BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

We're going to reconvene to regular session and a special welcome back to Dr. Johns who said he's feeling way better, and that is a really good thing to be feeling better. I was telling you know the one good thing about feeling bad Dr. Johns is when you feel better you feel good so you know the difference in bad and good. So I'm glad you're feeling better and I believe we need a roll call

Ms. Wolfe, Ms. Farr, Mr. Lavagnino, Mr Carbajal, Ms. Gray.

Thank you. Report from closed session.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Each of your noticed items was completed in closed session. One item to report out in the matter Maria Aguinega, Fee County of Santa Barbara. A two plaintiffs seeking damages from a car accident. Your board authorized final settlement of all claims in the amount of $129,000. The vote was unanimous. Thank you Madam Chair.

Thank You Mr. Counsel. Approval of the minutes of June 7th. Is there a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? We're ready now to go to the administrative agenda and Dr. Johns has asked for which numbers?

Madam Chair, Dr. Johns would like to speak on items A7, A8, A9, A10 and A18.

Okay, Supervisor Carpenter-Hall would like to speak on A18 or ask a question whatever.

Madam Chair? Madam Chair, I'd like to pull A12, A17 and A20.

12, 17 and 20. Anybody else? Okay.

Madam Chair we just got a late slip. A30 for me.

30 for Supervisor Lavinino. A33. 33 Supervisor Wolff.

And we also have a slip from Jeffrey Bard for item A39 and A40.

Okay, 30. What was that again?

Items A39 and A40.

Okay let's go this way today. Let's go ahead and start with what the supervisors would like to pull. And if by chance...and we'll cover those and then or maybe I'm thinking Maybe we should do public first and then supervisors. Let's do that. So Dr. Johns, you're going to be first because you've got 7, 8, 9, 10 and 18. And Mr. Allen is going to read those into the record while you're coming down and will have five minutes on that.

Oh

he's gonna come down.

Madam Chair, members of the board. Item A7, 8, 9 and 10 are all from Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services. Item A7 is to consider recommendations regarding fiscal year 11-12 agreements for alcohol and drug program services for the period of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012 A8 is to consider recommendations regarding agreements for children's mental health services for July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012. Item A9 is to consider recommendations regarding agreements for adult mental health services for the period of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012. Item A10 is to consider recommendations regarding agreements for adult institutions for mental disease for the period of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012 And finally for Dr. Jones, item A18 is from planning and development to request that the board receive and file a report on low-to-no cost incentives to encourage landmarking of historic structures.

Dr. Jones?

Yes Madam Chair I may be feeling better but I have all the same old issues that I'd like to kind of run by this particular board and I want to remind them that I am the person who was discriminated against By this alcohol, drug and mental health department. So I have a bias here, strong bias and I will not stop attacking this department because I see why. And as you dole out millions of dollars to different services, mental health systems, children's services I'm wondering these different contracts, Santa Maria Valley Youth and Family Services.

And I've never been an employee of the Of the alcohol, drug and mental health. And I'm wondering do they do? What do they do if all these contracts are being being melted out every year 340,000 391,000 in 89? I mean what do they actually do then at that department now we know that they've had 50 homeless deaths In the years gone by, and I'm seriously wondering why all these contracts. Are there anyone in that department that does any services whatsoever?

And of course that's a rhetorical question. I would never get an answer to that question. But I want to remind you that five years ago, almost six years ago when I applied for this position and was discriminated against. And I'm going to tell you something, I'm a well-qualified clinical psychologist When I was discriminated against, I didn't know at the time that California, the State of California was called this department. The worst department in California. The Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Department. That's a good reputation for you to, you know, carbohol. This is the worst department in California.

And at that particular time This county from their general fund gave $16 million to that department to prop it up. And that's one of the reasons why we had so much of a budget problem and I've made recommendations, of course they will go unheeded. We need to cut this alcohol drug and mental health department out of the county get rid of it. And I said that you need to Cottage Hospital and draw up a contract because they're the only legitimate and qualified and certified hospital in this county. And why this Board of Supervisors have not went to Cottage Hospital, I believe so much corruption has gone down that Cottage Hospital will, you're tainted so much corruption.

