BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

So what we're learning today will not only help

our astronauts, but will help the people here on Earth also. With proper cultivation many of the technologies that are being developed to help our astronauts eat well in space may also someday be used to help feed people back here on Earth.

An added byproduct of plants being grown on permanent planetary bases is that earth will not only be eaten by astronauts, but they will also be providing oxygen. In a moment we'll meet an astronaut who will give us a first-person account of what it is like to live and eat in space. But first did you know that the first time solid food was eaten in space was on Gemini 3?

Astronaut John Young carried two meal packages to sample on his five-hour mission. While in orbit, Young surprised fellow astronaut Virgil Grissom when he presented him with a corned beef sandwich on rye which had been purchased at a delicatessen in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Although Grissom enjoyed the gesture, he did not finish the sandwich because it was producing so many crumbs!

Many of us have only dreamed of going to space, but only a few of the best and brightest have actually had the opportunity. But an even smaller amount has spent long periods of time there. The experiments and data collected from these pioneers is helping scientists and future astronauts learn more about the effects of long-duration missions on the human body. One of these pioneers that has spent significant time in space helping lead the way is astronaut Michael Fole. A veteran of six space flights, Fole is credited with four spacewalks totaling almost 23 hours. He's also spent time on board the Russian Space Station Mir and was the commander of Expedition 8 aboard the International Space Station. He currently holds the U.S. record for time spent in space at 374 days 11 hours and 19 minutes.

So, who better to help us understand what it's like to actually live and eat in space? Johnny Alonzo spoke with Dr. Fole to find out how it works.

The International Space Station is without doubt one of the most amazing structures ever built. Orbiting Earth some 242 miles above us, its stated goal is to teach us how to live in space for long periods of time. Although there are many areas of scientific study being researched, one of the most important is food technology. Understanding how the human body interacts with food and microgravity will be one of several key questions that need to be answered when we travel outside of Earth's orbit for long periods of time. Who better to ask about food in space than an astronaut who spent over a year on both the ISS and the mirror eating a variety of different foods.

Astronaut Mike Full will give us a skinny on what it's like to live in space, and find out how it works.

Eating in space is a treat. Basically you get hungry, you get thirsty just like we do on Earth. I think after the first day in space when you get launched into space your stomach lifts up a little bit as you float and so for the very first hours after arrival in space there isn't a desire to eat and that's because you're finding some vestibular issues, nausea But those pass, and they pass pretty quickly. In my case two or three hours after about two orbits an orbit is one-and-a-half hours in 90 minutes after about 2 or 3 orbits you're starting to get ready to take off your space suit that you use to launch into space.

On my last flight it was on a Soyuz rocket You get out of this cramped space stretch out change clothes into something soft not this bulky awkward spacesuit And then you think about eating There are many different types of fares Food Fair, I mean. On the Soyuz rocket which is probably the most meager food cuisine I've come across in my career. The Soyuz simply has dried foods And juices. This food is really not made for a real meal, however it's enough to get us by for the two days it takes to get to the International Space Station.

We

get to space station after two days and oh, it's a wonderful, wonderful sight because you know not only there are friends there, there's more places to stretch out and move about, big windows but there's also Food, real food and they're talking to you about it. You know they're saying hey what should we put on for you? And the first thing that came to my mind was I remembered my experience of Russian foods and American foods that we shared 50-50. Where

do we keep our food? The red boxes are Russian food. The blue boxes are American food. Why do we have so few American boxes? That's a good question. Not sure what I'm going to have tonight, but I think it's going to be American. We've got chocolate pudding cake. Don't smell one bite just yet.

One of the worst things to eat in space, but they still keep sending it. Both Americans and Russians. They send crackers and you eat crackers and go... And you have all these crumbs flying out and the whole issue is to somehow put the cracker into your mouth and then seal your lips around it Crunch on it so the crumbs sort of explode out of your mouth.

Tell me, does food in space taste differently than it does here on Earth? The

whole issue of taste in space is one of research. In my personal experience I don't believe my taste, my sensation of taste really changes in space. I did notice on my first long duration flight on the Space Station Mira over time I started to want or crave salty foods more.

