Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO)

Good afternoon. I would call to order the May 7th, 2026 meeting of the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Wait, Commissioner Kariakou just arrived.

Okay thank you.

Thank you.

I'll second that, Patino.

We have a motion and a second. Assuming there are no comments please call the roll call vote.

Okay motion passes with four ayes two abstains and yeah two abstains

Thank

you. Chair Stark? Now is the... Chair Stark? Yes. Commissioner Guyer in Santa Barbara, we have some people here to speak on something but we don't have any speaker slips or anything for them so I'm not sure which agenda items it is but we should try to find that out.

I suggest that

Chair Starkey, members of the Commission here in Santa Maria there are no requests to speak under general public comment.

Thank you. That concludes public comment

I move the consent calendar be approved. Thank

you, I would I would ask for a roll call vote on the consent calendar.

Motion passes unanimously

Thank you The next item is business item number one. Would the clerk please read that into the roll, into the record?

Chair Stark and members of the Commission business item number one is to consider recommendations and an adoption of a resolution regarding the final budget for fiscal year 2026-2027

Thank you I would ask our executive officer to report

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Commission. We do have a brief PowerPoint presentation we want to get up. Give me a moment. Here we go. IT can help us. Momentarily while we wake the computer up here, I had a sleep mode. Here we go. Business item one is to consider the final proposed recommended budget for fiscal year 26-27. As we indicated in our April meeting when we proposed the draft budget LAFCO is an independent body, you evaluate your budget based on your workload and you're required to go through a two-step process.

Essentially the draft budget is the initial budget then we forward that out to all of the member agencies and public allow them to comment on that budget And then ultimately we adopt the final budget, which then becomes our budget. And that those timeframes are outlined in the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act and they're also listed on this slide and we completed that at our April 2nd meeting and so our final budget hearing is for May 7th today.

As we indicated in the draft budget, since there were no changes between the draft budget and the final budget. The final budget remains at $680,280 that is a increase of $44,476 above our prior year or current year and that represents about a 7% increase overall to the budget Again, that reflects the CPI increase the Commission authorized for your executive officer.

It does create a new position for the senior slash analyst position mid-year in January and backfilling of that position with a clerk analyst position. That also includes an increase to the county's general fund cost allocation plan portion for our apportionment. For related services that the county provides LAFCO as part of our operations and it also includes an increase in our pension costs with SB CSRS Staff still recommending offsetting all of these increased expenses by using our contingency reserve of $25,000 which still allows us to meet our reserve policy.

In addition, we indicated at our draft budget that we wanted to increase our reserve policy from 30% to 50%, upwards to 30% to 70%, allowing us to have greater flexibility in retaining those reserves. And so we properly noticed our agenda to be able to take that action for today. So we are recommending that you increase that and that's part of our resolution.

Looking at a side-by-side comparison of the current budget versus our new proposed budget, you can see the increased areas in salaries and benefits decrease in services and supplies. And an overall slight increase as well in our use of our contingency still allowing us to be within our 50% allocation. This slide shows the overall budget line items. If there are any particular questions about the line items themselves, staff's happy to answer any of those particular questions but essentially what I wanted to point to was our net operating expense Which is 627,580. That is the one splits 1 third contribution between county eight cities and 38 independent special districts that's the allocation of the breakdown.

When you look at this year's budget versus last year's budget, the cities vary. Many of them had some increased revenues some of them had decreased revenues but they're pretty close to what last year's member dues if you will in that sense it's kind of on par with last year's dues even though that we do have a $44,000 increase in our budget The way it gets apportioned out, there isn't a significant increase.

And for the special districts last year the Lompoc Valley Medical Center didn't pay any apportionment they were assigned to zero dollars because they didn't report any revenues to their state controller's office in a time that allowed the auditor's office to generate that apportionment This year they have reported a number and it's a significant increase so obviously they're paying a bigger apportionment of the budget. And because they're paying this year and not paying last year, it averages out for them to be about what they routinely have paid.

