss of taste and smell, reddening of the extremities, acute respiratory distress syndrome, multi-organ hypercoagulation, hypoxia, lack of oxygen, cardiovascular damage. COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan's China when the city turned on 10,005G base stations. It spread in quotes to Spain and Italy as these nations deployed 5G technology. Please complete the comment. WesternAprice.org for this Miss and Truth About COVID-19. Thank you. There are no additional speakers. Okay, we'll go to the board to discuss action on the Consent Agenda items. Vice-Chair Cronig. Yes, thank you, Chair. On item 32, I wanna thank Santa Cruz Community Ventures for this survey and report a Santa Cruz like me. It's, I'll just say it's always challenging to find people to serve on commissions. And I do think that ultimately getting a more representative group of people to serve on those commissions is gonna require the actual way that we engage with the public and more focus groups. And I look forward to working on that in the future. To that end, on item 38, I wanna thank Yadira Flores Martinez for volunteering to serve on the Latino Affairs Commission for District One. On item 39, I hope my colleagues will join me and Supervisor McPherson in asking Senator Laird to help us create this new tool for transit-oriented development based on the latest Rena numbers coming down from the state. We're gonna have a lot of housing to build and we're gonna need tools like this so that we can get good public transit to support that new housing. On item 52, I wanna thank OR3 for the After Action Report for the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire. And on item 81, accepting grant money from California Coastal Conservancy and the California Department of Parks for North Coast Facilities and Management Plan. This is a fantastic opportunity. But I do think that it demonstrates the need for natural resources manager in our parks department. And that's all my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, if anybody was interested in seeing the kind of work that the county does, the consent agenda really is a significant view of that today. But just in the interest of time, I'm gonna pass on my Canadian additional comments other than just appreciating all these county departments work on these issues. Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments. One, I just wanna record a no vote on item 24. Item number 70, the Nurse Family Partnership Program. This is a really exciting development to continue to expand this great program. Zach Friend and I brought this idea to the county many years ago. And I wanna appreciate the Health Services Department for really finding additional money, scaling up, and the public health nurses that are doing a great job reaching out to first-time low-income moms and their babies. And we've had a couple of graduations and it's just an amazing program. And I wanna appreciate all the effort that's gone into building and growing that program that's gonna have a generational impact in Santa Cruz. Item number 73, which is a deferral on SSP litter pickup. I just wanna make clear that I'm disappointed that we're having yet another deferral and that when this program comes back in February, I expect to have an active reporting system up and going to address what is a real impact in this community on both the environment and the public's ability to access public spaces, beaches and beyond. And so I just, I'll vote for this referral today, but I expect that there will be a program in place when this comes back in February. Item number 76 through 79, which is homeless funding. I just wanna thank staff for keeping these vital programs going and keeping some of our COVID shelters up and going. I also very much appreciate the additional rental assistance to prevent homelessness. It's great when we can be proactive and keep people in their homes. I'd like to see benchmarks at the next housing for health update to the board and see the progress we're making with these various programs in terms of getting people housed or keeping people in their housing. And then finally on item number 81, the North Coast planning ground. I'd like to thank staff for their efforts to obtain this grant and for working with our office on this issue. It's a big deal and beginning the process to manage increased tourism on the North Coast and reduce the impacts. It's, I appreciate the leadership and effort to engage with stakeholders in the community. Thank you, Supervisor Caput. Thanks. Just two quick, three quick comments. Item 61, it's good to see the heaters will be replaced with new heaters at the county main jail. It's long overdue. And then item 69, the refrigeration for vaccines. That's good to see that we have that now in place. And at the beginning of the vaccines when we were giving them out, there was a problem there with the refrigeration and it's good that we're finally up to date on that. And then on page 2417, on our agenda packet, there's a misplaced comma. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of things. One thing that's not on the consent agenda I might have mentioned before, I'd like to announce that the California State Association of Counties has issued two merit awards to Santa Cruz County, treating addiction through peer mentors through our health and human services department and the county's operational plan strategy into action in the area of government finance, administration and technology. So that's great news. On the consent agenda, I too would cast a no vote to be consistent. That is on redistricting. So I'd be on item number 24. On item 32, as was mentioned, I want to thank our clerk of the board, Stephanie Carrera and others who provided that report on Santa Cruz like me. I'd like to add, provide additional direction on this item to direct staff, the former working committee has outlined in the first recommendation of that report to make a progress report to the board of supervisors in six months, which would be in May of 2022. Again, as Supervisor Koenig mentioned, working with him in his proposal for non-tax transit fees, it would allow Santa Cruz County to be a leader in developing a program that would allow dense housing developments to that lower parking requirements if they are built along transit corridors. We'd like to work with the partnership with the planning department in Metro to see how this could be best implemented. And as incoming chair of the Metro next year, I'll put this item before the Metro Board in January as requested by Senator John Laird. On the items of 52, the CZU after action summary, I'd like to thank all the county employees and partners who came together to respond to the CZU fire last year, first of all, especially in light of the fact that it occurred in the middle of the pandemic. We're still very much in recovery mode in that and we're going to support, continue our support to our fire survivors and their efforts to rebuild. One thing not mentioned in the report, but something that is worth pointing out is the work of our assessor and auditor at the tax collector offices to adjust property tax bills after the CZU fire for calamity reductions. By October 15th of last year, those offices were responsible for reducing the tax assessment on 714 properties. So thank you to the staff for that work and the work that you continue to do with our fire survivors related to their taxes. On items 53, four and five, I want to thank both the office of response, recovery and resilience for its pursuit of the state and federal grant funds for our efforts to prepare for as well as prevent wildfires and other emergencies that may come about. Also on the ADU programs on number 85, I want to thank the planning department for this report. It's good to have an understanding of how our efforts to incentivize and creation of the ADUs to have impacted our affordable housing stock. So with that, I'd close public comment or comment from the board. Is there any public comment on the consent items? You already had public comment on the consent. Yes, okay. It was a long haul. Yeah. Mr. Chair, I'll move consent with the additional direction on your item and as well as acknowledging the two recorded no votes on the other item. Okay. I'll second the, thank you. Call the roll please. Pardon me, Supervisor. If I may please take that as two separate votes to do items 21 through 100 with the exception of 24 and then do a separate vote on item 24. Okay. Okay. Do you need me to make a new motion then Madam Clerk? If you're okay with that being the motion, I can just take the first and the second if they're both okay with it. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So this is for items 21 through 100 with the exception of 24. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. The second vote is for item 24. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. No. Caput. Aye. McPherson. No. Thank you. Motion passes three, two. On the, I just, I'm sorry that this is not an 85. There's one comment that on the housing advisory commission, I'd like to have them weigh in on the specific question about whether to close our fee waiver program. I don't know if we'd have to take a separate vote on that. If I just staff recommends a planning to work with the commission to develop a new ADU incentives program. And I'd like to see the fee waiver program to be part of that discussion rather than vote on and close it today. So I would like to maybe, I don't know if I just didn't get to that. So you could solicit a motion from your colleagues to reopen the consent agenda to address that one item. And if that motion passes, then you can reconsider the item. I do apologize for that. It's item number 85 on ADU programs. I'd just like to have the advice, housing advisory commission weigh in on the specific question of whether to close our fee waiver program. I'll move to reopen the consent agenda. Second. Second by community. Okay, any questions? Do you want, what do I do? It's 85. 85? Yes. It's about the fee waiver program. The housing advisory committee didn't really have a chance to look at it. So let's have the clerk call the roll for that motion. There's a motion and a second. Okay, go ahead. Okay. To reconsider action on the consent calendar calendar, Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Just as a, we're not reconsidering the entire consent calendar. Aren't we just considering reopening item 85? Correct. Okay. Aye. Sorry. Koenig? Aye. Caput? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. My apologies. Okay, we will go to our regular agenda. No, so Supervisor, so now you would discuss item 85 and what it is that you're asking. Okay. And then there'll be another motion. Okay. Just to move item 85 with the additional direction that the fee waiver should be sent to the How's the advisory commission? How's the advisory committee? Well, the current recommendations to the advisory committee is to close it to new applicants. So we have to modify the recommended actions on that letter in order to remand it to them for consideration. So then. Sorry. All right. So I'll take a shot at it. So on item 85, we will move recommended action one and two, which is considered the status report and adopt a resolution extending the fee waiver program through the current fiscal year. And an item three will modify it to not close the forgivable loan program to new applicants, but rather it just to in consultation with the housing advisory commission to have them both consider the current program and look at alternative proposals for our consideration later than April of 2022. Yes. Well said, certainly better said than I did, but thank you. Appreciate it. So do we need that motion on that then? Well, I took that as a motion by Supervisor Friend and now it would be appropriate for someone to second that. I seconded it. Thanks. Okay. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. This is unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We will vote our regular agenda. Item number seven, public hearing to consider resolution approving amendments to the United fee schedule as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer as a resolution revising the United fee schedule and the 2021-22 mid-year unified fee schedule updates. Good morning members of the board. I'm Rita Sanchez from the County Administrative Office. Twice each year in June and December, the board adopts amendments to the unified fee schedule. On November 16th of 2021, the board set a public hearing for today for the latest proposed amendments. They are revisions from general services, parks, planning, probation and the public works departments and the recorders and the Sheriff's Coroner's Office. For answer any questions, it is recommended that the board open the public hearing for comment, close the public hearing and then adopt the resolution revising the unified fee schedule. Any further comments? No. Any comments from the board? I just- Congratulations. Thank you, Chair. Just one question. I noticed with the Davenport and Freedom we're charging a per fixture fee, but not for Boulder Creek. I was just wondering what the discrepancy was there. I'm sorry, we're not charging a per-gallon fee with Boulder Creek, but we are for Davenport and Freedom. Well, it's my understanding that these fees were already in place. For some reason they were removed off of the public UFS site, so all we're doing is reinstating fees that were already in place, but I can have an answer for you on that difference of why not that one station. Okay, thank you. Any comments from supervisors? No. Any public comment? Yeah, good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. You know, I was able to glance through the items on agenda item seven. See, I didn't see anything that was glaring that fees were gonna increase to a hundred or a thousand fold, so it seems pretty regular. But no one yet in the public comments has mentioned that today over 2,400 pages are being gone over and the consent agenda items are 1,760 pages. Now, I tried several times starting on Friday afternoon to download the 214 megabytes and I wasn't able to. So it's two binders outside and I wanted to be able to go through this stuff with more detail, but anyway, life goes on. Nice to see you guys and have a great holiday because we're not gonna be seeing each other till 2022. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, board. Ken Tedler from the Department of Public Works. I wanted to answer Supervisor Koenig's question about the per gallon charge not being in the Boulder Creek. That's because Freedom and Davenport have businesses, whereas CSA 7 up in Boulder Creek doesn't have businesses. So we typically charge the per gallon charge for commercial properties and businesses and not on residential properties. Thank you for that explanation. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. I'm a resident of the Aptos Hills. An issue that I have had with the fee schedule that the county has adopted is the cost for any Public Records Act requests when the material is so large that it cannot be sent via email. It gets put on a USB a couple of years ago. The county adopted, in my opinion, a prohibitively expensive cost for a simple thumb drive of, it's between $25 and $27. That, to my knowledge, has not been changed. I would request that your board lower that USB fee. They don't cost that much. And for many like me who aren't a fixed income and are simply trying to find information that is not available otherwise and are resigned to having to file Public Records Act requests, this fee is prohibitive, can be prohibitive in getting the information that we have requested. So please examine the cost that the county charges for USB or Public Records Act requests and put it to a more reasonable amount. It costs about $4. For the county to charge residents between $25 and $27 is not realistic, not fair, and cost prohibitive too many. Thank you. Any other public comments? Anything? There are no speakers on Zoom. Entertain a motion to approve. All move to approve. Second. All the role, please. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Caput? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Item number eight is consider adopting ordinance to amend Santa Cruz County Section 2.88040 relating to responsibilities of the Deferred Compensation Advisory Commission to include coordination of the County's 401A Deferred Contribution Plan as part of the administrative responsibility of the County's Deferred Compensation Advisory Commission and take the County Administrative Officer and ordinance amending Santa Cruz County Section 2.88.040. Santa Cruz County Section 2.880.40, there's a strikeout and underline of that. Is that that? Good morning, yes. Me again, Rita Sanchez, kind of administrative office and I'm here with Enrique Sagoon, risk manager. We're here this morning with an ordinance to amend Santa Cruz County Code Section 2.88.040. These changes are related to the responsibilities of the Deferred Compensation Advisory Commission. Currently the commission holds administrative responsibility for the 457 Deferred Compensation Plan and the recommended changes to the County Code would add clarifying language to include administration of County 401A plans. And we're here to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Questions from the public? There are no speakers on Zoom. Entertain a motion on item number eight. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, Mr. President, unanimously. Going to item number nine, consider adopting ordinance repealing, replacing, adding and amending chapters with Title VI of the County Code Animals and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officers. We have an adopted resolution and then several strikeouts that there are about 10 of them. And the Title VI strikeout October, 2021 attachment O and an ordinance amending the Santa Cruz County Code relating to animals. Thank you for being here today. Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Melanie Solbel. I'm the general manager of the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. And with me today is field services Supervisor Todd Stose. Thank you so much for the opportunity to present this proposed ordinance to you. I would like to thank also Jason Heath, who was our County Council back in 2018 when we started this process. And he really was great keeping us, plotting us along and supporting us. So thank you so much. I also want to thank Rita Medina from the CAO's office and Nicole Colburn for the CAO's office. This process has been a long time coming. I know my predecessors have worked on it as well. As you know, we are not a County department. We are a joint powers authority, meaning that we contract out with the five different jurisdictions in Santa Cruz County have our own separate board. On October 18th of 2021, the latest proposed draft that's presented to you was approved by the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter Board. The different attachments, it's a little confusing, but we had, of course, attachment A is the resolution. Attachment B through N is what was approved by the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter Board in February of 2020, which was our first draft. It was approved, it was slated to go to your board. There were several concerns that were brought up by the community and it was decided that it was pulled. And then Todd and myself did extensive outreach with community members. It was a little challenging because it was right before COVID. So we couldn't have open community meetings, but we did have several Microsoft teams and Zoom meetings with representatives from different constituents, primarily from South County, the agricultural business. And Todd Stose did the majority of the work on that outreach. So just the reason why we had this unified animal ordinance is so important. And we previously had called it a model ordinance. We changed it to unified animal ordinance because it's really about creating one comprehensive best practices ordinance that can be enforced countywide. Presently with different ordinances in each of the jurisdictions, it's very confusing to the public. It's cumbersome to our staff. There's inefficiencies, such as we have to have different forms filled out by different members or residents depending on which jurisdiction they live in. There's different, for instance, with dangerous dogs, there's different definitions of what a dangerous dog is, of what a vicious dog is, of what a habitual offender is. And it's very, very confusing to enforce that. So our goal today is to create one comprehensive ordinance. What we did was we took best practices from other cities and counties in the United States. We looked at ones that were revised recently and picked and choose which ones that we liked. So they are, most of them are from LA County, which very recently revised their ordinance. So we were able to pull some of the things that they have instituted. And with that, I would like to pass it on to Officer Stosey. Thank you very much. Push that button. I think if you do up there, you can see it. Come on. Yeah. Okay, there I am. As Melanie mentioned, there was some concerns with the original ordinance that we had put together, majority of it being with South County. So we did do quite extensive outreach, did meet with a lot of different groups. We did put them in this PowerPoint here. We met with the Farm Bureau quite a few times, the Horseman's Association, the Livestock Association, the 4-H Club, and the Santa Cruz County Coalition of Family Farms and Homesteads. And with meeting with those different groups, we were able to ascertain what their concerns were. And we actually pretty much changed everything that they had been requesting. And we'll talk about some of that in a minute regarding, I know in Supervisor Caput's district, there was a concern about having goats in one of the sections. And so we just removed goats from that to work with the community. Really our goal with this ordinance is to make it easier for us to enforce animal laws, but also serve our community and work with our community so that we can make sure there's in the best interest of both the people and the animals that we serve. So they did put some of the general changes that we did add in here just to highlight. Under the general provisions, we did include a much stricter law for interference with animal control officer in the performance of their duties. Right now, we don't have very much coverage under current county code. This would afford us more protection from people who are attempting to hurt us physically and we're giving us false information. I know personally I've been attacked out there and I didn't have those protections that this law currently has. So I think this is in the best interest of our county employees that we have. In addition, we did add the staking or tying out of an animal. That is the particular area that actually was completely removed. So we originally had that in there, but that's section W in the area that we did speak with Supervisor Caput's office on and so we did completely strike that out. Keeping animals with communicable diseases. I think that's no brainer. We wanna make sure that animals that are sick with the communicable disease are not being adopted out, not being handed from party to party and spreading those diseases. The maintenance of fell goats, rabbits and guinea pigs. Again, goats were removed from that particular section, but currently there is really no local ordinance regarding how one should be maintaining those specific animals and those specific animals do need different care than dogs and cats. So we felt it was important to include them so that they would be getting the proper care that they needed. In that particular provision, there were a number of concerns brought up by the homesteaders and we did work with striking out those concerns. And then spaying or neutering of adopted animals. Currently there is a mandatory spay and neutered ordinance in Santa Cruz County, but there is no law regarding what private and main societies are the same. That prior to any adoption that those animals be spayed or neutered to be consistent. And then for licensing, this is one of the big ones that we did take from LA County and I know it works well in LA County. It's adding of animal facility license. And then there's a separate one regarding a male old English game, male game bird or male game cock facility license. And the difference between those two, the first one is more for pet stores, pet shops, groomers, other places that have a vested interest in serving animals, but aren't currently under any sort of supervision or any sort of oversight regarding how they're caring for their animals. So it is going to be similar to what the health department does regarding grading restaurants with A, B or C. We'll do the same thing with those facilities that provide services with animals. In addition, the game cock license, and we worked on that one it was originally called the rooster ordinance. And we realized there's quite a few people out there with roosters who are not cock fighting. And so we quickly realized the error of our ways in that one and changed it to just be the male, old English game, male game bird or male game cock. And the importance of that one is, I personally know where there's a large number of breeding locations for cock fighting birds in particularly in South County. The folks there are very smart. They do not leave any sort of implements or other items that would get them in trouble. They breed the birds in one location, fight them in another location. This particular ordinance would allow us to kind of shut some of those illegal cock fighting operations down. It limits the number of roosters per area. Some of these places are so brazen they've actually invited me in to do tours and they say, see, we're not fighting cocks. We're just, we just love our roosters. So they know what they're doing out there. This would help prevent some of those crimes. In addition, in the licensing section, it adds non-commercial rabbits to microchipping. And the reason it's non-commercial rabbits is there was folks in the, particularly in South County who have commercial rabbit areas and they didn't want to have to worry about microchipping the rabbits. So we added non-commercial rabbits to that. Those farmers wouldn't be affected. In regards to regulation of animal breeding, again, we also amended it to include non-commercial rabbits. And then there is a requirement on feral cats in there. And the reason we did that one is, is it's going to require feral cats to actually be spayed and neutered by a veterinarian, irritate by a veterinarian, make sure they get the proper vaccinations so that the feral cats aren't out there spreading communicable diseases as well. And then animal control. This is obviously a lot more was added into this one. We felt we needed more peace to our current ordinance so that we could enforce more effectively. Currently under state law, there is a tethering dogs law where you can't tie out a dog for more than three hours at the time. There's a number of limitations on that. This particular addition that we added into the law would require the dogs who are harnesses, require them not to be able to get wrapped around certain objects that are in the way. I know just recently, about five months ago, I had a dog that was on an approved runner under state code but ended up getting wrapped around an object and died. That owner was, we did file charges on that. Those charges were accepted and that person is currently waiting to go to court on that. If we had this particular ordinance in effect, they would not have been able to keep the backyard the way they did. The dog would still be alive. State requirements for animals in parked motor vehicles. Currently, the way the law reads is it's very limited. Basically just says animals can't be left in a way that is