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 – 0:042 turns
0:04 – 0:077 turns
Mr. Hartman, Mr. Adams, Mr. Williams, Mr Hart, Chair Labonita.
Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the October 30th special meeting?
So moved.
All those in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Can I get a motion to- Or did you miss, which one'd you miss? Okay put them down as an abstention. How about approval of the minutes of the November 5th 2019 meeting? So moved. Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Do we have a CEO's report this morning? Ms. Miyasato
Good morning, Chair Lavinia and board members. Just a quick announcement that last week the Municipal Managers Association of Southern California honored the county to receive the Organizational Excellence Award which is presented to public agencies whose accomplishments have significantly contributed to the advancement of local government service and improve the quality of service provided to the community. They recognize this primarily for the county's Renew 22 multi-year initiative of organizational transformation to ensure fiscal and operational efficiency that we began in 2017. So thank you to them for recognizing our work, and as you know, we continue to pursue those efforts with all your departments.
Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, do we have any changes to today's agenda?
Yes. Chair Lavinino and members of the board I have a few announcements this morning The first is we post an addendum on Friday amending our agenda for today For a few items. We are withdrawing item A39 from the county executive office This is to receive and file the 2018 annual report for operations at the Santa Barbara Bowl And this will return to the board at a later date And we are also adding two items to our agenda today. Administrative item number 40 from fire, to consider recommendations regarding amending chapter 15 of the Santa Barbara County Code with the adoption of the 2019 California Fire Code and this is second reading. As well as a 41 is being added to the agenda from planning and development, is to consider recommendations regarding the adoption of the 2019 California Building Standards Codes with local amendments to Chapter 10 of the Santa Barbara County Code.
And this is also a second reading. And lastly I just wanted to announce that we are changing Administrative item number three from Supervisor Williams will not be a presented resolution, but an honorary. And that is to adopt a resolution honoring the memory of lives lost and injured to gun violence. And that is all I have this morning.
0:07 – 0:136 turns
Very good, thank you very much. Can I get a motion to approve items A1 through A7 please? Honorary resolutions.
Second.
Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? They pass unanimously. Let's move to A1 please.
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, administrative item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Lavinino. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Terry Lopez upon her retirement from the district attorney's office after 40 years of faithful and distinguished service to the citizens in Santa Barbara County. And if I can have Terry Lopez to the podium as well as Joyce Dudley and Megan Rineschild.
Good morning. Great, and I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas Terry Lopez began her career at the County of Santa Barbara in 1979 before joining the District Attorney's Office in 1990 where she has always gone above and beyond the call of duty to assure victims receive responsive empathetic support services and whereas throughout her career Terry has Exhibited an unwavering willingness to do whatever is necessary to provide the highest level of victim-centered services. Epitomizing the district attorney's office mission to protect the innocent, and whereas all who have had the privilege to work alongside Terry have experienced her passion and commitment to providing services to victims and hold her in high regard. And whereas Terry has created and fostered relationships with multitude of nonprofit private for profit I'm in the storm.
Kind and succinct in her communication, a joy to work with, professional, courteous, always willing to help an exceptional advocate, a beautiful person and will be deeply missed. Now therefore it is hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors commends Terry Lopez for her 40 years of faithful and distinguished service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County and wishes her health and happiness and peace in the next chapter of her life.
Chair Lavagnino, members of the board. Before I get into my more formal comments, first there are two things that are very apparent to me. One is the tears coming down Terry's face and the other is a number of people here from the district attorney's office. Truly an office of family and People who love you and admire your work. You know all of us can imagine a little bit what it's like to be a crime victim, you know whether it's something as simple as someone breaking into your car, Or something as horrible as a sexual assault or murder or rape, those are kind of harder to imagine.
What I can't imagine even though I've been in the DA's office for nearly 30 years is what the life of Terry Lopez has been like during the last 30 years because you look at each of those individual people The victims of crime who've had the worst moment of their life and they come to the district attorney's office to see a victim advocate. And in my mind, that should be the beginning of their healing process.
So Terry Lopez hour after hour, year after year for 30 years has been there for crime victims. In their very worst moment, focused on moving them from victim to survivor. And she has done an extraordinary job. The wear and tear it's probably done on Terry's soul is difficult for any of us to imagine. But I know that she's such a compassionate caring person that there is no other profession that she would wanted to have had. She found her calling. And we as a county have been so incredibly lucky to have her be here with us.
I will now ask Megan Ryker-Reinchild, the Director of Victim Services to make a few more comments. Megan?
Chair Lavagnino, members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to honor Terry Lopez today. I echo all of the things that Joyce said this morning. Terry is going to be deeply missed. She has had an amazing career with the county not just 30 years at the district attorney's office but 10 years prior to that at the public health department for a total of 40 years of county service And I have to share with you that her decision to retire like other employees before her has been a difficult choice and she fretted about it a lot.
She asked me if she was going to have to say a few words, and I promised her she wouldn't. But I just wanted to share a couple of comments that she made during her last evaluation in July after 30 years in the DA's office. She has never viewed this job as a way to get a paycheck. She's always said she loves her job, she loves the people, she loves the opportunity that she's had to see people recover or be resilient in the face of tragedy. She's a person that has walked towards people's pain and Rather than away from it and she routinely has people coming back to the office looking for her years and years after a crime has been committed. We are going to miss her, and as Joyce mentioned this work does leave an indelible mark on people's hearts and their minds.
But we trust that if she opens the next door of her life, that she will be able to think fondly of her career and know that she did a job well done. Thank you.
0:14 – 0:196 turns
I can't say much because they just won't come. Words won't come out, but that's so true. I'm leaving this job still loving it and I thank everyone for being here and I thank God and my family, my friends for supporting me through this job. It's not an easy job and a lot of times you can't talk to people about what you do because they don't get it. So I just thank God and it's been an honor to work for the county To help victims become survivors, and I've created great relationships throughout the years. And I'm just thankful that I've had a wonderful career. Thank you so much.
It's a good way to kick off the meeting, A2.
Administrative item number two is sponsored by Supervisor Williams. It is to adopt a resolution recognizing November 2019 as National Family Caregivers Month in Santa Barbara County, and I believe we have members from the United Domestic Workers representatives, Vibiana Saavedra and Sarah Elenstein. And any other members you'd like to join you at the podium please?
Now go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas selfless Americans across our country consistently dedicate themselves and their resources providing ailing and aging loved ones with the care and support they need to live in their own homes and communities. And whereas, the responsibility of serving and supporting another person can be challenging and the strength and compassion exhibited by caregivers is one of the greatest manifestations of genuine love we witness in this world. And whereas, in-home family caregivers dramatically reduce the demands on our nation's healthcare system and make extraordinary contributions to the quality of life of their loved ones by providing billions of dollars worth of caregiving services each year.
And whereas Santa Barbara County has approximately 2,800 in home supportive service workers providing care to about 3,400 recipients of the program. And whereas, it is appropriate for us to reaffirm our resolve to ensure all caregivers are given the resources and respect they deserve as we honor the innumerable sacrifices made in homes across the country. And whereas this support requires a commitment from community stakeholders and federal state and local governments to equip caregivers with training and tools To use to safeguard their family's health and security, in addition to fair wage and benefit packages that exhibit the importance and value of the work they provide. And whereas this November and beyond we recognize and honor the commitment of those who exemplify the essential American tenets of devotion to family and compassion toward those who matter most in our lives.
And now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes November 2019 as National Family Caregivers Month in Santa Barbara County passed and adopted today.
Well, thank you very much. We appreciate being here on a yearly basis to make sure that our work is recognized and also that our caregivers are truly appreciated. As I've often said, this is not easy work. It is very taxing emotionally and physically. My daughter's a heavyweight and so We work very hard to make sure that we protect, I protect myself as well as protecting her. And I do want to recognize the ladies and gentlemen behind me because we are all in this boat together. We are all in this boat with our community to make sure that our friends, our family and people we have no relationship with in the beginning are protected and they have a better quality of life. That's one thing. The second thing is that if we are truly to esteem our caregivers, we need to make sure they get better pay and benefits.
But thank you so much, we appreciate it.
Item A4?
Chair Lavinino, members of the board. Administrative item number four is sponsored by Supervisor Hart and Supervisor Hartman. It is to adopt a resolution recognizing November 2019 as Court Adoption and Permanency Month in Santa Barbara County. And if I can have the Colt family to the podium? I'll go ahead and read their resolution. Whereas California has more than 25,000 children and youth currently waiting for a permanent and loving family. And the average child waits for an adoptive family for more than two years while many spend five years or more waiting for permanent loving homes. And whereas in Santa Barbara County there are over 375 children and youth in foster care. There are currently more than 100 children and youth awaiting adoption by a forever family that meets the child's needs for security, unconditional love, and the opportunity to reach his or her fullest potential.
And whereas it is anticipated that at least 80 adoptions will be finalized this year in Santa Barbara County. And Santa Maria Juvenile Court will celebrate National Adoption Day on November 19th, where six children will have their adoption finalized. Whereas those children waiting for adoptive parents enter the child welfare system not of their own choosing but are forced into the system due to unfortunate or tragic circumstances and their lives were changed by the families who love and adopt these children. And whereas Santa Barbara County depends on the resource families that open their hearts to children, provide permanent loving homes and a future filled with joy, wonder and opportunity that is secure and loving forever family provides.
And now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes the month of November 2019 as Court Adoption and Permanency Month passed and adopted today.
0:20 – 0:263 turns
Thank you. Good morning, Chair Lavagnino, board members. I'm Amy Krueger, Deputy Director of Social Services Adult and Children's Services. With me today is our director Daniel Nielsen, our county, our kids coordinator Gustavo Prado, Angels Foster Care Director Holly Carmody and the Colt family. And so we're honoring Chris and Jodi Colt today for being active resource and adoptive parents from the Santa Ynez Valley. They are so passionate about providing loving and exceptional care for the children in our community, as well as being strong advocates and supporters for our resource and adoptive parent community.
The Colts have been a foster family with Angels Foster Care since 2011, during which time they've cared for four children and have adopted three. Their children range in age from 19 months to 21 years. Chris and Jody are tireless leaders in the foster-adopt community, and they're frequently sought out by fellow foster parents and neighbors who may have questions about resource parenting or are in need of information about services and supports for the children in their care. Chris and Jody have also been instrumental in the effort to bring trust based relational intervention to our county. And to make it a lead trauma informed paradigm among the child serving members of our community.
As certified TBRI practitioners, they're active in planning trainings and developmental opportunities for resource families as well as professionals in our county. They are trusted partners for our department and our efforts to continuously improve our foster adoptive community. They are valued ambassadors for the Our County, Our Kids program and are active members of our child serving networks helping to advocate for children who come from hard places as well as the families that love and care for them. So today we are honoring Chris and Jody for embodying the passion and determination that is necessary for our efforts to lift up our resource family community, and provide the quality of services that our children deserve.
And to provide them the safety and permanency that they need. So with that I'm going to have Jody step up and say a few words.
Thank you very much. Our children are in school as they should be and they couldn't be here with us, so I brought with me a picture of our family at our most recent adoption with Judge Garcia. And I'm really appreciative of some of the language that we've used this morning because it describes some of the complexity and while we celebrate adoption in this month, I would be remiss not to note that our children and the voices of children Like them as they age and become adult adoptees are very powerful. And they have simply asked that we pay attention to the complexity and not hashtag, if you will in today's society just the joy and the fun and the picture that comes about because while we are a beautiful family and the joy is second to none In my parenting work, it is very complex and it is fraught with loss and heartache and heartbreak.
And it's a lifelong journey for our children and for ourselves. I was speaking with Supervisor Hartman recently and I said the second thing I would like to present this morning is that I would really encourage each of you in your different works, and I have looked into what each of you do in the focuses in your committees. I know you obviously oversee the entire county and all of its people in works like education and mental health and early childhood and probations and juvenile justice and child welfare. And across the entire board where children are developing, you know that we face things like I like the natural disasters and school safety, and parent and home issues. So we're talking about the needs of children far beyond foster care and adoption.
And so Chris and I as we journeyed and we found the complexities in the difficulties we saw across our county first and then across the United States and we found TBRI trust based relational intervention And we've created a collaborative across the county of folks, of professionals, of caregivers that provide services to families like ours and all of the children and families that I've just described. TBRI brings up the quality and I'm Professional practitioners, that includes folks in early childhood education. It includes folks who do the commercially sexually exploitation of children. The CSEC community professionals will be going, private clinicians will be going.
We're really looking for juvenile justice and probations and courts where this has been used across communities across the United States. Great gains and changes in family courtrooms. have happened and it's very data rich and evidence-based. And so I encourage you, implore you to join with me. I would be happy to continue a conversation at any other point about what that actually looks like because as you know families like ours come to the table all the time with help needed but instead we've gone further and said we have some ideas can we partner together and provide some answers For more children and more families in our community. Thank you for taking this time to honor our family, but really the lives of our children and their first families who we want to build up as much as I love my children.
They will always have their first moms and dads and we honor them today just as much as we ask for the honors in our new newly built family. Thank you guys Have a great rest of your day.
Thank you. All right, A5.
0:26 – 0:294 turns
Tara Lavinino and members of the board. Administrative item number five is sponsored by Supervisor Adam. It is to adopt a resolution of accommodation honoring Rhonda Murphy as our Veteran of the Month in Santa Barbara County. If I can have Rhonda Murphy to the podium? Go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas Santa Barbara County is home to more than 22,270 veterans who have given the ultimate service to this nation by serving in its armed forces and are deserving of recognition and gratitude by all Americans. And whereas 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam has the privilege of recognizing Rhonda Murphy of the United States Navy Who served honorably from April 13th, 1987 through May 28th, 1993. And whereas Rhonda Murphy was born and raised in Santa Maria, California and enlisted in the United States Navy after graduating early from Ernest Rigetti High School in the fall of 1986.
And whereas Rhonda Murphy was stationed on the USS Canopus AS-34 in Kings Bay, Georgia and was honorably discharged on May 28, 1993. But she continued as a military spouse and returned to California in March 1997. And whereas Rhonda began her employment with the County of Santa Barbara on March 10th, 1997 and has worked with Child Support Accounting Division, Workforce Resource Center, General Services, Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement System, and is currently the county veteran service officer. in Santa Maria since April of 2001. And whereas, Rhonda helps any and all veterans who request her assistance between 15 and 25 individuals each day as she is sought out due to her proficiency and understanding of services available to veterans.
Rhonda is the go-to expert resource who continuously shares her knowledge with colleagues to assist fellow veterans. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors honors Rhonda Murphy as Veteran of the Month for her service in our armed forces, and commends her for her continued commitment to better the lives of all veterans on the Central Coast. Passed and adopted today.
Yeah, you have to. And believe me there are a few people in here very nervous when you get to the microphone.
All I'm going to say it's my honor and I'm very humbled to be recognized today. I love my veterans in this entire county and thank you for your support. Thank you.
Wow. A6 Rana needs to hang around for this one too.
0:29 – 0:359 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, administrative item number six is sponsored by Supervisor Lavinino. It is to adopt a resolution honoring the Santa Barbara County employees who volunteer at the veteran's stand down. And if I can have any Santa Barbara County employees who volunteered for the veteran's stand down to the podium please?
Don't be shy.
Come on down. I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas 8th annual Santa Barbara County Veterans Stand Down was held October 19 at the Santa Maria Fair Park, and whereas over 600 volunteers organized to provide comprehensive services to almost 500 veterans in need, and whereas veterans received the essentials such as showers, haircuts, new clothing, shoes Boots, bedrolls, hygiene products as well as dental medical and vision services. And whereas veterans were also introduced to over 100 service agencies who attempted to assist them with housing employment, drug and alcohol counseling, suicide prevention and a host of other mental health and social services. And whereas our very own Santa Barbara County employees have generously donated their time and becoming leaders among our volunteer groups.
And whereas the Department of Social Services, Behavioral Wellness, Probation, Public Defender, Public Health, Child Support Services and Animal Services all come together to try and reconnect these men and women back into our community. And whereas DSS employee Carolina Carrillo and former animal services employees Stacy Silva were honored as the volunteers of the year at the Stand Down Appreciation Luncheon For their giving spirit and dedication to our veterans and their animals. And now, therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors wishes to express our sincere gratitude to all those employees who by volunteering at Sandown attempt to make the lives of our veterans a little bit better past and adopted today.
I'm going to make Frank come up.
