UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:025 turns
Thank you. ¶. Welcome to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, March 15th. Which means everybody has their brackets in. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you won't have to worry. Right? All right! So welcome and it looks like we need to have a roll call Mr. Allen.
Ms. Farr. Here. Mr. Lavagnino. Here Mr. Carbajal. Here Ms. Wolfe. Here Ms. Craig
Report from closed session. Mr Marshall.
Madam Chairman, you considered only your first item on your agenda. No reportable action The remainder of the items will be continued to the lunch hour.
Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Approval of the minutes of March 1st, 2011. Is there a motion? Is there a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? We will now go to the administrative agenda. Mr. Allen do we have any modifications of that agenda?
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Madam Chair, members of the board. We did post an addendum on Friday and there's one correction to the administrative agenda. It's item A15 and the request on this item was to adopt that the fiscal year 11-12 employer contribution retirement rates and the request is that that item be continued to your administrative agenda on April 5th.
Okay, and that is it? Do any board members want to pull an administrative item? Supervisor Carbajal.
Madam Chair, A18 and A21.
A18 and 21. Anybody else? Okay. And Mr. Allen we have public wanting to talk about which items.
Members of the board, we have requests to speak from Dr. Johns on item A12, A13 and A16. We also have a request to speak from Carolyn Renard on items A13, A12 and A44.
Okay. So Supervisor Carbajal, do you want to go first or do you want me to take public first?
Take public is fine.
Take public first. All right. So Mr. Allen let's manage these for just a moment. Okay. All right so we're going to... Carolyn Renard wants to talk about 12 and 13 and 44 and Dr. Johns wants to talk about 12, 13 and 16 So why don't we start with Dr. Johns on 12, 13 and 16 and then we'll ask Ms. Renard to talk about 13 and 12 and then we'll go to her A44 so you go ahead and read 12,13 and 16.
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item A-12 is from Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services. The request that the Board consider recommendations regarding amendments to fiscal year 2010-11 mental health contracts for professional services. Item A-13 also from Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services. The request is that the Board consider recommendations regarding fiscal year 10-11 adult mental health services contract amendments Item a 16 from the county executive office request that the board consider recommendations regarding appointment of mobile home rent control arbitrators.
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Dr John I will give you five minutes.
Yes thank you madam chair. Now this alcohol drug and mental health issue is at best at its worst in this county now what I know about this alcohol drug and mental health it is that it is the worst Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Department in California. That's declared by the Department of Mental Health California. It is the worst. And this department, this department is the department that discriminated against me, Dr. Robert L. Johns when I applied for a position as clinical psychologist.
It is racist, it is discriminatory and the Department of California Mental health has declared it the worst. I want to emphasize that department in the
county. Council, Dr. Johns, it looks like you're slipping here.
Madam Chair, the speaker can be counseled to stay on topic. He's not addressing 812 or any of the other topics.
Dr. Johns?
Yes. The real reason why these funds are being given to the alcohol drug and mental health, and I can't even see why there's no transparency. They're increasing the funds for MDs, for doctors, and they don't even use those funds. Those funds aren't even... When homeless persons come, and it's a violation of the state mental health code when homeless people come to this alcohol drug, they're refused services They refuse services.
That's a fact. You can take a homeless person, anyone in this room over to alcohol drug and mental health and they will refuse services for that particular person. Carbohol knows that he directs that don't you Carbohal?
Now be careful here we've got to be kind remember.
Now now Selmar Health And Rehabilitation Center is in the valley, in Los Angeles. Now why do we send our mental health patients to Sylmar? I've worked for the County of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health and Sylmar's one of the worst... The way they treat their patients it's one of the worst mental health operations in the county of Los Angeles. And we're sending money to Sylmar?
We have no oversight at Sylmar, we don't even know what's going on and we're sending patients so mental health patients must families must travel all the way from Santa Barbara County to Sylmar. It's a travesty. It's against, it's everything against mental health patients here. The homeless people, mental health patients, they get no services do they Carver Hall?
You're very aware of that. You know you're very much aware of that. You're very much aware it's here in violation of the state mental health codes here and you do nothing about that as you look ahead and try to act as if So the distance for traveling to Sylmar is just, and here we are giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars here every year. I want to know why that occurs?
Why does that occur? Now in this mobile home rent control You're backing up. I mean, these people were here two weeks ago and you put them on hold. Isn't that correct, Carver Hall? You said two weeks ago these senior citizens are on hold for three years and now you're trying to catch up.I think that's a very backwards way of handling senior citizens and now you're trying to finally catch up to their You know they're in problems, you know they have trouble and you just sit there smiling like a chess cat.
And so now you're trying to play catch up by passing these ordinances. I think it's just a travesty. So I'm going to recommend that the people not vote for you and your election coming
up. Remember, we're working on the budget for the mobile home folks. And your time's up.
At some point, I do want to speak to item A16 at the appropriate time so I can do that later.
You know what? We'll have the public and then we'll...
That's fine.
If that's all right with everybody. Ms. Renard And you're going to speak on we're going to give you four minutes to speak on thirteen and twelve and then we'll be back. How many minutes? Four. Then we'll be back to you on point
four. First of all, Mr. Carbajal I saw you making some sort of joke with Ms. Farr when The other public speaker was speaking and I really failed to see what's funny about the pure human suffering of these people, these mental health clients that have to go to that disgusting Sylmar facility. There is nothing funny about that. Ms. Renard, Ms. Renard. I am on topic and I'm within my rights under the First Amendment in the Brown Act so don't interrupt me. I
will interrupt you and I will ask you not to get personal. Okay then you have to
stop the time.
Don't interrupt me. I am telling you not to take people on. Give us your position. Not to what? Give us your position on whatever you're talking about.
That's exactly what I'm doing. So, I'd like to say that so far I really haven't had time to do the calculations but it looks to me like on the administrative agenda which means basically there is no discussion of this. You are basically trying to add approximately a million dollars to the mental health budget through the administrative agenda. Who writes your administrative agenda? You know, you need to have a little more control over it because you can't pass these things on the administrative agenda and it's your responsibility. Your agenda is your responsibility. Adding $1 million to the mental health budget through the back door of the administrative agenda is very inappropriate Speaking of the administrative agenda, you've got this.
I can't remember which item number it is. Ms.
Renard, you're speaking to Item A. I'm
speaking on the administrative
agenda. You're speaking to Items 12 and 13.
Okay, well one of them has to do with the Parks Department where you're changing the conditions that people can operate boats on Cochuma Lake and on Lake Lewis-Corneros. And you're making major changes that are going to affect our environment yet you say it has no environmental impacts.
Ma'am? You were supposed to be talking about A12 and 13. They have to do with alcohol, drug and mental health. So you're talking about the parks now? So let's have you stay on topic to alcohol, drug and mental health. That's not on here. So if you want to talk about parks, let's pull parks. Well, we have a failure to communicate here folks and so I don't know where to go.
I need some help here. Dennis would you please speak? Could we have someone down to help Ms. Renard in case she has a fit?
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Apparently she is not putting a speaker slip to speak on the item she's trying to address.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled, click to expand
I don't know whether it's on the agenda even...
She has asked to speak on Adam A12 and A13, and that's what we're asking her to do now.
Madam chair, thank you. I think the item that she would like to speak on is item a 26 Which is the parks with Kachuma Lake? So maybe what you want to do is we need to read that Okay,
so you want to speak on a 26 Okay Okay a 26 Okay we're on A-26.
Right, okay you're claiming that there is no CEQA impacts, no environmental impacts which is ridiculous there's huge environmental impacts. You're saying for one thing that you're taking off that no power boats or powered models can be on Lake Los Corneros and saying that there can be power boats on Lake Los Corneros A lake that is home to many migratory birds, you'll destroy the habitat for those birds and so much of the habitat for waterfowl has been destroyed already. What do you think you're doing on the administrative agenda trying to pull this off?
And at the county council's office saying that there's no environmental impact and you're doing the same thing on Lake Kachuma. Your the regulations are making huge environmental impacts in the county council's offices fraudulently, in my opinion. Claiming that there is no environmental impacts and trying to pass it on the administrative agenda. You know so I hope Mr. Lavinio, I hope at least you will make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't keep going on and That adding a million dollars to the mental health budget doesn't happen through the administrative agenda. I hope you will, and County Taxpayers Association will take a close look at this.
Thank you.
That concludes the public on the administrative agenda.
Madam Chair, I just wanted to respond to comments that were made statements were made about Lake Los Carneros and that is not part of this agenda item. Just wanted to clarify that.
Thank you Supervisor. Supervisor Carbajal, you wanted to talk about 18 and 21?
Yes
thank you.
Yes please.
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item 18 is from the County Executive Office. The request is that the Board approve budget revision requests and item 821 from General Services. The request to approve and authorize the director or designee to act as follows regarding settlement authority for claims processed by risk manager.
Mr. Carbajal?
Thank you madam chair. In reviewing this budget revision document, I couldn't help but to look at the last page which dealt with our strategic reserve. Page four and I see Mr. Geis in the back either Mr. Geis or CEO Waller it reflects that our reserve is the net available reserve is $12,410,000 And I guess this reflects that we have booked certain liabilities from that reserve, which has brought it down to that.
Is this something that would, that has already occurred or do we the board have to approve it? What is the protocol on that because to my surprise, I have been of the understanding that we have this reserve and then Read this document and it tells me the reserve has gone from 26 million to 12 million. So without any action that I've taken, at least that I know of.
Madam Chair and
members of the board. This document here is an update of what we published in the budget book. And so the amount, the beginning balance of July 1 is the $26.8 million. There are certain appropriations the Board made against that amount And in addition, the return of the $5 million from Empower. And so that brings the net balance to 19.7. And the amount, we have this contingent liability. It's not booked it's not appropriated but for the MISC settlement and the only available source of fund we've identified for that at this point is the strategic reserve and so we note that here to show the potential liability in the event that contingent amount is taken from withheld by the state. And as you know the state has been withholding the money and we are in ongoing discussions to try to reach a settlement with the state
Madam Chair, let me re-ask the question again. So has this money been booked already or is it in our reserve? It's in our reserve. An accounting note to us that's right. Contingent upon booking of that 7 million, it'll go down to 12 million but notwithstanding that official action by this board our reserve is $19.6 million.
That's right given the amount appropriated by the board
I just wanted to make that clear for the public
Yeah, and it's a tricky situation on that because we haven't booked the amount. We don't anticipate booking them out. But as you know, the state has been withholding the money until we reach a settlement agreement. So that's why we listed here. Thank you very much.
Thank you. You had another one 8218 21. It's been written.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is one I want to make sure I understand correctly. We're in essence raising the settlement cap, 821, we're raising the settlement cap discretion by our general services director from $20,000 to $50,000 for certain risk claims And I guess, I would like to understand this just a little bit more if maybe Mr. Nesbitt you could enlighten us a little bit.
I tend to not see it as a big deal for anything that goes beyond $20,000 to come to the Board of Supervisors in closed session. As much as I'd love to give you the authority, I like to keep tabs on how much money we're spending on claims and so Maybe we could accomplish something middle ground where we get a report at the end of the year and we see what the claims are that are being paid if we do this.
Madam Chair, Supervisor Carbajal, certainly. So the current policy is that my department has authority to settle claims up to 10,000 and with County Council's concurrence up to 20,000. Any claims in workers' comp or general liability above those thresholds do go to the board And normally if it's a litigated claim or under most circumstances that something that can be brought to the board in closed session discussed and then an action is taken subsequent to any discussion there.
We are proposing to increase the thresholds as indicated in the board letter what we're proposing is that general services risk Staff would have authority up to 25,000 and then with County Council's current concurrence up to 50,000. And then only above that with those items be brought to you to the board so your point I believe is that it's a community. It's a communication tool on top of You having the authority to say yes or no. It just keeps the board informed if the threshold is lower and I would agree with that so yes, that is something that is lost in this recommendation what is gained in this recommendation two things I think we're saving the expense of the work to prepare the memos and do the analysis to come to the board for that decision making so by increasing the threshold obviously there's The opportunity cost of not having to spend that time that is saved.
And then additionally, and I think this is important also, settling claims or settling anything is part science part art and timing is very important as well. And so what it also gives staff is the ability to strike while the iron's hot, so to speak. And a lot of times when settling if we have to wait to get board's approval Then possibly any opportunity to settle goes away something comes up and so we lose that. So I just wanted to kind of put forth the advantages and disadvantages but certainly your point that it's a communication tool keeps the board in the loop, I can't argue with
that. Madam Chair, I am comfortable with this but I would like to make it as part of the action we take at the board and I want to make it a formal part of the action we take That the board get an annual report of all the claims that have been settled with some kind of reasoning or background on it.
Annual, okay? Okay. We're going to stop at this point, and we'll get to your mobile home one because we have many guests with us today that we'd like to recognize for their special service. And we're going to start with recognizing a volunteer. And as you all know, we've said with today's budget and with what's going on, we want to be certain that anyone that is volunteering time in making a difference
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to their county is in fact recognized. So I'd like to call Joyce Dudley forward, and Joyce will come forward and introduce our special volunteer for the day. Ms. Dudley? And this is the special volunteer! You know, Joyce before you start this is an amazing story. So it is an amazing story if you just talked on billable hours what a huge contribution this is.
Yes Madam Chair thank you for starting this new program I don't recall in county history we've ever had a once-a-month recognition of a volunteer and I think especially these tough budget times we all really appreciate this. And ladies and gentlemen the board great to see all of you as well. Yes, this is Donna Crawford. Donna Crawford came to us through the Santa Barbara College of Law, cared deeply about the safety of our community and began volunteering in the district attorney's office.
She has done everything we have needed her to do. She's worked a minimum of five days a week, often stays late, probably comes in two weekends a month And she does it because she cares so much about the safety of Santa Barbara County. She has sat second chair with me during trials when I was a trial lawyer, she has helped every lawyer when they're in trial doing the research being in court and now she's been doing remarkable work on appellate decisions. We are so fortunate to have her and we love her very much. Thank you.
That is an amazing story Donna.
Just want to say real briefly, thank you very much for this recognition. It's very much appreciated. It's been a pleasure and honor to be part of the DA's office. I can't tell you what an incredible group of talented and hardworking people they are, and it's been really an honor to be able to be part of them. And I thank all of them that are here, that have taken time out of their schedule to be here. They're so busy and it's such an honor. And they work incredibly hard as Joyce said to protect the community and it's been great to be part of that. So thank you very much. Well thank you for your volunteer and your
talk. And we have some other special guests. So if we can go ahead and get a motion to approve the administrative agenda, then we'll get to your mobile home thing so we can give these resolutions or do you want to hold on that?
I just have something real quick about the mobile home. Just for clarification's sake. The mobile home issue here is the appointment of mobile home rent control arbitrators. That was really instigated by an issue that, of a mobile home park in my district, Nomad Village. And so this item is separate from the item that we took a few weeks ago that dealt with the mobile home ordinance. So I just wanted to clarify the difference. Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank you Supervisor Wolff. So with that we need a motion to approve the administrative agenda as modified.
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So moved.
All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? So now we're going to recognize some other very special people that have been incredibly helpful and just special to the County of Santa Barbara, so Supervisor Calderhall would you like to start please?
Thank You Madam Chair if I could have Heidi Hawley come up and Madam Chair, this is a resolution of commendation honoring the Friendship Adult Day Care Center's Help Elders at Risk Today Heart Program. And I'm glad Ms. Hawley is here. She's the Executive Director of the Friendship Center which is the host of not only the program but this particular program or should I say the agency?
And this is an extraordinary agency in my district that provides invaluable and imperative services to our seniors. And I don't know what we would do without this program, and other programs like it. So for me it's a great honor to present this resolution to Ms. Hawley recognizing the Center's Help Elders at Risk Today Heart Program. Mr. Allen if you could read the resolution please?
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item A1 is a resolution honoring the Friendship Adult Day Care Centers Help Elders at Risk Today program and whereas the mission of the Friendship Adult Day Care Center is to preserve the enrich and quality of life for aging and dependent adults through innovative programs that value the dignity and worth of every person they provide respite support in education enabling families and individuals to continue to be engaged in their community careers and commitments And whereas, Friendship Center serves individuals with dementia, developmental disabilities and other health challenges necessitating supervision and who benefit from socialization and structured activities.
Friendship Center's professional staff and programs provide its members with socialization, lively activities and balanced nutrition to avert feelings of isolation, loneliness and fear that manifest in depression and anxiety while enhancing the quality of life for all who attend. Friendship Adult Center's HEART program, that's Help Elders at Risk Today was established in 1976 to enable elder and dependent adults in need of day services utilize the center's programs regardless of income or ability to pay.
And whereas the HEART program subsidizes services for the nearly 70% of Friendship Center members and their families who qualify as low income. Over half of caregivers are members of the sandwich generation, adult children with full-time jobs, families and other responsibilities, as well as caring for an aging or otherwise dependent family member. And another 27% are spouses or friends who are themselves elderly.
And whereas Friendship Center services enable many families to delay or avoid costly in-home care or residential care services for their dependent adult loved ones, therefore keeping families together. Now therefore be it ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors honors and commends the Friendship Adult Day Care Center's HEART program for its dedication to providing quality care for seniors in our community past and adopted today.
Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Board. Thank you, Supervisor Carbajal. It's an honor and a privilege to stand before you with this wonderful program that we offer to the community of Santa Barbara. And we couldn't do the good work without our wonderful staff and our board of directors that keep us going and with our wonderful community in the philanthropic community that we have in Santa Barbara.
The HEART program is near and dear to my heart because of the fact that we don't deny anybody access if they can't afford to contribute to our programs. So, that's why Friendship Center raises dollars and will continue to do so with the aging and dependent adult community that we have particularly the aging community which is burgeoning And we are seeing that with our adult children as well. So I do have hearts for you, that represents our program and symbolic of your work too and the good work that you do in our county of Santa Barbara so I would like to present you with the hearts and these hearts are made from all the wonderful artists in our community as well as high schools and Westmont College They sculpt the hearts, they make heart art out of papier-mâché hearts and it is symbolic too of our Heart Program.
So I'd like to present those to you with the permission of staff.
Ms. Hawley, I want to thank you for being here and for those of you who may have been in my office, you probably see my wall that has a lot of these hearts and they're from the event that your program sponsors and I look forward to adding another one. And if you get a chance, you can go into my office just ask my staff so you can see all the hearts. Thank you.
This was done by a student from Santa Barbara High School.
That's cool.
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Thank you so much. And now we're going to go to Supervisor Farr, who has a resolution for someone that has been determined the Superintendent of the Year of the State of California. That's pretty amazing, Supervisor Farr.
Yes, thank you Madam Chair. It's certainly my honor and the Board's honor today to have this resolution we're going to present to Jim Brown if he will come up to the podium. I think that all of us would agree that this is one of the best parts of our job to be able to recognize so many outstanding individuals in our county who not only deserve recognition within our county but so often get recognized beyond our county borders And today that's certainly the case with Jim Brown, who is the superintendent of the College School District in the San Ynez Valley in my district. Of course, the college school district is not a very big district but it's obviously very mighty and we're going to get to hear about all the wonderful accomplishments of Jim here in a minute when the resolution is read so
Mr. Allen? This is amazing I don't think I've ever even seen the Superintendent of the Year before. Thank you. So this is exciting today!
Thank you very much.
Congratulations.
Madam Chair, members of the Board. This item A-2 it's a resolution for Jim Brown for Superintendent of the Year whereas the Association of California School Administrators has named College School District Superintendent Jim Brown Superintendent Principal of the Year for Region 13 which is comprised of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and whereas Jim Brown is Santa Ana Valley's longest serving superintendent having joined the college school district as superintendent in July 1999 And whereas, Jim has served for over 30 years as a California educator including service for nearly 25 years as both elementary and middle school principal, assistant superintendent for business services and coordinator of elementary education and categorical programs.
And has supervised district curricular and instructional programs for 12 elementary schools. And whereas, Jim has also served as university lecturer teaching a wide variety of classes to prospective educators in California and is a fellow of the Harvard Principals Academy at UCLA, and holds the California School Boards Association's Good Beginnings and Masters in Government programs.
And also holds a doctoral degree in education from the University of Luverne. And whereas Jim has served on numerous county, state and national committees and boards including the California Board Representative for the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, Charter President and State Superintendent Symposium Planning Committee representative for the Association of California School Administrators, Vice President of a Regional Museum Association and Santa Barbara County Response to Intervention Task Force. And whereas during Jim's tenure the district has received several honors including a California Distinguished School Award in 2002, Santa Barbara County's highest API growth recognition in 2007 Title I Achieving School Recognition Award in 2008 and a nomination for the Title I National Blue Ribbon Recognition Award, and that was in 2009.
Now therefore be it resolved that this board honors and commends Jim Brown for his outstanding contributions to our community and demonstrated excellence in the field of education. Passed and adopted today.
And now, how in the world did you do all
this? Well I guess my first comment is that I didn't do it alone. That kind of success and recognition is the work of a team. And so I humbly accept this recognition on behalf of the Board of Trustees first of all, the faculty and staff, all of the families in the College School District. Supervisor Gray is correct we're a small school district one of many in Santa Barbara County And we all know that especially in tough times like we're living in today economically, it really takes a team of folks including volunteers like the one that was recognized here a few minutes ago who are so vital to small organizations. It's my pleasure to be recognized by my Tri-County colleagues here locally but this goes to all of the small school district and and superintendent leaders in the county as well who all do great work on behalf of our Santa Barbara kids, county kids.
And so thanks so much first of all to Supervisor Farr for stepping up and taking a moment to recognize my own particular and personal contributions but to all of you thanks for the great work you do and for taking a few minutes to recognize myself this morning. Thank you very much.
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And now we have another special recognition. It sounds like it's sweet and tasty, so Supervisor Farr what do you have now?
Actually Madam Chair unfortunately Blakely Colvin couldn't make it today after all so I'll go ahead and get this to her but... Could you briefly tell
us about
it? Yes well you know I think that for most of us when we're confronted with With tragedy in our lives, people that are hurting you know we it's easy to get overwhelmed and not know what to do. But in the case of Blakely who is a high school student when she had a very good friend of hers, a high school student diagnosed with cancer she decided that she wanted to do something about it So she started making cupcakes.
And so then she founded Cupcakes for Cancer and she has raised funds and awareness for cancer, children with cancer in particular, and now works with Make-A-Wish Foundation And so many foundations involved with this and she's achieved national recognition for it. And so I thought it was certainly appropriate for us to recognize her as well, but obviously she wasn't able to make it today. She's making cupcakes perhaps. So we will make sure she gets this resolution. Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank You Supervisor Farr You know, it really truly is pleasant to be able to recognize the things that people do. Sometimes we kind of think oh you know we ought to get on with our business but by golly it's nice to have a taste of a cupcake every now and again and a nice heart and people that are winning awards for being the superintendent and now we're going to be recognizing Dr. Anderson who is the Physician of the Year so if Dr. Anderson would join me will shake his hand
Madam Chair, members of the board. This is item A4. It's a resolution recognizing Dr. Gilbert O. Anderson, recipient of the Santa Barbara County Medical Society's Physician of the Year Award for 2010. Whereas, Gilbert O. Anderson graduated from the University of California Los Angeles. In between college and medical school he spent two years doing missionary work in Brazil. Dr. Anderson attended medical school at the University of California Irvine from 1971 to 1975.
He also did a six-month internship at UC Irvine in physical medicine and rehabilitation, two years of residency at UC Irvine in family practice and two years of residency in internal medicine at Long Beach Veterans Hospital. And whereas Dr. Anderson started his general internal medicine practice in Lompoc in July of 1979 and is still in practice today after 30 plus years, he's extremely dedicated to his patients and committed to increasing access to care for the sickest and neediest and uninsured in Lompoc.
