 Good morning everyone. Before we get started, I just wanna remind you that face coverings are required at all times all in the county building. And please keep your face coverings on when you approach the microphone covering your nose and mouth. Thank you. I will now call the August 4th, 2020 regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Here. Chairman Caput. Here. We'll have a moment of silence and prayer and then we'll follow with a pledge of allegiance. Please join me. Which it stands? One nation, above, invisible, liberty and justice for all. Well, Mr. Palacios, do we have any late additions or changes? Yes. On the regular agenda item number 12, there's additional materials. There's a revised packet page, a revised memo packet pages 69, 73, 75, 76 and 77. There's also a revised attachment F. There's an updated polygon map on packet page 117. On the consent agenda, item 24, there's a correction. The item should read, accept and file the 2021 county revised budget document be considered during budget hearings and August schedule a public hearing on August 18, 2020, beginning at 1.30 PM or thereafter to consider amendments to the unified fees schedule and take related actions as recommended by the county administrative officer. There's additional materials, a revised memo, packet pages 651 and 654, attachment C, there's notice of the unified fee schedule, public hearing replacement packet page 672, and attachment D, revised budget hearing schedule, which is packet page 672 also. Thank you, that concludes the corrections. Okay, thank you. Do any board members wish to pull any consent items to the regular agenda? I don't hear any public comment. Chair, if I could just say something at the beginning of public comment. It is hard in these days of COVID to gather together, but I wanted to share a proclamation honoring Dave King and proclaiming Dave King Day. Whereas Dave King, a native of Del Norte, Colorado was born on June 16, 1951. And at 18 years old moved to Santa Cruz where he became the beloved father of twin daughters, Brianna and Sean King and proud grandfather of Nico Dior King, Grafina and Gianna Sophia King. And whereas Dave was a star varsity basketball player at Blackford High School and was offered a scholarship to UCLA, but his first love was surfing. And after attending West Valley Junior College in Saratoga, he followed his dream and moved to Santa Cruz. And whereas Dave was the king of heart and soul who shone like a magnificent beacon, statues, tan, deep voice, deep blue eyes, white curls and a soul patch. And he was the quintessential California boy dedicated to his community, friends and everyone he met on his travels. And whereas Dave was a man who was larger in life itself, beloved by an army of surfers, volleyball players, paddle boarders, so full of goodwill that his love and life would truly fill any space that he was in. And in addition, he was an ambassador, a true waterman, a graceful surfer, a pioneer paddle boarding who himself became a monster paddler and a commanding presence on any sporting field. And whereas Dave, David was a mainstay in Ridaway Foundation since its inception in 1988 and believed that those in the program were the kind of people he wanted to surround himself with. And then he was meant to help others surf and enjoy their lives in healthy ways. And the Ridaway kids loved him and they would light up and when he strolled across the beach towards them. And whereas David dedicated his life to others, but no one took the place of his daughters that he loved madly. And he always said that there were never words powerful enough to describe the love that they had for each other. And whereas on July 3rd, 2020, David passed away just before five in the morning in the comfort of his home surrounded by his loved ones, beautiful flowers and a paddle in his hand. After all, it was the dawn patroller's favorite time of day. Now, therefore, I, John Leopold, Santa Cruz First District Supervisor, hereby proclaim June 16th at David King Day in Santa Cruz County and urge all citizens to join in the annual celebration of his life to honor, love and remember the loss of a gentle giant of a man who was always more comfortable serving his community than shining in the spotlight at his own paddle out, which will happen on August 8th, 2020 at Cow's Beach in Santa Cruz. We have a couple of representatives to acknowledge this incredible human being and a real loss to our community. I'm gonna bring you the proclamation. Thank you, John. Hi, everyone. My name is Boots McGee, very good friend of Dave King. I'm very proud and equally sad that I'm here to present a Santa Cruz City proclamation for my longtime friend, Dave King. The list of common interests we've all shared with Dave is as deep as the ocean and it's much taller than his height. In fact, I've always looked up to him and I know he's never looked down on anyone. His place in the community filled so many important needs to young and old. Inspiration, engaging, and fitness was what he exuded. It's no wonder he's loved and missed. For a decade, I was the official photographer for the Rida Wave Foundation established by Danny Cortazzo. Rida Wave allows kids and adults with a variety of physical and mental challenges to not only experience the beach and near shore waters, but also the ultimate surfing. What I photographed was not just the kids having the best day of their lives, but I also focused on the parents watching their child's experience, what many of us have done for half a century. There were dozens of times where I'd view my pics on the computer and tears would well up. Invariably, David would be in the very best frames. A big man at six, seven, he was also, he also had a voice that bellowed and reverberated gently in your ears. You always knew he was within ear shot. Here he'd be helping a two foot six inch child with unimaginable challenges into or out of a kayak or carrying a little girl with burn injuries through the Rambo Relay Bays with the mom cheering her on. Dave was all that and more. He's been quite generous with not only with just his time, but he's been known to assist with funds as he did with my family right after the Katrina hurricane. A year ago, February, a famed photojournalist contacted me about a project he created. He asked me to assemble a group of ocean enthusiasts for a senior athlete photo essay. My very first phone call was to David. Turns out a picture of Dave was chosen for the gallery at the Ringling Museum in Florida. I'm extremely proud to appear in that photograph also. One month after the shoot, he suffered his first strokes. I have to tell you, there are many of us in the lineup, men and women, who speak of him often and at times in total disbelief that someone like David King has left us. There's a local saying, live like Jay. Today, my shout out is be the benevolent king. Thank you. Thank you. I wanna say rest in peace, Dave. I wanna thank John Leopold for doing this today. I wanna thank Angela Chestnut for helping me write the proclamation. And I just wanna thank you all here today. And once again, my good friend, Dave King, rest in peace. Thank you. Good morning, thank you. My deepest condolences to David King's family. First of all, I wanted to start out asking the supervisors, what are the larger issues facing Santa Cruz County? What are the larger issues facing Santa Cruz County? Crime, homelessness, that was evidenced with the Camp Ross. And as we've had, you know, local conversations relocating the homeless youth to the Seventh Day Adventist Campground in Soquel, which is where I live. Illegal drug use is a very large issue for our county to be considering. Mental health, all these things really go together and they're very large issues that we should all be very carefully considering and we should be placing our time, attention and resources toward these big issues. So given that the county has these issues that need to be addressed, why is the board taking time to criminalize non-criminals? I'm here to ask you to vote no on item 10 on the agenda today. I think you all know, item 10 would criminalize non-criminals by finding people who do not comply with the health orders. I don't understand. Why spend your time in the county's precious resources even considering this? People of this county deserve better. We pay our taxes on time. We raise our children. I have children. We go to work. We have businesses. There are lots of local businesses struggling. Supervisor Friend, Nicole Duke is in your district. She has hot yoga and aptas. There's a GoFundMe account for her right now, for her business. We all deserve better. I don't understand why we're wanting to criminalize the non-criminal. Our governor is releasing convicts. If mask worked, put the mask on the convicts, keep them in prison. There's no reason to punish the people. Everybody's doing the best they can. There's no need to criminalize this vote no on item 10 on the agenda. And I want to go one step further. And until our county is fully open again, you guys need to seriously consider foregoing your pay. And I think Gail Newell needs to also. People are losing their jobs in businesses. Okay. And so either donate your salary to these GoFundMe accounts or forego your salary. Thank you. My name is David Herra. I live in Santa Cruz County. Now here are some questions while I await the end of the COVID-19 episode. Why do we wear masks in the hope that it will prevent the spread of COVID-19 when there are no peer-reviewed double-blind studies to prove they are effective? Yes, masks stop spittle, but the overall probability of that spittle containing COVID-19 is less than 0.5%. Why did Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control initially say not to wear masks? Why do we wear masks when they are known to be detrimental to our health? And if not worn correctly, are more likely to make us sick as reported by Surgeon General Jerome Adams on March 31st of this year. Why do doctors lose their jobs or lose their medical licenses and or receive death threats after telling their stories about how in their medical practice their use of HCQ plus the ZPAC plus zinc are 96% effective in overcoming the COVID-19 disease as reported by Dr. Simon Gold and Dr. Harvey Risch and others in the mainstream media? Why does Dr. Fauci prefer the therapeutic drug Remdesivir made by Gilead Sciences which cost about $2,340 for a five-day course and is only 60% effective as reported by CNN on June 29th of this year? How much money has Governor Newsom promised to send to Santa Cruz County so Gail Newell would keep us on lockdown due to more cases of COVID-19? The fact of the aforesaid why did the Rockefeller Foundation publish it in 2010 the scenario for futures of technology and international development that foretells almost exactly what has unfolded under the current COVID-19 situation including the accidental release of COVID-19 from the Wuhan lab wearing face masks, social distancing, quarantine lockdowns and business closures. The fact that the aforesaid article was published 10 years ago proves that the current COVID-19 episode was planned 10 years ago and is now being carried out. The residents of Santa Cruz County are waking up to these questions along with the residents all across the United States and the voters of Santa Cruz County will not vote for you if you continue to acquiesce to all such fraudulent COVID-19 and we will not vote for you if you order a mandatory mask for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning supervisors. I got some good news for you today. We can declare victory over COVID-19. On July 27th, 2020 in Washington DC doctors announced at a press conference that they now have a successful treatment for COVID-19 that is almost 100% effective. One doctor presented her case studies of over 350 patients with COVID-19 that she treated with hydroxychloroquine plus zinc plus zithromax. She had no deaths. All her patients recovered. The doctor said, quote, 64 studies worldwide prove hydroxychloroquine is effective. There is no need to continue the lockdown, social distancing and use of masks. There is no need to wait for a vaccine. Nobody needs to die, unquote. The day after the doctor's press conference the propaganda attack dogs of Big Pharma and the drug companies were unleashed on the doctors. Their press conference on social media was taken down by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And their webpage was also removed. The doctors have been slandered, defamed and attacked as conspiracy theorists for curing their patients and telling the truth. One doctor was fired from her job at the hospital she worked at. The evidence is staring us in the face that our medical system, government, mainstream media platforms have been taken over by those who put their profits before we the people. We are now at a critical juncture in the human experience where our entire society and way of life is being attacked, destroyed and replaced for ulterior motives and goals. The present pandemic is one method of using fear, ignorance and confusion to manipulate people into doing things to themselves and each other that would have been unthinkable only a half a year earlier. We were caught off guard when this alleged world pandemic was brought forth on the global stage by ignorance and fear. But now we have sufficient sound data from many diverse sources that will give us the opportunity to see what is really going on. Thank you. My name is Dave Willis. I just wanted to say thanks a lot for you all saving my life. I mean, it's like I personally might not want to be here but you made it possible for me to be here by the decisions that you made when you made your health decisions. I mean, all of you like the lady doctor. You all you gave your best judgment and you let us know what to do, take safety measures. I come and say thanks a whole life for saving all of our lives even though the people who come who complain you saved them also, you saved us all. Thanks a lot. I know it's not your fault that this pandemic is here. It started in Washington. People talking about you all cut your pay. I'll be thinking that too as far as legislators why are they still getting paid it's a terrible job. People in crisis and they going on vacation they call it a recess, a month long paid. Why do we still pay them? They need not to be paid. They're not suffering like we are. So my view I say I think of you all in my heart and in my head and my thoughts you are our heroes. All these medical people who made these decisions you are heroes. You're not doing nothing wrong. You're saving us all. I can hardly talk. I'm trying to say something and I hope you get the message. They told us that you all were deciding for us to wear masks. I was like that's not going to work but I decided to do it anyway. We Americans, that's what we do. We fight, we stand up. I feel like it's my obligation. I'm in the war, I'm in the battle and I'm proud about I'm doing my part what you say do. I'm still alive because I do stay in. Driving me crazy yeah whatever but I'm doing my part to win this fight. I want to say thanks to you all because I'm telling you you did the right thing and I'm knowing I hold no ill will toward none of you all I think you're a great good people you're leaders and you deserve all deserve parades for this title, that title all I can say is thanks a lot you've saved us all. I don't know what to say. Just a reminder if you're going to speak on item number 10 about masks right now you will not be able to speak on the item when it comes up this is the time for if you can't stay and you want to make your point about item number 10 which is the mask ordinance you can do that now but you can't speak twice on the same topic go ahead thank you I'm sorry good morning my name is Olivia Martinez I'm the Region 2 Director for SEI Local 521 we are the largest bargaining unit for the county of Santa Cruz we represent approximately 1,500 members and I'm here to say that we are very angry we are beyond furious with how the furloughs with how the elimination of positions has been handled by the county 30 of our members will be losing their job potentially during a pandemic many of these workers are people of color the majority and women that will be losing their jobs many of them have been here for over 20 years and did not expect to lose their job during a pandemic we are concerned we are also very angry with the sheriff's department for not abiding by labor rules and not giving us sufficient information and notice that they were going to be contracting out food services and eliminating nine positions the majority of them people of color and women in those positions we are angry with the communication that department directors have done to our members they have not done proper communication has been chaotic at some points there has not been any communications we are angry that they have stopped the contact tracing in south county that is huge where the majority of our cases are there and where the majority are people of color so we will be back on the 18th and what we're asking the board is to please review the budget carefully because we don't feel that these layoffs and these furloughs have been equitable like Carlos has been wanting them to be equitable it would be nice for Carlos to see me as I'm speaking but you're not right so it seems like you don't care it would be respectful of you to see me as I'm speaking about this I am the largest we are the largest union and you are not seeing me when I'm speaking so it's really disrespectful so I think we will be back and I hope you take our matter serious about how these furloughs how the elimination of these decisions have been communicating to our members it has been a professional and it has been inhumane to treat workers who are the essential and the heart of so this community in this way so thank you I would just like to start by saying my name is Benton Scott Freedom and I am the head of the public health restoration project in the Soquel Hills and I am doing that for the last five years prior to that I worked in western medicine healthcare and I cannot second what that man said prior about thanking you and your health laws for keeping me safe that is absolute hogwash anybody who knows anything about health knows that health does not come from these stupid little clown fare we wear on our face health is internal health is intrinsic of healthy lives who go to sleep at the right time who practice holistic health those are the people who don't get ill I actually haven't been ill in over 10 years now because I've been adhering to holistic health and making sure my vitamin D is adequate so that I don't get sick when everyone else does and again what that guy said earlier about how you guys are all giving great advice to keep us all safe I haven't seen any good advice come from any healthcare professional on the mainstream media from any government official to talk about vitamin D African-Americans and people of color are being affected by this disproportionately just like they're being affected by all health ills disproportionately because they don't any longer live at the equator and they don't get the sunshine required for their body to make the adequate levels of vitamin D to keep them healthy and so instead of disseminating that information to our people of color to our neighborhoods that actually do need that information because of the massive disparity of time that they would need to spend compared to us fair-skinned people to keep the same level of health it's not being had all that we're doing is arguing over these stupid mandates people like me are trying to find out in what way does your guys little fear-based ordinance trump the constitution how does it trump the bill of rights like freedom of speech is something that millions of Americans have fought and died for and you guys are taking that away because you guys are scared of germs I'm in the healthcare professional and I would like to tell you that one fifth of all common colds are the coronavirus and so if you guys think that we're ever going to eliminate the coronavirus you guys are beyond nuts it's never going away only thing that we can do is raise our health so that we can get over this and get to a place of herd immunity like Sweden is at now and so I just I just wanted to really say that everything you guys are doing makes me as an American incredibly ashamed to be an American because this is not the country that we live in our founding fathers did not say give me safety or give me death they said give me freedom or give me death and that's what we need is our freedoms back personal responsibility is not dead if you want to live in a bubble and never go out never experience germs pretend that you don't have your own germs do it but that's nothing to do with me has nothing to do with my mom has nothing to do with my deaf aunt she hasn't been able to communicate with a single person throughout this entire epidemic because she reads lips so this is actually muting her and so I just wanted to say to all you guys look you dead in your eye I am ashamed of each and every one of you to the extent to which you contribute to this unlawful okay thanks for that thank you excuse me excuse me you're done excuse me your time is up thank you excuse me chair cap it before we continue chair cap it yes we're having a little technical issue and the meeting is not streaming live IT will need to shut down and restart which will take just a couple minutes we'll let it go for a few more speakers it's not streaming on the internet so no one can see this right now unless we shut down and restart okay you're talking about the mask no I'm talking about you're asking for like a five or ten yes can we have like a five minute recess for a technical issue to fix a technical issue do we need a recess now okay five minutes okay okay we'll have a five minute recess for the wait chairman supervisors especially the people people on that the other side of this podium I think should be wearing masks because I think it's outrageous and this whole thing is to take down the United States it was the founder Marie Strong a billionaire and at the real conference it set forth agenda 21 which you fully endorsed he suggested in west magazine I encourage you to look it up that he formed a secret society to pull down western industrial states that's exactly his word there's a doctor Charles Lieber from Harvard who helped build the Wulan society there's a 19 page affidavit by an undercover FBI person he was arrested along with military members and members of the Communist Party that's not put out by our so called local newspapers the Sentinel or anybody else we also have Bruce McPherson who's received tens of thousands of dollars from the red Chinese we find that who World Health Organization is run by a life of a Chinese Communist Party person we have at the same time all the authority according to Mr. Palacios over here it goes to a person that's being secretly paid by a secret billionaire by the foundation and here's Mr. Palacios standing right next to Susan True on the community foundation I believe he's involved in the illegal conspiracy he put out a document saying that Margaret Lapiz had everything to do with what's going on here in this county and of course when I drive by a la sude which is everything in the county she got black lives matter both those founders admit that they're trained activists and train Marxist and you know it Bruce McPherson Zach Friend most of his former employers now are registered lobbyists for the Chinese Communist Party we find Kilicop the violent not just the protesters but those that are trained in the violence the people responsible according to a magazine that dedicated their interest in it it says the group is revolutionary Communist Party the Communist Party of the USA color of change in California forward well it was a great Leon Panetta communist collaborator with the red Chinese Hugh DeLacy whose plaque is right out there on the courthouse steps dedicated to this communists that belong to four different spy rings Perleau, Wehr, Sorge Silvermaster but California forward they're Bruce McPherson's in it Fred Keely's in it this whole county is designed to be taken down and the co-chairman of it is Lenny Mendenka advocates getting rid of 80% of the local governments and that's what you've been up to thank you my name is Keith Dalton I've been working in the trades painting and carpentry work for at least 35 years I'm 54 years old there's a lot of carcinogenics that I work around by the state of California known to be known to cause cancer the mask is very hard to work under I can't breathe what I am trying to breathe is oxygen whatever amount I can I don't believe by wearing the mask I am going to live longer I do not believe in the mask and I won't support it excuse me I have been informed about the facts from OSHA about the safe and unsafe usage of the particle mask and the dangers and complications of the usage of this mask this is a novelty doesn't make any sense to me I say get your knee off my face thank you hello guys my name is Laura Bezich I'm a resident of Capitola for the last five years previously I lived in five states including Virginia where I was born New Hampshire where I grew up I graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in business and design before I moved to Santa Cruz to launch my startup company a utility patented new consumer product I've been an active participant in Santa Cruz works a member at the idea of Fab Labs a participant in the big Santa Cruz pitch night tech raising and the Monterey based startup challenge of which I was a finalist this mask mandate will effectively turn me into a criminal you have to wear your mask because I refuse to comply with an unconstitutional law that does not make sense that is not justifiable that is full of contradictions and holes that destroys my uniqueness my individuality my humanity and symbolizes censorship and silence this is about not about our health and safety but about giving up our power and sovereignty and ushering a new form of Marxism and before you jump to the conclusion I am a Republican because I brought up collectivist agenda I accompanied a Democratic political operative to Utah boyfriend of mine on a mission to challenge Republican Senator Orrin Hatch at this point I do not identify with any party I am registered as no party I identify as a free American and an entrepreneur this mandate is an outrage an insult to the founding principles of our country which protect the rights of the individual and the integrity of the community you will have to force me into a jail maybe a concentration camp is more likely in the plan before I will chair we cannot have people in the building can you turn off the sound please thank you chair chair capit chair capit we cannot continue to have these protests in the meeting it is not safe for our staff if we continue to have people removing their mask I am going to request that you clear the room so if you could announce that that we will clear the room unless people continue to do these protests we are the only government that is continuing to have open meetings and we cannot do them if people are not going to wear their mask okay okay yeah remember there is a lot of people that don't want to go into a room where people are not wearing masks there is we have to understand that there is people that find it offensive really that that nobody is respecting their health okay thank you people have different opinions based upon the sources of information don't they the real existential threats to life on the planet are the nuclear threat the possibility of nuclear war the nuclear arms industry the environmental collapse and devastation of the ecosystems that support life on earth and I said we don't really have a democracy we are told we do but with these authoritarian somebody use the phrase tiptoe totalitarianism step by step we are driven into compliance I have a couple of questions and I have been on this planet quite a while would the government or corporations ever lie to us is there a history of that another question is the bioengineered coronavirus purposefully propagated in order to further facilitate the global military deployment worldwide on earth and in space because as we are here satellites 5G satellites are going up a missile was just launched by the military from Vandenberg Air Force base this morning and there's a quote here from the film 5G apocalypse extinction event it's important to understand what the 5G is doing and what they say it's doing we're told on the IEEE being forming document that this technology cooks your eyes like eggs in World War II we all need to understand these are military weapons these are assault frequencies if you know nothing more than that that's what you need to know it's microwave radiation warfare that's what it is and a 4G Verizon cell tower just went up at ocean and water in the medium soon to be 5G this is the real serious thread that the county needs to be opposing this rollout the board of supervisors that's the most serious thread in my understanding thank you good morning my name is Gary