UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:032 turns
Thank you. Hi, everyone.
Good morning everybody, I'd like to welcome you to this meeting of the County Board of Supervisors for Tuesday April 9th 2019. Madam Clerk can I get a roll call please?
0:03 – 0:0815 turns
Mr. Adam? Here! Mr. Williams? Here. Mr. Hart? Here. Ms. Hartman? Here Mr. Lavinino?
Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of April 2nd?
So moved.
Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. CEO's report, Ms. Miyasato.
Thank you, Chair Lavagnino and board members. Today for CO's report we're going to do a little something different. Today we want to honor a couple of our park rangers for an heroic ocean water rescue. If I could ask Park Rangers Nate Lang, Don Wilsey, and John LaRue to come forward with George Chaption? And as I come forward, I want to tell you what happened. So this happened March 30th at Halama Beach.
These rangers responded to a call about two distressed swimmers. While EMS was notified, Rangers Lang and LaRue responded with medical gear and rescue surfboards. The rangers observed two individuals at approximately 150 yards offshore being pulled out to sea. Rangers Lang and LaRue immediately jumped in on rescue boards and began to swim out. With waves of up to four to six feet, maintaining visual contact in the water was difficult. Using the park's ATV, Ranger Wilsey used hand signals to direct the rangers toward the swimmers. The rangers reached the distressed swimmers and assisted them onto the rescue boards and paddled them back to shore. By the time they exited the water, rangers had been in the 50 degree water for about 30 minutes and the swimmers even longer.
They ended up a quarter to half mile down the beach from where they entered. The Rangers administered first aid, treating both swimmers for hypothermia before EMS arrived on scene and no further injuries were reported. An eyewitness who alerted us to this in his email said I can honestly say from experience the father and his son would have died if it were not for the quick thinking fast action and bravery of your park rangers on duty that day. The Rangers put their own lives in danger to save others which makes them heroes in my mind. So for that we want to commend their efforts, their quick actions and their exemplary selfless public service and recognize these Rangers. I'm going to hand it over to George Chapshew.
Thank you, Mona. And not much more to say except let me just personalize this a little bit. I know that what could have been and what is now. My wife lost her brother when he was 17 in a car accident and the family was devastated. And for years and years things aren't the same. Christmases aren't the same, holidays, family gatherings aren't the same. Now for these guys, that family's going to have nice Christmasses, family gatherings that aren't going to be tragic. And for that, so I'm really grateful. I'm proud to work with guys like this, people like this and I'm proud to be part of this organization. So I really do want to thank them for what they did and I think that father and son and the family have to be thankful. We don't know who they are.
I don't think they know who they are right Dan? You do okay great. So again thanks guys a tremendous job.
Right on, do you guys want to say anything? I'm
good.
Yes, on behalf of the board thank you so much. Even as a park ranger, you never know what the day's going to bring you. So thank you for rising to the occasion and doing what you're trained to do and we really do appreciate it. And I know the family does as well.
Mr. Chair, I just want to say I surfed a lot of spots on the coast. Four to six foot Hawaiian shore break is no joke. That's a lot stronger than ten foot surf at any point break in the South County. That would be very hard to coordinate anything with anyone in the middle of it.
Well now you can surf there with the knowledge that someone can come out and save you. Not sure that they will, I'm just saying that they could.
I'm not sure that's the message we want the
public to walk away from this with. Thank you very much, we do appreciate it. Yes, that takes us to our honorary resolutions. Can I get a motion to approve A1 through A4 please?
So moved.
Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? They all pass unanimously. Let's go to A1
0:08 – 0:113 turns
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Administrative item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Williams. It is to adopt a resolution honoring the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, CADA, and the Friday Night Live program in proclaiming the week of April 22nd 2019 through April 26th 2019 as Committed Week in Santa Barbara County. And if I can have Britt Stanley and Sarah Beza to the podium?
All right, whereas Santa Barbara County residents recognize the importance of health and safety but suffer from alcohol tobacco and other drug abuse issues in the community. Whereas the month of April is known for recognizing alcohol awareness and the California Friday Night Live partnership a positive youth development program dedicated to fostering leadership in young people so they can advocate against drugs and alcohol.
And whereas committed a campaign established by the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, CADA is facilitated by the Santa Barbara County Friday Night Live program to allow youth the opportunity to plan prevention activities for their peers in order to promote a drug-free lifestyle. And whereas the mission of CADA to build a safer healthier community by preventing and treating alcoholism and drug abuse. CADA supports families youth and adults through our prevention education and a public awareness program in addition to providing treatment and referrals Whereas the goal of the CATA, the Friday Night Live program to encourage families, school businesses, media government, medical institutions, faith based organizations, law enforcement agencies and other youth.
To foster an atmosphere that supports a healthy lifestyle for youth and educates and creates awareness of the harms of substance abuse. Now, therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors proclaims April 22nd through April 26th 2019 as Committed Week in Santa Barbara County and encourages all residents to support and participate in alcohol and other drug prevention activities passed and adopted today.
Thank you Mr. Chair, Supervisors, I'm extremely happy to accept this for CADA. It's an important work that we're doing. I know that here in Santa Maria last year 64% of the kids that we dealt with were 13 or younger using marijuana, alcohol. Vaping is becoming an epidemic. So it's important that we keep up our efforts Countywide and we would like to invite you to our town hall meetings if you are able to make them May 6th in Santa Barbara at Dos Pueblos High School and here in Santa Maria We're having our third annual on May 8th at the Boys & Girls Club, so we would love to have you Show up to those if you can thank you once again for the resolution.
Thank you for being here Brit Madam clerk a two
0:11 – 0:163 turns
Chair Lavinino, members of the board, administrative item number two is sponsored by Supervisor Hart. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Kelly Bull upon her retirement from the probation department after over 25 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County. If I can have Kelly to the podium and anyone else who'd like to join you?
Whereas Kelly Bull was born in Palo Alto, California and raised in San Martin, California. Kelly relocated to Santa Barbara County where in 1994 she began working for the Santa Barbara County Probation Department. Kelly graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1999 with a graduate certificate in business and accounting. She also graduated from American Intercontinental University in 2002 Earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and a Master's Degree in Education in 2005.
And whereas she was initially assigned to the Santa Maria Court Services Unit as a probation assistant, and rose through the ranks ultimately being promoted to Supervising Probation Officer in 2012. Additionally, Officer Bull worked as an Extra Help Juvenile Institutions Officer from 2000 to 2012. And whereas during her tenure with the Santa Barbara County Probation Department, Officer Bull worked with numerous youth and adults. Many of which have benefited from her passion of effecting change. Additionally she mentored and trained many officers positively impacting their professional development. And whereas Officer Bull received several accolades during her career receiving the Women in Criminal Justice Award by the Lompoc Penitentiary in California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.
Juvenile Deputy Probation Officer of the Year in 2005, Supervising Probation Officer of the Year in 2014 and the Santa Maria Elks Public Safety Awards in 2009 and 2012. And whereas Officer Bull is looking forward to spending time with her husband Brian, her three children Christina, Derek and Brian, and granddaughter Tyler. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes Kelly Bull for 25 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County and the Santa Barbara County Probation Department and extend to her best wishes for fulfilling enjoyable and rewarding retirement passed and adopted today.
Good morning, Chair, Supervisors Kim Sheehan and Deputy Chief of Adult Services. Officer Kelly Santiago Bull has served our community with much commitment, passion and excellence for over 25 years. Kelly took full advantage of the diverse opportunities that are offered through a career in our department working with juveniles, adults, field work, investigative work.
And in our juvenile facilities. Kelly promoted through the ranks, most recently supervising our adult investigations unit in Santa Barbara where she ran an extremely organized efficient and effective unit. She mentored many new staff, as you heard in the resolution and laid a solid foundation for many young officers in their development and their future careers. The retirement of an engaged, intelligent, and seasoned administrator will be a hard gap to fill but we are so happy for Kelly and her next chapter. Thank you Officer Santiago Bull for your service.
Supervisor Hart, Board of Supervisors and Kim Sheehan. Thank you for recognizing me today with this resolution and all my friends family and co-workers for coming to celebrate my retirement There hasn't been a day in 25 years that I haven't loved my career. This job has been both challenging and rewarding. Being a probation officer means giving your all to others, encouraging offenders to make better choices and eliciting positive behaviors.
My granddaughter wants to talk. This often takes bountiful energy, compassion and vision. We are social workers, teachers, parents and law enforcement officers sometimes multiple times in a single day. We analyze intervention rehabilitation and study assets and risk factors. In the end we hope we come up with the perfect case plan to change the negative trajectory of an offender's life.
Why I ask myself? Because people matter. It was a thoughtful decision to retire and leave a career that I love so much, but I look forward to more time to pursue my interests and spend more quality time with my wonderful husband. My three amazing children and this adorable grandfather said thank you so much.
0:16 – 0:206 turns
Congratulations and it's obvious where you're going to be spending your time, so.
We're already babysitting.
Yes. Thank you so much. Enjoy your retirement. Well earned. Pictures? Yes sir. All right, let's go to item A3.
Chair Lavinino and members of the Board, Administrative Item Number 3 is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman and Supervisor Hart. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of April 7th 2019 through April 13th 2018 as National Crime Victims Rights Week in Santa Barbara County. And if I can have Megan Riker-Reinschild to the podium? And anyone you'd like to join with you?
Whereas more than 3,500 individuals are directly harmed by crime in Santa Barbara County each year. And each crime affects many more family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers. And whereas crime leaves a lasting physical and emotional or financial impact on people of all ages and abilities and of all economic racial and social backgrounds. And whereas the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's Office Victim Witness Assistant Program is designated by the Board of Supervisors as the primary provider of help and support to victims of violent crime. And fulfills these duties by advocating on behalf of victims, assisting victims with navigating the criminal justice system and obtaining victim compensation in attempt to mitigate the negative impacts of crime.
And whereas National Crime Victims Rights Week honors the extraordinary progress we have made On behalf of millions of victims since the passage of the Victims of Crime Act in 1984. And encourages our community and its victim service providers, criminal justice agencies and concerned citizens to observe National Crime Victim's Rights Week. Now, therefore it is hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes the week of April 7th through 13th 2019 as National Crime Victims' Rights Week. And reaffirms the County of Santa Barbara's commitment to respecting and enforcing victims rights. And expresses our appreciation for those victims and survivors who have turned personal tragedy into action in an effort to improve our response to victims of crime and build a more just community passed and adopted today.
Thank you all. I just want to thank Supervisor Hartman, Supervisor Hart and the rest of the Board of Supervisors for recognizing this week as Victims' Crimes Rights Week. As we work through the criminal justice system it's so important to remember the people in our community that are being affected by these crimes. I have Sarah San Juan with me today. Some of you may be familiar with the case where her husband was murdered a couple years ago outside Elmer's Bar Sarah is just a shining example of courage and grace under terrible circumstance. And we're very excited to honor her and recognize other victims of crime this week. I'd also like to commend the victim witness advocates that are here this week, there's a whole bunch of them in the back.
And their tireless work to make sure that members of our community that are affected by crime are supported and taken care of during the most difficult times in their lives. Thank you very much.
All right, let's go to our final resolution A4.
0:20 – 0:252 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, administrative item number four is sponsored by Supervisor Lavinino and Supervisor Adam. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the month of April 2019 as National Poetry Month in Santa Barbara County and recognizing Pioneer Valley and Orchid Academy students for their achievements in poetry out loud. And if I can have Ivy Hatter and anyone you'd like to join? Great thank you.
Whereas since 1996, the Academy of American Poets has designated April as National Poetry Month to highlight the extraordinary achievements and ongoing legacy of American poets. And increase the visibility and accessibility of language and self-expression in our communities. Recitation competition program through a partnership with the California Arts Council, National Endowment of the Arts and National Poetry Foundation helps local high school students master public speaking. Build self-confidence and explore their literacy heritage. And whereas students from Dos Pueblos, Laguna Blanca, Orchid Academy, Pioneer Valley, and Ernest Rigetti High Schools participated in school wide events in the Santa Barbara County Poetry Out Loud Competition.
And whereas Pioneer Valley High School student Ivy Hatter won the regional championships and represented Santa Barbara County at California's Poetry Out Loud state competition in Sacramento. Orchid Academy high school student Elena Dizzee was awarded the Regional First Runner-Up Prize, and now therefore let it be resolved That April be proclaimed as National Poetry Month in Santa Barbara County, and residents are encouraged to participate in the free public poetry events offered by numerous institutions and organizations. And be it further resolved and hereby ordered that this Board of Supervisors congratulates Pioneer Valley and Orchid Academy High Schools, their faculty and students for exceptional efforts and accomplishments in the advancement of poetry passed and adopted today.
Hi, I'm Ivy in case you didn't get that. I just wanted to thank you for giving me this and giving me this opportunity a lot. I had a chance to get to Sacramento and that was a great time. And ever since I've joined theater and been able to be in this competition it's helped me express myself a lot. And now hopefully I can take that on to college. I'll be attending UC Santa Cruz this next semester so that would be exciting as a freshman.
Now I will recite my poem for you It's called A Locked House by W.D. Snodgrass As we drove back, crossing the hill that house still hidden in the trees I always thought a fool's fear that it might have caught fire someone could have broken in as if things must have been too good here. Still, we always found it locked tight safe and sound I mentioned that once as a joke no doubt we spoke of the absurdity to fear some dour God's jealousy of our good fortune from the farm next door our neighbors saw no harm come to things we cared for here What did we have to fear?
Maybe I should've thought all such things rot, fall. Barns, houses, furniture. We too are stronger than we were apart. We've grown together. Everything we own can burn. We know what counts Some such idea, we said as much. We'd watched friends driven to betray. Felt that love drained away some self they need. We'd said love like a growth can feed on hate. We turn in and disguise.
We warned ourselves that you might despise me, hate all we both loved best. None of us ever guessed. The house still stands locked as it stood untouched a good two years after you went. Some things Past in the settlement, some things slipped away. Enough's left that I come back sometimes. The theft and vandalism were our own. Maybe we should have known.
0:25 – 0:2916 turns
Congratulations. We should probably have one of those every week, right? Get us in the mood so congratulations and I noticed there are other certificates as well so we had a number of students from Orchid Academy and Pioneer.
was our winner. Very, very exciting and Orkin Academy had the runner-up award this year but we had a tremendous quality in amount of participants but Ivy really really stood out as such a fantastic USOP participant so the Poetry Out Loud program is amazing and North County is reigning strong for the fourth year in a row So Ivy continues this
legacy. All right, so message out to the other supervisors. Step your game up! All right, thank you. Practice starts next week. That's right, okay. All right, so that takes us to balance of our agenda. So is there anything from the public that folks would like to pull?
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, we have one request to speak on the administrative agenda and that's 813.
813 okay I believe Supervisor Adam has a number as well that he'd like to pull 813 15 21 22 and 23 so let's start with 813 yeah yep
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Item A15 is from the county executive office.
13.
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Item 813 is from the county executive office. It is to consider recommendations regarding an amendment to chapter 50 licensing of commercial cannabis operations ordinance and we have Renee O'Neil speaking on this item.
Renee? I saw her.
Renee, we're all hoping for your PowerPoint.
Come on up. Chair Lavinino, members of the board perhaps we can trail this one and go to A15?
Let's go A15 and we'll bring it back to 13. Oh here she comes. You're on 13. This is item 13. No, this is A13 which is the licensing of commercial cannabis operations ordinance.
Good morning and question. Is it possible to show the slide presentation that I submitted both for this meeting and the afternoon? I asked that-
You mean for hoops and this? Yes. Sure. Okay. So let's, no? Yes you don't have it? So-
I also, we transferred it to you. Thank you Supervisor.
Well let's go to A15 first and you can get set up with Ken and then we'll come back to you all right a 15 please
0:29 – 0:3514 turns
Chair Lavanino, members of the board. Item A15 is from the County Executive Office and this is to approve budget revision requests and there is a four-fifth vote on this item as
well. Supervisor Adam?
Yeah I was hoping for...I think Mr. Fropwell may be with us in Santa Barbara and hoping for a explanation on Budget Adjustment 6201
Mr. Frappell I believe is in Santa Barbara if we could go there.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board can you hear me?
Yep
Great thank you so the budget revision 6201 is the return $1.135 million to the general fund from what previously or is currently in the clerk recorder committed balance. Your board will recall at the end of fiscal year 16-17 and the closing actions prepared by the audit controller was a budget revision that moved this money into committed funds for the purpose of the clerk recorder continuing their efforts on their automation system.
Your board asked the question at that time whether the funds were necessary or would be needed for the system. We have worked with a clerk recorder and have determined that these funds are not needed for that purpose, and so these funds are being returned back to the general fund for your board's future allocation.
Perfect, thank you very much. I
appreciate that. Okay, that moves us. Ken, are we ready? Or go to another one? Okay, all right Renee you're up. Item A13 do we need to read it again? Let's read it again.
Chair Lavenino and members of the board item A13 is from the county executive office. It is to consider recommendations regarding an amendment to chapter 50 licensing of commercial cannabis operations ordinance and this is the second reading.
Good morning, Chair Lavinino and Supervisors. Renee O'Neill from Tepeskaya speaking again. I had hoped to come in early and apologize to the board for some of the less tactful comments I've made here. I was actually hoping to play something for you that I recorded in regard to the cannabis issue. What you're seeing here is a before and Presentation of the grading, the destruction of oaks.
The devastation of lands in Tepeskaya community. If you look in the little tiny boxes up in the corner of each image it'll say for example cup pending or no permit on file type of thing. So with that said, this is to speak to kind of the destruction of what's going on all over our community not just Tapiskaya. And I would really strongly like to encourage the board to limit the number of licenses permits For the entire county limit the number and I'm on that one. I think 1,000 total licenses permits provisional licenses whatever or less I would like to see a limit and cap put on The number of acres that are cultivated.
I propose one acre per parcel Maximum regardless of the size of parcel and I would like to see a Limit to the number of licenses that each grower can get and I'm not talking about a growers multiple list of LLCs or business names or whatever? I'm talking per owner of parcel if at all possible, and I again say three maximum Would be what I would like to see So lots of unpermitted operations in this county.
As we've seen, no permits on many of these hundreds of acres of land that have just been destroyed. So this morning as a Christian I was listening to one of the radio shows and it reminded me of who's ultimately the lawmaker of the lands? And it isn't me, you're lawmakers but there's a higher authority over you as well. And so with that said I thank you very much.
Thank You Renee and just want to remind the board that A few of the items that were shown up there are actually right now under a conditional use permit and we'll have to have a hearing. And if they are brought to the board, I believe now those will probably be part of ex parte since we've been shown slides and those things so let's just remember that. Okay. So did we get a motion on 813?
We did not. Okay, and do you need? And we're on. Do we need a separate vote on 13 though? You don't need a separate vote on 13? I think you do.
Thank you.
Yes, okay so can I get a motion to move item 13?
0:35 – 0:3830 turns
Second.
All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. I'm sorry, okay. Yeah it works the same way. Item 20. You did vote no. Item 21. Can you please read that one in? 19 got pulled back we're good 21.
Chair Levinino and members of the board, item A21 is from Public Health. It is to consider recommendations regarding environmental health services fee adjustments for community health programs and this is the second reading.
Supervisor Adam? Yeah, and on 21 and 22 I just need a roll call. Okay let's do roll calls on 21 and then we'll read 22. Can I get a motion to move Item 21?
Second.
Moved and seconded, roll call.
Mr. Adam?
No.
Mr. Williams? Aye. Mr. Hart? Aye Ms. Hartman? Aye Mr. Lavinino?
Aye
Motion passes 4-1 Let's
go to item A22
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, Item A22 is also from Public Health it is to consider recommendations regarding ordinances revising the environmental health services hazardous materials program fees and this is also the second reading
motion Moved and seconded. Roll call?
Mr. Adam? No. Mr. Williams? Aye. Mr. Hart? Aye. Ms. Hartman? Aye Chair Lavinino? Aye Motion passes 4-1. Okay
let's go to item 23.
Chair Lavinino, members of the board, Item A23 is from Public Health it is to consider recommendations regarding waivers of competition under County Code Section 2-39 for the purchase of pharmaceuticals
Supervisor Adam yeah, I just
I don't understand why we're not going out to bid for these This contract. I don't see why we wouldn't go out to bid on
Okay,
we have her on the department head here.
Ms. Sorrenoso? Supervisor Adam through the chair. So we don't go out to bid because McKesson is part of a national contract so they are considered a contract pharmacy under the 340B program of which we partake in order to get the discount drugs.
Well you still don't have any comparison prices.
So the 340B program nationally had done their bidding, and so McKesson won the bid during that roundup at the federal level. So to partake in the 340B as a county we have to go with the contract pharmacy and that's McKessin.
I don't know that we know that we got the best price. So, I just can't support it.
Okay. Can I get a motion to move A24? A23? So moved. Moved and seconded. Roll call.
Mr. Adams?
Abstain.
Mr Williams? Aye. Mr Hart? Aye. Ms Hartman? Aye Chair Lavanino? Aye 4-1 with 1 abstention.
Okay. We have one last item. A24. Now if we can get that one read in
0:38 – 0:426 turns
Chair Lavenino, members of the board. Item A24 is from public health. It is to consider recommendations regarding the appointment of a health officer.
Supervisor Hartman?
Dr. Dorinoso?
Yes, with pleasure I'd like to introduce the board to our new Health Officer. Dr. Henning Ansorg, and so if I could just read his bio for a second. Thank goodness for technology, because I forgot my notes. And I am glad that I emailed it to myself. It's with great honor and pleasure that I introduce our newest member of the team. Dr. Ansorg has been serving as staff physician in our Santa Barbara Health Care Center since 2016. He received his medical degree from Gießen University in Germany and postgraduate doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. His medical career started in Germany where he was board certified in family medicine and worked in private practice in urgent care settings in Munich, Germany. Upon relocation to the USA, he achieved foreign medical education accreditation and completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
He's board certified by the American Board Internal Medicine He's a fellow of the American College of Physician and a member of the Central Coast Medical Association, California. He's also a member of the medical staff at Cottage. And he is known in our department as a mentor. So he mentors residents as well as our mid-level providers. In addition to that, Dr. Ansorg has always stepped up when we've had a need for him to become quickly an expert in TB, he has done that and has implemented quality improvements to make our clinics better.
And recently with the departure of Dr. Dean, we asked him if he could step up and be trained as Deputy Health Officer. He readily agreed. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Ansor to his new role as our health officer.
I would just like to thank the board and director for the opportunity and this great honor to serve as a health officer. I know I have big shoes to fill with my successor who was gracious enough to sort of mentor me into the tuberculosis care. And really ignite my passion for public health. I come from private practice, but I think the rewards are greater in public health.
When we go home we know that we did make a difference and I think that counts and I'm very optimistic that we can make a difference for our community's health and well-being. Thank you again.
Welcome aboard. All right, can I get a motion to move the balance of the administrative agenda? So moved.
0:42 – 0:477 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board before we get our balance I do have a few announcements.
I thought that was going to be after the balance of the items so even your friendly reminder the third time threw me off all right what are your announcements?
We post an addendum on Friday to amend item A8 from behavioral wellness to consider recommendations regarding the Salvation Army drug Medi-Cal organized delivery system fiscal years 2018 through 2022 and we amended Recommendation B, and it was the date February 28th instead of 2018. It's 2019 and we also Added item A45 from general services and this is to consider recommendations regarding sheriff storage lease.
And lastly, we got a request from the department to continue item 811 to the May 7th 2019 board meeting in Santa Barbara and if we could just incorporate that into the balance that would be great.
Okay so if I can get a motion to move the balance with those listed changes? Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. They pass unanimously. Great that moves us to our time for public comment. These are for items that are not on today's agenda.
Yes, Chair Lavinino and members of the board we have four requests to speak on general public comment and we're going to begin in Santa Barbara with Ed Kalaski then we will return here in Santa Maria with Anna Rosa Rizzo Centeno.
Good morning. You put my shirt up, Ken? Based on the last meeting here, clearly our supervisors have no clue on how SBAR is run. Last meeting Supervisor Das-Williams pointed out that there are seven members to vote on your project. But that's not how things are run with Alex Pujo. Under his supervision, he gets the drawings ahead of the meeting and he's allowed to look at them and he could see that we made the changes that he had requested.
But instead of showing our drawings, he decided that he's going to tell the members that no changes were made. And he did that, and we came in. And my architect is holding the drawings and he is not allowed to put them down on the table. He's not allowed to show them. We don't know what's going on. We were rejected because we made no changes yet we made changes. It's just that Alex would not let us show him.
On top of that, they had Dylan prepared that if our architect tries to say anything, jump up and scream at us side loading, side loading. Which means your second story is located solely over the garage and that's what they did. You know you said it's crime week. Can you put up the other drawing Ken? Well I'm suffering crime from here in Santa Barbara County.
I listed 15 things, Where Alex Peugeot is violating the law and that he should be prosecuted. Yet things go on as such. This last meeting at the Board of Architectural Review, Alex Peugeot was not there and Chris was the chairman. And as I was leaving for my talk, What's your game plan? What's the end of your game plan?" And I told him, well there is no end.
Not as long as Alex Peugeot is here because he'll never ever approve my project but at any rate we got it scheduled for May 3rd so hopefully I'll get a chance to show my drawing after five years one would think We can at least get a chance to show it, and perhaps even get a vote on it. We'll see what happens. That's why I call this the mockery of liberty and justice And that's what it is, because it's liberty and justice for those to pay the extortion fee. Just as my architect last time tried to negotiate a $1,000 payment which I would not do.
So in that case he made no changes so now we have the Alex and Ann design. So we'll see this coming May as to whether or not I get to show my drawings or I have to look at Alex and Ann's design. Thank you.
Chair Lavinino, members of the board we will now return to Santa Barbara with Ana Rosa Rizzo Centeno to be followed by Renee O'Neill.
0:47 – 0:5213 turns
Oh, you're here. Not there.
I'm here. Okay. Good morning esteemed Board of Supervisors. Um, I'm here because I'm representing Food and Water Watch, Safe Energy Now and Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition at both of the most recent Planning Commission hearings um, I have voiced my request or our request to have the Planning Commission meetings in the evening when more working families can attend So that they don't have to lose wages in order to voice how things specifically, you know this project will affect them.
