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Santa Cruz County
CA
Agenda Item
DOC-2024-397
Approved
May 14, 2024 9:00 AM
Information
| Department: | Human Services Department: Housing for Health Division | Sponsors: | Human Services Director Randy Morris |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category: | HSD - Contract Letter - All Div |
Links
ReferenceDOC-2023-496 : Approve amendment to agreement with Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, increasing the total amount by $800,000 for a new not-to-exceed amount of $1,910,400, to provide flexible rehousing and prevention assistance fund management, and take related actions, as recommended by the Director of Human Services
Attachments
Board Letter
Recommended Actions
1) Approve an amendment to agreement with Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Inc. (CAB), Contract No. 24W4116, increasing the amount by $300,000, for a new total of $2,199,780, for flexible rehousing and prevention assistance fund management;
2) Authorize the Director of Human Services to execute the amendment;
3) Adopt a resolution accepting unanticipated revenue in the amount of $397,206 from the California Interagency Council on Homelessness Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention, Round 3 (HHAP-3) grant, as detailed in the attached AUD60; and
4) Authorize a transfer to the Human Services Department (HSD) budget from the Health Services Agency’s (HSA) allocation from the California Department of Health Services Behavioral Health Bridge Housing (BHBH) grant in the amount of $100,000, as detailed in the two (2) attached AUD74s.
Executive Summary
The Human Services Department (HSD) recommends the Board approve a contract amendment with CAB in the amount of $300,000, adopt a resolution accepting unanticipated revenue in the amount of $397,206 from the HHAP-3 grant award, and authorize a transfer of $100,000 of Health Services Agency’s allocation from the BHBH grant, to provide for additional flexible rehousing and prevention assistance funding and to ensure appropriate utilization of HHAP-3 funding.
Discussion
The HSD Housing for Health Division (H4H) in partnership with CAB has administered the Housing Assistance Fund (HAF) program since 2022, to provide a flexible source of funding to help Santa Cruz County eligible participants and their families obtain and maintain long-term stable housing. As part of HSD’s approved Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 budget, the contract with CAB for rehousing and prevention payment assistance was reduced to align with available funding. The contract with CAB creates a centralized flexible pool of funding to provide one-time housing related financial assistance to help households resolve housing stability issues. CAB has extensive experience managing flexible funding programs to address housing-related needs on behalf of the County and is projected to exhaust the previously approved funds prior to the end of the current contract term based on current expenditure trends.
The HHAP-3 County and Continuum of Care (known locally as the Housing for Health Partnership or H4HP) total grant award is just over $6.27M. Funds from this award must be contractually obligated by May 31, 2024, and fully expended by June 30, 2026. Bringing $397,206 of HHAP-3 revenue into the FY 23-24 HSD H4H budget will ensure an additional portion of the grant obligation deadline is met.
In September 2023 and again on February 27, 2024, HSA accepted revenue from the BHBH grant, and referenced the collaboration with HSD and H4HP. The proposed amendment to the CAB agreement is part of this effort and requires a transfer of $100,000 from HSA's BHBH allocation to HSD’s budget via the two (2) attached AUD74s.
Augmentation of the CAB HAF contract with $200,000 of available funding from the HHAP-3 grant award and $100,000 in BHBH funding will allow CAB to continue to help local households avoid eviction, obtain, or maintain housing. Additionally, the funding will enhance financial housing assistance specifically tailored for individuals coping with severe mental health conditions. The performance of CAB’s Housing Assistance Fund agreement will continue to be measured by the timeliness of payment assistance services disbursem*nt, amount and type of assistance per participant metrics, and post assistance surveys with all participants, with data collection on the number of individuals that move from homelessness into housing or that maintain housing through homelessness prevention assistance.
The remaining proposed $197,206 HHAP-3 funding not being applied to the CAB HAF agreement will be utilized to support other sheltering needs or agreements. This will help ensure compliance with the HHAP-3 grant obligation and spending deadlines, and any resulting contract amendments will be brought to the Board at a later date.
Financial Impact
The proposed Board actions do not require any additional General Fund contributions. Approval of the change to CAB’s agreement will require approval of a resolution to accept unanticipated revenue of $397,206 from the HHAP-3 grant award as outlined in the attached AUD60 and authorization to transfer $100,000 from HSA’s BHBH funding as outlined in the two attached AUD74s. A total of $200,000 in HHAP-3 money and $100,000 BHBH funding will be applied to the CAB HAF agreement, and the remaining $197,206 of HHAP-3 funding will be utilized this FY to support other sheltering needs or agreements.
Contract No. 24W4116 Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Amendment One
· Budget Index/GL-JL:
o 391200 - 62381 - WHUNFND - WH014 ($200,000)
o 391200 - 62381 - WHBHBH - WH008 ($100,000)
Housing for Health operational expenses:
· Budget Index/GL-JL: 391200 - 62381 - WHPLHA1 - WHO26 ($197,206)
Body
Strategic Initiatives
2.D (Attainable Housing: Homelessness) - The agreement will assist HSD and partner community-based organizations' focus on proven prevention and housing stability strategies to reduce homelessness.
Meeting History
| May 14, 2024 9:00 AMVideo | Board of Supervisors | Regular Meeting | |||||||||||||
| Resolution 139-2024 AUD 60 AUD 74 Amendment One 24W4116 CAB HAF AUD 74
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Transcript
| May 14, 2024 9:00 AM |  | Board of Supervisors | Regular Meeting |
Show prev 60 sec
9:00 AM [silence] but the critics, as usual, did not know how to place it and. . . [silence] all right, we will call the May 14th, 2024 meeting of the santa cruz county board of supervisors to order. I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. - supervisor koenig? - here. - friend? - here. - hernandez? - here. - mcpherson? And cummings? - here. - next item on our agenda, i'd like to see if there's any board member who would like to dedicate today's moment of silence. Seeing none, I think we can dedicate this moment of silence to peace and all the countries that are engaged in war throughout the world these days. [silence] thank you all. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Before we begin, i'd like to follow the pledge of allegiance with a land acknowledgement. The land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the waspa-speaking yupi tribe. The amamutsin tribal band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to mission santa cruz and san juan bautista during spanish colonization of the central coast is today working hard to resolve traditional stewardship practices on these lands and the open historic trauma. Next item on our agenda is consideration of late additions to the agenda, additions and deletions to consent and regular agendas. And so i'd like to ask our cao carlos palacios if there's any additions or deletions to the agenda today. - yes, chair cummings and members of the board on the consent agenda, item number 53, there's additional materials. There's a big summary attached to the homeless persons health project, hvac project. Also, just note that on the cover sheet of today's board meeting, the afternoon session is listed at 1:30. The agenda, however, does list it correctly at one o'clock. So today's afternoon session will start at one o'clock as listed in the agenda. - one more thing, chair, for item 21, approval of the minutes for the March 26, 2024 meeting. The minutes for item 10 are being corrected to reflect the direction to staff to investigate options to reduce the trail size at. Right now it says rail size. - thank you very much. Okay, moving on, i'd like to ask any of the board members if there's any items that they would like to remove from consent to the regular agenda. Seeing none, [clears throat] we'll at this moment open up with oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board on items that are not on the agenda. In addition to that, this is also an opportunity for members of the public to comment on consent or on the regularly scheduled agenda item if you're unable to stay for that item. If you comment on a regularly scheduled item at this time you will not be allowed to comment again when that item is heard before the board. Each member of the community will have two minutes to address us during this time and so i'd like to ask the first member of the public to please approach the podium. Good morning. - good morning, supervisors. My name is Dr. David ghilarducci. I am the santa cruz county ems medical director for the past 10 years. I'm here with emily chung, our director of public health. I wanted to acknowledge today that next week is ems week and it's notable because it's the 50th anniversary of ems in california, which I think is remarkable. As you know, these folks work 24/7, 365, nights, holidays, weekends, everything to respond to our 911 calls for calls for emergency. It's a tough job. It is one that I think deserves our recognition. And so we have a proclamation here that we'd like to submit to the board. I won't read through the entire thing, but i'd like to give some time to emily next. Thank you so much. - good morning, honorable board of supervisors, emily chung, public health division director. I want to just echo what Dr. Ghilarducci said and also thank Dr. Ghilarducci as our emergency medical services director for the last 10 years. Our ems system is a robust entire county serving organization and we are really proud of the work that happens every day, 24-7, through the teams that are out in the field and those who are in the back end like our health services agency staff who help administer these services and programs. Our ems system is made up of many individuals, emts, paramedics, our flight nurses, medical dispatchers, law enforcement officers, and emergency nurses, emergency providers. So we want to thank everybody for all of the hard work you do to keep our community safe and well. And this specialized work is really critical and life-saving for our entire community. So thank you so much for honoring ems week with us. - thank you all for your hard work and service to our community. It's really very much appreciated. And I know from folks we hear in our district, they want more. And so we just hope that we can continue to expand on those services and support you all in your efforts. So thank you. - good morning, i'm al reitz. I'm the copa leader at calvary episcopal church down here in santa cruz. And i'm here to encourage you to fund the eviction defense collaborative with a $250,000. This collaborative works with other agencies and provides the legal defense or renters who are in trouble, as you probably know. Many of them are facing illegal increases in rent and other aspects that are working against their livelihood. And so just wanted to mention research that's out more recently that states that 30% of americans, if faced with a $300 additional cost in their budget are unable to face that $300. And when I encourage you to try to think about an ounce of cure is better than a pound of prevention is better than an ounce of cure. And we're asking you to for that help. Thank you very much. - good morning. - good morning, chair, board, karen kern, deputy director of behavioral health division of our health services agency. And i'm here this morning to thank you all for the proclamation that May 2024 is mental health awareness month. Just take a minute to read this off. Whereas mental health is essential to everyone's overall health and wellbeing, impacting individuals, families, and our entire community. And whereas one in five adults in america experience mental health conditions each year and everyone faces challenges in life that can impact their mental health. And whereas despite its prevalence, mental health remains shrouded in stigma, preventing many from seeking help. And whereas early intervention and access to quality care are essential for managing mental health conditions and improving quality of life. Whereas May is recognized nationally as mental health awareness month, providing an opportunity to raise awareness, combat stigma, and promote mental health resources. And whereas all residents of santa cruz county are encouraged to educate themselves and others about mental health conditions, treatment options, and available resources, challenge stigma by speaking respectfully and inclusively about mental health, seek help if they are struggling with their mental health and encourage others to do the same, support organizations that provide mental health services and advocacy, and create safe and supportive environments for open conversations about mental health. And whereas together, we can create a community where everyone feels empowered to prioritize their mental well-being and seek help when needed. On behalf of our county mental health providers and our community, thank you so much for this proclamation. - and thank you all for your service and your hard work in our community as well. - good morning. - good morning, chair, members of the board. My name is jim dale. I'm the assistant division director or the employment and benefits services division of the human services department and i'm here on behalf of the department to thank you for proclaiming May as calfresh awareness month and for all that you do in support and advocate for our department's work to address food insecurity in santa cruz county. As you know, calfresh is federally known as a supplemental nutrition assistance program, or snap, and it champions the health and well-being of low-income individuals and families throughout santa cruz county by helping to mitigate food insecurity via the issuance of monthly benefits that calfresh recipients use to purchase nutritious foods at participating grocery stores, farmers markets, and food vouchers. In calendar year 2023, our department staff helped more than 45,000 individuals attain or maintain their calfresh benefits. Our staff did this while working to streamline the process for residents to access calfresh benefits via the new statewide calsos case management system and its accompanying online portal, benefits cal, where calfresh customers can apply for, manage, and renew benefits for food and other forms of assistance. County human services staff remain proudly committed to assisting our community's most vulnerable residents with nutrition assistance via the calfresh program. Thank you for your commitment to helping prevent hunger by raising awareness and of the great benefit calfresh food assistance provides to those most in need in our county and increasing calfresh awareness. Thank you. - thank you. And thank you all for your work in this space. - good morning. - good morning, chair, members of the board. My name is karina aragon , and i'm an analyst with the county's human services department, adult and long-term care division. And i'm here to thank you for proclaiming May as older americans month, and for your ongoing leadership and support in advocating for the needs of older adults in santa cruz county. This year's theme, powered by connection, focuses on the transformative potential of community engagement in reducing isolation among older adults. Thanks to your leadership, we were able to join aarp's friendly communities, livable communities network, and are currently working on a master plan for aging that takes into consideration the voices of our diverse community, especially our seniors. As you know, california's population of older adults aged 65 and older is expected to reach 25% of the total population by 2030. And in santa cruz county, we'll be exceeding the state percentages in the same timeframe. In 1963, when president kennedy declared May as senior citizens month, which we now know as older americans month, about a third of older americans lived in poverty. According to the census bureau's supplemental poverty measure as of 2022, 14% of older americans lived in poverty. However, older adults are the only group to have experienced an increase in poverty in the recent years. While progress has been made locally to meet the needs of our older adult population, we still have more work to do. The county human services department and the adult and long-term care services division, staff remain proudly committed to assisting our communities older adults with their services that they need to thrive. So thank you for your commitment to supporting programs and activities that foster connection, inclusion, and support for older adults. - and thank you all for your amazing work in this space. Thank you. - good morning, everyone. My name's anastasia foster, and i'm with the uc master gardeners of santa cruz and monterey counties. We are an all-volunteer organization administered through the university of california agriculture and natural resource department. I want to thank you all for generously allowing the uc master gardeners to install a demonstration garden at pinto lake county park. We would like to invite you all to attend our grand opening and ribbon cut ceremony event, saturday, June 1st from 11 to 2 p. M. We hope you will attend so that we May publicly acknowledge your contribution to making the garden a place of learning for the citizens of santa cruz county. There will be activities for children and adults as well as self-guided tours of the newly developed demonstration garden. Bilingual docents will be on hand to answer any questions. The demo garden provides a space for our all-volunteer organization to share sustainable and responsible gardening practices as we model, demonstrate, and advocate accessible and research-based strategies for the home gardener. We grow, cultivate, and nurture our plants, our members, and our diverse neighborhoods with care, compassion, integrity, and respect. With the goal of creating healthier society and planet. We provide online classes, in-person workshops, plant sales, california plant restoration projects, senior adaptive gardening classes, and much more. Thank you all for your time and consideration. - thank you. - good morning. My name is shiva farand and I reside off of old japanese road, approximately one mile from the slide on mountain charlie road. I'm here today to share my concerns about the current situation. The detour caused by this slide adds nearly 10 miles to our commute, leading to heavy traffic and hazardous conditions on our only access road. While I understand that federal funding has been allocated for road repairs, I would like to urge the board to prioritize addressing this issue promptly. Beyond the inconvenience of the detour, there are significant safety concerns. In the event of a fire or other emergency, residents like myself are unaware of our escape routes and safety procedures. We have insufficient information about the specific timeline for the fixing the slide as the estimate of one to three years is too ambiguous and not based on any science assessment. Water mitigation needs to be started now rather than later. Additionally, we have no action plans in place. We need clarity, support and a plan of action. Thank you for your attention to this matter. - thank you. - hello. - good morning. - county board supervisors. I'm patrice schroer. And I am representing a local contractor here in santa cruz, a third generation local contractor. That is a public works contractor in our area serving school districts, county, city, and has been for years. Nonprofits, some of them were at the grassroots level when we started with them. You folks, I understand, are considering a fair project labor agreement for public works jobs in the city or county of santa cruz. And I want to be clear how this will impact your local contractors. We have built teams of employees that are strong, that are skilled and trained. We have met pre-qualifications, both informal and formal. We've done everything right. I have a skilled and trained workforce. And by bringing in project labor agreements to the county of santa cruz, we'll have a really negative impact, but not only in our business, it's our workforce that i'm really thinking about. I'm at the end of my career. I built, i'm part of a third generation business, as i've said. And so it's very important for me to what we've built. I nurtured it, started with my father, and now my son is the president. So I ask the county, as you're considering a fair pla, make sure that it is fair. And things I have found in the plas that I have looked at is certain public labor laws have been circumvented in those plas. So consider that pla, consider that everything is included and understand the impact for your local contractors. Thank you. - thank you. - good morning, board. My name is emily bieber. I'm a resident in santa cruz county. I live off of mountain charlie road, and i'm one of the key organizers for the community about the around the slide. A neighbor has a statement i'd like to read because she's sick and couldn't be here. I read reading her statement, I wanted to share that this landslide is having a catastrophic impact on an entire community. There's individuals who can't retire. There's individuals who can't keep their home. There's individuals whose homes can't be reached by emergency vehicles. There's individuals who had to stop construction, there's individuals who can't get contractors to their locations, and the children are the ones suffering the most. They have to get up earlier, they have to go to bed later, they're having to decide high school students are deciding to give up their key extracurricular activities because the two hour commute before after school is they can't sustain that and get enough sleep at night. It is truly catastrophic on a day to day level and it impacts every part of our lives. So here i'll start reading the statement from leanna and neighbor. "my name is leanna swartwood. I'm a mother of two children who finds herself on the wrong side of mount and charlie slide. Everything about mine and my children's daily life and routine has changed. Both of my children attend different schools off summit road, which required different drop-off times and pickup times. Needless to say, I feel that I spend my time in my vehicle now. My minivan, which is a low grade and now damaged, continue to sustain damage on the road every day that I have to drive down mountain charlie road to an entirely different city, and then get on a highway to safely get my children to and from school, sports, church, and play dates. I have tried to maneuver a minivan full of children because you carpool down one lane, mountain charlie, that's not maintained by the county and safely get around the tree service trunk. Yeah, I will send the comments by email. Thank you for your time. - thank you. - good morning. - good morning. I'm michelle wall. I'll be here every meeting. I came last time and received notice through gail pelren's office that only that my issue is investigated. I don't have any information on it. I came and discussed that under bruce mcpherson's watch the jim harts sheriffs continued to allow a skinhead nazi in a meth lab live in an illegal dwelling. My neighbor was shot 30 times. I have been had a gun held to me as a uc professor who was with me, nasa scientist and a legislative writer, and nothing happens. It doesn't make any sense. And for 37 years i've been a nurse. 10 of those years I was a triage nurse. And apparently you guys need some help triaging. I will volunteer my time and let you know that with the funds that you have and the responsibility that you were given. You were to oversee the sheriff and when the sheriff tells us when we're being shot at, quote unquote, you expect me to do something? Quote unquote, I don't have to protect you. Quote unquote, you've got a gun brandished to you and to other people? Well, we're a little busy right now. Any report that they do file, it's falsified. You guys got flat faces. This is my life. It doesn't take that long. Council already knows that we have a judge's order four years ago that states tear the illegal dwelling down. That any person of common sense would know when you have an illegal dwelling, you're gonna have the ability for nuisance to continue. Just follow the law. You've got it. If you can't do it, turn the order over to me. I have someone that will tear that building down. Let me come and volunteer in your offices and I can teach you emergency triage. I can do that for free. - thank you so much for that. - thanks. Please do your job. - good morning. My name is julia feldman. I'm the executive director for the conflict resolution center of santa cruz county or crc. Crc has many valuable programs including mediation, facilitation and training, but i'm here today to share testimony from one of our clients who received free housing mediation services through the eviction defense collaborative. And seriously conducted a hundred and forty-six free mediations in 2023. When an eviction can not be stopped, mediators negotiate for soft landings for families, which usually involve an extension of time in order for them to secure new safe housing. The edc currently has no funding secured to continue our important work next year. Here's testimony from aubrey c. Who cannot be present today. She participated in mediation with her landlord while living in the city of santa cruz. I was in a situation where I was harassed, intimidated. A lot of bad things were happening to me. I felt as a low income person in the situation I was in, I felt really alone. I did not know if there was anyone to help me until I found your mediation program. The ability to move through basic needs in order to make it feel safe for me to leave and having a neutral party to create safety between me and the other person [sniffs] while working through intimidation and harassment really helped me. First of all, it helped me understand and respect legal boundaries. It made me feel supported in ways I did not have that helped me both psychologically and physically. It was tremendous. I do not know what I would have done without it. It would be disastrous in a time where there continues to be so much happening when it comes to housing, homelessness, low income issues, it would be a travesty to have the funding pulled from these services. Crc is the only program that I know of that is offering free mediation services like that. It would create a gap to lose this and nothing else is really out there to fill that gap. This made all the difference in the world for me and i'm so grateful for the incredible support during a terrible time in my life. Thank you. - thank you. Good morning. - good morning. Chair and supervisors. My name is matt machado. I'm the director of community development infrastructure. On your agenda this morning is a proclamation to declare next week public works week. So I wanna thank you for that acknowledgement. I also want to thank the men and women of public works for their dedication and their hard work. So thank you for this moment. - thank you. And thank you to all your employees who have done a tremendous job, especially during many of the disasters that have hit our community and their ability to keep us moving forward and keep our roads open. - thank you. - good morning, becky steinbrenner. I live in rural aptos in the mountains. I wanna thank you all for your service. And following up on Mr. Machado's comment about proclamation, I also see that it will be juror appreciation week. And I want to really thank the jurors, especially the civil grand jury for their excellent work and excellent reports, which i'm looking forward to seeing very soon. On consent agenda item 47, countywide transition age youth housing program. I want to point out to you again that the county was given 12 trailers during covid for transitional age youth to separate themselves during covid. Three of those trailers are stored and are empty at the burt scott estate. I've seen them, i'll send you photos, and parks is just sitting on them and I don't understand why they are not being put to use for transitional age housing or some sort of housing. On the heels, on the eve of the budget coming up next week, I want to ask each and every one of you to contact your fire department advisory commissioner. there are some real problems with the way that cal fire is overhandedly preventing the commission from doing its good work. And I ask that each of you contact your commissioner. finally, I would like to leave with you this morning a letter from senator steven glazer. Today at 1:30, he will be asking the joint legislative audit committee to audit the housing and community development for inconsistent application of their rhna numbers and how they all arrived at that. Did you know that if our county is not at our level of rhna numbers mid-cycle, we will have builder's remedy. There'll be no choice, even though we're approved. - thank you so much. - thank you. [thuds] - hey, good morning. It's, what is it, May 14th, 2024. My name is james ewing whitman. It's great that so many of the leaders in santa cruz county are here, particularly the medical person. Reminded of a book that i'm somewhat familiar with that was published in 1996 called medical mafia. This general practitioner after being a general practitioner for over 20 years, she kind of writes her abstract and I like this about western medicine. Petrochemical finance, sickness over health, profits over cures. Something really useful that individual did when she had the thousands of people that she assisted. She asked him a couple of questions. One of them was, what percentage of you trust your doctors? It was 73% out of thousands. Another question was, how many people, how many of you trust your politicians? That was 6%. This country has been run by lobbyists forever. It seems like that's what it was founded on. Quite a bit different than why the declaration of independence was written and our three constitutions kind of support a fair amount of fraud. My point kind of being is that people place fiduciary trust in doctors and as they should, I wish that I have more trust in those western medicine doctors. I'd love to have more public dialogue about that. But due to the influence of politicians, and that's you men and the executive staff, there's a lot of things going on because the citizens really realized that the doctors were being controlled by the lobbyists and the politicians, where these citizens only trust those politicians, 6% of that total, it would make a lot of sense to what's going on here, which is quite sad to witness because it'd be great if we were all working more together. And there are several other interesting things to comment on later. Thank you. - thank you. - good morning. - good morning. -my name is stacy smith and i'm here with my husband jeffrey aro -can you please move the mic a little bit closer? Could you approach it? There you go. Thank you. - does that work? - that's better. - okay. Can I start over? Go ahead. Good morning. My name is stacy smith. I'm here with my husband jeffrey aro. To acknowledge May as mental health awareness month and to ask that you prioritize and continue to support improving services in our county for individuals and families struggling with mental health issues. It is critically important to stop the stigma and to create a county-wide system available to anyone, anytime, any place. We know that other counties and states have been able to do this. We are grateful for the improvements to services that nami, law enforcement, county behavioral health, family services, and 988 have made since our son, sean arle, was killed in october, 2016. Much more is needed. Our county must have a vision and commit resources. Thank you. - thank you. - good morning, supervisors. Thank you for proclaiming May as mental health awareness month in santa cruz county. We're grateful for the dedication and progress that's being made by our behavioral health department and their partners are county office of education, law enforcement, family services agency, nami, dominican hospital, watsonville hospital, santa cruz community health, and numerous agencies and individuals that provide life-saving behavioral health services to those of us in need. During our budget review, please look at each line item and ask, is this item essential? And does this item reduce suffering and save lives? And if it does not, ask, how can we use these funds to better serve our community? We ask that during your terms in office, you observe every month as mental health awareness month and that you take the lead in working with our city and community leaders, our state congressional representatives and our service providers to create a system that ensures every individual and family in our county receives the behavioral health services they need anytime they need them, anywhere they need them, for the duration and intensity needed to ensure they have a stable and meaningful life. Thank you all for your service. - thank you. Are there any other members of the public here in chambers who'd like to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda or to items on consent or the regular agenda because they're not able to stay longer? Seeing none, are there any members of the public online who'd like to address us at this time? - yes, chair, we have speakers. - call in user one, your microphone is now available. Again, it is star six to unmute. - marilyn garrett, I would like to invite people to a meeting tonight that very much relates to events taking place and relates to item nine on today's agenda. And I will just read from the announcement. Cop city, usa, the war against peace. This is a meeting of brave and free, tuesday, tonight, six o'clock, aptos grange, 2555 marvis drive, aptos. And reading from this announcement, war is peace in a country run by thieves, censorship, riot police, ai surveillance, cop city, santa cruz, false flags, as the threat of a global war between nuclear armed nations grows, governments are increasing the use of police violence, social media censorship, and the use [clears throat] excuse me, of false flag events to silence opposition to the wards. Cia contractor allen pierce, ceo alex carp explains that the palestine solidarity campus protest movement is an existential threat to american empire, quote, if we lose the intellectual battle, we will not be able to deploy any army in the west ever. Unquote. That meeting is tonight at the aptos grange six o'clock socializing program at 6. 30. And often videos are shown and interesting discussion takes place afterwards. Thank you. [distorted voice] and I just ask as well, members of the public, if you can please hold your applause, you can do spirit hands, but we wanna make sure that we do not applause on items. So, thank you. - eric, your microphone is now available. - thank you. Can you hear me? - yes. Thank you. Eric, chris, an executive director of the coalition for fair employment and construction. We are a statewide organization that was created 25 years ago to oppose discriminatory project labor agreements. We know that big labor special interests who, as according to the labor department and the bureau of labor statistics, represent less than 15% of the construction workforce in california have been pressuring the county to implement a discriminatory and wasteful pla on county work. We know that pressure has been coming. We want to continue to seek to educate the board about why these are solutions in search of a problem in an era of unprecedented macro and micro inflation, both in the larger economy, but especially in the construction industry, we've never seen anything like this. The last thing you want to do is decrease your bidding pool and increase your cost, which is exactly what project labor agreements do. They do it very quickly by forcing all non-union workers to pay health, welfare, and pension plan contributions to union plans that require five years of vesting. That means that money is stolen from them, that's wage theft. Contractors aren't going to put their workers through that, so they're not going to bid your projects. [background noise] 90 minutes south of you in watsonville, the city of watsonville, they continue to discover this over and over again. I sent this to you yesterday. Their latest project, the wwtf, electrical hazard mitigation project, went out to bid. They had one bidder. It was a $25 to 26 million bid. The engineer's estimate had been $19 million. So it was almost 40% over budget. They voted to send it out to bid again. This is happening on every project they go out to bid with, and they are in a conundrum because they have left their pla open-ended, which means it goes on forever. If there is any project labor agreement, all parties need to be at the table, all views represented, all workers represented, all apprentice programs that are state approved need to be included. There should be no discrimination based on group affiliation of any kind, which is unfortunately what plas do, and it's why big labor special interests push them because they want a monopoly. You represent all the workers in your area and all the apprentices and all the contractors. Please take their interest into consideration as well. But again, the best way to deal with this is just to continue with an open competitive bidding process. Thank you and have a wonderful day. - rex, your microphone is now available. - good morning. Can you hear me? - yes. Good morning, supervisors. My name is rex heim with with western and electoral contractors association. Weca represents electoral contractors and educates apprentices throughout the state of california developing today's and tomorrow workforce. We educate apprentices with our state and federally approved apprenticeship program. And now that that's said, i'm here to speak against any discriminatory and costly project labor agreement. Project labor agreements discriminate against our weca apprentices and your santa cruz county state approved apprentices. And you're basically telling them that they are not welcome to work on any of your projects even if they are residents of the county. Apart from that discrimination, project labor agreements prohibit non-signatory contractors from using their own employees on jobs, even if they are local constituents of yours. If local hire is an issue you have interest in, there are measures of pla that prevent tax dollars from going back to your constituents, so I would highly suggest that you, if you move forward when it talks about a pla, you make sure that all of your local parties are well represented. Due to non-signatory contractors not being allowed to use their own workforce, it discourages a huge segment of local contractors from even bidding on projects that would fall under a pla. And common sense shows you that when bids go down, costs go up, the taxpayer dollars don't go as far as they should, and they get less bang for their buck. At a time when everyone is experiencing trying to stretch their dollars when it comes to groceries, everyday life, gas, I don't believe that the county has a different luxury in being physically responsible than your constituents. Watsonville, like that was mentioned previously in their continual bid results, is living proof of the disregard for being responsible with constituents' tax dollars. Last reminder, if there's any concern about fair wages on jobs, all public works jobs are set by this thing called prevailing wage, meaning the wage is already predetermined and no pla can determine what wage is being paid. So all workers on these jobs will be making the same wages. The only difference is non-signatory workers won't be having dues taken out of their paychecks and they will actually go home with more dollars than their counterparts. For all these reasons, i'm here to urge against any discriminatory project later agreement and urge that all parties be at the table for any discussion. Thank you very much. Have a good day. - caller ending in 4108, your microphone is now available. It is star six to unmute. - hello. -we can hear you. - can you hear me? - okay, thank you. - good morning. My name is mary simon. I live in boulder creek. And I wanted to talk about the item 10 about extending the four lease contract for cvu fire recovery. I lost my home of 33 years in the fire. And despite having no experience in building a home, I was determined to try to rebuild my home. Sorry. [soft cry] officially, I started in March 2021 with my pre-clearance app. [clears throat] due to issues with debris flow and contractors, my rebuild was delayed for two years. Then, it took me seven months and two designers and lots of help from a retired contractor and finally applied for my contract in January of 2024. [sobbing] I couldn't have made it through the permit process and the review process without the encouragement of the staff at rpc. They explained all the forms and answered all my questions. And as owner builder, I had a lot of questions. I made appointments, I phoned them, and I dropped in. And they were always helpful. Many thanks to jasmine, madeline, and david. So i'm asking you to extend the four-leaf contract to the end of the year. Four of us on my street are still trying to rebuild. It's been almost four years since the fire, but we still need your help to recover and live in our homes again. And god willing, this month, i'm hoping to sign a contract and begin rebuilding. - thanks for your time. - justin white, your microphone is now available. - good morning, county board of supervisors. My name is justin white. I'm the ceo of k&d landscaping, and i'm talking today regarding the pla. We have 140 employees. We're located in watsonville. We contribute approximately $20 million in revenue to the county. And while I should say 80% of that is in santa cruz county, the remaining 20 is in monterey. We have a deep relationship with the county going back over 20 years. And we do a lot of work with the county on maintenance projects, but also construction installation and public works. We are not in favor of this pla. The pla is unfortunately discriminatory against open shop contractors like k&d landscaping and like many other local contractors. The things that the pla and union companies try to promote are things that we have worked very hard to create within k&d landscaping. And i'll just name a few of those. We have an in-house apprenticeship program. One of our employees, he made over $90,000 last year, and three years ago, he was making minimum wage. The only reason he's able to do that is through our apprenticeship program, where he can advance much quicker than a union apprenticeship program, because it's not about how much time you put in at k&d, it's how hard you work, and how much of an attitude you have for growth. We have an in-house safety training program that we train every single week, 100% of our employees. We have an in-house retirement program for our employees. We have dental vision and health benefits for all of our employees. These are things that we work very hard to fund and provide. Prevailing wage, make sure that our employees get paid a good wage when they're working on your projects. You're going to hear a lot about the pla in favor, not in favor. At the end of the day I wanted to share our specific story and at the bottom end of the day k&d would not be able to bid projects if you did pass the pla. Thank you. [microphone thuds] - erin sharoda your microphone is now available. [clears throat] - hello my name is erin sharoda and i'm a disaster case manager with catholic charities, diocese of monterey. I also wanted to speak to item 10 and echo some of the words of the community member that just shared their rebuild story and speak to the importance of the services of the recovery permit center. They have been a crucial part of the rebuild process for our clients. They've been incredibly helpful in navigating the permitting process, which was a large obstacle in recovering for many people. It has not been easy to recover from this disaster. There are many people that still have yet to rebuild, many that are considering their options and some have even been impacted by an additional disaster. I think it's incredibly important that these services are extended and I just wanted to speak to that today. Thank you. - tanya, your microphone is now available. - thank you. Can you hear me? - yes. - okay. I still see the clock saying 50 seconds. Oh, wonderful. Okay, i'll make sure I get two minutes. Thank you. Thank you for your time, chair cummings and every supervisor. I know this is a beginning of a long day for you and I appreciate you hearing me and everybody else this morning. I am the executive director at senior legal services. I've been enjoying that position since 2021 and i've taken a longstanding organization through a lot of growth. We have been here through the pandemic. We have skyrocketed with services because of the increasing need. And I am here to speak today about