 If we're ready, I'll go ahead and start. We're ready, sir. Okay. I will now call the January 5th, 2021 special meeting of the Board of Supervisors to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? Good morning. Good morning. If you give me one second, I'm going to be sharing my screen. Okay. Good morning and welcome to the teleconference January 5th, 2021, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Special Meeting. Pursuant to the provisions of the Governor's Executive Order N2920, this meeting is being held virtually. The county welcomes the public to participate in today's meeting using the Zoom link provided on our website at www.SantaCruiseCountyCA.iqm2.com. Click on today's date and then the agenda, you will find the Zoom link there, or you may type it in as you see it here on the screen. If you wish to participate by phone, you may do so by calling 1-669-900-6833. The meeting ID is 837-1112-9242. Again, you may call 1-669-900-6633. Enter the meeting ID number 837-1112-9245. If you need further help logging in today's meeting, you may call the Clerk of the Board's office at 831-454-2323 and someone can help you log into the meeting. As always, you may watch the live stream broadcast of today's meeting through the www.SantaCruiseCountyCA.iqm2.com link, the county Facebook page, or through the community TV website. I'll now call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. President. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Here. Chair Caput. Here. Chair, it's ready for you now. Okay. Please join me in a moment of silence or prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. I guess do we need to stand or we can do the Pledge of... Well, we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance from where we are. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Are there any... Hi, Carlos. Are there any revisions or corrections to the today's agenda? Chair Caput, there are no revisions to today's agenda. Okay. We'll go to item number four and we'll consider a selection of a chairman or vice chairman for calendar year 2021 as outlined in the memorandum of myself. Okay. Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. First, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for serving as chair over the last year. I know that this was a very challenging year for the county and it is a significant amount of additional work. And so I appreciate your work over this previous year and I just want to make sure you were acknowledged on that. I'd also like to welcome our new colleague, Supervisor Koenig. Welcome you to the county family and we look forward to working with you to making this county an even better place. Congratulations on your victory and we look forward to your service. On this item, I believe that Supervisor McPherson and Supervisor Koenig would make a good chair and vice chair combination and so I would move the recommended actions assuming that there's no public comment on the item. And I'll second those items. Second that motion, this is Ryan Coonerty. Okay. We have a first and second. If we can hear a public comment on this item, each person will have, we'll give them three minutes. I don't think there's a whole lot lined up, but anyway. Supervisor or chair, I'm sorry. I do not see anybody raising their hand. I don't either, yeah. If you'd give me one second. We have one hand raised actually. If you would, before we begin as a public comment chair, we're gonna, I'm gonna read some directions for people. So they have the opportunity to speak and understand the way we're doing it if you could hold on. Okay, so now is the time for public comment. If you wish to comment and are joining us through the Zoom link, please find the hand icon on the bottom of your screen and click on the icon to raise your hand. This will place you in line to speak. When it is your turn to speak, I will call you by name and you will see a pop up on your screen asking if you want to accept being unmuted. Please accept this and start speaking. Once you start, the timer will start. If you are calling from the phone, please dial star nine now. This will virtually raise your hand. I will identify you by your last four digits of your phone number. When you hear me say the last four digits, please dial star six. This will unmute yourself. Only dial this once. If you dial it a second time, you will mute yourself. Once you dial star six, you may start speaking and the timer will start when you begin. You will hear a beep at the one minute warning and again, when your time is up. And I'm going to go ahead and leave this slide up with all the pertinent information in case people are joining us late. Okay, speaker Monica McGuire, you have three minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Okay, yeah. Hi there. Thank you so much. Very interesting new world of all this. Good morning. And the number one reason I decided to raise my hand was I had trouble getting on. I'm sure there's other people that are having trouble getting on and I didn't want the moment to pass without the opportunity for the public to say, welcome to Manukuneg and to the new 2021 where we have this bright, bright, beautiful morning to tell us that we have the chance to do something wonderful and amazing for our county together. And I deeply appreciate that you