Schofield I've been living in the county now for 40 years on the mask issue by the way the virus the alleged virus is 1 billionth of a meter in size and so in order for the masks to work it has to be so tightly woven that we wouldn't be able to breathe so it's really a sham in terms of the death potential in Santa Cruz County with 4 deaths and 275 275 citizens we have a 0.000 14 percent chance of dying from COVID 0.0014 in the state of California if you use the numbers the alleged 9,224 deaths we have a 0.00223 percent chance of dying so in terms of Santa Cruz County it's a non-event at 0.0014 it's a non-event it's not happening but let me talk about some of the financial considerations California has approximately 500,000 cases and a case by the way let's define a case a case is a positive test it has nothing to do with disease most of the cases are asymptomatic but we get Newsom is getting $5,000 per case with 500,000 cases we're going to get $2.5 billion Santa Cruz County has 1,115 alleged cases remember the PCR test it has a 50% false positive at 5,000 per case the county will get $5.6 million Santa Cruz County in 2009 had a $5 million GDP so let's assume that's still in effect $10 billion GDP for the county of Santa Cruz so I'm wondering we're going to get $5.3 million from Mr. Newsom in terms of the COVID per case but we're losing possibly $250 to $500 million in lost revenue from shutting down the economy and I want to ask you guys does that make sense does that make sense from you you guys are our representatives you control the budget you control the events that happen in the county does that make sense to you to lose anywhere from $250 to $575 million in return for $5 million from Newsom does that make any sense so I'm wondering why it is that you're posing down our economy based on this a virus purified purified and sequenced no one in the world has done that Dr. Young has offered a $5 million reward for anybody who can prove an example of a virus that's been fully sequenced purified and identified the virus is a theoretical construct a theoretical construct so I'll leave it at that thank you so much after this we'll go to what's going on good morning my name is Ellie Black and last time I was here I brought up the fact that it's completely reprehensible that half the people who attend these meetings in the room in the hall outside half the people are so terrified that they think that the other people around them could possibly kill them that's how terrified they are for those of you who are here last at the last meeting remember a couple of altercations that took place out front where the sheriffs had to get involved and separate people the other half of the people are not afraid we're hugging each other, we're not afraid except because we're uneducated and haven't done our research, no it's not so I requested that our elected representatives and unelected representatives as the case may be set up a public health forum of this county to learn some of the reasons why some of us are not afraid and offer an opportunity for the public to understand more about what's going on to my knowledge that has not been addressed or even considered so that forces us to do it ourselves so at this time I would like to extend the invitation to each and every one of the supervisors and also Dr. Gail Newell to attend a health forum that will be a public event with questions and answers and several different people from across the health practitioner spectrum from our county to get into this in a way that the public can understand and stop acting in fear that maybe is not warranted or perhaps it will go the other direction and those of us who have been hugging each other and not getting sick many of my friends are over 60 nobody has gotten sick in the entire time since February that this has been going on maybe we will learn something different and learn to be afraid but either way I would like to extend that invitation we do not have a date set yet emails will be going out with the invitation but I would like to publicly invite you now and I hope you will attend and thank you very much my name is James Ewing Whitman I appreciate that we can all still stand here and speak publicly and that this is recorded and televised I also appreciate that there has been some lenience with those who have are not obeying the most simple rules I'm not here to talk about the masks I do a lot of research and a lot of study I have been very blessed to live in this county since 1995 last Monday I was myself doing some research and homework and I was parked right in front of Twin Lakes and unknown to me there was some kind of kids camp and so I witnessed at least 25 individuals or pairs of parents bring their small children to the beach and witnessed another human being pointing a gun at these kids and just seeing these kids just go down like what's going on I can't believe what's going on I'm going to take the time to go into the detail about how that affects you psychologically and physically but it's really quite tremendous and it's really sad to see that it is being suggested that children be taught in such a way that is so unnatural I mean what has changed so much in the past six months that seems so different to how I was brought up and I'm going to focus on pointing a gun at another so there's just a lot of stuff going on and I'll be speaking later but I'm very happy about the lenience here about some people who are not respecting other people's ability to speak by what they're choosing to do so hopefully I'll be able to speak on number 10, thank you Hello my name is Shirley Johnson I'm a wildlife biologist and I've had lots of courses like microbiology and I also have a dental hygiene degree and I've taught school in this district for a number of years my parents both go back to the Revolutionary War of 1776 and I'm a patriot this pandemic is taking away our freedoms keeping the China virus out with a mask is like trying to keep a mosquito out with a cyclone fence it's ridiculous scientifically it's a total joke mask or for control of the people government control of the people this political shutdown is just a total farce taking away our freedoms and I want to say that talking about shutdown of the state of California this state if it was a country would be the fifth largest economic country in the entire world and it's all a political scam I haven't been able to swim but one out of the last five minutes months because they keep closing down things I'm going to try the cold ocean today hope I don't get washed out to see I've been in this county for over 50 years and this is just unheard of I really think you guys should look into this idea of charging people if they aren't wearing masks it's just out the window craziness thank you I'm Jay Rosella Myers I'm also a resident of the first district and have been incredibly supportive of the Board of Supervisors on many occasions about different issues and I'm hoping that you can hear what we all have to say there's a lot of really great information within this group a lot of people have been looking into this for some time and I will leave you a copy with the clerk of an article that appeared in wise traditions for the month of July is coronavirus contagious written by Sally and she actually has a really good analysis and she's a pretty famous person who wrote a nourishment cookbook and health fanatic but also I have copies of the Unruh Civil Rights Act that I want you to look over because there's things that appeal to civil rights and the county health that I've highlighted things I moved to Santa Cruz County because I used to live in LA County and where I felt like I lived in a police state I lived close to USC where I went to university and the helicopters the flying helicopters looking for criminals every night were flying overhead shining lights to our windows and I felt like I lived in a police state I moved to Santa Cruz County because I felt like there was justice for all here for diversity and the love of this community and the wonderful aspects of enjoying this incredible environment that was in middle 70s and I cannot believe what's going on right now I so appreciate that you're trying to do the best for us please continue thank you I'm here today representing a retired school teacher but not just that retired school teacher but this whole community that are looking for work or looking for jobs and are looking for economy that can keep working I was told by the county and repeatedly and insistently that this applicant had to pay for an application to determine whether they needed a soils report or not guess what they had already submitted a soils report and had already been accepted and guess what in the state of California every new house needs a soils report why in the world would the county insist that they needed to pay one or not this has cost them tens of thousands of dollars it has cost them months and months of time it's shameful I'm here to speak about homelessness I'm homeless right now it wasn't planned for it's not really something I chose right now they're doing creating a tent kind of area where we can live down on the green and I think that it's great that we have support like showers and food and that sort of thing everybody is homeless there's a variety of reasons why people are homeless but we sometimes seem to get lumped into the same category I've heard a lot of people comment on how dirty homeless people are and before I became homeless when I saw trash lying around I got depressed I've been homeless I know it's not so easy to be clean it's not easy to stay clean that people seem to harass homeless a lot if you drop something you drop trash I just want to say that it's not easy it's not easy to stay clean it's not easy to hold all your belongings together when you see camps of people with trash around that sort of thing those people are actually trying to stay clean but to someone who has access to water, has access to all those things it just looks dirty to them so homeless person they might be trying really hard to stay clean since people who have never been homeless don't know that I just wanted to express that to say that to people the tents that they're putting up right now and the food and the showers are really helpful for that but I think a lot of people are worried about being clustered in they're worried about the virus since everyone's kind of closer now people were more spread out on the green and the fence that they're putting up I really, I don't like it I don't like the fact that they're putting a fence around the whole green area limiting our area it looks like they're just trying to corral people into one area so I felt safe not doing anything when I was out on the green thank you thank you very much hello, thank you for your patience I just wanted to let you know about the OSHA requirements and the OSHA standards because you guys may be interested in that as well as far as respiratory protection goes so the OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.134 paragraph D2 triple I of the respiratory protection standard considers any atmosphere with an oxygen level below 19.5% to be oxygen deficient and immediately dangerous to life and health and that happens when you are behind a mask in less than 5 seconds by human beings must breathe oxygen to survive and they begin to suffer adverse health effects when the oxygen level of their breathing air drops below 19.5% the air is considered oxygen deficient workers that are engaged in any form of exertion can rapidly become symptomatic as their tissues fail to obtain the oxygen necessary to function properly they have increased breathing rates, accelerated heartbeat impaired thinking or coordination can occur more quickly in an oxygen deficient environment which also includes bicycle riding and things like that in public this can be devastating to a worker if it occurs while the worker is performing potentially dangerous activity this also leads to tachycardia impaired attention thinking and coordination even in people who are resting the rulemaking record of the respiratory protection standard clearly justifies adopting the requirement that air breathed by employees must have an oxygen content of at least 19.5% and that does not happen when your face is covered with a mask a lesser concentration of oxygen in the employee's breathing air is my time up thank you that takes us to chair we have two web comments oh that's right I'm sorry the first comment is from Mark I urge support for this item being legislative item 9280 in regards to public works a ward of contract for the rail trail segment I urge support for this item completing these two segments of the rail trail will connect some of the densest part of the county together with a car free safe multi-use trail transforming the way folks young and old move around completing the rail trail will improve social equality environmental sustainability and economic vibrancy sooner is better and better the second item is from George salva this is in regards to the care act fund for rental assistance and utility assistance COPA strongly supports the directive to provide $1 million for rental assistance my name is George a volunteer COPA leader with holy cross Catholic parish I am commenting on behalf of hundreds of families within our institutions that do not have technology access to be able to participate in the public comment process I am joined by families from live oak and so Cal along with other COPA leaders from St. Stephen's Temple Beth El Resurrection Catholic parish St. John's and Calvary Episcopal church we have heard stories firsthand about the financial impact they have endured during the pandemic many are in debt and owe rent money to their landlords friends and our financial institutions others have exhausted their savings all are concerned for rent they owe or will owe for the month of August and September the city of Santa Cruz was recently accepting applications for an emergency rent assistance program for city residents who are living in an uncorporated area like live oak and emerald bay apartments do not qualify some families have left the area and others barely working the majority have shared that they have only worked 3-4 days a week with less than 8 hours per day hotels restaurants and other employees are not in full operations and many households have been affected by this drastic loss of income we are in support of this item to assist families during the COVID-19 we would like to see the county of Santa Cruz create an ordinance to allow county residents 12 months after the local emergency is lifted to pay back the rent they owe thank you and we look forward to working with you on these issues hold on one second some other ones came in but they aren't public so that's it thank you anybody downstairs do board members have any comments or additional direction for items on the consent agenda? yes thank you chair there's just a couple items that I want to comment on first on item number 22 I want to thank the probation department and the auditor-controller-treasurer tax collector office about the discharge of these fines and fees and penalties for these young juvenile offenders we want people to turn their lives around we have to give them the ability to do that and if kids have shown their success at being rehabilitated we shouldn't saddle them with large amounts of fines so this is a good step forward on item number 29 I want to thank the mobile and manufactured home commission for their work these bylaw changes help them hold special meetings when we fall into like this that commission is a very hard working commission and has worked very hard to make sure they can continue to meet the needs of mobile and manufactured home residents in Santa Cruz county during this pandemic on item number 44 I want to thank public works for moving forward on putting out this rfq for segments 10 and 11 of the rail trail this is exciting public infrastructure we're moving forward on and I'm hopeful that we will continue to be on a constant and steady march to build this rail trail throughout our county so we can all enjoy this amazing infrastructure I also want to thank public works on item number 46 which is the emergency repair on Soquel San Jose road that's a key throw way for so many people the last item I just want to talk about is item 30 the COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all in countless and profound ways the necessary shelter in place order helped us save lives but it also placed those living in already unaffordable areas at even greater risk of losing their housing stability our board moved quickly to establish a rent an eviction moratorium that was adopted by the state judicial council to aid rent go away instead it created even greater debt that will be difficult for many to overcome the state has provided our county with funds from the cares act to meet the immediate needs of the pandemic we know that the best way to eliminate homelessness is to help people avoid becoming homeless in the first place we must prioritize support for the most vulnerable and those at risk of losing their housing with funds designed to meet their basic housing utility needs I urge the support of my colleagues to support my request for committing at least a million dollars of our care act funds to supplement our other funding for housing support working now will help prevent a greater homelessness crisis down the road we must do all we can to help working families of our community stay housed in our county during this COVID-19 pandemic and continuing thereafter I hope you'll join me and that's all thank you Supervisor Friend thank you chair first I just need to announce that I need to recuse myself actually from item 44 the rail item I do have a personal material financial conflict because my home is within 500 feet of the rail corridor so I'll need to recuse on item 44 I would also like to thank staff on items 42 and 43 which deal with library upgrades in the second district I believe deals with the La Selva beach and the money that was raised from the friends of the La Selva beach which has done such an amazing job but extra thanks really to Damon for his project management on these projects and especially the Aptos library project I appreciate that we are back on a schedule here and I just wanted to thank Damon for all of his staff work to ensure that we're on that schedule for incorporating the Aptos History Museum and just in general for his feedback that he's been receiving from the community and trying to incorporate everything in we are doing a lot of stuff even during the pandemic and I think that the libraries will be an important place virtual or otherwise for people to use in the coming few years so just extra thanks to staff on that and lastly I appreciate the work the public works did on item 48 in regards to Cox Road as we continue to build out of the storm damages and to actually have that come in under budget nothing wrong with that but the community out there is thankful for the continued work that happens on storm damage I know that it's a tough road right now in the construction world but I appreciate public works as diligence I'm building ourselves out of the storm damage repair. Thank you chair Supervisor Coonerty Thank you Mr. chair just a couple comments to make first on item number 30 I'm very supportive of the rental assistance we have a long way to go as we navigate this pandemic and hopefully this takes some of the pressure off of working families that are struggling to get by right now as we as through the the limits on different on work and may have fallen behind on renting utilities hopefully this is a lifeline going forward on item number 31 Supervisor Friend and I brought forward a letter to condemn the proposal to exclude undocumented people from the census not only is it unconstitutional and a blatant political move to reduce representation in urban areas and blue states it's also just continuing racism by this president to have people be less than even though the constitution is very clear that it's residents of this country to get counted and then finally on item number 37 the smart path report I want to appreciate the staff's efforts to find housing for the people who are vulnerable and experiencing homelessness in our community especially prioritizing families with children so that we can reduce the trauma and give those kids an opportunity to have stability and safety the numbers are still far too low and we need to start thinking outside the box and providing more case management more housing navigation and looking at other options because we're getting too few people into housing in this county and so we'll look at that and item number 8 coming up but I appreciate the efforts that have been made with smart path to prioritize families in our community thank you Supervisor McPherson Thank you Mr. Chair I do want to comment on a couple of things some of which already have been addressed on item number 30 the CARES Act funding I want to thank Supervisor Leopold for bringing this forward we certainly need to do what we can to help renters we don't want to have them become homelessers who can't pay their rent now for some reasons beyond their control but I also want to make sure and I know that Supervisor Leopold the rest of us who support this action just to ensure there's equity built in how we distribute the funds I think a program of work of how we're going to implement this how we might implement it and how it will be administered who determine the quality and qualifies for support and how much support can they get and I'd like to also have a better understanding of how this program fits into the larger strategy of how we're allocating our CARES Act funding some of which has already been allocated or is going to be so there's fully supportive of it I just want to would like to have more details on how we're going to implement it and to assure equity for those areas and it reaches each of each of our districts throughout Santa Cruz County and I'm sure that Leopold I know and the rest of us feel the same way but I just would like to I think the public will certainly want to have some outlook of how we're going to administer this in more detail on item number 37 I noticed the average excuse me number of days from contact to referral then referral to securing housing is more than a year that's a glaring problem in my estimation and I know the lack of appropriate housing supply is a major factor we don't have much housing here in the county but some questions I'd like to have answered are there any anticipated program adjustments to improve the outcomes based on the data that we've had now that we've collected over a year for that period of time do we ever look outside of Santa Cruz County to see when making these housing referrals we have a lot of people who commute and so forth I just wanted to get a better sense of that and have a more dedicated affordable housing is I believe is we all believe is critical to reducing homelessness and if there are any outreach going on to the property owners whose rentals will be empty this fall due to the UCSC staying online in an effort to get more of those property owners to take section 8 vouchers those are some of the questions that I have again about implementation of these programs I think it's important and also I'd like to thank Public Works as they continue their ongoing efforts to make transportation road repairs number 45 to Bear Creek Road a major major arterial from Santa Cruz County over to Santa Clara County that many thousands use every day I appreciate their emergency work on that and all the work that Public Works has been doing to continue their road improvement program that dates back to the 2016-17 storms that's it Mr. Chair thank you Cap it if you don't mind I just wanted to add a comment to Supervisor McPherson's questions and support Supervisor McPherson and the rest of the board I've been working with county staff I believe that during the budget hearings next week when we talk about the CARES Act there will be the program details will be available it'll probably be using some of the other organizations that are helping out with rent assistance right now such as the community action board and families in transition but we'll have all that information available when we discuss this next week well I'd be prepared to move the consent agenda second was that Supervisor Coonerty who's seconded? okay thank you I'll do the roll call vote Supervisor Leopold Friend Coonerty McPherson Chair Caput now we'll move on to the regular agenda starting with item number 7 public hearing to consider proposed easement by condemnation APN 041-08 1-18 041-081 1904-108 2004 1-08 1-21 to support the Valencia Road 2017 storm damage repair project and adopt resolution of this necessity authorizing the county council to institute eminent domain proceeding to a possession of the required real property interest that's outlined in the memorandum of the deputy CAO okay thank you hi how are you? good how are you? good morning chair board members I'm Travis Kerry director of capital projects and it's my pleasure to provide a brief introduction this morning before the actual item I want to introduce Kimberly Finley she's our new chief real property agent in the capital project division real property section in the department of public works we're very excited to have her on board Kimberly started in January of this year it's already accomplished so much for us it's just really great to have her on board she does have a law degree and a very diverse background in all kinds of real estate matters so it's very exciting to have her here most recently she was a facilities manager for the state of Alaska so those skills are really Kimberly's responsibilities include managing the real property section in public works leasing and property management services countywide she also does the road abandonments and surplus land sales and writes agreements to support capital projects construction projects for us providing excellent support there as well and also a lot of special projects these days currently writing agreements and doing negotiations for the CAO HSD and economic development projects and most importantly property acquisition so we do a lot of property acquisition through public works a lot of those are for easements to support emergency road repairs and sometimes those do require condemnation and that's the topic in front of you today so with that I'll turn it over to Kimberly thank you good afternoon chair and members of the board my name is Kimberly Finley I'm the chief real property agent with the department of public works I appear before you today to request that the board conduct a public hearing on the proposed easement by condemnation across real property located at Valencia road post mile 0.34 and to request that the board adopt a resolution of necessity authorizing county council to institute the eminent domain proceedings to obtain possession of the required real property interests to provide brief but relevant background public works is requesting a resolution of necessity to proceed with the eminent domain process to obtain rights to 2,204 square feet of permanent roadway easement and 1,993 square feet of temporary construction easement which easement runs across across four contiguous parcels of land all owned by one Mr. Dane Pfefferel substantial time county resources have been expended to attempt to contact Mr. Pfefferel and offer just compensation for the taking of these required permanent and temporary easement rights the real property section has attempted to reach Mr. Pfefferel utilizing available county resources internet search the white pages and via comprehensive background check performed by county council public works has attempted numerous time to contact Mr. Pfefferel via certified mail telephone and physical site visit a condemnation notice providing notification of this public hearing was sent to Mr. Pfefferel's last two known addresses via certified mail on June 15, 2020 both of these letters have since been returned undeliverable to date the department of public works has received no responsive communication from Mr. Pfefferel it is imperative that the county move forward at this time with acquiring the real property easement rights over Mr. Pfefferel's land as the associated Valencia Road storm damage repair project is at risk of losing vital project funds if we do not pursue this action expeditiously the Valencia Road storm damage repair project has been allocated $600,000 in federal highway administration funds which funds are at risk of lapsing if this project is not right of way certified by September 2020 this right of way certification is dependent on the county obtaining rights to the proposed easement the Valencia storm damage repair project will restore the road damage caused by the 2016 2017 storm event the current damage consists of an approximately 60 foot slip out which encroaches approximately 10 feet into the road resulting in the complete closure of the road of the city and the city any further damage to this road with threatened the one remaining lane