So Mike when it's tiny do you guys all get together at a table? Or do you sit by yourself? What's the procedure?

The most important thing I think anybody does in a day is eat. And what do we do? We're social creatures, human beings and we like to eat together and that's where social events normally occur is around food or drink. The same is true in space and as the commander of the International Space Station I understood very very clearly that I was not going to let us just two of us for most of the time Sasha, Clary and myself eat at different times Because then we would start to come apart, there wouldn't be the exchange. It would just be very poor. It's hard enough living for six and a half months in a small space with only one other person far away from everybody else. So I said, we're going to have breakfast, we're going to have maybe you know a coffee break about 11 and we're gonna go to lunch And we're going to have a fixed lunch and we're not going to let the ground bother us.

We're going to make it clear to the ground, we don't want to be bothered. Then we're gonna go to tea at about like four, then we go to evening meal at about seven. And sure enough you then got this routine going. This is a good example of space shuttle tray not often used simply because the tray really is designed to hold your food. Now here in front of you, it's very convenient for me to just hold the implements that I would use to talk about eating. But actually on the International Space Station or indeed on the space shuttle there is so much Velcro that you can always use the same food implements or items to simply stick your food to whatever Velcro is near you.

Any wall, any surface generally has some Velcro nearby and it attaches just with a little Velcro circle. They always make a point on this space station or on the space shuttle to have hook Velcro on the items that you would attach and they always have pile Velcro on the walls. Pile is softer, it doesn't scratch your skin for one thing so it's just more comfortable to be around everywhere and then you make hook velcro the stuff that's just kind of small and specific and so I'm holding right here minestrone soup notice there's a barcode There's also soup minestrone, which is in Russian and I read that for you.

The barcode is used in the case that we have to do any food logging experiments. They know exactly how many calories what the food value is of this packet and we have food specialists who know exactly what's in this all the vitamins all the calories fats etc and cholesterols if we're going to drink water for example we would still log it even though there's no calories in it We would scan the packet and we'd fill it with the right amount of water.

So, we've been talking about all this food. I mean how do you control your weight in orbit?

Obviously if you eat more or you eat less then your weight will change. In space the initial reaction, the first two days is for you to go to toilet a lot and you lose a lot of fluids You probably lose 5 to 10 pounds just in the first few days, just through fluid loss. And a lot of the fluid is coming from your legs and it's also shifting up into your upper body. That's why when you see people on television from space they kind of have slightly puffed-up cheeks. I do believe we actually lose that fluid shift somewhat in our faces because we basically just lost fluid.

So that's a change in the body and so you have lost weight at that point. We measure our mass every two weeks And the first month of my flight we talk to our flight surgeons, our doctors every week about how things are going and generally it's always a how you doing? You know nothing's wrong etc. They want us to eat enough so that our mass I'm So that's how it works. So if you're in a really expensive takeout

That's all for this edition of NASA's Destination Tomorrow. I'm Cara O'Brien. For all of us here at NASA, we'll see you next time. Welcome to

Hi folks, welcome to another edition of Space Place Live. I'm Kate and this is Keo. Hi everybody! We have a very fun guest with us today. Her name is Michelle Thaller. Michelle's a NASA astronomer, you know, a scientist who studies planets, stars, galaxies and other neat stuff in space. Thanks for being with us today Michelle. Hey it's great to be here. What are you working on these

days? I work for the Spitzer Space Telescope, and this is the latest of NASA's big space-based observatories.

Oh yeah! I know about the Hubble Space Telescope, but why do we need another space telescope? Can't Hubble see everything there is to see out in space? We

actually see the universe entirely in infrared light, what you think of as heat light. Heat light? I

thought heat and light were two entirely different things!

If you are very hot, like let's say something is about 10,000 degrees, that's almost as hot as the sun right? The sun is hot so it's glowing in visible light. But for a human, we're much cooler. We're only about 100 degrees. But we actually give off our own kind of light. We actually glow just like a star does. It's just that instead of giving off light that your eyes can see, we give off infrared light or body heat and that's what Spitzer conceived.