our request that the county create a long-term sustainable funding source for our countywide eviction defense collaborative. So senior legal services has been doing this collaborative with community bridges and conflict resolution center and tenant sanctuary since September of 2021. It's been a very successful collaborative. We're following in the footsteps of many other cities and counties that are already doing this sort of collaboration. San francisco has a very successful collaboration with an 80% success rate for people being represented in court, having resolutions to evictions. I know that homelessness is high on everybody's radar, and eviction truly is one of the, eviction and affordability of housing is one of the primary leading causes of homelessness. The costs of homelessness are incredible. I don't need to tell any of you how much we spend on rehousing. And truly, this side of the prevention is the way to go. It's way more cost-effective. It is working, and we really wanna help both landlords and tenants understand their legal rights and come to resolution and remain safely housed when possible. When not possible, we help with soft landings, getting people more time, the relocation assistance that's required. So this really is a win-win for both sides, and I really hope to see the county step up and create this as a long-term sustainable funding source. Thank you so much for your time. [microphone thuds] - bernie, your microphone is now available. - good morning, chair and board. Yeah, I think I have two or three points I want to make. The first point, it's around the budget process. I know that we're having budget hearings next week, starting next week. I was just hoping that you all take note and maybe develop a new process where we have like a participatory process, right, to engage in this budget process. It's kudos to the cao and marcus wright and you all for undergoing this rigorous season, right? Fiscal season and stuff, but I think we, the community along with just the other leaders and folks want to be part of that process, right? We want to be able to have a dialogue and not just hold our comments to two or three minutes in these spaces, right? So that's one. Two, really thinking about the state of incarceration in our county, right? It's actually declining, right? there is about 170 empty beds. So what would it look like if we decommissioned some of these beds, right? I know that in the recent press conference from the governor, he has decommissioned some of prison beds, right? And I believe he is, the state is saving about $80 million. So how much can the county save, right? If we decommission some of these beds, I don't know how to do that math, but i'm sure we can do something, you know but other than that, I think that's it for me. Thank you. - we have no further speakers, chair. - thank you very much. Okay, i'm just wondering if there's any comments or feedback from staff on anything that might have come up during the public comment period. Okay, I see none. I would like to see if director machado, maybe you could speak a little bit to the situation on mountain charlie road, because I know that we've been monitoring this, the county's been monitoring the slide, and I know previously the slide was still moving, which is why we really can't go out and start repairing yet. And so i'm just wondering if there's any update on the status of mountain charlie. - sure, thank you, chair. You know, nothing great to report, unfortunately. The slide is still moving. We did gather some good information from the bit of time we had the inclinometer in place before it was severed due to the continued movement. And so we do know the depth of the slide. So I think we've got some valuable information that will help us develop a scope for design. I think we're about four weeks out from having that scope and cost estimate together. We don't yet have a finance mechanism to fund the design or the next steps which move into construction and that type of permitting and things like that. So we're still working that direction. So we certainly don't have a solution, but we are taking the necessary steps to bring a program together. So thank you. - if I could just comment, chair cummings, members of the board, this afternoon, we're actually going to be considering a bond that is one of the largest bonds the county has ever issued in its history. And that is to fund not future projects, but projects we've already done and that were completed in 2017 and 2023. So these are projects, all storm damage roads that we've already completed. The bond amount that's attributable to that is over $80 million, which is very significant for this county. In addition, we have over 100 projects still outstanding, over 100, some of them from 2017, some from 2023, and then now we have many from 2024. And so we're trying to triage the 100 plus projects we have. You know, they're all over the county. Climate change is having a devastating impact on the county's infrastructure as it is across the country. You only need to look at big sur and what's going on with highway 1. Look at west cliff drive, and then the county with over a hundred other projects. So we're trying to do all we can to get federal funding. One of the keys, there's two answers to this. One is that long-term, there needs to be a reform of fema at the federal level. They just need to modernize their processes or they reimburse us more quickly. And there's actually a good example, which is federal highways, which actually we work with very well. They reimburse us within one to two years. And so all fema needs to do is look at their sister agency federal highways and that's the model. If fema acted like federal highways, we would not be in this position of issuing an $85 million bond this afternoon. So that's one answer and that's long term though. Reform of the federal level of fema will take time. The other answer is cal oes. They do have an advance program where they can advance funds on fema, and we're in discussions with them about getting an advance. If they were to expand that program, make it much more robust, that would also help us in terms of being able to keep up with the expenditures. Because since 2017, the county has spent $250 million on emergency response since 2017. We've received reimbursem*nt for only 125 million, about half of that. So we have half, 125 million still on projects we've already done. We've already completed that we're waiting to get reimbursed from. So that's the challenge that we are facing and that governments across the country are facing. And so I just wanted to add a little bit of context to director machado's comments. - and if I may, and carlos is absolutely right with that huge challenge before us with the fema and all the other disaster projects. Mount charlie currently is not eligible for federal funds. So mount charlie is an extra challenge for us to identify a finance mechanism, a funding method. And so it's very challenging. And I will add mount charlie is not unique either. Today we have eight road closures countywide. A number of those are not federally eligible and are very challenging, are very critical to our community. And so we will continue to strive to find solutions, but we've got a mountain of work ahead of us. Thank you for your time. - thank you, carlos. - thank you so much. And I just want to appreciate all the efforts that county staff are making. I just want members of the public to know as well that, you know, all the board members have been strongly advocating for these funds, whether that's at the california state association of counties or meeting with our state and federal representatives. We've been strongly advocating and making sure that our representatives know what the challenges are that we're facing with all the disasters that we've been facing going back to 2017. So I just want to let folks know that we're doing the best we can to try to get resources in our community so that we can address these challenges. So with that, we'll move on to our consent agenda. I'm going to start with supervisor koenig to see if you have any questions or comments on items on consent - just one brief comment on item 41, the agreement with dignity health dominican hospital amount of $750,000 to help fund implementation of interim behavioral health in watsonville. I just want to thank dominican hospital for their collaboration on this and of course thank our behavioral health division who set up this interim behavioral health facility for youth at the same time that we're setting up the permanent children's crisis resolution center in live oak. I think this demonstrates how ultimately we can make strides to improve mental health in our community through collaboration in honor of May being male health awareness month. Thanks - yeah, supervisor friend. [microphone thuds] supervisor mcpherson. [microphone thuds] - yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. there's a couple items here. Item number 37, the boulder creek sanitation project. I wanna thank the staff of the office of response recovery, and resilience, and public works for their considerable work on this project to date. I'm so glad we have this federal funding to take the next steps in the planning. This is a problem that's been decades in the making, and it May take another decade before it's resolved realistically, but we have to start somewhere. And this is essentially an equity issue in terms of dedicated resources to our isolated rural areas. I know the community of boulder creek is grateful for the time and energy that was spent on so far addressing the septic system constraints downtown and along the fire damage corridor on highway 236. This has been a long time in development, if you will. It's gonna take a long time to get it resolved, but I wanna thank our federal and state officials for recognizing the importance of it. On items 42 to 44 regarding behavioral health investments, I wanna thank our health services agency for the teams that have been on this. Although this is a consent item agenda, I think it's important to point out that the magnitude of services that are provided in these items that are being addressed. A big lesson that we learned in the recent years has been that so many of our social issues identified in our community have less to do with people's housing status than they do more with their behavioral health coverage and challenges. I think it's a huge issue statewide, really nationwide about how to provide the proper resources for mental health and to address this issue overall. The governor's May revise was just announced this week. It's going to have huge impacts on our collective ability to address those issues. And I hope the state is not going to push this on the counties and cities to address with we've just heard with our limited budget that we have here in santa cruz county. And finally, on item number 54, the lompico emergency evacuation route. Thank you to our public works and real property team for working on this key part of the lompico emergency evacuation route. This is really a critical route and project for the lompico community in terms of disaster preparedness. We need alternatives to the community members for the community members to get out of the canyon in lompico. So I appreciate the efforts that are being made and the work that's been done by the san lorenzo valley water district to provide the easem*nt and let us get one step closer to establishing another exit route. It's critical because they're really, really penned in. I think that lompico was known as one of the highest danger areas for fire evacuation in the country. So it's really good that we're addressing this. Thank you. - thank you, supervisor hernandez. - first, i'd like to thank the staff and departments that spoke today. And secondly, i'd like to congratulate all the staff and departments that were given proclamations today. You know, one of our staff talked about the increase in poverty amongst older adults. And I think it's something that we were just alluding to is that we're going to have to work on these issues to keep people housed and, you know, from evictions in the near future. I think it's going to be even more prevalent. So I think it's something we have to address as well. But i'd like to talk on three items really quick, 35, 41 and 58. I'd like to thank diane munoz that's serving on my first five commissions. She was actually on there before, but moved to royal oaks and now is work, it always worked in the area, but our rules change that they can be part of a commission if they work in the district. 41, of course, it's been mentioned, but I want to thank staff and behavioral health as well, as well as dignity and dominican, right? And the district, the hospital district that we have that we're getting in watsonville. It's gonna be greatly needed in our community. And item 58, the freedom of sanitation district on cellar drive repairs. I wanna thank staff for that. It's not necessarily in my district, but I have done a lot of calls as a council member and as a supervisor as well. So thank you. - thank you very much. Alright, I just have a few comments on a number of items. Items 33, this is a letter to support senate bill 1060 which addresses property insurance, underwriting and risk models. This is a state bill that proposes to require property insurers to account for wildfire risk reduction associated with hazardous fuel reduction, home hardening, defensible space and fire prevention activities in their underwriting models. And, you know, we've been hearing a lot and we're gonna have a presentation later about insurance and home insurance from representatives from Commissioner Ricardo lara's office. And, you know, this is just another item that we're hoping that our county can support with keeping people's, insurance low and also, just acknowledging the fact that people are doing a lot of work to make our homes safer in fire condition. And so hoping that we can, that that bill will will will be passed and that the county will be able to support that. In addition to that item number 34, although given that we're gonna have a presentation today, we've been hearing from many folks throughout the the community about, you know, wanting to engage with the insurance commissioner. and so we're hoping that. he'll be able to come to santa cruz at some point in the future and actually hear from our community about, the issues that people are facing around maintaining their home insurance. I'm number 41, which is related to the youth mental health. I just wanna thank staff for all their hard work on trying to stand up this interim facility as the new facility is under construction. Many folks were concerned when the current facility was gonna go into construction and what would happen to those services. [clears throat] so it's great to see the staff being able to work really hard and fast and trying to get an interim youth mental health facility open in our community. I had question for staff on item number 53. This is ratify award of contract with seldon and sons in the amount of $650,389 for the homeless persons health project, hvac project. I was just curious about where the project will be located during construction and the time on how long it will take for that project to finish. And so i'm wondering if somebody from cdi will be able to answer that question. Morning. - morning. They're moving to emeline. The clinic the could move to emeline and an anticipated be done by October but we're still in the submittal process with the contractor. -thank you. And I think that resolves all of my questions and comments and seeing no further questions or comments from the board members. I'd like to ask if someone would be willing to move consent. - i'll move consent to agenda - second. - yes, we have a motion by supervisor hernandez, seconded by supervisor koenig and i'll turn to the clerk for a roll call vote. - supervisor koenig? - i. - friend? - i. - hernandez? - i. - mcpherson? - i. - and cummings? - I that item passes unanimously. Okay. So we have a pretty packed agenda today. We're gonna try to get through it as best possible. And so with that we have a regularly scheduled item. First item on our agenda as a presentation, recognizing members of the community who have participated in the volunteer initiative program and the sheriff's volunteer program. And so with that, I think i'll turn it over to, is there a staff member this turned over to or I think that might be me. [laughs] [distorted voice] - thank you chairman cummings and members of the board. And Mr. Palacios, i'm karen delaney with the volunteer center. we've been partnering with the county in the vip program and the sheriff's volunteer program for over 35 years. And to set the stage for this recognition, i'm gonna quote from the surgeon general, our surgeon general, Dr. Vivek murthy, who says that said this, "what if I told you that there was something that could lower your risk for heart disease, anxiety, depression, stroke, dementia, and diabetes, and the same thing could boost your immune system, increase your productivity in school, work and life, and help you live longer and what if I told you this medicine was free, readily available to everyone and also makes our democracy stronger? " the surgeon general is running a campaign right now because social isolation and social disconnection are one of the three greatest health risks to the united states according to the surgeon general. And one of the best recipes, one of the best medicines for combating social isolation is serving others. And as is the case with a great many prevention things, this board and our community have been working really hard to stay ahead of the curve. One out of two americans are suffering measurable impacts from social isolation that include health impacts. And nationally after covid made, all volunteer programs and social connection programs stand down. Unfortunately, nationally most programs haven't bounced back. There've been for three years running double digit drops in national volunteering rates. However, i'm really happy and grateful to report today that in the vip program and in santa cruz, we are beating the national norm in 2023. You're gonna be hearing some remarkable stories and honoring 11 amazing volunteers, they were joined by 980 other people in serving just in the vip program in our community in 2023, which is an amazing testament. We've blown by our pre covid volunteering rates. Thanks to the great work by your staff in every department that uses these volunteers by the great work of folks at personality to patel and her staff with the sheriff and their volunteer program and our team of christina thurston and susan ryder who are amazing. Just to show you, you know, volunteering and answering the call to service, it's great for the person who serves. It is great for our community. It is one of the best ways to help heal divisions in our community. It's also fiscally really responsible. Those 990 volunteers showed up and the value christina is gonna give this to the value of their labor. Last year, the return on your modest investment in the vip program was over $1. 5 million just of people who are loving their community and giving back through service. So we are honored to be here this year as every year, and I believe my job is to introduce susan who's going to start us off with the recognition. - okay. - good morning, chair cummings and board of supervisors. My name is susan ryder and I am the volunteer initiative program coordinator. As we recognize our award recipients this morning, christina and I will say, then read, read the names of the honorees and members of the board will give us a brief overview of the honorees volunteer service. Christina, did you wanna introduce yourself? - oh, yeah. I'm christina. Thank you for having us today. - our first honoree is emily musgraves, however, she's not available to accept the award today. Megan, would you like to come on up? [laugh] - great. And I can just read a little bit about emily's fantastic contributions. So emily musgraves is a valuable team member at animal services and brings a cheerful, reliable energy to the shelter. Volunteering at an animal shelter is not easy work, but emily always has a smile and goes above and beyond to help out, be it giving, be it by giving the dogs frequent walks, attending adoption events with the dogs, as well as by mentoring new volunteers. Emily is committed to improving the lives of shelter dogs and spends much of her free time focused on showing them attention and love and engaging them in a lot of playtime. Thank you, emily, for all that you do for our shelter staff and animals. - our next honoree is jacqueline schuller. - jackie schuller is a volunteer at the animal shelter who focuses her time on caring for the smallest residents, rabbits and guinea pigs. And jackie volunteers for four hours every week in the bunny room, patiently coaxing the scared animals out of their kennels, talking to them gently and helping to socialize them. The time that she spends with these animals makes a big difference as they are often overlooked at the shelter. Thank you jackie, for your dedication to our shelter and to our smallest animal friends. -thank you. Our next honoree is amy hyler-essig. You here today? Sorry. I'm sure. - that's all right. Thank you. - just to say a few words. Amy hyler-essig has been a dedicated cat volunteer at the animal shelter for 11 years. She mentors new volunteers every month, inspiring, giving them a love and respect for our feline friends at the shelter. Along with being a mentor, amy fosters cats and kittens and teaches a monthly class on kitten socialization for foster families. Over the years, amy has helped hundreds of cats and kittens grow up and find their forever home. Amy is a spectacular volunteer and we are grateful for her service. Thank you so much, amy. - our next honoree is odalis castillo. - congratulations, odalis, I think you could stay up here for the minute. [laughters] congratulations. Odalis castillo is an invaluable intern with the access team, which is the entry point for services with children's behavioral health. She answers calls and is the first point of contact for people seeking services. And as a bilingual and bicultural member of the team, odalis is able to help families in their preferred language and make them feel comfortable as they discuss sensitive mental health issues. Odalis is currently creating crisis binders for the access team management and therapists in north and south county, and plans to continue her education and work in the counseling field. Odalis has had a positive attitude, welcoming presence eye for the process improvement and excellent teamwork and communication skills. Thank you for your hard work and dedication, odalis. - thank you. - our next honoree is megan fulton. Megan fulton volunteers at the sheriff's office and helps keep trespass letters current and up to date for both residential and commercial properties. Megan is always willing to help and steps up to assist with new projects. Megan actually first volunteered for the sheriff's office in 2003 when she was in high school. Time flies. We're having fun, huh? yeah, nice. Recently she found herself having a strong desire to reinvest her efforts back into the community and decided volunteering for the sheriff's office and, and said it would be a perfect fit. Megan is friendly, upbeat, and an asset to the team. Thank you, megan, for all you do for the sheriff's office. Much appreciated. - our next honoree is roberta gutierrez. - sergeant matson has said that he is never seen anyone care for more for the deputies and the people at san lorenzo valley than roberta gutierrez. Roberta uses her compassion and her valuable experience as a school administrator to assist the public and deputies with their problems. The daily incident reports roberta writes from her volunteer shifts are a pleasure to read, and she also keeps the staff and public happy with snacks and water. Very important. Thank you roberta, for your dedication to our deputies and our community. - thank you. - our next honoree is carrie constantino lockett, who's unable, unable to be here today. Margaret, would you like to come up? - carrie lockett came to parks department with an idea to beautify part of the east cliff drive county parkway. Once she received, carrie submitted plans for a landscape project in front of the restrooms at pleasure point, carrie independently recruited a professional landscaper and secured all the plants and materials to get the job done. Carrie, the landscaper and park staff worked together to remove the old landscaping material, prepare the soil, and plant up the beds. And I will say I was out there this last weekend. It looked fantastic. Yes and carrie, I hope we're not done yet. There's there's more to do. So carrie, thank you for spearheading this project and for investing your time into the beautification of our community. - our next honoree is a group of high school students at the pinto lake county park. Brandon perez, aiden mcdaniel, annabelle contreras, sophia smith and bridget smith. - all right margaret. They're unable to be here today. They're in school. - oh, okay [laugh]. Well, i'd like to thank the students. This dedicated group of high school students has made our volunteer days at pinto lake county park in watsonville a huge success since October at, at the start of the project, these young volunteers have provided most of the manpower. The young adults show up, work hard, and have great attitudes and even promote the events amongst their friends and bring them along to help. Because of these ambitious and community-minded young adults, our pinto lake county park volunteer days have been a huge success and the park is looking forward, looking wonderful. Thanks to their hard work. Thank you brandon. Aiden, annabel, sophia, and bridget for all you have done for pinto lake. - our next honorees are nada and dave misunas. - hear here. Okay, good. After seeing the need for a little free library at twin lakes county park, nada and dave misunas made it their mission to get it installed on the park ground. So nada and dave reached out to the parks department about their idea, and after discussions and a site visit with park staff, they received approval to move forward. Nada and dave secured the materials and supplies needed and went to work building with a little free library. They stocked the library with books and still monitor it frequently to make sure that it stays full for visitors to borrow from. And now because nada and dave of nada and dave, the twin lakes county library has a little free library for the entire community to enjoy. Thank you for this wonderful addition to our park, nada and dave. [rustling] [microphone sound] [rustling] - our next honoree is mahitha vuggumudi - mahitha vuggumudi was the first intern of the public defender when they opened their new office and she was a major part of helping them get up and running smoothly. Mahitha was also an intern for the clean slate program where she prepared over 70 record clearance motions. Mahitha was extremely communicative and show dedication to the program and the clients that participated in it. Mahitha recognizes the vital role that public service plays in our communities and has expressed a desire to continue serving the public when she graduates. Thank you mahitha for your hard work and the impact you've had made on our community members. Thank you so much. - and our next honoree is sylvie mullard. - sylvie mullard is a volunteer with the health services agency and helps out with the medication assistance treatment program. Sylvie has a great attitude and natural leadership skills. She has taken initiative and encouraged teamwork with her peers and her honesty and humor, make those around her feel comfortable being their authentic selves. Her willingness to undertake any challenge paired with her drive and creative thinking has always already produced several projects and ideas. Most notably her proposal of the clothing exchange donations. And despite the project being shelved without much warning, sylvie didn't let that cloud, her motivation and spirit sylvie has was not only able to rally everyone on her team to contribute more project ideas, but do so with energy and enthusiasm, searching for more ways to help others and make a difference. Thank you sylvie, for all your hard work and dedication. - that concludes our honorees for today. We'd like to invite, undersheriff chris clark to also make some remarks. - thank you. - thank you chair. Thank you. Board. I just wanted to recognize all the people that, obviously megan and roberta that work for our office. We truly couldn't do what we do without the dedication of the volunteers that we have. Covid kind of shelved that a little bit obviously, but it's just so wonderful to have that program back and really contributing just to our success and our outreach in the community. Hundreds of hours that these two, at least in our office, have contributed and just that contact with the public is just, just so crucial as you, as you can imagine at our service centers and our headquarters building. So from the sheriff and, myself and our staff, just wanna say thank you. - thank you. All right. Well, at this moment in time, i'd like to ask that the volunteers who are honored today, who are with us, please stand and let's give them a round of applause for all their hard work. I just wanna encourage others in the community to please, you know, if you have time in your busy lives, please consider volunteering to help support our county and the amazing programs that we offer to our community. So that concludes item number seven on our regular agenda. The next item on our agenda, we're happy to invite mariaelena de la garza executive director of community action board, santa cruz county, to present today to the board and the community, the hard the work that they've done in honor of community action month and the 60th anniversary of national community action. And so with that, i'll invite up mariaelena de la garza and anyone else from her team who's gonna present to us on this item. [microphone thuds] [microphone thuds] - good morning, buenos dias. Thank you for your time on the agenda. Our supervisors, our chair. It is such an honor to be with you today. I'm going to invite joe kenny to start us off. - good morning. My name is joe kenny, and i'm a volunteer board member of the community action board of santa cruz county. I represent the low-end community in san lorenzo and scotts valley, and i'm so honored to represent cab as a board member today. Cab has worked for 59 years in santa cruz county. So it was started a year it was developed on the federal level. It's part of the war on poverty, many of you are too young to remember that. [laughs] but it was a really heartfelt attempt to be able to create programs where low-income people were actually designing the programs that impacted their lives. It wasn't a top-down program, it was, we're all working on this together. And that in santa cruz county, how that works is that cab listens to the community, it learns from the community, it serves the community, and it elevates the community. And we have so many great programs because of that motto. The staff, I joined cab because of the work that they do. And i've lived in santa cruz county since 2074, and i've spent my life doing nonprofit work. I've had that privilege. I specifically joined the cab board because the staff there implements this anti-poverty program and empowerment program with compassion, respect, and empathy. So I want to tell you how honored I am to be here, and I hope you enjoy the presentation. - thank you so much. - we can't do this work without people like joe. Thank you for the proclamation this morning. We really appreciate honoring 60 years of national community action. I wanna tell you a little bit about what we do locally. Remind, thank you. Thank you so much. Which one is it? help me, please. Okay, thank you. And share some information. Which way do I point? okay. Anywhere. [laughs] thank you so much. So, as you know, um, we've been in the community for 59 years. If you don't know what that looks like, it looks like this [laughters] 59 years. Okay. A little bit of protective pattern, a little bit has worn, but here, still standing strong. How is cab different than other nonprofits in the community? First, we are connected to statewide and national networks. Every two years, we do a community action plan process, and you're gonna learn a little bit about what we learned from the community in our last process. Your community action agency, our staff, our management, and our board reflect the community that we serve. And that is an intentional, an intentional commitment and practice that our community action board does locally. And we have a tripartite board, and that means we're made up of three components. Our low-income sector. We have voices of low-income community members sitting next to our public sector elected officials sitting next to our private sector, partners, which this year includes our financial sector, our farmworker community, and our healthcare community. We have a nonprofit representative we have someone from the monarch agency who actually chairs the board with us. And we have low-income county residents affected by the criminal justice system represented on our board. And that those three components make up who we are in the foundation of our work. I want to, I would like to highlight some of our significant impacts over the last 10 years and most specifically the last few years in terms of our emergency response. You know, I want to give a highlight to the work that we've done at the agency. We have been able to distribute because of covid and fire and floods and the impact on our community. Over about $14 million of economic relief has flowed through our agency into the community. That's pretty significant in the last three years. It really speaks to our ability to pivot and respond to what is happening on a local level. You know, we've been supporting specifically south county and the fado valley with flood response. We have an intentional commitment to equity. And we've been talking about equity for a long, long time. Before it was even cool to say responsiveness to our indigenous language-speaking communities, we created an indigenous language support hotline where people who speak, misteco or triki can call in for information and support. And internally at cab, we have launched our cabs equity academy. All that matters because, as you know, representation matters and we have to reflect the community that we serve. And so i'm really proud that we've been able to move the agency over the last 10 years in that direction as part of our community action plan process, where we go out and speak to community members. We partnered with ucsc, and blum center, and we want to bring back, and I hope that this is not the first time you've heard it, some significant data that we learned in engaging in those community conversations. And number one, and really important, right in the smack of middle of that powerpoint, 50% of those surveyed reported making less than $20,000 last year in annual income. Again, I always stress, we know that an agricultural essential worker makes about 15 to $20,000 a year. However, last year, because of the floods, people reported making less than $5,000 of annual income last year. That is incredible data that will not show up in necessarily in any other systemic, you know, inquiries. And so I want to give light to that. 20% of our folks reported earning less than $5,000 of annual income last year. As part of our community action plan process, we've identified the top five community needs in congen, what we heard, and what we learned from the community. And you can see them listed on the powerpoint, our number one, employment and income insecurity. And I will say that the people we spoke to all had jobs, right? they all had jobs, they were all working people. But because of the floods, we're not able to, and I will add that people are just starting to work now. And so we haven't, we don't have the data for the, the current year, but we're, we're worried about what that's going to look like. We're still seeing covid-related health issues, food insecurity, lack of information about available community programs and services, and housing insecurity. Really not any surprises on this list. I know that you know this information, but I want to draw your attention to, the information that we learned. Our indigenous language speakers experienced higher needs in all five areas with 91-100% reporting these needs in comparison to 63% to 87% of spanish speakers, and 66% to 81% of our english speakers. All incredibly high percentages, but incredibly stark foreign indigenous language speaking community, who we know are our essential workers in our county. Some of our 2023 impacts that I want to share with you very quickly, is that you need to know this is the work that we do and you need to know that we're doing our work. Homelessness prevention and intervention services team impacted over 1300 individuals by providing rent assistance, security deposit, and or shelter and housing navigation and placements. 259 youth and adults were provided job readiness support and 244 obtained employment throughout alkanse and our day worker center employment services. Just over 900 adults, children, and seniors were provided with food assistance through cabs. Davenport resource service center and the day worker center. Over 6,000 immigrants were impacted by the provision of legal immigration services, such as daca naturalization, as well as education advocacy workshops and supporting us and have been supported through cab's immigration project. And over 4,000 winter storm-impacted immigrants, including indigenous language speakers, were provided with over $9 million to cope with food recovery, flood recovery impacts through the storm assistance for immigrants project through the state of california. I'd like to invite isai, lizette, and emily to share a little bit about their program impacts. - mariaelena good morning, chair and members of the board. My name is isai ambrosio. I'm the program director for cab davenport resource center, just 10 miles from here. As mariaelena said, we are celebrating 60 years of community action, and May is community action month. So we are happy to celebrate, and we are here to thank you for your continued support for our agency and specifically my program, the davenport resource center. The davenport resource center has been in davenport in that community for over 50 years, and we have helped and support that community and we have helped them in the different needs that have come up. As mariaelena said, we have our community action plan every two years where we talk to the community and we address the needs that they share with us. More recently, as you know, through covid and the fires, we have supported thousands of community members who were affected by the fires. Mainly students, seniors, homeless folks and who were also affected by the fires, as I said. So in closing, I want to thank you for your continued support. And I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to support and to continue to extend the four leaf contract because as you know, a lot of committee members up there were affected by the fires, and so that would be a great benefit for them. So I want to introduce our program coordinator, lizette ponce. Thank you for your time. - good morning and thank you for your time. My name is lizette ponce, i'm the program coordinator with the davenport resource service center. I just wanted to share a little bit of impacts of our programs and the delivery of service to our community in davenport for 2023. We were able to provide a summer rec program for our participants out there, a total of 22 participants we're able to enjoy fine activities as well as being able to have two meals secured for the day. Aside from the summer rec program, it goes hand in hand with our summer lunch program where we were able to deliver a total of 7,770 meals for us, in a period of six weeks. So, piggybacking or continuing on, we also, one of our biggest programs is our food distribution. Where the last year we were able to provide a total of 150,000 pounds distributed to our community out there. We distribute every Tuesday of the month. So it is one of our biggest programs where a total of 140 families we're able to receive that benefit. We also have our senior program where 10 of our seniors, join us for our bimonthly program, but also we are a drop-off station for gray bears. So our participants will show up every Thursday to pick up their grocery bag and their bread. And for our seniors, we were able to deliver a total of 144 hours of case management and support to them. So thank you so much for your continued support and we wouldn't be able to provide the services without your support. So thank you for your time. - good morning. Thank you, chair cummings and the board. My name is emily watson and I am proud to be a new member of cab and proud to be part of this month and celebration of community action and awareness. I am the interim director for our homelessness prevention and intervention services. And I want to share with you a little bit of the impacts of the programs underneath this department. We have youth programs that include our youth homelessness response team and our transitional-aged youth housing navigation. These two programs meet with youth between the ages of 15 and 25 who are either homeless or transitioning out of the judicial system or the foster care system and help them with both employment and educational aspirations. And most importantly, housing. We're very proud to have our coordinated entry, a connector who works in south county, specifically in the watsonville area, reaching out to the homeless and the unhoused in the watsonville area, connecting these individuals with services and hopefully with permanent housing using our coordinated entry system here in the county. In addition, under our department, we have our watsonville works program, which is a combination of a job works and work experience type of program. While working with the city of watsonville and the county to beautify our area doing cleanup. We have assisted with filling many, many dumpsters, more than 3000 bags of garbage, tens of shopping carts, and even collected more than 4,000 syringes to both beautify and make safe our community with our volunteers who are working for work experience and moving into the job arena. And then lastly, on the prevention side, very proud of the work that our rental assistance program does. Our wrap team annually assists over a hundred households with an event eviction prevention. And again, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of support after. So thank you very much for your support of cab the programs that we support and community action awareness month. Thank you. - thank you, team. So looking into the future, the next 60 years, I wish I could say i'll be here, but, you know, one of the things that we're looking at, we're looking at continued recovery support because we know that emergencies will continue to happen. We know we're still in recovery and advocating for emergency services on the state level. There's a lot of work that's being done to ensure that when the next emergency happens, we don't have to fight for individual support for those impacted by the floods. Strengthening our homelessness services in south county. By including the operation of the tiny upcoming tiny homes project and continued homelessness prevention services, finding a permanent home for cab, we're 59 years old and we're still renters and there's nothing wrong with renters, but I know that we can anchor and get this agency ready for the next 60 years by finding a permanent home. And of course, our continued focus on equity and language access and our work is not possible, our work is not possible without your continued partnership. The work of county staff's continued partnership, the work of the partnership of so many partners today in the room like the county office of education, like the volunteer center, we cannot do what we do in isolation. We do it in the community. Thank you so much for 59 years and 60 years of support in community action. - thank you so much for that presentation. Before I turn it to the board, i'm just gonna see if there's any members of the public who'd like to make any comments. Although this isn't an action item, just want to open it up to any member of the public who'd like to speak on this item. - hi, i'll just make a quick comment. I'm kimberly peterson, deputy director of the human services department, and I didn't realize it was community action month. It's interesting, it actually coincides with calfresh awareness month, which jim dale from our department spoke about earlier. So our department partners with the community action board on a handful of projects. You can imagine homelessness and also medi-cal outreach. And that's one that doesn't get quite as much attention publicly and so I just want to acknowledge some of the work t that mariaelena described, particularly working with the indigenous community. Thanks to our partnership with cab for medi-cal outreach. We actually receive an average of 180 new applications every month thanks to the outreach that they do. And so it just really pays off. Thank you. - thank you. Any other member of the public here in chambers who'd like