Board of Supervisors — 2017-03-07

Music playing. you Hi, everyone.

Good morning and welcome. It's nine o'clock and I call this March 7, 2017 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to order here in the county Santa Barbara hearing room. Mr. Allen would you call the roll please?

Mr. Adam, Mr. Lavinino, Mr Williams, Ms. Wolfe, Ms Hartman. Supervisor Lavinino will not be with us today

And may I have a motion to approve the minutes of February 28, 2017? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The minutes stand approved and now it's time for our CEO's report. Ms. Miyasato. Nothing to report this morning Chair. Okay, we turn to our administrative agenda and I'd like to start with our resolutions. First may I have a motion to approve the resolutions A18 through A22?

Second. All in favor? And the resolution stand approved so first can we turn to A20 Mr. Allen you need that into the record

Chair Hartman and members of the board, Item A20 is sponsored by Supervisor Williams today. This is a resolution proclaiming the month of March 2017 as American Red Cross Month in Santa Barbara County and I think we have Kimberly Cooley. Is Kimberly here this morning? Come on up to the podium and I will go ahead and read the resolution into the record. Whereas the American Red Cross Central California region is celebrating a century of service. For 100 years they've been helping our neighbors in need through humanitarian efforts, mobilizing the power of volunteers and generosity of donors.

And whereas the American Red Cross gives blood to help trauma victims and cancer patients, helps families find shelter after a home fire delivers comfort items to military members in the hospital and saves many from heart attack, drowning or choking. And whereas the American Red Cross depends on local heroes to deliver help and hope during a disaster, we applaud our heroes here in the County of Santa Barbara who assist their neighbors when they need a helping hand. And whereas every eight minutes the American Red Cross responds to a community disaster, the American Red Cross collects nearly 40% of the nation's blood supply, provides 24-hour support to military members, veterans and their families, and teaches millions life saving skills such as lifeguarding and CPR.

And whereas we come together in recognition of a century of service, we not only honor the past but we celebrate the future in building stronger and more resilient communities. We belong 100% strong through the continued legacy of giving, serving and caring. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors do proclaim March 2017 as American Red Cross Month in Santa Barbara County passed and adopted today.

Good morning. My name is Kimberly Coley, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Chapter for the American Red Cross and I just want to thank the Board of Supervisors today for acknowledging our work. Not only has March been our national month for the year but 2017 marks our centennial year of service so we've been providing local programs and services to Santa Barbara County for over 100 years And couldn't do that of course without generous volunteers. We have over 300 volunteers here in the county that come alongside us and help during times of emergency as well as generous donors who support our work so thanks to each of you for supporting our work throughout the years and we look forward to continuing to serve this county.

Thank you for the work that you do. A-21 Mr. Allen I think we're not hearing you on the mic.

Let's take it from the top. So 821 sponsored by Supervisor Wolf this is a resolution proclaiming March 7, 2017 as Arbor Day in Santa Barbara County and Udi Loza may be here but if not I think we have Anthony Ramirez. Is Anthony here? Come on up to the podium Anthony and I will read the resolution into the record thanks. Whereas Santa Barbara County has a long and prosperous history based upon agriculture and the growing of both annual and perennial plants for products as well as landscape benefits.

And whereas, the residents of Santa Barbara County treasure the valuable landscape trees of both public and private lands and consider them to be essential living features that contribute to the quality of life experience. And whereas the natural beauty of our urban forests and county landscapes, as well as the enhanced beauty of the planted and developed landscape environments add to the many qualities that draw visitors and new residents to one of California's most beautiful counties.

And whereas four of the largest incorporated cities in Santa Barbara County have for many years been proud and active participants in the Tree City USA program sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation. And whereas, as governing stewards responsible for the planning and care of all trees growing on county public lands as well as promoting and encouraging conservation of valuable trees growing on private lands.

Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara together with the Public Works and Community Services Departments proclaim Tuesday March 7th 2017 as Arbor Day throughout the county Encouraging all citizens to recognize the multitude of benefits our community derives from the conscious acts of planting and properly maintaining landscape trees. And request that all institutions of primary and secondary education throughout the county seek ways to observe this important day, and teach students the value of trees in our lives passed and adopted today.