Valencia Road at post mile 0.34 is a major collector road with a significant number of average daily trips and it is a vital transportation link for this area of the county this road must be repaired based on the aforementioned I now request that the board Valencia post mile 0.34 APNs 041-081-18 041-081-19 041-081-20 and 041-081-21 and adopt a resolution of necessity authorizing county council to institute imminent domain proceedings to obtain possession of the required road property interests thank you and I'm available for any questions very welcome do we have any board members who have questions on the item I don't hear any so each person will open it up to the public on item number 7 I think you want to say you want to open the public hearing well yeah I'll now open the public hearing on the item and each person anybody want to speak we have one you have three minutes sir is that the item to which the lady just spoke yes I used to live in the area but I can't picture just which part of the Valencia road it is could she mention some cross streets or intersections we have an answer it's located at post mile 0.34 and there is an exhibit A attached to today's agenda item that describes the location anybody downstairs want to speak no web comments that concludes public hearing for item number 7 bringing back to the board I'll move the recommended action and I'll second and chair I'll just make a brief comment that I can shake up thank you okay and sir friend I was there's a little problem with your microphone maybe it was okay maybe it's our problem here so is there a motion and a second I made them first and supervisor friend made the second that's correct I'm sorry and the clerk will conduct the roll call supervisor Leopold friend Coonerty McPherson and chairman Kepit the motion passes unanimously that takes us to item number 8 consider report report on COVID-19 public health emergency shelter and care response an update on focus strategies action planning consider and approve Santa Cruz County 6 month work plan for homeless response adopt resolution authorizing emergency solutions grant CV grant in an amount not to exceed $1,967,600 and direct staff to return no later than November 17th 2020 with an updated report and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer alright how you doing okay better good morning everyone Elisa Benson assistant county administrative officer I'm presenting today with Randy Morris and he's going to kick us off good morning board members chair Kepit in public listening I'm Randy Morris I'm the director of the human services department and I'm sitting here with Elisa Benson actually wearing two hats the first one is the human services department is responsible to provide mass care and shelter during a disaster and as I've had an opportunity to present to this board in public before that is the work we're doing in the shelter operation we're experiencing homelessness and vulnerability and we'll be speaking to some of our work again but second is this is sort of the beginning of the transition of the office from Elisa's leadership in the county administrative office to my department human services as the county administrator asked of your board and your board approved we'll be starting a new office in human services so Elisa and I and our staff have been working together and sort of share this report as the beginning of this transition so I am going to share a little bit at the beginning of the presentation Elisa is going to kind of go through the middle of the presentation and I'll close this out and please ask us questions anywhere along the way this is a lot of information and we'll pause between each of our presentations in case you have questions what brings us in front of your board today is really two items one is there's been a number of requests of your board over the last many months for us to come back to you us being both the work we're doing in human services and the homeless office in Elisa's operation so we're here to kind of share those updates in section second is we do need to ask for your board to take action on a grant which Elisa will speak to in more detail the specific agenda I'm going to be giving an update on our work in COVID in the shelter and care branch a lot of services we've been providing as an update which is some of the requests your board had of us to come back to you and talk about where we are then Elisa is going to talk about a number of activities happening with our consultant group strategies and a lot of work activity and some updates on both a six month work plan as well as a three year action plan that's under development and then Elisa's presentation will finish with an update on the grant opportunity that I mentioned earlier and then I'll close this out with summarizing what the recommendations are that we're asking of your board and any questions so I would like to start by just sort of explaining to the public if those don't know the health office has been holding a lot of press briefings and a lot of presentations to the board about under a pandemic the public health office initiates a number of very formal activities including an incident command center to sort of figure out how to manage this pandemic and as an extension of that the human service office has opened up an incident command center as well and we do all of our work in partnership with the health office to make sure that we have the information to help reduce the spread of COVID so we actually have a formal incident action plan and I actually want to just remind the board and or share with the public what those objectives are that sort of ground the work we do in our shelter work so there are three one is we are to provide shelter and care sometimes it's both to the highest risk groups in our community which is predominantly those experiencing homelessness and more is 24 seven so that we can sure there's social distancing in those shelters to comply with the shelter in place order because it's much harder to do when you are somebody in shelter or homeless and then last to do all we can with the resources we have to increase our outreach during the pandemic to those experiencing homelessness so that we can sort of be in touch with them and see how we can help if possible so this is a report back on some of the activities and an update on some of our work in the shelter talk and I'll end with some of the things that we're looking at moving forward before I begin I do want to take a moment to comment that this is a presentation from two Santa Cruz County government offices but we do our work in partnership with cities with volunteers with disaster service workers and others from county government and a number of non-profit organizations so this we have the pleasure of presenting kind of the work we're doing but we includes the knowledge of lots of people so summary on some of the work we're doing in the shelter and care operation first is we actually at this point have six shelter in place programs again all of this is to help beat the spread of COVID I'm just going to name that three of them are actually sort of brick and mortar space where we've been able to expand shelter opportunities so that the shelters which I'll speak about next have opportunities to provide social distancing and those are the Vets Hall in Watsonville the Vets Hall in Santa Cruz and the Armory fourth is in one of the public comments earlier today mentioned this the transition age use trailers at the Seventh Day Adventist area which Supervisor Leopold's office has been working on with neighbors and then we have two areas that were sort of unmanaged encampments that we've brought in services to help and the bench lands and I recognize there was a public comment from somebody earlier today who was there so those six programs are efforts we've stood up there's a lot of services and resources predominantly paid for by FEMA with food and a host of other activities to try to help make sure people are safe and COVID is not spreading in those communities next is we do have as your board knows and the public likely knows there are a number of shelters in the community but prior to COVID majority and perhaps all were not 24-7 so we really took two actions forward and when COVID hit as part of our work and that was first to make sure that these shelters could be 24-7 so people who were there sleeping overnight could stay so that they could shelter in place the entire time second which links to the first we made sure there was enough capacity elsewhere in the community so that people could be socially distanced which means there needed to be fewer people in the shelters and then there was also a whole host of other services brought in place food and more I do want to take an opportunity to just recognize the good work that's being done I'm sharing that this is being done within the human services operation but this particular work was work being done under Elise's staff Tatiana who did the lion share of work with all the shelter network was a credible amount of work so thank you Tatiana for your work there and then last this has been getting a lot of statewide press the project room key program not only federal money but some state match money to make it more affordable for local jurisdictions to be able to stand up hotels and lease hotel sites to be able to provide isolation quarantine services for people who lack shelter this was predominantly people experiencing homelessness but also more recently people who are in overcrowded housing where they won't be able to safely shelter without spreading COVID in their home there has been four hotels that have been stood up three in Santa Cruz and one in Watsonville and we're in process of standing up a fifth and a sixth the fifth that's just up is in Santa Cruz and the sixth is in Watsonville and the one in Watsonville that we anticipate will be stood up later this week if not early next week adds 100 beds so a lot of work being done the next status update is care coordination services I think this sort of coincidentally links to comments made by supervisor Coonerty and McPherson on a different item which is the human services department's smart path program which is this pre-existed before COVID and that is you know what we can do when we are helping people who are experiencing homelessness or in shelter to make sure that we're not just providing care there but we're trying to connect them to the very limited affordable housing market and that often takes a lot of support and wrap around in case management so it was also brought in care coordination services which is simply put was doing a review of those who are getting the services we provided and finding out if they're enrolled in and if not referring them to eligible services and then I'll speak in a minute about the beginnings of piloting of some case management services to help supplement that the last item I want to share about status update I feel like I need to thread a needle here because I recognize as county employees and a lot of public comments that were made about the privilege we have of having jobs and income to recognize that the work of our staff is getting quite overwhelming we have our regular day jobs all of the work I just listed is a job on top of the regular day job and this has been going on for months on end staffing challenges manifest in two forms one is hiring extra help staff which has really helped with the economy and people losing jobs to bring them into the system to be able to provide the services in the shelters and in the least hotels but the other is the infrastructure and that is we're very strained with managing this work and everything I listed here so everything we have to do to lift up the bench lands program behind this building and these extra shelters is a tremendous amount of administrative work and contracts and getting people on board and so we have a number of staffing challenges that we're working on to try to get ahead of this so we can keep the work going on going so I'll end with a moving forward comment about our shelter and care work this first one is just such a difficult issue to manage which is we are pretty good as a government system of planning but how do you plan when there is so much uncertain in front of us we do not know what's going to happen with the pandemic I think the last time or two ago when we were in front of the board there was a request for us to look at demobilization and what to do now that the spread has plateaued and how are we going to help move beyond pandemic and now we're in a second surge the funding is very very unclear most of the funding we have is state and federal funding and if that funding dries up how do we continue these services how do we manage expectations how do we talk to the community when that funding goes away etc the next moving forward we are in the middle of and I want to give Elise and her team the credit for all the work they've been doing the last month or two to try to lift my office to get a case management program going we do not know and we will only know when we can get some more staff in place to go help people who are in these shelters and in these hotels to see how and in what we can do to help them so that they are not just sitting there but if there is an opportunity to move them to other housing arrangements more permanent housing that we do so so we are close to being able to pilot a case management program and we hope to be able to expand that and scale that over time especially if this pandemic continues so that's in process and the last is what I mentioned earlier we are looking at a number of scenarios about how to increase our infrastructure to be able to deal with what could be many many more months of this given the strain we're dealing with because we can't sustain where we are and that includes we have not made any decisions but we did just want to share publicly with your board the possibility of funding seems stable to actually have an RFP to help support some of the work we're doing so we don't continue to do it in-house so this is a summary of the activities and I'm going to pause there to see if you have any questions otherwise we'll have a chance to have questions at the end because I'm going to be turning it over to Alisa who's going to talk about our work with focus strategies just a quick question share how many people are currently housed in our additional housing sites and how many more will be when we get those additional two hotels I can answer the last one I see if Alisa wants to answer the first one the two additional hotels add approximately 130 beds about 100 in Watsonville which actually calibrates a little bit because the spread is deeper in Watsonville that was intentional and then Alisa do you have the number I can give the guest? I'm going to give you round figures I would say in our shelter in place programs so not the isolation quarantine with the extension of the program at the Benchlands we have about 300 additional capacity so that's not talking about existing shelter that's the new capacity and then with the IQV sites I want to say it's another 300 including the new beds as well but I can double check that but that's top of mind for me so about 600 it's a significant increase considering how many of our people experiencing homelessness are sheltered in the last point in time count I think it was less than 20% that's correct so this is a big step up for sheltering options than we had before yes it is appreciate all the work that went into it thank you for that handoff Randy I do want to just take one moment to express my gratitude and appreciation for the entire shelter and care doc team as Randy mentioned it is HSD staff, HSA staff CAO EOC we have active city representation community partners including housing matters, Salvation Army CAB downtown streets team encompassed downtown outreach workers and the nearly 200 extra help disaster service workers that we've employed in this system this is why we're able to do this work and I feel so grateful for everyone's partnership and collaboration on this in terms of my part of the presentation I just want to orient the board to the three items I will be covering today the first two are really around our focus strategies update per the board's request in June the first item there is our six month work plan for our homeless response system and that is for your consideration and approval our focus strategies item is some further refinements to our process to effectively reboot our three year action planning process we want to give you an update as our effort to streamline that even further and then the third item I will be covering is to briefly cover our recommendation for the board to adopt a resolution for the receipt of an emergency solutions grant COVID so it's a special grant and that's typically a varied ministerial item but there's some interesting aspects of it we want to highlight today I'm predominantly going to focus on the work plan because that is where really the meat of moving forward is so at our mid-June meeting the board accepted our staff recommendation to develop a six month work plan for our homeless response system so aside from that just being good practice this really stemmed from our project advisory group for the project that recognized that the delay of our three year action planning phase due to COVID was leaving us with a significant gap as a system and they wanted us to find a way to formalize the level of integration and collaboration that we were experiencing in the shelter and care DOC and develop that shared practice together so really we're focusing on integration and maintaining our COVID response focus and really looking towards results so where did the content come from we worked with focus strategies and it really is a combination of our COVID response activities and then those actions we've identified as part of focus strategies to improve our homeless response system focus strategies looked at our incident action plans to really understand what we were planning on the ground as well as our four interim recommendations and turn those recommendations and where our work groups had ended into actionable steps moving forward as you can see in the slide the format of the work plan is starting to parallel the format used in our operational plan for the county that so we can hone in on specific next steps and those are going to be filled out by our assigned leads measurable outputs and impacts and then focus strategies is going to continue to provide us some ongoing technical assistance for many of the strategies and objectives along with tracking and evaluation of our process and our results like all work plans we expect this to evolve as we get into the thick of it I'm going to move to the next slide so really let's take a minute to talk a bit about content at a fairly high level so this slide shows the six and I want to stress prioritized goals this was an important piece of the feedback in developing this work plan we wanted to make sure we were really at the top focusing on our activities that are directly impacting the experience of people who are homeless within that you'll see in these six goals there are strategies and then linked activities these activities range from very specific items like established the shelter in place program at the bench lands or acquire a hotel using project home key funds then they also move to sort of broader system improvement activities like evaluate our local rapid rehousing programs and look to expand the funding of that because those are the things that really get people from homelessness into housing we anticipate that the work plans articulation of high level goals will be in close alignment with those that are proposed in the three-year action plan that you will be seeing later in the summer next slide please next I'm going to move to a quick update on our three-year action plan just for the viewing public this has been a goal as the final output of our focus strategies assessment and then where do we go from here and really that three-year action plan is to provide the framework for our community efforts across all jurisdictions for the next three years in addressing homelessness to align those efforts and really provide that overarching goals strategies and priorities to drive us forward we are now going to build on our lessons from COVID-19 and sustain that work it's also our time to start pivoting from our immediate response to longer-term solutions and strategies to end homelessness so quickly we did have another check-in with our project advisory board as we in June had envisioned doing a webinar and a series of early input sessions from the public to drive the drafting of the plan and when we checked back in with the project advisory committee given the surgeon cases and just how everyone's focus is on that response they suggested we continue to streamline that process so we're not going to be doing webinars and digital input feedback sessions early instead they've recommended that we go ahead work on that draft plan so there's a document for people to respond to so we will be working with the project advisory board and key stakeholders in August to develop that draft plan present that as a draft to the board in mid-September and then engage in some real focused engage I will say online virtual feedback sessions and an open comment period through the end of September we'll then take the first few weeks of October to finalize that plan for the board October 20th next slide so this last item as I mentioned is really a request, it's a simple action request for the board to adopt a resolution to accept receipt of our ESG-CV grant and authorized staff to execute agreement this is something we typically handle as a consent item but this is unique in a couple ways and we just wanted to highlight that the funding for this particular program is just under a million dollars and it is funding that is really it comes from CARES Act funding that flowed from HUD the Housing and Urban Development Department at the federal level to the state to then our local continuums of care here known as the Homeless Action Partnership and more funding from that source is expected to come to our community this program itself is our first foray into building a specific case management housing navigation and flex funding program for our shelters and it advances the focus strategy recommendation on addressing housing focus shelters and moving people from shelter into permanent housing the focus of this pilot will be on three of our COVID related programs as we all know we eventually will have to end those and we want to bring real housing solutions to our clients or in those programs now we don't want to be exiting people to other shelters or back on the street so we see this is a very critical time for us to really step into this idea of case management and housing navigation so with that I'm open to any questions on the topics I've covered but I'll also pass it to Randy and my topic is to close out summarize what the recommendations are to your board but I'll pause to see if there's any comments or questions before I do chair I just have some questions any board members first and then we'll open it up to the public thank you for the presentation I just want to say that I've had the experience of working with Ms. Benson and the staff on the establishment of the temporary housing program and so Kell I know how hard people work to make sure that we have good programs and I've seen it up close in terms of it working well and I have great appreciation I'm really glad to see us moving forward with a more detailed plan and there's some small things here in terms of language and then there's big things in terms of language for instance there's an item that talks about a rent moratorium and although there's many people who want us to have a rent moratorium we really have an eviction moratorium the bigger issue is it's hard it's hard to figure out exactly what we might see in six months the information is in there but I think we would be serving the public's interests well by creating documents that were easy to read because there's a lot of infrastructure building a lot of strategies and objectives and strategies and how it fits into the three year plan and all these different pieces but it's very hard to ascertain exactly where we're going, how we're getting there and I think we need to work on clarity so I just want to encourage this because we know that there's a lot of public interest in these issues we are doing some good work to how 600 people in a relatively short period of time to think about the case management program to think about how we can ensure that the limited amount of housing is available is being directed toward the people most vulnerable these are all really critical pieces but it's hard to wade through that with the way that the documents are set up so I just want to encourage that and hope that we can see something in the near future that would be helpful for people to understand thank you so Super I do have a closing slide that summarizes the recommendations before opening it up to the public comment and if now is the time unless there's other questions I'll just close this out okay so this may or may not relate to Supervisor Leopold's comment we are asking that the board memo that was submitted be accepted and filed and specifically that we be directed to return 15th and that could be the point in time or before when we come back with a public facing document and recognition there is a lot of talk in there about infrastructure stuff for us that's important but to have something more public facing makes sense so we could do that at November 6th or prior whatever your pleasure the second is asking your board to consider and approve what Elisa listed in her quick summary which is in the attachment with the recognition of Supervisor Leopold's request to come back to the public comment and that's what we've identified and viewable to the public but as is to accept what's been submitted and the last is the formal ask to adopt the emergency solutions grant the coronavirus grant resolution for up to you know just side of the two million as listed and that does allow us to put programming in place that has actually been referenced earlier to get some case management services going so those are the three formal recommendations we are asking of your board and then we turn it to you for Mr. Chair Supervisor McPherson I had a couple of questions that we couldn't afford to do in the public first of all I want to thank the Human Services Department Health Services Economic Opportunity this is much more than we could have anticipated more complicated but I think that it's especially important how we address more efficient and effective governance system that we have I had just basically I'm really pleased about the expansion of the mental health services and case management and housing navigation that's included in this and I'm anxious to see how that's going to be how we can make that grow and be more stable and address more people a couple questions that I had maybe I can ask all three and then if you might have an answer to it together the report mentions the request for proposal process for the shelter management and there's a lot of challenges in that should we be proactively looking outside of our county are we going to be able to find you sense we can find a provider inside Santa Cruz County that's one the report identifies the ongoing encampment in the bench lands and our efforts to improve the structure but I think the plan you were going to come back October 20th what's our plan after October and maybe you will address it then but and when is it slated to close on the bench lands so that's number two and then number three there's a lot of concern about fire danger in the Pogona area posed by these encampments while it's in the city's jurisdiction to enforce laws against setting fires and other harmful activity what is the status of our efforts to offer options to those folks who are living up there but need shelter in place as a result of COVID-19 is there anything immediate will that be all I'm sure it's going to be all part of the overall plan but is there anything immediate because that's a huge concern we've got some fires already in California especially right now down in Southern California so those are the three questions I have and I don't know if you might be able to give me some general answers I'm sure more specific answers will be coming in October Supervisor McPherson we both wrote the same notes and just whispered to each other Randy Morris human services all start to answer number one and then I'll turn it over to Lisa to kind of fill in some more comments there was a reference to a potential RFP to help get a vendor in place to help us some of our shelter services I just want to start by acknowledging kind of the complexity of that the FEMA funding is on 30 day cycles I think a nonprofit vendor it would be a tough ask to kind of take on something much like we're taking on right now to take on providing services the funding stream is so unclear that said community-based