BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Good

morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to call the meeting of October 11th to order. Welcome. Glad to see everyone with us. Mr. Allen, let's start with roll call.

Ms. Will?

Here.

Ms. Farrer?

Here.

Mr. Lavagnino? Here Mr. Carbajal? Here Ms. Craig?

Thank you and salute to Veterans Day. Approval of minutes of October the 4th. Columbus. Oh, I moved those veterans up, huh?

Next month is better. Next month.

I have a month

ahead.

Thank you Janet. I would be lost without you and that's the truth. So give me a motion on the minutes. No, you got it. All right thanks. And second by Supervisor Carpenter. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Administrative agenda. Mr. Allen are any of the folks in the audience want to talk about this?

Madam Chair, members of the board. We have two requests to speak on the administrative agenda both from Santa Maria from Dr. Robert Johns who'd like to speak on item A8 and A10. Pardon me from Santa Barbara.

Okay, A8 and A10 anybody else? Okay let's read Dr. Johns' items into the agenda is he coming up or is he staying down? He's coming up to the podium you can read while he walks

Madam Chair and members of the board, Adam A. Adus, I'm the district attorney. The request is that the board adopt a resolution authorizing the district attorney to renew an agreement with the California Department of Insurance for a workers' compensation insurance fraud prosecution unit in fiscal year 2011-2012 Item A-10 is from probation. Request that the board approve and authorize the chaired executed contract with Community Solutions Incorporated to provide services for post release community supervision offenders at the Sheriff's Day Reporting Centers, this is for the period of October 15, 2011 through June 30, 2012 in an amount not to exceed $391,989. Dr.

Johns if you'd hold up for just a moment. The only items that we're going to be discussing are 8 and 10 And so, let's take a motion to approve the rest of the agenda. Is there a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone else listening that isn't involved may now leave. Dr. Johns 8 and 10

Yes Now There's really no need for extra funding for workers compensation Fraud is there's no need for this. This is a this is something that district attorney This is a time when there's many people out of work, many people searching for ways in order to support themselves. And this attorney is absolutely wrong on this. There should be...this is nothing but harassment of the people and there should be no funding whatsoever, extra funding on the part It's absolutely ridiculous and we need to check this district attorney. You already know what my issues are with Dudley, she is a fraud in the first place.

Now probation, this is nothing but fleecing the public It's a raid of the general fund. Now, when we discussed this in the hearing, probation department had already stated that they were going to be monitoring these people. That was stated in the hearing, that they knew the people and that they were going to be monitoring the people. We need to hold the probation department We need to hold them to their word. They're not keeping their word, I mean it's $391,000. It's fleecing the public!

There's no need for this. And they've already stated that they were going to monitor these people, that they had the resources, their caseload was gonna go up but why is this? Why do we have this? Why didn't they say this in the hearing? It's nothing but a raid of the general funds and we need general funds for other issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Johns and you have a nice day. Do we have any others? That's it. All right. We need a motion to approve 8 and 10. Is there a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. We're ready now to go to public comment.

Madam Chair, members of the board, we have two requests to speak in Santa Barbara starting with Dr. Robert Johns to be followed by Jeff Alexander and then return to Santa Maria and we have four requests to speak.

Okay, Dr. Johns again?

My public comment concerns last week And I saw so much bamboozling going on in this, on this Board of Supervisors last week. Especially by Cargill Hall when he attempted to make the Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Department give them an award. And as I stated last week that was just ridiculous. We know what the real issue here is. Number one, as I stated last week, the Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Department is stated just as stated by the Department of Mental Health, State of California is the worst department in California.

And then Supervisor Carbajal tries to bamboozle the public and tell you we're going to give you an award. The director is supposed to be monitored by the board and three other agencies that's not going on The board is supposed to be monitoring the director of alcohol, drug and mental health. That's not currently going on. Other issues in your district Carvajal last week the people only wanted what Montecito wanted In there was one particular person who had particular large amounts of trash.

