BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

¶ ¶. ¶. All right, we're going to call to order. Reconvene the March 5th 2013 meeting of the County of Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors. Mr. Allen can we get a roll call please?

Ms. Wolfe? Here. Ms. Farrer? Here. Mr Adam? Here! Mr. Lavagnino?

Here

and the record will reflect that Supervisor Carbajal was absent today

All right, very good. Can I get a motion for the approval of the minutes of the February 19th meeting?

So moved.

We have a motion and second all those in favor?

Aye

Motion passes. We will not be going to closed session until after, so we will move on to public comment. Mr. Allen do we have any speaker slips?

Chairman Lavinino, members of the board, we have eight requests to speak and we will start with Zachary King here in Santa Barbara, followed by Marissa Berrigan.

Good morning. So I'm here because I heard that the county jail is about to ban all communications except for postcards going in and out of the jail, and I'm here to say that I think that's completely wrong and to let that happen under your supervision would be horrible. Our jail is bad enough, there are a lot of things to say about it but They're already, you know it's hard to get classes in there. It's hard to get anything so to ban communications with people's loved ones it makes me wonder like what is the goal? What are they trying to do in the jail? Like do they want people to come out of the jail able to change their lives for the better?

Is that the goal because banning communications with people's loved ones so they don't have any contact with the outside world except for whatever you can fit on a little postcard It makes me wonder what they're really trying to do there and I think that's just completely wrong. This has taken me by surprise, I've only recently heard about it. There's been very little transparency about this. People are trying to rally right now around it but with so little time like what can we do?

But since I have heard about it, I'm here. And I just want to say that I guess I'm begging you to stop this from happening and to allow this one little thing, people to be able to send letters, photos, drawings from their children to people that are in prison. So thanks for your time. I hope you consider this.

Thank you for being here today.

Our next speaker is Marissa Berrigan to be followed by Steve Shormoon.

Hi, good morning. This is my first time here so I thought this was pretty interesting but I wanted to just bring to your attention what he brought too as well which is the new rule that's going to be passed on the 11th of March regarding inmates being not able to receive mail from their loved ones. Now of course, you know if you look at it on a broad spectrum you're going okay well some of them are in there for various things and depending on what their crimes are for some people are gonna be like well they deserve to not have communication things like that I look at it as everybody that's in there, they do have someone that cares about them. Whether it's a loved one, a family member, a friend, a lawyer, a counselor.

They've already been sentenced for their crimes and basically I look at it as to take away a basic human need And a right to effectively communicate with someone. Let's say they've got a child and it's their birthday, you know? And they want to see just a basic picture. You know what their birthday had on and their cake. To take that right away from the inmate I feel...

I was just brought to my attention as well, I'm currently being affected by this. I feel it's a huge lack of compassion in the jail and I just met with the sergeant last week to talk about some of these issues. He was a really nice man and they're trying very hard to make things work but I just feel that by eliminating that not only is it affecting the people inside but it's affecting our law abiding citizens in our community on the outside.

You know, like I said again it affects me and it makes me wonder. I asked you know who was in charge of this decision? And the sergeant said that it was the administrative inside and I thought maybe they weren't effectively doing their job in making sure that the letters were appropriate for You know the inmates and if there is a problem with the communication whether you know the recent stuff that has happened. You know maybe there needs to be more effective way on how to screen these letters in these pictures.

This is coming up at the top of my head but I just wanted to bring it to your attention ask you if you have time to consider how it's going to affect our community you know with all of our loved ones in there and on the outside and I just feel that It's not fair. And I think that's it, so thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you for being here.

Our next speaker is Steve Storman to be followed by Annie Telfer.

My name is Steve Storman. I'm a resident of Lompoc. I am also here to speak on the issue of continuing to allow written correspondence in the form of letters to inmates at the county jail. You'll be hearing from other people today who have either had loved ones, friends, family who have spent time in the county jail or perhaps they themselves have spent time in the county jail. I urge you to listen to these people's voices and their stories and how important it is to them that they be able to talk to their loved ones and what a vital role that sense of connection plays especially Reducing Recidivism.