organizations are really struggling right now we have infrastructure strain there's only so many county employees and we have regular work to do that's not getting done that we need to get done so I would just say it's referenced in there to offer a full disclosure to the board what we're thinking about we have made no final decisions of course an RFP and a contract would have to come back to your board but we're trying to thread a needle of the staffing challenges we have the FEMA money that's here now and just how to best balance so that's the answer to that question no final answers and we would welcome any direction from your board of thoughts on it I'll turn it over to Elisa who's been working more closely with the Bench Lands and then the other encampment area in Santa Cruz City limits complex issues Supervisor McPherson so in terms of the ongoing the question around Bench Lands and our Shelter in Place program that we just started there the expectation is we would be running that through October and but as we approach you know winter weather that it can't be at that site it's just it is a literally in the flood plain and not a reasonable place to be sheltering folks so quite frankly our Shelter in Care Docs started yesterday talking about just as we've opened it we have to put a team together to work with the City of Santa Cruz assuming we have continued ability to fund something as to where we will move it when weather no longer allows it to be at that site so we absolutely understand just as quickly as kicking it off we have to think about where we will move from that site assuming we are able to continue it depending on funding so we will initiate that promptly and have a little strike team that starts thinking about that and working with the City on options in terms of the fire danger and the Pogonip and encampments in that area as you reference Supervisor McPherson really the decision around the balance of leaving folks in place versus addressing significant fire danger is up to the City that said if they ask for our help we will be happy to provide it I do need to be realistic though about the capacity of our existing Shelter and our expanded Shelter system to absorb a lot more people I would say today if I checked our capacity numbers we may have between north and south county shelters I want to say 20 to 35 beds that's what we have available right now and we have long lists and those are in the Shelter in Place programs that's not including our isolation quarantine as obviously that is reserved for folks who are have been COVID exposed and need isolation and quarantine facilities but the reality of the matter is we depending on the numbers of folks who might be asked to leave the Pogonip we have a limited number of beds that we could make available to them thank you understandable too should we go for public comment we'll now open it up okay you have three minutes thank you hey do I have three minutes or two minutes it just started clicking it too okay my name is Serge Cagno I know some of you guys I want to really appreciate everybody who's you included gone into the Shelter in Care services for the homeless there are a lot of new programs that we've been able to do with the funding and we've been able to do a lot of low barrier programs that you can see from the shelters that Alisa was talking about that there are participants who have never been chosen to be in any program that we've had in our county they have not been in HMIS and they have not gotten services anywhere but we've changed our service model to be more accommodating to people to get more people into the services which move them more to housing really want to appreciate the work on the case management as well and trying to add that in and applying for some more funding for that but also understanding that there have to be more housing options for people we also have to be looking at other kinds of programs whether that's mid pen where they did the program up towards Dominican that we need more big projects for some people I also want to appreciate the managed encampment at the Benchlands that just started up and we realize you guys have been talking about it that it's just a three month thing right now it's just till end of October trying to find another site for that trying to keep for COVID not having people spread out across the county and across the city having effect on a lot of people but right now the people who have chosen not to be in the Benchlands are getting scattered today so there's still as we the CDC has recommended not clearing encampments that still happens in the city so I would ask and I would ask the Board of Supervisors to as we try to do our HSD DOC supporting the homeless also trying to support our cities to work with us as opposed to challenging the homeless because the homeless that choose to be in our programs are treated in certain ways in our jurisdictions and that is part of our issue of how we get them engaged in our programs so thanks for everything you guys are doing hi this is Jay Rosella Myers again and 20 years ago I served on the Santa Cruz civil grand jury for an entire year and this was a major problem that we looked into of homelessness and I realize that it makes it even a special issue right now of trying to create a safe environment under these challenging circumstances today with COVID and trying to create a safe place that creates more immunity and I have always wondered actually right now as businesses are going out in Santa Cruz County there are some pretty large businesses that have left the county like Sears, like Toys R Us and these are huge vacant spaces that are laying empty and I wonder if that's anything that it's ever been looked into in terms of providing a safe shelter or environment and can some of this money that's allocated for this set of circumstances be actually utilized to work out deals with those commercial properties for some benefit of those people who are not able to lease those spaces it seems like that might be a helpful solution if something like that could be focused on and pulled together anyway it's never been considered but I've thought about it a lot ever since I was on the grand jury and that was an issue way back when even more important today anyway, thank you thank you Marilyn Garrett I always think of this bumper sticker it'll be a great day when the schools and everything else social services I would have all the money they need and the Air Force has to have a big sale to buy a bomber food not bombs is an appropriate title for a group that has over I think a thousand groups across the globe Keith McHenry was the founder of it he lives here in Santa Cruz I heard him interviewed on a KPFA flash points program I think it would be helpful to meet some of the real stakeholders in this the homeless and the people who are actually feeding the homeless to have him on the agenda to do a presentation here he described when I heard him interviewed about the Bench lands as like an internment camp the way it's fenced in and you know people and I also have this flyer I'll give you again that relates to this and supervisor Leopold you mentioned this is probably only serving approximately 20% of homeless so woefully inadequate however hard you try you don't have a different structure of a system to actually provide for people it's going to not really help so this says feeling sad and depressed are you anxious worried about the future feeling isolated and alone you might be suffering from capitalism symptoms may include and as I re-read these I thought this is really accentuated during these last few months symptoms may include homelessness unemployment poverty, hunger feelings of hopelessness fear, apathy boredom cultural decay loss of identity loss of free speech incarceration suicidal or revolutionary thoughts death we have a system problem here called capitalism and it's only got worse and I'd like to see you advocate for having the budget change so that the military budget it's very low and we get the money from the military budget for real needs in our community thank you thanks Marilyn my name is James Ewing Whitman there's very few things that I'm actually sure of in life but I know that before this coronavirus even was spoken about I spoke in the city of Santa Cruz council several times that we are all homeless and that has to do with the weapons technologies that most people greatly ignore our home as our castle safety security is privacy that's largely not being discussed and it's not being looked into so I do think it's great that we're coming up with all these emergency procedures to deal with the homeless but these procedures and ways to deal with the homeless and all of us who are homeless have been decided much longer FEMA has plans for us and it's my understanding and I could be wrong that on March 23rd the president of the United States President Trump stepped down and put FEMA in charge but yet our media isn't discussing that we no longer have a president so I'm just concerned and I'm speaking and I'm glad that we can all still talk to each other thank you I'd like to say one thing I meant to say earlier the library the public library is closed and to help homeless why why is that closed when so many other things are open so many other things are open but the public library is closed I understand that the concerns about the current virus but other places are open why can the public library be accessible even if it was fewer people coming in I really feel like you should reopen that it would give people of low income or homeless people access to looking for jobs a safe place to be off the streets a safe place to think so it's really invaluable for people who have low income and who are homeless we can look for jobs we can be safe and we can think there but it's closed when so many other things are open so please consider opening the library the public library the public library and I also think language matters and to me that sounded incredibly bureaucratic what was talked about the motivation is just to get homeless people off the streets and out of the way and clean it up we're people we're human beings so I don't think that is realistic people will react to it trust is an issue I have a trust issue I was falsely diagnosed with five different mental disorders I think the doctor actually upped the disorder every time I told him I didn't have one at telecare I think every single time I tried to convince him I didn't have a mental disorder he added another one to the chart so that's a problem that's a white collar crime that's medical misdiagnosis I knew I didn't have one but I was diagnosed trust is an issue what's the motivation of people getting homeless people off the streets is it to help them or is it just to clean them up because then it's not even realistic we are human beings this sound of having some empty place like Target or any of those buildings used for encampment sounds really great I mean there's a lot of people who out there are homeless so the sheer numbers that is it has to be realistic it can't be a small space but yeah I think language matters the motivation is simply to clean people up and to get people out the way and shove people aside is just not realistic but if it is to help people that's good but we can tell what the motivation of somebody coming up to you is this person simply trying to force their will on you or are they actually trying to help you so motivation and language does matter thank you we have anybody downstairs any other comments I don't believe there's anybody downstairs but we do have one web comment this is from Becky Steinbrenner your Board of Supervisors I understand that the county plans to purchase multiple hotels to provide permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness I assume the county is hoping to be awarded the funds to do this from Governor Newsom's Project Home Key whose funds must be spent within six months while I approve of providing effective shelter for homeless I worry that when Project Home Key and other COVID-19 emergency revenues disappear county taxpayers will be left with the financial burden of maintaining the hotels and expensive programs while state and federal reports projecting a 45% rise of homeless population due to the economic problems of the COVID-19 shutdowns we cannot take an unsuitable level of debt burden for the county without some plan of how we can pay for it I also feel the county has continued to ignore using county-owned property at Cresview and Freedom Boulevard in Watsonville as permanent location for trailers donated by the state and federal government for COVID-19 shelter that could be kept on as a permanent housing site with more than 12 trailers the site had nearly 100 trailers installed for shelter after the 89 earthquake and should be used now rather than the county fairgrounds and the 7th day Adventist camp because it's on the transportation corridor and is adjacent to medical and behavioral health services please reconsider this plan will the six month strategy development be a public process it needs to be thank you sincerely Becky Steinbrunner thank you and that concludes public comment Mr. Chair sorry I have a couple comments before we take motion correct and I'll bring it back to the board for comments thank you this is Ryan Coonerty I want to thank Ms. Benson and Mr. Morris they both in working with the board and the community and the cities but also in maintaining a safe environment for people experiencing homelessness during this pandemic the numbers speak for themselves we could have had much higher numbers spread throughout the homeless community as well as the broader community but their staff's efforts to quickly intercede I appreciate their efforts going forward to manage it and we are as was mentioned Ms. Benson's statement we're both trying to respond to a crisis and also build a lasting more effective system going into the future and to do both those things at the same time while managing all the various responsibilities is very difficult I just want to put in I'm supportive of the direction we're heading and the elements that we're moving forward today I do want to state that you know when we look at the case management hopefully with a very strong housing navigation and diversion component built in as Supervisor McPherson mentioned I think it's going to be really important to build the expectations of outcomes and to getting people into housing much sooner than one year and to figure out strategies to get people into housing sooner and faster will be essential so that it's actually in the contract and we're building both a culture and a policy approach going forward that serves the people who are in need so as we pursue this CARES Act money for needed case management I hope that we are using that as an opportunity to build management and expectations and going forward Thank you. Any other comments from board members? I'll move the recommended actions Coonerty Second Chair I would just add that I hope we can get these more easy to understand documents on November 17 I think that's very important but I I want to thank you also thank you very much that's tremendous help to the community we all appreciate everything Will the clerk please conduct the roll call Supervisor Leopold Friend Coonerty McPherson Chairman Caput The motion passes unanimously and if we can take maybe what a 12 minute break and we'll come back right around 22 minutes to 12 Thank you. We'll go to item number 9 Consider Resolution Issuing Emergency Regulation Number 2020-01 to temporarily suspend I got it wrong I probably not It's so much harder with the management OK, that's all right OK Resolution 2020-01 temporarily suspend single use bag charges in the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer we'll have a report on that and hopefully the other the cities in the in the county are going to hopefully follow this also Thank you. Good morning Chair Caput and the rest of the board my name is Casey Colossum with Public Works the recycling and solid waste services manager the proposed resolution is to temporarily suspend the county mandate for businesses to charge customers for bags during the emergency the purpose of this resolution is to protect the health and safety of consumers and retail workers during the COVID-19 pandemic while reducing disproportionate impacts back charges to low-income shoppers the change would affect all retail businesses in the unincorporated areas of the county but not in the four local cities they take similar action as an emergency resolution this measure would be effective immediately upon approval by the board and the suspension would be in effect until lifted by the board existing requirements for types of bags allowed would remain unchanged by this resolution businesses would still have the option to charge for bags if they choose but would no longer be required to do so businesses in the community will be notified by mail, press releases the county website and social media and this is in line with the Cal OSHA guidance for infection prevention in stores meant to protect the workers by not having them handle customers reusable bags and it also helps the elderly and disabled who would not be required to bag their own groceries okay, thanks a lot and do we have any questions from the board members? just for clarity's sake people would grocers would be the ones who get to choose whether they charge or not, not us correct there's nothing to prevent a grocer from charging for a bag or any other store and my question would be what cities in the county are also going to suspend the bag? not aware of what the other cities are doing but I imagine they would do something similar and any other supervisor questions we'll open it up public hearing each person, anybody want to speak on the item? we have a couple, thank you we'll give you three minutes again and I I just have to say I've heard so many complaints about the retail operations about having to charge for bags and it's been so unclear about whether or not it's safe to bring our own bags bag the things ourselves it's like all over the map but I just heard a report that plastic bags were used for a while by many of the retail grocery stores especially in town that they said they were safer but in the report I actually heard that the plastic bags hold the germs and virus and bacteria and stuff three days longer than the paper bags and so it's like I wish there was some clarity about which thing was actually safer like at staff for instance we have the bags that they give us when we spend over a certain amount of money and they refuse to take those now in terms of recycling them and so it's just very unclear about what's the right way to go at this point and it would be nice to actually have some information about what way is actually the safest you know so it's my understanding that you're gonna just leave it up to the retailers at this point or is there gonna be a resolution about that they can do the no charge thing because I know it's such a pain for them to charge for the stuff so anyway a couple questions thank you my name is James Ewing Whitman I think this is a question of safety and economy I believe the gentleman who first spoke on this item was for public works recycling or something um the example that we can't bring in our own reusable bags and reuse them is kind of another question of how our freedoms are being removed um you know I'm very fortunate that one of my favorite restaurants in the county is still open but I know that when I go and eat there rather than use a container and pile on as much salsa as I want I've walked out of there and realized that I grabbed 26 things of salsa um and that stuff really largely doesn't get recycled and so there's a lot of bigger issues going on in our society right now than these petty things of whether the county is gonna decide to force businesses to charge or not charge for bags that's all I have to say right now, thank you that's a good comment sure, hi Marilyn so I was looking at a note I had here from listening to news a year ago and it said 180 billion dollars had been put into new plastic production so this thing about single-use plastic bag is a drop in a bucket and we've seen I mean it's just like we're inundated with plastic with all this and what was the figure my friend, did you just cite that I think she said she heard on the news there's now more masks in the ocean from all this than plastic bottles so this is a huge problem we know plastic doesn't decompose it's totally toxic and it just is astounding how we're told oh here's this terrible, terrible problem and here's the solution you know plastic bags toxic disinfectants smothered all over and I heard some of the disinfectant products have actually been recalled because they had was it methanol something so toxic that it could destroy your organs so what is really healthy here and what isn't and viruses are natural to nature you know they circulate all over the globe they penetrate this there's something really the matter of this picture but certain businesses are really doing well you know Apple the computer business the sanitizer business the plastic business the billionaires are getting wealthier so I do think this should be repealed and I'd like to see I'd like to see plastic like prohibited and bring our own cloth bags when we go grocery shopping like we've been asked to do so often thank you any other comments yes we've got six web comments the first web comment is from a Milan Lewis I am opposed to this ordinance to suspend the prohibition on single use plastic bags and retail establishments plastic bags are a huge source of plastic pollution and death of marine animals in the waters bordering Santa Cruz County customers can easily accommodate the use of reusable bags in stores to prevent coronavirus transmission Trader Joe has set up tables outside the store entrance to allow customers to bring their groceries from the store in a cart and load their groceries into their own reusable bags as senior citizens my wife and I find this easy to use and no inconvenience we much prefer to avoid adding to ocean pollution from plastic bags the second comment is from Catherine O'Day Supervisors I am Catherine O'Day Executive Director of Save Our Shores as you know Save Our Shores has advocated for smart policies related to ocean plastic pollution for more than a decade and with your leadership we have made considerable progress therefore we would be remiss if we did not express concern about the proposed resolution issuing emergency regulation number 2020-01 to temporarily suspend single use bag charges before preparing my comments I researched the California government code cited by the County Department of Public Works namely code 8-634 to try to understand why the DPW feels justified in proposing the resolution my conclusion is that DPW may have taken an overly broad interpretation of the code change lab solutions and national organization based in Oakland California advises equitable law and policies to ensure healthy living for all I published a paper in May of this year assessing the authority of local governing bodies to order the regulation necessary to provide the protection of life during COVID-19 health emergency change lab solutions multidisciplinary team of lawyers, planners and policy analysis agrees that the California code does not indeed grant local governing bodies authority to enact and enforce laws to address health emergencies but with the caveat that those laws do not conflict with state law suspending the single use bag charge would clearly conflict with the statewide plastic ban hence the logical conclusion is that passing the proposed resolution would cause the statewide ban on single use plastics to become the governing regulation in our county thereby rendering the resolution moot passing this regulation would trigger the state law you would not accomplish the stated objective of providing relief to those enduring economic hardships due to the coronavirus instead all that would be accomplished is the loss of our county's reputation as an environmental leader most residents of our county readily embraced our local bag ban and we're proud that our community was among the first in the state to take action to address plastic bag litter and its impact on the health even the very life of our Monterey Bay wildlife due to oppose the resolution and maintain integrity of our own county's regulatory process and the authenticity of our environmental leadership thank you there's more this one is from Ken Davenport it is a very small but welcome gesture by administrative officer next one is by Gayle Marie McNulty while we must protect people businesses that are suffering as a result of the economic downturn reversing our weakening hard one environmental protections like our county's plastic bag like our county's plastic bag ban is not the right plan now the state's temporary suspension of the bag ban has been allowed to expire the state mandate of the minimum 10 cent bag charge stands as a baseline of environmental protection the county would be wise to follow the city of Santa Cruz lead in upholding the 25 cent bag charge while amending the original ordinance to include a list of hardship exemptions that would ensure those who need to receive bags free of charge may do so without allowing our county to needlessly slide backward in a way that negates our community's commitment to defend our bay and our children's shared future we know that those with underlining health issues are more vulnerable to the worst outcomes with COVID-19 however we don't know yet the health effects are potential heightened vulnerability being created by the credit cards worth of plastic all humans are estimated to be eating drinking and breathing each week we've all seen images of how the plastic pandemic is devastating on marine life locally the increase in takeout food combined with massive increase in traffic to our beaches has already led to a huge increase in the amount of bags and other trash barraging our beaches and other public places unfortunately much of this garbage has and will make its way into our precious bay meanwhile the plastic industry has been hard at work spreading falsehoods about the safety of plastic which has been proven to be more of a vector for the virus using this opportunity to increase production further harming many low income communities of color the communities that generations of environmental racism has left vulnerable enabling disposal lifestyles harms the communities where the plastic is produced and the places where most of the garbage accumulates in both these cases the hardest hit people tend to be the poor not white leaders living in relatively safety leaders living in relatively safety must understand how their choices echo beyond the privileged communities in which they vote this is from Becky Steinbruner Dear Board of Supervisors thank you for removing the added cost to patrons who may not be allowed to bring their own reusable shopping bags into the stores the rules are very confusing about this and seem to change nearly daily however what is clear is that even though society is an economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 shutdowns we still want and need to care for the environment I have watched and dismay as single use plastic bags have returned to the stores and also along the road sides and parking lots where they are discarded are blow out of the garbage trucks if the county feels it is necessary to allow single use bags to proliferate again by banning the use of reusable shopping bags please also ban the use of single plastic bags and only allow paper bags to be handed out in all stores for customers the amount of plastic that has increased going into the landfill has skyrocketed due to increased online shopping and take out food containers please support the environment even during this crisis thank you Becky Steinbruner and the last comment is from Jean Brucklebank as elders aged 75 and 71 we find no problem with bagging our own groceries I believe no okay I'm sorry I thought I read this one already but I haven't we take reusable bags to Trader Joe's our shoppers corner our Live Oak Super we keep them on our shoulders just like they were a purse we choose our groceries telling the cashier that we do not need bags paper or plastic they are always very happy to hear this they put the items back into the shopping bag after scanning they put the items back into the shopping cart we use reusable bags Trader Joe's even provides sanitized tables as a service we simply use the sidewalk shoppers and the same with Live Oak Super everyone is masked the saves paper, plastic and the cost of providing bags for customers this works easily and it is safer the staff as well as the public we are distressed at the huge additional amount of waste we see in the environment during this pandemic so much more plastic including masks is floating around spilling out of garbage bins and not support the emergency resolution we would support the county clarification that says if it is we would support a county clarification that says it is advisable