BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

House a welcome back everybody we missed you all and we had three weeks of not being around but it's fun to be back and I know everyone had a great vacation. Mr. Allen could you please call the roll?

Ms. Wolfe,

here.

Ms. Farr, here. Mr Lavignino, here. Mr Carbajal,

here

Ms. Gray

We need an approval of the minutes of August 9th 2011. So moved. Is there a

second? Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you and we will now go to closed session. Mr. Allen which ones are we going to be talking about? Go slow.

Chair, from the public I have one request to speak thus far on item A14 from Dr. Robert Johns and I just would like to note that that item A14 from human resources is going to be continued today, or that's the request. The recommendation is that the Board consider the recommendations regarding the 2012 health insurance program renewal and there's a request that this item be continued until your meeting next week.

Okay, and I misspoke. I meant admin. Are there any board members that have admin requests? None? All right. If not let's have a motion to approve the... Is there a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. And that means that all of you folks that were here for the admit can now leave unless you just want to stay. Mr. Allen?

Yeah, and that motion includes the continuation of item A14 until next week.

And Dr. John do you still want to talk about it even though we've continued it? Alright well come on down. So you can do this on public comment, Dr. Johns and any so let me give you five minutes and you can talk about public comment and that admin thing or you're going to sit up there and do it? OK.

I want to say something about Madam Chair, I'd like to say something about human resources now. It's been the history of human resources here in this county to reject, and I'm glad it's I see that there is That there is a interim human resource person. I don't know who that person is, but the human resource person in the past was hired by our old CEO Michael Brown and we know that Michael Brown always hired people who would succumb to his wishes.

Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Director. But anyway, so Human Resources have had a history of racism, discrimination and I've witnessed it right here. And I'm glad to see that the old director has left. I'm sure that was a planned move to disguise The discrimination and the racism that goes on in this county. And I think this board has not done enough to look into the practices and the policies of human resources. I'm going to just be nice to you today.

Oh, thank you doctor. That's it. Now that we now are going to go on to the departmental agenda unless there's someone else that had a public comment. We're kind of floundering here because we looked at this meeting and we thought it was gonna last 10 hours And so everybody practiced, I guess. So let's go on to item number one, County Clerk Recorder Assessor.

Madam Chair and members of the Board, this item is from the County Clerk Recorder Assessor to hearing to consider recommendations regarding fee increases for the clerk recorder assessor in election divisions of the clerk recorder assessor department.

Madam Chair? Yes, Supervisor. Before we proceed, I don't know how you want to handle this But item number 7 has been requested to be continued.

And I think 5 has also.

And I'm just wondering if we ought to, unless you want to do that housekeeping later? For anybody interested in these issues, I thought it might be good to just let the public know.

And has maybe we should Mr. Allen, which ones we know that I have October 18th for number 7 and I have planning and development number 5 that I haven't been a note that that one's been moved. Is that correct?

I would defer to the planning director on item number five. I have a request from planning for item seven and that would be moved to October 18th.

And what about

number

9? Maybe Mr. Russell can comment.

don't think you should wait until that time To make significant changes on, you know, the defined benefit versus defined contribution plan. Because that's the gaping hole. What you did today I think helps and obviously is going to save tens of millions of dollars over the years. But we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in potential liability. Hundreds of millions versus tens of millions.

I don't think there's political will necessarily to make that step all the way, but we're going to have a huge crisis on our hands. We don't see the stock market recovering. We don't see the economy recovering. We don't see property values recovering. And the biggest leak that you have in the coffers is the long-term pension obligations for all of your unions. So again, we're wondering why if San Luis Obispo County which is led by progressives as this county is, why you didn't take at least one step further that says Any future increase in pension costs, they are going to split them. They too didn't go all the way to eliminate defined benefit plans but they said we're splitting all increases in pension cost 50-50 with our employee groups. Thank you.

Thank You Mr. Caldwell. Supervisor Carbajal?

Thank you. I take it there's no more public speakers?