This policy was implemented a few years ago in Ventura County, as you may know and the quotes and concerns there have all been about recidivism. There's a fantastic quote from LA County Police Chief who has that same concern. This policy was also first First conceived of in the tent city of Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona. And I would urge you not to go down that road.

I would also like to speak on the connections that this has with Assembly Bill AB 109. Particularly the realignment federal prisoners to county jails. And I think what we're seeing with the preponderance of Policies like this, which again was an administrative decision by the jail. Was taken place without any public oversight, any public hearings, anything of that nature.

What we're seeing is the prisonification of county jails. Even after AB 109, we don't have murderers and rapists in our county jails. But the entire jail population and their families are being treated as if they are. I don't think that this is a road we'd like to go down, I don't think that it's productive to expose minor level offenders to the type of culture that is engendered in prisons and the type of punishments that we feel as a society are necessitated by that.

And if what it takes for you to feel good about overturning this decision is some sort statement against AB 109. That might be. I encourage you to meet with me. Thank you, I think my time's up. Yes thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Annie Telford followed by Alan Howard

When one of my best friends was locked up for a few years, I would travel all over the country and when I came back to Santa Barbara where my PO box was, I would be so happy to get just stacks of letters from him. Everything he had been thinking, song lyrics he had written, drawings he had drawn for me, that meant so much to me. And when he got back out, he was still my best friend.

And you can't do that. You can't do that on a piece of paper that big, it's not possible. I don't think that that's something we should even be considering taking away, not just from the inmates but to the people outside. He was my best friend but if that was my dad that was locked up for six months and I had very little communication with I mean it would be devastating. You know, I've had fiancés in jail. It's very hard to keep a relationship going if you don't have letters and right now the jail administration is not making it easy for people to communicate. Letters are the only cost effective option For most people, the visits are sometimes at 6 in the morning and if you live in North County which I do in Lompoc.

You can't make it to that. It's not possible there's not even a bus from Goleta that will get you there. And I've heard various reasons, it's mostly rumors because we're dealing with a complete lack of transparency about why this is happening. They say for security reasons, for cost reasons because they have too many inmates. They're asking to build another jail in North County and they don't even have the resources to deal with the first one? They need to straighten out the jail they have before they can consider opening up anything new. And that means that we need basic effective communication between inmates and their loved ones.

There is absolutely no attempt to contact the public about this policy change. We don't even know where it's coming from. They told us on the phone it was jail administration, but I'm not even sure what that means. Were you guys familiar with this policy change in the past few weeks?

We don't, during public comment we don't engage in back and forth but you have

your three minute time. I would like to request a report some sort of official report from the staff about how this decision was made what the economic or security justifications for it were is that possible?

Well, I think we might be hearing from... I'm sure our CEO will be able to brief us and then we'll have something public out for folks.

Okay. I'd very much appreciate that. We really want more information and if you guys could help us with that, that would be great. Thank you for your time. Thank

you. Our next speaker is Alan Howard to be followed by Mike Miller.

Hello board. Good morning. It is my belief that the county and the state coastal management policies are restricting public access, which is in turn causing overcrowding and degradation of existing public facilities. For those not familiar, the state enacted 1008 and 1009 of the Civil Code to facilitate private property owners letting the public use their lands for recreation without fear of losing their property rights due to easements.

I will read 1009. The legislature finds that it is in the best interest of the state to encourage owners of private real property to continue to make their lands available for public recreational use, to supplement the opportunities available on tax-supported publicly owned facilities. Let me give you an example. When touring Halama Road, you can park anywhere off the road to view wildlife, take a photo, maybe even do some painting. That is until you reach the last mile of the road.

Here as soon as the ocean comes into view no parking signs line both sides of the road. It is illegal to stop and take a picture, watch the whales pass or a rocket launch. Access to the coastal view shed has been blocked The owners of the property to the south of Halama Beach Park have noticed the property pursuant to 1008 of the Civil Code, but no access can be obtained because the public cannot stop. In order to view or access the area, the public is effectively forced into the public park further straining the capacity of the facility.