were able to see my hand raised and I'm surprised if there aren't others because I'm sure other people are trying to join in as so many people care deeply about what's going on in this county and what we can do to make this a safe and healthy place to live on every possible level, especially with the freedoms and the needs to move forward as human beings and as indignity in the aspects of what's going on of choices that don't make sense and choices that are very difficult and that we wish to assist and join in our county with. So thank you for hearing me. I think it's not the time to say much else except I hope other people are hearing something and finding a way to put their hand up if they wish to speak and that this is working on every level. Thank you so much. And blessings, blessings Manukuneg on being a new member with so many beautiful, wonderful people thrilled that you are a new voice, a new heart, a new mind for this new year and the future that we're hoping to help people for us. Thank you so much. The next speaker is Carol Bjorn. You have three minutes to speak. I am unmuting. You please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Good morning. This is Carol Bjorn and I wanted to express my congratulations to Manu. I'm looking forward to working with you on the board. I also wanted to say just echo the comments that Monica made. I'm really looking forward to working with all of you on the board this year and I would just want to urge everybody to be really listening and really asking questions. One of the things that I have taken away from the past year was things that appear a certain way may not always be true. And I've asked a lot of questions this year and I found answers I really didn't expect to get. And I think that that's probably true with a lot of things. And so I would just urge everyone to be very curious, to follow your curiosity, investigate things that you may have been very set in the way you think about something but perhaps there's a different way of looking at it. Perhaps there's a new way of looking at it that you may have not ever considered before. And just by looking at it might open up lots of new possibilities, not only for you in a personal capacity but for our community at large. I think really now is the time, especially with the new year, to look at things differently. My personal opinion, I think a lot of our governmental policies haven't worked as well as we had hoped. And I think that was really highlighted in the past year. So it's really time to follow curiosity, ask questions and find out, is this really working? Is this really the kind of community we wanna create or can we create something different? So I would just urge everyone to look at things differently, ask questions, be open to different ways of looking at things. And again, I do look forward to working with all of you in the upcoming year. And I would urge the in-person meetings, I think they're very important. And if you're not gonna do that at the very least, let's show the faces of the speakers. That way we do create more community connection. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next person is a phone caller. If your phone number ends and 1-9-9-9, you have three minutes to speak, I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute by dialing star six and start speaking, the timer will begin when you start. Good morning, my name is James Ewing Whitman, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Excellent, so I don't have much to add right now, but I appreciate the public comments. An observation I would like to make is on other Zoom calls, and let's say I prefer not to do Zoom, but do a telephone call, there's several telephone numbers, so my observation is hopefully the one telephone number given has an unlimited amount for people to participate. I'll make public comments, but thank you all, happy new year. Thank you. I do not see any more hands raised, so that is the end of public comment for this item. Okay, we'll bring it back to the board for a vote on the selection of chairman and vice chairman. I'll call for a vote. Supervisor Koenig? Aye. Friend? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Chair Caput? Aye. The motion passes unanimously. Bruce, you're on. Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate all your service, Mr. former chair of Caput, he did a terrific job during a very difficult year. I'd like to make just a few comments. I want to thank the team, the IT team that's put this together for us to go on virtual throughout for the future. Do we, otherwise, I want to just say thank you to one of the patients of the public and all. We will have our first regular meeting on the 12th of January, so we're looking forward to that. I'd just like to make a couple of comments before we get on to the one item we're going to be discussing. As we know that 2020 was an unprecedented year with two crises at once added to the homeless, ongoing homeless issue we have along with every other community in this state. We have been managing an epidemic amid a catastrophic fire. This challenges in ways unseen and unexpected, unlike I've ever seen in my more than 20 years of public service. Our county team rose to the occasion despite the budget cuts furloughs and we will continue to do so in 2021 to the best of