BOARD OF SUPERVISORS_

Go ahead and convene this regular meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to order of December 4th, 2012. We're glad that you're all here. Mr. Allen would you call the roll please?

Mr. Lavinino? Here! Mr. Carbajal? Here Ms. Wolfe? Here Ms. Gray? Present Ms. Farr?

Here Would you all

Thank You Madam Chair. We could have Mr. Rod Latham come up with Jenny Brush. Madam Chair it is an honor for me to present this resolution to Mr. Rod Latham for Him being, him receiving the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission 2012 Leadership in the Arts Award. Now this is a very prestigious award that isn't given out lightly it's only given out to individuals that have a long track record of contribution to the arts in our community, and Mr. Latham is one of those individuals.

He's actually one of the pillars of the arts in our community and when you see many of the art venues and many of the artistic endeavors in our community it's in great part because of his leadership and vision over the years. I want to read you a quote that I think captures Mr. Latham's contribution as somebody wrote, Rod Latham has been a tireless advocate for access to the arts by people living with disabilities youth and minorities, and has served as an ambassador for the arts encouraging workshops, performances, and exhibition opportunities for artists that live and work in Santa Barbara ensuring the preservation of Santa Barbara's unique cultural signature.

I think that embodies the greatness of Mr. Latham and why we're recognizing him today and why he received the award that he did Mr. Allen, if you could read the resolution that goes over specifics about some of those contributions, that would be great.

Madam Chair, members of the Board, this is a resolution of commendation recognizing Rod Latham as the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission 2012 Leadership in the Arts Award recipient. Whereas, Rod Latham has been recognized by the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission as the 2012 Leadership in the Arts Award recipient for his significant impact on the arts and culture of our community. And whereas, Rod Latham has provided decades of invaluable guidance and insight to foundations, non-profits and area performing arts groups. Serving on the Board of Directors of the Libero Theater, The Center Stage Theater the Marjorie Luke Theater, the Box Tales Theatre Company, the Santa Barbara Performing Arts League and has been recognized by the community for its creative talents in writing, acting, directing, producing as well as the visual arts.

And whereas, Rod has been a tireless advocate for enhancing access to the arts for all residents of our community including those with disabilities, youth and minorities and while leading efforts to establish workshops, performance and exhibition opportunities for artists that live and work in Santa Barbara ensuring the preservation of Santa Barbara's unique cultural signature.

And whereas, Rod Latham was instrumental in the raising of over $4 million to renovate the Marjory Luke Theater which included establishing a unique public-private partnership with the Santa Barbara school districts to create a performing arts venue used by public schools and the community. In addition, in his capacity as President of the Board of the Marjory Luke Theater, Rod worked to establish a rent subsidy program that provides financial support to many local performing arts groups developed community-based programs including the Glee at the Luke benefit that featured cast and producers of the popular television show, and he produced Viva el Arte series in partnership with UCSB Arts & Lectures.

And whereas Rod Latham's distinguished career includes founding Access Theater and directing and co-writing many of 20 original productions including the award winning international tour and television production of Storm Reading that starred Neil Marcus. Rod also achieved international acclaim for his work in 1985 when he was awarded the prestigious Princess Grace Award presented by HSH, Prince Albert of Monaco and Frank Sinatra. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors honors Rod Latham upon his receiving the County Arts Commission Leadership in the Arts Award passed and adopted today.

Madam Chair, I ask Rod if he would just wait one more minute for me to focus on the one item that I really forgot to elaborate on, and that is the Marjorie Luke Theater. I don't know how many of you that are watching or are here in the audience are familiar with that wonderful art venue, well not a museum but performing arts venue. It is just extraordinary and Mr. Latham led the fundraising effort and the vision to make that happen, And it happens to be the school where my son currently attends.

So like I said, if you've attended that performing arts venue, you say wow and when you think that it's part of a school where children every day are able to frequent that whether it's for theater or just to have assemblies, it's just this extraordinary venue and it's rivaled obviously by the Granada in its splendor but that's the type of venue that it is so congratulations.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm very honored and very touched, and I appreciate the recognition from the Board of Supervisors in the Arts Commission and appreciate working with Jenny all these years. It's a great honor, and it's certainly warming and touching to be acknowledged. And I really accept this on behalf All of the working artists that live here in Santa Barbara County that really are responsible for creating a cultural signature for us, for touching the lives of young people, for underserved and everyone all of us who live in this amazing county. It's a life passion and I I'm a part of the passion that is embodied in the artistic community here, so thank you for acknowledging all of us and continue supporting the arts and letting it change lives because arts really do save lives.

So thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Thank you for all of your work. Ms. Brush did you want to make some comments as well?

Just very briefly, I'm very grateful. First of all, I want to recognize the director of the community arts Community Services Department, which is the department that houses the Arts Commission and I want to especially say how important it It is for the Arts Commission to have this award, to give us. This is the sixth year now we've been able to recognize significant individuals who work tirelessly for the arts and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those that are working so hard with such dedication, volunteering their time and efforts to encourage arts and culture in Santa Barbara County. Thank you.

All right, we'll turn next to our next resolution that we're going to present and it's a resolution of commendation honoring Buffy Harrington Guy at the probation department as our December 2012 Santa Barbara County employee of the month. Obviously, we are always proud to be able to honor an employee every month. And Buffy started her career in Santa Barbara County in general services before she moved to probation.

And as we see in our employees of the month, not only are they recognized for the wonderful work that they do and their specific job. But the fact that they provide a wonderful role model and mentoring to other staff that they work with. So Buffy, we're very proud of your work for Santa Barbara County. We're very proud that we can honor you today. And Mr. Allen's gonna read the resolution. I'm gonna bring it down and give it to you.

Madam Chair, members of the board. This is a resolution of commendation for Buffy Harrington Guy, the Employee of the Month for Santa Barbara County for December 2012. Whereas Buffy began her career at Santa Barbara County in 1999 as an Administrative Secretary with the General Services Department before being hired by the Probation Department as the Executive Secretary to the Chief Probation Officer in 2006.

And whereas, Buffy has served the department commendably in each assignment since being hired and is currently the support supervisor at the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall. And has modeled the way for incoming staff by consistently displaying a willingness to meet new challenges with a professional demeanor and team spirit in getting the job done while still having fun.

And whereas, Buffy is renowned for initiative and rapport with co-workers as well as her work ethic, positive attitude, efficiency, organizational skills, analytic ability and her caring approach. And whereas, Buffy shows exceptional craftsmanship and expertise in managing Surveys and compiling statistical data for the juvenile detention profile surveys, the Juvenile Cognitive Behavior Training Grant and the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant which requires technical expertise and produces complex reports from probation administration in the state of California.

And whereas Buffy has served her fellow staff members in the general public and other county departments in a commendable fashion she is truly a fine person and example for staff to follow. And whereas, Buffy is married to Mark Guy and is a proud mother of sons Ethan and Liam. Now therefore it is hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors recognizes Buffy Harrington-Guy for her excellence as an employee and declares her the Employee of the Month for December 2012. Passed and adopted today.

Before Buffy speaks, I just wanted to add one chair bar and supervisors. Beverly Taylor, chief probation officer. I wanted to add one personal thank you to Buffy two and a half months ago at my request. She volunteered to take on the assignment of executive secretary for the probation department on a temporary basis. And in that time We were right in the midst of doing our strategic plan and our departmental overview. So she assisted in coordinating both of those documents to completion, and they are now ready for print.

As you all know, having an executive secretary vacancy even temporarily is not something that we want. So having Buffy step up to take that role is something that I truly thank her for. And she is a example Of what the county would look forward to an employee of the month and we are just fortunate to have her in our department. Thank you, Buffy.

Madam Chair and members of the board thank you for this recognition it truly is an honor I would also like to thank the probation executives especially Chief Taylor whom I recently have had the privilege of working closely with For selecting me as there are so many probation staff who do great things on a daily basis I would also like to acknowledge the probation support staff led by Debbie Anderson. If it was not for the teamwork of my fellow support staff, I would not be able to do my job.

Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for their love and support and to my husband and two wonderful boys who make life fun and interesting. Never a dull moment. Thank you.

Thank you. And Supervisor Gray, we will turn to you for the next resolution.

