BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Hi. Hi. Music I'm Oh, down is? OK. Salute has it all backwards. All right. Good morning! I'm... Wow. That feels good. OK. Morning. I'd like to call to order the June 25th meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Our chairman, Supervisor Carbajal is out of town. He's been called to the White House and so I will be chairing today's meeting. Mr. Allen can we have a roll call please?

Ms. Wolfe?

Here.

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

Here

And the record will reflect that Supervisor Carbajal is absent.

right, is there a motion to approve the minutes of our June 18th meeting? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. Mr. Allen do we have any changes to the agenda? We do?

We also have the minutes for the budget hearings listed. If we could get a motion or any comments

on that? For the budget hearings, okay. Can we get a motion on approval of the budget hearings of the 10th, 12th and June 14th of 2013? Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Motion passes unanimously. And now we would like to see if we have any changes to the agenda. Supervisor Wolf?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As Supervisor Carbajal is not here today he and I had brought the plastic bag ban consideration for today's meeting And we would like to have that moved to the July 2nd meeting. Understanding, of course, that that's going to be a very packed meeting but it's something that we would like to be heard in Santa Barbara and heard on July 2nd.

And so I don't know if there's...

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Chair? If I could, you know, I would support that. I think out of, you know, courtesy to the supervisors when we bring something to the board it's good to have all the supervisors that are sponsoring it there. However, we do have a very packed agenda on the second so I'm wondering whether the board would also consider moving the Chumash item to August 20th which is also a Santa Barbara meeting.

It's in my district. The tribe is in my district and the constituents that would be coming for this, both tribal and non-tribal are all in my district. And the second is not really a good day for the community because that's the holiday week. So I'm hoping then if we're going to move the one item to the second that we could make some time by moving this particular item to the 20th of August where we have plenty of time.

Supervisor Wolf.

Thank you supervisor for that certainly helps the July 2nd date so do we need a motion for this?

public comment. Any member of the public wishing to speak on matters not on today's agenda should fill out a speaker slip and give it to Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen, how many speaker slips do we have today?

We have two requests to speak today. We'll start with David Daniel Diaz to be followed by Rondi Guthrie here in Santa Barbara.

Good morning, Santa Barbara County. First of all the MTD here locally in the South Coast, I went to get a new card for my disability access and the picture was worn out and they said no you're going to have to fill out an application as is everyone else who has a card. And we're talking about low income Medicare, MediCal people. Even though we are permanently disabled, we're going to have to go and take this to the doctor. And pay whether it's through taxpayers money through the association of governments or whatever. But a two page application has to be filled out by people who are permanently disabled to get a re-up on their bus card and it's gonna occur every five years. I think this is slap in the face.

Forcing all these people to have to go back and see a doctor just to get a bus card. It's a waste of money, and perhaps the MTD should go ahead and be responsible for paying the medical bill when they go see the doctor. Secondly I was at the Gaviota meeting at the Planning Commission recently, and the first half hour to 45 minutes I was shocked as were other people. They discussed their calendar events only that items this item should have been dealt with In the offices internally behind the scenes.

This member was not going to be here this day, that member not here. Oh, this staff member's not gonna be here so we can't meet on this day and I'm going do we really need to know all of this as the public? We came here to discuss and throw our interest into this project because we're all very concerned about the Gaviota Coast and it's a waste of taxpayers' money to see these people sitting there for half hour to 45 minutes working out their calendar in front of the public. So I thought I would just share that with you and then someone on the rez asked me to say this little commercial. Andy Codwell, if you keep smoothing Wendy McCaw they may name a slot machine after you at the casino. Have a good day.

Thank you Mr. Daniels.

Ron D Guthrie?

Good morning Chairman Lavinino, members of the board. My name is Rondi Guthrie and I wanted to come here this morning and introduce myself as the new local public affairs region manager for Southern California Edison And I look forward to working with you on implementing energy efficiency programs throughout the county and ensuring a safe reliable and affordable supply of electricity for our residents and businesses Thank you.

Thank you for being here Mr. Allen's that our last speaker?

That was our final speaker

Okay We will close public comment and that takes us to our administrative agenda. Are there any items my colleagues would like to pull? Let's start with Supervisor Farr.