Yet another example is the Naples property. The owner has noticed the property pursuant to 1008 allowing the public another private access point, but the state or Caltrans has dumped mounds of dirt and plopped three huge no parking signs right on top of what was the parking area. The public cannot access this private portal because there is no place to park.

The county and state need to start removing barriers and adopting policies that will allow access to these private recreational areas as was intended by the legislature. I thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mike Miller, followed by Jeff Bard.

Hi, I am also here to talk about Santa Barbara County Jail's decision to remove letters. They just announced it a couple of weeks ago and so that's not much time before March 11th when they plan to take it away. People have always been able to send letters to people in jail like this jail and pretty sure the whole history of it and just about everywhere else for a long time They say that there's too many letters for them to read because the jails are too crowded. They're letting people out on halftime because there's just too many people in there, and they're bringing people in from state prisons to put in county jails.

And some people in there doing about like 20 years in county jail. There's nothing for them to do in there. In prison you can get a law degree or there's all kinds of programs and things. You can even have guitars in there But now there's people in there with nothing to do for 20 years, and they can't even get letters. And they've already been having riots in the county jail because people from prison are mixed in there and some of them are facing a long time. It's just different. That's not what county is supposed to be like. People are supposed to be there for the maximum of a year so they're not going to be fighting each other as much and risking more time in prison.

Yeah, I don't know. That's about all I got out there.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Jeff Bard to be followed by David Daniel Diaz.

Mr. Chair and members of the board, thank you. You've heard me talk about warning about impending influenza problems. And the fact of the matter is that I know for a fact there's over 100 Cases of upper respiratory ailments in one of the homeless shelters. I met with Freedom Warming Center, and I was met with continued stalling and obfuscation that's a disgrace not only to the Unitarians but to all the faith-based organizations who collaborate with them. However there is a dim hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. The people who run the rescue mission in Casa Esperanza are far more cooperative with myself and with the health department. Nothing I've had to say is not what the CDC says, not what our health department says.

The problem is that the Unitarians have been bucking medical advice when they first set up the warming centers someone from the Health Department was quoted in a newspaper saying you know if it's 40 degrees and drizzling it's not a medical crisis and they're trying to tell us Pushing 100 people under one roof is the thing to do because it's chilly outside. And what's happening is, people are coming in relatively healthy because they're camping out somewhere or sleeping on the beach or whatever for a few weeks. They're healthy. They go in there and they walk out with influenza.

I called it. We had a very dearly beloved member of the health department who was quite ill for about a month, had pneumonia. And another member of the staff, I was told by a reliable source also had influenza. And I went to a meeting in Goleta last week where a homeless guy was complaining how sick he was and how miserable he was having the flu and not having a roof over his head. So if the warming centers are just going to create more drain on tax dollars and more suffering Maybe even death, we need to close them down.

So if I don't see some changes by October or November... I will get my neighbors who are quite skeptical, certainly to block them from Nolita and from proliferating into the county. And I've already talked to Long Range Planning and they do not have authority under their conditional use permits of these churches to create temporary homeless shelters. And i supported them in the beginning exactly because I believed that congregate shelters create disease and breed disease So if you just let people stay away and do what they can, and you bring them in on a cold wet night, there's less disease. But the problem is the warming center people are not cooperating. Now we have tuberculosis hot upon us. You will be receiving written recommendations in addition to the 10 that you already are in receipt of, particularly ventilation.

There has to be ventilation in these warming centers. And they need to put soap on their supply list. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Bard.

Next speaker is David Daniel Diaz to be followed by Flora West.

Good morning, Santa Barbara County. The subject is mold. Back in the 80s and early 90s we lived in a home in Santa Barbara and the county had resources where they came out and took samples of mold to ensure that the health of the kids was utmost important but mostly the community. All my problems were rectified, but just recently some families in Carpinteria brought the issue to my attention. Their children as well as one of the parents are on antibiotics and they try to resource through the county and through the city of Carpinteria the appropriate means to protect the interest and health of their children as well as themselves. And Mold is, it contributes to learning and processing deficiencies in education with kids The only reason I'm here is back then it worked fine for me, but why is it not working now?

