Board of Supervisors — 2017-08-29

you Okay. Good morning.

It's a little after nine and welcome to this August 29th Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting here in the Santa Maria hearing room. Ms. Alexander would you call the

roll? Mr. Williams? Here. Ms. Wolff? Here. Mr. Adams? Here, Mr. Lavinino? Here Ms. Hartman?

And turning to the minutes of August 22, 2017 may I have a motion to approve? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Minutes are passed and CEO's

report Ms. Miyasato. Good morning board members. I just have a short announcement and that is that we it's actually an award that the county received. We received confirmation that the county's energy and climate action plan was selected for its second innovation in green community planning award from the American Planning Association So as you recall, we did get recognition. The first recognition was at the local level and this latest award is important because it's from the statewide California chapter. It'll be presented next month in Sacramento at the state conference. Staff from the Energy and Sustainability Initiatives.

And the long-range planning divisions recently presented at the California Climate Action Planning Conference to share lessons learned with other local governments and staff will be bringing an update to your board on the energy and climate action plan on the September 12th board meeting.

Thank you and that's it. All right turning to our administrative agenda may I have a motion to approve the four honorary resolutions A17 to A20 that are on our agenda today? So moved. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So the honorary motions stand approved we're only presenting one of those today, A 20 Miss Alexander would you read that into the record please?

Director Hartman and members of the board on today's agenda item A20 is sponsored by Supervisor Lavinino it's to adopt a resolution of accommodation honoring the Santa Maria high school Saints baseball team as the CIF division six champions. And if I can have Joseph Dominguez, Joey Arzoco, Bobby Ruiz, Mark Estrada and Isaiah Garcia to the podium and I'll go ahead and read the resolution.

Whereas the Santa Maria High School baseball team won the CIF Division 6 championship defeating Marina Valley 9 to 0. Whereas this baseball championship was the first one for Santa Maria high school since 1957 ending a 60 year drought and whereas Trevor Garcia Tommy Herrera Mark Estrada Robert Slim Lopez Devin Erickson Bobby Ruiz Isaiah Garcia Philip Becerra Marcus Rodriguez Pauline Navarro J.J. Pantoja Alfredo Camacho and Angel Esparza has played together since elementary school and whereas the team was led by CIF coach of the year Rick Hebert and assistant coaches Joey Erzoco Omar Gonzalez Marcus lights and Alex Lopez. And whereas the Saints dominated their opponents during their playoff run outscoring them 66 to 12 And whereas the team received clutch contributions from every player with Tommy Herrera and Trevor Garcia being named All-CIF, and Paulie Navarro being named All-CIF MVP.

And whereas the Saints' team will have eight players returning and are looking forward to defending their championship again next year. Now therefore it is hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors joins the community in honoring the Santa Maria High School baseball team for their outstanding athletic achievement and their excellent sportsmanship. Passed and adopted today.

Also I'd like to, the community really supported the team a lot this year. There was when we had our playoffs got in the playoff series, I mean the stands were full it was exciting to see you know and it hadn't happened since 57 so the boys didn't realize what they had in front of them and once they realized that I mean they really played hard and played their hardest. You know one of the persons I would like to mention is I believe the gentleman's name is Richard Caldwell. He's the owner of Ratchetty Pomo and he offered, before we went to the championship game, he offered to feed the boys about 10 o'clock says come to my place, I'll feed them for free, give them a tri-tip sandwich or give them something to eat before we hit the road and he's an alumni from this school so you know it was kind of nice that a lot of people that were alumni came out and supported the team.

As much as, if not more than these boys did because where they came from and how long it's been for them. So it was exciting. It really was and I enjoyed being in the community a long time coaching for over 25 years. It was very exciting for me that this is what we coached for. This is what we do. And you know the boys played hard they did everybody did their jobs and it was really good. It was exciting

Well thank you so much for coming today and allowing us to share in your celebration, and you've done all of Santa Barbara County proud.

Yes absolutely

I just want to say thank you everybody for supporting us and come out to the football games and support us there as well

I want to thank, I think we also need to give a shout out to principal Joe Dominguez. There's been a new revival of spirit Santa Maria high spirit you can feel it throughout the community and it reflects back on the sports program. I think last year the football team first time they made the playoffs and I don't know how long and this year they started off with a severe whooping on San Luis High so things

are back. We just got moved to number five in CIF. One thing I'd like to repeat what Coach Ellington said is last year the Saints were back, this year Saints are here. That's right.