And whereas aside from this private practice, Dr. Anderson has served As the company physician for Cellite Corporation twice, as chief of staff of Lompoc Hospital, as medical director for Missions Garden Skilled Nursing Home and is currently the part-time hospitalist at the Lompoc Valley Medical Center. And whereas Dr. Anderson has served on the Executive Committee and the Quality of Care Committee at Lompoc Hospital, the Santa Barbara County Advisory Board on Alcohol and Drug Problems, the Santa Barbara Regional Health Authority Board of Directors The Mission Valley IPA Board of Directors, and currently serves on the Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization Board of Directors. And on the Quality of Care Committee for the Comprehensive Care Center in Lompoc.
And whereas Dr. Anderson is an accomplished artist, he served as president of the Lompoc Valley Art Association and is a longtime member of the Lompoc Mural Society. Last year during the construction of the new Lompoc Valley Medical Center, Dr. Anderson donated a handmade decorative ceramic tile mural to the cafeteria and two handmade stained glass windows to the meditation room.
Dr. Anderson holds a black belt in karate and enjoys jogging, jiu-jitsu, boxing, backpacking And fly fishing. Married in 1971, he and his wife Vicki have four children and four grandchildren. Dr. Anderson is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes Dr. Gilbert O. Anderson for his commitment to his profession, his patients, and his community, and for winning the Santa Barbara County Medical Society's Physician of the Year Award for 2010 passed and adopted today by the board.
You know, Dr. Anderson is so, so important to the community of Lompoc. I mean, I'm sure you all heard that when you listened to this and people have relied on him totally since 1979 for many things not just health but helping with family. So if Dr. Anderson maybe you'd like to say just a couple words?
Tell
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us how to do it. I'd like to thank the Board of Supervisors and the audience. I feel very humbled to be in the same group as these other recipients that have been acknowledged, but I should kind of point out some of these things are a little embellished. Thank you very much.
That is just so remarkable. Supervisor Lavinino, you have World Tuberculosis Day.
Yes I do. Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to call the following folks forward. Paige Batson, Dr. Tolman, Karen White, Diane Corey and Dr. Peter Hassler who's our Medical Director and Deputy Health Officer with our Public Health Department. As well as we have a special guest with us, Mr. Omar Banuelos and today we're going to be presenting a resolution proclaiming next Thursday March 24th is World Tuberculosis Day in Santa Barbara.
Madam Chair, members of the board this is item A5. It's a resolution proclaiming March 24th 2011 as World Tuberculosis Day in Santa Barbara County whereas on March 24 2011 the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department recognizes World Tuberculosis Day to help raise public awareness of tuberculosis and the effects and the efforts made to prevent and treat the disease And whereas, each year nine million people become ill with tuberculosis. Two million people die worldwide and one-third of the world's population is infected with TB.
And whereas in 2010 2,326 active TB cases were reported in California with 30 of those active cases occurring in Santa Barbara County. And whereas, in 2010 the Public Health Department Disease Control staff evaluated 265 persons who had close contact with these 30 active cases to prevent further spread of tuberculosis. And whereas, the Public Health Department Disease Control staff have worked strategically with community partners who serve high-risk clients to promote targeting, testing and treatment for those populations at greatest risk of developing TB.
And whereas, given global travel and immunization and immigration patterns in the airborne spread of TB, public health department must continue to be prepared for the control of tuberculosis. And whereas, the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department's Tuberculosis Disease Control staff continues to work on developing and implementing strategies for surveillance prevention control and treatment of tuberculosis Now therefore be it ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim March 24, 2011 as World Tuberculosis Day in Santa Barbara County. Passed and adopted by the board today.
Madam Chair, members of the board and Supervisor Lanamino thank you very much I'm going to keep my comments very brief so Omar will have a chance to say just a few words about his interaction with our team. But first, I'd like to introduce Dr. Charity Thoman, our new Deputy Health Officer and to be Tuberculosis Controller for the county. She has got a degree in Microbiology while she was doing her medical school she got an MPH in Tropical Diseases and has been in training here at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for the past five years, and we're very happy to have her on our team.
As you've heard before, tuberculosis is a leading cause of sickness and death throughout the world. And this local recognition of our county's contribution to the control of global TB is very important. Twenty percent of the cases that occur in the United States actually occur in California so we have a significant problem here and it's very important that this team works around-the-clock every day of the week to keep things under control The supervisor just mentioned to me we had 30 cases in the last year and that may not sound like a large number of cases, but that's largely due to the efforts of this team.
Omar is a resident in our county and has been helped by our team and I wanted to give him just a minute to tell you a little bit about his experience in relationship with our team.
Good morning, everybody. I just want to talk a little bit about my experience with tuberculosis. Needless to say, I was almost like two months in bed and nine months under medication. And well, first of all I've got to say thanks God. Thanks people for the county. Thanks Jessica, Donna, Jose and everybody. And like today I feel more strong and I've got to say guys thank you.
That's it.
0:49 – 0:559 turns
You know, that had to be not a lot of fun for him to get up here and talk. So you guys owe him a lunch. Supervisor Carbajal, what do you have?
Thank you Madam Chair.
Special social workers.
I have a couple resolutions, but we'll start out with one. If I could have Mr. Neda and Ms. Gallagher come forward and the following employees, Marco Medina, Mary Ann Reagan, Premi Singh, Katrina Vogt, Susan Gordon, Ruby Mesa, Valerie Anson, Araceli Arangure, Crystal Barros. And it is an honor for me today to present a resolution of commendation proclaiming the month of March 2011 as Professional Social Worker Month in Santa Barbara County. And all these employees that I've called out actually are employed by Santa Barbara County in this profession, and so today not only do we recognize all social workers but in particular we recognize those invaluable employees in this profession that work here for Santa Barbara County in providing service to the residents of Santa Barbara County.
Mr. Allen?
Madam Chair and members of the Board, this is item A6. It's a resolution recognizing March 2011 as Professional Social Worker Month whereas the theme for Social Work Month 2011 is social workers change futures. Recognizing nationally social workers as positive change agents who have dedicated their careers to improving the fabric of society by helping people with serious life challenges transform their lives in improving communities and whereas In Santa Barbara County, adult protective and in-home support services social workers help maintain elder and dependent adults safely in their homes by promoting optimal health and safety. And whereas adoption and child welfare social workers evaluate referrals alleging child abuse or neglect provide in person investigations ongoing case management and support services in conjunction with our community partners ensuring the safety permanence and well being of children in our communities.
Career employment specialists in the CalLEARN, Welfare to Work and Workforce Investment programs provide education, training and work experience services to unemployed and underemployed county residents by utilizing strong case management skills and collaborative partnerships with community agencies, training providers and local educational institutions. Now therefore be it resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara recognize March 2011 as Professional Social Worker Month in recognition, celebration and support of our county's professional social workers and their commitment and dedication to individuals, families and our community. Passed and adopted today.
Thank you, Chairwoman Gray and Board of Supervisors. We have an absolutely fabulous group of staff with us today representing all of our wonderful social workers that deal with child welfare services and some of the people that are very challenged in terms of having issues of dealing with severe neglect and abuse issues. And then our Adult Protective Services staff and In-Home Supportive Services staff dealing with the aged and disabled These are very hardworking people, very dedicated to their work, very committed and we do appreciate them greatly. We don't have the opportunity to do this sort of thing often enough and I want them to know how greatly they are appreciated in our department. And I'll let Delfino Nera, the Deputy Director say a few words.
Thank you Madam Chair, members of the Board. The theme for this year for the National Social Worker Month is social workers change lives and really they do. One of the salient points that they make is they work with families in the best of times when they're completing an adoption or reunifying a child or safely maintaining an elder adult in their home but more often than not they work with families in the most critical situations when the family or individual has the worst of time, when they are losing their children, The elderly person can no longer stay in their home when the family loses a job and loses their home. So these are the staff that work the whole gamut of our community, and I just appreciate them so much. We couldn't survive, I think, without them.
They've been a profession that's been around for 100 years, and their whole thing is to try to improve our community and try to help the members of our community. And I just want to recognize them and thank them for all their hard work.
Thank you and it is amazing all of wow that's such a huge job. I'm going to take just a moment now and let you all know that we have a time certain at 10 o'clock Mr. Harris, I'd really like to hang on to you because we're all bit concerned about what's going on with the weather and the earthquakes and all this stuff So I'd really like to hang on to you and have you give us, you know a word of wisdom. I know I've got a 10 o'clock certain we need to do this one more resolution Supervisor Carbajal has then we have Public comment and board member reports Which I think will put it will move those over and go ahead and get started on item the time certain so supervisor if you will recognize the eligibility professionals of the month
Thank you Madam Chair and continuing in a similar profession, if we could have again Ms. Gallagher and Mr. Neda come up and employees Maribel Acevedo, Oscar Palma Ornelas and Sarai Pacheco. And again, Madam Chair it's an honor for me to present the Resolution of Accommodation proclaiming the month of January 2010 as National Eligibility Professionals Month in Santa Barbara County. And
0:55 – 1:1032 turns
we know that is a huge job
because they
have to figure out who qualifies for what when and how.
Exactly. Here we have some of those greatest and finest county employees that were recognizing so Mr. Allen if you could read the resolution please?
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item A-7 is a resolution recognizing January 2011 as National Eligibility Professionals Month whereas January is designated as National Eligibility Professionals Month providing an opportunity to recognize the performance of Santa Barbara County's eligibility professionals in providing services and benefits to families and individuals in need And whereas, Santa Barbara County's more than 250 eligibility professionals have been at the forefront of public social service steadily maintaining a high rate of timely application processing to ensure that those qualified for benefits receive them.
And whereas, Santa Barbara County's eligibility professionals are required to perform many tasks on a daily basis that require skills in handling crisis situations, analyzing financial and personal information Coordinating case management and exercising compassion in working with a community of members in need of public assistance. And whereas eligibility professionals provide over 80,000 Santa Barbara County residents with services and benefits which enable them to move towards self-sufficiency. And whereas eligibility professionals are continually faced with reconciling an environment of rapidly changing policies procedures and technological advances with quality control requirements, as well as doing more with less due to budgetary constraints.
Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors recognize and commend the eligibility professionals of Santa Barbara County Department of Social Services in recognition of National Eligibility Professionals Month January 2011. Passed and adopted today
Thank you again. As you can tell for today's social services day, we're very honored to be able to acknowledge our staff. This particular group of staff are eligibility staff as Supervisor Gray pointed out are the individuals that are tasked with determining the eligibility for very low income people, people that are in distress, people that are coming into our offices desperate They're challenged to deal with people in very difficult situations. And I can say without an exception, all of these people do this with extreme care and caring keeping our clients uppermost in their priorities. We have a very challenging job because of the recession. I think everybody knows that we're in an inverse relationship with economic distressed times, people that lose their jobs, lose their income come to our department for help and our workload increases these folks have handled that beautifully and wonderfully.
I'm so ever proud of them We've had long lines outside our departments. They've been very patient and caring in dealing with this, and they're just a fabulous staff, and we really appreciate your time in acknowledging them. Thank you very much.
Now that is such a complicated job. I think we have now finished our resolutions. Mr. Harris, could you give us maybe what? A couple minutes to... It's so frightening for all of us to have observed and watched and lived through this magnitude of events that we'd kind of like you to prospect it for us.
Certainly. Members of the Board, thank you very much. Michael Harris with Office of Emergency Services just to give you a brief update. There's been a lot of growing concern obviously in this part of the country regarding any type of nuclear event going on in Japan. What we can tell you is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's experts, such as the Director of the Center for Radiologic Research at Columbia University. We're depending on federal authorities who are working with Japanese authorities to keep us in the loop on what if any risks may exist from Current incident.
What we can tell you is that at the present time, the NRC says that there is no repeat no nuclear emergency present danger to the California area. We do know that the federal government and international monitoring agencies are watching the situation. They are keeping us in the loop through repeated phone calls and emails. We are reassuring the public that at this time what we're doing is monitoring.
We are keeping people informed as much as the situation may change. We know that there are multiple fires, there are strong efforts from a local level to control the incident however and again At the present time, there is no radiologic risk to the State of California or the West Coast of the United States. Channel 20 Government Access TV has been posting the Public information hotline, which is area code and we'll have this again on TV and we're putting it out to the public repeatedly. Area code 916-341-3947. People, the general public with questions can call that number during business hours.
We do have multiple plans in the state of California to deal with nuclear emergencies and our department includes one for our local regional nuclear facility. Again, we aren't advising people they do not need to buy potassium iodide at this time They do not need to evacuate or be overly concerned with the current situation. We'll certainly keep the board and members of the public informed as a situation may change, and we are certainly working closely with federal and state partners on this issue.
Do you have any questions for Mr. Harris, Supervisor Farr?
Thank you Madam Chair. Mr. Harris, if not now sometime could you brief the board on what the licensing status is of Diablo Canyon? Because my understanding is that they're in a relicensing process. Is that still in process? They haven't been re-licensed yet?
Yes ma'am. They are currently in that process as far as I know. I can tell the board that we have drill coming up during 2011 with the, you may have heard this about on the news that US facilities go through a major exercise with the NRC in FEMA every two years. We have one of those drills which Jay McCamas is our point manager on and we're participating in that drill in 2012 so will be working with them on that.
Okay and it's our understanding that plant was built to withstand 7.5 earthquake?
Correct, ma'am. What my understanding is that the general seismic risk for that area is approximately 6.5. The building and the facility was designed to withstand a 7.5 Obviously the concerns as we're all aware is that there's also, you know, the magnitude that Fukushima plant 8.9 survived was a catastrophic earthquake. The subsequent tsunami obviously impacted the facility so That's the facility that we have at Diablo is not only designed to withstand that, but I think it's above the bluff switcher. I'm going to say 80 feet tall so there are some similarities but also some dissimilarities amongst that facility, amongst the Fukushima people are making a lot of comparisons with for example Chernobyl.
Chernobyl did not have the containment system that the Fukushima plant nor American plants have. So when they had a catastrophic explosion and fire at Chernobyl similar to what they've had at Fukushima, much different result. Non-containment of nuclear material, wide contamination whereas this thus far has been for the most part contained on site. There are clearly increased levels of radioactivity at the immediate area around the Japanese site. But there's a bit of apples and oranges comparing it to Chernobyl facility.
Supervisor Wolf, then Supervisor Carbajal.
Thank you Mr. Harris. First I want to thank you and your staff and park staff for being right on the job in the middle of the night when this earthquake occurred and alerting our community to the potential tsunami. So I just want to thank you for that. I want to follow up on Supervisor Farr's question And if you could explain a little bit, or if you know or don't know about the status of the new fault that was found. They were going to be doing a 3D investigation of that fault.
Has that been done?
Supervisor Wolf. Let me get back to you. I believe I know the answer, but I don't clearly want to mistake and give you the wrong information, but I believe that's been investigated. But let me again be very clear and not miss anything.
Yeah, I think it was almost a year ago that we sent a letter about that fault so that would be good to see where they are on that. So thank you for that. And then the last thing I want to ask you is, so for the public who is listening, you did provide the phone number But if you could just go over our communication standards so that folks understand if there is an issue that needs to be communicated to the public, where should the public go? TV, radio. If you could just go over that.
Thank you Supervisor Wolf. All of the above. Let me make a little bit of a comparison again with the tsunami warning and advisory that we experienced. This would be a distant event. I would anticipate in the very highly unlikely event that we have some type of radiologic impact to the western United States, the international community and certainly the federal government have radiologic monitoring distributed throughout the area of that part of the globe and obviously having increased their monitoring efforts.
If we were told by federal authorities that there was a change in the situation, and I would underscore it again as an amazingly dramatic change in the situation, we would be advised. We would then communicate with the general public through the mass media. We would provide them instructions on what if any actions they needed to take, and we would provide them the instructions and information on where whatever resources we were providing would be available.
We would make this available via television, via radio, via the internet, via press releases, via our Facebook which we've put a tremendous amount of information everything down to a very good New York Times diagram that shows what happened to their understanding. So providing all of that information to the general public would be very aggressive part of our operations.
And I think the Facebook is an added element that we have not had before. So, I think that's excellent and just to point out in general terms that that is now available. How about the text messaging?
Yes ma'am thank you. The Office of Emergency Services uses a text messaging. A link to that text messaging can be found at the countyofSB.org And if you go to Emergencies and find Office of Emergency Services, we have some hyperlinks there. We utilize a system of text messaging that also attaches emails. It's a free system. It's called NIXLE, N-I-X-L-E. And we provide that information and we can get it out to people immediately. We can also geolocate that so if we have an incident going on in one part of the county. So we use NIXLE, we use Facebook, we use Twitter, and we have them all linked. So you're not missing out if you subscribe to NIXLE though. You're pretty much guaranteed to get the information.
That Nixle is terrific. And anyone listening, I would suggest that they sign up because it is a direct link to what's going on in your office. Thank you Mr. Harris.
Supervisor Carvajal?
Thank you Madam Chair. Supervisor Farr asked when we might have an update or a workshop or hearing on this matter again. I'm not sure that I heard an answer.
My understanding from Supervisor Farr was the context of what's the status of licensing and the question around the 3D, the investigations around that. We'll certainly provide information back on what the licensing status is.
You know in light of this catastrophe I think I speak for the public when I say that they want to understand revisit the risks of Diablo Canyon again for our region And I would encourage us to have a public workshop in the future where not only PG&E, PG&E is going to come and tell you their story. But I would encourage us to invite somebody from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the federal government
Let's go to Ms. Waller and have her pull up the long-term calendar and give us an idea. You're looking at about an hour, I would assume, right Mr. Harris? An hour?
Yes ma'am, I would guess
that. And so, and I don't know about the public testimony but is there a time? I happen to agree that we probably need to have this is what's going on
Yes, Chairwoman and members of the board and Michael please feel free to jump in as well. Your schedule is very congested through April And likely it will take some time for Michael to be able to schedule those folks to speak to you. So my suggestion... Is Ms. May
okay? All right, Ms. May is okay. Michael does that work for you as well? Why don't we put more work on it?
Absolutely.
Okay. Board members I'll work with the NRC and see if we can get that type of response and I'll work directly with Ms. Waller to get that in as soon as possible.
1:10 – 1:2413 turns
Thank you. The only reason I say here, I think it would quell a lot of the anxiety and concerns that people have but more importantly You know, I was recently interviewed by a national magazine on nuclear issues and I mentioned how I made a visit to Diablo. But every answer I got was very assuring but there's always the question of Who carries the brunt of responsibility and is there a third party that is looking over our government?
Those questions inevitably will come out in terms of the utility in our government.
Mr. Harris, I think you have quite a challenge here because I'd like to be able to understand Why they can't just turn it off and why does it keep on heating? You know what I mean. They go, oh it's getting hotter, it's getting hotter and so we need just a tiny bit of that too.
In short they can't keep the water on the fuel rods and the fuel rods get too hot and then as they try to continually dump water there to the point of dumping seawater on it you obviously have a dramatic increase in the steam pressure And that builds up and we've seen the explosions in reactor number four. The exposure of the fuel rods has resulted in a fire. Now, the interesting thing about reactor number four is it was actually not active at the time so what that tells us is they lost water content. The big thing on nuclear energy is keeping water on the fuel rods to keep something that's 5,000 degrees reasonably cool. When that doesn't happen because you lose your pumping system, you end up with exposed fuels And
you know, maybe you have a website and if you just say, Joni why don't you click on such-and-such. Just email me and tell me where to click on it
all.
Madam Chair I mean I think that in watching this on the television that this particular plant in Japan putting seawater on it was really like the last of four options so they had the regular system then they had a diesel backup And then they had the battery backup. And it's unclear as to what happened to the other two backups before they even got to the seawater, so I think that that raises some more pertinent questions for us to ask of Diablo Canyon and what backup systems they have in place and how long their batteries are good for if they have them etc. Yes ma'am?
And why doesn't seawater work if water waters water you know?
Bad to put salt water on nuclear rods It's usually the water that they put on the rods is extraordinarily clean water.
Okay, so now we've got a busy day for you.
Again let me just underscore in conclusion that at this present time there is no risk to this area of the country. We have no indications from experts that are heck of a lot smarter than me that that is the case If that changes, we will certainly advise not just the board but the public of any changes in that situation. And we're encouraging people with questions and we'll again be putting this on making this very available as we have through other press releases. People with questions to call area code 916-341-3947
Thank you, Mr. Harris. We now are going to get ready to go to that time certain, but before we do that, we're going to take a break until 1030 and we'll be back at 1030. And we apologize we didn't get off.
♪♪ ♪ ¶. ¶. Yeah. ¶. Thank you. Music Music ♪ Hi. ¶. ¶. Thank you for joining us. ¶. ♪ ¶. Yeah. ¶. Music ♪ ¶. ¶. Hi. ¶. Is there a second?
All in favor, aye. Opposed? Thank you. Mr. Allen next
1:25 – 1:3012 turns
I'm chair members the board this is a ten o'clock time certain from planning development it's a hearing to consider recommendations were in the Montecito Planning Commission. On case number 10 TEX 00000 00039 regarding a request by the applicant Caruso affiliated for a time extension from the Miramar Beach Resort and Bungalows project.
And Mr. Russell, this is a planning and development so would you introduce your staff to us and tell us who's going to be doing what?
Yes, Madam Chair. I have Aaron Briggs today who is going to be doing the presentation and he's been the planner on this project for quite some time.
Any other folks at the table with you?
Are
they incognito? Is there a problem
here? No. We have Anne Almey, a supervising planner, and Alice McCurdy, our deputy director, our recently appointed deputy director.
Okay, thank you very much. Mr. Briggs?
Madam Chair and members of the board this will be the first of two presentations regarding the Miramar project this morning and this first presentation concerns a time extension to the approved project case number 10-TEX39 The project site is located in the Montecito planning area just south of Highway 101 off the San Isidro exit on South Jameson Lane The applicant is requesting a time extension to the approved Coastal Development Permit for two years, extending the permit's life from April 6th of 2011 to April 6th 2013.
In December of 2008, your board approved the Miramar Beach Resort and Bungalows project. The project was then appealed to the Coastal Commission by two private parties and those appeals were resolved on April 6th 2009 making April 6th 2009 the effective date of the project. The originally approved CDP had a lifespan of one year, which then was extended once by your board last year through April 6th of 2011.
And the applicant is now requesting another time extension that would take the life of the permit out to April 6, 2013. The approved project includes a package of permits including one development plan, four conditional use permits and a coastal development permit. The conditional use permits were extended by your board last year until April 6th of 2015 so no time extension to those are required at this time.
The development plan had an original life of five years, is extending out until April 6th of 2014. It does not require a time extension this time and again the CDP is what's being extended today for two years out until 2013. Good cause can be found. The applicant states that effects from the severe downturn in the economy is causing them some trouble completing their conditions of approval, and the original findings made for the approved project can still be made.
Environmental review of the time extension can be covered by the original environmental document package under CEQA section 15162. As no new significant environmental effects would occur with respect to the project, previously identified environmental effects will not increase in severity and no new information of substantial importance would require revisions to the previously approved environmental package.
The Montecito Planning Commission considered this item on February 23rd and recommended that the Board make the required findings for approval of the project specified in Attachment A of the staff report, including the CEQA findings. Accept the previously approved environmental package as adequate review for the current case. Number 10 TX 39 pursuant to section 15162 of the state guidelines for implementation of CEQA and finally to approve the project case number 10 T X 39. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the time extension
questions on the time extension. No question supervisor Wolff
thank you Mister Briggs when we had our last time extension Wasn't there wasn't part of that agreement to defer one of the conditions? I thought it was condition 81 about payment.