Wow! That means Spitzer could find aliens in space! Oh Q, you give new meaning to intelligent life. Thanks! Uh, wait a minute. So what is Spitzer looking

for Michelle? Planets around other stars don't give off any light of their own, any visible light but they're certainly warm that give off heat so if you can detect the infrared light or the heat signal from a distant planet around another star that's a much better way to try to detect the planet.

See Kate some of those planets could have aliens on them hmm Well, it would take one to know one. Maybe you should work for Spitzer? I'd love to! But for now we need to take a commercial break. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. Welcome back. So, Michelle what else can a Spitzer Space Telescope see?

You can see through giant clouds of dust in space. You can see to where stars are actually being born inside these big dust clouds and you could also see things like giant black holes which I love that are sometimes inside these giant dust clouds and hard to see so Spitzer can see hidden things and things that are too cool to be glowing

Ooh, I love black holes too! That's because you live in one. Every time I loan you a book or pencil it disappears in your room. It doesn't disappear. I just strategically misplace it. Yeah, right. Anyway Michelle, what would you say is your very favorite picture from the Spitzer telescope?

I have to say our image of Andromeda is one of my favorites. Andromeda's the closest big galaxy to our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It's a big spiral And in visible light it looks sort of just like a nice frisbee of stars, a disc of stars, of light. But in the infrared you see all these wonderful rings and structures. The spiral arms go right into the center of the galaxy. You can actually see that. It looks so different and it's so beautiful.

Wow! That's really awesome! Yeah! So, Michelle could you tell us and the kids watching what is the best part of being an astronomer?

I really believe that everybody in the world should be able to look at space the way we do. To know about distant planets, distant galaxies. To me there's nothing more important than telling people what we're discovering. Why is it that we have a space program? Why is it that we are building telescopes?

I'm glad you're doing that. My grandpa has those kinds of questions, what would you tell him about?

The amazing new things we're seeing. We're seeing things that are so far away that the light took 13 billion years to get to us! We're seeing the universe as it was even when it was forming. We'r finding planets around other stars maybe some of them have life. People need to know this. It changes you. It makes the world a better place and that is the most important part of my job and my favorite part

I know I really like to think about things like that. We're back. We're talking to astronomer Michelle Thaler. She works on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Michelle, as you may know we love amazing facts here at the space place. Do you have a favorite amazing fact? I would say my favorite scientific fact

is Any atom larger than hydrogen or helium has to be made inside a star. I mean, literally what that means like in your body there's carbon and there's iron and there's oxygen all of those atoms were made inside the belly of a giant star that died long ago and exploded we are so connected with space it's not something distant it's something right in your body and I love that I

believe the astronomer Carl Sagan said, we are star stuff. Didn't he do a TV show about the stars a long time ago?

I was a kid about 10 years old when this show Cosmos came out and Carl just blew me away! I mean, I had a picture of him in my locker in middle school. I had this big crush on Carl Sagan. I just thought he was amazing. So was it Carl Sagan who first made you want to be an astronomer? Wanting to be an astronomer probably stems from seeing Star Wars when I was a kid. I was about seven years old when the very first Star Wars came out and I just came out of that theater thinking, I have to do something to do with space. I've got to make that my life. You know, I just loved that. The way it just completely blew up my imagination.

Wow, I'll tell that story to my mom next time she says movies are a waste of time. Well speaking of time we're all out of it thanks again for talking to us today Michelle Hey it was great being on the show and thanks for watching Space Place Live see you all next time

Hi, everyone.

Hey Globie, you know you're my favorite planet to explore. There is no place more interesting than Earth but it's also fun to explore other planets so today we're going to talk about the challenges of exploring Mars with the Phoenix Lander. The Phoenix Lander is a robotic craft that NASA sent to Mars to learn more about the surface of the Red Planet. One of the coolest things about the mission was the challenge NASA scientists and engineers had to overcome just to get the Phoenix Lander safely to Mars.

But before we talk about all that, let's find out exactly what a lander is and what makes it so special. A lander is different than an orbiter... ...and also different than a rover or an uncrewed aerial vehicle. An orbiter is a craft that orbits around the planet to gather information. NASA sent multiple orbiters to Mars, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Global Surveyor.