to comment on the presentation? seeing none. Are there any members of the public online who'd like to comment on the this item? - yes. Chair. We have speakers. Call in user six. Your microphone is now available. It is star six to unmute. - hi marilyn. Gareth, I would also like to thank you for your, vital work and it's overwhelming. Yeah, you stated we cannot do this without support, of course. And we'd have a lot more financial support if the military budget were gobbling up our taxpayer money. You also stated that you learn from the community. I especially appreciate the help food non bombs does in feeding homeless. And I have in front of me a publication. I think these people would be good to network with. This is the people's tribunelocal newspaper and the special edition, "we can abolish poverty when we unite" is here on the front page. And this special edition of the people's tribune focuses on the hero campers among those who suffer from and fight the growing poverty, horrors of homelessness, heartless immigration policies, and limited government aid for housing, medical care, and hunger, demonized by politicians blamed for the systemic economic crisis affecting us all, these individuals and groups are immediate targets of anti-humanity laws that eliminate freedoms like the right to sit or lie in public places, and the right to asylum as this new movement works to unify a fallen defense of democracy. Their demand is for society that cares for each of us. They ask why so many are homeless and hungry when so much wealth is in the hands of the few, they know there's plenty of money to go down going to the. . . - thank you ms. Gareth - going to the. . . - thank you so much. - I want to thank the county i've been volunteering with eat for the earth for the last five years. They established community rx and salud en tu plato, and we've reached out to the underserved population in the southern county. I'm a registered nurse. We do the biometrics on the women down in watsonville - one second. How does this relate to cab? It's part of the county and it's. . . - how does this relate community action board? - well, that they can go ahead and be aware of another organization that they can send their clients to it. It's a volunteer donation, and we teach food as health and it's at the para la gente is in watsonville has through your county. - so I appreciate the work that you all do. I think what we're trying to do is keep the conversation focused on the presentation that's been given about community action board. I would encourage you to reach out to my. . . - they're part of the calfresh as well. Yeah, it's your county. It's your project. - thank you. - see if there's still other folks online, like to comment on this item. - we have no further speakers online, chair. -okay. There's anybody else in the room who would like to speak. Now's the time to come forward. Sure. - thank you. I just want to bring it back to cab and say, that, you know I was talking with the folks who are here today on the way in, and I recalled that, I worked at the community action board, and I am who I am today. And my orientation towards this community is a result of cab. And so I want to really do a shout out for the organization and, and the workforce. Having an organization where you can, you know, do all this great work. It's not just about the service to the community. We saw all of these, the numbers, but the experience that people have working inside this organization and the community collaborative spirit they bring, I think is worth really highlighting and i, I just wanted to make sure that, you all know what a difference you make in the lives of the people who work with you, and what I learned at cab held me in good stead. I'm here today because of cab. So as a mentee, so I just wanted to say that their, their work is amazing, 60 years of community action. Let's celebrate together, and thank them for all their work. - thank you. [microphone thuds] all right. Seeing no further commenters, we'll bring it back to the board to see if there's any comments from board members on this item. - i'll just make a a brief comment that, which is that there really is a tale of two santa cruz counties here and I think that maria elena in particular, not just cab, but you singularly help elevate the voices of those that really have not had a voice within our system for a long time. And you push us and all electives in this community all the time to be better, to ensure that those voices are heard. What I don't think people recognize is how often, how effective you are in your advocacy and how often you outreach just to ensure that, that those voices are, continue to be remembered in the process. So those numbers of income are exceptionally sobering. In some respects, maybe it's a tale of three counties. I mean, ones that have ones that maybe could have, and then ones that really have no opportunity, but for what you're providing and, it's unfortunate that an organization like yours has to exist in this day and age. Hopefully one day we can work toward the non-existence of all the community-based organizations for that reason. But you are just making a tremendous impact on people's lives. And I just wanna admire you personally for us. Thank you very much. - supervisor koenig. - thank you. Chair. Yes. I just wanna also extend my thanks to maria elena, isai, lizette, emily and joe, thank you for coming today. Thank you for all the work you do. I mean, the numbers you shared just staggering I mean, just in terms of homelessness prevention [microphone rustling] if you didn't do the work, you did our, population of people experiencing homelessness, it would be 50% larger in this county. And of course, a lot of the work you did extending help to the victims of the paro flood also helped there prevent homelessness and get people back on their feet. And I think that's reflected in the fact that, you know, we recently issued a new contract with you guys, around disaster response. We the caners could not do, what we do without the help of organizations like you guys. So thank you. - supervisor mcpherson. - I sure I agree with everything that's been said. [rustling] cab has been long lasting and consistent, and it's helped thousands, hundreds of thousands of people over these last 59, 60 years. And I can't say enough about how you, how much you have done to help so many and consistently, and the need has not gone away, which is sad, but it is there, the solution or the improvement for people's lives is there because you're there. And so thank you for your consistent and long lasting support of those most in need. Thank you. - supervisor hernandez. - so I too wanna thank and congratulate cab for their 50 years of service. You know, they mentioned about helping the coral flood victims, but I wanna kind of elaborate because they're more than just helping, you know, the Sunday that it rained and Monday the flooding in, south county by tuesday, you know, cab and mariaelena were out there helping the flood victims advocating for the flood victims and, you know, just really boots on the ground working with other agencies. All the agencies that came in, cab was there to direct folks from, you know, community bridges second harvest to feed the folks. So I really thank your dedication, you know, for going above and beyond, what a normal nonprofit agency does. So thank you. - well, i'll just end by expressing my deep appreciation for cab and for all the work that you've done in this community over the past 59 years, the 60 years in our country, and the many, many years to come. I totally share supervisor's, friends remarks when he says that you know, we hope for a day when cab is no longer needed because we've addressed poverty in our community. But I will say that while you are here and we're so grateful for you all being here, i'm just, I always think about how compassionate our community is and you're taking that compassion and turning it into a reality. I mean, you all are really dealing with people who are faced with some of the biggest struggles and hurdles in their lives that are keeping them in their homes. And, you know, it's just knowing that you're there and knowing that we, when we hear these dark stories of people who are facing eviction or they're, you know, they're down in the luck that there's somewhere we can send them to, you know rather than saying, i'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. We know we can send them to cab, and cab will do its best to try to provide them with the resources that they need. And I just want to also highlight that you know, today on our agenda, we just approved amending our agreement with community action board, increasing the amount by $300,000 for flexible rehousing and prevention assistance fund management. And this is really a reflection of the great work that you all do and our continued investment into ensuring that you all have the resources that you need and from our community to be able to help those who are less fortunate. And so, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you very much for your work and your service, and we continue looking forward to working with you in the future. - okay. And with that, we will conclude this item. So thank you very much for that presentation. Thank you for your work. And we are about a couple minutes behind, but we have a time certain item at 10:45, which is the board of supervisors will recess in order to permit the board of directors of the santa cruz county flood control and water conservation district zone seven to convene and carry out a regularly scheduled meeting and I believe supervisor, friend, the director of that board. - yes. Council chair, and clerk, do you need any additional time or is it okay if we move straight in? Okay. Alright, then we'll call to order the flood control and water conservation district zone seven board of directors regular meeting of May 14th, 2024. We're gonna begin with a roll call, please. - director hernandez. - present. - cummings [thuds] - here. Here is carter, koenig? - here. - mcpherson? - here. - culbertson? - here. - friend. - here. - lucas harris siri - all right. And we do have a quorum. Director machado, are there any changes to today's agenda? - no changes today. - all right. We'll begin with oral communications. This is an opportunity for members of the community to address list items hat are not on zone seven's agenda, but within the purview of zone seven, or to also speak on the consent agenda or any item, the regular agenda if you're not unable to stay. Good morning. Welcome back. - good morning, becky steinbrenner. I spoke with someone who recently attended a meeting with the army corps of engineers, and she was shocked to learn that the actual levy repair would not begin until 2028. [blips] work's being done on salsa platos creek, on corralitos creek, but the actual repair on the levee will not begin until 2028. I ask that your board do all that you can to urge the army corps of engineer and hasten the process of getting the actual levee repair done. Those who are threatened by future flooding because the levee has not been repaired, are in constant state of worry whenever it rains. It has especially affected those in paro, but also people in santa cruz county. So please, do what you can to work with the army corps of engineer. They say it's a design issue. Get it moved up and get the levee repaired more quickly than in 2028 beginning. Thank you very much. - thank anybody else in chambers, anybody online, madam clerk, - we have speakers. - call on user six. Your microphone is now available. - carolyn garreth, again I call on you to urge a halt to weather intervention operations, which are causing these disastrous floods all over the planet. And a source of information is geo-engineering watch. Org with dane wigington. And it's just fax and citing the patents and what is happening disastrously all over the world from these operations. The disruption of the hydrologic cycle and the huge floods, huge droughts is a hallmark of geoengineering. So I urge you to do that thank you, - Dr. Nancy b... your microphone is now available. - thank you. I just want to commend you of getting the, the progress that you've made so far. I'm glad that they're going to start on the corallito's creek this summer. I think that's a big step forward. I mean, you know, 10 years ago we were nowhere. So progress is happening. And I think that the paro river, I think they're working on that too. I mean, it's all one project and I think we're doing it one step at a time, but at least we're starting with corallito's creek. Souths creek will be coming. I mean, everybody's nervous, but I commend you for what we were able to do so far and just continue forward. Thank you. - thank you, Dr. Bilicich. - we have no further speakers online chamber. - I believe we do have another member in chambers, please. - yeah. Thank you. It's nice to be here. I was in the city of capitola last Thursday and I made a joke. It's not really a joke to be standing over the train trestle, which is high above the capitola city council because by what a lot of people have done research on this october, we're going have title fluctuations between two and five times normal. Why could that be happening? You know, know there, I could thank so many people for the research they've done. Particularly david divine with adapt 2030 and many ice age conversations. He speaks in such a way that none of his 1800 professional presentations have been banned by youtube yet. So, you know, if you could imagine earth as a tennis ball, and my understanding is that the diameter of earth is 7,000miles and that water covers three quarters of the physical area of the planet. There's something called primary water. So if earth is 7,000 miles in diameter and let's say three quarters of the planet is a mile deep, there's, you know, 6,996 miles of solid or whatever surfaces, some people feel that there's three or four times the amount of water in the earth that is actually on the surface. So due to magnetic alignments like one we're gonna have in October 24 and another one in April of 2025. Imagine planet earth being a wet tennis ball that gets slightly squeezed. So it could cause some real issues going on. Some people describe, that's why governments are hiding a great deal of information from the public because they would be in a state of fear. But I think if one of the easiest ways to deal with fear, is to study it, then we can be better prepared to help ourselves and other people. So thank you for this opportunity. - thank you. Seeing nobody else in chambers that'll close both oral communications and the comments on consent. So we'll bring back to the board for any comments or a motion on consent. Are there any comments from directors? Seeing none, is there a motion for consent? - i'll move consent. - second we have a motion from director cummings and a second from director hernandez. We got a roll call please. - director hernandez. - i. - cummings. - I - there's carter, - koenig. - I - mcpherson, - culbertson. - i. - and friend. - i. And that passes. We'll move on to the first item in the regular agenda, which is item seven, which is a public hearing in the zone seven assessment rates for the 2024, 25 fiscal year to hear objections and protests, if any, and consider adoption of the resolution confirming the rape report. We have the zone seven agenda, item board memo as well as the resolution overruling, protests and confirming the rate 2024. Director machado. - thank you chair and directors. The item before you is as described and just want to share with you that on March 26th, the board adopted a resolution confirming the increase in assessments. And just as a reminder, the increase assessment is, is the cpi 3. 7%, that is the extent of the increases. And on March 26th, you set today as the public hearing to hear any comments from the public on the assessment rate report for zone seven. The recommended actions this morning are to open the public hearing and hear objections and protests, if any, to the proposed 24, 25 assessment rate report for zone seven and close the public hearing. Upon conclusion of the hearing, consider adoption of the resolution confirming the written report on assessment rates for the 2024, 25 fiscal year. Staff is available to answer any questions you May have. - thank you director mashado. Are there any questions from directors before we open up the public hearing? Seeing none will now like to open up the public hearing an opportunity for members of the community to address this. On zone seven, assessment rates for the 24 25 fiscal year. I see nobody in chambers. Is there anybody online? - yes chair. - colin, user six. Your microphone is now available. I vote no assessments, rates are going up for the public on in every category, but wages and income don't keep up with that big problem. If we had more of our money kept in the county, we wouldn't be so in dire need of finances for county services. Thank you. - thank you, ms. Garrett. Anybody else online? - we have no further speakers. Chair. - okay. We'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for a motion. Is there a motion? - i'll move recommended motion. - second - we have a motion from director hernandez and a second from director koenig for the recommended actions. If we could have a roll call please. - director hernandez. - i. - cummings. - I - koenig. I. - mcpherson. - i. - culbertson. - I and friend. - i. And that passes unanimously. Move on to the last item of the regular agenda, which is item eight to consider approval of the 24 25 fiscal year zone seven budget. We have the board memo and the budget table in chart. Mr. Machado. -thank you chair and directors. The item before you is a proposed budget. The final budget will be a part of county budget considerations next week. Just a little bit of history on this item and on December 6th, 2022, your board approved a cost sharing agreement with prfma. Shortly after that approval we had some very devastating series of storms the 2023 atmospheric river. It is said the end of December into january, February and March which depleted most of our resources in zone seven to address the flood conditions down in south county. I shared that with you because it affects our ability to do the cost share with prfma. The budget before you today does consider these issues and I will tell you that coming into this proposed year we will hopefully get out of this condition of negative fund balances and depleted resources. And so just a high-level summary of our proposed budget is, it anticipates revenue of about 2. 3 million from the assessment. We do anticipate in this coming year, fema reimbursem*nt of about 1. 9 million, which will restore the moneys we spent in that 2023 disaster. It also includes about $700,000 for levee maintenance which our county crews are still doing as we work through a maintenance agreement with prfma. And so I tell that to you as a global summary of the budget. We anticipate based upon the assessment revenues and on the fema reimbursem*nts, the timing of that will dictate when we can transfer the funds to prfma for that cost-sharing agreement and so we hope that happens more quickly than not but we anticipate it'll be, it'll be most of the, most of the fiscal year to settle up all those debts and receive all those revenues but I can assure you that the maintenance of the levee will continue and that we're hopeful that this year we'll settle up on the 23 disasters and put us in a good position to fund our agreement with prfma. Lastly, i'll state that the anticipated revenue share will be in about the four million dollar range once season to spare revenues are secured. So with that the recommended action today is to approve the 24, 25 proposed budget for zone 7 flood control and water conservation district. And staffs available to answer any questions. - thank you director machado. Any questions from directors on this item. - will there be a timeline on the projects for from that money? - so a timeline for the for the big projects? - big project. - so this budget and the revenue source. . . - for them, right? - yeah. There is a series of projects the funding from this budget does not control the schedule of the larger levee project and so we're fortunate there. But the projects are moving forward as planned as scheduled with as we heard reach six going to construction this year and then reach 5 and so on through the fazed program. - is there any member of the community who'd like to address us on item 8, which is approval of the zone 7 budget. - thank you becky steinbrenner. I was here and heard a protest by Dr. Mark strudley, when the flood control budget was going to take money that had been allocated to the agency he now manages the I can't remember the name of it exactly pajaro valley stormwater management association, something like that, and he was protesting that money was being taken away from his agency that had been promised. Can you please discuss that and whether the money that was taken under his protest will be restored to his fledgling agency. Thank you. - any other members of the community here to address us in chambers. Is there anybody online? - we have no speakers online? sure. - okay. We'll bring it back to the board for action. - I move the agenda item. - second - we have a motion from director hernandez and a second from director koenig. And also appreciation for director culbertson who is not only drives up to attend all of these meetings so it makes all the south county meetings. So thank you for all of your work. On that if we could have a roll call, please. - director hernandez. - yes. - cummings. - i. -koenig. - i. - mcpherson - culbertson - i. - and friend. - i. And that passes unanimously. Thank you. Dr. Machado. all adjourned the zone 7 meeting. I'll hand it back to chair cummings. - thank you supervisor friend. Okay, so we have another item that were a little behind schedule on but it's going to be a time certain item item number 12 consider presentation by health service agency county office of education central california alliance for health on the children and youth behavioral health continuum care and take related actions. And before we begin this item, i'd given that we've still have included with the inclusion of this item with three items that we need to conclude before noon and we have seven items in this afternoon for these little main three items this morning to reduce public comments one minute with the hopes we can get back on schedule. And so at that time i'll end with that being said, i'll invite staff up for item number 12, their in the room. [microphone rustling] - yeah, I think we can yeah. [microphone thuds] - good afternoon. Thank you board very much for allowing us to be here today. I am very pleased to be here with some friends and colleagues just to provide you with an update. - thank you, that's much better. About you with an update on our work around children and youth behavioral health services in our community? What we're calling the continuum. Many of you have already heard me present both here at the chambers and one-on-ones about the significant burden that user really faced right now when it comes to mental and substance use and addiction. Obviously we've seen the data, I won't focus much on it in terms of the impact. At this point mental health and substance use disorders are the leading causes of disease in the state and in our country. And it's alarming for us to understand the impact that this is having in our youth. We've seen a 104% increase in suicide ideation and self-injury among our youth. And there's multiple data points just really highlighting the lack of work that we're doing to address this issue. California ranks 44th in our country in terms of access to behavioral health services for youth. Now start to think about that and we're wondering why the impact right now in our crisis stabilization programs in our behavioral health facilities is you know, really at impact and so wanted to highlight that in california we can do better and specifically in our county we can do better to address the devastating burden of behavioral health among our youth. We cannot afford to continue to ranked 44th in the nation and because of that we've seen the impact primarily around youth of color. For example black youth are two times more at risk or impacted highly compared to their pure counterparts. And so locally when you start looking at our data were no different. I'm presenting to you here a method [thuds] we use in the county to try to get a sense of what's happening [rustling] whether [thuds] youth and mental behavioral health. And what you can see here is that those 11th graders or even folks that are non-traditional, school settings about half of her kiddos are experiencing sadness or hopelessness in the past 12 months. To think about that, we have about half of our kiddos, really going through some devastating you know developmental milestones and we are just failing them and specifically for us this should be a very important metric because we know that between the ages of 10 and 24 years of age the manifestation of mental illness is really a bit starts appearing on our young people. So this is a great metrics for us to keep in mind. On the down side we're seeing this come through when it comes to our crisis unit residential. Can you click to the next slide please? Thank you. Maybe that will work. This is a graph to show casing or prices acuity both the services. Basically if you look at the blue line and it's a little hard to read but these are armor v. So this is our mobile crisis unit specifically for youth. You can see the rise from July 2023 to now you can see that blue line trickling up and also our 5585 holds or what we called are basically when folks are young people are you know, harming themselves or others? We have the crisis stabilization unit. And this is the numbers of the most the latest statement to nine months of data in terms of us having holds for our youth in our local facilities. So i'm sharing all of this background with you to just highlight that you know two years ago this is my third, i'm starting my third year as of january. This was really an apparent issue that your board came to me and said, "monica you need to do something about this" without really having a sense at that point of the system of care for our county. We knew that our staff knew that we needed to bring together the key players. That really have an impact or roll around youth behavioral health. Most of the time I think what happens is that county obviously has a policy that's driving the need for us to provide services. However, the safety net is broader. It's much broader and county behavioral health has a responsibility for sure, but so do other key systems and that's who you have here in front of you and I just realized that I did not pause to make sure that they introduce themselves, but they will introduce themselves as they present. We brought together key systems health services agency with intention of us not just to give updates I think updates are important on the events that are taking place but really make the commitment to our families in our community on the work that we can scale or improve, that we were working on together. Initially we started with some pain points. I'm not going to lie the conversations were really around how can we improve communication, right? But we quickly also transition to think what is the continuum of care? What's your role for us, what's your role, sheina? In terms of thinking about this and how can we actually strengthen some of the work? We did work on mous who worked on protocols. We talked about combining workforce. Strengthening our workforce. The bottom line what's really coming out of this work is our commitment to look at prevention and this is some of the areas that I think state policy has actually failed as well as local policy because about 90% of all our funding does not focus on prevention similar to the cab presentation right before we actually see people in the streets. How do we think about doing more of the prevention? It's the same concept care for us. How are we thinking about some of the key organizations or systems that are touching youth before they end up in the county? We do not want youth in our county if we flip it around then that means that our hsa, your board is doing the job that he needs to do to address the issue and also our commitment to making sure that we're providing and putting families and children at the forefront of our work, that our work is also evident space and that we're including community at in the discussions and in the work. So really thinking about the continuum. We developed a roadmap that is attached to the board packet. I won't go into a lot of detail and really the goal for us is we will continue to work on crisis, but our efforts should also focus on prevention to- in mild to moderate interventions, and we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means. If we really want to meet and address the issues of young people before they get to a space of acuity. This is a really good way to think about it, right? There's three key buckets in this graph. I know it's really busy so I encourage you to look at this after our presentation for more detail. But the point of this slide here is to really demonstrate to you that there's key systems or organizations if you want to think about it that way that touch youth, right? That interact with youth. When you think about the prevention and early intervention a lot of the work is done by county office of education or our schools our schools see our kiddos, most of the time more than parents do in a day, right? And also community-based organizations and there's opportunity there for us to think about education around behavioral health and substance including mental health and substance use as well as strengthening our wellness centers. And then you have the middle kind of green area that you see here the what we call the non-specialty and part of the problem is all the jargon we use [laughs] and part of why we have to use is because we're funded this way and so gets so confusing for any average caregiver to think about the system. But what you have in the middle is really thinking about opportunities there for us to do better at screening to think more about opportunities for families and parents, and or might be seen some symptoms of young people with signs of mental or behavioral health excuse me, mentor substance use issues. And then on the right side, that's where you see a lot of the work by the county. That's where you get into crisis stabilization and residential services and so forth. So please take a look at this paradigm here in front of you. It's really important for us. And so the three systems that are responsible really for carrying a lot of the what you see here in the continuum of care are here with you to discuss not only that we're going to put them, we'll use in place which are really important or that we're going to increase communication, but they're going to share with you the detail activities that they're doing to actually meet the moment and stop failing our young people. With that, what i'm going to do is transition it now to ferris who introduced himself and share what that's what he's doing as the lead for coe. - good morning. Chair cummings and members of the board of supervisors. My name is ferris sabbath. - with the thing, can you put the gray button on the base in the mic? - oh there we go. Thank you. I'll start over. Good morning. Chair cummings members of the county board of supervisors. My name is ferris sabbath. I am the county superintendent schools. I use he in pronouns and it's my pleasure to be here to talk to you a little bit about the roles schools at the system of care. Before I do that though I do want to give a huge shout out and thank you too, monica morales as leadership over the last few years. She's only been here with us in this role and really has helped break down the silos that we've been that have limited our abilities as a community and as a county to offer services to students and I think we're- we're moving in a very positive direction on the best interests of our children and youth. Before you see a image of the of the social determinants of health in schools of really become an important place as ms. Morales has mentioned where a variety of different services and needs for students and their families are addressed and the pandemic elevated that even more. I think that schools parents see our schools as places where they can get to a variety of services and behavioral health is absolutely one of the places where we're able to deliver a great deal amount of behavioral health as we are caring for that the wellness of our of our youth. When back to the three buckets that monica mentioned, you'll see that that these three areas, the blue, the green and the darker green. The area prevention and early intervention is the area that schools and school related schooling services have the greatest role and that's what i'm going to be speaking with you about. We've been working collaborating with all our school districts from pvusc and all ten school districts in the county as well as a variety of other partners to look at how we can increase services and improve the quality of care for students in that preventative and early interventive place. Also, of course partnering with fqhcs and our community-based organizations, you'll notice also that the ages for this at work is between 0 and 25. So this is not only a tk 12 effort. This is going be a this is an area where we're focusing on from from birth until age of 25 and and that the state has invested significantly in this area billions of dollars to be able to enhance the abilities for schools and school linked agencies to be able to provide behavioral health services to this group. You'll notice at the bottom there are these cross-cutting strategies that the three these three main organizations here the alliance, the county and the school system have been working on such as data exchange having a closed-loop referral system, coordination with our community-based organizations, developing and strengthening those collaborative's and community education to make sure that if we develop and improve our system of care, we need to make sure that our clientele, our family is, our youth know what services are available to them and how to access them. When we look at what services we're able to offer that the school system, we utilize this multi-tiered system of support. It's a pyramid you probably seen these triangles in different presentations. The bottom area is our first tier of support and this is what we offer all our students and this is social emotional learning. This is the preventative work to make sure that we don't wait until students are in crisis before we intervene. Making sure that we create a school environment where students feel supported, where they know where they can get help if they need it, where they feel that wellness is a goal, not only education and learning in our schools. When students do need some additional help, they get tier two services, which include group, small group support of students experiencing anxiety, perhaps depression. They're able to maybe start by getting support from peer-to-peer groups. And if they continue needing additional help, then they would get referred to the third tier, the top, the intensive supports, which include direct one-on-one counseling from trained professional who would be able to support them. The idea is that through the system, we're able to tailor, customize our system so that there's an articulated system. And also, if students need additional crisis support beyond what we're able to offer, then we're able to work with our partners like the county to provide that additional crisis support. One of the most exciting things that is revolutionizing services in the school system is a new fee schedule that has started, being piloted this year. And the fee schedule allows schools and school-linked service partners to bill insurance and get reimbursed for the services that we're-we're providing. This is the first time we've been able to do this outside of the medi-cal system. And we are working with the state to be able to, develop the systems, the documentation of services, the billing process, to be able to get reimbursed for each of those services. So there's a fee schedule, it's a list of services, and a dollar amount that we are guaranteed to receive for the services that we offer. Again, this is for ages zero through 25. So we are working with our early childhood education partners to develop systems to be able to support those younger children. We're also working with cabrillo college and post-secondary programs outside of the k-12 system to be able to ensure that they're serving those 18 to 25-year-olds. And again, this is not only for schools, it's for school-linked partners, which means that community-based organizations, private providers would be able to tap into the system as long as they follow the protocols and systems that we are working to develop. The exciting part of this is that if you can imagine, if let's say we are able to get reimbursem*nt for 60% up to 80% of our services, that allows us to increase the number of providers that we're able to offer, and services that we're able to offer our youth. We're able to provide more wellness centers. The schools are working to build, hopefully, there'll be up to five wellness centers being opened in the fall across high schools across the county. And this is going to allow us to have a sustainable funding source for those services. The fee schedule allows for reimbursem*nt for psychoeducation, screening and assessment, treatment, care, coordination. And many of these people that are listed here are able to as long as they're set up correctly in the system, will be able to bill for the services. On the bottom right corner, you'll notice a new category a wellness coach, which is a new category that has been established for people with an aa degree or a ba who have experiences of training and are certified as wellness coaches to provide many of the services that they're already providing, such as helping to link students and families to services, possibly providing some, some guidance and being able to get reimbursed for those services as well. We've, written a grant with our school districts. We're gonna be bringing in about 50 wellness coaches this coming school year to be able to provide supports. Again to increase the services that we're gonna be offering through this fee schedule, and provide a better continuum of care. And i'm going to turn it over to shaina, from the alliance who is going to be talking to us a little bit about the managed care plan services. - thanks ferris. Good morning. My name is shaina zerlan. I'm the behavioral health director for central california alliance for health. We are the managed care plan that serves santa cruz. My mic is on. Is that better? great. I want to echo ferris' appreciation for monica's leadership and convening this opportunity, as well as ferris' partnership, really excited to be here as part of the continuum. So to start, I wanted to introduce you to current utilization of youth within our non-specialty system, which is the section of the continuum that the managed care plan is responsible for. So your lightest line down at the bottom here, you'll see about 5% is the california average utilization of non-specialty benefits within managed care plans statewide. The middle bar coming in at about 7% is the alliance average. So that includes all of the counties that we serve of which santa cruz is a part. And that highest line there comes in a little over 11%. And this is the utilization in santa cruz county. So this is showing two things: one, that the alliance has higher utilization, more kiddos accessing behavioral services within the managed care system than statewide average and even the other counties that we serve. But also it highlights that there is a large percentage of kiddos who are eligible and not receiving services. This is another snapshot of utilization for 2023, showing the breakdown of that utilization about 9. 