Thank you

for your

support. Thank you. And A22, Mr. Allen.

Chair Hartman and members of the board moving on to A22 this is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman. This is a resolution of commendation honoring Heidi Hansen upon her retirement from the County Probation Department after 21 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County and Heidi. Come on up. And any other? She's

on her

way. Oh she's on her way.

We just dated one to go get her. I don't know if she knew exactly where she was supposed to be.

So she's not here yet, okay.

project to flesh out, and it was wonderful to see the sidewalks but unfortunately we lost a lot of trees in that but we gained Some good opportunity for wheelchairs and accessibility which I've learned so much more about the importance of since I've been dealing with people afflicted with these problems. So, I appreciate that and although some of the trees had to be cut down, I'm confident that you guys are going to come through on that work and replant those trees in Isla Vista streets especially because Doss grew up there so he cares about the place.

Good morning also and thank you for the opportunity to speak. It is invaluable to be able to communicate face-to-face, person-to person in this day and age. Today a poll said that the smartphone was the most hated device. Who would guess something people spend so much money and time on could be so hated? Kind of like the jail! I hated to miss speaking to you the last couple times that I was here, but I couldn't help it because I was helping a permanently disabled friend because they were being illegally evicted in Isla Vista on Valentine's Day by getting a note on the gate saying there would be a lockout on President's Day.

But I knew President's Day was a federal holiday and the sheriff's administration, sheriffs and administration offices were closed. So I was sure that this house that had been items in it since 1962 when it was purchased could hopefully get more than five days to move everything out of and clean it. I couldn't believe that there was never a 60 day notice, posting and or mailing that ever came.

Luckily, I was very aware of the California tenant landlord laws because I worked at the newspaper for over 20 years and part of my job was to make sure all our advertising was kosher and followed all the laws. It was respective of the California tenant and landlord law. And I think here we're not, and we really need to face up to that. A few years ago there was more of a group of people who were able to fight these things and support people's rights especially disability and other things that play a factor and make things more difficult and should have more time but you know what? There's no pro bono lawyers in Santa Barbara, there's not many affordable alternatives. The Legal Aid Foundation I want to say is fantastic they do everything they can.

The legal center inside the legal resource center inside the courthouse is great too but seriously you know if the law breaks the law it's a very problematic situation Right now in the United States of America we have our top lawmaker and they're not setting a good example. The Attorney General of the United States are not setting a good example at all so you know that means that we have to start locally, we really have to do a better job protect our people thank you.

Ed Kalaski to be followed by Mr. Caldwell

Good morning, particularly agitated this morning. Last week we had Dr. Russell come forward and say that Mr. Kalaski had been through the process. This was again Janet Wolfe called Dr. Russell forward. So I call my project or speech today Groundhog's Day in Santa Barbara in honor of the movie in which I appeared here before Janet Wilk called Dr. Russell to tell everybody that Mr. Kolaski has been through the process and I have a very difficult time with this process.

First of all, I was raised in a free country. You've heard of USA? United States of America that is. We got kicked out of our first meeting after four meetings with a five to two vote in our favor. We got kicked out on the fifth meeting, we never got a chance to say a single word. A single word! You cannot imagine how upsetting that is for me. To be pushed out of a meeting that I paid for. A public meeting?

And since the first time that Dr. Russell's here, this board has done nothing. Okay so I'm reviewing this at home all the crap that I went through to get here to present myself and to listen to nothing from this board it's been followed up by just so many things that I would like to say first of all okay we went to the PC three of the five members said we agree with whatever SBAR said we don't care Cecilia Brown had her own idea of what should be done and Daniel was the only one that said, oh Mr. Klasky is violating 4.6 there's the center of the house but I already got four votes against this so you're out of here basically. So I come here and I think oh geez this has got to be better than the last several years There's got to be somebody here who has other than Supervisor Peter Adams, that's got a brain in their head.