These orbiters can cover vast areas of the planet since they're circling the entire planet. The main disadvantage is that they're not getting as close to the surface of Mars as a UAV or a rover. An orbiter is very different than a rover, which is a craft that's designed to travel across the ground. For example, NASA plans to send a new generation of the rover to our moon so astronauts can explore the surface.

NASA also wants to send an uncrewed aerial vehicle or UAV for short to Mars. A UAV is a robotic airplane with no pilot or crew. This UAV will be called Ares and his nickname

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2A 3.30 (-0.66') Good afternoon everybody, thank you for being here. We'll go ahead and bring this regular meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to order on July 3rd 2012 Mr. Allen would you call the roll please?

Ms. Wolfe, Ms. Gray, Mr. Labagnino, Mr Carbajal and Ms. Farr.

Here would you all

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Now we'll go ahead and go to public comment. This is the time when people can speak on anything that's not on today's agenda. Mr. Allen, do I have any speaker slips?

No request to speak.

Okay. Well then we'll go ahead and we'll right into our one item of the day, departmental item number 1 from the County Executive Office. Would you read that into the record please?

Madam Chair, members of the Board. This is from the County Executive Office. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a transient occupancy tax ballot measure and I just want to note real quickly for the record it does indicate in recommendation D2 the date of November 16th and that is an incorrect date for the general election. That's November 6 2012. Just wanted to make that clear for the record.

Okay so that's one change there All right, good afternoon. Mr. Pisanich you're going to present for us today.

Good afternoon chair members of the board I'm here to provide a brief presentation in follow-up to your request that we come back with a proposal for transient occupancy tax increase for the November ballot Just to review some of the very basics on transient occupancy tax, it really is a paid percentage of the hotel room charges. Traditionally paid by people who are visiting and staying in local hotels, local inns, motels vacation rentals and a variety of other short-term accommodations.

Currently, the TOT at 10% brings in roughly $7 million. If we were to increase that to 12%, the estimate is that it would bring in somewhere along the lines of an additional 1.1 to $1.5 million. It's important to note that this is a number that changes quite dramatically and as your board has already become aware during the budget hearings, as well as subsequent to the budget hearings. TOT is on the increase locally for us as the effects of the recession continue to recede and so this number will change over time.

It's important to also note that the City of Santa Barbara currently has a transient occupancy tax rate of 12% and that Carpinteria, Goleta, Solvang and Buelton have ballot measures to increase their TOT. It's also important to note for both you as members of the board, as well as for the members of the public that might be viewing that the vote on this transient occupancy tax will be taken countywide. It will include residents of the incorporated cities as well as the unincorporated parts of the county but the measure itself that you might choose to put on the ballot, that measure would only apply to hotels and vacation rentals and those other short-term accommodations in the unincorporated areas So for many folks in the cities of Carpentaria, well for everybody in the cities of Carpentaria, Goleta, Solvang, Buelton.

If you were to put this on the ballot they would actually be seeing two ballot measures requesting an increase one for the local incorporated area as well as a separate one for the hotels and the unincorporated areas it would not mean that they would be being taxed double if they were to pass Finally, just a little review of the TOT process. We're introducing the ordinance today. Your board would have the opportunity to then adopt that ordinance if it were so choose next week's meeting on July 10th.

We would at the same time following the adoption of that ordinance, we would then submit that ballot measure to county elections and the clerk recorder assessor's department. We would have to complete the impartial analysis which is done by our county council by July 25th Somewhere in that time frame we would have to, we'd be required to submit an argument if you wouldn't be required. You would have the option to submit an argument in favor somewhere between July 16th and the 25th. And a key reminder is that the election day would be held on November 6th.

And that if this were to be approved by the voters it would become effective upon their approval. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer any and all.

Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Buzanich? Supervisor Wolk?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Buzanich, I'm sorry I didn't ask you this question before but it just occurred to me as you were talking about the four cities and the notion that perhaps there may be a perception of folks being taxed twice. I have been thinking about our local school district in Santa Barbara, they're going out for a parcel tax. Do you know of any other jurisdictions in the county? I know that we've passed a few of those in our administrative agenda and I just can't think of them offhand. Are there any other school assessments or parcel taxes or anything?

