Board of Supervisors — 2014-08-26

¶¶ . . ♪ ¶. Okay.

Good morning, I'd like to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Mr. Allen, may I get a roll call please?

Ms. Farr. Here. Mr Adam. Here. Mr Carvajal. Here Ms. Wolk. Here Mr. Labanino.

Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the August 19th, 2014 meeting? Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. We move to public comment. Mr. Allen do we have any speaker slips?

Chairman Levine, members of the board, we have five requests to speak And we're going to start off here in Santa Maria with Shirley Jansen to be followed by Jenny rainish.

Good morning. I'm here to present a petition signed by 1,693 people asking for a change in the law. It's kind of moot because you have already decided to change the law. You have already seen that the law is unfair and out of step with other jurisdictions and the law is already being changed. We will meet on this issue I think early next week so you should see the petitions anyway because there are a lot of comments.

The other thing, two dogs are on death sentence under the old law They would not be sentenced under the new law. It seems like gratuitous cruelty to kill two nice dogs under a law that you have already admitted is flawed and needs to be changed. Even if you did not agree on this issue, I'd like to also present to you the state law California Food and Agricultural Code.

And I'd like to read from it. It says, except for section 17-006 and that concerns dogs who are irredeemably injured, terminally ill or nurselings without their mothers. Except for these dogs, any stray dog that is impounded pursuant to this division shall prior to the euthanasia of that animal be released to a non-profit as defined in Section 501C3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

We made this request and the state law was ignored as it is Our next speaker is Jenny

To be followed by Mary Bianchi.

Good morning, I just want to reiterate what Shirley Jansen said and ask that the dangerous dog law be reviewed and that the wording be changed. As it stands now, I think there's no room for any exception and there's a lot of dogs that are fabulous exceptions that deserve to live. Thank you.

Mary Bianchi. And then George Alvarez will follow.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Supervisors. I'm Mary Bianchi, County Director and Horticulture Advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. And I'm here this morning to thank you for your continued support of our programs and to provide a brief update of our efforts to benefit agriculture youth families and communities here in Santa Barbara County as noted in our latest quarterly report to your board. Our advisors continue to refine predictive methods for determining the water needs of our major agricultural commodities, including vegetables, strawberries and wine grapes. These crops represent more than half of the $1.4 billion production value reported by Commissioner Fischer in her latest crop report.

Ten new research trials were initiated in the quarter in strawberries, vegetables and cane berries to address weed and insect pest management as well as irrigation and nutrient management of these crops. One of our extension meetings held in the quarter, a strawberry meeting was not unique in that we evaluate whether or not the information presented at our meetings is useful And 100% of the 109 attendees at the strawberry meeting reported that they would use the information that they had learned at the meeting.

Additional research trials on variety selections and cultural practices for blackberries, blueberries and coffee continue along with practices for fertilization of organic strawberries. The California Cherimoya Association's annual meeting provided information to Santa Barbara County growers who produce half of the cherimoyas grown in the United States. Dr. Max Moritz continues his efforts as a board member of the Santa Barbara Fire Safe Council to provide training for new volunteers who monitor live fuel moisture in our local communities. And on May 8th, our UC CalFresh nutrition education staff celebrated 100 years of science and service at the University of California working with 34 Santa Maria Bonita School District educators and reached over 1,000 students.

The students participated in county pollinators, talking about water conservation and where our food comes from within their school gardens. Our UC CalFresh program staff continued their work with the Santa Barbara County Food Bank and your Santa Barbara County Public Health Nutrition Program by providing nutrition education. Master Gardeners reached 557 home gardeners answering questions on Asian citrus psyllid, converting lawns to drought tolerant gardens and drought tolerant plantings, volunteering more than 1,000 hours during the quarter.

More than 4,000 youth and adults participated in 4-H youth development programs throughout the county. And last but not least, administratively we continue to work as an active partner in planning and developments, Ag Preserve Review Committee, and providing information to your drought task force. So we appreciate your continued support of our cooperative extension programs in Santa Barbara, and we'll be back in October with our next quarterly report. Thank you.

Our next speaker is George Alvarez to be followed by William Wagoner

Good morning Board of Supervisors, staff and the famous couch potatoes in television land listening to our comments here. I come here to educate the general public on the situation in my hometown. I love the little town over there. A lot of good people are buried there. We have colorful history Good and badly bad. When you're a politician, one of the things that you have to come in mind when you take the position supervisor, governor, whatnot, along with the responsibility comes liability.