Automobiles all over his property and they wanted that kind of removed. Of course, you knew about these issues Carpaw. It's just your reluctance your unwillingness to To participate in removing this items now if this was Montecito You would have done it immediately so the people from Mission Canyon came here and you're requesting, oh please don't come down here. You know? Because you're fearful that they will give you a bad rating and they won't vote for you. You should clear these issues up before and don't bring these people down here to the board. I agree with you. They shouldn't be here. They are here because of your lack of duty To them they just want what. And I have 41 seconds to go Madam Chair please. Now the last issue is concerning Cuyama and we know, and I'm going to start saying this you are the pot cling, you are the pot king of Santa Barbara County The reason why all this pot is coming to Santa Barbara is you, Carvajal and your refusal last year.

And I have 14 more seconds to go. Well, you're not going to sit there and

slander people so knock it off!

Okay, I won't call him the Pot King of Santa Barbara County again, Supervisor Carvajal. Bye.

So we're now ready for the next public speaker?

Our next speaker is Jeff Alexander and Senator Barbara to be followed by Francis Romero here in Santa Maria.

Good morning Madam Chair and Supervisors, I'm Jeff Alexander, Santa Barbara County Film Commissioner and I'm here this morning to speak with you about a documentary film project called The Lost City which we are hopeful will soon be shooting in the Guadalupe Dunes area. First though, I want to just affirm quickly that the county and county personnel have developed a great track record here in welcoming and supporting media production And that we've, as a result, developed a really fantastic reputation as a film-friendly destination. I'm a little concerned that recent permit difficulties related to this project may cast a bit of a shadow on this fantastic reputation. I have done my best to read through the correspondence related to the Lost City Project and it does appear that there may have been mistakes made which have put this project in jeopardy.

That is mistakes made by county personnel. I just want to say that if in fact there have been mistakes made by the county which led to a revocation of this project's permit, I would respectfully like to suggest and request that all efforts be made in a timely enough fashion to allow this project to proceed with all of the economic and PR benefits it will bring to the Guadalupe and Santa Maria areas. And I know there are a couple of speakers that are queued up after me who are going to give you a little bit more color and depth of information on this project, what it means to our area in terms of our tradition and our history. And in terms of our future. And I hope that you will listen very carefully to them. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr. Alexander. The next speaker Mr. Allen?

Yes, Frances Romero to be followed by Bob Hatch.

Ms. Romero, good morning. Good morning. Good morning Chair Gray, members of the board, staff and members of the public. My name is Frances Romero I'm here today as the Executive Director of the Dunes Center in Guadalupe. I'm also the Vice President of the Board of Directors, and I have lived in Guadalupe for over 15 years. Our board met last night and provided input and authorized me to speak on their behalf.

Four of nine of our board members are environmental professionals. The 1923 Cecil B. DeMille Ten Commandments movie set site is a recorded historic archaeological site located in Guadalupe Beach at Santa Barbara County Park For over 20 years, Peter Brosnan a documentary filmmaker has tried to complete a documentary that featured a salvage operation. Dr. John Parker an archaeologist with over 40 years of experience developed a salvage work plan that includes excavation of less than 50 cubic yards of sand.

That work would be performed by a small crew of archaeologists using hand tools and brushes. The County of Santa Barbara issued the permit for the project in January 2011, and funding was recently secured based on that permit. The excavation was supposed to start October 5th. On September 30th, the County of Santa Barbara stated that a mistake had been made and the wrong permit had been issued. The project has come to a halt. The crew was notified of a layoff 72 hours before their mobilization. You can imagine how devastating that is for a project.

Cancellation of equipment rentals and lease agreements for lodging, labs. All of that has already been done. The Dune Center is a non-profit environmental education organization located in Guadalupe. And we've been involved with this effort for over 10 years acting as curator for the set artifacts that are actually property of Santa Barbara County. And we handle the administrative functions for this project. At our visitor center, we address a high volume of interest in this historic film set. In exchange, the Dune Center earns an administrative fee that in part helps to fund the delivery of science programs to over 5,000 students annually. These are undisturbed children most of whom are at 22 schools located throughout northern Santa Barbara County and southern San Luis Obispo County.

The county has offered to expedite a new permit, but the two-month process would likely delay the project an entire year due to the rainy season and clover nesting season. This offer does not take into account all of the losses that we've already suffered, all of the costs that we cannot recoup. The Dune Center stood to earn $20,000 from this project now. October during the third quarter of the year when funding is extremely sparse.

