Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors 08/25/2026

For those present today who feel more comfortable making comments in Spanish, please let us know. We have someone available to interpret your comments into English. If you require translation of the entire meeting, please make arrangements in advance with the clerk of the board by visiting in person or by calling 8314542323. for dress. Penty dress. Good morning. I'd like to call to order the August 25th, 20, 2026 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Certainly. Supervisor Dura >> present. >> Koenic >> here. Fernandez >> here, >> Cummings here, >> and Martinez >> present. Next, we will have our moment of silence. Would any of my colleagues like to recognize anyone this morning? >> Seeing none, please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Good morning, CEO Coburn. Are there any additions or deletions to today's agenda? >> Yes, Chair. We do have some changes to the agenda. On the regular agenda for item 12, we have additional materials. Uh this includes a change to the financial impact, which replaces packet pages 84 through 86. On the consent agenda, we have a request to add a lay item. This is um 3.1 uh which will be renumbered if approved. This is a letter requesting an executive order of the governor for flood risk reductions at the request of perfma and we have provided u materials on the dis for you as they'll be attached to the agenda as well. Um item number 24 there are additional materials. Uh we have an attachment that's been replaced. This is the lease agreement for HSA with Pacific Clinics. These replace packet pages 163 through 195. And then for item 333, there are additional materials. There is a revised staff report packet pages 337 through 338 have been replaced. We also have a replacement resolution in packet pages 339 through 33 355. Um AB1633 bill text has been replaced. AB1806 bill text has been replaced. And AB 2465 the bill text has been replaced. And these are packet pages 367 through 383. Thank you. Do we need any action to add number 3.1? >> You do. Yes, it would be appropriate right now for someone to make a motion uh to add item 3.1. >> I'd like to make a motion to add item 3.1, a letter requesting executive order from the governor for flood risk reduction given that a super El Nino could potentially be on the way. Thank you. >> Second. >> We have a motion from Supervisor Dura and a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Any discussion? Do we need to open this to public comment? >> No, you don't need to because uh people can comment on it um as part of the consent agenda. >> Thank you. So, we have a motion and a second. Madam clerk, will you please call the role? >> Yes. And before calling the role, for the clarity of the record, uh is there an agenda item number that this will be reumbered to for consent? >> 3.1. >> That's the late addition. Well, it'll it needs to be renumbered on the consent agenda. >> 6.1 would be fine. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Durpa. >> I am I voting I. >> Ko >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> And Martinez >> I. Motion passes five to zero. I'd now like to ask my colleagues on the board if they'd like to remove anything from today's consent agenda. Seeing none, we will now move on to item number five, which is public comment. I'd like to invite the public to make comment now on any items on the consent or closed agenda or anything that's within the subject matter, any subject matter that's within the jurisdiction of the board. If you are here to speak on an item that's on today's regular agenda, I ask that you please wait until that item is heard. Um, if you are interested in speaking today, please form a line behind this gentleman so we can have a sense of how many people are here. Thank you. And madam clerk, how many people are on the phone this morning? >> We currently have three speakers with their hands raised. >> Thank you. I will set the public comment period at two minutes each. Welcome and good morning. >> Something that's within the realm of all of you to work with. How about joining the side of the living? Cuz you're certainly not with the corporation Santa Cruz. So 6 years ago a week I happened to be uh on top of my truck sleeping and was awoken by bright lights and lightning. It was really quite crazy. So item number 10, consider the streamline report for the permits. What were their 935 buildings that were destroyed during the CCU? Directed energy weapons fire. And I do say directed energy weapons fire. There's vast evidence of that. The property I used to live on off of Alba on started was turned into foundry ash. Many vehicles on Alba Road were destroyed by military directed energy weapons. Many of the trees, the root systems had been damaged by the uh weapons attacks. I mean, I found myself like two months later looking for mushrooms right on the other side of Santa Cruz County and Sonteo County. We had to be very careful because we would actually fall into the ground because the root systems were completely burned. So those citizens that were pleading to you guys like you guys are nothing more than puppets cuz you guys signed confidentiality agreements and are guilty of misreason and sedicious conspiracy which is 7 to 20 years in a federal penitentiary. be fascinating if the the group what are there 14,000 cities, 3,000 counties. It's about 90,000 individuals. You know what if all you guys are in federal prison? So, I'm actually here because I care. Um, it's kind of silly that there's not a table out there and more than there is a table, but there's only two chairs, you know, and everybody is just standing around waiting for you guys to open. I'm not so sure how much I enjoy this room. I like the old one better. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, Chair Martinez and members of the board. My name is Mariah Roberts of County Park Friends. I'm here to speak on item nine. I'm not able to stay. Um and I'm here to recommend uh approval of the staff recommendation for the $934,000 in Measure Q County funding allocation for fiscal year 2627. When voters overwhelmingly approved measure Q, we entrusted the county to deliver tangible benefits for water quality, wildfire resilience, open space stewardship, and equitable park access. Measure Q is specifically establishes our own local funding to ensure that local projects can address these critical infrastructure and environmental needs. The projects proposed in this staff recommendation directly reflect the core mandate of measure Q and its vision plan. The proposal represents a strategic well-vetted plan jointly coordinated by parks, open space and cultural services with the office of response, recovery and resilience. It maximizes community impact. It respects fiscal guidelines established under the ordinance. Allocating these measure Q funds directly supports highnee projects including essential improvements in park access, environmental stewardship, disaster resilience across our unincorporated areas and local communities. Investing in these local re the investing our local revenues promptly fulfills our promise to taxpayers payers. By approving this item today, you move critical public safety, water quality, and park projects from planning into real visible action. Your staff and your appointed co-ab members have done the hard work to ensure that these allocations are transparent and aligned with voter intent. I urge you to vote yes and approve staff recommendations today. Thank you so much for your leadership and your dedication to our community's natural resources and public spaces. Thanks. Good morning, Madame Chair, members of the board. My name is Dana Wagner, director of Meals on Wheels Santa Cruz County program of community bridges. I'm here today to share data with you from the fiscal year that just ended on June 30th. I feel duty bound to apprise you of how county dollars have been spent. For fiscal year 2026, Meals on Wheels delivered nearly 125,000 meals to homebound seniors. We conducted over 2,000 wellness checks with our participants to ensure their well-being and coordination with services. At our four congregate dining sites, we served close to 33,000 meals. In total, we helped nearly 1500 older adults get food and make important connections for overall health. We also arranged for educational presentations on scam prevention and collaborated with Watsonville Senior Center to honor older veterans. In total, we helped nearly 1500 older adults get food and avoid isolation. Seniors participating in Meals on Wheels are overwhelmingly satisfied with the service they receive. 98% of those receiving homed delivered meals state that our service helps them avoid institutional placement and 98% of congregate diners state that the congregate meals help them to feel less isolated. I know you are aware that Meals on Wheels has had to implement a waiting list due to funding shortfalls. Since April 2025, we were unable to assist 117 older adults with food and connection due to lack of funding, and we continue to get 10 to 12 applications each week for service. I know the board is reviewing the funding process for safety net programs, and I'm grateful for this review and prioritization of basic needs. I wanted to present these numbers today to let you know that county dollars are optimally utilized to ensure the health and well-being of our growing senior population. On behalf of the nearly 1500 seniors participating in Meals on Wheels, I am grateful to your support. Thank you for your time and attention. Good morning, Chair Martinez and members of the board. I'm Pam Connelly, chief of public health with Health Services Agency. Thank you, Chair Martinez, for the opportunity to acknowledge the proclamation recognizing International Overdose Awareness Day, excuse me, which officially falls on August 31st of this year. The health services agency and our community partners have used the month of August to acknowledge the impact of overdose in our community through education and multiple outreach events. And our approach starts from the recognition that substance use disorders are often driven by structural inequities and unmet basic needs. And we have to build that understanding into our systemic response to overdose. That response is a shared one. Collaborative efforts across the county departments and community organizations have helped lower the numbers of lives lost to overdose this past year and we're really proud of that progress. Overdose prevention is also one of the three strategic priorities in our community health improvement plan which is a communityinformed roadmap guiding our work through 2029. Our data has focused on years of potential life lost as a key measure of overdoses toll. And we're tracking that shift in public health about who is most affected, which is helping us target prevention and outreach where they're needed the most. Younger people and people of color and communities of color. Access to Narcan and knowing how to use it remains one of our simplest and most effective tools. We welcome everyone to join our safe use and overdose prevention program for a series of Narcan demonstrations, including one that's on this Friday, August 28th, from 12 from 12 to 2 at Sabrosa Community Space on Pacific Avenue. We believe in building a safe and supportive community that is resilient against overdose. And we look forward to continuing this work with our board and our partners. Together, we can help ensure no life is lost simply because help was out of reach. Thank you for this proclamation and again for the the opportunity to acknowledge it. I'll now pass it to Dr. Marty Sandival, my colleague here for some further comment. >> Good morning, Chair Martinez, members of the board. Dr. Marne Sandaval, your behavioral health director in our health services agency. Uh today's proclamation for International Overdose Awareness Day is a powerful reminder of both the urgent challenges that we face and the meaningful progress our community is capable of. As your behavioral health director, I want to highlight that treatment and recovery services are essential and prevention is equally critical and profoundly effective. Early prevention. Every prevention effort that we invest in, whether through education, early outreach, youth engagement, or community partnership, reduces risk, builds protective factors, and keeps individuals from ever reaching a point of crisis. In Santa Cruz County, we are expanding harm reduction strategies, strengthening school and community partnerships, and working to ensure families and young people understand how to access supports early. Prevention saves lives. We know this. It strengthens resilience and creates pathways to hope long before an overdose ever becomes a possibility. So today, we remember those that we have lost. We support those who grieve and reaffirm our shared commitment to a future where overdose is preventable and where every resident has the opportunity to be safe, supported, and connected. So, thank you for recognizing this day and for championing championing prevention, treatment, and recovery for our community. Thank you. Take a moment and think back to the year 1986. Ronald Reagan was in his second term. Haley's comet was in the sky. Oprah had just gone national. And in Santa Cruz County, a small group of volunteers were quietly building something for their community. A place where people could sit down together and work through conflict. They believed people could talk directly to each other, understand what happened, and find solutions that were humane, practical, and sustainable outside of the criminal legal system. That mission became the Conflict Resolution Center of Santa Cruz County. My name is Julia Feldman and I'm the current executive director. Today, affectionately known as CRC, we work throughout Santa Cruz County to help people resolve conflict and achieve better outcomes. We work with families, youth, neighbors, workplaces, and we also partner with our local justice system to provide mediation, education, and restorative justice options. Over the years, as we grew, our local institutions trusted and partnered with us. Those partnerships validate something our founders believed 40 years ago. Helping people work through conflict makes our whole community stronger. Our local courts, the probation department, the public defenders office, district attorney's office, schools, community organizations, and private industry have relied on CRC to help them deliver productive outcomes. Today, I'm here to thank Chair Martinez and all the supervisors for recognizing CRC's 40th anniversary with the proclamation. And a huge thank you to Santa Cruz County and all CRC's volunteers and supporters for the last 40 years and the next 40. Thank you. I guess I'm here for the color. Uh my name is Jennifer Carroll and I'm a full-time volunteer at the Conflict Resolution Center. I donate my time to conflict resolution because it represents something I believe very deeply. Justice matters, fairness matters, and how we resolve conflict matters. Organizers across America are reminding folks that if we don't like how our country is going, it's important to create change locally. For me, CRC is a way to act locally on the change I want to see in America and beyond. Finding new ways to improve communications and give everyone a chance at a fair outcome. And that includes something different, restorative justice. It's a huge opportunity to move justice forward. And it even changed the outcome of the Golden State Killer case, which I was involved with with my family. The serial killer ultimately took responsibility for crimes we could not charge because of the statute of limitations. Restorative justice is powerful. I think everyone here understands that we live in a time where disagreement can quickly become division. Too often often we focus on punishment rather than identifying ways to restore what was lost. CRC offers another path. We train people to use skills like listening, finding common ground, taking responsibility, and solving problems. And every time it happens, we have positive outcomes for both sides. That's why I volunteer at CRC. For 40 years after CRC began, I think this work is still relevant. Honestly, as a communicator, I think it's essential. So, I would like to thank all of you and let everyone in this room know we're having a party on September 26th from 3 to 6. Good food and booze and non booze over at the resource center for nonviolence and everyone here is invited. Thank you very much to the board. >> Good morning, Madame Chair and the members of the board. I'm submitting this letter formally uh document multiple unsolved issues affecting Logan Creek Road, including environmental indicators, neighbors complaints, sheriff's non-investigation, and improper reliance on a civil case that was never allowed to develop a full evidentiary record. Mr. Mendes in planning recently stated that prior allegations were unsubstantiated. This does not address the current environmental indicators or the multiple neighbors complaints now being reported. His statement relies on a civil case in which Judge Kogiotti blocked key evidence, excluded witnesses, prevented the factual record from being developed. A civil judgment reached without full evidence cannot be used as factual basis to dei dismiss environmental concerns. environmental complaints and are independent of civil litigation. They must be evaluated based on observations, statutory indicators, and public health risk. The observations I reported including chemical orders, tanker truck activity, creek bank dieoff, mechanical disturbance near Logan Creek, which goes into our Monterey Bay sanctuary ocean are prevented the factual record for um what is it? Um, prior contamination, multiple neighbor reports meet criteria for reasonable suspicion under county code 7.100.270. Additionally, the sheriff's office has refused to investigate, which is under Monica Martinez's job, utility threat, theft, and environmental hazards, and people having weapons held on them and fired at them. Deputies came out, but refused to walk under my deck. refused to inspect tampered electrical lines, refused to assess water diversion, refused examined the green shipping container, and a news reporter was witness to the deputy stating investigation. >> Thank you. Good morning. My name is Becky Stein Bruner. I live in the rural area of District 2. Uh, regarding today's um proclamation of overdose awareness, many times I've asked your board to adopt a pilot program for Ibo gain that has been shown to be highly effective to completely remove the um dependence on substance abuse. So, let's do something to stop it. just remove it. It's very effective. And please start a pilot program for Ibel Gain in Santa Cruz County. I want to speak to consent agenda number 28, approving revised salary schedule. This will give a 4% cost of living to middle management with a 3.5% promised later. How can you do this in the time when our our county budget is so meager? middle management percent increases are much more money than the lower paid uh workers and so it means a huge amount of uh debt further debt to our county. I propose that you not give middle management any cost of living because of the dire circumstances in this county. I want to also speak to item number 54 regarding the proposed design for SoCal Drive multimodal. Please do not repeat the mistake with the ballards that happened in phase one in this area. Um I I want to draw your attention to the new ballards that have been put um demarking the bike lane on the actual SoCal Avenue bridge and they are much like what Watsonville uses with a wide white base and a lower ballard height. So, um I'm glad that a lot of the bards in phase one have been removed, including the bases. Those black bases are extremely dangerous to cyclists, and many people who are experienced cyclists have nearly crashed, hitting them at night. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good morning. Uh my name is Najib Kill. I'm a senior analyst with public health in the children family health branch and I'm here with my colleagues today to commemorate and honor community health workers and the promator de salude and we're going to be reading the proclamation together in English and in Spanish. Want to thank the chair and the board of supervisors for honoring our community health workers who are essential to the health of our communities. So proclaiming August 24 to 28, 2026 as community health workers week in Santa Cruz County. Whereas community health workers or CHWs are trusted frontline public health workers who are members of the communities they serve, bringing intimate cultural and linguistic knowledge to advance health outcomes. And whereas CHW encompasses promas de Salude, community health representatives, and over 90 job titles, a diverse workforce recognized as essential health professionals under the Affordable Care Act. And whereas CHWs operate across clinics, schools, housing programs, faith centers, and homes, contributing to improved healthcare outcomes, reduced health care costs, and stronger community connections through evidence-based interventions. And whereas research confirms CHW investments yield measurable returns including reduced hospitalizations, improved maternal child health, higher preventive care participation, better medication adherence, and earlier intervention before conditions require costly emergency treatment. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Adrienne Saxton. I'm a public health health professional and teach with Cababrio College and CSU Monterey Bay and I have the privilege of supporting community health workers in the workforce um through my work. I'm going to continue reading the proclamation that you um signed on to and so we are so grateful. Whereas immigrant communities continue to face heightened fe uh fear, policy uncertainty, and restricted access to services, disproportionate burdens, um creating health disparities where community health workers serve as vital bridges, building trust, combating misinformation, connecting families to resources, and ensuring no neighbor is excluded from critical support. And now therefore, uh, Monica Martinez signed as the chair of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors the proclamation this week of August 24th through August 28th as community health worker awareness week, encouraging community, agency, and business partners to support local, state, and national efforts improving policies that respect, protect, and authentically partner with a community health worker profession. Recognizing CHWs and promotes as vital contributors to Santa Cruz County's public health infrastructure and economy, committed to eliminating racialized health disparities in maternal mortality, infant survival, life expectancy, and preventable chronic conditions. Thank you. Good morning. I'm going to be reading the proclamation in Spanish. Families Cruz Wadingu. Good morning. Okay. CHWasare contribuencia. investig. Consider immigrant inert in politio. salute. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Julio Andrade, executive director for Creative to Career Santa Cruz County. Um, first of all, I just want to express our deepest gratitude for the recent proclamation recognizing CHWs. This public acknowledgement is a powerful state testament to the essential and often unound work of the CHWs that perform every single day. So, I'll continue my proclamation in Spanish. national politica. Good morning board. I'm here to comment on our CHWs and on International Overdose Awareness Day. I'm Jasmine Nahed. I am the current CEO of Bajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance, one of the main uh behavioral health providers for children, youth, and families in the Baharo Valley. Um our community health workers could not be here today because they are doing a food distribution at our site. So I am here to um give them the muchdeserved recognition. Our community health workers or CHWs are our trusted community messengers and providers. They are the bridge between our community and the services and systems that can sometimes be difficult to navigate. CHWs help us build authentic relationships and trust, opening doors and creating pathways for individuals and families to access essential supports, resources, and linkages to care. For example, one of our CHWs was directly responsible, and that CHW is not funded by the county. However, she was directly responsible for tripling our case load of the Bajaro youth that we serve. While that's not Santa Cruz County, we all know that we do serve those children and families in Bajaro, and we're incredibly proud of that. She's also helped us increase our case load for specialty mental health for Santa Cruz behavioral health services. These uh positions and staff that are in these roles are invaluable to our community. I also want to invite everyone to join us for our event on Monday uh in honor of overdose uh prevention day. Our empower Watsonville youth leadership team is putting on an event at our office at 5:00 in Watsonville. It's an opportunity to come together, support our young people, and celebrate the strength and resilience of our community. These events are important opportunities to reduce the stigma, share life-saving information and resources, remember those we have lost, and remind families that support is available. We all know somebody who's been lost. My cousin Emanuel Silva was um passed away from an overdose when I was really young, and it definitely left an impact on me and a desire to support. Thank you all for your um thank you to all of you for your partnership support as we and others continue to show up and work with our most needed community members. Uh members of the board, Jason Hoppin, county public information officer. I just want to take a moment to introduce uh somebody that you guys may know. Allison Vilante is our new legislative affairs officer for the county. I'm grateful to have her. She will be taking some of those duties off my hands and she's uh jumping right in. She's a storm jumper. We're the the end of the session for the state and Allison is uh going to work right away. So Alison, >> good morning chair, members of the board. Nice to see you all again. and I'm very excited to be entering this position. Like Jason said, I am jumping right in. It's already been a busy few days. I started on Wednesday and with the end of session, um it's been quite active and I look forward to continuing to advocate for Santa Cruz County and elevate our voice in the state and federal level. So I look forward to working with you all and nice to see you again. >> Hi. Uh it's probably like the third time I'm speaking to the uh county board of supervisors. Uh nice to meet all of you. Uh Kimberly especially who I've never had a conversation with yet. Um wanted to talk about Highway 9. Um and uh uh I think uh I think uh Justin and Monica are the two individuals who may have in their district uh uh you know part of parts of Highway 9. Um the shoulder I just I just rode down um on an electric bike. Um and um it's it's it's u it's a very dangerous game um being a pedestrian uh being an animal. Last year we had about seven or eight uh deer carcasses along nine. And why uh probably because 5 years after the CZU they fenced off a lot of areas up in the mountains. But um but it's very dangerous for wildlife, for pedestrians, for bicyclists. There's no shoulder, there's dangerous shoulder, there's uneven shoulder, there's plot holes. Always potholes. I filled one yesterday. Um, so yeah, Highway Nine is a hazard and uh, you know, you don't want to work in an ER and see people who've been hit by a drunk driver on a road like that. Um, uh, you know, it's funny that, uh, community health worker awareness week starts on my birthday. Uh, so, uh, anyway, yeah, I just turned 56, so uh, getting rather old, but it's nice to be here. It's good to see you all. Um, man represents the district I grew up in. Um, Monica um represents me. Well, sort of somewhat some sometimes uh you know um anyway um um it's turning red, so that's kind of ominous. I'm going to I'm going to wind up here. Um I just uh yeah, I like to come here and get thoughts out of my head because I I mean uh you probably don't want to hear how austere the food is in the county jail, things like that. But um it does it does matter to um you know societywide certain issues and I bring them to your attention because I care. Thank you. >> My name is Mondo and I am one of your housing commissioners. For the last several years I have been traveling across the country trying to come up with the answers and solutions of why is it so expensive here in Santa Cruz. Well in short we live in a beautiful area. No doubt about it. I brought some photos. We have incredible beaches. We have family amusement parks. This is a picture of my daughter and I fishing off a pier. Gorgeous. And of course, we have housing, bedrock of any foundation. This is a unit that I stayed in uh just uh last week. Unfortunately, all these photos that I showed you, none of them were taken from here. I stayed in this house right here, which is three bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1,400 square ft, has swimming pools, tennis courts. It just sold uh two months ago for this amount, $184,000. That includes the land price. my research across the country. I want to present to you guys to let you know that we have the power here within our local area to reduce the burden. We can make changes. I look forward to working with you. >> Seeing no one else in the room, madam clerk, will you please call the first online caller? Yes. Call in user 401, your microphone is now available. Uh Marilyn Garrett, item 54 on consent. So, Gail Drive apparium multimodal uh project uh sounds expensive uh ineffective and very destructive. I would vote against that in terms of the um what's radio inoperability next generation project that uh you plan for supposedly safe communication system is anything but and I'd like to leave a have a quote here of Gary Trower who is a microwave radiation researcher and expert. quote, "To my knowledge, microwave or radio wave sickness was first reported in August 1932 with the symptoms of severe tiredness, fatigue, fitful sleep, headaches, intolerability, and high susceptibility to infection. The paradox of course is how this microwave radiation can be used as a weapon to cause impairment, illness, and death and at the same time be used as a communications instrument. It can't be safe. You've just discussed important overdose awareness month. We also need a microwave radiation dangers awareness and prevention month proliferating microwave radiation with wifi antennas cell towers and this ring project is harmful to the public. We should stop being deceived by interests profiting from this toxic technology. >> Thank you. >> And >> Leslie, your microphone is now available. >> Good morning. My name is Lesie Harris. I am board chair for County Park Friends. I'm also a resident of the Winkl Farm Park neighborhood. I'm addressing the board this morning to urge you to approve item nine, measure Q funding, as detailed in the park department's report. The report is welldeveloped and it provides strong support for the recommended allocations. It also provides an accurate description of Measure Q's intent and authorization. During the budget meetings here, I heard some guidance that measure Q funding was limited to direct climate and wildfire risk reduction and response. That is an overly restrictive view of the measure. The clear and express intent of the measure includes funding parks and infrastructure and that is what voters supported. Nevertheless, the bulk of the requested funding in item 9 is for vegetation management which does constitute fire risk reduction. The allocation to fill the funding gap to complete the WLE farm playground is critical for all the reasons laid out in the report, including high visibility and increas increased need for park facilities in an area that will see significant growth in population. I'd add that the current situation at Winkl Park constitutes a known dangerous condition of public property which is marked only by some yellow caution tape and a piece of plywood that could be seen as inadequate. Funding and completing the new playground not only serves the neighborhood residents but also protects the county from liability. Putting these local dollars to work immediately for projects like Winkl Park and other critical work, wildfire prevention, helps us leverage even more outside grant money for the county. Staff and the co-op have worked hard to make sure this measure Q spending plan is transparent and it does hit the mark. Please vote yes on item nine. >> Thank you, Leslie. Mike, your microphone is now available. >> All right. Thank you everyone. Appreciate all of our supervisors for the work that they do in our community and the support you particularly provide to the most vulnerable in our community. I am the homeless services director at the community action board and we recently opened Hope Village, a 247 uh low barrier navigation center designed to bring folks who have lived outdoors uh for sometimes multiple decades uh into a stable place to seek services and to obtain housing. Since we've opened in on February 2nd, we have served 42 residents and we have housed four. I'm going to come back to that because four may sound like a small number. Um, of our residents, 35% are over 55 years old, 57% have a drug or alcohol use disorder, and we have served 16 individuals with mental health disorders. Our case managers have connected over 150 appointments for our residents, uh, medical appointments. We have connected 12 of our residents to medically assisted treatment. Eight of our residents have improved their income via benefits whether that's general assistance, social security, SSDI, etc. We have obtained employment for seven of our residents. Uh assisted seven of our residents for with legal matters including going to court, providing letters and advocacy. Um we have helped four of our residents address immigration barriers and we currently have three individuals in Q for housing. 