And even after those meetings I also stayed afterwards to speak to a couple of the planning commissioners and they voiced interest in both of these ideas and wanting to do that but they said that the timing is difficult and so the reason I'm here is to see if there's any way you all can facilitate that happening so Meeting on May 29th is held in the evening, not in the morning.
To give you one very concrete example, Líderes Campesinas is part of our coalition and for those hearings they had to take the day off of work so that's lost wages and that's a whole population. Farm workers who pick the crops that we eat cannot voice how these projects will impact them and if you look at the EIR itself it doesn't even mention anything about how this project will affect them. So just respectfully, if there's any way you all can facilitate the Planning Commission meetings happening at night instead and also translation being provided at the last meeting I provided translation myself but it would be great if the county could provide a translator. I know Ventura County does provide translation so that is my request if you all can help facilitate that happening.
Thank you
Our next speaker is Renee O'Neill to be followed by Jeremia Salazar.
Good morning again, I was hoping I'd had this opportunity to apologize especially to Peter Adam for some snarky comments that were made about a week ago I believe regarding backpedaling. I apologize sincerely and this is one of the reasons I really wanted to do public comment this morning You know, I try to be a Christian. God says resist the proud and if you resist the proud and being proud he gives grace to the humble.
And I'm reading a book right now, is listening to the talk radio. Sometimes I listen to the different channels but this morning, right before I got here, I popped in my CD just to kind of and this was what played and I thought how appropriate is this? Oops, I hit record. Sorry, darn. I'm terrible at this. Okay. Here we
go. You have one new friend request from Jesus, confirm or ignore Santa Claus never died for anyone. Don't make me come down there God read the Bible it will scare the hell out of you Yes, our AC is out. But there's no AC in hell either. Free coffee? Everlasting life? Membership has its privileges. Life is a puzzle. Look here for the missing PACE. P-E-A-C-E.
Forbidden fruits create many jams. God is like tide soap. He gets his stains out, others left behind. Why pay for GPS? Jesus gives direction for free. Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him. There are some questions that can't be answered by Google. Be an organ donor, give your heart to Jesus. Sign broke? Message inside. People use duct tape to fix everything. God uses nails.
Prayer isn't the only thing that can bring me to your knees. For all you do his blood's for you. Okay,
I'll leave the bizarre ones off. Anyway, I love this author. I think his name is Paul Richard Evans. His last name is Evans and I'm reading a series on, I think it's the Road Series, one of his road series and he takes you all over the country. But with that said setting the tone for being humble, A little less attitude, advocate with attitude and sometimes amplitude. Thank you.
Thank you
Renee.
Supervisor Adam? Apology accepted and I appreciate your saying so publicly thank you. All right let's go to the
last
one.
Final speaker is Jeremiah Salazar.
0:52 – 0:5410 turns
Good morning, so my name is Jeremias and I just want to say thank you everybody for being here. Yeah so I'm a local organizer with Food and Water Watch and like Ana said it would be very important to have the meetings in the evening because a lot of people that work in the fields they feel that they can't participate in the morning because they have to take their day off And I mean, they can't lose a day. If you work in the fields, you're probably barely making enough money to pay your food and rent and taking a day off is a little bit hard. And also another thing that would definitely help is translating. A lot of people here in the community won't show up because they feel that All right, that ends our public comment period. We'll now move on to our departmental agenda items and let's read in D1.
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number one is from public health. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a waiver of retirement exclusion for Dr. Jane McCallaghan, staff physician for the Santa Barbara County Health Care Center.
Dr. Domenoso?
Yes, good morning. This is an unexpected retirement and we are asking the board for Dr McCallaghan to come back for six months until her replacement is on board.
Okay, any questions? Can I get a motion to move item D1. Is there any public comment? Sorry.
Chair Lavenino and members of the board we have no request to speak
on this
item.
So moved.
Second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Let's go to D2
0:54 – 1:1115 turns
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Departmental item number two is from Community Services. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding an extra help services and retirement waiver for Housing and Community Development Division, Community Services Department position.
Good morning Miss Lockhart
Good morning Chair Lavinino and members of the Board of Supervisors. This is Dinah Lockhart, Deputy Director for Housing and Community Development. I'm here this morning to ask the board to approve the appointment of a retired county employee Margo Wagner as necessary to fill a critical short-term Need in the housing and community development division for the 180 days after her March 22nd 9 2019 retirement date just by way of background Miss Wagner had assisted the county and housing and community development with the local affordable housing program inclusionary housing ordinance in Luffy calculation and collection and a number of affordable housing sales including the tree farm development We have planned for succession to Ms. Wagner, her assistant had been on excused personal leave immediately following or prior to her retirement and for that reason we're just asking her to be available to us for a short term period for phone consultation for items that she was immediately involved with prior to her retirement.
Okay very good any questions the board public comment?
Chair Levine, you know members of the board we have no request to speak on this item.
Let
me
get a motion.
So moved.
Second. Moved and seconded all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously thank you so you've seen how fast items one and two go expect three to be the same way okay maybe not all right let's read item 3
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Departmental item number three is from Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Hartman. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding development of the county-wide community workforce agreement ordinance and project template.
Okay, staff presentation. Ms. Darcelle Elliott? Good morning. Nope. You're off to a roaring start. She said to be nice to her today, so I will try.
And you're doing great at that so far. Good morning Chair Lavinino and supervisors. For the record, I'm Darcelle Elliott, Chief of Staff for Supervisor Doss Williams and Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Hartman. And we're bringing forward the item to discuss the development of a countywide community workforce agreement ordinance and project template. So first of all, what is a community workforce agreement?
So basically, it's a project labor agreement with local hiring provisions that are really designated at trying to get low income residents and workers into construction careers through established apprenticeship programs. And Project Labor Agreement is a legally binding agreement that guarantees certain uniform wages. I'd like to advance board priorities. Specifically, priorities that this board is focused on a lot around economic development particularly with support for local apprenticeship programs which I'll go into a little bit more later in the presentation but they're really focused and it's an alternative to college for some people where they learn new skill while also working in that trade So targeted hiring provisions, which is specific to the Community Workforce Agreement.
I included a study from Cornell University from 2011 in the materials for the presentation today. It analyzed more than 185 agreements across the United States. And 139 of those agreements included a Helmets to Hard Hats provision, which was focused specifically on the hiring of veterans. And 103 of those agreements included provisions of preferential hiring of women and minorities. So that's something the board can discuss about potentials to be included in this agreement.
The last time the board discussed doing such an agreement was for the Northern Ranch Jail Project. And so, an agreement was negotiated and agreed to and passed by the board but it failed to receive 100% of support by the unions and affiliates involved in The Tri-County Building and Construction Trades Council. And so it never, it didn't move forward. And negotiations at that time really centered around seven main points which are listed here. One being core workforce which is defined as employees on a contractor's payroll who have been employed 60 of the last 100 working days.
Exemption from the Project Stabilization Agreement requirements for off-site fabrication facilities. So basically, if something was being made off site it wouldn't have to adhere to the rules laid out in the agreement. Exemption for all professional services, so any sort of admin services would also not be subject to the rules of the agreement. Exclusive use of apprentices from a locally approved apprenticeship program.
Union dues for non-union contractors, union benefits for non-union contractors and local participation. And so there wasn't a really agreement from all of the different unions associated with the council and the county on these seven main points. So recently, there have been some more local labor agreements that have been developed. One being for Port Hueneme, the Oxnard Harbor District Board of Commissioners passed their project labor agreement on December 10th. And so that's for all port projects estimated at over $250,000.
And it requires that 30% of all construction labor hours work to come from the cities of Oxnard and Port Hueneme as a first priority. Those residing in Ventura County is a second priority, and those residing within Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties as a third priority. It also had a helmets to hard hats provision. The City of Santa Barbara on December 4, 2018 voted to move forward with project labor agreements on all projects over $5 million. Negotiations are still yet to begin so the stipulations of the agreement are not yet finalized and they haven't adopted the final version yet.
City of San Luis Obispo adopted a community workforce agreement in January, and that one's specifically for the city's water resource recovery facility project. It has an alternating core workforce provision where the first core worker comes from a general contractor, a non-union general contractor, and then the second one comes from union so it alternates that way.
Which is a unique provision that hasn't been featured in some other agreements. It also has 30% of all construction labor hours worked come from the city of San Luis Obispo as a first priority, county of San Luis Obispo second and then counties of Santa Barbara and Monterey as third priority with Ventura County as a fourth. And it also has a Helmets to Hard Hats provision.
So the apprenticeship program, so I know almost all if not all of the supervisors have gone to visit some of our local apprenticeship programs. We have two currently in the county one for the plumbers and pipe fitters union and one for the electrical workers. And the carpenters, I believe are also looking at building an apprenticeship program training facility in Santa Maria. And then the sheet metal workers have one in Ventura which is nearby.
So basically the way apprenticeship programs work is that The person enrolled in the program works in the trade during the day, and then takes classes according to set schedule. So maybe two nights a week they take classes while during the day they're working in the actual trade that they're learning. And they're getting paid at the same time, and so it depends on how many hours of experience they have.
In the IBEW's Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, their beginning apprentices make 40% of a journeyman's wage which is 41.41 per hour. So they're decent wages to start while also learning a new trade. Then also, the state has in the past few years has passed several bills around skilled and trained workforce which they define as someone who's enrolled in a certified apprenticeship program or a journeyman who's graduated from a certified apprenticeship program.
And the most recent one was in last year, it was AB 3018. And it created penalties for non-compliance with the laws around skilled and trained workforce. And so basically it's required for school districts and design build school districts with lease back. And then also there is a pilot program created in 2015. This bill's not up here because it's not exactly related to skilled and trained workforce, but SB 762 in 2015 created a pilot program for the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Solano and Yuba County? Yuba County? Sorry I'm at Yuba County people.
There's four of
them. To allow them to give contracts based on best value. So that's a method through which there are other objective criteria looked at beyond price in determining contracts due to the fact Merely awarding contracts based on price can result in people undercutting each other, cutting costs in ways that actually end up costing more money in the long term. And so it allows those counties to look at all the factors and awarding contracts. And so they have to report back to the legislature by January 1st 2020, so very soon. I'm sure they'll meet their deadline as most local governments do.
And the state I'm sure will look to expanding that program potentially. We'll see what comes out of that, but those counties also have to apply to the skilled and trained workforce laws. Starting in 2016, it was an increasing percentage of the workforce had to be considered skilled or trained and trained. And so with the end date being 2019 in which 60% of that workforce now has to be considered skilled and trained meaning again either apprentice in a program or someone who's graduated from a certified apprenticeship program.
And so why are we bringing forward a countywide CWA, as opposed to just this project specific one? And so basically the main reason is it allows more time and space for negotiations. So if we're coming forward for just one specific project, Project in which there's a deadline and we're trying to get this project out to bid and get it constructed. It just creates a more chaotic environment for these negotiations to take place, and I think that's probably a big reason that agreement couldn't be reached on those seven main points for the jail.
It also saves staff time from them having to come forward before you every single time that we have a project that we're about to bid and ask if we want to do an agreement. And then it also fits into existing county labor policies. The county currently has agreements with 10 different unions listed here for most of our workforce that lays out their wages, benefits and work rules. So it is in line with what the county current practice is.
It doesn't make sense for the county to have a team of contractors on staff year round because we just don't have enough projects to maintain that. But if we're going to be hiring people to work on construction projects used with public money, they should probably get the same sort of benefits and wages that our other county employees get. So this is just some data on the county's capital projects from the last 10 fiscal years to help the board maybe sort of start to think about what sort of threshold we could use for such an agreement.
There have been 62 capital projects over the last 10 fiscal years. And seven of those were between $100,000 and $250,000. 11 were between 250,000 to 500,000, 13 between 500,000 and 1 million, 7 between $1 million and 3, and 3 between 3 and 5 million, 2 between 5 and 10, and 2 greater than $10 million. And then this is just to refresh your memory from a few weeks ago when General Services came forward with the capital projects they were looking at moving forward with. These are the projects that the board approved and the costs associated with them, and General Services is still currently trying to figure out how to finance these projects. But just to give you information on what projects are coming forward.
So basically, and then here are the recommended actions which is to direct staff to draft an ordinance. And to direct general services and public works department to negotiate a template of terms. Just say that we will use a community workforce agreement on all projects meeting specified conditions. And then the template will be used, there's gonna have to be official negotiations and everyone will have to sign a new agreement for any project after that but the template would lay out the terms that we would be using for future projects.
And so I know there's always a lot of press coverage on this type of stuff that make it seem very nefarious. And so, I just really want to highlight the fact that this item is being brought forward to move forward the board's priorities around economic development and ensuring County has a middle class and that we have people can afford to live here. We often, we have so many people who have to commute in for jobs because they can't afford to live here. And so this is ultimately it's in line with county's existing labor policies And ultimately it's just a value judgment from this board based on what you all want to see for workers. And if you want to lead by example when trying to determine how much we should be paying people and providing benefits, so that's all.
1:11 – 1:1610 turns
Okay do we have any questions from the board? Supervisor Hartman.
Could you describe the hard hat to helmet provision in a little more detail? We can't really have quotas. We have targets we need people at least in the apprenticeship program So how does that fit with the apprenticeship program and how is it incorporated into this template?
So my understanding is that there's goals put into the template of how many, that we really want to target hiring more veterans. And then it's on the unions too in their apprenticeship programs to figure out To recruit more veterans into their program, basically to help the county meet those goals. And so yeah but they're not quotas so it's not required but it just helps to lay out what the county wants to see.
Mr. Guzzone?
Chair and supervisors, if now's a good time maybe I could provide just the overview. And with me today is Senior Deputy Johanna Hartley who had experience with this a few years ago and was one of our primary negotiators concerning the Northern Branch Jail Project Labor Agreement. So as a starting point, a general law county like Santa Barbara is in a slightly different position than a charter city.
And the starting point is that we must follow the public contract codes requirement to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder. This is a term within contract law. Where a responsible bidder is one who responds to all of the proper bid specifications. And we have the good fortune that in this area, the California Supreme Court has looked at project labor agreements and concluded that the type of project labor agreement that we're discussing today is adequately competitive and is a proper requirement within a bid package.
One of the items that was in the county's last effort here, and I just asked the board to consider this. And I realize you're not adopting an ordinance today but the former template for this included explicit provision that the county may re-bid any project without a project labor agreement if it determines its necessary to do so. So that just protects the county's interest depending on what arises down the road.
And as Supervisor Hartman indicated, as a general law county the case law indicates that while the board may not set hard quotas for local hire. It can have both non-mandatory goals as well as some fairly express mandatory good faith efforts and that was one of the approaches we took in the 2014 agreement expressly for helmets to hard hats. And I think this is also an area where if the board directs an ordinance when it comes back, there would be discussion within that of the boards finding on a basis of substantial evidence of how that furthers the government interest. For example preventing delays or ensuring access to skilled workers but that's a required part of a project labor agreement and again we have the good fortune of both the California Supreme Court having looked at these And Senior Deputy Hartley having worked with Public Works extensively on the last round of this in 2014.
So can you go back over that last portion when you were talking about that we would have to make a finding that it would prevent delay?
Actually, the finding is furthering legitimate government interest. This is on the substantial evidence test which is very deferential to the board's finding. So examples that courts have looked at before preventing delay, assuring access to skilled craft workers so at the legitimate government interest test that's a fairly low bar for the board to go over and it'll be a deferential standard of review.
Thank you very much. Any other questions from the board? Okay, so this is always hard when it's a staff member and that's kind of why I have the question. I'm going to ask is why is it coming from generally we don't think there's only been probably less than a handful of times where we have a board directed staff presentation. And on something this large, I'm curious as to why it doesn't come from staff at the CEO's office or public works general services.
Supervisor Hartman?
I think it's the eight hour rule that we can't ask for a lot of staff time so we're trying to get some direction from the board to have them go work on this.
So for the public, that means that one supervisor or two supervisors cannot go. And if they like something or an idea, they cannot just go to staff and say I need you to go work on this without three votes of the Board of Supervisors. We have an eight hour rule meaning if it's going to take more than eight hours staff time which this obviously will. They need to come and present it to the board and make a staff presentation.
Supervisor Adam?
1:16 – 1:2124 turns
I was wondering if I could get Ms. Pell up here because I think it's either Ms. Pell or Mr. McAulpin that would be executing this thing, right?
According to the recommendation it would be both negotiating with the employee groups.
Okay well Maybe we need them both up and I'd ask the questions of both of them. I have a few questions that I want to ask, and if either one of them has anything to say about it.
And just supervisors, as a reminder particularly to our supervisors who weren't on the board the first time we discussed this. The reason Mr., if it's any county project it would be Ms. Pell most likely. If it's in public works, it could be the Public Works Director but Mr. McLaughlin negotiated the agreement on behalf of General Services the last time.
Okay and that's the expectation that that would be happening this time as well?
I think that's left to your board's discretion. If you ask me, I would prefer that since Mr. McGlopin has so much experience but that's up to the board to decide.
Okay, so my first question is there a difference between wages and county jobs between union and non-union contractors?
Mr. Chair and Supervisor Adam, in California we have to pay prevailing wage rates as Council Gazzone mentioned that we abide by the public contract code and it requires that we have to use I think it's the Department of Industrial Relations book on Prevailing wage rates for our particular area if we have state funding or local funding and then if we have federal funding It falls the I believe it's the Davis Bacon Act of federal prevailing wage rates
Okay,
so for contract work.
So so everything's the same No matter who does the job everything is the same
I When we put a contract out, that's correct. State or federal funding, we would do state prevailing wage rates. Federal projects, we would do federal prevailing wage rates and there's slight differences there.
Right but it's a different rate paid either if you made a contract with a non-union contractor union contractors same rate just depends whether it's federal funding or state funding
Whoever the low bidder is.
Correct? Right, okay. So I'm going to ask you about a standard contract with an amount of around $10 million. Is local labor sufficient to handle a contract of this size?
So Supervisor Adam, through the chair. Right now we have the Northern Branch Jail that's at $111 million dollars and we're tracking...
I was going to get to that scale afterwards but I was gonna start out with a ten million dollar
But for example, we're achieving a 48% local labor component on that particular project. So I would imagine if it was $10 million that we would probably make that as well.
Okay and smaller jobs would obviously be higher in all probability? I mean you would expect Probably. Okay, and then larger job, I mean that's how it's going to get to the larger jobs but you already answered the question. What would be your experience as a long time professional in the government contracting field in California? Generally have you had an adequate supply of skilled labor?
Yes, in my experience yes.
Yes. Okay, if you know what percentage of your current workforce is local?
Mr. Chair supervisor Adam, I don't know that number off the top of my head as councillor gazoni mentioned on federal projects we do have strong good faith efforts for local hire and I Don't know what that percentage is off the top of my head. Okay
Have you ever had a project delayed for lack of skilled workers or labor strife?
The projects that I'm responsible for we have not I
1:21 – 1:2928 turns
Same here.
Okay, could you comment on the issue of labor strife in your tenure here? Have you ever had any experience with labor strife at all?
No
On our construction contracts no.
Do you see any issues on the horizon that could change that?
I can't predict the future, but I don't foresee any.
You don't have
anything
particular on the horizon? Okay Scott same thing Is this true for both union and non-union contractors I Mean obviously if you don't have any examples You've worked with both right Union non-union.
That's correct.
Okay
In my world, Supervisor, I say low-bidding contractor because I don't know who's union or nonunion.
Right but you work with both from time to time? I
assume so.
Yeah.
But I never ask to be honest with you.
Okay well that's good okay so that completes my questions thank you. Supervisor Williams
I think how you phrase the question obviously gets a different answer. There's a clear differential in non-prevailing wage work between the wages and benefits of union contractors and nonunion, and while I haven't seen losses from labor strife in local contracting what you do have is Without any augmentation onto the system, you have a system that fundamentally rewards contractors to low ball bid.
And try to make up progress with change orders. You see it all the time, that's why this process is so litigous and I see it in many big local projects one of the worst in my experience was the project awarded to Santa Barbara Airport right? And what that does is instead of having a system where you know The low bidder rule benefits a public agency. It often hurts us because the GC then tries to make it up with change orders, and then you get into litigation about those changes or not litigation.
Hopefully we won't have another example soon, but we might. And so I do think there are examples that answer Mr. Adams' question that weren't quite on the narrow part of the question but were just right outside of it.
Okay, that's hard for me. My past job was in purchasing and talk about not going with a little bit or it was a little anathema. So let's go to public comment. How many speakers do we have?
Chair Lavinino, members of the board, we have 18 requests to speak.
Okay, we're going to give each speaker three minutes to speak. And let's roll.
Chair Lavinino, members of the board our first request to speak is Kim Hudson to be followed by Vince Lopez.
So after our first speaker, if your speaker slip is not in by then we're going to close accepting any new slips at that point. So if you have a slip, you got three minutes to get it in.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. My name is Kim Hudson. I am the Regional Government Affairs Manager for AGC of California. The Associated General Contractors is an organization of construction firms Companies committed to improving our physical environment through our dedication to the principles of skill, integrity and responsibility. We have been negotiating solid multifaceted master labor agreements with the construction trades crafts for nearly 100 years statewide. AGC of California represents hundreds of contractors, tens of thousands of employees and tens of millions of union man hours in California.
We are proud of our tradition of negotiating agreements that honor a workforce meeting the needs of public owners, implementing appropriate programming and practices that ensure compliance from our members. I'm here today to convey AGC of California's position regarding the implementation of the Community Workforce Agreement also known as Project Labor Agreement or PLA. The PLAs provide regulations and guidelines for projects throughout the state however, AGC opposes the imposition Of project labor agreements developed by municipalities or public agencies. To be successful, labor contracts should be negotiated between employers and their workforce bargaining units directly without the jurisdictional influence.
One of the fundamental philosophies that exist throughout our association is that a company's protocol regarding labor relations should not play a role in the award of a project. Industry expertise and advice should not be overlooked for the sake of political gain. Given our association's near 100 years of negotiating experience, AGC reaffirms its commitment to free and open competition in all public construction markets. AGC believes that the appropriate mechanism for public owners to ensure that employees are paid fair wages and benefits and other objectives such as local hire and small business and minority business utilization exists through proactive partnerships between our partners, industries, and companies not public agencies.
We as an association, along with local members here in the room today have submitted formal comments outlining the challenges that will be endured by industry with the implementation of a PLA. We will continue to work to stress the importance and considerations around those concerns and urge the board to take opposition to the countywide community workforce agreement ordinance in front of you today. Thank you for your time and attention.
Our next speaker is Vince
Lopez to be followed by Butch Lopez.
So our last speaker slip is in, and so we will be closing further acceptance of any other public comment slips.
Good morning, board. My name is Vince Lopez. I'm the president of V Lopez Jr and Sons. We are a service disabled vet local owned contractor. We have completed many projects for Scott in the past. We always bid a lot of county projects and we're non-union contractor. We oppose to you guys signing the PLA agreement with the unions because it will take away the ability for us to bid on your projects.
What was said earlier about all of us have to pay per billion wages no matter what on all your county of Santa Barbara projects. Does it matter if we're union or non-union? We also have to hire apprentices, even if we're a non-union contractor. The wages are the same. If you do sign the agreement, there's going to be a lot less bidders and you guys are gonna pay higher prices because the only one that's gonna be bidding on your projects are the union contractors. There's a lot of us in here that are local from Santa Maria that are non-union contractors and that's gonna take food right out of our mouth and our workers.
And we live here. Born and raised here all my life A lot of my workers were born and raised here. And if you guys choose to go union, it takes us out of the picture. And like I said we've been contracting here for 40 years in this area so We hope you don't sign that agreement.
Our next speaker is Butch Lopez to be followed by Guillermo Gondinez
1:30 – 1:366 turns
Hello, I'm Butch Lopez, the treasurer of Villalope and Sons. To follow up on what Vince said also is I think another thing is I think there's a big facade of union equaling skilled trained workers. We have plenty of skilled trained workers. And just to prove it we get apprentices and we're training union apprentices on our jobs with our skills in our training showing them How to do their job, and I just think it would be really detrimental to the economy.
You're going to get all these big contractors bidding on these jobs from out of the area. They're going to spend their money out of the area. They're going to buy their materials from the people they usually buy materials from, not from here. And a lot of our laborers are multi-trade laborers. They have a class A, they can operate heavy equipment and their pipe fitters.
What do they do? They pick and choose what union pays the highest and leave all those other trades to rest the rest of their life. I don't know. I just, I think it'd be really bad for the area and we love Santa Barbara County. We enjoy doing all these projects for you guys and another thing with all the change orders, if people reviewed the plans more better on their end before they went out to bid there wouldn't be so many jumps to change orders. And we don't bid a job looking forever looking for hey, we're gonna go into this one searching for change never. We look at the plans, we bid black and white And we give you a price based on what you presented to us, and that's it. And when we run into an issue on the job and we find something unforeseen, we do give you guys a call and say hey, this is different than what's shown.
And that's it, we got skilled trained laborers spending their money here living here. It's gonna force them to make a hard decision, it's gonna force a lot of our local contractors to make a hard decision. We really oppose it and thank you for your time.
Our next speaker is Guillermo Godinez to be followed by Andy Caldwell.
Good morning, I'm Guillen Mugulenis. We look for junior sons of estimator assistant and dispatcher. I just wanted to let you guys know that we've been in there 40 years. We have skilled workers in all projects that we do. We have completed every project here in the county and all over the state of California. Like I said, every employee here knows has more than one area that they're specialty in.
And it's good that they keep here. We don't need to be a union contractor because we're not here. I just want everybody to know that our employees are experts in what they do. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Andy Caldwell, to be followed by Chuck Huddleston.
Chair Lavagnino, members of the board, Andy Caldwell representing Colab. We're not taking a position either for or against this right now because we want more information We completely and totally value the union apprenticeships, and their trades because they are high paying. And they're giving kids an opportunity for middle class income. And we also would rather hire local than save money per se. But that was consistent with the local vendor outreach which your board pulled back because your staff said you weren't getting enough bidders.