And as you're well aware of with the city of Bell and some of the other cities that are going bankrupt and having their staff doing shenanigans, it's embarrassing for the general public, and it's embarrassing for the word justice and truth I'm here to give you a little caveat of truth, what happened in Guadalupe. As we're all familiar when it comes to redevelopment monies they are funded for redevelopment. In Guadalupe we have a third story. It's the Lantern Hotel and we have a third story on it.

It was done illegally. There's procedures, steps. You have to go to the Planning Commission, Planning Commission reviews, accepts it, sends it to City Council, City Council reviews it, accepts it and goes on to have that. This particular third floor did not have that. In fact, that particular third floor came back to us in the City of Guadalupe for additional funding of $265,000.

I was there, I'm an Ex-Planning Commissioner and I stood up and said you guys can't do this it didn't go through the proper channels take it out of the agenda find out if it was done We did legally as far as having our engineers find out exactly the compaction, the whole yada-yadas. It was not done. I tried to reason with these people. They voted to give this guy the $265,000 redevelopment.

That's a big no-no on it but along with that Three of the people that approved of this, and this is the funny part of Guadalupe. I find it cynical and humorous. They're going for re-election again to get back in those seats. How ludicrous? Enough's enough. And that's what I wanted to tell you what's going on. I hope we embrace ourselves if we do go and disincorporate. We work together on that. I hope we don't. I hope the regular people have enough common sense to vote the three initiatives in.

The people that were there involved at that time was Councilman Lozaldi, Councilman Erickson-Julian and Councilman Ponce. These people did the wrong thing and I hope the average people in Guadalupe understand that you can't reward stupidity. You can't fix stupid. Have a good day.

Thank you very much. Just a quick question, Mr. Allen before we go to the next speaker. Mr. Gazzone would this be an appropriate time for some direction to the CEO if I have for future based on the last

speaker? Under the Brown Act, Chair Lavin, you know that could occur at any time in terms of agendizing a future

item. All right would I be interested and I don't know about the other board members but this has just been in the news maybe Supervisor Farr might want to lead on this it's in our district but there's been so much news about disincorporation As we've done with Measure P, try to be proactive. There might be something in the works already but I'm having people ask me if the county's doing anything just in case we get to that position. I don't want to get there and then find out we need to start from square one so Supervisor Farr.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you for bringing up this important issue and for the public speaker for doing so yes it has been in the news because Guadalupe is in my district of course I and my staff have been following it very closely had a number of conversations with the current mayor and city manager And then did have been in discussions with the CEO's office and with the auditor controller. And then there was a meeting where a mayor and city manager came in to give us some more detailed information immediately prior to these three ballot initiatives being presented to the City Council to put on the ballot, and what that means.

So I do think it would be appropriate for us to ask the CEO if she and Mr. Geis and others could bring something forward as far as an outline of where we are and what that means. As you probably read in the paper, there really hasn't been a disincorporation of a city In the state of California for probably over 40 years, and the city residents can either vote themselves out of cityhood or it would have to be a legislative action.

I know from spending quite a bit of time up in Guadalupe that the people who live there feel very strongly about their city. They really don't want it to go away as a city. I think the question is, can the urgency of the financial issues be communicated broadly enough by this election for people to be able to support those measures that hopefully would at least come close to helping them close the gap? But I think it would be appropriate to at least have some kind of brief report. Thank you Mr.

Chair. William Wagoner.

Is there a next speaker? Then we're going to go to Santa Barbara for Jeff Bard.

Good morning, Supervisors. I'm William Wagner. I was here two years ago when Peter Adams wasn't on the board yet and I came with a big bag of letters from people around the world that were asking you to do justice where the justice system itself has failed. My point is I'm here to ask you specifically to appoint a special prosecutor to review the sworn affidavit I gave you two years ago and handed to the clerk when I was done, stating in fact that Mad Dog, as he's called affectionately before he retired, Thomas Snedden Gordon Auchincloss, Ron Zonen and Meg Nicola be indicted for fabricating evidence and committing three felonies in the trial that concluded on June 13th five years ago.