62% of our residents are chronically homeless and 88% have been homeless for more than a year. There's a lack of housing in Santa Cruz. As we all know, housing our unhoused population is going to be a challenge. However, we look forward to continuing to support their stability and point them on a path to success. Soon, you'll hear from one of my colleagues on a story of one of our residents who has become housed. Thank you all for your time and support. Lordis, your microphone is now available. Good morning all. My name is Lordes and I'm an enhanced case manager at Hope Village through the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County. I would like to share a brief success story that reflects the work that that goes into helping individuals move from homelessness towards housing stability. Recently, our team supported a participant who had been working with CAP services since 2020. During that time, the participant experienced homelessness and face several barriers to obtaining stable housing, including barriers to be related to immigration status and financial stability. Through the continuous case management support, we worked alongside the participant to address these barriers step by step. This included helping the participants secure income, connect with available benefits and community resources, navigate immigration related barriers, and coordinate medical care and other services needed to support their overall stability. Ultimately, the participant was successfully housed. However, this outcome did not happen overnight. It required consistent communication, coordination between service providers, completing applications and documentation, connecting to resources, and most importantly, the participant's own effort and commitment to working towards their own stability. Helping someone remain housed and build stability requires ongoing support and collaboration among the participant, housing providers, and community partners. This this experience is a reminder that behind every successful housing placement is a significant amount of work, persistence, and coordination from both the individual receiving services and the staff supporting them. Thank you for the opportunity to share this story and for your continued support of programs that help individuals move towards safe and stable housing. Zoom user, your microphone is now available. >> Hello there. Um, can everybody hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Okay, great. Um, good morning. My name is Jay. Um, I wanted to make the public comment on something that might seem a little bit absurd, but um um if you don't work in technology and in semiconductor area in particular, it might seem something out of a science fiction. And um to give you a little bit of information of what I'm about to share um for things to kind of make sense, you guys need to kind of go back in time and realize um and this is in particular to the Vistro power plant. Vistro power plant rose out of the D energy I believe was the name of the company and they absorbed practically all of and run employees, engineers, everything. So you guys now have a better idea of what type of company Vistra is is born out of Enron. And if everybody remembers what Enron was, um I think that will help facilitate what I'm about to share next. Um so when the power plant went up in flames, no information came out as all you everybody knows until later in the year. Now technically nobody declared thermal runway. that kind of got kept within closed doors. And that's a problem because if thermal runway would have been officially disclosed when the fire went off, it would have been a FEMA event countywide between Monterey and Santa Cruz. And this is a big problem because all those particulates, they're still in the air. They're invisible. They're in particulate matter that is invisible to the eye and it penetrates through a co mask straight to your brain, straight to your lungs. And in semiconductor industry, they use a very specific air monitoring specific for this because the the particles are very very thin and they're in the air in Monterey County and in Santa Cruz County. You could >> Yi, your microphone is now available. >> Thank you. Good morning, Chair Martinez and everyone at the board. My name is Yadira Flores from County Park Friends. I'm here today to urge you to approve item item nine, the staff plans for um measure Q funding for the 2026 2027 fiscal year. When our community vote for measure K, I mean measure Q, they did so because they want to see real improvements in our water quality, wildfire safety and park access for everyone. Measure Q was designed to found local projects that take care of our environment and fix fix up aging structures. The project being recommended today do exactly what the measure Q act and its vision plan promise to the borders. This plan was put together carefully by our parks. And using this money now means we can jumpst start high needs projects like park repairs and wildfire. Especially now that it's um a big housing development right there. We have to keep in consideration that the kids going to live in a small place and they're going to need a place to explore and release the stress of everyday life. Please consider um item number nine. It is really important for the Soel community and especially the surrounding apartment complex and the Winko Park area. I really hope you vote yes on item number nine. Thank you for your leadership and for everything you do to take care for our parks and natural spaces. Call in user 628. Your microphone is now available. >> Yes, boy. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. >> Yeah. Go in. My name is Rich Fuckingham. I like to read briefly, as I have in the past, from a book called The Unfortunate Truth About Vaccines by local author Leon Canaro. Here's a section called vaccine induced autism. In JB Handley's book, How to End the Autism Epidemic, published in 2018, the author, who is co-founder of Generation Rescue and Father in our Autistic Child, summarized 11 scientific studies starting in 2004 that have demonstrated how autism is vaccine induced by what is called immune activation events in the brain during critical periods of brain development. These more recent studies demonstrate how autism can be triggered by aluminum adgivants that create an ongoing inflammation in the brain. This caner in uterero when the state of the pregnant mother's immune system is able to alter the fetal brain as well as after the infant's birth. Though aluminum adgivants in vaccines are specifically used to provoke an immune response, unfortunately the increased number of vaccines containing aluminum hyper stimulate the immune system triggering immune activis activation that has been shown to produce social communicative and motor deficits in rats and rees monkeys that closely replicates the kinds of difficulty seen in children with autism. And remember, a lot of people eat drink beverages with out of aluminum cans. And to continue, Handy noted that the amount of aluminum being injected into infants increased dramatically in the early 1990s, owing to the increased number of vaccines containing aluminum and the higher rates of vaccinations among children going from roughly 50% in the 1980s to more than 98% vaccine compliance. Today, ability We have no further speakers online. Chair. >> Thank you, Madame Clerk. I will now return to the board for discussion and action on the consent agenda. I'll start on my left with Supervisor Koig. >> Thank you, Chair Martinez. Uh on item 40, the cruiseware emergency communications agreement. I want to thank Director Dave Reid from the Office of Response, Recovery, and Resilience uh for keeping this critical system running. smart and fiscally responsible arrangement that we have this cost share agreement with uh Santa Cruz Regional 911 that brings our net cost down to $37,600 over the term. I do want to underscore the timing with forecasters predicting an El Nino pattern heightened flood risk uh along all the rivers and creeks in our county, particularly SoCal Creek um this winter and spring. Let's take this opportunity to make a renewed push for people to sign up for the service, including notifications via the contact information people have provided to the county via the voter roles. Cruisawware is in place. Uh cruise is one of the most important tools we have for getting life-saving information out to county residents when it counts. Thanks. Um item 43, authorizing the public defender to apply for $150,000 re-entry grant. I just want to appreciate public defender Heather Rogers for identifying this need for release and re-entry support and for putting together this proposal seeking additional funding to meet that need. I also want to thank the community action board for their collaboration with local recitivism rate of approximately 60%. It's clear that we need to apply more effort to our correctional system during re-entry and who better to help someone during re-entry than the public defenders office who has built a trusted relationship with them. So, thank you and best of luck with the application. And then on item 54, approving the request for proposals for design services of the SoCal Drive multimmoal project between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard. Uh I'm really excited to see this project moving so forward so quickly. We've really been awarded uh some incredible grants. $21.3 million uh from the state through the congested corridors program, another $3.8 million from the uh regional transportation commission. Um I I was, you know, a little surprised that it's coming to us after this RFP has already been released, but uh at least we're moving forward quickly. Um and I also want to assure the public that we will be working closely uh to use better ballards that the ballards currently being triled over uh the highway and in front of Dominican Hospital are we're going to choose a design and ultimately extend those to the entirety of phase one. Um and we'll make sure that we use uh the preferred Ballard on all of phase two as well. So, thank you. And then finally, from the written correspondence agenda item today, I'd like to acknowledge item C, proclamation issued by Chair Martinez and Supervisor Conering Koig honoring lifeguard writer Williams and recognizing the lifesaving work of Santa Cruz County's open water lifeguards. Do we have a representative from the lifeguards with us here today? if you want to come up to the podium. Uh, Chair Martinez and I are honored to present this proclamation today to the open water lifeguards of California State Parks in recognition of the life-saving work that you do for the county. Um, we'd uh we'd like to recognize what happened on July 25th when 16-year-old lifeguard and District 1 resident Ryder Williams entered heavy surf and rip currents at Sebrite State Beach and rescued a 10-year-old boy, holding on to him through wave after wave until they both reached shore safely. Ryder returned to his post and made two more rescues that same day during a weekend of exceptionally dangerous ocean conditions. Ryder couldn't be here today, so we're proud to present this to the state park guards who are in chambers to accept this on his behalf and to honor the entire team which he's a part of. Wall Ryder's particular act of courage is what brought us here. The proclamation is really about all of you. Uh you protect our beaches from the Paharo River mouth to the north coast. You respond to floods and swiftwater emergencies and you showed up after the warf collapse and during our winter storms. Much of what you do we never see and far more tragedies are prevented than are ever witnessed. On behalf of the entire board, thank you for your service to the people of this county and congratulations. Please accept this proclamation and I'm going to come down there. You're welcome to share any words that you have with the group here. >> Yeah. Uh my name is Turner. I'm one of the permanent lifeguards here in Santa Cruz with state parks. Um, we appreciate the public recognition of the this hard work that all of our lifeguards do and uh we're honored to be able to provide that service for the county and for the state. Thank you. picture. >> And uh I think we actually got lots more proclamations for you from some of our uh legislative representatives here. >> Anyone who wants in this picture right here. >> How's it going? >> My name is Alexis Garcia, communications director with Assembly Member Don Addis's office. just presenting this certificate of recognition on behalf of the 30th and 28th Assembly District and the 17th Senate District with my colleagues here. This is for Ryder Williams. We know he couldn't be here today, but the member sends her best regards. Super important, the hard work that that he did, but most importantly, the great work that you're doing and the training that you're implementing for these lifeguards in our communities and keeping our residents and visitors safe alike. So, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The 30th Assembly District congratulates you and we look forward to seeing what more you guys can accomplish. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> And one more. I'm Christina Glavis. I work for Assembly Member Gail Pelerin. >> Nice to meet you. >> And this is Jonathan Apodaka >> from Senator Lord's office. Nice to meet you. >> Very good to meet you, too. >> And we would like to present a certificate of recognition to the lifeguards and for all the amazing work you do. We know that writers um life-saving rescue really brought to light all the amazing work and we are just so happy to recognize you and all that you do. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Last one guys everybody I'll come to this side. Thank you very much. >> Thanks for >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you board say final comment. >> Thank you supervisor Durpa. >> Thank you. I do have a few questions on consent agenda if that's okay. Um item 20, the cannabis um item. I don't know if there's anybody here who can speak to that today. >> Any staff? >> No, >> we we can get hold on that. >> Yeah, hold. We'll have staff come out. >> Okay. Um next is item 21, the Cal AIM. I want to thank staff um for bringing this forward. It was a little confusing the language um on this item. Um I do have a question I think for probation um on juvenile hall. So I read in this item that um staff is going to inquire if a if a um if a young person has medical. And I was just it's I'm curious. Do we not have a system that we could just put their name in and and it comes up it? >> Yeah. And >> so what's the inquiry? Are they asking the family, the child, the a system? >> They are actually asking the child if they know, but usually they don't. So we would have to inquire from the parents. >> Correct. >> Um to see if they have medical insurance or medical. >> Okay. The inquiry. Um, I I'll just say it seems to me that we have a medical department and the right person to um I think take these applications and get them processed very very quickly so then we can start getting reimbursement is somebody from that department. Contracting with an outside CBO to do this work I'm not sure is the best and most efficient way to do that. So I I did want to say that >> understand we'll be looking into that as well. >> Thank you. Um, okay. Item 25. This is on the round tree water item. Can somebody come up who can speak to that? Thank you. So, this is something that I have been concerned with since I came into office and it was brought to my attention that we have POS in the water um that services the Roundtree facility. Um, we just had a whole system replaced at Buenov Vista. So, I'm just curious why we can't use the same reports, um, contracts, a piggyback to do this particular project. Like, why do we need a $200,000 contract to tell us what we already know from the Buenav Vista replacement? >> Good question. Uh, Travis Reaper, deputy director of general services. Um, so for each project you need to get your construction documents together to be able to put a project out to bid. One element with the Buen a Vista housing is they didn't address Chrome 6 with their filtration. So now they're having to go back relook at it and add to their system to address both contaminants of concern which we both have. We have those at um Roundtree. So, we are taking a step further than they did, expanding on the design and getting a system that's going to work for us for both contaminants of concern. >> Okay. Thank you very much for answering that question. Uh item Thank you. Item 31. Um I'd like to thank uh my former planning commissioner Jesse Nickel for his service. He has um unfortunately the family has lost their son Oliver Tree and Jesse has decided to focus his time um on Oliver's uh foundation. And so I just want to thank him and um express my gratitude um to him for all of the things that he taught me and all of the work and um collaboration that he did with his other planning commissioners. Um, I'd also like to thank um our newest our new planning my new planning commissioner Jesse Bristo who has agreed to serve um in Jesse Nichols place. And so um Jesse Bristo is um a master degree urban planner has private sector experience and um understands uh planning and um I'm very grateful to him for agreeing to become the new planning commissioner. So thank you Jesse Bristo. Item 36. Thanks to Michael Weatherford um for serving on the integrated community health centers. Um Michael is a former CFO with Stanford uh Sutter Dominican and uh Central California Alliance for Health. So he'll bring much um much uh needed experience um to that commission. Thank you very much. Um, also item 41, I want to thank the team that went into the main jail to um, investigate the conditions for the youth that is serving there. And that's very important and um, thank you for the report on that. And finally, item 47, um, the transitional housing for foster youth, the Bill Wilson Center. I don't know if anybody's been out to see it yet. It's Freedom House. It'll um, there are 11 bedrooms. it can serve up to 21 youth um who are transitioning from the foster care system for 24 months. So, it's a really special um addition to our um services for unhoused people. So, thank you. >> Supervisor Durba, did you have one question that you needed to follow up on? >> I think we have the person here, too. >> Oh, the cannabis item. Hi, Thank you. So, in terms I have a question about can cannabis lounge. >> Yes. >> Situation. Can you just give us the board an update on on what's happening and where those lounges are potentially? There is one >> there's one building permit um under the second round of review currently uh that's awaiting um comments from the county uh for a consumption lounge at uh the treehouse dispensary on >> SoCal and 41st Avenue approximately. >> Okay. And that's the only one so far countywide. >> Yes. The retail farm program um which does allow consumption but there's no driving to or from those locations. There's one that's currently active um in the San Lorenza Valley. Um and then there is another one in they are pending approval from the state the county uh including the fire marshall. We approved the site two weeks ago and so that is sitting with the with the state currently. >> And where is that? >> That would be on Green Valley Road. >> Okay. >> So those are the three locations uh at this point. >> Thank you. Supervisor Hernandez. >> Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank the speakers that came on and spoke on behalf of o uh opioid awareness and uh the speakers that commented on on community health workers week. Um like to congratulate them of course and of course all the lifeguards here that we have here in the county and writer Williams. uh like to congratulate them on the proclamation uh from supervisors uh Monica Martinez and Manu Koig. Uh second of all, I want to congratulate Allison Yolante on her new position as legislative director. You know, I've had multiple um I guess suggestions from different assistant CEOs uh that recommended that we get a legislative director. So, I'm happy that we now have one um to kind of drive our our legislation forward. I think it's going to be important and critical to access additional funding for our county as well. Um the items I'd like to speak on is items 33 34 uh 49 and 3.1. Uh with item 3334, I want to thank our chair uh Monica Martinez for bringing this these five items here uh all rolled into one. Uh I think these assembly bills uh AB 1537, AB1633, AB1807 and AB 2465. All together these bills really advance the work that we've been doing as the committee of shield by streng strengthening accountability, protecting public property and funds, supporting due process, and preserving the trust between immigrant residents and local government. Uh with item 49, uh the steam pesticide. I want to thank our egg commission's office. You know, this is a pilot that's really catching steam in South County, and I hope it transitions from pilot to a permanent model in the near future. Uh item number 3.1, the added flood risk reduction. Um I want to thank our CEO staff, uh CDI for bringing this forward. Uh it was a request from uh Perfma that we um expedite cleanup of some of these uh creeks that we have that have sediment or buildup. Um it's going to be as you know a uh super El Nino with uh records uh storms that we're having. So it's critical work that we clean up these creeks. Um, so we're asking the state to allow us some of the some of the um I guess permissions you could say uh for us to do this. So, thank you. That concludes my remarks. >> Thank you, Supervisor Cummings. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, just want to start by I'm appreciating our healthcare workers and the and healthcare worker week. um the people who work within this field um really truly work tirelessly to improve the health and wellness of individuals, especially low-income individuals in our community as as the son of a public health worker. Um I know how hard folks work to really try to improve the lives of people, especially those um who may not have um as many means as others. So, just want to um express my appreciation for um community health care workers awareness week um or appreciation week, I should say. Number 23. I do have questions. This is the women's commission's um convening on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. This was something that was brought to our attention about a year ago and I'm just concerned because you know there were some really good recommendations that were made by the women's commission and we continue to punt this down the road and for me it feels like we're not taking the women's commission seriously the recommendations. So, I just want to get a sense of when this come like on September 29th, is this going to actually be a time when we will be able to make a decision on this or do should we anticipate further punting this down the road because it will been over a year since we've received these recommendations and been taking this into consideration. >> So, we have the draft ordinance. The reason we deferred it one more time is that the women's commission met I believe last week and so they discussed it and so you will be hearing and considering the first reading of the ordinance in September. >> Great. Thank you. Um item number 27 uh this is related to McDermott station. I just want to thank GSD staff and um for all in county fire and all the the folks who have been involved in trying to get the McDermad station repaired and also for recovering, you know, fully recovering the funds for a water tender that was destroyed, which um many of us don't really hear of insurance fully compensating us for losses that often. So, just want to give a huge shout out to uh GSD and County Fire and all the folks who've been working hard to get that fire station repaired. Um item number 28 and 29. Uh 28 is a salary schedule for general reps government attorneys middle management. Item number 29 is ten of contract agreement for law enforcement middle management unit. I just want to thank our HR staff um for being able to negotiate to a point where we can reach an agreement with our unions. And I want to thank also our workers and our union reps um for coming to an agreement on what looks like a really great contract for our employees. Item number 41. I want to thank the juvenile justice and delinquency prevention commission for the work to provide us with the juvenile hall inspection report. Um it's really critical work to ensure that the conditions with our juvenile hall are appropriate for our our youth who are staying there um and under the care of the county. Um item number 47 want to thank the Bill Wilson Center for partnering with the county to provide the youth transitional housing and rapid rehousing services. And then finally, item number 48. Just want to thank Community Action Board for their partnership and collaboration to expand flexible rehousing and homelessness prevention services here in Santa Cruz County. That concludes my comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, everyone. I have a few quick comments on the consent agenda, but first I do also want to recognize um overdose awareness day. uh we have lost too many lives as a result of overdose and um I'm really glad to see that those numbers are going down but we continue to have work to do um to prevent such tragedy in our community and I also want to thank our community health workers our promises for their hard work in our community um these are community-based providers who are um really best suited to serve everybody in Santa Cruz County So, thank you for all of your work and I'm glad that we can appreciate you this week. As it relates to the consent agenda on item number 21, which is the report on Cal the Cal AIM initiative, I really want to thank our health services agency in particular our behavioral health team for their work um adapting to the payment reform that came with these changes. we saw um some pretty significant changes that that resulted in some financial losses, but looking at the report, I can see that that trend has has turned and that's thanks to a lot of your good work, your training, you're finding ways of billing for different services, um increasing productivity. So, thank you for that good work. It will help us continue to expand um with the help of our community- based organizations to serve our community. Also, thank you to probation and sheriff's office for their work with the re-entry element of the calam initiative. And I'm glad to see that we expect um our calim waiver to be hopefully renewed in the next year. Feeling good about that. On item number 33 and 34, I just want to bring to everyone's attention that the shield initiative will be bringing back its next report on December 15th. However, our subcommittee continues to meet and work and move progress forward on the items that the board has already directed us to do. I want to thank all of the community service providers who joined us for a roundt discussion on the current status of our immigrant community in Watsonville last week. That was a really helpful conversation. And alongside it, the shield uh committee is recommending the passage of item number 33, which brings together five different um letters of support for legislation that is now navigating the state process. Together, these bills would um prohibit specified state and local peace officers from accept accepting secondary employment involving federal immigration enforcement. It would require that private detention facility operators um contribute a portion of their revenue to immigration related services. So, if every detention center does get built, they are taxed um at a high level. So, people cannot profit on these detention centers. They will require independent state investigation from the attorney general of fatal shootings involving federal immigration enforcement officers. They would prohibit the use of stateowned property for immigration enforcement, much like the resolution that Santa Cruz County did locally for our county locations and prevent businesses that profit from detention or immigration enforcement from receiving specified state grants, loans, and tax credits. So, I think collectively these items all line up with our values in supporting our um local immigrant community and I appreciate uh the count the board's willingness to lend our voice of support for this state legislation. Finally, we have two more items. Item number 38. Later this evening, I'll have the pleasure of swearing in our first ever youth commission. And um I'm really grateful for all of the youth who have stepped forward and who will join us for that. Um I think it's going to be a very interesting and fun year for the youth who have um stepped up. So thank you to everybody who will be appointed today. And on item number 44, I appreciate receiving the update on our access to medical care agreements with our health care providers. Thank you to HSA for moving this forward, for seeking information from our community providers, and I look forward to the next report that I believe will happen in December. So with that, um, I will accept a motion on the consent agenda, noting that it also includes item 6.1. Supervisor Hernandez. >> Yes, Chair. I'll move consent agend consent agenda including item 6.1. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion from Supervisor Hernandez and a second from Supervisor Dura. Any further discussion? Seeing none, madame clerk, will you please call the role? Supervisor Durba >> I. >> Koenic >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> And Martinez >> I. Motion passes five to zero. >> Thank you everyone for being here this morning. We'll now move on to our regular agenda beginning with item number seven which is to hold a tax and equity fiscal responsibility act hearing for Santa Cruz Montasauri school in connection with the proposed issuance of bonds by the California municipal public financing authority in an amount not to exceed $6 million. Approve a non-charter membership agreement with the authority and take related actions. Welcome. >> Good morning chair, members of the board. I'm Peter Deliffs. I'm a principal administrative analyst in the county executive office. >> Can you hear me now? >> Okay. Uh the public hearing today uh under the tax equity and fiscal responsibility act is to authorize the proposed issuance of bonds and amount not to exceed $6 million by the California municipal financing um public financing authority for the benefit of Monasuri Santa Cruz Monastery School LP as the borrower. Proceeds of the bonds will be used to refinance into fees the outstanding ABG finance authority for nonprofit corporations revenue bonds series 2013. The proceeds of which financed and refinance the acquisition, construction, renovation, improvement and equipment of the of the educational facilities of Santa Cruz Monastery School located at 6230 SoCal Drive, Apas, California. The bonds will finance um the renovation of these facilities and pay certain expenses incurred in connection with the issuance of the bonds. Pursuant to IRS code, an elected body within the territorial limits of the project must hold a public hearing uh for the public to comment on the proposed issuance of the bonds. The county has no liability for the repayment of these bonds. The proper notice for the hearing has been provided as required and representatives from the financing team are available here to answer any questions today. So with that, it's recommended that the board open the public hearing for public comment, adopt the resolution, and approve becoming a non-charter U member of the authority to facilitate the issuance. >> Thank you. I'll now open the public hearing and begin by going to public comment. Is there anyone who would like to speak on this item? Seeing no one in the room, madam clerk, is there anyone on the phone? >> I see no speakers with their hands raised online. >> Thank you. I'll now return to the board for discussion and a motion on this item. Supervisor Durpa. >> Um I'd like to move to approve this item. >> Second. >> We have a motion from Supervisor Dura and a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Any further discussion? Supervisor Cummings. I'll just say as a former monastery school kid totally in support of this. >> Any further discussion? >> Seeing none, madam clerk, will you please call the role? >> Supervisor Dura >> I. >> Ko >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> And Martinez >> I. Motion passes 5 to zero. We'll now move on to item number eight, which is to consider the development of a business registration program for the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County and take related actions. >> Good morning, uh, chair again. Uh, I'm Peter Delos, principal administrative out of the county executive office. I'm joined here today with George Entis, senior analyst with the county executive office and Josh Davis, practice leader with HDL companies, is available with us online to also present. And with that, I will turn it over to George to get us started this morning. There you go. There you go. Good morning, Chair Martinez, members of the board. Uh we're here today to introduce the idea of creating a business registration program for businesses operating in the unincorporated area of the county. The basic issue we're trying to address is pretty straightforward. Right now, the county doesn't have a comprehensive source that tells us what businesses are operating here, where they're located, what they do, and how to reach them. Having that information would be useful for a num number of reasons, but one of the biggest is emergency preparedness and disaster response. There are other benefits like better business outreach and support, economic development, planning, public safety, and simply having a better understanding of the business community we're serving. I want to be clear about what this is not. This is not a business tax. It's not intended to generate u general fund revenue. We're exploring a registration program um with a relatively small fee that's tied to the cost of providing and administering the service. We're asking whether the board supports the concept and would like us to continue developing the program. And we also talked with other California jurisdictions and found that this is not a new concept. Um, in fact, it's standard practice. And we've been working with HDL, our sales tax consultant um to understand how this uh model could um uh best work here in Santa Cruz County. And so HDL uh is here today to walk through that program in more detail. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Josh Davis. >> Good morning. Uh thank you again. My name is Josh Davis. I'm with uh the HDL companies and you know, we currently provide the county with a variety of services from a tax and and fee perspective. Um I thought I'd start just quickly to kind of retouch on what uh Mr. um Entis said um and really talk about the different types of programs because many cases across the state, these names are used interchangeably. Um but there is certainly a difference um in the way that it's implemented. So it could be called the business license. It could be called a business tax or just a license or just a permit. But generally these things have a couple of different um implementations and designs. One is the tax which again as M just said is designed to sort of generate funds uh for the generate revenue for the general fund. Um and they have some limitations. uh the use of the information because of the confidentiality of tax records is limited even within um the county. Um it does require voter approval for for new taxes where on the regulatory side, which is more what we're talking about today, it's designed for a public benefit and it can generate some valuable information um and is done on a cost recovery basis and and therefore no um no voter approval is required. Um, moving on, what many uh ask for or are thinking about is just, you know, how does this um, you know, affect the business community? What what does it mean? What do they have to do? Um, and part of the program that we would assist the county to set up is really simplifying that process um, for the businesses, making sure it's as simple as possible, making sure they have a variety of ways to engage the county. Um, it typically consists of just an annual registration process with some very quick submitt of the relevant data that the county decides as part of the program is going to be submitted as well as potentially a flat fee that um is usually generated with cost recovery or some subsidy um from the county. The process is usually incredibly simple in the sense that we're we're it's designed to sort of meet the businesses where they are. If they want to engage or fill out these things, you know, sort of the oldfashioned way um via the mail, those are typically accepted. Of course, also providing technology to do things online, over the phone, um and even in person is part of the process as well. So, the goal is to make it as simple uh on the business community as possible and generally just a once a year process that just takes a few minutes. Moving on. What does it does it mean for the county? Oops. City here it says. But um generally for the county uh it means a lot of things and depends on how the county decides and wants to set it up and where it can be of value. Generally what we see from a public safety perspective is there's a lot of information that can be valuable. Emergency contact if uh police notices a broken window. hazardous materials if fire needs to go in um to a building to know what's what's in there. From a a planning and development perspective, helping businesses navigate uh the the process of ensuring that their business is allowed uh for that type of business at that type of location. Uh from an economic development perspective, uh there's a lot of information that can be used for economic trends and employee counts, reaching out in real-time contact to provide grant information or other information that could be important to businesses. Um and of course, as mentioned before, communications, emergency response, being able to text um in real time and let um the business community know any city news or any emergency situations um is incredibly valuable. and also housing. Um, being able to identify uh without sort of anecdotal information, some real property information, what's the inventory, what's the occupancy rate, what are the rent averages and trends. And so being able to put all of this information together um is sort of what the county benefits the most. Moving on in terms of the benefits and applications, you know, we talked about a lot, but in addition, we're really able to provide a lot of detailed analytics for um for the business community. So that's GIS um regional district level data. So really being able to get down to um and drill down to different areas of the county. What types of businesses are in each of these areas? uh where is the uh hub of restaurants or of industry or whatever those types of items are and being able to report new businesses opening and where are they open in each of these areas. Same with the industry trends and analysis, looking at where you're seeing your highest growth, what businesses are needing the most support, um community engagement, and again emergency preparedness and response, but also public information, business listings, validations, helping the community know um how to shop local, what you're uh putting out your marketing information for all of these businesses of of when you're looking for businessto business activity. I choose to want to sort of engage with a a local county business rather than maybe having to go out. So getting a list of all the businesses that can help service me as well as knowing that they've gone through the county's check process and are valid and again code compliance are the businesses really in line with the rest of the county's needs. So these are some of the benefits that the program comes again with a lot of the value uh uh really kind of designed and worked through. Um I think is going to be discussed next. So, thank you very much for your time. >> And uh before we get to recommended actions, we wanted to highlight a few of the policy questions that we'll need to work through if the board directs us to move forward. Um and for example, should there be exemptions for certain organizations like nonprofits? And does that mean exemption from the registration itself or just the fee? Uh and then for businesses with multiple locations, should they register once as an entity or separately for each location? And um on the issue on the issue of compliance um when if if uh a business doesn't register or renew, how do we approach that? Do we do escalating fees? Do we do some kind of penalty? And so those are some of the policy choices we'll be working through. So any direction from the board today would help inform that next phase. Um and with that the recommended actions today are essentially to receive the presentation and if the board supports the concept direct us to continue developing the program. We then come back to you with the actual program structure, the ordinance, the cost of service analysis and the implementation plan for your consideration. Uh and that concludes the presentation. So we're happy to take any questions. Thank you for the presentation. Um I think I'm going to start by asking if the board has any preliminary questions for the presenter. >> I have well I guess it's not questions. It's uh suggestions and I guess I'd say >> perhaps we'll come back to that after we go to public comment. >> Okay. >> Any questions? Okay. >> Sure. Um, thanks for the thanks for working on this. I mean, it's definitely throughout my time on the board, there have been multiple occasions where uh it would be really convenient to be able to contact a group of businesses or all the businesses in the in the first district. I mean, I can think most recently uh just with some of the activity happening with construction in SoCal Village. um you know, right now we're sort of limited to the uh their their own internal mailing list and we don't have a comprehensive way to reach out to to all the businesses that um we know are operating in the area because we just don't know uh who's operating in the area. So, this could definitely be a useful tool. Um I'm also sensitive to the fact that it's um you know PE while the program is not being structured as a tax that to some extent it might feel that way um to businesses um and also that there could be some unintended consequences. So I guess the first question is how much do we really think that this is going to cost us in terms of you know the time to manage the program? Do you have any estimates? So, we expect the county's um cost to be pretty limited around that, right? We're looking to outsource this with HDL, who is our sales tax auditor. They have a professional um uh business around this with multiple agencies around the state. Um they also already know who a lot of our businesses are as you know, they manage our sales tax audit. Um, so you know, from a from an administrative perspective, other than managing that contract and any issues that may come up, it it should be pretty limited from the county side. >> Any estimate? I mean, we're talking about $100,000 a year. >> So, it's actually a cost that's collected as part of that fee. So, you know, we're still working through that, but initially we're looking at about, you know, $50 maybe that first year as we set it up, but we expect it to be reduced to about $25 going forward. >> Yeah. I mean, it seems like it it should be pretty limited in terms of the amount of effort that it actually takes. I appreciate that that working with HDL might speed up the roll out because they have the the information from uh helping us collect the sales taxes. Um but at the same time, maybe it means that it um you know, it's adding more cost than we need in the long term. Um, I mean, if there were any ability for us to um, you know, just eat the cost internally or I mean, a lot of these businesses are already paying sales taxes or property taxes, so it's not like they're they're not uh, you know, paying their fair share. Um, so that that would be of interest to me. Um, and the other thing that's come up is, you know, potentially some of the unintended consequences. as it was mentioned on the slides, um, you know, we actually have some pretty strict zoning regulations that I think probably a lot of businesses are not always aware of and that this could potentially bring to light and we, you know, we could be creating a lot more problems than we than we intend to. Um, so and I know that it's on our to-do list uh to kind of as part of streamline Santa Cruz to um allow more businesses in more places generally because right now it's very restrictive. Um but still I would you know either I think we need to move that effort forward faster and in tandem with this or you know maybe provide some sort of assurance that the data provided via business registration program would not be used um in zoning enforcement actions. Um I you know we don't again we just we're not trying to create additional burden on the business community right now or unintended consequences. So, um, I guess more of a statement than a question, but thank you. Thank you, >> Supervisor Hernandez, you have a question. >> Thank you. So, I'm I'm glad you guys brought this uh here uh before us. uh you know I think I I hope it's one of the first steps and hopefully in the near future uh opening an economic development position that could guide us in d uh diversifying our county sales tax base. In addition, I think that this will give us a real good baseline of where we're at so that we know where we need to go. Um I think really adding the data analytics or the demographics right will really help us uh especially when we try to attract new businesses uh we do have that well we we will have that baseline of demographics uh with our businesses with that um I I wanted to ask so is there carveouts or direction that we could do to sort of take out maybe um child healthcare providers and IHSS workers, um maybe a sliding scale for nonprofits. And the reason I say this is because with our current state of the economy, uh I'm worried that some of these providers uh might slip into the cracks and go into sort of uh underground, right? And we we like to have that database of of all our childare providers and home healthcare workers uh so that we know you know where they're operating and and assuring you know uh safety. Uh so I'd like to see if that's a possibility if we can either remove the childcare providers or IH IHSS workers uh from this uh business tax but still accounting for their business. So, but >> I think my worry is the cost for them. >> The answer is yes. Right at your board's direction, we can do that. Um, you know, this is meant to be cost recovery, right? So, we'll have to explore what the impacts of that those choices are, but we can certainly return to your board as we, you know, develop the program. >> Thank you. And I'll I'll add one more um thing to that is that hypothetically if it were to be ballpark 25 um bucks a business um compared to a lot of other jurisdictions it's on the very low end. So for example Elorado County charges double triple city of Palo Alto three four five times as much. So this is on the very low end. >> Thank you. Since you're referencing other jurisdictions, can you just talk a little bit about what um the consultant was sharing around the benefit to those other jurisdictions? Yeah. Why why would they do this? >> Um there's there's different types of models. Um so for example, Elorado County has purely a registration program whereas the city of PaloAlto um they have a registration program but also a business tax for a subset of of those businesses. So it's just different types of models and yeah >> and in your materials you referenced um this might be beneficial in the event of a disaster. Can you share more about what you were thinking there? >> Yeah, Dave Reed is in the audience and is coming up to speak to set. >> Welcome. >> Good morning, chair, board. Um, so from a disaster standpoint, one of the things that um, I experienced in supporting the CZU recovery as well as the floods is that so often our renters and our small businesses are the communities that are hardest to communicate with. So this type of database will help us both on the preventative side. One example being being able to communicate with um child care facilities or visitor serving uh businesses to make sure that they're aware of what's going on, but also in the recovery phase of reaching out to them and getting them connected to resources. We were successful in getting individual assistance, FEMA resources to individuals. Um, and it was harder to get SBA resources to small businesses in those in those disasters. I was firsthand seeing so many of the small businesses kind of second, third businesses in South County that their all of their equipment got flooded out and damaged as associated with that with that flooding event. And so these types of programs can give us an opportunity both to communicate with them ahead of time, but also see if we can give them some resources to rebuild back those businesses that oftentimes are the lifeblood of their of their existence here in our community because it's the second or third job that they may have. >> Yeah. And I'll just add that during COVID it was very difficult for us to communicate with the business community about the resources that were available from PPP loans, the forgiveness of those loans, other additional grant resources that had come in through ARPA funding. Um it was very difficult for us to contact those business and get get them to engage. Um in fact, our business loan program was very difficult. You would think it would be easy to give away $15,000 to business, but it was very difficult to get people to apply. >> Thank you. And just any experience from the consultant um on the roll out of the program? Is the sales tax the primary way of starting the contact like how how how will we effectively implement forward with this? >> You there Josh? >> Yes. Uh absolutely definitely uh a lot of this will depend on the structure um and as the countyy's putting together sort of how how many businesses it wants to include or not include and what those items are. But sales tax is a great is a great resource. We also have a variety of other state uh uh sources that are already in play um you know from the secretary of state as well as marketing directories and really trying to reach out to the small businesses as well. um getting resources even from Yelp and other items and basically consolidating all of these information sources together to build a database that we can use for an education and outreach campaign to let everybody know about the program, what the benefits are, uh help and teach them how to apply and and and uh facilitate it. >> That's really helpful. Thank you. Supervisor Koig, did you have a further question before I went to the public? All right, I'll now open this up to the public for comment. If you're here to speak on this item, please feel free to form a line in front of us. >> Welcome. Good morning. >> Hi. Good morning. My name is Kristen Brown. I'm the executive director of the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce. And we represent over 300 businesses comprised of nearly 17,000 employees within Santa Cruz County, both in the incorporated cities and the unincorporated county areas. appreciate staff's time and and work on this item and the clarification that this is not intended to be a business tax um but rather a cost of service fee to support the program. That distinction is important and it's helpful context as this moves forward. Uh we are not here today to take a position uh for or against this program. Instead, we want to encourage the county to include businesses as uh the planning process moves forward. as you consider the program structure, the requirements, uh, and the fee, all of those things as they're being developed, business owners input on things like renewal frequency, exemptions, and reporting requirements will make the program more workable and more likely to succeed. The chamber is glad to be a resource in this pro in this process. We're happy to support outreach and convening of local businesses and to help engage our fellow chambers throughout the county so that this program benefits from broad business community input. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to comment. >> Thank you, Becky Steinbrunner. Um, Miss Brown echoed my first thoughts, too. This really should be vetted by all of the the areas chambers of commerce. They will have much better input and um they're the ones that really would be affected. Do they really feel that there is a need for a program like this? And is it wise to be implementing a new program that although it would not be done by staff, it will still cost the county money to implement? And I'm I'm a little upset to hear that there would be a a compliance stick if the businesses do not register. In terms of um notifying for public for emergencies, we already have pulse point. We already have cruise. I think the better thing to do is to encourage business owners, business renters to make sure that they are signed up and currently registered with Pulse Point and CruiseAware and um to make to make use of what we've already got going that is working pretty well. So um I I do not think that this is necessary and I think there's also a lot of information that the fire departments have because they are inspecting the child care places. They are inspecting the elder care and uh the fire departments can join in with if with with information if necessary but I really think this is unnecessary overall. Thank you. Seeing no one else in the room, Madam Clerk, is there anyone on the phone? Yes, chair. Call in user 401. Your microphone is now available. As a reminder, it's star six to mute or unmute yourself on a call-in device. >> Chair, it appears the caller is not connecting. That's our only online speaker. Thank you. I'll now return to the board for discussion and a motion. Supervisor Cummings. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, a couple questions and a comment. Um, I'm just wondering, is this information would this information be public? Like, would there be like a GIS heat map that kind of shows the different businesses, you know, just wondering if you could speak to that at all in terms of >> I mean, I think that's up to us, right? Um, you know, as Josh mentioned, you know, he talked about a business listing so people could see who our local businesses are, but again, that would be a policy decision for us on what we make public. >> Okay, great. Well, um, I'm supportive of this. I think you all are, you know, doing a great job with bringing this to our attention. I think it is going to be very helpful for us to understand the business landscape in our community. Um, and in terms of, you know, properties as well. you know, they housing was discussed and I think it'll really help us better understand our housing market as well. Um, I do I personally think that um it should be by business. I mean, we have, for example, if I own a cannabis business, I can't just operate multiple locations in the county. I'd have to get a license for each of those separate locations. Similar, if you have an alcohol permit, and I think that in terms of businesses operating, we shouldn't just think about one company as a whole paying one fee. it should be each location. Um so um I think that will be appropriate. Um and um I mean $25 a year is so minimal for most businesses, for most individuals period. I mean I don't think that that's um too much to ask. So I personally would be supportive of us, you know, having an option where we apply this across the board. And so um I think that's worth taking into consideration um as this moves forward. and then to some of the comments that were made really working with the chambers um and the broader community as a whole I think would be beneficial and in terms of outreach and how this is rolled out but I'm very supportive of moving in the direction of creating this program just want to thank you all for your work on this and so I'm supervisor Cummings can I ask you to repeat the piece of direction were you suggesting it was one fee per site or one fee for per >> per site >> per site. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh further comments. Supervisor Deserpa, >> thank you. Uh at first when this came to my attention, I thought, okay, not a bad idea. But then, you know, a lot of people from the business community have reached out to me with serious concerns. So, I want to speak those now and ask a lot of questions or a few questions maybe. So, uh, unfortunately or fortunately, this week there was an article in the Sentinel about what's happening up in Scots Valley with the business tax up there and, um, the sounds to me from reading the article that the business community is not happy with the way that tax is rolling out and etc, etc. Um, I understand this is not a business tax, but for most of the people that reached out to me, they know that this they feel that this is the first step in moving this county towards a business tax. So, they don't they there's no trust there with the county. So, that's the first I think problem. Um the other problem and um supervisor supervisor Koig um voiced it already is that many businesses like you could just right now go on Google maps and see where all the businesses are. Many businesses I think are likely in areas that maybe are not zoned for that type of a business. So this is going to open a giant can of worms. Um, so that obviously a concern to business owners. Um, separately, you know, I just had a constituent complaint about um, a business that they just opened on the 41st corridor. Um, and without getting into the details, huge permitting issues there. The sign didn't get permitted. They put a false wall up so that they could hide inventory behind it. That didn't have a permit. Um they have a little coffee cart there. That didn't get a permit. So now they have to have environmental health there. It just opens up these giant concerns um for the for our business community. That is uh frankly nickel and dimed already in every way possible by not only the county but in other ways. Like I think about even belonging to a chamber of commerce. It's very expensive. I belong to Aptas myself personally. I pay out of my own pocket like $300 to belong there a year. Every time I go to a meeting, it's I pay for my own self. I pay for somebody else. If if you're bringing people to the chamber, that's an expense to buy the food at the table. I'm just not sure like how much more we can ask from our business community when they're trying to make a living and we want them to be successful, right? Because we want to we want our citizens to have places to shop and have good experiences in the community and we do need sales tax revenue, right? So, I I'm not sure. Um I just don't know yet. So I I I want to hear more like so in terms of compliance like how are you going to get these businesses to comply with um with this program? >> Can I can I step in? And so um this was an idea that I raised with all of you when I was hired. Um it was clearly a priority for economic development and in order to pursue economic development um we need more information. So you saw many of the ways in which this registration program would provide us with new information. Um I don't think we're looking at this as um wanting to um come down on business or all of a sudden pursue a whole bunch of code enforcement. Um I think we would try to roll this out and structure the program in a way where we're not penalizing anyone to start. you know, it's a soft launch. So, um, I would be working with staff to figure out how we can encourage compliance naturally, um, in order to get the more information that we need to pursue attracting new business to the unincorporated area, um, communicating with businesses in the unincorporated area. when the flooding occurred in Texas with all those camps a year or two ago, um that really sparked concern with us because there are many camps operating in the Santa Cruz Mountains, some of which we don't even have contact information for. So, we need to be able to know who's operating and and communicate with them more actively and to come up with an economic development program to meet the interests that I've heard from the board. And so we would look we will come back with um ideas for rolling this out in a collaborative way with business so that and you know down the road maybe we would look to do something differently but I think we're trying to foster trust with business um in order to get that additional information and with regard to the tax the city the situation up in Scots Valley with regard to the acts um is very different from what we're engaged in right now. Um the structure of that that went to a vote of the people and you know there might be some lessons learned there in terms of how that was rolled out. We're not intend we have no intention right now of doing attacks. Um if there were an intention to do attacks down the road, which there is not right now, um that would have to go to a vote of the people. And so really this is about information, communication, and developing a economic development program. >> Thank you. I think that's it. >> Thank you. Further questions? Um, Supervisor Hernandez. >> No, no questions. I was going to already jump the gun and move this item. >> I Yeah, I have a few comments um to begin. Uh, yeah, I thank you for bringing this before us. It's um helpful to have this preliminary view of what we're considering and provide a chance to give some direction for the CEO's office um to continue to pursue that, which is something I am supportive of. Um, to be honest, I was kind of surprised that our county didn't already have some form of registry license um, for for our local businesses. I guess I I had assumed that that would be something that our county would have and upon further research found that most counties do have this kind of thing. So, um I think this will just help to standardize some of our practices, professionalize our um our economic development office, and hopefully provide a platform for further development of economic development, whatever that looks like. Um I think that um that has is a priority for of the board that we've discussed a number of times and I know is a priority of our our CEO Coburn. Um, so, you know, I I'm not too concerned about a $25 annual fee at this time. Um, and I think that, you know, even even some of our nonprofits, that's something that they can swing and they may benefit from the um access to information like SBA loans or emergency um details and and things like that that we could offer to them. Um, I I also appreciate the comments from the chamber. I do think that in order for this to be successful, the implementation plan needs to be really well thought out. Um I I think that this is something that we can do thoughtfully, even if it means that it goes a little slower than we'd like. Um so that way we ensure that it incorporates really the the feedback from our business community to ensure that they gain the benefit of the information that we're collecting. Um so I hope that we'll continue to do that as well. And so with that, I'd be happy to accept a motion. >> I'll move the recommended actions. >> I'll second it. Um, you know, if we can continue that discussion though with uh childcare providers, IHSS workers, maybe a phased approach with them. Um I really think this is important to have this uh uh the data analytics because you know if we have businesses that are expressing growth we could assist them in that process so they don't move away from our county to expand their business. >> So we have a motion from Supervisor Cummings, a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Any further discussion? Uh, I would just like to offer a friendly amendment uh that we work with the business community to design a program that best supports businesses and organizations. >> I I think I think this fairly it's implicit, but I mean I I want I think we should be explicit. Um, you know, just given some of the concerns we've heard that, you know, we really we're going to be talking to businesses and we and we want to hear from them what's going to make this um this roll out as effective as possible. That sounds suitable to the motion maker and the second maker. >> Further discussion. Madame clerk, will you please call the role? >> Supervisor Dura >> I. >> Koenig >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> And Martinez >> I. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you for bringing that to us. We'll now move on to item number nine, which is to consider project selection for the county measure Q funding allocation in the M. >> Sorry to interrupt you. We have a zone 5 meeting that was scheduled for 10:45. >> Thank you for the reminder. We will now move on to our scheduled item um which is the board shall recess in order to permit the board of directors of the Santa Cruz County Flood Control and Water Conservation District zone 5 to convene and carry out a specially scheduled meeting. >> All right. I believe I'm still the chair of the zone 5 flood control district. So I'll now call to order the regular meeting or sorry the special meeting of the Santa County of Santa Cruz Flood Control and Water Conservation District zone 5. And if we could please begin with a roll call. >> Certainly. Chair. Director Durpa. What are we voting? >> Roll call. >> Just a roll call. Thanks. >> Present. Sorry. >> Cummings >> here. >> Hernandez. Martinez >> present. Jaff Baloni Brown and calling out alternate member Clark. Okay. >> And chair Koenic >> here. >> Let's see. Do we have quorum? >> We don't have quorum. >> I believe we need uh supervisor Hernandez to return before we have a quorum. So, we will take a fivem minute break. Oh, actually hold that. Oh, yes. We will take a 5m minute break and return it at 11:07. We need a Oh. You said you said well now recess. See, sometimes some of it might be Understand? Right. We'll now resume the special meeting of the zone 5 flood control district. Could we try a roll call again? >> Yes. Director Durpa >> present. >> Cummings >> here. >> Hernandez >> here. >> Martinez >> present. Baloni and Brown absent with chair Koig present. You have quorum. >> All right. Thank you very much. Are there any additions or deletions to the consent or regular agendas? >> There are not. >> All right. Thanks. Then I'll proceed with the special meeting agenda which is item three to approve change order number two in the amount of $300,000 for Castle Mobile Estates Covert Rehabilitation Project and approve revised contingency amount and take related actions. Good morning. Carolyn Burke, assistant public works director. And um both of these items are consent items today, so we can um answer any questions you may have on them. Um but we do not have a presentation. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from directors? >> No questions. >> Any questions or comments from the public? All right. I'll return it to the board for action. >> Chair, we do have one individual with their hand raised online. >> Thanks. Sorry. >> It's okay. Call in. User 401. Your microphone is now available. Again, it's star six to mute or unmute yourself. >> Chair, the speaker appears unable to connect. We have no further speakers online. >> All right. Thank you. Then I will return it to the board for action. >> I'll move the recommend actions. >> Second. >> All right. Motion to approve uh items three and four. Any further discussion? Uh seeing none. Roll call vote please. >> Director Durpa >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Martinez >> I. And Koenig >> I. That passes unanimously by those present. And that brings us to adjournment. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. I'll now hand it back over to Chair Martinez for our board of supervisors meeting. >> Thank you. We'll now return to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. We are now going to hear item number nine. Consider project selection for the county measure Q funding allocation in the amount of 934,000 for fiscal year 2627 and take related actions. Welcome. >> Good morning, Chair Martinez and members of the board. My name is Claire Peabody. I'm the senior administrative analyst supporting measure Q grant program with O3 and parks. And I'm here with my director Dave Reid as well as deputy director Rebecca Hurley today to present on a quick report out of the FY2526 county direct allocation investment as well as our proposed recommendations for FY2627. Looking back on where we spent our measure Q direct allocation last year as a reminder 1.4 4 million approximately of measure Q um is non-competitive funding that goes to the county every year. Of that 1.4 million approximately 900,000 is spent through um regular what we call general allocation programming and the remaining 500,000 is divided across the five supervisorial districts. In FY226 including those discretionary projects we had 10 total projects. three came out of that general allocation portfolio and measure Q uh developed a vision plan. This is we're entering the second year of this um of this tax revenue measure in action. And the vision plan is really intended to guide the competitive grant program, but in practice we've also used it as a framework to prioritize projects out of the county allocation. And so, as a reminder, those three main priorities are water resources management, wildfire risk reduction, and forest health, and parks, recreation, public access, and equity. We're going to be coming back to the board on or before November 10th to provide our first codemandated codemandated annual report of metric Q. and we're going to be reporting back on not just county projects, but also all of the public agencies and partner organizations that receive direct allocation funds. So that includes all four cities, the RCD and the land trust. But just as an update on what you're going to be hearing from the county later this year, we have two projects in progress and one already complete. Those two in progress are Freedom Lake Restoration and Access Project and that's led by the parks department. Um, this is a project in D2 and was our our largest investment in FY2526 that includes ecological restoration of Freedom Lake and um improving the recreational experience as well as um conducting some much neededed restoration and water quality improvements at that location. And that's in D2 off of Freedom Boulevard. Our next project was a local match opportunity we had with FEMA HMGP funds for 52 miles of roadside fuel reduction across the county. That project's led by CDI went out to bid earlier this summer and it's going to be underway this fall. So really looking forward to having some photos of that progress. And then our completed project most recently is a hydraologic forecasting model of Coralos Creek. This is especially relevant given discussions around this winter's climatological conditions um and will be used by the EOC and operations for um having a real-time forecast of Corus Creek which floods residences and businesses in D4 at the end of 152 and Hulahan intersection. Our annual reporting will also include an update on board discretionary projects. Um, measure Q funds even for discretionary projects are subject to the same reporting requirements and must align with the scope outlined in the act. And so here is a list of where the discretionary projects have gone last year. At the end of this presentation, we'll also provide an update on any remaining balances per district. Measure Q funds are allowed to roll over over multiple years, and some agencies choose to conduct multi-year expense planning. Um, so any funds unspent this year will roll over and can be used towards projects in 2627. Now, on to our 2627 allocation proposal. As a reminder, 500,000 is reserved out of the 1.4 available for discretionary projects. So the total amount of our recommended portfolio this year is 934,000. And our planning process this year conducted of a series of interdep departmental meetings. Again, we took those three main themes prioritized in the measure Q vision plan of water, parks, and wildfire, and we hosted some interdep departmental planning meetings in spring and summer of this year to get an update on our ongoing inventory of projects. And ultimately, the main prioritization criteria that informed this year's portfolio largely came down to readiness. there's a lot of projects in the pipeline that aren't yet ready to take on funds. Maybe there's not enough staffing resources yet or we're waiting on other grant funds or they're just earlier in the project pipeline. And so that already reduced our prioritization criteria significantly when we focused on ready to implement highly visible projects. Coming out of this year's budget hearings and looking ahead at next year's fiscal year conditions, we also really thought carefully about how to minimize risk to the general fund. And this comes into play especially when we think about any permanent staffing commitments that are generated from new projects proposed in this portfolio. And finally, just really focusing on not just um uh aligning to county code guiding measure Q implementation, but also just high visibility and highly aligned projects as we're still in our just our second year of Measure Q. To go over the first half of the recommended portfolio, I'm going to hand it off to Deputy Director Hurley. Thank you and good morning chair Martinez and the rest of the board. Um so there is this is part one of two. We have six projects that are being proposed during the county allocation altogether. Um the the bulk of the funding is going towards parks projects. So um I'll quickly read them off and then go into each one a bit more in detail. So the highlight of the parks program uh projects is the parks deferred maintenance and vegetation management pilot program. This is in the amount of $520,000 and it is a countywide program. There's also money go to go towards uh Maran Lake vegetation management. As this board heard on August 11th, there are identified through the county's arborist eight prioritized areas. This amount along with some um additional funding from sanitation would allow us to do all of the tree work in those eight identified prioritized areas. And then finally, Winkl Park playground replacement. This is to fill the delta in funding needed for replacement of that playground and other park renovations. I went the wrong way. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. All the slides look so similar. Um so to talk a little bit more about the deferred maintenance and vegetation management program overview. So, this is a project as you know when we went over in the parks um budget hearings is that we have over $90 million in identified uh deferred maintenance that we don't have a funding mechanism or a identified staff to attend to such um deferred maintenance. It's also something that we can only currently attend to opportunistically when things come up when we need to because of safety concerns. And so this pilot program would be a set of um a program team that is uh identified just to attend to deferred maintenance. Um and it's utilizing an inventory list that we have in the parks department of what uh age each one of our park amenity infrastructure items is at which needs direct replacement. And so um it would utilize funds as well as staff support until those funds for supplies and services were depleted. Uh and I'll get into the breakdown of budget in that in the next slide. But at that point, that's when this team would move towards vegetation management. As the parks department, we have a lot of the equipment already needed to perform vegetation management. We just don't have the dedicated time or staff to do so. So, these would be in areas through our our county park system um and where it's there's some lowhanging limbs uh that we could attend to pretty easily. Um, and then most importantly, as this is a pilot program that we're proposing that could go into perance, we would come back to this board and report back on what items were attended to and hopefully much much more substantial deferred maintenance um, with this small pilot program. So again, the staffing support would be in the amount of $235,000 and then for supplies and services, it would be $285,000. So those supplies would be new replacement, you know, play structure equipment, new fixtures and rest aging restrooms. It would um it could be an an amalgitude of things that we could attend to. And then after those supplies and services budget is depleted, we would move toward vegetation management in our existing park locations such as Miller County Park, Pinnol Lake, um Moran and continued and and and many more other places. So again, this is a countywide program and it's something that, you know, we have over over I'm safe to say a hund00 million in backlog of deferred maintenance because the estimate right now with our asset inventory does not include any um correction to our coastal access points. Um and we do want to be able to come back to this board and show what we've been able to do through this um really you know in potentially very uh productive pilot program for the park system. So some of those um you know illustrative items that we are planning on to attend to as soon as we get this team ready is um putting together you know new infrastructure, new paint, working on roofing at the restroom at M Mill Village Mil Mesa Village County Park, going along and doing coastal access improvements um to trails as well as uh the Scott Creek observation deck in North Coast. Um there is a hillside slide that many of you probably have seen or seen many children enjoying at Anagene Cummings Park that needs repairs. Uh as well as some improvements to the amenities at those restrooms. Um field renovations uh along with new clay infield at Highlands Park and Michael Grey Fields as well as working on the repairs to some of the walking paths and picnic tables at Polands County Parks just to name a very very few of them. So, just to get into a little bit more deal detail, this is a countywide reach. So, this is a map that illustrates um the items that we have identified for replacement that could be done with less than $10,000. So, it's not a comprehensive list of all items, but it's things that we think we could actually really accomplish in this first year. So the way that we would prioritize some of these items is looking at that asset inventory list and um seeing which ones are are uh kind of easily achievable as well as which ones um ensure public safety uh and risk reduction the most. Um we also want to look at increasing the longevity of our existing facilities. So if there is, you know, repairs to roofs that we can do that helps maintain the interiors of those facilities, we'll work on those things just to, you know, see if we can make sure that we are lessening future deterior deterioration. So now I'll move into Maran Lake vegetation management quickly. this board um on August 11th, you approved the habitat management plan and in there we also spoke about those prioritized areas for reducing the height and weight of some of the sales of those trees as well as some um particular tree removals. So this funding would allow us to do that funding for this year in addition or to attend to those prioritized areas this year with additional funding from sanitation. And I do want to let this board um understand that this is really just attending to those prioritized areas. It's not attending to all of the tree work which we should continue to do in future years. Finally, of the first part of this portfolio, it is filling the gap of uh funding needed for a new uh playground replacement at Winkl Park. Um there is already um supervisor Koenig has allocated his 2526 discretionary funds towards this endeavor as well as we are moving other funds available in district 1's towards this project and it's just it's something that's really needed. It's the only playground in our park system that is currently closed because it is in such disrepair. And as well um you know it's my understanding that in the next um coming years there's going to be over 700 um new developments within the mile radius and over 1,200 new developments for people to go and reside in that area within the three mile radius. So it's really going to be one of the places that people go for outdoor use and um seeking some play. And with that I will hand it over to Director Dave Reid. >> Good morning. Yeah. So, I'm going to talk briefly about three projects kind of in the wildfire resilience space. Um, and two of those are coming originally from the competitive grant uh program, the strategic water supply enhancements and for rural areas pilot and the truck wayfinding. And then the third project is uh an evolved conversation we've had um also through the the competitive grant program with some of our fire district partners uh and looking at a regional scale prioritization um analysis. Next slide. So the first the first two projects again um were originally applied for by county fire. Um the board referenced during that June conversation um the importance of these projects though they weren't originally recommended in the in the funding portfolio there. We're recommending that they're addressed as part of this direct allocation. Um just to highlight the importance of the strategic water supply enhancement. So that's a pilot. It will install two water tanks um in two critical locations to support initial attack. our fire chief is here if you have questions about that project, but it also serves as a a model for private property owners and others um in in how they could install tanks that could support our fire agencies in doing initial attacks. So, I think there's a broader benefit to just not just the two locations where they'll be installed, but also to private property owners who may want to install this kind of equipment so that it supports both their home and the region and the neighborhood that they live. And then the truck trail wayfinding is um again another project to help um better in better navigate some of our um rural road networks through through that signage. Next slide. The the larger county level wildfire risk reduction prioritization project um is a match. So, we're going to be using our county coordinator grant funds to match and secure some consultant services and data development in kind of twopronged uh way in a two-pronged way. So, the board may have heard um though it's not official official, but the zone zero regulations that are coming down from the board of forestry are going to land here quite soon. And so our fire agencies are are already going out and and doing that those kind of inspections and education opportunities with their with their residents and their fire districts. This tool, this data will help them by providing some prioritization of kind of where to go first and where to where to address some of those conversations um more effectively. So that was um a request by two of our fire districts. And so we're going to be able to provide that data countywide to all fire districts. And then the other aspect is taking a look at a countywide prioritization framework from both a forest health and a risk to structure standpoint. So trying to get us to start to look at what geographies should we prioritize work for in the future. And this is really looking we're looking at this as a pilot to collaborate with our Santa Cruz Mountain Stewardship Network and their regional prioritization plan that they are working on. So great work there. This is not intended to replace that work, but has helped to hopefully inform um their work and and put put us in a better position for grant funding in the future. And with that, I will hand it back to Claire. >> Thank you, Dave. We're going to quickly go over this is just a table showing the remaining discretionary fund balance that carries over into this year. Um so this is allowed under the language of um uh the measure Q ordinance that funds may remain in the account and interest be reinvested back into that specific fund source. And as an update, we've been requested previously um to report back on the status of a countywide greenwaste voucher pilot program. So there are already some uh free and reduced cost green waste days being supported by other discretionary fund sources especially in district 5. We were asked to provide a structure um for an online voucher system. So we have worked with uh CDI and ISD and now have an application ready that would allow existing greenwaste customers to go in through their account and claim a a voucher to provide the um the the worker at the transit the transfer station when you go to um to dispose of green waste um when you're taking care of defensible space and other fuel reduction activities on your property. And so this is a slightly different model um that would try to minimize impacts to um to sanitation operations by scheduling um free days on a single day. It would also allow that administrative burden to be spread out throughout the week. Um and this is a program that's ready and an option. There's not a a this is not timesensitive. So there's not any recommended actions that require board members to take action on their discretionary funds, but this is our report back as a part of this staff report that that this option is now ready if any supervisors would like to direct their discretionary funds. And it's of course very aligned um with the the scope and intention of measure Q and that it helps residences address risk reduction on their properties. Here are the recommended actions to approve the project selection for the county measure Q portfolio of $934,158. To direct staff to proceed with the implementation of projects and delegate authority um to the director of parks, open space and cultural services to approve the 2627 budget adjustments to facilitate funding allocations based on these projects. Now we'll open it up to questions. Thank you. I think I'm going to start by seeing if there's any questions from the board, then we'll go out to the public for public comment and return to the board for action and a motion. Are there any questions at this time? Supervisor Koig, >> just a quick question. You say the green waist voucher program is ready. I mean, like literally today we could start directing people to a site to sign up for their voucher. I think we'd want to consult with our CDI um solid waste division to make sure that we can turn that on and then obviously it's a messaging piece that we'd work with your office or or participating offices in and CDI solid waste on. But um for the most part the the application is ready um to to implement. >> Okay. Well, I'm definitely um supportive of that and we'll we'll definitely allocate uh some district funds um and would love to work with you on a roll out as quickly as possible and push that out through communication channel so folks can do some work this fall and not, you know, have to wait till after the winter and until we get into next spring. I mean, I think we could start to see enough interest this fall that then by next spring there's even more uptake. So, sooner the better. Great. Thanks. questions. You have a question? >> Yeah, supervisor Dura. >> Um, okay. So, these recommended projects um in like deferred maintenance for parks, is this particular money for measure Q supplanting? I worry about that a little. >> Yeah. No, this is a new program. We don't um we currently do not have any source of funding or dedicated staff to attend to deferred maintenance. Um, we have park maintenance staff, but this is a a a crew, a new crew that would be formed that would specifically go out and um they wouldn't have a route. They wouldn't be cleaning restrooms. They wouldn't be mowing lawns. They'd be going out and attending to this 15page asset inventory where we've got things that are critical that need replacement and that um need to be, you know, checked on right now to see if they're at a state of dis of repair. And so, they'd be chipping away at that list. That's where um when I speak about the supplies uh budget of 285, it it will not last the entire year. So that's where we wanted this team to be able to pivot and and in you know to be able to work still within county parks on vegetation management in alignment with the measure Q um you know identified priorities. >> Okay. Um I was out I toured uh with supervisor Koig many of the parks in his district and we were at Anna Gene Cummings where my kids played when they were little and so what is the plan because the slide does need repair. It it doesn't look altogether safe right now. So are we replacing it or what what is what will the repair there look like? We so we would look at seeing you know work with our skilled staff on whether we could retain the existing slide but definitely it's got the pore in place that soft rubberized matting that runs alongside of it that we would need we would definitely be replacing that and hopefully to lessen the amount of cost um retaining the existing slide. Um but if we could not do that then that is something that we could fund out of this project. >> Okay. Thank you. I have a couple questions um also on the deferred maintenance program. So, how do you envision prioritizing the projects that come before you? >> Yes. So like I said, we have we would utilize the existing asset inventory that we have that has the age of each of literally every amenity in every park system and seeing that you know the ones that we need to attend to that are a safety and to reduce uh reduce the risk um liability for the county as well as ones that come up. There's a reason why we're not um you know we don't want to have a list of items specifically because as we know sometimes all of a sudden you recognize that there's a landing on a play structure that now makes that play structure you know no longer safe to attend to. So, it would be a um a combination of our skilled staff identifying these things while out in the field and reporting them to this team as well as working off of this list of items that identify the age of things that need to be replaced and as well things that need to be um serviced to make sure that they can have more longevity. So with that uh prioritization approach, h how um how will the vegetation management piece fit into that, you know, and how will you prioritize that element? >> Yeah. So, um, we would continue, you know, we've already been doing some of this fuel reduction work, which is, we have years of fuel reduction work to do in county parks, and we would continue to work with our partners in RCD and O3 to see um, where work is ready for us to attend to. Not, you know, we have to do permitting and planning for largecale fuel reduction work, but where we could with this team um, in our most forested county parks is where we would prioritize the vegetation management. And I mean given the sort of scale of the need and the limited funding available through the source, I do you imagine that you're able to really uh chip away at some of these projects both on vegetation management and deferred maintenance. Say >> I I'm hoping to I'm hoping that when we come back in a year with the report of how this year's spending went, this pilot program shows that we were able to um do much more than what we've illustrated in the board item, we will do. Um but those are the things that we will definitely report back on and hopefully completing as well as many many other things. It's um this pilot program will help us understand how far this money could go for deferred maintenance. >> Gotcha. Okay. I have some comments and I'll I'll wait for those when we get back to the board. Um any further questions? Seeing none, I'll now open this up to the public for public comment. If you're here to speak on this item, please form a line in front of us. Thank you. Welcome. Hi, my name is Sonia Switzer. I'm the executive director of the long-term recovery group. I I just have a question about the green wastist program. Uh since this is an online foral portal, is any thought being uh placed on how to support vulnerable seniors or or people with digital literacy issues in and how they're signing up and you know through the measure Q project that we're doing, zone zero wildfire mitigation, we're more than happy to support that. But um I think we need to have a conversation about it. Thank you. Good morning board. Mark Carrera, Scots Valley Fire Chief. Um, and I have a unique perspective on this because I also serve on the co-ab for measure Q. Um, I'm glad Claire when she presented this framed it as an investment because this is an investment and not only protecting your existing assets that you have, but as well as investing in community safety from fire resilience perspective. um staff from the beginning um being on the co-ab working through the vision plan working through the grant process. I shared this at the last meeting they've done a remarkable job turning over every stone looking at this um at this entire program as well as doing afteraction review of how we could even improve it that first year that we were making literally sausage with this legislation. Um, but I'm happy to say that the list that they've provided today is a comprehensive list that I certainly support as a fire district chief because it does focus on the resilience as well as potentially invest into programs like using technology to identify where our highest risk areas are within our communities and allowing us to target those more more directly and specifically. So, doing surgery with a scalpel versus a chainsaw. So, I encourage you all to support this as listed and uh thank you for your time. Uh good morning, Chair Martinez and board. Uh my name is Eric Lombardo. I'm here on behalf of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, and I just want to join uh the chief's comments just now and uh our colleagues at County Park Friends who spoke earlier this morning in support uh for item number nine uh the staff recommendation for this Measure Q County funding allocation. Uh we're really pleased to see the county making these investments both in wildfire risk prioritization countywide as well as some specific projects, uh the Winkl Farm project and Moran Lake in particular. It's really great to see that the county is recognizing how community needs um are really intertwined and connected with management and the health of our natural resources, our parks um and our lands and waters. These things are connected. Uh proactively managing these park properties helps us lower future storm damage risk as well as wildfire risk and uh enables our community to access the outdoors safely. Uh this really lines up at the land trust's own investment of measure Q funds as we'll report to the co-ab at its next meeting including our work to develop new public access trails in Watsonville uh as well as manage vegetation and reduce brush uh eliminate invasive species in uh our San Lorenza Valley Sandill Habitat properties just for two examples of the several that we're working on uh here at the land trust. So, uh, we really appreciate the emphasis on projects in this county allocation that are ready to go and ready to move forward and deliver results as well as this deferred maintenance program. Uh, it's really heartening to your, uh, question, Supervisor Dura, to hear that this is a new team that will be working, uh, to do things that the county couldn't do before the passage of measure Q. Uh, the voters's passage of this measure is really important in this tough budget, uh, environment to make sustained investments in these lands and waters and parks. and uh the land trust just wants to acknowledge the great work by uh the county parks department as well as the office of response recovery and resilience on preparing this package. We recommend that you approve the staff recommendation. Thank you. >> Thank you, Becky Stein Bruner. What I want to know is why there has to be a whole new team of people hired to do this. Why can't the projects be done by existing staff? Um, I know they're working really hard, but they also have a great interest in improving the parks where they work. This is almost half of the money that would be spent in hiring a new team. I also want to point out that um, regarding the Winkl Farm Park, it's it's it's closed now. it should be um receive immediate attention. But through the Quimby Act funds with 700 and 1,200 units coming in within the area, that's about uh a,000 to $1,200 per bedroom that will be coming to parks through the Quimby Act funds. That needs to be factored into all of this as does what was promised to the public with measure G and Measure K. Measure G actually said Apas Village Park was going to get $250,000 and they've gotten none. So, there is some uh problem with what funding has already been established to do some of this work. I want to commend uh Supervisor Chairman Martinez for putting waste bins in your district. I think that is actually the most effective way to help those in the rural areas uh to to do clearing around their their property and also would reduce the number of green of track trucks going to the to the yard waste place reducing greenhouse gas and make it easier for those who are um um seniors and can't get a a truck to go there. Um, I want to ask parks about the status of the Bert Scott estate. That roof on that building has been in need of a roof repair and I hope that that makes it to the top of the pool to get um fixed. The risk reduction modeling should really help with the CWPP and state park um >> seeing no one further in the room. Madam clerk, is there anyone on the phone? >> I see no speakers online. Chair, >> thank you. I'll now return to the board for discussion and a motion. Supervisor Cummings. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, two quick questions and then a brief comment. Um, so when will the work on Moran Lake begin >> or when would it begin? So we um we have u a relationship with local contra uh tree tree contractors and so we have held them to be available to start that tree work September 15th. >> Um and then that would go through October 15th um primarily the work around the roosting areas we spoke about on the 11th would go through the beginning of October and then we would work on areas of the rest of the park for the rest of those two weeks. >> Great. Um then followup question on the green waste program. Just wondering what that cost generally has been in terms of the pilot and how many people took advantage of that program. >> Uh we'd have to defer. I I don't have those statistics. I don't know if we're tracking those on our side. I know that the fifth district supervisor's office has been closely tracking that and the success of the program for them. Um but this would be a per district allocation. So, and then we would track by district as well. So if it was wildly popular in any of the new districts, you could put more money towards it or we would be able to track its popularity based on kind of consumption of vouchers per district, so to speak. >> Right. I guess the reason why I'm asking is just to try to understand if we're going to make an allocation like what does that look like? Um, >> you could start with a modest allocation of5 or $10,000, see how long that goes in terms of its its use and then and then at some point you would in theory sell out of vouchers or you could reallocate additional funds. So it it does allow us the technology does allow us to kind of track by district and by voucher issuance and then and then we would do an accounting on that. And I guess my last question on this. So is there any way of tracking to ensure that or let me rephrase the question. So is there any way to tr to see whether or not somebody's accessing multiple vouchers or is there >> Yeah. So so one of the things that we can discuss with each district and see how you want to roll it out is we can limit the number of vouchers per household or we can create an unlimited just depending on kind of how you want to roll it out with its with its um program. We we envision somewhat of a limitation per household so that you don't get one large household getting voucher after voucher and burning through that um and wanting to see some geographic distribution within your districts. So we were contemplating at least in early discussions some sort of limit to you know two to two to three or two to four vouchers per household type of a thing. >> Great. Um, appreciate those comments and look forward to following up with you and future conversations to discuss what this can look like potentially for the third district and also talking with third district residents to see if this is something they'd want to prioritize over other services such as chipping, which also helps address some of these um, vegetation management issues. Um, but I will just say that um, you know, I think that well, first I want to thank staff for bringing these recommendations forward to us. I think that all of these projects align with the board's intent around, you know, risk reduction, wildfire u management, and parks improvement um that we discussed in depth during our um budget hearings. And so I'm happy to move the recommended actions. >> Second. >> We have a motion from Supervisor Cummings and a second from Supervisor Koig. Further discussion? Supervisor Hernandez? >> Yes. I'm also glad to support this motion. Um, but I'm glad to see that some of the deferred maintenance on Mesa Village Park. It's really is in need of a bathroom upgrade and and picnic tables there. In addition, I'm happy to see both Pinto Lake and Scott Park uh have some work done too. A lot of District 4 residents do attend those two parks as well. So, I will be supporting the motion. >> Supervisor Durba. So, um, I put some discretionary money towards monitoring Pinto Lake last year, thinking that this year we would start addressing the poisonous algae bloom, right? Could be because I'm concerned about with the wildlife really that surrounds that lake. >> Yeah. So, the monitoring and thank you for those funds that were matched with the measure Q grant program as well. Um, as well as the city of Watsonville contributed to that. So that'll allow us to start monitoring where those large amounts of sediment are actually entering the lake. So then we can come up with a comprehensive plan of a long-term solution so that we don't have the same problem every year when we have these high rainyards where um you know the sediment content allows for that harmful algae bloom. Um so that we will be talking with this board in future years. Um we do need to remedy the um current issue in the lake by 2029. So that's something that um with you know O3 our partners with the city and within county parks we are already discussing about timing and when we would come back to this board. >> Okay. Thank you very much >> supervisor Koig. >> Thank you chair. Uh I want to appreciate all the comments by uh everyone in the public including the representatives representatives from county park friends the land trust and our fire agencies. Thank you for continuing to be a part of this process. Um I'm supportive of the recommendations. I think they respond to the most urgent needs that I see throughout the county. Uh particularly the 900 to$100 million in deferred maintenance. Um you know that just is a really big number on paper. Um but then when you actually see it become an acute failure like we have at WL Park uh takes on a very human element. Um and it's I can assure you it's a my colleagues that is a situation you do not want to be in. Um and um I really I'm glad that we have developed a program that can begin to address this countywide. Um I mean I begin because you know a little over $500,000 to meet a hundred million dollar need is I mean that's 200 years we might catch up with the problem. Um so good we're getting started though. Um I also say that with the Moran Lake project um again $250,000 a significant amount. I believe we actually identified like closer to $700,000 worth of work that could be done. So, um really we're just uh doing the highest priority work. Um also in the past uh I think it was the the first year measure K funds were available did allocate district discretionary funds to do some of that work. uh as well as to do the uh monarch butterfly habitat wind study uh that we approved at our last meeting in order to really be able to see exactly uh how much we could cut and wear without impacting the butterflies. So that you know it is a priority project um and have have I think the way that I've allocated district one funds highlights that as well. Um and same thing with WL Park. Um as was pointed out allocated the entirety of last year's measure Q allocation for district 1 uh to repair Winkl and largely, you know, we'll we'll look to the funds for this coming year to continue to fill that gap and do sort of projects that uh go around uh the playground itself. I mean, we're also looking we've got a 170 unit uh multif family project going in literally next door. We're working on a trail that will connect that project uh to the park. To the point about Quimby funds, I actually don't believe those are available on affordable housing projects if I'm correct. We we >> Yeah, correct. We don't receive any sort of um impact fees for affordable housing, >> right? >> And that I believe that entire uh development will be for affordable housing. >> Yeah, that's 100% affordable. The you know approximately 250 units that is broken down or broken ground down the street at 41st and SoCal, 100% affordable. the 300 units plus that Midpen is looking at across SoCal Drive from this also 100% affordable. So, this is a park that is going to receive a lot of demand and so we are investing in it accordingly and certainly appreciate um any any additional funding available. Um and then finally, I'm just really glad to see the fire projects funded. I mean, these of course were applied for by County Fire uh for um the competitive grant some a couple of these and I'm glad we found a way to fund them. They're super cost-effective programs um and I think will go a long way. >> So, thank you >> chair. I'm sorry. Can I just make one more comment? >> Despa um you know to fire in the future um these were just very small projects. Um, I would like to see you coming forward with potentially bigger projects. And I understand that a couple of these, not the truck trail, but that the water um tower, what do you call it? Yeah. Though that the water um situation is a pilot, but um it seems like a no-brainer. It seems like it'd be very important to put these things in many places around our county. So anyway, just an encouragement to fire to bring forward uh bigger proposals. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um I want to thank parks and O3 for really the thoughtfulness that went into these recommendations. I am um supportive of the recommended actions today, but I do have some comments. Um first of all, I am very supportive of the Winkl Park project. It's a really sort of modest and discreet investment and I know you already invested so much of your district funds into it. So I'm glad to see that move forward. Um similarly for the Moran Lake Vegetation Management Pro program, I know that um that type of investment really aligns with what voters were thinking when they voted to pass Measure Q. Um and similarly with the smaller sort of fire projects, I think this really aligns with the intent of Measure Q. Um, you know, I just want to always go back to the full name of measure Q, safe drinking water, clean beaches, wildfire risk reduction and wildlife protection initiative. So, you know, water, wildfire reduction and wildlife protection. And so while I know we have major backlog of um park maintenance that needs to be done and often parks budgets, you know, we had a long discussion during the budget season about the park's budget and it is one of those areas that we we struggle to fund particularly when we're having financial challenges. Um and I love parks, right? I love softball fields. I love um playgrounds and um park infrastructure. I I do think that our community was asking for us to use these funds more for um resilience of of our wildland infrastructure. And so um you know I think that the the the recommended actions have a lot of flexibility in how you prioritize projects both the deferred maintenance backlog and vegetation management. I think from my perspective, those two would be swapped that we'd start with the vegetation management with the limbs that need to be trimmed with the duff that's right next to our, you know, Highlands Park Senior Center and and that kind of work that um will help us have more wildfire um resiliency in the spaces that that we own and operate. and then focus on the fixtures and the bathrooms and the playgrounds. Um, you know, there's no wrong use of these funds. The this is all these projects are good, but I I think I would like to see them switched. Um, I don't think there's a a recommended action that needs to be changed today, but I just want to share that perspective because I think that's in alignment with at least what I'm hearing from the community and really the the calls we get and the um the the pressure that that my district feels as it relates to um readiness in the event of disaster. So, um, we may, it may be interesting to have more of this conversation the next time that the measure Q report comes to us about, you know, how to prioritize these funds moving forward. I look forward to getting a report back and I definitely when we get a report back on this particular project, I'd love to see how the funds are used, particularly in the vegetation management side of things. Um, any further discussion before I call for a roll call? Seeing none, madame clerk, will please call the role. >> Supervisor Derpa >> I. >> Honik. >> Hernandez. >> I. >> Cummings. >> And Martinez. >> I. Motion passes 5 to zero. >> At this time, we are going to break for close session and lunch and return at 1:00. Is there anything reportable from close session today? >> No. >> Thank you. Recording stopped. Welcome back once again. Was there anything reportable from close session? >> No. >> Thank you very much. Um we are now going to continue with our regular board agenda with item number 10 which is to consider a report on streamlined Santa Cruz work plan item 10 initial plan thoroughess including improvements to the building permit dashboard and work plan item 14 CU rebuild process improvements adopt a resolution extending the CZU rebuild directive for four additional years and take related actions. Welcome and good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair Martinez and member of members of the board. I'm Jocelyn Jansen. I'm one of the assistant directors in CDI and joining me today is Stephanie Hansen. She's our other assistant director in planning. Um, and we're pleased to be here this afternoon to present this item. So, just a quick overview of the agenda today. Um we will uh cover um the following. A brief recap of the streamline Santa Cruz work plan, an update on project 10, including the building permit dashboard, an update on project 14, which focuses on CZU fire rebuild assistance efforts, and a brief update on projects one and five with focus on CZU related code amendments. So, to provide a little background on the streamline Santa Cruz work plan, as the board may recall, um you approved the Santa Cruz County streamline work plan in the summer of 2024. The plan presently includes 12 projects consolidated from the original 14. The overall goal of the work plan is to streamline the permitting process and improve both external and internal customer service from an applicant's initial contact with the county through the inspection process. The work plan is organized around three primary focus areas, complexity reduction, process improvement, and service excellence. As part of the work plan, the board directed staff to provide quarterly updates on the overall progress of the plan and on individual projects. Our last update to the board was on April 28th. At that meeting, the board expressed interest in receiving additional information on projects 10 and 14 and directed staff to work on the following items and report back no later than August 25th. Those items were to conduct additional outreach to Cesu impacted property owners, to make improvements to the building permit dashboard and gather additional metrics, to extend the rebuild directive, and to provide an update on the CZU related code amendments. So, I'm going to start with project 10. So, the board requested metrics associated with building permit intakes, specifically the percent of applications submitted that meet intake requirements. This graph is a snapshot of the metrics for the first half of the year. Thus far, 300 313 submissions have been received through the online e-plan portal. Of these, 66% had complete application forms, 82% had complete supplemental forms, and 52% had complete plan sets. This is an improvement of approximately 10% in application and submittal document completeness compared with prior years. And I believe the gains reflect improvements to our application forms, additional customer support and pre-application guidance. In Camino management is uh evaluating these metrics and the metadata we've collected around these metrics to further identify targeted improvements that will enhance application quality, processing efficiency, and the predictability of the permit process for applicants. So for example, through the analysis of the metadata associated with plan incompleteness, which is our lowest success rate area, staff can identify which e-plan users, specific users have frequent challenges. For example, if we have a user that frequently has challenges flattening files, staff can use the data to reach out to the applicant and offer additional targeted training. Um, in addition to developing the new e-plant intake completeness dashboard, the dashboard scorecard metrics have also been updated to provide a more accurate view of performance by including the percent reviewed on time by building permit type as requested by the board. Um, and these new metrics can be accessed via the dashboards using um online using the get involved link from the UPC homepage. So, moving on to the project 14 CZU rebuild process improvements progress to date. Um, the board requested an update on outreach efforts to property owners impacted by the CZU fire. But before I launch into some metrics, I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge that the six-year anniversary of the CZU fire was just last week. As difficult as that tragic event was, it also revealed the incredible strength and resilience of this community. The lessons we learned continue to inform the work we do today, particularly around emergency preparedness, communication, recovery, and rebuild services. While there's still work to be done, there has been substantial progress in rebuilding our community. So, to that end, I will launch into our metrics at this time. So, as the board will recall, more than 800 parcels were impacted by the fire and of those about 697 of them were developed with one or more structures which were destroyed by the fire. So, 200 as of um July 1st, 272 of those parcels have been sold. 177 replacement dwellings have been constructed and final. Another 136 applications have been approved or under construction, which is an increase of 31 since the last report to the board in April. In addition, in the last quarter, 11 new applications have been submitted. Two have been approved and nine are currently under review. uh rebuild permit application smittles have slowown down slowed down but they do remain steady and staff have remained flexible and solutionoriented in the review of applications and the department continues to strive towards providing excellent customer service for example we still have dedicated appointments uh Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday to assist property owners with questions about the rebuild and these are dedicated appointments to CU rebuild rebuilders only. So, at the April 28th meeting, the board directed staff to explore additional CCU outreach efforts for property owners impacted the fire by the fire, specifically those who have not um contacted the staff or the county um per our records. So, um we have done some outreach. The planning department has, as the board may recall, um the planning department sent outreach mailers, emails, and made phone calls to all CZU property owners who were in the who were stalled in the conditionally not cleared status. The outreach was successful and that it has helped re-engage owners who had stalled in the process. The CNC meetings have been effective in helping applicants identify solutions and get their projects moving again. In addition, the recently adopted definition of inind has helped in aligning environmental planning, environmental planning, environmental health, geology and zoning regulations. Um, so right now to date we have 22 active applications CNC applications and process. All of all of the other applications have been approved or closed out. So that is exciting. I think we started with 90 um at our last um report back. So, with regard to the additional outreach desired by the board, um the outreach to property owners who have not made contact, staff collaborated with the fifth district supervisor's office to conduct this outreach with the supervisor's office taking the lead to ensure affected property owners are aware of all available resources. The outreach consisted of mailers that were sent out in July to all 173 property owners who appear to have not made contact. This uh the department has received uh rebuild inquiries and feedback as a result of the mailers and when contacted staff has taken every opportunity to inform respondents of their availab availability to meet with them to discuss their project and offer assistance in navigating the permit process. And I wanted to say that in addition to outreach conducted by the county, the long-term recovery group, and I see we have a representative here today, um, which is a local a local nonprofit that's dedicated to assisting residents who are recovering from disasters such as the Cesu fire. They conduct their own outreach to property owners impacted by the fire as well. They've informed informed me that they are preparing to do another round of outreach this month to about 84 property owners. And I just wanted to say that through their good work, the long-term recovery group has been really effective in providing CCU fire survivors individualized support, especially in areas outside the immediate permit process, which the county is not presently well positioned to offer. I see it as a great partnership. Um, and also as part of the CZU update, the board directed staff to extend the CZU rebuild directive. The directive was initially approved by the board in September of 2021 and the purpose of the directive is to remove county staff review of geologic hazards and mitigations from the building permit review process in a seizu affected area. The CZU uh the directive was initially set to sunset in 2024 but it was ex uh extended to additional years through this October. SAP is recommending a four-year extension to the rebuild directive to align with environmental health's 10-year fire or and calamity allowance under the code. In addition to extending the directive four years, staff will apply the recently adopted definition of incind to all rebuilds moving forward, which addresses prior inconsistencies between environmental health and planning interpretation of inind development. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Stephanie Hansen, who is going to provide some information around policy updates and code amendments. Good afternoon, chair, supervisors. Um, happy to be here today reporting back to you. Some of this will seem a little bit familiar. Um, I'm reporting on projects one and five, which are the county code amendments. Um, project one, if you'll remember, is the uh long-term comprehensive uh code project and project five are the annual amendments. So, I'm going start with project five. Um, you'll recall this was adopted in uh in June on June 30th. Those amendments are now in effect outside the coastal zone and are pending coastal commission certification inside the coastal zone. Um here we listed some of the uh highlights that are in the code amendments. Um uh uh starting with the consolidated definition of inind um which provides uh flex not only consolidated definition but flexibility on the location of the replacement. um and also what the definition of bedroom was, which was another inconsistency that was um tripping up some people's ability to rebuild when they had a septic system. Um the board approved draft amendments to chapter 738, the um uh on-site wastewater uh treatment system or septic regulations. um um environmental health is currently taking another look at those to see what else can be possibly added um before taking those amendments to the uh regional board for feedback. So that should be underway in the next um couple of months. Um there were other amendments too that were focused on um streamlining um allowing for outdoor seating areas in um parking stalls. Um you all remember the reasonzonings that we did for affordable housing sites. Um we did um some adjustments to grading approvals so that um more grading could be um processed administratively and not go um to the planning commission and so forth. And then we um provided a bunch of amendments that clarified uh coastal regulations and procedures in accordance with changes in state law. We've been busy on um project one, the comprehensive code amendments. We uh released a request for proposals in April um and then had interviews um in June. We've selected BKF engineers to assist in this important project. Um they have approximately a 100red years of experience in engineering and planning um uh across the western United States with 20 offices. They've done some good work in um other counties including Riverside County and San Bernardino County as well as myriad of other cities. Um so we're looking forward to um to working with them. Um right now we are in uh contract negotiations and we're refining the scope of work to look for some efficiencies. Um we're expecting contract approval to come before the board on September 29th and then we'll be kicking off right away in the beginning of October with that project. And um in the squares on the slide I showed some of the major components of that work. including research in terms of what other jurisdictions have done, how they structure their codes, where they've been able to incorporate objective standards and streamline reviews um and audit ever current uh codes and where those points are that could be uh simplified or streamlined. Um we'll have a team of staff in various um focus groups kind of looking at what the consultants are able to provide and having back and forth on what the best solutions are. We're intending for stakeholder meetings of various groups. We're going to have a special focus on a disaster recovery ordinance so that if and when our next disaster strikes, we have um a structure with clear rules available on who can do what um and um what measures they can take to make rebuilding um easier and faster for people. We'll um we'll have the draft amendments probably around the end of this first phase of the project um and then head into environmental review, additional outreach, public hearings, and adoptions in the second year. Um so with that, that's our our brief report back today. Here's the uh recommended actions um to consider the report back on the streamline work plan. Item 10, initial plan thoroughess, including improvements to the building permit dashboard and work plan item 14, CZU rebuild process improvements. Approve the resolution extending the CZU rebuild directive for another four years and then direct staff to return no later than October 20th. Um, and at this point, we're planning a um much more comprehensive report back on all the components for that date. So, with that, we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'll start off by seeing if there's any questions from my colleagues. Supervisor Cummings. >> Thank you, Chair. Um I'm just curious with the new um the people who are coming in for new permit applications. Are these people who are who are previous owners of the properties that were impacted by the CZU or are these mostly now people who have bought properties that were impacted and are now trying to build on these lots? >> I would say a mix a mix of both. >> Okay. And do we have any sense of how many are in the third district versus the fifth district? >> I do not at this time. I can do some research into that and report back if you'd like. >> Yeah, that'd be helpful. And then >> Okay. >> Additionally, I think there's the 173 folks that were reached out to and it would be helpful to know how many of those are in the third district versus the fifth district. >> Okay, >> that's it. >> Supervisor Koig. >> Thank you, Chair. Uh, thank you for the presentation and all the work that went into this report back. Um, I appreciate the updated dashboards. I think they're responsive to uh this board's request. I do have uh question or two as I'm looking at the dashboards. Um, so as far as the number of reviews by permit type, um, we're we're seeing like I'm looking at this the the nice bar chart plus line graph. Um I'm I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but I mean we're just I think there's just sort of gross number of reviews without seeing the actual number of applications. And so it's a little bit hard to tell whether we're actually doing less reviews for each permit type or if the reduction is just the result of less permit applications overall, which it does seem like uh based on some of these charts we are seeing. for example, cor quarterly snapshot shots of the permit center dashboard. There's just less applications in general this year. And so it's hard for am I reading this graph wrong? Is there a different >> way that I could tell uh or that one reading looking at this graph could tell like whether we're actually doing less reviews? >> Are you referring to the graph that I showed earlier with the application intake completeness? No, I I'm referring >> that dashboard that we >> I'm referring to building permit applications, number of reviews and percentage completed on time by permit type. Okay. >> I don't think you actually had it in the presentation. >> I did not. Um, we do have Julie here who can speak to the dashboard, but what I can say is our submitt volume has gone down, >> right? >> Yeah, we're at I would say about 50% um submittal rate um versus a couple of years ago. So that's the answer to that question. >> Yeah. >> And I don't know if you Yeah, this is Julie. >> Hey Julie. Yeah. Thanks for all the all your work on this. >> Am I on? >> I think so. >> Julie Nubold, uh, senior departmental analyst for CDI planning. Uh, yes. It's a complicated graph. The bars and the lines on the previous page, it also speaks to volume and uh, it's challenging to put those together. uh into one visual. But by looking at the first one, you can see the volume of permits over the years and the second one is basically reviews. And then a little bit later on in that graph, you can see the number of um reviews per permit. Sorry. Uh the number of reviews per permit that each agency is doing. And for environmental health or building, how many reviews are going into three or four cycles and how many are in one or two cycles. So it actually takes most of the metrics in that PDF in order to see what's happening for reviews by agency, reviews by permit type, and volume by permit type. So, it's happy to walk you through all of them >> with it in front of me, but uh >> for for sure we'll have to um would dig into it a little bit more to to really get a sense of together to really get a sense of where um like the number of reviews are actually going. I mean, it seems like they're coming down, right? Like a little bit faster than, you know, just the total number of of permit applications, which is the goal, right? To try to streamline the process. >> Yes. >> But it's hard to quantify it on one graph. I get that. >> Yes. and and you are accurate as Jocelyn said, the number of permits is going down. The number of reviews is also going down. So, it's it's good that they're both going down at the same time instead of the number of reviews increasing. Uh while volume is going down, so both in the downward trend. >> Uh but yes, that's a good question. >> Great. Thanks. Um, I also really appreciate the completeness um, metrics as far as the applications that we're receiving. I think that's something that's been lacking um, as far as our view into how well the our our permitting process works and it it it's really helpful to know um, you know, how uh, easy to understand our application process is and the fact that there's um, I mean a lot less user accounts than there are applications, right? 