That was just two months ago. So how does your staff pull back on that one and you don't even ask staff to weigh in on this one? There's a problem there, and again we think there is a balance that needs to be achieved between what they offer with their apprentices, what they offer with local hire versus lowest responsible emphasis on the word responsible bidder.
Let me tell you what we're afraid of. We're afraid that you're throwing a bone to the unions on this one to chew on because you're going to throw them a bone later to choke on. And what are you going to throw later to choke on is pulling the plug on the oil projects, which also use union labor. And ostensibly we hear a lot of people say well we can't have oil because of greenhouse gases.
Well all construction projects use cement and asphalt. And the bottom line here, if the oil industry is hiring organized labor and signing project labor agreements. And that's good for the money you're spending on construction projects. And they're using products that generate greenhouse gas emissions. So what's your rationale if and when you do decline or oppose the oil projects for those reasons? There's no integrity in that.
Now, we believe we can't live without oil and gas and cement and asphalt. So we're not against them, we think we need them but you guys can have it both ways And I hope that we're wrong or I hope that we're presuming something that's not going to happen in those oil projects are going to be coming through just like the construction projects. We want your staff to weigh in on this over time and specifically, we want you to define the problem in terms of how many union versus non-union have been hired Or used or contracted in let's say the last 10 years.
What percentage of those people on that workforce were local? And finally, there's some people that say this will save you money. There's other people who say it's going to cost 20% to 30% higher. You need an evaluation of what this does to maintenance deficit if in fact it goes higher and I'm not going to try to figure that out but I think you need to. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Chuck Huddleston to be followed by Bill Baker.
1:36 – 1:468 turns
Good morning Chairman Lavinino and County Supervisors. I'm Chuck Cuddleston, Business Manager for IBW Local 413 in Santa Barbara. I want to commend the supervisors considering the adoption of Community Workforce Agreements Ordinance that shows your forward-looking leaders that care about Santa Barbara County residents. Local hire agreements can create career paths for women, minorities Veterans and other underrepresented community members by developing qualified workers in the construction trades, by including people who historically were unrepresented in the trades.
Community workforce agreements improve worker safety by requiring contractors and workers to comply with safety rules. Should this ordinance be adopted will mean larger percentage of construction wages will stay in Santa Barbara County bringing taxpayer dollars back to the county coffers. We were talking about a job earlier, it was the North County Jails what we were talking about. In that job there, there are only four contractors from Santa Barbara County on that job.
Only two contractors from San Luis Obispo County. There are 14 contractors from outside of the tri-county areas, yet you have a high rate of local hire and the reason is there are 14 union contractors on that job 75% of my union contractors in the Union world you bring in a core force of 2 to 4 people and everyone else's hired from the union halls and they become local people that's the difference we were told time and time again by your study that That a project labor agreement for the jail would keep bidders out. It did the opposite, all these bidders that said they wouldn't bid if we had a project labor agreement. They didn't bid it and there was no project labor agreement. This has been a successful local hire because 75% of our union contractors.
And then we know how to do that sort of work. You bring in the people that represent the company, make sure that they're best represented and then you go to the hall and you get qualified people. They always get qualified people if they don't like who they have, they can send them back and they can get somebody else sometimes personalities play into it and things don't work out.
That's what that's the real difference there. That's what's really going on here, is getting qualified local people to do the work. Time and time I've seen my members get passed as other workers go out of town at the Goleta Cottage Hospital. That was 100% out-of-town Sacramento contractor doing electrical work there. Seen it time and time again. So much work has gone to out-of town contractors that bring in their whole workforce. I strongly urge you to move forward and adopt a community workforce agreement I believe that it will deliver a long-term positive economic benefit for our local community and the local workforce in the construction industry. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Bill Baker to be followed by Michael Lopez.
Good morning, my name is Bill Baker. I'm the Assistant Business Manager for the Electrical Workers Local 413. I am here in support of the Community Workforce Agreement When I think of a community workforce agreement, I think of the opportunity that it's going to provide. The opportunity for our local workforce to work on projects that have been awarded to out-of-town contractors. The opportunity for apprenticeship.
The opportunity you're gonna have to negotiate this to best fit our local workforce and our community. And I want to thank you for at least talking about this and And giving us the opportunity to see what a Santa Barbara Community Workforce Agreement would look like. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Michael Lopez, to be followed by Joe Armadares.
You're grinning already. I'm already smiling, I'm sorry. And the Lopez on the other side of the issue. It's interesting that they were talking about, I think Mr. Huddleston mentioned there are some people talking about cost overruns of 20 or 30%. Yeah, yeah, there's people who talk about that. That would be the big business interests of corporations who have paid to have a mouthpiece come in here and shoot this thing down.
Supervisor Adams hit the nail on the head. This is prevailing wage work, thank you for bringing that up. Prevailing wage pays the same, that's my truth meter going off sorry. Prevailing wage pays the same there are no increased costs in labor so what we're really talking about is apprenticeship and qualified and well trained people. I love how some of my cohorts they are discussing that their people are totally qualified awesome show me how that's done.
Do you have a bona fide apprenticeship program? Do you have something that has a curriculum that I can see? Do you have a training facility, a bona fide training facility in the community that's actually taking people and giving them an opportunity. We talk about kids having an opportunity. I know I look much younger than I am. Didn't get into the apprenticeship program until my 30s.
I had run a business, but in manufacturing and all these things. I worked very, very hard but never got anywhere in the community. Apprenticeship allowed me was dumb luck that I found that gave Really get my feet established in the community to buy a home and be a taxpayer, not a tax taker in this community. Apprenticeships are defined by the state. They're very vigorous programs that require an immense amount of commitment and time.
Just to be participatory. And we're not exactly new at this process, we've been established in Santa Barbara, the plumbers and pipe fitters since about 1902. So all of it, the other misnomer is that it's the union on one side and business on the other. That's nonsense. The reason we're alive and survive is because we have a partnership with contractors in our community. They're busy out working doing the work of the community now, they can't be here right now. But we wouldn't be in existence without an actual working relationship with contractors now. It's not us or them. And by the way those contractors are paying these rates that we're talking about on all the work in this community. So this isn't rocket science, this is about how we want to take care of our local people to give them an opportunity to really make something of themselves.
And if we create this kind of a program where we're actually supporting it as a community, we're giving more opportunity for local people to have that same opportunity that I was blessed to have many years ago, not that many, to be able to be prolific and be able to support a family in this community. Okie dokie, thank you for your time, appreciate it.
Our next speaker is Joe Armendariz to be followed by Kevin Norton.
Good morning, it's always fun following Michael. We're normally on the same side of these issues, not today Michael. Joe Armendarize representing Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. You want to hear something cute? Somebody called me yesterday and said I hope you're going to be at the hearing tomorrow on the public project labor agreement because I think it might be about the cost of government.
Okay, so now we care about the cost of government. I'm wondering how many of you have opposed a tax increase in the last five years? The last ten years? The last 20 years? I know you Peter. I was asking the other three and I know Steve, you've been kind of mixed on that but I know that the other three have supported- Literally every tax increase proposed by the left center and the right.
One thing I do know is that This is really a payback, let's just be honest. And I know there's a lot of good hardworking people in the audience who really care about these things but at the end of the day this is really nothing but a payback. This is a couple of you paying back the unions who have supported you and your campaigns. My advice unsolicited to the unions is save your money.
Das Williams, Joan Hartman, Greg Hart. They're going to get elected with your help or without your help. It's inevitable. It's just the way the demographics and the political lines are drawn. So you don't just save your money. You don't have to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars to get elected or reelected. Here is a possible reform for you. I don't know if the ultimate project or product is going to require a $5 million project or more than that. And I'm speaking to the people in the room not necessarily the five of you right now.
Put something on the ballot that would require any project, any public works projects in Santa Barbara County of $5 million or more to be handled by SBCAG versus the individual jurisdiction. Because then at least you're going to get a political diversity. Of opinion on these issues, because obviously we know what's going to happen here. This in my view is really nothing more than a solution in search of a problem and I have not heard anything in the staff report that would submit or suggest that the government has the solution to any of these problems. I've been around long enough to know That any problem that currently exists in the economy, government will only make it worse. It won't solve it. It won't make it better. Just get out of the way.
Let these contractors bid for these projects. Let them do their job. We don't need a bunch of politicians telling them how to do it for political expediency. Since I do actually care about the cost of government, please do not do anything that is going to increase the cost of government. Which thereby requires you to raise taxes. The people who can least afford higher taxes are the people you are pretending today to care about and those are the people who are not yet so far into the middle class. We have the third highest poverty rate in California. I would submit to you, the worst thing you can do is increase the cost of government thereby raising their taxes and reducing their after tax take home pay. So stop, just get out of the way. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Kevin Norton to be followed by Jesse Bishop
1:46 – 1:514 turns
Good morning, my name's Kevin Norton. First of all, project labor agreements are cost neutral. You're paying the same amount of money to either contractor. Another thing that was brought up is non-union contractors would be excluded. That's not true. The public contracting code still exists. So there's a study by Mark Hovatter who ran the LA Unified School District. Project Labor Agreement where 30% of repeat contractors are non-union under the PLA. And that's a huge PLA, about $19 billion and it's been going on for 20 years so there's empirical evidence on that. It's not just something I made up. Anyway. I've been involved in a number of PLAs, my work with the IBW throughout Southern California.
PLAs help you maximize the money you're going to spend anyway. You're leveraging public money you're spending. You're already paying prevailing rate but what we're doing is creating opportunities for local people to get into apprenticeship programs, people of color to get into apprenticeship programs and Is there a tool that creates jobs, local jobs? Local opportunities.
Quality craftsmanship. Apprenticeship opportunities and there's always a concern. There's always a concern that comes up at these meetings and I understand it. People in construction are concerned about change just like everybody else, just like the public is. But what you will find is just like when there's a change in the public contracting code, there's a change in the code book. There's electrical code change, building code change, people adapt. We got really smart people both the union and non-union. You'll still have non-union contractors bidding. It's a business decision that they'll make and their decision will be hey I'll make money at the county just like they do now.
And they'll do it working under the terms and conditions of the project labor agreement that's negotiated. They'll be very successful and they'll still make a lot of money. So in conclusion, PLAs should be negotiated on economics, community benefits, leveraging local resources, quality construction, what's best for the taxpayers in the city. Again cost neutral because you're paying them anyway.
CWAs are win-win for the county. And I respectfully ask that the County Board of Supervisors ratify PLA. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Jesse Bishop to be followed by Danny Devereux.
Good morning, supervisors, chairman. I'm Jesse Bishop with Cal Portland Construction. I am here opposed to PLAs and workforce agreements that exclude 85% of the local construction workforce from negotiating their content. Cal Portland's been in business since 1958, previously as Union Asphalt on the Central Coast. Based in Santa Maria we're a non-union company that employs 270 locals.
PLAs are exclusionary and reduce competition creating a member only society, in this case at the taxpayer expense. Statistics do say they raise project costs 10 to 30%. Approximately 85% of the county workforce is non-union. Non-union contractors are not exclusionary. We subcontract to the most competitive, qualified subcontractor union or non-union. It doesn't matter to us.
We have and continue to hire a diverse workforce. PLAs typically limit a contractor only bringing three of their core workforce. Our paving crew is 12 members. Why would nine of our skilled local craft members have to sit while we pull nine unknowns from a possibly not so local union hall? You cannot place quality asphalt on roads within the county with so many new hires. It wouldn't even be safe.
Using the majority of non-core union workers may work in some cases, not in all. Don't paint abroad brush here please. Fringe benefits will be double paid. This is where the costs are increased that some of the others aren't recognizing. We will double pay the fringe benefit package, I'd be happy to sit with any one of you and explain it in detail. They want our employees' fringe benefits. An hourly package for an operator, for example, is $77 per hour approximately.
50% of that being a base wage, 27 being the fringe benefit. Currently, our workers can choose their health coverage plan and get the leftover money back on their check if they so desire. For instance, if their wife has good benefits on her side or husband. The union operator doesn't get the choice and the union keeps any left over fringe also known as other payments, other pay.
Common PLAs require us to pay our non-union worker fringes to the union. This is where the increased costs lie. To keep our employee whole, we have to also pay into their current pension and health and welfare plan anywhere from $14 to $22 an hour with a balance coming from the employee's leftover fringe. This will literally take four to $12 per hour from our employees check which is wage theft.
And for all those fringes paid to the union, our worker will likely never see a dime as they won't work the approximate five years to vest with the union. So the union keeps it. Note that public works are already regulated by extensive prevailing wage laws. I don't even know why we're talking about wages. We all pay similar wages. It's already covered by state law.
Why are we disenfranchising 85% of the county workforce for this? Something must be significant that we don't know about. Please take your time to study this, be sure to get inclusive representation to the negotiating table. No one should be discriminated against because their choice to work non-union. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Danny Devereux to be followed by Lulu Urkineff
1:52 – 2:015 turns
Members of the board, my name is Danny Devereux. I'm with Cal Portland Construction. I'll try not to repeat some of the things that Jesse said. Basically your board letter proposal was based around hiring disadvantaged from disadvantaged communities and going through an apprenticeship program. Well we welcome this concept. We welcome apprenticeship programs.
95% of our contractor work is public works construction under prevailing wage rates. Every single job, we request apprentices and we basically get no cooperation from the unions. The only certified apprentice programs in the area are union. And in the last five years, we've received one apprentice. We paid $68,000 last year alone into the state apprenticeship program.
And this one apprentice that we've had, he's been with us since 2015 and then he's in his last step of apprenticeship. And has learned a great deal from our contractors but we don't see this as a normal practice. I do want to say though that there's other side of the story. We have our own training programs, and I want to bring up our driver training program for mixer drivers. It's difficult to find people out in the community that are mixer drivers.
We actually go out into the community, help them get their commercial driver's license, put them with a truck with a certified driver trainer, and put them through the program to where they actually go out on their own. We've put 10 people in the last year through this program and literally 100% of them came from the types of disadvantaged communities that are included in your board letter.
I think we are already doing what the Board desires. I want to talk a little bit about What Jesse brought up in the core workforce provision, if you think that if we only get two of our people and we have to bring two or three of our people and we have to bring in 75% from the union. We have a five day paving job and that we're going to get the same efficiency, the same safety, the same cost.
The same quality with that kind of concept, you're just totally wrong. It won't happen we're going to have to increase the cost in our bid because of that liability and it will reduce the competition in the county. It'll put us basically at a disadvantage. I want to say one more thing and that was just a few weeks ago your board commended had accommodation for several companies contractors and their employees that helped with the devastating Montecito mudslides Want to let you know that 60% of those companies were non-union and Basically what you're saying to those non-union companies and their employees is say, I'm sorry You cannot work for the county in the future. That's essentially what you're saying here.
That's not a very good. Thank you Basically urge you not to go forward with the project labor agreement or the community workforce agreement whatever you want to call it if you do I would ask that you include an advisory committee of non-union contractors that can help with county staff understanding what their negotiations have effects on, what those kind of effects have on non-union contractors. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Lulu Urkanoff to be followed by Deborah E Shaw Booth.
Hi, thank you for having me. My name is Lulu Urkineff and I work for Debbie Shaw Restoration and Landscape. It's a female owned local small business based in Santa Barbara. My role essentially since it is such a small business as I help with bidding, I help with customer relations supervision of labor and project maintenance also. I work alongside labor a lot.
Um, so usually our projects are small aspect of these large scale projects because we do bid on a lot of like mitigatory restoration sites. We would be impacted by this PLA and unable to bed because we are non union. All of the employees that I work with and alongside and supervise are local. Many are minorities, you know, I'm a female, my boss is a female. She has become a mentor to me so while I don't have an apprenticeship program, I do have that relationship with her.
It's much more difficult for a very small business under 20 employees to become unionized or to use union labor. And then, a lot of our labor we've been employing for so long that we can ensure that they're great and our projects and successive projects can speak to that. Um, favoring large businesses that are able to be unionized such as like granite who bet on a lot of the same projects as us. You know it's contradictory to helping small locally owned businesses who employ local residents.
And then speaking on prevailing wage rates, my wage is above prevailing wage and our employees have a wage above prevailing wage anyways. So just all in all as young female professional who's involved in this field that would be negatively affected by this PLA requiring union labor I urge you to rethink or reject a proposed agreement. Thank you for your time.
Our next speaker is Deborah E Shaw Booth to be followed by John Danielson.
Roll-call vote Moved by Peter Adam
Show transcript
Our next speaker is John Danielson to be followed by John Hergert.
2:01 – 2:076 turns
Good morning. Thank you for having me. I
think you might need to move that mic up, I don't know if it goes... We may need a new mic for you. Okay there we go
thanks. John Danielson owner of Top Notch Heating Incorporated here in Santa Maria for 23 years. I'm here representing myself and the Santa Maria Valley Contractors Association They highly go against it, they don't want the PLA involved. There's too many non-union local people, local families that are doing work here now. 23 years I've been doing schools, county state jobs from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles.
And we're still doing them today. And slowly and slowly, they're making it harder and harder for me to stay in this field. They're telling me that now I have to get these certified apprentices. I need 40% this year. Next year it's up to 50% that have to be trained. We don't have representation here in this county for that. I asked the union for 23 years to send me apprentices to do these school jobs.
Not one, not one ever for 23 years out of the sheet metal workers. So I'm at a disadvantage here with this that's taking place. I train in-house, just like the old school. You work with your journeymen, you work with your foreman, you learn the trade, you come up and you do it and we've been doing it for 23 years here and I highly vote against the PLAs. Wages are straight across the board.
No issues there. Competitiveness is going to take a hit when we only have union labor here, if you're non-union you don't get to go right? You don't get to play the game in my field here for school jobs I have two competitors 90% of the time I have two competitors in this field they're both large union shops that I compete against and I'm non-union for 23 years they're making it harder and harder so anyway I highly vote against it thank you
Our next speaker is John Herger to be followed by John Will.
I may have to adjust this one here a little bit. Hi, I'm John Herkert. I am the owner of TLC Underground and TLC Directional Drilling. TLC Underground is a non-union shop. TLC Directional Drilling is a union shop. I operate both. I can speak from both sides of my mouth. That's my wife. There's all this talk about, and I just tell it like it is. I'm sorry if I get a little blunt. I may even swear a little bit because that's what I'm used to doing but I'm really going to try not to. There's all this talk about the apprentice program and how awesome it's going to be and how we're going to take the underprivileged people and we're going to give them jobs and give them opportunity to really step themselves up.
On my nonunion side, I don't think you can find a better example of somebody that puts underprivileged out of work broke living in their car. Hopefully used to have a drug problem recently got out of jail. That's what I do. We take people like that hopefully they've turned their life around. I will give them a second shot. That is their opportunity to advance.
When you're taking someone that's down and out like that, it sounds really awesome about making them into an apprentice. But I can take that guy right there who doesn't even know where his meal is coming from tomorrow, and I can put him to work, and he can have a paycheck in a week! On the union apprentice side, can you guarantee that guy that starts the apprentice program is going to have 40 hours a week starting the first day? No. It takes them like eight years in order to get enough hours even to make journeymen.
It takes a long time. Sometimes you get lucky and you manage to make it work but that's... Not what I've seen. I've had numerous formerly union employees that come to me looking for work as non-union because they haven't been able to get enough hours and make a living. I don't know, I'm not necessarily in that business but it happens out there. I take the same people, I pay the same wages of what you would On the prevailing side, the difference is if they're just going to work a little bit instead of the union getting the money and getting to put it into a union health care plan or a pension plan that my employee is never ever ever gonna see because it's unlikely he's gonna be there for five years. He gets to put that into a retirement plan I've had guys have put away $20,000 a year into a 401k that I can't touch When they leave, they get to keep it.
It's their money, I don't get to do anything with it. Everything about this PLA that I've seen doesn't address the apprentice program. That you're not really solving any problems. You're just rearranging the deck chairs and moving all the chairs over to one side of the ship. Thank you very much.
Our next speaker is John Will to be followed by Scott Zimmerman.
2:07 – 2:135 turns
Good morning supervisors. My name is John Will, I'm with J.F. Will Company. I am a local non-union employer employing 25 local employees from Guadalupe to Santa Maria, Los Alamos, Bealton and Lompoc. I oppose this item the Community Workforce Agreement and these are the reasons why inside my company I have very skilled people, and that's why I've been in business for 33 years.
We have our own apprentice training program right inside my own company because I take young men just like the last gentleman. They need a break, they need a good job, they get 40 hours of first week, they get a paycheck, they learn from a journeyman, they work up, they make a good honest living, they can afford to provide a good living for their family right inside this non-union company.
25% of my workforce is ex-union employees. We hire union contractors when I'm a general contractor. I've been working for the County of San Luis Obispo and the County of Santa Barbara for 33 years, I've never had a problem with skilled workers. I just wanted you to hear my opinion and tell you why I oppose this measure, thank you.
Our next speaker is Scott Zimmerman and then we will go to Santa Barbara for our last speaker and that will be Lee Cushman.
Good morning, Chair Levenino and members of the board. I do want to confirm that the Carpenters Union here locally does have a training center on A Street actually right down here and can't confirm we will have a new state-of-the-art training center here in Santa Maria coming very soon. I'm in support of the Community Workforce Agreement. It supports local jobs and local hire as it shows even in the examples earlier in that tier breakdown for the Slow Wharf project Where there are requirements for where the workforce comes from. In San Luis County, then it branches out north of Santa Barbara County and final tier is in Ventura.
Community Workforce Agreements they support local economy by keeping tax dollars local prevents worker misclassification. We keep hearing about this added cost or the only way you're gonna have a cost difference really is by worker misclassification. Which shouldn't be happening when we talk about, you know the wages being the same because of the with regulations by the DIR.
They should all be the same so that's where when we're seeing a lot of contractors coming from out of the area say Bakersfield Fresno further out how can that be cost effective then bringing that far out of the area? How are they able to bid the same and keep the pricing Putting people up in hotels here, there's no way it's not possible. Community workforce agreements that supports workforce diversity veteran workers women's in the trade.
The development of local workers for these are construction careers as well as timely completion of projects without delay by having skilled and trained workforce on these public works projects. With that, I urge the board to move forward with the recommendation of adopting a community workforce agreement. Thank you.
And now we will go to Santa Barbara for our final speaker Lee Cushman
Good morning, board. My name is Lee Cushman. I'm with Cushman Contracting. We've been a non-union contractor since 1969, 50 years in the county doing work for the county. We've done projects as large as $15 million for the county. We and our employees are county taxpayers. In fact, our company pays $6500 a year just for Cranes, our backhoes, our dozers in the county and so do all the other contractors that are present here.
Our employees are non-union, they choose to be non-union. They've been approached by many union BAs to switch over to the union, they choose not to. The reason they choose not to, and this is part of the reason that a PLA does not work for union contractors. Is the benefit program, healthcare. They don't get a choice and as previous speaker said when we give our benefits out if their choice is less than the prevailing wage rate we can shift that money over to their pension plan so that we're paying the same rate but they get more benefit from it.
The other problem with PLAs and why a union contractor cannot participate is the core workforce. Your typical PLAs require us to have a one for one ratio with the union, that means our folks who've worked for us for many years have to sit at home and we won't do that to them. I think the elephant in the room is Why are we doing this? It's been asked several times, and we all know the elephant in the room is there's certain supervisors that are accepting donations to their campaigns from unions. And what I'd like to challenge the supervisor to do if you're going to vote yes on this tell the public let's just be transparent tell the public how much money you've accepted from them it's out there it's on the internet If you don't I'm sure it'll get brought up The second thing that I'd like to ask if you do want to approve this is allow non-union contractors to sit in the negotiations so that we can have a fair PLA, not a one sided PLA.
And the last item, I think if you move ahead with this PLA is to put a bid item on every county job. That's a deduct if you don't want to participate in a PLA so that the public can see just how much these PLAs are going to cost them. With that said, I hope you vote no against this PLA. Thank you.
2:13 – 2:206 turns
All right, so that closes our public comment period. I'm going to bring it back to the board. Are there any questions for staff at this point or we can go to deliberations? Don't everybody jump in at once. Okay, it looks like there's no questions for staff. So we will go to deliberations. I'll begin with Supervisor Hart.
Well for me personally this feels a little bit like Groundhog Day because I have been through this previously in my tenure on the Santa Barbara City Council and many of the same speakers spoke to the council. I do not question anybody's motives or Their values and their approach to this issue, but there is a tremendous amount of misinformation being repeated again today. And that is unfortunate because I think it clouds the issue.
The central question of why we should be doing this comes back to the information that I have seen that says too much of this work is going out of the area. There's no question there are a lot of local contractors. Here they're doing work for the county, doing work for the local government agencies. But there is a tremendous amount of work that is going to large contractors from out of the area and those jobs are not local people. Those are not local contractors. That money is not staying in our community and not recirculating and not providing jobs and not providing employment opportunities for local people. And that is the challenge is how do we figure out a way to create a system that benefits local people better?
The Community Workforce Agreement tool is a way to do that, and that is the reason to move forward with this. There are folks who said we should not have government involved in any of this at all. Well if that were the case, we wouldn't have prevailing wage. So that is really truly just an ideological argument that's being thrown out to obfuscate what's going on here. So if it were true that most of the work was staying local and being recirculated in local community, That would require a different solution. That is not the case, that is not the facts that I've seen and that is the intent here is to have a process that advantages local companies, local employees in a way to get jobs to local people keep that money recirculating in the community and that is the motivation, that is the problem and this is the only tool that I'm aware of that begins to work toward that solution.
Okay. Supervisor Williams?
Well, I agree with Supervisor Hart that what it comes down to is having a system that works better for workers and better for the county projecting its own values. Right? We, I looked at the list of previous contracting. Well first, I want to back up. You know, I think there's a huge number of good folks that have showed up today on both sides of the aisle, both sides of this debate.
But there does seem to be a promulgation of fear mongering and misinformation out there. And I mean some of the sky is falling, charges are just really impossible. It would not be possible for all of this work to be taken up by union contractors. It would not be possible particularly when we're talking about specialties like Landscape and environmental restoration. It's just not possible, there's not even enough union contractors to do that kind of work.