I just want to say thank you to everyone for supporting us and I just want to give a big shout out to my fellow teammate that passed Ivan Nunez and we couldn't do it without him. Thank you.

We'll expect you back next year. I would be

remiss if we see people, young people who are so successful as playing part of a team not to pitch you on after college to be thinking about employment with the county. We need good team players here in many departments planning and development, deputy sheriffs, think about coming back to work at County of Santa Barbara.

Thank you. Turning to more mundane matters on our administrative agenda, Supervisor Adam has one item he would like to pull and we have an item from the member of the public so for item A10 would you read that into the record?

Chair Hartman and members of the board, administration item A10 is from social services. It is to consider recommendations regarding a third amendment to an agreement with Community Action Commission of Santa Barbara County for 211 helpline service.

Supervisor Adams?

Yeah you know I thought that for some reason and it may be some cognitive dissonance on my part but I just recall that we didn't fund this at this level. And now we're talking about $174,000 which just I checked into with Mr. Nielsen thank you for getting back to me so fast. And based on the calls, it's $31 a phone call if you have the same number of calls as last year and the money that we're spending here.

And combined web access and phone calls would be $11 apiece. And I kind of thought and maybe it was the last board that I'm recalling that we had decided that there was about enough for that. And we decided to fund it at a lower level and try and get some other partnerships in on this thing. And it seems that we're not doing that. And and we're having seventy nine thousand dollars worth of general fund think In any case, yep 79.7 the general fund yeah so I'm not going to be able to support this it probably found its way into the budget and like I said I probably was not able to focus on it or something.

So anyway maybe roll call vote would be in order I am not sure I have any questions for Mr. Nielsen thank you.

Did you want to respond Mr. Nielsen?

recollection is correct in that in the prior year and I'm not sure about the year after that but I know in the prior year the amount of funding available from the various sources listed in the board item was not enough to fully fund what was desired to be the activities of the contract. And so the county worked with a contractor At that time to have the scope of work be in alignment with the money that was available and that continues to be where we're at moving forward with this contract is, of course, we don't want to be asking for more work than we have money for. So the amount of work that's in the contract is in alignment with the money that's available.

And may I ask Ms. Miyasato do we have any other contributors to this? It provides a countywide benefit to people.

Chair Harman and Supervisors, I'll ask Terri Nesbitt to come up. We do and I can't remember which cities currently contribute but before she does to respond to Supervisor Adams recollection he's He's correct so a couple every year we'd come back to the board saying there's more money needed for 211. And so in this current fiscal year there wasn't enough money from other contributors. So we asked the contractor to reduce the scope of services because we didn't have enough additional general fund to cover the additional cost. So what you have before you is sort of the reduced down version

Yes good morning Madam Chair, members of the board. To add to the conversation yes we continue to reach out to our partner cities for funding of 211 based on the actual calls received from their areas and this year we did receive funding from City of Santa Barbara as well as City of Carpinteria. We continue every year to work with the other cities and make the case about 211 as you can see Here in the board letter our call volume has increased dramatically from where we started several years ago and that we've made a number of improvements. We have as CEO Miyasato mentioned decreased the contract amount to be in line with the resources available and that includes an ongoing contribution from the county's general fund of the forty nine thousand seven hundred listed here but we will continue to work with cities.

We also continue to work directly with CAC on obtaining grants for these services.

Supervisor Lavanino.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And this has occurred for me every year is that the city of Santa Maria I know that I've been actually at the budget hearings when the Community Action Commission has come forward and requested funding and I think there were over 1600 phone calls. Santa Maria is the number one focal point for phone calls And the city looks upon this as a county responsibility and so they feel the jobs getting done right now by us. So I would anticipate, I don't think there's going to be any change in funding stream from the city but based on what the 1600 phone calls, I know some of them have led You know, child welfare cases and those types of things.

So although it is 79,000 or so or 74,000 of the general fund until we can get the cities to pick up the cost. I mean, we've invested a bunch of money into the database. And I keep checking on that to make sure that it's accurate at this point which it is. And so I'll support the funding. With the idea that we're going to continue to reach out. But like I said, I don't see that changing but you know if I saw a drop-off in calls Or people weren't using it or didn't feel the importance of it You know, maybe I would change my mind but at this point I think it's it's highly used and at least for the people of my district It's an important resource.

Would you like to make a motion?

Sure. I'll make a motion We move item 10

and Supervisor Williams

I just had a question because I did see the undersheriff poking his head in the room if that it might have, you know the question is does this help us avoid some call volume to 911 in the long run? What's sort of the opinion of dispatch on this. Sorry to put you on the spot. We are talking about the 211 system.