Condition 81 requires the applicant to pay a fee in lieu of providing low-cost visitor serving commercial amenities in the coastal zone. And he, the applicant would be required to pay that fee prior to issuance of his Coastal Development Permit and there was some discussion at the previous hearing regarding that condition but the board ended up taking no action because that condition was suggested by the Coastal Commission.
1:30 – 1:3626 turns
So we took no action, so it still is in place? Correct. Okay. Thank you.
Other questions? So is it appropriate for public comment now? Dr. Johns? This is a public comment on the Miramar.
Yes. Supervisor Carbajal, I find this to be extremely hypocritical. Now here's the Miramar Project which is a blight, a sore on the eye of the people of Montecito and the people coming up Highway 101. And you're going to give this an extension? 2008, how long are you going to keep this blight? This eyesore on 101 people coming through paradise. I find you to be extremely hypocritical and let me explain that statement. I want the people to know exactly how I feel about this project Because see, two weeks ago in the Mobile Hole Project which you put on hold for three years when there were poor people.
And did you say you were a Democrat? When there were poor people, people mentally ill and people physically ill and you put that on hold for three years. Did you say you were a Democrat? And now you're fast tracking, but obviously fast tracking. Yes, you can get uncomfortable aren't you?
Dr. Johns remember where if we can't say something nice, we're not going to say anything at
all. But I want to point out the hypocrisy of this supervisor.
No, we're not going to go there.
Oh okay. Thank you.
You can be a kind man. Remember you're a mental health professional.
Well now, that's questionable isn't it in this county. But anyway the hypocrisy sir is over just when are you going to start working for the people?
Now remember we're talking about the Miramar and the time extension so let's stay on track. One more chance
Well I think I've made my point,
Madam Chair. Thank you. Any other public speakers? Mr. Allen?
No request to
speak.
So what do we need to do now? Supervisor Carbajal?
Madam Chair, I think this is so straightforward and when you consider the community support, the MPC Montecito Planning Commission decision, the Montecito Association support I don't want to belabor this any further. I'll make a motion that we approve staff's recommendation on this matter.
Is there a second? All in favor, say aye.
I have a
supervisor
question and I just want to go back to the condition 81 and is there anything it says prior to the issuance of the coastal development permit so is there anything that precludes us from implementing that condition?
Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolf, can you rephrase that a little bit?
OK. Condition 81 says prior to the issuance of the coastal development permit, the applicant shall submit to the county planning director a sum of in this case it's $1,440,000. So my question to you is it doesn't say at the time of the coastal development permit, it says prior to the issuance. So does this board have the authority or could it be interpreted that the developer should pay that amount now.
Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolff there is nothing in the conditions that require the developer to pay that fee immediately it's simply stated that the developer shall pay that fee prior to issuance of their coastal development permit so in other words if they want to move forward and build this project before they get their permit in hand they will be required to pay that fee But the timing of it is simply prior to issuance. And now as part of this time extension action, we're extending the life of that permit out until April 6th of 2013.
So anytime prior to that date, developer could step forward and pay that fee.
Okay. And then another question, and that has to do with the demolition of the site. And I'd like you to explain...I know we talked about this before. But what authority, if any, does the board have in having the developer demolish the site before we move forward with an extension?
Supervisor Wolff. There's nothing in the project description or the conditions of approval that would allow the board to require demolition of the site at this time. I
think the question was, how could the board do that? So that's an attorney question.
1:36 – 1:4417 turns
Madam Chair and Supervisor Wolf. In the context of the time extension, all that's before you is whether or not there's good cause to extend the coastal development permit. So the original conditions of the project stay the same. So in this context I don't recommend any changes to the conditions because those stay with the original project and here we're just looking at whether or not to extend it two years.
Okay so that discussion could take place in the next item?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. Are you ready to vote? Is a voice vote okay? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay next item. Mr. Briggs are you doing that one also?
Madam Chair and members of the board.
Mr Caldwell did you want to make a public comment on this I'm sorry
No, actually there's a lady that's been here for two hours waiting for general public comment.
Yeah Mr. Caldwell I got your email on that and my response is the general public comment is going to the foot of the calendar so because we have a time certain right now as soon as we finish the time certain will go back to public comment
this time certain was that item you just voted
on? That we've got one more they're all right thanks Mr. Caldwell appreciate your help Miss Briggs to you
Members of the
Board, moving on
to... We need to read
this. Madam Chair and members of the Board, Item 3 from Planning and Development is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a request by the applicant Caruso Affiliated for an amendment to the Miramar Beach Resort and Bungalows project.
So moving on to the request for the amended project Again the site is located south of 101 freeway off the San Ysidro exit in the Montecito planning area on South Jameson Lane. This is a rendered site plan of the approved project and just quickly, the major features of the approved project were a spa The main building, the ballroom building, the beachfront units, the pool bar restaurant, the retail building complex and then these yellow colored guest room buildings throughout the site.
The amended project takes the general form of the approved project with some minor revisions. And the largest change between the approved project and the amended project is the incorporation of the previously approved ballroom building into the main building, elimination of that individual structure, the placement of a service parking lot in that location And the elimination of one level of underground parking, whereas before there were two.
The pool bar restaurant has been replaced with a larger restaurant in the same location and the guest room buildings throughout the site were somewhat reconfigured but again very similar in their layout. And the previously approved retail complex that was located in the center of the site has been also moved into the main building along with the ballroom function.
This slide shows the location of the approved project footprints in red and the amended project footprints in gray. And this just gives you a sense and reinforces the similarities between the amended project and the approved project. You can see that the buildings are laid out in a very similar fashion, and the major difference being the elimination of the standalone ballroom building in the eastern portion of the site.
This graphic shows the approved project elevations outlined in blue and the amended project elevation shown as buildings. And you can see that in the eastern portion of the site where the ballroom building used to be is now where the parking lot would be located, and now this opens up views through the site in the eastern portion whereas the remainder of the project frontage on Jameson remains essentially the same.
Project statistics. The overall gross square footage has been reduced by a little over 120,000 square feet. The site coverage has been reduced by about 5,000 square feet. The overall floor area as measured in net square footage remains essentially the same. A minor reduction in guest rooms from 192 to 186. A reduction in maximum event capacity, attendance for events from 600 people under the approved project to 500 people under the amended project.
The beach club memberships would remain the same. The restaurant capacity would remain the same. The project would continue to provide four employee units. The projects grading quantities have been reduced by about a fourth and staff levels are proposed to remain the same. As for parking, the approved plan was going to provide 551 parking spaces on site. The applicant provided a parking study with the approved project and then provided a revised parking study along with the amended project and in that parking analysis it was identified that under peak demand With a 600 person event, everything operating all at once. The peak parking demand would have been 523 spaces and the project would have provided 551 spaces for an overage of approximately 28 spaces over what the maximum demand would be under the amended project because the use levels and number of guest rooms would be decreased.
The peak demand has also decreased to 464 spaces And the project would provide 494 spaces on site for an overage of approximately 30. So you can see that the applicant has taken a similar approach with the amended project, ensuring that there are more spaces than would be required under peak demand. And now in addition to the 494 spaces provided on site for use by the hotel, the project would also provide 68 public spaces provided in the rights of way of South Jameson Lane and Eucalyptus Lane for use by the public for coastal access and for other purposes.
This is a conceptual landscape plan for the proposed surface parking lot
Mr. Briggs, if you could just go back to the previous slide at our desk today there is a letter from Surfrider discussing this, the issue of parking in particular the public spaces and I think I heard you say that I mean, I thought I heard you say that the Miramar is going to provide those spaces. But aren't they public spaces already?
Supervisor Wolff, the project would provide 494 spaces on site dedicated to use by the hotel uses and in addition to that there would be 68 public spaces accommodated Just outside of the site. So while the project is not technically providing them, they are not being counted as part of the projects parking provisions. I'm simply stating that 68 public spaces would be located adjacent to the project site.
1:44 – 1:5016 turns
Did you want to say something else?
Under current conditions, there are 66 public spaces along Miramar Avenue, Eucalyptus Lane and Jameson Lane. And with reconfiguration of the Miramar site, there would be 68. So there would actually be an increase of two public parking spaces within the rights-of-way of the surrounding street network.
Thank you.
Madam Chair?
Is it Carver Hall and then Supervisor Farr?
I hate to go back so far in time but It's necessitated to make my point. The approved Schrager project had 20 spaces less, I believe 20 if you could help me out here than the approved Caruso project First and now Caruso Project 2. Am I correct in my understanding that there's 20 to 30 spaces more from the get-go?
Supervisor Carbajal, we'd have to look at the exact numbers and we could dig that up for you right now but the amended project, the Caruso project would provide for more public parking spaces than the Schrager project did back in 2000.
Thank you
I guess I'm a little confused about the public space definition. So when the traffic analysis was done for all the uses on this site, they said that what they needed was 464 peak demand and they're actually going to provide 494 and that includes Any day use to the retail, to events. Things like that people that are not overnight guests.
Correct. That includes all on-site uses.
So why are we talking about the street parking at all?
Supervisor Farr, public access and public parking for beach access is always a hot topic. And I simply wanted to mention on the record that in addition to the 494 spaces provided onsite by the project that in the surrounding neighborhood there would also be an additional 68 public spaces for use by the public for coastal access and other purposes.
Okay so I guess the concern would be whether there was some question asked to the peak demand analysis in that Would there be a possibility that when the project is built and they have a big event, that this analysis was not adequate? That there would be overflow parking from the Miramar onto the public which would then pinch the public spaces for coastal access. Is that the crux of the issue here?
As part of their application, as part of the applicant's application they submitted a parking analysis done by a transportation professional which was then peer reviewed by public works staff who agreed with the analysis. And that's all discussed in the findings, the recommended findings for the project and staff believes the parking levels to be adequate due to those factors.
Thank you. You know, we also received a letter from Mr. Overall and I also happened to watch the Montecito Planning Commission hearings and the parking issue was of importance and they basically wanted us to make the findings about parking. According to Mr. Overall he says that the approved plan is 88 parking spaces short of the number required by the ordinance so I don't see anything in your slide that discusses the ordinance, but I'd like you to confirm or not confirm that it's short of the ordinance.
And going back to what Supervisor Farr said It appears that by stating that there's 68 public spaces, that could be used as overflow parking by the hotel guests thus eliminating access parking for public use. So first if you could just address the ordinance piece.
Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolf. Here in the slide you can see that for the approved plan under Article 2, the project would have been required to provide for 639 spaces. Now this total of 639 is done by simply adding up the individual uses included with the resort such as guest rooms, restaurant use, people visiting the retail spaces using a spa so in Article 2 It simply adds all these different uses together. It does not take into account that someone may show up to the site as a guest of the hotel, stay in a room, also go to the restaurant and also go to the spa.
So the ordinance doesn't take into account the conjunctive use of these spaces whereas Article 2 would actually count that person as three different guests and require three different spaces. The parking analysis provided by ATE takes into account the fact that a portion of the guests will be using multiple services at the hotel and therefore not require as many parking spaces that are identified in the ordinance.
1:50 – 1:558 turns
It's pretty significant difference between what ATE has stated compared to the ordinance
Would you continue your presentation? Go ahead.
So this graphic here shows the surface parking lot and the landscaping approach that would be used to screen the parking lot from view along the highway and from South Jamison Lane in the surrounding neighborhood, and essentially the approach is to plant a Hedge material surrounding the parking lot in all directions and then supplement that hedge with mature tree plantings.
Such as sycamores and other native trees both on the exterior of the parking lot and within the interior of the parking lot in order to break it up into smaller fields and decrease the visibility of the cars within the parking lot. And then here's a cross-section of the parking lot, starting from Jamison Lane to the north and working down to the railroad tracks on the south. What this shows is a person standing next to the parking lot with the proposed landscape screening in front of them and obviously blocking their view into the parking lot. So this shows us that people driving by on Jamison Lane or walking on Jamison Lane will not be able to see into the parking lot but their views will actually be screened by vegetation.
The Montecito Planning Commission considered the amended project on February 23rd and recommended that the Board of Supervisors consider the following three items. Number one, that the items identified in the Montecito Fire District letter dated February 18th were not fully addressed at that time in the site plan reviewed by the MPC and that should be resolved prior to project approval by the board.
And staff and the applicant have been working very closely with the Montecito Fire District to ensure that their conditions have been met. And in fact, that is the case now. There were several issues identified by the fire district including fire access Through the western portion of the site, which has now been provided here. Access through the sound wall, which fronts Jameson Lane that issue has been resolved.
The fire department was previously requiring a turnaround at the end of Miramar Lane. And by relocating the restaurant to the east side of the pool, the fire department can now take access down the main fire lane here directly to the restaurant building. So the Miramar Avenue issues have been resolved and in summary, the Fire District has provided a letter which is included in the staff report package dated March 3rd which states that all of the conditions in their previous letter have been satisfied and they now support the project.
Secondly, the Montecito Planning Commission requested the Board consider that on-street public parking in the surrounding neighborhood is limited and that the onsite parking included with the project may not be adequate to serve the proposed uses and as such may impact the surrounding neighborhood. The MPC recommended that an additional 30 onsite spaces be provided with the project.
Environmental review of the amended project includes the approved environmental review package and an addendum updating the environmental review package to reflect the amended project. The proposed amended project would not create any new significant effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified significant effects on the environment.
And in order to adjust the mitigation measures for night lighting, staff drafted some revised language to the lighting condition to require that the lighting for the parking lot be minimized and dimmed after 10 p.m., in order to minimize impacts on the surrounding neighborhood. As with the approved project, and with approval of the requested modifications, the proposed amended project is consistent with a comprehensive plan including the Coastal Land Use Plan and the Montecito Community Plan as well as the Article 2 zoning regulations And staff's recommendation is to make the required findings for approval of the project specified in Attachment 1 of the Board Report, including the CEQA findings.
Adopt the addendum dated March 15th 2011 to the previous Environmental Review Package which is included as Attachment 3 of the Board Report under CEQA Guidelines Section 15164 And finally, to approve the project case numbers 10 AMD10 11 CDH1 and 11 AMD2 3 4 5 subject to the conditions included as attachment 2 of the board report.
Supervisor Wolf has a question
Thank you, Mr. Briggs I actually misspoke when I was talking about the 88 spaces that was for the approved project so the proposed project according to the slide that you had up there is 138 and actually that was what Mr. Overall had also stated One of the things that you mentioned in the slide was that the MPC suggested an additional 30 spaces. Now, has that been discussed with the applicant? Has that been incorporated into the plan at all?
Supervisor Wolf, yes, that issue was discussed with the applicant and they're fully prepared to address that issue head on.
Okay, very
good thank you. In their presentation.
1:56 – 2:0619 turns
Ready to go to public comment? Anybody other questions? Liz Hogan, let's start with you followed by Dr. Robert Johns. We only have four speakers so let's go ahead and give them three minutes Mr. Allen.
Hi, my name is Liz Hogan. I live at 30 Miramar right across the street on Miramar Avenue from the cottages at the hotel and I just wanted to come and speak before you and let you know that I'm a big supporter of the hotel and appreciate everything that the Caruso team has done I'm here today because I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the issues on parking on our street, Miramar Avenue.
First of all, it is a very narrow street. And most of the time there aren't a lot of people there but with the hotel going in and on big surf days or sunny beach days people do look, they cruise for parking and go down there and look for parking and park anywhere they can Turn around in the street and people's driveways and whatnot. The previous plan that the Caruso team had was they had parallel parking to the cottages, and I think that is a really good idea because people can go down turn around at the end of the street and then parallel park with indentations next to the cottages and then it could be indicated with landscaping to show that it's just for hotel use and not public use.
And by doing that, we would have less chance of people backing up into the cars directly opposite from that side of the street. We've had our mailbox hit twice. I've seen somebody run into a car backing up in the middle of the street and there have been some problems and issues with that. So I think parallel parking is a much better way to go. Also, we live right across the street from their proposed parking unless they've changed it and people coming to the hotel backing in, we have that possibility of headlights going into our house, into our rooms and so forth at night So I encourage you to look at that issue. And then also the issue of public parking for beach access. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Johns?
Followed by Mr. Caldwell in Santa Maria.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we're being bamboozled I've seen this project before, beautiful project a few years back. It was filmed and it's very beautiful. By the way, I used to play tennis at Miramar and now there's no tennis courts here. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who is disappointed by the fact that there's no tennis courts. But as I said before, this project is being fast-tracked And I've seen other projects supervisor from the first district where there were many, many health issues.
Senior citizens and you made a statement. Well, I just put this on the back burner for three years. Well, this project is being put on the back burner for another three years just like the others only it's being fast tracked on the back burner I think there's some serious questions here. And I think we need to look into them before we approve it.
Thank you, Dr. John.
Thank you.
Mr. Caldwell and followed by Kalem DeForest. Mr Caldwell.
Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm Andy Caldwell representing Colab. I am here confessing that I'm a recovering capitalist in spite of the fact how broke Everybody is at every level of government and how tough it is to get investment in capital investment or what have you into real estate projects. There's a part of me that wonders, to what degree would the board ever contemplate or consider saying well how much more money with the developer be able to make To pay off his bills if he had more rooms, not less.
If he had more banquet space, not less. And secondly how much would we the County of Santa Barbara make in property taxes if he built more, not less? TOT taxes if he had more rooms, not less and sales taxes if you had bigger gift shops and more amenities, not less. Nobody wants a ugly development. Nobody wants a development that's oversized for the lot, but for crying out loud there's something broken that this has taken 10 years and in reality we're not even assured it's going to get done in the next couple of years hence the request for a time extension.
Part of this is at your feet part of its the Coastal Commission but I hold The five of you, even though there's been a change on the board since this thing first was initiated, responsible. The bottom line, this is a perfect example of why the County of Santa Barbara and the State of California is broke. The buildings there look like something out of Kosovo or Serbia and somehow that aesthetic is okay for 10 years versus having to look at tennis courts or maybe a tall ballroom building or what have Admit the system is broken, start doing business as if your finances depend on it because they do.
This is one of the most valuable pieces of property in the entire county and hotel resorts pay dividends to the tax base like no other project. Property tax, sales tax and TOT tax And secondly, Montecito could use the removal of the eyesore. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Colwell. Mr. DeForest?
Good morning. I'm Kellen DeForest and I want to say I appreciate that Mr. Caruso and his team are moving forward with their project I hope they can do something maybe in the interim to make it look a little better. That is the ruins of what was the Miramar and now they're going to build a new one. The design, in my opinion lacks I hope that the Caruso designers could design a facade that is more interesting and inviting than a row of two-story buildings.
And the question is, are two-story buildings cottages? Has enough parking been provided For peak demand, which includes guest. Includes of course the. And this parking needs to consider and I know it's under discussion for local beach goers. Also the impact of a possible backup Of course, exiting at the San Ysidro off ramp. At event times might be a problem. I mean it's a problem now even with nothing there so perhaps the hiring of off duty of CHP officers to direct traffic during events could be included in the conditions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. DeForest. That concludes public comment. Where to now? We have another public commenter here, Mr. Allen.
No, I think there's some confusion. She has a slip-in for the public comment period but not for this particular
item. I put in a request for public comment and it was on a blue piece of paper. I put in a request to speak on the administrative agenda on a different blue piece of paper. Okay,
yeah. Thank you. You will speak on the public comment but right now we're talking about the Miramar project that was D3.
Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was... I've been waiting so long for public comment and I thought you had maybe finally gotten there but I guess not yet.
No, I can see where you're going. Okay now what do we do?
Well, I just, I thought we might hear from about the 30 parking spaces at some point
Madam Chair, the applicant has yet to give their presentation.
Oh okay. Applicant is going to give a presentation. Thank you.
2:06 – 2:125 turns
Madam Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors My name is Matt Middlebrook with Caruso Affiliated. I've been with this project a long time now, still long enough where it's the first time I met a couple of supervisors so nice to meet you. As Aaron talked about our project was approved by the Montecito Planning Commission in September 2008 and it was approved by the Board of Supervisors after an appeal of that same year.
We then faced litigation and appealed to the Coastal Commission, which were both withdrawn in April of 2009. At that point the project was truly approved. Unfortunately as we all know, the wheels had fallen off the country's economic wagon the previous fall and luxury hotels quickly sank to the bottom of the list of desirable asset classes. The opportunity to finance the project disappeared and so the project has sat.
It's pained no one more than us that it is sad. We acknowledge that you, unfortunately, have to look at it and the members of the Mosquito community have to look at it every day but we share that pain to some degree because we pay the property taxes, the pest control and on and on. Ironically, it actually costs a fair amount of money to keep those buildings in such poor condition.
Most sane developers probably would have let this property go a long time ago, give it back to the bank and walk away. But we fell in love with the land. It's supposed to be about the deal and the bottom line but we fell in love with the community and the beach and the mountains. So we've held on and we've tried to be patient and tried harder than you could imagine to get this project financed.
But in those literally hundreds of conversations, we actually learned something. The same numbers in terms of what a hotel like this and this new world order should cost. And so in the fall, Rick Caruso gave us a task. Come back with a project that is the same level quality as before but less expensive and more efficient and do so in a week. And somewhat surprisingly, we not only came up with a better more efficient plan which is before you right now but one that we actually liked a lot better.
We still do not have financing for the project, but we're close. We're close because companies think this is an attractive project in a one-of-a-kind location and now it is properly priced. We are confident that this is the plan that can get it done. Aaron went through many of the details before you, but let me just reiterate a few things. We met with the community for nearly two years in developing the approved plan.
We appeared before the Montecito Association, not including the recent visits and its Land Use Committee 14 times in addition to three times for this recent project. We had dozens and dozens of community meetings. We appeared before the Montecito Board of Architectural Review twice and appeared before this commission, appeared before the Montecito Planning Commission five times for more than 40 hours of hearing.
The amended plan was approved as we were told by a four-to-one vote by the Monticito Planning Commission on February 23rd. The approved plan was significantly smaller than our initial submittal of that plan because of all the feedback we received from the community. The height of the main building had been reduced by eight feet, the second story of the spa was removed and the buildings along Jameson was articulated and additional landscaping was added among numerous other changes.
And since our meeting with the Montecito Planning Commission we made, and since our most recent appearance before the Montecito Planning Commission as Aaron mentioned. We made one additional change to the project to address some concerns raised at that meeting which is moving the pool bar from the east side of the pool to the west side of the pool primarily to deal with potential noise concerns for...
Madam Chair, sorry Mr. Middlebrook could you give a pointer?
It looks like it's on the...
Other way. When we first presented this to the county in December, the pool bar... This is mostly patio space and a spa now. From that distance it may look like a building. This is the pool bar restaurant now. The building had been... In the approved plan there was a 12-room two-story guest room building here. We replaced that with a 2-story restaurant in our submittal in December that was considered by the Montecito Planning Commission Some concerns were raised about potential noise to these neighbors, as well as access to the fire department to this restaurant.
So we moved the restaurant which is now located in this plant to this side. It reduces any potential noise impact. We didn't believe that there was going to be a noise impact to start with but it addresses those concerns by moving it farther away from the residential neighbors. Additionally, as Aaron discussed, it makes easy access for the fire department. This is landscaping and just hardscape here. This is not a building.