So it sounds to me like somebody is telling people out there well meaning people in our own community probably someone from outside the area that may be employed by someone else who has an interest in this things that aren't true. About PLAs and community workforce agreements. And the experience in other communities is nowhere near as dramatic as what is being discussed, and what is being charged. It's nowhere near as dramatic.
And I also on a more personal note sort of resent the charges of insidiousness. You know, I'm getting it from folks who Board of Supervisors meeting If we wanted to fix the deck, we would have fixed it a lot earlier than this in the other jurisdictions that I've represented. What I don't like about the current system is it does not, it means sometimes we don't catch a lot of stuff. Right, and it incentivizes this industry to be for not everybody's honest in it.
And I looked at some of our past contracting. Not only has a lot of our past contracting gone out of the area which is bad but it's also gone sometimes to local contractors who have done some bad stuff right? And when you have a system where the GC and the subs have a core workforce, but it say is alternating with the hall. You can't do prevailing wage fraud.
You can't do all these things that people do that's dishonest in the industry because you have an alternating workforce. The parts of this that make the system more honest, and a system that there's very little enforcement in this day and age. And creates a situation where workers essentially can enforce the law that we in the state are not doing enough enforcement in.
And lastly, if people don't want government involved they can just choose to not bid on a government contract. I mean that's just a great irony is to ask government to not be involved well
then they can choose to not be involved with it.
Supervisor Atkin?
2:20 – 2:3217 turns
Well, I think that's a little bit much to first of all to accuse our private contractors of not understanding what's going on because they're some of the smartest people that I know. And I think they're pretty well tuned in to what the effects of this thing will be on them. The other thing is, I think there's probably enough bad work done that we could point to on any contractor or whether you're union or non-union. I know that there's stuff on both sides that's been done badly and it's never right.
So I think we could agree on that. But the reason I ask the questions that I asked earlier is because those are the ones given to support, those were the reasons given to supporting the item. The answers were clear. There is no need for this initiative. To quote Mr. Armendariz who got it out, I wrote it down for us Joe if he's still here but he got it out for us. It's a solution in search of a problem and I'm going to repeat it again because it bears repeating You know private non-union or union contractors are our middle class workforce when you just Play it straight and go out for an honest and fair bid process and choose the lowest responsible bidder. You are supporting local labor Project costs are different than hourly rates Hourly is the same no matter who does the work?
But they but the bids will be higher And that's the cost that everybody keeps talking about. And we should not confuse those two, because the cost to the county will go up if you do a PLA and I just think it's unnecessary and I wouldn't be supporting it. Supervisor Hartman?
Thank you Mr Chair. We've had a war on unions and organized labor in this country at least for the last 20 years. We can look to other countries where there are active, well-organized large percentage of the workforce in unions and we see far less income inequality than we do in our country. So that is my starting point. This isn't something that's self-serving I believe that people are much stronger when they have an organized voice and unions provide that for us it gives people greater relative power in relation to management And that's really the bottom line for me. I think we get a quality, well-trained workforce from the apprenticeship programs that I've seen.
I don't think I could pass what I saw electricians have to learn in terms of mathematics and it's very technical and very demanding training. I also think that when you have a job and you have a well-trained workforce that has union representation, if they see things on the job that aren't right, they have some place to go. They can identify problems and be represented, and I think that's a very strong aspect to the benefit of this.
I also think the local hire and the kinds of preferences we can give for targets, particularly the helmets to hardhats is something I'm very interested in. So these are terms that can be explored and we can look at that. In greater detail and bring more evidence forward, but I very much favor going forward with this and Asking our staff to come back with a negotiated agreement that we can consider
Okay, let me log back on here. I got taken off so then it comes to me so I I'm curious why we decided, or the supervisors that brought this. Last time I heard this it was a project specific. It made sense to me because it was a huge $100 million project. We wanted to make sure that it's very complicated project. And I could see at least the idea of a pilot program and see how it worked on a specific project.
And I came today actually prepared to support something moving forward that was on a pilot, just to see how it would work. But I looked at the reasons we gave for why it would need to be county wide. And it says allow more time and space for negotiations, well we just came up with a list of capital projects that were not actually ready to start on yet and we still haven't even issued a COP yet.
So I could see us picking one of those projects would give us plenty of time to negotiate, sit down and talk about it. Both sides participating and figure out a way forward. The other reason why it said to go to a county wide instead of specific one is that says it saves staff time and resources for the board's consideration. Staff negotiating separate labor agreements from scratch for each new capital project. I hope we're not that dumb.
Here's the 99% of what's in the project that we pick, and we go to the next project. And if it works, we go okay well let's just scratch out the name of this building and put it in the next building and move forward. So I'm just curious. I know the City of Santa Barbara went with this citywide. So if, I'm throwing that out there and maybe nobody's interested in, so I'll go to Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Hart.
I mean, you know, I'll tell you why. I probably would have brought this up earlier but the minute I stepped into this office we got side swiped by a bunch of ad hoc committee activities and a bunch of other things. I'll tell you, to the Building Trades credit. We discussed some options and I put it forward that we could do one on Laguna Sand. Which is a bigger project would have meant more money for their members if they got the job.
But they said, no let's not do this half assed, half cocked. Let's do this right, let's have a process and let's also make sure it's the right policy. And so I don't really think I think we can arrive at a better I brought it up Partially because I saw sort of the negotiation breakdown over the jail one. I think the reason why we do it as a policy is that so we don't keep on having to do it from scratch each time, as you mentioned and Frankly, the big jobs have already been done.
Right? So if we care about this policy, if we want apprenticeship to work in this county, to me I like the idea that there are skills that take time to develop in a skilled workforce. If we value those things then I think we invest in them.
Supervisor Hart.
Chair, I can also add to that a little bit. Sorry So because maybe I didn't explain it well so yeah with the Laguna sanitary Project like Doss mentioned so we would have had about like two months to try and negotiate We just came
up with a whole new
list don't mean interrupt
But we came up with a whole new list and there's like four or
five projects
that are over
ten million Which one is gonna move forward first?
No, we don't. Yeah, so you have plenty of time too okay, so even in your Okay, it said the examples you gave was like city of San Luis Obispo project specific. City of Oxnard port specific there's more than one project but at least it's just that it's at the port so what I'm saying is rarely do we move forward with a policy without testing it as a pilot first
So and with the list of projects that I presented, so staff is going to try to figure out how to finance them. And so some of them may move very quickly once they're figured out how to be financed because we don't know how these are going to be financed yet. And some of that money as we know comes with timelines and things. That's why I showed all of the projects that we have coming forward cuz we don'y know which one is gonna come first and how it's gonna be financed and what that timeline will be.
Okay thank you. I'm not done yet, but if you wanted to answer that, I kind of asked you a question.
So my answer to that would be the $73 million worth of projects that we have teed up at a $2 million and above threshold. There's an urgency to make sure that as much of that work as possibly can will be done by local people. And that's why now and why this is to have To shift that away from the status quo, which too much of that work. Admittedly some of that work does go to local contractors non-union and union but too much of that work goes to out of town contractors that are not keeping that money local. And to the point that Mr. Caldwell made about us tweaking The local vendor outreach, that's a totally legitimate question and point. And we asked to have a six month review of that to see if this is going to make any difference. So I am well aware and cognizant of the tension between those two ideas but this is not rocket science.
We are not inventing project labor agreements and community workforce agreements. We are one of hundreds of communities around the country that have been using this tool successfully to achieve this goal which is to keep the work local. And if there's another tool that anybody knows about that does that better, let's try that. But in my research and all the work that I've done looking into this talking to all the people, there isn't anything else.
All right, Mr. Gazzone, it sounds like this is getting fast tracked and we're talking about these projects that may or may not get funded relatively soon. What is your capacity at this point with your ability to take on something new like this?
2:32 – 2:387 turns
Well Chair and Supervisors, I guess the good news is that Senior Deputy Hartley has been through this before. On the other end of that scale we have a unusually heavy load of litigation cannabis and water issues and my ask would be that we focus on those until the fall of 2019 if that's not feasible We'll all be back together again next week in budget workshops And I can receive direction on something else to pause if this was going to be a higher priority Okay,
thank you. Good to know supervisor Adam then supervisor Hartman
Well, yeah this assertion that the playing fields dot level is just absurd to me You know it's called the lowest responsible bidder and if they're not responsible then we shouldn't be picking them and so you should clean out the unresponsible even if there were cheaper bidders of Through the process, and so I don't think we need this. And if it comes back again, I want exact numbers as to the number of jobs that go to local and far away contractors because I just find these unfounded assertions that were hiring the boogie contractor from somewhere else.
It's troubling you know we constantly hear these things, but there's no. There's no numbers to back that up so if this thing grows any legs here We need to come back with some exact numbers because I just find it incredible that we have a room full of contractors here and I would be shocked if it wasn't a very high percentage of work that gets done by local contractors. And as you found out in Montecito, when we needed to have massive quantities A lot of material moved there was mostly local contractors that came to the rescue. So I don't know what, if you didn't have to pull people in from far away on a job like that where it needed to be done immediately.
I don't know when you would have a problem with some faraway contractor swooping in and taking all the business.
I'd like to ask a couple of questions about the apprenticeship program as well, because that seems to be...I mean when you get down to it It seems to be probably the biggest sticking point. And I've toured IBWs and Plummer Piper. I can't think of a better program in the county, really than the IBW Apprenticeship Program. Take people, change their lives and I've seen it at the graduations, great stories.
But I'm also hearing that non-union contractors, what is bothering me is this. What we've heard a couple times is it's not from you guys but from other apprenticeship programs that they're requesting apprentices and they're not receiving them. So I don't know what they're required to do? Are they required to request them or are they required to hire them? What is the requirement and how does that, how are they meeting that or not meeting it? How does that work?
And I don't know who that question goes to, to be honest with you. Mr. Huddleston, if I guess I could ask you and that way you could come up and answer.
They're required to request them. So they send a form 130 in and then they request them, and if the apprenticeship program has available apprentices, then we provide them to many non-union contractors through the years. And then they're required to pay an apprenticeship into a fund. They can either pay in the local fund or pay into the state fund, and that's what someone spoke about earlier today when they say they paid into a fund. So they can choose where to pay that component into a fund.
Okay, thank you. So let's go to Supervisor Hart and then Supervisor Hartman.
Yeah, I just have a partial answer to Supervisor Adams' question about data. And one of the challenges that I've seen in looking at this is that the local governments aren't tracking this information. As Mr. McGaulpin said, he doesn't ask the question of whether these are union contracts or not, contractors or not. So there isn't- I don't think that's actually true. Let me just finish my point. Thank you. I'll let you talk after I'm done talking.
And yet, we can do it that way too. However you want to do it. And what's interesting about it is that the unions actually track this information because they are trying to achieve labor compliance from the non-union contractors that are doing this work. So there's an imbalance in the data collection incentivization of that system. Where the unions have more accurate information about who the subcontractors are, where they're from versus the local government agencies that are blind to that information because that's not relevant to what they're trying to do. They're not tracking that information so I welcome your questions. I welcome us having more information about that process but know that going in is that we don't have Supervisor Adam.
2:38 – 2:468 turns
Well, first of all most of the contracts that we get through here and maybe Scott can come up here and talk about that because a lot of times on the contracts they come through. And maybe I didn't notice it on the ones that didn't have it. They say specifically their local or non-local vendor.
Mr. Chair and Supervisors Hart and Supervisor Adam, it would take an effort. We would have to go back and dig through our paperwork in previous contracts if we were going to go back ten years to determine who's local and non-local but we do report it on board contracts when they come here. And then if we execute them using the alternative bidding procedures at my level and negotiate it as well, we have that information in the contract so
Well, I would think that you're on notice at this point and maybe general services as well. That we should be putting a box on all of these things and making sure that- Sure. We have the information available in the future because it sounds like we might have to talk about this more.
And also Supervisor Harden, we are happy to work with the unions to look at their data as well and compare it.
And then I just wanted to say that I am not anti-union. I just want taxpayers to receive the biggest bang for their buck and if we make this stuff cost more, then that's not going to happen. So as long as everybody is on the lowest responsible bidder Program I think the taxpayer gets the best value for their dollar and you know, we should focus on on the taxpayer here. I think a lot more than we do and I'll never stop advocating for that as long as I'm here supervisor Hartman then supervisor Hartman
Thank you Mr. Chair, I just wanted to respond to your thought about the pilot and I very much favored that idea we worked on Laguna Sand to see if we could put something in place but we didn't have enough time and so it was out the door. I wasn't here for the jail but I gather that took a long time so this puts the terms in place. We can try them and adjust them as we go forward it doesn't lock us in forever and ever but I think it's time to get this started
Okay, so one of the other I just wanted to clear something else up too. The percentage of workforce when we talk about that have this a pathway for minorities to enter the workforce and reach middle class. You know, I talked to Mr. Lopez, Vince Lopez actually yesterday as well. 90% of his workforce is Hispanic. I would venture to guess most of our local contractors, whether they're union or non-union are hiring a high percentage of minorities have been to the IBW's graduation and a high percentage of those folks are moving into middle class actually upper middle class once they become journeymen so.
The idea too about, I do have a hard time telling folks that we know when we talked about it's fear mongering and this isn't going to happen in your business. I'm assuming these folks know more about their business than I do. So I take what everybody is saying and I've got to be honest with you, this has been very difficult because there are people I trust and respect.
On both sides. And I go into a meeting and I deal with one side, and totally make sense, totally respect their opinion. And then I hear from the other side, totally respect and believe that they're being as honest as they can as well. So I would support it on a project specific pilot program to see how it worked, but I can't support just a blanket. We've never tried this before. I know we can say well it works somewhere else. I want to see how it works here because just the idea of sharing having employees having I can't imagine us then going to the CEO's office and saying, okay. You can keep three of your workers but I'm going to bring six of them from San Luis Obispo County and you're going to put out the budget book.
And we're going to get the same quality, the same speed. I don't think we'd get the same quality. So, I understand it's moving forward. I want it to work. Everybody has a voice. It sounds like you guys are open to not just ramrodding this, because DOS, like you said, if you could, you would have done that a long time ago if that was your intention and I agree with that. And honestly it doesn't help really when people talk about Motivations and campaign contribution, all those kinds of things. I know these people if there's way worse things they could have done that would have been helpful to other people if that's what we were talking about. You know, I harp on DOS all the time about people making sure that they live their values and that's why I think people are voting here is voting their values just like Supervisor Adams voting his values.
And it does make it hard, sometimes it's really easy to do this job because there's people I totally disagree with. And the other side makes way more sense. This is one of those 51-49 things and I just hope everybody listens, comes to the table. We come up with a product that is inclusive and If it's a big problem that you guys will be receptive enough to look at it, admit it and back away from it instead of plowing ahead. So I came in here thinking I was going to support it but I was looking at it as project specific with a high dollar cap, a high dollar threshold to move into.
And so Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Adam.
Well, I was going to make a motion for recommendations. You want to talk beforehand? But I think that obviously there's some things devil is in the details and the negotiation you know one of the things is the threshold and the other is you know core workforce. I think there are innovations out there that can help this be and also a better policy mechanism.
I regret that we didn't get this going for one of the larger projects that's already sailed because I think maybe then it would be A four vote and not a three vote, but I appreciate the sentiment. I think the reality is that at this point there's a lot of fairly small projects, not really a whole lot of big projects out there. And that it makes sense. It doesn't make sense in my view just to do this process for one $5 million project.
2:46 – 2:5420 turns
Before you vote, I just want to make sure our staff has direction. So the last time we did this, we gone to the board a couple of times just to get clarity since it was a new issue that we hadn't dealt with before. Clarity on where the board wanted to give us parameters. So I just want to ask Mr. McAulpin and Ms. Powell what they think the next steps are if they have enough information to just negotiate something or if they need any more guidance at this point?
Do you want to go first? Supervisor
Adam, because I think he wants to give a little direction. Let me complicate this thing a little bit. Is there any way we can do this and have it bid both ways without the PLA and with the PLA? And then any project that comes back to us, we can decide to go with the most expensive project if we want to. But then we'll actually have, and we'll have a better check on which one's cheaper
too. You just made sweat break out on the brow of Mr. Gazzone so let's talk about that. Chair and
Supervisors, we looked at this before and the public contracting code is a harsh taskmaster as to the order of operations The approach that we took last time was within the draft PLA that we were developing Was to we would have gone out with it You know with the PLA and then with the authority to reject all bids if it came in too high And we know that's defense. What's
too high? How do you define too high
I? So we can look at this more an update where we were in 2014 in 2014 We found it not defensible to go down two roads at the same time in bidding the same project
Well, my problem here is you put a certain set of parameters on a bid and then when the bid package comes back. Those were the parameters so you know whoever bill it had to work within those parameters but if you had a way to Maybe you just do, I don't know. I don't know how to do it but I think that there should be a way to find out which way would be cheaper or what the difference would be and if you still want to decide that there's extra value in one way or the other then that's fine.
See what I'm saying? No, I know that's not probably the thing everybody wants to do because everybody wants to put these extra parameters on a job and then just have it bid that way. And then whoever gets the lowest bid just gets the lowest bid. But that's not the reality. I mean, we're artificially putting extra parameters on a project that doesn't necessarily exist in the real world. Is there a way Mr. Gazzone, we could do alternate bids?
Can you give me more detail on your question please? Well, would there be a way to design a job with alternate circumstances like a PLA and not
a
PLA?
Chair and Supervisors. So we had gone through different machinations in 2014 trying to find something that we knew would be defensible in part because we had state money involved on that. So we've got when we are doing these projects and have federal or state funds flowing through, we are further constrained as opposed to if the county was just a market participant on its own without this other color money coming in so we can look at that but when we looked at it in 2014 we felt that really the only way to do that was to go out would have been to go out with a PLA In the in the as part of the responsible bidder package and then if it comes into high reserve the authority to reject all bids
Well, okay Supervisor Hartman
I believe Supervisor Williams made a motion, and I would like to second that motion. And when this comes back we can have further discussion about how to apply it on the terms.
Okay but I don't think staff has enough direction.
I just want to clarify whether they do or not so we have the same expectations.
So, Supervisor Lavagnino and board members. So I feel like I'm a little bit disadvantaged because I was not here when Mr. McGulpin went through the process but I believe we should come back. We can go back, we can look at what the framework would look like and who would be on the negotiate make a recommendation on who would be on the negotiating team also make a recommendation on a potential project Because some of the projects that were listed in the board letter are not Are not really good for this particular Appeal a just for various reasons that I won't go into now But I think we could find one that's up-and-coming That we could use for pilot project and we could come back to the board with that information For further direction
Mr. Ghazali Chair and supervisors, and again trying to provide you with options here. And also getting it right the first time if the ordinance that's envisioned is describing defaulting to the project labor agreement. I'm just looking for some sense of whether we'd be on track to within that as well as within any particular project labor agreement to provide, to protect the county's ability to rebid without the project labor agreement.
Just the approach we took with the Northern Branch Jail template.
Okay
I think it's fine if staff works on a rationale for projects that the PLA does not apply to. However, doing it in just one project is not what I'm asking for in direction. That we do it in all projects over a certain threshold except as exempted if there is a rationale by staff based on skills, based on the nature of a given project. That they wish to recommend I am specifically talking about negotiation with in the recommendation be with the employees because last time staff was just negotiating with the GC's and that didn't go anywhere. So, I'm now suggesting a different course of action and then of course staff can take advice from GCs or from anybody else who has a stake in this for policy mechanisms. If they want guidance, I would suggest the San Luis Ordinance as a template to look at because I think it has some innovations that may arrive and may prove some of the fear about this to not be well founded.
Mr. Gazzani? Chair and supervisors, I think I understood that and within an ordinance that came back again, I'm comfortable that given the direction and holding from the California Supreme Court as to the proper purpose legitimate government reason for project labor agreement. There was language within that decision that said, in that case the airport commission was not required to wait for labor unrest before bargaining for a no strike agreement to prevent labor unrest on a project. So that's a legitimate government purpose as well as what we've discussed about skilled labor so I think it's very feasible to bring back an ordinance that would accomplish that and I think we understand your direction as to the ordinance.
2:54 – 2:5922 turns
Okay, I don't see any more lights. So we had a motion and a second with direction. Ms. Pell and Mr. McLaughlin you understand the direction at this point? Okay, very good. Mr. Gazzone is good. All right let's do a roll call.
Mr. Adam? No. Mr. Williams?
Aye.
Mr. Hart? Aye. Ms. Hartman? Aye Chair Lavanino?
No
Motion passes 4-2, 3-2 excuse me So
we're going to do one more item are we okay let's do one more item before lunch Item three correct four
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number four is from community services. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding approval of a substantial amendment to fiscal year 2018 through 2019 action plan and execution of agreement with the Salvation Army to provide disaster relief to primarily low income households. And this is in the first and second district.
If you could exit quietly we're still But Dinah would like to say something.
Well, I was going to make a motion but I'll let
Dinah give us a
precursor.
This is good news. Good news. I like the presentation. Let's take a little time.
Good news is always good.
We still got time before lunch. I'm ready
to make a motion so just- All
right you can be the first one to make the motion.
We're going to talk real fast. Good morning, Chair Lavinino and members of the board. We're here today for consideration of funding for the Salvation Army Disaster Relief Program. Here today is Senior Housing Program Specialist Ted Tiber.
Good morning, Chair Lavanino. Members of the board. The Salvation Army is requesting $100,000 to administer an emergency grant payment program. The approval of CDBG funds for this project requires a public hearing and submission of an action plan amendment to HUD. Today concludes the 30 day public comment period for the proposed amendment. As of this morning HCD has not received any public comments.
These funds were set aside for fiscal year 2018 action plan, specifically for Thomas Fire and Debris Flow Disaster Relief to be committed by the board at a later date. That later date is now with the proposed action which would allow these funds to be used by the Salvation Army for their intended purpose. The Salvation Army will use this $100,000 to assist FEMA registered families and expects to serve 40 families with these funds.
These are HUD funds that HCD secured for this project and they expire at the end of fiscal year 2018. However, HCD intends to request an additional extension. So just briefly summarizing the proposed actions today. The board is being asked to approve the draft action plan amendment for submission to HUD as well as approve the CBG sub recipient agreement awarding $100,000 to Salvation Army. We're happy to answer any questions you may have and Nick Winn from Salvation Army is also here to answer any questions in more detail.
Okay, and I think we have no request to speak. Okay, I want to say hey great job staff for sequestering that money and using it for a different purpose in requesting that. And appreciate the federal government allowing a little flexibility there. You don't see that very often so good news. So Doss would you like to make a motion? Moved and seconded.
And I just want to appreciate it, now's the time that normally public interest sort of drops off with folks and there are definitely still people struggling with a lot out there. And while we've been able to get a little bit of private charity to help some of the folks this is going to be a shot in the arm to some of them. Thank you so much.
I also want to give a nice shout out to the Salvation Army, so great job. Good work done. A motion and a second by Supervisor Hart? All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? I hope not. Yes nobody's opposed all right passes unanimously and I believe we're going to recess to closed session Mr. Gazzone.
2:59 – 4:122 turns
Chair and supervisors, today the board has only one item for discussion in closed session. And that item is sitting as the Board of Directors of the County Flood Control and Water Conservation District Conference with Real Property Negotiators concerning six Parcels that are laid out online, but I'll quickly summarize the locations. Corner of Cathedral Oaks Road and Via Chaparral, 183 Winchester Canyon Road, Goleta. Parcel three is 17100 Acaya Mariposa Arena, Gaviota Coast.
Fourth parcel is 17100 Calle Mariposa Arena, again Gaviota Coast. Fifth parcel same and then the final parcels at the corner of Calle Real and Coral Canyon Road, Goleta. And all these locations are spelled out in more detail with parcel numbers online. My estimate is with lunch slightly less than an hour. Okay let's come back at one o'clock then. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. you You. ♪ Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Hi, everyone. Hello. ♪ . . . . Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Okay. Thank you. I'm Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Yeah. Good morning, everyone. you ♪ Good morning. Hello everyone. Good morning.
Hello. . . The . . Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
4:14 – 4:377 turns
Yeah. All right, I'd like to reconvene this meeting of the County Board of Supervisors. Mr. Gazzone, can you tell us what happened
in closed session? Chair, in closed session today the board of supervisors sitting as the board of directors of the county flood control and water conservation district had a conference with real property negotiators concerning six parcels that are described in more detail online but Okay, thank you very much. That takes us to item D4.
Madam Clerk, or is it five? We're on five. Okay, sorry.
Five. Chair Lavagnino and members of the board, departmental item number five is from the county executive office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding Santa Barbara County Operational Area Oil Spill Contingency Plan OSCP approval.
Mr.
Lewin? Mr. Chair and supervisors, this item is a request that you approve the updated local oil spill contingency plan and direct staff to send the updated plan to the California Fish and Wildlife Office of the Department of the Office of Spill Prevention and Response known as OSPR. In a moment I will turn over the presentation to Ms. Katie Freeman from Hagerty Consulting. All of you are familiar with Ms. Friedman as she previously assisted the county with the after action report and improvement plan for the refugee oil spill, and more recently, the after action report for the EOC's actions during the Thomas Fire and 19 debris flow. It is her work previously on the refugee oil spill that makes her participation in the update of the contingency plan so valuable as she was able to ensure that the lessons learned from the after action report were included in this plan.
Also with us is Fire Chief Hartwig to share the presentation with us and he is at the Santa Barbara Chambers right now. There's been a lot of effort put into this update, many stakeholders contributed to this plan. The plan is significantly different from past plans. It is formatted in a manner that focuses on the importance of the plan being an operational plan that can be used both as a training guide and useful during an oil spill emergency.
The plan now moves the local leadership responsibility for the county, for oil spill emergencies from the OEM to the County Fire Department. So why is that so important? The County Fire Department is already responsible for hazardous material response. They have people who are qualified as field incident commanders and all the positions in the command structure such as logistics, finance plans and operations. They are an operational department that is trained and skilled at working at mitigating all types of emergencies in the field. They have equipment and expertise to use that equipment. They have authority under the fire code to regulate the oil industry. They have resources that can be deployed quickly, both local resources and mutual aid resources.