03% of kiddos zero to 12 utilizing services and almost 15%, 13 to 18. So lower utilization within our younger kiddos and a little bit higher in those older youth. So we have been thinking long and hard about how we're going to provide improvements to our community and improve this utilization. So how do we create lower threshold, lower barriers to accessing care? How do we ensure that our services are culturally responsive and available to folks as they need them? So i'm going to outline three main strategies that we are working on currently to improve the utilization in santa cruz county and beyond. The first is our project to insource and integrate the non-specialty benefit. So for the last decade that the managed care plan has been responsible for non-specialty services, the alliance has outsourced this responsibility to carelon behavioral health of california, formerly known as beacon. And this has created some significant barriers for the alliance in terms of the connection to care without having direct locus of control and relying on that third-party provider. So the alliance has decided moving forward, given that we are striving for a much more integrated model that provides holistic health for all of our members, that we're going to transition the management of our non-specialty mental health services from that delegate to in-house operations, meaning that effective July 1, 2025, the alliance will no longer contract with carelon behavioral health of california, but we'll bring all of those functions in-house. When we say integrated model, this means that we are not creating a significant behavioral health department that will maintain these services in silo, but that we are weaving it into all of our daily operations. So the folks who process claims at the alliance will process behavioral health claims. The folks who navigate provider onboarding and credentialing will do that in the behavioral health space. Our care management team will integrate behavioral health into those care management functions. So a fully integrated model that aligns with how we think about behavioral health being just another part of health services. This is gonna have a couple of benefits for the alliance. One is that it's gonna facilitate some critical improvements. So calaim is really calling upon us to do better in this space and to implement some transitional policies that will help us provide services more effectively for our youth. And we will be able to do that more directly as an insourced model. And then we can create new opportunities for streamlining workflows and eliminating access barriers. So in partnership with the rest of the continuum, really being able to have a more hands-on approach and leveraging the strengths of the alliance staff directly to accomplish that. The second activity I want to highlight for you is enhanced care management. So enhanced care management is a new benefit offered by the state that is brokered by the managed care plan. And we leverage relationships with community-based organizations to provide intensive care management to folks who need it. The youth populations of focus, so the folks that are included in enhanced care management per state guidelines have complex health issues. These are folks that are potentially in and out of the emergency department that are really struggling with social and emotional health that are participating in california children's services or the whole child model, but have needs that require services beyond that set of services and anyone in child welfare or having foster care involvement. So this is a place that we have put some time into working with our community-based organizations, identifying barriers to implementation. We have recently nearly doubled the rates of pay for community-based organizations providing enhanced care management and have been campaigning for more folks in the community to onboard as ecm providers, in large part, receiving reimbursem*nt for services that they're already doing for these folks and then also expanding access to ecm for youth in our community. And the third piece i'd like to highlight for you today is dyadic care. So dyadic care is a new model within calaim that's intended to address developmental and behavioral health conditions as soon as they're identified within a pediatric primary care setting. This means that a caretaker takes their kiddo to the pediatrician, maybe it's a well-child visit, maybe they have a cold and they're looking for some treatment for that. And it gives the opportunity to speak with the caregiver and potentially provide some services and interventions for that caregiver right there in the moment, rather than referring them back to their own provider, rather than having them come back later, that they can access preventative care for children while they're accessing services for themselves. It really supports coordination of a whole family model. It gives an opportunity to provide some feedback on developmentally appropriate parenting and to address any maternal mental health issues or concerns that the parent is having in relation to their mental health. So these are some strategies that the alliance is engaging in today. [microphone thud] - the third bucket that you have heard me already present, so I won't spend a lot of time, is on the crisis or the specialty or the severe. It's a lot of terminology that we use for this bucket. And in essence, some of the key projects we're working on right now, as you're aware, is our youth residential, and crisis stabilization building. We're very proud of this building. We know that the first phase, which is our 8-chairs crisis stabilization will be opening late summer of this year. So we're very just ready to move forward and hopefully, have a launch pretty soon to share with you around that. The second phase of this, which will be in 2025, would be our 16-bed crisis residential program. And we're hoping that also that moves quickly through the process. And we've also presented to you on our 24-hour crisis mobile model and really looking forward to this also. The state policy wanted all counties to have this in place by January of this year. All counties are behind. I would like to just report to you that we're actually doing quite well here and we're anticipated to launch around mid-summer. So a lot of work taking place here, looking to have a crisis call center ready and available for folks 24 hours with our outreach crisis teams, and then having facilities should individuals need to utilize a facility to stabilize them or if they need longer term stabilization or residential. So a lot of work happening here. But in summary, i'm hoping that this presentation just helps the board in, you know, or community really look at the different key pillars that we know are part of the continuum of care for behavioral health and for youth specifically, and to ensure that we come to you at least annually to report on the progress of these milestones. A lot of what you're seeing here that we're trying to implement is due to the changes at the state level brought by calaim, really leveraging the funding, leveraging the new policy, thinking about expanding workforce and really evidence-based practices to reach those most in need. So with that, i'll pause and we're happy to answer any questions that the board might have. - okay. Thank you so much for that presentation and for keeping us up to date on the amazing work you all are doing in our community. I'm gonna open up to first the community to see if there's any members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item. If so, please come forward, and you'll have one minute for comments. - one minute? - yes. - thank you. My name's becky steinbruner. I spent quite a lot of time this morning out in the hallway with Mr. And Mrs. Arlt. we have a common friend, and I am aware of this tragic thing that happened with their son, sean, that they spoke about. So I am happy to hear that the county is making some progress and working with, hopefully working with law enforcement to have behavioral unit teams go out with law enforcement, preferably in advance of law enforcement. So I support that work. I would like to ask that your board and your department try to work with the hospitals. It was unfortunate the dominican hospital closed its behavioral health unit. It was right there at the hospital. It would be great if the watsonville hospital could get something going near the hospital so that when people come into the er, they are directly referred to a behavioral health unit. - thank you so much. - thank you. And I support gardens and small animal places as therapy units. Thank you. - yeah, good afternoon. My name is james ewing whitman. I think the last time that I was listening to be addressed where farrah sabaw was part of a six or seven-person forum was in downtown in the second floor of the library. You know during that two hours, I took eight pages of notes. I didn't know i'd have an opportunity to speak on that. But I did make a statement that something about something wasn't accurate. And probably the 90 people in that room turned and looked at me. I raised my hand several times and I wasn't allowed to speak. And they actually shut the meeting down early. My point being is why haven't parents been successful four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and one year ago, going after your bond to throw your ass on the street for the harm you were doing to the children. I am looking at you in the eye, saying I would like to see some improvements and i'm really sorry to say this things that I am, but i'm very concerned with the educational system. And hopefully, in another forum, we can meet and talk about these issues. Thank you. - thank you. - any other members of the public who'd like to speak to us on this item? Seeing none here in person, are there any members of the public online? - yes, chair, we have speakers. Call in user seven, your microphone is now available. - you spoke of leading causes of disease and how we need to look at prevention. True. However, there are two areas that were omitted from your presentation. [paper rustling] being injected with poisons from vaccines is a leading cause of health deterioration. Also, wi-fi and wireless radiation is classified by the world health organization as a possible carcinogen. I refer you to citizens for safe technology in an article by mary atkins. She states exposing our children to a class two b carcinogen for six hours a day, 184 days a year is unacceptable. Even one child made sick by this radiation is one too many. And the sad truth is there are many children who are already sick. - bernie, your microphone is now available. - yeah, good morning, good afternoon. Just a quick comment. I just do want to highlight the fact that in south county right, there is a concerning high rise in suspensions, right? And most often these students who are being suspended are in one way or another having to deal with some sort of health issue or crisis, right? So I just want to uplift that. South county, right? Has been historically segregated and historically undermined and just forgotten. And we need our students need to be allowed to thrive on the we need to uplift south county and just really invest in south county infrastructure. Thank you. - we have no further speakers, chair. - okay. I wanna thank the members of the public who spoke on this item and thank the staff again for the amazing presentation and all the work that you all did. With that, i'll turn it to the board to see if there's any questions from board members on this item. Supervisor hernandez. - thank you for the presentation. You know, I really liked the idea of the wellness coaches. You mentioned that you're working with some agencies and partners already, but how difficult has it been to train, equip staff to do all the documentation and billing for this, you know, reimbursem*nt system? And I guess a second question, if there's any words of wisdom for any of the agencies that are going to be stepping into this world of, you know, the state reimbursem*nt system. - so we're really fortunate that the pajaro valley unified school district has really been ahead of the group of districts and has been doing some amazing work. So working closely with them, they've been utilizing a lot of the systems that they have in place for medi-cal billing through the school system. Many of those same exact protocols are going to be utilized for this insurance billing process. And so we're working with all the schools to identify what kind of software would be used or, you know, what platform would be used for the documentation of services. And then of course, billing. Because of the great work that's with pvsc and the work that we're putting in right now, all of the the official start time for most of the other districts for this will be January 2025. So between now and January 2025, we have to have those systems in place. The county office of education is hoping to centralize some of those services like billing and training to facilitate it so that the school districts can focus on providing the services and we can help with the infrastructure systems that would be in place. And so I think that it is challenging, and it is, you know, to tell somebody, you're going to continue doing what you're doing and we need you document your services, because that's going to help us to get reimbursem*nt for you. That's going to be, there will be some growing pains there. But we anticipate this to be a really positive thing. Because we, it's going to bring in resources that allow us to provide better services. And so this collaboration that we're doing, and this teamwork, it really is something that I think is going to help that zero to 25 group. And we will hopefully have those systems in place by january. - thank for the questions. Supervisor mcpherson? - yes. Very integrated, kind of complex situation. And congratulations for getting your. . . To try to get this. I'm just kind of curious that just who and when, will decide that some, something that the intervention is needed, the initial intervention it could be a parent, it could be a teacher, I guess it could be anybody. Is that right? - I started and so that we use a term of no wrong door, which means that we wanna be able to have young people to self identify as needing help. We want teachers and to be able or and other support staff to have that to be able to, to recognize when somebody needs help, peers to be able to support each other, parents to be able. And so part of what we're aiming for is a system that is ready to provide support. And that tier one for all part of that is understanding the signs when we're struggling. And also to be able to create a culture where people, where this community is making sure that you're getting the kind of support that you need. We also have great systems in place when it comes to screening, to be able to make sure that we're linking the, the kind of services that you need to the services that, so that the service providers are actually linked, matching the services that you need. And so that is part of what a system of care is. It's adaptive and it allows for multiple points of entry. - okay. And how long do you think it'll be before you might get any kind of a first measurement of success? Or it'll take a year or six months, or probably take I just have, do you have any sense of when you can measure, "hey, this is working" well, or we're addressing some issues? - well, monica used some data from the california healthy kids survey, which is one that we use a lot. And it's administered every two years. We're gonna be administering it again this year, I believe, or this coming year. And that's, that is an anonymous measure, but we also have other kinds of measures. We like if you look at what pvsd hey track the referral, they track all the services being provided, they track and they're able to generate reports. And that's the kind of data that we need to be able to keep both for our medi-cal based services as well as our, these fee schedule services, as well as our partnerships with the community based organizations. And so I think that we are able to see right now that we're having, and we're seeing an increase in the delivery of services to young people, it's already happening. And I think we'll be able to come back and share with you how many services they're getting, and also how well the results are, how well are students feeling we wanna see a drop in the number of students experiencing sadness every day for the last 12 months, the students who are experiencing suicidal ideation, the ones who are experiencing depression. And so we'll hopefully be able to, to see those results happening effectively - I would add right, the population data that we just highlighted in terms of sadness and hopelessness in terms of the program data, we want to see those verdict calls decrease, right? We wanna see folks or young people not going to our crisis stabilization or residential units. And so basically, let's put the county behavioral health out of business. I mean not that won't happen anytime soon, but that is the goal. And ferris here will have a lot of the work and so will shaina to kind of share some of those. But those are some of the metrics for the board to be thinking through as we move forward with the calaim reform that you're seeing. - i'm just really excited that we're doing this to address our youth, especially to get it before we get so serious that there's no comeback. Congratulations. This is great to see it being put forward. - yeah. Supervisor koenig. - thank you, chair, and thanks to the three of you in your organizations for really the more collaborative effort to addressing this crisis. And 44% this's just an incredibly high and somewhat disturbing statistic as far as the number of youth in our community feeling persistent sadness and you know, at least the beginning of some kind of mental health crisis. My question is, i'm trying to try to connect some of the things that we're hearing about even at this meeting, we're about what, what we define as service, right? I mean, how much, you know, are there opportunities to connect folks with volunteering or youth with volunteering opportunities or opportunities to get outside, you know, these sort of mean, you could consider these early interventions that might actually help people, as we heard, feel more connected. You know, just get some exercise, get some fresh air and really help kind of address those feelings of isolation right? that are, are driving some of these mental health breaks. You know, how much can we prescribe parks and prescribe volunteering? - yeah, I can answer now some of that, and I don't know if ferris has any other comments or shaina. But well, you know, we didn't get a chance because it would be a full room. But we also know that we have some of our community-based organizations working on some of the wellness centers outside of schools. The community health trust just received a grant last year to develop a youth kind of wellness center. So they're working on those pieces as well. In the report that it's attached to this presentation, you'll actually see a continuum of services, ranging all the way from zero to five to 25 years of age of different organizations doing different components of that. I will highlight however, that the age group that, in terms of the data, what we're noticing in terms of the biggest gap for services is those junior high and high school aged youth. And if you also look at the manifestation data in terms of, you know, mental health when it starts to manifest is those age groups. So one of the things that it, hsa that we're doing is really trying to understand as we leverage calaim, how do we strengthen those youth development opportunities, community civic opportunities for young people. We do have youth programs that work a lot around community organizing. For example, there's some in south county. So there's a lot there that we can strengthen, on the different personal note is we got to do something about those cell phones and really decreasing the use of social media and really increasing interaction, like physical interaction between young people and adults and young people and themselves. So there's a lot of research behind that I think we still need to really wrap around our minds around that we need to work on. - if I could add to that, I think that that idea of social emotional learning that occurs in the schools, you know, having that community, but also, part of the psychoeducation aspect or, and also kind of that community engagement component of making sure our caregivers are aware that, that those interactions that monica is talking about have a direct effect on their children's wellbeing and so really is it, is everybody all hands on deck working to connect, celebrate and help our students so that they feel supported and they, they're able to get the help that they need when they need it. And, and so I absolutely agree. I think, you know, the more we can do as a community, as family members, and also the more that the schools can do to provide those supports in that at the earliest level, then that we're less likely to see young people moving into those higher levels of need. - great. Thank you. Supervisor friend. [clears throat] - I just have a brief question. A lot of the service increase and service delivery increases predicated on state and federal drawdowns that seem a little bit there's some challenges with current state budget. So I just wanted to ask about what would be at risk, should the state budget continue to go down the road, which is planning to do in regards to broader hhs programs? - so right now, what we're noting, I knew you were going to ask me that, so I was prepared. Right now what we're noting is that a lot of the one-time infrastructure grants are really the ones that will either be paused, stretched, or deleted. So the beach hip, for example, that helped put together the youth crisis building that 5,300. Good thing is we got that round, that building will be in place. The other one is the bridge housing that you've seen where we're trying to establish the 34 units also around the south, excuse me, so cal area, so a lot of that is one-time funding. What we need to also think through now, is for sustainability, the reimbursem*nt mechanism for a lot of this. And so i'm trying to pencil that out, the details, as you know, [coughs] negotiations right now at the state level in terms of what the final allocations will be for our budget for next year are still on the way. By June 15th, the governor should have a final budget. And you know, right now it's a very important time for us because before that budget is finalized, there's a lot of negotiation that our associations are doing. What i'm concerned about is just the ongoing commitment on the infrastructure, because we still have a lot of buildings, honestly, that we need to think about housing, the treatment side of substance use and addiction that we're not we haven't saturated in our community. So there's a lot there that is at jeopardy and more to come supervisor friend in terms of the details of that. - if I could add to that, so we are hearing about some of these behavioral healths grants being pulled back. One of our schools was notified yesterday that there's high round two grant was going to be reevaluated. The good news about the fee schedule is that it's that is based on, that's the insurance providers who are covering those costs. Now that could mean that those of us paying insurance premiums might end up paying for that later on, but that the idea is a sustainable model for reimbursem*nt that is not linked to any of these state or federal funds, which I think is promising. - all right. There's no other questions. I just have a couple questions and a comment to make. I know that earlier last year, supervisor koenig and I were able to meet with, monica martinez with your members of your department and with ferris and some other members of the school boards around increasing behavioral health opportunities for the, the county and the schools to kind of provide more services. And I know that there's been a discussion around mous being drafted and just wanted to know what the status of that, the services are and what we can anticipate in terms of rollout with that with the school districts and the county? - yeah, so you know, the, I think the mous are gonna be important. However, the system that is being developed in partnership with santa cruz city school of psc in all the school districts is rock solid. And, you know, so we're still, there are some details that still the state is coming out with a release universally release of information. We were developing our own, we actually developed our own release of information form, and then we were notified that the state was creating one that would allow us to be able to share information across agencies. And so the good news is that because we have the involvement of our districts and we've kept them up to date there really is a very strong collaboration that's going on, and everybody's is on board. And so we are still ironing out some of those details, like the release of information forms. But the information that we're seeing, we've seen a drastic improvement in terms of the crisis supports that the county is now offering, more clarity as to when it's appropriate for us to reach out for crisis support. Because if you have a different definition of who's in crisis, then you might call somebody for help. They might show up and they might say, well "this doesn't look like a crisis situation for me" and I think that all of this collaboration is leading us to better our articulation and clarity. And so we still have some work to do. But I think that the system of care is starting to gel in a way. And I think that once we have our referrals and our billing systems in place in the next nine months or seven months, I think that all of these underlying components are going to be addressed and resolved. - I would just add in the mou space that the department of healthcare services recently launched a set of fairly prescriptive mou templates for managed care plans for the counties to utilize in partnership with each other. And they're very extensive in terms of data exchange and collaboration requirements. And I think indicative of what the state is looking for in terms of the collaboration. Fortunately we've been having these conversations for some time and are very much ahead of the curve, and so signature of those mous doesn't really call on us to do anything beyond what we're already engaged in. So I think that's indicative of the community being a little bit ahead of the curve on that. - great. Well, glad to hear that we're already ahead in that race. And you know, I think that when it comes time for us to enter those mous, it'd be great to get a report back and, you know, possibly have something come to the board for us to be able to sign on to. There's a lot of folks in the community who've been really pushing for the efforts that you all are embarking on. And I think it'll be great for us to celebrate all the hard work that you all have done to get us to this point where we're seeing a lot of strong collaboration between nonprofits, our schools, and our county to help ensure that the health and wellbeing of our young people is being cared for in our community. And so, I guess the last thing I would say is because i've met with some student groups who also were, you know, interested in the subject, and one of the things that they had mentioned would be helpful is, and now seeing as how we're moving down this path with kelly and being able to reimburse folks is increased access to counselors that could even be virtual, one of the concerns that the students brought up was that, you know, they're, if they're having a mental health crisis episode in school and they want to see a counselor, oftentimes it's like, well, you're gonna have to wait a few days before you can see a counselor. And so by the time they actually have access to a counselor, you know, their episode is over. But if there's options where, you know, people can be on call and we, they can be billed through calaim, maybe there's some opportunities for us to partner with folks who can be virtually available in case there's a student who has you know, acute mental health crisis emergency. - so the state actually just rolled out a free service for virtual counseling for all students. And so we'll, we're going to be making sure to, increase awareness about these services. They work for some folks. They don't work for everybody. And just to add it Mr. Cummings it's not only calaim, which is for medi-cal, it's also the fee schedule, which is insurance, right? So together, they, we basically have everybody covered with these systems. - that's great. And if you can share, share that information with us so we can put in our newsletters, we can help you out get that information out there. - thank you. - thank you. All right. If there's no further questions or comments from the board, I just want to thank you all again for the presentation and the update and for being here today. - i'll move the recommended actions on the acceptance file. - second. - we have a motion by supervisor friend, second by supervisor koenig. If we can have a roll call vote on the staff recommendation. - supervisor koenig. - i. - friend. - i. - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson and cummings. - i. That item passes unanimously. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Okay, we're going to take a brief, maybe five minute bio break. - my name is dee baldwin, i'm a lieutenant with the sheriff's office, and i'm currently assigned to be our military equipment coordinator. - can you check to see if your mic's on? - yeah, it's on. - it's on. Okay. - today i'm accompanied with, chief deputy jacob ainsworth, and we are here to present the 2023 annual report on military equipment. To begin our presentation, we'll go over a brief agenda. We intend to cover just an overview of ab 481, also our annual report, which contains summaries of complaints and audits. A summary of our 2023 deployments and expenditures some photographs of inventory examples, and then be able to answer any questions. Just as an overview, brief history of california ab 481, it was signed into law in September of 2021 and became effective January 1st, 2022. It established requirements for the acquisition and use of military equipment, and then also required approval from local governing body and made it requirements for public policy and for us to hold public hearings. And on that note, we held a public hearing May 1st of this month so prior to the board meeting, which was requested last year. In the state required elements of the annual report, there's six different topics that are contained within the report. The first that i'll cover today is a summary of the military equipment use. In our annual report, pages three through eight, we created a table that spells out the date, the general geographic location, the military equipment described, and then how that item was deployed or displayed in public. We found that chart gave the public clarity on when these items were brought out and utilized by our office. The second subject that's covered in the report is a summary of complaints or concerns, which I will just briefly go over. As noted in the report, the public concerns brought up last year indicated the lack of ar 15 rifles in our military equipment inventory. There was also a concern about the number of training hours for ar10 rifles, the total number of unmanned aerial systems in our inventory, the total number of ar 15 rifles compared to the number of deputies within our agency. And also a request to hold the ab 481 public meeting prior to presenting this annual report to the board. Which, like I said, we changed and held prior to this year. We received no formal complaints via our internal complaint system for any use of military equipment through the year of 2023. The third section of the report is our audit results. So throughout the year, on a monthly basis, we go over all the deployments of these items into the public, and then we determine that these are within compliance or out of compliance with our policy. Throughout the year, we found that no uses of military equipment fell outside of compliance with policy. It also allowed us to evaluate the items that we had. And during the year, we discovered that a number of different things could be decommissioned from our inventory. So this year it included 10 uav drones. And of those drones we ended up working with aptos high school and we donated them to their science program. So we turned those over to the school, and now they're using them for the sciences, which we thought was a great deployment for them. We also decommissioned two of our lieutenant incident command vehicles. They were older model, chevy tahoes that have been just return to the county fleet. The next section required in the annual report is a coverage of our annual costs. This included personnel hours, maintenance training, and other things of that sort that required payment via the county. The report through pages 11 through 38 under each itemized item, is broken down by that particular piece of equipment, the training hours, and the costs throughout the year. Section number five requires an inventory and definition of the quantity possessed for each type of equipment. Again, it's in that same section. This just shows how many of each one of those devices that we actually have in our inventory. And the final section is our planned acquisitions for 2024. And the final two pages of the report show that we're looking to get two additional drones and one bomb robot that would be paid for by, uac grant. So no financial impact on the county. This is a visual representation of a summary of deployments for all of our equipment. This is consistent with the data that's [clears throat] in the report. This is just a way to visually see how frequently these items are brought out into public, or that they're used for training deployments throughout the year. And as you can see, our uas, or uav program as the drones are our highest usage throughout the year. Another visual indicator is our financial expenditures. This covers our estimated staff expenses for training hours for each of the listed items, it's broken down by the category. And within here you can see that we, as far as expenditures spent our, staff hours training on the pepper ball devices, the uas, and the less lethal shotgun visual representation, just for members of the board to see the items that we're referring to. So I just put a couple of examples in here. Category one is our robot. It's a track vehicles with a camera on it that allows us to introduce it into a building and have two-way communication with whoever maybe within that building. The second item here is the dji avada drone. It's a commercially available indoor capable flying drone that we use for situations where it's safer to put this into a building than going in on foot. Category two is our armored van. This is a ford transit van that's very similar to an amazon delivery van that's been retrofitted on the inside to protect the occupants from gunfire. So it doesn't have any permanent visual markings on the outside to differentiate it from any other van driving down the street. Moving on to our bomb squad command vehicle. [rustling] this is, [clear throat] a large red truck effectively that's been converted on the inside to allow command of a bomb control incidents. The next item is our mobile incident command vehicle. Again, this is just, a blank vehicle on the inside that allows us to have a table and chairs and put awnings out and operate things like the fair and have an incident command for those purposes. Category nine is a visual example of our 308 ammunition. It's another commercially available ammunition that we use in the office. Category 12 is our pepper ball, the launcher, similar to a commercially available pep paintball gun. It operates on the same premise. It's visually differentiated by being painted yellow so that there's no confusion as to it being a live firearm. It's meant to be drastically different than any other firearm that we carry. Category 12 covers our flash balls, flash bangs, and sting balls that's what they look like. Category 14 is a beanbag round. It's a 12 gauge intended for a shotgun and is made to hold a projectile that we can use in less lethal situations. With that, we are seeking to recommend the board take action to adopt the resolution renewing the county un-codified ordinance that adopted and approved a military equipment use policy for the santa cruz county sheriff's office and making findings based on the santa cruz county sheriff's office annual military equipment report for 2023 and approves sheriff's office 2023 assembly bill 481 annual report on military equipment acquisition and use and that concludes our presentation and we're open to answer any questions. - great. Thank you very much. Before we move to the board, i'm gonna just see if there's any members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item. Again, given our our time constraints, you'll have one minute, and thank you for joining. - thank you, becky steinbrenner. I was disappointed to see that the comments from the public town hall meeting on this were not available. And it said in the material that it was because it only happened on May 1st and it was not able to get included in the agenda packet. To that end it's better than last year when the town hall meeting happened after this action. But I would like to request that in the future that the town hall meetings are held far enough in advance so that community input at that town hall meeting can be included in your board agenda packet. Thank you very much. - thank you. Any other members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item? Who are here in, in person? Seeing none. We'll see if there are any members of the public online who'd like to speak to us on this item. - yes, we have speakers - call in user nine. Your microphone is now available. I urge a no vote. No vote to renew this uncodified ordinance. This reminds me of the military equipment used on peaceful demonstrators across the country. And it reminds me of military equipment used in gaza by the israelis with by israel with us weapons. And use represents abuse. I feel like these are adding to the 800 military bases the us has occupying and polluting and dominating countries all over the world. Right here. The police and sheriff already have enough weapons and one minute is kind of a distortion of public comments, isn't it? That's my comment. No. - peter g your microphone is now available. - thank you. First of all, limiting public comment on this to one minute for your own convenience is shameful and confirms what most people already believe. But you really don't care what the public says at these meetings limited to one point the report's fine. You're also required by ab 41 to review and renew or vote whether to renew the ordinance you have adopted that includes the inventory and use policies with this equipment. The big thing that's missing here is the over 80 assault rifles that the sheriff's department has admitted that they own. That's the most clearly military-style equipment on this entire list. And it's not even listed here. The problem with that is if it's not listed, they don't have to tell us how they're using them. And they don't have to tell us what the use policy is for their use. The sheriff believes they're not required. I believe they are required the scpd and many other agencies list them and you are permitted expressly by ab41 to add them to the list, even if they're not listed in ab41 thank you. - we have no further speaker chairs. - okay. Bring it back to the board for any questions, or comments on this item. - May I say one more thing? I forgot I didn't use all my time. - i'm sorry, but. . . - but I didn't use all my time. - sure, go ahead. - my question is, why is this an uncodified ordinance? I've never seen that before. Why is it uncodified? thank you. - okay, thank you. Actually, maybe before I turn it to the board, i'm wondering if you could maybe speak to some of the questions that were brought up during public comment. Obviously around the uncodified ordinance. I think there's some discussion on ar fifteens. Maybe you could speak to those comments that were raised. - yeah. The sheriff's stance in our opinion is that the law has a carve-out for standard-issue equipment. And our interpretation is that the rifles that we carry are standard issue. We have one assigned to every patrol vehicle. They're not individually assigned to an officer. They are shared among staff. It's the same item that is shared, or common with the local police departments in our jurisdiction as well as our surrounding counties. So the way that we interpret it is that it's specifically in the law to exempt a standard equipment item. And that's the way that we're interpreting it. I'm wondering if you could speak to the uncodified nature of the ordinance. - I can speak to that supervisor. It's uncodified because the state statute that puts the scheme into effect, authorizes us to adopt it by ordinance and then to renew it by resolution year over year. We don't do a codified ordinance. Because if we did a codified ordinance, then we'd, we'd have to be coming back to your board, every year to go through the ordinance update process to change our code repeatedly. And it's not necessary under the state law to do that. - okay. - thank you very much. Right, do any board members have any questions or comments on this item? Supervisor koenig? - just brief comments. Appreciate that this process is getting better and better every year. More transparent. You know, it's great that the community meeting was held before you presented to us. And also some of the charts and graphs, it demonstrates the allocation of time and money to the various types of equipment is really helpful for understanding their use. Thank you, - supervisor friend. - no comments. - supervisor mcpherson? - nope. - supervisor hernandez. - so i'm also glad that you guys did, the forum. I'm not sure if it was on zoom so south county folks can be on it, but you know, it really, I got two emails and no phone calls and so the only public comment we had was, you know, kudos and a good suggestion as well. But thank you for doing that town hall this time previous to this meeting. It makes, you know, both our jobs easier. - you can tell by the thank you. - yeah. Yeah, i'll just say again, thanks for the presentation. I think the only concerns that have been raised are similar to what we heard earlier on the ar fifteens. And I understand that it's standard-issued equipment. I have a, one of my analysts was mentioning her brothers in the marines and it's a standard issue equipment for marines as well. And so there's that connection between military being issued these, you know, types of arms. And then also, you know, our sheriff's department being issued these arms and the police departments. And I know that sapd is listed them, and I think that there's some folks in the community who are concerned that, that it's not listed with the sheriff's department as well. So that's pretty much the only thing that i've been, the only feedback that i've received as we heard today. But do just want to appreciate all the transparency and the work that you all have been putting into making sure that the public is aware of how the various forms of equipment that are on this list are being used. And also appreciate for donating the drones to soquel high as someone who used to teach drone classes and training on that. I think they're really great uses of equipment. I actually do have one question on that. I'm just curious how you all have been using it, because it seems like that's the one piece of equipment that has the highest amount of use. I'm just curious how you all have been using that equipment. - so our policy has a very strict use on how we're using it. So it's typically for wanted individuals or public safety concerns and missing persons. So, I personally was involved in one where a juvenile had fled and run away. And the drone was, is critical in finding them. They were hiding, it was a missing person, it was using a lot of resources. The single drone allowed us to get overhead, find them safely, and return them home. So the efficiency with searching areas is just unmatched to any other technology. And then interior, it allows us to get in places inside a house without putting a person there and exposing them to risk. So the technology's come so far. [mic thuds] - I can add to that as well. I think we could see, a decline in our usage. We were the only law enforcement agency in the county that had a drone program. Santa cruz police department, capitol police department in watsonville now are establishing drone program. So the request for our assistance is probably going to be reduced here shortly. So we could see a little bit of a reduction in the use. - okay. Well, it's a great use of technology that obviously helps keep people out of harm's way, so by the, you all are taking the lead here in the county. And then I guess the last comment I would make is that, I think to some of the comments that brought up, if there's any way in the future for that meeting to be held within enough times that we can get the comments and we can, you know, better understand what feedback you all are receiving, I think hold, be helpful for us as well. And so with that i'm. . . - maybe make assure that it's on zoom too for south folks. - yeah, we, sorry we had that feedback as well at the meeting and, and we intend to, to move forward with that as well. - okay. All right. With that, i'll see if there's a motion on the staff recommendation. - i'll move the recommended actions. - second. - okay. So a motion by the supervisor friend. Seconded by supervisor hernandez. And with that, i'll take roll call vote. - supervisor koenig. - i. - friend. - i. - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson - i. And cummings? - i. I think that pass unanimously. Thank you all for all your hard work and for the presentation today. - thank you. - thank you. Okay. I think at this time just given that we have a time, certain item at one, and my apologies for the folks who are here for 4leaf, but I think what we're going to need to do is we're going to go in a closed session, have lunch. We're going to come back at one with the presentation from this insurance commissioner. after that we'll return to item number, I believe it's 10, which is an update from 4leaf. And then we'll hopefully continue on with the regularly scheduled agenda. So my apologies but, we'll see you all back here at one o'clock. - nothing reportable from the closed session. - okay, thank you. Sorry for not bringing that up as well. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] - recording in progress. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] - all right. Welcome back to the May 14th, 2024 meeting of the board of county supervisors santa cruz county. The next item on our agenda is a presentation from a representative of the california department of insurance Commissioner Ricardo lara. I just wanna make a few brief comments before I turn it over to supervisor friend who brought this presentation to our agenda we have been hearing a lot of comments and concerns from folks who have been getting dropped by their insurance here in santa cruz county. I think I remember reading in the newspaper at one point, that there have been around 4,000 people who've been dropped from their insurance. And we continuously are getting letters from people who are getting dropped from their insurance companies. And so we understand that this is a major concern. And knowing that there are people who, you know, were victims of the czu fire, they've been making strides to rebuild and then they're getting dropped by their insurance companies just when they're at a point or to the point where they haven't even rebuilt yet and they're getting dropped. It's really concerning. And so, we're really fortunate to have richie sayavong with us here today from ricardo lara's office who provides some presentations on kind of what's happening with issues related to insurance at the commissioner's level. And i'll just say that, you know, there were number of items on this, on today's agenda, where the board has taken action to help support policies at the state level and also to invite the insurance Commissioner To come to santa cruz county at some point in the future so that we can directly engage with him. And our hope is that, we can have the insurance Commissioner Here at some point in the future, but we're very fortunate today to have a representative from the commissioner's office who's going to be able to speak to us and engage with the community. And so with that, i'll turn it over to supervisor friend who put this item on the agenda for him to make any comments and introductions. - thank you Mr. Chair. and thank you for taking the time to come down from sacramento to be with us today. And also for you and your team that will be out tonight in scotts valley for additional community conversation. Our hope, as the chair mentioned is that, this is the beginning of not just a conversation, but the beginning of access to the insurance commissioner's office and potentially the insurance Commissioner Lara himself to come back because we think that this is an ongoing and evolving issue. And particularly with the work that's being, that your office is doing, the state's doing, we are dealing with a community that is scared, that is frustrated, and doesn't know where to turn. Information's been limited, but impacts have been significant over the last, actually multiple years. Although it's become even more acute in the last 12 to 16 months so what we were hoping today, and I know that you've got our presentation, but I know there's going to be community members of these questions are what options are available? To them beyond obviously the state fair plan, but what options are available to them? What work is being done by the state, in particular, the insurance commissioner's office to help reopen up the insurance market for folks and what can they do now if they've lost insurance to help regain some sense of stability in their life? As the chair mentioned, we have been through multiple federally declared disasters in our community in just the last few years. And they're going to continue. And so if this is an ongoing issue that needs the attention of all of us, but the degree that you can help guide us through the process would be ideal. So we'd really do welcome you to come down here. Thank you. [mic thuds] [mic static] [mic thuds] - thank you for that supervisor friend. Again, thank you to the board of supervisors for inviting me here to present today. Yes. While we're waiting for the slides to come up. - there we go. - you know, we are in very stuck crossroads when it comes to insurance. And what we are trying to do here at the department of insurance is to reassure californians that help is on the way. - if you go to the slideshow. - so again, my name is richie sayavong. I am an outreach analyst with the community relations outreach branch of the california department of insurance. Let's move forward. So, natural disasters and global inflation are creating stress on the insurance markets. That is not just happening here. Every state is experiencing these factors. We're looking at increased costs for rebuilding, labor shortages insurance for insurance companies is harder to find and costlier. And as risk increases, companies are protecting their obligations to current consumers and limiting new business. So, the property insurance market is also changing quickly. Even though there 115 companies currently selling homeowners insurance. Twelve insurance groups control 85% of the california insurance market. And since 2022, 7 of the top 12 insurance groups have paused or restricted new businesses despite rate increases approved or currently pending with the department of insurance. So clearly, the problem is more complex and global in nature affecting us here at home. Change to the next slide. So this slide does show you that 7 of these 12 insurance companies have either paused or restricted their new business. Though most have pending or approved rate increases, showing that the problem, it cannot just be solved by raising prices. [clear throat] [thuds] over the past ten years, insurance companies have done far worse in california than nationally, by any measure. During those years, california did experience nine of the ten worst devastating wildfires in our state history. And as a result, we are faced with a tough question. Can consumers get the insurance they need? Today, the answer is generally no. And because climate change does impact and is currently accelerating, we need to take actions that expand insurance availability. So, how do we get here? Since Commissioner Lara took office back in 2019, we have been consistently monitoring and analyzing the status and direction of insurance availability trends. The fair plan has doubled to 3% of the market becoming the insurer of first resort for many californians and not the last resort as it was intended to be. The fair plan is not a state agency. It is run and funded by the insurance companies. And a growing fair plan is part of the problem because fair plan policyholders are required to pay for more, and pay more for less coverage. In concentrating the highest-risk properties, under the fair plan, increases the chance that it will be unable to afford another catastrophic event. And it's really important to understand this. If the fair plan does go insolvent, insurance companies are on the hook for the unpaid fair plan losses. So, while this hasn't happened in nearly 30 years, the uncertainty is still driving insurance companies to further limit coverage to at-risk californians. So growing fair plan creates risk for the entire insurance market. And as a direct result of growing risk concentration in california, the credit rating agency am best has downgraded outlooks for the top 12 companies like state farm, aaa, and mercury. And there's a critical fact to know, unlike public utility companies that we work with, which are required to provide coverage to all residents and businesses under proposition 103, insurance companies can legally refuse to write insurance unless they meet 100% of consumers claims, cover their expenses and earn a fair return. So everyone is harmed if an insurance company goes insolvent because it can not pay its claims. We wanna make sure that doesn't happen. So, we will talk about the safer from wildfires framework. This was introduced by Commissioner Lara and it was the irst in its kind. It is a three-step system to protect your home, surroundings and community, which in turn provides consumers with discounts and transparency about your risk rating. So, under this regulation, we do expect to see more businesses, homeowners, and communities making investments in wildfire safety. Greater community resilience, reduce losses from wildfires, more insurance coverage for mitigated properties. And it is important to note that the department of insurance does not have the authority to force insurers to write policies. So this regulation does attack the root cause of non-renewals, which is wildfire risk, and which in turn will make californians safer. And with accurate pricing of insurance, we do expect to see more insurance options for people through a more competitive market. [click] so we will start with the structure. Step one. It's pretty straightforward. Class a-rated fire roof, enclosed eaves, fire-rated resistant vents, multi-pane windows, and a minimum of six-inch non-combustible vertical clearance at the bottom of the exterior surface of the structure. Most of what the safer from wildfire framework. How we developed this came from a meeting with cal oes, cal fire, a lot of the emergency response organization agencies that work in the state of california on how homes can better be hardened to withstand wildfires. So, step two, protect the immediate surroundings. So this would be clearing the vegetation and debris from under decks, clearing the vegetation, debris, mulch, stored combustible materials, and any and all movable combustible materials within five feet of the building being evaluated. We call that the dve. So, next would be the incorporation of only non-combustible materials into that portion of any improvements of the property of the dve, which is situated within five feet. Removal of combustible structures, sheds, and other outbuildings from the immediate surroundings of the home to at least a distance of 30 feet. And last but not least, step three is an effort to obtain a community-level mitigation designation. This will most likely involve at least one, if not more local government agencies such as fire emergency services planning, et cetera. Community-level mitigation designates include frrc by the board of forestry and a firewise usa site in good standing. So, the firewise usa program is a nationwide program created by the national fire protection association. California does have more than 700 firewise usa communities with more forming and it is an important part of california's efforts to ensure communities are protected against wildfire. I do want to push this in as well. I served the ventura and santa barbara counties for a while. The ventura fire safe council and firewise communities have finally established a mobile home firewise usa community. So, that was first in the nation and first in california. But let's shift gears towards the fair plan. So the fair plan began offering insurance discounts starting august 23rd of last year. The department of insurance expects to have other insurance companies approved by the end of this year. The fair plan has offered a 10% discount on policies participating in firewise communities since May of 2018. And now, the fair plan is offering two more wildfire hardening discounts, one for protecting the structure and another for protecting the immediate surroundings. When applied, these discounts will reduce the wildfire portion of the policy's premium by 10% and 5% respectively, depending on your level of wildfire risk. This can be a large component of the overall premium. So, do contact your broker to find out what this means for you, your premium, how to qualify, and when you should start seeing those discounts. So, the department of insurance and the fair plan reached an agreement to increase the commercial coverage limit to $20 million per location effective of November of 2023. This addressed the greater need for recreational youth camps, homeowners associations, wineries, and agriculture groups for additional coverage. And the business owner's policy or bop limit has increased to $20 million and should have taken effect later of by December of last year. So another thing I would like to discuss is that most people do not know that insurance companies assign a risk score to each of your properties or your business. So people would need this information because if you don't, if you know about the risks on your property, you can take actions to reduce them and make yourself and your neighbors safer. So this regulation requires insurance companies to give you your wildfire risk score for your property. They had to tell you how they created that score and what factors went into that score. So the wildfire risk score or classification must be provided to you at the following times, there are four situations. When you apply for a new policy, within 15 days. Before you renew a policy, at least 45 days. Before you are non-renewed at least 75 days. And when you complete mitigation on your property and request a revised score, within 30 days. So by creating the right of appeal, the regulation is giving power back to consumers. And if you're not satisfied with the response from your insurance company, the department of insurance is here on your side to assist you with that. So talking about Commissioner Lara's important actions taken to date, the safer from wildfires regulation was the first in the nation to be established that for communicate, community-wide mitigation standards and insurance discounts for consumers and businesses who are their properties. We talked about the risk scores. How consumers can obtain that risk score when they renew or drop or applying or have done mitigation efforts? And of course, working with the fair plan, we've expanded their coverage to $20 million per location and we're continually working to modernize the fair plan to provide consumers with more options. And in regards to the climate response we created the first climate and sustainability branch in the country. Established a climate insurance working group generating california's ever first climate insurance report. And we have partnered with the united nations to launch the california's sustainable insurance roadmap. And it's important to note that we're not starting all this from scratch. These actions build on what Commissioner Lara has been making since 2019 in the direction of a more modern and resilient market. So, we have moved forward on wildfire actions and responding to climate change like never before. And we are proud that the department of insurance is leading the way for our state and our nation. So, how are we going to modernize the insurance market? The california sustainable insurance strategy is a comprehensive plan to modernize the, our market with three interlocking goals, making insurance available to californians, creating a resilient insurance market, and protecting communities from climate change. So, here are the executive actions and reforms that Commissioner Lara is taking. So first, we will increase the availability of insurance in wildfire distress areas. Using our prior approval rate authority, insurance companies will write no less than 85% of homes and businesses in wildfire- distressed areas. This is a historic agreement between the department of insurance and insurance companies. So we will reverse the trend of a growing fair plan and close the insurance gap. The department will define these wild distressed areas using a data-driven approach. The second important part of the plan is we will return fair plan policyholders back to the traditional insurance market with first priority given to those that have hardened homes and businesses that are following the safer from wildfires regulation. And the next important element of the plan directly addresses the climate crisis. The Commissioner Will introduce regulations to utilize forward-looking catastrophe models, prioritizing wildfire safety, mitigation, and transparency. So, by effectively addressing climate change, it requires new assessment strategies that keep insurance available. Forward-looking models must recognize the clear benefits of our investments. Our governor and legislature are making in wildfire safety, including home hardening, fuel reduction, and prescribed fire. We have a clear template to do this in the safer from wildfires regulation requiring insurance companies to provide discounts and increase transparency on wildfire risk scores. We, we will take input from the public and put the public's interest in safety and insurance access first, as we did in that process. As another important element of stabilizing our insurance marketplace in the face of climate change, we will allow, we will explore allowing california only reinsurance costs. Reinsurance is a tool that many insurers are using to manage their climate risk and continue writing policies. We want to underscore that californians will not pay for the cost of hurricanes, fires, and floods across the nation and around the world. And under Commissioner Lara's agreement, companies wishing to use these new risk assessment tools must agree to increase and maintain their writing in the wildfire distress areas of our state. That's the 85% requirement that we just talked about, increasing writing and removing people from the fair plan. So turning to the fair plan, we'll modernize the fair plan by expanding commercial coverage limits to $20 million per structure. This does close the gaps for hoas, affordable housing, infill developments, and agribusiness, who have also been having a hard time finding coverage. - slide. - next slide please. [thuds] here we go. So our sustainable insurance strategy is the result of meeting with california homeowners, businesses, fire chiefs, agents, realtors, homeowners associations, summer camps, farmers and ranchers and many other insurance consumers across the state. We have held meetings in all 58 counties since 2019, making sure we take everyone into account. The issue of insurance availability is imperative for everyone and we will do our part to improve the market. Help us do your part by being safer from wildfires. And at this time, I will take questions. - thank you so much for that presentation. For all that valuable information. I think before I turn it to the board, I know there's a lot of folks here who probably have questions, comments and concerns so, I think what i'll do is open up to the public first. And given the importance of this item, I think we are going to go back to two minutes for this item. Knowing that we still have about, I think eight other items. But knowing how important this is to the community, we'll go ahead and if anybody wants to speak on this item, you can approach the podium and you'll have two minutes for public comment. And after that, we'll go to the folks online before I turn into the board with any questions. So if any members of the public would like to speak to the board on this item, you can approach the podium at this point in time. - thanks, sir. - yeah. - thank you. My name is carl hild. I'm president of the piedmont court homeowners association. In 1906, there was a major earthquake and fire in san francisco. The architect of our building was aware of that and had lived through it, lost family members. He designed a building to be earthquake-resistant and fireproof. So, the entire building, including the roof, is all poured, reinforced concrete. It sits there in santa cruz at high in highland avenue. It's a landmark building because it's been around since 1912. We were notified two weeks ago that our insurance will not be renewed. We were given 60 days, but by the time we got the notice, it was down to about 45 days. So we got six weeks. We've been looking actively, cannot find insurance anywhere. And as of July 1, i'll be without insurance, it's a community program. We have a homeowner's association with 26 apartments for the elderly. So everybody in the building's over 55 and suddenly we're without insurance as of July 1. We're in a real spot. Our ccnrs allow us to self-insure, but that takes a board vote, which state requirements mean it takes 60 days to do that. We don't have the time to look at another policy. So, the question I have is what do we do? we're stuck. July 1, we're out of insurance. Thank you. - we'll have the questions answered after we get through public comments. We'll come to that as well. - thank you. Becky steinberger, thank you for your presentation. To following up on the gentleman before me, what is the appeal process? Certainly this is a candidate for an appeal. But I was told by my agent that there is no appeal process available. However, that didn't comport with what the united policyholders representative hold the santa cruz county fire safe council recently. So, a neighbor of mine, I live in the santa cruz mountains, a neighbor of mine was notified that she was going to be canceled, but if she did abc and d, they would not cancel her. So she spent $13,000 doing all of those mitigations and got a notice of cancellation. So these things are not fair and we're being told by our agents there's no way to appeal it. So that's not right either. And how do, how can we work with the state insurance Commissioner To hold these carriers accountable and really institute an appeal process? I'm very worried about the fair plan being insolvent. So, i'm happy to hear that this agreement has been reached with the insurance agents to fund at least 85% of those in the high risk. Will the model that you talked about, about climate resiliency and all that, is that the model that they're going to be able to use and will they be held to that model and will it, how will that affect the rates? Will the rates be just as high as it would be on the fair plan? Thank you again for your time. - thank you so much. Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item? welcome. - hello. My name's jim engelman. I'm representing the upper fairway firewise neighborhood in soquel. I appreciate your attention to this issue. To reiterate what becky said, I actually called state farm this morning. I asked, because of the united policyholders that i've read as well, that i'm entitled to the risk analysis. They said they couldn't help me, that I wasn't able to get it. I asked if there was someone they could refer me to. They said no. I called my personal state farm agent. She basically said well. . . Let me step back. So I put a new roof on my on my house, about 120,000 product called sudura[? ] out of colorado, which is a pretty remarkable material class a impact for 120 miles per hour wind. It's been tested for over 20 years. I called my agent and they had me down as just a shake roof. So I said, would it be worthwhile to report to state farm that this is not just a shake roof? She said, no, it wouldn't make any difference because their, state farm, what they did is they targeted the high-end houses to not renew. They wanted to lower their general risk with as few policies as possible. So, she said it would not help to add, to amend information. A lot of contradictions in this. Thank you. - thank you very much. So, it's interesting to me how different areas in the county are designated in terms of the wildland fire interface. For instance, my neighbor across the street is in an area different than me. Their policy was canceled. Previously [thuds] a company that we'd been with for 20 years completely moved out of insuring in california. That was aig. We reinsured with state farm. Felt grateful about that. We did not get any risk analysis at all. And you mentioned that they were required to provide that. They also had our roof as a wood shingle roof. It's been metal for 25 years. We corrected that. One thing that was also curious, you mentioned that there's a $20 million limit for commercial homeowners associations. I think the big thing we're talking about here are single family homes. And I didn't see that on the list because it's mostly single-family homes that are being canceled one by one. Just wanted to see what take you had on that. [microphone thuds] - good afternoon board and staff. My name is tanya schweitzer. I'm the executive director of the long-term recovery group of santa cruz county. Also a fire survivor. We lost our home home in the ccu fire. We rebuild the most fireproof home you can imagine with hardboard siding, metal roofing. It's a passive home, 14-inch walls with cellulose insulation. We have no defensible space to remove anymore because all of our vegetation burned down and yet we were still cancelled by insurance. So that's just my personal story. I hear what you're saying about mitigation efforts. It's extremely important, is something that we advocate for all the time. My concern when it comes to mitigation is that the ones that falls through the cracks are the families that are senior low income that can not afford to do these measures. So not only are they at higher risk for future wildfires, they also are stuck with insurances they cannot afford. So i'm hoping that there's a way to also consider funding for community programs that will help families to do mitigation efforts on their properties. Thank you. - thank you. Alright, is there anybody else here joining us in chambers who'd like to speak to us on this item? Please step forward. - good afternoon. - good afternoon. - my name is jennifer carrera and they pretty much touched on just about everything that I was going to say. However, I got the non-renewal notice. They asked me to mitigate. I have five acres. They didn't want to see any farm equipment on it. - can you speak into the microphone, please? Pardon? - can you speak into the microphone, please? Oh, sorry. Is this better? - that's better, thank you. Okay, so I live on five acres and they didn't want to see any farm equipment on it. So and then they said that the grass was too tall. And I said, well, the tractor is sitting right there, but it's too muddy, it's february. So, we did, I did everything that they asked. I even did more than they asked. I spent over $10,000 doing this, that, and the other. And then I still couldn't find an insurance. I was being denied by eight or nine agents every day. So, finally two agencies said, go to the california fair plan. Well, I had read that it was not going to be able to sustain all of these losses several months back, six months ago or so. And so, i'm, I looked at that and the coverage that they're going to charge me $9,000 for, is not enough to rebuild my home. And I have another home on the property, which is on a separate policy. So I can't rebuild for what they're going to cover for $9,000. So, I don't think that that's a very fair plan. And I keep reading on the, a lot of people are really suffering here. You know, the insurance industry is citing inflation. Well, do you guys really think that the older people on fixed incomes aren't feeling that inflation? So, instead of helping you say, oh, here's a $9,000 bill per year to cover your insurance. Well, people can't do that. It's almost another $1,000 a month for retired people to pay. That's ridiculous. - thank you so much. - I guess i'm done. [laughs] - all right. Is there anybody else in, here in public who'd like to speak to us on this item? Okay, seeing none, we will go to our online participants and see if there's anybody online who'd like to speak to us on this item. - we do have callers. Tim, your microphone is now available. - thank you for hearing me today on this matter. You can all hear me well, right? - yes, we can hear you. - okay. So, anyways, yeah, there's some discriminatory aspects of what's going on here with the insurance companies and the insurance commissioner's office here. I live at the top of our mountains here on the western slope, and I have all the water. I have 15,000 gallons of stored water, 16,000 gallons in my pool. I had goat, I had goats on my lands. And boy, the goats were incredible. They made the place look like a nuclear war. A couple years back, everything was just eaten right down a stubble. I spent probably about $50,000 on my 3 acres of land. I submitted all this stuff to state farm. I've shown them everything, and the fire department is right behind me. If a fire is coming, it's typically going to be on the eastern slope, and it's going to run out of energy by the time it gets to my house. And I have redwoods around my house. Okay? We know when the wind switches, that's a winter storm with fog and rain. So, I have all the water. My land is water loaded from the last two winters. We all know that the sierra snowpack and the pressure on the central valley aquifer also pushes water up into the santa cruz mountains. So, our mountains are water loaded. And now this insurance company, state farm, they pulled the rug out from underneath me. So, it's confusing to me. And, you know, just so you know, I was child labor by federal law, and I have federal records for that. So, I know what rural hard labor jobs are like, and I worked my way out of poverty, and this is what I get as an older man. So, i'm not too happy. I'm very upset about this. Okay? So anyways, that's my comment and hope to hear from other people on this matter. Thank you very much. I live by the summit store. - rajeev, your microphone is now available. - thank you. Good afternoon. My name is rajeev dehejia. I'm a resident of los altos hills. A year ago, I was told by kemper, my insurance carrier that they would not renew my insurance. I have a new roof that is composition shingle. And I very carefully remove all of the weeds around my house every year. Do a lot of fire protection activities around my house that did not help. I tried, I must have made about 40 calls to agents and companies none of them were willing to offer me insurance. I had to finally go with a surplus line out of delaware at three times the cost of what I was paying before. That's one thing. The other thing that i'm really concerned about is the appearance of corruption on the part of Mr. Lara. he did not reveal his he did not open up his calendar as reques and then finally after a court, an appeal court overruled that. He issued a public apology and returned tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions. And it's reported that he intervened in at least four cases in ways that benefited his campaign donors. And now we have this weird situation where the insurance companies have escalated their rates enormously. I think that, that requires some action on the part of our elected officials. So, i'll just leave it at that. Thank you. - we have no further speakers, chair. - all right. Thank you. All the members of the public who spoke and thank you to everyone who's here today. And so, I guess i'll just turn it back to the representative from ricardo lara's office, there's a number of questions. I think there were, you know, just to summarize what some of these questions were, people are getting dropped and what can they do? What's the appeal process? People are doing mitigations and still being dropped. So how can we hold carriers accountable? And then, you know, the contradictions that are coming from insurance companies and what can be done. And so that's, those are some of the things I heard, and i'm sure there's maybe a few other comments you'd like to make, but maybe we can start there. - yeah. So, on the appeals process with the department of insurance, if you're not receiving any of your scores, you're not receiving any information as to why you're being dropped, give our department a call. Visit us. You can show our slide. - yeah. Our phone number is available for you to call us. What we have at the department of insurance is a process called the request for assistance. During that process in itself, you will reach, we will contact the insurance aid insurer, whether it be state farm, aaa, whoever it is, they receive that notification from our department, has 21 days to respond, and our department will do that follow up. So do submit that information on our department website or give us a call. We do have staff available in multiple languages to assist with that. When it comes to the hoa question, we do have those coverage limits available. You know, I under, want to underscore that, you know, reaching out to the department in that situation, especially with that notice of the non-renewal, not being sent in that timely manner, that is something the department does take into [sniffs] consideration as well from the insurance company. So going back to more of the personal statements about the, you know, wildfire risk score and all this stuff what we're aiming to do with this strategy and with the safer from wildfires regulation is that anyone in the general public, your elected officials, your local government leaders, anyone nearby, your neighbor can look at your wildfire risk score and determine it themselves. They're, you know, I served the central valley. I served santa cruz down to slo, and the common thing is, I will call the insurance company, i'll tell them my zip code, and then they say no, i'm not going to cover you. That's a pretty common thing. I know someone in the public saying they call like eight agents nine agents a day. That shouldn't be happening in the state. So, Commissioner Is aiming with this. So, we say 85%, we really mean a 100%, 85 is just a starting point, a 100%. So, anyone that's on the fair plan has done all this mitigation, has done all the home hardening is part of firewise. They're first on the list, as I mentioned, they're first on the list to get back off of the fair plan. I think anything else that you want me to address, supervisor? - I think that pretty much covers everything. But I guess kind of summarize what i'm hearing from the audience is that if folks have issues that they're running into, whether it's getting dropped if they're hearing contradictory information from their provider, the best thing for them to do if they can't make progress with their insurance holders is to contact you all's office. - yes. What I do have to mention is too, when you speak to your agents and your brokers, half of them are truly unaware of what's going on with the department, what we've been doing to alleviate what's going on with this marketplace. They would, there's meetings where i've had where insurance agents were like, i've never heard of that thing before. It's like, well, the Commissioner Puts this out there. We are pushing this forward, and your insurance company should be informing you. And part of retaining your insurance agent's license is that you have to take continuing education. So, hopefully that gets incorporated. Everything that Commissioner And our department's doing gets incorporated into their training so they can get up to speed. We offer workshops, we offer classes that are open to the public of what's going on. Everything that we do here at the department, this whole regulation, this whole sustainable insurance strategy, it's transparent, so that you as a consumer can see exactly what these insurance or companies are going to do and exactly what we're doing to hold them accountable. - thank you very much. I'm gonna open up to the board members. I have some questions, but i'm going to hold off until my other board members have opportunities to ask questions. And so, we'll start on my right with supervisor koenig. - thank you. Thank you for coming today to our community to answer questions and for the presentation is very informative. You mentioned, I mean, certainly incentives for home hardening, I mean, makes perfect sense. And i'm glad that, your office is pursuing that. I think you mentioned with the fair plan discounts of something like 5 to 10%, for homes that had done that kind of hardening. But at the same time, I mean, the fair plan is considerably more expensive than a market rate plan. And of course, many people are seeing their insurance rates going up three x or even five x within, that's a few years ago. So, that 5 to 10% doesn't exactly make things affordable. And to the extent that we're trying to, I guess, model what we'd like the private market to do through our public insurance plan, the fair plan, I mean, is there any pathway to more like a 30%, 50% or a larger reduction, in the overall cost of insurance? If someone, I mean, you heard that some of the investments people are making in their homes are significant. I mean $100,000 for a fire safe new roof, et cetera. Is there any pathway to greater levels of reduction or greater reductions for these kinds of investments? - so, what we're looking at in this state is because of, you know, as I mentioned, the reinsurance costs. So, the catastrophic events that happen in california, we've never paid into what goes on around the world. So, now californians are going to see a bit of a rate increase. That's what we're faced with. We always want to address the disparity, especially when it comes to those that are on fixed income. You know, that is something we definitely want to address. We don't want folks spending more money on insurance versus food, medication, gas, whatever they need to power and take care of themselves. That's something we are really addressing. When it comes to those mitigation efforts, you know, what I have seen throughout my time of service with this department is that there are fire safe councils. There are resource conservation districts that will assist with those mitigation efforts. For those that are unable to do that work themselves, there are volunteer days that a lot of folks in the community will put in their time to help others that are unable to put that work. So, what we want to see, of course is a drop in the insurance prices, but what we're aiming most importantly is to not suffer those losses. So, we want that community resilience. We want to bring that risk down so that when you bring down risk just like any other insurance, just like auto insurance, if you're a bad driver, your premium's going to be higher. But it doesn't directly correlate to where, you know, because you have a tree within 20 feet of your house, your house is, you know, viable to catch fire. What we want to do is to have these communities be resilient and through that it brings that, those rates down. I mean, it, just to be frank, it, we all want an overnight fix, but this is a process that the department and our legislature has to work through to help work with these companies. As I mentioned about their fair return, a fair return isn't, you know, billions and billions of dollars on their end. It's a measly 6% on top of whatever policies they have. So 6% of, you know, for one area, like $200 million, 6% be $12 million. So we're trying to ensure these companies don't belly up and we're trying to work with them on all these models. I know in the discussions I had with prior to this meeting, we want to incorporate the climate change aspect of it. That, of course, is a big issue and, you know, insurance models that we have to talk about, they don't incorporate the issues of climate change. They don't understand, okay, you know, what can happen within the next year or so. Especially with our wet winters, the mudslides, the flooding. We're trying to get them to use more scientific data-driven tools to better, you know, at the insurance marketplace. So it's gonna be a process, supervisor. - all right. Is there any pathway to the state fair plan offering greater reductions than just 5 to 10% for these investments? - so there are insurance companies that are offering those discounts currently. So if you are on the traditional market, not the fair plan, there are discounts available. So you do have to speak to your agent or broker on that. So we're you know, respectively, I think the highest reduction or discount is about 20 to 30%. - you know, then you were just talking about integrating climate models. I mean, doesn't that effectively just mean a model that's going to allow insurance rates to increase because, after all, climate's been looking like risky business these days? - I do have a colleague available online. Her name is deborah halberstadt. She is with our climate sustainability branch. She'll probably be able to elaborate on that. [microphone sound] - good afternoon, supervisors. That's a really important question. I don't know. Can you hear me? yeah. Okay. - yes, we can hear you. - yes. So, certainly climate change is going to increase the risk for everyone around all of the different types of peril, whether it's thinking about flood or fire or heat or drought. And so I think that the best opportunities we have to attempt to keep insurance rates as low as possible is through the mitigation that people have talked about. And additional, you know, city planning and local planning to ensure that people are, that we're not putting people in harm's way as much as possible. So it's really not just an insurance response, but an overall holistic approach to how we adapt o the new climate regime that we're gonna be facing. - okay. I mean, to that point, what can we do as a jurisdiction here at the county or other cities to help bring down the risk and hopefully, ultimately our constituents premiums as well? - yeah, I mean, so one of the things we're working at, at the department that i've been really engaged in is developing pilot projects to look at how as a community, you can reduce your risk overall. So not thinking just about individual homes and individual, accessibility and availability of insurance, but as a community. How you can work together and you've talked, you had some folks available who have talked about being with the firewise council. So the question is what if, and this doesn't exist right now, right? But what if we could get insurance at a community level after the community has demonstrated that it has reduced its risk, holistically, and would that be more economically feasible? Would that assist in lowering the risks efficient to introduce insurance back into the market where it's left? And so those are some of the pilot projects and research projects that we're looking at to sort of incentivize and shift how we're looking at insurance, to adapt because insurance, just like individuals has to adapt to a new climate. To the new climate change situations that we're all facing. So I think there is opportunity for innovation and one of the things I wanted to mention too is, a couple of people talked about having access to additional funding to help for, like, especially for low income individuals or seniors who can't afford insurance or can't afford the mitigation opportunities. There is a program that is administered not by the department of insurance, but cal fire under ab 38. Right now it's just in six counties, but they do have funds in those counties. I don't believe santa cruz is one of them. But hopefully, it'll expand fairly quickly, you know, if it gets funding to be able to provide those funds to folks who need it so they can do the mitigation that will keep them safer. - okay. Thank you. - thank you very much. Supervisor friend. - thank you. Well, first keep us in mind for a potential future pilot project. I think this county is ready, willing, and able to take a leadership role on that. I think the community would like that slide deck, so if you wouldn't mind making it publicly available, you can send it to us and we can put it up on the website. That'd be helpful. I have a couple of quick questions. I mean, in your estimation, if there was another major fire in the state, given the transfer of so many people from in essence private policies, the public policy, would that make the fair plan insolvent? Are we, in essence, are we one disaster away from the insolvency of the fair plan? - so this is a question that we get quite often, but it's a scare tactic that they say this fair plan will go insolvent. So just like the traditional market, if you have a policy, it is insured with your insurer. So just like the fair plan itself, it's written through the fair plan, but it still goes to a traditional insurer, but written as fair plan policy. So the fair plan will have that money aside, but whatever the fair plan can not pay, the insurance companies are on the hook for that. - okay. I mean, you've got insurance, I mean, you spent the first portion of your entire presentation talking about the difficult financial sense of some of these companies. That's how it was interpreted. I mean, that's how I interpreted it. So it does, if that's the backup, then I would just express a little bit of concern about the viability of it. The second thing is, is a question of we've, as I brought up before, we've been living under federally declared disasters. So is, would you consider, would the department of insurance consider some sort of policy or regulatory framework that would prevent these cancellations within these declared disaster zones? To my colleagues' point who, I mean, people have been through, I mean, some of the largest trauma possible, losing their home, losing all their possessions, and then trying to rebuild just to find that once they go all the way through a process, they can't get insurance. Would Commissioner Lara, your office be willing to have a different framework for those communities that have, that are in declared disaster zones? - so when it came to the wildfires that, you know, happened in the past few years, Commissioner Lara changed the a moratorium to a year. So once it was a national or federally declared disaster one year from that date, you know, the insurers are not allowed to cancel you within that one year. But following that one year, you know, you can be non-renewed or canceled. Given, you know, what's happening and, you know, thankfully as of right now, we have not many disasters going on that consumers are experiencing. But when it comes to protections, you know, we wanna ensure that consumers are protected during the time of rebuild, during the time of, you know, trying to navigate the world of, you know, suffering a loss. We don't want them to continually worry about, okay, my insurance is dropped right after I lost my home. No, we don't want that situation to occur again. So Commissioner Would possibly be open, you know, to that conversation further. - okay. Well, this community's open to that conversation. I mean, I think that the one year is fine, but it takes five years sometimes to rebuild and so I think that it's reasonable to say that, that we would need, I just think that one of the easiest and cleanest ways to look at it is if you've been in areas with federally declared disasters, then you know that we're talking about a very specific sub-area and that there's a different timeframe associated with rebuilding in those areas. This is the last question because I recognize we're short on time, but you had brought up, as a dear colleague who I appreciate her attendance as well remotely, in regards to communities that are making these investments fire safe councils, well, I mean, would there be funding specifically from department, ways to grant funding or ways to bolster the efforts of these firewise, fire safe communities that are within say santa cruz county? Are there ways that we can help bolster their efforts? - so those are typically grants. Cal fire will have a lot of grants. The department of insurance unfortunately doesn't do grants such as that. But it is usually the firewise communities that can apply for those grants, the fire safe councils that can, and the frrc communities as well. So, you know, though the grants themselves, you know, they extend for a number of years and the money is there. It, you know, the grants are there to assist communities, especially those that are starting firewise to, you know, really ramp up things. As I mentioned, they're resource conservation districts. I'm, I haven't touched base with them out here in santa cruz, but i'm pretty sure there's a santa cruz county resource conservation district that works with the community and, you know, they too have, will have funding to work on certain projects to better mitigate homes. - well, thank you again for- - excuse me, chair. If I can just jump in there really quickly. I do think that there are opportunities, like I said, in this innovative space for jointly applying for funds or for us to support communities that are looking for funds to do something new and different in the space of insurance. So we can definitely continue to have those conversations. - that was actually my broader ask. I recognize they've been very successful in getting the grant funding from cal fire and other sources, but I mean, you're not generally an entity that does that, but to the degree that you now are the megaphone for this to be useful to have support. So i'll just close on this, a few years ago, I did a joint town hall in this community actually on this issue before it'd really taken off as a major issue of concern with the commissioner. it was very generous of him to do it at that time and I think that I would hope that you and you colleague on this meeting would commit to making sure that that ask is made. Again, we'd love to have him come back. I mean, the board formall voted today to have the chair do exactly that ask, but I think that it would be stronger also internally saying, you know, this is a unique, it's a community that's been through unique things even though it's not unique about the state policy, about these cancellations across the state. But we need to hear from but we need to hear from him and we need to make sure that his presence is felt in this community as well and that this is just the beginning of that conversation. So thank you. - supervisor mcpherson. - yeah. Some of the questions have been, already been answered but there was a workshop last month dealing with the issue of catastrophic modeling. I don't know if it, your colleague sort of answered that, but what came out of that workshop, that for our community members can expect in terms of the impacts going forward. I don't know if she kind of answered it, but what is the modeling? I'm, we are trying to get a sense of that. - deborah, go ahead. [laughs] thanks. So yes, there was a hearing on catastrophic modeling, and essentially the department is looking at regulations that would be adopted later this year and considering whether to allow insurance companies to use catastrophic modeling, in their rate filings. So, this would basically allow them to not rely solely on historic data, but to be able to look ahead at what types of events might be coming down the pike in 20, you know, over time in looking ahead as opposed to just looking backwards. And so there was a hearing there and it's something that the, it's a piece of the commissioner's sustainable insurance strategy is to start incorporating catastrophic modeling. So there's definitely movement there. But there's nothing has been adopted yet. - okay. Secondly, can you give us more details on how the Commissioner Anticipates moving customers from the fair plan back to the marketplace? You've kind of gone into that as well, but I just wanna get a sense of how that might really transpire. - so with our discussions and the workshops that we've. . . . [microphone thuds] . . . Declare who it is but once we get these regulations put into place, they're ready to write policies within these wildfire distress areas. So there is movement with insurers that are on board with what Commissioner Laura is doing and is willing to write policies for californians again. - is there any I mean, I know you don't, you can't tell the insurance companies what to do, but when the in, the rates go up, 2% or two times or three times or when does that ring a bell? hey, this is getting outta hand. It's well, four times, I don't know. It seems like it's big no matter if it's two times, three times, four times. But are there some companies that are doing it four times more than others, two times? And I know you're not gonna name 'em. - yeah, so that goes back to our rates and actuaries. But what I can say is that with the executive order that governor newsom passed with, in conjunction to support Commissioner Laura and the department, what's been going on is that these insurers will file rate filings, rate increase filings. You know, by law they are capped at 6. 