for those who drive to buy large quantities of groceries to have empty cardboard boxes are reusable bags in their cars for the purpose of easily bagging their own groceries from the shopping carts the health of humans is interactively connected to the health of the environment let's not trash one while providing for the other that's it, thank you thank you ok, supervisor McPherson I see your hand up how you doing I think you finished the public comment but we all are clearly aware of the adverse impacts that plastic bags have our environment but however I support suspending this fee until reusable bags are uniformly allowed by retailers in the county right now that's not the case as some grocery stores are permitting them again and some are not but I would there might be more discussion from the board but I have a proposed motion when it comes to that with some additional directions but there may be other board members who would like to speak first chair I appreciate the work of our public works staff to think about ways to address problems that are presenting through the COVID-19 pandemic I don't support the current proposal I think that the idea that it's going to be reducing cost is questionable in part because the retailer gets to choose B because the state plastic bag requirements are still in place we heard testimony from your staff this year that said that when we looked at what were the incentives to get people to change their behavior 10 cents wasn't enough it was 25 cents and so I believe that the risk of transmission of this virus is low off these kind of objects that it's reasonable to think that someone can bag their own groceries and we know and we've detailed and we have supported the impact that plastic bags have in our environment so I can't support this at this time any other comments from board members Mr. Chair again Supervisor McPherson in my discussions with our health officer Dr. Gail Newell she does not believe that reusable bags pose a risk from a disease perspective either I know that single use bags pose a risk to the environment and her presence in my presence stay away from single use bags but I think we need some uniformity in the implementation of any policy and that's where I would make make a recommended motion but I don't know if there's any other board members would like to speak to this well I'll just make my own comment you know years ago I used to think plastic was it was okay it breaks down it does it does break down but it breaks down to a I call it a plastic mush it ends up in the water these little microfibers and all that and there's so much of it that it's everywhere now and it's in the water and I was reading it's under clothes after you wash your clothes so the only real solution is going to be the manufacturers if they can come up with something that I guess we call biodegradable that will replace plastic but that's something we need to really look at and this what I call the mush from plastic that ends up in the water does that ever break down even further I mean it's breaking down it gets smaller and smaller does it ever just break down it'll be I mean it gets such out of the microscopic level that it gets consumed by the food chain and during that process it breaks down even farther to a point where it's molecular constituents but it's whether that can be metabolized and broken down even farther I'm not an expert on that sure and I know you know we're in the pandemic and I realize that we need to do something the one alternative that we do and I think a lot of people do is we don't take a bag at all we put it back into the shopping cart go to the car and then take it out of the cart and put it into bags that we have in the car and I have talked to some grocery managers and some people do bring in reusable bags that are very very dirty and they don't like that and they also don't like charging the 25 cents or whatever it is so I'm in favor of the motion it's a temporary motion right that's correct it's temporary okay go ahead Bruce Mr. Chair I'd like to move the recommended actions with additional direction for county communication regarding the fee suspension to include a county preference for retailers to allow reusable bags and request that clearly state their protocols for use by their customers I think we need some uniformity in this and I would love to see the city's and everyone else come along with us in this as well so that's my recommended action in motion with additional direction kind of an amendment right yeah just perhaps a direct communication about the fee suspension so we include a preference for retailers to allow reusable bags and clearly state their protocols for the use by their customers okay I can second that right yes I can I'll second that and then the one other question I have we need to get the information out to the public about you know I know we've cut down a lot on the small plastic bags but the plastic bags that people are using to put their garbage in and when garbage comes around once a week they take the big black hefty bags and put those in the garbage we need to come up with an alternative and I guess there are what's called green bags or something like that we know where they sell all of those and how people can buy those instead of the plastic the big plastic bags that people put garbage in right there are compostable plastic bags but they we're reserving their use for like food waste food scraps so they can be used to collect food waste you know cleanly and would break down in a commercial compost facility those I don't know if they're widely available to people at retail stores but the other type of plastic bags you know you don't have to use them in your trash cart they're a preference for keeping you know the residue from sticking to the carts or from your the containers you have in your house right the garbage can go right into the you know the garbage container that's correct but it's a lot easier especially for a lot of people to just take the bag out of your home garbage can and then put it straight into the garbage can that goes out to the you know weekly do we have any names on those the ones that break down I would have to look that up and get back to you well I would add that we look it up and we also put that on our website we get the information out to the public because I'd like to know I'd like to go out and buy something so I cut down more on the use of plastic we can't burn it either because then it's bad for the atmosphere plastic is just good there's not a whole lot of things we can do with it okay we have a motion and a second chair I would just like to say I appreciate efforts by my colleague to try to craft something that would work I unfortunately will not be able to support the motion I think we all agree that plastics are bad for the environment we have taken that action consistently here and I appreciate the comment from my colleague that has validated my conversations also with health professionals about the risk of transmission we at the early stage of this pandemic we were worried about issues like this now we know and so we need I think policies like ours help move retailers back into using science to make the decisions about what kind of bagging rather than removing the cost maybe in order to get them to do the right thing so I can't support this I think it's a slide backwards and I hope it is not picked up by the other cities okay any other comments this is Supervisor Coonerty so I'm reluctantly supporting the motion I agree plastics are a horrible thing and I look forward to reinstating this fee I think the challenge is you have retail workers and I know this from my family his own experience and also just from being out about is you have retail workers trying to navigate a very complex environment with a lot of conflicting information and as we can see from our next item we already have people who are making relatively low wages being forced to confront people who have different you know who are unwilling to participate and are stressed and are challenging different ordinances and it's one more thing when people bring a bag and they don't want it they want you to bag it or there's not a place to bag it outside and then but the retail worker doesn't want to take it and it's a very difficult situation right now and so just to try to provide clarity for people in terms of the rule I would support if our health officer wants to send out a letter saying that it's absolutely safe for people to reuse bags I think that would help a lot but it's been a lot of we haven't had a formal statement from the CDC or other groups and retail workers are stressed and so trying to give people a sense of let the business owners in consultation with their workers trying to figure out a situation that works until where the state of emergency is lifted I'll support it but I look forward to the day when this pandemic is behind us and when we can get back to try to get to getting plastic out of our lives You wanted to say something? No public comment has already stopped but how short can you make your comment? Sir you have to have your mask on you have to wear your mask okay okay thank you okay we have a motion by supervisor McPherson a second by myself the clerk supervisor Leopold no friend Coonerty McPherson and chair Caput the motion passes 4-1 and now we go to item number 10 remember if you already number 10 earlier chair Caput you may want to consider holding this over until after lunch it's up to you but we have close session as well so it's up to you what you would like to do how long do you think it'll be we did have most everybody spoke on this earlier alright let's we'll have to come back a little bit before 1.30 then right or 1.30 no it'll be after 1.30 you can try and get through it we'll do that we're going to now go to close session do we have anything to report on a closed session no nothing to report on a closed session and I know uh and you know a lot of people spoke this morning on the same item you can't you can't speak twice on the item we're not speaking twice on the item anyway we're going to break for lunch we have closed session I mean for closed session thank you to visit my appointment within a property zone for timber production and special use in the Eureka Canyon area Assisters parcel number 106291-16 under a less than three acre timber conversion exemption and confirm the project is exempt from requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act as outlined in the memorandum of the planning direction and we'll go ahead and start with a report and then we'll open it up okay go ahead good morning I'm Elizabeth Cranblatt the project planner for the proposed project the matter before the board is a de novo public hearing regarding application number 181556 a proposal to operate a business that will allow clients to spread cremated remains at selected trees and to visit by appointment within a property zone timber production and special use in the Eureka Canyon area excuse me we don't have the audio going on the teams practice okay today repeat okay before I begin I would like to make one to attachment A in your packet for the notice of exemption under section E for categorical exemption I would like to add a class 4 exemption for minor alterations to land for grading that is associated with the improvements and for the ashes that are mixed with local soil prior to being spread around selected trees additionally as mentioned to your board this morning additional materials were submitted as late correspondence for this project the material is an updated map of polygons and replaces the draft map of polygons okay this is an overview of the site that illustrates the general location of the proposal within the county the subject parcel is approximately 84 acres in size with approximately 76 acres zoned timber production and 8 acres zoned special use is located in the southeast corner of the parcel the applicant has revised the project proposal since the time it was acted upon by the zoning administrator and the planning commission prior to the jurisdictional hearing in a letter to the board dated June 9th 2020 better place force indicated it would be willing to modify the project proposal to reduce the area used for the memorial force on the TP portion of the parcel the modified proposal now limits the use to an approximately 3 acre area and includes a request for less than 3 acre conversion exemption and what this does is essentially converts timber land to a non timber use and in this case the timber or trees will remain on the site this is an overall site plan that shows the location of the proposed improvements and conversion areas that will be located in the southwest portion of the site and this slide shows more closely the conversion area where the proposed improvements will take place it will be approximately 8,625 square feet all which occur in the southwest portion of the parcel the improvements include driveway access improvements a parking area for 15 spaces including one accessible space and a new 495 square foot non habitable building that will have a restroom and storage and that is in the red the non habitable structure in addition the conversion area will include selected areas where the spreading of cremated remains will occur within defined areas or polygons this slide shows the updated map of polygons and shows the actual location of the polygons that are grouped in the southwest portion of the parcel the areas that contain disconnected polygons such as this one are typical for uses for organized camps and counting the area within the polygons is an accepted practice additional areas where clients may select trees and spread cremated remains would be in the southeast portion of the parcel so in special use which is approximately 8 acres the site would be open depending on the season by appointment only during daylight hours with supervised visits the applicant proposes to maintain the native forest through periodic timber harvesting to enhance timber stands towards an old growth type ecosystem this use has never been previously considered by the county as part of a consultation staff determined that the use is sufficiently similar to the land use category for organized camps and facilities for outdoor recreational educational religious activities however the planning commission disagreed with that determination staff's rationale was based on the following consideration in addition to the purposes of organized camps and conference centers as listed in Santa Cruz County code section 1310692 Chapter 7 of the general plan for parks, recreation and public objective 7.9 for organized camps and conference centers states an objective to quote allow for a full range of educational religious and recreational facilities operated by organized groups to utilize varied scenic and natural settings of the county's rural and mountain areas while providing proper management and protection of local natural resources staff believed the proposed use was consistent with these purposes and objectives because it involves a supervised program that provides spiritual, social and recreational elements to visitors in a controlled setting with minimal impacts to neighboring properties while preserving scenic amenities in addition to the question about whether the use could be considered an organized camp opponents and planning commissioners questioned the proposed uses and compatibility with the timber production district in response to this opposition Better Place Forest modified their proposal which reduced the area for the memorial forest to the less than three acre conversion exemption on the TP portion of the site this project could potentially be consistent with the purposes of the timber production district as outlined in Santa Cruz County code section 1310371a because the applicant has indicated in their updated project statement the intention to utilize active forest management methods that include periodic timber harvesting to restore and enhance timber stands towards an old growth type ecosystem this will be accomplished by filing a timber harvest plan during the next eligible window and actively maintaining the existing timber infrastructure such as skid roads and landings by utilizing them in their network trails when non timber uses are proposed in the TP district there are special findings that are required to demonstrate that the proposed use will be compatible with timber production these special findings have been revised to reflect the modified proposal which would be adopted if the board determines to approve the proposed application considering the modified proposal which reduces the area of the memorial forest on the 76 acre timber production portion of the site to less than 3 acres approximately 73 acres of the TP portion of the parcel would be available for inclusion in a timber harvest plan according to the project forester the size and location of the proposed converted areas depicted on the updated map of polygons would not impact the viability of future timber harvest operations as well as the property. In addition to these issues there have been questions about whether the proposed use should be classified as a cemetery included in your packet as attachment I were definitions and examples of cemeteries in state health and safety code law section 7003 cemeteries as defined by section 7003 are not allowed in the TP in the county. There is another section of law section 7116 that addresses when scattering of cremains is not considered to be associated with a cemetery. The letter from the applicants legal consultant Tonya Marsh with McNeely law dated August 2nd 2020 makes the case that the proposed use is not a cemetery. The interpretation to be made by your board relates to whether the proposed scattering of cremated remains a more than one person as proposed by the applicant results in areas not distinguishable to the public as these factors relate to whether the use could be considered a cemetery. In response to comments from members of the community and the board staff has added and amended the recommended conditions of approval submitted as attachment D in your packet the applicant has indicated it supports the added and amended conditions questions remain as to the nature and compatibility of the use whether it is a cemetery or not and whether the proposed location and level of operation is appropriate even if allowed on TP and SU properties staff has prepared alternate sets of findings one for denial and another for approval of the project. Furthermore in consideration of public input and of board discussion it may be appropriate to impose additional conditions that further limit the extent of activities on the site should the board decide to approve the use if the board determines that the proposed use is a cemetery that is not permitted within the timber production district or if the board otherwise determines that findings for approval cannot be made take action to adopt the attach findings for denial of the application found in attachment B. If the board determines to approve the application either as currently proposed by the applicant or as may be modified by the board determine the project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and direct staff to file a notice of exemption found in attachment A with the addition of a class 4 exemption. If the board determines that the use qualifies as a less than 3-acre conversion exemption and the use is appropriate for the proposed location then take action to approve application 181556 with the attach findings for approval found in attachment C and subject to conditions of approval found in attachment D and pursuant to additional materials in the revised memo to the board and the updated map of polygons dated July 28, 2020 and potentially with additional conditions of approval regarding acreage, number of polygons or trees or other metrics to further limit the extent of operations. This concludes staff's presentation. Chair, I have a question or two. Thank you for the presentation. I know there's a lot of the space given in the board letter about the properties but it seems the state bureau has already weighed in on that and we can make a different finding but we already we've already gotten something from the state, correct? Yes, correct. The other question I had is if someone were to purchase this property and want to build a house on it what would be the process for them being able to build a house on the property? If they wanted to build it in the TP portion? The code does allow people to build a house on the property. They're not required to harvest the timber but they can build a house on it with the permit. So they could come in with something that was less than three acres? Yes. Thank you. Are you finished with your report? Yes. Okay, thank you. How many there are already memorials out there? How many memorials are out there that were actually placed and were cremated? Remains were scattered or buried up to this point? On the subject site? Uh-huh. They have not been operating on the site so there are none that we know unless... My understanding is... They have another operation in Mendocino area. They do have one other site. I think it's point the exact location is escaping but Better Place Forest has one site where they are actually in operation but it's in Mendocino it's north of us. They have not spread any cremated remains at this site that we're talking about. Is that the question? At some sites that one site does have some scattered remains also. Outside of the county yes but not within the county. Right. Do we know how many? They have one other site and the applicant can actually discuss that in further detail. What I'm getting at is are there any trees that have plaques on them now? Not on the subject site. No. Not on the site that we're talking about off by Lagoon Road. The subject parcel does not have any remains or plaques or anything on it. Not from the applicant. Any other questions from board members? I will now open up the public hearing. First we'll hear from the applicant who will have a total of 10 minutes to present evidence as to the merits of the application. Next after that we'll hear from the parties opposing the application which will have 10 minutes to present evidence to why the board should not approve the application. And at the end of the comments applicant can respond and have 5 minutes and then the public will have be able to speak also. Okay. So if we can hear now from the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. It's possible to request slightly more time so our forester can add some detailed comments on the feasibility of forestry on the site. Possibly 12 or 15 minutes. We're talking about Is it possible to add 2 to 5 minutes to the time to speak? You mean you have 5 minutes and somebody else 5 minutes? I could have 7 and he could have 7. The total attendance is fine. Sorry? Okay. So you want to go on a 5-minute timer now? Would it be possible to have 7 and 7? Just to extend a little bit or? Okay. When you're done we'll stop the timer and let the next person walk up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Chair Caput and I appreciate your time and attention today in hearing this issue. I would like to offer brief remarks about Better Place Forests and this project and then I'll invite Justin Kaufman, a certified forester at North Coast Resource Management to share his professional expertise on the project. Our goal is to open a memorial forest that provides a beautiful final resting place for the ashes of loved ones in this community, allows sustainable harvesting of timber and creates jobs and economic opportunity for Santa Cruz residents. We're grateful for the 2 years of planning time and effort the county staff have put in and we are very pleased to report that the robust planning process has generated a revised project that squarely fits with an allowed zoning uses and the allowed less than 3 acre conversion. I would like to address a few important issues today. First, our project's compatibility for second to confirm that Better Place Forest does not operate cemeteries in California and third, what we at Better Place Forests aim to provide to the Santa Cruz community. For compatibility, we have worked closely with the county's planning staff to ensure our project fits within the definition of organized camps and facilities for outdoor recreational, educational and religious activities. A use that is allowed in the TP and SU districts. As staff has noted, organized camps have a capacity of 1310.700 C as a site having facilities for the purpose of conducting a supervised program which provides educational, spiritual, social or recreational elements. And the purpose of the organized camp in conference center is among other things to foster commercial use of the scenic and recreational values of the county in the timber zone and SU zone. Our memorial forest fits squarely within this use. We host a supervised program. Our staff supervise guest services for the purposes of the community and the community. We also host a special program for the community and the community and the community. Santa Cruz County has approved many other projects in the timber zone including the Mount Madonna Center, the Pima Osil Ling Retreat Center, Camp Campbell and the Insight Retreat Center. When concerns were raised around our project, the ultimate question was if spreading ashes, if spreading ashes do not receive any special protections after they've been returned to a family. So their presence in the timber zone would not create a legal conflict. However, we understand the concern and the importance of sustainable timber in Santa Cruz and have updated our project application to perform spreadings only in the less than three acre conversion area so no ashes would be spread in an active timber zone if this finding were found. With our updated project plan, 100% of the TP zone on the property would be available for timber harvest. All timber infrastructure would be maintained and it is our understanding that Cal Fire would require any unharvestable trees. So any tree on the property that could not be harvested would have to be included in the conversion area. So to the extent that any stakeholders are concerned that areas in between polygons would not be harvestable, the Cal Fire conversion process will confirm the viability of proposed harvest areas and only those areas where harvest is not possible would be included. As a result, by limiting spreading activities and memorial trees to the less than three acre conversion area in the SU portion of the property, we are accepting the plan that was initially proposed by the Farm Bureau of Santa Cruz County, Redwood Empire, Big Creek Lumber and the California Forestry Association. This limits our activities to less than 4% of the original TP zone on the property. In the question of if multiple polygons are allowed, I would like to point out that on May 19th, 2020, Cal Fire approved a less than three acre conversion in Santa Cruz County with 13 exemption areas. So there is a precedent of multiple exemption areas. Second, I would like to address the fact that we are not a cemetery. State of California regulates burials and spreadings of ashes through its health and safety code. We've just heard about health and safety code 7003, health and safety code 7116 in the county states, cremated remains or hydrolyzed human remains may be scattered in areas where no local prohibition exists, provided that the cremated remains or hydrolyzed human remains are not distinguished from the public, are not in a container and the person who has control over disposition of the cremated remains has obtained written permission of the property owner. The key issue here as defined by the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau upon an investigation of our site in Mendocino was that we do not bury ashes in containers which would constitute a burial, therefore 7116 applies and we are not a cemetery. Further, the scattering of cremated remains of more than one person in one location pursuant to this section shall not create a cemetery pursuant to section 003. So this is very clear. Once a body has been cremated and the ashes have been returned to a family, commercial spreading of ashes is regulated by the CFB's licensing of cremated remains disposers who spread ashes on private land with permission of the landowner. According to the Health and Safety Code, Better Place Forest has operated our forest in Mendocino, California since 2017. Hundreds of spreadings have occurred and all spreadings are handled by licensed cremated remains disposers and it is not a cemetery. The Cemetery and Funeral Bureau has visited our site in Mendocino and investigated our spreading practices and the use of memorial markers in detail and determined that that site is not a cemetery. It is important to note that the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau have been spreading ashes throughout California for generations. Quite likely all throughout Santa Cruz County including in the timber zone and SU zone. HS7116 exempts those places where those ashes were spread from being classified as cemeteries because redefining a cemetery today would likely create hundreds, if not thousands, of de facto cemeteries within Santa Cruz County. Better Place Forest will create economic opportunity in Santa Cruz County and we will work to be a partner to bring more than 70 forest recontractor jobs to the property as part of the restoration efforts and development efforts. We'll contribute the tax benefits of being in the timber zone back to the community by contributing those same funds towards fire mitigation in the area and we have committed to updating all the roads and infrastructure to the site to make sure that it will be available and maintained with increased safety and security for everyone who lives in that community. Our staff love living here and the families who choose Better Place Forest for this property. Families have made reservations for this property. All of those are full pre-sale agreements with all funds being refunded to those families should this project move forward but these are families that know this and wanted this project to be possible. They believe in this because they really want to be a part of Santa Cruz forever and we hope that we can make that possible. With that said, I would like to bring Justin Kaufman forward to speak about the forestry practices on the property. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Sandy. I've been working in forestry with NCRM, contracted with Better Place Forest, been working in forestry since 2002 beginning as a student in a logger that also come from a family with a history of ranching and logging. Been with NCRM for almost 10 years now, a certified arborist for five years and a registered professional forester for four. Worked on numerous Cal Fire projects over that time, permitting timber harvest plans, NTMPs, exemptions and so on. And also our firm has been involved in a number of projects in the area including the San Vicente Project with Save the Redwoods League, the restoration of Wonderlick Park with PG&E and various restoration and public access trails projects with Mid Peninsula Open Space District, San Mateo RCD and City of Saratoga. I've been working with Better Place Forest for over four years, two years on the Santa Cruz project specifically. I'm confident that BPF is committed to working with the county to ensure that the majority of this property can remain viable for timber production. BPF is definitely fully aware that timber management is a necessity not only to promote forest health but to do their part in increasingly community fire resiliency. Their plan will allow the forest to be feasibly harvested using the existing infrastructure from the 2014 harvest. I've reviewed the old THP, explored the property and have been involved in their planning process from the beginning to make sure that we're still able to harvest timber on the parcel. With that, the proposal that was in front of you was obviously developed with timber harvest in mind. We plan on leaving all of the existing infrastructure and the three less than three acre conversion areas have intentionally avoided harvest infrastructure and between those polygons we have left sufficient space to be able to harvest trees in between so the areas in between those polygons are not functionally converted. And with logging around some of those converted memorial areas there are many methods that are commonly used to avoid sensitive features. Certain sensitive things that would normally be avoided in a logging project would be a sensitive plant population, a threatened or endangered species, cultural resources, utilities, structures other property improvements. So using these same methods that people use to avoid these type of features to use to avoid our memorials we could use directional felling and things like heel booms and feller bunchers that lift the logs to be harvested away and not drag it across the ground and then we won't be disturbing any memorial areas. And for a future commercial harvest obviously BPF would have to get a THP through Cal Fire and that would include all the measures that we would use to avoid any sensitive things on the site including our memorial areas. So in closing the proposed improvements should not have an impact on logging the infrastructure will remain we've intentionally avoided areas that would potentially block off this existing harvest infrastructure. And just another note about the multiple conversion area polygons as Sandy noted it has been done in the past in the state and in Santa Cruz County and preliminary conversations with Cal Fire didn't allude to any issues with our proposal. With that I'd be more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Next we'll hear from the party opposed to the application. You'll have a total of 10 minutes to break it up with two people or whatever as long as it's 10 minutes. Just a point of clarification before I get started so if we have a 10 minute total I can defer some of that if I don't use the 10 minutes is that correct? If you wanted to speak like for 6 minutes then the next person has 4 minutes. Okay. I'll probably take advantage of that. Thank you very much. Good afternoon Chairman, members of the board my name is David Van Lennep I'm a registered professional forester. I've been working in Santa Cruz mountains for about 27 years and I'm here to speak with you today to try and address some of the issues that we have with this project overall. We continue to strongly believe that the proposed spreading of cremains and designated memorial trees raises numerous legal questions and has some potential irreversible impacts on the landscape. The proposed use is more akin to a cemetery in terms of its actual function and the actual function that goes on if you read in the state's legal definitions of cemetery businesses you will find a lot of critical overlapping points with the function of what Better Place Forest does is as a cemetery and you will if you read the definitions and the mission statements of many of the camps and schools and places that they've mentioned you don't find much overlap with what Better Place Forest does these places do not sell memorial trees they do not spread the cremated remains of people on the ground contractually and there's a broad difference and I believe that staff outlined the vagaries and I guess lack of specificity in the law very well for your board to try and discern and have that discussion amongst yourselves but I think the function of what they're actually doing is important for the board to understand more than what they call it or don't call it staff identified the permanent nature of the remains that will exist on site after those remains have been spread and that's irrespective of monuments or trees or anything else and contractually speaking those families have forever places, those families are there and they have an emotional tether to that land and things that go along with that land are important and we just don't see that there's a good overlap between timber harvesting regardless of how you may or may not do it and cremated remains and memorial trees and designated places. To get to Supervisor Caput's question I think that the question you were wondering about is not whether they've scattered but whether how many contracts have been sold and I believe that we've been told or heard that there were several hundred contracts that have been sold on the property already so they have several hundred potential clients that they're trying to serve with this three acre exemption and that is I think one of the reasons for this the spread out nature of the three acre exemptions if you were as a landowner trying to minimize your impact on your ability to harvest timber and reduce the footprint of your building or your three acre conversion area you wouldn't spread it out over about 15 acres. You wouldn't complicate the harvest of those interstitial spaces with polygons of preserved areas and looking at their polygon map and I haven't reviewed the new polygon map so I don't know how different the new polygon map is the conversion exemption is designed to allow a landowner a non-timber use a small minor non-timber use of their property and it should not inhibit the growing and harvesting in between so if you tight line those polygons and you draw a line around the outside edge you get a footprint of about 14 acres and there may be some opportunity to do something in between there's also streams lakes, there's a little pond in there areas that by forest practice rules you can't fall trees into or against and you will have to you will have to exclude those areas and you will not be able to operate in between those areas if you have polygons on both sides so there's certainly certainly more than three acres with this current map that will be profoundly impacted and de facto converted by the way these polygons are shaped the 15 acre footprint was our quick sort of overall footprint of the area that could be affected but it gives an idea that there's more than three acres and the exemption process is designed to not require a landowner to go through a timberland conversion process which is a very long drawn out permit like a timber harvest plan to allow them their use of three acres for a house a barn or something else it's not designed to allow a landowner to systematically go through and pick out spots on their property to extract the highest value out of that's not the intent of the exemption process and the exemption that they offered up in their explanation was done on the city of Santa Cruz lands around Newell around Newell Creek where they built a human reservoir and was done for infrastructure reasons they had no choice but to isolate several areas for construction of new pipeline it was separated by a dam and the reservoir on two sides couldn't logically be connected so certainly apples and oranges the process is designed to be flexible and allow people to utilize it to achieve a goal the intended purpose of a three acre conversion exemption is not to allow someone to go through systematically pick out the highest value part of their property and circle it and do something with it now in this case they're not going to do anything but scatter but often in other places those processes have been abused where people go through their property and they pick out the biggest trees and they circle them and they exempt them and I don't believe that Cal Fire has been very forgiving of that use of the exemption regardless of the conversion permit if this board chooses to move forward with this permit in some way shape or form whether it's three acres in some format or some other format that the board chooses the involvement with the Bureau of the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau on the specifics of this project would be important Ms. Cramblatt indicated that there had been some communication with the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau if she's referring to the letter that was provided by the applicant in 2018 or anything that the applicant has forwarded or put forth it would be incumbent on this board to involve the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau and the very specific nature of the things that are specifically being asked to be done on this project and should not rely on something from 2018 on another piece of property with another zoning and with a whole possibly different set of scenarios so if the board moves forward I think that that would be a why is it reasonable thing to do is to have staff consult with the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau directly about the specifics being proposed on the ground general plan clarification I would also ask that the general plan be amended staff be directed to construct amendments to the general plan that show that this use for commercial businesses and commercial scattering is not compatible on TPC again irrespective of the decision that's made in this particular situation I would ask that clarification that clarity be given to staff and potential businesses going forward and I think that's what I have to say I'm happy to answer any questions and you can go ahead and stop the time thank you very much are there any questions you have somebody else to speak yes thank you Supervisor Caput is this minute in addition to the three minutes I'm going to take later because if it's one or the other I prefer to use my three minutes later so given the full four minutes given the full four thank you before I begin you mentioned Supervisor Caput Supervisor Leopold in the three supervisors in attendance under these difficult circumstances I'm Bob Berlage representing Big Creek Lumber Company this is my 47th year in the forest products industry the last 37 of which we're working for Big Creek Lumber I think I think it's fair and very important for your board to look at the common sense of this proposal for an entire year the applicant has claimed somewhat vaguely in their application with planning department that they intended to harvest timber without any details during that same year on social media to anyone and everyone presumably their potential clients also claiming that they were never going to cut their trees one of those things is true and one isn't they can't both be true and consequently if you think about what they're proposing the only thing that makes any sense is that they're never going to cut their trees if you refer to the map on page 117 it's attachment 12F and look at that polygon despite what their forester says our company has hundreds of years of experience on the ground owners register professional foresters and woods operators nobody's ever going to get a permit inside those polygons to cut timber there are methods to cut trees to try and get them where you want it's an exact science I did that job for 21 years and I got pretty good at it frankly a lot better than what I do now standing up in front of you logging was scary standing up in front of you is a different kind of scary but it's preposterous to think anybody would go in there and log between those polygons you've got trees that are 150 feet well things go wrong trees go over backwards I don't know a single timberfowler in 47 years that didn't lose their trees sideways they're going to skid logs in there in between those polygons and four out of the five former landings where logs would be dragged are inside that polygon footprint we agree with Mr. Van Lennep that the area and it would constitute a no harvest area is the outside perimeter of that of that ground that's 15 acres on that property that will never ever get logged if you did file a permit better place for us customers with screen bloody murder that you're about to defile the sacred remains of their loved ones nobody's going to do that the reality of their footprint is more like 27 acres if you move far enough away from that polygon set to insure to yourself that you weren't going to interfere with the sacred remains of loved ones and happy to answer any questions but the problem here is that they're asking you to bail them out of really poor business decisions that's not the county's job and our company doesn't want to be collateral damage in a decision to do something they shouldn't be doing on TP land thank you chair chair cap it I just wanted to ask for the clerk to clarify to make sure that both parties got the same amount of time I would like to confirm that for the record because there was a little back and forth on that and it wasn't clear no the big creek got an extra four minutes big creek got an extra four minutes the last speaker got an extra three minutes and three seconds okay I would recommend that that three minutes and two seconds be added on to the applicant's ability to speak so that I thought it was a total of ten but they still have three minutes I think the issue is that when Mr. Boulage spoke he was using the last minute of the time and then he did his three minutes that he was going to give his public testimony so I think that's why there's a three minute difference and I'm not sure for the purposes of our council whether that whether that qualifies Mr. Boulage is not going to come up again and testify so at this point I would just ask the applicant to register that and let us know whether they have any problem with that so that we eliminate any issues for purposes of the record if you want to speak you have about three minutes or you could just say you understand I think you better come up to the microphone and say it so we understand and accept what Supervisor Leopold is recommending okay well actually you'll be coming up next anyway alright so the applicant has five minutes now to respond to anything that may have been brought up or whatever you want to say Supervisors Chair Caput my name is Nandi Chabra and I'm legal council and public affairs advisor at Better Place Forest and I'll do the rebuttal on behalf of the company I'll just address a few issues that were raised first as to the company's status proposed status as a cemetery as you know the cemetery and funeral bureau has spoken to the issue I just want to read a couple lines from that letter the cemetery and funeral bureau has concluded its investigation into the complaint filed against Better Place Forest as an unlicensed cemetery upon review of the complaint and applicable excuse me for just a moment can you please cover your nose too thank you sorry upon the review of the complaint and applicable documentation collected there is insufficient evidence to support a violation of the bureau's laws rules or regulations governing the operation of a cemetery in the state of California we are closing our file on this matter with no further action secondly the fact that what BPF is doing is special or unique does not mean that it is not allowed staff has worked hard to assess whether the proposed use is allowed within existing land uses and the ZA zoning administrator arrived at a use organized camps and facilities that was appropriate in terms of conversations with customers it is true that BPF initially did not intend to harvest the entire property however hearing the concerns and requests of stakeholders in the community BPF agreed to do so as part of an effort to make concessions and listen to those in the community around it in terms of the fact that BPF has arrangements with customers contracts with customers that should have no impact on the decision before the board today there are agreements it is true resales where refunds are possible if the project is not approved again that bears no relation to the land use issue and application issues for the board in our opinion with respect to conversion areas I will defer to Justin Kauffman in a moment they have been specifically drawn to enable harvest to preserve infrastructure and to comply with local regulations there is precedent for conversion areas in the past Better Place Forest has looked to that precedent and has engaged with CAL FIRE for feedback as well as professional foresters who are expert and we will continue to do so we will continue to seek the best expertise we can find and seek the council of CAL FIRE and the regulators with that I will turn it over to Justin for the final comments I just wanted to touch briefly on the feasibility of timber harvest in between the proposed conversion polygons I agree that yes, fallers definitely do have issues trees get away from people it's not an exact science no one can dispute that one thing I would like to add though is that there are lots of sensitive areas that can be within a timber harvest that would potentially be violations of CAL FIRE the CAL FIRE forest practice rules and it's just a little bit of a risk what's your acceptable level of risk on this if you're working next to a cultural site or something like that your follower is going to take extra precautions to not hit that site both for the ethical reasons of not wanting to destroy it and also for the reasons of not wanting to get a violation of the law so yes harvest in between these polygons can be increasingly difficult but in no way is impossible you know we could you can do many different things with rigging and different types of equipment in between these sensitive areas that definitely make it possible to remove the timber for a commercial purpose thank you now are there any members of the public who wish to address the board on this item well doesn't it get five minutes oh they don't sorry I apologize according to this now right yeah some members of the public wish to address the board keep your comments to the matter of the application thank you hello supervisors thank you my name is John Clark I'm actually a local land owner up there and I've been following this process since since close after it started so just a couple of comments that I have about this is that to me is watching this from the outside it looks a lot more like I know they just said that they are not considering the activities of the cemetery but it looks a lot more like the activities of a cemetery especially given the volumes that these guys are talking about trying to sell it's not just going to be a couple of areas where they dispose of the cremated remains but in the hundreds and possibly even thousands there's a lot of money involved in that according to you know what they're charging there so the thing that really disturbs me about this is that as a land owner I have my land value at stake here because if the public starts to see this as a burial ground or a cemetery and say for example I want to go sell my property and they find out about this because now I have to disclose this within my real estate disclosures it could potentially devalue my property and surrounding properties around there so the question that I have is like what's my recourse as a land owner excuse me trying to deal with the mask here what's my recourse as a land owner if that were to happen I don't think I'm going to have very much because it'd be very difficult for me to go after them legally because they're backed very well financially you know those sites cremation remain sites there so my opinion on this is that it's closer to a cemetery I would personally like to see it be regulated as a cemetery maybe it's a new classification that's created but some kind of regulation and accountability on their part so that they can't get away with doing something that causes harm to others and then they can make all the profit and they can just take off whenever they're done doing whatever they want to do with their land so the question I have is what's the recourse for any kind of negative land value I think this is going to be seen as a bare ground one of the other items I was thinking is there's been no discussion about some kind of a bond for the purpose of protecting surrounding land owners or issues that might come up for this thing and then what's the liability of the county and state for cleanup if they decide to abandon the property or sell it leaving all this on site there's no problem in the future and then the other thing that comes up for me is this is really at the bottom line it's a real estate company they're buying property to monetize it and it's private land it's not a preservation and I'm curious about how this land is being protected because I hear a lot of stuff about how the land is being protected and really as a land owner what I would like to see even though I don't necessarily like the idea of having a burial ground close by regardless of what they call it I would like to see it be rezoned or resubdivided and rezoned as a public facilities district and have some kind of regulation at least some kind of regulation so it's not just free for them to make up their mind as to how they're going to do it because everybody surrounding like I say has a liability stake in this so anyways my time is almost up so that's my piece thank you for listening thank you good afternoon my name is Arnette Young I'm the first Vice President of Farm Bureau I'm here to discuss about the Better Place Forestry or Better Place Memorial Site the reason I'm up here today is two reasons one we do see it as a cemetery it is the internment that's using their language internment of loved ones concentrated in one site so it is being operated as a cemetery therefore it should be regulated as a cemetery second portion is talking about the polygons this is a timber harvest zone and it's specifically set up and set aside for that and there is that three acre limitation for development however it's not I don't think it was ever intended to be able to circle in trees which is the production zone which is a timber harvest circle and then keep them for eternity and taking it out of production so those are really our two concerns and we'd like the Board to address this really that's all I have to say and if there's any questions nope thank you good afternoon I live just down the the street Dublin up in the Santa Cruz Mountains thank you for opening this up to the public my husband and I own nine acres and it's beautiful area there I just wanted to point out a couple of things if you take a look at the social media sites and platforms that Better Place Forest utilizes specifically for customer reviews they define themselves as funeral services and cemeteries so I don't know if you know that in addition if you look at their website they describe themselves with words like tombstones cemetery final resting place and you kind of have to in this business model otherwise you're not going to get someone to spend $5 to $18,000 for a tree just to say a prayer or learn about the redwoods it all mixes right so I'm here because I'm concerned about a few things I'm concerned about someone coming and lighting a memorial candle and leaving it unattended I'm concerned about fire I'm concerned about someone driving up Eureka Canyon Road which is in some areas it's only one lane we've had so many instances where people don't respect the road they don't know how to drive it they're from out of town and just we had two people just die a couple of months ago that's just not good for the community there's no wifi service up there emergency they won't be they'll have to go knock on the door of a neighbor if it's not gated it's just I'm concerned fire the traffic the potential traffic sorry my mask keeps going down and I'm nervous I've never spoken before before so sorry thanks I just I just have concerns I think it's a really sweet plan honestly to have someone like that but I think it should be in a proper cemetery and I know there's a code for that PF this is a timberland that it just doesn't seem to mesh with me and I'm concerned so I probably was not articulate enough but thank you for listening to me thank you good afternoon I hope I can read this without my glasses I'm just here my name is Cynthia Getchman I'm here as a concerned citizen I live on Eureka Canyon road also in the buzzard Lagoon area and I do understand that this company I've done a little bit of research and that they I guess they've sold all these 500 plots to their customers in Santa Cruz County on this plot without having a a business license I thought you had to have a business license in order to sell like you don't so I could sell anything with here and not have a business license we don't have business licenses in the county of Santa Cruz okay or permits or anything I can just sell anything okay so anyway so you know I can appreciate their information and their statistics on the environmental impact and the logging and everything else in the county but what I didn't hear at all actually was a traffic impact with a traffic study on Eureka on Highland on buzzard which I don't know if you guys have been up there to their plot where notice of proposed development sign was placed which nobody can see I have pictures of it if you'd like to see those later it's about a half mile in on a dirt fire road there's buzzard lagoon nobody can see it from the main road and it's a two lane one lane road that like she said is you can't even commute on it so it's very dangerous and I don't see how they're gonna get 500 plus people in and out of there on a dirt road especially in the winter time and it's designed that road is only designed for hiking, biking and a fire road by Cal Fire so I'm not sure what their plan is but as a landowner and a parent up there I'm really concerned about this thank you thank you for allowing us to speak today here kind of piggybacking on that note we're probably the closest neighbors to this property and we only learned about this project about six months ago because we happen to be walking our dog in that dirt road we were not sent and I don't believe any of our neighbors were sent any notices no one knew about this project and it's a very significant project in fact it's kind of a legacy land use model which is going to have social consequences for many many years so that's one of the things I was concerned about another one is with the increasing numbers of clients and families thank you with the increasing numbers of clients and families that are going to be serviced over time with this model I'm not really I don't really quite understand why we don't have