Thus they will provide the county in the operational area with the proper leadership in oil spill emergency. This does not mean that every other department including OEM does not have a role. The OEM will still need to provide EOC leadership and coordination both within the county organization and throughout the operational area. They will need to ensure the EOC team is trained in all oil spill emergencies and ready to support the unified command of the oil spill emergency.
Marine oil spill emergencies do have unique federal and state requirements, however we are most successful at mitigating emergencies if we stick as close to the process and procedures that are used on all other emergencies in California. This plan ensures that the incident management procedures we are using are similar to those used on wildfires, floods and all other types of emergencies. And with that I'd like to have Ms. Friedman now brief you on the plan and share with you the process that we have taken to update it.
Thanks, thanks Rob. To the chair members of the board thank you very much for having me back again today. I think we had originally anticipated this presentation would be occurring in April of 2018 given the original planning timeline that we had examined obviously extended that timeline to accommodate response and recovery for the Thomas fire and debris flow.
Structurally, the presentation that I'm going to give to you today is going to give you an overview of a new plan. And I'm going to focus on several items that I think are critical in the plan update. From a process perspective, I think to introduce this when we began this project in September, I believe of 17, I think we had a couple of different objectives and things that we were working to accomplish with the plan update.
First and foremost, the previous plan had been updated in 2011. OSPR, the Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response through the state of California requires plans be updated on a three year cycle. So the county at that point when the oil spill had happened was already a little bit overdue for a plan update so we wanted to make sure that occurred and that the county was able to incorporate a new revision cycle.
Second, obviously we wanted to make sure that the plan addressed and incorporated the findings from the oil spill. And specifically the planning recommendations that were put forward and approved by the board in the after action report were incorporated into that revised plan. And finally, we in looking at the 2011 plan and knowing what the county went through with the oil spill wanted the revised plan to be as operational as possible. Meaning that individuals who may not have been a part of the response to the previous event, who may not necessarily be familiar with emergency management and the principles of emergency management. That those folks would be able to come in, Understand timelines, understand operational structures and be able to incorporate into those things.
So with those three things in mind we move forward with the plan revision incorporating stakeholders both in early planning review as well as I think most recently being able to go through a pretty robust final draft review process. Which has resulted in a few significant, I think major revisions to the plan. First and foremost structurally the plan now aligns to an operational response plan with major sections of the plan addressing specific issues both in compliance with the state of California's requirements as well as in alignment with the overall planning structure.
Page eight of the plan provides an overview of that, but just as a general reminder. Oil spill contingency planning doesn't operate the way that normal incident response does. This is all directed and dictated under the Code of Federal Regulations in the National Contingency Plan. So there are unique considerations that are associated with that operational structure, particularly decision making and unified command incorporating the responsible party.
So wanting to make sure that this plan accounts for that, understands that the individuals who are executing the plan are capable of understanding that but that we're also providing those authorities for the county to take action where appropriate. So that's first. Second, and as Director Lewin had mentioned the revised oil spill contingency plan reframes who will serve as a local government on scene coordinator of the county's primary or operational area's primary representative and allows that to transition over time which is a critical consideration particularly as you enter recovery phases associated with an oil spill.
Next, and I think this is one of the things that will be most successful for the new plan. Is allowing county resources and county assets to dictate action and empowering them to dictate action to take initial containment and response actions when an oil spill incident is detected which I think we can go into a lot of history here, but for various reasons did not occur for the last incident.
And then finally another opportunity, I think, for the county to enhance how they will respond to a future oil spill. We've built in several liaison functions. Through unified command in order to bring additional local perspective to unified command, which again I think is critical to be able to enhance the response and achieve the county's goals. Structurally, the plan now has six major sections with an introduction providing a background on the overall planning framework including the relationship between national regional area contingency plans.
Second section focused on rules and responsibilities. I'll hit on a few different components of Section 2 as well as Section 3 operations. Section four focuses on logistics and resources. Logistics and resources being a primary consideration for compliance with OSPR's requirements. Section five, plan review and exercises so really how the county is going to maintain The plan moving forward, and then supporting documents and appendices. What we tried to do particularly with section six is build in different tools, different resources that may be used by the county, maybe used by other individuals responsible for executing the plan during an event so it becomes a little bit more of a one stop shop where possible.
Activation and applicability of the plan in the introduction, in the introductory section. What we've gone through to revise this to specifically focus on is how stakeholders across the operational area Are activating the plan, so where there may be an oil spill incident. There may be an oil incident that really can be managed as a hazardous materials incident by the fire department. We don't necessarily want to go through a process to activate a plan, activate a bunch of county resources when it may not be necessary. And it can be managed within really just the roles and responsibilities of organizations. So we've gone through work with stakeholders to identify what some of the conditions of plant activation are, in some cases those may be dictated by outside agencies where OSPR and the United States Coast Guard are activating because of the size of the incident but really what we're looking at our local drivers for that activation.
Moving on, also in... Oh excuse me. I think I may have... I skipped one, I'm sorry. Priorities. Also in the introductory section, I believe approximately half of the priorities that were in here were in the 2011 revision. What we worked with stakeholders on, I think early in the planning process is trying to make sure That these were robust and that these captured lessons learned, particularly by incorporating more of an emphasis on natural and cultural resources.
Environmental resources and vital services. Those being I think areas where as we looked at opportunities for improvement on a broad scale that we wanted to make sure those were incorporated into the priorities for the plan. Moving on to roles and responsibilities, first responders. Again I think this speaks to two different items. First and foremost is that first responders, and really this is any first responder to the incident can take reasonable action to contain the incident and to respond to the nature of the incident.
I think we've worked throughout this plan, and you'll see particularly when we get to the operations section how we have incorporated those initial containment actions into the plan and into various workflows. I think second here what we've worked to do and what we've accounted for particularly with a shift for the local government on scene coordinator to come from the fire department.
Is understanding that their role as hazardous materials first responders is really going to play a very strong role in the early parts of the incident. So again, empowering them to take action associated with their existing plans, policies and procedures. Expounded upon in a section of roles and responsibilities that focuses on their role. This includes activating the incident management team contingent on the size of the incident and the duration of the incident, in order to provide ongoing incident management support before the transition to unified command alongside the United States Coast Guard, OSPR, and the responsible party once that Transition process occurs.
I think a critical consideration for many stakeholders across the county for various reasons, including but not limited to concerns that there were delays in sharing public health information or information that was not specific to the response operation. That the county wanted to be able to put forward for consumption by the general public. And that information was not able to be shared in a timely fashion because of the role of various organizations within the Joint Information Center. What this does and what we've built into the plan is a county public information officer, so the county will be represented in the joint information center by a representative of the county. Separately within an emergency operations center or other framework, the county will have a public information officer that is coordinating information with the joint information center as necessary.
But is still able to put out public safety, public health, beach closure messaging, things about services that the county may be offering outside of unified command. Make sure that those are out in a timely fashion, and make sure that's communicated through all of the county's information channels. Particularly now that Ready Santa Barbara County, Facebook, Twitter and other information channels are being followed and used by the general public.
Finally, and I think I had mentioned this earlier the assistant liaison officer also something that from our perspective is able to incorporate both local representation. Local subject matter expertise through universities and other stakeholders and non-governmental partners. Into overall response, both to help enhance the operation of unified commands. Ensure that the plans policies and procedures incident action plans are tailored to specific considerations for the county but also to allow those organizations to bring resources to bear that may be able to help support the overall response.
As I noted, Section 3 operations now goes through a phased approach. This isn't aligned if I'm remembering this 100% correctly. This is aligned with the National Contingency Plan specifically and the phases that are outlined in the National Contingency Plan for discovery notification preliminary assessment containment and then post incident operations and cost recovery.
A few specific things that I want to point out here include first, operations. We've started the operation section with a workflow that goes through the preliminary actions by the county and by the county as the operational area. So being able to go from spill identification through appointment of the local government on scene coordinator and walk, you know plan users through those steps. To understand one how they might fit in into how we see this evolving particularly prior to arrival of OSPR United States Coast Guard and And the responsible party on site, where critical things will be activating hazardous materials teams to support the response. Activating the incident management team, establishing the incident command post to support that forward response and then transitioning to the local government on scene coordinator as you transition into unified command.
Something that I think probably everyone who's been around the 2011 plan knows that was not clear at all. So really trying to go through the process to enhance that. Second, I think going through and talking about overall activation. And again from the county's perspective when we're talking about activation what we're talking about are the different things that Is able to do within that. So where you have all of the different organizations coming together in unified command, being able to appoint liaisons, make sure county public information officer is there and what's important here and again consistent throughout the plan is the discussion that the local government on scene coordinator may transition Other agencies as the incident transitions from phase one and two into phase three and four.
An important consideration for the board and something that we wanted to make sure the plan spoke to is where the incident command post may be located. And that specifically, the incident command post would not be co-located with the emergency operations center unless there were dire circumstances to force that. So being able to protect the county's resources, allow the counties who use the emergency operation center for daily operations. And also to address the potential for ongoing incidents, a fire or flood incident while there's a larger or different response to an oil spill. So protecting that for county use And finally, volunteers and volunteer issues are addressed in the plan. I think we've tried to go about this two ways. One through the area contingency planning process in the area committee there's been quite a bit of work done on volunteer engagement.
For the tri-county area, that has included your non governmental partners pretty heavily and non governmental partners across the region. So instead of speaking directly to any volunteer management processes in this, we've relied on the Area Contingency Plan's volunteer management processes and incorporated those by reference into this plan. So I think that's item one. Item two, something that we have kept in mind and the county will need to keep in mind moving forward is training that's associated with this type of response. There are limitations to how volunteers and non-trained personnel can be used without waivers by the state. And all of this again goes back to federal code and federal regulation.
Associated with haz whopper training and other different types of training that folks need to have to be in contact with various hazardous materials. It's one of the reasons why we've, why the natural fit for this shift to the county fire department makes sense because they have some of this kind of training and they have individuals with that. Most organizations don't have a cadre of folks sitting around with 40 hour haz whopper training.
So as the county considers training and exercises, and various things moving forward. One of the things that the county will need to consider is how resources will align with the priorities both in the plan and I think the priorities at the county associated with oil spill response. One of the other things and something we've tried to make clear in the plan Is that for those folks who may be serving as a incident commander or initial first responder transitioning into local government on scene coordinator. That immediate outreach and touch up to OSPR, to work with them to waive some of those requirements will be critical. To be able to use volunteers in a way that I think volunteers will think is meaningful but they can also be meaningful to help support response and recovery activities particularly with beach cleanup and the like.
With that, I will conclude my presentation and open up to any questions you may have. I know I've only covered a portion of the plan at this point so I anticipate there may be. I
4:37 – 4:4715 turns
had one question Ms. Freeman. So can you go to slide eight? It's about first responders. Is that...I just wanted to see if that was a new policy or I know there's been a lot of talk about What happened in the last oil spill and whether or not people felt as first responders of what they were allowed to do, or what they thought that they could do.
I think this, so it's an excellent question. I think it wasn't clear what first responders could do and through the planning process particularly working with OSPR and with the United States Coast Guard and their support of us clarifying in the plan that yes you can do these things and yes they are well within your responsibility. They wanted to make sure that they were enumerated and codified. I don't think it was ever anything that needed to specifically be said, I think it was said in the National Contingency Plan and in the State Contingency Plan but there was nothing in the county's documentation associated with it that just said yes go for
it. Good well I'm glad that was included thank you very much. Supervisor Hart?
Yeah, to that point I guess. So the plan contemplates the county as being a first responder. Does the county have the capability to do that as effectively as it like? There is a question from the Environmental Defense Center about having an appendix in the document that would speak to what are the capabilities of the county and what are the missing gaps in equipment and things like that. What were your thoughts about that?
So in page 2526 section 3.1.2 activation, 3.2.1, 3 .1. 2, get those confused in my head. Activation contains what assets the county has and that the county can use to support response. So insofar that there are incidents that are likely to start on shore. That there may be incidents that are like the last incident, let's starts on shore and can very rapidly evolves to something that's offshore.
And then incidents that are offshore, I think there are things that the county can do associated with those. I think it is a decision and a discussion with the county and I'll pass it over here but from my perspective about what you want that capability to look like and then training towards that capability. I don't know that the county wants to have equipment for a large scale offshore response.
But the county may want to have equipment to support near shore activities and booming activities, things like that. And if so then that will require the investment of resources associated with it. Sir?
If I could just add, Chair and Supervisor, if I could just add to that. The difference between the last plan and this plan in this realm is that the local on scene incident commanders now have the ability to tap into resources that before they did not have the authority to do. By having it in the plan now with phone numbers, they can now tap those resources such as marine response resources.
Resources that are out of here in Santa Maria, additional firefighting resources that can now come to bear on the incident immediately if they haven't already been ordered by the responsible party or by the state or Coast Guard.
So I get your point that it there's a wide range of Incident that you'd have to respond to and at some point becomes a little theoretical There isn't the existing equipment to respond to the biggest largest most intense. There may be for a small incident And so that's the complexity of including that level of specificity in this plan is that what are you? What is the target that you're aiming for and trying to plan for future eventualities? Is that The
plan is designed for a major oil spill. And of course, like any incident, the incident commanders can scale down that response smaller if that's all it's needed or ramp it up and then continue even beyond the plan. The important point I think Now they have the ability to activate resources that will be paid for by either a fund, that's federal fund or by the responsible party. And before during Refugio those resources had to be requested by the responsible party or by the federal state resources. Now our local incident commanders can make the call.
Yeah, I think this is another issue supervisor where they have the 2011 plan and the associated operation didn't specifically say you can or cannot do. So there were assumptions associated with can or cannot. This has really revised that posture to make a very positive posture to lean in. So where the county may not necessarily have A direct contract with an oil spill response organization who can do those large offshore operations. The contacts are built in and the fire department is given the authority to push, and ideally pre-deploy to the greatest extent possible whenever the incident is identified.
Yeah.
Chief Harwick would you like to weigh in? Yes, thank you Mr. Chair and members of the board. Ms. Misato we often similar to what the OEM director Lewin suggested some of the best capability we bring to any incident is the organization of that incident on the outset and so Us being able to take command and then starting to create an organization, and order resources, and activate a plan is essential. And to treat this any differently as we would any other hazardous materials incident on land or offshore wouldn't really make much sense to us. And yet I do understand shortly after arriving and speaking with Mr. Lewin who really, I believe did a terrific job of really coordinating the effort to bring this plan together.
As Ms. Katie just pointed out, now it's an expectation to take command and act and organize resources. And then transition that into the unified command with state and federal resources as well as non-governmental resources. That was missing before, and so if this plan does nothing else It creates the expectation, as was just stated. We are leaning forward. We aren't going to ask for permission to initiate the incident command system take action and start ordering resources. And so if for nothing else and it's a very inclusive plan to include everything that was found in the after action report we are now there is an expectation, there is an understanding that first responder, the county fire district specifically and other first responders Acting as the operational area coordinator in communication and in action with the state and federal partner agencies.
We're well positioned to do that. I do have my fire marshal and division chief Ferris there, as well, that might be able to add some comments.
Well, I guess just to summarize my understanding of that is this plan makes it clear that the county has the ability to do those things that you described and that's huge and a big improvement. And then the question is are the capabilities there to do that depending on the scale of the incident? And it sounds as though the fire department is going to kind of do some additional work to look at that and say, what would that mean? And how would that planning exercise effort go forward to be better pre-positioned to have those abilities. Am I understanding this right?
Yes, I think that's a fair understanding. There are a lot of resources that are available already and activating those resources, activating the contingency or the containment process as well as starting to order resources and then Essentially creating order out of chaos and expanding or as was mentioned, shrinking the organization as soon as we can. We often say in the fire business that the effectiveness of any response is determined at the very first response.
The first responding unit and their ability to create an infrastructure essentially an organization that would expand to even a multi-day or multi county event.
Okay, thank you. Supervisor Hartman and then Supervisor Williams?
Thank you. I'm just following up on Supervisor Hart's question from the EDC, and that is once we arrive at the scene at the incident do we already have a list of the kinds of equipment or assets that would be needed so that we're not floundering around but we've got something ready to go to order right away? And then a second question again from EDC is Do we have response times? I gather that the Coastal Commission guidelines have particular response times. I know the fire department, our public safety personnel are very much in measure performance in terms of response times and whether we have that as a goal in our plan.
4:47 – 4:5410 turns
I can speak to both of these through the chair supervisor. So first, specifically regarding equipment, to the extent that there is known or pre-identified equipment for an oil spill response and or equipment that has been identified through the emergency operation center to support response operations at large, those are contained in the plan. The plan does not contain anything that specifically says, here's what a crew looks like for this type of oil spill event. So that is the next step that the county can undertake is to dig a little bit deeper into that to see what a kit, we call them mission ready packages. What a mission ready package for that might look like and do a little bit of a capabilities analysis associated with the training, the equipment and the resources just to support that.
Specific to response times, and I think probably both have comment on that. So the guidance document that we've incorporated by reference into the plan in 6.15 That is a guidance document specific to oil spill projects. So those provide the guidelines for operators for their response timelines. I think that those response timelines are excellent goals. Specifically because you're talking about certain types of equipment that I don't know if the county will have, they gets up to the county to decide whether or not those metrics will apply to the county's operations. So it's one of those things that we didn't specifically build it into the phase structure of the plan because the phase structure of the plan Is speaking more broadly on incident organization versus equipment deployment?
Chair and supervisor just want to add that on page 25 the list of resources that the county initial Incident commanders can orders listed and those resources actually have quite a bit of depth to them as As you probably already know Pacific Petroleum up here in Santa Maria has a large amount of resources And now those can all be tapped into The resources on page 26 at the top, which is from the Marine Spill Response Corporation. This is out of Carpinteria and they have a fleet of boats and marine resource response. Now your question about whether there's a time response requirement on that I do believe there is.
Coast Guard has a in their plan has a response time requirement that they be unseen it at a particular amount of time I don't know what that exactly is But obviously the sooner they're not there requested the sooner that we have Their response and so now that response can come as soon as the either the RP or the incident commander Or the Coast Guard roster makes that call. So now we've got even more depth than to be able to do that promptly and then I forgot you had one other question, I think I'll leave it there.
Supervisor Williams? Chief Hartwick, go ahead. And then we'll go to Supervisor
Williams. If I could just add one thing to our response capabilities. So all of our personnel are trained to first response operational for hazardous materials and quite frankly are prepared and do occasionally start diking on hazardous materials spills to keep things out of storm drains and waterways immediately on response. It might be a traffic collision, it might be fuel.
In some cases it could be a ruptured pipeline so it's immediate action by our first responders and then ordering multiple resources as Mr. Lewin mentioned. That are available to us, but starting that quickly because we know there will be a lag time if you will or reflex time in ordering those resources. But we will not sit there and twiddle our thumbs. We'll start diking and using in many cases whatever we have available to us to keep it out of storm drains and waterways
And I think it also matters what kind of resources and one of the real shocking sort of things to the public last time or last major incident at the Refugio oil spill was The fact that the responsible parties, cleanup crew, the one that they retained by contract as part of these plans showed up right after this spill. And then night fell and they had to go home because they didn't have night fighting capability.
That meant that a significant amount of time was lost. And so it is something that I hope that we would stick a 24-7 into this plan so that it is obvious that we are asking the Coast Guard and the responsible party to have 24-seven response. And that we believe that we should have that as well, With our staff, and if they have suggestions for where I'd be interested. But I have a page in case they don't but they know it better than I do so I think-
The chair to the supervisor we're looking at page 27 right now. I don't know if that matches with yours.
Yeah close one page over from where I was looking okay thanks.
Supervisor Adams. Yeah, I just want to correct the record there. The delay was caused by the EPA and others that said you can't go and do anything until we get there. Is that right guys? The heads are going up and down.
Chair and Supervisor, I couldn't reflect on whether that...I'm sure you're accurate on your statement. I guess where I'll go is that this plan now allows our local incident commanders to make the call and deploy. It's in the plan. This plan is going to be sent to OSPR with your approval so it will be codified and therefore if that issue was an issue, it should no longer be an issue. If that
helps? That's great!
4:54 – 4:5911 turns
Unless they were perjuring themselves, which so at the hearing that I conducted as chair of the Natural Resources Committee for the Assembly. They said that we left because we don't have a vessel for night time capability and we aren't contracted for that. Which isn't their fault, it's the responsible party's fault. But you know-
True but there was a whole bunch of oil that went through that pipe and got out in the water because nobody did anything like diking. This was the stupid part of this
thing is- I'm talking about once it was in the water.
Well I realize that but had somebody done something early on in the day The problem that thing got out of hand was and spread nine miles long, was largely because they were prevented from doing anything when it did get the water.
All I know is they said that they were responding, they were cleaning up and then night fell and they had to go. And hearing cite any issues with the EPA, A boat capable of fighting this at night and that they weren't contracted for it.
All right, so
the good news is we're moving forward and now we've made it very clear what everybody's roles and responsibilities are correct? Okay So Are there any other questions? Is there any public comment?
Chair Leveny no members of the board. We have two requests to speak on this item And we are going to begin in Santa Barbara with Linda Kropp, be followed by Molly Troop.
Good afternoon. Thank you. I'm Linda Kropp, Chief Counsel of the Environmental Defense Center. Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the draft oil spill contingency plan. The EDC along with other community groups and stakeholders were involved with the response and follow up to the spill. We participated in a state hot wash as well as a multi-agency subcommittee process established by the US Coast Guard that developed recommendations for improved oil response to be incorporated in the local, state, and federal oil spill contingency plans.
So we applaud your staff and consultant for drafting a plan that is a vast improvement over the 2011 plan. And it did incorporate a lot of the recommendations from the subcommittee process including improving the timing of oil spill response by identifying the county as an incident commander and first responder, enhancing public communication and outreach through the assistant liaison office and other methods of public communication both in English and in Spanish.
Requiring immediate fingerprint sampling, providing for input from experts, academic researchers and citizen scientists. And incorporating the non-wildlife volunteer plan. In addition to these and other items that we referenced in our April 4th letter, we do recommend five additional modifications. First and foremost the issue that you've just been discussing. We do believe it's important to include a description of the personnel training equipment vehicles and vessels needed to make the county an effective first responder and a plan to satisfy these needs. And I would point you to section 4.4 On page 40 which lists the county's current assets, which are basically backhoes and front end loaders for limited beach cleanup. A trailer that is Two trailers that are available, but they are not staffed with response equipment.
They do contain containment booms that require trained personnel and boats to deploy, but the county does not have personnel or boats so requests must be made to the necessary resources. So we still feel like this is something that needs to be worked on and incorporated. It can be in an appendix of the plan, but it really needs to be done so we don't have the same situation. Both Supervisors Williams and Adam are correct. There was an immediate delay because the Unified Command and the Incident Commander were not established immediately, and then there was the additional problem with the nighttime operations. So there was two problems with the delay there.
Second, we urge the county to replace the county's oil spill response planner position which has been vacant since January 2018. This is a necessary position to do not just planning but coordination reviewing facility response plans overseeing the exercises and drills. Now that the county is going to be a first responder, it's even more important to have this position to oversee the development of that response. And we have three other recommendations in our letter. Thank you.
Thank you.
And we are going to stay in Santa Barbara with Molly Troop who's our final speaker.
4:59 – 5:069 turns
Good afternoon, Chair and Supervisors. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the update of the Santa Barbara County Operational Area Oil Spill Contingency Plan today. My name is Molly Troop and I am speaking on behalf of the Santa Barbara Channel Keeper, a local non-profit organization which is dedicated to protecting and restoring the Santa Barbara Channel through science based advocacy education field work and enforcement.
Following the May 2015 oil spill, Channel Keeper has been working with spill response agencies and local governments like the county to improve oil spill prevention and response. And we are encouraged to see the improvements that are incorporated in this update of the county's oil spill contingency plan. It includes many of the recommended actions that were identified in the after action report and a subcommittee process which we were able to participate in. We believe this plan does a good job of improving the county's response to future incidents.
We do also support the five additional requests made by Environmental Center of Defense. Based on these beneficial and important updates included in the updated plan, we'd like to express our support for this item in addition to the additional request by EDC. Thank you. And that was our final speaker.
Okay very good I'll bring it back to the board for a motion. Supervisor Hartman?
I did want to just follow up with the two items that we didn't get to yet. The fisherman's oil spill response team and training, and then staffing for the coordination. And I realize that may be a more difficult issue but whatever anybody can tell me about
Yeah, to the supervisor through chair specific to the Fisherman's Oilment Response Team. This is one of the fun issues so structurally and we've had conversations with EDC about this. The area contingency planning venue I think is the best place for this to be taken up. FORT is a structure that the Oil Spill Response Organization, MSRC which was Clean Seas had created some years ago. That pulled together volunteer fishermen to go through training and to receive some additional training and equipment to be able to support immediate response. Some of those initial containment activities particularly because they have vessels that can get into more shallow waters.
Over the years, whether or not they have been continuing that training. Whether they're continuing outreach and how they're maintaining those programs I think the county specifically has gotten a little bit of distance from. And as we have attempted to engage folks from MSRC in conversations during this planning process. I think it's been a learning process for them because they are a relatively new organization supporting those response activities in the region.
Because MSRC and the Fisherman's Oil Response Team structure support the whole area, I think it's a great opportunity for the Area Contingency Planning team to come together. To engage with those stakeholders and to have real conversations about what MSRC's intentions are for sustaining that program, for providing training, and then how those resources can be activated.
It's just a nice way for Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and potentially going down the coast to all get together and say hey guys this is what we need to be able to support that initial response. So we've had conversations with Ms. Croft about this and I personally recommend that that be further addressed in the area contingency planning process.
Chair and Supervisors, just to add that even this month on April 24th we have an area meeting at our Emergency Operations Center with Coast Guard and OSPR. And we're glad to bring up the subject that we like because it really falls under their purview. Coast Guard is responsible for the marine response. They're responsible for what requirements organizations like MSRC and Fort have And that we make them aware that we're concerned about that. And I think Environmental Defense Council is also concerned about that, and I think they will be at that meeting. I assume they usually are as well.
The one thing I will add to that is, the folks from the Coast Guard that have been working with the county and with your stakeholders since the 2015 event have been extremely supportive. And collaborative working with the county to address issues like non-wildlife volunteers and some of the issues with initial response. So I feel very confident that that will be a good venue to address those concerns.