Why is it the public has no resource? Why is the county or the cities not being able to come forward and assist in accommodating the needs of these people who are Big large voting capacity in our community. Why is it when it comes to mold all of a sudden? There's no agency around to support the needs of our constituency any consideration to make it public So the public knows how to resource to protect their children and themselves would be deeply appreciated. Thank you very much. Have a good day

Flora West to be followed by Jose Gonzalez

I am speaking on behalf of myself and other elderly people who are being taken advantage of by people who know how to do it within the law. And the judge speaks so quietly when this is happening, you don't even know what happened until later. When you find that they've emptied and closed out your bank accounts, and are receiving your mail and social security checks all within the law.

If I try to get free, I will have to pay their lawyer as well as my own, wiping out my remaining assets. Perhaps you can help me and offer suggestions? Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jose Gonzalez to be followed by Judith Everett who's our final speaker.

I'm here to share with you a sequence of events that have happened since August

where

my horses have been seized at Santa Ynez, 1556 Edison. There are groups and I received a letter from one of them called Habitat for Humanities that I want to pray upon people's horses because this is a business. There is a rescue organization in Santa Ynez that has been monitoring my horses since August and they have gone out there numerous times Many complaints to the county animal services and they've, Animal Services has gone out to Edison about 70 times. And those 70 times in one situation where one of my horses had an accident this rescue organization was there and they called them and they seized my horses because of whatever reason they came up with that day.

And one of the reasons that Jen, which is Director of Animal Services says that she has my horses and took my horses is that she feels in her opinion that I cannot take care of my horses. Here's a picture of what my horses look like one day prior to them taking the horses. I am here to ask for my horses back. And I am here for some kind of explanation of why the law lets these people that are supposedly supposed to take care of horses that are emanciated and being brutally abused or what, for whatever reason. That's what they're supposed to take care of but in this case They have another reason, that they feel that I cannot take care of my horses. So I guess I'm here to ask for the return of my horses and for an explanation of why the law says that my horses can just be taken and not returned.

And it seems like I have to pay a bounty or something to get them back. I have veterinary certificates testing one day before they took the horses that explains that the horses were in good health and that the horses were not infested with parasites as they say that the horses were infected. And I don't know what else to do. I mean, I have a history of the horses being taken care of from two vets and I am here to ask for some kind of explanation and some kind of reasoning that the law allows this to happen in the first place. So just go out and take your horses.

Thank you. This is in Supervisor's Farr District so I'm sure she's aware of it and

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Gonzalez, you know you've spoken with my staff, Elizabeth Farnham and we are looking into working with Public Health Department about it which has animal services under it because I'm trying to get up-to-speed on what's going on here too and the rationale behind the taking of your horses. Can I

leave this information here?

Absolutely. And we'll be in touch with you when I have more information. Thank you for being here.

And I would like our resident horse expert, I

would let you know as well. Thank you.

I'm Judith Everard, a citizen of Santa Barbara and I'm here for several reasons. First of all for elders and that we make it more public how elders are treated in this county. They are unfortunately ripped from their resources and that they do not have the information to be able to fight for their own interests So I'm here to actually invite all elders to work together, to share their stories and also to get the benefits.

I'm definitely in favor of communication between families and prisoners. I think that's probably the first stage to rehabilitation, to be able to be in communication with your family. So I think that that's a very poor strategy to help prisoners. Actually to get back to the problem of elders fighting for their rights, we need more transparency. We need to know what's happening to other people with a similar situation and also to be forewarned on what could happen that the county unilaterally takes property to so-called pay for their services And this seems totally unfair when you think about the enormous amount of time people have spent to get their pensions and things, and then finally to find that they don't have the property that they'd worked for all their lives.