Or district taxes that are gonna be on the ballot?

Chair, I and Supervisor Wolf. The one other one that I'm aware of is the San Ynez Valley High School District has a bond or tax measure on their ballot. CEO Waller, I'm not sure.

Chairwoman Supervisor, I know that as I was reviewing the agenda for the 10th, I saw several administrative items where various measures are being passed forward to our elections office via our board. The the exact topic, but I do recall. I think there were half a dozen or so, but I don't know what those were related to Mr. Allen Do you have any more specifics on that?

I know for sure that if there are at least four the Santa Barbara High School districts of our elementary school College School District and I believe in San Yanez as well And

college school district is Yelton San Ynez San Ynez okay So we have the San Ynez Valley High School District and the College Elementary District. And there might be a few other ones? But you're checking, can you check into the agenda? Okay thank you. Thank You Mr. Bazonich

Supervisor Lavagnino.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is this a time where we talk about the language or would that be do we want to hear from the public first and then talk about the language?

We do have at least five public speakers so we probably should wait and hear from them. Mr. Buzanich I just wanted to clarify when you say increase effective upon approval by the voters. So if the election is November 6 it goes into effect November 7th or is it the beginning of the next calendar year?

Chair, my understanding is that it would be effective upon the certification of the election.

Okay, so Council, is that right? So within the next 30 days whenever that

happens? Yes. There's some conflict in the statutory description. It says effective immediately but we're interpreting that to be effective immediately upon certification which would follow approximately 30 days after the election date

Okay. And then assuming this goes forward and it would be approved, then is it the auditor's office then? I mean how are all of the hotels and the people that would be affected by this notified in time to know that they need to now start charging more?

Chair, I would defer to the auditor and actually the treasurer tax collector about the exact mechanics of the notification process. I don't have that we could provide that for you for next week in time for the second reading in terms of the exact notification mechanics

Okay. Thank you All right Should we go ahead and hear from the public then? All right, why don't we go ahead and do that Mr. Allen

Madam Chair, we have five requests to speak. We'll start with Lanny Evenstein to be followed by George Thompson.

Okay. Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

Great. Members of the Board of Supervisors, I am very concerned about the proposal to rush a proposal to the ballot this November that would increase the transient occupancy tax in the county by two percentage points to 12%. Virtually no discussion has occurred on this proposal. No study of its long-range implications has been performed. Funds from the increased tax would merely be directed to the general fund.

I am very surprised and concerned that this proposal has come to the Board in the manner it has. No negotiations have occurred with county employee unions to diminish their salaries and benefits from what they would otherwise be in order to place this tax increase on the ballot. No consideration has been given to earmarking funds, though not committing them directly to public safety or for example earmarking them at least for a new or retained North County Jail.

This is an irresponsible proposal. It may pass this November but it should not. It would track county discussions with respect to the continuing fiscal crisis the county faces to tax increases, not revenue increases through increased private economic vitality. Indeed by whetting the appetite of county public sector unions for tax increases without corresponding salary and benefit concessions this proposal would probably make the county's financial situation worse.

Please vote against placing this proposal on the ballot this November. If it is worthwhile to consider this proposal, then it's worthwhile to consider in a timely and not rushed fashion. I should just say that to follow up on Supervisor Wolf's comments, I believe that both in the 1st District and in the 3rd District That if they've had a chance to know about this meeting today, many educational advocates would be here to say we don't need another tax increase on this November ballot with educational proposals on the ballot.

You know, I've seen many proposals for tax increases over the year and other proposals but never a proposal winged in days before with no public discussion, no meaningful public notification to increase a significant tax in a significant manner with no corresponding concessions from anyone with opposing proposals or competing proposals already on the ballot. Thank you very much.

Thank

you. Our next speaker is George Thompson to be followed by Kathy Genega Dykes.

I'm George Thompson and I have a vacation rental in the unincorporated area of the county, We're fairly new in this business and so when we found out about this, of course we went to the appropriate office and registered. And it was my understanding that the revenue from this tax is to help promote tourism in the area. I don't know that that's necessarily a strict requirement but I would rather see this kind of money go for that purpose than to support the general fund. I understand the budget problems in the county, but this doesn't seem like the appropriate place to be trying to raise additional revenue for the general fund.