132 accounts for 313 applications this year. I mean that means that um you know potentially with some clearer instructions and some training um we can actually bring the the number of complete applications up considerably. Um do we have any sense of what other jurisdictions are seeing in terms of completeness of applications? I mean we're a little bit over 50% in terms of the plans being complete. We always hear people complain about our bookmarking requirements etc. I mean, is there anything that I mean, are other jurisdictions, how are they doing? >> Um, I don't know if we I don't think we have those metrics. I can say from working in several different jurisdictions. These are pretty on par metrics with other jurisdictions I've worked in. Um, but we don't have those metrics. And I think it's challenging because a lot of jurisdictions don't use e-plan as their submitt portal. So it wouldn't be apples to apples as far as completeness, you know, comparisons, but um be happy to do some some research. >> Yeah, I think it would be helpful to look at other jurisdictions, particularly ones that have like they're measuring this. They're probably making it I mean it's that's already pretty nuanced and they're probably making an effort to improve the process. And so it might be a helpful opportunity to connect with those jurisdictions and just um see how they've managed to move the numbers over the years. Um, you know, we're we're going to talk in the next item about ADUs and, you know, it's looking at uh part of the permit dashboard. We're still up around I mean, 199 days to approve an ADU. Now, a good chunk of that is in the client's hands. Um, where' it go here? I mean, 88 days in the client's hands versus 111 in ours. But I mean still that that's especially given it's one piece of the puzzle that you also that you know applicants are also going to have to talk to uh you know get a get a hookup permit for water that they're also going to have to go through the fire whatever fire agency um that there's you know all these other parts of the process that it still feels long. Um you know what how can we what what are we looking at to bring that down further? Um, we do have Brian Rubin here with us today who may have some additional comments, but what I've observed is that um the level of sophistication of some of the um with some of the applicants that you see with ADUs is sometimes not quite there as with as compared to a larger commercial project or an a single family residence. So that those number of days that you see in the county's hands are attributable to um the number of rounds of review. And so that means we had some incomplete applications. Um so I think that additional um information on our website will help training. Um we are updating our ADU page frequently to provide additional assistance. Um, and I do think that what has really helped is those um, the requirement for meeting with applicants at the third round review and the fourth round review. And I'll say that the ones I've seen, some of them have been ADU related. Um, so that's what I've observed. I don't know if Brian has anything to add. Looks like he does. While Brian's coming up, I I will say we also have our ADU technical assistance program and that's been able to help a lot of owners kind of identify those pre-development steps, help find consultants. Um it's pretty popular and we're going to look at um extending that work for um another um couple of years to kind of keep that assistance going and and and get the um lessons that have become available to those people more widely um dispersed so that people can get get further assistance without having be the one that's being helped. So, um, that's been a a hugely successful program. I'll let Brian talk. >> Uh, good after Good afternoon. Brian Rubin, Unified Permit Center Manager. Excuse me. Um, we've seen a lot of success lately with permits going through the system quicker when an applicant comes to the counter and has an initial consultation and then follows up with either the Camino guide using the PPS meetings, the pre-permit screening meetings. Um, and just meeting with our team to talk about what the requirements are before they just dump something into e- plan. That's been really successful. We've had a lot of pre-permit meetings with the counter supervisor and I and with some select staff and seeing those packages come in as a comprehensive package on the first round makes the first review much quicker um and makes permits almost always approved on the second or sometimes third round. So um the comprehensiveness reduces the timelines for review and it also reduces how many rounds it goes. It's just a better product for everyone. Um, we recently had a stakeholder meeting with a bunch of contractors and one of the contractors said it's really helpful to push your team to take one extra week and just make sure that all the forms are done correctly. All the supporting information is there because it'll ultimately save you down the long run, which was um a lot of people used to just dump things into e-plan thinking they were going to get in the queue and start the clock, which is actually sort of a disservice to a lot of people. And so we're seeing a lot more comprehensive packages now and it's it's been a really good um a lot of good progression from from where we were before. Thanks. >> That's great. Yeah. I mean maybe hold on maybe a couple other questions you may be able to help address. So I mean you mentioned with ADUs particularly that like the level of sophistication isn't always there. there. I mean, we have some sense of uh with with the ADU permit applications, what percentage have uh you know, a licensed architect or structural engineer on the project? >> I would say a lot of them do. Um, but many of them work out of the area or maybe not be familiar with the Santa Cruz County code or the requirements. Um, but I would say we see a a good amount that are from licensed architects. Mhm. Like >> 60 70%, 50%. >> I'd have to check and get back to you. Happy to do that though. >> Sure. Um >> Okay. And then I know another thing we discussed is just to try to bring that time down that the applications are actually in the client's hands and and understanding that sometimes the clients themselves are not being notified when we're actually when when we actually knock it back into their court, right? We notify the the applicant, which is often their contractor. Um but it would be helpful to just expand the number of people receiving those notifications. Um so that that the the actual person trying to build the you know home or ADU knows when their plan set is ready and they can also push their project team uh to to keep moving things forward. >> Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of um property owners that are a little out of the loop in terms of what's been submitted or what's been notified and so we'd be happy to look into additional notifications, carbon copies, you know, other settings that we can do in e- plan as time allows. Sure. >> Great. Yeah, I think both terms of email and text as well, right? Right. I mean, I think the more we can start to establish um you know, modern communication methods um with applicants that um we'll we'll continue to see approval ratings for uh the department go up and and feeling like we're responsive and available. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Further questions. I just wanted to ask a question about the 31 people who've applied for permits since April. Um 31 permits >> um 11 have been applied for since April. The 31 represents um and it might not have been totally clear in the staff report when I went back and read it. The 31 accounts for those that have been approved in this cycle and have undergone construction, initiated construction. So they may have been in the system before April and they finally received the the permit and started construction. Okay. In this quarter. >> Okay. So does then that 11 kind of match the trend of how the frequency that we get new >> applications? I would say so. Yes. >> Okay. Great. That's helpful. Thank you. With that and seeing no further questions from the board, I would like to go to the public for public comment. If you're here to speak on this item, please feel free to join a line. Thank you. >> Uh good afternoon, Chair Martinez and members of the board. My name is Tanya Schweitzer and I'm the executive director of the long-term recovery group. First, I want to acknowledge staff and the work that they've uh done on this project. Uh I also appreciate being uh part of the consultation um period ahead of the project. Uh we recommend approval of the work plan and the rebuild directive extension. As you review the staff report, we ask you to consider a few key refinements as the work moves forward. Uh please track uh track on the dashboard how many of the 177 completed dwellings and 136 active permits belong to secondary owners who bought post fire. Including this on the public dashboard provides an accurate picture of true survivor recovery. Please add a timestamp showing when dashboard data was last updated so we know that we are referencing accurate and true data or timely data. The new rebuild ordinance under the comprehensive code amendments need to cover all disaster declarations including local and state declarations as well. Uh the report notes outreach collaboration with district 5, but why not also district three. Long-term recovery group collaborates with and has active and prospect clients in both districts. Cross collaboration must automatically include all impacted districts and that extends to all the districts for the 2023 atmospheric rivers. There's still no formal referral process from the planning department to partner organizations. Long-term recovery group has coordinated disaster case management since 2021 and is currently the sole provider in the county. We need an opt-in checkbox to intake forms. Um vulnerable residents, especially older adults and those facing digital literacy and language barriers. Uh need ad uh need advocacy and they need help um clarifying next steps, scanning, uploading and submitting documents and they can benefit from access to rebuild grants and volunteer labor. They cannot use resources if they don't know that they exist. Thank you for extending your work on this and for hearing my comments today. Hello, my name is Sally Lucier and I've appeared before the board before. I am a CCU fire victim. On August 20th, 2020, six years ago, we lost five buildings, a main house, three rentals, and a garage. We currently have two permits for the garage and for a 486 uh square foot cottage and um in review process right now is our main house. My questions are really for the office of response recovery and resistance as well as CDI. Meeting the code uh has cost a lot of money and a lot of time. Um rebuilding after the CCU fire has required us to install two 5,000galon water tanks of fire hydrant and the water lines to connect them. So, not just the materials, but the labor. Um, we've had to build sprinkler systems in our habitable buildings. Um, the cost of the building materials and the labor, the permits, the special inspections. Um, are you aware of any grant or services to help with these projects? Our insurance has been fabulous, but we are also of benefit to the neighborhood around us. And um the director of uh response, discovery, and resistance dis discussed this. There's a tremendous cost both to us, but for the neighborhood. Is there any help in meeting these expenses? Thank you very much. So, my neighbor and one of my best friends, his senior staff at Roaring Camp and his house burned down, but not in the CZU fire. I speaking to him last week and the insurance company offered him $500,000 to rebuild his house. Now, as I showed you earlier today, in most of the country, $500,000, you can build a really nice house. He got his quotes back from a builder to rebuild and they came back at 1.4 and $1.6 million. So I tried to help him and I can tell you from here that our seismic and our septic policy are crushing us financially. And so I set up a a meeting to go speak with environmental planning. And uh as it turns out um our soils engineer retired uh in May and we have yet to hire somebody else to replace them. And also our uh our head of of environmental planning is on maternity leave. So I have questions I really want to try to help and I have no way to get any sort of answers. So, as we move forward looking at our housing policy, I always want to emphasize that it's not just about building new units. We have to put an environment in where we can maintain and repair our current units. And I know a lot of us love these big giant buildings that are coming up, but the vast majority of our housing is built by small mom and pop builders. and we need to provide an environment where they can also thrive as well. Otherwise, we'll be back in the same boat. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, Becky Steinbruner. I look at the mountains out this window and think if those were to become on fire tomorrow, what would we do differently knowing what we know now? it's a possibility. What would we do differently? So, embrace this as um moving forward. I thought it was interesting that um there were other there was a question about other jurisdictions and how they're doing. The county of Sonoma has done an amazing job and the this county relied on the Sonoma County KCL class um regulations in the in the very early stages of the CZU fire recovery. It it was too bad it didn't stay on any longer to give those who have um maybe unpermitted or non-conforming structures a hand. So what are they to do? I saw in the um I I I'm glad that the um the program is going to be extended another four years, but what about those who who had unpermitted structures before? Um I'm very grateful for the work that the long-term recovery group has done and I think that the county should fund them. I think they have done phenomenal work. They are in the trenches. And it was heartening to see on this front page of a sentinel recently a a structure, a home rebuilt, moved in that the long-term recovery group shepherded. I was privileged to take lunch to those groups a few times. It was marvelous. The grand jury reports in 2023, 24, and 2425 addressed a lot of the issues that you're bringing up here now. So, I'm glad that you're paying attention to that. I urge you to um reinstate the building and fire appeal board, not being you, but actual representatives of the industry. And what are the stumbling blocks? >> Thank you. >> Seeing no one further in the room, is there anyone on the phone? >> Yes, sure. Taylor, your microphone is now available. >> Hello. Can you guys hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Hi, my name is Taylor Cohan. Um, a local here. I grew up here. My family lives here. And I'm 32 years old. And as we all know, there's currently a pretty acute housing crisis here that directly affects my generation. And a lot of the NIMI sentiments have already been a major obstacle to building sufficient affordable housing in the county. And I know there's there has been steps to develop the rental housing when it comes to the apartments and the highrises in certain parts of town, but that is just one part of it. And you know, obviously the other part is a lack of housing inventory across the whole county has made it near impossible to buy or afford startle homes and rent for people my generation. So I wanted to speak in support of what Mondo was saying. Um and you know on the topic that the officials were discussing earlier with streamlining the ADU approval process being really really important right now and you know opening up um the options for people to be able to build those faster to be able to rent those out easier and to be able to even sell them possibly. um as condos is stuff that could benefit uh everyone in the county. Uh especially, you know, people who want to live here, who grew up here and who have the right to do that, who should have the right to do that. And there's room for nuance here. um you know uh the county officials responsible for managing these permits, you know, we can put more resources into it and if there's something irresponsible or dangerous, um you know, it's it's those officials job to manage that. And you know, that shouldn't be a reason that we don't allow much needed housing development by local residential property owners with space and means and desire to build more housing for them to rent or sell. Thanks. >> I see no further speakers online. Chair, >> thank you. I'll now return to the board for discussion and a motion. Supervisor Cummings. >> Yeah. First, I'd like to uh thank staff for their work on this and for the presentation today. Um, I think we've all been trying to do everything we can to reconnect with in particular for the CZU fire victims. Um, you know, really trying to make sure that the process is smooth. Although we know with changes to state law and people who are uninsured and not realizing that at the time, there's a bunch of obstacles that make rebuilding challenging. But I do just want to commend staff on their effort to trying to make this a smooth process and really want to thank the long-term recovery group um, and District 5 for their outreach. Um, but I will say with the long-term recovery group, our office has been working with them and it took a while for us to get some information out of CDI so we could get contact information for the long-term recovery group, but they have been actively working to try to contact folks who have not rebuilt or were in the process of rebuilding. And so, I just want to thank you all for your ongoing work and and commitment to helping people recover after disasters in our community. Um, I don't really have any other um comments. I just want to, you know, my my hope is we can continue to, you know, um, help people rebuild um, who have been impacted and, you know, that we're going to be vigilant moving forward this winter. Um, it's pretty unknown what impacts we're going to be faced with, but the fact that we have a super El Nino that scientists are predicting is going to be pretty intense and those predictions have not wavered. Um, we could be seeing a lot of moisture here coming this winter and what that means in terms of landslides and trees coming down. and we know that there likely will be some impacts and so my hope is that we can continue to work together. I know the long-term recovery group will be instrumental in helping us to um support our residents, but I know that CDI will also be very integral in terms of us being able to um mitigate some of those impacts and hopefully they're minimal because we know that um FEMA is not reliable these days. So my hope is that we can all do our best to make sure that we can mitigate those impacts. So, um, I'll move the staff recommendation. Um, I don't have anything else to add to it. So, >> we have a motion from Supervisor Cummings. >> Second, >> a second from Supervisor Koig. I'll add a few comments. Um, I want to start off by thank you, thanking the presenters for acknowledging the six-year anniversary of the CZU fire. Um it's uh it's a big milestone, an anniversary that happens in our community annually and just um appreciate the acknowledgement. Um and my heart goes out to everyone who still continues to recover from that experience. Um, I also want to thank the CEO's office and CDI for really your ongoing commitment to improving the rebuild process. Um, both for people who lost their homes and also for people who have purchased the properties because any of the streamlining work that we do does impact everybody and so I appreciate those efforts. Um, as was stated, my office did help to work with you to send letters out to folks who hadn't contacted our office but did lose their home. Um, I just want to clarify that we did send those to all fire victims across the county, not just District 5. So, um, residents in District 3 also received that outreach. And, um, and my hope is that more people will continue to contact us. Um, there's a lot of reasons why people may not be able to rebuild. um cost namely is is one of those or you know changes in financial or personal situations. But it's even helpful for us to know that because if there are grants or opportunities or funding or nonprofit support that's available, we can connect those that information to you if you get in contact with us. So if you received a letter and you're still you still haven't walked through our door, please please do. We we want to know where you're at and what your status is. And I think that you know what this item demonstrates is a ongoing commitment and an ongoing conversation of how we can continue to improve. So, the extension of the rebuild directive for another four years is an example of the county trying to be flexible and meet people where they are so that our our processes aren't the roadblock or barriers for rebuilding. Um, I also appreciate the comments from the long-term recovery group of other things that we could be doing to improve. And, um, two minutes wasn't enough to get all of that from you. So, let's meet and and talk about what else we can do and happy to meet with staff as well to implement those um those ideas because your work and your relationship with our residents has been truly vital to our recovery and our resilience um not just from CCU but also the winter storms and and future disasters as well. So, that concludes my comments. Um we have a motion and a second. Are there further points of discussion? I I'll just say um I'm very pleased um to see the report today and I think we're on the right track and uh keep up with the good work everyone. Um I know that there are some things that the state has handed to us that are make rebuilding very difficult namely a septic new septic systems etc. But um until we can come up with a fix for that uh just thank you for making it easier for everybody. >> All right, seeing no further discussion, madam clerk, will you please call the role? >> Supervisor Dura >> I. >> Koenig >> I. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings I >> and Martinez >> I. Motion passes 5 to zero. We'll now move on to item number 11, which is to consider a report on the Housing Advisory Commission's review and recommendations regarding two accessory dwelling unit programs and take related actions. Welcome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, chair and supervisors. Uh my name is Suzanne Eay, principal planner for housing in uh community development and infrastructure. I have Mark Connelly here with me today. So we'll be doing this presentation together. Uh let's see. So today's item has to do with two policy proposals uh related to accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs. Um the board directed our housing advisory commission to review these two policy proposals. That was back in spring of 2025. Um uh just full disclosure, it took a while uh because the hack was the uh housing advisory commission was being restructured in the interim. So that's why it took almost a year for us to actually have their meeting on these two items. Uh because there were a number of vacancies that needed to be filled. Um so in the spring they met and considered the first of these programs at their March meeting that was having to do with con condominium conversions of ADUs also known as separate sale of ADUs. And in uh May they considered uh something called the ADU bonus program. Um so uh going into the first of these programs first the separate sale of ADUs. So as you may know state law in California until uh late 2023 actually prohibited localities from allowing separate sale of ADUs. So that law was changed, excuse me, that law was changed um by Assembly Bill 1033 which permitted localities, so cities and counties if they so chose to adopt ordinances permitting the separate sale of ADUs. Unlike a lot of other state law on the topic of ADUs, it does not require localities to to exercise this option. and it's simply providing an additional option to communities. On this point, the state law also requires such um condo conversions if they are permitted locally. Um they require the um proponent of that project to comply with the Davis Sterling Act and the Subdivision Map Act. Davis Sterling is a a quite extensive state law that governs homeowners associations and sort of all of their operations. Um, another part of the law is that, um, for those properties that are seeking to do a project like this, if there is an existing mortgage or one or more mortgages or any other kind of leans on that property, the leanholder must provide written approval to the homeowner to do that project. or they have the option if they're unable to get that written approval from their lender, they could um pay off that loan. Of course, that that's that's a steep uh task to achieve for a lot of folks, but that is in the law. So in March after considering um uh the presentation we provided on this item, the housing advisory commission voted four to three and I believe they had one absence at that meeting to recommend that the board uh direct our department CDI to add this policy to its work program. Um, and that would entail drafting in an ordinance amending county code to allow condom condominium conversion of ADUs. Now, I do just want to mention uh for clarity here, there are several different titles of county code that may need to be amended for that to happen. The primary one that we have in mind is 1310, which is the zoning code, but also the uh title that governs um parcel maps and subdivision maps. This is I believe is it title 14. Uh public works is sort of the um the uh portion of our department that really is involved with those types of amendments. Um so it would involve some work from their team as well as county council if if we are directed to proceed with this policy project. The um program that was considered was an affordable ADU bonus program. So the concept here is sort of borrowing a little bit from another section of state law which is um many of you may be familiar with the density bonus law which is an important part of California housing law. Um the city of Sandy some years ago um created a program to kind of bonus concept from from the density bonus law but apply it to a special category of projects which they called you know ADUs. Um, and the concept was, hey, if there are property owners out there that are interested in building more than one ADU on a property, how about we structure it this way? Um, and at the time, this is sort of an important piece of context here. Um, state law primarily at that time only allowed most properties to have one ADU on a property. Um, so you could have the main home and then the accessory dwelling unit. Um, so they were looking for ways to meet their arena. You know, they were in the process of updating their housing element at that time and, you know, just trying to find more ways to sort of get more units permitted. And so they came up with this concept where, hey, let's let property owners exceed that one ADU limit for every one ADU that they're willing to sign deed restrictions and record those against title, imposing certain rent and income limits on these ADUs will let them build one extra bonus. If you think about it, that basically in of math translates to a 50% affordability requirement. Um but that's what they implemented. Um when they originally wrote this program into their codes, they did not put an upper limit on how many ADUs a property owner could provide and that had some unforeseen consequences which resulted in um a little bit of a kurfuffle in their community to put it mildly. So they had some projects where they were proposing 130 unit apartment buildings as an ADU bonus project. Now I did connect with their staff. Their staff was very generous with their us and kind of gave us a lot of background on the program to the program that happened more recently. Um those really extreme projects didn't actually get built but they were proposed. Um but there were a number of projects that were in the like 10 to 20 unit range that did get um built. So there was a lot of reaction from the community for various reasons. It's sort of like the law of un unforeseen consequences. There were a lot of unanticipated consequences to that change. So after you know of sort of community engagement on this topic, they substantially revamped the program in 2025. So when we took this to the hack, we kind of focused their attention on the current program guidelines, not the early program guidelines. And so that revamp basically a new limit on project size. Now this was specifically as they applied it to single family properties and that was really what we focused on with this this meeting. Um because multif family properties it gets a little obtuse because like is it a multif family project? Is it an ADU project? What's the difference? it's a little esoteric. So we thought let's just take baby steps here in analyzing this. So when they revamped the program, they instituted a 68U cap. In the meantime, there's been some significant changes in state law on the ADU front as well. There's been some legislation adding more and more to what sort of an applicant can do for ADUs under state law. And then there's been some evolving interpretation of the law by HCD. This is a state department of housing and community development which just within the past 12 months I believe has come out with an interpretation which is that a given um single family property can have up to is it three or four ADUs? It gets a little bit complicated but at least three ADUs plus the main home. So up to four units on a single single family property. Um so now in comparison in comparison to that the San Diego program you're really only talking about two additional units in addition to what the state law already requires us to allow. Um so in that sense it would be basically you could do your four you would do one affordable and then you get one bonus unit. Now granted it gets really into the weeds. There are some nuances in what types of ADUs you can do in that cap under state law. So, not every property is going to qualify for every type of ADU that's on that short list under the state law, but I'm just trying to generalize here. Um, so maybe there are some properties where they might need more bonus units to get to that six unit cap. So after considering all of this and taking public comment, um the hack voted 5 to zero to recommend development of a missing middle affordable unit bonus program similar in scale, function, and outcomes to San Diego's program, but including making the program available in the rural areas of the county with community engagement prior to board consideration. Now, just a couple of points I want to make on on this recommendation. it was a five-0 vote because we had four absences in that meeting. So just to be clear um a semantics detail um staff in analyzing this and again in meeting and and learning about the San Diego program from their staff, they had some