Board of Supervisors — 2020-08-18

I'll call to order the August 18th, 2020 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mr. Adam? Good morning. Can North County hear us? Good morning. Can North County hear us? Mr Adam?

We can indeed.

Great thank you I will take that as a here. Mr. Lavinino?

Here.

Mr. Williams?

Here.

Ms. Hartman? Here Chair Hart?

The next item of business is approval of the minutes of July 14th and July 16th. Is there any discussion? Could I have a motion?

Move approval.

Second. Motion has been made and seconded, any discussion? Clerk would you please call the roll?

Mr. Adams

I have

two items to report.

This Friday at 5 p.m. is the deadline for the public to apply to serve on the 11-person Independent Redistricting Commission, which will be tasked with adjusting the boundaries of the county supervisorial districts through a public process. It will be based on the 2020 federal census expected by mid 2021 and by law, the commission will be seated by December 31st of this year. So again, the deadline is this Friday at 5 pm. Residents interested could look at our website For qualifications and criteria, along with the application countyofsb.org backslash redistricting. It's also on our homepage.

So just a reminder. The second item today is I've asked Assistant County Executive Officer Barney Malakian to give the board a quick update on the power outages that we're seeing or could be seeing. So Mr. Malakia?

Thank you Chair Hart, members of the board. Real quickly as everyone is aware the county and indeed the western United States has been experiencing a significant heat event since last weekend this event is projected to continue at least through Thursday in response to that I'm talking a minute about some of the outages that occurred over the weekend But in response to that, CAISO, the California Independent System Operators who control essentially the electrical grid in California have issued what is referred to as a flex alert.

That alert period has currently started last Sunday evening and extended through 10 p.m. tomorrow night. Residents are asked in their homes to turn off all necessary lights, to use any major appliances before 3 p. m. or after 10 p and to set your air conditioners for 78 degrees or higher. Demands were expected to be highest Monday and Tuesday, although yesterday we weren't subject to an alert. I'll talk about that process in a second but there were no rolling outages reported in the state as of yesterday.

It is...I think everyone is aware that in the North County area served by Pacific Gas and Electric, there were significant outages over the weekend. Approximately 23,000 customers were without power for a period of time. None of those were related to the rolling blackouts or to a public safety power shutdown but rather due to lightning strikes and transformer malfunctions.

The CAISO alert system is based on the following. When an alert is called, the areas that may be affected are notified by 3 p.m., the day prior to the potential effect. Utilities will notify potential impacted city and county elected officials, chief executive office, and offices of emergency management. A warning is issued on the same day as the potential shortage. The notification process is the same, but it is worth noting that after that warning is issued a shutoff could occur without further notification.

When the outages occur they are scheduled to last for one hour in each particular area before

Questions from board members? Supervisor Williams

Well, obviously we have a lot of facilities. We are shutting down non-essential energy use as well at 3

o'clock? That is correct. Yesterday and today the air conditioning systems in county buildings have been turned off and will be turned back on at 4am the following day. Great. And is

there any kind of outreach that we're attempting to do towards other large employers, other large energy users?

We have pushed out the state's messaging as well as our own messaging through all the avenues that I described. I don't know that we have done specific targeted outreach to a given employer. And I'm sure

some of them are aware of it but You see us be even though it's not physically in session. It's a massive energy user. There are there are some specific large energy users that we have you know, in the county

and Supervisor Williams I neglected to include in my briefing that every day there is an outside or an operating area briefing call And UCSB and other governmental entities are on that call. Great, Supervisor Hartman?

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify, in the Santa Ynez Valley on Saturday our power was out for eight hours plus and it was 107 degrees but what I'm asking is you're saying that that was not part of Queso's rolling blackout? That was simply a breakdown of equipment due to lightning storm?

Lightning storms and subsequent transformer failures is what we've been told

Okay, so that means that anything that's managed would only be between 60 and 90 minutes. And people who are especially sensitive to the heat can plan for that, manage for that. But when it gets to be eight hours on a really hot day, that's dangerous for many people. Okay, thank you. You're

welcome.

Any other questions for Mr. Milliken?

Well, I have a comment up here in Santa Maria. Yes, Supervisor Adam. Our farm had a bunch of pumps out for a long time and we had to curtail planting and you know, I'm sure that wasn't the only one. Everybody else had the same problem because when those lightning strikes hit the transformers which is usually what happens It takes them a long time to get all those transformers changed out, and hopefully they have enough of them to do it. So this is just prime example of why you want to have a measure of redundancy and really well-maintained system so that when these kind of problems occur They don't become catastrophic because if it's off for three or four days, that's gonna affect the food supply for the nation.

So we should just keep that in mind as we go through life here.