unhealthy for them. This makes them more specific on proper ventilation, proper water, things like that. Again, personally, as an animal control officer, I have mainly at the boardwalk, bus had quite a few animals out of vehicles, some alive, some dead, and this would provide more teeth for us to get those animals out before they die. Dead animals in public places. This is basically, you can't keep a dead animal in a public place. It just kind of makes it so if someone has a deceased animal on their property, it doesn't need to be removed. The animal control officer is present at rodeos in similar events. This one actually is in the current ordinance. We had removed it and then we put it back in. And the reason being was, we met with the rodeo association. We originally in the original ordinance had a ban on all wild animal exhibits and live animal exhibits. And so we took this particular thing out. We were thinking we were gonna be banning rodeos, but quickly learned that the community wants rodeos. So we then removed the rodeo ban and put this one back in. So that we would be present at those events. Food poisoning of animals. That makes it illegal to poison animals. You'd be amazed how many neighbor disputes end with someone throwing meat over a fence with poison in it. This would give us more teeth to assist those animals. Injuring wildlife. This was added to the wildlife section where unless you have a valid hunting license, you can't injure harm or kill wildlife. There are exceptions to it. If the wild animal is inactively attacking a person or actively attacking domestic animal or livestock, then obviously they have the right to do that. And I know there was some concern brought up from Supervisor Coonerty's office regarding that. And with mountain lions. And yes, you do need a depredation permit if mountain lions are killing your livestock or domestic pets, but under state law. If that malign is actively attacking them and you catch them, you can kill that animal without a depredation permit. And then under animal control, again, we have the restrictions on the numbers of old English game, male game birds or male game cocks. And then the more enforceable excessive animal noise section, I can tell you animal noise is the number one complaint we get and we deal with on a daily basis. Currently right now, we have very limited enforcement authority with that. This and a lot of those complaints are neighbor disputes where people make anonymous complaints. This would make it give the citizens more teeth as well, where they could sign something on a perjury and get a citation issued on a first defense. So I think it helps both us and the community as well. And we'll make more legitimate animal noise complaints out there. And then this section, the waterfall and pigeons. This basically just makes it illegal to feed and release waterfowl and pigeons just so we don't have invasive species in our community. The same with the wild rodents in vermin, prohibits the feeding of wild rodents in vermin. And then the regulations of dangerous animals, I think this particular section is the most important section that we're adding. Currently under county law, and again, as Melanie mentioned, it's different in each of the different jurisdictions we serve, but under county law right now, we only have one definition of aggressive animal and that's vicious. And the only thing a vicious animal has to do to be deemed vicious is bark at someone. It's very open to interpretation. This particular section now adds vicious, potentially dangerous, and then provides specific remedies that the owners would be required to do. Right now in the current ordinance, it states any mitigating factors that the animal control department finds necessary. So it's up to me to figure out what each animal needs to do, what owner needs to do. This particular section specifically addresses what people need to do to the insurance, putting a muzzle on the dog when they take it off property. So it's much more, it explains a lot more to the public what they need to do specifically and takes away a lot of my discretion, but I think that's good because I think it also then puts the agency at liability for enforcing the law one way for one person and differently for another person. This way we're gonna enforce it the same for everybody. And then finally, the administrative appeal section. Right now, all of our administrative appeals are heard by the Neustence Abatement Commission, which can be cumbersome, can be difficult to get actual legal definitions and things to happen for our cases. And this is mainly for vicious dog cases, potentially dangerous dog cases. And this is only under the county and the city of Santa Cruz actually is heard by the city attorney and Watsonville is heard by the chief of police, Scott Valley is also the chief of police and then city of Capitola is actually heard by the county council or the city council. So again, there's the discrepancy in all those. This, if we get it passed, throughout all the jurisdictions would set the appeals up basically in a county approved hearing officer, which is usually a lawyer, is a lawyer. Is that the capitol or is that the city council itself or the city council? Yeah, we've only had one appeal in front of them and it was very strange doing it in front of city council. Keep turning this thing the wrong way. I think that's all I had for some reason, that's not moving now. Are there any questions? Thank you for your thorough appeal. This has been three years in the making. Thank you to the county council and everybody else who's worked on this. Very important. We know how valuable people place on their animals and the protections that they deserve and want. So thank you very much for that thorough review and update. It's really important. Thank you. Very nice. Any questions from the board? Yes, thank you, chair. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I know a lot of this will be appreciated specifically around the animal noise, excessive animal noise section. I just have one question on 16-12-0-10. It's talking about the, here, talking basically about keeping dogs under control and caretakers struck out. I'm just wondering if, does that mean that if a dog is under the control of a caretaker that they're not liable, it would only be the owner? That's a good question. Yeah, I'm not sure why caretakers struck out. It's not struck out in the version I've, well, it's not even in the version I have. I guess it was struck out. You know why the caretaker was taken out? No, and it shouldn't have been anyone that has possession of an animal is responsible to follow the laws in the ordinance. Okay, well, then I'll be recommending that we put that back in. Okay. Okay, we'll make sure that's part of the motion. Thank you for that point. Yeah. Thank you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to commend Ms. Sobel and Mr. Stucey on the amount of outreach that they did. This was a very challenging process in large part because the ordinance hadn't been updated in so long and we've seen with the complaints that have come into our office and other offices the need for providing additional tools and clarity and modernizing the ordinance. But with that said, both of them were willing to meet with local organizations very openly and transparently and make modifications as they in the community felt were needed. And so I just wanted to really commend them on their outreach process. And while the process may have taken a little bit of time, I think it ended up becoming a better product because of their outreach and work. So I'm much appreciation to both of you. Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty. Similar, I just want to appreciate your office's responsiveness to our questions and to work with the community to address their concerns. I think this is a good ordinance that will benefit animals and humans alike. Thank you, thank you. Thanks a lot for your report. And I remember again, this goes back over a year. I was chairman at the time and the timing of your report was that it was not a good time it was the worst time of the pandemic. And we had fires breaking out everywhere. And I remember telling Carlos, I don't need another problem right now. So the timing was very poor a year and a half ago. And thank you for listening to the Santa Cruz County Fair Board, the Farm Bureau, the 4-H clubs of the Future Farmers of America, FFA, they were calling. And the other part too, thank you for being respectful for the cultural considerations of South County. And anyway, you did a real good job now on the, thank you for listening to all the input. And Supervisor Cabot, if I may, your staff was very helpful as well and had some really good input that we made changes to. So I appreciate that as well. You bet. I think County Council, you had a comment. Yeah, I did want to address Supervisor Koenig's concern about the removal of caretaker from that section. The reason why that was removed is if you look at packet page 233, the definition of owner in subsection V was modified to include a caretaker custodian so that we didn't have to continually repeat owner and caretaker in a phrase throughout. It was an effort to be efficient in the code. So I don't believe that the code needs to be changed or amended to address what you're talking about. Thank you for that clarification. So, okay, we'll just, any other comments? I don't have any other comments except to say a great, long-lasting job. Really terrific. Any comments from the public? Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. I'm a resident of rural Abtos. Thank you for the report. And I want to thank you too for the outreach that you did in the time that this was before the board at an earlier time. I do want to let the board know that I have attended county fair board meetings and when this iteration of the ordinance was presented to the board, the board refused to allow any members of the public to comment on it. I just want that known for the record. I also want to thank the animal control people for working with Mr. Tim Baldwin who did testify at one of the earlier fair board meetings. He is an attorney and he has done considerable amount of work with Monterey County on their animal control ordinance, especially around the issues of rodeos. And thank you for working with Mr. Baldwin to incorporate his very wise and experienced amendments into this. I do have some questions in attachment B where it talks about prohibition on using live animals for entertainment purposes. It is not clear how this could or would affect the county fair. Certainly having both in a tank is unnatural. And what it says here is that the display of animals in an act that engages the animal in unnatural behavior in an act in which the animal is wrestled, fought, mentally or physically harassed or displayed in a manner that abuses the animal or causes the animal mental or physical stress is prohibited. I assume and that's a code 6.04.250 section C1. If I could interrupt just so you know that that was taken out entirely that entire section. Well, that's not what it shows in the book here for the public, not here at all. It shows it in the first draft that was approved in February of 2020. And if you look at attachment O that was approved in October of 2021, it was taken out entirely. Well, what I'm going by here is what the public has been given in the binder. So what do we do here? There's, it seems like the public has been given one version and yet there's another version. This is on page 87. The public has given all versions through the entire process of to show the strikeouts and what we originally had proposed and then went back and changed after considerable community outrage. Then is what is shown to the public on page 87 not what is being adopted? It's very confusing. Yes, it's attachment P is what is being adopted. Attachment P, because this is an attachment B. Correct. Now it's very confusing. And I think we need to. Sure, but it's been eliminated. Is that correct? That's correct. It's been struck out completely. Yes. And that was, as Miss Steinbrenner mentioned, that was one of our workings with Mr. Baldwin with the rodeo association was to strike that entire section. It's eliminated. Okay, let's go on. I think, I hope everybody understands that it's not part. It's underlined showing that it has been added but it is not a strikeout. Not in, not on page 87 and in attachment B it just says general provisions. It doesn't say this is the strikeout underlying. In fact, it is underlined as if it has been added. So I don't understand what is being approved today and what is not based on this. Let me continue if I may and maybe we can clear this up. Thank you. So I have some questions about that. I have concerns regarding item 6.04.164. No free range chickens are allowed. Many people in live oak who have large backyards do let their chickens run around in their yards but this would prohibit that and they would have to be locked up all the time. She's looking at the wrong version. I'd start interrupt. But in the one before the board today, it says such found animals shall under no circumstances be permitted to run at large. They shall be confined at all times to the owner's property and provided with a suitable house or coop with an enclosed runway. Free range animals are permitted both must remain on the owner's property. What attachment, what is real here? What attachment or I mean is, this is very confusing. Attachment P is at the end where the board to please address it and include the ability of the Grangers to be involved and to be legal when they are doing the same things with their youth projects as the FFA and 4-Hers are. I also, I'll have a question regarding the rodeos and I appreciate having an animal control officer present at rodeos. However, I know that staffing is always tight. So if there is no staffing by the animal control agency available for rodeo, would that effectively shut down the rodeo from happening? And I have great concerns about the use of animal noise complaints. I've seen it happen in my neighborhood where it isn't really the animal that's at the issue. It's the conflict between the people and the animals become a way to antagonize the neighbor. So I just wanna make that clear and hope that animal control will take that under advisement as they move forward on this. I think that completes my comments only in, and I don't know if it's valid, section 6.04.170D that the county can take any dogs that are unvaccinated. Many people have a position to vaccines in general and I don't think that it is right to mandate that they have to vaccinate their dogs if they're keeping them healthy and controlled. Thank you very much. I think you would be good on a circumstances that I'd like to act on this one way or the other if we can answer those questions and make it clear as we can. And maybe you have with different additions, but if you could answer the questions that were posed. Sure, the general question about the attachments in full transparency, we were showing strikeout versions of each and every proposed draft that was approved by the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter Board. So again, attachment A was the resolution. B through N was what was approved in February of 2020 by the Animal Services Board. Attachment O is the strikeout version of what was approved in October, 2021. And then P is the final proposed ordinance without strikeout that is being proposed to you today. So anything that would be a question should be referred to attachment P, which is the final version. The other versions are just to show what the process was. Was that, that was in place before Thursday or Friday? Was that for the public to see? Correct, yes. And then as far as the Grangers go, if this board finds it appropriate to have the Grangers, I don't think we have any issue with it. Okay, I mean, you could always do that. You've had a tremendous outreach program. And then if there's some other point that does come up, we'll be open to it. That'd be good to do, I think. I know it needs a specific direction, but if your intent is to do that, that's fine. Any other questions from the public? There are no speakers on Zoom. Any questions? Do you have any questions? Advisor Coney? No further questions. I'm glad that I'll be able to let my chickens run free on my property. That was actually a concern of mine. And thank you for clearing up the confusion about the different versions. Yeah, glad to see that was amended. So I'll move the recommended actions with the addition of the Grangers to blue with section 608, 1104. I'm sorry, can you repeat that motion? Yeah, so I'll move the recommended actions with the addition of the Grangers as a group named in 608, 110A4. I believe that's the section we were referencing where it talks about 4-H Future Farmers of America. Let's make sure staff is clear on that. Yes, so 6.0811110 section four. 8-4. For the circumstances or purposes, what packet page are we referring to specifically? What pages are we referring to? I just have a printout, so I'm not sure. I don't have a whole board packet. I think in the attachment P, let me go to attachment P. I believe it's on page 22, or 56. Just one moment. Okay, so we're on the same page. We're looking at packet page 251, exhibit 9P, and it is 6.081110. Can you say it again, Supervisor? So we're clear? Correct, correct. 6.081110A4, mentions 4-H Future Farmers of America. And then it would include comma, the Grangers. And this is as well as in 4-A and 4-B. We'll also name the Grangers. So you would like it to read, a person who seeks a facility license as part of a local chapter of 4-H comma, the Grangers comma, or Future Farmers of America must meet all the following requirements. Correct. And then let the same modification to 4-A and 4-B. We'll also name the Grangers. Okay, I think that if the clerk understands that that is clear enough that we wouldn't need to bring it back for a new first read. I understand the addition of the Grangers as the group is named in 4-A and 4-B. 4 and 4-A and 4-B. So 4, 4-A and 4-B. Okay, thank you. Perfect. Okay, we're okay on that. Supervisor Friend, any comments? I know, but just as a clarification, wasn't that a motion from Supervisor Koenig? Correct. Okay, I'll second the motion. Any comments? Any further comments? Okay, Supervisor Koenig? No comments, I'm right about that. And you didn't have any. Please call the roll. Thank you. That's for additional direction to add the Grangers to section 6.08.1104, 4-A and 4-B. Supervisor Koenig? And to approve the recommended actions. And to approve the recommended actions. One more thing, and this is what happens sometimes when we're doing this in the moment, but the proper name I'm being told right now is the California State Grange Foundation, not the Grangers. So if you could amend the motion to state that, it would be helpful. I'll move an amendment to the motion to include the California State Grangers. Grangers. California State Grange Foundation. The California State Grange Foundation. Thank you. Let's find with a seconder. Thank you. Go ahead. Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Unity? Aye. Abbott? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Additional direction unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now recess for our regular board meeting to the scheduled item at 10.45 to print the board of directors of the Santa Cruz County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, zone five to convene and carry out a regularly scheduled meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Please call the roll. Thank you. All right, so Koenig? Present. Sorry, director friend? Here. Unity? Here. Abbott? Here. McPherson? Here. Jave? Bertrand? Peterson? You have a quorum, Jave. All right. We have consideration of additions and deletions to the consent and regular agendas. Any additions or deletions? No additions or deletions. Item number three, oral communications. Anybody have any comments on the zone five agenda? Seeing none, do we have any? There are none on Zoom. On Zoom. Item number four is to approval the zone five meeting minutes of foot control and water conservation district five, June 8th, 2021. We need a motion to approve those minutes. I'll move the roll of the consent agenda. All selected. Okay. The audio been restored. Okay, yes, we can hear you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you. We'll go back to the vote. Director Koenig? Approval of minutes. Aye. Unity? Aye. Abbott? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Item number five is action on the consent agenda. There are three items on the consent agenda. Any comments from the board members? Items on the consent agenda, any comments from the public? There are no members should speak to this item. Entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda for zone five. I'll move. Second. And Koenig? Director Koenig? Aye. Friend? Unity? Aye. Abbott? McPherson? Aye. I think he mentioned passes. On the regular agenda, there's one item to consider approval of the 2022 schedule of the zone four and five board meetings that's outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. Any comments from the board? Any comments from the public? There are no members on Zoom. Entertain a motion to approve the program managers report on the schedule for 2022. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Please call the roll. Director Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Unity? Aye. Abbott? McPherson? Aye. Thank you, motion passes. Okay. I think we will continue on. It's 11-10. We'll go through to the near after our break. Item number 10 is to consider adopting ordinance amendment section 3.1204K of the Santa Cruz County Code relating to exemptions from civil service. And take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the director of personnel. This requires a four-fifth vote. We have a non-civil service public defender, Chief Deputy Public Defender, and a civil service ISD director, Chief Deputy Public Defender and Civil Service meeting member of October 14th, 2021. Please, Ms. Patel. Can you hear me now? Yes. Ajita Patel, personnel director. With this item, we are seeking the board's approval to exempt three positions from the civil service system pursuant to County Code. The first is the public defender, which may be elected or appointed. Your board has designated this as an appointed position. This designation now needs to be memorialized in the civil service rules to exempt the position. The second position, the director of information services will become vacant at the end of the year. Currently, we have 13 department heads out of 18 that are designated as non-civil service and five elected official positions. We'd like to exempt this position to have alignment with all the other department head positions. And then the Chief Deputy Public Defender position, we'd also like to align that with the County Council and District Attorney deputy positions and have that be at will. The ability for an appointing authority to assign staff and leadership positions is very critical to ensure that the department's mission, vision, and values are carried out. We'd like to have that flexibility for the appointing authorities. So with that, I'll conclude my comments and happy to answer any questions that you may have. Any questions for Ms. Patel? Supervisor Friend, any comments? No, I don't, thank you. Supervisor Coonerty, any comments? No, thank you. Any comments from the public? No comments on Zoom? There are no speakers on Zoom. Okay, entertainer motion. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Exeld the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Nappet. Aye. Macerson. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll go to item number 11. To conduct a study session on the 2021-22 Capitol Improvement Program as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CEO, Director of Public Works, 2021-22 Capitol Improvement Program. We have a cover sheet at 2021-22 Capitol Improvement Program. It's 188 pages long online and on file. And boy, if we could just accomplish all these, it would be great. But first of all, I'd like to thank the Public Works Department for the report. It's exciting to take notice of all the improvements we would like to undertake on behalf of our community, but unfortunately lack the appropriate amount of funding to do so, to tackle all of them. But I know the staff is working to identify the problems as best we can. So thank you again for everything from the Works Department. Mr. Machado. Thank you, Chair. And good morning, supervisors. Matt Machado, Public Works Director and Deputy CAO. So the item before you as described by the Chair is a study session for our 21-22 Capitol Improvement Program. We call it our CIP. A CIP is a community planning and fiscal management tool used to coordinate the location, timing, and financing of Capitol improvements over a multi-year period. Our CIP identifies Capitol Improvement Projects proposed for the unincorporated areas of the county as well as improvements to various county facilities located county-wide. In addition with the County Administrative Office and the Planning Department created a Capitol Improvement Program document that was based upon our adopted budget, which is why we're here this fall. The CIP document identifies Capitol Improvement Projects proposed over the next five years as proposed as well as proposed financing for these projects. And as the chairman shared, many of these projects are not fully funded yet, but they are on our radar to pursue full funding so that we can deliver these critical projects. The CIP is developed to address elements of the county's general plan as well as other planning documents and master plans. The goals for the CIP include maintain and upgrade infrastructure to support rural suburban and business communities. Secondly, to develop Capitol projects to meet community needs. Third, to align Capitol budgets with adopted policies and plans. And lastly to link the county's development and fiscal planning processes. This year's CIP update includes 109 projects valued at more than $966 million. Staff is available to answer any questions you may have. I will note that when we went to the planning commission, they did not have any material comments on the projects, but they did discuss the full plan. So it was a good report. And staff is here to answer any questions you may have. The recommended action today is a study session on our program today. Thank you. And I wanna thank you for your efforts and others. Before the Regional Transportation Commission meeting last week, there was a big decision to allow $2 million more than would have been recommended for county roads and the cities as well. And I wanna thank you, Mr. Machado for that. Our need to come back on road improvements as fast as we can is very important. And I'm really glad that the Regional Transportation Commission took that action. And also to recognize that, again, I thank the voters a couple of years ago now, several years ago, 2016 for a free measure D, which helped us reach this goal of really accommodating the needs of our capital improvement program. Any other comments from the board? Yes, thank you, Chair. I had a question on the Capitol Road at Leona Creek Emergency Culver Repair. This is on page 60 of the CIP. Jumped out of me because it's a half million dollar project that sounds like, you know, could lead to the failure of Capitol Road, a major thoroughfare through the county. And yet we don't have any funding identified for it or really any plans to fix it. I'm wondering if the Public Works Director could just speak to, you know, how we can go about addressing what seems like a fairly big problem here. Sure, so we are pursuing funding. It's been in our budget discussions for a little more than a year. We'll continue to pursue that. It's actually gone in front of our Capital Facilities Committee, but as