That wouldn't let this conduct go on? You know this isn't an authoritarian state at least I don't think so you don't expect me to come in here and click my heels and salute you! I'm not going to do it So you think about it. There's my supervisor, I can't even see her. I go into her office to see her and one of our aides comes running out. No don't go! Is this what democracy is? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here? You salute the flag every morning for liberty and justice?

You salute the flag for liberty and justice?! ! And you turn around and do nothing? It's disgusting.

Thank you for your comments.

Mr. Caldwell. Madam Chair, members of the board I'm Andy Caldwell representing COLAB. Today on your agenda you have item number one Dealing with a rail project, a rail oil project in San Luis Obispo County. And item number two is a 30 something million dollar budget gap. Well there's a gap between items number one and two. And that gap has to do with where your money comes from.

There's a connection and an intersection between the private sector and private property taxes as the mainstay of your financial wherewithal, and in reality all government revenues. The county always takes state and federal revenue departments and puts them over here as if that's free money but it all comes from the private sector. And the fact is is the less healthy our economy The less revenue that you have coming in and the more people you have coming to you asking for support.

You're in a downward spiral here. The economy suffers, you don't get as much sales tax revenue, property tax revenue and all the like. And secondly, you have more poor people coming to you for social services, public health and all the rest. And yet there's this continual disconnect that you never ever ask what can we do to improve the economy? What is our responsibility in improving the economy?

In neither of these staff reports, the first staff report is not going to have any talk about what this does to the oil industry in Santa Barbara County and the tax revenue and the job base. And the second one doesn't ask anything about where's our revenue coming from? What can we do to enhance the revenue sources? Never gets brought up, never gets discussed, never gets debated.

You know the oil industry? Oil is taxed as property. Ag, we just went through the winery ordinance. There's people begging to do business in Santa Barbara County but they don't believe they can get a permit to do business. Then you have manufacturing and industry. Progressives love to talk about livable wages. Well most of the manufacturing and industry is energy intensive And yet you're spending money right now to try to cut off the most reliable source of energy we have, i.e., baseload electricity in favor of community choice aggregation and alternative energy which is neither a base load nor because it doesn't produce 365.

You're creating and supporting the policies that are creating your problems. Thank you.

That closes our public comment portion of the hearing and we turn to our departmental agenda. Would you read item 1 into the record Mr. Allen?

Chair Hartman, members of the board, Item 1 is sponsored by Supervisors Wolff and Hartman. It's a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the Phillips 66 rail spur extension project

Thank you Madam Chair. Just as a quick introduction and I know Jefferson is going to walk us through

the PowerPoint. For those of you who may not recall back in September 2015 then Board of Supervisors submitted a letter to the San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisor and the San Luis Obispo Planning Commission opposing the project at that time, the rail spur project. This was based on environmental concerns health and safety concerns that would impact our county.

So that letter was sent back in September as I noted and the San Luis Obispo Planning Commission had denied the project. The project is being appealed to the San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors so Supervisor Hartman and I felt it was important to bring this back to the board of supervisors so we would hear a presentation And vote to send another letter to the Board of Supervisors in San Luis Obispo from this board expressing our concerns with this project. Supervisor Adam?

You know, this issue is really beyond our jurisdiction. We've already taken a position and I'm going to excuse myself and you can mark me absent when you take the vote and I'll come back for item two.

Can I just say something? Maybe Mr. Adam will hear me as he is leaving the room, but this in fact does impact our jurisdiction. In fact and I'm just going to keep it to the second district aside from the potential impact of Thank you. Thank you very much. Irreparable? Irreparable. Harm, damage that an oil spill or oil will cause to our coastline so this does affect this county in numerous ways so I'm sorry Mr. Adam is not participating in this discussion.

Now Mr. Litton

Madam Chair and Supervisors, the item before you is to consider opposing the Phillips 66 rail spur project located at the Santa Maria Refinery in San Luis Obispo County. The project will be considered by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisor on March 13th and the action before you is to consider submitting a letter of opposition to that board. By way of background to this project, on October 5th 2016 the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission denied Phillips 66's application for a development plan and coastal development permit for the rail spur expansion project.