Chair Labagnino and board members, what can we say? We're the county employees here that are honored actually to serve with Supervisor Labignino doing this annual event every year. Many of us back here have been here since it's been year one and so it truly is an honor to be a part of this because the veterans in our community They deserve our support, and so as county employees we're just a big part of the bigger picture of a community that actually is very giving and supporting. So we thank you for this recognition supervisor.
Thank you. And I just want to highlight a few things first off she's also a county employee extra time Sandy Agalos. She's basically the brains in the impetus that works throughout the year on making sure that stand down happens. Frank also, he takes one thing I think the people that come to stand down realize as they get there is it's very organized. And when you have 600 volunteers and you're trying to help 500 people everybody needs to know what they're doing. Frank actually has a whole schematic mapped out exactly where everybody knows where they're going to be, where their power plug is, how long they're supposed to be there, how many people are supposed to be at their table. The whole thing, so he does an amazing job with his whole team.
And some people have also turned it into kind of a family affair with Heather has basically everybody she's related to is working there with her husband and Amy's husband also is working there as well. And it was really interesting this year because Catalina was named as our Veteran of the Year and we honored her at our luncheon. Her husband is actually active duty at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and he showed up at the luncheon she didn't know she was being honored.
And she actually fell for his story so Yeah, she's very trusting. He told her that he was there as part of his duty and then obviously was there to congratulate her so Could not do this without everybody here from the county. And I want to give a shout out, not just to these folks but also their superiors, department heads that allow them to spend time on this. So we do appreciate it and I know all the veterans that receive services from all of you really do appreciate your support so thank you very much for being here today.
Okay, I think that wraps up our honorary resolutions. Do we have any items that the public wishes to pull from the agenda?
Chair Lavenino and members of the board, I have no request to speak on the admin agenda from the public.
Okay, and items from our Board of Supervisors. So we are going to pull 22 and 29. Anybody else have anything? I wasn't going to
pull, just because there's a couple items on this theme. But I was just going to highlight that the good news on the agenda and the agenda is a number of grant funds, everything from climate change funds that the fire department is using from Cal Fire for prevention to state and federal funds that total over 800 grand for human Trafficking work and work with human trafficking with the county, and in particular with the DA's office. So I just thought it was kind of a cool thing to highlight on the agenda.
0:35 – 0:3812 turns
Okay, very good. So can I get a motion to move the balance with the changes that the clerk identified at the beginning of the meeting? So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Pass unanimously. Let's move to A22.
I'm Tara Lavinino, members of the board. Administrative item number 22 is from Public Health. It is to consider recommendations regarding a fourth amendment to the agreement for services with American Medical Response West.
Okay, Supervisor Adam?
Yeah, I just wanted to ask about the fact that there was no mention of the RFP in the board letter and what the timeline is for getting that kicked off and going.
Sure, good morning board, Supervisor Adam through the chair. We kept it separate, the RFP we understand that the board has directed us to initiate the RFP but we wanted to focus this particular board agenda item on the contract for three year contract renewal with AMR. And so as soon as today is over, we will start gearing up for the RFP process. We've been in conversation with county council about the rules of engagement looking about possible committee members and how we would approach that. So I would say that in about two to three weeks, we would be coming back to your board and asking for resources.
As well as laying out the time frame for what it will look like the next three years.
Okay, so we're going to have a D item at some point in the next two to three weeks?
I don't know if it's a D item. It's, I was planning to put it on administrative just because but I can make it. I can work with the COs office and turn it into a D item.
Okay.
Great. Thank you. Thank you.
Mm-hm. Okay let's go to A29 first. Let's take a vote on A22. All those in favor of moving, oh can I get a motion?
Second.
Moved and seconded, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Go to 829.
0:38 – 0:4113 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, administrative item number 29 is from Public Works Board of Directors and Laguna County Sanitation District. It is to consider recommendations regarding a grazing lease agreement with K2 Cattle Company LLC, and this is in the third and fourth districts.
Mr. Adam? And Mr. Wilder is here, or Scott, whoever wants to handle it. I was noting that there was a non-local vendor that was considered for this lease and I was wondering if we went out to bid from anybody from Santa Barbara County.
Mr. Chair and Supervisor Adam, no we did not go out to bid. We're not required to bid projects. We can though that's certainly an option that your board can consider. We negotiated this arrangement with K2 as they currently have cattle on the property but we're certainly willing to go out to bid for this work if your board desires.
Well, I think maybe we should just pull this item if nobody minds and kind of do a little exploration with Santa Barbara County Cattlemen and see if there's somebody that doesn't have to drive for an hour-and-a-half to get to their their cattle Just what I'm thinking
Mr. Chair board members were certainly willing to take the item down If that's what your board would like to do and we can we can explore that option
My only question is, has the award, have we already? I mean you were bringing it today to approve. So there's no signed contract or anything? No not until your board executes
it.
All right. I'm fine with that. Supervisor Williams?
Yeah, I think that's a worthwhile idea to explore and at very least we should show some deference to the board member who has some experience in this side of things so I am okay with that.
Thank you. All right, so you're making a motion to move it or direct staff to look for a local vendor?
Well, look for a local vendor. Explore options. Pull the item today. Bring it back at a different date.
Mr. Gazzani? Chair and supervisors, just in two parts. The legal framework here is as Mr. McGulpin summarized this is not a public work requiring that it go out to bid but you may send it out to bid. I think what I'm hearing in the motion is do some outreach with local vendors And this is an area where the county is a market participant, not a market regulator. So outreach and then best efforts on looking at local vendors is something that's within your authority.
Very good. Okay.
You want to make a motion to that effect? Yeah. Okay. So moved. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. We're good? Okay, let's move on to public comment then.
0:41 – 0:489 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board I have two requests to speak on general public comment today and they are both in Santa Barbara. And we are going to begin with Ed Kalaski to be followed by Dorothy Dent. Is Ed in Santa Barbara?
Yes. Can you hear me?
We can now, thank you.
Is that okay? Yes, you're fine to go. Thank you. I call my talk today Dumb Ruling Huh? Why such a dumb ruling that the second story is solely over the garage and you see it on the drawing over there. Alex Peugeot did that so that the other members would vote against the project. He didn't have to show the other members what our design was. He automatically just kicked us out in 15 seconds, and for almost six years I've been trying to get this changed.
I finally got approval in October for my project. However the project now instead of $250,000 as it was back in 2014 is now $350,000. Yeah, this is justice. You know I had a deal with our previous supervisor Janet Wolf who wouldn't talk to me or see me. She did before she ruled against our project once but after that she would not and now it's Peugeot he's still down there you know there was somebody talking at this last meeting in behind us and the guy was saying that though he's been here ten times Well that's, you know they perpetuate their job down there or at least Alex does by having people come back time and time again.
There was an old lady down there same thing she says she spent through a lot of these in different counties in different places but this is by far the hardest one to get through. Is this the way Things have to be done. You know if you get tried for some kind of illegal activity, you have a right to speedy trial but yet you don't have a right at all downstairs?
You present your case, Alex has the board or basically Alex presents their case and then you have to leave come back next time You know, they may forget what the heck they were talking about but that's alright. You can come back again and again and again and again. This is the way you run the government? Why isn't there somebody who's really in charge? You know when I first started this almost six years ago, I would ask who's in charge?
Certainly Janet Wolf wouldn't say anything. Alex Peugeot wouldn't say anything. And at that time we had Anne Almy and it was ridiculous, she couldn't even write up the minutes of the meeting correctly and we asked about that. And she says well I put it down the way I remember it. She never seemed to remember what actually went on We need change. It's time for someone to be in charge. We pay the supervisors here to be in charge, to do something.
And
not to continually put this off. Thank you.
And our next speaker is Dorothy Dent and she is our final speaker. Dorothy?
Good morning Supervisors. Thank you so much for recognizing family caregivers and the benefits of providing vulnerable populations with homes such as adoption and foster care. I'd like to remind you about the importance of supporting programs monetarily and institutionally that help elders stay in their homes, which have been proven to allow elders to have healthier, happier, longer lives and to spend them with their families all while benefiting their communities.
Wealthy elders in our community often become targets of piranha-like system that isolates, medicates and steals their estates. This system and its conspiratorial perpetrators break California laws, falsely accuse innocent caregivers and loving family members of crime Take away the elders' homes, assets, properties, dignity and lifestyle. These individuals believe they are above the law because our judges, DA, sheriff and public guardians participate while the judges appoint them and thus condone or are complicit in their illegal behaviors.
The attorneys, conservators or trustees sometimes never meet the elders they are responsible for. These bad actors liquidate elders' property after they remove them from their home and put them in facilities they have never intended to go to often limiting or preventing the elder's loved ones from visiting, writing, phoning or even knowing where the elders are being housed.
These terrible injustices need to be prevented by allowing and assuring that elders get to live in their homes if they wish, and to live with the family members whom they wish to. Even if elders have trusts and testamentary wishes clearly and concisely written, the probate system in Santa Barbara can invalidate these key expensive and carefully orchestrated documents.
Please carry through with your promise that you made prior to the Thomas fires interruption. And the terrible results of the unfortunate county and state, and so forth not being able to deal with evacuation maps and so forth. And losing our beautiful family members in that terrible crisis. Now please concentrate on saving some elderly people that are being housed in these horrible situations without access to their loved ones and without the support of their communities and their ability to give their hard-earned money they've worked for all their lives, to wonderful charities and share in our community as we promote and wish others too.
Terry Mouse Nisich was the one originally that you said might be able Present this task force. Please proceed with that, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
0:48 – 1:0038 turns
And
that was our final speaker.
Okay very good. That closes out public comment and we will move into our departmental agenda. Let's go to departmental agenda number one.
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number one is from general services. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding renewable energy systems contract and financing at the Santa Barbara County Beta Arabia campus in the fifth district.
Good morning Ms. Pell
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Today we are here to ask the Board of Supervisors to award a renewable energy systems contract and financing at Santa Barbara County Bed Arabia campus. I would like to turn the presentation over to Skip Gray at this time.
Good morning, Chair Lavagnino and Supervisors. Thank you for having us this morning. We are here today hopefully for the last time been here several times before on this project to get our first solar battery project approved and underway When we were here last, it was to seek approval for financing which we now have. We've done that. We sought approval. We actually went to the Debt Advisory Committee a couple of weeks ago and today we'd like approval to enter into the loan agreements and get approval for our contract with Endelos Energy to start the project.
To share a few details and refresh your memory about the project, at our Better Avia campus right here out in the parking lot and all the parking lots around here we will install .8 megawatt solar system on top of covered parking structures. And at Fire Station 12 in Goleta we'll be adding rooftop solar LED lighting and a battery backup A large battery storage system will also be installed here at BetterAvia, and that should keep the buildings running for around four to eight hours depending on usage.
Daylight harvesting tubes which are really just essentially skylights on steroids will be installed in most of the BetterAvia buildings. The BetterAvia buildings will also get new LED lighting and rather sophisticated lighting controls that will save energy. And as part of the project, we'll also have up to 30 pre-wired connections for the electrical vehicle charging stations here as well at the BetterAvia campus.
So the total cost of this project is almost four and a half million, and that includes the interest on the loans. We have a 15 year 1%, heck of a rate, California Energy Commission loan for 2.2 million. That includes the interest. And that will finance the solar portion of the project. For the LED lighting component, we'll be using PG&E's on-bill financing program which will cover over 600,000 of the cost. And that is actually at 0% interest and this is a ten year loan.
And finally, we'll utilize 1.6 million from the general fund to pay for the batteries and other miscellaneous costs. So just a few highlights for the project before I get into the recommendations. In these times of PSPS, public safety power shutdowns, the hope is that we will essentially be creating our own little microgrid here at BetterAvia and at Fire Station 12 with the combination of the batteries and the solar.
We should be able to utilize the solar by day, the batteries by night with a little help from the generator here at BetterAvia if needed as a backup. The amount of the utility savings and rebates for this project averages around $378,000 annually for the 15-year CEC loan period. And that due to the extremely low interest rate on the loan provides a positive cash flow each year.
So the recommended actions are a little confusing. I'll walk you through them here. Basically, the first one is to find that the project does comply with the state energy code which basically says that it will save energy once it's complete, which it will. We would like you to award the contract to Endelos so we can get started on the LED portion, which we'll do right away.
And we'd like to authorize the chair to execute both the on-bill financing and the CEC loan documents once they are received and they should be here any time so that we can get that process started. And finally as always determine that the project is exempt from CEQA. That's my presentation. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
Any questions from board members? I've got a couple, I guess. And then do we have any comments from the public? Request to speak.
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, I have no request to speak on this item.
Okay, a couple questions for me. So how much energy are we using? I mean does 0.8 megawatts, does that satisfy what we're using on campus here? It does yeah. And then with this mix being as inviting as it is with the 1% loan and the way were able to finance it. I know we're doing a study county-wide, but are we looking at other campuses where you know? We could look at this whether it's the jail or the Santa Barbara campus sure
yes Supervisor Levenino. I believe we will probably The next thing we will look at and again. We're meeting. I think we've got a meeting tomorrow with with the we did the South County energy audit and So we're going to look at some projects down there. I think Foster Road is pretty much teed up if we can get again, get financing. It was a struggle to get the CEC financing that's why this has been so long.
I just got an email literally at 936 this morning that said the loan documents are on their way within the next week or so. So finally we've got that but getting this kind of financing is going to be a challenge but we will certainly try again and with the on-bill financing we can do a lot of lights that way.
Okay, and then one last question I guess is for Ms. Miyasato. So we're taking 1.6 million from general fund so is that what's scheduled in for next fiscal year or how is that? Where is that coming
from? The board appropriated that in this years budget because we have been talking about this for a couple of years. We came to you earlier in the year and it was appropriate
in this year's budget. Very good. All right, so this is already funded. Perfect. All right, any other questions from anybody? Supervisor Hart.
Yeah, just can you tell me more about why it was such a struggle to do the financing with the Energy Commission? Is it just their process or is it very competitive?
I don't know that it was the process as much as what we were told is that they were backed up. Their loan generating group is backed up so they've gotten through the backlog. A lot of people have applied apparently and so that was the main reason.
So is there a limit on those funds that puts future projects in jeopardy? Is this an automatic kind of thing, it's just a time delay. I
don't know the limit on the funds and what's available for the next round of funding. I do know that we can only use the funds for solar related pieces of the project which is great because we do want to do that but I don' have all the details on what's left. Okay, that'll
be critical I guess for making the decisions about the future projects and knowing when those can happen based on the long lead time that you experience with this funding cycle. Absolutely. And then when would this project begin construction
and when would it be complete? I think the hope is since we have the 1.6 million of general fund money immediately That we start with the lighting piece in these buildings first and the lighting controls. I think we're hoping about nine months or so, it could be a little longer than that once we get a schedule finalized but it'll start very soon.
Is there reason to do it in phases as opposed to doing the solar panels at the same time as you're doing the lighting?
Well we will probably, they may overlap but the lighting is easy to do and get in and do. And then we can verify that the amount of solar panels that we might need so there are some adjustments might be made because right now these lights are very energy intensive and once we get that solar done or that lighting project done it won't be as much and so we'll know exactly where we are on that.
So you'll know the demand that you need and then size the panels to meet the demand? And so the electric vehicle charging is probably late in the process.
Yes, well what we will do is put the infrastructure in for the chargers and the next round of chargers not this year's group but next year's group will likely be put in up here. Because we'll be doing chargers if the board allows it over the next five years at least.
So the soonest the charger's up here would be in place is 21? Yeah, probably. Thank
you. All right, Supervisor Adam? Is there a maintenance plan for these things or are you setting aside money that would be available
to- To maintain the solar panels, yes we
will. Well, the whole system.
Yeah.
Batteries.
Absolutely, yes. And I might add there's considerable savings we're estimating 10 to 15 thousand a year just in not having to deal with changing light bulbs for our staff anymore because those lights those LED lights should last ten years or so at least.
Okay well let me know when that happens. Yes sir.
Supervisor Williams
Just one question about the battery system. Are you planning on using that to defray on-peak power usage or just as a backup?
Absolutely, yes we will use it for demand shaving and it's interesting the lighting controls will also be programmed to kind of do that as well and that's why we're adding those solar tubes to harvest the daylight as well
Nice, well this is very much what we've been hoping for and responsive to our budget requests. And I really want to just appreciate both of you and your staff for the work. And given the fact that the campus build out over time, there might be increased uses here. It wouldn't be the end of the world to slightly overbuild our solar capacity. The worst that would happen from that is we'd be able to recharge our batteries faster.