Nine years ago. against Michael Jackson, a completely innocent black and very talented man who resided in this county at a place known as the Sycamore Ranch or Neverland Ranch. These four prosecutors committed felonies in fabricating evidence and it was exposed By Thomas Snedden and Susan Yu, the defenders in court and the all-white jury acquitted this very black and talented man. A very charitable and innocent man of all 10 felonies and the later included misdemeanors.

How could that happen? And not anybody know that the prosecutors committed felonies. I have zero confidence in the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office because Christine, the late Christine Stanley who I predicted to her she would not live to see the end of her first term and she didn't because she would not indict Tom Sneddon, her close friend and bosom buddy.

And Joyce Dudley continues in the same mythology that you can't indict official for committing felonies. Really? Wasn't Richard Nixon impeached for a lot less than fabricating evidence in a courtroom? Now we have, because you failed to appoint that special prosecutor, we have these brazen people, Jimmy Safechuck and Wade Robson now claiming the exact opposite that they were molested by Michael Jackson because you didn't do your job. You're the alternative when the justice system fails.

Indict these four criminals, they are unindicted criminals and they need to be indicted and you need to appoint a special prosecutor or you need to indict Wade Robson for committing perjury! Why hasn't Joyce Dudley indicted this young man for committing perjury. Either he lied in 05, or he's lying now. Either way, he committed perjury. So why isn't Santa Barbara's District Attorney Joyce Dudley chaffing at the bit

to put- Mr. Wagner you're half a minute over.

To put Wade Robson in jail for perjury? Thank you for your consideration and I hope you move on this, set it for the agenda.

Thank you.

We're going to go to Santa Barbara for Jeff Bard and then Dr Robert Johns, who's our final speaker.

Good morning Mr. Chair, members of the board. As you know I'm a community activist concerned with public health and infectious disease prevention both human and canine. And I do support a review of the dangerous dog law. An emphasis on dog bite prevention and actually lowering of the standard of what constitutes provocation because I have a service dog and many people deliberately try to provoke the dog.

And a lot of these people really deserved a warning nip, but my dog is trained not to do that. But I don't like every time I go to the store, I have to be concerned about some punk that's trying to provoke my dog. My dog is trained not to protect me. My dog is trained to alert me of activation of my post-traumatic stress disorder which dates back to my participation as an emergency medical services trainee.

In a foreign operation that was a war zone. I became very interested in the meningitis issue in Isla Vista and the spread of influenza pneumonia, which occurred in our jails and homeless warming centers. And recent headlines confirm my concerns also with tuberculosis. The important thing is not to scapegoat or stereotype the people who have come up to work who do have the tuberculosis problem. The key is to provide the treatment. And I support Los Troubledores. So today my purpose is to underscore that my concerns are also very much labor issues and issues of industrial workplace health and safety, and I'd like to praise some of the great unions. I was privileged to be a member of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers which had a fantastic Industrial Safety Department, and it was also a member Steelworkers.

And some of the people in my workplace were killed because of workplace hazards. Locally, I also want to praise United Food and Commercial Workers. It's a great union and a great workforce, and I personally couldn't work as hard as them stocking shells 40 hours a week. My cumulative musculoskeletal injuries, I probably wouldn't make it past the first week. But thanks to our workforce, particularly our unionized workforce, I know that vital services will continue. So I want to underscore One of their concerns in Southern California is the Our Walmart campaign. And a lot of these workers at Walmart have been cut back to 39 hours or something so they don't get their benefits, and that's wrong. And Walmart has also played a rather villainous role in obstructing service dog rights but they lost in court.

It's not being vindictive. It's just a question of as a disability rights advocate, I am linking with labor health and safety issues. It's just a matter of joining hands in a common cause, not demonizing any particular corporation. So I just want to commend also some of our local leaders such as Staraka Lammer Hall and Lois Capps are very sensitive to labor issues and I would commend them to this board. Thank you.

Our final speaker is Dr. Robert Jones.

Get him out of the way. Good morning, Supervisor. I'm Dr. Robert L. Johns, PhD Clinical Psychiatrist. Researcher, a very fabulous researcher. What I found is and I listened very carefully to Mr. Wagner's comments and I just want you to know Mr. Wagner and Supervisors, I've found Tom Sneddon to be a super racist and a Nazi. Sneddon is very much a part of why the Nazis are in this county right now and why the Nazis have been manipulating this county board. Now Carvajal's central issue here is when did you know about these Nazis and Sneddon? Well, you knew about it when you came aboard because they told you about it.