No items, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Supervisor Wolf? Mr. Adams? No? Okay we don't have any items our colleagues would like to pull. Do we have any requests by the public to speak on the administrative agenda?

We have two requests to speak on item A6 and item A16. If you'd like to move ahead, we can... Do you want to approve the balance or do you want to

just move ahead? Let's hear from the public first and then we'll make a motion.

Okay. We're going to start with item A16 and our first speaker on this item is Kevin Reddy to be followed by Michael Youngdahl

I'm not sure if we're speaking on A6 both of us

We got it, A6. Oh Mr. Allen did you read A6 in? Please.

Yeah pardon me item A6 is from the County Executive Office the recommendation is regarding terms and conditions of employment for unrepresented employees.

Mr. Reddy. Thank you I've submitted to an alternate resolution on this item we ask you to approve instead of that submitted to you by HR Two weeks ago, I spoke to you to tell you how your civil attorney employees were concerned that our attorney peers in the District Attorney Union had gotten pay raise after pay raise over the last several years while the civil attorneys had been frozen out of any pay raise with the rest of unrepresented management. When at the end of the budget hearings we heard you voice your agreement and vote to give the unrepresented management a long overdue 3% pay increase, we thought great!

They've listened to our concerns and acted. Imagine how we felt when we saw that the HR department had carefully crafted the resolution before you now to give every unrepresented management group a 3% pay increase you put in the budget, except your civil attorney employees. HR says the pay raise would be illegal for civil attorneys because it would be an unfair labor practice. We told HR they were wrong. We are not yet a certified bargaining group. We had merely asked to be a bargaining group and cannot be certified until the appeal period runs in July. and then possibly for weeks or months thereafter. We told HR that the key factor is whether a certification has been made of the bargaining group. HR refused to include us in the resolution, and said it would be illegal.

It is not illegal. We are not a certified bargaining group, and you are free to act to implement your budget decision and give us the 3% pay raise. Your county counsel is here, and he can tell you if he disagrees with this. So how did a resolution based upon a misreading of the law get in front of your board? If you look at the top of the board letter and the signatures on the resolution, you'll see that there is no indication that the required county council approval of either the board letter or the resolution have been done even though it's clearly involving a crucial legal issue.

Besides this legal error by HR, HR cannot have it both ways. If the civil attorneys are a certified bargaining group such that you cannot unilaterally give us a pay raise then HR cannot act unilaterally to freeze our merit increase As the first paragraph of the board letter tells us it is doing. HR cannot refuse to take a beneficial action based upon their misreading of the law and facts here, and then act to take a negative action. If the law applies one way, it applies the other.

However they are wrong about the law. The resolution we have prepared contains the proper provisions to give all of the senior employees who have been frozen out of pay increases for five years the 3% that you said you were giving them. Item A-6 is effective on June 24th, and on that date all unrepresented employees currently covered by the management resolution should be given the same pay raise you approved as part of the budget. Thank you.

Thank You Mr. Reddy. Mr. Adam? Yeah Mr. Reddy if he could stay at the mic for a couple minutes I'm just wondering when when is it that that unit will be recognized

Well, it can't be recognized at all prior to July 9th because the action by HR to propose it to the employees and other bargaining units that could object to it doesn't run until July 9th. And then sometime thereafter I believe your board has to actually do the certification and given the extensive break period of the summer that might not take place for weeks or months as I said. But nevertheless, this action today is set in the resolution to act for all unrepresented employees effective today. As of today we are not a bargaining unit

Well I get that, but you anticipate being a bargaining unit at some

point in the

very near future?

Yes Supervisor.

Okay well the question then becomes if you get that bargaining unit status are you going to expect to be able to bargain?

If we get that, we will bargain based upon the status quo as of the start of our bargaining unit. Yes.

Okay so if we give you a raise today, we're going to be in bargaining again virtually immediately in government time?

Probably next fall there'll be bargaining. I'll tell you in advance all we are going to be asking is to be treated in the same way that your district attorney's association would. I'll put that on the table right now. All we want to do is be treated fairly.

Excuse me. Can we just have the CEO, can we investigate this and bring this back to us so that we can discuss this in closed session? I believe it might be a...