And we could also, I think we've left some room to add additional solar in the future as well. That's a great parking lot.
And just because he's here and just in case you guys don't know him, I want to make sure we introduce Cuyama CSD board member Paul Shanae who is in the row over there. Who's tireless public servant, the only school superintendent Do a consolidation that included the elimination of his job.
1:00 – 1:1130 turns
He's very thankful he was unsuccessful. All right, Supervisor Hartman?
Well, I just think this is a really exciting project and grateful for the financing that you found. It's going to save us money and just wanted to commend staff. I know it was a lot of work and in and it's really new and so we had to explore things that we didn't know wasn't routine. And a special call out to Roy because I know he's done a lot of work on this. Thank you.
Absolutely. All right, can I get a motion to move staff recommendations on item one? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded?
Thirded?
Doesn't matter. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? He can come back and add on. Right now it's 4-0. Okay. All right, so we're going to do some agenda management. Were you thumbs up on that one? Yeah,
yeah.
We already went through it. There was none. I thought I
got the four there. I thought I was seeing... Oh no, item 4. Item 4 okay, gotcha all right yeah I did have a couple comments one is that I supported it at the DAC and and at the DAC I think there's a little bit of a different hat that I wear than here and so You know, the criteria I think at the DAC is are we borrowing money in a responsible way? And I couldn't say that it's irresponsible. I think the opportunity cost of the 1.6 million, you know, I'm absolutely certain that there are things that you could tell us were higher yield with 1. 6 million than we're going to get out of this.
Is that not correct? I mean, there's things out there. There are a
lot of things out
there. Okay, so we're not putting this money to the highest and best use but it's not horrid. So I'll probably just go along with it but I will say that 15 year payback is just an outrageous payback for any kind of investment. And I checked yesterday with a pretty large farming operation in Santa Maria, who's put in a couple of these things and their payback is six years. So I don't know what we're doing wrong but 6 is way better than 15 for future reference.
We do have included in that cost, Supervisor Adamson and Chair, the parking structures as well. So it draws that out obviously to pay back a little bit.
That far, I mean good Lord. It just seems unreasonable to me but anyway that's okay. So anyway let's go ahead with it and hopefully it works as advertised. Okay,
Supervisor Williams. I just was telling the chair I'm not going to pick a fight. I wasn't sure I was going to recognize you. I just wanted to acknowledge your point in that if the system was ground mounted it would have more financial efficiency and we should be very much thinking about that when we look at The jail project, the jail's going to be a big consumer of energy.
And we have a real efficient opportunity at the jail site as evidenced by the staff work that indicates there's about five megawatts of potential energy in ground mounted systems. So that's definitely something I would favor. I would imagine that some of what you've heard in terms For more efficient financially systems, ground mounted as opposed to mounted on carport structures. The only other extra advantage though is it will improve the maintenance on our vehicles and those of our employees which will have less wear and tear parked underneath these solar panels.
Supervisor Adam. Well, see this is where the wheels always fall off for me. I know you tried not to pick a fight there but you just did it. Could have just had a 5-0.
For
agreeing with
you? Geez!
Well, I'm not sure that's agreeing. We can, we'll have to unpack all that. And I think the point that I'd like to really drive home here and especially as you look at other systems, I'm going to go along with you on this one. But especially as we go into these other systems, we have got to do some kind of a comparison with the opportunity cost. And we have got to look at the projects that General Services has In their deferred pile that are going to get more bang for the buck, and they're going to get more expensive the longer that the fix is delayed.
Rather than putting cash money into the three magic beans of the solar array. And so especially if it's a 15 year payback versus Going upside down. I think we need some projections on it, you know pick some specific projects where these things to and Say look if we do this Project here will get a payback in 15 years and if we looked at project one project two and project three that are on the deferred list Then we'll save that money way faster, or there's got to be some comparison with the things that we know already that we have to do. That were deferring in order to do the feel good project which is what this is to me as a feel good project so there you
go.
Okay Supervisor
Hart?
Well now I have to join in too. It is, you know that is...I understand what you're saying. That is one way to look at it. That is a fair point of view about how you would allocate costs and benefits. Others see other benefits in that calculus and well it isn't just math but it just depends on which parts of the equation you put into the calculus. And so you know I think some of us are more concerned about The external effects of other things, so greenhouse gas emissions and the benefit that that accrues to the economy. And the cost avoidance that that accrues to the county is another piece of the puzzle that has to be calculated into this. We'll do that another time but just since we're all talking about this in this way.
I'm also interested in seeing is there anything we can do to get Charging for the public for attending board meetings sooner than waiting the whole year Is there something that could be done in the interim while the larger project is being done? To because where's the closest charger to this building? I think I believe Supervisor
There are already as a charger out here.
Okay. Yeah, just one
Yeah, there's a
couple. At least on most Tuesdays and Thursdays which are usually the only days I'm out here they're fully subscribed. This morning I lucked out and got a spot but typically you know I and other county employees that would work here will park everywhere from the dealerships to the hardware store because those are other chargers And I think especially when we're talking about our employees, we want to incentivize commuting that are cleaner commuting and having air quality benefits for the North County as well as the South. So I think Supervisor Hart's right. There was other benefits, improvements to air quality, Reduction of usage of energy, but I mean the long term benefits for the institution. We have to be willing to think about the long term.
The long term benefits is reduced ongoing cost and typically the struggle of government is to keep a lid on ongoing costs so using capital money to reduce energy usage is a real good Cost benefit, I agree with you Mr. Adam that we should be doing projects that have sooner than 15 year payback and I of course would invite general services to bring any projects energy or non-energy project that has great payback periods like that.
Okay. You're absolutely right, Mr. Labanino. They lost my vote. Well that's fine. So it's 4-1.
So let's move. And just to finish my point, if you could look at adding additional charges here in this building in the interim, that would be a great additional benefit to the community and the employees here.
All right. So little agenda management since that ran considerably longer than we had anticipated. It was four to one? We all voted aye when he was out of the room and he came back with a no, so it's 4-1. So we do have people here for item four. So what we're going to do is we're definitely going to take item four before lunch. So depending on how quick we get through two, we'll determine whether we're going to do three before lunch but we'll do four before lunch. Five is definitely going to be after lunch and unfortunately Mr. Buzanich, three may also be after lunch but we'll find out.
So, thank you very much.
We will move on to item two which is again Ms. Pell so can you please read that one in?
1:11 – 1:229 turns
Chair Lavinino and members of the board departmental item number two is from general services. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding public safety radio network PSRN replacement project update. All
right. Supervisor Labanino, members of the board, the item before you today is an update on our public safety radio network replacement project and a request to issue the RFP so that's the introduction of the item I will now turn this over to Tom Gresham who will make the presentation
Thank you Jeanette. Chair Lavanino, fellow supervisors it's my pleasure today to bring everybody up to speed as to where we are with the Public Safety Radio Network project Within the presentation we'll go over an introduction, just a rehash about the project. The various steps within the process. The estimated project costs installation timeline. The cost allocations as we have them estimated.
Funding options that were exploring and then the next steps immediately following. So the current state of the public safety radio system, right now we have a fairly diverse number of communication vendors, equipment at various stages of their life cycle. Some of them have reached their end of support and we're just keeping them alive as best we can through I would say atypical procurements.
We have three different systems that we're looking at. We have VHF, which is used by fire. That's a radio band. We have UHF for the sheriff and then we have 800 megahertz for public works. We noticed that the system does not really have built-in redundancy. The way that it's laid out right now, there are various areas where the loss of one element could potentially have cascading effects on the system. So what we're looking to do with the replacement system is to build in resiliency in order to survive potential issues that could occur.
And we've also identified the lack of a backup dispatch location which could potentially be a single point of failure. So the current users of this system, we have fire, sheriff including contract cities, public health and a number of other departments as well as the city of Goleta. And just to highlight the major components of the system, we have the land mobile radio system. So this is the communication between the radio users and the dispatch so when people are keying the mic in a vehicle whether it's a handheld device, the LMR system is what's being used to communicate that frequency.
And then to carry that signal between sites, we have our radio backbone system which is a microwave based system. Which will propagate the signal throughout the entire county and eventually back to dispatch. And then our dispatch center allows the voice communication between the field units and the dispatchers via the control stations. So this is a current outlay of how our radio infrastructure is built. As you can see, we have intermediate hops like Solvang is a hop for the Casino and Hairspray is a hop for Solomon with the comm center being the single hub servicing all those and our goal is to To make this system more resilient by putting in additional paths by which we could survive and impacts if a site were to suddenly go down, we would then have alternate sites by which we can get back to our dispatch.
And we are also bringing Valley Peak on hopefully in December So what we want to do in terms of upgrades, we want to improve our voice communication services and reliability. We want to expand our coverage across the county and provide robust radio communications for the next 10-20 years. So as I stated before, we want to replace our end-of-life systems, our legacy based equipment with new state of the art systems. We want to replace our analog UHF radios with digital radios ability to transfer data which is something we can't do today and then we want interoperability with other radio systems so we could potentially interoperate with Santa Maria, the nearby counties So in terms of the process, we have progressed through phase three where federal engineering has written the specifications and we are now prepared.
We have the RFP ready to go pending your approval. These are the estimated costs. These costs were presented before, not much has changed. We have material at 28 million, labor at roughly 13. We have FCC fees and site acquisitions and then sales tax for a total of just over 45 million dollars. And the way that these costs are broken down, we have site developments that need to occur.
We have site acquisitions. Our microwave system will be overhauled. Fire dispatch will be built out. Sheriff dispatch will be replacing equipment there and then we'll be looking at replacing our individual LMR elements for the VHF and UHF systems as well as subscribers. So here's a breakdown on a pie chart that just gives a better overview. Apologize, the white there is that's UHF LMR that space there which is the vast majority of the costs.
So our installation timeline, we're anticipating a three-year window with the first year being the site acquisition and development. So this is where we acquire the land and then build out the infrastructure, the sheds pave the way for new towers that'll take place the first year and then the second third year will be actually installing the physical equipment getting that online and ready to go So the cost assumptions, we have broken this down into two major groups. We have the UHF LMR and then the VHF. The VH is used primarily by fire and that is to ensure interoperability with our partner agencies for mutual aid state and federal assets.
So this is a cost allocation assumption by subscriber units. So the number of radios per department will be the divisor for the overall cost of the project and as we can see, Sheriff is by far the largest here at just over 50% followed by fire. So this is our cost breakdown as it stands today. Subscriber units come and go and when we make the selection, we'll true up the numbers And these figures that we have presented here were gathered in March of 2019.
And then here's a breakdown of the UHF versus VHF components. So, UHF will be used by the vast majority of departments with VHf remaining for fire and EMS support. So these are the cost allocation assumptions. So the site developments will be a shared cost among all departments, and the same is true for the microwave backbone system. The microwave will transmit both of VHF and UHF signals across the county.
Fire dispatch, the VHS, that shared cost will be fire and EMS. And then all of the UHF users will share in the cost of the Sheriff Dispatch and the UHFLMR. And then this is the cost allocation broken down by the departments. And then the funding that we're looking at is the average annual debt, which is our divisor or divided costs. So for example, fire, we have 8.2 million and that is devised over the debt at $623,916. And that's over 20 years.
So we're exploring different funding options. We're looking at vendor lease or purchase, so depending on the response we have seen that vendors have different ways of providing service either through the purchase of the equipment directly with which will be depreciating the assets or through leasing options. So those will both be looked at in the RFP responses.
Looking at certificates of participation and potential grant funding opportunities. So our next steps, we're ready to go with the request for proposal upon approval. We will continue to look at various funding options. We'll continue to update our stakeholders and we will return to the Board of Supervisors with our selection and financing approval. And then we will begin the phased implementation.
So this is a rough timeline of events. So once we publish the RFP, we will hold a conference in December and that will immediately be followed by site surveys where we'll be taking the potential bidders up to view the county sites. And then the responses are due in April, in which we will then have vendor interviews and make a final selection in July of 2020.
At this time, this concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions the board may have. Okay,
do we have any requests to speak from the public?
Chair Lavinino, members of the board, I have no request to speak on this item.
Okay so I guess my question's on the timeline. So when it looked like July we were going to do a selection return of the Board of Supervisors on the vendor but when are we going to figure out how we're going to pay for it? Shouldn't we do that first?
Chair Levinino, our finance team is looking at potential funding options. The vendors may also be proposing alternative funding options as well so we'd want to have their input as well as the research that we've been performing.
I mean that's gonna have to come back to the board before July. Yeah
and Mr. Frapple is here if you can just comment quickly on that
1:22 – 1:248 turns
Thank you Mr. Chair, so absolutely when we return to the board we'll probably have a preliminary conversation about this prior to July but I think it's important for us to see the proposals that are received and the proposals received from the vendors with respect to their financing. I suspect at the end of the day this would be financed in pieces so there may be an equivalent component of the larger project that is a leased purchase with the vendor that's higher likelihood They partly with respect to developing new sites and doing the construction and adding new towers will likely be funded either through grant money, so Homeland Security grant money specifically or have to be debt financed by the county. So I think what we're going to have here once we get the proposals back that'll allow us then develop that final financing plan recommendation for your board.
But we'll iron it all out before then. Okay
very good thank you very much. Let's see, any other questions? Supervisor Williams.
Just I recognize the gravitas of the project of this size and importance. So I just say that the relative lack of debate is not indicative of a lack of interest. This is this is a big deal.
Yeah, this one's going to be with us for awhile so OK. And this is one of those Big maintenance issues, so hopefully we'll figure out a way to tackle this one. All right, thank you very much. We really appreciate it and like I said, I'm sure this is one of many meetings on this issue. So we're looking forward to the next one. Supervisor Adam? I will
compliment you on doing a good job and make a motion to approve staff
recommendations A, B, and C. Great. Second. Moved and seconded all those in favor aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.
Thank you,
okay we will go on to item 3 I'm sure Dennis can get that done before 11 or at 11 so it gives us an hour to deal with item 4 for lunch.
1:24 – 1:4123 turns
Chair Lavinino members of the board departmental item number three is from the county executive office it is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a draft 2020 County of Santa Barbara legislative platform for board discussion
Good morning. Good morning, Chair Lavagnino, members of the board. Today is your first opportunity as a board to review and to discuss the draft 2020 legislative platform. And just to give you a sense about where we have been in August, the department's reviewed and updated the planks and the principles. Those were reviewed by the Legislative Program Committee and commented on those updated principles and planks.
Those versions were then reviewed in October by the ledge program committee. And what you have before you today is their recommended platform for your discussion as an entire board and also to receive public comment. So this is the beginning of that process. There will be an opportunity to come back for the Ledge Program Committee to review any changes that you might recommend today at their December 9th committee meeting, and just so you have a general sense of what's in front of you.
The committee made no revisions to the legislative principles for There are 44 platform planks. Most of what you see as red line changes in the documents before you today, are small updates and language changes to help clarify and perhaps Create some additional understanding and context for the recommended legislative initiatives. There is one recommended plank for deletion from the 2019 platform. The Ag Commissioner's recommending that the new ag pass 1 be deleted as not necessary at this time.
In order to, well the next steps following this today receive your comment. Receive public comment on making any additional changes and then we would return on December 17th with the final draft which will include the recommended changes from today as well as the year end summary so you'll basically see the entire ledge platform at that moment in time. On the 17th, we're also planning on having the county's advocates here.
And they can talk with you publicly about what's happened over the last year and what they see in the coming year in the legislative session both in Sacramento and DC. And then also in front of your board next time will be a resolution to make a change to the Legislative Program Committee. For several years now, the Legislative Program Committee has operated based on a resolution from 1998 that established the current membership.
Altered slightly from that resolution, but it has been the recommendation of the alleged program committee as it's currently constituted. To consider making it a standing committee of this board rather than having sitting members from the auditor controller county council and They would certainly still be available as staff support for a standing committee of this board, but that resolution we'll be working on. We would bring that back for your consideration and discussion in public input at the December 17th meeting.
And so with that, I would suggest that today's recommended actions are to receive the update on the issues and projects included in the platform. Provide your staff with any direction about changes you would like to make to this draft platform and then find that the actions don't constitute a project under CEQA. With that, i'm happy to answer any questions.
Okay do we have any public comment on this issue?
Chair Lavinino, members of the board I have one request to speak on this item. Okay
let's hear from the public first
and that is Jessica Berry. Jessica?