Thank you. My resolution is... The first instructions I got on this was to not tell the truth and then tell the truth, tell what really happened. So I have to introduce to you the character that said this, Jerry Bunin if you would please come up to the dais. Jerry has been the executive director for a building and contractors group for 10 years. And when I first started in the job, I got to see him a whole bunch because we were busy and now we're not so busy. And I only hope that your replacement will be seen a whole lot more than I've been seeing you in the last couple of years.

Now, what happened was he said I want you to be sure that you put in this resolution about the shouting match that we got into in the parking lot. Which I'm not really much on shouting matches but I remember we got into one and so both of us stood there and did the shouting match thing and then when he told me I had to put it in the resolution I said well what were we shouting about? And he said oh my god I can't remember neither could I. So hopefully you figured it out now and when you make your speech you can tell us what you and I were shouting about.

So Mr. Allen, if you'll read this I'm going to go down and hand it to Jerry

Madam Chair, members of the board. This is a resolution recognizing Jerry Buhnen upon his retirement from the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast. Whereas Jerry Buhnen joined the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast in September of 2002 as the governmental affairs director and has remained in that position for the last 10 years. In that position he's worked to promote the objectives and initiatives of the building industry on the Central Coast, worked with local government on housing land use and economic issues, and developed ties with coalition partners.

And whereas, Jerry's been a stalwart supporter and advocate for home building for many years. On every issue he has managed to represent and further the interests of the building community while maintaining good relationships with policy makers. And whereas, The Home Builders Association of the Central Coast is a non-profit California corporation A trade association representing builders, developers and related industry professionals in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

And whereas the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast serves the community within the building industry by working closely with the California Building Industry Association and the National Association of Home Builders To provide comprehensive programs, including powerful legislative advocacy, effective business networking, money-saving benefits, proven educational programs, up to date industry awareness and valuable publications and resources. And whereas Jerry's invaluable hard work experience and knowledge of the home building industry will be profoundly missed by the association members and staff. Now, therefore it be hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes Jerry Bunin for his 10 years of dedicated work with the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast pass and adopt it today.

Thank you very much. Yelling at Joni in the parking lot was not an example of good government relations. Really one of the low points in my professional experience. And it was over the Goleta community plan and what it was is I was urging you, in an inappropriate manner, to have a more thorough discussion about it in front of the board but it was not a very effective approach. But you

got a resolution out of

it. I do and I really appreciate the resolution so does the Home Builders Association so I thank you very much. I'd like to use a little bit of my time to thank some of your planning staff as well Glenn Russell and Diane Black are both here. I really enjoyed working with Glenn, and I particularly enjoyed the fact that he and I share an odd interest in archaeology so when we get together we talk about dirt first.

And I've enjoyed Diane Black because I think she knows that over the ten years I've really enjoyed provoking her. It's been one of the highlights of my professional life. The third person I don't think is here is Jeff Hunt. Yeah, he's

sitting there.

You know when Jeff and I were having an intense discussion, and I'm convinced that I had made a really brilliant point. Jeff's comment is always the same thing. We'll take it under advisement. Two final things. When I started the job I was very naive. I really assumed that it would be okay to occasionally Let the emperor know he wasn't wearing any clothes and it wasn't really very nice looking as a nude. And I quickly learned that was a big mistake, but it was fun but it was a mistake. And the other thing I didn't know is that the State Housing and Community Development Department considers Santa Barbara County to be the place in California where the debate over housing and growth versus no growth is more intense than anywhere else so you're number one.

The only other thing I'd like to leave you with is, I hope you will continue to work with my successor who's being interviewed this week. I have no idea what it's going to be and I'd like to leave you with one final quote from my favorite wizard Gandalf. It's coming up in the movie The Hobbit next week and I always think Gandalf's wisdom is a great thing to live by. He said never laugh at live dragons.

Thank you.

All right, so now we're going to take up the balance of our administrative agenda. Mr. Allen did you want to tell us what changes there might be?

Madam Chair, members of the Board. I have about four items here that I'd like to discuss briefly. First off on item A-15 from General Services, the recommendations are to consider the recommendations regarding the Elwood Pipeline Inc.'s consent to assignment and assumption of performance in first amendment to the lease agreement in the 1st District. I just want to note that that item requires a 4-5th vote Secondly on item A-17, this is from General Services. This is to consider recommendations regarding the Alexander land donation. This is in the Vandenberg Village area in the 3rd District and that item there's a request to continue this to your meeting on December 11th and you can make that a part of the motion on the administrative agenda.