If I could just say because Mr. Levin is here and you might want to respond to this because I think during one of our fires folks were redirected As opposed to 9-1-1 so I do think that it does take off some of the capability, the demand thank you. Some of the demand from 9- 1-1.

Supervisors Williams and through the chair and Supervisor Wolf is correct. I don't have statistics in front of me about what it's done in other agencies, but the challenge if you will is determining where that system is going to be answered. But yes, I think it would definitely take some pressure off 9-1-1.

Madam Chair and Supervisors without a doubt 211 has become part of our messaging system during emergencies. It does reduce the impacts on our 911 system but it also reduces the impacts on other systems of even calling into just Thank you Supervisor Adam. Well notwithstanding all of that

You know you're having service level reductions on many, many things and I don't see just for me anyway you guys are going to go do what you want to do. But for me I don' t see the benefit of this thing being exceeding what you could do with the other things to preserve service levels.

Supervisor Wolf. Thank you Madam Chair and I appreciate this discussion and I'm just really, I am very pleased that we are continuing this program. I think one of the notions was is that we have so many services and providers within our county And yet what's the point of having such a vibrant network unless people know where they can get those services and 211 has provided that link. And I think CAC has also done a really good job of you know working with all the partners to clean up that.

I'm You know that we've tried that before and I would agree with Supervisor Labagnino that we continue to talk to our partners but this is such an important service that we didn't have for a while and we saw the impact of that so I would hate to see anything be discontinued or even diminished at this point. Director Peters Supervisor

Williams

I just want to speak in agreement with my colleagues, Supervisor Labadino and Wolf. To me the bottom line is a call taker at 211 costs us a lot less than a dispatcher on 911. So to me it's about saving money which sometimes takes spending money.

I had a question for someone and that is, I was here when Supervisor Wolf and now Congressman Carbajal sponsored a forum for farm workers where a variety of state federal and county agencies were describing their program in promoting this 211 as a resource. And so my question is do other agencies participate or is it only for county agencies?

Chair Hartman, 211 is for all agencies. It includes the bulk of our county programs as part of their database but it is all agencies throughout the county and the services are delivered 24-7 in over 107 languages so it is very diverse. Thank you.

Well I also support the motion and I think anything that can integrate the maze of agencies so someone can call and find their way through is invaluable and particularly for people who whose language isn't English to have that resource we haven't invested in enormous amount in various programs to make that the number to call. So I support the motion as well. Could we have a roll call vote?

Mr. Williams Miss Wolfe

I

Mr. Adam Mr. Lavagnino Ms. Hartman

I

motion passes 4 1.

I believe did we have a public speaker on a 20 which we already read into the record that was our honorary resolution

chair Hartman and members of the board that is correct. We have a public comment Linda Ente on item a 20 which was previously read

General public comment, okay well thank you. Then may I have a motion to approve the rest of the administrative agenda? So moved. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes the administrative agenda is approved and now we turn to public comment on matters that are not on today's agenda so if there is anything you want to bring to our attention that is within our jurisdiction to address please submit a speaker slip and do we have some in addition or just one

Chair Hartman, members of the board I also had two announcements to make really quick to add to today's agenda. The first is we posted an addendum on Friday which was adding administrative item A21 from general services it is to consider recommendations regarding San Ynez Valley Airport ACIP 16 project number 8763 federal aviation administration FAA funding in the third district and a correction to item A12 that was A correction to the name and it is an item from Supervisor Hartman to approve the appointment of Anne Glasgow to the Human Services Commission term ending August 18th 2020 in the third district. If we could just add that to our last motion.

Thank you make a motion that we add these last two changes to our admin agenda. Thank

you. And a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Now the administrative agenda stands approved.

And Chair Hartman members of the board we have seven requests to speak on public comment today and we are going to begin in Santa Barbara with Pat Love to be followed by Ed Kalaski. Pat.

My name is Pat Love. Good morning, I'm a resident of Santa Barbara and I would like to talk about conservatorship. Apparently this could be a good law that or potentially Theoretically, but it seems that it's being abused which is connected to elder abuse. So it seems that not only the elders are being abused but the law as well. One way that the elders are being abused is by drugs, psychopropic drugs.

There's various things wrong with drugs. One is they're toxic. Another is they come about by animal cruelty experimentation. Another is they have side effects Quite a while ago I spoke with an elderly woman who has been put on conservatorship, and as I remember she told me that her house was sold to pay legal fees, attorney fees. And don't you think that's terrible?