By doing this, as I just stated, we made the building more easily accessible to the fire department and we moved it farther away from the residences for noise purposes. And now we're before you with our revised plan and in nearly all significant ways our revised plan has been reduced in terms of impacts than the one that you already approved. There are fewer height variances. We had four height variances approved in the previous plan there's now one We had the elimination of the ballroom along Jameson, significantly reducing the visual impact of the project along Jameson Avenue.
There are fewer guest rooms. The maximum size events are now 500 people reduced from 600 people There has been a 25% reduction in the fill necessary for this project. And there's more open space within the property.
I'm going to break my own rule and interrupt you, and I apologize. Feel free. But I'm interested to know if now you're only going to have 186 guest rooms when you would've had 192, what is that going to cost? It costs you an income, and what is it going to cost the county in property tax or in TOT and so on? We're looking at income generating. I want a project that generates income for the County of Santa Barbara, so I'd like to know what I'm giving up here.
2:12 – 2:2840 turns
One thing we hope we're achieving with this plan is actually building it in a scale and a cost that meets the market and actually gets it built. Because for 10 years, we've had nothing because what's the market has determined that the cost of building the project has made it infeasible. The market did that to...
So
this
size allows you to get financing?
We believe so, yes. The 186 rooms, primarily the reduction because of the reconfiguration of the property In terms of moving the ballroom over, it was just in part a manner of fitting those rooms onto the property. The reduction in the rooms that we'll have from an economic standpoint are probably the least desirable rooms that we'd have on the property with lower income so it probably does not have a significant impact on you know hugely significant impact on the income just those six rooms But again, we hope anything's better than what we have out there today. And so we think that this was all done in the concept of putting this project at a financial scale that we believe is attractive to the market given the changing circumstances that we've seen since 2007.
Thank you. In addition to the changes I just went through, all of the things that were important to the community that we discussed in such great detail have also primarily remained the same. The heights of the building close to Jameson aside from the elimination of the ballroom there's been no change. The events on the beach, the number of them there's been no change. Public parking and access there's been no change. The number of restaurant seats at the hotel has been no changed. The number of ballroom seats has been no changed and the number Beach Club members there's been no change But I would also like to revisit an issue that was raised by the Planning Commission and that was discussed so far is parking.
Our analysis, you can go to the next slide Erin, our analysis for parking clearly shows that at peak parking times we have 30 excess parking spaces available. The method we use for our analysis is consistent with how projects are regularly evaluated in Santa Barbara County for parking need. The County DOT validated this approach during our hearing before the Montecito Planning Commission, and this is an important point that I want to make that was not included in the staff presentation.
The parking analysis that we have done for the hotel assumes 300 Beach Club members when actually all we are authorized for in the first year is 200. The MPC has the authority to grant us the additional 200 members based upon additional parking analysis that shows we don't have a problem, so there is already a cushion built in. So again, the 30 extra parking spaces that we have at peak demand. Peak demand is 464 spaces assumes 300 Beach Club members but again we only have authority for 200 in the first year and the MPC will not grant the authority for the additional 100 Beach Club members until a parking analysis is done 12 to 18 months after opening to demonstrate that we have adequate parking. That's a condition of approval.
What number condition do you know?
I believe it's 55. Thank you Or 56 right in there.
And real quickly what is a beach club member?
We have, there has been historically a beach club at the Miramar where there is...
So you can pay and you can get a room and you can go
use the beach? We will have a beach club facility. There's still members even though there's no hotel, there are beach club members that still are out there and use the boardwalk frequently, have a key to the gate and like to remind us that they're our members but as part of this we will have a beach club and there's a facility on the plan It primarily has locker rooms, you know a lounge that you can pay for membership parking and...
Like the casino, the club? Okay thanks.
Smaller in size. Like the Coral
Casino kind of thing?
Yeah.
Thank
you I'm sorry. Thanks for turning the topic to the Coral Casino because most notable is this in terms of comparison. The Billmore is a larger facility and they have less parking than we do We have 494 parking spaces proposed on this project. The Biltmore has 455 spaces. We have 39 spaces more than the Biltmore. However, the Biltmore has 600 permanent beach club members and we have 300.
They have 207 rooms and we have 186 in the proposed plan. The Biltmore has 13,000 square feet of indoor event space and we have approximately 8500 square feet. The Biltmore and Coral Casino have 488 restaurant seats. We have 258 seats. And according to the August 2008 staff report for our project, the Biltmore management staff stated to planning staff that their parking was more than adequate even during peak events.
So to recap, the Biltmore has 300 more beach club members, 21 more guest rooms, 4500 more square feet of assembly space And 230 more restaurant seats, but has 39 fewer parking spaces than we do. While their management says their parking is more than adequate. I'd also like to revisit Supervisor Wolf's point about the ordinance. What was also not included is harking back to Ian Schrager His approved project exceeded the ordinance by 183 spaces, far more than we do. 50 more spaces than even under our amended plan. His approved plan exceeded the ordinance by 183 spaces.
Moreover, the Schrager plan was approved by allowing them at peak parking to actually count public parking spaces as part of their parking count. So they were allowed to count public parking spaces as their overflow parking while our analysis says that we have 30 extra parking spaces on site in addition to the public on-street parking. So I think the comparison speaks for itself. We're confident that we have more than sufficient parking at our hotel as proposed and I'd also like to just point out that We run large retail properties, as you may know. At the Americana brand for instance, we have a parking garage that has more than 1,000 parking spaces. So if we're experts in anything, we are experts at parking. We park on our properties a lot of people Every single day with the highest level of surface.
We have valet parking in every place at 10 o'clock at night on a Saturday, we're able to manage all the movies that get out of our theaters while all the people are leaving their restaurants and we do it efficiently and when there are problems arise we address them because We know that if people don't like the parking and don't have a good parking experience, they're not going to come back. And so we are not going to be... Nobody's gonna need to tell us if there is an inadequacy in our parking because we're gonna be the first to do it. It's a highly competitive market and we're gonna be the first to address it. And like I said, you know, we believe we're expert in this topic. We do it on a consistent basis at our properties.
So to conclude, the revised Miramar plan before you is a reduced project plain and simple. It's from what was approved in 2008 it's significantly less. It's a better project and we believe based upon your previous approvals of this project and the reduction in impacts of this project from the last that it merits your support so we're prepared to answer any questions.
Questions for the speaker? Mr. Carbajal
Thank You Madam Chair Mr. Middlebrook, Ms. Hogan took the time to be here so I want to make sure that we just provide some context to her concerns. They have been considered through the MPC process is my understanding. They have been considered by staff. Is there anything that you can do while minor that might be able to further mitigate some of our concerns.
I think they have been addressed to date, to the extent that they could but I'm just asking if there's any small item that you think might be feasible as small as it might be to address any concerns you might have?
I do the for one it should be noted that the part of the currently there more Avenue goes through here and then comes out here and now this will become a dead end street and will not be cut through so that the traffic impact. Which has been shown on Miramore Avenue is probably 100 plus or minus car trips a day since the hotel closure on that is going to be significantly reduced because it's not going to be an outlet there. And so we think the net positive impact of those neighbors in terms of that street closure is going to be a really beneficial one.
These are the cottages here that I believe and correct me if I'm wrong, but they're the cottages of the problem. There are four parallel parking spaces, I mean perpendicular spaces here. You can't really see it because of the landscaping. Yeah, you can see those four parking spaces. This is the plan. There are four perpendicular parking spaces here. We do not see eye-to-eye with the Hogan's in terms of the benefit of parallel versus perpendicular parking. We believe that if somebody is arriving at night they're not going to know this turnaround is here. They're going to do the three point turn into those spaces. We think the perpendicular is actually a better solution. But what we would be happy to do is these four spaces here, which you raised the concern about the headlights potentially of people backed in.
We can break these spaces up into two and two and relocate two here and two here. We can reconfigure this a little bit to fit into parking spaces so these two because it's essentially in our thinking two of these go to this cottage and two go to here. We can move to hear to here which moves them away from in front of the Hogan's house eliminates potential for headlight problems and we think would be a good solution.
Thank you I appreciate your creativity in doing that.
Supervisor
Wolf. Mr. Middlebrook, I'm still not clear or satisfied with the answer about 30 spaces. You referred me to Condition 55, but it doesn't really address the immediate issue about getting an additional 30 spaces. I know that it will be reviewed at some point and I wonder have you considered when you look at the beach club lowering Just lowering the amount to 200 people rather than 300. I think that might, if you can't provide the parking spaces maybe lowering that or just tell me where the 30 parking spaces are?
The 30 parking spaces that they suggested was a grab number it was not we believe that we don't agree with the need for the additional 30 and I went through it. So you
don't agree with the Montecito Planning Commission's, you don't agree with that?
We don't agree with the concern over the adequacy of parking for the reasons that I went through. To the second point you raised with respect to the beach club, the MPC has the authority that you're suggesting. They, we have only been granted 200 Beach Club members In so far as it's subject to approval of the Montecito Planning Commission based upon an analysis of our parking that they have to determine that are parking is adequate before they grant us the additional hundred. And so I just so that's the condition of approval so twelve eighteen months which is in here twelve eighteen months after opening There will be a parking review that will go through a number of things, you know whether or not we have enough employee parking all the stuff.
I mean it's exhaustive in the conditions all the things that we have to analyze. So
even given that the Montecito Planning Commission made the recommendation for 30 additional spaces now? But you can't do that.
We just think you're over-parking the property significantly for the reasons, like I said. The facilities at the Biltmore are significantly larger than us and accommodated with less parking.
Well let me just speak to the Biltmore because as a public use and going to the beach there It's oftentimes almost impossible to find parking on the street. And so I think that is the concern of the folks who want to use the beach here, is that it's going to be overused by the hotel guests. So I think that's the concern. You know, I think your project and what you've done, you're obviously working within your financial parameters. I like it better but this is an issue of 30 parking spaces and I really look to the commission who has reviewed this carefully and it's hard to imagine that you can't even refiguring the parking lot that you can't come up with 30 parking spaces And before we leave, I just want to ask you one little thing about the beach cabanas.
Yes? There's one that's off to the right. And see the one that's separated there, the furthest one on the right?
Here?
Yes. Is that a cabana or is
there another use? That's the Beach
Club. Is that new?
That building exists and it existed in the previous plan, but it was a guest room as opposed to the Beach Club facility. So the configuration and the size are, and the existence of the building are the same. The use is different.
Okay. And was there any consideration about other neighbors to the east of that?
Yeah.
And was there any consideration given the noise or what is the situation here? How late is that beach What did you call it? A
beach club. Is
it a bar?
No, there will not be an outdoor bar. There may be a bar inside but it'll be in a closed facility mostly placed where they have lockers and changing rooms. I've discussed this plan as you may remember the challenge to our project came from these neighbors during the last project. And so as we went forward with a revised plan obviously plus we share this road with them so their opinion of this project is important And so as you can imagine, we went through this plan with them early on. I think they were the first people that actually saw it and so they've indicated that they're good with this proposed plan.
2:28 – 2:4154 turns
Okay, so I'm just trying to understand what it is. It's not a bar? It's a beach club where there are showers and
lockers? Correct.
Okay, and how late does it open?
You know, we haven't sort of identified it. Probably the rest of it is open until midnight or 1030. Midnight?
Is that not anything that we would normally know?
But it's not an outdoor facility. I mean, this is open till... There's a beach bar here. So that is an outdoor beach bar which is open till... Okay what are the hours for those? That's open until midnight.
I just wanted to know if that's so you have, you have hours of operation for that but not for the other one. And I just thought that was interesting that we don't know that.
Supervisor Carbajal.
Could someone from staff address that?
Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolf. You're correct. We have not yet addressed that. That might be something of interest to your board and we could certainly add conditions that you see fit to deal with that and address that issue. It's been a club that's been ongoing for years and their patterns are well set. And I believe that we just relied on the fact that those patterns were set, and the neighborhood in the Miramar Beach people were fairly happy with that.
So let me just say would midnight be something that's reasonable? I just can't imagine like a
24-hour... No, I think that would be fine. If my assumption is that the members of the beach club, if they are staying on the property to have the amenities I think that they would be using the other amenities on the property. If there's a bar in there or something to eat it's more for a short period of time that they're in Changing or taking a break before they go to her from the beach. So I think when we get
to the end point here, I'd like to just suggest that we add that as a condition that That piece have a time frame where it's closed at midnight
Supervisor Carvajal Thank You madam chair You know, I have really
try to keep my ear to the ground on this project and this amendment and time extension items, the previous time extension. And I just want to say that I wish the financial climate was better obviously as everyone else does but if we go back to the Schrager Project to the first project that was approved From Mr. Caruso and now, you see going from good to better to even better. I mean when you consider that we're shrinking the project or making it better.
I appreciate that the fire issues have all been addressed in that the Fire District is supportive of the configuration Mr. Middlebrook, I appreciate your looking at the minor tweaking to address the Hogan's concerns. I Just want to put context to this project in terms of the community and my perspective The Montecito Association has been Overwhelmingly supportive of this project the MPC on a 4-1 approved this project.
I Have heard Aside from the Hogan's, expressing some concerns and I haven't heard from council we have to do ex parte. But I met with one of the Montecito Planning Commissioners who was in the minority and had some concerns and raised some valid points that I think are valid but after further study of the conditions and condition 55 and the look back I do see that there is a vehicle there by which to further analyze and evaluate the situation, and modify or put forth a modified set of numbers for events and or other items.
I was coming into today's hearing quite honest with you interested in further nitpicking at a few items. I would be lying to you if I didn't tell you. I was trying not to be prejudicial As I wasn't, but I had some tentative things that I wanted to look at. And I got to tell you other than the two concerns I expressed, I have not heard from the first district and the Montecito community any noise whatsoever.
Is that weird?
I heard from the Hogan's and I heard from Mr. Overall And despite my interest in continuing to see what else could be done, I have come full circle quite honestly with you. And I want to see this darn thing built and if this is another step forward in trying to see this project built then let's do it. I am not inclined to make any more modifications or revisions or conditions at this point because I don't want to give any issue to fodder for why it's not being The community wants a bill.
We've had a long extensive process and today I'm going to make a motion that we just move forward with staff's recommendation completely today, and that's going to be my motion. So
is there a second to that motion? And then we'll continue public or will continue comment up here. Do you have a problem council?
No,
but I'm sorry. That was not the right way to ask it
came
on me.
Supervisor Carbajal raised an issue on ex parte communications. While this isn't the traditional quasi-judicial proceeding, out of an abundance of caution we think that you probably want to make any ex parte disclosures related to
this project. So should I go ahead and take a second? Yes. If there is a second. All right, we have a second.
Madam Chair as I made that motion it got seconded. The one point I left out I'm really reassured in that Condition 55 is going to be revisited by the Montecito Planning
Commission.
Condition 55 is the one that deals with all the parking issues, and I feel that's sufficient of a process and sufficient of mechanism to reevaluate these issues that the Montecito Planning Commission will have the authority and the ability to reexamine these issues. And again, I did come in here with some ... There were a few items I was going to throw out at you but I weighed it all in what my district and my constituents have communicated to me.
They want the project?
Two conversations. Okay. All other e-mails and communication were overwhelmingly fine, let's get it done. So if I know one thing, I know how to represent my constituents. Today I'm doing
that. Let's go to folks who have chatted with people on ex parte and then we're going to go to Supervisor Farr who had a question and she's been waiting. Supervisor Lavinino?
Well, let's go to Farr first. I seconded his motion.
What I'm trying to do right now is
get
the ex parte.
Oh no, ex
parte. Supervisor Carbajal?
Other than meeting I met with Mr. overall and I got an email from Mister Mrs. Hogan and a bunch of other emails in support.
I have none. Supervisor Farr. Supervisor Wolf. No. OK. Supervisor Farr you're up.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well actually while I was listening to the speakers, I went and found the AT most recent traffic analysis for all the different uses and kind of been playing around with some different numbers because of course I think that the real concern is what happens there on a beautiful sunny summer Saturday if we have a 500 person event all at the same time It's back to the end of the discussion about what happens in public parking on the street. I have to say that even though you know, I might increase some numbers and decrease others. I think that for me, I'm satisfied and I think particularly again as Supervisor Carbajal said looking at condition 55 which does provide this look back and also is part of the plan says that on exhibit, you know, you need to be looking at if you need to provide more parking in the future Where would you put that?
And provides the mechanism that if they have to go forward because of the Montecito Planning Commission in the future, that you're either going to have to reduce the size of events or you're going to have to change something there through a substantial conformity. So it looks like Condition 55 is very thorough in this regard and although I did have some additional concerns now that I read it thoroughly, I'm satisfied. Thank you.
Thank you Supervisor Wolff.
Thank you. I just wanted to clarify the motion Supervisor Carbajal, so you're not adding the condition about the beach club closing at midnight? You wanted to leave everything the same?
Supervisor Wolf, I do appreciate your concern and interest on that but I was relating to my own personal experience when I go to a hotel or resort. Usually the first thing I look at is what amenities are here and what's open for the rest of the evening whether it be a gift shop I understand. So as long as it's, I would say my caveat which would I think is trying to meet you halfway Supervisor Wolf is provided that the hours are in keeping with historic use and I think that would address it.
Okay thank you and then I just have a question for staff and this is just a nitpicky item. I'm looking at attachment B. This is the conditions of approval and it's the height modification section Madam Chair, Supervisor can
you
direct me to a condition in
particular
or a page number? It is page B14 attachment B conditions of approval although this is not a numbered condition it's a height modification. Yes, may I ask you a question? So this is how it's been amended and it just seems inconsistent. So I need your help on this. It says that the amended plan eliminates the beach and tennis club building and replaces it with a two-story restaurant building because the restaurant building would be limited to one story and less than 16 feet. So it's on one hand, it says two stories and then in the next sense, it says one. So just clarify that.
Madam Chair, Supervisor if I can you, if you can point out the beach club. The Beach Club was originally when it went forward to the Montecito Planning Commission, it was located where the spa is now. Nope over here. And it was intended to be a two-story building. Subsequent to the Montecito Planning Commission hearing, the two-story building was eliminated and converted to the use of a spa and pool deck. The restaurant was converted to a one-story building and located over to the east of the pool. It was reduced to a one story building specifically so that it would not need a height modification Because it is on the 10 feet of fill and so it would have been limited on this.
Okay, so you're saying that these two sentences are referencing two different buildings? That's correct. Okay. That's all. Thank you.
Are we prepared to vote now? Mr. Allen, do you want to call the roll please?
Ms. Farr? Aye. Mr. Lavagnino? Aye. Mr Carbajal? Aye Ms. Wolk? Aye
Thank you all very much. Thank
you all very
much. You know, we really have to do. No, you guys are done. Thank you. But I've got to get public comment in before we take a break. There's like three people that want to say something so we've gotta go there. Mr. Allen who needs to say something?
2:41 – 2:4814 turns
We have five requests to speak. All
right five requests to speak why don't you just call the names that's fine. We have six folks that want to speak will give them three minutes apiece
Is Akali Zulu still here in the chambers?
She's coming up to the podium. And who follows her?
Followed by, let's go, Misdy Guess in Santa Maria if she's still there in Santa Maria.
Welcome, welcome good morning. I've got letters for you folks, I don't know who to give them to. There's one for the chairwoman and there's four plain ones. Four plain ones? Does the clock get reset? I'll be asking for your forgiveness later. Honorable Chairwoman Supervisors, my name is Callie Hoover Tolstenfelt Zulu. I'm an agent of the FBI as directed by J. Edgar Hoover. Bad promises you ignore in me are better broken than kept. I shall treat our last meeting as a bad promise and break it whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is averse to the public interest.
That letter you just received is to Miss Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post and Kristen Brettweiser about your ignorance. And I mean that as gently as possible. I was going to readdress my last statement in public comment to you, that pissed UV the light still has not left my body by the CIA. What a tremendous insult Joyce Dudley is to community interest.
Instead of representing all county and constituents' interests in the prosecution of crimes she insults her community here by public insults and judicial moves in court amplified by a pissed judge for that case. I can't say Barbara Beck made the same mistake You as a board ignored that trial and the investigating Santa Barbara PD officer that was visibly upset by Joyce Dudley inventing intellectual insult to integrity of the District Attorney's Office.
The PISS program is about returning an adult, Joyce Dudley, to a state of infancy. Janet Wolf, you are a nominee for the South Central Coast Regional seat on the California Coastal Commission. Are you concerned that if you rise up for community interest, i.e., say no to piss in this county, that Governor Brown's office will select anyone but you? It would be post-aminous to not recognize Yale University's goals of own interest that the PIS continue on me. In 1989, 1993 and 2008, PIS pride parades Barack Obama Robert Gates, Susan Rice, Lois Capps, Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Thatcher, Madeleine Albright, Barbara Boxer, Yale Niv, Philip Zimbardo of Stanford, Julie Foudy, Dan Peterson's girlfriend, Hillary Clinton, Jim McGreevey, Gray Davis and Jerry Brown etc.
are all Skulls & Bones members. That pissed federal amendment enables you to feel good about killing and hurting me and it also throws out your right to have your vote for elected officials count. The public knows about my birthday and believes CIA lies about Adolf Hitler being dead, and someone looking like Adolf Hitler being at the hospital with me in August of 1970.
How sure are you that now? I've identified all persons on that day as the government has attested to you who thought as it was I was paying attention. It's not my reality you're questioning, it's your own. Thank you ma'am. The next
public speaker Mr. Allen
If we go to Santa Maria for Ms. DeGess, it will be followed by Robert Burke here in Santa Barbara.
Good morning, Verily. Thank you for your patience. Good
morning Madam Chair and members of the Board. My name is Ms. DeGess I'm a registered nurse and I live in Santa Maria. And I've been keeping an eye on SenCal Health they're the people who handle your Santa Barbara County Medi-Cal Ever since they decided it would be a good idea to cut costs by sending three-month supplies of medicine to homeless people via mail order.
Now the reason CENCAL is so keen to cut cost is that they're really dangerously close to being closed by the state of California for failing to maintain their required liquid assets. And while the SenCal system right now is flawed, they do employ 150 people in Santa Barbara. Some of them I think you honored today and I really can't see that the loss of 150 local jobs is going to be good for anybody.
Things are so bad now that the state made SenCal hire an outside financial monitor, the Berkeley Research Group, to oversee their cash flow The previous CEO didn't care for that and announced at the January meeting that he would try to keep the monitor at arm's length. But now it seems that under the leadership of Supervisors Farr and Teixeira, CENCAL is beginning to tidy up its practices which I appreciate and believe me you guys have quite a job ahead of you.
The rest of the CENCAL Board is appointed by the County Supervisors, so any previous poor decision-making can be remedied by your appointing new members to the CENCAL Board. It's important to me that CENCal focus on spending its limited revenues on patient care and even though I don't have all the answers, I have been watching CENCL for a while And I have some suggestions that I thought might be helpful to Ms. Farr and to the other members of the CENCAL board.
First up, CENCAL could save $1.5 million per year which is most of the amount they need by producing their state required quality reports in-house those are the HEDIS reports and such instead of contracting them out Currently the responsibility for those reports lies with the COO and he is outsourcing it. I'd like to see those done in-house. They can save, I think about $400,000 a year by controlling what are euphemistically described in the budget as other expenses.
I believe these are the expenses that the monitor referred to back in October As needing to be monitored more carefully by the board. But that report that recommendation did not make it into the January. Summary of their recommendations I'd like to see them limit executive travel to 10 or $20,000 a year.
Thank you ma'am your time is up thank you so much and you might want to send us your comments if you care to Mr Allen who's next?
Members of the board, Robert Burke here in Santa Barbara followed by Dr. Robert Jones here in Santa Barbara.
Thank
you.