You know, I just wanted to say something and then I'll take your motion. Sometimes it's dangerous when you have time off because you tend to think about what's going on and I thought a lot about where we are especially when the SEIU agreement came in Just a little bit of history, and many of you already know this. But years ago like in 2000 and prior to we were looking at some of the higher paid folks that were professionals like the lawyers, the accountants, and we were saying well you know we want to attract outstanding attorneys to be part operation and we want to have accountants that will take the jobs like Bob Geis, and so on.

And so we increased those salaries. And what we didn't put into the mix was the huge impact that might have on retirement. So if you're making $200,000 a year or more and then you retire with $200,000 or more a year, that's a huge pill for the public sector to swallow, and yet you need those kind of professional folks. And then I'm thinking in terms of capping.

So do we cap? But is that the right thing to do? But we were comparing two attorneys And accountants and professionals that were making maybe $300,000 to $400,000 a year particularly in Santa Barbara. But this is the point. Those folks that were making the four and five hundred thousand and three hundred thousand a year were going to be paying for their own pension. This is in the private sector but we were trying to attract people into the public sector What I'm getting to is there, and Mr. Caldwell's comment about defined benefit and defined compensation or contribution fit right into that because when you are making $200,000 The cap and the contribution should be yours like it is in the private sector.

But when you're like some of the SEIU folks that are making a lot less than that, maybe they in fact need a full amount of pension paid for or funded. And I know that we, you also think of yourself in the food chain. We're not big enough as supervisors to actually make this happen but with all of the supervisors in all the counties maybe and Governor Brown is talking about it happening at state level.

It's a trend that we need to watch and be aware of and look because The big issue was when they said the post office is going to have to close because they can't afford to pay their retirement costs. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh! How can we close the post office? Well it's time to start planning about how do we handle public funded pensions and put it in perspective with private salaries. So thank you for allowing me to make that comment. And let's just kind of think in those directions and see what we can come up with. Supervisor Labadino, you had your light on?

Supervisor

Carbajal? This is a difficult financial climate and I just want to recognize our employees for stepping up and giving back and realizing that they're part of the solution. So I know it's not easy and it wasn't easy getting here But I think it just reflects that our employees are willing to be part of the solution. And I just want to recognize them for stepping up and making the difficult decision to get here, and I want to recognize our staff for working in a good... Working to create a good environment that led to this point so thank you for your good work.

Supervisor Maldonado?

Thank You Madam Chair. I just wanted to echo supervisor Carbajal's comments You know, we heard a lot of doomsday. We probably thought we were never going to get to this point but I really want to thank both sides our county staff and also the men and women that 1919 members of 620 that step forward this while necessary You know, this is what we absolutely had to have to start off next year in a positive frame of mind. But I know it's not easy for folks at this time to turn down a raise that they had coming to them.

So my hat's off to them and I really appreciate them stepping forward. So for the folks that were here that were coming and talking to us in the purple shirts, I hope everybody's happy with the way things turned out. And I think it's a brighter day for the county.

You know, and I hope that as we all talk about this that the folks, the taxpayer will say just you know thank a county employee because that's amazing that it has come there. Supervisor Wolff and then Supervisor Farr.

Thank you Chair Gray. I want to acknowledge your comments about the disparity, I think, in what some of the folks in the county get paid and some of the benefits that they receive. And 620 certainly has stepped up to the plate as they have in the past. These are our lowest-paid workers in the county And I think it is about time that we start looking at some of the other benefits that our executives receive.

We've talked about that before, but And I guess I'm going to look to our HR department to work with us and give us some, you know, a charting of the benefits that some of our folks get and some others don't get. And I look to the vacation accrual, final average salary, things like that so that we can make sure there is some degree of parity as we move forward for some of the folks who are not involved in collective bargaining. So that we can make sure there is some parity.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Thank You Supervisor. Supervisor Farr?

Thank you Madam Chair. Well, I certainly just want to add my thanks to the rest of the boards To all the members of 620 for coming to this agreement and also to our staff We certainly know what a difficult process it was And also for the public and for 620 to know You know we could have put this item on the admin agenda and not talked about it specifically but we did this deliberately because there has been so much of negative publicity about public employees in the media. You know, so quick to criticize and it's really important that when we reach these agreements which are pretty historic at least for you know the last decade or so That we acknowledge, we recognize and we praise our county staff. And all departments, all the bargaining units for really stepping up to the plate because you know they have come under a lot of criticism very unfairly in my opinion and instead have gone ahead and worked with us and have made the sacrifices which in this economic climate as has been said To turn down a raise now and do that is extremely difficult.