our abilities. And believe me, I think the ability of our staff, our county staff is outstanding to what they have been done and the challenges they faced in 2020. And we're going to face them as we go on. I have every confidence that this board will also rise to the occasion and work together to set a good policy on behalf of our residents. We really face some unprecedented challenges in housing, transportation, homelessness and public health, just to name a few. It will take all of us to identify solutions and we will need to do it with challenges on our budget that are impacting us as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to thank Senator Supervisor Caput again for his service as year's chair and congratulations one against to our incoming supervisor, Manu Ponig. It's nice to have you here. And I want to thank the CEO, Carlos Palacios and his team and all of our county employees for their service this past year and in the year to come. I can tell you that the break that we have had has not been a break for county supervisors, county staff. They have been working overtime and I can't overemphasize how proud I am of the work of our county employees and what they have done, whether it be at a hospital or in the cleanup of the after the fire, ever it might be. You have done an outstanding job and this goes to our special districts and our other districts that we have in Santa Cruz County. I'd just like to say thank you again for the opportunity to serve as chair this year, 2021. And I know we're gonna make markets in many ways. We're gonna, it's gonna be partly come back and it's gonna be a lot of advancement at the same time. Believe me, I know that our dedicated staff will do all it can do to make this as convenient possible for the people of Santa Cruz County. So I thank you for the opportunity to serve you as chair of the board of supervisors in 2021. And with that, I think we can go on to the next item. I appreciate your patience unless let me have a little spiel. We'll go on to item number five, to consider the adoption of a resolution extending for 30 days the proclamation of a local emergency by the county administrative officer and declaration of a local health emergency by the county health officer related to the CZU August light and complex fires and take related action as outlined in the murmuring of understanding of the county administrative officer. We will have a resolution extending the local emergency and the local health emergency. So I would like to see if there's any, there's a presentation by the CAO if you'd like to make a comment, and then we'll go from there. Thank you, chair McPherson. Wildfires known as the CZU August lightning complex fires began on August 15th. These fires destroyed numerous residents and other property resulting in evacuations and displacement of residents road closures and damaged property and utility systems. This item extends the existing proclamation of a local emergency and declaration of a local health emergency. Under government code section 8630 a governing body must renew the continuing local emergency at least every 30 days. Although the county is well into the recovery period at this point, many of our community members remain displaced, moreover the danger created by the fires is still present as the county continues to move through the recovery and debris removal stage with Cal OES and other governmental partners. So with that, we are requesting that the board approve the resolution extending the local emergency, the declaration of local emergency for another 30 days. And I am available as well as county council, Jason Heade for any questions you may have. Thank you. Are there any questions from the board? And I'll go down by the numbers of Mr. Koenig. Do you have any questions? Yes, thank you, Chair McPherson. And thank you to all my colleagues on the board for the warm welcome from the members of the public. And to county staff also for setting this virtual meeting up, I think it's a great step in the right direction as far as our virtual meetings go. And I can assure you no one's looking forward more to the first in-person meeting this year than may. I just a quick question on this. I was reviewing the online tool that tracks the number of properties that have been cleaned up. And it looks like about seven properties as of this morning had been cleared for a return. And my question is, does that mean that the other 900, almost a thousand homes that were destroyed, that we've got still close to that of people who are displaced? And how many people are still using the facilities of the county fairgrounds or other temporary facilities throughout the county for housing today? I'm gonna see if any of our staff that could provide a more detailed answer than I could on the answer to the number of people that are still displaced and the status of people returning to their property. Maybe, I don't know if Matt Machado or Lisa are on the call and they could attempt and answer that question. Hi, Carlos, he has Elisa Benson here, assistant CAO and I'm trying to actually get my camera. See, can you guys see me? See. It's not letting, well, can anyone hear me? We can hear you. Okay, well, I'm not able to click my video over. Good morning, everyone. And we no longer have anyone at the fairgrounds. We closed that