2:48 – 2:5621 turns
Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors my name is Robert Burke I appear before you today as a veteran. Madam Clerk would you hand these out? You are invited to attend the Memorial Day commemorative services at the Veterans Memorial Building at 112 West Cabrillo on Monday, May 30th 2011. At 11 o'clock. I hope you will show up and give us a short speech. I also hope that she would stay afterwards.
I hope you like the button.
That's nice.
Isn't it nice?
Nice. We've got a
button. Yeah. Many times, I hope you would come to speak and I hope you would come to stay after the ceremonies. I have had the privilege of talking with people, a person who was a concentration Auschwitz survivor, POW for World War II, Master Sergeants who trained the young soldiers. My life expanded by listening to some other people's stories. So not only do I invite you to the ceremonies, I invite you to participate after the donation lunch afterwards. This event is open to the public. It is not just for veterans. So I invite you to come and I thank you for the time. And I thank you for your service, for being here. What I've learned today by waiting so long to say this is I'm glad you're in your seats and I am not.
And also given the world condition that we see is changing where democracy is now contagious, we are grateful for that. That I do have the opportunity to walk freely in here and say come on down give a speech and have some lunch. Thank you.
Thank you, and I think that in case folks are wondering why the flags are flying at half-mast today. Today we're honoring the loss of the last veteran from World War One.
I've heard that story as well. So this is your opportunity to come down and hear World War Two veterans, Korean War veterans, Vietnam, from all theaters. I find that the ceremony itself is stirring. It just kind of brings a few tears to my eyes, but also the formal ceremony to honor those who have served as well as the informal ceremony, the chit-chat and camaraderie afterwards that I would invite you to come down and say, hey this is the POW from World War II. Wow! What an opportunity. Thank you for your time. And
we do, we also have that in Lompoc and Santa Maria and Guadalupe. It's just a great day and thank you for the little button.
Thank you.
Mr. Allen who do we have now?
Dr. Robert Johns here in Santa Barbara followed by Carolyn Renard in Santa Barbara.
Thank you very much. I'm sending a letter to The state of California investigating elections fraud unit involving this far Pappas investigation. By the way, County Council, who instructed you not to investigate the Ecevides Leo City Councilman Carver Hall racial incident? Carver Hall, you have it. You haven't apologized for that yet. And I find you to be tremendously a hypocrite while you hold Supervisor Wolfson, and you know what I'm talking about? While you hold her face to the drinking fountain, like the high school bully.
Oh Dr. Johns! We're going to go to the next speaker now because you're just being irrational. Ms. Renard, you're up.
Ms Renard will be followed by Jeff Alexander here in Santa Barbara.
First, I wanted to thank the board for their efforts to make sure the public is informed of the status of any radiation dangers from both Diablo Canyon and Japan. I wanted to say that this is the second time. Well, last time was over three hours for public comment and this time it's about three hours for public comment. I think you really need to make public comment a time certain because the policies and practices you're employing now are a violation of the Brown Act there. Essentially making it impossible for the public to comment when they have to wait three hours from the time it's supposed to happen. You know, so that's certainly a violation of the Brown Act and certainly a violation of the legislative intent of the Brown Act. So you're on notice.
So please make it a time certain from now on. The other thing is the Director of the County, Ms. Wolfe very astutely asked him, the Director of the County Emergency Services Department what sort of a central place there is to find information And maybe I missed something, but he basically did not give that information. Instead there was some information about a listserv you can sign up on and apparently you can contact him on Facebook. But if you don't have Facebook or Twitter, I guess you're kind of out of luck. There is no apparently central information source or website. He certainly didn't give one. I'm concerned as a citizen.
The other thing is, I found his comments rather disingenuous. He kept saying at the present time there is no problem. Well of course we all know at the present time there's no problem. It's that cloud of radiation that's coming over the Pacific that's probably going to get here in a few days that's the concern not the present time so it would be nice if he could have addressed that But no, he pointedly made a comment only about the present time. I mean, I really think you guys need to have him come back and speak to the board sometime before the meeting that you have set up in April much to your credit that you set up a meeting to get more information about these dangers and about Diablo Canyon.
But I think it should... He should come and address some of these problems about the radiation cloud that's hitting our way a little before that Also, when you do have the meeting to speak about Diablo Canyon and their current situation and the new earthquake fault they found there. I think you should invite Mothers for Peace San Luis Obispo because they're truly the experts on this. They've been litigating with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years and they are extremely knowledgeable. They should also invite the Nuclear Waste Peace Foundation. Thank you for
your comments. And who's the next speaker? Excuse me,
I had six seconds left.
Oh, my clock is
off.
I'm sorry. Who's the next speaker? Mr. Allen?
Madam Chair and members of the board, Jeff Alexander followed by our last speaker Tim Mahoney here in Santa Barbara.
2:56 – 3:0219 turns
Welcome.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Supervisors. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Jeff Alexander, Santa Barbara County Film Commissioner. I just want to say welcome to Supervisor Lavinino. We look forward to working with you in the years to come. As we dig into 2011, we've had some time to reflect upon the last year. So I wanted to take an opportunity to briefly update you on some of the highlights of 2010.
Media production in Santa Barbara was a strong economic driver and actually broke the $10 million level for direct spend in the county and city with a grand total of $10.2 million spent on the ground in form of rentals, employment, meals, accommodations and production services. This translates to about $25 million in economic impact. We had a total of 161 distinct media shoots throughout the city and the county and that equals 376 days of production which is really pretty substantial These projects took the form of everything from an independent film shooting its entire 25-day schedule in Goleta with Christian Slater starring in it. We had music videos and major catalog shoots, and this business continues to be very healthy and continues to give back to the community.
To put it in perspective, this is a concrete investment for the county, not a symbolic one. With approximately 10% of on location spending going for accommodations. We estimate that last year's production activity generated just under $100,000 in TOT direct to the county. That is cash directly flowing into the county and it's a return of approximately two-to-one on the dollars that were spent by the county for the film commission's marketing activities. Of course this immediate return does not even begin to take into account the benefit to the community Employment, use of local businesses and all that great PR that we enjoy here. People don't come here to make us look bad.
We're not Philadelphia so they come here to make us look great and they do such a great job at it. 2011 is off to a great start. In fact last month I was stunned and thrilled when I looked at the numbers to see that we actually saw a doubling over the previous year. So February 2010 we saw about $850,000 spent Last month it was $1.7 million, which was a huge bump over the previous year.
This is a very positive sign of how things are trending in the county as we're seeing a lot of the advertisers and car companies and catalog folks etc. With bigger budgets to play with and more leeway in terms of their spending as things have begun to turn around. So I just want to thank you again for your support last year again, you know that $50,000 came back very quickly into the county's revenue stream so I think it is well worthwhile. Thank you very much.
Thank you very interesting.
At this point I have a lead behind here as well. Oh
thank you Mr.
Allen. Thanks so much.
Thank you at that Mr. Council, how long do you think we'll be in closed session? Oh, am I missing somebody? Our
final speaker is Mr. Mahoney.
Oh, I'm sorry Tim. Wow!
Quite all right. Thank you Madam Chair and members of the board. Tim Mahoney with Southern California Gas Company. I have information here on Saturday the 16th of April Earth Day. We've assembled quite a team to go out and do California Restoration and Cleanup, locally here it will be at El Capitan State Beach. As you can see from the flyer there are other opportunities for people to participate these are all open to the public. Habitat restoration mostly plantings that native plants that'll get us into irrigation so we're teaming up with the California State Parks Foundation to roll this out And you'll be hearing more about it as we draw closer to the 16th, but wanted just to bring this up. We're just now getting all the information I thought would be valuable to let you know that.
More than happy to have everybody come out. Please bring your gloves, hats, sunscreen looking for a nine-to-one where we do all of the cleanup and the restorations, the plantings, et cetera at El Capitan State Beach locally. So as I said, we've got a good team working on this and I think we'll do a great job up there in the wonderful Gaviota Coast. Thanks.
Thanks, Mr Mahoney questions for Mr Mahoney. Okay, we'll send Mr Carvajal
always welcome.
I'm coming is there a barbecue afterwards as well?
If you're coming, we certainly should have
one. Mr Council what do you think
staff presentation 15 to 20 minutes on all three items
so 3 times 15 is 45
I would say probably the full 45. 45,
okay so why don't we say we'll take like a 10 minute break for everyone just to kind of get back together again and we'll go ahead and get to closed session at 1230 and then we will be back in here at 130? Is that all right? Is everybody okay with that? All right, 130. Lunch is served. Yeah.
3:04 – 3:2212 turns
At the Arts Commission, one of the things that I'm most excited about what we do is public art. And because we know that the public art does so much to reflect The generation reflect the time in which it was created and the values, and really build a sense of community. And especially what I like about it is it levels the playing field and makes the art accessible to everyone. And that's obviously what Judy's work has been doing for generations so I'm so happy to have her here in a community that when you can come in and see in the crowd People that are in the mural and to have witnessed what I witnessed this morning which was, have this photo and how people begin to identify and tell a story about everyone in the photo and what was going on that day.
So we're delighted to be part of this.
Guadalupe is a farm worker's town of about 5,000 people and it is a town that has pretty much remained unchanged in over 100 years. It's remarkable in that it is a kind of frozen-in-time little city that marks in a sense the immigration of immigrant groups throughout the history of California to work in the agricultural fields Music
The
Chumash Indian people used to live throughout this whole central coast area for ten, they're recorded at least 10,000 years. And up until the late 1700s and early 1800 when the missions were established in the area is when The other, the Spanish came into the area. And then after well into the 1800s, the missions kind of disappeared and a lot of the Indian people intermarried. In the late 1800s there was an influx of Europeans coming into the area. The Mexicans were coming first from Mexico and took over California probably in the early 1800s. Then came the gold rush and they're Europeans.
So in the late 1800s, there was a lot of cattle grazing, dairy farming. In the early 1900s were the Portuguese, Swiss-Italian, the Irish and English settled in this valley here mainly in Guadalupe to establish the town Throughout the early 1900s, early part of the 1900s farming, agriculture farming started. So that's when the Japanese people came from Japan and established farming agriculture and then the workers started coming in from Mexico
During the time of the Second World War, there was a shortage of laborers in the farms so there was a program that was developed by the government to bring braceros in. During that period they were promised a portion of their funds to go to Mexico when they returned Although many of them stayed here in Guadalupe and bought homes and became American citizens or just changed their visa to permanent residency. After that, during the Cesar Chavez period there was quite a bit of conflict because Guadalupe is a very conservative town. The community was split. Because of the lack of understanding, the Filipinos didn't quite understand where they belong
I became very interested in Guadalupe when I learned of the story of the famous civil rights case called the Guadalupe 10. And, I learned of Guadaluable through the Guadelupe 10 story which was a battle essentially by parents to have equal training and fair practices in the schools for their children, and to stop the discrimination which basically said that if you were the son or a daughter of a campesino you would receive one treatment. And if you were the son or daughter of a dueño another treatment. So a group of parents actually confronted the authorities in the school system at a PTA meeting which became a very famous case called the Guadalupe 10 In which they were met by riot police when they came and actually deported many of the, a lot of the baton were deported.
So it was that case that actually got me interested in the region.
I was living here in Guadalupe up to 1995. I had seven children of my own and I had all of them at school, they started 1966 and 1972 is when the children themselves walk out of the school from third grade on and what they were using They took the paper of the teachers that they had in their desk and they started writing that they want better education, and also better training. But the school board rather than listening to us, they called a speaker to talk about, be true about the Chicano movement. And actually the speaker, he never addressed his speech but he starts insulting the people they were getting in, in the cafeteria here in this place And he was pointing out fingers and then the parents get upset, they start clapping their hands and yelling.
Before the meeting started there were 32 police officers ready with your hats on and now with your safety hats and the sticks in your hand. They took us to court They were charging us, they said that for disturbing the peace and interrupting a public meeting which nothing of that was true but anyway they were those who brought the accusations. So we went about a year to court and they found us guilty. Some of the members of the Comité Consejero de Educación de Padres y Estudiantes or the Committee of Parents and Students We went to the court and some of them they were charged $125 plus days in jail. Some others they charged $75 plus two weeks in jail, and I believe that one of them had to go four months to jail. But anyway out of the ten, nine of us found ourselves guilty and we were put into probation for three years.
But finally the civil rights actors, somebody contacted them and they came to do the investigation. They find out that it was true of what we were saying. The reason that we were put in the court, it was not because they're disturbing or what they were allegating. We were put in court because they believed that the 10 of us were members of the United Farm Workers, that they were in a strike at that particular time. That is why I ended on the mural. I didn't know that I was going to be there When I saw the emergency, it was a big surprise for me.
I'm a civil rights activist and I was very active in the community in the Bay Area and my policies always connect with all different nationalities who are being violated not given proper information about due process and procedure in having their voices heard. I was contacted during that period of time, so they asked me to come down and see what I could do So when I came down there was a hearing by the Civil Rights Commission, California Civil Rights Commission at Vandenberg Hotel which is now a senior citizen facility in Santa Maria, California.
I was briefed before I attended that meeting. When I walked in the local people I grew up with and went to school with greeted me very happily because they said Come on in, we want you to say a good word about our community and about the school and all the good qualities of education in Guadalupe. And I said where is the group opposed to this school? They said on the other side of this room was a large facility And so I said, well that's where I stand. Because the school was so discriminatory, I was always put in a closet. I was put in the closet because I happened to be talking to someone in class or I was too rough out in the yard for any reason and then when I first went into the school, I think about the third grade because my English still had the Filipino accent they call Pidgin English.
I wasn't punished for that. and I would be hit with the ruler in my hands. One day, I had a math problem with the teacher. She told me I had to stay after school. Well, after school everybody ran out so I ran out too. A faculty member came to my house and I lived behind a business. She stormed in and told my parents that I was unruly, irresponsible, and uncooperative. So she grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to school She slammed my face against the blackboard and then said, The next time you need to be disciplined remember I will get you.
In the early 80s or mid-late 80s I received a call from the Santa Barbara Arts Commission and a question about whether I would be interested in actually doing something in Santa Barbara for the Santa Barbara Arts Commission. And so there was an interesting possibility of me doing a new public artwork And at that moment I said, I really would like to do new public artwork but I'd like to do it in the northern part of the county.
Now this was a little bit out of line because no one really imagined that I would want to come to a place called Guadalupe or a place in the northern part of the county which is very rural and just a farm working town and not, would not create high visibility for public art work for an artist and not something most artists would aspire to. So they say, you want to go to Guadalupe?
Absolutely, that's where I want to go. And I would like to see if there is something that I could do in that region that might be in support of the issues that people face in the fields. So I began as I begin with most of my public artworks which was to begin a deep And that research came to a prompt end fairly quickly because in terms of written records, I have a photograph in which I have every single piece of writing that was ever done on the history of Guadalupe in one hallway and it was really not terribly extensive.
So the region was poorly documented, there was very little historical writing on the region. And so I began then to talk with people of the community and to begin to collect historical records through their family archives and the histories that they remembered And set up a workshop in the old Druid Temple here in downtown which was owned by the auto parts store for automobiles and trucks and tractors by Mr. Perry. And Mr. Perry actually is a descendant of a bean farmer, so he himself was a descendent of a person who came from the fields.
When my husband and I started this culture center this is our way When we retired in 1988 is to give back to the community, to bring the true education back and the true history of Guadalupe. Many of the people here don't understand the difficulties of farm workers, migrant workers and the permanent workers here.
I was belonging to the Comité Civil y Comunicado, and I was representing the committee. So when Yuribaca came and she said that she would like to work with us we were more than happy to help her because we know that the history was great and there was real motivation. And the reason that we participate is because we were trying to let the community know what really was going on in our beautiful city.
The work actually unfolded by virtue of the historical photographs that were brought in, me going into the fields with the people to learn about the process of harvesting and the issues that they faced in terms of the work. The crops that were being harvested were strawberries, cauliflower, broccoli. This was known as the broccoli capital of the world. Artichokes, lettuce, some of the major crops in the region So I spent time working in the fields, you know tracking people who particularly one individual crew of campesinos who were harvesting and watched them go through the entire process of through a season actually putting the seeds into actually doing the harvesting.
And was able to document that photographically and also learn of the difficulty of the work And what was almost overwhelming immediately, was how skilled the labor was. They could walk and pick as fast as anything I'd ever seen. I was not able even to walk the speed behind tractors that they were harvesting and cutting and walking at the same time. I was able to invite them into the studio and photograph them in Polaroids. I handed out Polaroid's and then people came back with other photographs and I began to collect what was a pretty amazing story of the region The work got divided into four segments, and the segments actually are the early founders of Guadalupe which begins with the Chumash and the Oso Flaco lagoons.
And the confrontation of the hunter-gatherers and the beef vaqueros that became this sort of second wave of immigrants starting with the Chumash and then moving into the Vaqueros who were the Spanish in the first part of the history of Guadeloupe. told me stories of the bears walking into downtown Guadalupe as late as the 70s. And someone said there was a bear in Santa Maria recently, right? So apparently at one point in the history of Guadalupe little bears used to walk into town And they call them the Oso Flacos and of course the Oso Flaco Lagoon. The story of the Arianas legend, this is the original Guadalupe house one of the early adobes and the couple that it's embracing is actually the Arianas daughter and one of the Fremont troops because they had a passionate affair and they were on two sides of the taking of California from Mexico and because the Arianas daughters Flattenized with the enemy, the story was that people burned her house down and took off the roof.
And there is a kind of personal story in the vaquero. This is a portrait of my mentor and longtime good father. Gilbert Roland, who was a movie star and was the first Cisco kid and you probably saw him in Zorro and all of those other wonderful things. And he posed for this because I wanted just the perfect Latino vaquero and he was it. So that's Gilbert has since passed and it is my memory of him.
On this side, you can see all of the little adobes and the roots. It tells us the roots of the city. And beneath the fields, this whole story is embedded in the land. Memory resides in place and when you come to a place, you can hear it. This is not my idea but the idea of all indigenous people. And one that I have learned well from my grandmother and from many good teachers. That if you put your ear to the ground and to the place, you can hear its story. And that's what I did here in the years that I spent here and the time I spent with the people. And it is one of those experiences that is life changing, that never leaves you the same.
The second panel became the ethnic contributions of the city, and that actually is both the living and the dead present on the streets of Guadalupe. Kind of looking at a city that in a sense is sort of frozen in time and has all this historical presence within the land and the place. So it looks like a downtown street just as it might have appeared 100 years ago.
And on this side here, this historical piece. You see Mr. McDaniel who is in the center of the image. Aristotle looking quite a bit younger. I did kind of make you young. This is a portrait of him. We have many portraits of him and actually the day I remember at the opening of our first meetings People were wishing for a health care center here and now Arizona has told me that you have, you've built how
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many?
This was a dream at the time when we were talking about it. How we could have health care locally. And this is Mr. Arutani who is a Japanese landowner. He was also known as the boss. He actually was an owner of much of the agricultural land and he's holding a clock, and the clock says 1942 because in 1942 he will leave this place to go into a Japanese internment camp and he will lose most of his land and this is that moment. The people who are blue they're historical figures, they're ghosts and this whole notion of talking with the past, the sense that you're in the present but you're also Talking to the past in Guadalupe, there's kind of the memory of a place almost frozen in time which is what is really beautiful about this city. The guy who put his foot on the car is a man named Mr.
Pepito, he's a young man. who was a Filipino farm worker and who I interviewed in his late 90s. And, uh, I think he's since passed and he gave me many photographs which were included into the piece. And that's him as a young man, as a World War II soldier. You can see Mr. Perry at his auto parts store. I've forgotten the name of the guy in the foreground. I think it's Adriano Cialoro.
He sells this region for a bottle of whiskey and a saddle He was drinking a bit, right? And this is him on the horse. He lives at his ranch. In the background you can also see references to Cecil B. DeMille's making of movies in this region. So there's a lot of references and there's a druid on top of the temple in the full outfit. You can see him as a ghost.
So this is a sort of historical part. The other two pieces are a little more about the contemporary life. The third panel actually is about the farm workers and has to do with the issues that our people confront in the fields. And through a series of crates that move across the sky as though they're being packed with cauliflower, you're seeing from the position looking out into the fields From a person who is packing the cauliflower, you look out into the fields and you see the harvesters working. And across the sky is a series of crates that sort of chronicle the story of someone coming to Guadalupe first on the rails And it says Bienvenidos, you know like welcome here you are. You've taken this all night train and ridden the rails. It's a really difficult journey to get here to work in the fields.
The second one is about your accommodations. The kind of places that you will live and looks at the conditions which are really terrible and very poor living conditions for farm workers. And then the third is your wages are at swendo, which has to do with the sharecropping. It shows a person working in the strawberry fields because of that time and I guess today sharecropping still continues in which it was possible for people to end up with substandard wages and sharecropping And another one is saying, oh this is not dangerous fog. It's neblina peligrosa. It's just dangerous fog. Then it goes into dolor de la espalda which has to do with the pain in the back harvesting. One of the harvesting of the lettuce is most difficult when it's back breaking stooping and the final crate is ayuda extranjera Which is about foreign aid and sending the checks on your money home.
Because this region is tied economically to regions in Mexico where people are working here and sending money home. And so while all of these pieces are kind of tongue-in-cheek, they're actually telling the most critical issues the farm workers face, beginning with their transit here to the way that they're living in substandard and dangerous housing to their exposure of pesticides to the issues of the economic interdependence of this region and Mexico.
to the fact that in fact people make a joke about it being foreign aid but in truth we are inextricably tied to the people who are harvesting and going back and forth between the two countries. The piece also talks about the children in the fields, the fact that children are exposed to pesticides in the fields. And it makes an example of the fact there's a dream that the children would have an opportunity in the future not to work in the field The final Guadalupe panel, which is the fourth panel, is the Angels of Guadalupe. And that's actually an angel coming out of the fields.
She is an image from the graveyard as a marble carving of an angel, a Swiss Italian angel. But her wings have begun to move, and in her wings are the dreams that were articulated in the meetings of the people of Guadalupe to determine what they hoped for the future. And the major hopes that are depicted in the wings are fresh water because at that time pesticides would reach in the aquifer at an alarming rate.
Farm workers showed me...they turned the water on their bathtubs and you could see the water running foamy So fresh water, the children being out of the fields and having opportunities for education. There was a dream and hope for health care and treatment in this region so people did not have to ride in a car drive to Tijuana to have treatments for severed fingers as one of my student's fathers had to cut his finger in an irrigation ditch in a pipe and had to get treatment in Mexico because they couldn't afford treatment here. The preservation of the animals of this region, the leaf tern and the sea otter.
The housing, hope for housing in the future. So all these things are depicted in the piece
When I was 13-14 years old, that was during the Second World War. I remember being out in the fields and being sprayed with pesticide and many of the farm workers were sprayed with DDT which is extremely deadly and it was finally banned. And there was no timeout and there was no water and there was no restrooms or water in the facilities and then the women had to go find either bushes go to the deep ditches, whereas as you know men have it very convenient.
According to the early 90s, the mayor of Santa Maria said we have a Mexican problem. Then that really truly created a severe problem in our community because we had good Mexicans who have been here for many years. That's how we identified them. Good Mexicans and the bad Mexicans. There was innuendos made by many of the Anglo community and supposedly good Mexicans, is the bad Mexicans were the illegal immigrants but if you go out into the markets and you go out into the streets and you know who your neighbors are, you'll find that many of them are legal immigrants and because they're migrant Everyone assumed, and the word spread that anyone who looked like a farm worker was an illegal immigrant. So they were considered the bad Mexicans. They were the ones who supposedly utilized all the social services, the health services and falsified all their documents.