Cottage Hospital probably wouldn't take you. Now, I've heard in the past that you have attempted to make some negotiations with County Hospitals. I don't know what's really going on but that needs to be looked into. We've had too many deaths, we had too many children who go to services for the alcohol drug and don't get served, too many poor people. Now I know one thing and I'm a veteran, veterans Veterans Administration has worked out a deal whereby any veteran can walk into Cottage Hospital and get services.

And then they're referred out to West LA.

Dr., just a gentle reminder that you want to talk about 18 also.

Yes, thank you. Let me just move to 18 very quickly because this is an issue that I have. The planning department refuses in their landmarking historical when there's a historical structure comes up to be diggings and they refer to that as we have a tribe here called the Chumas Indians And this planning and development refuses to refer to any historical structure that has diggings and markings of Chumash, they refuse to refer to it as Chumash.

There's a historical bias here. I want to tell you something. If that were black historical diggings, I'd turn that over in a second. You would not You would refer to those diggings as African-American black.

Thank you, Doctor.

Thank you very

much. And now were there any other public?

Yes, we have. Next speaker is going to be Jeffrey Bard and he has requests to speak on item A39 and A40.

39 and 40 did you say?

Yes.

Okay. And

I can read those into the record. Item A39 is from the County Executive Office. It's a set of hearing for August 2nd to consider recommendations regarding the community or the recommended community wildfire protection plan. And item A40 also from the county executive office is to hand a set of hearing for August 2nd to consider recommendations regarding the Mission Canyon Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

Thank you. We'll ask you to speak on both of them.

Yes, ma'am. Good morning Madam Chair and members of the board. I'd like to thank you for supporting the community wildfire protection plan and I would urge you to use your powers of persuasion which are formidable to encourage constituent involvement I have attended a number of wildfire and disaster planning events which were under-attended. Chief Dyer came out, I believe to the Wake Center with one of the lieutenants from the Sheriff's Department. There were some people but maybe 15 but there are about 15 people from Red Cross Fire Department and Sheriff's Department staff So I thought maybe the ratio could be improved.

And I attended a disaster planning meeting with a nationally known citizen disaster planning activist at the Carrillo Street Firehouse, and it was on a sunny Friday afternoon with the beach only a few blocks away and so forth that was also dramatically under-attended. But I noticed that this room was packed When the Mission Canyon got a little remodeling after the fire at the Botanical Gardens, and I think they wanted 12 little fundraisers annually.

And you just would have thought somebody was trying to put a Hells Angels You know, regional clubhouse in Mission Canyon Road. Just people just came in here with such a negative bias they actually described the botanical gardens as a public nuisance and that they described it as an attractive nuisance And I don't like to throw around the term NIMBY, not in my backyard. It's kind of an overused expression but I can't think of another way to characterize it. So I would urge the board to challenge your constituents if everybody wants to get out and throw vegetables and put the really very highly qualified staff of the botanical gardens in the village square and pelt them with vegetables, it was rather unseemly in my opinion.

Just the sheer momentum of the negativity that sometimes develops in public forums is a peculiar phenomenon and it's not helpful to policy makers because you are accountable to your constituents and when kind of negative attitudes develop, you know, you have to reckon and account for it But really when you talk to your staff and professional staff, you get this passionate calm rational analysis. You realize a lot of times I don't want to say mob mentality, but just the sheer momentum that develops on negative policy proposals is an ongoing problem throughout history and it's with us on a daily basis. So I would hope that you will challenge your constituents to take the same level of interest in wildfire protection planning that they take in things like squashing noteworthy projects like the botanical gardens And if they're concerned about what's going on in their backyard, they should be.