So, that was already previously negotiated. So again you know our hats are off to all of you and thank you so very much for being a part of the county family and for pulling all together with us during this tough time.

Thank You Supervisor. Supervisor Cobblehall?

Thank you Madam Chair. Piggybacking on what you said and Supervisor Wolf's comments, I'm just wondering the appropriate venue by which we continue the conversation? Obviously we can't do it in closed session so In terms of some of these issues we want to pursue to get more data on, a better understanding of things we would like to explore. For example the one thing that I think we have few incidences of or cases of but nonetheless it creates some of the perception that we're dealing with is when individuals can retire with more than their salary. It should be capped period that no individual can leave With the retirement that's larger than their salary.

How do we get there? I don't know. So some of these items, how do we discuss them so that I understand there's some legal issues we've got to deal with. And if they're legal issues, at least the public will understand what those legal issues are. But I'm trying to get to a point where...

Supervisor, let me ask you this. What do you think if Ms. Waller takes a look at the tape and listens to what was said today? And then she and I and Supervisor Farr when we're getting ready for an agenda sit down and try and figure out a way to bring this back And have a discussion on just these issues. So you'll check the tape, write down the issues and then we'll work on how to get this. Excellent. Unless they need a motion or something? Would that be okay with everybody? Okay.

Chairwoman, we can certainly do that and I was glancing across at our County Council. I believe that because that is personnel related that we could bring it to closed session but I would defer to council.

Yes, you may have those conversations for unrepresented and management employees in closed session. However, you cannot discuss salaries or benefits of elected officials.

And I got the impression that we'd really kind of like to talk about it in Some of this in public. The only you'll tell us what we can't talk about in public So you make the list will the three of us will take a look at it We'll come up with an agenda item and try and get there because even though we are maybe In the middle of the food chain, we ought to at least get our two cents worth Supervisor did you want to make a motion on this one?

Approve the item before us, the agreement that we have reached with SEIU 620.

Do we have a second? Second by Supervisor Farr. Let's take a roll call because I think this is kind of a huge, huge deal.

Ms. Wolfe?

Aye.

Ms Farr? Aye Mr. Lavagnino? Aye Mr. Carbajal? Aye Ms Gray?

Aye And thank you all very much. Everybody, everybody it's a good family to be involved with. Item number three

Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item 3 is from the County Executive Office. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a vacancy on the Santa Maria Public Airport District Board.

Hi Dennis! Welcome back. Thank you. You enjoyed your vacation at the beach? I did. You look all suntanned and everything.

Thank you very much, Chair Gray and Supervisors. We have before you today on the board a request by the Santa Maria I would like to ask the California Public Airport District Board for you to take some action about filling a vacancy that they have. There is kind of a limited time horizon here because of the requirements of the California Election Code, that either a decision on your part needs to occur today or in some cases no decision might also be allowable as well. So let me just briefly outline your options for action today.

Previously we have sent Applications of six members of the community of the area covered by the district that were requesting to be a part of that board and the board was unable to reach a decision about the appointment of a member. They then asked you to Either A, make an appointment of an individual to that board in which case they would be in office until the next general election which would be November of 2012 where they would have to then stand for election for the balance of their term which would end in November of 2014.

Another option your board has is to order the district to hold an election for the position, and that would need to occur at the next legal election. And just this morning we received clarification from county council that according to the relevant California Election Code section 1000, that would actually be in April of 2012 not June as stated in your board letter. So there's actually a provision in that Section 1000 of the California Election Code, according to council that would be applicable here. That there would actually have to be an election in April 2012 not a common occurrence by the by.

The last possible action would be for you to take no action today. That would then require the district to call their own election and again that election would have to occur in April of 2012 Those are your three options.

I assume the airport board district would pay for any election that came before us?

Chair Gray, that's correct. They would be paying either a portion of an election that let's say happened in November of 2012 or they would be in the position of having to absorb the full cost of the election in April of 2012. Supervisor Farr?