99%. If they go to 7% or higher, they are supposed to go to a hearing with the department. So what goes on in that process is that these insurers will submit these rate filing applications, but won't submit a whole packet before the department can actually look at it. So what we're telling the insurers to do is either you send us a full and complete packet or we won't get started on it. And we're hiring more staff to do that. So what some of these insurers will do, they'll file for 6. 9, as soon as that's approved, another 6. 9. So this is a continual revolving door that our department's having to deal with and, you know, half the time we're just sitting on what they sent in to us. - supervisor hernandez. - oh, thank you for joining us here today. I've had several questions that i've received from both constituents and some of my fire commissioners or several of our fire commissioners as well. Some of 'em you already touched on, but if there's anything else you'd like to add, please feel free to add more. The first one is what measures is the insurance Commissioner Implementing to ensure homeowners in high risk areas can afford access affordable fire insurance coverage. The second part to that one was will the insurance companies offer discounts to policyholders who have implemented preventive measures such as home hardening compliance with cal fire, defensive space measures, and participation in firewise community programs? Should I just do all the questions and then, they're short except for the last one [laughter], the one that was by the commissioners. - okay. What steps should homeowners take upon receiving a notice of non-renewal from their fire insurance provider? And the last one is kind of a long one. Cal fire plays a crucial role in wildfire prevention, including identifying and mapping fire hazard severity zones. In santa cruz county has 445 miles of land, approximately 284 acres of which the zone maps 228,577 acres, fall within the fire hazard designation zone. Or basically about 80% of santa cruz county lands fall within the fire hazard severity zone, making it difficult for santa cruz county residents to find fire hazard insurance. Given that 80% of santa cruz county's lands fall within the fire hazard severity zone, making fire hazard insurance a challenge to obtain for residents. What steps does a community need to take to be removed from such designation? Are there efforts to standardize or codify the criteria to ensure fairness? - okay. So i'll answer the last question first. [smiles] - yes [laughter] because of the pressure in my mind. So when it comes to the cal fire severe, hazard severity maps, the insurance companies don't look at that. I'm just gonna be quite frank. The insurance companies don't look at that. They're looking at historical data, which is why we're having these insurance companies look at newer historical data. There was a gentleman from mariposa county that told me one of the fires ripped through his whole property and he was trying to apply for insurance again and they told him 'no' because he had grass, he had trees around his property. He had 500 feet cleared out from that recent fire. So there's some disconnect between the insurance companies and what's actually on the parcel level. The steps that people can take, consumers can take in regards to you know, appealing that process with the insurance company is to call the department of insurance. We're here to do that. These insurers are supposed to provide those risk scores and I reiterate the fair plan is not fair. Just gonna be honest, the fair plan is not, the fair plan is not fair, and dealing with them to really put this into ask, into hindsight is that, you know, our department has been receiving calls from agents and brokers of the fair plan saying that they have had no response from them in two three weeks, even months. So this is an issue that we are trying to tackle with them as well for, you know, the access to the insurance, you know, as I mentioned and, you know, really we wanna reinforce. Once these communities really home hardened and mitigate and join firewise and do this as a community, you know, we'd see less fires rip through a lot of these homes, and that's the resiliency we're talking about. We want communities to be resilient, you know, and that's what will attract these insurers back into their communities. Did I answer all your questions and do I need to touch on one more [laughter]? - I think the, no, I think that covers it. - okay. Thank you for your time today, and we do look forward to Commissioner Lara coming to santa cruz county. - yes. - all right, well thank you, for the presentation. I do have a couple follow up questions, because, you know, in response to some of the comments that were brought up here today by members of the public. There's a few things that I just want to see if we can get some clarity on. I think in particular, the gentleman who brought up the apartment building that, I mean, this is within the city limits of santa cruz and i'm actually starting to get more emails from people who live within the urban, you know, environment who are getting dropped from their insurance. And, you know, a lot of what we've been talking about today is, you know, people who are living in more rural higher fire prone areas. But for people who are living in the urban environment, just doesn't seem right that they're getting dropped from their insurance. And so i'm just wondering if you can just elaborate on that a little bit because it's just something that is a little bit concerning seeing is how, you know, this is probably the lowest fire risk area. I mean, we have fire departments that are very responsive. This is not within the wild and urban interface. And so i'm just wondering if you could speak to, you know, how we can respond when we're getting emails from folks who live within the city, the urban environment, who are being dropped from their insurance. - deborah, would you have anything to add on this or no? - I mean, I definitely understand the concern that you're raising and I think it's a really valid and important concern. I would just go back to richie's earlier comments that, unfortunately we can't mandate that insurance companies write policies anywhere. So, while the, you know, these actions by the insurance companies very frustrating and scary. And we want to work with communities and work with individuals to help, we can't require them to do that or really stop them from non-renewing. So it's some of these additional strategies that we're looking and encourage them back to the market, is sort of the approach that we're taking right now. - thank you. And I guess i'll, my follow up question on this on to that is I guess that response gives me a little bit of concern because there was another situation where ms. Wiser brought up how her house had burned. They've rebuilt, they've done all home hardening, all the things that you're kind of recommending that people do to try to help keep their insurance, and then she still got dropped. And I don't think that situation is unique to her. I mean, there's other folks that we're hearing from who are rebuilding from the fires. They're definitely trying to create as much defensible space as possible, especially given that a lot of vegetation burned and so they're able to ease, more easily, create that space, and yet they're still getting dropped in their insurance. So i'm wondering if you could speak to that as well, because I mean, it's, you know, it's as has been stated previously, like this is a community that's been heavily impacted by disasters and we're trying to do our best to recover. And yet when people feel like they're finally at a place where they can move forward, they're being, taken back. - yeah. It goes back to a lot of it, you know, being, you know, I wanna touch the fact that we hosted a global summit with commissioners from different nations and our, and across the united states, one of the participants was Commissioner Gordon ito from hawaii. He touched upon about lahaina, how that whole community itself has lost everything, you know, and people are still missing. But what goes back to is that a lot of them are underinsured with the policies that they've had and now are struggling to rebuild their homes as well. You know, from costs that used to be 100, $200 per square foot, you're looking at upwards 500, 600 per square foot. You know, what we're seeing, with these insurers, is that they themselves don't look at the data. They, you know, with this summit that we've posted, you know, farmers, ceo is available to, chime in on this because we're looking at a global issue. You know, people are getting dropped. There's more catastrophic disasters that we've been seeing, that we've been witnessing ourselves, you know, and yet these insurers still have not yet seen the impact of, you know, that yes, they raise their rates, but what does that mean for us? We're paying more for less coverage. You know, there's a disparity of being underinsured or over-insured. Most of the answer today is everybody's underinsured. We want to underscore that. The Commissioner Wants to address these issues. We are going to, you know, work with these insurers to bring them back to california. Right now, it, you know, with these regulations and how we're moving forward, we're making progress. And you know, as many, as I mentioned, it's not gonna be overnight that we're gonna find the solution, but were making those changes, you know, with the assistance of our climate sustainability branch, our rate, our actuaries, our analysts, we're making those changes to help californians. - thank you [microphone thuds]. - I was just gonna say, richie, you might do, do you wanna talk a little bit about the, the 85% wildfire distressed areas? Because I think that that does get to some of these concerns and essentially the idea here is that insurers who write in california would have to provide, would have to write 85% in these wildfire distressed areas, which should then bring them back into exactly the santa cruz counties of,[laughs] our state. - yeah. So 85%, that's all the insurers that we talked about. 85% in their policies are supposed to go to wildfire distressed areas. So they will be coming back as soon as we, you know, as soon as we get this regulation put into place and they accept our terms, they're gonna be coming back to these communities. And as I mentioned, there is, there are a couple insurers that are ready to write policies in these wildfire distress areas. And the priority is given to those that have done the mitigation efforts, have hardened their homes and are part of firewise. Those are the first people on the list that will get called from these insurers because we want that competitive market back here in the state of california. We are the largest insurance marketplace and we wanna have those options available to everyone. - thank you. And i'm just gonna make a couple comments 'cause we do have a long meeting. I think the majority of my questions have already been answered and many of them have already been asked. But I think to first comment is to supervisor friend's point, you know, I think that when it comes to, you know, pilot projects around reducing risks, I do think that santa cruz is a community that is meeting a lot of the goals of what you're stating right now. I mean, having had one of the biggest catastrophic wildfires in our living lifetime back in 2020, there's been an enormous effort on behalf of the county working with community and firewise groups to really try to, you know, build up our firewise communities and also do our best to have members in the community work together to reduce wildfire risk. And I know that's been a big priority of mine since i've been on the board, and I know that there's a lot of priorities across this board. That's why, you know, all of us have reached out, I imagine in one way or shape or form the insurance commissioner's office to get you all here so we could have this presentation. And so, and you know, in addition to, you know, the conversation we're having around wildfire, I mean, we also have a lot of issues that we've been impacted by. We've had, you know, the storms flooding, erosion, I mean we have mountain charlie road, if you haven't seen it yet, take a peek, um, but it's a major road that's washed out and or has a major landslide that's occurred. But I say that because that means that there's a lot of other, you know, potential risk factors here. And so understanding how all those fit together as it relates to home insurance is really gonna be critical as we move forward and we're kind of facing the impacts of climate change. Another comment that I think was spoken to a little bit, but you know, after the czu fires, you know, we were fortunate, I think here in santa cruz county, and please correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe that people couldn't be dropped for about two years from their insurance companies after the fires. I know you mentioned one, but I think here it was two, and I just want to say how appreciative many people were to have that time extension, but to a point that supervisor friend brought up, I mean, we still have people in 2024 who are just getting through the pre-clearance and the approval process so they can move forward with rebuilding. We're gonna have an item after this about, you know, one of the services we've been using to help people rebuild. And so to the extent that, you know, areas are heavily impacted by wildfires, you know, where you have hundreds, you know, I think we had 900 structures lost here in santa cruz county. I mean, just the capacity of us to be able to rebuild much more quickly is it just can't happen within that timeframe. And so to the extent that those timeframes can get extended, it'll be really helpful. And then I guess I have one last question. I know that there's been, you know, people who want to engage in this appeals process and i'm wondering, you know, if they contact your office and then you all send a letter to the insurance company, is there any kind of delay in them getting dropped that occurs? Because I mean, I feel like if there's a dispute and let's say somebody, you know, gets a letter, it's not within the timeframe they wanna appeal to you all and you're gonna contact the insurance company, is there any way during that dispute resolution that people can still maintain their coverage or, you know, are you guys gonna send a letter and then as it's being resolved, people can still get dropped from their insurance? - so i'm not too sure on the specifics of how the rfa process works, but I can definitely get a response to you supervisor. - that'd be helpful. And if, and you know, if the latter is true where people are at risk of being dropped while they're in this process, I think that that is another reform maybe for consideration with the insurance Commissioner Department of insurance because while people are trying to work things out, they're trying to get all their information in on how they've pardoned their home or what have you, you know, it's, it's really critical that they're being protected during that process. - yes. - okay. And with that, if there's no other questions or comments, it'd be great. Again, slide deck will be helpful if there's context that we can share with the community so they can reach out to you all directly, it'd be great to have those, because I just got an email yesterday about somebody getting dropped and you know, it's happening frequently and I think we really want to try to be as responsible as possible to these concerns. And so again, wanna thank you for being here today. We hope to see Commissioner Lara here at some point in time, maybe after he passes these new regulations and they take effect so we can understand how they're, how people can access the information on the new regulations and how we can, will be supported would be really helpful. And and with that, I guess, unless there's any further comments, we'll conclude this item. Thank you for being here with us today. -thank you, supervisor. -we look forward to being in contact. - armalon - what's that? - oh yeah, no, we got more than that. [singing in the background]. - all right so. . . [mic thuds] [muted] so with that we're gonna move on to item number. We're gonna return to item number 10, which is consider ratifying amendments to agreement with four leaf inc. In an amount not to exceed 600,000 for czu lightning fire, lightning complex fire recovery permit processing services through to December 31st, 2024, and take related actions. And with that, i'll turn it over to our representatives from community development and infrastructure. [pause] [silence] [silence] -even without the powerpoint, can we just get it, is it possible to get it going? - sure. I updated it, it looks like. All right. Looks like she's working on it. Good afternoon, chair cummings and members of the board. I'm jocelyn drake unified permit center assistant director joining you this afternoon to present on the natural nope, nope [laughter] to present on the recovery permit center, contract ratification and phase one transition plan. So far, what is the next one show? No. Yes, that's right. All right. So august 16th, 2020 was an unforgettable day in santa cruz county. On this day, almost three years ago, the czu lightning complex fire tore across the santa cruz mountains trying approximately 85,509 acres of land and affecting approximately 805 parcels, 697 of which were developed with residences recognizing the need for additional resources to meet the recovery demand. The county entered into a contract with four-leaf, which the board approved on November 17th, 2020. The recovery permit center was established here in the basem*nt of this building shortly thereafter. Two and a half years after the fire, the county faced another challenge from mother nature when a series of unprecedented winter storms pummeled the county during the winter of 2022 and 2023. To aid storm victims in expediting permit reviews, the board approved an amendment to the existing 4leaf contract on February 14th, 2023, facilitating dedicated support and streamlined processes for permit applications and affected areas. As part of this action, the board also approved an extension of the contract through June 30th, 2024. One and a half years later, rebuilding efforts in the wake of these disasters are going strong. The recovery permit center have been effective in providing excellent customer service and expediting permits for fire and storm victims. To accommodate the expected volume of permit requests and cite inspections this summer, staff is recommending the board approve a contract amendment through December 31st, 2024, at an additional cost not to exceed $600,000. All right, as of April of this year, significant progress has been made in the rebuild effort. A total of 95 homes have been rebuilt in the past three years. Additionally, 158 homes are under construction, bringing the total number of replacement homes completed or under construction in the czu burn area to 255. [mic thuds] of note, as of June 2023, 193 of the 805 parcels affected by the czu fire had been transferred or sold, which is approximately 24% of the total effective parcels. Today, this number is likely significantly higher. This is data that is almost a year old. The assessor's office will be providing updated figures to the board this summer and many of the rebuilding queries being fielded by the staff in the recovery permit center these days are from new owners. - slide - thank you. All right, so digging deeper into the progress to date, as of April of this year, a total of 271 rebuild permits have been submitted through the recovery permit center. Of the 271 permits submitted, again, 95 of those have been completed and another 158 are currently under construction. Nine permits are in plan, check review, and the remaining permit applications have either been withdrawn or have gone void slide. [clicks]. So before a property owner is clear to submit a building permit application for a replacement home in the czu burn area, they must first receive pre-clearance sign-offs from fire, environmental planning, environmental health and zoning. To date, 454 pre-clearance have been submitted for processing. Of these, 334 have been approved, 99 have been conditionally, not cleared or not yet approved, and four are currently under review. [chuckles] this chart provides a breakdown of the 99 pre-clearance that have not been approved. It's important to note that pre-clearance can involve multiple agency reviews. As indicated on this chart, environmental health has been the most challenging pre-clearance to obtain with 81 pre-clearance currently unapproved. In addition, 55 have yet to be cleared by environmental planning, 11 with fire and a total of 27 with zoning due to coastal permitting or other discretionary permit triggers. Thanks. All right. So i'm just gonna switch gears now to the temporary housing permit program. As of April 2024, the recovery permit center has issued a total of 57 temporary housing permits. 34 of the 57 permits are issued to czu you fire survivors, while 23 of the 57 are issued to new property owners. Pursuant to the program, property owners have three years from the date of temporary housing permit issuance or until June 30th, 2024 to rebuild the permanent residence and remove or convert the temporary housing structure. This, thus far, only 13 property owners have come back through with request for permit to construct a permanent residence. Due to the challenges that some property owners are facing with regard to rebuilding staff is recommending extending the temporary housing program through December 31st, 2024 for property owners or tenants displaced by the fire only with a permit expiration date of three years from the date of permit issuance. Okay. [thuds] walk-in appointment service at the recovery permit center remains steady. In addition, there is notable demand for environmental health services and support due to the complexity of septic issues associated with rebuilding in the mountainous areas. And with 158 homes currently under construction, there is high demand for inspections over the summer. The county's environmental health division is presently understaffed and the summer and fall seasons are the busiest for the county's inspection team. In light of these challenges, as well as the continued demand for same-day appointment service staff recommends extending the contract with 4leaf to ensure continued optimal customer service for czu fire victims. The contract which is proposed to be amended, involves retaining two planning technicians. The building plans examining team, the building inspector, a fire reviewer, and the environmental sub-consultants. Staff recommends extending the contract through December 31st, 2024, with an additional cost not to exceed 600,000. To date, the county has seen $4,018,874 in revenue come into the recovery center, with expenses totaling $6,208,564 for a net county cost of $2,189,690. Given the track record to date, staff anticipates the additional revenue request, which is $600,000, will be offset by permit fees by approximately 35% for an additional net county cost of about $390,000. Okay. Thanks. In anticipation of the contract expiration date, staff proposes implementation of the phase one transition plan. This plan involves relocating the counter service portion of the recovery permit center operation from the basem*nt to the fourth floor unified permit center. [clears throat] appointments would be offered through the existing appointment scheduler, facilitated by 4leaf technicians and the new upstairs location. Our pc website would be updated and public announcements will inform the community of this change, which is scheduled to take place on July 1st, 2024. Bringing all customer service inquiries under one umbrella will facilitate cross-training of 4leaf staff with county staff to ensure a smooth transition in staffing upon expiration of the 4leaf contract this winter. All other aspects of the recovery center operations will remain unchanged, such as expedited plan review and reduced permit fees. Looking ahead, while it is the county's intention to retain these components of the rpc in 2025 and beyond, it is possible that minor adjustments in the preclearance, permit review, or fee structure May be necessary. Therefore, it is recommended that the board direct staff to return with the phase two transition plan in the fall of 2024. So getting to staff's recommendation, in summary, staff is recommending that the board take the following actions. To ratify the amendment to contract number 21c4461 with 4leaf, for professional services to provide czu fire and storm damage recovery permit processing services in an amount not to exceed 600,000 and a term of July 1st, 2024 through December 31st, 2024. And to authorize the cdi director to approve amendments to the contract that do not revise the term or the not to exceed amount. To accept the report on metrics from czu recovery permitting progress for czu recovery permitting progress. [thuds] to approve the phase one transition plan, which entails relocating the rpc counter services to the upc counter by July 1st, 2024. To extend the temporary housing permit program through December 31st, 2024. For property owners and tenants displaced by the fire and to extend the permit expiration date to three years from the date of permit issuance. And to direct staff to return to the board with a phase two transition plan in november, 2024. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. And we also, I believe have someone from 4lesf on the line if you have questions of their staff. - great, thank you so much. Okay, before we come to the board, i'm gonna just see if there's any questions or comments from members of the public. So we'll open up this item for public comment. And given that there's also been a lot of interest in this item, and it's been, you know, something that's been of concern to the community, i'll reinstate the two-minute public comment. So please, if you're in the room, approach the podium and you'll be given two minutes to speak on this item. Welcome. - good afternoon board. My name is tania sweitzer. I'm the executive director of the long-term recovery group. I applaud you for going into contract with 4leaf in the first place. I know of other counties that did not do that and have fared much worse when it comes to recovery. That being said, you know, we are looking at a total of 454 parcel that have submitted pre-clearance applications and have stalled there. And so that is a big concern for us. We're talking about the most vulnerable community members that have either are un- or underinsured or have other barriers to move forward in their recovery, which is why we are here as a long-term recovery group through disaster case management to support them. So my question is really, you know, i'm-i urge you to pass this today. We need the recovery permit center to continue. We need it beyond the six months. And so I really would like to be involved and invited into conversations about what is phase two. So we're talking about phase one today. What does phase two look like? i'm-i have concerns. We're just launching our volunteer rebuild program where we will be building together with mennonite disaster services. We'll be building five to six homes per year. And we are unnecessary, we really need to be able to swiftly move through the planning process in order to meet our program goals year after year. We're also looking into other opportunities for utilizing volunteers along with professionals to build homes for those they can not build on their own. And we need this process to continue. So thank you so much for the possibility of making this comment. And I urge you to pass this today and think forward beyond the six months. Thank you so much. - thank you. - thank you. Thank you for this report especially the metrics of what is happening. And to that end, I wonder if the supervisors in district three and five have had town halls meetings recently and consistently with your constituents reaching out to really get an idea of what's happening at the ground level with those people affected by the czu fire. I hope so. And I would appreciate having, access to those, to that information publicly. I really wanna know that the problems with the environmental health has been resolved. I'm aware of some of that. Mr. Steve homan reactivated his license so he could for free help people that he saw were being just mistreated really by what was happening there. So I wanna know why so many from environmental health have been, in the environmental health arena have been rejected and has that been improved and what will happen going forward with 4leaf in charge? What is the cost savings of, moving 4leaf up to the unified permit center counter? Is that mean they're all gonna have to move up to the fourth floor or will they maintain their office in the basem*nt but meet with people at the fourth floor? If they move, it's expensive. And if they move, is there space on the fourth floor for those 4leaf people to hold office? thank you. - thank you. Are there any other members of the public who are here in chambers who'd like to speak to us on this item? Okay, seeing none. Are there any members of the public online who'd like to speak to us on this item? - yes, chair, we have callers. Tim, your microphone is now available. - thank you so much again for allowing me to speak. I'm supportive of the measure, just so you know. And also I just wanted to remind you all to keep in mind that a lot of these other fires around the state, unlike the czu fire, those were not nature-involved events. Those were human-caused. So I just openly wonder here while insurance companies are all penalizing us. And just like you pointed out, justin, folks in the urban region, you kind of wonder about that. Me on top of the mountain, I have all the water here and I did all this land work. But you know, we May be being unfairly discriminated against and penalized for the actions of people all across our state and in zones that are pine forests that are not like ours. So they burn much quicker and much hotter and cause a whole lot more damage. And here in santa cruz county, we're sort of being, we're paying the price for this. So I just wanted to point that out to you. And I hope there's some way to resolve this. I would encourage all of you of the board to potentially you can show up at my land and walk around my property and see what i've done. I spent so much money and explain this to these insurance companies. And I feel that I gotten quite a raw deal here by the insurance Commissioner And state farm and I don't appreciate it. And I don't wanna see that happen to anyone else or anyone in the czu complex or urban area that you mentioned earlier, okay? Anyways, thank you so much for hearing me speak. I appreciate it. You take it easy. - christine, your microphone is now available. - hello, board. Thank you for taking this. My name is christine burch, and i'm one of the people who lost their home during the czu fire. I'm also one of the people that have been able to have my home completely rebuilt and I am now occupying it I received the final permit to occupy almost three years to date of losing my home. The first few months of losing my home, I had no idea what to do. I was still in shock. I had many questions for 4leaf and marcus was always patient and always informative to answering those questions for me. My designer who drew my plans couldn't believe the ease it was dealing with 4leaf and at the speed in which I retained my permits. Hiring 4leaf was the best decision the county ever made to help czu victims. Please approve this contract amendment. Thank you. - susie, your microphone is now available. - good afternoon, supervisors. I work as a disaster case manager for community bridges at mountain community resources in felton. I believe it is in the fire community's best interest that the 4leaf recovery permit center be extended through December 31st. These citizens that have lost everything need to continue to have a streamlined process with a quick turnaround times on pre-clearances and permits. Navigating the rebuild process while dealing with trauma is nearly an impossible task. 4leaf has made it easier for clients to get help to understand the complicated permit application process with same-day appointments and they respond quickly with care. Please pass this extension. This is a vital service we owe our fellow fire survivors and now storm clients. Thank you for your time and consideration. - frank, your microphone is now available. - hi, my name's matt frankman. I lost my house in the czu fire as well. You know, at the start of this process, the county has made a lot of promises to help us to expedite things. As many people know, we weren't even allowed to clear our land for several months while requirements that were new and in addition to existing requirements were forced upon us. Literally pretty much the only help the county has offered has been hiring 4leaf. To take that away would be a huge disservice to all of us. Please continue to enlist 4leaf services. They've been very helpful. Thank you. - denise, your microphone is now available. - hi, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk. I just wanted, it's kind of a follow-up to this and to the last question. I just wanted to let the board and the audience know that you are eligible in santa cruz county for the recover california owner occupied mitigation retrofit program. It's a $50,000 grant program and you have to live in one of six counties, which santa cruz is one of. You do have to earn under the 80% of the average medium income here and this program is offered through the santa cruz county office of response, recovery, and resilience. So there is an option for people to get mitigation grants that's offered through cal fire in santa cruz county. Thank you. - we have no further speakers, chair. - thank you very much to all the people who stuck around to comment on this item. Okay, so with that, i'll bring it back to the board to see if there's any questions or comments. Supervisor mcpherson. - yeah, I just, yeah, I wanna thank the office, the department of community development and infrastructure, and the office of response, recovery and resilience for their collective work on this fire recovery that's five years old or four years old now. We've made significant investments in providing a dedicated pathway as we've heard, but let's be clear, it's not been an easy road for property owners and we know that due to the complex set of local, but really state regulations in our mountainous areas, which I represent in the san aranzo valley, as well as the cost of construction and the availability of insurance that we just heard about. So i'm glad that we've had 4leaf to provide a dedicated permitting services that they have and have the ability to extend that contract now for another six months. This is an opportunity for property owners to, at the time of the fire, to take advantage of these expedited services. We have nearly 160 homes that are under construction. So it's very promising comparatively, it's been better than most of the other countries that had been impacted by fires. So again, I want to thank the work of the department of community development and infrastructure and the response, recovery and resilience. And we'd like to make a motion and when it's appropriate to extend this contract to december. - all right. Supervisor hernandez? - [no microphone sound] - yep. Supervisor [microphone mute]? [microphone mute] okay. Folks are good. Well, I just wanna thank the staff again for all their work and attention to the people who've been heavily impacted by the fires. I know that as we've heard today, there's a lot of people who were able to get a lot of the help and assistance from 4leaf and it seems like there's still some people who are needing that assistance as well. I guess, one thing that's come up previously in the past is that, you know, these services are really meant for the people who lost their homes. Not so much for the people who are buying these properties and looking to build. That's, I feel like, and we've expressed this in the past that that's a little bit of a separate process, you know. We're trying to really help people get back on their feet versus, you know, supporting people who have the finances where they can outright buy a piece of property, you know, and try to utilize the service to expedite their. . . The building of their new home. We're really trying to be here to support the people who in our community lost their home tragically during that fire. So I really hope that, you know, as we move forward continuing this contract that we're really, that the emphasis is on people who are trying to rebuild. Not people who are buying new properties and trying to build for the first time. And I did wanna touch on the temporary housing piece as being new to the board. I'm just wanting to better understand those policies because the concern that I have is that if people are, you know, in kind of these earlier stages of applying for permits and they're making their way through the process you know, they're getting-they're starting to move forward with construction as we've seen for most folks. Construction takes about two years to get through the full process. And the idea that we would suspend the temporary housing at the end of December means that there May be people who are at the beginning stages of that rebuilding process who then would not be able to stay within in those temporary housing structures. And so i'm just wondering, one, if you can just speak to the general policy around this temporary housing and then two, what opportunities there May be for people who are in the process of rebuilding or in the permit process for that to be extended because it seems like that would be critical to really ensure that people have a housing that's affordable while they're kind of going through this process. - great questions. So the temporary housing permit program was initially slated to end on June 30th, 2024. And as part of this action, sap is recommending that you extend that through December 31st. However, when I come back in the fall, i'll be making a subsequent recommendation regarding the temporary housing permit program, which is likely going to be another request to extend further for the original fire victims. So, you know, extending it this, you know, this additional six months will cover everybody that's still coming into the process. For those that already have a permit, a temporary housing permit, if they need additional time to build their permanent residence, there is an additional extension that they can apply for, for an additional three years for a total of six years. - that's helpful. And then I guess in general, I just was wondering if you could maybe speak to, it seems like there's. . . The people aren't able to kind of live in these types of structures for long periods of time. And i'm just wondering if you can just speak to. . . Like the county code around that because as what's coming to mind for me when we're having these discussions is the fact that these are, you know, opportunities for lower cost housing in the community, and for some folks who May not have the resources and it might take them a little bit longer to have the resource to be able to rebuild or just build in general. I'm just trying to better understand why these are normally permitted in terms of structures that people can live in on properties. - well, that's a complex question. I mean, the, under the county code, we don't allow temporary structures at all, unless, or you know, or rvs and things like that nature. Outside of the czu burn area, this is a special dispensation made for folks in the czu burn area. The only exception to that is if you pull a building permit to rebuild your home outside the czu burn area, if you have that permit, you can get a temporary trailer on your property to live in while you're building your home and then it needs to be removed. So I think looking at, you know, amending the code to allow temporary type structures to be permanent residences would be a whole other conversation to see how we could make that work because they're not designed to comply with all of the building code regulations. And I think that's something that the board could consider extending these beyond, you know, that six years that they're currently allowed to you know, have the permit for, maybe when we come back in the fall, I can put some more effort into researching some of the questions that you have. - sounds great. And the fact that this is going to come back in the fall, I think, provides us an opportunity to have a longer conversation about some of these other items. And I guess the last question, and if there's a need for additional direction, maybe we could provide it. For those folks who were fire victims who have not submitted, who have not applied for permits yet, I guess, is there any. . . There going to be an effort to do outreach? Like, are you guys going to send letters out to these folks? Because I feel like, you know, from our perspective and, you know, from what we're hearing, it's really trying to get the message out as best possible. And so, you know sending letters to folks to let them know like, "hey, you know, we're going to be phasing out 4leaf potentially at the end of this year, this is your last chance to really, you know, get within that process and utilize the service," I think would be beneficial for us to exhaust all of our potential resources to connect with people and let them know. And so, i'm just wondering if there's any efforts to send letters out or if that's a possibility. - that's something that we can explore. I can partner with the resource he was with. . . [laughs] - resource recovery? - yes. With david's group to see if that's something we can do. There is a figure in that memorandum that was prepared by 4leaf staff that's has the number of permits, number of personal owners that have made contact with rpc. I can't pull it up. . . - so, we're. . . Out of the 697, we're about 454 individual parcel owners. So, about 200, a little shy of 200 that have not come in or reached out. - thanks. That was marcus from 4leaf. [laughs] so yeah, we can look at doing some additional outreach. Maybe we can partner with one of the community groups. I'm not sure what would be the best approach for that. But, yeah. - I think that would be really good for us to do that. So, I mean, yeah. When the time comes to the motion, if we can add some additional direction to have staff reach out to the remaining, individuals or parcel owners who have not, you know, who we've not been able to contact just to let them know that this is, that 4leaf is getting phased out, I think would be really helpful for us to try to connect this as best possible. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that concludes all my comments and I just want to thank you all again for your hard work and in trying to help everybody as they've been dealing with this tragedy. And so with that, i'll look to supervisor mcpherson for a motion. - i'd like to make the motion to accept the recommendations with the additional action and I also want to just say, too I assume and more so hope that those what? Almost 200 that have been sold, everybody is well aware of the some of the limitations, regulations, and so forth, that are facing, those who want to rebuild. So I make that motion. - i'll second. And I just have one last question, because you just brought up a really good point. Is there. . . Are the issues that people are encountering being disclosed when properties are being sold? Because if you like the maybe people who are purchasing this property is, and you know, the folks who were there previously May have tried to rebuild and realized, you know, your rows are not big enough, your geological is not, you know, able to rebuild and people being sold properties, they can't actually build on. So i'm wondering if that's. . . - if they, we always recommend that new property owners come to the county and talk to us about the feasibility of rebuilding. And if they do come to our offices, we absolutely inform them of the challenges. Unfortunately, we don't see every new property owner, perspective property owner, come through our office. And so, it's very difficult to know what the real estate community is relaying to prospective buyers. But I think that additional outreach to those real estate companies is probably a good idea. If there's any mechanism to this. So, yeah. - yeah. [microphone static] -we have actually reached out to the real estate community, and let them know that if they do have prospective buyers to have them come in and pull up the information and go through kind of the introductory preclearance process. And for us, if a property's already had a preclearance, we can easily say, your road's not- the road's not big enough. The x, y, and z, so they kind of know what they're getting themselves into. - but, I guess, by law, there's no requirement that they disclose. - correct. - okay. - so. I just wanted to add to that. Thank you, marcus, for that. When I return in november, we'll have those updated numbers as far as the number of the parcels sold. Yeah, and we'll be able to compare the visits that were getting to the counter with that list of parcels. We'll have a better idea of how many new property owners exactly that we're working with currently. To provide to the board with more information. Yeah. - sounds great. - yeah. - all right. With that, i'll turn it to the clerk for a roll call vote on this item. Thank you again. - supervisor koenig? - i. - friend? - i. - hernandez? - i. Mcpherson? - i. - and cummings? - i. - that item passes unanimously. Okay. All right moving along, that brings us to 19 items, we're at item number 14. So, we're going to keep cruising here. A public hearing to consider proposed 2024-25 benefit assessment service charge reports, roberts road, and road county service areas and adopt a resolution confirming the benefit assessment / service charge report. And i'll turn it over to the staff from community development and infrastructure for a presentation on this item. Welcome. - it's quite far away. Good afternoon, chair. Good afternoon, board. I'm christina hicks, administrative services manager for public works. This agenda item is the confirmation of the road county service area benefit assessment and service charge rates for fiscal year 2024 and 25. The annual benefit assessment process involves staff reaching out to each csa to inquire if they want to do no change and have the same rates as the prior year [clears throat] or if they want to hold an election or have their assessment rates increased by the consumer price index for the prior calendar year. In this case that's 2023 with a cpi increase of 3. 7%. This board item has 15 csas having a cpi increase and the rate assessment sheet is part of this item for confirming those rates that were not changed. On csa number 37, roberts road in boulder creek has chosen to do what's called a catch-up cpi. For any year, when a csa does not do a cpi increase, they can in a future year collect that essentially. So roberts road in response to the recent storm damages is doing a ten-year cpi increase for zone a which amounts to a 32- or excuse me, 31. 2% increase. And then for zone d, which had one year of cpi increase a few years ago they're having the other nine years which amounts to a 20 percent increase for zone d. Csa 51 which also had an election is also having a consumer price increase for fiscal year 24-25. And so they're on this item, even though they're also having an election. The total cpi increase for these csas will be $17,322. 20 affecting 795 parcels throughout the county. The recommended actions for the board today are to open the public hearing to hear any comments, and then following a public hearing, to adopt the resolution confirming the benefit assessment service charge reports for these road county service areas. We're available to answer any questions. - all right. Thank you very much. With that, we will open he public hearings. So, if there's any member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item, please come to the podium and given there's not a whole lot of people left here, we'll give anyone who wants to speak to this item two minutes. - okay. Seeing no one in the room who would like to speak to us on this item, we'll turn to our online participants to see if there's anybody online who would like to speak to us on this item. - we have no callers online, chair. - okay. With that, we'll close the public hearing. We'll bring it back to the board to see if there's any comments, questions, or actions from the board. - I move the recommended actions. - second. It's a motion by supervisor friend, a second by supervisor hernandez. And with that, we'll take a roll call vote. - supervisor koenig? - i. - friend? - i. - hernandez? - i. - mcpherson. And cummings? - i. - that item passes unanimously. Thank you so much. And we look forward to hearing back. Okay. The next item is item number 15, a public hearing to consider a resolution confirming fiscal year 24-25 benefit assessment rates and service charge reports proposed for county service areas numbers 53 numbers 53n, and numbers 53s for mosquito vector control. I'll turn it over to our ag commissioner's office for the presentation on this item. Welcome. - good afternoon. I'm amanda polson, the assistant manager for the mosquito and vector control division of the agricultural commissioner's office. I have with me, dave sanford, our agricultural Commissioner And the director of mosquito and vector. The county service area, csa 53, was established in 1993 and then expanded in 2004 and 2005 for south and north county, respectively to provide mosquito control and public health services to santa cruz county. These services are funded by a benefit assessment, and rates are adjusted each year to account for inflation. On October 9th, 2024, the board set today, May 14th, as a public hearing day on the proposed benefit assessment and rate reports that will provide operational funding for mosquito and vector control in the upcoming fiscal year. The csa rates presented have previously been approved by the board and are outlined in our rates attachment and either remain the same as levels in 2023 and 2024 or have rates and a consumer price index increase of 3% as approved in previous elections. These rates have been posted in the local newspaper and made available to the public at the clerk of the board in mosquito and vector control website prior to today's hearing. If approved, rate reports will be forwarded to the auditor controller by august 10 to be included in the 2024-2025 property tax assessment roll. We recommend the board to open the public hearing to hear objections or protests to the proposed three assessment rate reports for csa 53, which includes north-south in the original, and then please close the public hearing and consider the adoption of a resolution confirming the benefit assessment rate reports for the fiscal year 2024-2025. Thank you for your support. - thank you so much. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing to see if there's any member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item. Seeing no one here in public, is there anybody online who would like to speak to us on this item? - we have no callers online, chair. - okay. With that, we'll close the public hearing and we'll bring it back to the board for any comments, questions, actions. - i'll move the recommended actions. - second. - so, we have a motion by supervisor friend and a second by supervisor hernandez to move the recommended actions. And with that, we'll take a roll call vote on the item. - supervisor koenig? - i. - friend? - i. - hernandez? - I - mcpherson? - and cummings? - I - that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay. So that brings us to item number 16. Consider a report on the climate action and adaptation plan accountability and measurement system and take related actions. And we'll turn that over to our office of response, recovery, and resiliency to kick us off on that presentation. Welcome. - thank you, board. Good afternoon. Seated with me today, we have tatiana brennan, our project manager for the caap. Megan riley, our general services deputy director, who's been a caap steering committee member, and sierra ryan from the health services agency, as a caap working group member. So, we're pleased to present to you the results. . . We're pleased to present some results from the caap today, to as well the instruction of the accountability and measurement system. As well as to discuss some of the local and regional partnerships critical to moving this work forward. What you're going to see in the caap results, is a breakdown of the priority mitigation and priority adaptation objectives that were adopted in the 2022 caap. As we scroll through those and there, were going to be presented by our lead department representatives. You'll note at the top of each slide whether it's a priority or adaptation objective and the lead department associated with it. And with that, I want to continue moving forward and hand it off to risd director tammy michael. - thank you, david. So, as you can see, isd has identified broadband availability gaps throughout the county, excuse me, across the county and you know, as you know, we produce a master strategy for broadband moving forward in the county. So, as we're all well aware, most county residents have access to broadband, but they have limited options that lead to higher costs and many residents cannot afford a high-speed internet within our county. So, as part of the [clears throat] objective, isd aims to increase enrollments in the affordability and activity programs to 95% by 2027 and explore cheaper, more efficient connectivity technologies to expand the internet server provider coverage to up to 65% of residents who are currently without broadband by 2030. So with the sun setting on the federal acp program, as we all know. We are also working with the california emergency technology fund, to align lower-income residents with the replacement programs that are currently being offered by internet providers. Thank you. - there we go. Thank you. Or3 and the cio legislative team are identifying supportive legislative items for the county's climate initiatives. These include grant funding opportunities available through the inflation reduction act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Another of or3's- or3's objectives is to support central coast community energy in their goal of providing 100% clean energy. They've made significant progress and currently 33% of the energy they provide is 100% clean. This includes geothermal, solar and storage, and wind turbines. Forty five percent is under development and 22% remains to be procured. - up next. - good afternoon. David carlson with the community development and infrastructure department. Cdi have several greenhouse gas emissions reduction, objectives that are a priority in the caap in the energy sector. Cdi, at the direction of the board, added an amendment to the building code to require all new construction in the urban areas be constructed as all-electric. Enforcement of that regulation is suspended. However, due to a federal court ruling against a similar ordinance in berkeley. In spite of that, we continue to enforce the state building code which requires new construction to include solar power systems, wiring for battery storage, and ev charging systems. And if natural gas appliances are installed, companion wiring is required to make it easy to change those gas appliances to electric in the future. To help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector, cdi recently approved sustainability update project and housing element update are leading to new zoning tools to encourage, higher density development along transportation corridors to reduce car trips and vehicle miles traveled. And finally, on the solid waste sector, cdi staff has worked to increase diversion of organic materials from the landfill by 10% which reduces the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in the landfill. I now turn it over to general services. - good afternoon, supervisors. I'm megan riley. I'm the deputy director of general services department and i've been a proud member of the steering committee on caap since 2023. I'm proud to present the objectives that we have in gsd for eliminating fossil fuel use and county fuel- vehicle fleet. We have resulted in 85% of our fleet vehicles are now either hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or electric. That's 21% of our non-emergency vehicles. We've committed ourselves to eliminate fossil fuel use in new and existing county facilities, and i'm pleased to pronounce that basically our roundtree facility energy-efficient electric heat pumps have been installed. These are all-electric heat pumps in our roundtree facilities. We have more facilities targeted in the near future and i'm pleased to say that we've also taken offline 12 gas water heaters and replaced them with all-electric. Eliminating fossil fuels used in the passenger and commercial vehicles is a broader objective. We are in partnership with pg&e, and are partnering to install electrical infrastructure for three sites that will involve 40 charging stations and 80 ports, 80 ports, westridge in watsonville, emeline, and north county government center here in santa cruz. Thank you. - hi. I'm sierra ryan, water resources program manager with health services agency environmental health. I want you to note that we're now moving on to the priority adaptation objectives. We had been on the mitigation objectives before. So as you know, santa cruz county is very isolated when it comes to water resource supply, which makes it all the more critical that we protect and manage our local aquifers. We have three significant groundwater basins in the county. All three of them are in compliance with the sustainable groundwater management act, and have targets set for the year 2040 to achieve sustainability. Simultaneously, environmental health is working on an update to our waterwell ordinance. It will include groundwater sustainability, and protection of public trust values. And again, back at gsd, and the county, we're proud to pronounce that basically, the north county government center has new boilers, condensing boilers. Although these are still gas, they are 90% efficient compared to the older boiler systems because they re-utilize water in the systems, and they're, so they're much more energy-efficient. - on the adaptation side for or3 in collaboration with cdi, there was an agenda item on your board packet today to accept and appropriate the two million dollar epa grant, to move forward with the boulder creek water quality and recovery project. So we're looking forward to taking some initial steps towards getting to a yes with community doing some initial studies and analysis on that project. Additionally. . . There's a lot of work being done. Today's presentation is discussing the critical data evaluation measurement tool structure that we need to move and advance the cap forward. On the establishment of all hazard community resilience centers, we did apply for a grant in the fall. We did hear unfortunately, that we were not awarded that grant from the strategic growth council, but we will be working actively to find new ways to find additional funding to expand that. As well as work with our libraries to expand their services on sundays in particular, during extreme heat events. Lastly, as we heard from the insurance commissioner, wildfire resilience is a critical aspect of our community. The building resilient infrastructure grant is a $20 million federal grant, that will bring dollars to do home hardening, defensible space, and landscape scale fuel reduction work to private property owners in our community. And as we heard this earlier, this is a critical grant that we wanna move forward, and get on the ground. It's got a significant fema environmental review lift, but we're gonna be working on that in the fall and into early next year to try and get that on the ground as quickly as we can. As we heard, those benefits, will pay dividends to folks in the insurance market. With that, I think i'm gonna be handing it off to you back to tatiana [microphone static] [microphone not working] [microphone sound] [distorted woman's voice] [silence] - oh, i'm thinking microphones. Hold on. There we go. - can you hear me now? - yeah. Okay. So megan will present on the accountability framework, and sierra will present on the data system. Sierra, it's all yours. All right, thanks tatiana. All right, so by way of background, i've been a member of the caap working group since it was really formed in 2022 through the caap development. I'm going to be presenting the measurement side of the accountability and measurement system. The measurement system has, as you can see, five cascading tiers that all build off one another. I will describe the interconnectedness and then we will walk through each component. The greenhouse gas reductions targets are the board-approved state-mandated reduction targets. The greenhouse gas emissions inventory identifies the highest contributing sectors that require reductions. The scenario planning and reduction quantification targets, which I will refer to as sparc from here on out. Take the emissions by sector and they translate them into reductions amount by sector and caap objective. Actions are the incremental strategies that staff implement owards achieving each objective and the measurements quantify the results and allow departments to measure performance. So now, i'll walk you through each of these components. The first tier of the measurement system is the state-mandated targets. You can see them here represented in the graph. The dotted purple line, hopefully you can see them all clearly. The dotted purple line shows the decrease with implementation of only the state and federal greenhouse gas reductions actions. The dotted green line shows the reductions necessary to meet the 2030 target of 40% below the 1990 greenhouse gas emissions. And you can also see that the 2045 net zero target, which is very low down there. The second tier is the 2019 greenhouse gas emissions inventory. So this allows us to see the sectors with the highest greenhouse gas emissions contributions in the county. As you can see, transportation makes up nearly 70% of the contributions. Gas and propane use in buildings is about 24% and about 5% of the contributions come from solid waste. The third tier of the measurement system is the spark targets, which are a part of the spark tool. The spark tool translates the greenhouse gas emissions inventory into greenhouse gas reduction targets for each of the reduction objectives in the cap. The number in the columns represents the potential reduction in 2030 and 2045 for each of the objectives listed in the cap. Please note that the objectives and corresponding reduction amounts for eliminating fossil fuel use in new and existing buildings will need to be adjusted. The ninth circuit court prohibited counties and cities from banning fossil fuel use in new and existing buildings. So the cap team will be adjusting the building electrification approach to be focused more on education and incentives and we'll explore other alternatives such as reach codes. The spark tool is significant because it provides reduction connected to specific objectives, but it also provides a visual impact of each objective towards reaching the state reduction targets. The spark tool will be included in the cap dashboard, which will be available for county staff and for the public by about September of this year. An image of the spark dashboard was included as an attachment in the cap report. Next slide. All right, so this slide and the next provide simple demonstrations on how the spark also functions as a visual tool. Spark takes the reduction amounts shown in the previous slide and applies them to a graph, making visible the potential greenhouse gas reductions. This graph includes all objectives that result in quantifiable greenhouse gas reductions. The green line is the proposed greenhouse gas reduction path when all of the greenhouse gas reduction objectives are implemented. So that's everything that we have in the cap is the green line. And the next tool here, the green line has moved up because now we are looking at the reduction potential for only two of the objectives. Number 10, which is increasing public transportation, walking or bicycling for commuting trips and objective 16, which is decreasing the amount of organic waste at the landfill. As you can see, the spark tool will help the county see the impact of greenhouse gas reduction efforts towards meeting our state mandates. The fourth tier of the measurement system is the actions necessary to achieve the objectives. And this includes both mitigation and adaptation. The image provides an example of objective number 10, and you can see the incremental actions as outlined in the strategy. All right, and the fifth and final tier is the measurements. . . Of the measurement system is the performance measurements. That's a new addition developed by the working group and the steering committee. In this example, you can see a performance measure for the objective and the first strategy. All of the 29 objectives and 167 strategies now have performance measures for evaluating progress. All right, now i'm gonna hand it over to my colleague, megan. - so a measurement system also needs an accountability system. So I will go over the accountability framework that is structured over the caap plan. This framework provides, and it's only one slide. So i'll just talk through the one slide. This framework provides a structure at different levels of county government to fully integrate the caap into standard work and into our day-to-day. The county board of supervisors are at the top of the organization chart. They adopted the caap and relevant policies and priorities, and they hold us all staff accountable by monitoring the caap progress and results towards greater climate resilience. The caap team consists of staff from the cao, or3, caap department directors, the steering committee, and the working group. I'll briefly describe how they work together and collaborate. The cao ensures board direction is implemented and integrates climate priorities throughout the county government. Or3 sets and drives coordination of the caap across county government. And the caap department directors are accountable for caap implementation within their department, as you heard today. But the steering committee consists of department executives, and they support the efforts, ideas, creativity, and work of the caap working group members. They coordinate across departments, cross-pollinate ideas, and work together on grants. The working group consists of staff with subject matter expertise, and they coordinate within the departments for the annual caap reporting. The commission on the environment will receive regular updates from the caap department directors and those directors whose departments are lead on caap objectives regarding their progress implementing caap. The coe will make recommendations to the board based on information provided from departments, subject matter expertise, and from community input. The commission is eager to start this work to elevate issues and lean in on caap goals and objectives. In addition, this year, the caap team, and especially the working group, will be doing an analysis on all of the objectives and will prioritize objectives that result in the greatest greenhouse gas emissions reductions and those that have the greatest impact on adaptation. The purpose is to ensure staff and financial resource allocation towards objectives, yielding the most impactful results within the county's authority. All objectives will continue to be implemented, but this prioritization will help optimize resource allocation towards objectives with the highest potential for impact within the county. Thank you, and i'll turn it over to tatiana for an update on our partnerships. - thank you, megan. So we've seen that the greenhouse gas reduction targets are significant. And we have seen within the caap team that this is something that or3 cannot do alone, departments cannot do alone, and county government can't do alone. So we have joined an existing ecosystem of agencies, organizations that are in our region that are working together to meet these goals. And what i'm gonna present to you are the partnerships that we have sustained and some new ones that we have. But what we're gonna focus on today are only three. There are a lot of organizations that are doing this work. And one of the reasons that it's so important for us to partner with these folks is that they-there's only so far that we can go in local government, right? Our reach extends only so far. What happens when we partner with other organizations is they extend our reach, and then vice versa, right? Their reach extends only so far, and we need them. And in that way, we make this stronger ecosystem. So I wanna focus on the three that we see here in the corners, central coast community energy, university of california, santa cruz, and the monterey bay regional climate project working group. So i'm gonna start with central coast community energy. As some of you know, 3ce, as it's commonly referred to, started here in the county. And right now we have two people in this room that sit on the board. We have supervisor mcpherson is on the policy board, and our cao, carlos palacios, is on the operations board. And I want to provide you with an update on some of the significant achievements of 3ce because they directly impact the caap. And actually, before I go into that, for some of us that don't know what 3ce is, it's a not-for-profit locally controlled public agency providing competitively priced electricity from clean and renewable energy resources to residents and businesses across 31 communities throughout the central coast, serving a population of over one million. 3ce provides reduced prices for energy and offers 26 million in rebates for electric vehicle purchases, battery chargers, and heat pumps. They have also provided startup funding for the regional climate project working group, and they support gsd's fleet electrification efforts by providing rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles. Now, i'd like to switch to the regional climate project working group. This is something that, started a couple years ago, and the county of santa cruz is a founding member, along with the counties of san benito and monterey, and the cities of watsonville, santa cruz, and now capitola. Ecology action and the association of monterey bay area governments are also members. This year, we applied for funding for a large-scale regional electrification project. We didn't win. But what we now have is a regional electrification plan that we can use for other grant applications. We also will be working on this year, creating a prioritized project list based on member agencies' climate plans. And that's significant because right now, we're really siloed in the climate community, right? County of santa cruz has their plan. City of santa cruz has theirs. And we all just kind of go along doing our own thing. This is going to bring those plans together and combine our resources and our efforts. It's pretty significant. Additionally, the regional project working group facilitates collaboration amongst elected officials and environmental justice groups to establish shared climate commitments. Chair justin cummings has been representing the county in this effort, and this will conclude, the effort will conclude with a report to the board on governance and financing. And finally, i'd like to speak briefly about the partnership with the university of california, santa cruz. The county is actively collaborating with ucsc, to enhance caap efforts, as demonstrated by or3's partnership with ucsc on a project addressing affordable housing and climate resilience. The wildland urban interface equity atlas, also known as the wui atlas project, is supported by a $1. 6 million grant from the university of california, office of the president. The partnership with ucsc emphasizes the importance of integrating ucsc's climate expertise into regional initiatives, including the caap internship program which will develop an interactive map of county environmental agencies and a targeted caap communication plan. So i'd like to conclude today with some information about what what your board is going to see after this presentation. The implementation of the accountability and measurement system means that we'll be returning to your board twice in a year. So we'll return early February every year with a full update on the caap and any other climate resilience initiatives. And then we'll return again, we won't, but the caap will be returning to you in June through an operational plan update. So we will see you again in February with a full update. Thank you for your time. - thank you so much for presentation and for all your work to help us be a cleaner santa cruz. I'm gonna open up to the public to see if there's any member of the public who'd like to speak to us on this item. Given that there's not a whole lot of people left here in the room. I'll provide anyone who'd like to speak with two minutes. - thank you. Thank you for this report. It's a lot of information. I-i wonder if the-the greenhouse gases, is the buena vista landfill still doing cogeneration or is there co-generation? Yes, that's good. Thank you. Can the or3 provide grants to the fire safe council to administer for low income, fixed income residents to do fire defensible space work, and protecting the watersheds, if that's possible. I am aware that there is a ballot measure coming this fall that would do something like that, [clears throat] put on the ballot by the land trust. But any information you can give us about that would be helpful. And also, I would like to suggest that, new construction be required to do double plumbing for water conservation and any gray water and groundwater recharge projects also included in new construction. Thank you. - thank you very much. So any other member of the public who'd like to speak to us on this item? sure, come on up. [footsteps] - thank you very much. Dave sanford, ag Commissioner And sealer rights measures and director of mosquito vector control for santa cruz county. I'm on the steering committee too and I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all very much for considering this report-your report and really commend the efforts of the caap working group and the steering committee. The group has done just a phenomenal job. Climate change has significant impacts on agriculture affecting various aspects of crop and livestock production, overall food, and economic security. And in just the past few years, we've seen the results of torrential storms, the breaching of river levees, widespread flooding, extreme heat, scorching crop in the field, and devastation of the czu fires we were all talking about earlier. Changing climate conditions alter the distribution and behavior of pest populations and diseases leading to increased populations range expansions and shifting of timing of pest outbreaks. This can result in higher pest pressure on crops, increased incidence of crop diseases, and greater challenges in pest management for our growers. The past year was the worst one on record for statewide for detections of invasive fruit fly species of economic and quarantine concern and multiple infestations of oriental fruit fly were detected in northern california, including just over a hill in our neighbor, santa clara county has a couple of active infestations. Just as ag has seen an increasing incidence of harmful pests, the same can be said of mosquito and vector control. Changes in temperature, precipitation patterns can influence the behavior and distribution of dangerous disease vectors. Tropical mosquitoes are now capable of persisting in california due to longer summers and shorter and warmer winters. In October of 2022, you all May be familiar, remembering back that our division mosquito vector control detected the invasive aedes aegypti mosquito in the watsonville area. And there's little doubt that this mosquito [swallowed] is going to keep showing up. It hasn't been monitored, we've been monitoring and luckily we've dodged it for a couple of years here but we continue to stay on course. But I just wanted to bring those points up that ag and nvc is very much indebted to this group and the work that they're doing. Thank you very much. - thank you so much. All right. Is there anyone in the public who would like to speak to us on this item? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to our online folks to see if anybody would like to speak to us on this item. - yes, chair. We have callers. Hillary, your microphone is now available. - great. Thank you. Can you all hear me? - yes. - yes fantastic. So i'm here representing the university of california santa cruz. I just wanted to speak as a partner of the santa cruz county office of response recovery and resilience. And take this opportunity to tell you about some of the work that we're doing in the county right now on some of the social and spatial aspects of climate transition. So this is the project that tatiana just mentioned briefly, the wui atlas. So i'm working with professor miriam greenberg of ucsc on this $1. 6 million grant on what we're calling the wui research for resilience project, which examines the drivers, demographics, and dynamics of wui growth. And so in particular, we're looking at the relationship between the affordable housing crisis and urban cores in places like santa cruz, and the kind of increasing displacement of people to increasingly fire-prone wildland-urban interface, regions. And so we're working on this grant with a lot of partners including, this office, but also other sort of community-based and direct service organizations in santa cruz and north monterey counties. And I just sort of wanted to thank everyone for the work they're doing and also let you know that we'll be serving around the county for the next six months or so. We're doing, we're in sort of public locations trying to basically understand who is moving to the wui and why? What kind of unexpected costs they're encountering. Some of these are insurance related, some are maintenance related, some of the topics we were talking about earlier, but also how people are able to kind of recover from disasters. As well as mapping wui growth and demographic changes, and working with the wui and tribal band to think about fire ecology, both historical patterns and cultural burning now. And as tatiana mentioned, this will result in an interactive wui atlas containing this information as well as a series of public meetings. So just thank you and I wanted to know, well, I wanted you to know about the work that we're doing. - cora, your microphone is now available. - hi, this is cora panturad with the county of monterey sustainability program. I'm the acting sustainability manager. And I just wanted to applaud the level of engagement across the county of santa cruz's organization for this climate action plan. The county of monterey is in the middle of drafting our climate action plan now, so I know that is no easy feat and a lot of work went into that. Additionally, the county of monterey alongside the county of santa cruz is a founding member of the regional climate project working group, and we are looking forward to continuing to work with the county of santa cruz on mutually beneficial climate goals. Thank you. - we have no further speakers chair. - all right. I want to thank members of the public for weighing in. And we'll bring it back to the board for any questions, comments, and any action. Supervisor hernandez. - I noticed rtc on that chart with the monterey bay working group there's other similar cogs would I think would be natural partners. I don't know if we reached out to the, association of monterey bay area governments and the monterey bay air resources district. Okay, good. And then the other question is with such a large number of santa cruz county employees living in south county, can we identify the south county government center as a project? As part of a caap project to reduce vmts? And i'm kind of wondering, I think I might have asked this question when we met, but have we done a survey to see how many reduced trips or how many trips were reduced with 50150 westridge of south county government center? And those numbers be increased, you know, we get bring the south county employees to work in south county? - yeah, I think our goal with the full occupancy of those buildings will be to do some follow-up surveys through our partnership with gsd and the occupying departments to try and get some of that data to quantify how many vehicle miles traveled are saved. Four of the five members of, or our three live in south county. So we're looking forward to trying to use that facility some as well. - great. - supervisor mcpherson. - yeah, I just wanna thank or3 for this presentation. And quantifiable performance metrics are essential to implementing good public policy, which people really can believe in and that is set to be. I think there's they're reasonable and I think they're very achievable too. So i'm really pleased with that. I look forward to reading in a couple of years about the achievement of caap objectives and how metrics inform the next phase of the emission reduction mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Santa cruz county was being one of california's most forward- thinking leaders in establishing affecting climate change policy starting with the county's leadership informing the central coast community energy, as you've mentioned. County's caap with these metrics also demonstrates our high level of commitment to lowering the county's emissions from our own operations while offering policies to a more far ranging community to do the same as you mentioned. That's when it really becomes effective. So thank you very much. I'm really pleased to see the advancement we're making and I can't wait to see the future advancements as they come. - supervisor friend. Supervisor koenig. - just a brief question. So looking at the green line it's like we accomplished all our caap goals, we're still short of the dotted red line. In that particular graph of like net zero emissions. Is that gap represented by the electricity, which is not one- explicitly one of our caap goals because it's a 3-ce goal? - i'm glad you asked that question because what you see with that graph, that first one is that's really initially by our consultant as a best guess. Using generalized information and it's the work of the caap working group moving forward to use actual data. And that's when we implement the system and we do our next inventory is when we can actually see the true progress. But it's a helpful guide for us to see where we need to implement the most effort. And when we look at the graph, it's good that you know, the ninth circuit ruling doesn't impact strategies that are gonna have too much of an impact. Really where we're seeing it is in some other strategies, we can have a greater impact and that's where we're gonna focus our efforts. And when we return in february, we'll present to your board the results of that analysis. - okay. So, as we do further analysis, hopefully, we'll get those two lines to meet. - that's our goal. - I mean, we've certainly got our work cut out for us, especially as far as transition away from, gas-powered vehicles to zero emissions. I mean, you know, it's easy to say, 3-ce is gonna get us all a hundred percent zero emissions with by 2030. That might be like totally doable with today's energy requirements, but if we're transitioning all our vehicles to electric, then that actually means we need 3x as much power. So it becomes more challenging. And you mentioned the ninth circuit ruling, you know, we'll have to look at incentives or other options to really encourage new construction to be all-electric and, you know, hopefully, low car as well. Thanks. - great. Well, I guess I have one question, because there's a lot of, obviously priorities that were mentioned. But one thing that came to mind, 'cause this was something that came up in the city and i've been contacted about it even as a board members, you know, looking at converting our landscaping equipment to electric. So the idea is that you know, we have mower, I mean, we're, you know, maintaining parks in some of our green spaces with mowers and weed whackers and leaf blowers, and just what opportunities that might be there to convert those from gas to electric and being able to use that also as a way of reducing carbon emissions. So i'm just wondering if that has come up at all and maybe what some of your thoughts are around that. - yeah, actually, I just spoke with the parks department about that yesterday. And so that's something that they're actively working on, and we will be incorporating into the caap as a strategy that will help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. - great. And then when we come back in february, we can give you a detailed report on where that is. - sounds great. And then I guess the next question is, you know when it comes to the new facilities with that we're all the new facilities that we're opening in south county, I guess is there gonna be a push to make those, you know, convert those to solar or electrify those buildings just because of the fact that that can also maybe be a good opportunity for us if they have, if they're not already solar already? - one of the things, this is megan riley, deputy director of gsd. One of the things that we're looking at doing is we just recently conducted an entire facility condition index on all of our county buildings. So looking at that, when a building comes up for repair or replacement of perhaps their hvac system, looking at what the cost differential would be, ongoing electric, and making those decisions at that point in time, that along with things like the cprc, kind of bringing that into the conversation about how does that one uplift equity and two, you know, the regular schedule that we're bringing in, how do we make it greener so that when we bring those repairs and projects come online, we're ready to actually make them different. The westridge building, I believe they got new hvac units, they're not electric, but they are actually much more efficient in the fact that they're newer models that were brought on board through helicopter and placed on top of the roofs on the westridge building. - great. Well, thank you all for your hard work on this issue. I think that you know, addressing issues around climate change is a huge priority for us, especially given the amount of impacts that we've been experiencing recently here in the county and so, just want to commend you all for your amazing work on this topic. Really grateful to hear about the partnerships that exist and in particular, really grateful for the partnership with ucse. There are so many amazing researchers up there and so much amazing work that they're doing and oftentimes there's this disconnect between, you know, local government working with the university, and so to see that there's a partnership there and opportunity for collaboration it's just really, i'm really happy to see that it's happening because there's a wealth of knowledge up there and i'm sure that combining our forces, we can make a big difference in our community. And then, lastly, having participated on some of those regional working groups and that kind of, as it's coming together, I just think it's really important that we're being mindful about like, when we're working on different topics, because obviously, you know, issues that are in happening in san benito might be different from the issues we're facing here on the coast. And, you know, there's gonna be issues around ag and transportation, just so making sure that we're being efficient in how we're collaborating, I think is gonna be really important so that we're, you know, able to identify projects and goals. And then the people who need to be in the room can be in the room at that time. And then that