It's healthy. Well let's get out there and listen to what Chief Dyer has to say because he's very knowledgeable and he's pointed out the Australian experience has demonstrated quite clearly that staying defendant will get people killed. And there's still people out there that want to stay and defend. There are still people out there that have those little muzzle-loading gizmos in their garage, and we don't want a tragic situation. We don't want explosions. We don't want our fire personnel not have properly posted notification.

Similarly... Well, let's just leave it to the planning process Hopefully there will be better support going forward for disaster planning and in all phases. And if I may, regarding the other Item that's quite related is the tobacco control in the parks. It's very important, and there's a lot of naive people that come from L.A., not to pick on L. A., or San Francisco, and they think oh how nice out in the woods let's have smoke. No we don't smoke in our parks. I'm sorry. That's a different agenda item. You know I think you're kind

of wandering a

bit so thank you. Well it's related to fire but I

didn't write the

number.

Thank you for your comments.

No smoking in the

park. Mr. Carbajal since we already pulled 18 do you want to give us your thoughts on that?

Yes, without objection I'd like to ask my colleagues and staff to bring A18 back as a departmental hearing. This is a very important item that deals with incentives to encourage landmarking of historic structures and I think we really need to look at this to see if we might be interested in pursuing short-term or long-term incentives for encouraging folks to pursue land marking in our communities.

I also would appreciate it if the report could come back in a little bit more of a priority order, not just here's everything but rather here are some low-hanging fruit, here are some things that don't cost money, here are some things that are intermediate and what have you. But the reason I think it's important is that this report was a really good report But to not engage in that discussion, I think doesn't do a service to our community and the Historic Landmarks Commission who worked diligently with our staff. So I would appreciate it if this could come back, not necessarily in a week, it could even be two or three weeks, but it come back right and it come back so we can discuss

it. That's no problem. So Supervisor, why don't the both of you if you have an opportunity just check with planning and make your suggestions because obviously you're saying something that I don't understand and maybe they don't.

Madam Chair, since I have learned more and more about making motions to the extent that I can if it's appropriate I'd like to make a motion that this item come back as a departmental item And with a little bit more sense of priorities.

And you'll drop by planning and say, these are the things I'd like to see happen?

Yes.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Oh we need a date. Mr. Allen do you want us to do a

date? I think as long as it comes back in the very near future.

Okay come back.

Motion has been made.

Is there a second? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you Supervisor. Supervisor Farr asked for 12, 17 and 20. Lavinino asked for 30 and Wolfe has asked for 33 so let's go to 12.

Madam Chair, members of the board item 12 is from the County Executive Office the request that the Board approve budget revision requests

Supervisor Farr. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know we obviously have a lot of budget revisions here but the department that I wanted to point out specifically was ADMHS. I see Dr. Dietrich here And this kind of goes back to our budget discussions, and one of the restorations that unfortunately we weren't able to make but is I think very important for the community and what we were able to do last year was $300,000 for CARES and the medication.

I just wanted to point out a couple of transfers in

particular. Give us the number of the transfers so we all know where

you are. Okay, I'm going to work from the back forward 1535, 1446 and particularly 1158 which is on the first page. There's a lot of money being moved around in various ways and I just wanted to express that I am still very concerned about finding To support that, I think that is really important because it's very cost effective. And if we aren't able to take care of people in that way then they are going to end up in the jail and they're still going to be costing us a lot of money and they're not going to be treated in the way that they need to be treated. So I would just charge Dr. Dietrich and the department when they are making all these transfers or they have this large unanticipated revenue, if there is a way that we can start to address this problem, even one part-time psychiatrist.

I think there were two that got cut and find the money to provide some of that care that looks like it's going to be lost for the CARES program. And that's my comment for A12. Did you want me to go ahead to A17 now? Yes. On A-17, I would just like to continue this item to the 5th. I have not had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Roney about this and I have a number of questions which I think can be resolved but I think that there's some more information than we need that we don't have here at this time so if the board is in agreement I'd like to continue this to July 5th

Is there a time problem here?