Finally, on corrections on item A-25. This is from Public Works. The request that the board consider recommendations regarding parking restrictions on various roads in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd district. And I just want to note that there's a spelling error in the first paragraph that should be Caye Caridad not Caye Carrida. The item on the administrative agenda is Item A-13. This is from the County Executive Office.

This item asked the board to consider the appointment in lieu of election of qualified individuals to special district boards of directors, and I think this item would need to be pulled off the agenda today. We had 12 open spots for special district appointments. The board has been successful in finding nine individuals And I believe that we posted an addendum, or a late distribution yesterday which added one further individual. So that's 10 of the 12 we've been able to find individuals to serve on those spots.

In one instance in the Summerlin Sanitary District, we actually have two applicants for one position so the board will have to make a decision about that one decision and the applicants are Mr. Novus and Mr. Bradley and that's in the packet.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Allen. So on A13 are we pulling it or are we continuing it?

We're just going to pull that off for a discussion by the board and direction.

Pull it now?

Sure. Yeah if you'd like to do that now that would be appropriate.

Okay. Are there any before we go into A13, are there any other items that any other board members want to pull? Okay. Supervisor Carbaugh?

Thank you Madam Chair. There were two individuals that applied for this district, the Summerland Sanitary District. I had an opportunity to interview both to gain their interest and they're both very, very qualified individuals either could fit this role. However, the person that I know most and know of his interests because he has Asked to be appointed to a number of county boards and commissions, and has really demonstrated his volunteerism commitment is Mr. Dave Novus.

Initially he was thinking of backing out but at the last minute he informed me that He really had an interest in serving and has let go of one of those boards and commissions that he serves on. So it would be my suggestion and recommendation that we appoint Mr. David D. Novus to the Summerlin Sanitary District.

Okay, is that a motion?

Yes.

Okay. Yes, and Madam Chair, Supervisor Carbajal if you could include then the appointment of the other individuals, the other nine individuals to the remaining special district positions that would

be more appropriate. As one motion? Yes sir. Sure I'll do that without objection.

Allen. Madam Chair, I'll go ahead and make that motion to approve all items with the changes noted. And I believe also A17 just to specify will be held over for one week.

Continue to December 11th okay? Motion by Supervisor Wolf seconded by Supervisor Labadino. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries thank you very much. Alright we have completed our administrative agenda We're going to go right into the departmental agenda, and that first item I think public health is requesting a continuance. Is that right? Mr. Allen why don't you go ahead and read that into the record.

Yes, Madam Chair. Item number one is from the Public Health Department. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding environmental health services body art fee resolution and fees relating to tattooing, body piercing and permanent cosmetics. And there's a request to continue this item one week to your meeting on December 11th and we have no request to speak on this today.

Okay. Good morning. Ms. McIntyre, did you want to make any comments on this? No, Madam Chair, thank you. Okay, Supervisor Carbajal that's a motion. A second by Supervisor Wolf. All those in favor say aye. Aye, opposed? Motion carries. Okay thank you and then the next item I think number two Mr. Allen is also from Public Health.

That's correct Madam Chair members of the board. Item 2 from Public Health is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the tobacco retail licensing ordinance amendment and fee schedule resolution relating to Santa Barbara County Code Chapter 37A licensure of tobacco retailers for Santa Barbara County.

Good morning Ms. Mickey Witz.

Good morning Madam Chair, members of the board. I'm here this morning to present to your board a report on the progress that Santa Barbara County has made since the tobacco retail license was passed in 2010 and ask your board to consider changes to the ordinance In three areas, one to separate the fee out from the ordinance which is the normal way we do fees in the county. Just have them done by separate resolution and to establish a similar, to reduce the tobacco retail license fee for the unincorporated area and to establish a similar fee for jurisdictions who may in the future want the county to do the enforcement and oversight work of their tobacco retail license if they pass one.

I'm sure your board knows that there are significant health impacts from smoking, loss of life, significant costs both in terms of human and economic terms. And I'm proud of all the things that have been accomplished with our tobacco retail license ordinance and I'm going to turn it over to Scott McCann who's the Director of Health Education who will tell you more about those accomplishments and the changes proposed to the ordinance.