Hi good morning. Good morning I had come to you actually a month ago requesting your assistance. I'm back, and forgive me for being a little bit late to your meeting. Just to readdress my issue, I worked for a property owner in Montecito- Excuse
me just a moment. So this isn't public comment? You're not related to this issue? This is just regular public comment?
Yes.
All right, so I'm going to allow you the balance of your three minutes and then we'll get to the item.
Thank you, you're very kind. I worked for a man in Montecito, property developer for ten years. His name was David Bertrand. I trusted him. I was loyal to him because we have family history. My grandfather went to Stanford University with him. Unfortunately, I misjudged my trust and he held my life savings after ten years. He never gave it back. And I went to the district attorney with this and filed reports with the sheriffs. I filed two reports, they sent them to the district attorney under theft by deception and The district attorney never contacted me or did anything to help me.
And I would call them every other morning for months. Finally, I ordered my file from them and I found within it a letter to the best friend of my ex-employer Dario Pini. And it said that there would be no charges filed for my employer for the crimes that were alleged. And this unfortunately went out over a week before I ever even got to meet with the district attorney to discuss my case.
So I was pretty horrified by that. Then, I went to Barney Malakian, sorry about the pronouncement and asked him for his help. And this email from him shows the district attorney actually lying to him or just misinforming Barney about my case, my situation and what was going on. They said also that my wage claim And my wage claim wasn't rejected, I was awarded almost $100,000.
But this now is stuck in three lawsuits in superior court against me and I need your
help. Well your time's up and it was out of order but appreciate. Your statement and we're going to have to move on with our hearing at this time. Okay, thank you.
Thank
you. Okay so is there any other public comment that's related to item D3?
Chair Lavagnino, members of the board there are no further requests to
speak. Any questions from the board? Okay can I get a motion to move staffs recommendations? So moved. Okay moved. Is there a second? Second. Moved and seconded roll call.
Ms. Hartman? Aye. Mr. Adam? No. Mr. Williams?
Aye.
Mr Hart?
Aye
Chair Lavenino? Aye Motion passes 4 to 1.
Okay, that moves us to item number four do we need a break five minute break okay let's take a five minute break ten minute break and then we'll be will be back for item four
yes sir Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. you You. Good morning.
1:42 – 1:442 turns
1:45 – 2:0619 turns
Please read in item four.
Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number four is from planning and development. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the residence for Orchid sensible growth appeal of the Planning Commission's August 14th 2019 approval of the Orchard Gateway Retail Commercial Center Keysight 2 project. Case number 16TPM1, 16DVP9, 16CUP7, 16CUP18 and 16OSP2 identified as assessor's parcel number 12928001 located on a 5.95 gross acre portion of Keysight 2 at the southwest corner of the Highway 101 and Clark Avenue intersection in the Orchid Community Plan area and this is in the 4th District.
All right, before we do any ex parte, we do have a late addition to some of the materials that were received. I believe we have a large traffic study that came in this morning and so what we're going to do today for our appeal hearing is we are going to move forward with a staff presentation. We will hear from the appellant. We'll hear from the applicant, we'll hear public comment. But we are going to need some time for staff to review that traffic study.
So they'll be doing that over the lunch period. When we come back from lunch, we will then hear public comment only on that traffic study if there is any. And then at that time, we'll also hear rebuttal and finish up our staff comments and board deliberation. So were there any other items that we need to clear up before we begin? Mr. Gazzani?
Chair, I would only add that the lunch break and trailing data would also provide each supervisor with an opportunity to also review the traffic study as part of your deliberation before you come back for deliberations.
Okay? We will move forward at this point with staff presentation.
And Chair Lavenino, members
of the board. Ex parte, we need to do it first, I'm sorry. So let's do some ex parte. Supervisor Adam?
My staff has met with the applicant Gavin Moore and the Sunny Hills neighborhood.
Yesterday I talked on the phone with Mr. Moores about the project and his concerns about some of the public works requirements.
Supervisor Hartman?
Last Friday Guadalupe office hours I met with the Moores.
Supervisor Williams? And I met with Mr. Moore yesterday afternoon.
Okay, and I have no ex parte to report. Madam Clerk?
Chair Lavinino, members of the board, as mentioned previously we received a few late items past our noon hour on Friday prior to our hearing today. And if we could just get a motion to vote these two documents in. The first is from Finney Arnold, LLP and we received that yesterday on November 18th and it's 173 pages total. And just now we received, and it is available on the dais in the back of the room as well as online additional PowerPoint from the applicant.
And that was just this morning. So if we can get a motion to vote those into the record prior to today's hearing, that would be great.
So moved. Second? Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay they are officially part of the record. All right, let's begin with our staff presentation.
Mr Chair and members of the board, I'd like to introduce Dana Eady who is a planner three and she's the project manager for the case. And we also have Travis Sewards who's our new deputy director. So Dana will be making the presentation today.
Thank you. Good morning, Chair Lavinino and Supervisors. So the application that you have in front of you this morning is an appeal of the Planning Commission's...
I don't think your mic's on Dana.
Can you hear me now? Closer. All right, so this is an appeal of the Planning Commission's August 14th 2019 approval of the Orchid Gateway Retail Center project The project site is located on a portion of property that's designated as Key Site 2 in the Orchid Community Plan, and it's south of Clark Avenue and west of Highway 101. Other key sites that are adjacent to the site include Key Site 1 to the north, Key Site 4 to the west, and Key Site 3 to the south of the site.
And this slide is depicting the portion of Keysight 2 that is proposed to be developed with the new retail commercial center. The area proposed for development is just under six acres in size, and the remaining portion of Keysight 2 is under separate ownership and is not proposed to be developed at this time. The project includes a new signalized intersection that would be located here at the preferred access point shown on the map, as well as a segment of the public trail which is here. And this map actually comes directly from the Orchid Community Plan.
So this is an aerial view of the project site. It's currently undeveloped, and Keysight 4 that's located just west of the site is currently under construction with a new retail commercial center. Keysight 1 to the north of the site is also undeveloped, and there are – there is an application that's currently being reviewed for development but that has not been approved yet.
And then properties that are located to the south and southeast here are developed with mobile home parks. So the Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park is located, it's okay here, and this is the Town & Country Mobile Home Park directly south of the site. The site is zoned C2, which is retail commercial. And the adjacent sites have similar zoning. So this is Keysight 1, which is zoned C2. Keysight 4's C2 and then south of that you have mobile home parks and other residential development.
So the project includes It proposes to subdivide the 5.95 acre parcel into four parcels and then develop a new retail commercial center that includes a grocery store, a restaurant with a drive-thru, a new gas station with a convenience store as well as a car wash. There's landscaping and as I mentioned the public trail and roadway improvements to Clark Avenue.
And then there are two conditional use permits, and those are for the drive-through and the car wash. And there's also an overall sign plan for the entire shopping center. So this is the proposed tentative parcel map and it shows how it's proposed to be subdivided. And the new lots are, those sizes are consistent with the C2 zone district requirements and they also conform to the county's subdivision map act regulations.
This is the proposed site plan. So there are four structures that are proposed on the site, so this is the restaurant with the drive-thru here and then this is the gas station with a convenience store and car wash over here And then you've got the grocery store on the southern portion of this site and then just a retail commercial space here. So this is the location of the new signalized intersection, and this intersection has been designed to accommodate full build-out of the Orkut Community Plan. It also includes a landscape median that you can see here.
Then there's a detention basin on the southeastern portion of the site The applicant is requesting a modification to the rear yard setback of the project. To reduce it from 25 feet to 10 feet and that reduction is along this portion of the property line here. The rear area of the site would be fully landscaped, there'd be no vehicular or pedestrian access to that area of the property.
Loading areas would occur on the side of the building here And as I mentioned, it would be gated and locked to prevent unauthorized access. And so staff is recommending approval of the modification to the rear yard setback. The Planning Commission also approved this modification when they approved the project. This is just an overview of the landscaping. So you can see here there's landscaping shown along the rear yard setback area and there's also a 35 foot wide average landscape buffer that's required along Clark Avenue, and you can see that here.
And then sort of landscaping along here and then in the detention basin area. These are the project elevations. So the elevation in the picture at the top, this is the grocery store and then the retail commercial. This is the rear area of the grocery store that would back up to the town and country mobile home park. And then you also have the side of the building there.
And then this is for buildings three and four. So, this is the new restaurant with the drive-through and then this is the convenience store that's associated with the new gas station. The overall sign plan includes a mixture of wall signs and monument signs. The applicant is requesting a modification to the sign standards, and that is to building one, and it's allowing it to contain two additional wall signs with a maximum square footage of 110 square feet. The sign ordinance currently allows two signs on the building at 100 square feet so they're asking for the signs to be increased by 10 square feet.
For Building 2, one additional sign is being requested over the two-sign allowance and modifications to the sign standards may be approved by your board based on a finding that the signage is architecturally harmonious in relation to the size and location of the structure and the shopping center The signage was conceptually reviewed by the North Port of Architectural Review, and they were supportive of the design. And so this determination supports staff's finding that the signs are architecturally harmonious and that the modification can be approved.
This is an example of the signage on Buildings 3 & 4 And these signs range from about 65 square feet to 80 square feet in size. And then there are two freestanding identification signs, one is for the gas station and then the other sign is just an identification sign for the shopping center. And there's an additional modification that's being requested Um, include multiple tenants within the shopping center. The sign ordinance currently just allows it to state one general description of the shopping center so they're asking it to be able to have a sign that looks like this where they can have each of the tenants listed there.
So for environmental review, an addendum to the Orkut Community Plan EIR was completed. And the Orkut Community Plan analyzed the impacts resulting from about 283,000 square feet of development on Keysight 2 and this project includes approximately 43,000 square feet so it's quite a bit less than what the Orkut Community Plan anticipated The project, well there have been no substantial changes in circumstances on the site since the Orkut Community Plan EIR was certified and there are no significant environmental effects that have been identified that are new or increased from what the Orkut Community Plan anticipated.
And mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate the impacts have been included in the staff report as conditions of approval for the project. So an appeal of the Planning Commission's approval was filed on August 22nd, and the primary issues raised in the appeal are concerns regarding the project's impacts to traffic circulation air quality and safety. In regards to traffic circulation, the appellants state that significant impacts to traffic from the project to local residents and Clark Avenue have not been adequately addressed and that peak hour commute times would be permanently increased.
They also raise concerns in regards to access and safety impacts to the residents of Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park that's located southeast of the site. And finally, they referenced the Orchid Marketplace project which is proposed on Keysight 1 to the north and state that driveways don't line up and that there's no indication that Clark Avenue is going to be fully navigable and safe after approval of the project.
As I previously mentioned, the Orchid Community Plan EIR did analyze the impacts to traffic from the future development of approximately 283,000 square feet of development on Keysight 2. A traffic analysis was completed for this particular project and it also included a cumulative analysis of the impacts to traffic that would result from full build-out of the Orchid Community Plan And so that includes Key Sites 1 through 4 that I discussed earlier.
The intersection alignment has been coordinated between Key Sites 1 and 2, that's a policy or development standard requirement in the Orchid Community Plan for Key Site 2, that those two projects need to coordinate the intersection alignment and also the design of the projects, and they have done that. This slide shows the access that Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park will have following completion of the project. So currently, Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park, their ingress and egress is through here and it's an existing road that goes in and out so they can currently make right turns and left turns across Clark Avenue Once the new intersection has been completed and is operating. The residents living in Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park will be able to come through this portion of the property and go to the signal and make a left turn or right turn.
And then, this existing access will be restricted just to right turns only because the distance between the new intersection and this existing access point is too short and it could cause conflicts and safety issues. So that's what is being proposed for access following completion of the project. And this design has been reviewed by the county's Public Works Department and it meets their requirements.
So the second appeal issue that's raised Is in regards to air quality and the appellant states that local residents. I'm sorry that the. The air quality impacts associated with the project have not been fully addressed and that reducing the setback, the rear yard setback is not justified because. The height of the building will block sunlight and airflow to adjacent residents and also Impacts to surrounding residents resulting from the gas station have also not been addressed.
And again, the Orchid Community Plan did analyze short and long-term emissions resulting from the full build out of the plan and that includes that 283,000 square feet of development on Keysight 2. Also in order to mitigate impacts associated with construction related emissions and dust, the project is conditioned to implement a dust control program. And permits are also required to be obtained from the Air Pollution Control District and Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Fire Department. And that's all prior to the issuance of a zoning clearance for their project.
So in regards to safety, the appellants state that chemicals used by the car wash will be rinsed away and they may flow into the ground eventually reaching the water table. And that no provisions have been made to keep people from walking behind the grocery store building undetected. The car wash will utilize a reverse osmosis water system and that's designed to treat and filter recovered wash water.
And the project conditions include requirements for biofiltration areas and vehicle washing areas have to be covered. And again, the rear area behind the grocery store is going to be gated and locked to prevent any unauthorized access back there. So the proposed project is consistent with the Santa Barbara County Land Use and Development Code, including the C2 zone district requirements as well as the Chapter 21 subdivision regulations and the comprehensive plan including the Orchid Community Plan.
So we do have one recommended revision to a condition of approval. So the Orchid Community Plan requires the developer to install a landscape center median on Clark Avenue, extending the entire length of the site and due to the phase development of the project in relation to other key sites in the area staff is recommending the revision to specify that any interim design of the landscape center median Any associated funding agreements be reviewed and approved by planning and development in public works before any kind of zoning clearance issuance. So that language is included here underlined So in conclusion, staff recommends that your board deny the appeal and make the required findings for approval of the project specified in Attachment 1 of the Board Letter including CEQA findings.
And determine that after considering the environmental review documents reflected in the findings that no subsequent environmental impact report be prepared for the project. And to grant de novo approval of the project subject to the conditions in attachments 2.1 to 2.5 of the board letter and as revised at the hearing, and that includes the modification to the setback requirements into the sign requirements that I discussed in the presentation.
So this concludes staff's presentation and I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you
2:06 – 2:204 turns
Okay I think we'll come back to questions. Let's move first to our appellant, which is Mr. Tal Finney. Mr. Finney is in Santa Barbara and I believe he has ten minutes.
Great on television just for the record. I'm here today on behalf of the residents for Orcutt Sensible Growth and we filed both an additional letter, a one page letter for you guys which I believe was received yesterday as well as the report, the traffic report prepared by KOA. Unfortunately, the timing of the hearing is such that the members of the Unincorporated Association of Concerned Residents that I'm representing here today couldn't come to the hearing to speak. They all couldn't get out of work unfortunately but I'm here representing them. I'm the former Deputy Comptroller of California and General Counsel Controller, General Counsel to the Lieutenant Governor and Senior Advisor and Director of Policy to the Governor and the former Director of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research which supervises the State Clearinghouse which administers the California Environmental Quality Act for the state.
And I'm here to speak on the appeal that's before you and the letter and report as well. And I would like to say that I appreciate the county's settlement process that the County Council holds. It actually was refreshing because we have that opportunity. I had a chance to meet with Gavin, the developer And I thought that we did meet some common ground and reach some common ground, but unfortunately we weren't able to settle due to the concerns that we have with traffic safety air quality soil and water quality.
As a staff suggested in their report including the development of the service station. I also wanted to state that the traffic report we've done does have a summary in the front of it, which might help. And most of the document is charts and tables. The actual written body of it has something around 12 pages. The traffic report analyzes the cumulative impacts of Key Sites 1, 2 and 3. This analysis makes clear that the development of Key Site 2 is a problem not only for the reasons having to do with this particular site as set forth in our appeal But also because the overall intended development project is being cobbled together piecemeal based on documents that were written many, many years ago without taking into account the looming environmental impacts that could be caused by Keysight 1 and 3 together with Keysight 2 which I believe I would also like to state that the study examined the development of three vacant parcels, which are the key sites in the unincorporated community of Warcut.
Using and adding to data from previous analyses, existing and build-out period traffic impacts for each of the three sites were examined individually. And then the trips generated by the three sites were added together to define cumulative build out conditions. In addition, the results of the traffic and circulation analysis prepared for one of those sites in 2015 was reviewed for methodological accuracy compared with results of this study. We really focused on four intersections And four roadway segments. The intersections were Clark Avenue and Stilwell Road, Clark Avenue and Sunny Hills Road, Clark Avenue and US 101 Santa Barbara ramps, and then Clark Avenue and US 101 northbound ramps. The roadway segments were Clark Avenue from Bradley Road to Stilwell Road, Clark Avenue from Stilwell Road to US 101, Stilwell Road south of Clark Avenue, and finally Sunny Hills Road south of Clark Avenue.