The Dune Center needs your help. As I said we all know the economy is bad right now and there isn't a lot of funding out there for non-profits. Losing twenty thousand dollars at this point in the year will cause us to close our doors I'm very serious about that. And the kids that we served are the neediest in this county. I know that my time is blanking, and if...

So let me just ask if there's any questions from board members? You'll be here today in case we have more questions. Yes ma'am, I will. Thank you. Next speaker. Our

next speaker is Bob Hastie followed by Sam Cohen.

Good morning Madam Chair, members of the Board. I'd like to talk to you a bit from our letter that we've received from Dr. John Parker. Francis referenced him and his credentials. The specific parts of Dr. Parker's letter, I won't have time to read it all but I do have copies for all of you that I will submit for the record. Specifically, we'd like to draw your attention to the coastal development plan and the grading permit. Mr.

Hatch just a minute I'm sorry my time. Who is Dr. Parker? Just so I get this well what could

he be? Dr. Parker has been involved in this project. He is a registered professional archaeologist. He is the chair of the Lake County Heritage Commission And his credentials speak for themselves. They're impeccable, and his knowledge of this particular project is without peers. He understands this from start to finish. He's been involved in it all the way through going way back to when this was going to happen 20 years or so ago. So he understands it. He was able to understand the requirements for the permit and he addressed those items which I'd like to elaborate on just a bit. Coastal Development Plan and the Grading Permit were of the opinion they aren't required, despite the opinion that's been rendered. And I'd like to read from his letter, The proposed archaeological work is a sparsely funded small-scale emergency recovery plan period.

The work is designed to document and collect a small sample of cultural material from those portions of the site in immediate danger of being destroyed by dune movement. The work will involve a small team of six to eight professional archaeologists who will be on their knees using hand trowels and brushes to expose and recover small pieces of set plaster and other cultural material related to the 1923 production of the Ten Commandments.

A far cry from earth-moving equipment that perhaps would be envisioned racing up and down the dunes. All this will take place within a windblown sand that has been deposited since the 1923 filming. When the 1923 dune surface is encountered in any area, work in that area will stop. He goes on to say that very little sand will be moved as most of the threatened artifacts are not at near dune surface and certainly less than the 50 cubic yards.

The project will not create cuts or fills in excess of three feet deep due to the fact that the windblown sand deposited since 1923 is not three feet deep. Although the proposed information collection plan is exempt from CEQA and focuses on historical archaeological resource, we have taken care to make sure that no impacts to other resources will occur during the project. Our work will take place only in the open dunes avoiding areas that may contain rare plants.

No native birds or anything like that are going to be fooled around us after the plover season anyway. Since 1990, we have worked to secure the funding and permits to conduct this Emergency Information Recovery Plan. Twice, we've had the permits in hand and not been able to attain the funding. This year, we will again have the necessary permits and finally have the funding.

Knowledge about a valuable piece of California and Santa Barbara County history is at stake. Without this project, the site will continue to be looted and destroyed by national erosion. There's a small window of opportunity where you as the county representatives get to decide whether this archaeological resource is worthy of its place in history or some forgotten windblown sand. And it is signed Dr. John Parker and he's thanking you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Dr. Bitterhoff. Any questions? Next speaker.

Our next speaker is Sam Cohen to be followed by Reagan Candelario.

Mr. Cohen, welcome.

Good morning, members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Sam Cohen. It's a pleasure to be here. There are so many things we could talk about but today I'm here to speak with you on behalf of the Guadalupe Dunes. The San Ynez Band of Chumash support the expedited consideration of the excavation permit for the Guadalupe Dunes This is in recognition of the enormous efforts on the part of the Dune Center and the City of Guadalupe to secure this grant funding.

There are some Native American heritage sites near the movie set, and the tribe is volunteering to provide Native American monitoring services to eliminate any possible risk of impacts to Native American cultural resources. This is an important project to the city of Guadalupe and we ask for your expedited consideration if at all possible. I'd like whatever time I have left over, I've never used this little time before, to be maybe given to the director of the Guadalupe Dune Center so she could do a summation if that's possible.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Cohen. Who's next speaker?

Our next speaker is Regan Candelario to be followed by Indy Caldwell our final speaker.