And that may be true but the majority are good honest hard-working people who have to survive. They do pay their taxes by buying automobiles, by buying groceries, by the majority trying to get good health services and those are the things that's been happening that are beginning to change but not enough to diminish the rumors that we still have majority of illegal immigrants. The mayor at the time who made that statement was George Hobbs and I think the greatest insult is that Guadalupe is primarily Spanish-speaking people, and he made that statement here at Far Western during a Chamber of Commerce meeting.
As for the Filipino farm workers who were migrant workers in the early days They were aware of being called many different names and laws were passed to send them back on one way ticket to the Philippines. The majority stayed here because they suffered the same problems of discrimination and racism in the fields.
They were not given the proper instruction that they're supposed to give, especially to the Spanish population. At that time we were 83% Spanish population, 69%, they didn't know any English at all. 75% of our children, they were in retarded classes and it was because they said that they were slow learners and I feel what it was. They didn't know any English at all so how do they can accomplish that?
He punished them, giving corporal punish to them and all what it was required is that Mr. Smith says that he threw a paper and there was enough for teacher to grab the student and throw him to the wall And in one occasion, one of the teachers almost strangled one of the students and he sent that student for three days to the hospital. I mean it was inaccessible and at that time we thought that the prisoners they had more liberties and more rights than our students here in Guadalupe. Up until 1975 is when they do the changes when they hire First teacher, fourth bilingual teacher and the reason that he was hired because his name was not a Spanish name. So they didn't have any schools to say there were no Spanish teachers in there.
It was cultural, bicultural. And there we struggled for another couple of years and finally we were able to achieve what we are doing now. The students that started they were happy and they didn't use any punishment on them. You notice there is the best present and future at the city of Guadalupe. Actually we set the line so they can do the work besides what we did also, the housing needs. In 1975 we started mentioning the needs of housing here and so our workers, our farm workers could live in a better condition but they were not putting much attention until a little girl was born in her house The house got fired and she got killed in there. And the upset thing is that when the fire department get there, they were crying because they see the little girl trying to open the door the way that they found it.
That's what they said. push the city to approve the project. At that time, self-help came aboard offering some economical housing for farm workers and the only thing they had to do was build their homes themselves with a supervisor. So our dream starts there so we can see Something new coming to Guadalupe and also the conditions of the farm workers. We were hoping that we would be able to see a house for each of the workers that we had here in our city.
The county was managing the park and the committee took over. And that started our dream to have a recreational center for our youth here in Guadalupe. I moved from here at the end of 1994, actually at the beginning of 1995 When I get there where I am, I notice that the schools were in the same situation that our schools were here. So I started working with the schools as a parent participating on different committees and finally five years ago I was appointed to the school board for the first eight months and then after that I ran for election and I was lucky enough to get this seat and now I'm there in Capel Union School District as a board member.
I don't necessarily think that every artist is an artist who can work in community. a real belief in the transformative nature of public art and working in the arts. This has been a life's work for me, and from the very beginning it's not something I came to late after being a gallery artist but from the very beginning have wanted to make work that mattered that somehow helped change people's lives and improve the conditions of the neighborhoods that I came out I'm an alcoholic. I was born in Los Angeles and in Watts, and grew up with a physical health appointment both of which were really difficult and fraught neighborhoods with interracial warfare and the issues of poverty and conflict.
And I saw my art from the very beginning as a method of actually addressing those issues. I've spent half of my life working on the Great Wall of Los Angeles, which is a half-a-mile long mural on the history of ethnic people and really looking at the larger issue of immigration and immigrant groups in the whole of America who really are Americans. And working with adolescents in conflict. I have real hope that the work of The Great Wall, which is now half a mile long will continue with new generations of young people to continue the interpretation of history through the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. So we're working on the restoration of that right now through STARK, the Social and Public Art Resource Center. I just recently completed a new work called Seeing Through Others' Eyes and Tiny Wrinkles of Hope in the site where Robert F.
Kennedy was killed at the Ambassador Hotel And these two giant 55-foot arches will be a K through 12 learning center called the Robert F. Kennedy Learning Center, it'll be seven schools and the intent of these works is to teach young people hope and compassion through the two arches. I highly suggest for people who are interested in doing this kind of work that you Take a short drive from either Santa Barbara or the San Yanez Valley and you'll find a relaxing escape from day-to-day life and return to nature.
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While maintaining amenities that will make your getaway an enjoyable experience. Tucked away in the hills is the Kachuma Lake Recreation Area. Set amidst acres of wilderness flanked by the picturesque San Yanez and San Rafael Mountains, lies glimmering Kachuma Lake. At 7 miles in length and with 42 miles of shoreline it's a grand sight to see! Here you will find practically everything you need for a relaxing getaway in the great outdoors.
Sunny skies, celebrated fishing conditions and a variety of activity options within the park make camping or visiting here exceptionally rewarding. The best part? It's all right in your backyard! From Southern California through the Central Coast, Kachuma Lake is a convenient trip and a great place to set up camp as you explore the other great things Santa Barbara County has to offer.
Kachuma Lake Recreation Area is really a hot spot of activity. Of course, you can come here and go camping but there's so much more to do here. Kachuma Lake is really centrally located. We're just 20 minutes from Santa Barbara, 20 minutes from Solvang, and those places have so much to offer. Wine tasting in the valley, museums in Solvang, activities in Santa Barbara, museums, harbor cruises, things like that.
It doesn't take long to see why the Chimney Lake is a great place to spend a day, a weekend or even a week. With everything from camping and fishing to boating, nature cruises and hiking, the Kachuma Lake Recreation Area has plenty of opportunities to be outdoors. There are barbecues that can be used for the day and a pool to keep visitors cool during the summer.
And for those who want to spend some time learning about the area, there is the non-profit Kachuma Lake Nature Center filled with displays on the area's cultural history as well as the local valley and mountain environment. It is for all ages and emphasizes hands-on exhibits to appeal to children All of this at no extra charge beyond park admission.
We have a nature center to visit, which is full of hands-on exhibits. We have boating. We can have fishing. We have miles of hiking trails. You can go out on the lake on a lake cruise and see wildlife involved eagles.
One of the reasons the Kachuma Lake Recreation Area is so popular year-round is because of its many lodging options. There are more than 400 sites for guests, which include conventional campsites and RV spots with full or partial hookups. In addition to camping, visitors have other accommodation options as well. Yurts provide a camping experience with homey comforts. Across between a tent and a teepee, the yurts in Kachuma Lake feature platform beds to sleep 5-6, lockable doors, inside lighting and heating, and screened windows in the wood and fabric siding.
Set on the bluff with access to the lakeshore, the view is spectacular. With four new yurts to add to the group, more visitors now can have the option to stay in this comfortable abode. Finally for those who want to be surrounded by nature but still would like the comfort and amenities of home, reservations can now be made for an alternative style camping experience at Kachuma Lake Recreation Area.
Eight cabins offer private and convenient accommodations equipped with electricity, full bathrooms, kitchenettes, living rooms, private porches, picnic tables and fire pits. For your convenience, kitchenettes are fully equipped for cooking and serving. Simply pack your sleeping bags and bedding, your towels, toiletries and groceries. Your effortless vacation begins the moment you arrive at your cabin! The best part is that you can plan your trip quickly by going to kachuma.com and making reservations.
Kachuma Lake is one of Southern California's finest fishing lakes because of the lake bottom topography, rocky drop-offs, shallow areas and aquatic plant beds. A great habitat for different kinds of fish! It supports large populations of bass, crappie, rainbow trout and more. This variety makes fishing possible from the lakeside or a boat. With a great environment for fish and great weather for guests, it's no wonder the annual bass tournaments in Trout Derby are so popular.
And now you can bowfish for carp! Recently approved with a free permit visitors are able to fish for carp using bows. It's just one more reason Pachuma Lake is a great fishing destination. Because Kachuma Lake is a domestic water supply, swimming, waterskiing, windsurfing or any other body contact with the water is prohibited. Canoes and kayaks will soon be allowed on the lake and it's a great place to take your boat out on the water.
The recently repurposed launch ramp makes heading out with your standard designed boat of 10 feet or more easy and nearly 3,000 surface acres of water and there is plenty of lake to explore. To make things even easier for guests, fuel sales are available at the marina as well as in the park. For those who don't have a boat, no problem! Visitors can rent a fishing or pontoon boat at new lower prices. When you bring your own boat to the Chuma Lake know that there is a simple but important inspection process.
Because of the threat of quagga mussels and other invasive species, HARF staff are working to keep the lake healthy and all invasive species out of the lake. The inspection is free of charge and quick but check kachuma.com before your trip as some boats must have a mandatory two-week quarantine. At the Kachuma Lake Recreation Area there is yet another way to get out on the water through a wildlife or eagle cruise aboard our comfortable and spacious boat the Osprey Let our Park Naturalist guide you on a two-hour lake cruise on our 30 passenger pontoon boat.
It's perfect for easy wildlife viewing and personal comfort. The Osprey explores the lake as naturalists follow nature's serendipity to reveal the area's natural and cultural riches. In all seasons, Kachuma Lake is a thriving habitat for a great variety of wildlife, birds including bald eagles, fish,
trees and plants. The nature cruises that is a must do if you're going to come to Kachuma Lake. We go back into the bays where you see wildlife and it's really wild area. We spend two hours on the lake looking at bald eagles, deer, great blue herons, all kinds of wildlife.
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The Kachuma Lake Recreation Area is a popular destination for day use as well. From biking to an outdoor picnic, at over 3200 acres there is plenty of room to spread out and explore. Visitors can hike on one of five trails that range in length from a quarter mile to an eight-mile round trip. They can use park barbecues and during the summer enjoy the pool. The park staff take pride in all that is offered to their guests and plan a variety of great activities for visitors of all ages.
Other amenities include all you need for a one-day stop or an extended stay vacation. There is a fully stocked store, fuel available both on the lake and in the park, and a meeting room for family events or business meetings that features a full kitchen and attached restrooms. All of these activities and facilities are available in a place with great climate year-round. The park even offers an extended stay program for snowbirds looking to camp in the warm Southern California sunshine.
With so much to do inside the recreation area, don't forget that Kachuma Lake is the perfect place to stay with so much to do outside of the park. Located just 10 miles from the world-renowned wine tasting region of the San Ynez Valley, there's no need not to explore what surrounds the Kachuma Lake Recreation Area. The Los Cadres National Forest is also just minutes away. And by heading 20 miles east, the famous Santa Barbara coastline awaits. With all of this and more within a short radius of Kachuma Lake, it really is the ideal destination.
Come visit Kachuma Lake Recreation Area and all it has to offer. For more information, visit us on the web at kachuma.com. Kachuma Lake, one of Southern California's prime destinations.
You. At the Arts Commission, one of the things that I'm most excited about what we do is public art. And because we know that the public art does
so much to reflect The generation reflect the time in which it was created and the values, and really build a sense of community. And especially what I like about it is that it levels the playing field and makes the art accessible to everyone. That's obviously what Judy's work has been doing for generations. I'm so happy to have it here in a community that when you can come in and you can see in the crowd, people that are in the mural. And to have witnessed what I witnessed this morning which was have this photo and how people begin to identify and tell the story about everyone in the photo and what was going on that day. So we're delighted to be part of this
Guadalupe is a farm worker's town of about 5,000 people and it is a town that has pretty much remained unchanged in over 100 years. It's remarkable in that it is a kind of frozen-in time little city that marks in a sense the immigration of immigrant groups throughout the history of California to work in the agricultural fields Music
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The Chumash Indian people used to live throughout this whole central coast area for ten, they're recorded at least 10,000 years. And up until the late 1700s and early 1800 when the missions were established in the area is when The other, the Spanish came into the area and then after well into the 1800s the missions kind of disappeared and a lot of the Indian Chumash people intermarried. In the late 1800s there was an influx of Europeans coming into the area. The Mexicans were coming first from Mexico and took over California probably in the early 1800s. Then came the gold rush and the Europeans.
So in the late 1800s, there was a lot of cattle grazing, dairy farming. In the early 1900s were Portuguese, Swiss Italian, the Irish and English settled in this valley here mainly in Guadalupe to establish the town Throughout the early 1900s, early part of the 1900s farming, agricultural farming started. So that's when the Japanese people came from Japan and established farming agriculture and then the workers started coming in from Mexico
During the time of the Second World War, there was a shortage of laborers in the farms so there was a program that was developed by the government to bring braceros in. During that period they were promised a portion of their funds to go to Mexico when they returned Although many of them stayed here in Guadalupe and bought homes and became American citizens or just changed their visa to permanent residency. After that, during the Cesar Chavez period there was quite a bit of conflict because Guadalupe is a very conservative town. The community was split. Because of the lack of understanding, the Filipinos didn't quite understand where they belong
I became very interested in Guadalupe when I learned of the story of the famous civil rights case called the Guadalupe 10. And I learned of Guadalupe through the Guadalupe 10 story, which was a battle essentially by parents to have equal training and fair practices in the schools for their children. And to stop the discrimination which basically said that if you were the son or daughter of a campesino you would receive one treatment And if you were the son or daughter of a dueño, another treatment. And so a group of parents actually confronted the authorities in the school system in a PTA meeting which became the very famous case called the Guadalupe 10, in which they were met by riot police when they came and actually deported many of them.
The Guadalupe 10 were deported. So it was that case that actually got me interested in the region
I was living here in Guadalupe up to 1995. I had seven children of my own and I had all of them at school, they started 1966 and 1972 is when the children themselves walk out of the school from third grade on and what they were using They took the paper of the teacher that they had in their desk and they started writing that they want better education and also better treatment. But the school board, rather than listening to us, they called a speaker to talk about the truth about the Chicano movement. And actually the speaker, he never addressed his speech but he starts insulting the people that were getting into the cafeteria here in this place And he was pointing out fingers and then the parents get upset, they start clapping their hands and yelling.
Before the meeting started there were 32 police officers ready with your hats on, you know with your safety hats and the sticks in your hand. They took us to court They were charging us, they said that for disturbing the peace and interrupting a public meeting which nothing of that was true but anyway they were those who brought the accusations. So we went about a year to court and they found us guilty. Some of the members of the Comité Consejero de Educación de Padres y Estudiantes or the Committee of Parents and Students We went to the court and some of them they were charged $125 plus days in jail. Some others they charged $75 plus two weeks in jail, and I believe that one of them had to go four months to jail. But anyway out of the ten, nine of us they found out guilty and we were put into probation for three years.
But finally the civil rights actors, somebody contacted them and they came to do the investigation. They find out that it was true of what we were saying. The reason that we were put in the court, it was not because they're disturbing or what they were allegating. We were put in court because they believed that the 10 of us were members of the United Farm Workers, that they were in a strike at that particular time. That is why I ended on the mural. I didn't know that I was going to be there When I saw the news, it was a big surprise for me.
I'm a civil rights activist and I was very active in the community in the Bay Area and my policies always connect with all different nationalities who are being violated not given proper information about due process and procedure in having their voices heard. I was contacted during that period of time, so they asked me to come down and see what I could do So when I came down there was a hearing by the Civil Rights Commission, California Civil Rights Commission at Vandenberg Hotel which is now a senior citizen facility in Santa Maria, California.
I was briefed before I attended that meeting. When I walked in the local people I grew up with and went to school with greeted me very happily because they said Come on in, we want you to say a good word about our community and about the school and all the good qualities of education in Guadalupe. And I said where is the group opposed to this school? They said on the other side of this room was a large facility So I said, well that's where I stand. Because the school was so discriminatory, I was always put in a closet. I was put in a closet because I happened to be talking to someone in class or I was too rough out in the yard for any reason and then when I first went into the school, I think about the third grade because my English still had the Filipino accent they call Pidgin English.
I was punished for that and I would be hit with the ruler in my hands. One day, I had a math problem with the teacher. She told me I had to stay after school. Well, after school everybody ran out so I ran out too. A faculty member came to my house and I lived behind a business. She stormed in and told my parents that I was unruly, irresponsible, and uncooperative. So she grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to school She slammed my face against the blackboard and then said, The next time you need to be disciplined remember I will get you.
In the early 80s or mid-late 80s I received a call from the Santa Barbara Arts Commission and a question about whether I would be interested in actually doing something in Santa Barbara for the Santa Barbara Arts Commission. And so there was an interesting possibility of me doing new public artwork And at that moment I said, I really would like to do new public artwork but I'd like to do it in the northern part of the county.
Now this is a little bit out of line because no one really imagined that I would want to come to a place called Guadalupe or a place in the northern part of the county which was very rural and just a farm working town and not, would not create high visibility for public artwork for an artist and not something most artists would aspire to. So they say, you want to go to Guadalupe?
Absolutely, that's where I want to go. And I would like to see if there is something that I could do in that region that might be in support of the issues that people face in the fields. So I began as I begin with most of my public artworks which was to begin a deep And that research came to a prompt end fairly quickly because in terms of written records, I have a photograph in which I have every single piece of writing that was ever done on the history of Guadalupe in one hallway and it was really not terribly extensive.
So the region was poorly documented, there was very little historical writing on the region. And so I began then to talk with people of the community and to begin to collect historical records through their family archives and the histories that they remembered, and set up a workshop in the old Druid Temple here in downtown which was owned by the auto parts store for automobiles and trucks and tractors by Mr. Perry. And Mr. Perry actually was a descendant of a bean farmer so he himself was a descendent of a person who came from the fields
My husband and I started this culture center. This is our way of when we retired in 1988, is to give back to the community, to bring the true education back and the true history of Guadalupe. Many of the people here don't understand the difficulties of farm workers, migrant workers, and the permanent workers here.
I was belonging to the Comité Civico Mexicano and I was representing the committee. So when Yuribaca came, she said that she would like to work with us we were more than happy to help her because we know that the history was great and there was real motivation. And the reason that we participated is because we were trying to let the community know what really was going on in our beautiful city.
The work actually unfolded by virtue of the historical photographs that were brought in. Me going into the fields with the people to learn about the process of harvesting and the issues that they faced in terms of the work. The crops that were being harvested were strawberries, cauliflower, broccoli. This was known as the broccoli capital of the world. Artichokes, lettuce, some of the major crops in the region So I spent time working in the fields tracking people who, particularly one individual crew of campesinos who were harvesting and watched them go through the entire process through a season actually putting the seeds into actually doing the harvesting.
And was able to document that photographically and also learn of the difficulty of the work And what was almost overwhelming immediately, was how skilled the labor was. They could walk and pick as fast as anything I'd ever seen. I was not able even to walk the speed behind the tractors that they were harvesting and cutting and walking at the same time. I was able to invite them into the studio and photograph them in Polaroids. I handed out Polaroid's and then people came back with other photographs and I began to collect what was a pretty amazing story of the region.
The work got divided into four segments, and the segments actually are the early founders of Guadalupe which begins with the Chumash and the Oso Flaco lagoons. And the confrontation of the hunter-gatherers and the beef vaqueros that became this sort of second wave of immigrants starting with the Chumash and then moving into the Vaqueros who were the Spanish in the first part of the history of Guadeloupe.
told me stories of the bears walking into downtown Guadalupe as late as the 70s. And someone said there was a bear in Santa Maria recently, right? So apparently at one point in the history of Guadalupe little bears used to walk into town And they call them the Oso Flacos and of course the Oso Flaco Lagoon. The story of the Arianas legend, this is the original Guadalupe house one of the early adobes and the couple that it's embracing is actually the Arianas daughter and one of the Fremont troops because they had a passionate affair and they were on two sides of the taking of California from Mexico. Because the Arianas daughters Fraternized with the enemy, the story was that people burned her house down and took off the roof.
And there is a kind of personal story in the vaquero. This is a portrait of my mentor and longtime good father. Gilbert Roland, who was a movie star and was the first Cisco kid and you probably saw him in Zorro and all of those other wonderful things. And he posed for this because I wanted just the perfect Latino vaquero and he was it. And so that's Gilbert since passed and it's my memory of him.
On this side, you can see all of the little adobes and the roots. It tells us the roots of the city. And beneath the fields, this whole story is embedded in the land. Memory resides in place and when you come to a place, you can hear it. This is not my idea but the idea of all indigenous people. And one that I have learned well from my grandmother and from many good teachers. That if you put your ear to the ground and to the place, you can hear its story. And that's what I did here in the years that I spent here and the time I spent with the people. And it is one of those experiences that is life changing, that never leaves you the same.
The second panel became the ethnic contributions of the city, and that actually is both the living and the dead present on the streets of Guadalupe. Kind of looking at a city that in a sense has sort of frozen in time and has all this historical presence within the land and the place. So it looks at the downtown street just as it might have appeared 100 years ago.
And on this side here, this historical piece. You see Mr. Magana who is in the center of the image. Ariston looking quite a bit younger. I did kind of make you young. This is a portrait of him. We have many portraits of him and actually the day I remember in the opening of our first meetings People were wishing for a health care center here and now Arizona has told me that you have, you've built how
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many?
This was a dream at the time when we were talking about it. How we could have healthcare locally. And this is Mr. Arutani who is a Japanese landowner. He was also known as the boss. He actually was an owner of much of the agricultural land and he's holding a clock, and the clock says 1942 because in 1942 he will leave this place to go into a Japanese internment camp and he will lose most of his land and this is that moment. The people who are blue they're historical figures, they're ghosts. And this whole notion of talking with the past, the sense that you're in the present but you're also Talking to the past in Guadalupe, there's kind of a memory of a place almost frozen in time which is what is really beautiful about this city. The guy who put his foot on the car is a man named Mr.
Pepito, he's a young man. who was a Filipino farm worker and who I interviewed in his late 90s. And, uh, I think he's since passed and he gave me many photographs which were included into the piece. And that's him as a young man, as a World War II soldier. You can see Mr. Perry at his auto parts store. I've forgotten the name of the guy in the foreground. I think it's Ariano.
Cieloro. He sells this region for a bottle of whiskey and a saddle He was drinking a bit, right? And this is him on the horse. He lives at his ranch. In the background you can also see references to Cecil B. DeMille's making of movies in this region. So there's a lot of references and there's a druid on top of the temple in the full outfit. You can see him as a ghost.
So this is a sort of historical part. The other two pieces are a little more about the contemporary life. The third panel actually is about the farm workers and has to do with the issues that our people confront in the fields. And through a series of crates that move across the sky as though they're being packed with cauliflower, you're seeing from the position looking out into the fields From a person who is packing the cauliflower, you look out into the fields and you see the harvesters working. And across the sky is a series of crates that sort of chronicle the story of someone coming to Guadalupe first on the rails And it says Bienvenidos, like welcome here you are. You've taken this all night train and ridden the rails. It's a really difficult journey to get here to work in the fields.
The second one is about your accommodations. The kind of places that you will live, and it looks at the conditions which are really terrible and very poor living conditions for farm workers. And then the third is your wages are at swindle which has to do with the sharecropping. It shows a person working in the strawberry fields because at that time, and I guess today, sharecropping still continues in which it was possible for people to end up with substandard wages in sharecropping.
And another one is saying, oh this is not dangerous fog. It's neblina peligrosa. It's just dangerous fog. Then it goes into dolor de la espalda which has to do with the pain in the back harvesting. One of the harvesting of the lettuce is most difficult when it's back breaking stooping and the final crate is ayuda extranjera which is about foreign aid and sending the checks and your money home. Because this region is tied economically to regions in Mexico where people are working here and sending money home, so while all of these pieces are kind of tongue-in-cheek they're actually telling the most critical issues The farm workers face, beginning with their transit here to the way that they're living in substandard and dangerous housing. To their exposure of pesticides to the issues of the economic interdependence of this region and Mexico to the fact that in fact people make a joke about it being foreign aid but in truth we are inextricably tied to the people who are harvesting and going back and forth between the two countries.