I think the other question is staffing and issues related to staffing. From my perspective, and what I will say is again, I think this is the conversation with the county about where the county would like to invest resources. Even those of us were casually chatting over lunch today about whether or not that position would be better served to be in the Office of Emergency Management, or a planner that's dedicated and detailed to the fire department.
And how that resource can potentially be shared back and forth particularly because you're talking about an office of emergency management skill set within the first response organization of the fire department. But ultimately, it's an investment justification or an investment decision that the county would need to make to be able to fulfill.
Ms. Sato?
I'm going to ask Mr. Pontes just to come up because we did transfer duties and I just want him to verify that for me. So we did have that position and I believe we transferred those duties to the fire department, is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct. CEO Miyasato. We transferred the positions over to the fire department and the responsibilities spent a little time with both organizations training understanding the responsibilities back and forth and now fire has the ball on that one.
5:06 – 5:1021 turns
Supervisor Williams? The obvious question
is it filled at the fire department? And Rob's shaking his head no. What's that?
So the duties have been assigned to our inspection services captain. So he already supervises our code enforcement folks, our inspection folks that inspect the oil facilities. So he's taking on those duties, those planning duties and coordinating some of That the different facilities are required to yearly engage in. So at this time, the program is being analyzed to determine what the workload will be on this individual and what the department will need moving forward to ensure that we're meeting the county's needs in that regard so.
Okay, and then just one more question. This language of response times is that something that you guys agree with? In the EDC letter it's according to the Coastal Commission guidance boom and Containment operations should be deployed within 15 to 60 minutes of spill discovery. Skimming operations should commence within two hours, and secondary response should begin with within two to six hours of the spills that is that response times that you guys agree
with? Chair and supervisors I think we need a punt to Coast Guard on this one as far as response times in the marine world. I think our duty is within the jurisdiction that we have, which of course is going to be the response on land. And the ability for us to be able to deploy resources now is where we've gone but I don't believe we can mandate response times and resources that the Coast Guard has under their jurisdiction.
County Fire would agree with that too.
Supervisor
Hartman? If there's more speaking, I won't make a motion yet.
Well, I was going to make the motion. But before I do, I just wanted to compliment you both and I've seen Director Lewin in action in drought emergency water task force and now in this. And the outreach to the community and engaging people has been phenomenal. And I've heard lots of positive things about it so just wanted to thank you. And make the motion.
What's your motion?
Staff recommendation A through
C. Can you amend that to include the amendment of the 24-7 response on page 27? They're just suggesting that if we Amend it to include 24-7 response that we would do so on page 27. I
will do that
Then I'll second and just ask as a that It would be great if fire brought us in time for the budget whether Whether your existing positions are sufficient for the workload
You mean by next week?
No, I mean- The real budget. By the
time we
approve the budget. Okay.
All right. Get that done by Monday. Yeah, that. All right so we have a motion and a second all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none passes unanimously.
All
right it moves us to thank you very much for being here awesome job again. And we are moving to departmental item number six.
5:10 – 5:155 turns
Chair Lavenino, members of the board, departmental item number six is from planning and development. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding hoop structures ordinance amendment case number 17 ORD 5. All
right let's get a second to set up here. Whenever you're ready, Ms. Harris?
Good afternoon Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'll be providing a very brief presentation today summarizing your boards last hearing regarding the proposed hoop structures ordinance amendment. So on March 12th, after conducting a hearing on the ordinance amendment and receiving public testimony. Your board approved a conceptual motion to approve the amendment to exempt hoop structures that are 20 feet or less in height that do not have permanent structural elements, lighting, electrical plumbing, nothing essentially except the hoop itself.
That are located on historically intensively cultivated agricultural lands, defined only for the purpose of this requirement as cultivation of a crop for at least one year out of the previous three years. And are located on slopes averaging 30% or less. These exemptions apply to any size structure that's 20 feet or less in height however, The exemption is limited to structures that are 4,000 square feet in size or smaller when they are located within the Santa Ynez Valley Design Control Overlay or within the Gaviota Coast Plans Critical Viewshed Corridor overlay.
Thus overall if crop protection structures do not meet these criteria a permit would be required. Basically, the Board of Supervisors adopted the Planning Commission's recommendation which rejected several mitigation measures, revised others and incorporated changes to the project description. However, the board's action directed three key changes to the commission's recommendation.
First, the Board of Supervisors changed the commission slopes criterion for the exemption from an average of 20% slope to an average 30% slope. Second, the board revised the rural area structural stream setback to 100 feet instead of 50 feet. Restoring the mitigation measure MM Bio 3 to its original EIR language requirement. And last, the board revised the permit type for crop protection structures that are 20 feet or less in height that do not qualify for the exemption. As a result those structures less than 20,000 square feet in size would require a zoning clearance instead of a land use permit and those larger structures, those that are 20,00 square feet or more in size would require a land use permit instead of a development plan.
The board's changes to the amendment would not cause a new significant impact to the environment or cause a substantial increase in the severity of impacts that were already identified in the EIR. And therefore, recirculation of the EIR is not required. The reasons for these conclusions are discussed in the revision document that's dated April 9th 2019. Following the board's direction, staff has revised the following documents to support the board's conceptual motion from last time. And those documents are the findings for approval, the EIR revision document, the ordinance amendment and the policy consistency analysis.
To conclude as noted on page one of your board letter, to take final action and approve the hoop structures ordinance amendment based on the approved conceptual motion of March 12th. The board would make findings for approval including the CEQA findings and a statement of overriding consideration which is included as attachment 1 to today's board letter. Certify the final EIR included as attachment 2, as modified by the revision document dated April 9th 2019 and included as attachment 3 to today's board letter.
And adopt an ordinance amending the LUDC included as attachment 4 to today's board letter. And this concludes staffs presentation and we're available for questions thank you.
Supervisor Williams
Just there was a request after the last hearing for us to give some mapping guidance to what constitutes an unaltered creek, because the definition I believe is that man-made or human made alterations would mean that it doesn't apply. Not altered that the setback would apply. Do we have the capability to make a map of that so that it's very clear to private property owners?
5:15 – 5:2317 turns
Supervisor Williams through the chair we provided an exhibit that we sent to your members of the board and And in a memo from our director, and we can bring that up and look at it. But what that is is it's It depicts the The blue line creeks that are from the USGS seven-and-a-half minute topo maps which are Which is the definition that we use in the L U D C to define a natural creek channel.
And that's a starting point and we can bring that up and look at that if you would like to take a look at that. But it's not our map, it's not our data, it's what we rely on those topo maps to show us what they are. If you just look at those lines, that's not always going to tell the whole story. You actually have to look at what's on the ground because some of those lines may have been mapped over swales that have long been farmed. Others may actually be drainage ditches between Highway 166 and the farm field.
So from a perspective of a property owner if it's not a blue line If it is a blue line Creek then on this map then. Then you're good but if it is a blue line Creek, you may or may not be depending on what the information Yes, I mean that's I think that's better than nothing right
supervisor Adam. Well, I just want to let everybody in and Supervisor Williams on the fact that there is no criteria for a blue line. It's just a blue line on a map and I happened to hire the guy who was at USGS when they started doing that stuff too. When I had litigation on the alleged wetland out here in Orkut, and he told me himself that they just put those on the map to depict the low spots so that people who are topographically challenged can tell where the bottom is And be able to follow those and where they meet, and it'll be an indicator on a map. But it does not indicate any kind of cubic feet per second or habitat quality or whether or not it's man-made like those ditches you're talking about that occur between farm fields and actual water courses which there are miles and miles and miles of.
Just a different subject, but since our last hearing thinking about it some more I'm changing my view about the regulation of the 20% slope versus the 30% slope. The Planning Commission recommendation was to have a limitation above the 20% slope in our discussions we were interested moving it up to 30%. I think I have recalibrated my view of that and would like to go back to 20%, and I'm curious what others think about that?
Well, I'd rather go back to the streams. Just for a second but thanks for throwing that one out there. So originally I thought that when we were in our last meeting we were talking about, I think the planning commission was at 50 foot setback from a stream and we moved to 100 because for some reason I thought somebody had said if we were at 50 we would have to recirculate.
But if that's not the case, what was the impetus to go from 50 feet that the Planning Commission approved to 100 feet? If we don't know where the stream is to start
with. That's what
was in the EIR, right?
That's why. I mean-
Okay, no you would not need to recirculate, I don't believe. I think it actually says, well, we can talk about, I don't know if you've read the growership letter, Whether or not you'd need to recirculate from 50 to 100. It doesn't sound like there's support to go from 50, I mean from 100 to 50 but if there was would that require recirculation? But while you think about that Supervisor Adam, I don't know if you wanted to talk about, you had your light on as well.
I'll tell you where that came from was my planning commissioner who actually farms with hoops and brought to everybody's attention that a field is not a continuous or So that's where the average came from, and that's where if there are places in a field that go over 20%, then that's why they came in with the average of 20 or average of 30. And an average of 30 is significantly steeper than an average at 20.
But you can have places in a field that are quite steep but the rest of it's not so it's all how you calculate it.
Okay, how many requests to speak do we have?
Chair Lavenino, members of the board. We have nine requests to
speak. Do you want to comment at all about the stream or are we going to wait and think about it, talk about it later?
Mr. Chair, yes. So I can comment about the stream setback and it is a question of whether, I think the question was whether the EIR would need to be recirculated if the mitigation measure was changed from the 100 foot setback to a 50 foot setback? And the short answer to the question is yes, because we don't have substantial evidence on the record to make a clear conclusion about whether there would be an increase in impacts or severity of impacts. And that would require additional study of the EIR and an opportunity for public comment on that change to that mitigation measure. And that was the reason why, I believe that was what was discussed at the hearing last time in wire board. If you were about
to say that's why I made my motion, that would be correct.
But I believe the final EIR revision, at least quoted in the letter from the grower shippers quotes the EIR revision document dated March 12th Reducing the setback from 150 feet within the rural area would not substantially increase the severity of impacts identified in the final EIR or result in any new significant environmental impacts. Therefore, impacts to biological resources would remain significant but mitigable class two as originally concluded in the final EIR. So that's actually unless it's misquoted so anyway I think we have That was March 12th, yeah.
Supervisor Lavinino? That was based on instruction from the planning commission and that's not part of the current EIR revision letter that's before your board.
5:23 – 5:3212 turns
So this is kind of like when we have findings at the planning commission to approve a project, and then we tell them to go find findings to reject the project. And we end up with two different Okay, I always find that to be very interesting. Supervisor
Adam? Well, I'm just editorializing here a little bit. How is it that we get these findings? It seems like we predetermined what the study was going to be before we got somebody to study the issue rather than study the findings. It's like we give them the findings and tell them to backfill the information instead of You know, issue the ask for the study and then take what the findings lead them to.
And I just you know this and I'm just going to say this whole thing started out as a request for a categorical exemption for everything under 20 feet and then it went off Went somewhere completely That I never saw coming and I'm
just disappointed is all get out in Okay, let's go to public comment. We have nine speakers will grant each speaker three minutes
Members of the board we're going to begin with Andy Caldwell to be followed by John Dorwin
Chairman Lavinino, members of the board. I'm Andy Caldwell representing CoLab. Supervisor Hart, we would beg you to not go down to 20. 20 is not what people think it is. There's a difference, I can't explain it between gradient and slope. With regard to the slope and the setbacks, people are going to lose hundreds of acres And we have to understand, we've been using berry hoops in the North County for over ten years and it's never been a problem.
It's not been a problem, that's why the board originally was going to exempt them. We don't need to be cutting back on ag production. Last week, to my surprise, CoLab was listed as the strawberry industry. Supporter of the Year. You want to talk about minority owned businesses? It's like 80-90% of the strawberry growers are Hispanic, most these guys started out as field workers and they're not creating a problem We didn't come up with the hoops EIR because there's a problem with hoops.
Now marijuana may have posed some, but that again should be dealt with through the marijuana ordinance. We don't have a problem with hoops in the Santa Maria and Lompoc Valleys. So why not go with the least restrictive since the original goal was to exempt them? With regard to the setbacks from the creeks, the bottom line here is that we're shooting blind. It's shoot aim kind of thing like that.
We'd like you to go with a 50 foot until we know there's a need to go with 100 foot. Just like go with the 30% unless you can determine there's a need to go The strawberry hoops are a tool, they're not a structure. And as Lisa Bedrogi said what's the difference between strawberry on the dirt in the form of the bed or strawberry in the air? It's still plastic and we're not regulating the plastic on the dirt.
And you know what? We don't have problems with view sheds up here. People respect the right to farm. And again, if you want to single out marijuana I'm not trying to throw them under the bus but they got their own ordinance. And let's not complicate things please for once make this the least restrictive that you can in accordance with your original intention of exemption. Thank you.
Our next speaker is John Dorwin to be followed by Renee O'Neill
John Dorwan, I disagree with Mr. Caldwell so long as the Tepeskay EDRN is part of the Santa Maria Valley in this consolidated document which deals with agricultural cannabis and the same ordinance You have a problem. I'd like to ask you, how many of you... This is going to be the administration... Mr.
Jordan, I'm sorry
can you continue? How many of you have read the entire EIR together with the revision number one which is dated today? Show of hands please Thank you, let's move on. We have a problem in the Tepeskaya. I sent a letter to your planning director documenting 24 satellite images showing the bad actors in the Tepeskaya requesting enforcement of your oak tree ordinance, your grading ordinance and Fish and Game Code section 1600 which says thou shalt not excavate develop or disrupt A stream in the state of California because you're contributing to erosion.
That is Fish and Wildlife's primary responsibility, but this body has also jurisdiction to enforce no in-stream development under the grading ordinance yet if we look at the aerial photos In the headwaters of the Tepeskay in the vicinity of the intersection with Blazing Saddle Drive, we have hoop houses. Dozens of hoop houses in the headwaters, in the creek and with no setback.
And that is an environmental impact which is directly attributable to the county's efforts to exempt hoop houses. What I want is, I want this board to do the right thing and to mitigate the impact that your hoop house ordinance and your lack of enforcement of your grading and your oak tree ordinance has had upon the Tepeskay EDRN. I want you to carve it out.
I want you to do a mitigation and say, Tepeskay EDRN is not part of the Hoophouse Ordinance. It's not part of the Santa Maria Valley and it has nothing to do with agriculture because it's all cannabis. And let's separate the apples from the oranges that Mr. Caldwell was talking about. And let's say if people are going to break They don't get the benefit of any county ordinance. They don't have clean hands, they don't have standing and to me it's impossible to talk about setbacks in terms of an existing riparian corridor. I don't know how many of you been up in the Tepeskaya. I've been up there doing land use work and hunting up there for the past 30 years And what we're talking about are a bunch of people who've moved in, in the last year according to satellite imagery before and after.
And who built hoop houses all over sensitive riparian habitat. This is just disaster unless you carve out the Tepeskaya EDRN, you will be hit with a challenge and it's going to be a twofer.
Your time's way over.
One is going to be a 1094 writ and the other's going to be a 1085 writ. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Renee O'Neill, to be followed by Peggy Brierton
5:32 – 5:3912 turns
Good morning, afternoon supervisors here this morning but I will wait for the slideshow to pop up. I thought I'd get the formalities out of the way. Before and after images that you're seeing here are a perfect example of what Attorney John Dorwan was talking about. The destructive, non-compliant cannabis industry growers that have been developing and destroying Tepeskay community unimpeded since 2014. Supervisor Lavinino this morning you mentioned some of this isn't up to date.
There may be permits in process on some
of these. No, that's not what I meant. Freeze her time for a second. What I'm saying is as you say CUPs pending, what I'm trying to tell you is that these are cases that are going to be coming to us in the future if there's conditional use permits and they're going to the planning commission. I would assume they'll be appealed to the Board of Supervisors and we're going The pictures that you're providing to us right now, so all I was saying is we all need to be aware that we've been presented evidence. So when this comes to us as a hearing, we let folks know that you already brought this to us. That's all I was saying.
Thank you Supervisor Labanino for clarifying that The growers that now are in permit process or pending, to me it's kind of a joke because the only reason they came to the county to get a permit in the first place was because they had no choice if they wanted to continue operations. And these violations have been going on since 2014. Nothing has been done, even though I've brought it to this board's and county's attention on numerous occasions.
I'd like to speak to what Attorney John Dorwan was saying how he didn't C, Tepeskay noted anywhere in the EIRs and I'd appreciate you carefully looking at that. And if that's the case instead of redoing the whole entire EIR to include whatever they call it in Tepeskay then I would appreciate it if you would say okay, Tepeskay is exempt if that's possible. For years we've asked our county authorities Inspect these guys, there's been three inspections 2016 2018 and just last week. All three times the growers have been notified given prior notice All three times the growers have removed violations on their properties. I have the photos of it going through my driveway.
They claim there's no lights up there, they claim a long list of stuff and then shortly after the inspection teams leave all the illegal activity happens again. Supervisor Lavinino you've been to the top, The hoop house is up there, it's lit up like a Christmas tree in Tepeskaya and we're talking blazing saddle area that John was referring to. So I don't know what the game is here or the game plan.
Why are these guys getting allowed to get away with stuff that no one else in that community would get away with if It was someone who wasn't growing cannabis. Thank
you.
Supervisor Adam?
Yeah, I just want to make a comment here that I'm not aware of any of those locations that we're seeing and maybe you're more familiar with this than I am but I don't know what I'm going to disclose based on the slideshow for ex parte because I mean you could show me a picture of dogs right there. Right. I wouldn't know them either.
Okay now I'm very familiar it's that The two she's showing you are the Watkins CUP and the Dayspring CUP. So they will be- Right, but they will be here and we'll get to decide whether or not they get approved based on something or disapproved. And if they're disapproved, they will not be allowed to have hoops up there so Well, you first just said nothing's been done. And then you went on to talk about inspections happened in 2016, 2017, 2018. So I'm sending people there, they're going there. We don't have the tools prior to a cannabis ordinance to get rid of these folks. Now they have to go through a CUP process because we carved out Tempest-Gate and an EDRN so we can deal with this stuff. Go ahead, thank you very much. Let's move on. Apparently
not.
Our next speaker is
Peggy Priorton to be followed by Susan Bellany.
Good evening Chair, afternoon Chair and Supervisors. Thank you for this opportunity. A fair and justified ordinances for both cannabis and hoops with long term view should be your top priority. You can't really separate the two. According to news articles and public opinion, it is cannabis not agriculture these recommended changes are supporting. Hoops came to the public's attention only after the county began allowing cultivation of cannabis with no caps.
It is clear driving the hoops, driving the height acreage and slopes of hoops is a cannabis industry, not food. Support for food production is not in question. It is estimated the cannabis ordinance won't be finalized for about 18 months. You have shown concern for the cannabis industry as they are working for an ordinance that is incomplete, putting money time and energy into something they are not certain about. The only true way to deal with odor cannabis brings is to prohibit them from hoop structures by prohibiting cannabis in the hoops ordinance you will be giving clarity to the cannabis industry sooner rather than later And a troubling new development threatens our organic farmers.
It's an uncertainty as to whether they can continue using certain approved products due to cannabis grown in close proximity to their properties and possible lawsuits. This ordinance needs to protect and support agriculture or food source. I ask three things for you to consider. Prohibit cannabis plants in hoop structures, number two set a height limit of 20 feet max more than sufficient to grow food and then lastly number three set a slope max at twenty percent as recommended by the Planning Commission and thank you for this opportunity.
Our next speaker is Susan Bellany to be followed by Chip Wolbrant
5:39 – 5:468 turns
Chair and commissioners, I'm Susan Bellini from Solvang. I'm here once again to stand up for the Santa Ynez community plan and the design overlay and to talk about local control tourism in the future of growing food in hoop houses lost Adams there. I want to thank the board for including the design overlay compromise that's before you today Many people like local control. That is what our community plan and overlay are, thank you for recognizing that. The valley decided through a years long process what we wanted and now it is county policy. If you buy land in the overlay, you need to know what it is. It exists to protect visual and other resources which the residents and businesses want. It would not be progress for our area if the pumpkin patch, the miniature horse farm, the farm across from Sunnyfields Park or any other parcel on Alamo Pentado, for example was covered in hoops.
With about two-thirds of the Ag One zoning in the county, the valley was not apparently laid out for large scale commercial farming. Berry hoops have been in existence for decades apparently yet no one has until now demanded to have unlimited hoop houses in the overlay. You still hear people arguing that hoops are a farm tool but that is for tax purposes. For visual resource purposes, hoops are a structure that is bright reflecting white or black 20 feet high by any length. If folks in the valley wake up one day and see rows of hoops at their neighbors, it won't seem like a farm tool to them. I don't know of any other farm tool that can be seen from outer space which is also something I'm getting to in a minute.
I've heard comments that no one could make a living with only 4,000 square feet of hoops but the overlay zone has always allowed a 4,00k square feet greenhouse and the compromise effectively doubles that. Plus it seems if the hoops happen to be obscured by natural hill The hoops are unlimited where they are not visible along the scenic highways in the overlay. Valley tourist information usually describes the beauty of the rolling hills and rural character of the valley, decided to look up tourist numbers in the valley and emailed those links. The Chumash said they estimated 3.75 million visitors in 2017. The Vintners said they had 2 million visits to the county. Solving said it had 1.5 million 80% day visitors visit the city with little overlap with a casino.
We don't know what the overlaps are, but if you add up all the numbers it's 7.25 million tourists and an industry that creates a lot of valley jobs. On the Solving Visitor Bureau website it says statewide the international tourist industry alone brings in more money than agriculture. Lastly, the future of farming under plastic is already here in Asia near Elmeria Spain in an area that would stretch in our area to give you an idea of the size 40 miles from Los Olivos up to Napomo and from San Ines across to Jalama. They call it the sea of plastic. We hear about the environmental benefits of hoops, but keep in mind that the polyethylene from which they're made degrades in the sun and is constantly off-gassing more carbon into the atmosphere.
Think about 165 square miles of it and more worldwide. But these farms grow fruits and vegetables feed Europe and make the owners wealthy. It's also a cautionary tale when you read more about it. When I was up on Figaro Mountain last week, I could see the hoop shining in the distance. I really hope that this is not the beginning of our own inland sea of plastic.
Our next
speaker
is
Chip
Wohlbrandt to be followed by Claire Weinman.
Mister chair members of the board. I'm not going to get a repeat the zoning ordinance provisions that I've read to you the last several times, I hope you do remember them. I also kind of wish that I could have gone after Claire but I'm instead going to incorporate and just recognize her very wonderful letter and urge you to follow her recommendations and fix the stream issue here Prior to 2017, it was very clear that hoop structures of less than or 20 feet or less in height for agricultural purposes on agricultural lands did not require a permit. I say it was very clear because in fact your then Director of Planning and Development wrote a director's determination which said exactly that. So they were not illegal, they were in fact accepted as not requiring a permit.
Your problem is the really lousy EIR that you're still stuck with. It started off assuming that they were all illegal. That doesn't make any sense. You've got a problem with the at least the stream setback issue. I brought that up and at the Planning Commission hearing Diane Black promised to create what I'm going to call a safe harbor database They showed aerial photographs of the hoop structures which were in place in 2016 and essentially told the Planning Commission that none of those hoop structures would require a permit under this ordinance. They would all, in fact, fit within the exemptions.
Diane made that same representation at your last Board of Supervisors hearing and Supervisor Williams and I had a conversation with her afterwards. I hope you don't mind me bringing that up, but I was promised that in fact that database would be made available and farmers could use that to self ensure that they would not be subject to 2 setbacks and wouldn't need permits.
Today I asked about that again the database is not available, I asked staff staff essentially can't tell me where the stream setback will or won't be applied and it is in fact an existing potential problem that You could have a hoop structure that was there and entirely legal in 2016. Your neighbor could now decide they hate you, they could report you, you would get a notice of zoning violation and you would be required to prove that you in fact are one of those kinds of streams that even though it's a blue line on the USGS map it's really a ditch as opposed to one of those kinds of streams that's really important.
Supervisor Adam you went through a very long lawsuit about that Please don't do that to anyone else. And I would just note that if you are going to create that potential on someone else, you've got an EIR problem because the EIR did not analyze the potentially significant impacts on additional regulation of agriculture and that would be a mandatory finding of significance. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Claire Weinman to be followed by Sarah Rotman.
5:46 – 5:539 turns
Good afternoon, my name is Claire Weinman. I'm the president of the Grower Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. We appreciate the improvements that have been made and have a few issues remaining of concern. I will add that we do support a 30% slope criteria over a 20% slope criteria in the other two issues of concern we outlined in greater detail on our April 8th letter.
We raise these concerns because they will have significant impacts on how the ordinance will be implemented for years to come. The first item is a relatively easy fix, and it's regarding the use of the words historically intensively cultivated agricultural lands. These words create an arbitrary new definition and are not necessary for implementing the development standard.
Please delete the phrase historically intensively cultivated agricultural lands. Second item, a little bit more complicated but I think we can resolve it. It is regarding the setbacks from streams and creeks. We supported the Planning Commission's recommendations for 50 foot setback in rural areas. A 100 foot setback would impact agricultural lands currently under cultivation as shown in the November 5th AAC letter and we included excerpts from that letter in the letter that we just submitted.
Even with the interactive map, we're concerned with what qualifies for the definition. I wouldn't know what to be able to tell my members if they met the definition or not. It also shows in the interactive map how expansive this definition is. If you look at all of the blue areas are in the case of the AAC letter, all of the yellow areas, what constitutes a stream or creek?
The March 12th EIR revision is in the record, and it does not support the need for recirculation. It states that recirculation would not be required. We support AAC's illustration of the impacts and requested list of exemptions. We thank you for your attention to these two important matters and all of the work in implementing this ordinance. Thank you.
Our next-
Oh that's a just follow up for staff what you're the ramifications of your recommendations.
All right let's hear our last public comment and then
we'll.
Our next speaker is Sarah Rotman and then we will go to Santa Barbara for Mark Shintello.