I'm not sure that the tourist economy can support this increase as you might expect We do have people who come here, and they have the means to spend money in Santa Barbara. But this can be a deterrent for their coming here. And one thing you may or may not have thought of is that in the surrounding area, the tax is 12%, whereas the county is only 10%. a selling point in getting people to come to my rental as opposed to somebody in the incorporated areas because it is an incentive and cost savings for them.

So I'd just like to register my comments in opposition to the increase, and that this is probably not the place to be going to gain additional funds. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Kathy Genega-Dyce followed by Joe Armendariz.

Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Kathy Schnegedykes. I'm president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Conference and Visitors Bureau and Film Commission. And I'm here to comment on the proposal to increase the transient occupancy tax to 12% in the unincorporated areas. Our Board of Directors supports the increase however with the qualification that some percentage of this increase be dedicated to tourism marketing.

We believe that this is quite simply a smart business move. The dollars used for marketing will bring in additional transient occupancy tax revenues that are much larger than the amount that is being allocated for current tourism funding. Funding tourism marketing works to your benefit and actually we can prove this. This year, the CBB conducted a number of research projects to really identify the influence our organization has had and generating new tourism revenues for the area. We've created a new dashboard that analyzes the results of all programs and calculates the incremental room nights that the CBP has generated for the South Coast, and using this data we were able to determine that we did indeed influence an additional close to 50,000 room nights that may not have been realized had it not been for our marketing strategy.

Tourism, as you know, is one of the county's most important economic drivers and yet there are still opportunities for significant growth. So today we're here asking to begin a conversation about ways that a portion of this new revenue stream could be reinvested to all of our benefit.

Thank

you. Mr. Armendariz to be followed by Mary Harris who is our final speaker.

Members of the board, I'm Joe Armendariz representing Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. I'm always kind of torn when it comes to these issues because I'll just be perfectly frank with you. When you guys put taxes on the ballot, taxpayers association gets new members. We raise more money, we create more excitement out there in the body politic and so part of me wants you to do this because it would be good for us as an organization. But I think that good public policy is really what we're talking about today. And I want to echo one of the comments that Landy Evenstein made, I really do and I appreciate the question from Supervisor Wolf. I really do think that you run the risk of voter fatigue, taxpayer fatigue on the November ballot if you have multiple taxes on the ballot.

I think it would make a lot more sense to pull back give this thing some comprehensive analysis maybe come back by the way Why don't you wait and see whether the voters of Carpinteria are going to vote for an increase in the transient occupancy tax or the voters in Salvinger-Buelton, see what they're going to do. And then come back with a proposal after you've had a chance to talk to the stakeholders, after you've had a chance to meet with members of the Taxpayers Association. The Taxpayers Association's Board of Directors has not had an opportunity to take up this item but I will tell you this our executive committee met about this two days ago And we're just there uniformly against it. So I think that if this thing goes on the ballot, you're going to have the active opposition of the Taxpayers Association.

I would venture to say probably Colab. I think he'd probably have some serious concern with the hotel stakeholders in the community as well. And so I think it's going to be a difficult sell quite frankly. I, as I said to you last week and as I said to the Carpinteria City Council, I really do believe that right now what's really on the minds of voters is economic vitality and jobs. And right now you have an opportunity with respect to this TOT potential to really direct those revenues tactically and strategically, and go out and make a sale to the voters about why this is a way to create a bigger economic pie that will generate more revenue not less revenue. I'm not here to propose you starve the beast. I am here to try to help you understand an opportunity that has presented itself with this TOT to grow county finances and grow revenue in order to fully fund the programs and services that all of our constituents want.