The piece also talks about the children in the fields, the fact that children are exposed to pesticides in the field. And it makes an example of the fact there's a dream that the children would have an opportunity in the future not to work in the fields The final Guadalupe panel, which is the fourth panel, is the Angels of Guadalupe. And that's actually an angel coming out of the fields.
She is an image from the graveyard, a marble carving of an angel, a Swiss Italian angel. But her wings have begun to move, and in her wings are the dreams that were articulated in the meetings of the people of Guadalupe to determine what they hoped for the future. And the major hopes that are depicted in the wings are fresh water because at that time pesticides would reach in the aquifer at an alarming rate.
Farm workers showed me bath...they turned the water on their bathtubs and you could see ♪ ♪
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Thank you. ¶. ¶. ¶. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Music ¶¶ ♪ ¶. ¶. ♪ ♪♪ ¶. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
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¶¶ Music. ¶. The Board of Supervisors meeting of March 15th, 2011. Mr. Allen where are we?
Madam Chair, members the board I think we're gonna have a brief report from closed session then we're going to
move on to item 4 and I'll read that into the record after Mr.
Marshall.
Thank you madam chair. You completed your closed session during the lunch hour and completed all noticed items and there is one item to report The report follows, the county has settled three administrative fine appeals currently pending in Santa Barbara Superior Court. Greca Oil and Gas Fee, County of Santa Barbara. Cases number 1314724, 1321072, 1321230, 1322252, 1375239. The essential terms of the settlement include one, Greca to pay county $2 million over four years, 700,000 the first year, 433,333 dollars per year for the following three years Greco to implement $100,000 of secondary containment within one year.
Greco to furnish a demand note for two million dollars which can be entered immediately if any scheduled payment remains in default as described in the settlement agreement. The Grecon County to request the court to retain jurisdiction of this matter under CCP section 664.6 until all settlement terms are satisfied. The full settlement agreement is available for review in the Office of County Counsel.
Any questions of County Council? Next item.
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Madam Chair, members of the board, this is item number four from the Parks Department. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding proposed fee adjustments for the Day Use Parks Joseph Centeno Cuyama Aquatics Complex, Cochuma Lake, Paloma Beach wedding events, film permits and special events.
Mr. Fairam.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. We are here Proposed to the board. Updates to our parks department fee schedule have a short presentation for you and then we'll be available for questions. And
Mr. Fairam, would you introduce your staff that's
going to be assisting you? Madam Chair, excuse me. Next to me is Brian Roney who is Deputy Parks Director. Nicole Coon who is our Business Manager. And then also our Auditor-Controller Bob Geis is here if there are any questions. Both Mr. Geis and Mr. Marshall's office provided a lot of help to us which we're very appreciative of to get to this point.
Thank you, Mr. Fairam.
So today we're proposing some increases to park fees. As you know, our parks fees help offset the costs of operating what really amounts to a large infrastructure system. It's in some cases an entire city that make up some of our county parks and these fees help pay for maintenance utilities All the infrastructure that's in constant need of repair or replacement and then of course our staffing for supervision. And then we're also going to be implementing a new reservation system that I'll talk about briefly at the end as well, an online computerized reservation system.
I know we don't like interruptions, but I have to have you go back to that other slide because I just want to point out that this is the Royal Borough Beach and that's the new ADA accessible lookout that the Parks Department just completed. And above are the solar powered lights that are in the accessory parking lot that I think we talked about before so I just wanted
And Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolf, what's not in the picture is there will be a coastal view telescope that will be available there within the next month or so. People can actually look at the islands and whatnot as well.
And you took me up to that when it was just like a...
Well, I took you up to the one that's it's actually different. And they had to do this one because this is the ADA accessible on the other when you have to go up the stairs and they're still working on completing that one but but this one's now done. It's next to the restaurant.
Thank you for allowing me to interrupt.
And since we're on the slide manager of the upper right picture are the new solar lights that are also in a royal borough and those those items were totally installed by park staff they were purchased from a vendor and then installed totally by our staff.
Thank you
again our fee updates with we're proposing in this schedule We will increase some of our fees we would propose to increase some of our fees and then another big element is to establish a new fee for those particular services and items that we do not have a board approved fee for. Example, the cabins and yurts that your board approved for a grant purchase back earlier this year. They will be delivered here within the coming weeks and so we want to have our established fees for those.
With the kayaks coming to Lake Kachuma, we would need a fee for that. And then revising our special event fees as well which can be extremely time consuming for our staff. I believe as read the services and locations, basically all our day use parks that have group areas. All of our group areas are being proposed to have increases. Kachuma and Halama, I'll talk about those briefly on the next slide.
Up at the Kuyama, the Joseph Centeno pool we're actually proposing to remove that fee because in our opinion it costs more to actually collect the fee so we're trying to reduce our cost side rather than try to do any revenue side And then wedding events have become ever increasingly popular. A lot of people use our parks as an alternative for a wedding venue that's very affordable compared to many other places that they would reserve in town, and then film permits and special permits, as I mentioned.
At Kachuma and Halama, we are proposing a modest increase in the day use fees and some camping fees. But I want to emphasize for our basic camping fee both at Kachuma and Halama, we're proposing that stay unchanged. There would be some increases that we propose to our premium and our hookup sites. And then also at Halama we have options that also provide discounts for seniors and respect our in-county residents and provide discounts for them as well. And then as I mentioned, the establishing the fees for our overnight cabins and yurts. We would need those fees approved so that we could start charging that. Wanted to mention that in it, we recognize that we have to not just raise fees but always endeavor to try to offer something to our customers for increases in fees and some of the things that we're working on are online reservations where people could reserve any of our day use or camping parks 24-7 on the internet.
We're looking at providing wireless internet not only at Kachuma but Halama. Halama is extremely remote and getting internet in there is difficult, and then offering other services such as kayaks and canoes. And so what we're trying to also recognize is although we are increasing fees, we're also trying to offer additional services to our customers. We looked at all of our fees and compared them to what other agencies and both public and private operations are doing. We believe we are at or below what the market charges.
We recognize that you just can't set a fee at what you'd like to collect because if then no one comes and takes use of those fees, then you actually get a decrease in revenue so we're very cognizant of the market rate and try to keep it in line. And then also recognize that the cost of the park system still requires a general fund contribution and That this proposed fee structure would actually help Restore some of the reductions that were actually being proposed to take next year. Yeah, if approved and then I just wanted to spend them a minute because We're finally coming in line with what most other counties and what most other overnight, whether it's a hotel or motel or whatever is an online reservation system very similar to most other counties.
And that you would be able to reserve campsites, cabins, yurts group areas anything can be done online from your computer 24 seven And that's a huge change for us. It's something a long time coming and I think we're one of the few holdouts that don't allow this particular service to our visitors. And so Madam Chair, our staff are available for questions. I wanted to make a note here Earlier in the year, your board approved a grant from the state of California to provide these new cabins at Halama and Kachuma. And as it turns out that bid was won by a company in Santa Maria called API Incorporated. So not only do we get these facilities for our parks but they're being manufactured right here in Santa Maria locally made product providing jobs for our local workforce so we've been there and talked with the owner and were just delighted That couldn't come up with a better outcome than having these built right here in Santa Barbara County.
And, you know he's willing to stand behind these and they're going to be absolutely fabulous. So again thanks to the auditor controller and their staff and county council and their staff. You know coming with a proposal like this is not as simple as it perhaps used to be with all the requirements we have to comply with.
Mr. Fayram, although I know we've asked for brief, I wish that you would take just a moment and talk a bit about these cabins how many there are where they're going to be what they're going to cost because this is really awesome it seems I mean this is just an incredibly exciting new Idea we can actually go stay all night without having to have a tent and sleep on the floor ground or own a house trailer to go stay all night at Halama and Kachuma. So if you wouldn't mind taking a moment and giving us a commercial here.
Madam Chair I'd be happy to. There were, your board approved a grant with the state of California Purchase 11 cabins, seven of those will go at Halama and four of them will go to Lake Kachuma. And if you've been to Halama there's a first bench just as you come in the drive in that was where camping sites slightly elevated from the park and just a gorgeous view over the ocean. And that's where those seven will go on that little first bluff. It'll be phenomenal to be able to go there and, as you said Madam Chair, be able to sleep without having your tent blowing all night. As it can be very windy out there at times.
The other four at Lake Kachuma will be located on a kind of a bluff top that overlooks the marina and lake, you have a panoramic view of the lake as well. And we're expecting these to be very successful. We think our proposed overnight rate is very competitive if you look at what even other cabin Vendors charge around the area. We're right in there, I'll just give you a couple of items at Halama during the peak season.
We're going to be about $150 a night for the peak and then 100, I'm sorry 175, 100 a night off-peak and that's at Halama. And at Kachuma it's slightly less. These are under $200 a night And in some cases, as low as $100 a night at Lake Kachuma in the off-season. You can't even get a hotel and solving I don't think for 100 a night now anymore. They have full bathrooms. They have a shower, a toilet. We intend to...
Hair dryers? We can do that. We're also exploring having some TVs in those as well not to discount that this isn't Not a high fee, but it is $175 a night can be a fee and people should get some amenities for that. So we'll be looking at offering the proper amenities. But in the end no more putting the quarters in the shower thing at Halama if you've been there and done that you'll have your own shower right there in your cabin.
These will be fantastic and we expect them to be up and running on or around May 1st.
That is incredible.
The best part is built right here in Santa Barbara County, you just can't ask for it any better than that.
Thank you Mr. Farram. Other questions? Supervisor Lovanino then Supervisor Carbajal.
Thank you Madam Chair. First off Mr. Farram I think I speak for everybody on the board when I commend you for the outstanding job that you're doing. You really embraced creative thinking and the Parks Department really appreciate it. One of the things I think is very important, at least in the Santa Maria area, is that when we're talking about fee increases and this during the down economy, this is a place where people can take their families. It's very cost effective to take them to Halama and Kachuma.
One of the things I would, and I also want to commend Mr. Roney because I've gotten some great feedback from the folks out in Koyama that you're out there, you're paying attention and for what your guys are doing at the Centennial Pool is outstanding. One of the questions I have is are we doing anything? I saw this survey that came out of a high school out there and one of the reasons why we're not getting usage at the pool is that we've determined that over half the kids don't know how And I'm just wondering if we're addressing that in any way and what are our plans to try to increase the usage there?
Chair, Supervisor Lavalino. I'll let Mr. Roney answer that. He's personally attended a lot of meetings out there and talked with some of the folks in the Kiama Valley.
Good afternoon Madam Chair, Supervisors. We met with the stakeholders out in Quiam also with our aquatic staff and during the summer months that we operate that pool it's heated and filtered but not open in the morning so our plan is to offer lessons locally for the families because we understand they're driving to Taft just to get some lessons for their folks. So we'll make the rates affordable, but the pool's heated and filtered anyway so the only added expense is the staff and the fees from the lessons would cover the staff. So we're looking forward to trying to implement that this summer.
Great. Okay thank you. One other question is Mr. Famer I was wondering if you've taken a look at and I noticed that when we look at the fees we do charge for parking for a day pass like at Kachuma and also at Halama in North County But then when you get to the South County with Arroyo Borough and Goleta Beach, we don't charge for parking. I'm just curious if we've addressed that? If we've looked at how much maybe that could create?
Where are we on that? I mean, Arroyo Borough looked beautiful and it had the nice ADA accessible ramp in the solar lights but I'm just wondering if anybody's paying when they're going there and parking.
Madam Chair, Supervisor Lavinino. In general, Halama is the only beach in the county that does charge to gain access to the park and to park. The parks department at the last Parks Commission meeting was asked by the commission to return on March 24th, which is next week for the Parks Commission to hear an item about scenarios for charging for parking. So we will be delivering that report to them. We've been gathering some information for that and then Upon that hearing at the Parks Commission, then we'll come back and work with the CEO's office and then determine where it goes from there. But that question is being asked by the Parks Commission and they have asked us to give a presentation on the 24th.
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Mr. Carbajal?
Thank you. I'd just like to offer a suggestion to Mr. Labanino regarding the Cuyama Swimming Program. I would encourage you to look at successful programs, rec programs that the City of Santa Maria might have. I know the City of Santa Barbara does have some and also the YMCA's. That might be a good partnership. They do this on a regular basis and maybe just having some hybrid program.
I too wanted to thank you for the good work On this item, I know we contemplated possibly or exploring putting a few of these cabins in Summerlin at Lookout Park and the community just overwhelmingly felt it wasn't a good fit. This is one of those instances where a good idea was floated, a good initiative was taken by staff and the community basically said It's a good initiative, but it may not be a good fit. But instead of letting that come to a head and getting contentious, Mr. Farrum demonstrated great leadership in just knowing when it was time to leave the good idea behind for that area. And I just want to thank you for your leadership and being responsive to the community.
The last and final point I'll make is that I consider myself an average family. And $175 is pretty pricey. So unless this is called the middle class and high end incomes, you're not really making it accessible. So I would encourage you to look at bringing it down a little bit or trying it so that we could make some income but this is the public's land This is public parks and it's not El Capitan where I have also been, and it's pretty pricey.
I just would encourage us to be a little bit more mindful of that. We don't have to use this as the golden goose to extract as much money out of the public A whole segment of the community is not going to be able to afford it. So 175, even for me, is pretty steep. So just keep that in mind whether you want to have some staggered, I don't know. Just give that some thinking because we don't build public facilities just for the folks who are well off and can afford it, we build it for the public at large and find a baseline there.
Madam Chair, Supervisor. Carbohol, I hear you. Again these were market priced and the number that I mentioned to you is the peak weekend rate when the demand will just clearly outsource. The rates are down closer to $100 a night for off-peak and for weekdays so... And we will monitor this and believe me if we're not filling these things we will come back to you to even lower them because they do us no good if we don't have any occupancy Thank
you. That's helpful.
Ms.
Waller, I just wanted to make mention of the fact that we do provide opportunities that may not be at those sort of high level all the amenities at a much lower rate for camping opportunities and for other use at the parks. So you don't necessarily have to be the most affluent to take advantage of our parks, there are opportunities as he mentioned they're also discounts if you're a county resident so please know that we have been very sensitive to that issue. I
think we'll go now to public comment then we have a couple more comments from Supervisor Wolff and Supervisor Farr. So Mr. Allen how many speakers do we have?
Madam Chair, members of the board, three public speakers beginning with Mr. Andy Caldwell in Santa Maria followed by Dr. Robert Johns in Santa Barbara.
Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm Andy Caldwell representing COLAB. I do agree that Tom Fairam does a great job however we've always felt it in times of budget crises it's too easy to pass fees As compared to whether this was an entirely 100% general fund. We still believe that the board needs to have a serious, serious policy discussion about giving Arroyo Burro to the City of Santa Maria and giving Goleta Beach to the city of Goleta. And if that doesn't work then at least charging parking fees because those cities do charge fees at their beaches, at least the City of Santa Barbara does.
We also have felt it's always been unfair and problematic that Halama is the only beach, and we don't know why. Why is it the only beach in the county where the county does feel justified charging for day use? That day use fee is going to be $10. You know, the Lompoc residents are cut off at surf because of a snowy plover, and then they have to fork out 10 bucks to go to Halama or else they've got to drive to Gaviota or El Cap and pay the state money. Everybody talks about how important coastal access is, but I guess it's if you can afford it.
If I'm reading this correctly, the cabins during the peak season at Halama are going to be $200. And 150 during the week day and I do think that's prohibitive. I had to go to a meeting in Ventura at the Marriott a weekend ago, and I think the rooms there they were a block from the beach they were like $139. And I certainly think it costs more to run a hotel that pays property taxes than it costs to have a cabin on the beach The bottom line here is the county's broke. We understand that, but one of the reasons they're broke is because of salaries and pensions of workers.
And here's an instance where we're just going to turn to the taxpayers slash rate payers slash residents and ask them to dig deeper into their pocket. And I have to ask you what constraint are you showing here compared to if this was an entirely general fund funded department? And finally, again we wish you would hold off until you get permission to include the Arroyo Burro and Goleta Beach parking fees with this schedule. Thank you.
Thank You Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Allen?
Our next speaker Dr. Robert Johns here in Santa Barbara followed by Mark McGinnis here in Santa Barbara who's the final speaker.
Well I'm actually shocked. I'm actually shocked That Supervisor Carbajal here spoke on behalf of the people when he said that the rates should be just a little bit higher. I thought you were right-wing Democrat and you'd spoken on behalf of the people? I can't believe that! Now these fees, are we looking for tourists? Are we looking for tourists to come into the beach?
This is just totally ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. I haven't even began to set myself to look at these parks and the fees. Is there any consideration here for poor people, children of poor people on a Sunday afternoon going to a park and having to face a ten buck to get in the park? Well, I'm speaking for poor people today definitely And I can even go deeper than that. There's kids over here on the east side and on the west side, you see, that can't even get to a park.
They can't get to a park. And that's probably one of the reasons for gangs. They get no release! Now for the idea that someone would charge to get into a park is just ridiculous. I think you need to rethink this whole thing. This is a time when people are poor, people are looking to feed their children and you're trying to charge a fee to get into a park? I don't get it. I just don't get
it. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Johns. Mr. Allen.
Mark McGinnis who's our final speaker.
Thanks Mr. McGinnis. Back to Mr. Farram, Supervisor Wolff.
Thank you Chair. I just wanted to ask the question about the QIAMA pool because I understand that there's going to be some volunteers or you're going to be working on getting other folks who are going to maintain it and do the lifeguarding service. Has that been finalized?
Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolff. Let me try to detail how we're approaching that problem. So I mentioned our problem is on the cost side, the revenue side isn't going to solve that issue so what we've done is our staff has sought out local Cuyama residents to work as extra help county employees We have a lifeguard that lives out there right now. She does a fabulous job. We used to have lifeguards drive from Santa Maria out to Kuyama, they would spend over three hours in the car that they're getting paid. We now have one lifeguard that lives in Kuyama and we're trying to hire another one as backup. We'll save an awful lot of money by only paying lifeguards for the time they're lifeguarding instead of driving out there.
We're looking at doing the same thing with our maintenance of the pool by having a local Extra Help County employee provide the pool cleaning services and some of the maintenance. And finally, we're also talking with Chief Dyer in the fire department. There's a fire station out there with having them help us either with lifeguard services and also with the pool maintenance with the staff that's out there as well. So we're not necessarily looking at volunteers. These will be trained staff, either existing county employees with the fire department or Staff that we would hire that live in Koyama and report to the job site and don't report to Santa Maria and then drive out and back. We'll have significant cost savings. The other solution that we've sought, that your board approved last year is we went from two lifeguards to one which the only downside is we have to limit the pool to 40 swimmers instead of its designed I think for 50 or 60 so we have to limit it to 40 but we found we haven't really Reach that limit in most cases.
So doing all of these items we've been able to bring the cost of the operating facility way down
because I think I think the cost was about a hundred and eighty thousand a year just on maintenance so I compliment you and and the fire department and everyone else who's kind of jumped into help with this. I do want to take exception to the comments about A Royal Borough Beach going to the City of Santa Barbara or Goleta Beach going to the City of Goleta. And Mr. Farrum is shaking his head and I'm guessing that what he would say is what I am going to say, in that those two facilities are our highest generators of income for the park system.
and generate so much money to really supplement a lot of the other costs in the other parks. So any type of, you know... And we have done a lot at Arroyo Borough to help the Boathouse Restaurant and to work cooperatively with them. When people talk about the county working with businesses I think this was a perfect example of working with a boathouse restaurant To enhance what they're doing and they do it so well, and then to also enhance access.
I hope that if you look at the parking issue that it be done countywide I don't know why Halama Beach is the only beach. Maybe they shouldn't be charged parking. My guess is the reason that they are when we talked about this before, because there's overnight opportunities there. It's much different than Goleta Beach and Arroyo Burro Beach. I only wish that people would kind of move off of that, although I have to say in light of where we are with our budget situation. I think it's going to be an interesting topic and I'm glad the Parks Department is going to discuss it but it needs to be a entire look at the entire county Every park and then of course the cost because we want to make sure that we have the access to the parks and And especially with Goleta Beach as we're moving forward with our Goleta Beach plan.
I'm not sure how this parking issue is going to fit in with that Honestly, I'd rather I would have preferred that whole issue be put on hold
Supervisor Wolf, I think it's really important what you've just said because I think there's a whole lot of people that don't understand and I'm going to ask Mr. Farram or Mr. Rooney to explain this, that Goleta Beach and Aurora Borough Beach have restaurants that generate tremendous amounts of income. Now forget the fact that people can Park for free, so what? We're making money off of the restaurant. So maybe it would be a good idea because you know some people in the north don't even know it just sounds like Goleta Beach is Goleta Beach but the beach side... Is that beach side restaurant? It's the beach
side at Goleta Beach.
So I think it's important that you just take a moment and explain the difference in those two. They're different than parking at a beach park in Santa Barbara because there's a restaurant.
Madam Chair, members of the board. At Goleta Beach you mentioned the beachside restaurant's been in existence for quite a while. It's run by a concessionaire and at Goleta Beach it generates over $250,000 to the county park system. At Arroyo Burro Beach the boathouse generates over $400,000 so that would be Not a wise move to turn those over to any other agency with those successful operations at both of those. And opportunities for additional concessionaires, been looking at offering services for kayaks through other concessionaires and there's a number of other things to do which all feed into customer service and new opportunities for our visitors but those restaurants provide invaluable funding to our system.
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Thank you Mr. Farram. Supervisor Farr?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well I'm very supportive of all of this particularly appreciated the comments that not just to increase fees but that we are going to be providing more services and more amenities for that and obviously you know as Mr. Farrum said if the fees are found to be too high we obviously want to keep those filled and so we would have to take another look at that but I think that staff did a great job in doing a market rate comparison and we are certainly I'm It's going to provide much-needed revenue to the department. Still doesn't balance our costs, but I feel very strongly that we're going to be able to make the Parks Department revenue neutral in the future and I really do think that we can also eventually make money for the county from the parks.
And it's interesting that you mentioned the two restaurants because I do think in looking at other Possible uses that we could add to the parks Particularly like Kachuma a restaurant has been mentioned and I think that that's really something that we need to pursue there Because it has worked so well at the beaches So again, my thanks to all the staff for their work on this and I would like to move this item
There's a motion and second. I completely agree with what has been said, and I think that I wanted to just get a couple more things because I was so excited when you guys talked to me. One of them was the thought of a water park at Kachuma, and then the second thing was As you know, we have limited the amount of time that you can swim at Kachuma. You could only swim for an hour then you have to get out and go away.
And I thought you were going to change that because man if you want to be in the pool all day. Only an hour? Yeah then you have to get out
Madam Chair, that change was up in Koyama. I believe the hourly is still at Kachuma and that's partially because of the demand especially in the summer a lot of people rotate through they buy their tickets ahead of time and there's just only a limited capacity so we do that hourly so not just the first people there get into pool and no one else can get in then they stay there all day
So can you swim for an hour and then come back for an hour?
Yes, you can if the tickets aren't sold out for the next hour.
That's so sad though when you go to the lake or the pool for the day you want to go for the whole day man!