I thought stealing was illegal Lawyers who do that, I feel should realize that what you do can or does come back to you and it might happen in this life or it might happen in the next. Look what has been happening recently in Houston with Hurricane Harvey. So you don't have to be in some vulnerable or weak situation or position, to lose your house. So you are supervisors so why don't you supervise this situation?

And if you are then why is it happening? You might say, well this is not our area because it's for the court system. But I ask that you do what you can. Thank you for listening.

Our next speaker is Ed Kalaski to be followed by Elizabeth Williams.

Good morning. The title of my talk today is It's Time for Janet Wolfe to Resign. You know we had, well first of all I got a notice from my health insurance company saying you know it's important that we treat you fairly and certainly not something that has been done here with the local government or with Janet Wolfe. We had a five to two vote after four meetings in favor our project if you can put it up on the board Ken

Our design.

After the fourth meeting, we were requested to not locate the second story solely over the garage. We had all these minor changes in the first four meetings which we complied with. The fourth meeting, we gotta do something about the second story. Okay, we expanded this second story just as they had requested so it's over the kitchen, the dining room, part of the living room and the laundry room.

They did not want, or three of the members did not want the other four members to see our design. So they told them that we made no changes and they voted 7-0 to kick us out! My architect stood up he wanted to ask a question why are we being rejected? They had Dillon stand up and start screaming at us, siloing, siloing something we had discussed in the previous meetings.

The fourth meeting matter fact He sat down, he sat down. Margaret Dix stands up, same thing. He sits down, he sits down. He stands up. Finally Alex reluctantly goes you're out of here to us we never got to say a single word. You know I read off about 18 items that were either violated the law or violated your own rules and yet Jana Wolf stood up here and just praised SBAR she didn't give a damn about our civil rights You know, I paid for that meeting. I paid for that meeting!

And I'm kicked out? That's against the law. It's against California law and it's against federal law. Is this the way our government is supposed to act? You know, I talk to people and I hear all these rumors and stuff about Janet Wolfe. I should repeat them but I won't right here now. What are we supposed to do here? We come into a fifth meeting and they kick us out. Is this the way our government is supposed to act?

I don't know if you can really see my design there, but... We added 300 square feet to the 400-square foot project, and they said we made no changes. Some of the members said that we made no changes because they never saw our drawings. Ryan Cooksley never saw our drawings. Three weeks after we had submitted them I had to get

him a new copy. Thank you very much, and I believe Mr. Gazzone, our County Council has something to say.

Chair Hartman and Supervisors, just a reminder that public comment although nothing prevents public speakers from criticizing the board about subject matter items within the subject matter jurisdiction. The general practice is to avoid personal attacks that are not related to subject matter jurisdictions.

Thank you and may we have our next public speaker?

Yes good morning. Our next speaker is Elizabeth Williams to be followed by Patricia Rosen.

Good morning, I'm Elizabeth Williams and I'm here to support Linda Kincaid that's speaking in Santa Maria this morning on conservatorship and what's going on. And I stood here four years ago and a few months before my boyfriend passed away under conservatorship. He had lots of money and lots of property and I was his only living person in the United States because he grew up in Sweden and everyone had passed away And he gave me his health care, his HIPAA and I had his will. The executor of it. His only friend and loved one. And the courts decided that two months before he passed away that Sharon Kennedy should be in charge of the person not what Harry Olson wanted but what Sharon Kennedy presented that I was a horrible person, not letting them give Harry these horrible anti-psychotic drugs.

And they kept the poor man drugged all the time and when he'd go to court protest and want to know what happened to his money? They drugged him that morning so... Of course the judge is going to think he's demented because that's what these drugs do. They cause you to have memory problems. Anyway, he passed away two months after they took his health care and the person away from him and gave it to Sharon Kennedy and he was drugged. He was injured where he lived I have pictures you wouldn't believe And I spent $70,000 every cent I had on attorneys that don't dare fight the court system because then they can't win their cases because they're siding against the probate court system.

This needs to stop someplace it's gotta stop. It made an old lady out of me. I watched him be drugged for four years five years is a magic number. The money runs out somehow the conservatorships Get to invest, sell, do whatever they want. Create bank accounts for these people's money and Harry had no one to speak for him but me and they took that away from him and in two months he was dead and when he passed away he had $17,000 in the bank and I protested where is his money?