facility about a month ago and we have no one in sort of what I would say, post-county-sponsored hotels. We do have some survivors who are using their FEMA benefits to stay in hotels as they're not yet able to find short-term housing and our team is working with them on housing options. So, yeah, at this point, we don't have anyone, anymore, we're not having to sort of shelter folks at this point, but we do have ongoing support in terms of housing navigation supports and helping them navigate the housing market here as well as mental health supports or online and some case management support is in the works for a little bit later in February. If I may chime in, this is Matt Machado, Deputy CAO and Director of Public Works. Can you hear me fine? Yes, be hearing. Thank you. Supervisor Koenig, I'd like to respond to part of your question. In terms of the debris cleanup, I believe there are about 70 parcels fully cleaned up. It doesn't show in the dashboard because they're awaiting some soil testing results to confirm that final cleanup. In addition, there are about 17 still actively clean up the other parcels. There are a little more than 900 in total. Most have signed up with either the public option or the private option to do the debris removal. I think we're only short about 30 or 40 parcels that really aren't signed up for any option and we're having to pursue those individually. So we're making good progress. It's still a long row ahead of us. Cal OES is leading this charge with their contractor Anvil out of the San Francisco area. And so I think that tries to answer some of your question. I can answer more if you have additional thoughts on this topic. For me, thank you. Okay, Supervisor Friend, do you have any questions? I know, Mr. Chair, thank you. Okay, Supervisor Poonerty. No, Mr. Chair. Thank you and Supervisor Caput. Yes. The only comment I'll make is there are a few RVs still out at the fairgrounds here in South County. And I don't know if, you know, how long they can stay or whatever, but is there any comment on that on the RVs? They have electrical and water hookups there at the fairgrounds. Anybody have any information on that? I don't know. Yeah, we can get you that information offline. I don't have any right now about those. I knew there are still a few people that are displaced, that are living in their RVs and we can get that information to you about the specifics. That'll be fine, yeah. And I, the one, two families that I talked to, they said they're in that Supervisor, let's see, Poonerty's district, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe I'll ask the clerk, the board, do you have, for public comment, do you have anybody that just wants to speak on this issue? We currently have one person that has their hand up. Okay, I think, is there any need to just, why don't you repeat the numbers and just the numbers for people to call in? Yes, and I can go ahead and share my screen one more time. That has all that information on it. So, as you can see at the top of the screen there, the telephone number to call in, if you wish to call in, is 1-669-900-6833. The webinar ID is 837-1112-9245. Okay, I apologize, somebody's correcting me. The webinar ID is 837-1112-9242, not 45. So it ends in 42. Okay, 9242. Yes. Okay, we will allow each speaker two minutes to speak. And would we? Okay, thank you. Chair, would you like me to leave this slide up or would you like me to bring this timer up? I'll bring the timer up. Okay. Thank you. Okay, speaker whose telephone number ends in 2-915. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you, please accept the unmute by dialing star six and start speaking. When you start, the timer will start. Hello, this is Becky Steinbrunner. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Supervisor Koenig. It's a real pleasure to welcome you to the board and also to welcome you Supervisor McPherson as chairman. I want to first comment that it has not been easy to find this access information for the public. And I hope that your board will include public computers in the lobby somewhere in the county building for people to use because all of the public libraries are closed and many people do not have computer access. So as we proceed and there are staff presentations, it will be pretty important to make that available to the public. I have some questions. First of all, I too have gone to the fairgrounds to observe what's going on there. There are a number of people evacuees from the CZU fire still staying there. They are all being charged $900 a month to stay there. And I find that appalling at a time when we're giving free places for many people in our community to stay to the shelter in place for COVID that these fire evacuees are having to pay $900 a month. Some of them have not been successful at navigating the FEMA process and are having to come up with that money out of their own pocket. When I talked with them, some of them didn't know if they would be able to make the next month's payment and would be out on the streets. So I really think we've got to do something about this. I don't understand why the county would not renovate the site in Watsonville on Freedom Boulevard and Crestview, where in the 1989 earthquake damaged home owners, our homes were damaged. Some of them were due. There were many FEMA