Chair, Supervisor, yes we can however I really must say that we have looked at this from a legal perspective and we do believe that what's being proposed to you today is legal and certainly will provide additional information that we can share with you.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, the issue is not whether the issue they propose today is legal it's whether giving us the pay raise is illegal and it's

not right but I just don't want to you're making bargaining positions here in open session. I'm not sure this is the best venue to do that so

we're not a bargaining unit. That's our whole point

gotcha supervisor for

Thank you, Mr. Chair and I know we have more speakers on this item but if we're going to be asking for more information about this You know when we talked about this during budget the amount of the increase that was proposed for the managers was broken out between the whole number and The general fund number because a certain amount of it Was going to be coming from non-general fund Then the estimate of $1.5 million for the balance of this is not broken down into how much of that is general fund and how much of that would not be general fund. For everybody else, which I'm assuming includes the attorneys that Mr. Reddy is talking about? No it does not include the attorneys. They're not in either number. Okay so I guess we need...I would like to know that number too.

I'd like to have the 1.5 broken out and I'd like to know what the attorney number is. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Okay can we get that information? Okay thank you very much. Thank You Mr. Reddy.

Our next speaker is Michael Youngdahl to be followed by Maria Lasalla

Good morning, Michael Youngdahl. I am the Vice President of the same organization that Mr. Reddy is the president of and The first thing I'd like to do is just say that there also are child support attorneys who are part of this group. And they wanted to be here today, also. They're all in court. They've supported what Mr. Reddy had to say. I'm basically here just to say that our organization completely stands behind everything that Mr. Reddy had to say and one of the things that I heard just now was a request for more Information, just a little bit of history. I've been with the office not quite as long as Mr. Reddy but over 20 years now and one of the things I was thinking about last night was the fact that the senior lawyers within the office we've been frozen for five years.

Salary compensation has been frozen and what's happened in the last five years in our offices is we've had an unprecedented turnover. An unprecedented turnover It's amazing what's happened and your board just saw it a couple weeks ago. We had two well loved lawyers, very competent, very senior with a ton of institutional knowledge who walked out the door and what I would submit is that there is a connection between what's happened over the last five years. No merit increases over the last five years. In fact, in fact when I said merit increases I should correct myself no increases period.

And what has happened over a longer period of time is we have some lawyers, one of whom was one of the two that left who he had not had an increase, a merit increase in the last century. This century and we have another lawyer who hasn't had a merit increase for 17 years. So we've got an interesting situation. We've got a freeze, we've been told, and we have people walking out the door. And I would just submit that the 3% is pretty important, pretty important. And what as I understand the broadbanding, as I understood it when it was first proposed, is it was supposed to fix that problem of no merit increases.

And what's happened is it just hasn't. So this would be a start down the road to solving that problem. And appreciate the time, thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marie Lasala. She's our final speaker on this item.

Good morning.

Morning.

I did submit a bit of additional information. I apologize for its lateness and I'm speaking to you today as a senior attorney who likes her job very much. I am very fortunate, I represent wonderful clients. I have very interesting challenging cases. And I agree with everything that Mike Youngdahl and Kevin Reddy had to say today, but there's one more part of item A6 that I think needs to be addressed. I don't know of a way to fix this particular problem with the resolution. I think it might be misnumbered, but its numbered as 09223.

The reason I'm bringing it up is, I think it gives you a pretty clear example of how inequitable things have become. Many of the senior attorneys at County Council and Child Support Services were very shocked and disillusioned to see this item include a special resolution to increase the salary for just one supervising attorney in the office of county council.

It excludes a comparable senior supervising attorney and child support services. But the biggest problem that we saw with it was, it's very hard when you're trying to be a team player and you've had to accept year after year being told difficult budget times No merit increases. We said OK no cost of living increases again the budget for having problems so you say OK and you keep working but When you see the salary for a particular colleague increasing 63 percent over five years during the worst budget crisis any of us can remember it's disillusioning. It makes you question your value to the county money isn't everything but it is an indication as to whether or not you're valued So I when I come to you today. I ask you to say no to resolutions that make the situation worse that make it more unequal and I think it's always best when you make your decisions to have all the information in front of you.

And that's why I brought this additional information today.

Thank you very much Supervisor Wolf

You

anticipated that.

It's intuition.