The benefit to all the other independent special districts is that all of their costs are actually lower this year than last year even though we have an increased budget So I wanted to highlight that. If there are any particular questions about any particular city, I can kind of give you an indication of that. But essentially we're here to take public testimony, listen to the commissioners deliberate on the final budget for fiscal year 26-27 and then adopt and give direction adopting the resolution in the giving direction to distribute that to the county auditors thereby asking our member agencies to pay their apportionment.

Is there any other specific questions I'd be happy to answer any?

I have a very simple question which is are there any changes from the budget that we approved at the April meeting

This final budget is reflective of the proposed budget, so there are no changes than what you saw at last month's budget.

Thank you if there were no questions from the commissioners I would ask if there are any questions or comments from members of the public on the proposed budget?

Chair Stark and members of the Commission here in Santa Maria there are no requests to speak on this item

I guess I should ask if there is anyone in Santa Barbara that wishes to speak on the budget. Nobody from Santa Barbara. Thank you, I would solicit a motion and a second.

Commissioner Geier, I'll move for approval.

I'll second. Patino?

We have a motion and a second, I would ask our clerk to please call the roll.

Motion passes unanimously

Thank you The next item is business item number two. Would the clerk please read that item into the record?

Chair Stark and members of the Commission, business item number 2 is to consider recommendations and adopt resolutions establishing spheres of influence for the cities of Butelin, Carpinteria, Guadalupe, Goleta, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and Solvang.

Thank you. Executive officer please report

Thank you. So, the commission had directed that we return with essentially reaffirming all of the spheres of influence for seven of the cities with a small addition for the city of Santa Barbara and so we have done that. We understood that this included 21 day notice that was published in the paper to meet the legal requirement for noticing of a change of a sphere And that essentially each of the cities could apply to LAFCO whenever they deemed fit.

That they prepared their application, updated their journal plans and they felt they were ready to amend their sphere. They had that opportunity to do that so we are prepared to present the reaffirmation of the spheres for these cities We are aware that the City of Goleta is working on an application. They have submitted a check to apply for a boundary change, but they have yet to submit their application in its form so we haven't deemed any application received yet from the City of Goleta. We're holding onto their check until their application comes forward and will pair the two up and at that point we'll accept an application

Is it appropriate to ask whether the application is within their proposed sphere of influence or they're proposing any changes to their sphere of influence?

That's to be determined. So I haven't seen a final application yet. Yeah, I suspect it's going to align fairly closely to what was presented that their change was because that was the direction their council gave them but Certainly they have the flexibility and freedom to amend their application before it actually comes in as their final version. And we also know that the City of Santa Maria is working on a potential application as they complete their general plan review So they're going to probably likely come in with an application likely sometime later this year, maybe early next year to that effect.

And so staff has prepared a staff report that includes some written determinations and we wanted to make a revision to one of those determinations before we adopted a final version So under determination number one, if you look at your packet there's a bullet number seven that refers to the City of Santa Maria and their second sentence basically states that close to 42% of the parcels acreage is under private ownership with approximately 74% having already been developed.

We wanted to change those two percentage numbers from 42% to 89%. and from 74% to 90%. Those new percentages that I've cited actually reflect what we've noted in four of the Municipal Service Reviews. For some reason, the final service review notated a different percentage but we believe that accurate percentages are the 89% and 90%.

May I ask if the city is verified City of Santa Maria has verified those percentages that you just read are accurate?

I had a conversation with the city and they were comfortable with making the new percentages, the adopted determination. And I believe they have submitted a speaker slip to comment to that effect and others. So we do want to make that all of the other determinations remain the same as staff has presented

Thank you. I would ask if there are any commissioners that have questions or comments related to this?

I do have an additional note that just wanted to make for the record that there was public comment received Some of that has been attached to the report as it came in early, some of it came in just a few days ago. That was posted and forwarded to the Commission and so those have all essentially been addressed. The action that's being asked is to reaffirm the spheres. The comments that were made allude to concerns of various cities expanding beyond their current boundaries and today's action would not include expansion of any of the cities that are being commented on so just a notation of that This also, adoption of this resolution also includes the CEQA findings that we've made as part of this and will file those CEQAs documents at the conclusion of this action.