And they go well Kennedy Court of Attorney and Kennedy's attorney got paid through Harry's last money which was $100,000 about that amount. So you guys need to look into this somebody needs to look over The attorneys, the probate courts and what they're saying about the elderly's families to keep them conserved. It's sinful and it's gonna happen to you guys believe me because they use dementia. Dementia is a magic word for all the probate courts thank you.

Our next speaker is Patricia Rosen to be followed by Brian Rosen

Hello, I'm Patricia Rosen and I wanted to, I wrote out something I want you to hear because it's very important to me and to other people that were in my situation. I was in a auto accident and my husband was killed. A nice lady came to me and told me that she was my conservator I didn't know what that meant. She explained that she would take care of my home, be sure my bills were paid and she asked me to sign a paper stating that she would take care of everything for me. My melons etc. My husband's pension money went into my bank account. What happened? She was able to withdraw all of my money from my account She said that my home was now her home because of what I signed.

However, the public guardian Arlene Diaz came to my rescue. Thank heavens! She spoke to the judge and no longer was this lady my conservator. It took five years. Thank you, Arlene Diaz." That's all, thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian Rosen, and then we're going to come back here to Santa Maria for Linda and T.

Hello members of the board. There are a lot of victims of the court system when it comes to professional conservators. The lawyers, the conservators make tons of profit off the estates of people with money while the older person is often neglected. There's every effort to isolate Medicaid and take the estate. While a person under conservatorship retains certain rights such as the right to visitation, that doesn't stop the conservators from telling friends or family that they are not allowed to see the conservative.

I was recently put on the list And I'm not allowed to see Peggy Figg-Hoblin. Before she was put under conservatorship, she would come to my house where I live when we had group meetings on helping the elderly. She was trying to help her brother who was in an abuse of conservatorship with senior planning services. They mistreated her terribly and then assassinated her character in the court record. Now she is under conservatorship with this same outfit and they are protecting her in quotation marks. I would drive her places back then and helped her out but now I am on the forbidden list It is illegal to isolate someone without a court order, but that doesn't stop them and our probate judge Colleen Stern agrees with whatever the conservator wants.

She enables them to have their way and for them and their attorneys to take as much as they want from states. I know because I've been through the system, which is a brutal abusive system to anyone who challenges the injustice of it. It is common for family members or friends to be abused by the judge and the attorneys if they try to speak. And hiring an attorney, if you can afford one, will drain any of your assets and probably be of no avail because a judge has their loyalties.

After my mom finally got out of conservatorship, which took five years to accomplish, there were still some family disputes which fortunately now seem to have dissolved. I filed a petition on my own, avoiding supporting attorneys. My siblings took my mom's estate to court to pay their attorney fees. I claimed the fees were outrageous and were running up bills which in no way benefited my mom. For example, the attorneys mailed petitions to the court the day before court hearings so interested parties couldn't receive notice what it was about until after the hearing was over. I emailed the law firm Mullen and Hansel saying this practice was unethical and that my brother and sister shouldn't be charged for this improper behavior on their part.

The attorneys did conferences on my email racking up another huge bill, and finally took it to court to make my mom's estate pay for this and a lot of other charges that in no way protected my mom's estate as that was their claim. My petition was at the fees my mom' s estate was being taken to court to pay for excessive and absurd. Did the judge listen? No, she gave the attorneys everything they wanted and they went on to abuse me when I protested. The attorney should not have been paid for my mother's estate for the time given in proper notice and conferences regarding my complaint to the law firm but the judge didn't seem to care and $46,000 was taken from my mom's estate which could have been used for her needs. We're all going to get older And we need a system that truly benefits the elderly.

We need to get our priorities right instead of bombing people all over the world and doing wars, we need to take care of our own, our own people, our own elderly. That's how you judge a society and how we treat its weakest members. Please do what you can to help. The courts are corrupt. Thank you so much.

Now we're going to return back here in Santa Maria for Linda Enti to be followed by Linda Kincaid. All righty, we're going to start with Linda Kincaid to be followed by Linda and T.

Thank you. I'm Linda Kincaid with the Coalition for Elder and Disability Rights. What's being handed out to you is a letter from us to Ron Bobo, a public defender, and he is a court-appointed counsel in the conservatorship of William Entie. William is a 25 year old young man. He's not an elder like the stories you've been hearing about but conservatorship can affect younger people as well.

William, 25 now resides in an independent living situation here in Santa Maria. Pretty close to here in fact. William gets up at 530 every morning to get a bus to go to work. William works five days a week he gets a paycheck and he pays rent. Tri-County's regional center determined that William is quote overall self-sufficient although William is overall self-sufficient he's still on a conservatorship I'd like you to look at my letter.