Now, Sneddon, you need to come before this board and face me, and I'm calling myself now The Black Nazi Hunter Now, and you can laugh at that. And Carvajal laughed at me in 05-06. And look where we are now, Carvajal. Keep laughing! Now these Nazis, the descendants of the Camp Cook Nazis, that's what they are, and they Senate Veterans Association, those are Nazis and they have no right to the land that they grow grapes on. All that property belongs to the Chumash and that's why they fight so because they know eventually they're going to have to give up that land and I call on the Call in all your chips and let's send these Nazis, Eva Braun Farr to the red states. They'd love them there.

Now Wolf you are a child of the Holocaust and I'll tell you something. You have given up your own faith in your own people and you manipulate your own people by bringing him a few months ago before this board and presenting him with a reward while you work with the Nazi I have about 35 seconds, so let me end up with this. As I call myself The Black Nazi Hunter and I want these Nazis out of the San Ynez Valley. I'm going to write a letter to the Attorney General, California, the Attorney General, United States Homeland Security, the Governor.

I want to expose you Nazis and I want you out of the valley. Thank you Supervisors.

Supervisor Carball.

Thank you, Mr. Chair a number of My constituents that spoke about the dangerous dog ordinance are here today and I was wondering if Dr. Wada and CEO Miyasato might perhaps touch on the process that I think we've embarked on to bring to this board some options for modifying that ordinance And also there's an update on the euthanasia issues surrounding the animals that were touched on, Duke and Daisy I understand.

It might be good for not just them but other interested individuals that are watching to just understand what the county is doing in this regard so.

CEO Miyasato?

Supervisors, I'd like to have County Council provide some information on the legal framework before Dr. Watta speaks about the process.

Chair Levenino and supervisors in the area of dangerous and vicious dogs The county code In chapter 7 addresses the counties process which is consistent with state law especially because state law In Food and Agriculture Code section 31683 authorizes the state to quote, impose a more restrictive program end quote than the states to control potentially dangerous or vicious dogs.

So when the board ultimately considers amendments to its current dangerous dog ordinance it will have policy discretion as to keeping its current program or adding more options to that. And either of those choices would be consistent with state law. We received public comment this morning talking about Food and Agriculture Code section 31108B, which is sometimes referred to as one of the Hayden Act amendments.

And this is an area of the code that has the public commenter addressed applies to stray dogs impounded, that they shall be offered to a non-profit before being euthanized. And we have looked at this issue previously and we believe that section 31108B when it uses the term stray dog means stray dog Not dogs seized after biting or dogs abandoned by an owner.

But again, the board will have some discretion in this area when it considers the amendments as to their recent dangerous dog hearings involving the dogs Duke and Daisy On August 20th, the county received the Superior Court's written judgment ordering that those dogs be humanely destroyed. That followed a prior public health hearing on April 21st in which the hearing officer received evidence concerning three separate incidents of those dogs attacking and killing cats.

And with the hearing officer directing that the dogs be euthanized. The Superior Court's involvement was actually as an appeal of that administrative hearing, and the judgment has now been served on the dogs' owners. So that's really the legal framework that we're operating with. Within and we have been working closely with public health and its division of animal services To bring forward potential amendments to the county code as to potentially dangerous dogs But those will be policy choices for the board your present ordinance is it's proper under state law

Just one more question before mr. Water goes I So the court reaffirmed the county's ability to proceed with euthanasia in regards to those two animals. But although they reaffirmed the county's ability to move forward with that, that doesn't preclude us from considering other options.

Chair Lavendino, Supervisor Carbajal. That's correct the court's judgment expressly directed the county to humanely destroy those dogs and noted that the decision is final in under state law that's final and conclusive on the parties. That however does not preclude the county from after this or at any time you know in the future amending its dangerous dog ordinance within

Supervisor Carbajal through the chair, thank you very much. As was mentioned by the public speaker Ms. Jansen, County Animal Services is looking at revising the dangerous dog ordinance we do have two community forums next week The first is September 3rd at 530 at the Public Health Department, San Antonio Road where we can get input from the community. We have a second here in North County on September 4th at the Foster Road County Facility also at 530 and this is an opportunity again for the public to provide comment and input into revisions on the dangerous dog ordinance. We've also explored engaging a consultant to come in and help us assess animal services and the shelter operations.