Thank you, I'm going to just make a general comment on this item and I thank you for speaking to it and regarding We have three things that we're being asked to approve today. And the first one that Ms. LaSalle brought up, I did talk to County Counsel Marshall about that. I understand the concerns about that and I think from a policy perspective I don't like picking one employee out of, you know when we've done this big thing during our budget hearings.

I can support item 1 and 2, but I agree that item 3 on the freezing of the annual merit step increases is something that I don't support at this time. I do believe it should come back to us in closed session. This is something that I have voted against in the past when it's come before us. And the implications of maintaining this freeze, I think does have a lot of implications.

So, I would like to take this item separately and vote as I had, and make the motion as I had just specified.

OK. Any other comments? Supervisor Farr?

Well, I share Supervisor Wolf's concerns and if we're going to take this item separately right now and if that's her motion, I will second it.

OK I see a little bit of a problem also because. I believe a couple of us have voted against this during budget so I'm starting to think that maybe item A-6 needs to come back when we have a full board and I know we're looking at the implementation effective June 24th what's our next meeting?

Chair, this could come back to you on the second. I believe that we anticipate having a full board at that time. It would require us to implement, I think, a pay period later than what we had anticipated instead of the 24th. That would be two weeks after that.

What's the feeling on the board, Supervisor Wolf?

Thank you. Given the comments, I think then that we just move forward with what we had approved during budget which was the 3% wage increase and that would include attachment A. We hold off on anything else until if you want to have the full board or we go back into closed session but let us at least move forward on what we approve during budget.

Okay, but the reason why that passed on budget is because I think we had a full board at the time. We can take the item again if you'd like, but if you remember during budget hearings there were some of us that didn't approve of this so we can vote on this again or we can just wait two weeks.

I

guess

I don't remember how everyone voted although I do recall that Supervisor Adam voted against the budget Mr.. Yes, mr.

Chair You know in light of your comments I think that you're right and I do think that more information during closed session

Okay

would be good so if we maybe should just continue this whole item until next week

okay supervisor Adam Well, I will If it looks like it's gonna come back at closed session that solves my problem

Supervisor

wolf

okay, you know I I feel very strongly, I think we just need to take a vote on at least the action that we took during the budget because maybe some people have changed their mind. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion on item A6 that we improve the implementation on the 3% wage increase as noted in number 1 eliminating the Chief Deputy County Counsel and the resolution for attachment A.

So A and B?

Just no just a attachment.

I know, but it's so it's its recommendations A and B, but not see

one in two.

I have an A and b. Okay,

but it's not. It's not all of one and two.

All right? That's a motion is there second

Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I don't know that I completely followed that particular so perhaps if we could ask for you all to repeat that?

Let me just make it clear. We are just approving what we did during budget nothing more. So resolution B, we didn't talk about during budget and the freeze. So let's just do the 3% as we did during budget.

So for clarity, on item number one you're suggesting that the Chief Deputy County Counsel be removed from that?

Correct.

And then on number two adopt resolution and attachment just a?

Correct.

Okay thank you.

Mr. Chair I'm sorry. Supervisor

Farr.

Did you say Supervisor Wolf to exclude Chief Deputy County

Counsel? Yes.

So that we would deal with that later?

So that we're just dealing with what we did during budget.

Because that wasn't included during budget, correct?

How

about this? Can I make a little bit of a deal here? Even if we went to July 2nd or our next meeting With the raise could we because you're worried about implementing the race now correct. That's your concern OK with the rays be retroactive to can we make it June 24th retroactive to the 24th CEO Waller or Mr Marshall.

I think that you could make it retroactive. It would be cleaner if it was not retroactive. Normally the law would say, if you had a intent to act, but it could be retroactive to the date you manifest the intent. But now to the extent that you're going to reconsider probably not retroactive back to this pay period.

Okay. Well let me just ask this question then. This item was not pulled by any of us up here. But it was brought to our attention from our county council folks. I was prepared to vote for item A6 as it was written, even though I did have the concern with number 3. So maybe it's best just to move this item forward? That doesn't mean we can't talk about Item 3 again in closed session?

Perfect

because as I stated during the budget hearings, I did not support this however I did vote for the entire budget as a whole and you know I know that Supervisor Carbajal does support this. He voted for it and I really would just as soon keep everything in neat, as clean as possible instead of having to go back move this retroactive pay raises all this sort of thing. It's on the administrative agenda and I did support the budget as a whole so just for sake of keeping us clean yes as long as you'll go along with that I'm cool with that.