The project that the planning commission considered on that day was the reduced train deliveries alternative which I will explain in a later slide. The Planning Commission decision was quickly appealed to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors by Jeff Edwards on October 6th and by Phillip 66 on October 19th. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will hear this appeal at a special meeting on Monday, March 13th.

By way of project overview, this map indicates the footprint of the Santa Maria Refinery located in San Luis Obispo County. The refinery depicted in the crosshatch section in blue is about three miles west of Napomo and is located within the coastal zone. The coastal zone boundary is that green line that you can see and also on this map you can also see the railroad lines traveling into the facility from both the north and south.

This picture is a close-up of the facility indicating the modifications included in the proposed project. The proposed project includes a 6,915 foot long rail spur, an unloading facility, on site pipelines depicted in this image in red, replacement of the coke rail loading tracks and construction of five parallel tracks with the capacity to hold a mile long train consisting of 80 tank cars, two buffer cars and three locomotives.

This project would allow Phillips 66 to import and unload crude oil via train at the facility. The crude oil would come from various North American sources. At the February 4, 2016 San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission the applicant proposed the reduced train deliveries alternative. Reducing the number of trains from five trains per week to three trains per week that would come into the facility and the total number of trains per year from 250 down to 150 trains per year.

This is an image of the CPC 1232 car, the tank car which Phillips 66 originally proposed to ship crude to the facility. Each of these cars is about 60 feet long and a train consisting of 80 of these cars has the capacity to hold and bring 2.19 million gallons of crude oil to the facility per train. After processing at the facility, the semi-refined product would be transported by pipeline to the Rodeo Refinery in Contra Costa County.

Now since the original application, the applicant has requested that the DOT 117 and DOT 117P trains be permitted for use at the facility. Those trains do have a slightly thicker shell than the CPC 1232 that you see in this image. This project was considered by the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission in 2016 over the course of several days of public testimony and numerous continuances and hearings.

There has been extensive public input into this process including over 24,500 letters and emails and nearly 500 public comments. After considering this testimony and evaluating the EIR, on October 5th the Planning Commission voted to deny the project. Staff reports noted that the proposed project had 11 class 1 significant environmental impacts and was inconsistent with the plans listed here.

In the recommendation for denial, San Luis Obispo County Planning staff noted that this project was detrimental to the health safety and welfare of the public and residents of San Luis Obispo County due to the increase in hazardous accidents as a result of this project. Staff continued, The project includes a significant and unavoidable environmental impact with regards to cancer risk, parenthetically air quality, for the population near the proposed oil spill.

This map depicts the routes by which crude oil trains would travel into the state and into the facility. The proposed routes include routes coming from both the north and south. The southern route would travel through Santa Barbara County. Any trains traveling from the south would travel through these Santa Barbara County communities. In addition, these trains would travel through a number of environmentally sensitive habitat areas including the Gaviota Coast, the Carpentry Assault Marsh and Guadalupe Dunes.

This graphic depicts the evacuation in at-risk zones for oil train derailments and fires as specified by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The red mark, a half mile radius is the risk and evacuation zone for derailment. The yellow zone is the evacuation risk zone for derailment and fire. These zones have become known colloquially as the blast zone. An estimated 125,000 Santa Barbara County residents live within the blast zone.

This is the blast zone through Guadalupe included in the half mile radius are City Hall, Mary Byrne Elementary, Kermit McKenzie Junior High School and the Apio Packaging Facility. This is the blast zone through Goleta. Within the half mile radius you will find the well-frequented Camino Real marketplace, the Santa Barbara Airport and several businesses employing thousands of employees.

The one mile radius through downtown Santa Barbara includes the building in which we are sitting in today. It also includes McKinley Elementary School, Franklin Elementary School, Santa Barbara City College and Cottage Hospital. This table indicates the number of oil train derailments and or fires in North America over the past three years as reported by the Federal Railroad Administration.