Good morning Honorable Chair and Supervisors. I'm Regan Candelario, City of Guadalupe. I've been asked by our Mayor Lupe Alvarez who unfortunately couldn't be here today he's got a significant family medical emergency out of town otherwise he wanted to present this I'll go ahead and present this now, a two page letter to the board. He asked me to read it verbatim so I know that I don't have much time. I'm going to go ahead and get started now.

Is it the Ten Commandments or is it the Planning and Development staff trying to make it 11? Honorable Chair and Supervisors, is there a conspiracy against the City of Guadalupe? I am not sure if there is but it sure feels that way, not only to me but to the many residents and business owners We are completely shocked as to what has transpired in the last year. First, we find out that the Far Western Restaurant is moving to Orcutt. Second, we lose access to Guadalupe Beach but Guadalupe residents weren't the only ones who lost access when you include Santa Maria and Orcut that is nearly 150,000 residents of North County alone not to mention the tourists. Third, out of nowhere we went from being in the fourth to the third supervisorial district Fourth and lastly, ten days ago archaeologist John Parker, Ph.D., received word from the Santa Barbara County Planning Development staff regarding a huge error on the county's part.

They made a mistake in the permitting process and created a huge problem impacting many parties who have already expended significant resources. Dr. Parker has been working diligently to prepare for the salvaging of the infamous 1923 Cecil B. DeMille Original Ten Commandments movie set on Guadalupe Beach. I may make it. To make matters worse, the permits for the project were issued by the planning and development staff back in January 2010. Ten months ago it took them ten months to discover their error and notify Dr. Parker, an error that was admitted to in writing by both the planning and development staff and CEO Chandra Waller. My community and I are literally at a loss for words what can possibly be next maybe the federal government will close our local post office who knows but What I do know is that the positive international exposure that the City of Guadalupe and the County of Santa Barbara were about to receive and benefit from many years to come is in deep jeopardy, all because the planning and development staff made a severe mistake.

However this Board of Supervisors can still have this rare opportunity but action must be taken immediately. First of all understanding that the archaeologist and his team have a very short window of time to perform their work Due to the snowy plover nesting season, which starts again on March 1st. This short work window is made even shorter because of the winter rainy season is just around the corner. This really only leaves the archaeologist and his team a few weeks to work during October and early November. Guadalupe like most cities in Santa Barbara County is hurting economically and the multiplier effect presented by this project as one of our community cannot afford to lose. This is a project that was going to give the city a much needed shot in the arm In closing, we all know that there are only 10 commandments and not 11.

Please do not let the planning and development staff create a new commandment that says thou shalt not do thy will of the P&D even if we are wrong. Supervisor Farr in the city of Guadalupe did not choose to be in the third district you chose us. In choosing us we now look to you for leadership to help us through this serious oversight by the planning and development staff.

Supervisor Farr will you please help Guadalupe in its time of need?

Thank you so much next speaker

Our final speaker is Andy Caldwell.

Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm Andy Caldwell representing Colab. I have a letter from Peter Brosnan. He was going to be the documentary filmmaker and bottom line $300,000 project has been killed. Nobody from the project was invited to meet with the county when they made this decision The other issue, of course, is the county had questions about this project. They had eight months to raise these issues but instead they did it at the 11th hour.

We believe that the reasons, the arguments for killing the project are incorrect in terms of the law and what CEQA requires and the Coastal Act etc., etc. You know, the bottom line is unless you take this up as an ex-agenda item or do something next week. This project is probably dead on arrival because of the rain. 12 people are now out of work. The Dune Center which is one of the leading nonprofits in Guadalupe may be forced to close.

A project that has been nearly 30 years in the making is derailed again. Somehow it's, you know, somebody is being asked to do hand digging to get the same permits as you would need if you're building a hotel. This isn't some giant excavation like the UNICAL cleanup this is brushes and hand shovels I don't know how that constitutes degrading to tell you the truth It's not like the site's not going to be dug up because vandals are doing that right now without any permits at all Bill Watkins, who was with the UCSB Economic Forecast Project is now with Cal Lutheran.

Has this characterization and acronym for why the California economy is in a state it's in. He calls it DIRT, Delay Uncertainty Regulations and Taxes. This project has got three of them delay uncertainty and regs. 300,000... Dirt. Yeah. Well, Sam maybe we need to think about that one. You know the film was going to be called The Lost City could be called lost opportunity or lost economy.