Traffic counts and daily traffic volumes for these locations, for the previously analyzed years of 2011 reflecting pre-project conditions. And 2015 reflecting project build out conditions were taken from the traffic and circulation analysis completed for site three in 2015 by Penfield and Smith. All of the analysis used older data extrapolated out to the then horizon year of 2015.
KOA did not add ambient growth to the analysis, nor were cumulative project trips updated for developments other than the three sites. And even having not added the ambient growth to the analysis and cumulative project trips updating it, the development of Sites 2 and 3 alone would cause LOS levels to deteriorate significantly below the existing and future baseline levels at two of the four study intersections. As well as considering the cumulative impacts of all three sites, by measuring the impacts of all three projects as a whole. Significant impacts would occur at all four study intersections and two out of the four of the steady roadway segments. Again that's not even taking into account ambient.
As we're continuing to grow in population of the state at an enormous rate. We also wanted to address that the applicant had requested to begin grading excavation and other earthworks at Key Site 2 while the appeal is pending, and we oppose any development work at Key Site 2 while the appeal is pending. So we respectfully request that the Board of Supervisors deny the application or at the least until such time as the concerns raised in the KOA traffic study have been addressed. And that's all my comments, I wasn't expecting to have so much time to speak. So I appreciate the time to present to you. Thank you.
All right, thank you very much. We'll now have the project applicant. Mr. Moores has 10 minutes to be able to present his case.
Have you got this slide? Presentation. Okay, all right. Chair Levine, fellow members, supervisors thank you for your time. I'm impressed with Mr Finney's state government work. I am not so impressed with the traffic studies but I'll address that later on. I would like to give you a few points here addressed on some overviews but I must say this has been a culmination of five years of work. This has not been a rushed process at all This is and it's really disappointing to go through this amount of work, this amount of work with staff and cooperation. And to find such a late appeal come in with studies that are outdated and that are probably inaccurate as well. What I'd like to do is give you a short picture of an understanding of really the final three challenges that we're working with staff, and continue to work with for a solution to bring our community a much needed shopping area and a much needed services to a part of Clark that up until this point have been somewhat neglected.
So here's some historical facts. Let's look at these information points here, and these are really milestones of collaboration that we have gone through with our team and staff. And we continue to refine these till we get these services completed for the residents on our side of Clark. This here is an exhibit which Dana showed earlier on in her presentation, and this really was the outlying points for us to start our work from in defining how we wanted to create the intersection with staff.
And I think that when you look at this and you see the intersection that is in the following slides, you understand the amount of work and consideration that has gone into the max build-out of all these project sites. I think the key thing to note as well is that Keysight 2 really is at the hub of Keysights 1, 2, 3 and 4. That's the development of the preferred location and these are some of the issues we'd like to continue to get your input on so we can refine with staff in public works.
I think these really represent The four and a half years of work purely just on the traffic aspect of this alone. This has not been a rush process by any means, in total we have 12 traffic studies and updates companies who provided those studies is Pinnacle Engineering who also worked on Keysight One. We have studies from Stantec as well and ATE all of whom are associated traffic engineers all of whom are credible and worked in this area for a number of years The questions that we want to work on and seek further input on for staff and public works is really focused around three small points.
The pro-rata share of the cost of the intersection, looking at how we can improve circulation in particular during the phased build out, and then look at the impacts on Quayside 2 alone, on the 5.9 acre site. As Dana showed you, here is Keysight 2 centered for our portion of the project. Centered in the middle there and I included in the handout, I'd just like to run through this is a total of 76 acres with the following projects that we now know that have either applications in process and one project where we undertook how much could buildable square footage could actually be placed on the remainder portion of Keysight two?
So here's Keysight One. I'd like you just to look at the square footage of buildable square foot and the total acreage. This is a site plan that has been used in a recent EIR study. This is the site plan that we proposed or came up with when we were trying to really anticipate exactly what could be built on the remainder portion of Quayside 2. You'll notice here that what we have is a 90,000 square foot buildable square footage. It could go up to 188,000 given the fact that we are 60% below our buildable square foot and our portion of Quayside 2.
Here is Quayside 3, 32 acres. We have a total buildable square feet of 377,000 there. And this is our site. Basically six acres, 42,000 square feet. 60% below the EIR and the OCP guidelines. And this is where it comes out in percentages. And I think what's really telling for us is that really our project is 4% of the proposed growth of the key sites and we're really 8% of the total building acreage.
And it wasn't until we put all this data together and we actually started looking at it and to see what impacts that we are creating that we really started to realize A It seems strange that an appellant would file a case as such against a small project unless they wanted to have other motives to basically stop other projects around it. Oops, sorry. So if we look at the project intersection costs this is the... We've estimated that the complete build out of the intersection will be a million bucks. We also have in addition to those costs the intersection itself of fees that have been allocated to Quayside 2.
I think for us we're just looking to get guidance which I believe we're working with on staff now, to get a fair and balanced method for pro rata share of those fees and the costs. And how we can incorporate the regional improvements into our phased build out so that what happens is construction doesn't continually interrupt tenants or future tenants access to and customers to add tenants to the particular key site at which we are building.
If we could actually do this and accommodate this in the long run, it will provide for a more balanced and larger completion of the complete phase build out. So here's the section in a couple of different slides that shows you the actual design of the intersection and how traffic can flow through the intersection from Clark down to Sunny Hills. The only question that, yesterday I was at a meeting with Sunny Hills and we had 82 members of Sunny Hills there in attendance. And it was interesting to find out some of their concerns because we would like to take those into account. You look at this road as its, we've had it just recently studied by ATE. It's 500 average daily trips, that is average daily trips. I mean that is a local road, not a collector road.
And therefore what we're asking for is in this location here temporary a left turn out so the traffic wouldn't be more directed down towards Sunny Hills where cars could actually get down into Sunny Hills Park there as well. Addressing the appeal, I have the utmost respect for Mr. Finney. I would love to have met with his clients. We've actually placed a number of emails back and forth. I've made a number of requests to Verbal, to him writing that we meet with their appellants wherever they are if they're in Santa Barbara happy to meet with them there or up in Santa Maria They were unwilling to meet and so the dialogue while it's been productive through Mr. Finney has really stalled on one point, and it stalled on the point that they wanted us to reduce the size of the grocery store down to 10,000 square feet When you look at the average size of a grocery store at 35 to 45,000 square feet and we're at 26, I think we've already made accommodations that really would transition a proposed grocery store down to a 7-Eleven or a stop and go.
And that doesn't really work for what is wanted by the residents and it doesn't really work for this valuable quayside. In short, I don't believe that they've met the standing coming up this late in the game. They may well have the legal right to do so and I certainly wouldn't challenge that but I think a lot more can be accomplished through dialogue and working together than passing emails and letters back-and-forth So I'm requesting the Board of Supervisors deny this appeal. They direct Public Works to work with us and to come up with a fair cost-sharing agreement, which we have already agreed with some language on, and direct Public Works to work with us on a phased build out of the intersection and construction plan that will allow a left turn out of the shopping centre from Sunny Hills Road.
Thank you
2:20 – 2:2512 turns
Okay, this takes us to our public comment portion of the hearing. Do we have any requests to speak from the public?
Chair Lavenino and members of the board I have one request to speak on this item. And that is David Hassett. David?
Good morning. We'll have three minutes, thank you.
Thank you. I'm here in front of for Sunny Hills and Town & Country and we had a meeting with Gavin yesterday. We went over all the different things he pretty much presented and got signatures from residents saying that we'd like to move forward with this. We don't know why someone's trying to stop it. He's pointed out how the traffic will flow, Great for us, he's willing to put in a street name that says Sunny Hills for the turning left arrow.
He's pretty much working to accommodate all our needs sidewalk wise easy access for residents to be able to walk We're not opposed of the grocery store being set back. We don't want it to be any smaller because we want to be able to use this grocery store. So everything that Gavin's presented to us is, we are 100% in favor of it. And he's willing to work with us if we do have any other concerns that might come up later on.
Okay.
Supervisor Adam has a question. Do you have any idea who the appellants are?
No, not at all. Okay, that's what we were main reason why we had the meeting yesterday is to say okay well We don't know who it is and Gavin didn't know who it was so we wanted to say hey we're Sunny Hills, we live right there and so we want to make a point that hey we want this to happen Now if we're talking about different Keysight, like Keysight 3 then that's a different story.
But this Keysight 2 we are definitely in favor of it. It's been adjoining great with Keysight 4. It is already in progress.
Thank you. Supervisor Williams? I just had a question from the applicant's perspective. No, it wasn't a question.
We're good. Thank you very much. So we're going to move, so before you ask your questions, thank you. Were you finished? Yeah give that to the clerk here. And then I'll kind of lay out the way the rest of the hearing's going to go and then we'll go to our questions. So, and I do apologize for the folks that came because we're not going to finish this before lunch but we did get a late traffic study. And so to do our due diligence, we're going to have staff look over that between now and lunch. So we won't be making any final vote until after lunch.
But at this point, we'll have questions. We'll take our break and we come back. We'll have a report on the traffic report and then public comment if there is any just on that traffic report will then go to rebuttal where the appellant will have five minutes in the project applicant will have five minutes. Come back for staff comments and deliberation and finish up with a vote.
So at this point, we're going to close the public comment period. And we appreciate the folks who did show up and open it up for questions of board members. Supervisor Williams.
Well, one question I had was both from staff's perspective and from the applicant's perspective. And I would wonder if they agree on this basic question is if the Keysight 2 is 8% of the sort of building space square footage of the project what percentage of the traffic impacts Are generated by the uses on Keysight 2, sort of getting into this fairness of mitigation question.
And it's fine if one of you has an answer and one of you doesn't. I'd just be interested to see how close your answers are to each other.
This will be for staff, I'm sorry.
Sorry, we were just talking about the reunion traffic thing. Can I get that question again? Sure Chris, it's what percentage of all the Keysight's traffic impacts are the uses, the grocery store and the convenience store car wash on Keysight 2? What percentage of overall traffic impacts of all the key sites is
2:25 – 2:3013 turns
this? Mr. Chair, members of the board my name is Will Robertson with Public Works Transportation I wish there was a really simple answer for you because it kind of depends on how you interpret the Orchid Community Plan policies and the responsibilities that were assigned to the key sites so As I was looking at this yesterday, between key sites 1, 2 and 3. We took four out because four was never required to pay anything into this intersection, nor did they have an impact at the intersection. So one two and three and technically three was removed as well because threes own traffic study did not have any impacts on Clark Avenue. They were not required to build a signal they were going to be able to just put in a stop sign and build their project so between key sites one and two the portion that Mr Moore is building generated I believe, and I left it on my desk, I apologize.
But it was about 19% of the total trips between Keysight 1 and 2.
And if you include 3 as part of the impact? It brought it down to 17. Okay. And that's all with the sort of standard generation rates that planners use.
That was simply using the peak hour trips that were identified in the traffic study prepared for Keysight 1, which was consistent with the traffic study for Keysight 2. 3's traffic study was done so far ago that we didn't look at it in as much detail as we did with Keysight I and II.
So the 19 or 17% is peak hour trips, which is probably the best one to use? Correct.
Based on actual projects presented to the county. Got it. Thank you. Well, and the remainder of Keysight 2 was conceptual remainder because we don't know what's going to be built on the remainder of Keysight 2. Okay, so it used the policy guidelines in the original 95 EIR which assumed about 35% building coverage on the remaining portion.
Great, thank
you.
And I'll just remind the applicant and the appellant that they will have rebuttal time. So if there's something that comes up that you would like to object to. Supervisor Hartman?
This is a question for Mr. Gazzone about the issue of standing.
Chair and supervisors, standing is a term, jurisdictional term. It's used differently in different settings. In the setting of CEQA projects such as this, standing is very broad and we would ask you to presume that there is standing present. If there is not, that's something that will be litigated later but standing is concept that's very broad for participation in the CEQA process.
Good. Supervisor Hart?
So the applicant is asking for some more clarity from public work staff about the cost sharing agreement for the intersection improvements, something that more directly relates to the percentage of trips that are being generated and so I think there have been conversations going on about that and trying to narrow the range of difference of opinion. How is that going? Where are we and do you have anything else to add?
Mr. Stenton probably is the perfect person ask right there
Chris and County Public Works. Chair and board members, this is kind of a unique project in that there are so many key sites that are right next to each other and you're in a little bit of a chicken-and-an-egg situation when one key site comes in before the other and potentially builds before the other. In the interest of facilitating the item, we don't have all the full details on that worked out. But the general concept would be in a typical situation, the first and the first to build has to do all the improvements in this situation because the north side has some of the work that needs to actually happen on Keysight One.
Keysight 2 couldn't build those even if they wanted to, so we need to come up with an interim condition. And the concept would be that they need to build the interim conditions so that their project can open and all the traffic can flow properly. And then when the ultimate configuration is done, they would have some kind of credit towards the work that they've already done versus the amount that they need to pay for the ultimate configuration.
So my question, I believe is for planning. So if you could just do a real quick recap for me on what is and where we are in the process and what's been proposed on Keysight 1 and where that sits in the timetable?
2:30 – 2:4143 turns
Yes, thank you Chair Lavagnino. So I am also the project manager for Keysight 1 and Keysight 3. And so currently there is a project proposed on Keysight One. We have not started environmental review yet. We're about to do that and so that project hasn't been approved However, because Keysight 2 was moving forward we did as I mentioned in the presentation coordinate the intersection alignment to make sure that it worked for both of the projects and it does.
Key Site 2 is approved, then the next step would be for the applicant to apply for a zoning clearance and they would go through and complete any conditions of approval. And during that time they'd also be working with Public Works in our department on any interim intersection design that we are talking about today as well as the funding agreement.
And then just refresh my memory on Keysight 3, is that housing and affordable housing built out?
Yes. It's not officially affordable housing but it's about 119 single family residences and then an additional I think 125 apartments.
Yeah okay so but that's already been approved
No it has not.
Oh, okay I thought that
had already... Keysight 3 has not been approved either.
Okay so where's that in the process
then? For Keysight 3 a draft EIR was circulated a couple of years ago and then there were quite a few comments that were received on the document and so our department has been working on those comments and then some other aspects of the project that came up regarding Laguna County Sanitation District services and things like that
So what's holding Keysight 3 as, I mean if there's a project not approved why are we assuming it's? For some reason I thought there was already a project there.
Well we have a project that we're reviewing but it's similar to Keysight 1 in that it's an application that's in and we're reviewing it just hasn't been approved yet. How long has
that application been in because I've heard of
that project
for a decade I think almost.
The current project we're reviewing came in 2013
Okay, so six, seven years ago. All right. Okay, thank you and Supervisor Hart? Okay, so yeah. Okay, so last question for me is that last question he had and maybe Chris answered this on whether or not to be able to allow left turn coming out of there until the other key site comes on board. Would that be something that you would have discretion over? Or would that be a planning?
Yeah, they're figuring it out.
So just for clarification, are you talking about onto Clark? No.
The side street instead of turning right to Sunny Hills it would allow left turn only out of there. I believe if I was looking at it
right. Coming out of the shopping center right before the intersection we believe that should be a right only.
Where's our
map? Mr. Chair, we're going to bring up the graphic.
Okay, we're going to bring up the graphic so we can look at it.
Correct. Yeah, so we still would support a right only there but we can explore that further. The typical process is a design exception is submitted and we review it and make a recommendation to the road commissioner. Okay. We're not talking about
these. That's not the picture I wanted. It's in the applicants.
So that's one of the things that would be worked out and is written in as the condition. That we would need to make a final decision on that.
It's that one, what page is it? It's the last page of course.
There it
is. Okay, can you make that any smaller? Okay yeah so exiting out heading east right there in the green circle so I think they're asking if that could be a left instead of right that would direct people more towards Sunny Hills
So again, these are normal things that we would resolve before it gets to this stage. But so it's a little premature. It still hasn't gone through the process. They would submit a design exception and we would review it. The road commissioner would make the ultimate decision on it currently and as we support the approved project plan which shows a right only there.
Okay, but this is something that can be worked out. Okay, Supervisor Adam?
Yeah I was just going to say, I don't think it's reasonable that we're going to work this out today. It sounds to me like Chris you're going to end up spending a little more time looking at this.