Thank You. Good morning Mr. McCann

Morning Madam Chair and members of the Board. I'd like to give a brief presentation on the progress made implementing the tobacco retail license amendments your board adopted in 2010, and review some proposed modifications to the license fee and administration. A little background, two years ago the board amended the tobacco retail license ordinance to adjust the licensing fee to recover the related county costs and to add provisions that prohibited new tobacco retailers from opening within a thousand feet of a school. At that time the board voted to phase in the fee increase over a two-year period increasing the fee to $250 a year in 2011 and 12 and then to full cost of $435 a year in 2013.

I have good news on the impacts of the ordinance and the sale of tobacco to minors since it was amended. The sale of tobacco to minors in our county declined from 17% of the retailers surveyed in 2010, to just 10% this year. The number of retailers in the unincorporated areas who serve suspensions for selling tobacco to minors declined from 11 last year to only 6 this year.

There were no repeat offenders who sold to minors in 2012, and the sale of tobacco to minors at retailers within 1,000 feet of schools declined from 31% to 22%. All good news in the right direction. In addition, four cities in our county have expressed interest in adopting similar tobacco retail license policies. That's Goleta, Carpentry of Buellton and Solvang. And they've asked if our Tobacco Prevention Program would be able to assist with enforcement primarily in the form of conducting the undercover buys where minors try to purchase cigarettes and also managing retailer education and violations.

Our tobacco prevention program has substantial experience managing this process and the city see benefit in the consistency and efficiency of this possible collaboration. Finally, we have some recommendations set up for your consideration. The first is to separate the fee schedule from the ordinance which is the usual county practice. This is more efficient because it eliminates the need to update the county code when the fees are revised.

Second, we want to reduce the tobacco retail license fee from $435 a year to $409 a year based on a new fee study which showed slightly lower costs than anticipated in implementing this program. And last, we want to establish a fee for cities who request assistance with tobacco retail licensing monitoring and enforcement should they adopt a similar ordinance.

The $379 fee for cities does not include the $30 fee for the actual issuing of the license with the county collected by the treasurer tax collector and then cities would be responsible for that license issuing in their own jurisdictions. That concludes my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Mr. McCann. Supervisor Carbajal?

Thank you Madam Chair. I was really elated to see the data that you compiled because it shows that the intended goal of our ordinance and our fee structure which was beefed up a few years ago is having the effect that I think we wanted. And I think we also provided Retail outlets an opportunity to when they realize they made a mistake for whatever reasons To have an instead of going to a suspension immediately to give them an opportunity get out but re-examine their protocol so that they do not sell to minors, which is really what we want here and I want to recognize not only both of you but Don Dunn in the background who is really the person who implement this program as I understand it, day in and day out. And who I've worked closely in the past and has really been just a stellar leader in making sure that this program gets implemented appropriately with law enforcement.

And that the businesses are treated fairly as well. So I just want to recommend, not recommend, congratulate you for a job well done.

Thank you, Supervisor Carbajal. It is very heartening to see the statistics going in the direction that we want them to and to show that this program really is very efficient at doing what we want it to do which is to reduce smoking overall and access in particular to minors. So other comments from the board? Any other questions? Mr. Allen, any requests to speak from the public?

Madam Chair, we have one request to speak for Mr. Caldwell.

Good morning, Mr. Caldwell.

Madam Chair, members of the board. I'm Andy Caldwell representing CoLab. I don't know how many of you know that we don't all know each other personally. I personally hate cigarettes. I am asthmatic and plus I just don't like the smell of them. And so I really like the laws in California that ban cigarette smoking from restaurants and a lot of other places but having said that I try not to be What I'm going to call blind and deaf or dumb to reality.

And the foundation of this ordinance is if we make it difficult and illegal to sell cigarettes to minors, minors won't smoke or they may be less inclined to start smoking. And we do know that that might keep some people from going down that path. But if that rationale was correct and effective, the war on drugs would have been won decades ago. You know, the fact of the matter is there's societal trends at place that make some things popular and some things less popular. Some things are cool, some things are not cool.