It could still come back on admin

Madam Chair, Supervisor Farr, the current agreement expires on June 30th. This takes effect on July 1st. We could seek a temporary extension but we were hoping for approval.

Well, I'm sorry you waited to the last minute. You didn't talk to my office ahead of time because this is talking about going from the homeowners group to a private non-profit. It doesn't give us the audited statements. It doesn't give us the amounts. There's a lot of information I think that's missing here.

Chairwoman, Supervisor, I think it's very reasonable to bring it back at our July meeting and in the interim if you can talk with the folks that are subject to the current agreement and see if they wouldn't informally be willing to continue those efforts until we can get back.

We'll take care of that.

A motion to continue to the fifth? Seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. And Supervisor Farr did say that could go on the administrative agenda

And the

next

and then my last one is a 20 and I just had a question for planning and development. I know that the situation with this property, I think it's absolutely appropriate at the APAC and P&D would bring this forward for non-renewal. I guess I don't know enough about the Williamson Act though to understand why When it's this kind of a situation, we have to wait the whole 10 years for it to expire. I can understand if the contract holder wants to get out of it but in a case where they are non-compliant why they would be able to continue to get the property tax benefit once the APAC says that they're not following the rules?

Maybe the Ag Commissioner can talk about that too, I don't know. Dr. Russell?

Madam Chair, Supervisor Farr. I'm not sure I have all the answers to your questions. The APAC chose to wind it down through the normal cancellation process and you're correct that the tax benefits remain and diminish over a 10-year period. Why they chose not to take a more drastic measure such as cancellation I really can't speak to that, I'm not sure what their authority would be. We can certainly look into that and bring that information back to you or perhaps you might want to contact the Ag Commissioner's office directly because our role is somewhat peripheral in that regard.

Okay. But the APAC would have the power to speed up a cancellation process if they thought it was appropriate?

I'm afraid that I would give you incomplete or incorrect answers, so I really would need to look into that. So we're asking

the wrong person here.

That's

possibly so. Well, I do think this is a really important issue considering, you know, the importance of the Williamson Act to this county. So I think just from an informational standpoint it would be good if the Board had that information. I certainly would like

You know, we could put this to the foot of the calendar and ask an attorney that handles this to come back at the end of the meeting and cover that. Would that be okay with you? Yes, that would

be wonderful. Thank you.

All right, let's just put this to the foot of the calendar. And Dennis if you'll arrange to have your ag person or the Williamson Act person come in and report on that. Any other... Supervisor Wolf had one. I'm sorry, Supervisor. You

were 30 for Lavinino and

33 for Wolfe.

Madam Chair, Item 830 for Public Works is to consider recommendations regarding construction of the Proxen Canyon Road and San Antonio Mesa Road intersection realignment project. This is in the 5th District.

Thank you

Madam Chair. I just wanted to publicly thank our Public Works Department. Once again a great job Scott and Daisy Du. This is probably, I would have to say probably one of the most dangerous rural intersections or was prior to the fix. I don't know who designed this back in the day but it must've been either a tow truck operator or an ambulance or a lawyer but I really appreciate that the work that was done- It

was funny until you got to the lawyer part. Yeah

sorry about that. But just a magnificent job. I drove out there and it has really changed the whole flow of how things work out there so...

I'd have to drive out there and check that out because it was crazy, wasn't it? Oh man. You had to have a map to figure out the intersection. So it's done. All right. That's 33 for Supervisor Wolf.

Item 33, some social services. The request that the Board of Proven Authors and the Chair to execute an agreement with the Family Care Network to provide an independent living program for Child Welfare Services probation youth for July 1-11 through June 30, 2012 at a cost not to exceed $192,000. Supervisor?