Correct
Yeah.
So yeah, I'm just a little curious about that because usually if a project comes to us in the way I remember, I mean, I feel about it, it's usually a done deal and we make a determination thumbs up or down. So is it just because the study's coming in late on the traffic study? Or is this just a late ask?
Yeah, so I don't want to step on anybody's toes. My understanding is that it is to approve the project that was approved at the Planning Commission which is the- Right, so that wasn't requested? Which is the final project. Okay. Which will have a write out only there. Okay. What we're willing to work out- In interim. Interim condition is and so it's just a hang up on whether we are okay with a right turn only interim or allowing other movements.
Gotcha, okay.
And Mr. Chair, I think that was a request that came from Sunny Hills in their recent meeting and has not been forwarded to our staff for review.
Okay, something we can take a look at. All right, great. Okay, thank you very much. I know we're doing a lot of things on the fly. Supervisor Hartman?
Chris would you stay please? I'm not sure I'm fully following all this and I don't know, I don't have the traffic study that we're supposed to look at over lunch. But could you describe the difference between collector roads and other roads? And the cost that's assigned to the applicant in this case and how that eventually gets allocated across the different projects?
Sure can we go to the plan view that shows the final of Clark? So this is a complicated area and there's a lot going on. Thank you. But I think it's worthwhile to talk about, too, the difference between site-specific impacts and OTIP projects. And that may come up later when we talk about the review. This road here will ultimately be a collector road because it will go back through these properties and connect to the key sites. So it's a collector road that's connecting neighborhoods to larger roads.
Internal to the development areas we don't really get to. Excuse
me does that, does a collector road is it defined by the number of trips or?
Yeah it's a classification based on yeah the volume of use and what the road type use is if it's collecting essentially traffic to get it out of developments and you know commercial areas onto the more major roads And the main significance of that, from our perspective is collector roads are generally taken into the county's maintained system where the county becomes responsible for the operations. So that's where we look at very carefully at things like design exceptions for moving things really close to intersection so we don't end up with situations like you have where there's major roads with a bunch of really closely spaced intersection that causes congestion and other issues.
This intersection and the frontage improvements are what we're talking about as site-specific improvements that are required by the projects. These are not in the OTIP as projects, the OTIP projects are larger projects that are community wide circulation projects that developers pay into for more regional projects like the 101 on and off ramps projects The main difference being there, which we can talk about this afternoon a little bit is the 101 on and off ramps in those projects are not the responsibility of the developers. They pay into fees and the county builds those projects. The improvements for frontage to open their center as required are site-specific impacts that they need to address outside of the OTIP process.
Maybe that was more information than you wanted but hopefully it comes in handy later.
Is there another map that shows where the collector road goes in relation to Sunny Hills and Town and Country? Something that gives a better picture of, because the concern of the folks is that they don't want the traffic coming right out of the shopping center going down toward the mobile home park. So where were those cars? Where are they supposed to go?
2:41 – 2:449 turns
So that the exact alignment will be determined when the other development plans come in, but it essentially kind of I think it's currently planned to cut across at kind of an angle. Can
we go back to the site plan we just set up a minute ago? Yep, right there. Okay so as approved by the Planning Commission if you were making a right out of the shopping center driveway and I understand the concern is that they don't want the cars going down to the trailer park Got it. Okay, so right now anybody exiting right here would end up coming into this turn pocket and this is wide enough here that they could flip a U-turn really the only direction they would be going is back to the freeway However, there are multiple options. You could also come out this driveway here and go out to the freeway. So the likelihood of this maneuver happening is actually pretty low.
And in reality what we probably will see is anybody exiting here is probably going to be visiting the gas station and then exiting and leaving this way. So there are multiple options. There would really, unless you were a resident down here off of Sunny Hills, there would be no reason why you would be coming this way in the interim condition until Keysight 3 is actually built or the remainder of Keysight 2, the commercial component that has not even shown up on the radar yet.
So you can get out to Clark up on the top like you described. There's no references there yet, thank you. And you can also go out to this new road near the detention basin right? That is correct. To make a left to go
to Clark. And if you needed to and there's actually another option that's not shown here because Keysight 4 is approved. You could actually travel through the shopping center and turn right and use the Stillware intersection to either turn left and continue down to Clark I mean, down to Bradley or you could also use this driveway again come into the turn pocket and flip a U-turn. Okay?
Thank
you. So there are several options.
All right very good so at this time if there's no other questions we will go ahead and break staff will be reviewing the Traffic report and we'll be back here. Mr. Gazzone, what's closed session look like time-wise?
Chair and supervisors I estimate between 90 minutes and two hours
for closed session. All right so we will be back no sooner than 1.30. Well we'll be back about 1. 30 is that about right okay.
2:44 – 3:473 turns
So Chair and Supervisors, today for closed session the board is agendized to consider six items. The first four are existing litigation. Case number one, County of Santa Barbara's administrative appeal of the Department of Healthcare Services findings. Item number two concerns a capital endowment litigation involving Cox Communications. Item number three involves Santa Nez River Water Conservation District Improvement District Number One.
Item number four are the Southern California fire cases. Item number five is one matter of deciding whether to initiate civil litigation, and item number six is conference with labor negotiators concerning service employees international union local 620. And again your estimate of about 130 sounds right?
You.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. You. Music you Thank you. Okay. Thank you. 3F 5.30 x (-0.50), Yeah. you Oh, Thank you. Hello. . . Music . . . You. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Good morning. Music You. END Okay. You. Yeah. Yeah. 3F 5.30 x (-0.50), FCSp4 3.20 Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Good
3:47 – 4:192 turns
4:20 – 4:242 turns
4:29 – 4:3414 turns
This meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. And Mr. Gazzone, can I get a report out at closed session please?
Chair and supervisors today in closed session, the board considered four matters of existing litigation. First, the county of Santa Barbara's administrative appeal to the Department of Healthcare Services. Second, the capital endowment litigation involving Cox Communications. Next, Santa Anaz Riverwater Conservation District Improvement District 1. And finally, the Southern California fire cases.
You also considered one matter of deciding whether to initiate civil litigation and were noticed to consider conference with labor negotiators as to service employees, international union local 620 but that did not occur today. There are no reportable actions.
Okay very good so we are going to go back to item number four and we all were provided the traffic report over lunch and So Mr. Gazzani, am I supposed to bring staff up at this point too?
Chair, we talked, planning director and I had spoken and jointly recommend that next you would hear about the traffic report from public work staff. And then consider a public comment limited solely to the traffic report after that before going to rebuttal by the appellant and the project applicant.
Great,
okay.
Mr. Sneddon if you'd like to come forward.
Good afternoon. So I'm just going to start with a real general kind of overview and then if there's detailed questions we have Gary Smart and Will Robertson to answer if we need to go into more detail, but generally speaking there's no information in this report that would change any of the staff responses that we gave in the staff report and Primarily, the primary things that we looked at when we looked here were the traffic information and it's not consistent with the EIR analysis. It's already been done for the Orchid Community Plan and OTIB.
And one thing I think that's worth noting that we sort of alluded to earlier when we talked about some of the project improvements is There's a difference between the site-specific improvements that are required for these projects and the projects that are from cumulative impacts of build out for the OTIP in the community plan. And specifically, the projects at the 101 are OTIP projects so they're in the OTIP and they're funded through impact mitigation fees and those are separate projects from any of the impacts that are considered when we studied this project Keysight 2.
So I'll leave it at that, but if you have more questions we're happy to answer anything further.
Okay, Mr. Gazzani? Chair and supervisors, I think it might be helpful now to also, if we could hear from Deputy County Counsel Brian Pettit to talk about the relationship of the community plan EIR with the EIR addendum that has been presented to you and also this traffic study that you received over lunch.
Chair and supervisors, once an EIR has been certified for a community plan. The CEQA guidelines provide that no further additional environmental review shall be required except as might be necessary to examine whether there are project specific significant effects which are peculiar to the project or its site.
Okay. So we would consider that a fairly high bar for additional
EIR review? Very good, so then I will open it up now for any public comment just on this traffic study. Are there any requests to speak from the public on this matter? Seeing none, do we have anybody in Santa Barbara? Okay. It's 131, we said to be back at 130 so we're coming back for rebuttal and the appellant is listed first. Is Mr. Finney in the building either here or in Santa Barbara?
Can Santa Barbara confirm? He's not here right now in Santa Barbara.
Okay, we'll move to the project applicant. You have five minutes for rebuttal or anything else you'd like to.
4:34 – 4:4521 turns
Chair Lavalin, fellow commissioners thank you for your time. We've had some conversations I think been very productive with Chris and taking in some recommendations that have been provided earlier on today so we have no other comments thank you
All right, Mr. Williams?
The question that I asked staff earlier, does your team agree that the traffic impacts of your part of the parcels is between 17 and 19% depending on what you count and you don't count?
I think there's a little bit of difference, but not worth splitting hairs on quite frankly. Depending on which, if it's Keysight 2 that is collective or just our portion of Keysight 2. But I think basically the format and the rough numbers are pretty much close here. Got it. Okay.
So Mr. Gazzone, I'm going to just in abundance of caution ask for a little guidance on what to do with the appellant at this point?
Chair and supervisors, the board announced a time certain for return. I think it would be safe to receive staff comments at this time and then that will take probably a few minutes and then Mr. Finney could have another opportunity for appellant rebuttal. Okay we'll go to final staff comments.
We do not have any additional comments thank you
Well, I'm happy to ask a question. I was going to wait for but from Chris and Gary. One of the issues that the applicant has brought up is the million dollars of fees combined with a million dollars of improvements for a project that you guys agree it's 19% of the traffic impacts. I know normally, that means that the applicant would get reimbursed for 81% by the other applicants over time for their improvements.
I mean, is that how that normally works?
So Chair and Supervisor Williams, normally it's the burden rests on the first person to develop an area for doing whatever improvements are required. This is such a unique situation where you have pretty major developments and a lot of key sites right next to each other where the burden is to build a functioning roadway and the frontage that's required of their project And it seems to make sense to do then some kind of fair share ratio for the future improvements that this developer can't build, even if they came in today. So that's the concept we're working on to distribute the needed work to do this improvement plus the other improvements in the area.
So by some methodology, whether it's 19% and 81%, you'd have some split. But the issue is the holding cost to the applicant of paying for those preemptively that the other applicants would only pay or reimburse later on. Am I getting that right? I just know that that's done sometimes in projects. I don't know if that's done always.
Chair and Supervisor Williams, that's sort of the concept. They would only be needing to build now what's required for the road to function for their development if they came in before the other key sites and then we'd be working out the future developments and this is just to clarify this is completely separate from the mitigation fees which are for specific projects called out in the OTIP that don't include the improvements were talking about now
Okay.
Okay, Mr. Finney's back what
would you like to do here? Well actually that was my question that Supervisor Williams asked and it sounds like there just isn't any way to bring clarity to that at this point in time. There's just going to have to be additional work with the applicant and the public works staff to figure out the cost sharing but that everybody understands that there is going to be some kind of cost-sharing mechanism that fairly allocates these expenses as best everybody can so that's good thank you
We're not ready for a motion, so we're going to go to Mr. Finney and then we'll come back.
Okay. Mr. Chair, just with Mr. Finney back I'd recommend although it's somewhat duplicative to hear again from Mr. Sneddon for just a quick summary of the traffic report so that Mr. Finney would have the benefit of that before his rebuttal comments. Okay.
You need me to get a seat closer to the front? Yeah.
All right. That's why you normally sit here. The three things that we pointed out about the information that we've seen so far is it doesn't change anything that we would have responded in the staff report. This is not consistent with, the information here is not consistent with the EIR traffic analysis that was already done in 1995 for the OTIP and the community plan.
It also is using outdated information and there's more current information And it's already been studied.
Okay? And Mr. Chair, and from County Council we had also summarized that under CEQA guideline 15183a that once an EIR is completed for a community plan there's a fairly high bar for requiring additional environmental review. And I wanted Mr. Finney to have the benefit of that before you segue to him for his appellant rebuttal.
Okay very good so Mr. Finney you have five minutes for rebuttal
Okay, thank you so very much. This letter is going to be submitted in further support of our appeal filed on behalf of residents for ORCUT Sensible Growth. The appellate alleges that the ORCUT Gateway Retail Commercial Center is being approved based on an outdated EIR certified in July 22 of 1997 which was 22 years ago. And a supplemental EIR certified July 15, 2019. The original EIR identified significant effects on the environment in the following categories geology soils flooding water resources traffic circulation noise air quality wastewater fire protection solid waste and visual resources open space. Importantly the supplemental EIR states that CEQA Section 15164 allows an addendum to be prepared when some changes or additions are necessary, but none of the conditions described in section 15162 call for the preparation of an EIR have occurred.
The supplement EIR states that no such conditions have occurred. Appellant alleges that this assessment is incorrect. In 1997, the population of Santa Barbara was about one-fifth of what it is now. And the Orcutt population has remained steady at just under 29,000. It's not wise to develop commercial property depending on these numbers to remain stagnant. The exploding population numbers in the county will undoubtedly put pressure on Orcut in the future.
Today to get from Montecito to this hearing room than it did to leave Los Angeles County based on the traffic I went through. And it's such a pristine, beautiful drive up that 101 right now so I ask that you take that into consideration. The increased population in Santa Barbara County has caused enormous stresses on the county's resources natural and otherwise indeed the county is expending millions to expand the one-on-one freeway in the city of Santa Barbara. The increase in population densities in the county can only be expected to increase going forward particularly given State of California is losing thousands of homes and apartments annually due to devastating fires. I don't need to speak to that issue for this community, you've also been through the floods and of course that little mini hurricane with the crazy weather these days.
Ours is a state population that is on the move. We can't afford to plan major developments based on 20-year old environmental review documents. Given these environmental stresses, the Key Site 2 approval must be set aside and all three key sites must be evaluated as a whole pursuant to a proper, fulsome and current environmental review. Additionally, CEQA guidelines 15162a sub two provides in pertinent part the requirement to undertake a new environmental review after an original EIR is certified.
For a negative declaration or adopted for a project, no subsequent EIR shall be prepared for that project unless the lead agency determines on the basis of substantial evidence in the light of the whole record one or more of the following. That substantial changes occur with respect to the circumstances under which the project is undertaken which will require major revisions of the previous EIR or NEGDEC due to the involvement of new significant environmental effects or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified significant effects.
The exploding population in the county is a substantial change to the circumstances under which the project is undertaken, which will require major revisions of the previous EIR due to the involvement of a new significant level of traffic and other effects on the environment that have occurred since certification of the original EIR took place back in 1997.
The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors respective reliance on this outdated document is an improper Abuse of discretion the Orcutt community plan was revised in July of 2019. The plan identified an overall community identity from Orcut residents point-of-view. The majority of respondents thought that Orcut was best described today as a suburb of Santa Maria with 56% followed by a semi rural community 18% and an independent self-sufficient community 17%. The vision for Orcutts future was fairly evenly divided When asked if it should be a city of its own, 61% said no. Regarding the growth rate over the last five years, 45% thought growth in nearly half the population has been too fast and 44% thought the rate was appropriate.
Only 7% thought it was too slow. When asked what type of new development should be encouraged, 50% favored little or no new development. The five most important issues as described by respondents were in the order of importance, loss of open space, traffic, loss of agriculture, the need for more parks and recreation and the loss of scenic views. The preservation of agricultural lands over additional residential and commercial development was favored 70% to 21%. The majority of respondents have lived in Orcutt for over five years and the highest number came from residents of over 20 years. Clearly the approval of Keysight 2 and the overall plans offered by Keysight 1 and 3 which are still under review should be approved and looked at as a whole instead of a piecemeal fashion.
As noted earlier, California is experiencing yearly the devastating effect of climate change. The state legislatures have developed a renewable portfolio standard that requires the state to obtain a certain percentage of its energy from renewable resources. The project contemplates the construction of a large gas station at a time when Orcutt's residents should be considering electric vehicles and other alternatives. Keysight too will build several buildings that will Wow.
4:46 – 4:5113 turns
Let's just have a moment of silence after that. Can I
ask a procedural question? Sure. Wouldn't the applicant have an opportunity to respond?
That was why it clicked on, was that on our rebuttal lineup, it's normally the appellant first and the project applicant. And whether Mr. Morris wants to respond or not, I would recommend giving him a short opportunity for any rebuttal that he has after the appellate is gone.