So that concludes our report and happy to answer anything else.

I would ask if there are any commissioners other than myself that have questions or comments about this?

I have a question from Santa Barbara. That's just to our executive regarding public comment Just remind me, what is the deadline on receiving public comment and distributing? Do we have such a date at deadline?

Thank you Commissioner Cervantes to the Chair. Our deadline is five o'clock the day before to try to get that distributed to the Commission.

The day before the meeting?

The day before the meeting.

Commissioner

Patino. I have some comments, but I'd like to wait until after our community development person speaks from the City of Santa Maria

Thank you. I have two questions. I think you can clarify them If a city Proposed fear of influence Overlaps with this fear of influence of a community service district I believe may be the case with respect to Vandenberg Village as in Jalopnik. Is that permissible under Knox-Cortese?

Chair Stark, our LAFCO adopted local policies discourages overlapping spheres of existing service boundaries when those service districts are in adequate service state. So that means if they're providing adequate service good service then the policy is to discourage overlapping It's not unpermissible, you can overlap a boundary. There has to be good justification and cause as to why the new entity would be potentially annexing because that's the ultimate goal of adjusting a sphere. Why that agency would need to annex in the future and that they'd be the preferred service provider, and that there's some indication that the existing provider lacks the ability to maintain it in the future.

And this I assume would be sorted out at the time that a petition for annexation was proposed?

It would be sorted out at the time even a sphere of influence was being proposed. We would ask the question whether or not in this case the City of Lompoc's interest in overlapping Vandenberg Village, whether or not that's an appropriate overlap and there's in whether or not it's consistent with our policies even at that level and certainly at the annexation level at that point You're looking at a potential dissolution of the CSD because the city would be taking over services and so there'd be need to have just reasons to be able to take that action.

Thank you, then my second question I think it's as fairly straightforward am I correct that It is not impermissible for a sphere of influence to occur, to include property on federal land that the property cannot be annexed without the consent of the federal government.

The Commission has full discretion on where it wants to place the sphere of influence, despite whether landowner or agency agrees or disagrees. That authority lies solely with this commission in order to annex that property It has to meet the threshold within the Cortese-Enaz-Hertzberg Act, which is if it contains inhabited territory more than 12 registered voters then there's a protest proceeding and the landowner could protest that action.

So that's not to preclude that you couldn't access so you could annex federal property. Some of the challenges with annexing federal and state property is truly identifying who the property landowner is, and who has the authority to consent to any of those actions.

So if you assume that the sole landowner of the property in question is the United States of America. You could not do that without the consent of the federal government, am I thus correct?

That is correct.

Thank you. Are there any other Commissioner questions other than Commissioner Patino who has deferred until your hearing from their Community Services Director if not I would ask for public comment on this item

Chair Stark and members of the Commission, there are requests to speak on this item. First we have Chinen Dao representing the City of Santa Maria.

Thank you. Welcome.

The general plan for the City of Santa Maria was adopted on Tuesday night of this week. We are very excited to see this, the completion of this six-year project and a significant milestone for the growth of the City of Santa Maria and the larger community. This plan does include land use designations within our land use element for existing sphere of influence which is in ORCA.

The general plan process showed a significant need for growth. We are looking at approximately 16,000 units through 2045 and we have made an earnest effort to ensure that the bulk of those are occurring within the existing city limits. Some examples of how that's occurring are with our existing pipeline. We have approximately 5500 units that are planned for existing sites within the City of Santa Maria We also have projected ADU growth of approximately 2,500 additional units beyond that. And we have adjusted our high-density residential density within this plan from 22 units per acre up to 30 units per acre. Again, we are making an earnest effort towards smart growth but even with all of those numbers and all of those efforts, we need to grow for the future of the city.