Hi guys. How's everybody doing today? I'll make this quick because we've been here many, many, many, many, many times before and I wanted to say thank you all for such an enormous amount of work. I'd like to just talk about over the course of the past two years with the Board of Supervisors, the general public and our local farmers, And often contentious debate regarding these hoop structures. And during this time, we learned that our community understands as we do that if farming becomes impossible for us living in the county and even in the design overlay, that you'll see farms fail. You'll see them come out of the Williamson Act and convert to housing developments, ranchettes or worse yet strip malls. More than hyperbole, this is a genuine threat to our community.
As in the past few years, the state has passed numerous bills constraining local control over housing and is now starting to sue local governments that block housing developments. The reading today that we're talking about represents a substantial compromise for our farmers. And while I disagree with many of these requirements, including a costly and burdensome land use permit for hoops in the more than 8,000 acres of prime farmlands in the design overlay, I am grateful for the consensus it does represent. And I believe that any further delay in getting to the work of farming would be disastrous from my family farm and many like it.
So again, I thank you all for your considered approach during this process. And in order to preserve agriculture way of life, I would urge you to now let farmers farm and allow the hoops to become as you have stated today a vital part of that technology. I urge us all to listen to the farmers and the voting public and to approve and swiftly adopt the conceptual motion from the last hearing. And let us get out of these hearings and back to work, back to our farms and back to our families. And let us do it with the tools that we need to be successful. Thank you.
And now we will go to Santa Barbara for our final speaker, Mark Chantillo.
Good afternoon members of the board I'm Mark Chantillo here on behalf of CLAWS and the Gaviota Coast Conservancy. We've been involved in this process as you know for a number years throughout the entire process. Unfortunately at this point I have to report our conclusion that we still don't have it right And that there is a requirement under CEQA that the EIR be recirculated. Before I get into my comments, I have to respond to Mr. Wolbrant's assertions that there was somehow that hoops were legal prior to 2017 based on development director's determination. Of course, that determination was withdrawn and it was never really in effect.
Hoops have not been allowed, they've been regulated as greenhouses since the Land Use and Development Code was adopted and before. So why do we have to recirculate? When you look at the totality of the changes that have transpired with respect to the project description, with respect to the impact analysis, and with respect to the mitigation measures for this ordinance.
It's evident that their changes have been of such a significant magnitude that it's necessary to allow the public an opportunity to comment on a recirculated environmental document. Supervisor Adam, you pondered how this process is supposed to work. And the way it's supposed to work is that the CEQA document is supposed to guide decision making so that you decision makers are informed as to then environmental consequences of the options that are before you.
And here, this process has gotten completely wrapped around the axle. And as a consequence we've seen substantial changes in the project description most significantly last hearing the permit downshift which will have significant physical impacts on the environment as a result of the reduced scope of review. And the reduced standards that are involved. Specifically, neighborhood compatibility is not an issue for which there's a finding in a land use clearance.
Similarly, there's a requirement under our development plan to mitigate adverse impacts to the maximum extent feasible. Those impacts would not be mitigated under the lesser levels of review that were proposed by the board. There's been new mitigation measures that have been submitted and are part of your proposed action. There is evidence of the infeasibility of the majority of the mitigation measures, leaving a number of significant impacts unmitigated.
There's also a conflict between the EIR with regard to cannabis, where the EIR asserts that there would be no cannabis allowed in exempt hoops. But indeed the county's position is to the contrary. So we've not addressed that environmental issue either. And finally, there's been a failure of response to comments. There's been a number of comments that were submitted raising both impact issues and process issues that were just skirted over.
So in totality the CEQA process, the environmental review process has not been given its appropriate Thank you. Mr Williams.
5:54 – 5:594 turns
Well, before Mark leaves I just thought I would ask Mr. Adam and Mr. Jatillo since you represent the polar opposite side camp this issue if you could both verify for the purposes of the public since this issue was raised If this issue of regulating or not regulating, and how to regulate hoops predates the debate over marijuana. Because like this is bad misinformation out there. This is not to me about marijuana it's about berries but since if you guys agree I would think that we could agree that this is a fact.
Thank you Supervisor Adam, Supervisor Williams to the chair. When this issue arose cannabis had been approved by the electorate but there was no idea of the significance that when this is initiated in 2017 Director Russell's determination It was not about cannabis. It's still not about cannabis, as I think you've heard there are some portions of the community that are tolerant of the aesthetic impact associated with large numbers of hoops and there are other communities that value their scenic values and they are troubled by that and are objecting. So the addition of cannabis, I think really is another layer of issues.
Cannabis issue complicates the environmental review process because we were dealing with incomplete information back at the time that the environmental document was prepared. And now with the cannabis ordinance not being competent to ensure that the hoops exemption won't be used by cannabis operation, it creates that conflict that I just mentioned. You could eliminate that as has been suggested by just banning the use of hoops for cannabis production except under permit. That's not been the direction that your board has chosen to go.
They're inextricably linked. But I think the origins were separate.
Supervisor Adam? Well, my recollection is we started this issue in 2015 and there was no cannabis issue involved at that time. So that's the correct answer Mr. Sciatillo
Well though you guys disagree on the timeline, at least you both agree on it. That it was not about marijuana and it started before marijuana and to just maybe put a little bit of water on this charge of county conspiracy theory to facilitate marijuana. The thing that I think is, it is obviously frustrating for people in the, let me go to another question just to staff.
The suggestions of the Growers Shippers Association, to you what would be the ramifications of their recommendations? Would you and I guess the question would be for County Council to would you recommend a recirculation under those circumstances if we did that? Because, personally my agenda has been the least restrictive thing that doesn't require recirculation.
And so that's why I'm getting to this because with the exception of deferring to Supervisor Hartman on the design overlay, Basically don't think we should be making it harder for berry growers to grow in the county of Santa Barbara. I just have news for the public that berries grown in Santa Barbara County, workers get a minimum wage plus overtime. If we put them out of business, they don't get minimum wage plus an overtime if they're grown in Mexico. They don't benefit our economy if they're grown in Mexico. They don't benefit workers if they're grown in Mexico and that's a big deal to me. So I mean, I just need to get my head around the purely strategic question What is, in your view, what of the recommendations from growers shippers could we entertain with that recirculation?
Or would you under those recommendations recommend recirculation.
5:59 – 6:0824 turns
Supervisor Williams through the chair, so with regards to the grower shippers recommendations and requests. We believe that we could remove the language from the ordinance that this specific wording historically cultivated agricultural lands. Because the actual requirement is the cultivating one year out of the previous three years. And that would be consistent with the mitigation measure that was revised based on the substantial evidence of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
So we do not believe that we could reduce the creek setback with doing additional analysis and recirculating in order to reduce that setback.
put out there the definition. My understanding is that anything that is a culvertized or otherwise altered by humankind, is not a creek under that would that the setback would apply to and so that would probably be most of the blue lines out there would actually not be included in the definition of requiring a setback correct?
Supervisor Williams through the chair. The Land Use and Development Code defines a natural creek channel as a water course that has not been altered by human activity, appears as a solid or dashed blue line on a USGS 7 1⁄2 minute or 15-minute quadrangle map.
But
that's an
and meaning both of those need to apply for it to meet the definition.
There are actually two sentences with a period in between, so there's not an and or and or. So I think you have to look at both situations. The USGS blue lines provides a guide but you also have to look at what's on the ground and see has it?
But your interpretation would be that it would have to meet both of those definitions to apply. That's correct. That's where I mean that we're not talking about as many as what people may be thinking that we're talking about. And you know, I don't know about what the viability is in if we had some process where a landowner can Ask us if their waterway applies or something, because I think right now what we're dealing with is lack of clarity. And so I want you to think about that and chew on that. You don't have to respond to me a second because there's four others. But then the last thing is, I know it's frustrating to people in the public when people don't play by the rules. It's frustrating to us though when people don't play by But what I think sometimes people think is if somebody hasn't gotten a permit for their grading, hasn't got a permit for their oak removal.
That they haven't played by the, they haven't adhered to the rules thus far that magically they're gonna wanna have to get a permit for hoops. They're not, if you're a bad actor and you're not getting a permit for these other things, you're not trying to get a permit for your marijuana, you probably not gonna try to get permit for your hoops even if you're required to.
We, that is why we have tried to put our hopes and our money Into a more robust enforcement regime. And I feel that robust enforcement machine is something that this board is really united on. And if you were worried about people who aren't playing by the rules, I think that's a better place to put your hopes in than a hoop ordinance that has massive collateral damage on other industries.
Supervisor Adam?
First of all, most berry pickers do not get a minimum wage. Most of them are on a piece rate and in some cases especially when there's a lot of fruit around and you're trying to attract more labor, there's bonuses so they don't get a minimum hour.
Let's clarify that's better because a minimum wage would be the minimum
Right, right. No problem. I mean but it's a significantly better thing than Mexico is you're way more right than you thought. Second thing
is... Can we mark that tape?
Yeah put a red line on that one You said that, I didn't. We did not start on this as cannabis but it definitely got hijacked by the anti-cannabis people have hijacked this issue and yeah so you know and I think in so doing they have Caused a lot of problems for the bulk of this industry that uses these and, you know, the far and away percentage of hoops are berries.
And... The setbacks are just in normal farming parlance 100 feet is absolutely ridiculous 25 foot is a pretty generous road. We don't grow berries, but as the machinery gets bigger, the roads get wider. It used to be maybe a 15 or 20-foot road was generous and now it's a 25-foot road. Vineyards 3035 because the machinery is bigger. You know these things have smaller equipment, I still think that there's a lot of 25 foot roads out there with In fields with hoops, but you know a hundred feet is so unreasonable It's it's just it's patently ridiculous Especially if you have something that's cultivated. I mean if it's just cultivated just random crop pick a crop When you're out of three in in front of the hoop crop You didn't have 100 foot setback.
So you've cultivated it all the way out to the to the you know, reasonable edge. So now why are we telling somebody just back up 100 feet? You know this isn't a development in terms of like a building of an actual structure That's going to be there forever and or some kind of a land use where somebody is going to be doing something. Up next is to environmental value for the rest of eternity.
This is going to change
can I ask you just a quick question on that because by the definition that staff just said what would apply San Ynez River doesn't meet that definition. The Santa Maria River doesn't meet that definition.
Well, I'm glad you said that into the mic
because there's a dam in the way how does it meet?
Oh no way do that right? I mean let's get cuz when I got to listen my defense of myself You know,
I mean maybe I should say Sandinas River above the dam that you know can't meet that definition. Maybe you could say... Above which
dam? Kachuma?
Yeah
I mean oh man okay well hey listen I'm glad you said that into the mic because and and you know if you're willing to put that as a part of the motion I may even support it
Yeah, I guess here's...I'm really having trouble with this definition. I know the lower stem of the San Ynez probably meets that definition. Some of the tributaries of the San Ynez would meet that definition but I haven't seen very many waterways that would meet that definition even a lot of the tributaries of the San Ynez have culverts in them that we've been trying to Remove but by your definition last time you guys said hey if it's culvertized it doesn't meet the definition.
So can you guys
let's hear staff on that.
6:08 – 6:1812 turns
Supervisor Williams to the chair. I don't believe that this definition means everything that possibly could have altered by man because frankly the fact that we exist, we've probably altered everything. But when you have- What does it mean? We're talking about a concrete channel when you're talking about something that's been channelized and turned into a concrete channel to carry water away from a property that's being used. When you're talking about that kind of alteration where Its only purpose is really to drain water away from a site as opposed to, you know something like the San Ines River. Yes it has a dam and that has altered it but you have healthy riparian habitat upstream and downstream of the dam and all of that would be considered A creek or a river in this case, which is just larger than a creek.
So let
me ask you something that is probably more significant that I could understand. So you're saying that the Santa Ynez River and its tributaries would apply with the Santa Maria River? The Santa Maria River didn't exist in that place that we have the Santa Maria River until it was dug by humans. It was an alluvial plain, so does the San Ynez River apply? And there's an awful lot of berries abutting the Santa Maria River. I just want to know. When it's a channel dug by humans to make sure the river goes a certain place as the Santa Maria River was done That is there because people engineered it.
There are other regulations I know where you can't go into the Santa Ynez River, where there is a levy that protects the city of Santa Maria from flooding. I know you can't go in there and farm inside, I believe, inside that river bed or do other land uses inside that riverbed. Upstream where the Sisquoq River is that is still a river that would be protected And downstream I'd have to look at it again. That's why it's uh, It's something that has to be looked at specifically in that particular instance most creek channels and rivers that have not been altered have riparian habitat and vegetation and trees Or low-lying riparian vegetation that grows along the banks of those streams and creeks.
Well, now you can see why I'm having a heartburn of making a decision. I don't know the decision that you're recommending and that we make then. If we can't even put really clear examples and get a yes or no answer, that's really hard for me.
Mr. Gazzone? Chair and supervisors, cutting the other way from Supervisor Williams' last comment is doing this waterway by waterway is in some ways asking for a series of director determinations extemporaneously which I would recommend not doing.
How about the Pacific Ocean? No, okay. Mr. Clement were you going to speak?
Yes, Chair Lavagnino. I think what's critical here are the specific physical features of the corridor that you're talking about in whichever location along the corridor you're evaluating. So does it have a well-defined creek channel? Does it have riparian vegetation? Does it still have flows regularly? You have to look at all those characteristics to determine whether or not it has those ecological features to be functioning as a riparian corridor. It's kind of like one of those things when you see it, it's pretty obvious it is. When we see it and it isn't, it's pretty obvious that it isn' t. In some cases, you may have to get a biologist to take a look at it to opine on whether or not enough of those features exist such that it is functioning as a repairing corridor.
But I think in most situations it's pretty clear if you're to go out to the specific site that is under consideration Be pretty confident whether or not it is in or out of the definition, because it's clear when you've channelized a corridor like Miss Harris described where you're just trying to get water past your site or off your site. There's no more riparian vegetation. It's been clearly created by a human being. Pretty obvious that doesn't qualify as a creek or stream.
So
just once again, there's two possibilities under what we're recommending. A farmer could come in and ask for an official exemption determination from us whereby they present the evidence to us. We look at it and we say yes, we agree that is not a natural creek or stream before you can go ahead and setback doesn't apply. Alternatively, somebody could self-certify. They don't have to come into us. They can look at it. They can evaluate it. If they need to call in a biologist to help them out on that determination, they could do so. It's up to them but they always have the option of either self certifying or take an option of coming in and getting an official determination from us.
Yeah I guess that's an important point. Sorry, Mr. Adam I hijacked your line of questioning so I was trying to-
My head's exploding over here because I have been to this rodeo before and it doesn't work. And God people get just crucified financially with these kind of things. This idea that you could have a healthy riparian habitat be the standard is nuts. I mean, I am farming out at Rancho Sisquac where under multiple federal permits the gravel company has taken down the elevation probably in the neighborhood of 20, 25, 30 feet in the whole river.
And when you go out there, it is going to look for all the world like it is natural native stuff because every time they leave the site and the water runs. It resets it to natural looking and then stuff starts growing back there. I have another site which was the subject of a bunch of litigation, which is sort of semi-famous. And infamous yes and you Mr Clemens I'm sure would go out there and say well there's a bunch of healthy riparian habitat.
And I'm going to tell you I personally made that ditch. And i allowed the willow trees to grow in their and other stuff. I don't go out and kill everything. So you cannot make a statement like that, that cannot be the criteria because otherwise everybody's going to go kill everything in every ditch and I don' think that's really what we want. Right? So don't make that the criteria. That's the wrong message to send people and it just, what do you mean we can self-certify?
That's the most insane statement. You know, that's not possible because then when the NOV comes out I gotta call Mr. Wilbrand or one of his friends and get a representative. And this is exactly what the county told me last time, is you ask mother may I before you touch anything. And you guys lost that suit. I never collected the money but you lost the suit.
So that's not the way this works. It's just not the way this works. So I suggest we reject this whole thing, and I know it's a very inconvenient thing because I want certainty too. But this is such an epic mess. And today's hearing, I had some stuff written which has just become moot. And today's hearing is just a graphic example of how fouled this thing has become.
God bless you if you just go ahead with this, because this is a mess. This is not workable. Everybody will be in trouble at some point because their neighbor will complain and then you'll be in it. And then as long as nobody complains, it's fine but when Ms. O'Neill complains on her neighbor, then Mr. Clemens is going to have to make that determination and then it's on.
And then we're all suing each other and agriculture cannot stand that. I put up with it once, but this isn't something that agriculture can continually engage in. Maybe oil companies can, but ag can't do that. So please don't do that to us. Supervisor Hartman?
Thank you. I'm changing the topic for a minute, and this goes to a question that was in a letter from Anna Citrin. You have a cannabis operation that has an outdoor cultivation permit, and then they want to expand. Are they exempt? Do they fall under the hoop exemption if they expand?
6:18 – 6:3820 turns
Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Yeah, so if I'm following the setup you have an existing cannabis operation that has been permitted and then you're going to add hoop structures or what's the
setup? She says a careful look at the proposed hoop ordinance and cannabis ordinance And as confirmed by county staff, both orally and its emails reveals that hoops that meet the exemption criteria. And this is citing you Mr. Clemon personal communications could be added to already permitted outdoor cannabis operations without any additional permit process.
Sounds like she did not include a very important disclaimer that I also included in that email. So number one, so what we would look at in that sort of situation is first okay, so the cannabis operation would require the permanent exempt let's assume Came up with a exempt permit path for hoops and they want to add that to the cannabis operation. What we would be looking at first is if by adding the hoop structures, how would that compromise? If all the cannabis operations compliance with the cannabis regulations so that's the rule.
Important question, so if you were to add the hoop structures and it would not change the cannabis operations compliance with the cannabis regulations or the entitlement for that cannabis operation. It could be added without modifying the permit. However, if by adding the hoop structures, it would cause the cannabis operation to not comply with the cannabis operations. You would have to either modify the permit or Proposing to do in order so that you would not create that inconsistency with the requirements for the cannabis
operation. When we permit particularly outdoor cannabis Do we have an acreage amount that we're giving them a permit for?
Yes, excuse me through the chair Supervisor Hartman yes
Let's see I For me, I think cannabis has very much muddied the waters for the hoop ordinance. And I would be willing to go forward with for food and fiber and even the 50 foot setback for the streams if that could get us through it's not you know we could be sued on it We all know that, we've said it publicly that we don't think it complies with the current EIR and would require recirculation. But if we wanted to do that I would be open to making those changes as well as the cultivation one year, the change in language that you suggested but I'm having a really hard time with the cannabis.
We have land use, a whole train of hearings and permitting process ordinance. Then we have the business license and then we have the hoop house and then we've got the state which is changing. And it was always my understanding that at some point and not 18 months from now, we would have an opportunity to see how these work together. I feel like looking at them separately, we can't possibly foresee how they're going to interact. And that to me has been one of the big failings here and I don't know how we could have done it any differently.
Strange thing, but I don't feel that I could support this ordinance with cannabis included. But if it were for food and fiber, I'd be willing to do the least restrictive as Supervisor Williams said That complies with the EIR and even a bit more permissive
Okay, my turn. So that's actually kind of disturbing to me because it's supposed to be we're talking about impacts to a creek. Putting a hoop down and you're saying if it's for food, the impact can be greater. I don't understand that. It depends on what's inside the hoop whether we're going to impact the creek?
No, what I'm saying is I would like to look at the cannabis, the hoop ordinance for cannabis in a different context and understand this. I think when you put a hoop near a creek, you're changing how the rainfall comes and how it flows off. And we get to the erosion and other issues so it's problematic.
But
there may
be
overriding considerations
that
one would take for food and fiber as opposed to cannabis.
Okay, so when we say the cannabis thing was hijacked, the hoops was hijacked by cannabis. Not by the cannabis growers. It's by the anti-cannabis folks that are using hoops to try to slow down and stop cannabis. That's what happened. This thing started, Supervisor Adam has not supported cannabis the entire time. And he's the one, it's not a little bit but he's the one that started talking about hoops.
It wasn't Doss or me, or Greg, or Joan. It was Peter. Hoops was all about the fact and this is what is driving people in North County crazy, is that we've lived with hoops. This is how we've lived. This is how the farmers around here operate. They cannot understand why we have a pre-existing condition that's been accepted for a decade. It's the way we do business. Now all of a sudden there's all these impacts.
And so we go out and we do an EIR. Now the EIR is not good enough, now we should recirculate. We've had six meetings at the planning commission. This is our fourth meeting. We've had ten meetings on this, on hoops that are already pre-existing. So I understand people are opposed to the cannabis ordinance, deal with it in the cannabis ordinance. This is the hoop ordinance.
I think we made a lot of progress last time. And I'd hate for us to go backwards, because if you go back and if you recirculate that EIR now, you are now going back and we're going to go through this entire thing again. Remember, we're talking about pre-existing something that's already been there for over a decade. So, I don't understand how this county doesn't have an inventory of streams and creeks that we could easily...
We do flyovers. We do all kinds of stuff. How do we not have an inventory of unaltered streams and creeks where we can just throw it up there and go okay these 13 you can't be around the other ones are fine? That makes no sense to me. We've had tons of public scrutiny, tons of public comment, tons of public meetings. Everybody's been noticed, everybody showed up, everybody's talked about this to death.
At some point you gotta make a decision. I don't wanna throw the whole thing out. It's been way too long, too much staff time, too many meetings, everything. I get what you're saying Supervisor Adam but for I think we take the recommendations that we had last time. We move forward, I think the Grower Shipper Association had a very simple fix if for some reason understand farmers are sensitive they didn't want historically grown something or other and they'd rather have it just spelled out what that actually means. Sounds like staff's okay with that. I'd like to include that. And as it comes to the setback, I don't want to recirculate and staff is telling us the best we can do without recirculation is 100 feet.
What I'd like to see us do is move forward, but I think staff needs to work on or somehow come up with an inventory of what that is or what that looks like. Because for me, I'm not going to advise any farmer to come in and say can you look at my property and let me know? I would never do that to somebody because the next thing you know, guy's having to get permits for everything.
I think what we're going to do is end up with a habit, like you said. We're going to have people that are coming in and saying, we're going to get stuck with all these determinations that our director's going to have to make because people are going to complain. And then we're going to have to have a determination of whether the person needs to get a land use permit or that they're fine without one and they're exempt. But look, let's think about what we've got right now with where we're at 20 foot and under exempt on 30 degree slopes or less.
Except for your overlay area, which I understand it's fine. As long as it's been cultivated previously, I think we're covering 90% of the Santa Maria Valley, which are the berries. There might be cases where a land use permit is required if you want to go right up next to a creek, I get that. But let's not start this whole thing over again because there is no easy fix to this.
Supervisor Hart?
Well, I think that there have been a lot of great points raised today. And from my perspective the reason why there is controversy is not looking backwards it's looking forwards including berries. The cost pressures on agriculture, the international competition that Supervisor Williams talks about these are inexorable things they're happening Of the tools that are necessary to make a living in agriculture is real, and it is causing more issues for folks who are concerned about the visual impacts of those things. That's just a fact. And where you sit depends on how you see this. If you're in the agricultural business, that's just the reality. Folks have to get used to that.
Resident in the community and you're concerned about visual impacts. That's a big deal And so to me, you know the Planning Commission wrestled with this we've wrestled with this there are legitimately different places You can land in this whole conversation I think the one thing that we did last time We looked at this was we moved it from 20% to 30%. I don't I thinking more about that I don'T think that's the right balance point given these future Expansion issues that are out there that are going to happen I think that where we where we landed with the streams was the right place. I think your point about having you know staff do a more Definitive inventory is a great point and that would help clarify some of this uncertainty But um, and I'd you know, I'm new to the conversation about the relationship between hoops and cannabis I am looking at it just like the berries because as Supervisor Adams said the vast vast vast majority of what we're talking about are berries not cannabis
Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Adam.
Well I mean, I'm really disturbed at where this has gone today conversationally you know I feel like My colleagues are trying to get something that's a little bit better for them than where we arrived at last time. If we have to revise this, I'm going to be going for something less restrictive not more restrictive and You know, there's two ways I could go with today.
I could go with what we did and ask staff to inventory the creeks slowly but surely starting with the biggest ones first or Do it all over again and either revise the project description and make a statement of overriding considerations saying that the pesticide use is, reduction of pesticide use from hoops is worth all the other stuff. Or some other path because I think this is just Really wrong. It's a wrong set of priorities to care more about the visual impact than you do about actual impact to the environment from the amount of pesticides used. Without hoops, you gotta use a lot more pesticides. I think that's a more substantive impact to the environment then whether you need to see something on a hill far away.
And it is just such a departure from the substance of caring about the environment, that it really drives me crazy.
Supervisor
Adam? Well, I really think that as always, I hate to see us do things that we know are wrong even though they're expedient. And this is yes, we've spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this and you know what was it? It's not the Efficiency in Government Act. It's the Open Meetings Act or something like that yeah So, we're proving absolutely that we can be inefficient and maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. Who knows? Maybe that was the original intent.
I think that you have two distinct problems here. You have a cannabis problem which I agree with you on. And you have an industry that needs some certainty, which is what I tried to get in 2015 and was just unsuccessful at. Maybe we shouldn't have fought so much about it in 2015. Maybe we can look back on that and wish we'd done something different. I certainly do.
But I think you've got to bifurcate these problems and deal with them on their own and not try to. Deal with a relatively small amount of hoops that is a relatively large pain in the ass. On a collateral basis which is really what we're doing here Because as Steve says, look the North County has changed crops in many cases because of these things. And people are making more money, the people that are picking those crops are making more than they were making in the crops that were grown there before.
You know, not that I like the intersectional politics argument but it's out there. It's real so you know, I think we have to protect that large segment of the industry and I tried to get that done through just simply saying this stuff is an agricultural tool like sprinkler pipe or trellis And I think that's still a viable alternative. And maybe you got to come back again to do that, I don't know.
But I'm certainly willing to serve the rest of my term and talk about this from time to time. And I would hope that you guys would too, but then on the other horn of the issue we got a deal with And as I said last week, the whole cannabis issue has evolved into something that I didn't see coming. In fact, I voted against, full disclosure, I voted against the measure that ultimately won.