Thank you. I'm just bringing this contract up for review. I sit on the Foster Care Advisory Committee and the issue of independent living programs for foster youth has been discussed in detail, and I think we're extremely fortunate to have Ms. Gallagher who oversees this program, Ms. Gallagher is in the audience. She has mentioned that this particular program is now going to be executed by the Family Care Network and so I had an opportunity to review the contract in detail it's probably one of the more detailed Contracts that I've seen and I think many of the stakeholders that have had issues maybe in the past about what will be done in this program.

The answers are here there's a lot of monitoring that your department will do. I think whenever we do these contracts with outside providers, it's important to have that component and I think it's really well defined in this contract. The one thing that I did not see in this contract Ms. Gallagher I brought this up when we were doing the mental health contract with the Sheriff's Department for the jail. And that has to do with a level of education that these folks are going to be providing, and I didn't see it in the contract. Are they social workers? Are they licensed social workers?

Are they required to have a BA degree? What are the educational requirements?

What number on the contract would that

go under? It's number 33 and it's just, it's not listed. It's not noted so I'm just asking for information purposes because there is so much that's in here. So if you could

Ms. Gallagher Thank You Supervisor Wolfe through the chair yeah the independent living contract is one that we are Spending, I would have to say a great deal of staff time in trying to ensure that the youth have very detailed and robust curriculum. And the staff that the Family Care Network will be utilizing will have at least an associate degree with years of experience in working with kids in this type of program. These are not inexperienced people, in fact I think I'm not positive and Deputy Director Nara can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe most of these folks do have BA degrees that will be working with the staff but we do ensure that they have experience some years of experience in working with the youth The program has been with Community Action Commission in the past.

They've done an absolutely fabulous job, but through our RFP process it's transitioning to a new vendor who we also have a great deal of experience with so we have great faith and where the program is headed

All right, well I have great faith in you and your department in pulling this together. You know another question there's a allocation for rental space and yet they're serving three distinct populations Santa Barbara, Lompoc and Santa Maria is there one office but the case workers go out and meet with the kids in these different locations how does that work?

I know that, Supervisor Wolf through the Chair, that Family Care Network has an office in Santa Maria and we do ask for countywide services. We expect countywide services. I'm not sure exactly what that rental is for.

Madam Chair, Supervisor Wolf, they will be stationing a coordinator in each of the regions in Lompoc and in Santa Barbara. The part of the rent is we have several contracts with them I'm just wondering if you could share with us.

An adjudication of a case before the California Supreme Court or one of the circuit courts dealing with foster care and foster services and the adequacy of those foster services. And the level service or compensation that needed to be provided, and I didn't see during our budget deliberations that impact in any way shape or form. And I know it's my understanding that it's going to affect us by about 500,000 And I'm just wondering if you could briefly touch on that, and obviously later on come to the board.

Absolutely. Supervisor Carbajal through the chair. This was a lawsuit filed, class action lawsuit in the state by foster parents, foster home parents protesting the lack of increases over, I think, a period of eight years in their monthly rates. So whenever a child is placed in a foster home there is a monthly rate set according to their age. These rates are typically adjusted annually they have not been adjusted for many years the Foster parents filed a lawsuit against the state of California. They prevailed. That ruling just came down last week during budget hearings, the final ruling. We knew that it was being adjudicated. The final ruling came last week and we did provide CEO Waller and her staff with the estimate which is around $500,000 local funds that would be required annually to pay these increased rates.

The suit really did not address level of care, so the level of care will remain as is. It really was just addressing the rates, the monthly rates that are being paid. Thank

you. That I believe concludes our requests. One more?

No, Madam Chair. I just wanted to note that we did publish an addendum on Friday which added item 842 to the agenda. It was from the County Executive Office. This is a set hearing for your meeting on July 5th to consider potential conditional withdrawal of the county's protest California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control regarding the application for a premises-to-premises transfer of the existing license to sell alcoholic beverages at the Chumash Casino Hotel and Resort held by the San Dines Band of the Chumesh Indians.

moment.

I was going to put this at the foot of the calendar but would it be okay if we went ahead with your questions about the Williamson Act? Mr. Marshall?