Well we'll have that water park moving forward and hopefully have a proposal that we can... So could
you talk just a tiny bit about the water
park? You know I'll let Mr. Roney do that. Mr. Roney helped develop the water park at Lake Casitas and so he's been charged with bringing that forward
Madam Chair, Supervisors. On March 24th we're making a presentation to the Parks Commission on a proposed water park at Kachuma Lake Recreation Area and it would be located in the front of the park where there's currently a vacant field and part of that is where the pools are and we would reuse some of those buildings and of course the biggest issue we'd have is a funding issue but we hope to be coming later to your board for funding requests to build that water park because it will generate a positive cash flow again to support department operations And we find that those facilities do generate a positive cash flow, and we're going to be starting with the feasibility study to share that information with the Parks Commission and the Board once we get to that point.
But it would be very exciting to be a local hiring job center for the San Ynez Valley. Probably you'd be hiring 50 to 60 folks for jobs at that facility so it's got a win-win situation but again, we've got to come up with some funding to build it but it will generate a positive cash flow and employ quite a few local folks.
Thank you. Supervisor Farr?
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know when I first came into office, I did a tour of Nahowi Park and Lake Kachuma with the Parks and Recreation Directors of the cities of Solvang and Buellton. We were talking about ways that we can work together. And I think that it's really unfortunate that there have not been more amenities at Lake Kachuma that involved people in the San Ynez Valley and really the county. And so I think now with canoes and kayaks and possibly some of these other things that we're talking about, that we're going to find that it's not only gonna generate more revenue but we're gonna have more of a community facility there that really hasn't been there before.
That it Mister regard we're finished with public comment so for on this item will get to the next item. So we have a motion and a second I
just have one last question okay, I'm miss fair on that on the presentation you're making to the parks Commission 24th regarding parking. Did you take into consideration the whole county as Supervisor Wolf was asking? Madam Chair, Supervisor Leibniz, yes. By any chance taking into account San Luis Obispo County as well because I've been up to Avila and they have free parking but if that gets full then you go into the overflow which is $5 I think for the day.
We'll be actually looking at all the local agencies and what they do and how much they charge, and be wrapping that into the report. Thank you.
Supervisor Carpenter
Hall? You know I'm excited about hearing this water park possibility but I guess I just don't want to put a wet blanket on it. But I want to tell you that...
No pun intended!
I think you really need to give some thought to compatibility. When I go to Lake Kachuma, it's serene, it's beautiful and if I'm going to have 500 kids yelling which I have two kids of my own, it is a two different experiences and not to mention the environmental impacts. If we can find a balance, a timeline and something that Small fits in great, but I caution you on this being a big panacea and looking at the dollar signs.
So I mean there could be something small, you
know?
Anyways, I just want to temper the excitement of dollar signs with all these other important issues to consider. They already said they're
going to put it out by the road and it would be clear away from the old Scrooges that want total quiet.
5:04 – 5:116 turns
And Madam Chair, I don't know Supervisor Carbajal if you're taking your kids up to Lopez Lake But there is one there and it's not raging waters. So don't get too
nervous yet until you hear the proposal. I'm cautiously optimistic that there might be a win-win here
We're just having too much fun up here today.
I have a 10 year old madam chair so I think of how I could fulfill his Development and experiences but not spoiling something that I think we all have come to really appreciate in Lake Kachuma.
And my guess, that park's big enough to take care of your 10-year old and my grandparents. All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Mr. Fay-Rim, you were a brave man. Thank you very much. That was a great report. Let's take about five minutes and give the next report ready at time ten. We'll be back at 20 after.
¶. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Hi. Thank you. Yeah. ¶. Thank you. ¶. ¶. ¶. Music Thank you. Yeah.
5:12 – 5:187 turns
On item number five, Mr. Allen do you want to tell us what that's all about?
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item 5 is from Planning and Development. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding ordinance amendments to allow enforcement of Chapter 9A brush removal in Chapter 44 rights and duties of landlords and tenants through the administrative fine process under Chapter 24A.
Mr. Russell you're up again.
Madam Chair thank you very much today I'd like to introduce the staff that I have with me it's Steve Mason a deputy director of the administration section in my department who was also serving as Interim Deputy Director of Building and Safety while we're looking for a new interim director. Manager Linda Liu from the administration section who helps us out a lot on these code changes, and then Supervising Grading Inspector and Supervisor Jeff Thomas who has a number of responsibilities including the petroleum unit but also the primary responsibility for enforcing this ordinance. And so I welcome them and Linda Liu will make the short presentation.
Thank you Mr. Russell.
Miss Liu. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. We have two ordinance amendments before you today so we're going to walk through... Sorry about that. We're gonna first walk through the proposed changes to the two ordinances and then provide you with staff's recommendation at the end of this presentation. The first amendment before you is to make proposed changes to the brush removal ordinance.
If adopted, the enforcement of this ordinance would be transferred to the Building and Safety Division of Planning and Development. Any appeals would be heard by the Grading Board of Appeals as established under the grading ordinance. And the decisions of the Grading Board of Appeals would be ultimately appealable to the Board of Supervisors. The second amendment before you today is proposed changes to the administrative fine ordinance. If adopted, this would add the brush removal ordinance and Chapter 44 as enforceable chapters through our administrative fine process.
Any violations of the brush removal ordinance would be administered by Planning and Development, and violations of Chapter 44 would be administered by the Housing Community Development Department. Staff's recommendation today is to introduce the two ordinance amendments and then continue the second reading and adoption to the April 5th board hearing. And that concludes staffs presentation, if you have any questions we're more than happy to answer them. Questions from the board?
Supervisor Wolf
Thank you, Chair. I don't have questions. I just have a couple of comments. First of all, I want to thank staff for all their work in getting us to this point. This is simply an amendment and I'm focusing on the brushing ordinance. This is an amendment as was stated to make sure that the brushing ordinance is enforceable and that there is an appeals process.
We have had many issues that have come to my office about the brushing ordinance and folks that have been very concerned about extensive removal of brush in the Goleta planning area, which I might just point out. That's what the brushing ordinance covers is a certain geographical area. And certainly some removal is necessary and especially for defensible space, but was brought to our attention from several constituents were large swaths of removal. Several acres and sometimes that were not adjacent to any and never reviewed by P&D so I know Mr Thomas has gone on site on a number of occasions and I appreciate that And has looked at the issues that are in front of us. And when there was to be an enforcement of this ordinance, it was discovered that there was really no enforcement piece.
And so very simply this is to tie up and clean up this ordinance. Now, that's not to say that this ordinance is perfect because I believe it is not a perfect ordinance and does need to be looked at in the future. And I've talked to Mr. Russell about this, about looking at it as part of the work plan and after we hear from public comment, I would like to take the opportunity on how Thank you.
He and all of us have great concern about. We have the ordinances that relate to fire and the clearing ordinances. This is different though, this is the brushing ordinance and so we really need to keep The two separate. There is no dispute about clearing defensible space around structures. The issue of the brushing ordinance is basically clear-cutting of areas and the enforcement of the ordinance.
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Any other comments from board members? Mr. Allen, do we have any folks that would like to speak on this?
Madam Chair, members of the Board, we have five requests to speak.
Would you like to call those folks?
First we have Andy Caldwell from Santa Maria, followed by Dr. Robert Jones here in Santa Barbara.
Mr. Caldwell? Madam Chair and members of the board, I'm Andy Caldwell representing COLAB. We don't have any problem with the county fining people that are removing brush without a permit as long if it exceeds Allowable amount A and B, whether there's the potential for offsite consequences. But we're a little bit concerned that this didn't go by the AAC as far as I know. I think that they should be involved in this because your original if you look back at your original ordinance there was an appeals board made up of two members of the Farm Bureau And a member of the Resource Conservation District, because these are ag zone lands.
And we kind of wonder well what was wrong with that process? If it's non-ag grading then fine them if it is ag grading well the question is do they do it with respect to best management practices? We do not agree in any way shape or form That we should create as the EDC is lobbying your board, create an environmentally sensitive habitat overlay that includes chaparral.
It is ludicrous to maintain that chaparral actually helps fire regiments when we all know that chaparral burns hotter than gasoline it actually explodes in a fire. And we think that your board should actually come up with the brushing ordinance. It actually encourages people to cut down the brush, not just around their homes because as you know there was a home I think in Montecito where the house didn't burn but everything inside of it melted because of the heat of the fire. So the point is is we actually need more brushing not less. We need mosaic clearing in these regions not less And we would certainly hope your board would recognize that. I'm up here in Beda, Arabia looking at a fire map hanging on the wall of the room here that shows half the counties burned in the last decade or so.
So we need more not less. We already have too many protections. As you well know during one of the last fires, the Forest Service couldn't bring in a bulldozer because there was a prohibition against mechanized clearing. People's lives are at stake Their property is at stake, our health and well-being is at stake. And in reality the chaparral offers little habitat foraging value to most wildlife. We just again think we need more not less but yes it should be done in an engineering a good engineering sense that minimizes off site consequences erosion and things like that I'd like to know why this didn't go to the AAC, especially in view of the fact they want to remove the Farm Bureau and the RCD from the appeals board. Thank you.
Thanks Mr. Caldwell.
Next speaker is Dr. Johns followed by Brian Troutwine here in Santa Barbara.
Well, I need to get my two cents in here. And Andy Caldwell, I couldn't agree with you. I'm trying to say that I agree with you very much But this is what I want to say. There can be no environmental issue here where we're going to be saying that there are some types of bush or brush and we've got to kind of look at it and save, or they are. How do they refer to it? Sustainable. That's a bunch of you-know-what. I won't say that word. I'll say poppycock. But we need to clear every inch of brush because Some of the reasons that Andy talked about, the fire obviously. Every inch of brush has to be cleared and there can no ever be any environmental issues here.
I don't care if you think it's beautiful or whatever, you know? If it's out west and we're here in the West and we're supposed to save some type of plant or bush or something get out of here would ya? That's all I gotta say.
Thank you doctor
Next speaker, Mr. Troutwine followed by Mark McGinnis here in Santa Barbara.
Thank you very much and good afternoon Madam Chair and Board Members I'm Brian Troutwine with the Environmental Defense Center. Shaft wall removal and clear-cutting projects have increased dramatically in the last year or so here in Santa Barbara County especially the South Coast and of course we strongly support and encourage defensible spaces around homes but the clearings were looking at now that are occurring are far removed from any homes The brushing ordinance is currently unenforceable.
Notice of violation was issued, county can't do anything so first we urge you to take action to make this ordinance enforceable and second we ask for additional direction to come back with further amendments designed to balance community interests and protect watersheds. This is a high priority planning project for the county because the county currently lacks any tool to manage this emerging and growing environmental problem The clear cutting really began in earnest last year and probably hundreds of acres have been removed.
The rate of removal is definitely increasing. And the county is not reviewing any of these projects. When Chaparral is removed, flammable exotic weeds come in, thistles in particular and these annuals die out each year and are more ignitable than Chaparral and oftentimes will be the source of ignition that then starts a Chaparral fire so this type of activity in some cases designed to reduce fire hazard can actually increase fire hazard and that's being documented by science and observation we're already seeing the thistles move in here into areas that were cleared Chaparral's deep roots help reduce erosion and landslides, but when it's removed the creeks get fouled and the creeks are choked. And we're already beginning to see this flooding can increase flood control services are needed groundwater recharge is reduced when you remove the brush and you have less water for people and for wildlife There are 40 special status species that occur in the Chaparral here.
Some are found nowhere else on earth, but despite these impacts the county has no way to deal with this issue. The amendments before you will make the brushing ordinance enforceable, but beyond that, the county will still lack the tools needed to mitigate all of these environmental impacts that I've just mentioned. Because brushing permits will still not be subject to CEQA. So in order to manage this growing environmental problem, we would like the board to direct staff to work with stakeholders to come back with additional changes to just ensure that impacts like from any project can be mitigated through the normal process. We support the rights and responsibilities of landowners to clear defensible spaces We support fireproofing homes, which is a great option.
And we support all this work in the wildland-urban interface. We're not talking about those issues. We support fire safety. We're concerned with these large scale chaparral clearcutting projects that are having significant environmental impacts that are not being mitigated or even reviewed by the county. So we'd like to work with stakeholders to amend the brushing ordinance further beyond the amendments proposed today. And while the current amendments are great and will make this ordinance enforceable, they're needed, the county will still lack the ability to mitigate any of these environmental impacts unless the brushing ordinance is further amended so that permits are discretionary.
Thank you Mr. Trotwein and who's next? Mark McGinnis to be followed by Julie Kummel here in Santa Barbara
5:26 – 5:367 turns
I'm a resident of Painted Cave. I've almost been burned out three times, been there for 28 years and appreciate the value, the necessity to make sure that your place is fire safe. So as staff has said this isn't about clearing around residences. This is about clearing in areas where there is very valuable habitat Remember when, when we used to think about swamps and there was nothing going on in the swamp. You just fill it up, you know?
What good was a swamp? We now know our ignorance has been dissipated and we realize that swamps are wetlands and how important they are. Believe it or not doctor, chaparral environments are very important. Nothing on the face of the earth that has evolved and exists is unimportant. Can we grant that? Can we grant that what's there in life is important? You can come at it from a religious point and say, well, it's God's creation or you can come by it in an ecological and religious whatever you come at it. It's important.
What we're asking, I second what Mr. Troutwine said. I support the staff in going to this point and I support Mr. Troutwine's hope that we can move beyond this to handle impacts on the chaparral environment as we do other environmental impacts. Two of my neighbors are conservation biologists. They live in Painted Cave and I've been learning from them And what I'm learning is that if you're not careful, when you do this clearing, you'll create the grasses and the thistles and the other kinds of plants that really carry fire quickly.
Chaparral itself can be very explosive in its characteristics when it's heated so it needs to be cleared from Areas around structures, but willy-nilly no. No it's simply too important. It has beneficial effects on watershed, on the preservation of species and the like so good going staff please go further thank you. Thanks Mr. McGinnis. Mr. Allen?
Our final speaker is Julie Como
Thank you for opportunity to speak. I'm a property owner and 30 year plus resident of East Camino Cielo. I've seen a lot of changes, I've seen a lot of things happen during the time that I've lived up there with my husband. I am going to just talk about one Uh, effect that I've seen over the years and I'm very concerned about with the indiscriminate removal of chaparral.
And I do want to go on record saying, um, the idea that more chaparral in addition to what people need to clear around their homes, which is very necessary, but to remove chaparral indiscriminately just because you think it's a fire danger is ludicrous. There are a lot of very good, there's a lot of very good science that supports this But what I want to say is that I have seen just around my area on East Camino Cielo, very large removal of native plants in the hopes of keeping the fire risk down clearance on East Camino Cielo Road. Native plants along the road have been pretty much taken away. The road has been cleared and what has come back Our non-native grasses, there are three species that we have a particular problem with up there. The annual brome grass which blooms and dies and is dry in the summer and creates a large what's called a monoculture big stands.
The annual thistle Italian thistle which does the same thing along the roadsides and in forests and chaparral areas that have been cleared And of course the yellow star thistle, which I think the County is aware is a terrible problem in the whole state of California. In which we do want to prevent from spreading into more areas. All of these species and there are more but I'm just going to focus on these three present quite an increased fire danger. And it has been said if these are growing in the areas of the chaparral and in the forest The fire danger, the ignition danger is much increased in the summer. If you throw a match out or cigarette out on East Camino Siela Road if there are native plants like mugwort or sages growing along the side of the road very unlikely that they're going to ignite but if that match or cigarette gets into a stand of dry grass you've got problems it's much more likely that will happen.
That's the problem The other thing I just want to mention is that this clearing going on in large areas in the Chaparral, a lot of it is being done with the masticator which is a machine that's very good during a fire. Clears brush away very quickly. However, it also considerably disturbs the soil and when the soil is disturbed, the weeds come quickly. And that's a big problem as well. So if we want to see hillsides of weeds, hillsides of dry grass that are going to increase our fire danger. Thank you. Okay thank you.
Chief Dyer would you like to comment on any of this? It'd be interesting to hear what you have to say. So then Mr. Russell kicks you in the foot right? What are friends for?
Madam Chair, members of the Board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. FIRE is in support of the ordinance change to make it more enforceable. FIRE is concerned about the future of the ordinance We believe that you have defensible space. It starts with the home and then it goes out further from there, it goes out with defensible space around the home ready set go get ready, get set, get going.
And then further out from the home, it's about road clearance. It's about fuel breaks, fuel reduction and so it has to be strategic. There is a balance but there needs to be a strategy kind of like a community wildfire protection plan, where that kind of plan will identify fuel reduction projects in various communities. My 30 years of experience tells me that light grasses don't carry as many BTUs, British Thermal Units, heat as chaparral does. It's more difficult for us to put out a fire driven by heavy fuels than it is with light fuels.
So we noticed that when we have a large fire and we have these fuel breaks, these fuel reduction projects that have been done in prior years. That's quite often where we can make a stop. So it's important to find a balance. And we're concerned about the future of the ordinance. We have to, fire needs to have a big part in the future of the ordinance and fires should have final say over any exceptions but fire needs to be brought in early on people can't clear indiscriminately like it's previously been mentioned but there needs to be a strategy because as you all know this hillside up here has a lot left to burn. We had that you know we're approaching the two-year anniversary of the Hesed Cedar Fire on May 5th And we had the La Brea fire on the other side of the hill, and we're going to have more fires this year.
We had a good rain season. We got a lot of grass. So it's coming and we need to plan and we need to be strategic about our fuel reduction. Any questions?
Yes, Supervisor Carbone.
Thank you. Chief Guy don't go away. There's three points that come to mind and there is a nexus in a symbiotic relationship with all of them so I'm going to throw them all out and I'll let you and Z.O. Waller make sense of all three points. One is, we do have community wildland protective community plans coming forward. Mission Canyon is way ahead of the game and I know that there's others that are going to be included as part of the discussion.
So how does this fit into that? Is one. Two, for this to even have any legs and taking it to another level with a $70 million price tag what does that look like for the future? What kind of costs are we talking about whether it's part of that process or another process. And of course stakeholders would be included whenever that is whether it's a year from now two years from now whenever there's money unless there's money now or staffing available to do this I'd like to know that too But when I talk about study callers, I'm talking about EDC, fire departments, communities like the Mission Canyon Association and other communities, Fire Safe Council, US Forest Service.
I know my office convened a meeting a few years ago with a number of folks from the environmental community and from some of the wildland urban and non-urban fire areas. I couldn't get them to agree on anything This is going to be one of the most challenging, but important pieces of work to do. When we do it is one question based on resources and when we do do it has to be done right.
And so this is going on over here today we just have this vote here if there's ever a future to reconsider this process where would that be and how would it be and how much would it cost?
5:36 – 5:4523 turns
Just coincidentally, we have that item on our planned agenda I believe for the next time we meet. Is that not correct Mr. Russell? Mr. Dyer? I
think it's the 19th.
And we'll be back to you very quickly as I said just a few weeks on the 19th of April it sounds like what our plans were
And as we're planning the agenda it was very important to Supervisor Wolf that we get this going because of the enforceability. Am I correct with
that? That's correct and I just want to just Kind of simplify this issue for today, and that is that this ordinance has been in effect. We have seen some violations of this ordinance, some very large violations of this ordinance, and when staff tried to enforce it there was no way to enforce it as the ordinance is written. So, simply today what we're doing and what staff is recommending is to make sure that there's an enforceability piece. Now the next step is to look more closely at this ordinance and to see if there are opportunities to tighten it up. You know within the ordinance there are exceptions. One has to do with fire burns.
controlled burns. I mean there are exceptions, but what we need to do and what the community is saying is that even the amount of acreage that can be destroyed per this ordinance may be too big. That's a discussion that we need to have. That's another discussion. So you know we talk about fires on one hand But you know, I see Mr. Fry in the audience there is a big issue as it relates to flooding and ensuring that the environmental integrity of these watersheds are intact. And so that's the other That's the other piece. There is the environmental piece, there is a safety piece, there is a fire piece, all of those things and that's what we will have to do in bringing the stakeholders together to come up with an ordinance that's a little bit tighter that can really protect not just the environment but also the folks who live downstream and the watersheds.
Chief did you have something else? He just wanted to sit down. Good idea. Supervisor Farr?
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know I guess I would leave it up to staff to bring something to us as part of the budget or something that's going to look at their long-range work plan as far as when this might come forward and when they have the staffing for that and of course a lot of it will depend on what our budget constraints are but I did want to mention that I think the concern is, is that I'm going to be looking for something from the fire department that has something pretty definitive as to what the needs of fire are so that we don't have cases where people are clearing land ostensibly for fire when it really isn't for fire. They're doing it for other reasons And I think particularly what I'm looking at are cases where people may be thinking about building something in that location in the future.
And what they're doing is under the guise of fire protection, they're clearing the land a couple years early to come in with an application for development later so that they can reduce the environmental baseline for that. And I think that's a bit of a catch that we have now, so there are a couple different sides to this issue that if we're going to be moving forward with it, I hope we can address.
Thank you Supervisor. Supervisor Lovanino?
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to agree with Supervisor Farr that I'm going to defer to fire on something like this. I think public safety is the overriding concern on something like this and as long as it's got your blessing it's okay with me. I am concerned though about talking about when we talk about bringing it back which is fine also but let's make sure that all the stakeholders are involved including the Ag Advisory Council.
Sounds good. Do we need some kind of motion?
I'll make a motion that we approve staff's recommendation as noted in the staff report and bring this back for consideration and review, including all stakeholders that might include permit triggers The issue of contiguous parcels parcel size making sure that the fire chief is on board. And exemptions possible exemptions from P and D.
And there was a second by Supervisor Farr.
Madam Chair I'm sorry to interrupt but
oh I'm sorry
this is technically a first reading of an ordinance. I think the motion was to approve the first reading move it to the second reading and then direction to staff
Yes. That's exactly what I said. Is
that your second?
Yes, this is the first reading we'll bring it to the second reading and then the other part of my motion was to bring it back to look at it as part of the work plan.
Okay. I'm supportive of the matter before us and I'm also supportive considering in the future what we will do stakeholder how much it will cost and all that stuff but We're not embarking on that work now. It'll just come back to us with some kind of scoping of what that could be, when it could be funded, right?
Yes.
Okay.
I just want it to be part of the proposed work plan and then we can look at how... The context of it. The context of it, thank you.
Okay ready to vote all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, I believe that brings the end and we do have some folks that we want to recognize as we adjourn this meeting. I think one of the things that hasn't been said yet that we probably want to adjourn in honor of the folks in Japan that have suffered through this horrible tragedy And just recognize that what an upset that had to be. Also, recognizing the first or the last veteran of the First World War who has now passed.
And then as far as the Santa Maria area is concerned we just lost Edwin Bobb Newhall Woods graduate of Stanford he worked as a cowboy on the Sway Ranch after graduation from college He then supervised, and this is so interesting, the development of crops from beans, grains, sugar beet, lemons, avocados. And was one of the very first wine grapes to go in North County. He was a founding member of the Henry Newhall Foundation serving on the Board of Directors for 45 years and he also created a tremendous foundation in Santa Maria. And Bob Woods was just a really big part of our community, a renaissance cowboy. And then we recognized Darwin Saenz who was a former planning commissioner. Darwin worked for Union Oil.
He basically studied and researched the many stories in history of the oil industry in Santa Maria. He was the fifth district planning commissioner – I can't even believe this – from 75 to 82. That's a long, long time! And he and his wife Jeanette were active and protectors of the tiger salamander. In fact, Jeanette discovered the tiger salamander so she is near and dear to some hearts and not so near and dear to others.
We will definitely miss Darwin it just seems impossible that such a pioneer of our valley has left us. So with that we're ready to adjourn. See everybody in two weeks. Is that right? Three weeks. All right see you in three weeks. Thank you.
5:46 – 5:461 turns
You.