way if there's no need for us to be in the room on certain topics, we can focus on other things, but really being mindful about how we participate in these spaces so that we're most effective when we're working together. And so with that there are some, recommended actions to be taken. And so i'll look to supervisor hernandez for the motion. - i'll move to accept the report on the climate action and adaptation plan. - alright, so have a motion by supervisor hernandez to move the staff recommendation that's seconded by supervisor mcpherson and i'll look to the clerk for a roll call vote. [mic thuds] - supervisor koening. - I - friend. - I - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson. And cummings. - i. That passes unanimously. Thank you all so much, and we look forward to those updates when they come back to the board. Okay. Given that we've been sitting here for a little while, i'm gonna see if there's a desire to take a quick break, maybe five minutes, or do we wanna keep plowing through? All right, so we are gonna keep chugging along here. Moving on. We have three more items. The next item up is item number 17, a public hearing to consider a resolution authorizing issuance. Santa cruz county capital finance authority, lease revenue bonds 2024 series a-1 a-2 b and c in a not-to-exceed amount of $95 million to approve internal financing and a not-to-exceed amount of, 10 million and take related actions. And i'll move, turn it over to the caos office for the presentation. - good afternoon. Hey, marcus, finance county [chuckles] board members it's been a long day and we'll, we're here to continue that long day. But we, this is a presentation that's come out of a disaster, right, of federal disaster we've been challenged with. But there's a really incredible story of resiliency and the continued amazing work that this county does that is really the underpinnings of the story. I have with me here today, suzanne harold from harold and associates. She's our financial advisor and municipal advisor for the county. She's been our long-time guide on issuing debt, and this is without a doubt, the most complicated, largest, most complex capital debt this county's ever issued. Joining us today is also peter dettelis. I'll work on that peter peter was instrumental in just imagining how we might pull together the different debt instruments. He's got a lot of experience in this space and brings that to us as the county team. And certainly without the leadership of carlos, without the leadership of this board, without the participation, our federal and state representatives, you know, a lot of things in this report, we wouldn't be here today, telling you how we're paving your way out of this. So i'm gonna, if it's okay with you, we'll do one presentation for two board items, items agenda 17 and 18. Agenda 17 is to open and conduct a public hearing to consider the issuance of debt. And then item 18 is by the capital financing authority. And that's actually to consider the issuance of debt. So we'll have one presentation to do them both in that then we'll pause for questions. I'll start with the presentation and then, oh well, - so the can you say more about what your intention is for the board to do around that? - yes. We'll end with the public hearing for item 17. And I guess what i'm just saying is the presentation will just, the, we'll have the public hearing for item 17, move on to item 18 and we won't repeat the presentation, we'll just take it to item 18 as it's presented. - got it. Appreciate it. - so with that, we'll move on to our next slide. Thank you, peter. So as mentioned, we are here today to talk about funding a natural disaster that has hit this county and continues to have been hitting this county since 2017. We've had declared federal disasters and non-declared federal disasters, 2021 non-declared federal disasters. Today we're financing and proposing to finance 2023 and 2022 storm disasters predominantly that we are moving quickly to recover our community. [clears throat] and said another way government agency might've held back and stopped work and waited years and years and years for recovery. We're taking the bold steps to move forward and bring our community back to recovery at least a good strong partial recovery. And we're-, that's bold action and today's efforts are helping to conclude those actions. We are here today because climate change, as you just heard, is a threat to all of us. It's impacting our operations. It's impacting our responsive disaster. It's impacting us issuing the largest capital debt we've ever issued in the county's history. We've structured this debt and what we're here today to propose is a structure of debt that does a couple things. One is, it recognizes that over the next five to seven years, we expect and assume to get a considerable amount of federal reimbursem*nts, both federal highway and fema coming in. And so we've structured the debt to allow us to take those reimbursem*nts and pay down debt as quickly as possible to reduce future debt flows and ultimately reduce cost to taxpayers. We've also structured the debt to have flexibility with our future facilities so that we have a little bit of leverage if we have to issue new debt in the future. So part of today's action includes a refunding of existing debt. They give us some financial and capital assets for flexibility. We recognize that a portion of this debt will be long-term, so we try to structure that long-term date debt in a way that's the lowest cost to the county. So it's a very complex step, but we've tried to be very creative with structuring in a way that gives us the maximum flexibility in the short term, but recognizing a portion of the step will be with us for a long time. You know, well past, well maybe not peter, but well past most of our careers. And of course we're moving quickly. Today's May 14th. We plan to close these bonds in June and, and receive, cash from these bonds by the time the end of the fiscal year closes so we can have a strong cash position by the end of the fiscal year. Move on to the next slide. What these bonds do and what today's action item on item 17 does is we're asking for authority to issue up to $105 million in debt. And what that includes is 95 million in lease revenue bonds up to 95 million in lease revenue bonds. That's our authority and up to $10 million in an internal service fund loan. These lease revenue bonds will have four different bond series, three non-taxable and one taxable. It's a very complicated structure, but again, we've tried to structure it in a way that gives us maximized flexibility going forward. Next slide, please. We'll be using these bonds to issue what we expect. Again, we're asking for authority up to 105. We expect right now our best estimates are about 98 million will be issued in june. Of that 98,000,065 is focused on 2022 and 2023 storm. On ccu complex lightning fire, about 9 million for the ccu event, 11 and a half million for some new projects. We'll talk about those new projects in a little bit. And I mentioned we're refunding some existing debts to provide, ourselves some capital financing and flexibility. And we have to bear related issuance costs by 8. 9 million. That includes capitalized interest, includes, regular fees and costs included within the stead issuance. Next slide. We'll send you all the pictures that are there, but, also don't wanna steal the thunder of next week's budget presentations by the community development and infrastructure, department of public works. So what we're talking about is what I mentioned in my own big comments. There's a lot of success in this largest, most complex financial issuance that we're doing. We've recovered and repaired and restored a lot of road damage across our county that otherwise would still be left unrepaired and still be left in a really critically dangerous situation. There are success stories in all that, and again, i'll save those success stories for our department of public works division next week. But the slide you have- what we have in front of you is I think we had this discussion a little bit earlier in today's agenda. We're still facing a large amount of costs. This county has paid upfront, $250 million since 2017, of which 125 million cash out the door that we're still waiting on federal reimbursem*nt for. 125 million that we paid out the door that we have not been reimbursed from 2017, that we have not yet been reimbursed from 2022, or excuse me, 2020 czu fires that we are still waiting on covid reimbursem*nts that recognizing 2022 and 23 natural storm disasters weren't that far back, but we're starting to incur a lot of costs there and waiting on reimbursem*nts there. With that downside, again, success by the leadership of this board, by the leadership of staff here at the county and leadership and partnership with our federal and state representatives, we've been making incredible progress with getting more recoveries and getting more approvals on obligations. Just in the last couple of months, we've increased from about 15 now to $21 million in total recoveries. Our commitments to future recovery, so we're making progress, but there's still a lot more to be done. And it's also recognizing that the federal system just isn't set up to support a community like us underfunded, systematically underfunded to deal with the level of disasters that we're facing. Next slide. So the financing package that we have proposed for the czu fires in 2022, 2023 natural disasters. Ultimately, we're targeting about 65 million of total balance, 9 million with czu and $56 million for the 2023 storms of which we do expect about 41. 4 million in the next five to seven years to be received. And again, we structure the debt. So that will go first to paying off our internal service loans and then paying off what we're calling our short-term debt of about $35 million. We've set up the structure to allow us to quickly pay those debts off in anticipation of federal reimbursem*nts over the next many years. We do recognize right now we're projecting about 23. 2 million that will be on our long-term debt, and we do hope for future federal reimbursem*nt and we'll be able to refinance that debt in the future, should we need to. Next slide, please. So, I talked a little bit about new project costs. Included in this debt is, $7 million, or excuse me, $11. 5 million of some new project costs, of which 4. 5 million is targeted to acquire 150 westridge. We're leveraging that four and a half million to avoid 15. 4 million in future lease costs. So, if we look over the life of the debt of issuing four and a half million dollars. Those same lease costs, if we just stay status quo, we keep paying rent every year for that property would accumulate to 15. 4 million. So this is a sizable saving to spend four and a half million now to save 15. 4 million into the future. So, this is a really smart move and i'm really glad we were able to include this in the financing. In addition, we have $7 million that we're targeting for some additional capital projects from the 2022 or 2023 storms. High critical projects that need to be done that we expect and hope that we can leverage that to issue about $26 million of complete about $26 million of project work. So, on one hand, we're using four and a half million to save 15. 4. On the another hand, we're spending 7 million in 2023 storms federally approved either federal highways or fema that will be able to complete about $26 million in project work. So we're really trying to leverage the capacity of our debt to, to really work for the county. And i'll turn over the next slide to peter. [clicks] - good afternoon, members of the board. Again, my name's peter dettelis. I'm a county administrative or principal administrative analyst in the county administrative office. As part of this financing where we are evaluating the refinancing of the 1996 certificates of participation and the 2014 lease revenue bonds, these financings do not currently meet the 4% minimum savings required within the county's debt policy. However, this action would provide the county with the ability to release the security from these prior bonds. This allows 1400 emeline the behavioral health center on soquel drive to be added to the county pooled assets contemplated for this financing. The determination to finance we made, closer to the pricing date as we continue to monitor the interest rates to see what that actual savings will be used as we get closer to that time. [mic thuds] [silence] [background chatters] [silence] [mic thuds] - people who are watching, we're having some technical difficulties, but we'll be moving forward and continue with the presentation in a minute. - and those next three slides that were coming, will come to you are really a summarizing the 400 pages of documents there, and to try to summarize them to three slides, the terms of our debt the size of our debt and, and our assumptions on federal reimbursem*nts. We might be able to just talk through those. - I can talk through those. - and I guess they're really well disclosed in the board reports as well as the attachments. - sounds good. - so good afternoon, chair cummings and members of the board of supervisors. I'm suzanne harold, a county's municipal advisor. So the financing for the 65. 10, - your microphone. - you can pull it here. [mic thuds] [thuds] - how about that? - I think it's on. - hello. - there you go. [laughs] - okay, i'll start again. So, good afternoon, chair cummings and members of the board of supervisors. The financing as everyone has mentioned has three components. One is the funding of your out-of-pocket cash flow on the road fund, and that's about $65 million. Then there's the new projects for about 11. 5 million, and then the refunding component as well as some capitalized interest to help ease the county's budget into the payments of the, of the long-term debt service. So, the financing is contemplated to be done in four series. One series will be able to be called, you know, almost immediately every time you get some federal funding, either, whether from fema or federal highways will be able to repay those bonds quickly. So that's special, that has a special redemption provision. The other three series are basically, structured to pay back the bonds kind of, you know, some are paid over five years, some are paid over seven, some paid over 15, some paid over 20, depending on which component of the unreimbursed costs that are being funded. Again, the idea is to make it as flexible and save as much financing costs as possible. And then the long-term financing for 30 years for the new projects will also be included. The internal service fund loan will be paid, will be added to that. And I do have a list of the federal reimbursem*nts and how we're gonna apply them 'cause you guys know I love numbers. And so you got saved from that slide, I think. But anyway, what it shows is that the first funding that comes in will be used to pay down your internal service fund loan and then over the next four years, to be, pay back the, the rest of the short-term financing. The interest rates are kind of depending on the series, how long they go, they range from about 2. 8%, for the shortest of the tax-exempt to about 4. 9% for the longest taxable bonds. And i'm gonna turn it back over to marcus, to talk about the annual debt service costs. - yeah. You know, we're issuing debt, and just like you might with a car mortgage or a home mortgage, you gotta pay back plus interest. Unfortunately, this debt, again, we're targeting about 98 million, all told between internal service debt and external lease revenue bonds. We're gonna be facing nearly $33 million in total cost of issuance, including interest over the life of the bonds, issuance costs, and such. So this is not a trivial matter. It's unfortunate that our county has to bear the front of $33 million of additional costs for this county and our taxpayers, largely because of the delays in the way the federal system works against us. I think we just discussed earlier today, you know, there is another agency of the federal government, federal highways that has solved for that and is a much more responsive and a much better partner in that. And we just, it'd be nice to see that our other sister agencies in the federal government follow those same models. But unfortunately, we're targeting up to $33 million of new costs that this county and taxpayers will have to bear the brunt of. Now, with the federal reimbursem*nts that we're planning, we should be able to knock off about $10 million of future interest. So that's a good thing, but that is still a large number that we're gonna have to long-term finance. And how we're gonna do that in the short term is leveraging three different payers effectively, the general fund and road fund will partner with the debt. The road fund will be facing about two and a half, $2. 4 million of annual costs. The debt will peak about three and a half million dollars, by 27/28, in which the general fund will pick up the remainder of that amount. There'll be a portion of funding that will come from health service funding. The 150 westbridge acquisition building is largely a health service providing facility. So, we'll be able to use some federal funds with that. But nonetheless, this will be an expensive burden for the county over the life of this debt into something we're planning for. And, but it recognizing it's just another yet budgetary impact both to the general fund and our road fund on future projects. Now, should the federal systems react faster and we receive a lot more of that funding upfront, that certainly takes the edge off of some of those out of your debt. So maybe we might save more than $10 million, but right now, our best guess scenario is we have a $33 million risk. Ten million might be saved in future interest leaving us about, you know, $23 million over the life of the, the debt that we're still gonna have to incur. And I should mention with the internal service fund loans, we're prioritizing and structuring the debt so that they, those are paid first and to a certain limit, especially one of our internal service fund loans with our workers' comp funding. We have to pay that back in three years anyway. So the first federal reimbursem*nts we get from road fund money will go back to pay those internal service fund loans. We'll then go back to pay our higher interest or higher cost debt and then the remainder vote will go back towards everything else. With that, I can turn it back over to peter and just bring us home and then we can move on to the public hearing for agenda item 17. - all right. Well, as you guys must be as tired as our powerpoint presentation is, i'll just quickly say that, our final slide presents the recommended actions before you today for both the county and for the capital finance authority. Adoption of these actions supports rapid storm damage recovery and provides a pathway to fessing the debt quickly. So, we're here to answer any questions you May have. Thank you. - great. Thank you so much. Before I turn it over to the board, i'm just gonna open a public hearing and see if there's any member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item. And seeing how there's not a whole lot of people here, we'll give you two minutes to comment on this item. - thank you. Becky steinbrenner. I wish this could have been earlier in the day. It really is a critical thing and, I think a lot of people would've been here to listen in. However, I am really worried about this, and this is in fact why I wanted to be here today because this is an incredible amount of debt that we are taking on in addition to what we are, are already saddled with. And again, nobody's talking about the unfunded pers liability, and that's another big piece of debt. So, I read supervisor koenig's newsletter explaining this in a nutshell. It was a very good explanation. Thank you. What worries me is that the annual debt payments of $2 million a year will come from the road fund. Now, what is that gonna do to our ability to maintain our roadways? If i'm understanding this correctly, $2 million a year from a road fund and also in supervisor koenig's explanation, measure k funding will play into this. Well, again, financing debt was never part of measure k to the voters. So i'm concerned about this. I'm also questioning the, what the supervisor koenig referred to as the cash advance from the state I didn't hear clearly enough to hear anything about that, if you could please discuss that. I wanna hear what alternatives we have to taking on this debt and essentially mortgaging out our county-owned buildings and leasing them back. That's another additional that was in, again, supervisor koenig's newsletter. I wanna hear what happens if we don't take out all of this debt. What happens if we don't go into this debt that saddles our kids with this payment? Thank you. - is there any other member of the public here in chambers who'd like to speak to us on this item? seeing none. Are there any members of the public online who would like to speak to us on this item? - we have no callers online, chair. - okay. With that, i'll bring it back to the board for any questions, comments, and action. And so, i'll start to my right. Actually, i'll start with supervisor friend, see if we have any questions or comments. [mic thuds] [mic rusling] - this is, I think that sometimes it's a pretty esoteric exercise when you go through natural disaster after natural disaster and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in the sense that there's always another pot for money to come from. This is the reality that there's no pot, that the money needs has been spent and allocated. And we, [mic thuds] there almost hasn't been a board meeting in the last three years where there hasn't been somebody in oral communications come up and say that we need to do something for the storm damage road. Well, the roads that have been repaired are coming from, this is where the money is coming from. This is to pay back things that we've already committed to do or have already done, which was the request of the community. And we're in a situation now where interest rates have skyrocketed and costs of materials and labor have also at the exact same time, which has made this a perfect storm of a very challenging situation. I don't disagree with the concerns ms. Steinbrenner raises. I don't see another path that's ideal for us. This is, choosing between two least worst outcomes. And if there was a good option, we would've chosen a good option. This is the least worst option for this county. It was still being responsible for our standard responsibilities of maintaining the roads and protecting the safety of the community. So, i'm supportive of it, but nobody up here celebrating this work. This is a, or we shouldn't be. I mean, this is a very challenging thing, and I said this at the last board meeting when we got their previous budget presentation. I think that future boards are gonna be making decisions based on, not just the actions today, but additional disasters that could be coming, that are gonna be very, very, very challenging. We've been in a time of expanding programs and expanding opportunities. And I think that time has peaked. I think that, unfortunately, we're gonna be at both the state and local level making decisions that are not in service delivery, that are not ideal for service delivery. So this is a part of that reality. But I appreciate the professionalism of our team in coming up with the best possible way for us to land this plane. It's just not a great look moving forward. Thank you. - thank you. Supervisor koenig. - thank you, chair. I think I would pose the question that, ms. Steiner asked to staff. I mean, what alternatives do we have, if any? I mean, I assume that basically, we've spent all, you know, all this money already for these repairs and that if we did not sort of reintroduce this liquidity into our budget, that we would be unable to pay for, you know, other regular county programs. Is that accurate? - yeah, this money was already spent in emergency response. We did that in good faith assuming that we were gonna get reimbursed in a timely fashion by fema. In some cases, fema's reneged, for example, in the czu. Part of this debt is because of the project room key expenses where we spent $10 million and housed over 1000 people for many, many months with the full assurances that we were gonna be reimbursed. And we, and now, two years, three years later, four years later, fema said, changed the rules and left, all of california and the lurch $300 million statewide, $10 million of that is ours. So, some of it is rules changed. Some of it is just delays by fema. So that's one answer is that again, there's reform at the federal level. Fema, if they just start acting like federal highways, we would not be in this position. If they would just perform like federal highways, we would get reimbursed within one year, two years at the most, and we would not be in this position. So that's one answer. Cal oes advance, if they become much more robust. Although the state budget right now is not in a condition to do that, but in future years, cal oes advance program could become much more robust that could get us out of this. But given the situation we are in now, there's really no alternative but to issue debt to basically maintain our cash flow while we await reimbursem*nt. The only alternative would be to do very difficult and severe budget cuts in our general fund. So, that would be very devastating to the community. These would be very deep cuts and I would not recommend that. So we're doing, as supervisor friend said, we're choosing the least worst option given the hand that's been dealt to us. And we're working with our, both our congressional representatives and our state legislators on longer-term fixes, similar to what's going on in the insurance industry. This is all climate change. We're adapting to the new reality we're facing with. There's really not an option to do this, but we're gonna do it. And then we're gonna just find our way, hopefully in the future, to a better system at the federal level and state level so communities like ours don't get in this position. - thank you for that. Yeah. Based on some of the challenges we've experienced, as you mentioned, getting reimbursem*nt for the czu fires, you know, wood debris be removed. And, you know, housing during, the covid pandemic emergency, I was actually almost, you know, excited to see in the presentation that we could expect as much as $40 million by 27, 28. Is that because the 23 storms are more of like a classic emergency and less likely to, you know, some of these disputes that get dragged out? Or is it because of federal more fall under federal highways? - I think, you know, staff here from public risk division speak more to that, but a lot of that is federal highways, which we have a greater expectation of more thoughtful and responsive timelines. And then within, again, four years, you know, that's not around the corner. Fema will start performing on some of that, just like we're seeing with covid. - I think marcus nailed it. Matt machado, director of cdi. But, that was a good response, but i'll stay close in case more questions come up. - I guess I have one lingering question for you director machado which is, so we're financing about $7 million of additional repairs for the 23 storms, is what i'm seeing here in this budget. Now that could be up to 26 million in federal, federal dollars, but I mean, as we're seeing here, we have to spend the money upfront. So it really means 7 million in repairs, right? I mean, - well, it's actually, it is, it's actually more like, it's the seven plus the 26, so it's really like the $33 million of repairs. It's a handful of projects over the next three or four years. So it's gonna take a, it'll make repairs for a few years, but then, and then we have to expect the reimbursem*nt back on that. That's correct. - I mean, but if we don't have the 26 or the 33 million, to pay for those repairs upfront, which is what we're seeing that we have to do, how do we actually, - so it'll be, uh, uh, that's why it's gonna be three to four years because we'll build and move more slowly to time the reimbursem*nts so that we can keep doing the repairs with that $7 million match to keep the movement forward. - I see. And what about what percentage of the remaining repairs just from the 2023 storms, do you expect that is, I mean, is it 20% of the remaining repairs needed? 50%? - I think at the end of that three or four years of building will still have, I think it's like 54 projects to build. And so, 54 projects are, you know, it's like 30% of the total. That's still a very significant amount of projects that don't have a plan to go forward. - is there a time when we basically run out of the ability to, you know, claim fema funds? I mean, like, could we do it 10 years from now or would they say, sorry, guys, missed your window? - no, at some point the federal commitment runs out and we could pursue extensions for some time, but as we take no action on some of those projects, we won't be able to apply for an extension. And so then those projects will become non-eligible and they will not, they will not get repaired. It's like every couple of years we need to apply for an extension or something. - that is correct. - okay. Thank you. [mic thuds] - supervisor mcpherson? - yeah, it's been said, we're really at a crossroads at least in part because of our willingness to be responsive during a crisis of seven natural disasters in seven years, that's been repeated time and time again, and we're the first line of defense. And when it comes to disaster response and catastrophic fires and storms and we've learned also from a once-in-a-lifetime lesson that we were the first line of defense in a pandemic and covid. But I think with this action, we're really leveraging ourselves in a significant way. And it, it'll take a strong commitment by our state and federal representatives to help us address this dynamic of disaster response going forward. Really local governments shouldn't be put in this position of making emergency response decisions based on whether we think we'll be made, whole or to the, in the end. We, I think we're still counting on, we're gonna be, get a lot of this back in the near future of what, three or four years we hope. But i, i'm really very grateful that responsible fiscal stewardship in the last decade in this county, has provided the opportunity for us to responsibly take these actions that are necessary under some very unforeseen circ*mstances. So, I think this is the way to go and, yeah, I think if we, for the westridge I mean either we buy it and get with it or we lease it. If we lease it, it's gonna cost us more [laugh]. Let's own it. Let's own it. And and just hope for, good federal-state response in the near future. - thank you, supervisor mcpherson. Supervisor hernandez. - you know, I think everything has been pretty much said on the dais here. And so i'll be willing to move the staff recommendation, have some additional comments or questions. - sure. I'll come back to you when it's time. Well first I just wanna thank staff for all their hard work on, you know, figuring out a way for us to be able to keep the county moving, you know, operationally while also addressing all these disasters. I mean, it's been like since the late nineties, early two thousand that people have been saying, here's what's gonna happen in 20 years if we don't do something to help address climate change. And, you know, while our community has been very proactive at trying to mitigate the impacts and reduce our carbon emissions we know that globally that hasn't been the case for all communities. And as a result we're kind of faced with the reality that was kind of predicted a long time ago. And, you know, to some of the points that have been raised, you know, I also just really want to commend the county on how it's been responding to these disasters. I mean, I think if we hadn't been responding as quickly as we have been able to, you know, and we're leaving roads with trees down and, you know, some roads that are washed out, and we're just saying, well, we don't have the finance. We'll think about what we can do. I think a lot of people in this community would be extremely upset with us. But what we've been able to do and been able to accomplish is trying to, you know, mitigate some of these impacts, repair some of what's been damaged as quickly as we can. And, you know, sadly, the state and federal systems aren't equipped and have not been equipped to deal with the magnitude of disasters that are occurring throughout the entire country. And so, this is kinda what we're faced with. And I don't think any of us are happy to have to move in this direction of issuing this debt but in order for us to continue moving forward effectively as a country, it's kind of what we have to do in order to continue. I guess one of the things I would ask is, as part of the motion that we also provide direction for the chair to work with staff in drafting a letter explaining the action that's taken today related to the issuance of the bonds and its fiscal impacts on the county. And as this, as how that relates to the delay in the fee reimbursem*nt and the need to expedite the reimbursem*nts. In addition to that, recommendations related to kind of reforms for fema related to the federal highway models, and have those sent to not only our congressmen but our state senator and also, similarly, expressing the actions being taken today to have letters sent to our state representatives around the need for reforms around call oes. I think that you know we say it often to our representatives how we're being impacted. I think it's really important that we're sending official letters to them, really making sure that they understand the position we're putting ourselves in and the need for them to take this seriously in order for us to continue to see reform so that we can get reimbursed more quickly, and that we can see that these, the systems that are in place are being adapted to our new reality of how we're being impacted as a community. And so i'm just gonna pose that as an amendment to the motion, and i'll see if the make of the motion's willing to include that direction. - so i'll move staff recommendation with the additional, board recommendation to add the letters from to federal highway administration and cal oes. - to the - the legislators regarding the federal highway administration and cal oes to change of structure and to - maybe funding. - for call oes maybe we can say it as the recommended recommendation as proposed by the chair. - as proposed by the chair. Thank you. All right. - it's been a long day. - give a second to the motion. Right? all right. We motion by supervisor hernandez, second by supervisor friend to move the staff recommendation with the additional direction provided by the chair. So you know, further questions or comments, i'll look to the clerks for a roll call vote. - supervisor koenig. - i. - friend - i. - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson and cummings? - i, that passes unanimously. Okay. With that, we will go back to item number 18, and I believe that since the presentation was already provided under item number 17 is there any further discussion, comment, or presentation from staff? - I just want to appreciate the board's time the committee's time and all the staff who've been behind the scenes. I mean this was a six-month process to get to here. So this is not concluding, this is just opening the next item. And just taking a moment to acknowledge all the good work that's been done in the last six months. It's been the hardest six-month project i've ever seen come together. And there's a lot of people behind us who are participating in this. A lot of folks in community development infrastructure, kim moore in particular was phenomenal to work with and partner with on this staff in this office who aren't physically here, but I know they're watching it and they're gonna be embarrassed by me mentioning their names. Lana martinez davis and melida serino are instrumental in getting us here. So there's been a lot of folks working behind the scenes. So there's a lot behind this. So in front of you, you have item 18, which is to adopt resolutions approving proceedings by the santa cruz county capital financing authority for the issuance sale, and delivery of not to exceed $95 million in aggregate principal amount of lease revenue, bonds, and approving related documents and official actions. Again, that presentation we just provided will it's effectively the same material without a conclude staff presentation. - all right. Thank you very much. Okay. So we'll open it up to the community. If there's any member of the public who would like to speak to us on item number 18, please approach the podium and you'll have two minutes. -thank you, becky steinbrenner. So what I wanna say to the board is I ask that you ask staff to do a summary of what reimbursem*nts were quickly reimbursed, what sort of expenses are quickly reimbursed, what are not, what is holding this up? Is it, the nature of the expense, or is it the amount of the expense or is it something else? I think knowing that information will help your board and future boards be better informed and guided in the next disaster. What I saw happen in covid was crazy spending, but everybody was so scared, and I understand that. But we, those things will happen again. And if this body can have the information almost like an after-action analysis, if you will, of what happened and, what is being reimbursed, what didn't fly, those mistakes will not be repeated and the taxpayers will not be burdened with this level of debt, hopefully, again, with the wise guidance of an after action analysis. Thank you. - thank you very much. Any members of the public online who'd like to address this? On this item? - we have no callers on the line chair. - okay. I'll bring it back to the board for any comments, questions, and actions. - i'll move the recommended action. - second. - so have a motion by supervisor friend, seconded by supervisor hernandez. I did have a quick question. I'm just wondering if there could be a response to ms. Steinbrenner's question around like, you know, what determines reimbursem*nt rates? It sounds like there's a question is this the nature of the expense, the amount of the expense? And so maybe if we could have a quick. - thank you chair. So just high-level perspective on it, it's really fema and so it's all, you know, the road damage is straightforward, it should be reimbursed quickly, and we see that happen very quickly with federal highways. In fact, we've heard it a couple times today how that process works. [clears throat] and the truth of it is, is that on the fema side, I mean, here we are a year and a half and we still don't have obligations on basic road damage, where federal highways, not only did they obligate, they reimbursed us already. And so it's just, it's the difference between fema and federal highways. Now, the struggle, the extra struggle for the next disaster is that category a and b, the initial cleanup work and storm prep during the storm is all fema. And so we're gonna have to really think hard about how we respond in the moment of a storm. And it was mentioned earlier, and it was in the board report today that one of the larger debts that we're still carrying is from the czu fires $9 million of tree removal. That was category a, which was just cleaning up the mess from the fire, and yet we got denied. And so here we are four years later, with no reimbursem*nt just straightforward storm damage, cleanup work, cleanup work. And so the next disaster we're gonna have to be really thoughtful about in the storm, if we're going to clean up quickly or we're gonna stop and wait for obligations or wait for input from fema, that's gonna be the struggle. But I would say almost exclusively, the trouble we're having today is fema's lack of response lack of response to obligate the monies, lack of response to approve it, and definite lack of response to reimburses. And so that's been, that's the, that's what we've learned. We know this now, clearly, we've repeated it about one and a half times, and from here on out, we're gonna be much slower. We're gonna have to be because now we have to go into it thinking that whatever we do, we might have to eat the entire cost. And so we May not be able to respond quickly anymore because it's fema until they change, of course. And, you know, the pressure that you're talking about is spot on so hopefully we can get some change and we can go back to quick responses and quick repairs. - I very much appreciate that response. I think it really helps clarify some of the challenges we're facing. Okay, with that are there any further questions or comments from board members? Seeing none, i'll turn to the clerk for a roll call vote. - supervisor koenig. - i. - friend. - i. - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson and cummings? - i. That passes unanimously, which brings us to our last item of the day and know it's been fun hanging out, and probably wanna hang out longer, but I think we all want to get on with our lives. So. . - yeah [laughs] - exactly. [laugthers] okay. So with that, item number 19 is an item to consider authorizing the issuance of fiscal year 2024, 25 tax and revenue anticipation. Notes the amount of $48 million and take related actions. I'll turn it over to our auditor controller treasurer tax collector for presentation on this item. - I now have to say good afternoon. I crossed off good morning. . Good afternoon chair and members of the board, edith briscoe, your audit controller, treasurer, tax collector. Also joining us today is suzanne harold, the county's municipal financial advisor for this financing issuance. This is my ninth year bringing this same presentation to you and I bring it to you based on my fiduciary duty of cash flow. The item before your board today is a request to authorize myself, the county auditor-controller, to proceed with necessary actions to secure the annual tax and revenue anticipation note in the amount is not to exceed $48 million. This note is being issued because counties have inconsistencies between the, when the property tax revenue comes in and when our expenditures need to be preppa need to be paid. Taxes are the county's largest funding source and they're received, as you know, in December and april. Yet another county begins paying budgeted expenditures as early as July 1 when we put our rent checks in the mail. This note issuance also referred to as the transfer is issued at the beginning of the fiscal year and paid off within 364 days is a short-term note with funds that are set aside during the year when the tax revenues come in. Last year's, tran was actually in the amount of 61 million, much higher than this year, and that was due to the uncertainty of when the county might be receiving the fema funds. And I needed to know that I had cash flow regarding this year's method of sale. Our municipal advisor, ms. Harrell, recommended that the notes be sold as a competitive sale. However, the resolution presented for the board's consideration does allow the county to switch to a negotiated sale. If market conditions deteriorate, as in prior years, the county's fiscal team will make presentations to both standard and poors and moody's we're scheduled to do that tomorrow we'll be obtaining a rating. For this note, the county's past short-term bond ratings from these agencies were at the highest level and we don't expect to hear back from the agencies for at least a week. In addition to the current year's tax flow concerns, this tran also provides funding to cover a portion of the prior year's tax delinquencies that the county has already dispersed to cities and agencies under the teeter plan. Under the teeter plan, the county distributes property tax revenues to the cities and agencies based on the total amount expected with no adjustments for unpaid or late payments. This provides the entities with consistent and guaranteed cash flow, and in exchange, the county receives the penalties and interest on any delinquent taxes that are ultimately collected. In summary, I request that you approve the recommended actions necessary to secure the 24 25 tax and revenue anticipation notes in an amount not to exceed $48 million. That concludes my presentation. Both myself and suzanne harrell, our municipal financial advisor, are available for any questions. - thank you so much. All right, we're gonna open it up to the public to see if there's any member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item. Okay. Seeing none here in person, is there anyone online who'd like to speak to us on this item? - we have no callers online chair. - okay. I'll bring it back to the board, and see if there are any questions, comments, or actions. - i'll move the recommended action. - second. - we motioned by supervisor friend, seconded by supervisor hernandez. Seeing no further questions, or comments, alternate to the clerk for roll call. Vote - supervisor koenig - i. - friend. - i. - hernandez. - i. - mcpherson. - i. - and cummings. - i. That passes unanimously. And that concludes our meeting for May 14th. Just wanna thank everybody for hanging in there for the long haul today. And I guess the next series of meetings will be our budget hearings. And so just encourage folks to call in, attend, and we look forward to.
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