I have a number of friends who've been short-changed at death, and their families have been robbed from their inheritance So I'm really very concerned about this, but the problems of animal husbandry and actual elder help and prisoner rehabilitation could all be helped with an infusion of money to help people in similar situations. And I'm here to say we need a movement for peace and justice That everybody can join and show how they are indeed bonded together to work for the poor, and so on.

And so I really implore you and thank you for actual work on nonviolence for the police department and also other aspects of rehabilitation for people So I thank you for your interest and that we can help people in jail, definitely.

Thank you very much for being here today. Since a number of you had mentioned the new directive inside of the county jail, I saw that the sheriff was here this morning and asked if he'd like to come down and spend a few minutes and enlighten us.

Thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board. There is indeed a new policy that's about to take place that will limit incoming correspondence to inmates to postcard only correspondence. There are however a number of misconceptions that have been voiced about this policy and a lack of understanding about what it is Basically it's a policy that is being implemented for a number of reasons, first and foremost for security reasons. We're just having too many instances of the mail being used to convey narcotics and other contraband into the facility.

And there are some safety concerns in terms of our staff going through the mail and being subjected to some of that contraband. Some health issues that we're concerned about as well. And last but certainly not least, our staffing issues. It takes a significant amount of time for staff to open and examine a huge volume of mail for the thousand or so inmates that we have in our facility each and every day with the cutbacks that we've had and additional inmates that we've had as a result of AB 109 it has put a further strain on us and its a way for us to try ease up some of that staffing issues as well. We're certainly very cognizant of the need for inmates to communicate with their loved ones on the outside, in fact we encourage that.

I'm going to ask Commander Sams who's the most familiar with this particular policy to take a few moments to give you a little bit of information about the background and the legal issues surrounding it and also some of the philosophy and some of the programming that we have in our jail Including a reading program that is available for inmates to address their family members as well.

Chair Lagudino and Board of Supervisors, I'd like to say that this policy was not implemented or even thought of behind AB 109. This was in the process prior to AB 109. We followed Ventura closely on that decision. Supporting their policy was upheld by the Supreme Court in January of 2012. Like the Sheriff said, the onus behind this policy change is really safety and security within the facility It will really help our staff in controlling contraband, and also will make it more efficient in order to process the legal mail and the mail that comes through. This policy affects incoming personal mail only. It does not affect any legal or privileged mail that comes through. Those still will come through in the envelopes as they have.

And there is no limit to the number of postcards that can be sent nor is there any limit to the size of the postcard that comes through at this point. So we are working actually to make things easier for the inmates and not trying to implement policies that make it more difficult for them to communicate with their families. We also still have phone calls and regular visitation that occur.

And like the Sheriff said, we are working on implementing even more programs now that we are faced with AB 109 in hopes that we can deal with the additional population and their recidivism.

Any board members have any questions? Supervisor Farr.

Thank you Mr. Chair, thank you for being here and for that explanation so it's not going to limit outgoing mail from inmates at all it's only incoming mail and so if as one of the speakers talked about different family events and all that somebody wanted to send a photograph of a child that's not going to be possible then

unless the photograph is and this can be done now on the postcard itself but we can You know, this is a new policy and as we go through sometimes we have to change our policies depending on how it works out. So we cross that bridge when we come to it and also if it gets special authorization from the commander of the facility, you know, it might be done but this current policy does not allow for photographs to be mailed in because that would have to be in an envelope. There will be no attachments to the postcards.

I'd also like to point out that we posted these notices in Spanish and in English as early as February 16th, in all of the housing units and in all of the visitation areas. Okay, thank you.

Actually I have a question for the sheriff now. Sheriff Brown, you mentioned about staffing issues and I know that you've been in the process of hiring more custody deputies and needing to shift personnel around in order to have appropriate coverage. When do you think or do you think that your staffing levels would be to the point where you might reconsider this policy because you'd have enough staff?