With that, we are largely built out with the planned projects that are in the pipeline and those increases in density. So we will need additional annexations in the future. We have had historical annexation applications within our existing sphere of influence in the past. Of course most notably the recent Richards Ranch application and we will... we have not proposed any new annexations within the general plan. The annexation that is proposed there is approximately 985 acres on the east side of the 101 And this is a very modest 6% increase in the city's land area to accommodate an additional 4,000 units of growth and thousands of jobs for our local residents. So at this time we do support reaffirming the existing sphere of influence to give us time to prepare an adequate application for modifying the sphere and we would be open to conversations with the county about adjusting that in other areas in hopes that we can align future growth to the mutual benefit of both the city and the county

Thank you. I would like to entertain Commissioner Patino's comments.

First of all, I want to thank you so much for increasing the... I read this on the percentage of what we had in acreage to build in the City of Santa Maria and I thought well wow that didn't look right but thank you for... The 90% looks right. In the city of Santa Maria it says we have 110,000 people We probably have closer to 120 or 125,000 actually. We can tell that by the flushing of the toilets we can tell that by the garbage that we pick up and of course we've been the star of ADUs I think in this whole state of California but when we look at Annexation and we'll be looking at that because this is in our general plan. We have to allow for say 30, 40 thousand more people which means we've got high schools, we've got junior highs. This is a lot of acreage probably close to maybe 200 acres when you talk about all the acreage we need just for schools So we don't have any place to put those right now.

In Santa Maria, we needed like yesterday a high school. We do not have the room for even one high school in the city of Santa Maria and it is so needed. So I just wanted to reaffirm that the sphere of influence is... I'm fine with the way it is right now and that we adopt that. So that's my position.

Chair, we have a public comment here in Santa Barbara. Can we allow the public person to go? I would think so. Okay sir please.

Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon Chair Stark and Commissioners. My name is James Lamont Chief Executive Officer of Leave93436.org California non-profit public benefit organization representing the communities of Burton Mesa and the La Prisma Corridor in Santa Barbara County. Leave 93436 supports the staff recommendation and annexation plan condition We are here to ask that both be made more specific. The commission has also received a formal submission from Vandenberg Village Community Services District documenting that this community is already effectively served under independent local governance and we do not restate that. We address four questions it does not.

First, a point of geographic record that the USGS federal quadrangle maps document this territory as La Prisma continuously from 1905 through the 2021 edition The land form is Burton Mesa. These are federal designations, not local ones. The Sphere of Influence designation is the only administrative system that places the Burton Mesa communities within a municipal orbit at all.

The Commissioner's findings should reflect that anomaly. Second, data reconciliation. The annexation plan condition must require reconciliation of Santa Barbara County Association of Governments population projections with California Department of Education enrollment trends and California Department of Finance estimates Three independent state agencies show a contracting municipal population. Lompoc Unified School District Project projects enrollment losses through 27 and 28.

Every city-side elementary carries a pipeline ratio below 0.8. Burton Mesa schools are growing, a plan that does not resolve the contradiction does not satisfy government code section 56425. Third, the river is a reduction boundary. The Santa Ynez River already governs county electoral mapping, state agency planning and emergency dispatch in this territory. It is the operative line. The Commission should name it explicitly as the northern reduction boundary if the 2031 annexation plan is not produced or does not demonstrate actual service need.

The Santianez River defines the southern sphere of influence boundary on both Bealton and Solvang. Established precedent within this county, we ask that the same river define a northern boundary here. And fourth, federal land APN 095-040-011. The 2,664 acres must be noted in the commission's written findings as jurisdictionally unresolved parcel. Federal land cannot be annexed under California law, as Mr. Prater was mentioning earlier regardless of sphere designation. A congressional inquiry through Congressman Carball's office is pending. The finding should reflect that status accurately.

Our April 12th and 15 submissions are on the record as attachment 1. We ask that the adoptive findings reflect these four additions. Thank you. Do you

have

any questions? I would ask our county, our executive officer to comment on what the gentleman said and whether he would enter thinks that any additions to the proposal as presented or appropriate

Commissioner Chair and Commission, I noted the request was to amend our population determinations to be consistent with SB CAG and other notations of population. As I noted when we were going through the service review When you pick a population, you can go with many different sources and the numbers are always changing. So we were being consistent in our evaluation to use Department of Finance number as the most current number in the interim years when the census is not when the census is going through its 10-year cycle.