Thank you Madam Chair. Mr. Bozanich, I'm confused. Why isn't one of the options the June 2012 election where they wouldn't have to hold a special election or go all the way to November? Yeah

good thank you for the question and Chair Gray, Supervisor Farr. The actual letter of the code states that it has to occur at the next held election and according to the code it says there is a provision for an April 2012 election in the California Code. Very rarely used, very rarely applied and actually just something that was not even under consideration at the time that we wrote the board letter. It was only in closer examination of the California Code So the option isn't, it shall, what the code states is it shall be at the next election which according to California Election Code section 1000 is April of every even numbered year.

But we don't have elections in April so I don't get it. I mean why isn't it June? That's the next general election.

I would, Chair and Supervisors, I'll defer to County Council about how that works and why we don't generally have elections in April. But it is a provision in that section of the code for that. But I would defer to Council as well on to clarify why we don't generally do that. And I'm not sure what the

right answer

is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

At maybe Supervisor Bart, someone should print the code and provide it.

That's okay. I mean obviously I'll take your word for it. It just seems very strange to me and as this is Santa Maria, I'm certainly going to be interested in hearing what you Madam Chair and Supervisor Lovenino have to say about this issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Lovenino, this is in your district, I think. It is going to be in mine but... You've got to get used to being here. Go ahead and take this with you.

Madam Chair, do we have any public speakers?

Are there any public speakers?

I have no request to speak.

So Supervisor Lagunino.

Thank you madam chair. Yeah, Supervisor Farr, I had the same exact questions about this over the weekend and I have no idea why it would be going to April but the way that the board is made up right now they have a 2-2 They're at a loggerhead. So I think it's very important for us to, um, I would not want to put the cost of a special election on the airport board. Um, I think the prudent thing to do is, is to make an appointment.

Uh, anytime I think a board makes an appointment though, um...I feel and you know regardless of what the obviously we have to follow with the regulations are but it never makes sense to me that you would appoint past any next election because basically what you're doing You're trying to save the airport board money, we'd still love to hear from the people to see what they had to say.

In this case Mr. Don Lair was formerly on the airport board. The last time he ran there were six candidates and he came in first. He served well on the board due to some health problems he stepped down and would have run Election that we just had but mr. Ted Eckert was currently on the board and he felt head was doing a great job Unfortunately, mr. Eckert passed away I think Don layer would be an outstanding representative He's very well known in the community he's involved in many different community organizations and like I said, he has previous experience on the Airport Board and I would like to move his name for nomination

I'm happy to second that. He's just a leader in the community and have had very many, many people say that's the thing to do so I'll second that. Any other comments? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much. Next item, Item number four.

Madam Chair, members of the Board. Item 4 from the Treasurer Tax Collector is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the General Services Photovoltaic Solar Energy Project financing in 2001 Certificates of Participation Refunding.

Okay, our treasurer Mr. Hagan

Good morning madam chair, members of the board. So the item before you today is a financing of two pieces that we are issuing jointly. The first piece is a one megawatt photovoltaic solar energy system for the Cal Rial campus and it will be used to power the jail and other facilities in the area, and this was an item that was approved back in June by your board This financing will be roughly five and a quarter million dollars.

It's for a 15 year term, and this is a qualified energy conservation bond. They're issued on a taxable basis. And we then file A subsidy request with the IRS twice a year and the subsidy of the interest is approximately 70% of the tax rate credit rate that's published by the IRS. We'll be pricing this in two days, so we'll have more definite numbers at that time but at this docketing the net rate was about 1.21%.

The 10-year treasury as of today is about 2% and the spread's about 210 basis points to that, so what that means is the interest rates are actually moving in our direction and our favor. And so we should be recognizing a lower interest cost of funds. The average debt service is $471,000 at this point and the net annual debt service would be $381,00 on this issue.

The other piece of the issue is our 2001 COP. And that was issued back in 2001 at about $31,400,000. And it financed the projects, the Naomi Schwartz building, the DA building, Santa Maria Courthouse, the Juvenile Hall among other things. And so this is being refinanced And the net amount really is going to be a little under $17 million. One of the items that was in there is the Naomi Schwartz building, and that is being purchased by Public Works, and they're paying the debt.