you all know, there are many, many needs and not enough resources. And so we'll continue to push it as a priority and hopefully secure some funding. It's not unlike a lot of infrastructure we have. And so it's not a situation where we feel we'd have to close the road, you know, due to this like a pending emergency, but it's something that needs to be repaired before it is an emergency. So we understand the timing, but we also understand the limited resources. So we're working hard to watch it grow as a priority. And with regard to all the other priorities of the county. There's nothing we can do with additional action today. Well, no, I think it's important that it's in the CIP. That's a great first step. And it is in our budget discussions. So that's a next great step. And so I think we just need to keep working to secure a funding source and we'll continue to do that. So I think as of today, it's all but that doesn't mean we've forgotten about it. In fact, it's very high on our minds and we'll continue to bring it back to the board for hopefully future funding. Okay, thank you. The other question I had was on page 62. It's the East Cliff Drive from 7th Avenue to 14th Avenue pedestrian improvements. This is a connection between the city and the Live Oak area for four bikes and pedestrians. It's a street that gets a lot of use and really doesn't have any sidewalks in this segment. And I think ultimately it's a segment that gets used both by tourists and residents alike. Right now, I think the project cost we have here 12 million, I mean, it's a pretty intimidating number for about a third of a mile. And is that the price from the original redevelopment project that was designed? And I think that's a fairly extensive project. Yeah, it is, but we've also looked at value engineering this project. In fact, we actually went out there with measuring devices to see if we could fit it within the existing asphalt or within even the existing shoulders. And this is along the lake. And so we determined that it doesn't fit. And so I think this number is still a good number because what it means is we're going to have to build a structure to suspend it over the edge of the waterway and some of the environmental habitat. So that means the costs are gonna be in order magnitude. This is probably close. I think this is a great project that we could see eligibility from the new IIJA, the Federal Transportation Bill. There is new money for trails and pedestrian improvements and active transportation. So we'll keep our eyes on that federal spending bill and hope we can bring back some positive news at some point. But at this point, I think it's a decent number and we've tried to value engineers. So that's, I guess, how I would leave that one. So that aim of trying to secure federal funding or other funding for it, is it possible to move some of the design work up to some time in the next five-year expenditure plan in order to make the project, get it closer to shovel ready? I think the design work is expensive as well because it's complicated. It's a very complex structure and there's infrastructure that will have to work around. And so that's a complicated effort as well. So we will be pursuing grant funds for the design as well. We don't have it in our budget today, but we're looking for it. Okay, thank you. Any other comments from board members? Everybody's a friend. Mr. Chair, I don't have any additional comments other than the ones that I'd actually made at the previous meeting. Just a lot of appreciation also just for the, how the information is shared, the CIP design and information is so much clearer than it had been historically in each year. It seems to get better both this and also the sanitation district which I serve on with Supervisor Koenig as well. It does outline, and I think it's an important thing to continue to share with the community that these are identified issues that public works and the board and others are aware of the identified issues and as funding becomes available and hopefully we are able to receive some infusion for something in regards to the federal infrastructure bill that can allow us to address some issues at the beginning here, but the need will always outweigh the available funds and that Santa Cruz County is unique with our topography in some respects that we do face a difficult amount or a different amount of challenges within our roads and infrastructure than either some other communities do, but I appreciate the work of Director Machado, Assistant Director Wiesner and others that are working on these projects. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. Comments? No comments other than appreciation and a recognition that this is, it's a long list with extensive costs associated but that we slowly chip away at each one and our entrepreneurial where we can find the money, whether it's federal, state or local to try to get these important projects done. Thank you, Mr. Captain. You're welcome. Thanks, Bob. Thanks a lot for the report. Thank you. Any public comments? You said that the need is there is $966 million overall. This is just not roads, this is all kinds of infrastructure. That's correct. It includes parks, buildings and roads and yes, $966 million for 109 projects. And if we had to add anything to the schedule that you have now, you're gonna have to take or adjust somewhere else. Does that pretty much the long and short of it? I mean, if we said we want another project here, you'd have to take it from someplace else, wouldn't you? Typically to add a program project, we would need some level of funding. Even the projects we discussed today have some level of funding, even if it's low. So it wouldn't mean you'd have to take one out but you would have to identify some level of funding to at least do some form of analysis to get in the program section. Okay, public comment. Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbrenner. I live in rural Aptos. I would like to see a re-envigoration of the county roadside mowing process throughout the county, not only for improving the parameter for having that work done, but in general for fire prevention. And it is my belief that the state of California has just allocated a lot of money for fire prevention and fire defensible space projects. And I would like to see this county pursue some of that money to reinvigorate the roadside mowing county-wide. I think it makes a huge difference as we have seen on the Highway 17 fuel break and the state put a lot of money into that because we all know what a difference reducing the fuels along roadsides can make for conflagrations. I also would like to ask that the county spend some resources into regularly assessing the conditions of culverts in our rural areas to put them in a priority list of replacement and to systematically replace them with double wall plastic or concrete as it may be the size. I believe that doing this kind of regular assessment and prioritization would help the county avoid the horrible disaster that happened with the Valencia Road and Valencia Creek issue in the 2016-17 area that affected a lot of the schools, the residents and I think being proactive on replacing culverts would help a lot with that. Finally, I would like to say that I would really love to see the county spend some money on putting a new roof on the Burt Scott estate. That was a gift to the county from Mr. Burt Scott, the founder of Granite, and it is in horrible state of disrepair. It is a fabulous piece of property and we need to preserve it by simply putting on a new roof and use it. Thank you. Thank you. You know, the comments from the public. Comments. I have speakers on Zoom. Okay. I'll turn it to the board for action or let's see. Yes. Just I would be to accept the report. I'll move the recommended actions. Second. Thank you for the role, please. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Goonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. MacPherson. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. The final item for this morning to consider item number 12 to consider terms set forth in the option to buy agreement to obtain the exclusive option to purchase real property located at 1-88 Whiting Road. Authorize the deputy CEO director of public works to execute the option to buy agreement. Authorize the deputy CEO director of public works to complete feasibility studies and authorize the out of your control of treasurer tax collector to make payments related to the option to buy agreement. Return to the board to authorize final actions to execute the vacant land purchase agreement and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the deputy CEO director of public works. We have an option to buy addendum one of vacant land purchase agreement and a contingency removal number one. Good afternoon chair and members of the board. My name is Kimberly Finley. I am the chief. A little closer to you. Yeah, thank you. I am the chief real property agent of the department of public works. I appear before you today on behalf of the county parks department to recommend approval of the option to purchase real property located at 1-88 Whiting Road in Watsonville, APN 05104201. This property is envisioned to serve as much needed South County parkland which will enhance equitable access to athletic field space, hiking in natural areas and healthy recreational options. 1-88 Whiting Road is approximately 38.5 gross acres located in Watsonville and zoned commercial agriculture. The fair market value of the whiting property as determined by the county's certified appraisal consultant is $2,310,000. Here with me today is Jeff Gaffney, the director of the county parks department to discuss the envisioned use of the whiting property. Jeff. Thank you, Kimberly. Thank you for all the hard work, DPW and especially you have done to get us to this point. And thank you board for hearing us out this morning. So over the last several years we have been working with South County and South County residents. We've done surveys. We completed our strategic plan without reaching to the South County community. And even as recently as September and October we've received over a hundred comments from online and community events we've attended as a parks department. And as a result of that we've identified some of these community needs. Some of the community needs that we have we're very clear on our athletic fields of course in South County watershed and open space protection for recreation in those areas. And then also there is an interest for climate resiliency and how do we protect our natural resources moving forward? Generally park lands as a whole are desirable and wanted in South County. And there's a lot of interest actually in agriculture and the education around what AG has meant to South County over the many, many decades. Next slide. So as a result of those community needs we were able to identify this piece of property this wonderful almost 40 acres worth of land that actually meets a lot of those needs that we're looking at. Some of the envisioned uses are actually active farming and that active farming may be up to even 15 acres out there. As part of that that would of course offer the opportunity to learn about how farming works. There's also the opportunity for soccer fields and recreation. There's actually a possibility for a one-mile nature trail farmers market events roadside farming events the roadside stands I should say. And also the biggest part for us is I believe the programming for youth and that is active hands on education and recreation. So next slide. The biggest part of that education and the most interesting part to me that we have not ever had in this county or in our county parks department before is a demonstration farm. And that also ties into agricultural tourism and the need for us to move towards a more climate resilient agricultural blueprint. And I think that this property would be a great place to start with that. It also has the opportunity for aspects of it that will provide coastal watershed protection because of its place and location and the ability to harness some of the bio filters that exist on the property already. We already know that with the county fairgrounds is very interested in partnering with us. This property is continuous to the county fairgrounds currently. And it also very much a large interest in the agricultural history project that happened once a month down there. We've already spoken with the city of Watsonville Parks Department and the power of Valley Unified School District and their interest in providing kids for us to have to participate in these programs. And so that's obviously a very good fit for both of us and they're interested in doing that. Next slide. I just wanted everybody to be aware if you had time in your busy days, there's a couple of examples out there that aren't too far away. Both of these are over the hill in San Jose. One of them's more south San Jose ones right off of the 680 101 interchange. They both have ideas and examples of some of the things we're talking about. They have ongoing ag history programs. They have working farms. One of the contracted farmers for actually the Cattle Ranch has farms here in Santa Cruz and San Mateo. There's a lot of really interesting programming that we could go into very deep into depth but just imagine that you have 100 school-aged children maybe second or third grade show up. They're given a task that they are a farmer from 100 years ago or they're a farm child from 100 years ago and here's what they have to do before they go to school in the morning or here's what they have to do for the work day. So I just am truly excited. This is a very robust piece of land with lots of opportunities. It fits and checks a lot of boxes for the needs of the community. And we've had tremendous support from DPW and Kimberly getting this moving forward and I'm gonna turn it back over to her. Thank you, Jeff. The Envision Parkland can be designed to stay within the parameters prescribed by the zoning code for the commercial agriculture zone land and prime agricultural soil. The recreational portion can be fit into the allowed category of recreational place-billed that will not have a permanent impact on the long-term use of the land. The plan will require a biotic study and we'll go through a level five discretionary permitting process which will include public notice and a hearing before the zoning administrator. In addition to the permitting process, there are several physical inspections which must occur which include a phase one environmental site assessment, a water quantity and quality study, agricultural viability studies, biotic reports. It will need to have a CEQA review and a general plan consistency review. Additionally, a source of funds must be identified for the purchase. On the November 16th, 2021, your board adopted a resolution approving the County Parks Department to submit a Prop 68 rural recreation and tourism program grants application which requested funds to purchase this property. However, the grant process is lengthy and there is a chance that this grant is not awarded and County Parks will need to identify an alternative grant funding source. The permitting process, these feasibility studies and the identification of funds will all take time to secure our interest in this property and allow time for County staff to perform the necessary due diligence. DPW has negotiated an option to buy agreement. On August 24th, 2021 in executive session, your board authorized DPW to enter into negotiations over the option to purchase the widening property. DPW has now negotiated the option to buy agreement and vacant land purchase agreement for the option to buy the widening property that is now ready for approval. The option will give County the exclusive right to buy the property for a term of up to 12 months with a potential one year option to extend. The option will require an initial deposit of $20,000 which will remain in escrow and monthly payments of $5,000 for the length of the option. If the option is exercised within the 12 month term, the $20,000 initial deposit and half of all monthly payments made thus far will be credited towards the agreed upon purchase price of $2,310,000. If the option is not exercised during the term or canceled at any time, the initial deposit and any monthly payments made thus far will remain with owner as compensation for the option up to and not to exceed $60,000. The option and the associated feasibility studies are included in the FY 21-22 budget and will be funded with a mix of measure G funds allocated to parks capital projects for South County parks and funds remaining in parks capital project funds designated for district four. Over the next year, County staff will diligently pursue the investigation and funding source necessary to recommend acquisition of this property. If and when the determination is made to exercise the option to buy this property, County will return to the board to request authorization to execute the vacant land purchase agreement dated November 12th, 2021 to purchase the wedding property for $2,310,000. At this time, DPW and County parks recommend the following actions, approve and accept the terms and conditions of the option 2021 to obtain the exclusive option to purchase real property located at 188 Widing, APN05104201 for a period of up to 12 months. Authorize the deputy CAO, Director of Public Works to execute the option to buy agreement on behalf of the County. Authorize the Auditor-Controller-Treasure Tax Collector to make the payments for the option to buy agreement up to $80,000. Authorize the Department of Public Works to complete the feasibility studies required to exercise the option to buy and direct staff to return to the board to authorize the actions required to execute the vacant land purchase agreement dated November 12th, 2021 to purchase for $2,310,000 real property located at 188 Widing Road, APN05104201 if and when the option to buy is exercised. Thank you very much. And we are both available for questions. Thank you. Supervisor Caput, a long time coming. Good to see you. Good to see you. Wow, this goes back a long time. When I first got on, I wanted to look for a parkland and we had the housing crash and then the next thing, we didn't have a Director of Parks and Rec that was put in with another department because we were going through all these cuts and everything. And then you came on board and we've looked at a lot of different places and we even went out a couple of times when the pandemic hit and it looked like we weren't going to be able to get anything. And so then of course the fires kind of diverted everything too. So I guess we'll do the next ones. And this is a wonderful opportunity for South County. And I want to thank all the engineers and Carlos Palacios for his help on this and especially yours. We'll go down and we'll get another sandwich at the meat locker there and off of Green Valley Road. So anyway, this is just a great opportunity. I like the whole way it fits. So about half is going to be environmentally protected. It's in a floodplain and that'll be protected. And then the other half, we're talking about some recreation and soccer for kids but the farming can be done also. Open space, it's going to be a wonderful place for hiking and picnicking and everything like that. So on behalf of all the people of South County I want to say thank you. And I'd like to mention a lot of names but when you do that, you always leave somebody out. So on my behalf, you can thank all the other people that have worked on this especially public works they stepped into. So anyway, great opportunity for a real wonderful district for Watsonville and the people that live in South County. Thank you, thank you. Especially the kids. Supervisor Friend, do you have any comments? I thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Supervisor Cabot for buying sandwiches at the meat locker which is in my district on my side of Green Valley Road. Next time, just please invite me though. And not just the cars. Thank you all for, we paid for our own sandwiches by the way. We did. Fair enough, fair enough. I wanted to acknowledge and I recognize that Supervisor Cabot had a role in this as well but recently the funding and improvements at Ramsey Park one of the findings in the study and Director Gaffney alluded to this in the survey that he's had but that the city of Watsonville found is that on a per capita basis the city of Watsonville has one of the lowest level of available recreation and park spaces of any disadvantaged community in the state of California. The need for an expansion of recreational facilities is unquestioned. As we even talk about the improvements on the River Levy one of the reasons that improvements on the River Levy are needed are even improving access along the River Levy for people that use it for recreational purposes. There is a significant need in the South County and in particular for residents of Watsonville. So any opportunity that this board has or the city of Watsonville has to expand safe recreational opportunities for residents of South County and recognizing that I would imagine that even some residents from the town of Pajaro and other surrounding areas will use this facility as well. We should definitely avail ourselves of such opportunities. I'd like to acknowledge and appreciate Supervisor Caput's leadership on this. Supervisor Caput has been very consistent on this one issue repeatedly during both budget times and at community meetings I've been at with Supervisor Caput that there needs to be an expansion of recreational opportunities for residents of the South County. And I think that this could be a culmination of that work and so I appreciate your work on this Supervisor Caput. Thank you, that's very kind. Any comments from Supervisor Coonerty? I don't have any comments. This is a very good thing, not just for South County but for our entire community and region. And I'm grateful to Supervisor Caput for his work and long-term dedication to making this vision happen. And the public and the parks department for being on the ground, understanding the needs and the community and ensuring that we're investing not for everyone as a parks benefit everyone but particularly for the young youth in our community giving them space to be outside and exercise which we've now seen through this pandemic is more important than ever. So I'm just grateful for everyone's efforts to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Chair. And just a couple of questions. First is what's the water source on the property? Is it a well? Is it existing well? So how many gallons per minute? That's part of the investigation we'll be doing. It sounds like from talking to the previous property owner or the current property owner, excuse me, that it is anywhere between 150 gallons per minute but that was just an estimate they had. Okay, that's great. And then the other question is really to the operating budget for this park. I get a lot of concerns from residents saying, hey, we need to fix it first policy. I mean, I understand that recreational opportunities in South County are below par and we need to make up for that. I'm just curious how you envision the operating budget for this working. Yeah, I'm really excited about this one because it's really easy. Obviously having a working farm there, let's just conservatively say you take blueberries at about $15,000 an acre conservatively, I think is how much you could profit from blueberries. And if you do 10 acres set aside for that, you're looking at $150,000 a year that somebody would be profiting. We take a 10% concession from that, from the farmer that's kind of standard. So $15,000 to $20,000 is about what it would take us to annually maintain this property. The initial outlay we want to put into it will be a couple of hundred thousand but that's built into the grant request. I think that's like I said, conservative numbers. I think we could probably do a lot more on generated revenue than that. So that's what's really nice about this property has many aspects to it that are appealing. So with the agricultural component, we would just take a share of the profits of any crops produced or would we lease the land to? There's a number of options out there, a number of different examples. We could do the Cottle Ranch example that I mentioned where it's like a concession and they'd be providing services that we ask them to provide and as well we take a percentage of those profits. There's a long road ahead of us before we get to that. So I'm always interested in creative solutions but anything that generates revenue provides a good resource for the community and most importantly provides an educational resource. That's what we'd be looking for. And so there needs to be some flexibility about how we do that. But the best part of it, as I said, is that's relatively easy to generate revenue off this property. And if the property has much revenue generating potential, why hasn't there been more interest in other folks in the private market to purchase it? I think the biggest component of this is without getting into many details, I think there's been some family issues that have gone on over the years for the family that owned it. And I think this was collectively a trust that came together to do this and there's also some other family issues going on currently. So we were fortunate enough to be able to talk to them and they were compelled by our story and compelled by the interest in doing this. They actually had two offers come in while we were doing this. So we were important to them. And I think I also wanted to commend CEO Palacios for his work and efforts to keeping this going forward as we had some hiccups come along. So thank you for that. All right, great. Well, that's good to know. I mean, that certainly makes a greater argument for getting this option in place so that we preserve the right to buy the property. I'm very supportive of this. I mean, I think that the $2 billion industries in our county are agriculture and tourism. So I think this is absolutely a sweet spot for us to be operating in and it'd be a great community facility. Very excited about it. Thank you. Great, been a long time coming. Any comments from the public? Thank you. My name is Becky Steinberg. I'm a resident of district two. I support more parks for everyone and especially South County. I just really question the wisdom of this location of this park because it is so far removed from the areas where kids are, where their families live and how are they going to get there? They will be resigned to having to be driven. It is very dangerous to ride your bike on Hohen 152. I would like to ask that the package include a future bike path if we go through with this that would allow kids to have a route that they could safely ride their bikes to get to and from this wonderful park. Otherwise it's at the great park but how can kids get there? It will increase the traffic. It doesn't fit well with the county's mandate to reduce carbon. And I suppose all of that will come out in the CEQA but I really think that this needs to be considered in terms of its location and how it will actually serve the people, the youth that is intended to preserve. I'm happy to see that there's going to be some agricultural preservation there. And I'm very familiar with the Emma Prash Farm Park model. It is in fact the model that I came to your board and asked that you consider for the Redmond-Hirahara farm that is actually closer to the city center is next to the Harho Valley Levy bike path. And it is a great, great organization. I think we should not forget the Redmond-Hirahara property for projects like this. And I ask that you look into a group called Veggie-Lution. They're the ones that have really forwarded the school group ag part for Emma Prash. How will this affect Measure J and the county's resolution not to remove farmland from production? It will have to be rezoned. And while there will be some farming, how will Measure J be considered? Who will pay for the studies? CEQA is always expensive. Who will pay for that? I hope that the sellers take part in the cost of all of this. I do see that it is only half of the monthly payments would be applied if I understand that right to the purchase price. I wonder why only half? It doesn't seem proper in other purchase agreements that I have reviewed. Finally, I would like to ask that. I see that this was on the board's legislative priorities which I thought was happening today with our legislators as one of the projects that we were really hoping as a county to get funding and legislation to support. So those are my main comments. Again, I support parks. I want them in places where kids will be able to use them easily. And I think your board should continue to look at the property that the county already owns behind the Ag Extension office right in the heart of Watsonville on the corner of Freedom Boulevard in Crestview. It's right where the people live and the kids could get there easily and have a really great time with basketball and soccer and all of that. And it would be on City Water which they used a lot of recycled water for. Thank you. I don't know if you want to briefly answer anything. I think some of those things are going to be, have been considered or will be in the process. Yeah, that's the best way to put it. That was a lot. I would just reference the fact that there is a bus stop at the fairgrounds and this is contiguous to fairgrounds. I anticipate that we'd be able to have people get there by bus in regards to carbon reduction. We hope to have a climate resilient crop plan. And so we'll actually be reducing carbon by growing crops actually, hopefully. And also we do have, you know, Pinto Lake and Mesa Village parks that are a different type of experience in a different type of park. They also have soccer fields and recreation that are within two miles. So this is a different type of experience, but we will definitely be going through a public process as we continue to move forward and we'll continue to take public comments and interest in what we do out there. Very good. Thank you. Okay, so no comments, entertain a motion. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve second by purchase. I'll second the recommended actions. Thank you, my friend. Please call the roll. Thank you. And for the record, there are no speakers on Zoom. Oh, excuse me. Thank you. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. That completes our morning agenda. We were going to have a long agenda in the afternoon. We're going to go into closed session. Are there any reportable items? No, there are no reportable items. Okay. Very well. Okay. We'll come back at 1.30. We will come back at 1.30. Good afternoon at 1.35 on December 7th, 2001. The afternoon session of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. These are going to be the next few items. They're going to be both happy and sad. But we're really happy for those who are being honored today. But we're sad to see them leave in our county family. The first of the issuance of a proclamation will be to honor Emily Bolly on the Deputy Director of Human Services. This proclamation, there's some short print here, because she's done so much. And so I'm not going to be able to say it all because I know some of you want to say it as well. But she hasn't been an invaluable part of our county family in a very, very critical time when we needed people to really step up and go the extra mile on when we had COVID, fires, whatever it might be. And some of the issues that we have faced in not including the pandemic itself. But she became an eligible starters and eligibility worker in 1990 and followed a series of promotions until she became the Deputy Director of Human Services, one of our biggest departments that we have in the county. She started, it really started providing direction to the South County Career Center, which empowers youth and families and single adults to strive for their goals and managed to benefits phone center there so people could have more communication on what and where to go and how to improve their lives. She really oversaw significant policy changes federal from the federal Affordable Care Act to some of the county's issues that we have had and the healthcare access and that affordable care act impacted about 80,000 residents of Santa Cruz County. So it's big, big responsibilities that she had and she just handled so well. It says she was nimble in her way, she does it, always sensitive to people and their needs. She really valued the partnerships in the mentor program within the county that provide the growth opportunities for county staff itself. So she had outreach to the public for sure, but it was within the county family itself that she had such a nice impact for so many people. She was working with partners to establish the Thrive by Three to create a strong foundation for counties youngest members to thrive and some of those that especially that had been negatively impacted possibly by in the immigrant communities that we had. For the role for the last 21 months has been crucial in reducing the COVID-19 infections to high-risk populations. She experienced and helped workers out facilitating the opening of over 18 shelters and leading the implementation of the housing for harvest program. And then when the fires came on, she assisted the evacuees and when they needed shelter and opened the South County warehouse where fire survivors could pick up their donations. There's too many things to mention and 32 years of great service, really talented sharing service to the people of Santa Cruz County. We can't overemphasize her value of what has been for us here. And I think at first, the first person that I would like to recognize to make some comments from the public is her supervisor, the director of human services, Randy Morris. He doesn't want her to leave either. Yeah, sabotaging has not worked. Thank you, Chairman Ferrisen and board members. And if you know Emily has I've gotten to know she actually hates the spotlight and likes to be the superwoman behind the scenes. So I'm sorry, Emily, but this is maybe something I need to do more than you want. So I am the human services director and with your permission, Chair McPherson, I'd like to ask that my predecessor, Ellen Timberlake, who's here in the audience and is who hired Emily into her position, be allowed to go after me. I think that's really symbolic to recognize what Emily means this community for us in human services. I started just under two years ago and I just want to share that when I got the position, the impact Emily has in the work of human services not just in Santa Cruz County, it's throughout the region and state. And one of my colleagues where I used to work said, oh, you're going to Santa Cruz. You'll get to meet Emily Bolly, the deputy. She's amazing. The place will run without you. You don't need to worry about it. And boy, did I come to realize that was true. Emily, this sounds a little bit staged, but I feel like this is really emotional important to say this. I do walk in a legacy of amazing leadership here in this county as a new member and you have 32 years experience. I'm just two years of sort of a blip in your career. And there's a motto that the Santa Cruz County Human Services Department holds, which is dedicated to making a difference. And there's an actual plaque in the office that I'm in now that has amazing people, Ellen and the people before her. And Emily, I look at that phrase and I was kind of thinking about what to say and that phrase of you. And I want to break down the first part dedicated and the second part, making a difference. Emily's dedication is unbelievable. It's palpable, it's infectious, it inspires people. Sometimes a little intimidating. You work 80 hour weeks and people are tired and you just keep going. And then making a difference. Supervisor McPherson, you just led a very, very small list and the list is unbelievable. For those who don't know, the Human Services Department helps almost one third of the county residents. And in Emily's tenure, she has touched many, almost 100,000 people's lives. As she promoted up, it became more as an administrator, but then in the fires and COVID, it was people directly. She spent many nights not sleeping during the fires, many nights setting up the COVID shelters and she is somebody who just drives out there and helps people when we don't have people to do things. Emily, I just want to share two quick stories. One is a work story in one family. I see your wonderful husband or at least you tell me he's wonderful except for something to do with a car, a carock and a bad color or something. Some story that's inside that, that was the only thing I ever heard you say bad about Victor. And one of your three daughters, all throughout your office is your pictures of your three daughters, Jillian is wonderful to see one, was able to make it here. Living out a country and you made it here. So, Supervisor McPherson, this is just one small example of hundreds. You mentioned one in the proclamation of program called Housing for Harvest. The quick story, which I think lifts up who Emily is, the human services department has been very strained this year. The services we provide, the COVID shelter system, the homeless office, we stand up, everything we did during the fires. And we have been really struggling throughout this year trying to figure out how to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. And at a very, very uncomfortable moment on a leadership team call, which I'm the director and Emily's the deputy. We had an opportunity to apply for this program called Housing for Harvest. And we actually almost made the decision not to. And as Emily's Supervisor, I said, I don't think we can do this. We are so under water, we are so overwhelmed. People are so tired. And when we are just about to make that decision, and for those in the room, just so you know what this is, this was a program the states and fed funded to help food workers, farm workers, mostly South County workers, if they contracted COVID, a chance to give them replacement income and housing so that they did not have to risk spreading COVID in their families. Very specific, narrow program, but one that would help the community, Emily lives in and loves. And I almost said, let's not do it, we can't do it. And Emily looked at me, which I only found out a month ago was because she was mad at me. Because she couldn't believe we would not stand up and find a way with the privilege we have of having food on our tables in the bed to sleep and even if we're exhausted, there are people who don't and you would not let me get away with that. Yeah, she's shaking her head. She knows she would not let me get away with that. And she said, Randy, if I do the application and you just don't ask me who and I pull a few people in, can I just do this? She said, okay. And somehow on Monday, there was a full application ready. Sorry, Victor. She probably spent the whole week and not talking to you. But there is almost three dozen people in South County who got COVID or exposed to COVID who got income and got services and are better off because of Emily. And it's a very small example of hundreds and hundreds throughout her career that I just wanted to lift up. She was not insubordinate. She was very angry. I didn't know until a month later. But Emily, you always looked out for the South County. You've always looked out for the most vulnerable. And we today, just so the board and community knows, we have moments now where we say, I'm channeling Emily and that's when we're about to say no. And we remember we can't say no because of what we have to do. The last thing I wanna say before turning over this to Ellen who hired Emily, there's a whole story behind that. Just a little bit about family, Emily. I apologize, Victor. I'm gonna talk about you for a minute. But as a family member myself, we always struggle giving to our jobs and trying to be there for our families. And Emily, one of the things that just has struck me in my two years working with you is you just tirelessly give. I don't know where you get the super woman energy. You just keep giving, you keep giving. And with COVID, I found out, Victor, you retired from a year of years and years in public service. And during that last year when you retired, the only time Emily and I could find to meet sometimes was at 7 a.m. And every single time we met, Victor, you brought in coffee, got to meet you virtually. Next night is the first time I've met you. And when the meeting was really tense and difficult, Emily would text something and you'd go up half an hour later with another cup of coffee. But really I wanna highlight your role as mother, you have one of your daughters here, and grandmother. And I know how much you suffered during COVID, not being able to see your grandbabies and your kids who all sheltered in place. And one of the nicest moments I experienced was a few months ago when your oldest daughter, your two grandkids were in town and we were on a meeting and I could tell you were about thinking about retirement. You were willing to not have your A game and you were distracted and you let your daughter come in, give you a big hug and kiss on the cheek. You let your grandbaby come in and whisper in your ear and kiss you on the cheek and then you let your adorable grandson sit on your lap and say that how Victor had just sprayed him with a water hose and he just couldn't stop talking about his wet butt and wiggling it on you, sitting on your lap. And Emily is as, you know, Tamiya story that is, I just, you know, Supervisor McPherson, you asked me about sabotaging to keep Emily from staying, you know, leaving. But when I see what I saw on video and I know how much love your family has for you, I hope you can walk away and take a pause and feel good about all you've given and just enjoy your family, you deserve it. And I'm gonna miss you. Former Human Services Director, Ellen Temberlake. It's nice to see you back. Oh, good afternoon, Chair McPherson, members of the board. I'm thrilled to be here this afternoon to help celebrate Emily's retirement and honor her 30 plus years of service to the county. You were destined to be a leader the day you stepped in the department. Supervisor McPherson, you went through the rapid succession of promotions. But when I step back, and as a person who's had the good fortune to work with you for many, many years. And when I step back and think, you know, what makes Emily Bali so special? Special to the department, respected and revered in the community. It's not the job titles or the promotions that inform me. You've got like this secret sauce and I'll tell you what I think some of the ingredients are. It starts with a deep and abiding love and commitment to our mission, to our staff and to the community. I think Randy, you alluded to that. I think about it like an Olympic torch. And I swear I have worked with you for years and I've never seen that torch dim, barely flicker. And when you couple something like that with the kinds of leadership qualities that you have of humility, you have amazing listening skills, dedication to collaboration, calm and patience. And never mind a really big brain. You can tackle anything that's complex and somehow find a way to synthesize it and give recommendations about what to do. And you round out that entire package of ingredients with endurance. Randy, it's like the Energizer Bunny. And I'm serious, anybody who's worked with her, it does not stop. When you combine all of those things together, it was no wonder why I immediately knew I needed to partner with you when you became the deputy. And I just want to say it's the best decision. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. And I had three years to benefit that partnership with you and I will never forget it. But I want to echo I've been away from the department but I have been watching from afar. And I know that that secret sauce has shown brightly in the last couple of years. All the reasons that Randy spoke about and Supervisor McPherson spoke about. So never doubt when you walk away that you've made a huge difference. There's so many people in the community and so many staff past and present. You've made a big difference in my life. And as you transition to this next phase, first of all, congratulations. It's great and you can't sabotage it because I won't let you. But as you make the transition, my hope for you is that that battery of yours gets a chance to recharge with your family with your parents and all your adventures. And I know there'll be a lot but what I know for sure is that as you move into this phase, that torch is going to continue to shine. It'll just be directed at something different. But I know you'll keep that love and that dedication because I see it all the time. You're my dear friend and I wish you the best. Thank you very much, Ellen. Before we have comments from board members, is there anybody in the public that would like to speak, a comment? Okay. Any Supervisor Coonerty? I know that you were deeply involved and thrived by three and one of many healthcare initiatives in the county. Yeah, I mean, I just working with MLA has always been amazing because she brings her fierce intelligence and energy to it, but she gets things done. And when she gets things done as sort of Brandy and Ellen mentioned, that means that hungry families have food, vulnerable people have shelter, people have access to benefits and insurance. We did these CalFresh outreach events that got more people signed up by zip code and targeting different communities at the height of the Trump administration when people were being urged to be afraid to access benefits they were entitled to. And MLA brought this just really tremendous ethic towards work and doing the right thing and getting the services to the people who need them the most. And it's always been a pleasure working with her. And I'm just grateful to have had the opportunity and to build some of these programs with her and know that they will outlast both her time at the county, my time at the county and probably all of our time at the county to serve generations of Santa Cruzans. Thank you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair and let me echo some of these comments. And also for those of you that have worked with Emily, you know that she isn't usually the most vocal necessarily within the room, but is generally one of the most effective people within the room. And there's a lot of cynicism right now across the country in regards to government and government's efficacy. And it doesn't, you know, it's people like Emily that actually remind you what is really good about government. The fact that she in some respects was a single person safety net for thousands of people within our community and was also a trusted advisor behind the scenes to ensure that the board was thinking long term. It's very easy as an elected official to focus on an issue of the day or to try and accomplish something as quickly as possible, but she was always looking at a five, 10, 15 year horizon of how to change the trajectory of poverty, of equity of access within our community to change the way that we fund programs and community programs and was an outstanding listener and an even better counselor in shifting the way that we thought about these elements. So a lot of what's been good in the last five to 10 years as far as what's come out of that department has her fingerprints all over it. And the community may not know your name, Emily, but there are a lot of people whose lives are a lot better as a result of your work. So as Ryan said, it's gonna well outlast your tenure here. I think that you've helped set us on a trajectory that's really going to improve outcomes in our community for years to come. It's something to be very proud of. Here, thank you, Zach. Supervisor Koenig. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, Emily, 32 years, it's an incredible amount of your life that you've given to this county. And I think we all owe you a deep debt of gratitude for that commitment to public service. We haven't had that much time to work to get Ellen said about that torch that you embody and the love that you share with so many people is so completely evident. And I wish we'd had a lot more time to work together. You're gonna be missing this county. Of course, by none more than Director Morris is gonna have to work a lot harder to keep up with the vacancy that you leave. But we wish you the best. Thank you. Supervisor Caput, and then I'll present the proclamation to her. Yeah, thank you for a wonderful job in the past. And especially for what you did for Watsonville, you and your whole department, Randy and everybody, the transition of the veterans building into a homeless shelter. It was a very sad time in our lives, but looking back on it now, it was also a very fulfilling and at times a happy kind of feeling how we help people and are continuing to help them get ahead in their lives. Anyway, that was heroic what you did. Thank you. I guess you have a few people on the Zoom that wanted to make some comments. Yes, there are two people on Zoom. Tamara, your microphone is available. I can call for Tamara. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Good afternoon, Chair and Board of Supervisors. My name is Tamara Vides, I'm the Assistant City Manager for the City of Watsonville. And it's really my pleasure to address you this afternoon in recognizing Hesana Cruz County employee like you all said and in my eyes, I have experienced her to be a champion for our community and all the residents of the county. Ms. Bailey, I want you to know that it has been a true honor to work alongside of you as a caring partner for so many years. Over the 23 years that I've known you and worked with you, you have demonstrated to be incredibly caring, committed, willing to work and to lead with the best interest of all the residents in our county. I agree that you have been an exemplary public servant. I know that you have worked tireless for all, but I really appreciate how South County always had a special place in your heart. You will be missed and forever remember because you have made an impact on the lives of so many. So I wanna wish you happy retirement, my friend, and congratulations. Thank you, board members. Helen E1 Story, your microphone is available. Good afternoon, Chair and Supervisors, I'm Helen E1 Story, Assistant Director of the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County. On behalf of CAB's Executive Director, Merlena de la Garza and myself, CAB wants to convey its heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Human Services Director, Deputy Director Emily Bally on her 30 years of outstanding service to and achievements on behalf of our community and wish her the very best on her upcoming retirement. Emily CAB has so appreciated your collaborative, creative, and truly dedicated approach to supporting our community's most vulnerable individuals and families, always with an eye to addressing equity and providing solutions to gaps in access and service to make our communities stronger, including during our most recent challenges of COVID and fire. And truly Emily, I personally appreciated getting to know you and working as a community partner alongside of you for 20 years now. And I'm in deep gratitude for all of the heart and head that you put into your work to provide greater opportunity for individuals and the parents getting back into the workforce, supporting themselves and their families to have greater stability. Your thoughtfulness, your advocacy and commitment has literally benefited thousands of our fellow community members over the years. You are so appreciated. We thank and honor you and we will miss you. We really wish you the very best on your retirement. We hope you enjoy your family and your adventures ahead and we'll look forward to continuing to see you in the community. Emily, best to you. There are no other speakers. And finally, we'll have a county administrative officer, Carlos Palacios, make some comments and I'll be coming down to it. Yeah, Emily, I just want to thank you personally for all that you've done for the county and for our community, especially my 20 plus years in Watsonville. We really relied on you over those years and I wanna thank you for that. Emily is the kind of person that could have been very successful in anything she did. She could have been a very successful business owner, banker or a real estate broker and she could have been very wealthy with her intelligence and her energy. But she chose public service and she's become wealthy in a different way. And that wealth is with the love of the community and the respect of the community and her fellow employees. That's a lot of wealth. And so Emily, I want to thank you because in truth, you are the role model for us as the public servants. We look to you as to what a public servant is and should be. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm a hot mess, so bear with me. Thank you, Chair McPherson, members of the board. Thank you for the proclamation. I feel blessed to have had a 32 year career with this county and in the human services department. I laugh because when I started with the county as an eligibility worker, I said five years and I'm out of here. But what kept me here all these years is my belief in the work of this county and the great people have had the privilege to work with over the years. Although I'm looking forward to the next chapter of my life and spending more time with my family, my husband who's here, my daughter who lives in Japan who happens to be here right now. And I'm gonna out you, Jill, that she's pregnant and will be having a baby in June so I'll have a new granddaughter so I'll be in Japan in June. And I have to share that when she first told me she was pregnant and due in June, I went, oh, no budget season. And then I went, oh, no, I don't care. I wanna thank your board, Carlos, the CAO's office for your leadership and support over my career. I also wanna express my gratitude to county and community partners for your collaboration and commitment to the community. The most rewarding programs and services I have been honored to help support. Were those that were done in partnership with you all, such as Thrive by Three, Housing for Harvest, the ACA, which was such a huge lift and the support for CCU Fire Survivors. And I'm gonna try and get through this without crying. As deputy for the last almost four years, I've had the opportunity to serve with two dedicated directors, Ellen Timberlake and Randy Morris. And Ellen, I'm not gonna look at you because I'm gonna cry even more. The reason I took this job was because of Ellen and then she left me. She's brilliant and I learned so much from her and I enjoyed working with her so much. I felt like we were such a good team and we were able to do so much together. And although we're not coworkers, we are friends and I look forward to coffee with you in the future. So thank you, because as you all may know, taking a position behind Ellen Timberlake is probably the most scariest thing in the world. And she really just let me bring me to the position and thank you, I appreciate that. Randy, I'm not gonna look at you either. Over the last two years, it has been the most challenging in my career and being alongside you over these last two years as you're learning your new role. It's been a pleasure to see your compassion, your resilience and your dedication to this community and the staff. I can leave knowing that HSD is in really good hands under your and Kimberly's leadership, so thank you. I have lots of thank you, so I'm sorry. I also have to express my gratitude to the dedicated, amazing HSD staff. I'm constantly and unhumbled by how they show up every day for the community and for each other. Whatever, you know that you make a difference and you've made a difference to me and it's been an honor to work alongside you all these years. And lastly, I wanna thank my family, my husband and daughters because I couldn't have done this work all these years without their love and support and sometimes sacrifice. So thank you, thank you all. I truly, it's truly been an honor to work here all these years and thank you. Thank you, there you go, don't forget that. Yeah, now the second part of our happy, sad day is... Ms. Sheriff, I think we need to actually adopt that proclamation for the entire... Okay, yes, thank you. We're moving right along. Yeah, I... Proclamation? Okay, do you make a motion? Second. The conic, all the role, please. Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Caput? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Okay, our second proclamation is honoring Kevin Bowling on his retirement. He began his career with the county in January 2004 with a full head of hair, dark hair, I guess it says. Is that right? All right, whatever. And he brought his wealth of IT experience from as in the private, public and startup arenas. And in 2007, he became the director of the ISD and launched his strategic plan to replace all our cake, mainframe business applications with modern vendor and in-house solutions. And with the CAO and the Otter, he secured a multimillion dollar certificate of participation with the county and with the county council and the leadership of the business departments. He negotiated ironclad contracts and oversaw many projects and celebrated the mainframe's retirement by 2015. And he's not a patient man exactly. He's just determined and to make things better. And so he wanted to rid the county of its data processing or data processing and other terminology from the pre-internet area era and in partnership with personnel modernized the IT position descriptions. He took his public servant role very seriously and crafted civic innovations championed by the Board of Supervisors, such as ensuring Wi-Fi for the public and county buildings made possible by ISD's innovative trade deals with the ISPs. And in this day of COVID and the fires and so forth, it's just allowed thousands of people literally to have communication with their county departments, Santa Cruz County departments or the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors and all the personnel throughout what we have here. And when he anticipated COVID would shut down the county as it has all the world, Kevin he led ISD to ensure the county services would not falter when the remote work became an overnight reality for county staff in August of 2020. Now is the time to let him learn to sleep through the night without a phone call by a side. And so it's with a great deal of pleasure that I issued this proclamation assigned by each of the county supervisors to Kevin Bowling on his retirement from Santa Cruz County. I would welcome any other comments from county supervisors. Comments. I'll start off. That's okay, Mr. Chair. Go ahead, excuse me. No, sure. I just wanna say that Mr. Bowling is one of the strongest advocates for the county to have equal access, be it in internet access for rural or disadvantaged communities or even a cell phone service, really against a bunch of corporations that make his life impossible. I mean, this is somebody who never took no for an answer was willing to go toe for toe with internet service providers and other corporate providers and really advocate on behalf of the county. He's definitely somebody you want on your corner when you're fighting for rural and disadvantaged communities within our county. And as a result of it, we've really been able to set the stage for improvements not just on the code section side, but on funding and some of the other elements that are coming out through the federal funding. He's really set the stage to ensure that there be improved access throughout the county. So I wanted to make sure that we didn't just talk internally about the improvements, which I know the proclamation focused a lot on. It's true that the county itself as an infrastructure has improved, but externally this community, that normally I think ISD directors focused much more internally, but externally he was always there to fight the good fight to ensure that people had access within our community. And I think that that, similar to our comments about Emily, really will well outlive his tenure as director here. And as broadband improves and as a cell service improves in the next couple of years, which it will do, a lot of it is because of the ground work that Kevin Boeing did and we owe him a great debt of gratitude for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. I don't know if you had any comments. Yeah, I like that you pointed out his lack of patience. And I think it's incredibly important in that leadership to recognize that these systems are big and hard and complex. And there's always an incentive to put off improvements or to do it in small pieces. But one of the things I've really appreciated about Kevin is he's taken on the hard projects and been relentless in pushing them through, which is one of those things that the public will not see, but will benefit from in security, in reliability, in access, in really fundamental ways. And so I'm just grateful for his service and I'm grateful for that lack of patience in the future policy of the county. All right, Supervisor Coonerty, he's our techie. I am not on this board. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Kevin. Given the pace of technology change, 18 years of service with the county is an eternity. And I'm glad that you weren't impatient when it came to your public service. Given that government tends to run about five years behind on technology and you started in 2004, I think it's fair to say that you brought our county into the 21st century. And we're grateful for that. I also appreciate your impatience when it comes to solving problems. And I think as a result, you've accomplished a lot in your time. And I'm just hopeful that we can find someone with the right balance of patience and impatience to take your shoes. Vice-Chair Caput. Well, thank you for helping our office out. We had problems and you were always able to take care of it and do it and the highest quality of work that's possible. So anyway, thank you. And where do you plan on going for your return? You'll let us know in a minute, I think. See you here. Okay. All right. Thank you. Is there anybody from the public who'd like to speak? There you go. You can't wait. Mark. We're members of the board. I am to be McCann, Assistant IT Director. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to add to the well-written proclamations that honor my boss, my mentor, my colleague and my friend, Kevin Bolling, as he retires after 18 years of public service to the County of Santa Cruz. When Kevin arrived in 2000 and with me and Tammy Weigel forming his senior management team, we were faced with an IT department, position titles and infrastructure right out of the 1980s. Today, Santa Cruz County is at the forefront of technology on the state. This is thanks to Kevin's strategic leadership supported by the ISD management team whose exceptional skills and operational management led the department to complete Kevin's modernization vision and strategy. We've been in office 365 shop for nine years with email running in the cloud. The mainframe, as you noted, was retired in 2015. Our data center runs dark and virtual. The position descriptions no longer reference data processing. I would be here all day if I were to describe the many things that have been realized. One of the most recent dramatic achievements was the effective and timely response to the pandemic. We were ready when remote work was suddenly a reality. Being ready when the shutdown was announced meant at times we had to beg forgiveness for moving faster than the County thought appropriate because we knew we did not have time to wait to get the infrastructure and IT staff equipped and ready to support over 2,000 people who would be suddenly working from home. Kevin in this job and in his others has been always a champion of gender equality like the sheriff and DPW ISD is on admin review. This is a board mandated construct by which a department's racial and gender profile must mirror that of the County of Santa Cruz. We are on admin review for lack of women. I would like to point out that I along with Tammy and Christine are KB's direct reports on the extended management team where joined by Netta and Stacy then Matt Fred, Sean Archer and Tom. Kevin tips the scales in the wrong direction but maybe next time. You may be noticing how often I say we that is because that is exactly how this department rolls. In IT single points of failure can be disastrous and we have made it a point to have backup and redundancy which is remarkable in a department of our size with the breadth of services we provide and the responsibilities we have we trust each other's expertise and rely on one another to get things done. And this is the culture that Kevin has built over his 18 years with the County. This is personally the third gig with Kevin where I've had to say goodbye. Usually I just show up at his next job. This time that will be a little impossible. By now he knows I have deep admiration for his management style, his technical prowess, his skills with people and his ability to know what the next big thing is that latter ability extends far beyond technology. I treasure his guidance and friendship more than I can say. Thank you. You're members of the board. I'm Tammy Weigel. I'm the other assistant director and I'm on the technology division. I'm also the chief information security officer for the County, which is why I have my hair. Though as some of you may know or not know I started in ISD in 1999. So I've been with the department now 23 years. I am proud to stand here today and say that some of the greatest accomplishments for ISD and IT in general at the County have been under the leadership of Kevin as director. Kevin, during your tenure the department has implemented so many amazing technological initiatives which are far too many to mention in a short speech. What I want to thank you for is the support and guidance over your almost two decade career here in ISD that it's allowed our employees to continually provide the technology and solutions that have improved the way the County provides services and citizens as well as creating agile teams that can respond to any emergency or event. Under you we have grown as employees as well as a department into an organization that was often years ahead of other County IT departments in California. Under your leadership, our department continuously leveraged our amazing talent and resources to always aim for ambitious goals with successful outcomes. You will be missed, but you can happily retire knowing that you made a difference in your leadership here in ISD and the County of Santa Cruz. So on behalf of the network, CIS admin, telecom and radio teams, best wishes on your well-earned retirement. Now go and relax knowing that I will not be calling you at 1 a.m. in the morning when the network goes down anymore. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a man Mark Stone. Thank you, Mr. Chair, board members, members of the public, and especially my friend Kevin Bowling. We've been friends, colleagues for a long time and I've watched you grow and grow this department, this agency from a time when you were working with a board that I could probably generously describe as a bit letic and into one that, into a County that truly does lead in its information systems and information technology. I've worked with a number of IT departments in both public sector and private sector over the years. And I think Kevin, you have built one that is absolutely exemplary. And one of the reasons and one of the things that I truly admire about you is it's not just you. It is Tibi and Tammy and the rest of your team. In fact, I always think of you and Tibi as a bit of a dynamic duo because you were hand in hand making the changes in this County that were desperately needed. Recognizing that in the public sector, too often IT projects had been outsourced and governments didn't know how to build the capacity to do IT projects, which leads to overruns and fraud and all kinds of problems that we constantly see in the newspapers, you built that capacity here. You shook this County away from Fortran and COBOL and mainframes for God's sakes and into something that is truly modern and dynamic. And I hope to continue to call you friend even though I know I'm going to be hearing from you when the legislature does things in the interest of the Public Records Act that made your job here a lot harder. But I always knew you could implement and you could take what we were trying to do making information available to the public and do it well because you have these infrastructure here but more importantly, you have the team to be able to implement what it was needed here. And you built that, you and TV built that. And as a former board member, I greatly appreciate that as well as our ongoing conversations. So I know Santa Cruz tends to be on the short end of the stick so I took all of the broadband money that was going to come your way and had a resolution done. You come up, Miss. Evan, come up. Evan, did you come up? Come up so I can at least present this to you because it may be all Tammy sees a broadband money. I don't know, let's see if we can work on that. We're not there. And I think you learned to fight the AT&T's and the others who are trying to deny access that you have been desperate to give people in Santa Cruz County. And I think you learned those skills working with a reluctant board and a board that did not understand what you were trying to do. So the system, the team you have built here, you and Tammy and TV have built here is nothing short of remarkable. I'm always in awe of you and your team. Congratulations on your retirement. Thanks Mark. I think there's some more speakers here. All right, good afternoon chair and board of supervisors. I'm Nicole Coburn, assistant CAO and I'm joined by my colleagues from the County Administrative Office. I just, as a team, we wanted to say what a pleasure it's been to work with Kevin. I personally have worked with him for eight and a half years now. He was probably, I think he was one of the first people I met when I joined the office. I was initially his analyst and then subsequently became his supervisor. And it's been quite an adventure. I think we've, there's countless things we've worked on together, whether it's been broadband, the My Santa Cruz County application, new applications, new systems, lots of emergencies. Your team was just amazing when we had to go remote and implement a hybrid work schedule. And I can't thank you enough for all you and all of your staff did. So it's been an incredible ride. I can't believe it's coming to an end at the end of this calendar year, but I just wanna thank you for your service to the County and it's been a real pleasure working with you. And I know Melody also wanted to say a couple of things. Kevin has another one of your former analysts. I wanna remind everyone that Kevin has always been relentless about security. The County handles a lot of very sensitive information that and interacts with a lot of other systems with the state, with other agencies. And Kevin has been relentless about making sure that he protects that information and that people are safe when they give that information to us. And so I just wanna acknowledge that because I think that's one of your most important accomplishment. To say, you've always been so fashion forward. And so we all dressed in honor of you today, Kevin. I just wanted to say that I was in comments, then we'll have Kevin come up. That Kevin is the fashion leader in the County and he's the only department head who could get away with wearing a sweatshirt to work. And I always just said, fine, Kevin, wear whatever you want, sign with me. And thank you, Kevin. I really do appreciate your professionalism and the great confidence you showed in bringing the County forward all these years. And especially during COVID, I'll say that you were ready and I appreciate that. We have a few more people on the phone too. Nancy Gordon, your microphone is available. Thank you. I wanted to take a moment to express my congratulations personally to Kevin on, as you've heard, his multitude of accomplishments. And I am ever so thankful and grateful to have worked with him and seen his leadership and vision up close and personal. He has always had a deep commitment to service. IT, like general services, is geared for operations. So it's 24 seven people calling you as was alluded earlier at one o'clock in the morning for whatever's going wrong. And he always did it with a wicked sense of humor and a sense of urgency and a complete understanding of the significance of whatever was at stake. He was exemplary in his strategizing, oftentimes going above and beyond to get the kind of effective and progressive results that have resulted in the system that we currently have in the County operation. Most importantly for me, the bridging of new technologies and their integration into County work was a huge accomplishment. The public safety communications network is his baby. That wouldn't have happened without Kevin's work and his team to be and Tammy and the rest of the gang. And his foresight and commitment to the kind of advanced preparation for all levels of disaster. Because the one thing that is consistent across the board in disaster operations is that the communications don't work. Your response won't work. He has truly made a difference for the organizations within the County and the citizens. I am really, it's overwhelming to think of what he has accomplished. And I am very, very grateful that I had the opportunity to work for him and I wish him well, as well as the team that he's developed and led over these years. Thank you. Thank you. There are no other speakers. Okay. Kevin, would you like to say a few words? I'd like to say that you're cutting out. You want to stay for item number 19. We're going to have a study session on wireless communication. Yeah, I think I'm going to pass on that. You're not going to be here for that? Okay. Well, all right. We'll get along without you somehow. Okay. You know, Emily, it's not fair we go last. That makes it a lot harder. I got up this morning trying to decide which one of my two dozen hoodies to wear. And I thought, I'll just change it up and put a jacket on for the last time. Thank you, Chair and Board. It's been an honor serving you and the residents of the County for the past 18 years. As was said, a slightly less than half of my career has been in government. The rest was in private sector and startup. And if you don't know the biggest difference between the two is in the private sector, I worked for companies that had a single focus and it was really easy to align IT's goals to that focus. At the County, it's like, I'm providing service to 30 different companies, all with different needs and not enough staff to handle any of it. So it's a little bit different. I was going to retire last year, but with the pandemic, my staff asked me to stay for one more year. Unfortunately, that last of the last two years felt like they took 10 years off my life. My department's dealt with fires, network outages from fiber cuts, getting 2,000 staff ready to go remote in the weekend during the pandemic, moving off the mainframe, installing new large apps for the jail, sheriff records, probation, planning, property tax, financials, converting a mainframe payroll system to a new web-based one. As well as just dealing with the normal day-to-day complexities of running an IT department here. You can't leave without saying some thanks, so I'll try to be quick. I'd like to thank Susan Mariello for hiring me as director and Carlos for allowing me to continue when he became CAO. Thanks to Nicole, who started as my CAO analyst and later became my boss. And thanks to all the board of supervisors I've worked with over the years. Including the ones back when Mark was here, and it was a little bit, a lot of it's, except for Mark. Thanks to those that really helped me in the beginning when I first came in here. Dana McCrae, Pat Bush, Mary Tucker, Chief Deputy Don Bradley, Susan Perlman, Cecilia Espinola, Gal Pellerin, Nancy Gordon, Mike McDougal, Terry Cobbs, Donia Torres-Wong, and Ajita Patel. Gal helped me get settled and made a big difference in the beginning. Special thanks to Sean Saldavia, Mary Jo Walker, Edith Driscoll, David Zweig, and all the staff of the auditor tax collector and assessor's office for working together to replace the most complex system the county has. And if you can't guess, that would be property tax. Prior to coming into the county, financial systems were the hardest to replace. And let me tell you that was so much easier than the property tax system. Thanks to my family, Michelle and my boys, Michael and Steven, for putting up with the long hours in the evening and in the middle of the night, phone calls from Tammy. And both were guaranteed. Steven's here with me and the others are all remote in Santa Barbara, including Michelle who's watching our granddaughter Eva. Thanks to all the department heads over the years and there have been a lot of them. Thank you for working with us. And of course, thanks to Timmy, Tammy, Christine, Netta, Matt, Fred, and all the staff of my department, including those that have left, like Ed Huff, Masa Kamai, and Dennis Thomas. My success has been because of their dedication. I've been blessed with a wonderful management team over the years. They've made the job really easy. IT is a frustrating career. None of you know all the work that's done to keep the county running, as well as the after hours, weekend, late night work that's done by the department. They are my family. I'm gonna miss them. In a wild ride, people ask me if I have plans after I retire. I don't know what they are yet, but I'm looking forward to taking the time to figure that out. Thanks. Very good, thank you very much for everything. And just a tremendous people who have helped Santa Cruz County be as good as it is, and it is very good because of them. So we appreciate everything they have done. We are going to move now to the item number 16, a jurisdictional hearing to consider a appeal of application number 18-1-1-2-1. An application to demolish and reconstruct an existing single family dwelling as outlined in the memorandum of the Interim Director of Planning. However, so I'm gonna open the public hearing, but there has been a request to postpone the item by the applicant, and I'm gonna have the staff elaborate on that. Then we'll call for a vote of the board to postpone the item until the January 11th meeting of the board. So if you would please. Thank you. Hi, Sheila McDaniel, Project Planner. The plant submitted an email to the clerk of the board requesting your board. Is that on? Yes, it is. Okay. Sorry. So as you noted, the appellant submitted an email to the clerk of the board requesting that your board continue this item to a later date due to a family emergency, preventing them from being at the meeting. So in order to allow due process, staff recommends that your board continue the matter to January 11th, with re-notice to the appellant applicant and the planning department, and then also noting that it would be appropriate to allow the applicant to speak if requested prior to a vote, and then also note that should your board vote to deny the continuance, staff will present the item. And that concludes my comments. Okay. Is there any reason to open the public hearing at this point? Then we could, I guess if some people have been here, but we will not be making a decision. No, I wouldn't open the public hearing, but it sounds like the applicant would like to speak before your vote, before your board considers whether to postpone the item. Okay, we'll do that. Okay. Good afternoon, Chairman McPherson and members of the board. My name is Chris Fawney, I'm the applicant. And so I understand that the appellant has requested a continuance for a family emergency. We ourselves had a family emergency has been going on for the last month. And we drove all the way back from Orange County on Sunday to be here at this hearing. We've been through a circus for the last six months on delays, appeals. This has cost us an extraordinary amount of money to deal with the process that they have put us through. We don't believe there's any basis for jurisdiction taking as far as what they've proposed. And however, if the board does choose to postpone the hearing to the 11th, I would like to ask for a couple of items. In order to maintain the integrity of the process and given what we've already gone through with these folks on appeal, I would like to ask that the board make it clear that we are freeze framing where we are today and that we're hearing that on January 11th. It's not a time for the appellant to use to come up with new items to add to the record, et cetera, that we are freeze framing as of today. Second, with any sort of delay, there's money involved. We are paying for the staff of the county to work on this project. We're not the one asking for the delay. If the appellant would like to postpone it, we would ask that the appellant bear the cost of the delay and that we don't be further burdened. We've already spent tens of thousands of dollars going through appeal to zoning administrator meetings, et cetera. And so that's where we are today. We've, you know, we're also afforded certain rights and that is to a speedy hearing, et cetera. And this is not the first time that the appellant or the appellant has asked for a delay or a continuous, et cetera. So that's our request. And if the board so chooses to hear it, we're ready to discuss the jurisdictional hearing and move on. I would also like to ask if the appellant is on the line today on Zoom, and they are available that we do move forward with the hearing. Any other comments from the public? Yeah, move it back to the board. I did a call for a road to postpone the item until January 11th, the board. That'd be correct. Council. Sorry, I'm sorry for the interruption. Lisa Roberts has raised her hand to speak. Okay. Lisa Roberts, your microphone is available. Second call for Lisa Roberts. Here we are. Can you hear me? Yes. This is Lisa Roberts. Thank you, Chair and Board for listening to me today. I represent the Vonnies in this matter and I'm on their behalf of strenuously requesting that the board deny this request for a continuous. This is not the first time that appellants have asked for a continuous of a hearing. This is kind of par for the course in terms of the campaign delay that is the purpose of this appeal. A continuous was also requested of the planning commission and the request was unanimously denied by the planning commission. Approval of the project was also unanimously given. The due process here is not a concern for Mr. Hallam or his wife who had ample opportunity to present what they need to present to support their appeal and they have presented absolutely nothing. A half page of unsubstantiated and non-specific statements of why this project should be delayed. The real due process issue relates to the Vonnies and the fact that they are once again being prevented from going forward with a project that is not only legal and approved but is vastly supported by the community with the community very, very anxious to get them going on this project. I believe that the code sets forth when this hearing should be held, it should be held today. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair. Yeah, I mean, I'm also disinclined to award a continuance. I mean, this definitely seems to be given materials, a strategy of the appellant and I think we should resolve this today. Any comments from other supervisors? I'm in agreement with holding the hearing today. Thank you, hold the hearing today, okay. Advisor. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. Mr. Chair, I think it would be wise in this point to just ask County Council on their take in this position. I definitely can empathize with two different situations here, one, family emergencies or family emergencies and two, the fact that we have a very specific process outlined for jurisdictional. As a reminder also, the only thing that's being considered before us is whether to even take jurisdiction, not necessarily the merits of an appeal, but I would like to ask, and those and the information on whether or not we should take jurisdiction has been submitted by the appellants, but with that said, I would like to ask County Council for your opinion in regards to either continuing this item to the 11th, obviously if that were to happen with remarkable clarity that the hearing shall occur on that date with no additional continuances or whether the Board can take action today or should take action today. Thank you, Supervisor. Yeah, it is within the discretion of your Board to grant a continuance from the legal perspective. I'm looking out for the County's best interests in addition to at the same time in conjunction with the applicant's interest and to grant a continuance right now is something that the courts would typically do. They would, any time somebody asks for an emergency continuance because of a family emergency or something like that, courts will typically grant that kind of a request and the Board could potentially be creating an issue could potentially put simply turning a nothing issue into a something issue by not granting the continuance and by abusing discretion on a procedural basis. And I understand and I also empathize with the applicant to the extent that it's another month delay but should the Board make an incorrect decision on this, it could turn into many, many more months delay by creating an issue that someone could go to superior court on and sue the County and sue the applicant and hold up the project further. And I know it's frustrating but it's my legal recommendation that the continuance be granted so that we can ensure that due process is afforded to everybody in the proceeding and that the Board could make clear that this is a one-time continuance for a family emergency, a declared family emergency and that the appellant needs to be prepared to proceed on January 11th, either through a surrogate or in writing and that there will be no further continuances. That was my question. If we could make some demands on if we do continue it but do we have any other questions from the Board? Well, Mr. Chair, I will make that motion. I definitely hear what Supervisor Coonerty and Supervisor Koenig are saying and I can empathize with that very strongly but I'll make the motion to continue this item to January 11th with that clarity that this is a one-time continuance in honor of it being a family emergency and that the appellant shall be prepared at the January 11th meeting either through a surrogate or in person or through writing to participate that the Board will be making a decision at the January 11th meeting in regards to whether or not to take jurisdiction. And do you have a motion? That's a motion. Second. Second by Koenig. Please call the roll. This is for continuance to January 11th with no other extensions allowed in essence. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. We move to item number 17. Public hearing to consider application 21-10-18 in phase two, design review of the proposed architecture and related site plans for the portion of the Atkinson Lane plan unit development, including minor variations to the approved standards as allowed and determination that the proposed project is consistent with the adopted 2009 Atkinson Lane EIR and the 2014 addendum and amended MMRP and take related actions as outlined in the Memorandum of Interim Director of Planning that we have a Planning Commission Resolution, a Planning Commission Minutes of October 27th, Planning Commission Additional Comments of October 27th and the staff report updated from the Planning Commission October 27th. So with that. Good afternoon to all of you, those who are here and those of you who are not. I just wanted to quickly add that the MOU that we would be taking an action is included in the package at attachment five. I don't believe that it states that in the letter but I want you to make that clear. What am I doing? How does this work? We have to figure out how to make this advance. Here we go. There you are. So the proposal as before your board today is for the review of the architecture and the related design plans for the second portion of phase one of the Atkinson Lane PUD is also known as PIP in phase two and it's going to be on County APN 04822109 which is located as you can see on the northern edge of this city. What am I doing? How do we go? So the proposed project includes 80 units of 100% affordable for rent housing that will be accessed via an extension to Brewington Lane in the city of Watsonville. And it includes also an emergency vehicle access which will be over the adjacent city parcel APN 01923601. The proposed use of the site which is for high density housing and the number of total units that are allowed have already been approved under the provisions of the Atkinson Lane PUD which was approved in 2014 as ordinance 5183 and are therefore permitted by right. However, before the proposal can move forward it requires a design review approval by your board to ensure compliance with the standards and conditions that are set out in the PUD. Before discussing the project further I need to backtrack just a little to provide you with a brief history. Oops, we've gone the wrong way. I do apologize for my lack of technical. So on June 9th, 2009 pursuant to application 090114 the Board of Supervisors approved the Atkinson Lane PUD originally as an ordinance 5048 which allowed for the construction of a total 200 units on two parcels APNs 04822109 and 04821125 which are the parcels shown here in green. And they were together known as the Atkinson Lane site. And the approved project also included a general plan amendment and a rezoning and a riparian exception. At the same time, the board also certified an environmental impact report and that did for the Atkinson Lane PUD site. And this document also covered an area that was potentially going to be annexed into the city of Watsonville. And there was a specific plan developed by the city to cover that area. Following the approval, there was litigation brought by the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and this resulted in a settlement agreement. And the terms of this required that the county made modifications to the Atkinson Lane PUD and also prevented the city of Watsonville from using the EIR for the adoption of the city plan area. The settlement agreement didn't result in any change to the approved multifamily residential use or the 20 units per acre density on the county parcels that are within that entitlement area. Subsequently, on May 20th of 2014, in accordance with the terms of the settlement agreement, the board adopted an addendum to the 2009 EIR and an amended MMRP reflecting only the county entitlements area, which included the four parcels that are shown here, two that constitute the Atkinson Lane PUD site and two additional parcels that are within the city of Watsonville. The board also adopted an ordinance rescinding the original Atkinson Lane PUD, which was ordinance 5048 and approved a revised PUD, which is what we're looking at today, ordinance 5183. Under the revised approval, the EIR amendment and MMRP for the Atkinson Lane PUD, all potential impacts for the project were fully analyzed, including those related to public services and utilities, water, conservation, potential congestion and traffic impacts, agricultural resources, et cetera. And this EIR and all of the attachments are available online if you need to review those. You have to push this thing very hard to make it work. Together with the approval of the EIR addendum and the revised MMRP, the board also approved application 131265, which was for the first portion of phase one. And I need to go back. Here we go. Which was for a development of a 39,754 square foot apartment building with 26 of four-door housing units on County APN 048 211 25, which is shown here outlined in solid red. And concurrently, there was a separate application filed with the city of Watsonville to construct 20 units on the adjacent city parcel, which is shown with a dashed red line. And it resulted in the development of a 46 unit housing project. Again, with a hundred percent affordable for rent units. And this was known as Pippin Orchard's Apartments or Pippin One. And that project was completed in 2018. The project before you today represents the second portion of phase one, Pippin Two, which includes the development of an additional 80 units which is shown here in yellow, which is the portion of APN 048 221 that lies outside of an interim 200 foot agricultural buffer. The final phase of phase or phase two, which is shown in before units that have been approved by the Atkinson named PUD. But this can only be developed once the farming operations on the adjacent parcel cease and the ag buffers no longer required. All of the proposed residential units together with a community room, shared open space and parking would be developed within an approximately 3.5 acre portion of APN 048 22109 located within the County of Santa Cruz jurisdiction. No structures are proposed on the remaining portion of the parcel, which includes an existing wetland and it's associated riparian buffer zone and within the 200 foot interim ag buffer, which is across the northeastern portion of the parcel. All three buildings, buildings A, B and C as shown here are oriented to run parallel with the rear boundary of properties along Atkinson lane, which lies to the northwest. I do not know what is happening where. Here we go. The proposed residential development includes three separate, three story structures each containing a mix of one, two and three bedroom units together with private decks, common and circulation areas, storage and utility rooms and parking. Building A would be 23,876 square feet and includes eight one bedroom units for two bedroom units and for three bedroom units, as well as a multipurpose room with a learning center that includes a kitchen with computer workstations and offices. Building B would be 36,348 square feet and include eight one bedroom units, 10 two bedroom units and three and 10 three bedroom units and building C would be 45,982 square feet and includes 16 one bedroom units, 10 two bedroom units and 10 three bedroom units. All three buildings include parking at the lower floor, which for buildings A and B is accessed at the northwest elevation and for building C from the southeast elevation on the downhill side of the building. This is the restriction. Here we go. As required by the PUD, a minimum of 40% of the total number of units are required to be affordable as defined by county code. And as they say, these will be 100% affordable. And in addition, as required by the settlement agreement, preferences to be given to providing affordable housing opportunities for farm workers to the greatest extent feasible. Of the proposed 80 units, 39 of these units will be set aside specifically for farm workers and that represents 49% of the total number of units, which will then be set aside for farm workers. For the most part, the proposed project has been designed in accordance with all site standards set out in the PUD as shown here in this table, including the required building height. There is however, one minor deviation from the specified height that I'll discuss in more detail with the next slide. In addition, the project will comply with the required standards for the provision of open space for residents in each unit includes a minimum 50 square feet private outdoor deck area. And the project also provides a 12,800 square foot shared community garden. The development will mostly be located within a roughly level area lying behind the rear of homes along Atkinson Lane. However, the land falls away towards the wetland area along both the southeastern and southwestern edges of the building site. The architectural design of the proposed buildings incorporates articulation of wall planes and varied colors and materials to break up the passads. All sides of the buildings, including the side and rear elevations have the same vocabulary of forms, details and materials and have been designed to convey an image of quality and durability. In addition, the structures have been designed with varied building heights, including raised staircase towers at the building entrances and with peaks and gables that will break up the roof lines. Further to minimize grading and blend into the adjacent wetland habitat, building C has been designed to step down the slope where the building site drops off along the southwestern edge of the building site. Lighting for the proposed development has also been designed to prevent spillover glare into the adjacent residential and habitat areas and to minimize night sky illumination. So as I mentioned, the project includes one minor deviation from the specified standards in that a 264 square foot portion of the staircase access tower at the southwestern end of building B exceeds the 37 foot height limit by up to a maximum of six inches. The portion of the tower element that breaks the height limit which is shown here in the bottom right of your screen represents only 2% of the total footprint of the building and is required because at the southwestern end of the building, the land begins to drop towards the wetland area, resulting in an increase in the height of the structure when measured from the grade below. To address this additional height, which doesn't affect the overall concept or density of the project, a minor variation has been included as allowed in the Atkinson Lane PUD. And it should be noted that the tower itself doesn't extend any taller than above the ridge than the matching tower at the other end. And it won't have a significant visual impact. And it's also aesthetically desirable that the building has vertical elements that break up the roofline of the proposed structure. It's gone one too far here. We go back. Back. Other way. Other way. We go back too. Okay, here we go. So color is an important element of the project. And the design incorporates a palette of strong natural tones with more than one predominant color along with accent colors to accent the building elements. And as required by the PUD, the chosen colors are compatible with natural elements like brick and stone. It's worse. Landscaping is using drought tolerant species with permanent automated drip irrigation will screen and soften the proposed development in views from surrounding neighborhoods. The proposal includes a varied planting palette which is used to distinguish between the life surrounding each of the three buildings and the associated parking areas. There are specimen trees and accent plantings that are also used to define common areas of other focal points and the pedestrian environments throughout the development including around the wetland area are distinguished by paths, lighting and plantings to provide greater separation between the existing homes along Atkinson Lane and the proposed development. Buildings A and B have been set back beyond the landscape parking area and an interior driveway which in addition to providing physical distance will help soften the views of structures by tree planting that is in the landscaping. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We'll go back one. Who now? I will continue. The community open space has been cited to maximize views over the wetland area as well as to the adjacent farmland and the hills beyond. It's also centrally located within, gosh, it's within the parcel so that it'd be accessible to future homes that will be developed within the interim ag buffer area during phase two and will therefore be at the heart of the Atkinson Lane PUD development once all remaining units have been constructed. The area includes children's playground, a play lawn with seating, a patio with tables and chairs and a paved stepped amphitheater that will allow for outdoor community events. I really wish that I could do this. Nothing, it's not working. There anything. The site of the Atkinson Lane PUD includes an existing wetland habitat that encompasses areas of seasonal wetland and a freshwater marsh that are fed by an ephemeral or intermittent drainage running through the North, roughly Northwest to Southeast from Atkinson Lane. Associated with this wetland habitat are areas of Willow and Oak Woodlands with patches of coastal blackberry and scrub vegetation. The remainder of the Atkinson Lane site where it's not already developed is made up of non-native grassland and all of the development will be in this grassland area. The riparian exception was included in the Atkinson Lane PUD which approved a buffer of 50 feet from the edge of the delineated wetland area. And it should be noted that although it's shown on the plans that were submitted that the approved 50 foot buffer doesn't extend onto the city owned parcel where the emergency vehicle access will be developed. And within the city jurisdiction there will be a 30 foot buffer required to the adjacent ephemeral drainage. And so the ephemeral vehicle access road does comply with the riparian requirements from the city in that it's entirely outside the required buffer. So as designed and laid out the project conforms to the approved riparian exception and there's no development other than drainage dissipators which are specifically allowed that will be in that riparian buffer area. Parking and circulation. The primary access as I have said is from a new collector street which extends northwards from Brewington Avenue an existing city street that currently terminates at the southern prophecy line. In addition there's a temporary emergency only access that connects to Atkinson Lane. The roadways have been designed in accordance with the requirements of the PUD as modified by the city of Watsonville. The Brewington Avenue extension will consist of a 60 foot wide right away containing two 12 foot travel lanes one in each direction. And will once completed include four foot bike lanes between the travel lane and parallel parking eight foot parking stalls city standard curb and gutter and a five foot six inch sidewalk on both sides. However, the bike lane parking stalls and sidewalk on the Easterly side will not be developed until such time that the interim agricultural buffer is no longer required. This standard differs slightly from that set out in the PUD which required a 52 foot right away and included six foot sidewalks but didn't include parking on the Easterly side of the road. So to allow for this change of further minor variation the PUD standards is requested. So with the implementation of traffic calming measures on the Brewington Avenue intersection and also improvements to the intersection of Freedom Boulevard and Cresview and payment of fair share improvement fees for the upgrade of other intersections in the vicinity as required under the Mitigation, Summoning and Reporting Program. The proposed project will address all potential traffic and circulation issues in the area. Parking for the project includes a total of 137 spaces of which 97 shown here in yellow are covered spaces and they're located within the three proposed buildings and there are 40 shown in orange that are uncovered spaces located along the project access road and driveways. This is fewer spaces than required by the standards included in the PUD. So therefore, as part of the design review approval the board may consider a reduction to the required on-site parking standards where the number of spaces provided is based on an on-site parking plan prepared by a traffic engineer. So in support of the project a parking analysis was submitted that evaluates the parking study for the proposed housing based on a number of alternative sources. These include parking rates for apartments published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers or ITE, alternative parking requirements that are allowed under the county code for density bonus projects and the observed parking requirements that other affordable housing complexes that have been developed in the county by mid-pen housing. So based on the findings of this report the 137 spaces provided will exceed the number of spaces required both in accordance with ITE standards which would be 105 spaces and with county standards for density bonus projects which would be 128 spaces and it also exceeds the number of spaces required based on the average parking demand at similar housing developments which is 102 spaces. So therefore the report concludes the 137 spaces will be adequate to provide enough parking for the development. Then in addition to vehicle parking there will be a total of 96 bicycle parking spaces 80 of which will be within lockable designated bicycle storage rooms and there'll be an additional 16 that will be unassigned spaces located around the open space and adjacent to building entrances. So the parking therefore meets all of the other standards for parking or exceeds those standards that are set out in the PUD. So in conclusion, the Atkinson Lane PUD allows for the by right use of the subject parcel for residential high density development at 20 units per acre subject to the approval of design review permit by the board that ensures compliance for the conditions of approval of the PUD. It also allows for minor variations to the approved standards where these do not affect the overall concept or density of the project. So as proposed and conditioned the project consistent with those conditions of approval for the PUD are set out in ordinance 5183 and the project also complies with all the other provisions of the adopted mitigations monitoring and reporting program for the 2014 EIR addendum ensuring that all potential impacts from the development have been addressed and that the project therefore complies with the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act. Staff therefore recommends that your board therefore take the following actions after conducting a public hearing on the Atkinson Lane design review confirm staff's findings that the proposed design and layout of the project are submitted by application 211018 is consistent with the 2009 environmental impact report and the 2014 EIR addendum and with the adopted mitigations monitoring and reporting program for the Atkinson Lane PUD and approve application number 211018 for the proposed design and layout of the 80 unit 100% affordable rental housing development known as PIP in two based on findings of compliance with the Atkinson Lane plan unit development ordinance 5183 and with the conditions of approval as recommended by the planning commission. Now, there's one further item which is to approve the memorandum of understanding between the county and the city of Watsonville and midpen housing and authorize the CAO or their designee to execute the MOU on behalf of the county and that concludes my presentation but I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for getting through that. That was hot. Do you have any comments? Supervisor Caput? You bet. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. We'll go over some of the terms here. There's 80 units, right? And some of the terms are very good. Extremely low income. Very low income and low income. I mean, that's wonderful. Now, when I talked to Ambag, they never heard of a category extremely low. Is that a new term or is that just something that we came up with or you came up with? I can respond to that one, Lizanne. There used to be a category that was called extremely low for the purposes of the arena. Ambag works from a place of combining extreme. You don't see in that arena of the RHNA the term extremely low. It's been combined with very low. Okay. But there are different steps or categories of income, right? Extremely low is less income than very low. In a program where there are both, you're correct, extremely low is less than very low. That would be good to talk to Ambag, because like I said, when I talked to them, they never heard of the term. Yes, I did hear that exchange with Ambag, yeah. All right. And you tackled the problem I had with the traffic going from Burlington. So my understanding now is then before it will go, Burlington will go into the parking lots of the facility, but it will not shoot through the development and then people can't use it as a shortcut to go through Atkinson. That's correct, yes. Okay, that's fine. And the only thing I didn't like really was I like more open space, more room for kids to run around or even families to enjoy and go outside during a nice day in the summer. The concern I have, the only concern I have, and I hope I can vote for this right now, is you put in there phase three or is it phase two? 90 units and it's potential future development. So the Atkinson and PUD was originally approved for 200 units. First, that was broken into two phases in the PUD. There was the initial, let's see, it would be 104, 106 units was phase one. And then the final part would be the part that's being built within the interim ag buffer. But phase one ended up being broken down into two sub-phases. So phase one, which is- Phase one is the 46 units. Yeah, so Pippin one was 26 units on the county property and the 20 units that don't count as part of the Atkinson Lane PUD on the city parcel next door. And then this development rounds out the second portion of what can be done as the first phase until the ag buffer goes away and that's the additional 80 units. Okay, well, what I'm getting out to is that if we're voting on this today, I don't want my name used where I'm voting yes on phase, the 80 units. Yes. But I don't want the 90 units even in the reports. It's the first time I heard about it and that draws up a whole different thing with the access roads. The access road, I'm assuming would be Wagner or would it be Dolores or what would it be? When those units are developed, they will come from Brewington. They are part of what was originally approved as part of the original 200 units for the Atkinson then PUD, but they're not part of this approval. I only mentioned them just to round out that how the 200 units will eventually be allocated. This application is purely for the 80 units, it's not actually for the units themselves, it's for the design and the layout of the project that is put before you today for these 80 units. Now phase three is something down the line that years from now, it's for probably the next generation. So I don't have to worry about it, but I don't want somebody saying that I gave the okay now. I go back to when we originally, I was on the city council when we first came up with the idea with Medpen and we've gone through all these phases and there's another phase four that is out there too, right? And phase four is the one we looked at where it's like three hundred and fifty, 450 homes, but that's something way in the future. Yes, I think it's important to realize that. That was there was a specific plan developed by the city of Watsonville, which you're talking about and under the settlement agreement, none of that can be included in part of this. So all that was approved back in 2009 was the 200 units with the original Atkinson Lane PUD. And then there was a revised PUD also for 200 units that was approved in 2014 pursuant to the settlement agreement that took out that specific plan area and any consideration of that. Okay, when we vote on this, can we drop the references to phase three? Because we haven't had neighborhood meetings on phase three. I just like I'm getting, like I said, I don't want my name used in the future where they said, oh, Supervisor Caput said, yeah, phase three was okay. No, there will be a separate future application at such time as that land can be developed for fate for the design review of phase three. Okay, so how do we handle that where we don't mention phase three, the 90 units? That's a whole separate project. I have a suggestion, Supervisor Caput. If you look at the description of what's before you today, recommended action number three, that clearly states that this is a design review for 80 pre-approved units of rental housing. So it makes it fairly clear that this is a constrained application only for what's here. And if there's some discussion in the couple of hundred of pages of staff report, what governs is right here in the front. And so I think you can have a comfort level that this is only for those 80 units. Okay, so we're voting on the 80 units, the 90 units. We're just doing design review for 80 units that have been previously approved. So we're looking at the design of the buildings, the siting to make sure they're out of the riparian area, that kind of thing. And that's the full extent of today's project. We're not approving anything on the 90 units. No, we are not. All right, I would have appreciated it if you didn't even put it in there. I think we could have been more clear. So thank you for that. Because people were always arguing about that. Yeah. All right. And I'm all for affordable housing. And I love the fact that there's a category now extremely low income because that's the community I represent, a lot of them. I'd like to see it spread out throughout the county. I don't wanna see all the affordable housing and all the credit for the county going and coming from Watsonville and South County. So there's three districts that have stepped up in the past and they've got some affordable housing. So I'm asking, I'd like to see North County actually step up and do some affordable housing also. So what I'm getting at is I don't want it to be all in Watsonville, the Aptos area and even the Live Oak area have affordable housing that's been built in the last couple of years. But I haven't seen much coming from the North County and you know, you've got to help out too. Thank you. Anyway, that's my comments. Okay, be careful on the 90 units. We're gonna, I don't wanna stir up the neighborhood. If I do have a problem on the wording on that, I'm gonna have them call you. That would be fine and we can discuss more as well. All right. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you staff for the presentation. Look, this has been a 20 year process. There's been litigations, been through laugh codes, been through city and county discussions, measure you. I think that it's hard to imagine a project maybe other than the Aptos Village project that's gone through a longer process just to make its way toward completion. So I think this is a very valuable and solid project, supportive of the item before us and supportive of building additional affordable housing. I agree with Supervisor Caput that there's been a lot of affordable housing built within South County. We'll point out in defense at least of one of my North County brethren here on the board that the city of Santa Cruz just approved a few hundred units as well. I mean, there's a lot of affordable housing being built within the county. It's just not enough. Realistically, there just isn't enough. And you can see with the most recent rena numbers, the expectations are sky high and the realities are much lower about what can be done, but this is what's before us here. And this is one of the reasons why, if it takes 20 years just to get good projects off the ground in our county, then it's very difficult to meet the needs of the community. But what we have here is a good project. It's been through a lot of vetting to say the least and I'm looking forward to supporting it today. Thank you. Any other comments from board members? I'll open it up to the public. Anybody from the public here would like to speak? Come on up, please. Good afternoon. My name is Joan Goldman. I am a homeowner of the Brewington-Crestview Division and I am asking that you delay approving this plan because if you will go back to the map, you will see that the Brewington Avenue that's existing right now is not capable of carrying the traffic from these 80 units. Supervisor Cabot, I know you can visualize that Brewington Avenue. It is a brick wall on one side with no sidewalks. So there's only one side that has homes with sidewalks. So although your design is very pretty with your bike lanes and your walking lanes, the truth of the matter is when it gets to the existing Brewington Avenue, there's no capability for it to handle that. Pippin III, which you're concerned about, but Pippin III would extend Atkinson to Eastlake. Eastlake has the infrastructure to handle that traffic. We do not. And until we lost the audio on the internet, so we're just gonna get the mic on. It just came back. Thank you, Mr. Ciaio. Yeah, 13 years ago, we had neighborhood meetings about the project, but it also included a phase four, which is 400 and something units that would go from Hula Hand all the way to Atkinson. Right. And there was gonna be a road shooting through from Hula Hand to Atkinson. Exactly, and that's what we... I like to stick to that. That's something to be argued way in the future. Okay, let's just... What I'm saying is the existing Brewington cannot handle 120 or 30 vehicles coming from Pippin II into the Crestview subdivision and then on to freedom, which you already know is overly congested. True. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to take comments? Good afternoon, Supervisor McPherson and members of the board. My name is Sarah Newkirk and I'm the director of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. The Land Trust's mission is to protect, care for and connect people to the extraordinary lands that make this area special. We're not just concerned with natural lands here either. We have a focus on agricultural land as well and are committed to preserving the county's rich farming heritage. As you know, the deficit of farm worker housing in Santa Cruz County has reached crisis proportions. I've heard it described as the single most significant impediment to long-term viability of farming in the county. Because a pillar of the Land Trust's mission is to conserve working farms and other working lands, having a sustainable workforce is key. One of the Land Trust's flagship projects is our Watsonville Slough Farm. There were demonstrating the compatibility of agricultural production with wetland protection, along with, we hope, soon recreational trails. In 2018, we had to demolish four single family dwellings which were dilapidated on the property because they posed a significant risk to their occupants. But we made a commitment to replace that housing stock. And when the opportunity came to make a contribution to the PIP and II project, we jumped at the chance. And I'm pleased to let you know that just last Friday our board took the step of approving a $200,000 contribution to the project. When PIP and I was completed in 2018, over 2,500 people applied for the 46 units it created, illustrating the extraordinary need. PIP and II will provide 80 units of which 39 are set aside for farm worker families. It won't solve our farm worker housing project, but it will have a meaningful impact. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz is proud to support this project and strongly encourages the board to approve the application and other staff recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and Board of Supervisors staff and members of the public. My name is Luis Preciado and with MEPEN Housing Corporation. We have prepared a PowerPoint presentation and I'd like to know if we can bring that up or if you would like to hold for more public comments or if we can still have an opportunity to deliver our presentation. Well, I think we've had the presentation that we need. It's pretty well explained. I think we're fine. Thank you. Well, I'd like to take the opportunity then to thank you today for considering our proposal. And I also like to thank the Planning Commission for supporting our and recommended our project on October 27th to be heard today. I also I'd like to take a moment to thank Lysanne and Justin Sussaniese and all the County staff for all their help and guidance throughout this process. It has been a long process and we're happy that we're at this step now. And we're hoping that we can count your support for the design review approval today. And I also want to thank the County Santa Cruz for its leadership and advocacy and securing an allocation of disaster tax credits for the County Santa Cruz and for supporting shovel ready projects like PIP and phase two to be prioritized in the competition of the disaster credits. As you may know, this created an opportunity for many projects and the County to apply and move forward to help rebuild the much needed housing units after so many homes were destroyed by the recent fires. And lastly, I want to thank my design team who are also joining us remotely and are ready to answer any questions from these by our creative and beautiful design and the wonderful spaces that they have created for our future families. And I'd like to thank all the supporters as well that are joining us either by phone or in person to speak in favor of our project today. Thank you, sir. Any other comments from the public? Is there anybody on the phone? Yes, I have 11 speakers via Zoom. Alicia Webster, your microphone is available. Did you say 11? 11. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Alicia Webster and I am a housing advocate for housing choices. A nonprofit organization that works to create housing opportunities for people with developmental and other disabilities. We serve Santa Cruz County residents with disabilities by helping them to find and maintain housing from our office in Watsonville. We are also partnered with MidPen to provide on-site supportive services for residents with disabilities at Pippin Orchards so that they can remain stably housed. In 2018, Pippin Orchards phase one provided a preference for six apartments for people with developmental and other disabilities who needed coordinated on-site services to live successfully in affordable housing. Housing choices help more than 100 people apply for the lottery for those six units. For a person with a disability, most of whom rely on SSI with a maximum of the payment of less than $1,000 per month or work part-time in low-wage jobs is extremely important that they have access to deeply affordable housing in order to avoid the harm caused by homelessness or displacement. All of the six households were fortunate enough to get an apartment, continue to live at Pippin successfully. In the three years that have passed since Pippin phase one opened, the need for affordable and inclusive housing for people with developmental and other disabilities has grown significantly including here in Santa Cruz County where we receive several hundred requests for housing support services every year. We strongly support mid-fans leadership in the intentional inclusion of people with disabilities and affordable housing and urge your support for Pippin Orchards phase two. Thank you. Hunter for community advocacy, your microphone is available. Please state your name at the beginning of your comments. Yes, this is Natalie Herondine, the executive director and the attorney for community advocacy. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Pippin phase two project. Everyone knows that there's a huge housing deficit in this area, especially for farm workers, the Center for Community Advocacy trains farm workers to form and lead community-based communities to advocate for improved housing health conditions. Having more affordable housing available to our community members, particularly our farm workers who struggle to find affordable housing is the best way to affect their housing and increase the overall well-being of our community. And a lot of work has been put into this and a lot of planning. And for this reason, we ask that the Board of Supervisors approve this. Thank you. Carmen Herrera-Manser, your microphone is available. Good afternoon, honorable members of the Board of Supervisors. I'm Carmen Herrera-Manser and I'm resident Watsonville and also the executive director for Bajaro Community Development Corporation. Today I'm here to request your support for the approval of the Pippin housing expansion. Now more than ever, it is important for the Watsonville community to have affordable and safe housing available for our work phase, our workforce, our under house and our own house population. This development will help us move forward to the goal of promoting growth as a truly equitable and inclusive community. I urge the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors to support the Watsonville and South County community by approving this project. Thank you. Mayor Jimmy Dutra, your microphone is available. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Jimmy Dutra here from the city of Watsonville. I just wanted to speak on this topic as it lies right outside of my district, District 6 in Watsonville and will be annexed into my district. I have deep concerns about the traffic issues that will increase on a road and infrastructure that was built for a lot less cars to be traveling on. As one of the people spoke earlier, Ms. Goldman, there is a brick wall, a lack of sidewalks, lack of lighting on that piece of road that is gonna be turned into the project. So I also have a great concern. I don't, you know, Mr. Caput saying that this issue of phase three will be the next generation. So you don't have to worry about it right now is really concerning to me and should be concerned to everybody in Watsonville. These issues, as leaders, we need to be thinking about the future and how these projects will be affecting us. And as you know, there are hundreds of homes around this area and many people, you know, are not happy with the way that this decision is gonna be moving forward. There was no EIR done. There was no traffic plan done. And to pour salt into wounds, the county gets to keep the Rena numbers. You know, we in Watsonville and South County, we deserve to be heard. If this housing was only gonna serve as South County residents, that would be fine, but that's not how it happens. There are lists that all the whole county gets to get on. People will move into these properties from all around and it will not just serve South County. Farm workers, again, if there's federal money involved, only documented farm workers can fill in these housing. So there's a lot of things that, you know, we're pulling the wool over people's eyes. We need to be transparent. This road, if phase three is gonna come in and it's gonna come in off of Eastlake Avenue, if it's gonna come off Eastlake Avenue, then I suggest that that road be built now. That would solve a big problem so you can get this housing built. So thank you very much. Rafael Hernandez, your microphone is available. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chair McPherson and County Board members. My name is Rafael Hernandez from Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. Mitten Pen requested our support for the design review for Pippin Phase Two. And I'm here to speak in favor of the project and ask that you approve the design. We evaluated the project, including receiving input from regional housing leaders and the end up board executive committee before approving the development for endorsement. As you likely know, McPen housing is one of the largest, most trusted nonprofit developers, owners and managers of high quality affordable housing in Northern California. And they have over 50 years of experience doing this. The proposed Pippin Phase Two, I won't go into speaking of the merits as we saw the thorough presentation on it, the 80 affordable units to the high environmental standards, et cetera. But this project is the continuation of a multi-jurisdictional collaboration between the city, the county and Mitten Pen to build more highly needed affordable housing for the community. In 2014, the process with the Mitten Pen, the county and the city of Watsonville began to offer Pippin Orchard's apartments and the 46 affordable homes that that provided received over 2,500 applications, which demonstrates extremely high demand for affordable housing in the community. In 2019, the Santa Cruz County Board formally endorsed the Farm Worker Housing Study Action Plan to address the housing need. And we appreciate your continued leadership in making progress toward meeting these local housing needs and ask that you approve the design review. Thank you very much. Jonathan Pilch. Good afternoon, members of the board. Our organization, Watsonville Wetlands Watch, of which I'm the executive director, has a mission to preserve and restore and foster appreciation of the wetlands of the Pajaro Valley. We've long worked with, or have been associated with this project. Members of our board served on the Atkinson Lane specific plan technical advisory committee, and we've been working with Mitten Pen on some work to develop a vision for environmental stewardship and public access trails within the Pippin project. As you saw, the project contains important wetland and riparian habitat areas, and we feel that the project has carefully addressed the environmental concerns and has a strong vision for public access for future residents and environmental stewardship of sensitive environmental resources along Coralitos Creek and the Watsonville SLU system. We look forward to partnering with them on the development of environmental restoration projects and public access projects, youth engagement work, and we encourage support or offer our support of this project. Thank you. Donna Murphy. Hello, I'm Donna Murphy, speaking of support of the Pippin Affordable Housing Project. For several years I have been involved with the housing team of COPA and worked with colleagues in both Watsonville and Santa Cruz and everywhere in between to support more affordable housing and to keep families in their housing. Everyone with compassion for those struggling to live here will celebrate this project. It will create 80 units all for families living on less than 60% of the average median income, and 39 of those will be dedicated to farm worker families, such a vital part of our regional economy and putting food on our tables. If we cherish a diverse community where young and old laborer and professional can live near where they work, this is a type of project needed to supplement our inadequate housing supply. Thank you for moving it forward. Anin, your microphone is available. Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the board. My name is Janine Roth, I'm with Santa Cruz EMB, and we advocate for more affordable housing to meet the needs of the growing population of our county. We want neighbors of all ages, cultures, and incomes to make Santa Cruz County their home. And Pippin Phase II project is really an opportunity to address an extreme lack of affordable housing in the county, as you've all already mentioned. There is community support for this project, and I wanted to draw your attention to the petition submitted urging your approval of the Pippin Phase II design, recognizing that not everyone can take time in the middle of the day to provide comment. I wanna amplify a few comments of the community voices from that petition. Bennett says, please vote in favor of this housing development. Dedicated homes for farm workers and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, this is a project that's providing critical support to those most in need. We are so far behind on meeting our rena goals. We desperately need this affordable housing and much more. Elizabeth says, our county urgently needs more homes for low income families, farm workers, and other residents. It's shocking to me that so many of our neighbors are waiting years for scarce affordable housing opportunities to open up. You have an opportunity, an incredible opportunity to help 80 households have a brand new place to call home. Pete says, please approve this awesome project. I remember at the grand opening of the first part of Pippin Orchards, the emotion in the faces and voices of those who were lucky enough to get permanent housing. It was incredible. Housing changes people's lives. Sharon says, disabled, waiting for housing. Thank you. There is a great need for housing. I'm praying for a beautiful space that is affordable. Thank you. And I'd like to just close by saying that Sharon is like the hundred people that Houses Choice had mentioned and the 2, 2,500 families that applied to live in Pippin Orchards phase one. What a great opportunity to build on mid pen success with Pippin Orchards and at 80 additional homes to meet a huge demand. Vote yes on the project design review. Thank you. Nathalia Olivas, your microphone is available. Hi, my name is Nathalia Olivas. I'm the community organizer with Regeneracion Baharo Valley Climate Action in Watsonville. I'd like to urge the board to approve the design review for Pippin phase two. Watsonville is already on the front lines of climate impacts and we need to ensure that residents are properly prepared to face these impacts. This means we need to provide affordable and accessible housing to residents many of who are underpaid and facing housing insecurity and homelessness. Market rate housing with only a small percentage of affordable housing only threatens residents by increasing housing prices and driving gentrification. We need 100% affordable housing projects like this one to meet the needs of our low income and differently abled residents. I'd also like to add that our organization works to get people out of their cars and into the shared transportation that will lower greenhouse gas emissions. As part of building truly sustainable and equitable communities, we need to prioritize people and their well-being and not cars. Like the rest of the state, Santa Cruz County is facing a life-threatening housing crisis and this project is part of the solution to this crisis. Again, please vote yes on this project. Thank you. Gretchen, your microphone is available. Thank you. My name is Gretchen Reagan-Hart and I work with affordable housing now, supporting affordable housing wherever we can get it in the county. I think we all know that Mid-Pen is a great developer. They're good managers and this project is well-designed. But I wanted to speak to you today because I also live in the neighborhood. I'm a Watsonville resident and I live just down the street. Brewington is the cross street for my street and I think we can handle it. I think we can make whatever adaptation we need to make to this. I walk my dogs around that area all the time and it's really quiet most of the time during the day. I think we can overcome this obstacle and I urge you to please do so. Thanks. Housing Santa Cruz County, please state your name and convenient of your comments. Good afternoon. My name is Don Lane and I represent Housing Santa Cruz County, a coalition of more than 40 organizations and hundreds of individuals dedicated to one goal, creating more affordable housing opportunities for individuals and families living and working in our county. Our organization is truly countywide with more than one third of our governing board, either living or working in the Pajaro Valley. As you know, there are literally thousands of essential workers, low income households and vulnerable individuals struggling to either find or sustain housing in our community. Their struggle is the entire community's struggle. Without them, our community will not thrive and there's only one way to improve the situation. Say yes to the creation of affordable housing throughout our county. These apartments are already proven to be needed based on the number of rental applications received in the first Pippin Orchards Project and proven to be a good place to live based on the stories of the families who live in Pippin Orchards now. Please vote yes today to approve these new homes for the families that truly need them and continue to find other opportunities to say yes to affordable housing throughout our county in the months and years ahead. And as a footnote, I'd like to just note Supervisor Caput's comments about the balance between North and South County. And I want to mention to him that right now in the city of Santa Cruz, there are more than 500 affordable housing units approved or funded or in process in the city of Santa Cruz. So both ends of the county are doing their part and I hope that we will both continue to do that. Thank you very much. This is the last speaker, Kyle Kelly. Your microphone is available. Thank you all so much for having me. Thank you Board Supervisors. So I'm Kyle Kelly. I support this project and urge the Board of Supervisors to approve the design review. Apartments like these making affordable apartments to residents that really need them will help alleviate a lot of issues that families are going through right now. This allows them to be able to not have to pay as much in rent as they would before, allowing them to spend their money on anything else they need to put more money into savings and to just generally raise their quality of life. And if we raise the quality of life for the people that will call these places home, it'll actually raise the quality of life for everyone. So thank you so much for the design review. Thank you. I had one last person joined. Casey Beyer, your microphone is available. Thank you, Chair McPherson and Board of Supervisors. Casey Beyer from the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce. We're a countywide organization that's been in existence for 132 years. When we pull our members, the number one top issue is access to affordable housing. This project has been in process for a number of years. Supervisor Friend mentioned 20 years. And I think that's one of the reasons that we have housing crisis not only in Santa Cruz County but throughout California. I urge this Board to pass and approve this project. Thank you. There are no other speakers. Okay. Right. What was the public hearing and return it to the Board? Yeah. Do you have any more comments? You bet. I'll make a real quick comment. I want to thank you for all the thoughts and everything you put into this. One thing is almost everything we've done affordable for extremely low income is rental. I'd like to see in the future that we actually have some homes that they can buy, affordable homes per sale. So that they can enjoy the American dream also of home ownership. So anyway, I don't want to see a community of only rentals. Okay, let's go to the future to worry about. Any other comments from the Board? Supervisor Friend. No, Mr. Chair. I'm prepared to move the recommended actions. I should look at it. And capital seconds. Okay. Any other comments from the Board? Motion approved, recommended actions. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. We will move to... Oh, pardon me, Chair. In our excitement, we forgot to take a vote for item 15. May we please return to that? That's a proclamation for Kevin Bowling. Oh, sure. Okay. There's a motion. I'll move the proclamation. Okay. Second. Second. Please call the roll. And this is to approve the proclamation for Kevin Bowling. Kevin Bowling. Kevin Bowling. Yeah. And for first and the second, we'll call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, Chair. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Item number 18. Public hearing to consider amendments to the Santa Cruz County Code chapter 13.15. Regarding noise standards for stationary emergency standby generators, adopt resolution, affirming amendments are consistent with the general plan and exempt from CEQA, adopt ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County and Santa Cruz Amending Santa Cruz County Code sections 13.158.020 and 13.15.050 as outlined in the memorandum of the Interim Director of Planning. We have a CEQA Notice of Exemption, a resolution and noise ordinance amendments. Ordinance amending Santa Cruz County chapter 13.15. And 13.15 edits, strikeouts and underline. Mr. Carlson, are you going to be presenting? I will, thank you, Chair. Thank you. So this item proposes changes to Santa Cruz County Code chapter 13.15 noise planning in order to facilitate installation of emergency standby generators in residential areas. The existing ordinance requires for a permanent generator installation that noise levels not exceed a maximum exterior noise level of 60 decibels at the property line. Sound levels from these types of generators generally exceed 60 decibels. And some installations could meet the standard just based on an adequate setback in the natural noise attenuation based on an adequate setback from the property line. However, other installations could not meet the standard without including some kind of additional noise attenuation measures such as an enclosure or barrier to reduce the noise levels to the 60 decibel standard. And this has caused problems in the permit process. Recently, the Board of Supervisors recognized this issue and based on a desire to facilitate these installations directed the planning department to amend the ordinance to reduce the setback requirements and or increase the sound level standard at the property line to facilitate permitting of these types of projects. So the amendments propose increasing the noise standard at the property line to 65 decibels, thereby reducing the required setback to meet the standard. And I'll note that the county's normal standard for residential noise exposure from nearby land uses is the 60 decibel standard. Therefore, this represents a relaxation of that standard. But we feel that that is appropriate recognizing that they're temporary and episodic use during power outages only. The proposed changes also include a table of setback requirements to make it easier for applicants and plan checkers to determine the setback requirement for a particular situation and generator type. And we recognize this change will help in some situations by substantially reducing the setback requirements compared to the existing standard. There will be other situations that will require some sort of additional noise attenuation barrier to meet the standards and the ordinance continues to allow for this. Our recommended actions are to hold a public hearing to consider the proposed amendments to the county code chapter 13.15, adopt a resolution that the proposed amendments are consistent with the general plan and exempt from CEQA, adopt an ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Cruz amending Santa Cruz County Code sections 13.15, 0.020 and 13.15, 0.550 and direct the clerk of the board to schedule the item for final adoption at the next available board meeting and publish notice of adoption as required by government code 25124. And that concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Is there anybody here that would like to speak to this item number 18? Have anybody on the phone? There are no speakers on soon. Okay. I'll return it to the board, close the public hearing and return it to the board. I wanna thank Supervisor Coonerty for working with my office to originally to bring forward these recommended changes to our grants and thank the planning department for working quickly to bring this back to the board as well. We wanna make it really easier for our residents to obtain safe generators as backup power in this era of increasing power shutoffs. It's a really a health or you could even extend it to life and death issues that people, some people have these generators available and able to work under some unforeseen situations like our CZU fires and so forth. I think it's an important improvement to allow a safe living environment for many of our residents, especially in the mountainous areas. Is there any other Supervisor who would like to comment on this? The President. Mr. Chair, I'll move the recommended actions. Okay. Second. I'll second that. I'm a Supervisor McPherson. I appreciate your comments and completely agree. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And thank you for working on this with our office. Thank you. We have a motion, please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, we're going to move to the last item of the day, item number 19 to conduct a study session on proposed amendments to the Santa Cruz County Code 13.10.660 through 13.10.668 regarding wireless communication facilities and take related actions at that line in the Memorandum of Interim Director of Planning. There's an existing to propose code amendments, crosswalk attachment B. 2021 Santa Cruz County Code 13.10.660-664. Mr. Carlson, are you going to be presenting on this again? I'm up again. You're ready to go. Thank you. So the Board of Supervisors has previously directed staff to develop an updated wireless communication facilities ordinance to more clearly state the rules and remove as much ambiguity as possible. Staff will present today a draft of an updated wireless ordinance in order to solicit board input and direction. We anticipate modification as a result of discussions today. And further preparation for the public hearing before the Planning Commission. 25 years ago, the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted. The law was intended to promote competition and reduce regulation and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies. Regarding wireless communication facilities, the law includes a provision preserving local zoning authority, over placement, construction, and modification of wireless facilities. But with certain limitations, including that local governments shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services, shall not prohibit the provision of personal wireless services, shall act on wireless applications within a reasonable period of time, and may not regulate on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions. Therefore, our local zoning authority can address issues such as siting, design, and operational impacts of wireless facilities, including designating zone districts where they are allowed height limits, screening, and camouflaging standards, and addressing physical impacts of placement and operation of these facilities, such as vegetation modification, grading, lighting, and noise. The county is prohibited by federal law from regulating on the basis of the environmental effects of RF emissions. Five years after the 1996 federal law, the county adopted an interim wireless ordinance, and two years after that adopted the wireless ordinance that remains in effect today, 20 years later. Over that time, as we've processed permits for these facilities and technology has evolved, various additional federal and state regulations and legal rulings have been issued to keep up with technology and streamline the local permit process. While our local land use permit process for wireless facilities has attempted to remain consistent with these updates, our local ordinance has not been updated accordingly. Additionally, our experience with individual permits over the years has demonstrated the need to substantially edit and clarify the ordinance, and a new ordinance to replace the existing ordinance. The new ordinance would clearly communicate the review process, and the process will be in alignment with the requirements of federal and state law. As noted earlier, federal law states the local government shall not prohibit the provision of personal wireless services and shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services. This means that we must allow our wireless service provider to substantially reduce a significant gap in service, even if service is available in the same area by a different provider, or the gap be reduced in the least intrusive manner. And that has typically been determined through extensive alternatives analysis and certain applications. The FCC has also mandated shot clocks, which are very aggressive timelines for communities to act on certain types of wireless facility applications. And technological advances in experience with the wireless facility installations have led to new definitions and requirements in federal and state law for small cell facilities, modifications to existing facilities, and installations in public rights of way. The new ordinance includes updated provisions to address this evolution in federal and state law and interpretation of the law by the courts. Comparing the existing and proposed new ordinance is detailed in the crosswalk document attached to the board memo. And I'll just highlight some of the major changes here. Currently, co-location is only encouraged and in the new ordinance it would be required unless an exception is approved. The list of prohibited zone districts would remain the same, but there would be some additional exceptions listed, including a small cell wireless facilities, co-locations and modifications of existing facilities. Exceptions to co-location and in prohibited zone districts could be considered based on an alternatives analysis that documents substantial reduction of a significant gap in the provider's coverage in the least intrusive manner. The new ordinance includes new height standards applicable to these facilities with a requirement to minimize height and allowance for exceptions to the height based on the same exception criteria. Whereas the existing ordinance requires processing all new wireless facility permits at the zoning administrator level, the new ordinance proposes different permit types based on the type of wireless facility. Basically, a discretionary permit would include public, including public noticing would continue to be required for new non-co-located wireless facilities, but other common types of facilities would be processed as building permits or encroachment permits issued by the Department of Public Works. Standard public noticing would be required based on the type of permit. The current ordinance requires public noticing 1,000 feet around the project site and the new ordinance would reduce that to the standard distance of 300 feet for a project that requires a public caring. And the new ordinance includes new sections addressing wireless facilities in public rights away and modification of existing wireless facilities. The different shot clock timelines reflect the nature of certain types of wireless facilities, pollocation of these facilities and eligible modifications of existing facilities, for example, have the shortest timeline for the county to act on the application of 60 days. By definition, these types of facilities can generally be constructed with minimal to no visual or operational impacts subject to certain criteria addressing height, size, design and color. The draft ordinance contains placeholders for these criteria or other criteria to be developed prior to the planning commission hearing on this. Due to their minimal impact, these types of wireless facilities are appropriate to process as ministerial permits, meaning a building permit only and this is reflected in the new ordinance. Additionally, the new ordinance would allow ministerial processing new wireless facilities on existing commercial, industrial or public facilities, including schools. And I'll just point out that this is a picture of Wilson Tire in downtown Soquel and those what look like maybe air handling units and heating vents on the roof are actually wireless facilities. The new ordinance includes a section specifically addressing modifications of existing wireless facilities to fully and accurately reflect provisions of federal law that apply to these types of projects. These types of applications are called eligible facilities requests, which is defined as a modification to an existing facility that does not represent a substantial change to the tower or the base station. There are detailed criteria defining a substantial change in the federal law and in the ordinance. The key criteria is that any proposed modification must be limited in dimension and must not defeat the existing concealment elements of the existing tower or base station. And in this photo, I'll just point out the wireless facility on the Ben Lomond Firehouse is in the top of that tower on the building, that was actually a new facility, but a modification of that could be processed as a building permit if it was in defeat that existing concealment elephant, essentially if it was inside of that existing shroud. It has also become increasingly common to see small cell facilities on existing infrastructure in the public right of way. And the new ordinance includes a section specifically addressing these types of applications. They would generally be processed as encroachment permits by the Department of Public Works, provided they meet the definition of a small cell wireless facility or represent modification of an existing facility that qualifies as an eligible facilities request. Requests for other types of wireless facilities in the public right of way would not be processed as encroachment permits and would require a development permit process by the planning department. The new ordinance would include objective criteria for review of encroachment permits for these facilities to ensure minimum standards to minimize impacts of these facilities in the public right of way. And again, the ordinance contains placeholders for those standards to be developed including but not limited to standards for height, size, design and color. And again, staff intends to present the full criteria to the planning commission, including any input from the Board of Supervisors. So overall changes in the new ordinance generally consist of clarifying language, removal of repetition and an overall, overhaul of the overall structure meant to facilitate more efficient administration of the ordinance. The provisions for ministerial or encroachment permits will provide a more efficient process to comply with the shot clock timelines in federal law. Certainly there remains many discretionary aspects of some of these types of applications and an effort was made in the new ordinance to provide language that will also facilitate more efficient processing of discretionary applications for wireless facilities. In conclusion, staff has recommended the Board of Supervisors conduct a study session to review the proposed amendments to the Santa Cruz County Code requiring regarding wireless communication facilities including receiving public comment, provide feedback to staff on the proposed amendments and direct staff to conduct environmental review regarding adoption of the proposed amendments pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act and direct staff to present the proposed amendments with incorporated feedback and refinements as needed to the planning commission at a public hearing for their recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very much needed connectivity to the internet. It's really essential, especially for our rural residents and those senior citizens in our county. I've long been a champion of revising the process and I think to connect these folks and I think it's good that we're moving forward with this and I especially want to thank our, I now retired IT director Kevin Bowen for pushing forward on this reform and the planning department for delivering the first draft before Kevin retires from the county actually officially, I guess. But thank you very much for moving forward in this process so quickly. Any other comments from the board? Yes, thank you, Chair. Agreed, it's long past time that we update this ordinance and I'm excited to see it moving forward. I'm particularly moving to ministerial review and the majority of cases is going to be a really help and help get a lot more cell coverage in our county. Really my primary concern is just around ensuring that these facilities are able to stay online in the case of emergency. I'm aware that the CPUC required, I think they're gonna vote last year, July, 2020 that within 12 months, all cell facilities be able to have 72 hours of backup power. So reading to the ordinance, it looked like right now there's a placeholder in terms of our objective design criteria, right? Just sort of, was that height, color, size, design? I just wanna make sure that as we move forward into finding those criteria, that we're ensuring that nothing would interfere with the ability of these facilities to be self-powered in the case of emergency. Thank you, we'll take that into consideration. Any other Supervisor Friend or Coonerty? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of thoughts on this and I appreciate Supervisor Koenig's comments on that. I think we should actually require the 72 hour backup as required by both the PUC and Senator McGuire's bill as something that the Planning Commission should consider. I mean, obviously we're working on a system that's 20 years old and we can't exactly build a system for the future on an ordinance that's 20 years old and the county can't be a barrier. Our ordinances can't be a barrier to ensure that rural communities have cell access. I think it's very telling that we receive letters from public safety agencies, including the sheriff and the CHP from school districts and from neighborhoods asking us to do this kind of work. I do have a couple of questions from Mr. Carlson and thank you for the presentation. One of them is just, was in regards to the 72 hour, but a second question is, what is the rationale behind requiring an application to both be submitted electronically and via paper? The reason we need to actually have paper for cell facilities is that when an application is submitted electronically, we don't have the opportunity to check it for completeness and the shot clocks are so strict that we need to work with the applicants and take their paper applications in in person so that we can have that gate and make sure we're getting a complete and reasonable application on which to build our response within the timeframe. Is there any way to modernize our electronic system? I mean, we're on screen in a process for anyone or not. You were breaking up there. Did you understand it? I think, okay. You want to repeat that? You were breaking up, Supervisor Friend. Could you repeat your question, please? Sorry about that. Is the audio better now? Yes. All right, thank you. I was just asking whether there's a way to modernize the system so that we can just take electronic moving forward. I mean, we're trying to streamline this process and it just seems like the paper requirement, I understand the shot clock, but the paper requirement seems to be a relic of the 20 years ago ordinance and the degree that we can move into a modern system that allows for electronic only would help expedite this process. So is that something just internally that we can create so that the ordinance could be updated in a way that it could just be electronic moving forward? We can look at that. Really, our interest is in the streamlining we hope we'll get by having a human look at the application before our clock starts, but your point is well taken and we will consider that going forward. I appreciate it. I mean, look, it's not a barrier for clearly my support of this item. I just wanna make sure that it took us 20, I mean, it took 20 years to modify the ordinance. I don't know how long it's gonna be before we actually get another crack at this. And so I wanted to make sure that the ordinance that comes to us from the Planning Commission is as forward thinking as possible. Another question is in regards to the definition of public facilities, we seem to focus a lot on public right of way, but we don't, at least I didn't notice anywhere that define an actual public facility like a county owned building, for example, are they included in what would be deemed ministerial or just having objective design standards or are they not included currently in the ordinance proposed revisions? Yeah, a county facility or a facility used only for public business is a ministerial project. So if these ones that you see on fire stations, for example, those would be ministerial. That's correct. So it's just not county owned, but you said school districts and so forth as well. Is that right that you mentioned? Yeah, we are proposing that any wireless facility on an existing facility in a public facility zone district be a ministerial project, fire stations, schools, county buildings. Okay, I apologize that it just wasn't to me completely clear and I just wanted to make sure that that point was clear, but that sounds good to me. And I guess the last point just dealt with, and I think Mr. Carlson, you kind of cleared this up. In reading it, there's some language in there it talks about the most aesthetically pleasing and these sort of subjective words, but it sounded like when you went to the planning commission, there'd be more objective standards that would actually define what these things mean. Is that correct? That is correct, especially in the case of the ministerial permits. Okay, look, I mean, I have to really commend you and also from kind of council, Mr. Zosweta for his work on this and Mr. Bowling's work because this as Supervisor McPherson noted, this is long overdue. I mean, right now nearly everybody that calls for emergency services is using a cell phone. And yet right now there are many places not just in my district but throughout the county you can't receive any sort of coverage at all. And this has become particularly acute not just during the CZU fires, but high levels of biker pedestrian related incidents on rural roads, Hazeldale, even areas of Freedom Boulevard, for example, there's a lot of areas along the coast that also have no coverage at all. And this is the way of ensuring emergency access. So I think that the sooner that we can get this done better for ensuring this a level of emergency access. I appreciate the leadership that all of you are showing to bring this to the Planning Commission and I'm supportive of it today. It's also very helpful to hear the board is supportive of objective criteria because that will help us in our discussions at the Planning Commission and with the public. So thank you for that. Supervisor Coonerty, you're okay? Thank you. There's a, go ahead and raise your Coonerty. Oh, thank you. I don't have any questions, but for all the reasons that have been outlined. I think it's important that we update this. We're cutting out. Scream on the process as much as possible, also creating expectations for the community about what is the role of the county. Oh, sorry. We kind of heard you so well. I think the supervisor, Coonerty needs an improved cell reception wherever he is. I'm confident that this ordinance will improve his communications abilities moving forward. There you go. We need more of that. Yeah, right. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Thank you for your comments, Supervisor Coonerty. I think I asked if there's anybody from the public. We don't see any on the phone. Yes, I have one speaker on the phone. Jennifer Holm, your microphone is available. Thank you. So good afternoon, Chairperson McPherson and members of the board. My name is Jennifer Holm and I serve as board president for the Pahoa Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees. And I wanted to thank you for your time and considering amendments to the county code around wireless communication facilities. As you know, those of us in the Pahoa Valley School District community were rocked by the tragedy at Aptos High School at the start of the school year. Many parents reached out at our board meetings to express how terrifying it was not to be able to reach their children for some time while the campus was on lockdown. And while this is a particularly plain example, it highlights the difficulties many households and schools face in our area. I am a parent myself. My older two children went to Aptos High School. My youngest will be a freshman there next year. And so, you know, I'm an Aptos resident. So I'm very familiar with the communication challenges at some of our sites and in our area. And, you know, if we as a community make it easier for some of our more remote locations to have access to 21st century communication options, such efforts will benefit everyone, not just those affiliated with our schools. And at PVSD, we have been very appreciative of the partnership with the county where our jurisdictions overlap and hope that this will be one area where that collaboration will continue. So thank you very much for your time and attention. It's much appreciated. Thank you. Mr. Chair, if I may, Board President Holm waited the entire meeting to actually be able to provide that input. I just want to show the appreciation but also underscore the importance that PVSD has felt. And I know they sent in a letter about us updating these ordinances. So thank you to the trustee Holm. And I believe that Madam Clerk has said we had one speaker but I do believe that the County Sheriff Hart was also looking to speak and I think is also on. Yeah, I have two additional speakers that have joined. Yes, sure. Yes. Sheriff Hart, your microphone is available. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, Board Jim Hart, Sheriff Corner. And just real briefly, I just want to encourage your Board to support repealing and replacing this current antiquated ordinance that this item addresses and bring the ordinance up to current standards that comply with state and federal laws. Streamlining this process is going to allow infrastructure to be put in place in a timely manner, which is going to improve public safety response and also improve community members' ability to call in emergencies as they occur, which is severely lacking in our rural areas. So thank you for your consideration. Good. Thank you. David Wodkowski, your microphone is available. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Chairman Fiersen and the Supervisors, my name is David Wodkowski. I'm a resident and business owner in the Aptos area. We work with a variety of local governments across the United States in doing study sessions and helping them to guide through their process as they adapt to 21st century technology. And I want to commend you on this effort. I feel that the way that you're handling this is very professional. You are looking forward. I appreciate the staff's recommendations on this. I strongly encourage that the language and the final ordinances be very objective. And I appreciate that planning sees it that way as well. And in cases where things are subjective, that is usually where we find conflicts occur. And as a parent of children at Aptos High School, I echo the concerns about public safety. We often have challenges just day to day reaching our children as they're making their way through campus. But certainly during the tragedy, we had trouble reaching our children. And that was definitely something that was stressful for us. And I'm sure for a lot of other parents. So I just wanted to commend you on your work. Thank you for taking this forward. There are no other speakers. Okay. Return it to the board to any action to approve the recommend to move it on. I'll move the recommended actions. I'll second. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. So there's no word. Aye. Caput. Aye. Make sure some. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. All right. That concludes our agenda. And that concludes our regular meeting agenda for. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.