And part of that assessment will also help us look at best practices for shelter, and some of our other policies around dangerous dog. We anticipate coming back before the board in November with a new Dangerous Dog Ordinance.

Very good. Thank you very much Dr. Wada. All right, does that conclude our public comment period? Yes. OK. We'll move on to our administrative agenda. Let's take care of A1 first. Can I get a motion to approve A1? Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. None opposed? Supervisor Farr?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well it's certainly my honor today to be able to present a resolution celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Black Gold Cooperative Library System and I'd like to call forward Maureen Theobald who is the Executive Director of Black Gold and also Mary Housel who is the Director of the Santa Maria Library District which includes the libraries of Guadalupe, Orkut, Santa Maria and Quiama.

Santa Barbara County has participated in the Black Gold system throughout the county. And because I have the privilege of being the board's appointee to the Library Advisory Committee, I get the great fun of hearing about what's happening with our libraries routinely throughout the year. And when I heard that this great anniversary was going to be coming up, I thought well this is a great opportunity for everybody to hear about the great work of Black Gold I think if you've been in the public library and have a card, you know what a tremendous resource this is. It stretches across three counties and makes available all of the materials from all of these libraries to anybody that might want to access it.

So I picked the color of my scarf today in honor of the occasion. And Mr. Allen would you please read the resolution?

Chairman Lavinino, members of the board. This is a resolution celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Black Gold Cooperative Library System. Whereas the Black Gold Cooperative Library System began in 1964 to enhance library services to a million people in an 8000 square mile area by providing services to member libraries. And whereas the Blackhold Cooperative Library System includes public libraries in the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura. Including the Blanchard Community Library in Santa Paula, Alampo Public Library, the Paso Robles Public Library, the San Luis Obispo Library, the Santa Barbara Public Library and the Santa Maria Public Library. And whereas Blackhold member libraries combine their holdings in online catalogs of over 1.2 million print, audiovisual and electronic resources which are delivered to library patrons in three counties.

And whereas the Black Gold Library Cooperative System members work together to provide responsive library services and equal access to materials for their customers. Now, therefore it be hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors of Santa Barbara County celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Gold Cooperative Library System passed and adopted today.

Thank you very much, Supervisor Farr. I really appreciate your work on this. Black Gold is very much a behind-the-scenes organization. Our public faces are the public libraries that are in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties but it's very nice to get some recognition on occasion and I particularly appreciate your efforts in congratulating us. Thank you very much.

All right, so we will move on to the, you know what? We have A10. Do we have any public speakers on A10?

No request to speak on A10.

Okay, we're going to take up A10 separately because I believe Supervisor Carbajal would like to recuse himself.

Thank you Mr. Chair. On the advice of council due to a potential conflict, I'm going to recuse myself from item A10 specifically my spouse was formerly employed by one of the agencies named in the staff report.

Okay so we'll wait here do you want to read A10 for us?

Item 810 is from the County Executive Office and the request that the board consider recommendations running the Human Services Commission. This is the award of the fiscal year 2014-15 general fund grants.

Can I get a motion to pass 810? Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. None opposed 4-0 Okay Do we have any requests to speak on the administrative agenda?

Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull A14 please.

14.

A15.

15. Supervisor Wolk? A15 Supervisor Adam? Okay, 14-15 and what about the public?

We have a request to speak on items A4 and A15

Okay So why don't we hear from the public first

Chairman Lavignino, members of the board. Item A4 is some community services. The request is that the board consider recommendations for any of the 2014-15 agreements for operations of a countywide library system and Mary Housel is here to speak on that.

Good morning, Chair Lavinino and members of the Board of Supervisors and staff. I just wanted to come up and thank you for honoring Blackgold's 50th anniversary today and let you know that we recently went to offering 10 free holds on books so you can log in placeholds and get the items delivered to your local library for free. I also wanted to thank you for your support of the library, the county libraries and particularly the Los Alamos community which is trying to get a library going in their communities. So it's pretty exciting they're very passionate and I find it very invigorating myself to work with them. I also wanted to bring to your attention a dilemma that we have That is that our budget for the Santa Maria library operations went up 6.3% this year, that's how much more we need to maintain services at the level where they are.