It gives probate code 1801, which gives the standard for conservatorship. The standard in California is that there must be clear and convincing evidence that a person is unable to provide for his personal needs but if we go back to page one William is overall self-sufficient. They don't match and so we're asking Mr. Bobo, William's counsel to file a petition to terminate the conservatorship and to give William back his civil rights but we'd like to go beyond that this conservatorship like the others you heard about Has been characterized by abuse. For the last seven years, William has been largely isolated from his mother at times he's also been isolated from his sister and isolation is a form of abuse whether it's an elder or dependent adult.

We ask that you help bring that abuse to an end. A civil remedy that has been effective in other cases of isolation abuse is a request for a temporary restraining order against isolation abuse. In fact, I've used in my own case, my mom was isolated for over a year and through a temporary restraining order against isolation abuse we got to see by mom again. And we're asking Mr. Bobo to file that petition, but we're asking him to go a step further and also report this abuse to Adult Protective Services and to local law enforcement. Thank you.

And our final speaker is Linda Entie.

Good morning Supervisors. Thank you for this opportunity to share with you the most tragic and protracted journey that my son and I are being forced to take. Seven years ago, my former spouse unilaterally and without my knowledge or permission placed our son into a Santa Maria level four group home for autistic boys. A few months later, he became a conservator of our son. My son was opposed to the conservatorship and yet he was not present at the hearing.

Neither my daughter nor I were present as notice of hearing was received two days after the actual event. Since that date, I have been allowed little or no visitation with my son. William now resides in a very grim semi-independent living home and is bused daily in order to clean the restrooms at the Gaviota Rest Area. My son is a bright articulate 25 year old man. He has proven that he is capable of taking care of himself.

This conservatorship is in violation of his civil rights and needs to be terminated. Thank you so much for your time.

And that was our final speaker.

Thank you. And with that I close the public comment portion of our hearing. I would like to ask Miss Miyasato could we get a briefing on this issue at some point in the future?

Chair Hartman we can talk to both our public guardian and the public defender about some of the issues raised today and provide some information back to the board.

Thank you. And do we keep contact information of people who testified today so that they can be notified about the date of this hearing?

Yes we do. The clerk at the board does have that information.

Thank you. We're turning now to our departmental agenda but I had a request for a short break so we'll have the staff come up and get ready and we'll take five minute breaks. So after a brief recess we are once again reconvening the August 29 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors here in the Santa Maria hearing room. And were turning now to our departmental agenda item number one, Ms. Alexander would you read that into the record please?

Chair Hartman and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the County Executive Office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a response to the 2016-2017 Grand Jury Report Youth Safety in Santa Maria.

Good morning Madam Chair and members of the board today we're here to respond to the grand jury report It was published June 15th, entitled Youth Safety in Santa Maria Developing a New Strategy. The Board of Supervisors was named as the responder for findings 3 and 5 as well as recommendations 3 and 5. Mayor and City Council, Santa Maria initially refused to cooperate with the 5th District of Santa Barbara County Supervisor in utilizing the $75,000 allocation from the County Board of Supervisors. Our recommendation is that the board responds partially disagreeing with the finding Initially, the mayor and the city declined to collaborate on the utilization of funding but that was due to the structure and composition of their task force was still being completed.

The planning work has been completed and now the task force in the county are working together to discuss the issue and gather public input. Recommendation three is that the Mayor and the City Council strengthen their collaboration with the 5th District County Supervisor and Board of Supervisors to expand ongoing support for the regional program. Our recommended response is that the recommendation has been implemented. The city and the county have been collaborating on this issue, there's been a community forum, there's been several meetings and the fifth district office and the city have retained the services of the executive director of the California City's Violence Prevention Network to work with the task force and create its strategic plan.

Finding five, the County Board of Supervisors has shown support for the development of the program by allocating $75,000 in the budget year that just passed 16-17. Approximately 15,000 remains. Our recommendation is that the board agrees with this finding. The recommendation on this is that the board commit to reserving their remaining $50,000 allocation and continue with annual financial support for the at risk youth program in North County.

Our recommendation is that the response is that this has been implemented in part. At the end of fiscal year 16-17, the remaining funding was allocated or allocated for this program was placed and committed fund balance for future use. Future annual financial support would be considered and recommended as part of the normal budget development process and is also dependent upon available discretionary funding.