to have a CEQA for this project some sort of initial study at least for the environment the traffic and everything especially since now it's I assume it's a discretionary project because it's now in front of the Board of Supervisors and it is a novel land use it hasn't been done before so we don't know what the effects of having the remains and that amount in a certain concentrated area might be on the environment and so forth there's a pH involved and soils and all this stuff that might be I don't know if there's studies on this or not that's another concern the other one other people have talked about of course with the traffic and safety and the county services we have very very little access to fire and the sheriff sometimes it takes about 30 minutes for them to get there sometimes an hour and how are a better place for us going to be enforcing their visitors in this area and you know I'm just as a neighbor as one of the closest neighbors there I have a lot of concerns about people coming up consistently and having this grow and grow and be a bigger and bigger project over time without much initial study or anything like that through CEQA or you know so anyway thank you very much for your time you're welcome very welcome anyone else here in the chambers anyone downstairs anyone on do you want to speak sir come on my name is John Swift and I would like to say that I am a licensed real estate agent land use planner and was an appraiser for quite some time and I have developed a couple of properties around cemeteries now this property is a cemetery as defined by the state law it's been demonstrated time and time again that this is very different the spreading of ashes is done throughout the state throughout the county there is no regulation about the spreading of ashes but I do want to say in the role of a real estate agent and past appraiser that I have never seen that type of use being a resulting in the devaluation of adjacent property I developed the property on capital road right adjacent to I believe it's called the holy cross cemetery we had no problem no one they considered it a desirable open space use by the most part so I never had anybody express that that was a devaluation in terms of maintaining the property more than even a single family residence these people are commercially and motivated to maintain this property to keep it looking good in essence to keep the fire hazard down they have rules to say that you cannot have open flames or a candle so different than a house that may have a fire a bonfire a fire pit these are reasons why this use is probably less impactful than a single family dwelling with an ADU with a junior ADU with a hobby space and everything else in terms of traffic someone mentioned that there would be 500 people there 500 people there at any one time the conditions are very clear the limitation is 30 people at one time and it's extremely unlikely that that number will be reached most of the time I mean during the winter time there will be virtually no visitations occurring when the weather is bad and the roads are problematic they have agreed to maintain the road as specified in the conditions CEQA was reviewed by the Board of Exemption level 4 has small landscape type facilities and small structures so that's a very common CEQA evaluation of a project of this nature is it possible for the CEO of the company to respond to some of the concerns and issues raised I think there's some misunderstandings that would be we all would benefit from some clarification is that protocol for yes okay I just want to take one moment to address the question of again our status we're very clearly not a cemetery in California and in terms of advertising and social media sites Better Place Forest is very clear we are regulated by the states by the state of California that we cannot refer to ourselves as a cemetery or providing cemetery services the reason we are regulated that way is specifically because we are not a cemetery we create conservation memorial forests and in those forests only spreading is allowed any reference to funeral services is specific to the cremated remains disposer licenses that our staff have when they provide cremated remains disposition work in terms of the ongoing care and maintenance of our forests each of our forests we work with local land trust to put conservation easements on and to work with the local community to protect those forests we also create a separate endowment fund so those funds the forest will have access to those funds so it's very important to note that this is this is stewarded land we are committing to active timber harvest on the property because that is important to this community and while initially some of our early marketing may have said and an architect who is involved with the project said that timber would not be allowed in this project that is different we've specifically updated all of our customer contracts to be clear the commercial timber will be required on this property for its ongoing care and maintenance and as part of the long term viability for this forest so this is something that while initially we did not intend to do when we heard it was a concern to the community we committed to it same as the less than 3 acre conversion when we heard that it was a concern to the timber industry of this community that they didn't want a precedent of ashes being spread on active timber land we said we hear you we understand and we will only spread ashes within converted areas specifically because we want to demonstrate that we want to work with this community we want to create good jobs in this community and we want to give the families of this community who want to spend forever here the chance to do so so I thank you again for all of your consideration on this project it's been a long two years of work working with staff addressing all of these issues but I just want to reiterate we are very clearly not a cemetery and the specific program we have suggested of only spreading in converted areas specifically to address the concerns of timber so there would not be a precedent of ashes being spread in active timber areas this sets that precedent so that it is clear that our operations are limited to that area thank you very much thank you Chair Caput I would recommend that you ask the opponents whether they would like equal time to come up and respond to those questions because we departed from our normal procedure not to happen thank you I'll be brief we understand that there's a a very there's a thin line of whether or not legally as state law currently exists whether or not a better place for us is a conservation area or a cemetery or spreading forest so two things that I would just like to conclude with that first look at the use the law I don't believe I believe staff did a very good job of outlining some of the inconsistencies and lack of specificity in the law and I think the Board should really have that discussion and decide whether they believe this has to do with memorial services and funeral cemetery business or not and make that decision and if you choose to go forward then please get a specific opinion from the cemetery and funeral bureau the letter that they are offering certainly applies to their Mendocino forest on non-TBZ and is not in any way, shape, or form directly related to what's being proposed here today so I would ask that there's no harm and probably only benefit that can come from establishing from the state that they're in fact operating within the confines of the law they'll make the county feel much better about what they're doing if you choose to go forward with this and also we'll give the county some guidelines on making sure that there's proper endowment for the property proper long-term care I'm sure that the better place for us has great designs and great visions but sometimes those don't work out it's a business and if they decide that they're done with this property I think that's why cemeteries formal cemeteries have endowments that's why they have long-term care programs that's why those things exist that's why the state's involved in regulation of those entities and I think that was my concluding point so thank you very much thank you any web comments? yes we have two web comments thank you the first one is from Becky Steinbrunner Dear Board of Supervisors I am not confident that I am successful please include my comment below for your consideration of the matter please deny application 8186 because it would allow a cemetery with markers to be established as a prohibited commercial use on land zone for timber preserve bending the rules now to allow a cemetery on this land would effectively forever prohibit timber harvest at the site due to the issue of human remains known to exist on the land although the applicant assists the proposed cemetery site would only be available by appointment there is no possible insurance that families of loved ones whose remains would be located marked at the site would not take liberty to visit the site night or day and possibly leave candles or incense burning on the site this increases the fire risk to the rural property owners nearby as well as the Soquel State Demonstration Forest and Forests of Nicene Marks application 181 556 constitutes a commercial use prohibited for the parcel zone to preserve please deny the application and the second one is from Robert Singleton please provide please approve the project proposed by Better Place Forest not only is the project a offering but it is a spiritual vision that allows for people to remember their loved ones in a very special and personal way beyond the inherent merits of the proposal Better Place Forest has gone above and beyond what is required of them and have made a continuous and persistent effort to work with other community partners and the existing timber harvest the project conforms to the limit exemption zone and will have virtually no impact on the other timber harvesting stakeholders they will however work to maintain the forest safely and actively reduce wildfire risk this project is also explicitly not a cemetery as recognized by California law and any association between these specific uses is misleading and perhaps disingenuous lastly the project will bring jobs to Santa Cruz County and not just low paying service and agricultural jobs but career opportunities environmental stewardship and forest management overall the project is very much in line with the values of Santa Cruz County and our business community Better Place Forest is a collaborative partner and we are excited to have them as a local company please approve this project Chair I have some additional questions if you're there that's okay Supervisor Leopold you know one of the things when I first became aware of this and after the planning commission gave made its decision and when we took this up at our board the big concern that I heard was about working lands that TP zone land should be used for timber production and that that it was important that we not give up the limited amount of space that we have for TP for some other use and so when I heard that this proposal was coming in that was using that had scaled back its proposal to only use a limited portion of the TP land and basically do everything on this SU land I thought that that was a good idea the concern was raised about whether it's this is actually harvestable land right I won't pretend like I know like I've heard from those that I know in forestry I've heard from another person in forestry differing opinions I understand that Rich Sampson from Cal Fire has been involved in some of these discussion and so I asked him to be on the call today so he could answer the questions about its viability and I think Rich is still on the line here on the team's call and Rich I'm not sure if you've had a chance to take a look at this project or know about a project but this idea of the polygons and harvesting around the polygons is that something that's done is it possible have you looked at this? Rich Sampson can you hear me okay so we've seen the polygon map we've seen similar maps on similar projects is it feasible? it's been done in the past the property is Timberland it had a timber harvest plan on it in 2014 I believe and so it would be slated for it would be eligible for another timber harvest in about another seven years so it is viable Timberland it's not the best Timberland in the county I would admit but it is Timberland that could have harvest in the future as to whether it's feasible to have a commercial harvest in between the polygons I would say it is feasible but I would have to see the actual application in front of us as I mentioned to staff and to the proponent I would actually have to see the actual permit application for a conversion before I can answer that this conversion application would have to go to Cal Fire before anything could actually happen on this site is that correct? the way it works in Santa Cruz County is we would need county planning there's a county planning rep that signs conversion permits before it's sent over to Cal Fire for our review so the county would have to approve it first and then we would review it and if everything is in place and it met the rules for the full form and it was accurate well then we would be able to approve it I appreciate that I appreciate you being available he and I haven't talked before but I understand there was conversation with him so I wanted to make sure he was available so I'm going to ask a question I don't know but there is a similar type this business has a business in Mendocino County and are you aware of any issues that Cal Fire has been involved with with that property? when this came up about six months ago I asked my counterpart up there and he was not even aware there was a property like that he just was occurring but on the other hand my understanding is that property is not zone TPC so I don't know what that property looks like it may or may not be Timberland for all I know well Rich I appreciate the work that you do every day thanks for helping at least me answer a question I'm not sure if my colleagues will have any questions for you you know the question of whether this can be working lands has been the thing that has been driving me in terms of my analysis of this project because I respect the fact that we've had lots of battles over Timber here in Santa Cruz County that we've come to a place that we have what I call a truce that it's clear where it happened and not happened there's a clear set of rules to me this project is better than what could happen at that site if someone were able to come and say I like this spot I want to be a homeowner there they could create that three acre exemption and never have to file a timber harvest plan whereas this one we are actually getting someone to file a timber harvest plan and we may disagree about how much they will get and whether that will be effective but that's a lot better than what we would get this new thing about the cemetery it's new this use is slightly unusual but the question from people about whether it's a cemetery and whether it should be regulated like a cemetery because cemeteries have rules I can just tell you from my experience in my district even a state regulated cemetery can have lots of problems and if you look to the cemetery in the village of Soquel that's where people from the Civil War buried we had to do a lot of work to put that in the hands of someone who would do better care of it than what happened because the person who ran that cemetery spent the endowment and caused lots of problems and we now have it in the hands of folks who are better managing that property and allowing people to bury their loved ones and in that case they're burying actual bodies there is a crematorium on the site but most of them are actual burials this seems very different to me if I were to have cremated remains of a family member and that person wanted to be spread out on somewhere that they loved whether it be trees, the ocean their favorite ball field or something that does happen the impact to the environment I think is fairly minimal these are the amount of ashes would have to be so extraordinary to create some kind of environmental hazard I don't think that that's a reasonable question I've been convinced by the letter I read about from the state agency about whether it's a cemetery or not that it's not a cemetery I don't think that we need to re-litigate that I do think that for the concerns of the neighbors that there is a real hard limit on the number of visitors the number of cars the fact that you can't have any candles or things that are lighted those are conditions of this project I would caution to those who say we should rezone this public facilities land because that carries with it a whole bunch of other things one just to give you an idea of the range is if your zone PF or public facilities you have a buy right option to create a homeless shelter there just one example so PF is not some panacea it's another level of issues I do want to ask a question to the proponents about the questions of staffing the concerns that people are going to come here and do things and not be able to follow rules can someone answer me the question of staffing the forest is staffed full time as well as we've added in Wi-Fi to the site powered by solar so there's always access for emergency information and emergency issues visitation is by appointment only so the gate is locked except for during appointments and we do have security cameras on the site as well so this is from the standpoint of better place forest versus not a better place forest this site is far more secure has staffing full time to report any issues of course in terms of issues like traffic we have agreed to traffic limitations and there is a full fire ban on the site and their families can only be on the site when staff are present so it is fully staffed to ensure that all these safety issues are there and on the question of the maintenance of the road what's your understanding of what your responsibility is for that road we are committed to make sure that road is fully accessible at all times and if there are any issues with that road we'll have to fix them does that mean changing it to something more than the condition it's in now it's just making sure it maintains a high condition is always drivable so it's going to be more accessible for fire services than it would be today because we will commit to always maintaining that road alright thank you I think that when you have for lack of a better term a novel use is this which is something that not sure anybody in the room had thought of five years ago maybe he did but most of us didn't think of spreading ashes five years ago on land as a business opportunity it is hard that our code can capture all the the ways in which people imagine to use land when I first heard about this as a camp I questioned whether that was an appropriate designation given what was being done here but as I looked at it I couldn't find a better way to look there wasn't another box that fit in that made sense to me I do think that going forward should we approve this I think there's two things that would be useful one is that we probably do want some general plan language to not allow this in the future so we don't have to have this conflict in the future and two is to think about if this is going to go on in other land does there need to be appropriate setbacks or other conditions that are there because now that it's in our sphere should there be things that we look at I don't know if that should be but I think it would be useful for us to start thinking about this so we're not caught unaware in the future I would be prepared to move the conditions of approval as outlined in attachment let's make sure I get the right one attachment C findings for approval that I would add an additional condition to direct the staff to draft language for a general plan designation to not allow this kind of use in the future and also request that the staff report back to us if there are additional a language that we should add to the code about this kind of use in other zoned areas I will second this is Supervisor Friend I have some additional thoughts on this I appreciate Supervisor Leopold's comments I actually appreciate what everybody came up to say because it it really has helped inform the discussion and decision making process I think I want to expand on and see whether Supervisor Leopold may be willing to do this I'd like to expand a little bit upon the motion because I think that what we need is actually clarity of where cremated remains can go in general right now the code is silent on it and I think that what we could do on the second part of the motion if you're amenable is actually direct staff to come back with the zoning locations that it would be acceptable on because then that would in this new sphere settle that component on the first element though to be specific to how I interpreted your motion what I think the board is has been saying both when we took jurisdiction and now under the current comments we're making right now TPZ is land that has had pretty significant fights over it that should be settled the board is not interested I'm not interested and I think that we need to make it very clear in an update so that this level of interpretation can't occur moving forward this is not a criticism of planning staff at all right now there isn't clarity in the code and so one can look at a novel use and say what's not expressly prohibited and therefore it's permitted or you could actually make a different conclusion but I think that the board needs to make a more formal statement that timber zone is for timber harvesting I mean that's what it's for other commercial activities are not the kind of activities irrespective of what it is whether it's this activity or a different kind of activity we need to be pretty restrictive of what other commercial activity so I would be supportive of a general plan of an amendment that comes forward that really does limit what's possible on TPZ land but the second part of it if Supervisor Leopold is amenables I think that we need to actually come back with zoning information of where pre-mated remains can actually go and then the second component of that is the parameters within those zones of what would be acceptable. I'm comfortable with that as an amendment. Chairman Caput Supervisor McPherson I'm glad to see that we're making some additions and by Supervisors Leopold and friend I do want to thank our planning department commission for all its work what they the applicant for downsizing his proposal Selden do we have a staff recommendation for denial or for approval at the same time but this is a complicated issue I'm concerned about the precedent setting nature of this and I think that we can address those with the amendments that have been mentioned or the motion and amendments that have been mentioned I think the better place would agree that the marketing got in front of this approval process but I do appreciate their downsizing the proposal and attempt to make this a better fit I on some of the concerns that were mentioned and was responded to in kind by some of the Supervisors any the number of cars that are limited to 15 the number of people guests that in time to 30 per day visitation by appointment only no amplified music that's another issue I think those folks in the mountains would do appreciate and it says no candles are open flames and I guess that gets down to just the bare match stick itself so I hope that's very clear as well one thing that I just don't have a good sense of how many scattering are participated in a three acre area or how many could be there I don't always I'm not sure I think some of the residents in the area would be would like to know that I would be concerned about it too but with the the motion and the recommended amendments to it I would be supported inclined to support this today I do understand there were real concerns of timber harvesting this county I have some of the strict harvesting rules of years and years to get us there so I want to make sure this is not a precedent setting nature of justifications that we're saying and in order to allow this use but I do want to say that I think with the stipulations that have been put into place and the amendments that have been mentioned I could be supportive of this project this is Supervisor Coonerty I wanted to I wanted to see if the applicants there are two pieces that I heard that I want to make sure I confirm and then that I that I heard those correctly and that they could be added as conditions if they're considered friendly to the motion the first is that the better place for us disclosing the contracts with customers that the forest will be harvested and I thought I heard them say that but if they come back up to the microphone and confirm that our contract was updated and again this is a pre-sale agreement to reserve a tree for the future so the final agreement is would only be after a permit is issued it becomes a complete sale we have already updated contracts to reflect that this is a working site in working forest land and as a result people know that there will be active timber that is part of maintaining and stewarding this property in the future sustainable harvest is necessary to maintain this forest in the future but the individual trees that are protected in the conversion areas would not be timberland so the rest of it would be available for timber so that would be just to confirm that would be consistent if we had a condition requiring that that be consistent with what your intention and practice already is yes there's already a condition supervisor that we would have to submit a timber harvest plan on the property specifically for that so that I think it's we mentioned seven years from now the property would be available for timber and that we would perform commercial timber and then this is yeah that was my question for staff the wording I believe is a timber management plan and then people have said harvesting plan and if someone on staff could explain the difference between the two and the and if there was a requirement that they submitted within two years the timber management plan is actually a requirement in the general plan so that is why that has been included in there so the general plan when these types of uses are for organized camps are approved they have to file a timber management plan as well as there is a second a condition that was added as well timber harvest plan I believe is a much more detailed plan and Rich Samson could probably expand on that but it typically requires a lot more detail about specific trees and I think what is going to be harvested versus a timber management plan can really be catered to the specific use and the county local jurisdictions can actually decide what it's going to look like okay and then is Rich still with us yes I'm still here so and then I ask the question for you is the second one as you mentioned it's eligible in seven years when's the soonest they could submit a timber harvesting plan before that within that time frame maybe let me clarify one thing there's two things that you mentioned earlier a timber management plan is basically a plan on how you will manage that timber harvest plan is a specific document that Cal Fire regulates it's a permit to harvest so one is as a whole process including the county helping to review it during the approval process that would be the timber harvest plan and the other one is basically just a plan that has no regulatory authority to be followed it's just this is the plan that they would want to follow when's the soonest a timber harvest plan could be submitted it is 10 years following completion of the previous harvest the last plan was 2014 permit I believe it was at least 2016 before they completed and I'd have to check my records so 2026 would be the earliest you could put a permit a timber harvest permit on that property and in general do people submit a couple years in advance or do they you won't take a submission until 2026 generally we will look at the permit until it's approved until it's eligible there are sometimes when there's a on large properties where there's some units that fairly close to the 10 years will allow the permit to come through but put a condition that they can't enter that until after the 10 years but more routinely the standard practice in this county it's at least 15 years before somebody enters a property again after harvest okay so let me ask county council if we put a condition on there that would be an appropriate submission of a timber harvesting plan by 2026 would that be consistent with would that be an appropriate condition to add to this project yes supervisor it would be an appropriate condition to add to the project I would ask the I would ask two things first of all I would in a moment ask if the applicant and come to the mic and let us know whether they consent to that condition as part of the approval process I would also want to clear up any kind of confusion with regard to the existing conditions of approval because