trailers that were brought in there and people were able to stay. Telephone caller whose telephone ends in 1-9-9-9. I'm unmuting you when you accept the unmute. Please speak and the timer will start when you start. Good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I appreciate Becky Steinberger's comments. And during the public comment, I think I might have something that would be humorous, but now we're talking about the CZSU fires. I spoke on September 15th, 2020 about the CZSU fires. And I'm just kind of curious where, if everybody's getting their insurance validated because Lloyd's London doesn't cover damages from wireless. And I'm gonna make another note to a CNN 1985 report about wireless weapons directly about lightning and that 60 gigahertz is a military weapon. So I don't think that's very funny, but it's something that needs to be discussed and thought about. That's enough for now. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Monica McGuire. I am, please accept the unmute. When you start speaking, the timer for two minutes will begin. So I'm choosing, I hope you can hear me. I'm choosing unmute and it's popping back up that I had to choose. You're okay. Just I'm saying all that just so you know that could be happening to other people as well. Again, brand new year, it just would be incredible to have the change that you respond to the public this time, this year. Becky Steinbrenner brought out that point over a month ago, I know about the fairgrounds and it's talking that there was a report that no one's at the fairgrounds has been closed down and that we all know Becky is incredibly good researcher and she gets out and does things personally. So please respond to whether this is happening on a level that you have some control over or why people are being charged $900 a month to stay there. And then we're told that it's all closed down. Having brought these things up, like so many others with no response for so long, we really would like the new year to have this change bring about actual response to why is that happening? How is that happening? Why is it misrepresented? And what else will happen about it at this point? Cause that is unconscionable that people would be charged $900 a month to stay there. The fact that it happened at all before, again, please confirm, please respond, please let us know. Please be transparent. Please, I keep noticing that Mr. Friend's video goes away just like all last year we never saw his face. He didn't show up in video at any of the meetings. If you're not gonna show up in person, at least show up where we can see what you're doing and how you're responding when we speak. That is our right as your employers to see and understand everything by asking our questions and getting responses. Thank you so much for hearing me out. The next speaker is Jessica. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Yes, hello. My name is Jessica Yala and I have been attending the meetings, the board meetings at the fairgrounds for the past maybe eight months or so. For my knowledge, there might be about 17 campers from what I could recall. They're paying rent. They're paying about anywhere from 900 to 950 a month depending on the hookup services that they choose. Many of the evacuees still living there have no idea how they're going to make their rent. They're very worried. They're very tight strapped and I would hope that the county would find a way where they can put in place the MOU for those campers so they wouldn't have to pay that rent. It's very concerning to see them struggle and I just feel that the county should consider doing more than what they're doing now for my knowledge, they started paying rent in either October or November. I can't really recall, but that's a long time to be paying rent when you don't have the money. And I know a lot of evacuees left because they did not have the money. So it's just something that I would really like the board to consider. It's extremely important. And when it is said that the evacuees have left, they've not left, they've actually turned into tenants. And so their status title has changed, but the evacuees are still there, thank you. Chair, I do not see anybody else with their hand up. So that would be the end of public comment. Okay, we'll bring it back to the board. I'll ask for further comments. Any comments from the board members? No comments, but I will move the recommended action. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Second by Supervisor Friend, a motion by Coonerty. Better call the roll on all of these now. Chair, I believe that Supervisor Koenig has some comments still. Oh, excuse me, sorry. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to ask for clarification of how many people did pay rent last month for space at the County Fairgrounds? Do we have some record of that? Let me see if Alisa Benson might be able to answer that question, it's also important to note that the County Fairgrounds is not the Santa Cruz County. They're an independent board under the state. But I will ask Alisa to comment. Sure, and I have Council, our board members, Alisa here and I apologize, my camera is not cooperating with the Zoom platform right now. Supervisor Koenig, I will have to check in with the Fairgrounds manager on the number of tenants there. So as one of our public commenters mentioned, this is the rent they're paying to utilize an RV hookup at the site. Many of the evacuees who are still there have received individual assistance through FEMA, which is rental assistance and they're utilizing those dollars for that payment. I am not sure if all of the folks who are at that site were qualified and received FEMA assistance and they may be some of the folks who are having more of a challenge. With individual assistance for rental assistance, it is not a lump sum. It is re-evaluated by FEMA on a regular basis. So that may be introducing some of that uncertainty some of our evacuees are feeling. As I mentioned in providing a little bit of context around the recovery services that are coming online, we do have FEMA funded case work, which is to work with each survivor approved under the federal declaration for, not just our fire survivors, but it's across the state. Catholic Charities is the award winner for that for the state and they are trying to actually get their operation up and running. Unfortunately, there's a lag between when that happens and when you get that case work support out to survivors and we're looking towards February for that. So in terms of, again, that rent that folks are paying is that standard RV hookup that the fairground charges. Our program, as what I was speaking to is the county run program did close, gosh, I wanna say mid-December and that's part of, partially after three extensions of that program with FEMA. Typically shelter programs closed within 30 days of the event. So I just wanted to put that out there and I'm happy to research any additional questions around that. Ms. Benson, this is Supervisor McPherson. How about the involvement of the state agency in the fairground? Does that complicate the issue? I mean, it's not a direct line to the county, is it? Does it state? Yeah, it does complicate the issue. I mean, as the fairground board sets their rates and so we don't have a role in that regard and I will also say the fairground has been impacted significantly by the pandemic and by the fire. So they are trying to manage their own affairs but we are, we do work with the fairground manager and the board, but yeah, I mean, those are converse, that's those decisions are round cost for their sites of the county fairground board. Okay, if we wanted to get an update then how we might address this in a different way or would we have to wait till February according to what you're saying? No, we can look into it before that, Chair McPherson to just address how many people are there, what's the level of, well, I'll call it sort of rental insecurity given sort of as I mentioned that FEMA individual assistance is reevaluating on a reoccurring this basis but we can actually get more of a status of what's going on there prior to February and see if there's any short shorter term supports we can offer. Okay, do you think we might be able to have something update on that the next week at our regular meeting? I'm happy to start those questions today and we can, we'll bring whatever information we're able to get back on next Tuesday. Thank you, okay. Any other questions from the board? We do have a motion, who seconded that? Did somebody, I didn't see a second. Yes, Supervisor Friend second it. Excuse me, okay. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. And Chair McPherson. Aye, and that motion passes unanimously. The last item on today's agenda is the closed session. I will ask the county council, will there be any reportable items? And then I'm gonna ask if there's any public comments. Is there any reportable items in this council? There are no reportable items. Okay, are there any comments from the public on the scheduled closed session item we have? Yes, we do. If you give me one second, I mean, is it, how long would you like them to speak for public comment? Two minutes. Okay, great. Thank you. One second, please. Okay, I'm not gonna bring up the timer for some reason. It's not wanting to come up. So speaker whose telephone number ends in 2915, you have two minutes to speak. When you are unmuted, when you start speaking, the timer will begin. Hello, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Thank you. First of all, I would like to ask that in future meetings, the public be given three minutes instead of two, unless there is a very complicated and long agenda. I would like to speak to this closed session item, the threat to public properties. I am assuming that is in the event of debris flows. And I hope that the county is able to hire on extra public works maintenance workers to remove log jams and debris that could clog culverts and thereby damage roadways and bridges. And ask that the members of the public be informed about this. And also that people be allowed to go out and manage their own properties and preserve these county owned facilities so that the property owners also are able to maintain access to their properties throughout the winter. Thank you very much. Usually I don't respond, but I do think under the circumstances with so much work having been done by our county staff through public works in particular with Mr. Machado, I don't know how many hours and how many people have been working at this along with state and federal agencies. Can you just give a brief comment