This is a historical project and you have to ask yourself again, you know if your staff made an error why aren't they writing a check for $300,000? How does their error become the financial disaster for the people involved in this project, including the non-profit? What are you going to do about it? Eight months. They had eight months since they issued the permit. And then the other question is what if you went with your original permit? What's gonna happen?

Thank you. Thank you Mr.

Caldwell. Is that...

We, I'm sure we have one late request to speak from George Alvarez.

Mr. Alvarez?

Good morning supervisors and good morning to our new supervisor representing Guadalupe. You're going to have a very interesting task before you Economically speaking, we're dead in the water. If you drive by Guadalupe, a lot of rental places available because the economy's dead and it's sad because basically we were supposed to be the pearl of the Pacific near the beach and whatnot but look where we're at.

I have my understanding why we're there but I'm not here to talk about that. That's a problem on the hands of the City Council and the indebtedness that they've done in the last 10 years. That's my personal opinion Lately there's been a scuttle dealing with the farm worker issue about having them verified to make sure they're here with all full documentation. I'm for it, I'm glad the federal government is stepping in and doing its job.

Yet I see a lot of greed, a lot of putting themselves political positions that say its unfair to the agriculture community. My reliance to that, my response is bullshit. I have a disdain towards the system that has a sense of veiled slavery in my population base. If you look down at the historical aspect of it, late 60s we started getting restrooms out there before we didn't have restrooms.

In the area of health issues we have workman's comp. There is no retirement for the field worker on that yet without the Mexican population to fill the void of the demand surplus of labor It's okay to have them here undocumented. Again, that's a bunch of horse feathers. My dad came here legally during the Bracero program, programs that worked back then. But greed and posturing is not going to work. It's not going to work until they themselves, agriculture, look themselves straight in the face and say to themselves what can we do?

fairly for this population base that we need for labor purposes and be fair to that community. At the same time, be responsible step up to the plate and pay the impact fees that this corporation, this business has generated in schools, welfare whatnot. And if some people are saying God there's a Mexican pounding on Mexicans. That's not pounding on Mexicans it's the fact We have a Mexican population that's needed.

But we also have the responsibility of that community, our community stepping up and paying its fair share of the impacts that it brings. It's not fair that one organization, one business gets all the residuals. We the taxpayers have to pay with the schooling, medical and whatnot when it can be put on a business form. There's a lot of tax being made to look out for you $250 million that they make a year, not one box is taxed. Five cents apiece to help the cities, the impacts and whatnot. And it's roads and whatnot. On the issue of the...

Thank you Mr.

Alvarez. Everyone have a good day but come down to Guadalupe and enjoy yourselves.

Thank you, Mr. Alvarez. Any questions for Ms. Romero? She's here in case anyone has. Supervisor Farr, this is your district.

Thank you. Ms. Romero if you would come back to the podium for a moment. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions and then I want to make a couple comments. First of all, how I first got involved in this issue or first learned about it was to do with whether we had done what we needed to do as far as the impact to prehistoric resources from the Native American community from the Chumash.

And so there was going to be meetings with that, and our staff wanted to make sure that you and your people had met with them because they were gonna have to make sure that that was taken care of. So could you give me a status update with that? And perhaps Mr. Cohen if he has some comments or might want to make them as well.

Well, basically Mayor Alvarez met with Mr. Cohen on our behalf and at that time they had a discussion about providing monitors because the project in all honesty did not foresee the need for monitors because it is a non-federal site. It is not a prehistoric site and we had an exempted permit. Dr. Parker as Bob Hatch relayed has impeccable credentials in dealing with Native communities for over 40 years, and he's actually brought lawsuits against people that have done bad things to Native Americans. So we had every confidence when we submitted our work plan that there wasn't even a monitoring issue. When the Chumash tribe requested a formal consultation, and I believe that request was made of Dr.

Russell, again some of the things that have happened I've not even been Involved in or privy to. I believe that's when the question about the permit came up. In all honesty, Mayor Alvarez within about 24 hours had talked with the tribe. The tribe indicated that they would provide the monitoring but at that point the team had already been told to stand down and all arrangements were immediately canceled to limit the financial exposure that this project has so You heard Mr. Cohen, I mean they They're supporting the project, they're providing a monitor. I don't know that there's really an issue any longer.