I will just speak from myself and just say that we are committed to doing solar panels on this project, and other environmental green measures as well. In particular the water-saving car wash, I know. But I was very impressed with Mr. Finney's repertoire there. It was very good. Thank you.
All right,
so we've covered that base. Supervisor Adam? Okay well I'm just going to cite that this is 22 years old. Everybody's known that this is going to be a commercial parcel from the 22 years ago when they spent scads of time on the OCP. And the Planning Commission approved this project and the Board of Architectural Review approved the project, including the sign modifications and setbacks and all the other things that he had to go through. So I'm going to make a motion that we, and Mr. Gazzone you want me to read the entire
staff recommendations?
Okay, well then what I'll say is I'm going to move staff recommendations on page 23 and 24 of the PowerPoint presentation.
I'll second that. Are there any comments on the motion? Supervisor Williams?
I did have one question from Mr. Finney's. I'm leaning towards supporting the motion, but there is one I wanted to remove a little doubt in my head. What of those in the EIR were class 1 impacts and what of those- Is there any changes to these projects different than what was envisioned in the EIR that would trigger additional analysis?
I'm Chair Lavagnino and Supervisor Williams. So when the Orchid Community Plan EIR was adopted, the Board of Supervisors at that time actually adopted a statement of overriding considerations for all the identified Class 1 impacts and when we reviewed this particular project there were no additional Class 1 impacts beyond what was identified in the Orchid Community Plan and in fact In many cases, the impacts were even less because it's much less development than what was identified in the Orchid Community
Plan. I think I can support the motion here. Just clarification on the motion, does your motion include any direction on what to do about the transportation improvements?
Well, I think that it would be impractical to sit here today and I think we just have to trust the applicant knows what he's doing because he's a mature adult. And I think that he can work out a deal with P&D and Public Works and It would just necessitate coming back again, and I think he's better off to just go work that out. And then if he needs to come back again, I think he could potentially ask my office.
Or one of the other offices if he felt more comfortable doing so. But I think everybody understands, there's a recognition up here on the dais that it's a very odd circumstance and it's going to need to be massaged. And some of those other parcels that need to contribute couldn't have done Putting the improvements in first, and that's kind of what's tough is this is the front line lot. And so if you don't develop that then the guy in the back couldn't really do what Mr. Moore was going to do.
And so I think it's something that we should be able to work out.
4:51 – 4:5314 turns
I agree.
And our clerk has a, okay, Mr. Gazzone, you want to go first?
You can go
first. Chair Lavenino, members of the board, just for clarification of the record I wanted to confirm that Supervisor Adams' motion was to approve recommendations A through H on today's agenda?
Roll-call vote Moved by Peter Adam · Seconded by Steve Lavagnino
Show transcript
Which I believe is identical to A through H on the board's agenda and board letter.
Yeah, that is my intent.
Okay.
All right so we have a motion by Supervisor Adam, a second by Supervisor Lavinino. Let's do a roll call.
Ms. Hartman? Aye. Mr. Adam? Aye. Mr Williams? Aye Mr Hart? Aye Chair Lavinino? Aye Motion passes unanimous
Supervisor Lavinia, if I may, I just want to say thank you to our planner. Dana Eady, this is her last hearing before the board. She had just told us she's actually taking another promotional position outside of the county so we want to thank her for her 12 years with the county.
Thank you so much.
You're not moving away, are you? Okay. All right let's move to departmental agenda item number five.
We'll
take a minute here just a sec. Let everybody clear out. Okay, let's go ahead and read it in.
4:53 – 5:084 turns
Chair Lavenino, members of the board, departmental item number five is from the county executive office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the fiscal year 2020-2025 five year forecast.
Okay, Mr. Frapwell?
Thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board good afternoon as a matter of housekeeping our clerk is passing out our advise slide 19 which corrected a typo on the slides so that's being corrected and we'll go through that in a moment But again, we find ourselves at this time of year where we are presenting to your board our five-year forecast. And a five-year forecast again includes not only our fiscal forecasts but also the identification of fiscal issues that remain on our radar as we focus not only on the upcoming fiscal year but in the four remaining years in the outlook period.
In today's report In today's report, we're looking at not only the five-year forecast fiscal issues. But also in how this fits in the overall budget development process for the fiscal year 2021 county budget. So here's our timeline that we show each time to kind of show this process. So we are at the first stage, this is our first kind of a look forward into the next fiscal year in December and in three weeks or so will be back before your board to seek your boards approval budget development guidelines for the fiscal year 2021 budget.
We'll move forward in April, so in between that December and April is where all the magic's done. And then we'll come back for budget workshops in April. May the recommended budget will be released and finally in June of 2020 we'll have budget hearings A little bit about the forecast. Again, it is merely meant to provide a context for not only next year's budget but also looking at how we balance both short term and long term goals for the county.
How do we incorporate the priorities of your board? How do we continue to recognize the commitment that your board has already made and continue to move forward on those initiatives that your board has approved? It is not intended today to solve any gaps, but rather to identify where we have potential issues from a fiscal standpoint. What are the key issues that we'll be working on as we develop next year's budget and what do we see on the horizon?
The forecast also identifies potential demands on the county resources in coming years and we'll talk about that as part of the fiscal issues. And it projects, importantly projects a balanced budget for 2021 and potential gaps in the out-years assuming a recession. In further context you know the county's been fortunate in that has experienced over a decade of growth in discretionary revenue.
There are many counties that would envy Santa Barbara County's experience in this regard. The recession we think continues to be possible in the out years of the forecast period, you'll see we've run a couple scenarios for you including a scenario without a recession so Present to you kind of the bookends of what we see as potential in the forecast. Renew 22, those initiatives continue to be both on the countywide initiatives as well as departmental initiatives are underway.
As we've discussed before, Renew 22 is largely inward facing initiatives in which we're looking to improve the counties and departments overall operational efficiency effectiveness. As well as position the county importantly for fiscal resiliency should a recession occur. Fourthly, our assumptions are based on our current estimates. Obviously it's a point in time and we know that the world we live in continues to evolve and each day is a new day and we learn new things but we've based our assumptions today on what we know today.
We also assume in the forecast of status quo of services so we're not projecting the addition of services nor the contraction of services at the department level And I'm sorry, I neglected to say I am joined by Paul Clemente who is our principal analyst and I'm excited to have him present this middle portion of our presentation today.
Thank you, Jeff. So we'll walk through the expenditure assumptions first that we've built into the forecast. You'll see salaries at 3.1% average annual increase. That's based on negotiated increases as well as step and merit increases to employees and as Jeff just mentioned a status quo assumption of staffing at the 19-20 level so there's no program expansions or added staff built into this forecast.
Retirement is an average annual increase of about 4.7%, mainly driven by the salary increases, as well as some assumed increases to the SB serves plan rates and partially offset by the caution agreements we've reached recently which is expected to generate excuse me generate about $7.7 million in savings in the fiscal 2021 year. Finally, health insurance and average annual increase of about 4.8%. We've had relatively low premium increases with county health plans in recent years but this is one to watch it's particularly volatile just because it's based on prior year costs so if there's some particularly high cost users in a particular year we could see higher increases in the subsequent plan year.
The next couple slides will talk about some ongoing commitments that are based on prior board actions built into the forecast as well. The northern branch jail set aside continues and we'll reach the targeted funding level in fiscal year 22-23, that's $19.3 million. Then the forecast in the out two years assumes a $1.2 million increase each of those years has costs continue to increase to operate every year.
The fire tax shift will achieve in this fiscal year 19-20 the 17% goal, which will be allowed about $11.7 million shifted over in this fiscal year and that just continues to grow with property tax growth in every subsequent year. The 18% maintenance funding plan will reach $7.5 million by the fifth year of the forecast, and the forecast assumes that it will track the unallocated discretionary revenue growth.
In addition to this, funding available for maintenance is included in SB 1. There's other maintenance non-general fund sources as well as each year when we develop a budget, we do seek one time sources for other maintenance projects. Finally, the strategic reserve is fully funded in this fiscal year. And we've assumed that it continues to remain fully funded in every year of the forecast which would require about a $1.8 million annual contribution and it reaches about $45.6 million in the fifth year of the forecast.
I'll touch on the revenue assumptions we built in. We stress tested the revenues, a few of the key major discretionary revenue line items with three scenarios. A no recession growth scenario that follows along with recent trends that we've been seeing the past few years. A mild recession, which would assume growth in the first year. But then a mild recession beginning in the second year with some dips in these revenues and a moderate recovery building in years three through five.
And then a deeper recession which builds on the mild recession scenario with a deeper dip in that year two as well as a slower longer drawn out recovery in the out years. And the major discretionary revenue lines that we tested here were property tax, sales tax and transient occupancy TOT tax. You'll see on this slide they all start because we didn't assume a recession until the second year at about $255 million total in the first year and then you see the divergence start. The top line is the no recession scenario which builds to a little over $300 million by the fifth year.
And this gap you see between that and the mild recession, that's the unrealized revenue that you'd see in the mild recession. About $23.4 million by the fifth year between that and the no-recession scenario. Deep recession would add another 12.6 million on top of that for a total difference of about $36 million in unrealized revenue between the no recession and deep recession scenario.
I'll just briefly walk through each of these three line items and how we stressed each of them. Property taxes make up about 80% of the county's discretionary revenue, that's the largest chunk of that revenue. And in the no recession scenario, we've assumed similar to previous years about a 4.5% growth of that revenue each fiscal year. Mild recession starts in the same place, but then we see it slowing down to about 2% growth in years two and three. And then up to 3%, years four and five so that recovery begins.
In the deep recession flat growth in years two and three, and then only 1% back up to 2% by year five. So you see a larger dip in the much slower recovery. Sales tax makes up 4% of the county's discretionary revenue. 2% is the assumption for no recession and the baseline for the first year in mild and deep, and then you see a dip of negative one so you actually see a decline in the second year for the mild recession with a slow recovery back up to 2% by the fifth year. And then just that deeper negative 2% in the second year for the deep recession, and we only get back to 1% growth by the fifth year.
TOT is 4.8% of the county's discretionary revenue, and there's a 3% baseline growth for no recession. In the mild recession we've got it flat. We see it flat for years two and three, and then it's back up to the 3% baseline by the fifth year. And in the deep recession we actually experience a decline in those revenues in the second year, and we're only getting back up to 2% by year five.
Cannabis tax revenue, we also wanted to mention the forecast based on 18-19 receipts as well as preliminary estimates for what 19-20 is looking like. We've built an $8 million assumption of cannabis tax revenue in fiscal year 2021 with 5% increases each year thereafter. Cannabis, we didn't do a recession stress test like we did with those other revenues because cannabis is considered a relatively recession resistant market similar to the alcohol market.
The forecast does fully fund enforcement activities within county departments and 19-20 actuals will continue to be monitored over this fiscal year. And by the time we're developing the budget this spring, we'll come back to the board in the April workshops and have a more robust discussion on assumptions built into the 2021 on revenues and expenditures. And finally, we wanted to mention we didn't include any storefront retail revenue.
In this forecast, the ordinance continues to be worked on and by the time we come back to workshops in April. We do anticipate being able to have a discussion about that for the 2021 budget as well So we'll put it all together, revenues and expenditures. And look at our general fund forecast. The dash line at the top is your expenditures in the general fund for all five years.
And then we've got the no recession, mild recession and deep recession revenue lines. This just gives you a picture that by the third year we see even in the no recession scenario, a gap starting to form. And that carries out through the fifth year for all of those scenarios and we'll talk on the next slide about the actual numbers. So in each of the scenarios, we are projecting $800,000 surplus positive in the 2021 year.
The no recession scenario sees another surplus in the second year but then we see a dip and going out to the fifth year at 9.6 million dollar gap projected. A mild recession, we see that recession kick in the second year with a $9.7 million gap growing to $22 million by the fifth year and in the deep recession were up to the $34.6 million gap. And it's important to note that these gaps represented I'm speaking to are cumulative. They're the difference between revenues and expenditures if no mitigating actions are taken.
However, each year your board has to adopt a county code requires a balanced budget to be adopted. So these gaps are handled in each of the fiscal years. So this incremental change by year line under each of those that's the gap that will have to be further handled in each fiscal year. For example, in 22-23 for the mild recession, that's $5.9 million that will have to be handled on top of what was dealt with in the 2021 year.
Five of your other major operating funds are projecting gaps, that's roads and public works department and the healthcare fund and public health department. They are able to use their fund balances for the first three years but they've depleted those by the fourth year until we see gaps forming in both of those departments and those funds at that point. Behavioral wellness and two social service funds.
They start with gaps in the first year, and those are growing in particular in the case of social services up to a 12.4 million gap in the fifth year so their gaps are a little bit larger. And these gaps are built in anticipation.
5:08 – 5:2313 turns
Supervisor Adam?
I'm just wondering which scenario this is built off of.
The other major operating funds are built off of the mild recession scenario. Okay, so this
set of parentheses here is all from mild recession?
That's correct
sir. Yeah okay thanks
So these gaps are projected by these departments in anticipation of federal and state revenues not keeping pace with salary and benefit increases. And we feel it reinforces the importance of limiting ongoing expansions to these revenue funds, to ensure that they can continue to remain self-sufficient with their available funding. And as we saw on previous slides, general fund discretionary revenue is not sufficient to cover these gaps in these special revenue funds.
So our key takeaways from these previous slides are that general revenue increases can't be the sole mechanism to balance budgets. General fund itself is projecting gaps and there won't be the revenue available to balance all the departmental gaps. So we may need to be looking at cost cutting measures as well as revenue generating initiatives, to help either bring that expenditure line down to the revenue or increase the revenue line up to meet expenditures. And it's important to note that if a recession does occur, that's often when we see declines in the state and federal revenues during the times when community support is needed most.
Incorporated in the report is a discussion, lengthy discussion I think of some significant financial and fiscal issues that we see on the horizon. If we look at those, we can break those down into these five categories. Both legislative policy changes, deferred maintenance backlog, aging technology systems, facility conditions and office reconfiguration, and escalating workers comp and general liability premiums.
As we look at each one of these, the report includes samples from each one of these categories. And you can see here under the legislative and policy changes discussion we've been having with your board with respect to public health's vulnerability to the state's change in what we refer to as a 340B medication. And that the state is taking that, and this is not unique to Santa Barbara County. This will impact all California counties. The state is rolling that program up to the state level. The potential impact each year to public health is about $6 million.
And at the moment they are in, at a statewide level, in heavy discussions with the state on how to perhaps advocate for a backfill for local government. Within probation, we see adult fee collections the risk of $2 million a year. This is kind of continuation of what we've seen at state level with respect to reducing the revenues or the expenses that can be reimbursed from those in our system and so that's a potential loss of revenue to probation about two million dollars a year will continue to monitor and again advocate for backfill from the state And again, this is happening to all California counties not just Santa Barbara.
Likewise for the DA and public defender a number of changes in state law have required an impact at the workload in which they're having to go back and look at old adjudicated cases and for potential resentencing or reworking some of those cases because it changes the state law. That is causing a burden for both the DA and public defenders. So I'm sure you'll hear more about that as the workshop moves on, and as we discuss next year's budget Within general services, your board approved and directed General Services to move forward to implement additional all-electric vehicles for the county fleet. As we discussed a couple weeks ago there is I think some one time cost with respect to installing electric charging stations in kind of key select geographic areas within the county to be able to support the use of those vehicles.
And so that's a one time hit of half million dollars that will need to be addressed Under our deferred maintenance backlog, obviously we've talked a lot about the 18%. We've talked about how it's driven by this backlog of deferred maintenance. Here you'll see the most current numbers we have although I believe that the public works number may continue to change as we move forward into the budget process but you can see the public works on this slide as of this date has about 315 million in our backlog, community services 52 and general services 96 million.
With respect to aging technology systems, this is a topic that we've kind of started having with your board last fiscal year. With respect the need to invest in and address essentially deferred maintenance on the replacement of some key technology systems. You heard this morning earlier an update on the public safety communication radio system. And a price tag of about $45.4 million and as I mentioned earlier to your board, we are looking at potential debt financing portion of that either through the issuance of COPs or some equipment lease purchasing arrangement.
In addition, the sheriff has identified the need to replace their data center for an ad increasing redundancy within their systems, as well as the need to replace our records management system. And finally, as your board is aware we've been going through a process or have initiated a process to look at replacing the county's key human resource and financial systems. So they are better integrated and are better able to provide and address the needs of departments in the budget development and monitoring process.