othered consequences of developing this program and these bonus units ADUs which was law is very preemptive in the topic area of And when they went back to dial back the program to put that six unit cap um they basically um had some very unfortunate reactions from several state agencies which I don't want to go into detail here but just to say it caused a lot of lastm minute scrambling and panic and they were almost prevented from revising their program because of direction from HCD the attorney general and the coastal commission. So what we're recommending to maybe avoid that sort of very unforeseen consequence is just don't use just call it a missing middle affordable unit program which would look and feel exactly the same. You're just not um relinquishing your local control to the state in the same way that you potentially are if you're calling these ADUs. So moving on, um this slide summarizes some of the policy considerations that the hack considered and and also the result of staff analysis and working on this. So um in in allowing the separate sale of ADUs, um you got to kind of look at both sides of the ledger on this that same unit that you're considering to condo convert in the absence of this policy it would be a rental unit. So now to the extent that any applicants proceed with selling the unit that's one less rental unit in the housing stock. So um that that was a consideration we thought was important. You know the same unit cannot be for rent and for sale at the same time. In other words, right? Um the on the MI missing middle program specifically um in the case of the county, we already have a number of codes on the books that maybe are slightly different than what's available in other communities that already allows a lot of sites within the county, particularly within both urban areas and in some sections of the code also in rural areas. similar types of missing middle projects where you might have like multiple detached units on a site or multiple semi-detached or you know duplex or triplex type trike type structures. So we have um a program called SB10 that was part of our housing element reszoning that's available in a number of infill sites on in the urbanized areas. Um, we also have something sort of unique in the county's codes, which is this concept of dwelling groups, which is available also on larger lots in the rural areas, and we can get into that more in the Q&A, but I just wanted to mention that that's not something that you find in every community's zoning code, which essentially allows um property owners to put multiple units on a site if it otherwise meets, you know, the various applicable um development standards on that site. without having to necessarily subdivide that parcel. And in that case, those units would be able to be rented out. Sometimes it's used for sites that are used for farmworker housing or other types of housing uh both in urban and rural areas. Um there was a lot of discussion and a lot of nuance and difference of opinion amongst the hack members on what type of restrictions should apply to the deed restricted ADUs. if a program like this is rolled out, which affordability levels, um occupancy and use uh requirements, things like that. So, that would need fleshing out if if we move forward with this program. Um there's also some administrative burden every time you set up a a program that relies on deed restricted units. So, somebody has to work with that homeowner to explain the deed restrictions, make sure they're accepting of them, get them recorded, then they have to be monitored. You have to make sure that the occupant actually meets the income standard. So, so there's a lot of administrative burden associated with that. In the case of San Diego, the city there has its own housing commission which is very well resourced and has a lot of funding and a lot of available admin capacity. And so they agreed to do that administration of the program for the city at no extra cost with no budgetary impact. We don't have that same relationship with our housing authority. So that's just another thing that would need to be fleshed out um in developing a program like this. Um there were also some fair housing considerations and this was part of the um earlier iteration of the program in San Diego that resulted in some unforeseen consequences. What they found was a lot of investors were buying up what were otherwise lowerpriced sort of starter home, you know, existing home inventory that was the focus of a lot of prospective first-time high home buyers in some lower inome neighborhoods in the city. And they were being outbid by these kind of small-time investors that were trying to buy up these sites and do these like multiple ADU projects. And that created a lot of unhappiness in the community, a lot of backlash. So, one of the things that San Diego did in the revamp was to put some geographic restrictions to basically take those neighborhoods out of consideration for this policy. They used um something called the um TCAC housing resource. I forget I I we have a map on our GIS web um that shows where these neighborhoods are, but it's a statewide sort of neighborhood scoring system that's used for citing affordable housing projects. So they use that data set to sort of screen out these neighborhoods where that unfortunate um dynamic was happening. Um so with respect to both of these programs, some of the details that would need to be fleshed out in implementing a program like this would be any kind of locationational considerations that the board wants us to keep in mind. Should it be just areas within the urban services line or maybe areas within both the urban and the rural services lines of the county or would the board like it to be countywide all unincorporated areas? And maybe the answer to that question might be different for the two different programs. Um, another concern is whether or not if if this program is um rolled out, would these particularly with this bonus program, would that type of program um um cause property owners and applicants to maybe choose to implement this program instead of doing a larger type of project. And this is particularly a concern on some of our housing inventory housing sites inventory sites. Some of those key infill sites that we're relying on to meet arena. Um a second or a third concern is workload and staff capacity among competing CI CDI work program priorities. And I, as I mentioned earlier, it wouldn't be just policy and housing staff, but also public works. Their mapping team that would need to particularly on the forale program would need to be involved as well as uh county council. So, I'll turn it over to Mark. >> Thank you. Thank you, Suzanne. Uh, just a bit more to provide to you uh on the next steps and kind of some more of those concerns that staff has. So, as Suzanne kind of brought up right there, um staff has concerns both with, you know, not only housing and policy, but also the DPW staff, the impact that this ordinance development would have. Um, a significant concern would be uh, you know, not just retirements and transitions, uh, but you know, like policy will be down to three planners full-time after next week for some time until we can make a backfill there. So staffing considerations are a big concern for us moving forward. Um and then looking at some of these elaborating on some of these projects that we have. Uh we're looking at kicking off uh next month project one for streamline Santa Cruz the comprehensive code amendments. That's going to be a big heavy lift on staff policy staff housing staff. Uh we have uh an obligation we can't get out of that's the sea level rise vulnerability assessment that we're doing that's sponsored by the coastal commission. And then we have the nexus study and some housing code amendments and about 12 to 15 ongoing programs that we have to do. Um I'm thinking like our growth goal, our general plan annual report that has to go to the state. So, you know, with um I I remember that Supervisor Koig said when we were going through the budgets um you know, having to do a lot more with a lot less. Um this would be an example of that and quite a strain um taking these on. But the key here that I want the board to understand is that it's just going to mean more time. So, looking at the timeline and the next steps, uh outreach is going to be critical for the reasons that Suzanne just outlined. figuring out what the community really wants. Uh what kind of traction is this going to gain? Uh you know, how can this community kind of absorb some of the things that are, you know, foreseen in in the ordinance, uh considering state law and our local considerations. We'd want to really take the rest of 2026 and draft some uh some ordinance amendments and and then start that community outreach. Sometimes you go back and forth. You maybe start with outreach here. For this particular one, I think what we want to do is we have some nice models in our community, surrounding communities that have done this. Um really for the 1033 units, the condomization, uh not so much for the bonus units, but something that we can put together and then start some outreach and kind of figure out what the community and involve uh the board obviously with that. Uh, I see that taking the rest of 2026 and into 2027 and then we begin that approval process of the planning commission recommendation. Uh, and then getting to the board. That's probably a late 2027 effort and that's going to probably leak into 2028. Um, you know, then I don't think the SQA would be a significant concern, but that's also something we have to consider in here. And then there's always that possibility that we have something that comes up that might be a reset and have to start all over again, go back to the hack and then plan commission recommendation to the board. So just want the board to be fully aware of that aspect of the concern and that this would just take a lot more time. >> Thank you Mark. And I I forgot a couple of things I just wanted to mention as well, which was um among all our other ongoing regular duties in our section, we um review pending legislation um pertaining to housing and land use. And one of the uh or several of the bills we just came across in the last few days um have some ability to maybe create some overlap or confusion with these two policy programs. So, one of those is there's a pending bill. We don't know if it's going to get all the way to the governor's desk and signed, but it it's pretty far along in the process right now, which would further revise ADU law to allow uh single family properties to put two detached ADUs on a property instead of currently it's one detached ADU, one junior ADU, and then the possibility of also a conversion andor attached ADU something along those lines. Um so I think it would be important to see where that bill lands before we land on a final program with respect to the bonus program at least. Um there's another bill pending um that if passed would require communities, cities and counties to process town home project proposals and maps. So, condo town home maps on a ministerial basis. If that goes through, that's going to be another workload impact again for our mapping team, I believe, as well as for our um policy team. And then there's another bill that would put put further limits and also grant, if I understand correctly, more appeal rights to applicants dealing with post entitlement permits. What that means is building permits, grading permits, demo permits, all the other types of ministerial permits that people need um to start construction on a pro project after they get their planning approvals. So, I just wanted to throw those are just three. That's not an exhaustive list, but it's kind of like we're operating from a policy perspective a little bit in this sort of quicksand environment where the ground is always changing under our feet in terms of what's the state law foundation that we're working from. So that's just something to keep in mind. Um uh and um what was the second thing? Uh just to mention in terms of this slide that's in front of you that um to roll out these programs to really dial in on some of the more housing policy related details of the program such as the things like what kind of deed restrictions would they be and that sort of thing. You may want to also bring it back to the housing advisory commission after the initial public outreach. So, with that, our staff recommendations are here. And of course, we'd also like to o open it up for public comment when you're ready. >> Thank you. I'm going to start off by seeing if there are any questions from the board. Supervisor Koig, thank you. Uh, thanks for all the work that has gone into this so far. Um just wanted to provide a little context uh as to um particularly the the AB 1033 piece of this the condomization. I mean I hear uh the concern that this could take rental units off the market but um at least what from what I've seen we have no shortage of rental units coming online in this county. I mean, a lot of them are affordable. Um, not market rate as we've discussed at length, but where there's really a shortfall is in home ownership opportunities. I mean, I think this board has approved a couple projects. Uh, well, actually, we've I think we've entitled three and maybe four within the next within the next month or so. Um, one is not moving forward right now. the one on Madison, the Masiel one is the SoCal Avenue one appears to be as well, but still just there's a lot less than I would say rental opportunities. And so um I I think that actually uh creating a program that allows ADUs to be sold um via condo projects uh or or condoization of ADUs is probably um the greater shortfall, right? those ownership opportunities. And so, um, especially given, I think, comments I've heard from this board that we need to provide more of those first-time home ownership opportunities, that the program does meet the greatest need. Um, now, I know that when you look at San Jose, I think San Francisco adopted an ordinance like this as well, that there hasn't been a ton of uptake yet by people actually building those. Um but when you look at Seattle where they have a more mature market and um you know developed program I mean as many as 57 58% of the ADUs permitted uh in 22 and 23 were associated with condominium developments. So I mean hundreds of of new units coming online um for sale that are ADUs. Um so the potential is there um and I think that it's especially because this is I mean, I understand there's implications with our mapping team in public works, but still relatively straightforward ordinance. I mean, it's a one-page ordinance that um at least on the 13 uh 10 side, the zoning side um that city of San Jose implemented, the one that I saw one maybe one and a half pages. Um so, I think that we could move forward with that like relatively quickly. Um, I think it's worth also starting the discussion on multiple ADUs and maybe that bears some um, you know, maybe we don't rush into it because I do I mean I appreciate that the state is constantly changing things and that is frustrating. I I think even when uh this board directed the the housing advisory commission to look at this, it was still, you know, one ADU per property and now we're up to three or four. I mean, I'm not even sure myself which it is. Um, so you know, I agree and respect that maybe we don't need to rush into implementing that particular piece of it, but I think it we should continue the conversation. Um, so those are my comments. Um, no particular questions at this time. Thanks, >> Supervisor Cummings. >> Yeah, one quick question. Um, well, maybe the answer's not quick, but I'm just curious, um, since we've, you know, updated our policies to align with SB9 and SB10, what's been, have we seen any utilization of, um, those two state laws here in Santa Cruz County? >> Um, I could speak to SB10. Mark, do you want to answer the SP9? >> And maybe just also if you could briefly just describe those two programs so that members of the public know what we're talking about here. Thank you. Yeah. So, the SP9 to answer the question first. The the it's kind of been down a little bit. Our permit data has shown that we've been down a little bit on SP9 applications. We went through a very robust effort last year. Uh and then an amendment to that that had to go through the coastal commission. Uh but it really hasn't taken off with the same um gusto that we saw it take off with in the beginning. So, um, you know, SP9 allows you to either do a twounit, uh, development or a subdivision, a two lot subdivision. Uh, it's a really nice way of getting some to some affordability and it fits nicely in this community. But, uh, it's kind of leveled off lately. >> Yeah. And I I I would just add that I think, you know, in terms of permit activity right now. Um we're in very challenging economic times right now. And so I think, you know, there's a lot of that influence on our activity levels. It's not just a matter of what the codes say or what the law says. Um uh and that's affecting both you know your homeowner occupants the home you know who might want to do something like this as well as your larger development companies that are trying to you know pencil out their 100 unit town home project like everybody's being affected by the high interest rates the tariffs all kinds of other stuff so I think we have to remember that you know um SB10 was another law that um was passed oh gosh maybe four or five years ago that allowed um communities to upzone infill lots that were at the time of the upzoning uh designated as single family zoning. And they had to meet certain size and density parameters set out by the state. And um the law provided that any local ordinance that um implemented that law, the ordinance itself would be exempt from SQA. So you wouldn't have to do some environmental review just by basically upzoning some infill sites. So we took advantage of that law in context of the housing element update and the sustainability update. So we looked we sort of scoured all of our infill neighborhoods within the urban services line and identified a number of properties that met the criteria of that law. I believe like some of the easier ones to understand are that the size of the lot had to be roughly between like 4 ten of an acre and an acre. You couldn't go much bigger or smaller and and meet the standards of the law. So if you look at our sites inventory and specifically the subset of parcels that we reszoned to meet the housing element requirements, I believe about half of those parcels that were reszoned were reszoned pursuant to that SB10 law. And basically what it creates is a sort of medium density option for folks and you might have parcels that are sort of sprinkled in in a sort of checkerboard fashion amongst other existing mostly single family properties. Um but where folks with these parcels have a variety of options from a design perspective. They would all fall in the category of what we would call missing middle. So not super low density, not super high density, but maybe things like a small dwelling group of up to eight or 10 units. They could be attached, detached, some combination of the two. You could do a primary unit with a number of ADUs. So it's like the physical design of a project like that is very similar to what the San Diego bonus program was resulting in um in that 5 to 10 unit range on an otherwise something that appears to be like a single family lot. So that so that's um uh the SB10. We have had a couple of property owners come in with various pre-development or preliminary applications to pursue projects under that construct. I don't think any of them have gotten to the point of um breaking ground or even filing a building permit left, but uh yet, but um again, it's challenging economic environment. So, you know, this is always a good time to do your analysis and your design and then wait for the right economic moment to actually file your building permits and start construction. >> Great. Thank you. I have comments, but I'll save them till after public comment. >> Thank you. Further questions? Um, so let me just make sure I'm understanding correctly. on the affordable ADU program, the bonus program, it allow up to six additional dwellings if one was deeed restricted affordable and one bonus dwelling. Right. Yeah. So, the details will vary a little bit from property to property depending on how many of those state allowed three andor four types of ADUs they could achieve on their parcel. There may be some parcels where they could only achieve maybe two. So maybe they need two bonus units and two affordable to get to the six. >> For somebody who has the space, what's the number they could build? Now >> uh under ADU law, >> again, it gets really complicated because it's not like just a blanket you could do up to three or four ADUs. It's like you can get one ADU of this type, one ADU of that type, one not every home, like for example, one of the types is something called a conversion ADU. That means you're converting existing space in an existing building to an ADU. So if you're someone starting with a vacant property, that's not a type of ADU that you would be eligible for for because you have no existing buildings on that property. So, for that applicant, let's say, they wouldn't necessarily get to max out all the um allowed units under state law, >> right? >> They'd be one short. So, maybe they'd need an additional affordable unit to get up to the six. >> So, where did you get to the it was like a 50% affordability number? >> Well, just the San Diego program itself, even before they dialed it back, it was a one for one requirement. So for every one affordable ADU somebody agreed to build, you could get one bonus ADU. >> So one for one total of two, one of which is affordable, that's 50% affordable, right? >> Gotcha. Gotcha. And I mean, I'll be honest, I'm I'm not sure I've seen a lot of spaces that have multiple ADUs on their property. Is there a lot of desire in our community type of development? >> It depends. Um, I I would say the the folks I I've had conversations with, again, our books have allowed this thing called dwelling groups for decades. Uh, some people may not be familiar with that section of our code, but we have allowed um, if you want to think about it as a a multif family property, but the units are these little detached cottages instead of being apartment complexes. This in the old days like in the 20s, 30s, 40s, this was a common development type throughout suburban California. They called them cottage courts. We have some examples like this in like SoCal Village. There's some out in the rural areas as well. So, um there is interest in that type of development because often it can be cheaper to build a detached singlestory than a little apartment building with maybe two floors and 10 units or whatever, right? just the building codes for multif family structures are a little more complicated and it gets more expensive to build the more units you have kind of combined especially if you're doing a smallcale project right um and so a lot of the you know more small-time contractors have a preference for doing you know multiple detached units as opposed to attached product which gets more expensive to build. Um, one of the challenges that we see people who maybe maybe they have a larger property in a rural area that they'd like to pursue, whether it's under our dwelling group codes or whatever code, the thing that we see people really run into that is really constraint is the septic the expense. It's not that there's not a legal path forward. It's the expense is cost prohibitive. We are getting a lot of information from our um Hello Housing which is the program administrator for our existing ADU incentives program. Uh they've been working with uh about 300 different applicants, families um interacting with that program over the past three years and about half are in the rural areas and we don't I don't think there's an example of a single one that's been able to get through that. Um maybe not every single one is because solely the septic. It may be all of the costs associated with building that unit are preventing some of them, but the septic issue has been the big constraint for the bulk of the people in the rural areas. And that could equally be a constraint with this bonus program if it was made available in the rural areas. >> Right. Right. >> And I'll just add too that you know something that isn't very visible when you see these properties to your point of seeing many on sites but to speak to the financial economic piece of it too is JD use. So those are attached units to homes that you wouldn't necessarily see at you know just glance but uh you know our building permit metrics last year showed that that was a lot of those JDUs because they're cheaper to build um but you wouldn't necessarily see those in in the built environment. >> Gotcha. Good. Good. Good. And so, you know, I I'm thinking about this in the context of my district, which is mostly rural. Um, most of my residents have septic systems. And, um, you know, we would love to see ways of increasing reasonable housing stock in our area. Um, but those barriers continue to exist. Um, you know, when I look at these two programs, you know, we could talk about the kind of cost effectiveness of of getting involved in them and, you know, adding this tool to the toolkit, you know, might might be appropriate or not, but can do you see that if it can you imagine that it would help the housing challenges that we have in the um rural parts of the county, either of these programs? >> Well, I mean, maybe marginally so. I mean, if someone maybe right now they have the option of pursuing a dwelling group, but that might be, you know, maybe a level five discretionary permit, which has a little bit more cost and risk potentially versus if this program was set up, and of course it would be the board's decision, do you want to make it a ministerial option or a discretionary option? That's a whole another conversation that would occur as the policy is developed, right? But if it were rolled out as a ministerial option, there would be some marginal um reduced cost at the planning application stage. But in terms of the building permits and the construction cost to build it out and particularly whatever the infrastructure is required, whether it's water, septic, fire, driveways, what have you, it's all the same whether you call those units ADUs or cottages or anything else. construction cost kind of is what it is, right? So, I don't know that it's going to make a huge difference, >> right, >> in how many people can actually afford to build these. And the other thing we've learned from our um program administrator in the incentives program is, you know, the minimal cost they're seeing to build a very modest uh detached ADU is like half a million dollars. That's not including the septic system which may be another 100 to 200k depending on what their existing system looks like on their property. >> And speaking to the bonus side of it too, if you talk about adding two three ADUs to the load of a septic system and that additional drain on that well, that's a big barrier to entry right there. >> Right. Yep. And I think, you know, at least I don't want to move in a direction that creates barriers or limits the ability of people to develop ADUs or affordable housing. Um, you know, I think the the question before us is are these paths um going to be effective or have the um the biggest bang for its buck basically as it relates to the um time it takes to implement a program like this versus the number of units or units sold or units developed um that helps our uh affordable housing challenges because I think ultimately that's what we want to do is is address our housing shortages. Uh, Supervisor Durba. >> Um, so I represent District 2 and and I've learned in the last 18 months certain things that I'd like to just share with everybody here. So, even when you try to put an ADU um or maybe you had sort of um an artist studio or something in your backyard and you try to fix it and just make it a little ADU, the connection to SoCal Water is like $35,000 minimum. And I what I I what is our sanitation connection for an ADU? like the the toilet. I don't know what the cost is there, but I know there there are costs associated with that as well and I don't know if those go Thanks Matt for coming up >> real quick. Um good afternoon, Matt Mashado, CDI director. So for ADUs for sanitation, they're uh monthly rate goes up. It goes up pretty significantly. Actually, it's like a 1.5 or goes up significantly, but uh the connection charge isn't isn't the problem. It's the It's the regular utility bill that goes up so much is what um what we've heard. >> And in the rural area, if you have a regular water tank and you add an ADU, my guess is that you'd have to then double the size of your water tank as well. >> Certainly, you'd have to upsize it. That's correct. >> Yeah. Um, and is it possible to put in the deed restriction that that neighbors will have to get along? Because I I cannot tell you how many neighbor disputes, right, my office hears about and wants us to help settle in some way. And I just I just think about if we are selling ADUs and and there's shared driveways and Yeah. It gets complicated. >> Yeah. Yeah. We actually had that on a slide when we brought this one to the hack, the um for sale option that you know whereas if you have a home in an ADU and you're renting out that home, worst case if that relationship goes southward, you know, at some point you could terminate your lease, right? Or tell your child if you know a lot of times these are rented to family members. Tell your child it's time for them to look for housing elsewhere, right? But if you've sold the property, you're out of luck. there's no um no way to address it other than you selling your house and moving somewhere else at that point. >> Thank you. Um I think it's time to hear from the public on this. So if you're here to speak on this item, please go ahead and form a line or raise your hand if you're online. Okay. So, as we know, ADUs now make up the vast majority of new units sold or excuse me, created in this county. So, any sort of uh idea that this is an administrative burden to us, this is our number one source of of of new units. So, those of us here in the commission, we looked across the country. We looked, okay, what are some of the housing options that are actually working and what can we do to bring them in here to help? And so, these proposals will help every single district here. Justin, I've heard your rightful critique that a lot of the new housing built isn't affordable. Communities across the state and country have already adopted these policies. San Jose and Santa Cruz already have it in a ADU sold as a condo in for an astounding $1.5 million less than the average price. Felipe in our rural areas, they're ripping out apple trees everywhere. We I can't believe we've created an environment where growing apples is no longer financially viable in this community. We specifically addressed that in this ordinance by allowing this in our rural communities. We need this. Monica, the disasters, the people that build ADUs are the same type of local mom and pop builders that are going to repair our homes during disaster. It's unfair for us to ask that industry to stay here and only be here when we need them in a disaster. If we don't support them with new housing throughout the way, they're not going to be there for us. Kim, I've talked about Paharo Unified District is going to lose 1500 students in the next four years. That's an entire high school's worth of students and staff that are going away. This will help address that. Nicole, oh, can't forget about you, too. Okay. This is going to create a sizable amount of revenue. I don't know any other housing around here that we can build without subsidies coming in that can actually lower the cost of our housing and at the same time allow us to build it. This is a win for everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Becky Stein Bruner. I keep thinking about a friend of mine who lives out on Valencia School Road and he was very worried about his neighbor with a project. He was going to put in 11 units on his parcel and could do so, especially if he subdivided the property. He was worried about the water. He was worried about the traffic and he was worried about whether these would be compliant with sprinklers