Okay well that's something that I wanted to make sure of and also when we spoke one time there seemed to be some discrepancy between the way the county had those sites prehistoric sites mapped and the way Dr. Parker had them but you said Dr. Parker was the one that actually discovered them so has that been remedied as far as the maps being different?

That's something that I've not really heard addressed by staff, but I dare to say that if the archaeologist who discovered this site and recorded this site has the site on his map. I don't really know that staff was fully informed or that they really looked at the maps because I would have to go with the guy that found it I, you know, I just that I don't really know. Unfortunately in the whole scheme of the email things that start spinning up out there something gets put in an email and then all of a sudden it's a fact and in all reality I don' believe that was ever a factually based

assertion. You know, maybe Mr. Russell has an answer to that one. Well

I think actually before that but I want to ask Mr. Cohen directly but before I have Ms. Francis leave the podium my understanding is is that well there's for the rest of the board you know there has been a lot of discussion internally between county departments between Miss Francis and On this issue with and also with the mayor and my understanding Miss Waller was that you were trying to pull together a meeting after today's hearing. Is that going to happen?

Chairwoman Supervisor, I did speak with several individuals last night and I can say from the county's perspective we have our folks here today and would certainly like to have a face-to-face meeting. I think that would be the best way to expedite, the best way to exchange questions and information so we have folks that are literally on their way up right now that could need

Ms. Romero, can you meet today with staff?

We certainly can and sadly we would have hoped that this would have happened two weeks ago today when the initial question was brought up. But the answer is yes. Yes ma'am

it is.

Council you had your

hand raised. I need to remind the board that this is a non-agendized item And we're limited just to very brief questions and comments. There is a process to add it to the agenda if your board wishes to take any action, I'm not sure that we have sufficient facts to make the findings of an emergency but I do need to alert the board that our discussion capability is very limited under the Brown Act

Okay, thank you. And then Mr. Cohen I just want to make sure that the tribe is comfortable where we are now as far as what would be required of this project to meet the notification and monitoring requirements?

Yes, Madam Chair, Supervisor Farr. This inquiry came from some of our tribal residents who live in Guadalupe and it came through a tribal staff and they made the inquiry of planning and development. I don't think we ever were in an objection situation. We were kind of just inquiring as to the process that this project was going through. Since that time, we've met with the mayor of Guadalupe, resolved our issues And we're in a position to volunteer the services of Native American monitors to completely take that issue off the table.

Thank you very much, I appreciate that and Madam Chair before we leave this item I just wanted to say You know, once it came to my attention I have been working very closely with staff with Ms. Romero and spoken and communicated with the mayor a number of times. I mean this is clearly a really important project for the county but even more so particularly for the community of Guadalupe as I know that you know and also really has such an impact on the Dune Center and the wonderful work that they do So I have to say that I am quite disappointed in what's happened here with county staff. There obviously was a very serious lack of communication and miscommunication With them and the public, and also I think between departments. So with that being said, I think that staff has been working very hard to rectify the situation.

And including the involvement of the CEO now. And we're working hard to make it happen as quickly as possible. So I'll look forward to this meeting that's going to happen today. Thank

you. Ms. Waller, you'll hold a meeting today with these folks. And then let's put it back on the agenda next week so we can know what happened. Just a report.

Yes, Chairwoman we certainly can do that and I probably while you're hearing your next item will slip away and see if we can get this meeting all set up for today.

Thank you Ms. Romero appreciate it very much. Why don't you work with Ms. Waller? Yeah, thank you. And I actually have one more public comment. I don't know if it's a public comment but I looked in the Santa Barbara news press the other day there was a list of all the people that owe the County of Santa Barbara money some in the hundreds of thousands. Can you get a copy? Your name is not on here supervisor so...

What I, what I asked was how do we go about collecting and how aggressive are we at collecting because there's lots of money on here. So I'd like to ask that it go on the agenda for next week and this is a very short agenda. That Mr. Hagen would come in and tell us how to, what they do and so on?

Chairwoman, members of the board I think that's an excellent idea and we will schedule Mr. Hagen or one of his folks to come in and walk us through the process not only for how people get to the point that they get themselves in the newspaper but better yet how we actually resolve those issues. So yes we'll certainly dock at that.