Because there wasn't enough freedom in it for me, it was over regulating. Yeah, well see this is how I am. So- It was, I remember. You know, I thought that it was going to be all fine. I thought that the complaints were overwrought. I thought that the predictions of people not being able to breathe were gonna be not borne out in the end as so many times happens. Well you know I was wrong.
So I think that what we need to do Is face that and deal with it in a real way, and separate these problems. And not try to deal with them together because when we deal with them together and God bless you guys if we pass this thing, you guys are going to have a very difficult time. As in my case maybe get sued personally. You know, I sued three county employees and a contract biologist personally. Didn't collect them but I got personal damages against all four of them. The jury awarded them so you gotta be really careful when you go out there and start telling people you've got healthy riparian habitat and ergo it's something because maybe it's not And so, you know I just hate to see people get into that discussion because you know it didn't do anybody any good.
That discussion was an entirely lost five years for me and many people at the county productivity was probably pretty low and You know it was it was all stupid it was all really for nothing and I'm farming the ground anyway So there Yeah, well you know. So maybe we could just think about this for a minute and I know that you don't want to do that. I know. I know but
6:38 – 6:4427 turns
it's the right thing to do. Well the problem is I think you could wait the rest of your term and we'd end up in the same spot we are right now so I would have loved to and I think I supported you when you said hey it's just going to be a tool but that didn't go anywhere so We're going to go with what, at least I'm going to make a motion that we're going to try this as I want to move recommended actions per the board letter.
That we make the required findings for approval including CEQA and the statement of overriding considerations in attachment one. We certify the hoops structure ordinance amendment program EIR. And then we adopt an ordinance amendment of the Land Use and Development Code, section 351 of chapter 35. We also add a change to the language As in the grower-shipper letter. Mr.
Gazzone? Chair and supervisors, I think I'm understanding that to be move all of staff's recommended actions with the modification deleting historically intensively cultivated agriculture. And if that was a conceptual motion and it moved forward then I would recommend actually just pausing a moment so that planning could actually put the language of the change on the screen so we would know that going in.
So
it's an added to that is in and we need to figure out Because really haven't heard back from planning about how we Inventory or what? Some someone's gonna have to make a determination at some point. So so I would like to hear from the director like what your thoughts about that or or how you see that going forward
Mister chair members of the board. That is a very complicated task to try and inventory all of the creeks in A really, really large area and I'm not even sure we could do it. So we probably wouldn't have access to a lot of the land many, many years ago in my former life at the county. We did work on some issues In trying to map some habitat to help the farming community avoid endangered species and those types of things. And that process was quite long, and then ended up dying because there was a lot of concern about providing access and concern about discovery of resources. So I think it would be a very, very challenging task. I'm not saying we couldn't talk to the CEO about it and talk amongst ourselves. To try and figure out a way to help farmers, because as I'm coming in new to this process.
I recognize the concerns that are being expressed by putting farmers in a position where they're trying to self-certify or they're trying to identify whether a creek has resources on it or not. So I get that anxiety that they would be experiencing and maybe we can try and figure out a way to assist them. In some capacity, but I think the mapping exercise would be pretty extensive and quite a long process. And maybe the success of it pretty limited by the private property rates. Okay
well I guess the direction would be to discuss that with CEO and figure out how we come to. Some sort of resolution on that. And Mr. Gazzone, you look like you would like to say something? Chair, no just
reiterating- It's a conceptual motion. If this was a conceptual and it moved forward I think just because there is some difference in the language that it would be worthwhile to put that onto a slide so that you and the public if it was enacted would know the actual language.
Well I don't have a second yet so we'll-
Second.
Okay. So, do you want to vote on it and then look at the slide or look at
the slide and then vote? I think this is a conceptual motion and if it moves forward with three votes, I would recommend pausing so that planning can get converted onto a slide or an overhead and get it onto the screen.
Madam Clerk, I believe we're going to need a roll call.
Mr. Adam? No. Mr Williams? Aye. Mr Hart? No Ms Hartman?
No
Chair Lavanino?
Yeah, aye.
Motion fails.
Okay.
Two to
three. So I guess the thing we have to discuss is what would be the procedure for revising the EIR to strip out all the mitigations? Because I think that's the only thing we're going to get three votes on. So, I mean that's the path that I would advocate for.
Mr. Gazzani? Chair, there may be a step less than that and that is listening to the board. I think some of the consternation is on the Creek Setback Y100 instead of 50. The standard in an EIR in terms of the board exercising its independent judgment on this. Is there substantial evidence in the EIR? So right now, we've got a standard stated at 100 feet from creeks not 50 feet.
If the board either through additional evidence or through additional analysis ended up going with 50 feet and recirculated that then that would be I think one of the things that has annoyed the board is this 100 versus 50 feet which would be a step less severe than removing all mitigation measures or overriding all mitigation measures. You know, we just offered that for your
consideration. I don't think that gets us a third vote because I don't think Peter would go for it unless it was zero feet and I think what you're hanging up is on
20% versus
30%. 20%, which he voted on last time at 30. Okay put me in a box all right?
I'd go for 20.
I'll make a motion to just take that one issue and just separate it. And let's, um, I would recommend that we amend the, um, the ultimate plan to be go back to the 20% rather than the 30% average slope.
So this is a conceptual
supervisor? It's a conceptual motion trying to put together the pieces to see where we get to at the end.
6:44 – 6:4827 turns
Okay. Is there a second?
Second.
Okay, roll call. This is just on the slope.
Mr. Adam? No. Mr Williams? No. Mr Hart? Yes. Ms Hartman? Yes Chair Lavenino? No Motion fails two to three.
How about if I make a motion to direct staff to come back with an exemption based on the fact that there, or a director's determination something like that. That says this stuff is tools and then we…
We did this four years ago. I seconded it four years ago and we're still here.
We
did it
again two years ago and I was supportive but, I mean, I think that ship has sailed. We'd have to revise project description and do some other stuff if they can't do anything else.
Chair and supervisors, not to recommend punting but there's no requirement that the board take an action today. And I don't know if whether time would allow groups of two of you pursuant to the Brown Act to discuss some motion that might gain some traction the next time it comes back? Okay,
I think we've had a sidebar that... So do you want to make another motion?
Yeah let's try 25% for the slope Same conceptual motion, 25% average slope. Roll call.
Second.
Oh,
sorry. Okay. Technicalities.
Mr. Adam? No. Mr. Williams?
So we're just voting on just the slope or you're trying...
I think it's going down a path that if this were acceptable, I would vote for the bigger package as it was last time.
Well, I think it's much due about a small change. It makes it- I might not vote
against the whole package
either. I'm just going to say there will mean that the county has two different thresholds for action that one is 30 and one is 25 but that's okay. I guess I'll vote for it out of interest that this doesn't all fall apart.
That was a yes.
Mr. Hart? Yes. Ms. Hartman? Aye. Chair Lavanino?
Aye.
Motion passes 4-1.
So Supervisor, since that was a conceptual as we were keeping track here I think it would require one very minor change to the ordinance language as well as some minor changes in the EIR revision letter to reflect that instead of 30 Okay, why don't we take a five minute break.
Go take some Excedrin and we will come back.
6:50 – 7:001 turns
You. Good morning. Good morning. you Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You.
7:03 – 7:0823 turns
All right, I'd like to reconvene this meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Let's go to Mr. Gazzone or who are we going to?
Chair and supervisors if we're now moving from conceptual to motion, I think that the motion would be to move staffs recommended actions for number six as shown with the changes on the slide posted presently labeled edits 49. And then I think it would be worthwhile since we're talking about an ordinance to make clear that there will be an amendment to the ordinance at 35.42.140C1A4, which presently reads averaging 30% or less to now read averaging 25% or less.
And then to make clear that in any other location not enumerated on that slide that presently reads 30% to make that 25%, just as a catch-all.
Supervisor Williams. I want to add one other idea because all our attempts to make sense of the setback as met with failure is the idea that we instead of tasking staff with doing an inventory, that we'd ask staff to create Guidelines or debt of further detail to the definition and include examples at a later date for us to review. Because I think this is the part that gives people a lot of heartburn because it's so unclear that, you know even
when
I put up examples Human altered waterways and the definition says human altered. And then people go, well not all human altered. So I think we would be reasonable asking for further clarification and discussing further clarification on a definition.
Okay, Supervisor
Adam and Supervisor Hartman? Could you do that after I'm gone? Because I couldn't stand to sit here and tell you all how it really works, and then have you ignore me again.
I'm not ignoring you if you had voted for something we would have ended up with a more less restrictive final product. Peter just put out there for anybody to chew on I'm going to vote for the least restrictive option in front of me that there's
two other votes. Okay I wasn't asking for a response. It was just a simple request
This job just got a lot less fun, man. So where are we at? Supervisor Hart.
Do we need the motion, the full motion not conceptual, the real motion and how do you want that phrased?
Chair and supervisors I think if the motion was to move staff's recommended actions with the changes shown on the slide presently posted Which makes clear that the primary change is in the ordinance to add section C1A4, to change slopes averaging 30% or less. To now read slopes averaging 25% or less as well as any other location currently reading 30%, to read 25%. That would be a clear motion.
Okay I will make that motion.
Excuse me, sorry to interrupt. Just want to make sure the deletion of the reference to historically intensely cultivated agriculture is also included in your motion because that is not reflected on this screen. And that is not in the motion.
What? This is this is we're sticking to what we did last week with this change of the 25% right? Oh, geez
Okay, do you read that hold on a second let me bring it up real quick
Let's get the letter. It says the same thing it just doesn't use the Same terminology, so I don't think staff
has done the research on making that tweak to the
they were fine with it. They were fine with it It just means that the definition is one out of three instead of historically cultivated Land
okay and so staff is okay with that change County Council's okay with that change
I would say if the motion wants to include that change, I'd recommend taking a moment to just put it up on the slide since we were talking about an ordinance dealing with what could be an NOV.
Let's measure twice. Okay.
It's there.
7:08 – 7:1233 turns
And to just clarify for the record, are you guys Like the idea of staff coming back to add further clarity to the definition? Usually we direct things in a motion but we don't have to have language for it.
So since we've had a change if this language is acceptable to the board The motion would be as I mentioned before staffs recommended actions with the changes shown here, which primarily? impact the reduction from 30% to 25 percent and also delete words at c1a3 to be a Replace as shown plus any other location presently reading thirty percent would read twenty five percent
Okay, I'll make that motion
I'll second.
That's the statement at the bottom.
Yeah, I just figured that out too.
Roll-call vote Moved by Gregg Hart · Seconded by Joan Hartmann
Show transcript
Mr. Adam? No. Mr. Williams? Aye. Mr Hart?
Aye.
Ms. Hartman?
Aye
Chair Lavanino?
Aye
Motion passes 4-1
And do you need a motion on the further definition Or you see four of us wanting to torture Mr. Adam Moore?
Motion would be great, just so that we
have it in
the
minutes. I will move that we are requesting that staff return to us for a discussion of further clarity on the definition of what streams are required to have a setback and Human altered waterways are not with examples, please
And can you include in that that?
staff Goes to the AAC and talk to folks before they come back. Sure. I think it's
a good idea And and they get input from the AC beforehand. That would be great Okay
I guess I'll just speak to that, and I think this is a good thing but it is within the context of a lot of other workload items too. So I don't know truly when they're going to be able to get to that. We might have to talk about what things come first because we're starting to stack things up.
Okay well we're having a budget hearing next week so if you need help with this let us know. So do you have a motion?
Yeah does anybody second
it?
OK, I have a motion and a second. Roll call.
Mr. Adam? Abstain. Mr. Williams?
Aye.
Mr Hart? Aye. Ms Hartman? Aye Chair Lavagnino? Aye Motion passes four with one abstention.
Are we finished? No, we're finished with that item. All right. We're not finished with it. It will come back, I know it will. It'll come back.
All right so we are
moving on to item number seven.
Okay let's go to item seven you want to read it?
7:12 – 7:1915 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number seven is from planning and development. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the appeal filed by Mr. Chip Wolbrandt, attorney for Sepulveda Building Materials, appellants of the County Planning Commission's February 28th 2018 deemed denial of the Lompoc Stone Mining Area expansion festing determination and Reclamation plan revision project case number 16DET4 and 10RVP48. Assessor's parcels number 083-060-015, and 08306009 site 1A, and 083070018, and 083070010 site 1B located north of the Santa Rosa Road and easterly of state route one in the Lompoc area. And this is in the fourth district.
Okay, let's call for ex parte. We'll start with Supervisor Williams and go around the horn.
I had a phone call with Mr. Wolbrant.
None since we last heard this.
None for me since the last time we heard this.
I talked with Mr. Wolbrant and Mr. Chatillo separately on Monday.
Supervisor Adam, I'm sorry. I am Not recalling and I know we did talk have we Have we talked since the last hearing no
That's super Mr.. Gazzone chair to raise just on those supervisors who reflected a contact It might it might help the presentation any summary of the any memorable point made in that conversation So that the other side would know what to respond to
okay supervisor Williams you want to start?
I think the point was made that the direction of the work has gone in a way that it has less impact on the neighbors than the last time we discussed.
Okay, and I had a similar conversation with Mr. Wolbrant and I had a different interpretation from Mr. Chatilla.
Surprising. And you didn't have any? So we're back to, let's go to. We are going to a staff presentation with Mr. Zorovitch.
Just briefly, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Staff presentation will be given by Mr. Joe Dargel.
Thank you, Chair and members of the board. My name is Joe Dargle and I'm the planner for the Lompoc Stone Mining Area Expansion Vesting Determination and Reclamation Plan revision project. The project before you today is the applicant's appeal of a deemed denial by the County Planning Commission on February of 2018. At that hearing, the planning commission moved to conceptually approve the project. However, by a vote of 2-2, the action failed to pass resulting in no action which is a deemed denial pursuant to the planning commission procedures.
Following the deemed denial, the applicant timely appealed the project and the appeal was heard by the board on May 8th of 2018. At the May 2018 hearing, the board conceptually granted the applicant's appeal and directed staff to return for final approval after referring the revised mining reclamation plan to the state for review. Following a request from the state to provide additional information, the state issued a letter indicating that they had no comments.
The applicant, Sepulveda Building Materials, currently operates the Lompoc Stone Mine near the intersection of Santa Rosa Road and Highway 1 in the Lompoc area. Current operations utilize two separate sites indicated by the red circles on the screen. Site 1A is the mining area and site 1B is a sorting and storage area. Although Sites 1A and 1B are separated by approximately two miles, and comprised of multiple assessor's parcels, both sites are located within one legal lot known as the Essene Ranch.
The mining area called Site 1A is comprised of two adjacent assessor parcels outlined in red on the screen. The two parcels are a small part of one legal lot known as the Essene Ranch. The current mining boundary is drawn in yellow on the screen. This 96.5 acre area was approved for reclamation and considered vested by the County Planning Commission in 1998.
The request that was conceptually approved by the board is for a vested rights determination for a 28.5-acre mining expansion area that adjoins the existing vested mining operation. The conceptually approved 28. 5-acre expansion area is outlined in white on the screen. The conceptually approved project is a vesting determination request for an additional 28.5 acres within site 1A. Although a determination in favor of vested rights allows mining in the expansion area without a conditional use permit, the reclamation plan must include all portions of the expansion project and has been revised to include the expansion of both the 28. 5 acre mining area as well as a 3.5 acre portion of the site 1B sorting and storage area that was previously expanded.
As part of the project, a mitigated negative declaration has been prepared which identified potentially significant impacts in the areas of aesthetics and visual resources, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geologic resources and hazardous materials or risk of upset. Mitigation measures were incorporated into the MND that would decrease each of the impacts to a less than significant level.
The project as proposed is consistent with the comprehensive plan policies. The project is compliant with the land use and development code, including reclamation plan performance standards. The project conforms to the State Surface Mining and Reclamation Act and has been reviewed by the state division of mine reclamation. Staff recommends that your board grant the appeal case number 18 APL 6 Make the required findings for approval of the project, including CEQA findings.
Adopt mitigated negative declaration 12 NGD 22 and adopt the mitigation monitoring program contained in the conditions of approval and grant de novo approval of the project case number 16 DET 4 and 10 RVP 48 subject to the conditions of approval. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions you may have. Thank you.
OK, so we have the appellant now has five minutes. Mr. Wilbrandt?
7:20 – 7:255 turns
Can you put up in the, Joe, the one with the yellow line, the proposed area? You just had it in your presentation. And is there a little things?
Here we go.
Oh great. And actually the one with the proposed area, perfect.
I was going to say your time's up, but you're ready.
Mr. Chair and members of the board, I'm hoping this is going to be a much shorter and much happier hearing. We were here last May and then we had to go to the state board. I analogize this sort of to when you do a coastal zoning ordinance and you have to send it to the Coastal Commission and then they provide you comments and tell you what you really should have done And then it comes back to you.
In this instance, we went to the state board and they actually made no comments if we were in the coastal zone I think that would be absolutely magic. I think in this case I'm going to say that You must have been way more right than you thought you were. So I'm going to urge, you got this one absolutely close to perfect. Just as a little history, this has been a stone quarry for the same kind of stone since at least sometime in the early 1940s. It was a stone quarry for the same kind of stone in 1958 when your board adopted the requirement for otherwise to have a conditional use permit.
We're still following the same stone on the same legal parcel We got that determination again by the county in the 1990s. We started quarrying and our area of quarrying actually goes this way, and it is headed toward Highway 1 which is right here. In about sometime in the early 2000s, we realized that actually the stone which of course is below the ground until we dig down there. The stone was going a slightly different direction and the quality stone actually went more this direction And so we began processing of what we thought was going to be a very simple revision to the reclamation plan. It's all again same stone, same property, same everything else and we were gonna go away from Highway 1 and not toward the public view areas.
You all got one written comment from someone who has been driving along the road since 2011 wondering why does the mound keep getting bigger? The reason the mound keeps getting bigger is because we've been waiting to get this permit change done so that we can put the dirt back in the big hole and dig, because we're down at a low level, dig a little bit this direction.
We had originally proposed to include all of this area. Again, it's all part of one legal parcel. By the way there was some you may hear some idea that APNs matter. This is the first time in the county of Santa Barbara I had to process a certificate of compliance to prove that it was one APN not multiple APN but on that this APN by the way is pregnant. This area here, which was part of the original permit is on this APN. Again we've always been chasing the same stone.
It's the same resource if it was diamonds or gold I don't think we would be here discussing whether we had an intent but we always had an intent to go and get the same diamonds gold in this case a building material stone. So that's what's in question here. Again, I can go through if you need all of the mitigation measures that were included there are 12 of them included to make sure that we don't have any impact on the public. That in fact, we reduce the impacts. This is actually kind of a valley there's a ridge here and there's a ridge here.
So the man in this house here who was worried about looking at it over here It's now going to be behind this ridge and we've taken this whole part of the project out. I have Mike Connors from Sepulveda Building Material, and Mike Weiss here, and Sid Goldstein if you have any questions. I'm available for questions. I don't know what else there might be said so I would like to be able to respond to anything new brought up And I would just like Mike Weiss to quickly tell you about the conversation he had with the one written commenter that you received. Thanks, Mike?
7:25 – 7:3735 turns
Good afternoon Chair, Supervisors. I'll keep it short and sweet. So we do from time to time living in Long Polk, I do hear people ask me what's going on over there? I've known a lot of people there get a lot of comment. Most of it is not understanding what the project is. The gentleman that I believe commented, Mr. Nisato, I spoke with him for about an hour the other morning at the end of our conversation. He understood a little bit more about the project and I believe was going to send another email to you guys pulling back some of his comments and letting you know that he understood that we all have the same goal.
Clean up Highway 1 a little bit, put ourselves on the backside of the mountain. Continue to have a thriving business and move forward. So with that I'm here if you have any questions? Thank you. Okay.
Thanks a lot. Is there any public comment associated with this?
Chair Lavagnino and members of board we have one request to speak on this item.
Okay let's hear from them.
And we are going to go to Santa Barbara for Mark Chantillo.
Members of the board, I've been involved in this project for some time as well. The DMR review is nothing like the Coastal Commission review, I can assure you and it's unfortunate that we find ourselves here because the real core issue that's before the county Is whether to grandfather this non-conforming use, to allow and recognize a vested right. Now this is entirely the county's jurisdiction to do this notwithstanding the findings to the contrary. The state has no authority to make a finding of vested rights that is entirely up to your board. And by making this finding of vested rights today, you will be granting permission for this activity to continue to operate really without limit. The date that the operator had indicated in some of their materials was that they would exhaust this vein in 2060 and if they started in 1940 as indicated by Mr.
Wolbrant then it would be 120 years of mining without a conditional use permit. The reclamation plan that is before you and the EIR evaluates the reclamation plan, and the Department of Mining Regulation looked at the reclamation plan. It was the same kind of reclamation plan that's given them the discretion to be able to create the giant mound of dirt that's the eyesore for those people in Lompoc that travel on Highway 1.
The standard that you're required, and we've gone through this and I won't belabor the point. But the standard that you're required to employ is there needs to be objective evidence of an intent to mine this parcel in this area, the additional 28.5 acres back in 1958. The evidence that's in the record does not support that at all. The burden of proof is on the applicant, and Supervisor Williams called this a cold case. And he said we could rely on circumstantial evidence but that's not the legal standard that applies here Reading from the staff report citing from the seminal case Calvert. The owner has the burden of proof, the owner must show that the expanded area was clearly intended to be evacuated as measured by objective manifestations not subjective intent and of the evidence that was produced before your board and to the planning commission there I want to start by saying that this is not an objective manifestation of an intent back in 1958 when the county adopted its zoning ordinance that required a conditional use permit for this kind of activity on these lands.
It's not to say that this activity can't occur here, but it should happen in this century. It should happen subject to the rules that apply The board's decision will essentially be giving them a free ride, giving them an advantage as opposed to other operators. To the detriment of the people of Lompoc and the aesthetic values of the Lompoc Valley. We would encourage you to vote to not find vested rights and to reject this reclamation plan and direct the applicant to submit an application for conditional use permit for this use.
Thank you.
Okay,
we're now to rebuttal give you three minutes. Mr. Wolbert.
Thank you, Mr Chair. Um given the fact that we only had five and then three minutes I have not gone through the probably six inch binder of all of the evidence that we provided at your last hearing. I understand that is still in the record. We in fact have declarations from The actual operators who in fact many of them have passed away. We had a geologist who provided testimony, we have testimony from air photos, we have testimony from significant data and in fact the county made the determination this is in your record back in the 1990s that this is in fact a vested quarry.
Mister Shatillo and I seem to have some disagreement about some part of the legal standard. Mine is, I've read the law and we discussed this last year. I understand his is that we shouldn't get a free ride. We should do something different because it's a new century. And I would just note That we've been processing this particular change for 12 years. I don't think that there's any free ride involved here.
This is probably at least as detailed a process as you would expect for any new level of permit. The conditional use permit is not required, there is in fact a vesting decision which occurred and we provided evidence showing that this is the same vein, Property this is the same everything else and the clear intent of The people mining quarrying in this site was always to quarry The very valuable economic asset and the court gets the court says that that is one of the pieces of evidence that you should be using the fact that It's the same asset and that it is amenable. The site is amenable to continue quarrying, and in this case it really is we're already down at that level with the tractors.
We can either keep going toward Highway 1 where we have the right to keep going under the existing reclamation permit Until we use up that and then I guess come back and ask you again. Or, we can do what is more environmentally beneficial and more beneficial to the community which is to quarry basically in the area on the other side of the ridge where the stone is better. It makes more sense from a jobs perspective it makes some more sense for me building materials for the county perspective Or we can keep mining toward Highway one. The reason the pile is there is because we don't want to we didn't want to we always wanted to do what we applied for but we're down about 40 or 50 feet below the ground when you change direction you can't put the dirt back in behind you And then later come back and dig it out and change direction.
So that's why we are where we are. I think that the State Mines and Geology Board actually performs a very serious function in their review, and they've reviewed this and said that the application is submitted meets all of the state standards.
Supervisor Hartman?
So is it your contention that vested rights would apply even to other parcels going forward in time?
Legal parcels?
Or, well I'm sorry, to an expanded area on this parcel.
Well, so we're not proposing that at this point.
But would you come back in several years and use the same argument? That's my
question. Is there a
limit to this?
You know I wish I wish my client had come up because my client would probably tell you that there's no way in the world but they will come back and go through this 12 year process to try and go any other direction ever. So I think in this instance No. I'm having a hard time kind of guessing At other circumstances and other instances, but I think in this case it's very clear we are following. There's not like in some of the cases where in fact vested rates were still found, but the type of mineral changed. Or you were on one part of a legal parcel and then you went like a mile away. In this case, we are very simply it is the vein of a particular ore. It is a particular type of rock.
The standard for this, the extractive resources law, Came about because when you start going after something that you have to extract from below the earth, you don't know what it looks like. And as generally, as long as you are following that same vein again if it was diamonds or gold I think that you wouldn't be having as hard a time as because it is building material stone but you technically Can go to the boundary of the property, which is why the legal parcel line is very important.
Yes. Interruption? Yes or no Chip
because
I've been here
for a long time today. I'm not coming back on this one. Okay that's
what
we wanted
to hear. All right
Supervisor
Hart
Just one quick question, how long do you think it'll be before the site is restored? You said you couldn't go forward with putting the dirt back in the hole because you didn't have permission to go in this other vein. How long now if you have permission before you get to that
work? We actually had a whole visual resources study that was presented as I recall We will essentially almost immediately start taking down the mound. It'll take probably seven years to get the mound completely down, it's a big mound. But Sid am I remembering correctly that the big mound will be completely gone within seven years and you won't see us?
Thank you. Cool. Okay, thank you very much. Any other questions for staff or Supervisor Adam? I
just make a motion to approve staff recommendations. It's a good project, it has got to be done anyway. You have got to put the dirt back in the hole and so I would make that motion. It has been moved.
If that is A through D, I think I am a second.
Yep. A through D, we got a motion and a second. Looks like all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Right on. Okay, we are off for awhile. Oh!
Monday. We've got three
meetings next week buddy. I forgot to tell you, I will not be there. No, just kidding. Cognitive dissonance. All right, we are meeting again Monday at 9 o'clock in Santa Barbara for budget workshops.
7:38 – 7:381 turns
you