I don't think we are going to reconsider the policy just based on the security concerns. There's just been too much contraband that's been coming into the facility and there are ways that contraband comes in, drugs come in not covertly as well as overtly you know actually as part of the actual correspondence itself rather than as a packet or a bindle or something like that so just from the standpoint of concern about security for the overall facility I don't think we'll be reconsidering the policy once we're at full staffing. As Commander Sam's indicated, It's always subject potentially to some tweaking. The photograph issue is something that we can, you know, we have an exemption for example for people that send a money order to put on an inmate's account, for example.

That can be put in an envelope and addressed directly to the jail. And we'll look at that as a possible other mechanism maybe to look at a photograph or something along those lines but the reality You know, we've had to look at this policy for a variety of different reasons. First and foremost facility security but also as indicated just the limited staffing that we have and the additional inmate load that we're having to deal with as well.

Okay, but you said it's not really a staffing issue because even when you got up to full staffing... Well

it certainly is a staffing issue now and even if we were at full staff it takes I mean you can imagine we have 1,000 inmates. If every inmate averaged one piece of mail a day letters that would have to be opened and examined, and that takes a significant amount of staff time to do that. Whereas if it's postcard, that doesn't have to happen. So it's just a way to make our operation more efficient as well. And it doesn't limit, as indicated, the number – the amount of correspondence that can be sent. There can certainly be fairly large-sized postcards, and you can write quite a bit of information on them.

Okay, well I guess I'm trying to balance what I know that you need for the safety and security of the staff and of the inmates. And it sounds like an increasing problem with contraband of various types. With the fact that we do have people in the county jail for longer and longer periods of time as one of the speakers talked about. You know, it's not just a few months or even a year perhaps that somebody would not be able to get a photograph or have that kind of communication with family members. That is what concerns me.

Yeah and we certainly you know would take that into consideration and that's certainly not something that would be you know just prohibited if there was no other way to get something in I mean that's what you know this is our policy there are exceptions to the policy at times that are made but that would have to be decision enough I'd also like to add, the mail isn't just inspected once. It comes into the facility and then the inmates get to keep it in their cells and this creates a problem sometimes when we have to go in

and do security and searches, and there's lots and lots of mail that we have to go through to ensure that nothing has been put back into the mail. Quite often we do find weapons and things like that hidden in those envelopes so we're hoping this will resolve that as well.

I think we have Supervisor Adam.

Supervisor

Wolf?

Sure, I was just going to ask is can you without compromising your own security at the facility can you go into any more detail so that the public understands what you're dealing with and what the problems are that you're trying to eliminate? Without compromising

security. Certainly, Supervisor Adam. The fact of the matter is that mail has historically and is oftentimes used as a means of conveyance For contraband that includes narcotics, includes weapons, razor blades, needles. Things that can be secreted within an envelope sometimes pretty surreptitiously within folds and under certain parts of the envelope and so forth.

And we have instances where these Implements and this these substances have come into the facility and You know we're trying to address that First and foremost, that's the first and foremost problem that we're trying to address through this policy And as I indicated before there are also instances where Certain types of paper end up getting saturated with substances and then sent through so that it doesn't look as though it's a problem, but then it's reconstituted as a drug.

Supervisor Wolf.

Thank you, Mr. Chair First of all I want to thank the speakers for coming this morning and bringing up this issue And I'm glad that the sheriff is here too to respond. I would Simply say that if we are going to have a further discussion that it come back to the board for that although I will say that after hearing everything that I've heard I have I have followed that Ventura decision. I have utmost trust in your staff, Sheriff, and the facility.

For me personally, I'm fine with the decision that's been made. And if we want to as a board have further discussion then that's what we should do by moving that onto an agenda item. But I think right now it's not agendized for extensive discussion but I do appreciate the information. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Appreciate that and with that thank you very much for being here Chair. All right, that concludes public comment. We will now move on to our administrative agenda and can I get a motion to let's see it's A1 through 7 are resolutions?

Second.

Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK. And I don't know if this is going to be a popular decision with our high school guests or not but Supervisor Wolf would like to move you up in the program so you can get back to school. So we will take item three, Supervisor Wolf.