I really look forward to that because we've not had this issue that I recalled before and so now it's kind of a new learning experience. As we said, we're learning how to manage downsizing not have managed growth anymore. Any other public comment Mr. Allen?

No Madam Chair.

All right it appears that we're ready then to commence the departmental agenda. Item 1 Mr. Allen

Madam Chair, item number one is from the Public Works Department and comes to the board as the Board of Directors of Laguna County Sanitation District. It's a hearing to receive and file a presentation on Laguna County Sanitation District Wastewater Recognition Plant Facilities and Financial Master Plan.

Mr. Schleyer? And consultant.

Good morning chair, members of the board. Today we have two items regarding Laguna. This is the first one on the master plan. We're talking about some of the longer range issues and challenges that we have at the Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant. Next slide please, Marty. This is an old plant that was built in 1959 and think of it as a lot of the appliances we all had in 1959. We don't have many of those anymore. Do

you want to bet? I have my same old washboard.

There's always the exception to the rule.

Thank you Mark.

We have done upgrades over time I'm really from regulatory concerns. But we're still dealing with a very old facility. Our master plan is not uncommon to what's going on in other areas. The city of Lompoc just spent $94 million upgrading their plant. City of Goleta has spent about $28 million and that's just in our community, I think that's pretty much a statewide concern To address this issue, we had to define what our needs were and that's what we did. We had to comply with regulatory compliance and we also recognized the need to bring in some expertise and that's where CH2M Hill was selected through the process of an RFP process.

Today we have Mary Borosis of CH2Hill to provide a summary of the process we went through And the outcomes and recommendations that came out of that process. So at this point, I'd like to turn over the presentation to Mary Firosis.

Is this on? Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you very much. To put this facilities plan together, you can see it's a very large volume here. I'm going to quickly go through the process that we did and what we came up with with recommendations but we had to look at your facilities first and foremost assess the condition and performance of existing facilities. We looked at what the future regulatory requirements might be on your facility. We took a look at the district service and growth rates And we had to define based on that what the future wastewater flows and loads might be. And then evaluate different treatment and discharge options for that. And from that, we developed an implementation plan for plant upgrades over the next few years. And we also took a look at your user charges and developed a rate system so that you can be able to collect charges and fees to be able to pay for the cost of these things.

Right now you've got a treatment plant that's rated. It has a plant capacity of 3.7 million gallons a day, 3.2 is for the low salt flow stream, .5 for the high salt treatment. Ultimately looking at the growth in the area we're looking at a 5 million gallon per day plant that you would need here. We don't see a growth in the salt area but we do see in the low-salt flow stream 4.5 million as a future flow capacity.

So we did an assessment of the existing condition and capacity of your treatment facilities. So condition is just looking at, you know, what these old things look like? Are they rusting out? How is the equipment functioning? And then we also did a performance evaluation where we looked at the treatment processes and said are they doing what they're supposed to do? Are they taking care of the pollutants the way they were intended to?

And there's really three areas that we looked at. Your main plant process, you have a salt reduction process in your plant and then you also have processes that deal with the solids that we take out when we treat wastewater. This slide here shows some of the things we found in the condition assessment. It's a little hard to see up here in the light but if you look closely you'll see some of the corroding that's occurring on some of the older equipment Yeah, yeah there you can see it a little better.

But these are just some of the shots I mean the plan goes into more detail on what some of the things are but if you look at the bottom row that middle thing you can see cracks in the concrete that's on your trickling filter which is your main treatment process and then you'll also see some of the old equipment is rusted out and in pretty poor condition just from a conditions assessment Then we looked at the performance of the plant. How is it performing? And really you have been meeting your effluent limits, but there are the units... It's a very complex process. The units that I targeted in yellow are really your oldest treatment units and those were built sometime in the late 1950s and those are units where we saw most of the impact in terms of what was happening with performance and whether or not they could continue with the future flows and loads that you might see.

So in order to look at what you needed to do to upgrade, we did a short listing of alternatives. And the first step we took is we looked at the different benefits from different alternatives and we kind of looked at operational environmental and constructability benefits from the different things. And then we identified a scoring system for these different benefits that you would have from different treatment options.