However, the budget has remained static and it's the same pot of money divided among the population of Santa Barbara County So I don't know if we're going to be able to sustain services at the level that we have, because our cost of living went up for employees. Our rent went up on the Guadalupe and the Orcutt Libraries that we rent. And everybody keeps raising the cost of doing business. So I just hope next budget time that you will remember At least do a cost of living increase for us would be great if that's all you can do, but more would even better.

But thank you very much for listening and thanks for all you do.

Thank you very much. A14? Do you want to hear from the public first or Supervisor Farr would you rather go first?

Well, yeah if I could just go ahead and make some comments. And actually I'm going to ask Mr. Farrum if he wants to come up. I pulled this item not because you know I'm opposed to it in any way but because I think it's very timely that we draw attention to some of the additional costs that at least some of the districts are incurring because of the drought And Mr. Framer, you had sent me a chart with some of those cost breakdowns. I don't know whether we have that to give to people but I thought what was in our staff report didn't necessarily show the true cost because there's not only the cost of the water that's being So there's a $200,000 cost in one and there's about a $250,000 cost for the other.

And coincidentally, you know we just saw that the pumping project is completed for Lake Kachuma. That has an enormous price tag as well. But I just thought Mr. Farum could explain to us what some of the total costs were and exactly how it gets paid back both the money and the water.

Be happy to, Mr. Chair, members of the board. This item was brought to your board as you know in 2008 your board granted the Public Works staff authority to do transactions like this but because of the cost and the sensitivity to the drought we wanted to bring it to the board for full public disclosure In this transfer, CCWA has been asked by their member agencies to find additional supplemental water and they have found additional water that they've outright purchased.

However in this case, this is an exchange agreement where they take water now from an entity who has state water on hand And then they repay it later. And so they basically front load the water to when they need it now, and then they have I think it's a 10-year period to pay that back. But there are costs involved with this. There is a cost in part of it as an upfront payment for getting the water now, and then in the second part it's what I call an unbalanced exchange where they would take So the net cost of that is about $473,000. That's the additional cost, understanding that they would be buying the state water, 1,000 acre feet anyway. The total cost of that is about 700,000 I do have those materials. I can make a copy and distribute that to the board if that would be helpful, and then if you have any questions for Mr.

Ray Stokes from CCWA he is here as well. I will also comment though we will be coming back to your board at two separate items on May 9th to talk about some of the Kachuma issues and then on October 14th And perhaps on that 14th, we'll do a full job of costs that the drought has incurred including the pumping project and all the supplemental water that's CCWA. And then you'll see the entire picture of the supplemental water cost and then maybe even throw in the costs that Santa Barbara City, Santa Barbara is incurring for restarting their desal plant. Maybe we can bring a broader picture what those costs are.

That would be terrific. Thank you, Mr. Farrum. So as far as the since there are just three of the member agencies involved with this so they each have their own proportionate share of all of these total costs that then get paid to CCWA who and then turns it pays it to Mojave?

To the state. Yes, that's correct.

And then they have to pay the actual water back out of their future state water entitlements. And how does that work if the entitlements still stay very low? Not the entitlements, actual allocation stays very low.

So Mr. Chair, Supervisor we have there's actually a table that's based on what the Table A allotment for that year is And there's a formula of a minimum repayment that they have to do. I might ask Mr. Stokes to address that further if you want more information, but they have 10 years to repay that and they could pay it faster or they have a minimum repayment over those 10 years. So would you like Mr. Stokes to

address that? Sure. That would be great.

Good morning.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Stokes. My pleasure.

The repayment schedule was outlined in a letter of intent that we executed with the Mojave Water Agency so that there's a minimum repayment based on the DWR delivery allocation which begins at 40%. So when the delivery allocation percentage reaches 40%, there's an obligation to begin repaying 10% of the total obligation, and then it continues to go up as DWR delivery allocation increases. Each of the three agencies have determined that they have the ability into the future based on those delivery allocations to repay that Mojave obligation into the future.

Okay, so their allocation would have to be at least 40% before they would be expected to take some of that and have it be siphoned off in effect and go to Mojave.

That's correct.