Yes I so I will withdraw my motion

okay We are back to, we're moving on to A-16 I believe.

Chairman Levin, you know members of the board... Excuse me, I'm sorry. It's okay. Was it your intent to take a vote on A-6 or to bring it back at a future time?

It's going to be considered part of the administrative agenda. So just as a part of the admin agenda. With direction to you that you will bring back information to us in closed session regarding our speakers.

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank You.

All right, Chairman Carbaugh members of the board item A16 we have one speaker it's from social services and the request that the board approved the Santa Barbara County Workforce Investment Act strategic plan Mr. Caldwell and Santa Maria

That's not my fault, Andy. Go ahead we can hear you now.

We kind of think this report should be on the departmental agenda because literally what this agency is supposed to be doing is helping people get into the workforce or get back into the workforce and this is one of those reports where it was 50 something pages of blah, blah, blah. And then a couple of tables with some numbers in them. One of the things you have to ask yourself is on page 52 of the staff report we finally see real numbers versus percentages because as you know percentages don't tell you anything and I have to ask the question are we spending $1 million?

To get 38 adults and 53 displaced workers and 16 youths jobs, 100 people. Is that really the performance outcome? I don't know, I can't tell because it was blah, blah, blah about everything except this number. The other thing going on here is that 79%, 79% of the people seeking services are in Santa Maria, 21% in Santa Barbara. And yet you look at all the partnerships they have in Santa Barbara versus blah, blah, blah in the North County.

I've interviewed a couple of guys on the radio show a number of times over the years and they talk about this concept of two Californias. You have the coastal elite versus the inland rural poor, and how there's not just a difference in economics, there's a difference in workforce We have that microcosm here. This whole program is we need to get people into college, we need to get people into advanced training. Well the North County needs farm workers.

We need farm workers. That is our leading economic sector and there's a total disconnect. There's mention of energy, there's no mention of oil. We need permits and oil. We need farm workers in the field, and wineries need approval. There's no mention of the regulatory climate. There's no mention of the diesel engine rules. There's no mention of AB 32. There is no mention at the regional water quality control boards regulations. There is nothing. Those are the biggest factors, the biggest subjects dealing with the economy especially in the North County 60 pages not a word.

We think you need to look at this Workforce Investment Board to see who's running it and what they're doing. I used to be a member of it years ago when we actually accomplished things because we were connected with the real needs of the economy,

thank you. Thank you for your comments. Any other speakers?

Mr. Caldwell was our final speaker

Okay, Mr. Allen can I get him? Go ahead.

I just have one last request on the administrative agenda on item 824 this is from planning and development And I read this into the record briefly This is to set a hearing to consider recommendations regarding The appeal filed by Patrick Nesbitt of the County Planning Commission's denial of the Montecito Ranch Estates recorded map modification lot line adjustment This is located on Via Real in the Summerland area the request from staff Is that this item not be set for August 20th but instead That we set this for September 3rd, 2013 in Santa Barbara. And if you could just make that a part of your motion on the administrative rejected.

Okay very good. Is there a motion to move the administrative agenda?

So moved Mr. Chair along with the issue related to item A24. Okay. I'm

going

to second.

Second. Motion's been moved and second all those in favor? Aye. Motion is passed unanimously let's move to our departmental hearings Item 1, Mr. Allen?

Chairman Lavinino, members of the board, item number one comes to the board from Supervisor Adam and Supervisor Lavagnino. It's a hearing to receive and file a report from the Ag Commissioner's Office regarding the Asian citrus psyllid scanner program implementation, the Western Thrip phyto issues invasive species, and chloropitracin fumigant.

You got that out. Very good, Mr Allen. Supervisor Adam and I You know, up in North County we all know that ag is over a billion dollar industry here in Santa Barbara County. We know what a great job Kathy Fisher's doing and her staff and so we just thought there were some very important items that are out there that we feel the entire county needs to know about it. And so we've asked Ms. Fisher and her staff to come and give us a presentation on some of these items. I believe Mr. Tingos is going to be leading this. Good morning.