of what you've been doing? This is a little unusual, I know, but I think under the circumstances, I think the public could be assured that we have been doing really working deliberately night and day to try to clear that, clear it up as the best of our abilities. Mr. Machado, could you make a few comments, please? Sure, thank you, Chair McPherson. So just quickly, we did hire a number of contractors to help us with that from a staffing perspective. And so we do have those resources at our disposal and we're monitoring each storm and each event to ensure that those culverts stay as open as possible and that the soils also stay clear. And so I think we're in a good shape. We've actually had a, you know, it's been a light winter as everybody knows. And so we're ready for the next event and after that event, we'll get ready for the next one. And if need be, we will pull those contractors back in to provide the resources needed to keep the roads clear and the culverts clear. And so I think we're in good shape right now and we're thankful for the light winter. Thank you, Chair. Very good, yeah. Good question and thank you for your answer, your update on what we're doing and continuing to do. Any other public comments on the flow session item? Yes, we do. The next speaker is Monica McGuire. You are being unmuted. When you start speaking, the timer will start. Thank you. Hi. Okay. So I'm wanting again to speak for the public on this detail of what Mr. McPherson just said that he usually doesn't comment like this. He usually doesn't bring something back up if the public brings something to their, to your attention through these meetings. I'm certain that I'm not alone in not understanding how the public is supposed to get responses from you if it's not through these meetings. And when we speak and we don't have responses in the past, it's been so frustrating. So hooray that you're responding today and that Manu very specifically responded to us earlier as we were asking questions is just the most beautiful start again to feeling like we're heard and met our voice and questions and needs matter when we take the time to show up to these meetings. Basically what I want to refer to as well is when there's the continual issue of looking at the way the agendas are written and how we have to pour through hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages in order to understand what we can and it's difficult to understand when we ask these questions at the meetings, it's really important that you do respond to us and give us answers because it's very complicated and as a writer and editor myself, it doesn't look like it needs to be quite that complicated to help us understand what an agenda item is about and how to go about asking questions on behalf of other residents and people who live in this county who are not showing up. And I know a lot of people who just feel so disappointed and disillusioned in the past, that's why they don't. But again, this new era, let's just please keep responding to us as you just did and use the Brown Act appropriately. So thank you for hearing that out and please keep listening to Becky Steinbrenner. Our next speaker is Mary Lou Sams Wiley. You are being unmuted. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Good morning. Yes, I'd like to remind people, courage people, county and also homeowners and stuff to throw out winter right. Ask a farmer. Renitrify your soil. The roots will grow despite you don't need to do anything to it. Just throw it, water it with the rains. It will grow and the roots will help hold the soil in place. It will, the local critters won't eat it, which is a plus. You wanna feed the animals, put out their feed if you wish, but it will not regrow unless it's in a marshy area. You may get one or two seeds that will grow again, but it will die out. And so it will be, when it dries out, the leftover will go back and provide mulch for the soil and such, but it will help prevent some of the soil loss. I did it for mine after the 08 traving fire when they wanted me to plant barley and a bunch of other stuff. And I told the guys that I'm not fertilizing. And when he came out and saw my waves of green it was blowing and such, he was very amazed. And I said, no, that's winter rye, that anemic yellow stuff over there, that little patch, that is your barley. And so you have to ask farmers, how do you keep your soil from eroding? How do you get it to be a healthier soil to be re-nitrified in the root system helping out keeping the soil in place? So again, if you have to order it online, local feed stores are not stocking it, unfortunately. And then also use, please for heaven's sakes, use rice straw, not regular straw. Regular straw has a lot of seeds in it, whereas the rice straw doesn't. So you won't have any invasive weeds and such. I did use, unfortunately, a little bit of the regular straw. And I got... Chair, and that is it for public comment. Okay, all right. Then we will move into closed session and there will be no reportable items. Next board meeting will be at 8.50 at nine o'clock on January 12th. This meeting is adjourned into our special session. Thank you and great start to 2021, everyone. All right, we'll see the board at least about five minutes. We'll reassemble for a closed session. Thank you. Meetings adjourned.