And these are just derailments or fires. According to PHMSA, the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, in 2014 there were 141 unintentional releases of petroleum from oil trains. The most widely publicized and most tragic oil train derailment in a fire occurred in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013. This tragedy occurred when 72 cars full of crude oil derailed in the town center igniting a devastating explosion and fire that leveled the town. 47 people were killed in this disaster. The blast radius was 0.6 miles.

62 of the 72 cars on that train derailed, 60 of those 62 released oil and 1.58 million gallons of crude oil were released into the soil air and water as a result of this disaster The most recent oil train derailment was in Mosier, Oregon in June 2016. Sixteen tank cars of a ninety-six car train derailed. Four cars caught fire and a small quantity of oil created an oil sheen on the Columbia River.

This is an example of an accident that could have been far worse. Because a manhole was dislodged by the explosion, a large volume of crude oil flowed into that manhole and not into the Columbia River. Merger Community School, the large white building in the bottom image with grass in front was just hundreds of yards away from the fire. Fortunately the students were safely evacuated and no children were harmed.

However this spill has contaminated the groundwater near the site. The communities across the state and across the country are becoming increasingly aware of the risks associated with oil trains. The list before you is just a sampling of jurisdictions that have sent formal letters of opposition to the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission regarding the Santa Maria Rail Spur project.

Included in this list are 16 school districts that would be impacted by the project and have opposed it. Planning Commission acknowledged that they considered the more than 24,500 comments they received when they decided to deny the project. In conclusion, based on the aforementioned considerations and potential detriments to constituents within our county we ask the Board of Supervisors take a position opposing the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Rail Spur expansion project.

This concludes the presentation.

Thank you Mr. Litton are there any questions by members of the board? Do we have any public speaker slips Mr. Allen?

Chair Harbin, members of the board we have seven requests to speak. Okay We're going to start in Santa Maria with Ken Huff. If you could go to Santa Maria please. Ken and then we're gonna come back for Lee Moldaver in Santa Barbara and the remainder of our speakers

Thank you very much I'm Ken Huff representing the Santa Barbara County Action Network This has been a big priority for us for about two years. In July 2015, we published a 15-page report that detailed a lot of the stuff that Jefferson just went over and included maps. His maps are a little better now than ours but we put this one together showing so that we could count up how many schools and hospitals and firehouses are within the blast zone.

I was hoping to make a case for a unanimous vote, but I can see that isn't going to happen today. We would just urge you to reaffirm the county's opposition to this and I hope one of you will be able to appear at the public hearing. I understand they will have preferential treatment for elected officials from other areas. Thank you very much. I'm

going to come back to Senator Barbara for Lee Moldaver to be followed by Gail Osherenko

Good morning Madam Chair, members of the Board, Supervisor Adam in the back room somewhere. I'm Lee Moldaver speaking on behalf both of the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara County and Coastal Resource Center in Goleta both of which buildings according to the graphic Mr. Litton shared are in the potential blast zone in the event of a derailment Both organizations had sent written comments to the Board of Supervisors and to San Luis Obispo County last year expressing concern about the oil train.

And I don't think either of our groups have anything we can add that will go beyond Mr. Litton's summary or the analysis of the planning Department in San Luis, which listed the class one impacts under CEQA. And of course the fact that the train goes through the coastal zone and if Supervisor Adam was here it goes right through the middle of a major nationally secured Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is the largest employer in the North County and a risk to that area is a risk to the entire economy This is a high risk, low reward project. The project itself would be anchored in San Luis Obispo County but the potential hazard goes through as Mr. Litton indicated the entire rail coastal corridor of Santa Barbara County and the risk for everyone here for as long as that Project was in operation should it be approved would be infinite but the reward that residents or government from Santa Barbara would derive from the passage of the train would be somewhere between limited and zero.

The coastal resources, the view, the health, the safety of the South Coast area and Vandenberg are essential to the strength of our economy, tourism in our business. And so both to protect coastal and marine habitat and all the people businesses visitors residents of the Coastal Area, Santa Barbara County that the train would traverse. We respectfully urge you to send a letter in opposition to the project next week in San Luis. Thank you for your attention.