Finally, I would ask that you really take a serious look at the economics of taxation as it relates to the hotel industry. In particular, this is a tax that comes out of the gross operations of the hotels. Prices are information when you pass if you pass this or what I should say is that the voters passes in November, you won't see an increase in the price of hotel rooms. They will eat this tax and then forward that money to the government and thereby about $1.5 million that would have normally gotten into the economy will go into government coffers. As I said last week, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But I think there is a better way of growing our economic pie than simply redistributing the wealth. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Supervisors. My name is Mary Harris. I'm the Executive Director of the Santa Ynez Valley Hotel Association representing the 32 hotels of the Santa Ynez Valley of which 10 are in the unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County On behalf of the board, I appreciate the opportunity to present to you their vote At their regular board meeting of June 7th, after much discussion and many presentations pro and con the group that was there voted six to nothing to support a 12% increase provided that it was earmarked for an increase be earmarked for tourism promotion. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

All right, so that's our last public speaker and so we'll bring it back. And Mr. Allen, we had some information about the other ballot measures.

Madam Chair, members of the board, the four that we mentioned earlier are the only four requests we've received so far and that would be from St. Isabel Union High School, the Santa Barbara Unified School District on behalf of secondary education, the Santa Barbara Unified School District on behalf of elementary education The college school district we heard from Santa Maria Bonita School District, but they've not submitted any requests for this Okay.

Thank you All right We'll bring it back to the board then Supervisor Lavagnino do you want to start up? I think he brought this to us last week.

Thank You madam chair Well, I do I do take to heart the Question of voter fatigue, and I know the ballot is going to be packed. But who's to say it's not going to be packed in 2014? The next time we'd be able to do this would be June of 2014, I believe. So two problems I have with that. We don't know what June 2014 is gonna look like. And also that puts us in the same position of is this a good idea or is it not a good idea?

If it is a good idea, I think we need to do it now because otherwise we're going to be passing up two years of what a potential TOT would bring us, increase would bring us. So timing, I am sensitive to that but I think if you agree with the position that we need to increase, we should do it now. If you don't, I can understand that as well. I look at this as – I'm trying to be pragmatic here.

It doesn't make any sense for us to have two sets of rules. Why does Carpinteria, why would Carpinteria-Bulton-Solvang, the City of Santa Barbara have one tax and we have another one? I also think, I look at this as you know when we leave here and we go to places and we visit whether it's Napa or San Francisco or San Diego or Calistoga or Napa or Sausalito We pay a higher, our residents pay a higher TOT than when visitors come here.

So I don't think that this is an overbearing additional tax. I'm opposed to taxes just...I was going to say as much as Lanny but I don't think you're going to be submitting the argument in favor on the ballot. There are some things, I'm just not pigeon-holed into completely opposing all taxes. There are taxes that are useful and for me a tax that is a user tax first off, not everybody has to pay this tax it's only if you use it.

Every other entity around this municipality is moving to this 12%. I think it's up to the people. Let them decide. I don't have any problem putting this on the ballot. I do have some problems with the language that was offered from county council, and I would like to work on that as we move forward. But I don' think COLAB will be opposed to it after sitting down with their executive director Here's to me that I believe that they will at least be neutral.

Thank you, Supervisor Carbajal. Thank

you Madam Chair. I think my staff got a message from Mr. Buzanich if he could put up the language from the other Measures that Carpinteria, City of Goleta and others are considering but Carpinteria and Goleta in particular had some language that I think is closer to what might put forth a better perspective to the voters. And so I don't know how the rest my colleagues feel but I would like to Carpinteria's in particular I think is one Captures the essence, we would just change out where it says city and put in county.

And at the end, maybe just delete and no money going to Sacramento. And if we do want some reference to Sacramento maybe include in money not being at the whim of Sacramento I don't know but I think we could take out that last line and no money going to Sacramento but if people feel strongly we can leave it in or modify it to just Notate that Sacramento doesn't have the ability to meddle in these resources, so

Okay other comments from the board this time supervisor grant

Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly appreciate the nature of this idea and have thought that it basically would tax just folks that are visiting. However, and I think while I don't just think, I'm positive that this may apply more to North County than it does to South County. And this is the issue. The issue is tour buses and conventions. Granted, there are very few hotels in North County in the unincorporated area at this point in time. However, if they were to come to the North County, assume we have a La Prisma Hotel, we primarily rely on huge bookings, large tour bus bookings and convention-type bookings And when they're finding a place to stay, they then say well we want to save every particular dime we can. A couple of the speakers alluded to that also.