Oh thank you Mr. Chair. This is quite an honor and actually I did talk to them They're an amazing group of students, and they do want to get back to their classes. So I appreciate you using your discretion to move them to the front of the line here. As a past teacher and school board member, I think that what we just saw here was kind of a teachable moment of democracy in action. And I know you do want to get back, but I think this was a really good public comment section hearing from our community members.

Well, I'm going to ask all of you to please come forward to the podium. All of the team members and I'd also like to ask the team coach Bill Woodard and also the volunteer attorney coaches to please come forward. I've asked our clerk of the board to provide a microphone so that, a handheld microphone so that we can go through and have all of you introduce yourself. But in the meantime it really is my honor to introduce this resolution and to congratulate the Dos Pueblos mock trial team on all of their accomplishments.

And most recently, the mock trial team had a very close win over the San Marcos High School mock trial Past weekend, I believe it was. And so you are now the Santa Barbara County Mock Trial Champions and we congratulate you for that. This was the fifth consecutive county championship for the Chargers and they will now advance to the California State Championship Tournament on March 22nd.

But before knowing this there were a few other things that the mock trial team had accomplished and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this resolution. And that is to celebrate many of your previous victories, including the second place finish this past October in the prestigious Empire Mock Trial World Championship Invitational in New York City.

We have many great high school mock trial teams in our county. Those who participate in mock trial learn valuable skills and gain an excellent understanding of our legal process. The students work extremely hard throughout the year, and I am so proud of everything that the Dos Pueblos Mock Trial Team has done and has accomplished. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come here today. I really do appreciate it. I'm sure your family and friends are very proud, and they can watch this on TV. And I also want to thank the volunteer attorney coaches who I know do an incredible job working with the teams with mock trial, and thank you for being here.

I know they couldn't do it without Your support and also to Mr. Woodard, who is the team coach and you'll hear in the resolution that he too was honored. The coaches are I'm sure as all of you. Students know they put in a lot of time and they work closely with you to get you to the point that where you have been successful. I've been lucky enough to actually watch mock trial competitions, and for anyone who's listening to this if you have an opportunity to watch If you see this team or any team compete at a mock trial, you will be incredibly impressed and feel so proud of our students. And I guess proud in our future because what Girls, you're all girls. What you girls represent is the best of the best and we are so proud of you. And so now we will have the resolution be read by our clerk and then we're going to have the three seniors as I understand it will speak but before they come up after the resolution is read we'll have each of you with a microphone just state your name and then we'll have the speakers come up to the microphone.

Thank you Mr. Allen.

Chairman Lavinino, members of the board. This is a resolution recognizing the accomplishments of the Dos Pueblos High School Mock Trial Team. Whereas, the Dos Pueblos High School Mock Trial team fresh off its run to the California State Championship Round was selected for the Empire Mock Trial World Championship Invitational Tournament that was held in New York City in October 2012.

And whereas, the tournament is considered the nation's most prestigious high school mock trial tournament bringing together the top 36 teams from across the country and around the globe including teams from the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada and Australia. And whereas the Dos Pueblos team stormed into the tournament by defeating their bracket's number one seed, Henry Grady High School from Atlanta in the second round and winning every single ballot on their way to the final. The Chargers advanced to the final as the only undefeated team in the tournament before coming up short against La Reina.

And whereas, Dos Pueblos is the only Mock Trial team from California to finish in the top 10 at state in the past three years. Last year's team advanced all the way to the state final losing a close match against La Reina High School from Ventura County and whereas the Dos Pueblos Team Faculty Advisor Bill Woodard was also selected as the Constitutional Right Foundation's 2012 Adult Advocate of the Year for his work with the Dos Pueblos program. Now therefore, it be it resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes the many accomplishments of the Dos Pueblos High School Mock Trial Team and wishes them well in their future competitions passed and adopted today.

So we're going to pass the microphone. If you could just say your name and your grade?

I'm Madeline Mathis in 11th grade, and I just want to say thank you so much for recognizing us. It means so much, and it's such a great opportunity to be here.