I just want to take a minute of your time to thank you for bringing this before your board, Chair Hartman, Board Supervisor Wolf and my own local supervisor Das Williams. I just hope that whatever you can do and as strong a letter as you can write in your presence, anything you can do to stop this project as quickly as possible would help us all spend a lot less time fighting about something that could not be a huger threat to our whole community.

We don't want oil trains of that size and that risk operating on our rickety lines coming right down our coast, right in the coastal zone and putting our hospitals, our schools, our children, our health at risk. And so I'm really sorry that Supervisor Adam didn't Eric Freedman is our next speaker and will be followed by Cure Redmond.

Good morning Chair Hartman and Board of Supervisors. My name is Eric Friedman and I'm here as a private citizen today. It's kind of interesting being on this side of the dais, this is the first time for a non-ceremonial item that I've spoken before the board even after all my years of service but the reason why I'm here is because I had the opportunity to work on the original staff report from 2015 And I'm urging you to oppose this project, to reiterate your opposition. And I think both staff reports then and now get to the heart of the matter but I wanted to just raise a couple scenarios. One is just a couple weeks ago we had a washout in Lock and Cheetah and imagine an oil train had been on those tracks.

And then there was another opportunity, it was about three years ago or so. There was a day where we had first responders from the various county and non-county agencies from all the fire departments, public safety, CHP and public officials and we went on site to look at three different incidents ranging from Painted Cave to Gaviota and others and to understand how we respond to emergencies and one of the, there's about 50 of us It's a full day exercise and we went out to the Gaviota Fire Station that day and those who had been there kind of went through how they responded to the Gaviota fire and the challenges they have up there.

And, of course, the question got asked was what happens if there was an oil train during that fire? And so it was quite interesting I would urge all of you to kind of talk with the public safety personnel what the different response would be if you have an oil train. But in this case, if you had the drought conditions and you had a fast moving wildfire and you had a train that was coming up those trains just can't stop and even if they could stop getting them to go back It could take longer than the fast-moving fire so it creates a whole set of challenges for our public safety, puts their lives at risk for this.

I would just leave you with this thought. I seriously doubt that Union Pacific would stop oil trains based on whether or not county fires declared a red flag day on our coast. So thank you for bringing this item and your opposition to this project.

Chair Redman? Then we'll hear from Katie Davis.

Good morning Chair, Supervisors. I'm Kira Redman with Santa Barbara Channel Keeper. The Phillips 66 Rail Spur project would send an additional five oil trains per week hurtling down our coast passing through or near residential areas, schools, endangered species habitat, public beaches, marine protected areas and valuable tourist destinations. Oil train derailments have increased in recent years, 17 in the past three years alone. Despite increased regulation and improved technology and obviously can have catastrophic damage impacts to human health and even life, the environment and our economy.

Our sister organization Waterkeeper Alliance produced a report last year entitled Deadly Crossing, Neglected Bridges and Exploding Oil Trains which documented deficiencies in railway bridges across the nation. Nearly half of those that they inspected. The increase in oil train traffic increases the strain on neglected infrastructure. This project is simply not worth the significant risk it poses to our communities and so many others along the way.

Channel Keeper supports the staff recommendation to send a letter to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors restating your opposition to this project. Thank you very much.

I'm Katie Davis, chair of the Santa Barbara Sierra Club and representing our thousands of local members growing by hundreds every month since the election by the way. People are rightly concerned about the protection of our environment and our health under the Trump administration and we should remember that our rail lines are federally regulated. We don't have local oversight. We don't have local control over what happens on those rail lines. Oil pipelines spill as we were reminded by the Refugio spill but oil by rail is worse According to a report by the Association of American Railroads, the rate of hazardous materials spilled by railroads is almost three times higher than pipelines.

Derailments can and have happened here in Goleta an earthquake once caused a train derailment in the 90s a train wreck near Santa Barbara caused a nasty chemical spill and shut down the freeway and rail to LA remember we have a very limited constrained area and that could be shut down there. A train derailed in Lompoc just a couple months ago. A train accident with a flammable oil trains in our area would be a disaster and we need to keep in mind the railroad tracks run right through our cities and along our coasts.