And so I think for the purposes of our determination that populations that we cited are adequate for that, for that purposes. As far as it the notation related to the 2,000 acre parcel federal property and site of the prison. I'll note that the city annexed that property in late 1960-69, and that's been completed it's within the city's boundary so we're not making a declaration that should not be in the city or not in their sphere if that action has been taken and we're accepting that action

So if I understand you correctly on that point, you don't have to change the sphere because it's already in the city boundaries. Is that correct?

That particular property is already in the city boundary and was annexed through a proper

action. Continue please.

Yeah now that was the conclusion unless there was another notation that you wanted me to comment on

No, I heard the gentleman's point and my understanding it probably tracks the written comment that is in the record. There are comments both from the organization I think that the gentleman represents and from the Vandenberg village community services district that are already in the record so if I understand you correctly you're not recommending any changes to proposed resolution as a result of the comments they're already in the record.

Correct and as stated by Mr. Lamont, the action and recommendation is to retain the city of Lompoc sphere of influence which does not include the northern Lompoc sub-region that he was referencing or Vandenberg village or the Mesa so we're consistent in our action for the direction that he was requesting. I think he was in support of the condition to prepare an annexation plan and would ultimately like to see what that looks like, and then obviously the commission would as well make future decisions based on any application that may come forward from the city.

Thank you. Commissioner Mosby.

Yes, as a point of clarification so the prison property 3129 acres was annexed in 1222-1969 according to my records. As far as referencing some of the other properties that were north of the river I could provide you with the dates of those but most of those were annexed from the Burton Ranch to a lot of the stuff north of the river where Hancock is and stuff was actually federal property given To the government where Hancock is in the Kinatom Park, which is inside city limits already.

One of the questions that's coming up is we're doing a lot of cleanup work at Lompoc because a lot of things that happened weren't referenced or done prior to mandates by LAFCO. Point-of-fact is we take Vandenberg Villages sewer it is collected at the regional Lompok Regional Wastewater Plant and So we already kind of have a level of partnership. Recently I found out that the trash being picked up in the areas north of Lompoc are being brought to We're going to be talking about some of the things that we've heard in the last couple of days. We'll be talking about long books landfill. So there's also conversations going on with some of those other areas that were that there is a future presentation for requests for us why changes may soaks mission Hills they've been in conversation with potentially looking up with regional wastewater facility and water service.

A lot of the things that you're hearing with these letters are I won't get into the school aspect, but a lot of this is trying to clean up a lot of the historical language that we're doing and actions that we're already doing. That have been fully recognized by LAFCO and I think our staff has been in contact with LAFCO to try to clarify.

Thank you. Are there any other requests from the public to speak on this item?

Yes, there are. Claire Weinman representing Grower Shipper SBSW

Ms. Wyman. Proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon, I'm Claire Wyman with the Grower Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. I'm just here today to say that this issue is very important to agriculture and we support staff recommendation to preserve or assess producing the sphere of influences.

Thank you. Any other public comments on this?

We might also have one on Zoom. Ken, would you like to speak on this item?

Yes I would. Thank you very much. I'm Ken Huff. I am representing Santa Barbara County Action Network and I'm here to support the staff recommendation on this item. I am glad that I am in league with everybody else who has spoken But I have a few other comments. For 25 years, SBCAN has worked to promote social and economic justice to create sustainable communities and to preserve our environmental and agricultural resources.

We're blessed with some of the finest prime ag land anywhere in SBCAN appreciates your commission has acted to protect that land for all of our existence we've sought to protect the ag land along Bailey Avenue west of Lompoc And we're gratified that your commission twice has voted to deny the city's annexation applications, and today's recommendation will continue to keep that sphere of influence in place.

Over the last several years, SPCAN has participated in Santa Maria's general plan update process, and we have urged the City to focus on development within its current sphere of influence. In spite of strong public support for limiting growth to within this existing sphere and avoiding annexations of prime ag land, as you heard the city voted two days ago to adopt a general plan that's based on the premise of annexing nearly 1,000 acres of prime ag land to the east of Highway 101.