Mr. Ledbetter, I think, can respond to the questions that have been raised about this action.

Mr. Ledbetter, did you get the question okay? Yes, I

did.

Okay. Thank you.

As to Mr. Switzer's property, non-renewal is the most usual course of action. It doesn't preclude any other course of action that we might take. Our other remedy requires litigation and it would be to stop the nonagricultural activities that have caused the non-renewal to be filed and recommended The tax benefits enjoyed are very minimal because the non-agricultural improvements on the property are taxed at full value. I tried to contact the assessor's office to get the exact amount for you, but I was unable to do that.

Supervisor Farr? Thank you Madam Chair. Also my question was does the APAC have the ability or does the county have the ability to shorten that non-renewal period? Or does it always, whether we initiate it or the property owner initiates it, it's always the 10 years.

It's always the 10 years. It is statutory provided for in the government code and I forgot to point out that if you do decide to take some further action in the future this action of non-renewal would not preclude any further action.

Okay but as far as the non-renewal there's no way to speed that up even when they're They don't, they're not meeting their requirements. That's correct. Okay. Thank you and thank you for being here.

And thanks for that question because that was new to me also. Um okay uh we've approved the agenda

so we would that item was trailed so we probably would need a motion to take action on Item 820.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay now If there's anyone here, you're just here to hear the board member reports. Would you raise your hand? Okay they aren't so you know somebody should have raised their hand. So we'll go ahead and put those at the end of the calendar and we'll move to public comment. So Mr. Allen do we have any public comment?

Madam Chair, members of the Board we have three requests to speak. We'll start with Jeffrey Bard here in Santa Barbara to be followed by Dr. Robert Johns.

And then we go to Santa Maria? No, nobody in Santa Maria. Mr. Caldwell.

Good

morning Madam Chair and members of the Board. I would urge you to urge the Legislative Policy Committee of this board, or of the county, to place heightened scrutiny of any legislation affecting electricity generation, Diablo Canyon Power Plant and the Public Utilities Commission activities. There is, I believe July 7th PUC meeting that will be quite pivotal.

I would like to suggest that maybe our lobbyists who are a very capable couple of people that we're fortunate to have although there is an expense associated they could get on some analysis of whether or not we are incurring expenditures for disaster planning or should Incur expenditures for disaster planning as a result of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, but are not participating in property tax revenue. Now we do have a lot of folks in Santa Maria and elsewhere particularly North County who are employed at PG&E and at the various subcontractors at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant And we're grateful to have the employment, and we want to keep the employment. And as a Labor Democrat I've many times emphasized, I think that nuclear power, as per President Obama's recommendations, and our very capable Steve Chu, Department of Energy, I think yes, we're going to continue to have nuclear power in Diablo Canyon probably unless these 3D seismic studies come up with some surprises.

So keep an open mind, but I think if there are some concerns and questions amongst your constituents you might even want to talk to Dr. Wada about whether or not we have inadequate at least baseline epidemiological study I was in contact with Lois Chaps regarding baseline epidemiological studies after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico pertaining to oil. And that wasn't the only one that probably encouraged that, but I was part of the pressure and Lois did introduce legislation getting baseline epidemiological studies enabled through the CDC and to look at also funding mechanisms for county public health departments. We need to have baseline epidemiological study Because if we do have some oncology incident developments, if we have differential incidences of oncological pathogenesis, we need to know about it.

And not to be alarmist at all, as you know I'm an anti-cigarette, anti-smoking, anti-tobacco fanatic. I almost get carried away. I think cancer is a serious thing. I'd like to apologize if anyone in the audience was offended by my remarks, pooh-poohing the possibility of cancer cause. I apologize for that. Thank you.

Thank you. And Dr. Johns?