item 4b indicates that they are to submit a forest management plan and item 4c indicates that they are to submit a timber management plan and I want to make sure that staff is not indicating that they have to have a forest management plan a timber management plan and then a separate timber harvesting plan I think there's a little confusion around that and that we should clear it up for the record if possible and there's also D right which is they have to enter into a binding contract about that timber harvest plan that is actually the other condition that I can recall that's in the general plan so that's why we included that that's the conditions of approval here today mm-hmm yes and I would say the timber management plan and forest management plan are really one in the same so it was probably by mistake that both were listed I would say we could do one of them we do away with one of them so can we confirm for the record that there is no condition of approval currently in here that's meant to be concerning the timber harvesting plan now no so if the board wanted to add that it would be a fresh condition mm-hmm okay yes so if the applicant could come let us know whether they agree to that condition that would be helpful let me let me ask yes we accept that condition timber harvest plan submitted by 2026 was that it yes that's what I understood it was a friendly amendment that was being proposed to be and so now it would go back to the board what I'm getting at now with the changes that are being proposed we've opened this process up we need to hear from the opposition no why not that's not the way it works because this is just a friendly amendment at this point the public hearing is closed a friendly amendment that has been passed on as regarding the motion and so now you're in motion territory so there's no more there's no more back and forth on presentation this is Supervisor Coonerty's request to add an additional condition of approval which any of the board members could do as part of approving or denying this project okay so what we're going to vote on though is it won't be final well right now what needs to happen is that the maker of the motion Supervisor Friend needs to determine whether or not he is amenable to Supervisor Coonerty's added condition of approval that the applicant has agreed to and then he needs to see if Supervisor Leopold as his second agrees to that friendly amendment and if so then you would call for the vote all right now this requires four out of five vote no three-fifths vote three two three-fifths vote I will just say that I'm comfortable with the amendment and as the second or council is actually Supervisor Leopold that made the motion and Supervisor Friend made the second and I'm also comfortable with the second thank you for your guidance on that Mr. Heade just and I'm sorry this is Supervisor Coonerty the line I couldn't tell whether Supervisor Leopold said he was comfortable or uncomfortable which makes a difference obviously I agree to the amendment okay thank you read exactly what we have before us right now I'm sorry to put you on that because I'm not exactly sure well you want me to try so I made the motion to use the conditions of approval and the findings that are here for approval they're in attachment A that we are going to ask for a general panel language to make sure that this can happen again in TPC we are going to ask staff to come up with where the spreading of cremated remains could happen in Santa Cruz and whether there needs to be any additional regulation around that and that the better placed forests will be required to submit a timber harvest plan by 2026 to Cal Fire and then the other conditions of approval is they've got to do it and have all the pieces together so but basically I just vote on this is saying that they can go ahead correct no vote means no currently the way the rules that we have it's a no but we're changing it to a yes no that's not accurate it's up to your board to determine whether the use is appropriate it's not a yes or no answer across the board you get to decide that what you're going to be hearing today the last thing I will point out is that Supervisor Coonerty had one additional request which is that the language regarding the timber harvesting be placed in the contracts and I believe that was part of the motion as well Supervisor Leopold correct and how many acres are we talking about here how many acres are affected by this so they are applying the modification of the proposal was to restrict the memorial forest where they would put the cremated remains in a less than 3 acre conversion permit so be less than 3 acres and they are distinct they're in specific polygon areas the map of polygons was submitted to your board to illustrate where they plan to have the memorial trees and it's the addition of all the polygon areas in addition to the improvements like the non habitable structure the other roadway improvements total less than 3 acres total some total of all that area is less than 3 acres the site itself is an 84 acre site however about 8 acres is special use so that leaves about 76 acres of TP zone if you recall the site has 2 zone districts on it most of it is TP 76 acres is zone TP so minus the 3 acres about 3 acres for the conversion exemption 73 acres would be left for timber harvest we have no more questions and we can't open it up anymore so I have to call for the public hearing is now closed I bring it back to the board I guess we'll need a motion and a second so the motion has been made by myself and supervisor friend has seconded the motion there's been some friendly amendments we're ready to vote I think we have to I'll call the roll supervisor county council we're ready to vote right absolutely no more comment no more comment supervisor Leopold friend Coonerty McPherson Chairman Caput no the motion passes 4-1 one more item I think or two more items we have two more anybody that spoke on item number 10 earlier this morning you will not be able to speak on it again and it's let me go back to item number 10 consider adoption of an urgency ordinance adding chapter 7.109 to the Santa Cruz county code to provide remedies for violation of public health orders as outlined in the memorandum of the county administrative officer and that's better known as masks do we need a staff are we going to have a report on it yes I was going to ask if our county council could describe the ordinance to the board sure thank you sure this is an ordinance designed to put a new tool in our tool basket right now violation of public health officer orders are classified as misdemeanors which lead to large penalties such as six months in jail and a thousand dollar fines what we were looking for is a something that is broader in scope that is that gives us an ability to speak with people to publicly educate folks and ask them to comply voluntarily before giving them something akin to a traffic ticket if they refuse to comply we believe that it's better for law enforcement and for our existing county staff our administrative staff like planning code enforcement folks environmental health to be able to have this as an enforcement tool of course nobody wants to issue tickets what we want to do is we want to obtain voluntary compliance by educating people and asking them for their cooperation but if folks aren't willing to go there with us we have to have some kind of an ability to have an enforcement mechanism this would allow law enforcement to write a ticket that would be handled in traffic court like any other violation of the county code or it would allow designated staff to issue administrative penalty citations that would also be subject to appeal and I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have okay so even if somebody doesn't like to wear a mask actually this is better for them anyway I mean it's with the current way we are they would have to go before a judge and what we're saying now is you have something like a parking ticket that you have to take care of that's a great way of explaining it yes anyway is anybody here on the chambers like to speak on item number 10 go ahead chair excuse me are we doing 2 minutes or 3 minutes can you do it in 2 minutes go ahead was that from what I read the first citation was 100 then it was 200 then it was 500 but when you go through the system as a traffic situation the penalty triples but I don't know if that's what's really important here what is really going on with wearing these masks when there's been so much information that this is just a hoax and it doesn't do anything except to say that I am going to blindly follow rules that are basically based on nonsense now I'm not saying that there isn't a pandemic going on when there's 400 bioweapons labs in the United States alone there's thousands of bioweapons available but there's lots of different ways to cause harm so by one not actually introducing to the public what actually I believe I read about what was going on about here as far as the penalties and then providing information what that actually means I don't know what kind of service it seems like there are many other issues going on that are just getting swept under the rug and I wish I had more time to go into detail about that and I will at another time so once again I'm glad that we are able to stand up here and speak and I appreciate that because I don't know any other jurisdictions in the county where you can do that so that's enough, thank you you're welcome, thank you good afternoon my name is Drew Lewis I'm the board to vote no on a new health officer order of item 10 I respectfully request that you vote no on this new order of the health officer the request for the new ordinance with severe penalties is based on evidence that I believe comes from fraudulent and contrived data I would address evidence for fraudulent and contrived data for profit and monetary gain the false positive test for COVID-19 averaged around 50% according to many studies false recording of people being positive because COVID-19 test commonly used was said by its creator Nobel Prize winner Kerry Mollis quote must not be used to diagnose an infectious disease unquote there are monetary incentives to hospitals to falsely record positive tests and death certificates for financial gain $15,000 for every death certificate with COVID-19 on it they get $39,000 for every patient who dies on a ventilator who has COVID-19 on their death certificate they also get $150,000 to $300,000 for each COVID-19 patient who dies in a hospital according to the Washington Examiner quote the CDC director acknowledges hospitals have a monetary incentive to over count coronavirus deaths other countries oppose lockdowns mass and social distancing Sweden and Netherlands have officially declared that the science does not support a lockdown, mass and social distancing and they will not force these useless and extreme measures on their people there is clear evidence of fraud and contrived fear are being used to manipulate us all for the profit and personal gain that the health director said that the anyway there's a tsunami of workers and their families who will soon become homeless and destitute as a result of supporting these lies and fraud for profit, thank you so I've been waiting in these chambers three hours today to speak to this could I please have three minutes I've been waiting for three hours in this chamber today to speak to this issue could I please have three minutes as everybody in oral communications did thank you very much Bruce Tanner so we're now being asked to accept that this pandemic is going to go on into the indefinite future based on what the public media the commercial media are saying which seems to be what's driving all of the policy in this county and in this state and this is not based on the science although you claim repeatedly that it is all of the science shows that the new cases which were being assured are rocketing up are based on these very scientific tests but they're not these tests have been conceded by the federal agencies actually to be inconclusive and have a lot of false positives so also if we have all of these extra cases the more cases there are the less fatal this supposed pandemic is and we are approaching some kind of herd immunity as the human immune system has done throughout our history of hundreds of thousands of years on this planet nonetheless now we want to have new laws to extract revenue from the people of this country based on their not complying with these specious orders the masks do not have any scientific studies that show that they stop transmission in fact it's very questionable as to whether they do at all they don't have anything that proves that and there are many scientific studies that prove that wearing these masks is bad for human health and damages the immune system but we're not following that so I'd just like to remind you that in passing these ordinances you are acting under color of law and you're passing an ordinance which is void in advance of its being passed because it violates the constitutional rights of the people of this county and you're violating your own oaths of office and the officers who are going to be asked to enforce this are violating their oaths of office as well enforcing a law supposed law that's passed under color of law and I hope that the public of this county understands that these laws are illegitimate and the county does not have the jurisdiction to extract the revenue of people of this county for obeying submitting to these laws which are not based on any solid practice and violate our right to behave as we would prefer Hi my name is Rich Buckingham I'd like to point out that while this COVID-19 virus is infectious it's not very deadly and such I don't see an argument for shutting things down and having masks I'd like to point out that although if you get a vaccination or you have cancer your immune system may or may not develop antibodies which are detected by this test which it doesn't tell you whether you're sick or not it tells you whether it tells doctors whether you have antibodies and this doesn't indicate disease and now as far as masks goes when you have a mask and you're breathing in excess CO2 and you're not getting enough oxygen and CO2 is good for plants however it's not good for humans it's a waste product and some people will tell you that the results of wearing masks are more dangerous than COVID-19 and finally if there's a second wave of this so-called virus it might be the result of being sick from carbon dioxide poisoning and hypoxia which is lack of oxygen thank you thank you bye Marilyn bye it's a shame we didn't get to speak this morning there were more people who were here would have taken about 15 minutes anyway I was in this room in 2011 and 2012 when there was a another type of urgency ordinance passed an ordinance that was extended and I think some of the comments of the health officer then Dr. Namcom is relevant here this was about health risks associated with smart meters and a ordinance the county had to prevent installation she states there's no scientific data to determine a safe level of radio frequency, microwave radiation then she says the question for government agency is that given the evidence of existing and potential harm should we err on the side of safety and take the precautionary avoidance measure this case from microwave radiation that's known the two unique features of exposure are universal exposure and involuntary exposure due to this already ubiquitous saturation saturation of infrastructure in Santa Cruz County government agencies for protecting public health and safety and it should be much more vigilant about involuntary environmental exposure because governmental agencies are the only defense against this involuntary exposure to the microwave radiation now in this case and this ordinance unfortunately to stop PG&E and their agency Wellington was not enforced and today we have more and more radiation and infrastructure and damage masks are unhealthy vaccines that you're leading to mandatory vaccines next the Supreme Court decision I forget what year it was said vaccines are inherently unsafe and this is to dictate harm on the community instead of protecting the community is not what government agencies should do now we also know there are chemicals found in babies umbilical cords industrial chemicals by the hundreds trace contact tracing we know those chemicals come from industry to protect children that's what should be there thank you you're welcome hi this is Ellie again so here we are and I feel like I'm on the crazy train still, still here we are we're talking about potentially finding people in a community where we're looking at many people are now on public aid including myself for the first time in their lives and we're talking about finding people crazy hello hello think about this for a second meanwhile how many people in this room are aware that in Europe tens of thousands of people have been marching against mask mandates tens of thousands of people what you got like we have like what a couple hundred people in Santa Cruz who have been talking about this openly tens of thousands of people have you seen the pictures entire streets it looked to me like half a mile filled with people so this is not just a couple of keep Santa Cruz weird people who are talking about this this is a lot of people all over the planet these are doctors who are saying these things so to even consider oh we're gonna find you for something that is being protested around the world with very real considerations being brought to the forefront by medical professionals is insane to have politicians making this type of decision on a health topic is nuts okay we need to get our jobs back we need to actually build our economy so we can actually afford to pay these fines so please vote no on this it's nuts do something that actually helps the community figure out how we can get back to work how we can get our kids back in school so we can actually get back to work and build the economy get our community gardens open actually make sure we have food security in the coming months thank you you're welcome is there anyone down in the community room no we have no one in the community any web comments so chair we do have web comments we have 12 emails but out of those emails it's a total of 6 people 4 of them are against this ordinance for it they're not saying anything that hasn't already been said in this room I can just give you that information or I can read them into the record for you they will be attached to the minutes it's up to you okay please read the email can you speak louder can you speak louder please chair no chair it's up to you the clerk has offered you a recommendation that there are it sounds like 12 emails that could be read into the record right now or in the interest of time you could accept the representation that the clerk has made that there are 4 against the ordinance and 2 that are in favor of the ordinance and those emails will be attached to the minutes and will be attached to the record of these proceedings you can choose as chair to accept that if you'd like yes you would like me to read them or yes we're good with the description read them I mean you're going to read all of them if you want me to read them I would read all of them otherwise we can just go off the description she's summarizing them is that 4 against 2 or 4 she's suggesting that she'll put them in the record she doesn't need to read them unless you want her to read them the 4 that are against is everything that has already been said and the 2 that are 4 is pretty much everything that has already been said alright go ahead you would like me to read all of them some of these are very long and people sent multiple emails I know so I'm going to set the timer on myself so if you'll bear with me it will take a little bit of time the first one is from Adam Novak I think this is a good idea an infraction is the right level of severity to use here although it would be good to income index to find somehow one of the public comments complained that this was a criminalization criminalizing non criminals there is no such thing as criminals and non criminals just people doing what they think they need to do and government declaring various things to be crimes or in this case infractions he goes on to say one of the other commentators did have a point though how are we going to make mask ordinance work for deaf people who need to read lips there could be an exemption for when you are trying to communicate with such a person that you can't tell a deaf person just by looking at them and it doesn't seem right for them to have to notify everyone that they want to talk the next comment is from Satay O'Ryan I am deeply troubled that you are considering this action to codify additional fines for violations of public health which currently would relate to the wearing of face coverings and social distancing as well as authorizing additional enforcers I am not attending the meeting today because I am unable to wear a face mask due to my inability to breathe you do not provide adequate opportunity for those who have medical exemptions to share in public why are you not allowing the public to phone in their comments during the meeting she goes on to say I take no issue with the following public health orders when such orders are legitimate and backed by scientific evidence in the case of the current face covering and social distancing orders this is not the case I have sent abundant scientific evidence to the Board of Supervisors and Dr. Newell proving the ineffective of face masks one of these emails is included in the agenda packet I have also questioned the legitimacy of continuing the current local emergency asked for documentation justification and received no reply she continues the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published an article by Dr. Grossu and Dr. Setsema both experts on respiratory infection and infectious diseases they state that in some given I'm sorry in some given the information informants as Source Control in real-world settings along with extremely low efficiency of cloth masksata filters and their poor-fit there is no evidence to support their use by the public our healthcare workers to control emission of particles from the wearer they further state we do not recommend requiring the general public if you do not have symptoms of COVID-19 like illness to routinely wear cloth or surgical masks she sent in three more emails that I won't read. The next one is by Gayle Marie McNulty. Sad to see racism and selfishness being expressed so openly at this morning's meeting. It's easy for those who are able to shelter in place and choose how seriously or not seriously they take their own safety. It's heartless for these same people to put those who are less fortunate at risk and to pretend that those who are safe now have somehow earned the safety and the privilege that allows them to put others at risk is to stay blind to the injustice that has lived in this county since white supremacist, slave, and conquest funding. The propaganda being so widely spread in this country is just that. Our future safety, well-being, and democratic freedom depend on dismantling false truths and electing leaders who have the courage to take bold positions and defend truth, equality, and justice. While we must demilitarize our police and begin a restorative justice process to ensure less brutality and more safety and equality giving up measures designed to protect our most vulnerable citizens from a potentially deadly pandemic is not the place to start. Next one is from Ken Davenport. I generally agree with compliances to health mandate. However, this proposal is too broad. What is a code enforcement officer? Are they police? Do they carry guns or wear a uniform? Are they driving around neighborhoods looking for family barbecues? Will all the protests related to Black Lives Matter is going to further alienate government from the people they serve? The public wants to know the details of how you plan to administer this proposal. The next one, there is no name given. Your decision today will determine if you are listening to your voters. Ticketing people for not wearing a mask goes against people's right to choose. Cloth mask is no more than a pollution shield. Blocking viral particles require medical grade PPE. Wearing a mask at a desk is 100% different than wearing a mask while exercising. While neither are effective at protecting you from your viral particles, your decision to tick it, for example, a runner for not wearing a mask while they are attempting to stay healthy is a huge abuse of elected positions. No mask, listen to your constituents. No mask mandate. We are watching and will vote accordingly in November elections. Next one is from Becky Steinbrenner, Dear Board of Supervisors, please do not pass this punitive ordinance that would cause a chilling impact to personal and medical freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution to the general public. Those with medical exemptions to wearing a face mask would be harassed by law enforcement for simply taking care of their health. I have personally experienced this problem in your board chambers multiple times when I had a note from a physician recommending that I use a face shield, not a mask due to health risk. Your board muted me when I did not wear a mask and the sheriff deputy cleared the chambers when I wore my facial shield instead of a mask. I presented my physician note to him, but he rejected it. This morning when I attempted to participate from home on item number five, public comment, my comments were not read. How can you in good conscious adopt a punitive measure that would find people like myself for not wearing face masks even though it is potentially harmful to our health? Please do not adopt any ordinance that would find anyone for not following the health and safety guidelines issued by Governor Newsom. These rules change daily and the public has no way to be kept a praise of the whims that are not supported by solid peer-reviewed science. Who would be your enforcers? The sheriff or a person in the community who wants to make my life miserable and call the county hotline to report me and others with medical exemptions. Can you really justify spending more precious taxpayer money to hire extra enforcers? Who, as we saw initially with the overzealous sheriff deputies hired to enforce shelter in place orders, just really did not understand the intent of the order and caused a lot of fear and anger in the community. And that's all of them now. Thank you, spine groomers, that's why I didn't hear. I just read it Marilyn. Okay, it's hard to hear you. That's all. Okay, thank you. Bring it back to the board for comments. Any comments? Yes. Chair, in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, we've had to ask people to do lots of things that they're not used to doing because we're trying to slow the spread of this virus in our community, which has had an impact. That impact is real. There are over 1,000 people who've contracted this virus. There are hundreds of people who have ended up in the hospital and unfortunately there's four people who've died. This new ordinance actually is just another way of doing something that's already been in place, which is it was already a misdemeanor not to wear your mask. There wasn't the method in which that had to be enforced wasn't as effective as this method. And so I'm gonna be supporting this ordinance. I also wanna point out that you can't pick and choose when to listen to public health leaders. If you stand in front of us and say that the public health leader was right in 2011, but in somehow the public health leader in 2020 is not, that's, you don't get to pick and choose. You know, we're following the advice. We did follow the advice actually from the health officer in 2011 and we are following the advice of our health officer in 2020. So I wouldn't move the recommended actions. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second or any other comments? Second. Thank you. I'll do the roll call. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Hi. Coonerty. Sorry, aye. Supervisor McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. Motion passes unanimously and that takes us to item number 11. And this one is considered the final appointment of Emily Balli, the first five commissioned as an at-large representative for a term to expire April 1st, 2023. I move approval. We have a motion. Second. We have a second. Did you, we get the name? Oh, call the roll. Was that Supervisor Friend who seconded? Yes. Okay. Thanks, I believe so. We'll see if there's anybody from the public who wants to say anything. Public. Seeing none. Okay, any comments from the public? We'll take it to a vote. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chairman Caput. Aye. Passes unanimously. And that concludes today's agenda. What we'll do is we will have a special meeting, revised budget hearing starting August 10th through the 13th, 2020 at 9 a.m. and August 18th, 2020 at 1.30 p.m. Regular meeting August 18th at 9 a.m. Thank you.