Facility facility conditions and office reconfigurations your board heard some of this during last hearings And we're seeing more of this requests coming forward from departments. This is just a sampling This is not exhaustive I'm sure that if given the opportunity every department be happy to provide us with a request for For updating their current office space.
But we do have a specific request from Sheriff, DA and Public Defender with respect to reconfiguration of their existing workspace as well as increasing workspace to meet their current needs. So this is something that we'll continue to monitor and probably likely provide your board some options of how we address this systematically going forward. Largely, this will be handled I hope through our capital improvement planning in which we continue to modify and improve as we move forward in the upcoming fiscal year.
Potentially it's set as we mentioned in the board report one potential way to address this is to be systematic about it and set aside a certain amount of money each year For departments to apply against and compete for, or provide leverage perhaps for those departments to address those needed improvements in their office space. Finally, as we look at the last of the fiscal issues identified category is really this escalation insurance premium.
I sit as your board's representative on the CSAC EIA Board and we spent a great deal of time in our last annual meeting discussing and understanding the insurance market especially as it relates to California. Insurance companies have this little acronym ABC anywhere but California is where they're willing to insure. And largely, that should come as no surprise. It's not to villainize insurance companies but it's to reflect obviously the great deal of losses they've incurred in California related to disasters and fires.
So that continues to put our pressure on the county's general liability insurance specifically. And so we do see a potential impact in the upcoming fiscal year about 2.2 million just for that. As well as workers comp going up about 700,000 higher than we initially anticipated. Again, as we look forward into the budget development for fiscal year 2021. It's as Paul mentioned is going to be critical to maintain a disciplined approach to next year's budget. We do think we have a balanced budget for next year within kind of current status cooperations but we do need to be mindful and careful about adding any or consideration of any ongoing new expenses or expansion of programs.
We're looking at strategies to prepare for future year deficits. Those could include allocation of ongoing revenues to one-time purposes, and so that in the following year when those professional revenues decline if they do, we'll be able to address that easier. Be more resilient, we could in the upcoming year set aside revenues for future years use. You could build your state reserve from its 8% to a 10% number perhaps that could be a strategy that your board might employ.
We can build fund balances in year one to cushion recessionary impacts in the out years and then support initiatives for county wide benefit or that promote efficiencies. And you'll hear more about that as we move forward on discussions on RENEW 22, an update on RENEW 22. Finally, any funding requests for service level expansions must be evaluated with a lens of long term costs and potential recessionary impacts. And finally it's important to consider how to address board county wide fiscal issues developed over the years.
With that, it brings us back to our timeline. So here we are in November with our five-year forecast and significant fiscal issues report. Our next report to your board will be in three weeks with respect to the budget development guidelines for the upcoming fiscal year. So as we prepare for the future, it's important to focus on what's essential to serve our communities and do the most important things well.
And to maintain a fiscally sustainable organization and finally, we can do anything but not everything. And with that, Mr. Chair and board I recommend actions as to receive and file the fiscal year 2020-2025 five year forecast including potential fiscal issues facing the county upcoming fiscal years and make the CEQA
determination. Okay thank you very much Mr. Frapwell. I know Mr. Caldwell's got a place to go and he's gotta slip in. He's been waiting for a long time so we'll go to public comment first.
Yes, Chair Lavagnino and members of the board. We have one request to speak and that's Andy Caldwell.
Thank you for that kind gesture there. I'm Andy Caldwell representing Colab. I thought this report was excellent as far as it goes on was one of the better reports that I've seen in a long time. The only thing that I think that I would add is number 1 we need to call things for what they are which you're facing is what's called a structural deficit. It's a structural deficit that I haven't seen a board in nearly, I've been doing this for 30 years. I haven't seen them address the fact that they're continually struggling with the structural deficit and that needs leadership from you not your staff. The one thing that I think is remiss or missing in it is the pension losses.
The losses they put up are accurate. And technically, pension losses aren't yours. They're the retirement board but the buck comes back to you or the bill comes back to you. In last recession I think we lost was it 40% in 2008? Was it 40%, I think it was something like 40% or a billion dollars or so which sets you back 30 years. Not three years or four years or five years, And as you know, I hardly ever bring up politics directly here.
But here is the reality that has already caused Wall Street to go skittish. If you take the Green New Deal or anything else that's funded by an upwards of a 70% tax on Wall Street, how does that affect the pensions? What is a 70% tax rate on Wall Street due to pension investments, and what does that do to you as the ultimate fiduciary backstop? The last thing I wanted to bring up is an idea I gave you couple years ago. I think it's one of the better ideas I ever had, tell you the truth even if I have to say so myself.
And that is jettisoned the pass through departments. Create a non-profit entity that employs the state and federal pass through departments. You could give those people a raise, you could actually give them a more secure future with an IRA that they can control and cut your pension losses by no longer having them be direct employees of the county. I know that's outside the box thinking, it's kind of privatization. But again, your SEIU people, I admit don't make that much money.
You could give them a raise and plus most of them don't stay as long as the rest of your employees. I think they'd come out better if you would just try to do the math once on that idea and see what happens. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Mr Williams, do you have
your light on first? Sure I thought this was a great level of detail and obviously speaks to why we need to prepare for eventualities and why revenue is important. But, so do I get the slide right that you are still forecasting that in FY19-20 that we would only have.
5:23 – 5:3914 turns
You mean 2021? That's our next one.
Yeah, now I'm talking about the year we are in right now that we would only get 7 million in marijuana tax. Are you still holding to that? That's what I thought I saw there. Is that still your estimate?
Supervisor Williams of the Sheriff. So recall, let me take it back in time. When we were at budget hearings, we had three data points. Three quarters of revenue collected from cannabis. The first quarter which was the highest of the three and so when we adopted and we sought the adoption of the budget including the budget for the current year estimate is only budgeted at 5.7 million dollars So, we saw obviously a great fourth quarter. That report came back to your board and we exceeded what we estimated last year significantly.
And so this report shows seven Supervisor Williams I suspect it will be higher than that. I'm just not prepared at the moment now. We have our first quarter receipts for the current fiscal year They came in strong. And so we will continue to monitor this and after second quarter, it will be during budget workshops, we'll have that conversation right? So I think a short answer your question is and I think it's going to be higher than seven but I don't have good data points to be able to pin a number on
I just, for especially when we're talking about a forecast number and a number in which we are trying to do forecasts. Your best guess to me is better than we don't have overwhelming evidence to change our old number. And it, and I think it has ramifications because It has ramifications on how valuable people think the effort at revenue is. If you, I understand the tendency of Folks in your profession to lowball the estimates, but it very much affects how relevant or how supportive people and because people in the public they make cost benefit analysis too. And if they think it's only that much revenue then they don't think it's as valuable and so I think it is better to get the right number Then the number that you know you can perform over.
And so I really hope now that we have seen last year's numbers come in and we are seeing first quarters coming in, that you will sharpen that pencil and get to what you think the right number is.
Supervisors, we do our best to project based on data points that we have. And we bring to you the quarterly budget updates of how we're doing so far as well as a quarterly report on the cannabis tax revenue. So that next report will be coming to in January. So it doesn't track the same as our quarterly updates and budget but those are two opportunities for us to relook at that and have that discussion with your board.
Supervisor Hart.
Yeah, I think this is a really excellent report too and it's very helpful to be looking out this far Understanding that every year we have to balance the budget So we we get to course correct every year incrementally You said that very explicitly and that you know is really what will be our charge We'll see what happens with the economy and the things that are outside of our control But it's really helpful for me to see this, to see the trends. To see the good news with the not so good news and be sober about it and understand that we have to be prudent in year one. The savings we realize in year one amplify through the five-year period, and that makes it easier in year five.
Revenue projections that are realized in year one, accrue through the whole projected period too. And so those work in our favor both directions if we're conscious about spending and fortunate about revenue then we can have a softer landing as we go through this five-year process. It could be the other way and I'm sure my colleagues will talk about that too.
So let's just leave it at that.
Supervisor Adam. Well, first of all, one of your comments I was trying to break in on you but he didn't see my light. All counties are in the same boat. I just hate that argument because it gives you permission, gives us permission to do a crappy job. And that I hate. I think we should always strive to do the best we can, and if everybody wants to do a bad job and be irresponsible, fine. But I don't think that we should ever use that as permission to be less than totally responsible.
I'm skeptical, I'm a recession skeptic at this point. Not that it can't happen and not that you shouldn't be prepared for it, you should. It's no question and that's the business that this board is supposed to be in, is taking I think the most, and I hate to use this term but I don't know another one. For the moment, the most conservative approach. And if we have a whole bunch of money laying around with $463 million of deferred maintenance and $7.5 million worth of expenditures I think we could find a place for it.
And again, our discussion this morning about 1.6 million and what we could do with 1. 6 and what the relative payback would be in the value to prevent that 463 million from getting that much bigger. I think if you have extra money, that's the place. And maybe we need to de-item on the top ten deferred maintenance items that are not being addressed at this time because there's In all fairness, there is a bunch of deferred maintenance items that are being addressed at this time slowly but surely.
But we should kind of dig a little deeper and look at what the next top ten are and what the ramifications are of letting them fester for another God knows how long, 10 years or five years. A little Ouija boardish to go through the exercise, although it's got a lot of value because you do have to make some kind of estimate. And these are totally reasonable estimates and a great palette of potential events, circumstances that we could experience We are going to probably experience somewhere between no recession and a deep recession, so I can buy that. So yeah, that's a great management tool and I love it. It's fantastic but I think in that slide 18 where you're developing the The JAWS chart, even in the no recession scenario, that should scare us into acting differently.
So I would like to see us address these things that can jump up and be real problems down the road that we won't have the money to fix and I just think, as I've always advocated that that's the most responsible way to go through life. And of course to get the most revenue when we can wherever we can get it and that's responsible.
Thank you so on the, I think on coming up with those Would you say like the maintenance issues, the top ten or whatever? I think we're still developing the one time. Aren't we coming back with something that we're going to be talking about with cannabis revenue as far as identifying one-time expenditures?
Supervisors, we can do that at the workshops. So getting to Supervisor Abbott's point, I think we did identify some of the top issues that we're going to be doing a COP for. But the point is taken that there's a longer list that we could get before the board.
Right, there's a long list. So I just got back from a retirement board training along with Mr. Hagan who by the way is recognized throughout I think he's been on the retirement board forever, so. I was walking around with one of the pros there but what was really interesting was here you have the most educated, clued in, plugged in professionals in the world and they don't know what's going to happen next. Everybody sitting there on the edge of their seat, tell us what's going to happen? Where should we move asset allocation? They have no idea. So they can tell you what happened.
They're really good at that and that's kind of easy to do, but anybody can do that. So you're paying all this money for these people to tell you what's going to happen and nobody can tell you what's going to happen. And so yeah we have to do these types of plans. I went back and I dug up our last one from 2017. It painted a very dire picture of, I remember we had all kinds of conversations because it went out to 2022 and it forecasted a $55 million budget shortfall.
And people use these things to move agendas whether to spend more or spend less or spend it on this or spend it on that. I think it's a good exercise to do, but I think Jeff would even tell you that the confidence you have of if this will really play out this way. We have no clue and so I think the main thing is to go back to that basis that's in all of our budget books that tells us look use one time money on one time expenses.
We shouldn't get crazy when we get a little bit of a black number instead of a red number. Because like you said, we have a long laundry list that's continually growing and things we need to spend money on. But what I'm also interested in is it's something Andy brought up about a structural deficit is I think what we have to get over in this county is if we're doing fine with the day-to-day but Kind of infrastructure, and I don't mean infrastructure in roads. We have those as well. But just the infrastructure of the county itself that is severely aging whether that's IT or we talked about with our towers and our radios.
Things are going to be huge investments that we really have to start finding funding streams for. And I think we've done a really good job too of identifying some needs, whether that was the jail, the fire transfer tax. The 18% of identifying and sticking to these plans so if we can start as we move out of some of these other plans, move into other plans of how we slowly make progress on some of the large ticket items that are going to be with us for the next 10, 15, 20 years, I think would be a good exercise.
And we did have some good news. I know Andy had brought up the pension deficit while we were at Sackers. Santa Barbara County had the highest rate of return out of all 37 counties this year, so we were number one. We did not bring any foam fingers which I was really upset about, you know? We're number one. I think this might've been our first year in a long time that I'm knocking and I know people have tried to give me credit that it's from my first year on the board.
I am not promising that kind of return next year, I had nothing to do with it. But I want to thank staff, I know you guys put a lot of time and energy into this and it's helpful for us. And looking forward too, I hope we have the same kind of 2017 to 2020. Hope we have that for the next three years or so. All right, Supervisor Hart then Hartman? Actually- Hartman first then Hart.
Well, thank you. I don't have a lot to add except I would use the word prudent and that's rather than conservative and that's what these always make me think. And I do think that our chair made a really good point that we have exercised fidelity with regard to our long term goals and Now we're seeing those reach fruition and so are there other areas where we should either up like our rainy day fund or 18% or there are other areas?
Like our capital improvement that we need to start Squirreling more money away for that. So I hope you can think about that as we go forward
Supervisor
Hart. Yeah, I agree with my colleagues. I think this does point a path the chair described that having a plan and executing it over time makes a difference and I think this Prognosticating and looking ahead and whether it's you know precise or not Does point to the structural issues that we do have and the backlog of maintenance that we do have. And I think it tees up a conversation about revenue increases, and I know that is something that the board has not found a consensus about. But it's worth bringing up every time, Many of the voters in other local jurisdictions in the county, City of Santa Maria, City of Santa Barbara, City of Carpinteria, now City of Lompoc will be considering a sales tax measure on the ballot. I think what that represents is that voters understand that they want to have high quality Public infrastructure and they're willing to pay for it.
Additionally, understanding the pressures of the budgets that we face and the realities that there isn't a big constituency out there for cutting things that local governments provide to local citizens. And then people understand that it takes money to pay for these things so I think It's always important for us to be reminded about that. There is the potential to put something like that on the ballot next year in November representing $7.5 million a year.
Over a five year period, that's a big number. That could go a long way toward addressing the infrastructure gap that we have and I just would hope that my colleagues would remain open to considering
5:39 – 5:439 turns
that. Supervisor Williams?
I'll take the opportunity to agree that we should talk about that. Though I also think that we need Look at it with a little bit jaundiced eye that Supervisor Lavagnino put it at. But it also means that while we should know that things could go wrong, we also need to think about revenue from the perspective of What are we not engaged in that our county needs, right? A lot of our work as has been pointed out in the past is we need to engage in is take care of the future by making sure we make address or deferred maintenance in a meaningful manner. But there are other things that we need to get ahead of and that the public I think would like us to get ahead of and be a part of.
And so I do also think we need to sometimes be aspirational in our goals and that really requires revenue. Supervisor Hartman?
I just had a sales tax question and with so many retail stores being hollowed out with Amazon, Amazon was supposed to start taxing in each area right in the state. Do you know anything about that? And does some of that come to us still or how does that work?
Supervisor Hartman to the Chair. So, the federal government at the federal level put that requirement on Amazon that they do collect sales tax and remit that to local government and the states so that is in process. And so to the extent that remember there's two kind of pockets or buckets if you will of sales tax. Unallocated bucket and there's the one that is site specific. So to the extent that they have sales that are inside the city limits, those cities receive those, that percentage. To the extent that either the customer of those entities Amazon for instance cannot be kind of placed in a situs inside a city limit or outside it goes into a bucket which gets allocated on a statewide basis. There's also a county wide bucket too but But so it gets really complicated, but the short answer is yes.
All the online vendors are responsible for collecting sales tax and to the extent that happens in the unincorporated certainly we directly get the sales tax.
And is that money flowing now or is it expected in the future?
We're starting to see that now, Supervisor Hartman and the Chair. And so that makes up a fairly small amount of our total sales tax but it is expected to grow.
Okay I don't see any other lights on can we get a motion? To receive in file I believe. Move to accept the report. Second And we also have to have that it is not a project under CEQA, so it's A and B. I'll take that as your motion, seconded by Supervisor Hartman. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. And we are adjourning to, We're going to have a special meeting.
Until we know when, yes. Okay. You
can adjourn until the next meeting but-
Okay. So we're going to adjourn to Tuesday December 10th In Santa Barbara
5:43 – 5:431 turns
And just for your board's information and the public's, we do plan on working with the chair to schedule a special meeting on next Tuesday for a couple of items. November 26th.