Chairman Levin, you know, and Supervisors I'm Guy Tingos with the Agricultural Commissioner's Office. And I appreciate the opportunity to briefly update your board on recent activities in our department in the areas of the Scanner Program, our Export Certification Program, Asian Citrus Psyllid, Soil Fumigants and Invasive Pests. Our scanner program compares shelf prices with what is actually charged at the checkout stand for randomly selected items.

As you may remember, the consumer is entitled to the lowest posted advertised or quoted price for any item. We are currently aware of about 700 businesses that use scanners and during our inspections we identify overcharges as well as under charges. So far our initial scanner inspections have detected a 20% non-compliance rate which includes pricing errors not taking care and improper labeling Our inspectors make sure that all pricing errors are corrected before they leave the store.

To strengthen our program, we have implemented many of the suggestions that we received. We printed the price accuracy stickers requested by your board to be posted at checkout stand locations. We created a new online complaint form to make it easier for businesses and the public to alert us to unfair business practices or pricing errors. We approved the small business fee reduction for a qualifying business in Carpinteria.

We held our first office hearing to help educate a local business that was having problems with underweight packages and pricing errors, and we have three more office hearings scheduled. And we've leveled fines on two large businesses that were overcharging their customers. Next I'd like to update you on our export certification program that enables Santa Barbara agricultural commodities to be exported to foreign countries.

There are three major components to this program. First, each foreign country establishes plant quarantine regulations for United States commodities in order to protect their agricultural industry and environment from plant pests not known to occur in their countries. U.S. exporters must meet the requirements if they want to export the commodities to the foreign country.

Second, the USDA establishes policies and procedures that must be followed to certify that each shipment meets the requirements of the foreign country. The USDA also maintains a database that contains each foreign country's regulations, and they also train and certify local officials to interpret these requirements, perform sampling and inspections, and certify the commodities by issuing phytosanitary certificates.

Adhering to USDA's policies ensures shipment integrity and program credibility. Finally, the staff from the Agricultural Commissioner's Office are certified by the USDA to conduct the inspections and issue the phytosanitary certificates. So how does the process work? First, the exporter requests a phytosanitary certificate and provides information about the shipment.

Growers can submit these requests in a variety of ways by choosing the method that best suits their business. They can submit the request in person by fax, by email or through the USDA's online tracking system known as PSIT. Once we receive the request our staff researches the import requirements based on the destination country and the commodity perform an inspection of the commodity to determine if it meets the requirements of the importing country and then issues a phytosanitary certificate if the commodity passes inspection.

Occasionally The ag industry has raised allegations of unfairness regarding individual counties holding their shippers to different certification standards. We've sent our staff to other counties and we've had other county's inspectors come here to ensure consistency at the inspection procedures. Most recently, our inspectors traveled to Salinas to observe Monterey County inspectors perform inspections for the insect Western flower thrips on broccoli destined to Taiwan. We found that our inspection procedures were consistent with those in Monterey and that both counties were following USDA guidelines.

Our service benefits Santa Barbara County growers in a number of ways. Exporters get fast responses to questions, and we can tell them the regulations for new commodities or markets they may be interested in developing. We have 14 employees who are trained and qualified to sample, inspect and issue phytosanitary certificates. Additionally we have a plant pathologist and entomologist on staff who have up-to-date information on whether the pests of concern of the foreign countries exist in our county.

We are also best suited to conduct growing season inspections of the crop if necessary and to take official samples. Finally, our service supports county growers competing in the global economy. In 2012 we issued over 8000 phytosanitary certificates to 26 different countries. The cost of a certificate in Santa Barbara County is currently $40 and the exporter doesn't have to transport the commodity to an inspection station. We go to their facility.

The USDA Currently charges $106 per certificate and there's the added cost of shipping the commodity to a USDA inspection station such as one in Los Angeles. In 2012 alone, our service saved county exporters over half a million dollars in fees. To further facilitate certification A local packing house recently opened a fumigation facility, which will enable growers to export a wider variety of commodities to an expanded number of countries.

In our pest prevention program there's been a lot of activity recently regarding a serious threat to the citrus industry. Asian citrus psyllid is an insect native to Asia that is about the size of a grain of rice. It is now found throughout the southern United States from Florida to California and is also found in Mexico. On its own, the psyllid causes very little damage.