Our next speaker is Dr. Johns, followed by our final speaker Brad Joseph.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Never before has this county ever had the level of corruption that it has now. I don't know what happened back in the day when we had Sneddon as District Attorney but I'm sure there was a lot of corruption then but I'm talking about let's bring this up to date here now. We have a First District Supervisor who refuses to apologize for racial slur that is the First District Supervisor And elected official Ecevides, Glida. They both perpetrated a racial slur on an ethnic American, an employee of the county and the district attorney's office? No one responded to this. The County Council doesn't respond to this.

Now I want to sort of link some of this corruption to other things that have gone on. If there is no response to this type of corruption, no one apologizes. Then this type of corruption can be linked to other types of issues like the Farr election campaign and when Santa Barbara Sheriff sees reported political corruption, ballot stuffing, Isla Vista and we know that Farr couldn't have won that election And that's the same type of corruption that goes on in the South with black people.

It used to go on, and see so we know that the Democrats in this particular town, and I want to say this Carbo, any Democrat who votes for you and you Farr are racist. See, I can link that to voter ballot stuffing to the South right here to Santa Barbara That's the level of corruption here in this particular county. And it's going on, on a daily basis. Now when the Santa Barbara County Sheriff says, hey you know there's something wrong here and this board overlooks that?

Says anything about it? I'd like to see the grand jury take this in hand and look at the far corruption. You see, I think that the environmentalists are way out of control. You carbohauls giving them so much money They don't know what to do with it. They have so much money that they can involve themselves into election fraud.

Now, Dr. Johns, let's try and be kind. If you can't say something nice about people, don't say anything at all or just talk around it, okay? Thank you. Careful.

I'm trying to tell the truth here. The

truth is okay but let's not do a character assassination. Okay. Thank you.

Well, the Democratic Party here in this town and Carvajal, you lead that corrupt, that corrupt

entity. Now careful, careful, careful. Okay. My time is

over. Well your time is up. Yeah my time is up

now. So you try and remember if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all.

I want to make sure that I make my point very clear.

Thank you doctor. Thank you.

Our final speaker

is Brad

Chuse.

Just a minute.

Dr. Johns, welcome back. I'm glad you're out of the hospital now.

Thank you, Mr. Carbajal. Thank you. That was very kind. Who is up next? Okay come on down. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Board. This will be a little easier topic for you guys. I live in San Andes. I'm a retired Forest Service Deputy Fire Chief. I have 40 years experience so I do a lot of firefighting and I'm going to talk to you on the emails I sent you about your chance to respond to the EIS that the Forest Service has produced. Okay? It's a draft EIS. We have until June 27th to get our comments in. I talked to Deputy Cheapaw and he's working on it, so that's great. So you must've heard my emails or you guys are on it, so that's good.

I just want to reiterate within this EIS there are fatal flaws in it. One, they includes the entire United States, okay? And there was no one from Southern California consulted. Only one person in California was consulted, okay? So that's too broad of a document. Number two, the alternatives. The first alternative was to restrict all use of aerial fire retardant on our wildland fires. Okay?

And that's in the EIS said there is no impact. Well we all know fires get larger without the retardant there so just erosion and damage and threat to life is going to be huge. That's a bad alternative. Number two alternative, their proposed alternative goes back to the 2000 guidelines and it restricts retardant use in waterways okay? And you can drop them in there with exceptions of life property and resource damage okay so it gives you some restrictions but that's still restricting I believe too much.

Their preferred alternative has more restrictions And it's in waterways, threatened and endangered species and cultural sites with only one exception. You can drop in one of those areas and that's for It doesn't care anything about property. Our infrastructure, homes, that won't make an exception to drop in there. This is big time. So I just want to encourage you, we need to use the retardant. It slows and stops fire progression. We can use it to redirect fires. It buys time to get the firefighters in.

And it's a safety factor for firefighters and the public. We currently have about a 98% success rate on initial attack, and we need to keep that going so my input has been to reduce the area Instead of the United States, let's look at it on a county level. Let's not have any restrictions during initial attacks so we can go get these fires when they're just starting. That's key. Keep them small.