And I really have had a hard time believing that spending money at the local level in essence swatting it flies really changes societal trends. We can want to believe that we're changing societal trends. It would be good for us to be able to change societal trends, but in reality we may just be taxing small business whose majority of sales are to adults who have the legal right to smoke even though I don't like that.

Even though I don' think it's wise for them to do it our society has given them the legal right to smoke When I was six years old, I swiped cigarettes from my mom. She never knew it. I knew people that would buy alcohol for us when we were 15 or 16 if we would ask them to buy cigarettes it would have been a lot easier and the point here is as we can take statistics and say we're doing a good job but in reality There is not a direct cause and effect relationship. And just as you thought twice about the tattoo fees, I think you should take a look at all fees and ask yourselves whether or not we really truly are making a difference or this is just part of a trend that we're riding right now and we're thankful for it.

Thank you.

All right, Mr. Allen that's our only public speaker on this item? Yes

Madam

Chair.

Supervisor

Wolf? Thank you Madam Chair I also want to thank our staff for putting this forward and I also think this is quite significant that we've got some cities on board and I think that's an excellent trend that we're seeing and hopefully with the cities that we have some of the other cities will also see how it's working and come on board. I think it's a great statement For the county that the cities have asked for us to be involved in a partnership. So I think we're definitely moving in the right direction and doing what we can to stop this at the initial stages for these kids, thank you so much.

Madam Chair, members of the board, item three from Public Works is hearing to approve and authorize the chair to execute the Tahecus Resource Recovery Project term sheet on behalf of the Santa Barbara County with Mustang Renewable Power Ventures. It's in the first second and third districts.

Madam Chair, members of the board, thank you again for hearing this item today. Leslie Wells will be making the presentation who's been working long and hard on this project for the past four years as well as Carlisle Johnston.

Good morning chairperson Farr, supervisors. My presentation this morning is to put into context our staff recommendation for you to approve a term sheet for the resource recovery project. Very briefly, as you're aware this project consists of three components. The first component is a state-of-the-art material recovery facility. This facility is going to sort everything in your trash can into three streams. The first is recyclables that will be sold as commodities.

The second is organics that will serve as feedstock to the anaerobic digester. And the third stream is residual intended to be buried. The second component of the project is an anaerobic digester, and the purpose of the digester is to decompose the organic material. During this process biogas will be extracted and converted to energy. The material that comes out of the digester is going to be composted into a soil amendment and marketed depending upon its quality.

The third component of the project is to landfill the residual at the Tahecus Landfill. So looking at this project from a different perspective, on the left-hand side represents our existing programs. And we're currently as a region over 70% diversion of waste that's generated. The remaining 30% is landfilled So what this project will do on the right hand side, maintaining the existing programs and augmenting them with the resource recovery project. We should reach a diversion rate of 80 to 85%. And the remaining 15 to 20% would be landfilled.

A really important factor associated with this project is what we learned Through issuing the RFP is that this project is cost competitive compared to the alternatives of exporting our waste or building a new landfill. Comparing it to future tipping fees, this project will have minimal impact to the rate pair and an added benefit is it's going to have added service reducing greenhouse gases and producing green energy at no additional cost.

Very briefly, the benefits of the project is it provides a 20-year waste management plan. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, we'll achieve an 80% to 85% diversion rate surpassing the state's goal of 75%. The project should significantly decrease greenhouse gases to the equivalent of removing 22,000 vehicles from the South Coast. We'll also generate one megawatt of renewable power which will help the state to meet its renewable power requirements.

And lastly, it will provide economic development through increased employment opportunities and property tax to the county. At your January meeting in 2012, your board endorsed the resource recovery project proposed by Mustang Renewable Ventures. You directed staff to initiate the CEQA review of the project and also to develop a term sheet. In November, staff returned to your board with an update on our progress related to CEQAs As well as your board approved two contracts with environmental consulting firms to start to prepare the environmental review.

So your board item before you today relates to the term sheet and for background purposes, it's very important to note that this project has been a true regional collaboration beginning in late 2007 We formed a staff subgroup consisting of representatives from each of the participating jurisdictions, which include City of Santa Barbara, Goleta, Buellton-Solvang and the county.