To pay back, okay. And then my last question actually had to do with CEQA because in your letter Mr. Stokes to the Mojave Water Agency on July 21st Under number four, you said required approvals. The exchange of SWP Table A is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act and yet both Mojave and DWR seem to be comfortable with a CEQA exemption so I just want to be clear here about the CEQAs responsibility.

Both Mojave Water Agency, CCWA and DWR are filing a notice of exemption under the existing use of facilities exemption for under CEQA. Santa Barbara County is also filing a notice of exemption under the simple I can't remember what it's called. I think your county council office has been dealing with my attorneys on that as well, as well as DWR attorneys on that. So all four entities involved in this transaction have filed a notice of exemption under CEQA.

Okay, so in your letter when you say it's subject to CEQA you just mean we have to recognize it and file an exemption. That's right. Thank you very much. Thank You Mr. Chair.

Supervisor Adam. Yeah, Mr. Farrer I've got a couple questions for you Can you repeat the total cost of this exchange water?

Mr. Chair, Supervisor Adams, so according to my calculations the total cost is $716,000. However you have to recognize that these water districts are already signed up for 1,000 acre feet. So you have to kind of back that out of the equation because they're paying for that anyways. And so the additional- You mean you added? Or you back it out, you subtracted which one are we doing here? You subtract it.

is around $473,000. That's the additional cost for getting that water now. The idea being there's 1,000 acre feet. They'll either get that water now under this exchange or they would get it later. Over the next 10 years, the cost is still there for that 1,000 acre feet. So at least in my mind, the additional cost of getting the water now is about $473,000. The total cost for the entire exchange is $716,000 but again they would have been paying for that 1,00 acre feet anyway.

Hope that makes sense. Okay, well I'll have to get my mind wrapped around that. Does that cost include future wheeling of the 2.25 times water back to Mojave? Yes. Okay. So you talked about a future report that you're going to come back and give us on this. Could you include a total water delivered, total acre feed delivered Since the inception of the project, total costs paid by all CCWA participants and a dollar amount per acre foot delivered when you give us that report. Please?

We'll do that.

Great, thank you. Okay very good. Did we have a public speaker on 14? No, 15.

Okay

so let's

move to 15. Mr.

Allen?

Chair Lavignino, members of the board. Item 815 is from Public Works. It's brought to the board as the Board of Directors of the County Water Agency and asks that the board consider recommendations regarding the agreement with RMC Water & Environment to develop a long-term supplemental water supply alternatives report. Our speaker is Charles Hamilton.

Yes, Supervisor Carbajal first is going to go first.

Thank you Mr. Chair I just pull this to I think Say how delighted I am that we're finally moving forward with this. It's something that our board requested early on when we were seeing significant signs of a prolonged drought, and I think that the study and the options that are going to be created here is exactly what our county needs. to look at all our options, to look into not only present day but into the future.

To ensure that we are better prepared to dealing with issues associated with drought and I think this is very timely because of the state bond that will be moving forward as well and the opportunity for us to, through this study outcome, to be able to be better positioned to take advantage of those resources if and when they come available so that we could be a more resilient county along with our purveyors as it relates to drought issues. So I just want to commend staff It seems a little pricey, but I know that Mr. Fairam and the Water Agency looked at the scope of this project with a number of other firms and have come to the conclusion that this is a fair price for the type of scope of study that we need for Santa Barbara County. And again, I just pulled it because This is a real opportunity for Santa Barbara County.

I will say though that the study will only be as good as the participation from all the purveyors, and my observations is that sometimes we get into some differences amongst the purveyors and some fractions. And my hope is that all the purveyors come together And really work together to make sure that this study is the most robust and comprehensive study we can come up with or conclude for the benefit of all residents of Santa Barbara County.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. All right, thank you very much. Let's go to our public speaker.

Mr. Hamilton?

He's in Santa Barbara.

Good morning, my name is Charles, he's in Santa Barbara.

Good morning, my name is Charles Hamilton, General Manager Carpinteria Valley Water District. I support the proposed long term supplemental water supply alternatives report and thank you and Scott and Tom and Matt for bringing this forward. You are uniquely qualified to do this for the benefit of all the people in Santa Barbara County. The proposed report will enable informed discussion and collaboration for much-needed regional and subregional planning for optimal use of our water supplies and infrastructure.