for fire protection. Would there be enough water for fire protection? So this is an issue for everything in the rural areas but especially if these uh small units become a lot of them in a small space. I think I think it is a way to address the housing needs hopefully the affordable housing needs but I think we've got to do it in a way that the public who would be affected by it is not shut out. And I think we have to do it in a way that um it would not become vacation rentals and that the minimum health and safety impacts are are addressed. Um what I want to know is if these for sale ADUs could qu help qualify for the measure J. I know that Mr. Heath disagreed. I disagree with you, but uh 15% of our of our building subdivisions need to be of deed affordable um for sale under measure J. So, how does this work with that? Um I'm curious in closing, um the hack, I've gone to many of those meetings and they're very good discussions. Um the hack voted four to three to recommend that you direct CDI to change the county code. That's a rather interesting vote and I would like to know a little more about what their concerns were. Thank you. >> Is there anyone online? >> Yes, Chair >> Rafa, your microphone is now available. >> Good afternoon, supervisor. This is Rafa Sandenfeld calling in on behalf of Santa Cruz. Uh we sent in a letter yesterday um in support of the hack recommendations for both programs. We're really excited to see uh more opportunities for more housing types in the county and we uh encourage the the supervisors to move forward with uh uh allowing the um planning staff and uh to start the public engagement process and to work work up uh proposals for for both programs. uh for the uh the uh for sale program that as has been mentioned before will help spur home ownership production. Um and it's not just about converting existing uh ADUs into forale homes. It also helps uh with the construction of new ADUs because there's more less risk that banks have to take when uh a an ADU can be can be sold separately. It can be traditionally financed through Fanny May and and uh Freddy Beck type traditional mortgages and banks like that. Um, as far as the uh bon bonus program, uh, we also support that program both inside and outside of the urban services line. There's certainly questions about how exactly that should be implemented and we look forward to participating in those discussions as details get fleshed out. Thank you very much, >> Taylor. Your microphone is now available. >> Hi, Taylor Cohan again. Um, may have got ahead of myself in the last one a little bit about the sale of ADUs. Uh, but I am not just a local here. Who is >> the recording has stopped? >> Can you hear me? >> Uh, yes, we can. >> I'm not just a local here in the generation um, you know, that is affected by the housing for sale crisis. um and being able to afford a home in in the place where I grew up. But I work in real estate as a realtor and as a property manager and I've seen you know directly that you know shortage of inventory is a seems we might be having some technical difficulties. It's possible unclear. So sir, if you are still speaking, we lost audio. So um if we can get it back, we'll restart the timer so you can begin your comments again. But please hold. >> We should make sure that it's not a a larger problem before we continue the meeting. He said it's good. >> We got a thumbs up from the folks in the room that it's okay. >> I'm just confirming with our IT team that on the other end that we're still correct. You have an update for Yes, we're just attempting to restore our connection for our recording purposes. >> Gotcha. >> The the meeting has not gone down though. We are just temporarily not recording. If we could just take one moment, I believe we'll have it restored. >> Great. Recording in progress. If somebody on Zoom could please confirm that you can still hear us. Thank you. We have confirmation that they can hear us and that the recording has resumed. >> Thank you. So, we'll continue with public comment and I wonder if we can invite the gentleman to begin his two minutes. I don't see the speaker online anymore. I believe he may have disconnected from the call. >> Okay. Um, Mr. Heath, do you have any concerns about that? If he's been disconnected, >> he's he is reconnected. >> Okay, Taylor, you should be able to uh re begin your comments. >> All right. Thank you. Um, yeah. So, as I was saying, um, you know, I think I agree with Supervisor, uh, Koig, if I hope I'm saying that right, and and Mondo Morlos and, you know, those who are talking about, uh, you know, how we we have been rightly addressing the rental housing issue and developing uh, you know, buildings and apartments for that. But on the other side, you know, people in my generation do want to uh be able to have affordable options to own housing here and put down roots here, contribute to this community, you know, have families here that can go to the schools and, you know, thrive here. And I do think, you know, allowing more ADU construction is a win-win in that regard. um you know it and it there are valid concerns about you know some of the uh potential for uh irresponsible or intrusive buildings but I think you know there's room for nuance as I said earlier you know if if there is going to be an impact on water for a certain area if there is going to be an impact or if someone does want to build a a high-rise in their backyard I don't think it it takes a lot for us to be able to use our common sense to not approve that. Um what what really is going to happen here I think for the most part is people will be incentivized to build more ADUs and those type of people will be the mom and pop you know family residential homeowners who have um space to do it and means to do it and I do think as a realtor and property manager I think you know I think people would be more incentivized to build them both for renting and selling because you know having that you know when you buy a investment property or you build an investment property um you know knowing that you can, you know, sell it or capitalize on it down the road. Uh, you know, it's another incentive. It doesn't mean you won't rent it for 5, 10, maybe more years. >> Thank you. >> We have no further speakers online. Chair, >> I'll now bring it back to the board for discussion and a motion. I'm going to start with Supervisor Koig and go to Supervisor Cummings. >> Uh, thank you, Chair. I will move the recommended actions with the direction to pursue both ADU programs with priority for implementing an AB 1033 ordinance. >> Second. >> And and I mean I I have ackn uh acknowledging that that motion is still fairly open-ended. I mean I think we heard um as far as the number of units exactly. I mean, I would I would agree that around six is probably a good idea, but as we navigate continued changes from the state um and you know, comparison with our with our dwelling uh groups ordinance that already exists. I mean, we're in hearing feedback from the community. It's it's purposefully left a little bit open-ended to find what exactly the right number is. But I think also we need some feedback uh from the building community that would actually be constructing those units on what makes sense. Um and then the you know the 10 we also heard that there's a desire to see um some of our rural parcels utilized for this program as well. So I don't think I didn't want to this time limit it to just uh parcels within the urban services line. As we heard, there might be other constraints like septic that are naturally creating a limitation on those or creating an additional limitation whether that's you see that as natural or unnatural. Um but I I do think we can get the 1033 ordinance done relatively quickly and I think I'd like to see that prioritized. >> So we have a motion from Supervisor Koig, a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Supervisor Cummings. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, first of all, I want to just thank staff of the presentation for all the work that you all have done on this. I want to thank the hack for uh their work and review on this. Um, I just have some serious concerns with this policy and some of the unintended consequences that could come as a result of it. I think we saw from what staff presented today what happened in San Diego as an example of some of the unintended consequences. And um I'm going to align myself with staff on this one that um I think what would probably be best is for us to continue monitoring these other programs, these combo conversion programs in other communities. And also that we continue monitoring our SP9 and SB10 programs, which allows for increased density on smaller lots. Um some of which could be attached ADUs, some of which could be detached ADUs. Um it sounds like based on what staff has said, there are already some laws on the books like the dwelling groups and again SB9 and 10. So, do we really want to take a bunch of staff time up at this point in time to pursue this other option when there's already opportunities that exist for people to expand on their properties? Um, and so, you know, for me, this does not seem like a a priority at this point in time. Um, I also do agree that we need affordable um options for home ownership as somebody who's looking for to try to buy a house. Um, like I'm constantly looking on Zillow and the fact that ADUs in other communities were sold from upwards of $1.3 million. My biggest concern is that it's going to continue to drive the cost of housing up. I mean, if you have small units that are going for 1.3 million and then that that means that single family homes with multiple units are going to actually be driven up even higher. And so if we were going to move in this direction, you know, I think it's really critical that, you know, if we're going to allow those ADUs to be sold that they become part of the measure J program where there's some parameters put around them so that they can actually be affordable. I mean, I think one of the things that the previous speaker just said was that, you know, if we have these for sale, you can capitalize on them down the road. That's the problem that we were having with our housing in this community. So, we have very small homes that normally would have been starters. Um, and now those homes, you know, two-bedroom, onebedroom are now like 1.3 1.5 million dollars for what should have been and was historically a starter home for people who work within our community. And so, um, I don't think that our workforce needs to be restricted to living in rentals. I think we do need to provide more opportunities for home ownership, but I don't necessarily see this as being a solution without some very intentional conversations about how do we maintain affordability with these units in our community. And so, um, I can't support the motion as made. I'm happy to make a substitute motion, but we'll see how the conversation pans out. >> Further discussion? Supervisor Derpa. Supervisor Hernandez. Um, just a quick question. In the San Diego example, who was generally doing those developments? Were they the homeowner kind of mom and pop thing or were they bigger developers? So, >> we did ask the staff in San Jose that question and what they said was to date, as of the time we spoke, um, none of the projects had been, you know, built out by a owner occupant on the property. they were all kind of smaller time investors and development entities because it's a big lift and especially if you think about the requirement in the state law to condoise both units the existing home and the new or the one or more ADUs. Um it's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of legal time from very expensive real estate attorneys that know how to file the white papers with the state department of real estate. Um, it's something that would be pretty daunting, I think, for your average homeowner, but they didn't have any evidence of any, you know, owner occupant, uh, doing a project that involved either the bonus program or the for sale ADUs at the time we spoke. >> And I can add to that, um, one of the the one that made the news uh, in San Jose is in the Cambrian Willow Glenn area where I live. and I went by that property every day and that was a real estate developer uh that bought an old 70s rancher uh demolished it and did a 1033 unit out of it and sold it. um both Maine and the ADU. >> And um going back to your point about the rapid nature by which state law is changing, would you advise on a preferred timing to bring this consideration back? Well, the end of the legislative session is in the fall. So, I believe it's October 15th is the deadline for the governor to decide to sign or veto. So, um you know, November, let's say, we'll know what will have made it through this session. Of course, that doesn't say anything about the next session, >> right? >> Um just in terms of staff workload, I don't think we'd be able to get to it before then anyway. We still have the BMR Nexus study item to work on through at least March as well as the two that Mark mentioned. So, um you know, our our main concern here is about how do we prioritize these among the other things that are already on our assignments list? Because personally, it may be interesting to hear back um you know after this legislative cycle um kind of this program concept in uh the context of the other projects that you're working on. Um and we may consider exploring that program on on that timeline. like I don't personally feel ready to say no to the program, but I also understand that the timing might not be quite yet if uh state the state is helping us get closer to these goals and um and you have other we've asked you to do other priorities like streamline Santa Cruz and other work that will also get us closer to our goals as well. So it's just, you know, it's for me it's it's about weighing the various priorities and if um and you know on one hand any new unit is a good unit. I I want to see that. Um I I certainly want to invest staff resources where we'll see the greatest benefit. What are your thoughts, Supervisor Conig? I mean, I I agree that the uh and that's why the I structured the motion the way I did is that the AB1033 ordinance, the condoization stuff is is more near-term and looking at the bonus ADU program more midterm and you know, potentially with coming back after the end of the legislative session and see how the landscape has changed. Um, so yeah, I generally agree with that. I mean, just one thing that also occurred to me while listening to some of the public comment is, I mean, we actually with all the affordable units that are being constructed, I mean, we could actually see, I think, significant impact on our rental market and potentially even some over supply and significant reductions in rent. And so, really providing, you know, some visibility to the um the condomization of ADUs may be what keeps ADUs being built into the future. I mean, if people are not able to get a good rental return because there's so many apartments available, they actually might need to see I mean, I know that's a sort of sounds like a fantasy land right now, but I mean, you guys 700 units just in one small stretch of SoCal, you know, hundreds of units coming online in downtown Santa Cruz already seeing rents on the west side decrease for I mean, it is possible, right? And so, I just think we should keep moving forward on the the condoization in the short term. It's pretty relatively straightforward and we can look at the bonus ads in the future. >> Gotcha. We Well, we have a motion and a sec a motion from Supervisor Koig, a second from Supervisor Hernandez. Would you like to speak to it, Supervisor Cummings? >> Yeah, I'm going to make a substitute motion. Move to accept and file the report and direct staff to monitor the usage of the condominiums conversion ordinance in other communities, continue to monitor the usage of SB9 and SB10 here locally and in other communities, and return with an update after the end of the legislative cycle. um regarding the um the changes to state law on this topic and essentially at that time we could revisit how we move forward but I think to chair Martinez's point um if we want to see what's going to happen at the state then why make a decision today when we can just wait until after the states after all the state laws have been passed and then at that point in time we can consider whether we want to continue moving forward within the context of the changes of state law. So, that's where I'm coming from with my motion. >> I'll second that motion. And um you know, just again um I'm not ready to say no to moving forward with these programs. So, it certainly is not an indication of that. It's it's about finding the right timing and um and you know maybe um did your motion include kind of a focus on the condo program first? >> Uh >> or both? >> Both. >> Yeah, >> both is fine. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I mean what I'm hearing in your motion is actually that we're not directing staff to work on either program at this time. >> Right. It's to monitor and to return after, you know, the state law has been finalized and so we have a sense of how this is going to um weigh up against the new changes that we're seeing that we're hearing about in state law. And then if we want to move forward at that time, we can vote on it, you know, when when we hear about it at that meeting. But it sounds like there are some changes that are being made that could potentially impact, you know, um how this moves forward rather than making the decision today. we can see what the state law changes are and then we can continue with this discussion at that point in time and given what staff has said about staff resources to work on it on all the different priorities they can continue to work on kind of what we've already directed them to do and that will allow them to get some other things accomplished and at that point in time we can hear about you know how we want to proceed forward and I think that that would actually help alleviate some of the issues that we're hearing from staff today. >> I'd like to ask staff, you know, when you presented the timeline, it was long and this is, you know, in the first place. Um, you know, I think you were suggesting it not even coming to us until like the end of 27, perhaps 28. um the motion before us. Will would you imagine that having a further delaying the roll out or were you were you pushing it out because right in the here and now you have t um projects that you're working on and you knew that you'd have the capacity maybe next spring to work on this either way because this motion might work with your timeline if that was the case. Yeah, I'll speak for policy first and Suzanne can chime in on on the housing side. I think it's both. Um the staffing challenges are immediate right now in policy and uh waiting until that legislative update in the calendar uh becomes more clear uh really allows us to actually hit the ground running with something that we know instead of kind of Suzanne had a good analogy of running in the quicksand. um to you know then take something to the public for a public outreach that's going to be quick and definitive and a little bit you know written in in a better more comprehensive understandable manner. So I think that would help. >> Okay. Thanks. Further discussion. >> Yeah. >> Start with supervisor Serpa. >> Sorry. Quick question. Um would it make sense too to bring bring this matter back in front of the um housing advisory commission? I think >> because there were there were sounds like there were four members missing uh potentially on on one of the days that this was being discussed. >> Yes. So I I think my suggestion in the presentation was if the board directs us to move forward with either of these programs, but particularly the bonus program where it contemplates some sort of deed restrictions. That's the kind of housing policy that I think the housing advisory commission is better equipped to weigh in on than the planning commission. So if if we do get to a point at whatever point in time that you direct us to move forward with community engagement on a proposal like that, I would suggest that that part of it at least be brought back to the to the hack. For the for sale part, um maybe it's less gerine, although they did have some differing opinions about whether or not there should be any kind of owner occupancy requirements associated with the condoized units. Um maybe the planning commission could handle that much housing policy without bringing that back to the hack. But that's just I mean the hack meets generally every other month. So at any given time if we need to bring something to them on this either of these programs we could accommodate that. Thank you. >> Supervisor Conig. >> Yeah sure. I mean I I don't love the motion on the floor. we're not going to support it just because that basically says doesn't doesn't say explicitly no, but also doesn't say yes. I feel like state law is not going to change as far as the conduitization piece of this and that we should keep moving forward with that. Um and you know as far as the uh as the bonus ADU um ordinance that you know ultimately yes keeping that conversation open I mean and moving towards getting something done next year um is is better rather than just taking our foot off the gas completely. >> Did your motion say when we would return? I'd say honorable before the second meeting in November. >> Got it. Supervisor Hernandez, >> you know, I think there's a few meetings back when I kept mentioning that we we're in this housing crisis and we need to figure out how to get ourselves out of it. You know, I think this is a solution. It's one solution, but there could be many solutions. Um, and but we need to take that first step. And I think that this is a good step at one of the possible solutions to get ourselves out of this housing crisis. You know, if if the state changes direction, we could pivot at that point, but we do got to take that keep that forward momentum and that first step. Um, you know, I the timeline is long to begin with. I don't see why we want to make it longer. Let's go ahead and take that first step is is is what I'm saying. Right. We have a motion from Supervisor Cummings, a second from Supervisor Martinez. Madame Clerk, will you please call the role? >> Yes. Sorry. And for clarity of the record, this is a roll call vote for the substitute motion coming from Supervisor Cummings, seconded by Supervisor Martinez. Supervisor Koig, >> no. >> Dura, >> I. >> Cummings, >> I. Hernandez, >> no. >> And Martinez I. Motion passes three to two. >> Thank you. We'll now move on to item number 12, which is to consider staff recommendations relating to board supervisors compensation and take related actions. Good afternoon. Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair Martinez and members of the board. On August 11th, your staff you you asked us to return with a salary recommendation and materials to consider board compensation. Included included in this packet today are the traditional materials that we use to consider salary recommendations for our workforce. There is a compar 8 county comparable market data chart that indicates that your board compensation is -12% below market. There is a consumer price index data point that shows that the consumer price index currently is 3.8%. 8%. And we have some internal alignment information that indicates all of our labor groups that have completed contracts in this cycle received cost of living increases over three years at four, four, and three and a half%. And there is some discussion about the linkage that you have currently towards judicial salaries and salary. Our recommendation at this time is that you consider eliminating that and have a discussion about that. And then in the packet, we've also laid out some options for you today as you discuss salary recommendations for yourselves. We've indicated that you could take no salary adjustment or you could take cost of living adjustments only or you could take cost of living adjustments and equity adjustments or you could come up with some other alternative approach that you might um discuss here today. And with that, I will end my comments and answer any questions you have and look forward to your uh direction on how you want to handle the jud the current tie you have and the options before you. >> Thank you. For this item, I'm going to start by going to the public and then I'm going to return to the board for an action and discussion. Thank you, Becky Steinburner. I um left a voicemail for former supervisor Greg Kappet. I hope he'll be one of the online callers. I want to urge you to keep the link with the judicial salaries. I did some research about it and it was done um back in 1970 with the California Constitutional Amendment under Prop 12 that allowed county government to um set your own pay by a local ordinance. And the county of Humboldt was the first to take off and and link it to the judicial salaries because to them it showed that um there was clear professional equivalence um and regulatory, budgetary and civil oversight was linked to not themselves but to a state entity. The superior court is considered a state level professional. State level metrics. Other counties do this as well. Los Angeles links theirs to the judicial salaries at 100% of the judicial level. Alama County 80%. Merin County 60%. So while this county has linked it to 62% of the judicial uh salary, you can change that. And I urge you to continue this linkage because it provides for the public um it removes the political conflict issue um with the public. It shows that you are not voting on your own salary and and I think that means a lot to people. And so I I urge you not to break that link and to instead consider um adjusting a higher percentage of the judicial salary. As your human services said, often these salaries are amended in the fall and you could get a percentage of that if it goes up. Thank you, >> Madam Clerk. Is there anyone on the phone? >> I see no speakers online. Chair, >> thank you. I'll now return to the board. Supervisor Cummings. Thank you, chair. Um, you know, essentially I brought this item forward, um, because of the process, um, you know, the process that was brought forward back, it sounds like back in 1970, I don't think it really reflects our reality of what we're facing today. The fact that we live in one of the most expensive, we live in the most expensive rental market in the United States. Um, and there are many other factors uh that impact our cost of living here in Santa Cruz. Um, my intent was to see if we could have a different process that would allow for our salaries to be reflective of the reality that we face living here in this community. Um, I understand that the timing may not have been great uh with bringing this forward. And I think to reflect on some of what I've been hearing um and the fact that we're going to have a new board member coming in, my recommendation and actually my motion is going to be that we continue this item to the second meeting in January so that the new board can have an opportunity to weigh in on this um in the new year. And as a result, what that would mean is that we would continue to stay aligned with the judges at 62% right now. So, we'd be making no changes and in January we could have a discussion with the full new board intact. And so, as we've heard in our previous conversation, when the the uh final um when the legislative session has ended, we'll likely know whether or not the the judges got any increase. If they did, then that's going to come to the board. We will have to still vote on that. It's not just an automatic increase. We it will still come back to the board. Um but based on kind of what we've been hearing and based on some of the sentiments that have been expressed on this board at the previous meeting, uh that's going to be my motion, which would be that we continue with the current process and that we um continue this discussion to the second meeting in January. >> We have a motion. Is there a second? >> Yeah. Does that So that needs a second. It's a completely different motion. So it needs a second, right? >> It needs a second. >> Okay. Second. >> We have a motion from Supervisor Cummings and a second from Supervisor Hernandez. further discussion. >> Yeah, >> you know, I think uh Supervisor Cummings hit the hammer right on the nail with uh saying it's not the right timing. Uh hopefully we'll have further discussions and there'll be um you know change in in our sort of our state and federal economy or state and federal relationship I guess. Um and it does give the opportunity for the new person to vote on this matter as well. So >> further discussion I mean I I I think we should just maintain the link with the superior court judges salaries. I think that's the the easiest the cleanest. It's it's what uh there was historic reasons for doing that which is basically just how uh political in nature this discussion is every time it comes up. And so I mean I appreciate the idea of postponing it to January, but um you know even that I I just don't think it's it's necessary that we bring this up again in January. >> Supervisor Deserpa. >> Um well, thank you for tableabling this topic until January. Um I do agree with um Supervisor Ko. However, um we ran for office because we wanted to serve the public. This is not a money-making situation and our salary is adequate. Um we all work very hard and while I understand um that it does potentially it doesn't seem fair that the rest of the county um get colas and um merit raises and step increases, etc. Um, that's not what this is about. This is about serving the public. So, um, so I'm glad that I don't have to vote no on something today around this because, um, we're in a budget crisis. We are going out for a half cent sales tax. We are trying to make a case with the public about why that is so important. and sitting up here and voting ourselves a raise um is just it's not a good look. It's not good optics. It's not a good thing to do. So, thank you for um postponing this, I guess. And um I can support uh bringing it back. I don't know how I would vote when you bring it back, but um but thank you. >> Thank you. I I first of all, I appreciate the report from HR. you did exactly what we asked. Um, we are seeking further information. This is helpful information. Um, and I also appreciate Supervisor Cummings um, uh, willingness to really allow us to have this conversation with more information. U, we'll have more information from a fiscal perspective. We'll have more information with a new board member on. We will um, be able to have this conversation hopefully in the context and timeline of a future fiscal year budget. Um and so I support um pushing this to January and um we'll be voting in support of this motion. >> There any further discussion? >> Yeah. >> Just last I do just want to thank staff for pulling this information together in such a short time frame and I really appreciate um the analyses that were conducted that really show kind of where we're at in comparison to other jurisdictions. So just want to express my appreciation. >> Madam clerk, will you please call the role? >> Supervisor Durpa >> I. >> Koenig >> no. >> Hernandez >> I. >> Cummings >> I. >> And Martinez >> I. Motion passes 4 to1. >> And that was our final item. Um, however, before we adjourn today, I would like to do so in memory of Dolly Parton, who um was announced that she passed away this morning. Um, Dolly Parton was far more than a beloved mi musician and cultural icon. She brought joy to generations while using her success to expand opportunity for others, especially children. Her imagination library has been has placed books directly into the hands of millions of young children, including children right here in Santa Cruz County through our local first five program. She showed that extraordinary talent could be paired with generosity, humility, humor, and an unwavering sense of self. May we all live a little more like Dolly, leading with generosity and acceptance of all people, staying true to ourselves and never being afraid to add a few rhinestones along the way. Our hearts are with her family, her loved ones, and the countless people who touched who were touched by her life. Today's meeting is adjourned in memory of Dolly Parton. The next meeting will be our regular meeting on September 15th at 9:00 a.m. Recording stopped.