We also formed an elected official subgroup and that subgroup provided policy direction for this project and has met a total of 10 times. There have been several meetings with the city managers for each of the participating jurisdictions as well as our County Executive Officer. We've brought periodic updates and sought approval from the full city councils and Board of Supervisors a minimum of seven times over the last four years.

And it's important to note that we've made over 100, and actually now it's 112 presentations to interested community stakeholders initially to solicit input on the goals of the project and later on specific project proposals. In 2009, when we issued the RFP, we asked all the participating jurisdictions to approve letters of interest in the project that were included in the RFP.

So at this step in the process, we feel it's necessary to approve the term sheet to demonstrate continued interest in the project. The term sheet as currently Proposed is between Mustang Renewable Power Ventures and each of the participating jurisdictions. It's important to note that it was prepared and edited by city attorneys from each of the jurisdictions. The version that's before you today is the 19th version, so it's been very significantly legally vetted.

The document itself is not legally or financially binding at this point. And largely, it can't be legally binding because of recent court law associated... Court case associated with CEQA which basically says that a jurisdiction can't bind itself to a specific project until completion of CEQA. We've left the negotiation of the financial terms will also occur at the end of CEQAs once we know specifically what the project will look like.

So what their term sheet does is it largely reiterates the business terms that were included in the original RFP as well as a few revisions. Next slide. So, the most significant new provision that is included in the term sheet that wasn't in the RFP relates to the exclusive right to negotiate and this pertains to once CEQA is completed It depends on where the preferred site will be for each of the components of the project.

If the component of the project is on county owned property, Mustang will have the exclusive right to negotiate with the jurisdictions if a component of the project is on privately owned property. The private property owner will have the exclusive right to negotiate with the jurisdictions. Each of these exclusive rights and negotiate provisions do have sunsets so putting this approval into context where we are is your board approved moving forward with CEQA and the CEQAs contracts in November today we're asking you to approve the term sheet The City Council of Goleta has approved the term sheet on November 20th.

The City Council of Santa Barbara received a public education update on November 13, and they're scheduled for approval of the term sheet on December 18. The City Council of Solvang is going to hear this item on December 10, and we're currently working with the city of Buellton to docket this item. So project next steps we're anticipating over the next 18 months.

We're going to be preparing the environmental impact report and bringing that back to your board for consideration. We're also going to be working with the other jurisdictions in their attorneys on preparing the legal structure that's gonna bind the jurisdictions to the project and the chosen vendors. This could be in the form of a joint powers authority or joint powers agency.

And lastly We are going to be reviewing financial information that we've requested from Marburg Industries to determine their eligibility, financial feasibility if their proposed project is selected after CEQA review. So the recommendation today made by staff is for your board to approve the term sheet to demonstrate our continued interest in the project and that's the end of my presentation.

Thank you, Ms. Wells. You know again Supervisor Carbajal and I have had the advantage of following this process very closely over the last number of years and it has been an enormous effort by not only the county but by all of the other participating jurisdictions so I'm very pleased that we are also to this particular milestone. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Supervisor Lavagnino.

Thank you Madam Chair. And that is a distinct advantage because it comes back and like you said, we've made 112 presentations. It feels like you've probably made 10 of them here and I've heard this but every time you hear it, it seems like it's so complicated. I need to go over it a couple of times. One of the questions I have is... If we go back to the term sheet, so it says on privately owned property. So this would be the property owner would have the exclusive right to negotiate with jurisdictions if one of the components is non-private property. So let's take for example if we went through and we determined that Marburg would have the MRF at their facility on privately owned land.

So then they would be negotiating With each jurisdiction, cost structures as to fee. How would that work? How would we know what the... I mean how would we have any control over the cost at that point?

Chairwoman Farr, Supervisor Labanino. What we have done and we've actually vetted this question through the city managers and the county CEO, and we're in the process of preparing a letter to Marburg Industries. And what we've asked them is now that they've made a formal stated interest in having a component of their project on their land is we've asked them to respond to the RFP. We're asking them to have to go through the same level of financial review as our other proposers have, and so that's something that we feel is going to allow us to make a fair comparison to the costs associated with proposals we've already received. And so at that point, we're going to undergo this financial review while CEQA is being prepared. And if it's determined that their proposal is not cost effective or not financially feasible, then it could not be considered as the preferred