I testified to the council and planning commission several times urging that they not base the plan on that premise in part Because we want to see the prime ag land preserved. But I also noted the history of LAFCO, the decisions regarding annexing of prime ag land and the 25 years SBCAN has existed your commission hasn't approved such an annexation as far as I understand not likely because of our opposition but hopefully because it's part of the correct decision that you'd make because of what LAFCOs are charged with I didn't think it's prudent to base a general plan on a premise that was not likely to occur. And I understand today, no request from Santa Maria is before you right now.

So again, along with all the other speakers and some of the commissioners, we encourage adoption of the staff recommendation to keep seven of those eight spheres in place. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Roth. Are there any other public speakers?

Chair Stark and members of the Commission, there are no other requests to speak on this item.

Thank you I would entertain a discussion and or a motion from the commissioners.

Commissioner Guyer I move for adoption of option one. Is

there a second? I'll second here in Santa Barbara. Thank you we have a motion and a second any discussion on the motion? Not hearing any. Commissioner Patino, you ready? I'd call ask the clerk to call the roll then.

Motion passes unanimously

Thank you. Moving on,

Chair Stark and members of the Commission, Information Item No. 1 is to receive and file a report on File No. 2602-4385 via PROSADA Sphere of Influence and Annexation to the Goleta Sanitary District.

Thank you. Mr. Prater.

Thank you Chair and Commission. Yes, this is to notify the commission that we received an application for a cited address both for sphere of influence change and annexation into the Goleta Sanitation District for roughly 1.6 acre site for sewer connection to an existing single-family residence. In this application, no new development currently is being proposed and we've notified the district they have concurred in support and it's moving through the process so that concludes our comments on this informational item.

Thank you any questions or comments on this particular item? You're just saying we're going to get something on this

Yeah essentially whenever an application comes in through a petition by the landowner or developer, the rules and regulations indicate that we must put it on our most current agenda that can be cited for and announce its applications been received. And that is going through the process to fully vet Awareness that an obligations in so we're meeting that obligation every time we put one of these as informational items

Thank you So there's no need for a motion on this. It's an information item only We will now go to executive officer comments, I believe Or

if you want to skip over Commissioner comments or future agenda items I just want to

make a quick announcement. If you don't mind, I would announce

that this

evening at the

Goleta Unified School District headquarters, the League of Women Voters and several co-sponsors are holding a candidate forum for second district supervisor and the public is welcome to attend or participate online. That's

it.

Now we can

go to it. What time is the event? Six

o'clock Probably should last about an hour and a half, I think. Mr. Prater.

Okay, thank you Chair. I was hoping to give an update to the Commission on the status of the Cal LAFCO transition and work they've been doing we are currently at in conference within this week however that announcement was occurring right at the lunch hour when we had skip out to make it to this meeting so I'll have to report that at one of our next future meetings because I wasn't able to listen in on what that status is. But essentially, I think sessions have been going on to look at the regional map breakdown and hopefully they're gonna bring something back to the CalAFCO board In decision-making about what that new region might look like or if the original regions are sufficient in meeting our expectations. So and then the last comment that I will make is, I think given our current application and work that's in we will likely be taking June and July off so if you're making summer plans Feel free to include that typical first Thursday.

Looks like we're will be taking those dates off.

So, we'll just adjourn

the meeting. We can adjourn to that meeting at the end of this but we'll make the announcement When the time is right. Thank

you to

cancel that meeting.

Thank you. I do before we adjourn, I do have something to share with you. I happen to attend a County Council's Association educational conference and had a discussion there with a gentleman named Art Wylene who is the Executive Director of RCRC. Some of you may be familiar and he shared with me, we had a brief discussion about the travails of Cal LAFCO and he shared with me that Cal LAFCO retains a measure of prestige and recognition in Sacramento and indicated for that the fact that we have our own trailer bill LAFCO has its own trailer bill which is very valuable to have, to the extent you want to fight to keep that I would suggest an urge that you do so.

We're now adjourned to June 4th 2026 at 1 o'clock p.m right here in Santa Maria. Thank You