They're not refunding it. We're not issuing new debt for that so they're paying it outright. So the $1.6 million in estimated savings is actually a little over $2 million. They'll save about $417,000 by doing that. And this interest rate actually is being estimated at 2.2%. Again, that may be changing a bit. We'll price in two days on that. One other thing is this is a private place but it's a direct purchase by Wells Fargo which is a little different structure. It's similar to what we did back in May when we did the Laguna San QSAP.

We're not going to the municipal markets. We're not doing an official statement and whatnot. So because of that, we don't have a debt service reserve so we can shorten the term by one year also. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion on this item. Is the criminal justice facility fund will get about 47%. Courthouse construction will get about 24%. Alcohol drug mental health services, about 7% DSS about 6%.

And APC DSP tag. I believe that the other 16% from

By law, are those the only projects that can get the benefit of the savings?

Yes. They're the ones paying the debt service. Okay. Thank you. And I think that concludes the presentation and I'm here to answer any questions related to this financing.

Other questions? I did not think I'd ever see 2.2% ever

That's all the taxes in peace

that is

and the text that the QCB tackle pieces. You know roughly half that

it's amazing Mister Allen

I'm sure we have one request to speak on this item from Megan Bernie.

Welcome. Thank you very much. Good morning Chair Gray, Supervisors. My name is Megan Burney. I'm with the Community Environmental Council and today I am simply here to thank you and encourage you to move forward with this project. Your staff has spent a lot of time We really do thank them for their efforts and also thank you for your leadership. Right now the county has about six megawatts of solar, and this project in addition to the Laguna Sand will add about two more megawatts so this is a significant, they are together significant projects for the county It really is showing that you're being responsible citizens and also a responsible government because it will ensure that your cost of electricity will remain stable for the long term, and that's a great thing to do both for our environment and for our citizenry.

So I just wanted to thank you today and encourage you to move forward with the project. Thank you.

And we also have a request from Dr. Jones.

This is another environmental trap, environmental clap trap. And this is being pushed by the Democratic majority and they have no business involving this county in a solar project. The pressure groups, the environmentalists are forcing this on the county Now this financing, I mean we're in a very bad economic situation here. And because the group of environmentalists and as I've said before are stressed out about their backgrounds or events that occurred in 89 they keep pushing these environmental issues.

And I think it ought to be stopped. And I think it's, you know what? I think it's totally illegal for this county to be pressured by a particular group because of votes. I think it's totally illegal and I think someone needs to look into this pressure group that keeps forcing environmental issues on this county. Not only that You're enticing persons to come forward to take out a loan on their homes.

That's about all I have to say about that, thank you.

Thank you Dr. Johns. Any other comments Mr. Allen?

No further

requests to speak.

Supervisor Wolf.

Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to thank again Mr. Hagan's staff, Mr. Geis' staff, Mr. Nesbitt's staff there have been and I'm sure I'm leaving out someone this getting us to this point has taken an incredible amount of cooperation from the financial folks to the people on the ground to get us to this point and we are We are certainly in a position to move forward with this. At our last meeting, we weren't certain if we were going to be getting the QSEBs. We did and then the folks put a very strong package together, financing package together for us to move in this direction. I think it is absolutely the right thing to do This is what our county believes in. We have coming up later a Climate Action Strategy Program.

This program has been well thought out, it will save us money in the end we're going to be getting a rebate and And I guess, I should also mention the fact that it's going to increase jobs in our community for the short term and building this facility. So it's a pleasure of mine to move this item forward and I would like to make a motion to that effect.

Thank you. Is there a second? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Thank you. Board members, a lady has driven down from San Yanez for public comment and she's late because we're so fast today. Do you mind if I went ahead and took that public comment? Okay, Mr. Allen, that'll be fine. And so we're going to have a public

comment. Public comment speaker is Nancy Eklund Hunsaker.

Good morning, Supervisors. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Good morning Chairman Gray. I'm here to represent St. Nez Valley Concerned Citizens and the St. Nez Valley Coalition. We recently co-sponsored a town hall meeting in Solvang addressing tribal fee-to-trust concerns. We had an overflow attendance of nearly 1,000 people. I would like to publicly thank Ms. Farr for sending representative from her office to attend and observe.