Thank you Supervisor Adam. All right anything else? Do you have anything else for your CEO

report? Nothing else to report.

The next item is approval of the administrative agenda.

that really seriously. Lompoc is an area that needs a lot of services. We will reach out to Lompok and the people helping people to provide more services All of these contracts were awarded on a very competitive RFP proposal and process. So we established the process, and we have had some very good bids, some very good proposals, and FLA won one of those proposals.

We find a tremendous gap in services for Latin American individuals as well as families In South County. I just want to assure people we're talking, I think about two things whether all of our prevention providers any of our prevention providers are going to engage in lobbying and political activities and what about the gaps in services in Lompoc? Is FLA responding to that? FLA will not respond to the services in Lompoc. That's not their region. Their region is going to be South County.

The Lompoc area, which is Lompoc and Santa Ynez has people helping people. So I take this seriously. I think that Mr. Caldwell has a great point that we need more services in Lompoc and we will provide those services by hook or by crook. In closing, I just want to also say that there's a certain mandated Requirement that certain funding be given or carved out of a block grant that comes from Washington SAMHSA for primary prevention services. And what I have done is I have increased the minimum by close to $100,000 in that because I think that prevention is very important.

So thank you.

Thank you Mr. Goyal for that additional information, I think that helps address the issue that Lompoc is going to get additional services. You're going to work with the provider to make sure that people helping people are providing services in the community of Lompoc where they are needed. Any other questions on this item? Yes, Supervisor Adam.

Thank you. Mr Doyle, just so I'm clear, People Helping People contract specifically mentions Lompoc and that's in their area right?

Yes that is in their area. I don't know if it specifically mentions Lompoc, I would have to check it but we always consider West to include Lompoc I will ensure that if it isn't in the contract, I will amend the contract. But they are supposed to provide services throughout the 3rd District, throughout Lompoc as well as San Dines. The Lompoc and San Dines area.

Okay very good thank you. And then Mr Doyle just a question from Steve. So the question about whether or not this fits into FLA's kind of umbrella How long have they had this contract to do this type of activity?

Two years.

Two years, okay and it looked like your report showed I mean you guys are actually going in and checking and making sure that they follow up with the parameters that you've given them so there is somebody overlooking this contracting side B well

Yes, Supervisor Lavanino, members of the board. We monitor almost to a fault. We are very active in monitoring all providers. We monitor them closely. We're always paying attention to what they're doing. We monitor them sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly. We look at their fiscal reports. We look at their staffing reports. We look at their service deliverables And we're very, very much concerned with management and oversight in all areas of alcohol and drug programs as well as prevention. Having said that, as I said before, we will make special efforts to work with FLA to ensure that they are not engaging in any politics or any lobbying. We take a strict separation between prevention and policy in our department.

Okay, great. Well if there's no other questions I'll make a motion to move 815.

Thank you is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded any discussion? Madam Clerk could you please call the roll?

Chair Hart

and members of the

board.

Oh I'm sorry 10 10 10. 810. Sorry

I messed up. Mr. Adam?

Aye.

Mr Lavinino?

Aye. I

miss Hartman I chair heart.

I

motion passes unanimously

and the next item for discussion is item a 15.

Chair Hart members of the board administrative item number 15 is from the clerk recorder assessor it is to consider recommendations regarding the coronavirus aid relief and economic securities cares act contract.

Is there a Supervisor Letino?

Yes. I pulled this item just because of, you know, I think it's a national story of people Starting to worry about whether a mail-in election is secure. I thought it was a good opportunity for Mr. Holland, I had a conversation with him yesterday that I'm not sure. I think a lot of it is the fact that maybe we're not getting enough information out to the public to let them know how secure our election is. But I think it's a good opportunity to let Mr. Holland kind of explain how our process is going to work this year.

Thank you Supervisor Lavendino. Is Mr. Holland on the line?

Yes, Supervisor Lavagnino through the chair. Can you hear me?

Yes thank you very much.

Okay well thanks for the opportunity. As you all may very well know the governor signed an executive order in June making California and all vote by mail election for November 3rd and this was of course with COVID in mind, in March we had 86 polling places and most of those polling places were not conducive to providing safe voting. So the governor wants the state to go all vote by mail and so we're currently doing that.

In Santa Barbara County, we've been 75% to 80% vote-by-mail for a number of years now. So, for us to increase from 180,000 vote by mail to 230,000 is not a real heavy lift for us so we're confident we can do that and handle that securely. The postal workers and the post office they are really our partners in this and they do a tremendous job So I really want to give a shout out to them. You know, they're really the frontline workers in an all vote by mail election. The, um, I know there was some concern that there was some mailboxes or drive-through mailbox removed on Patterson Avenue in Goleta and I'm here to let you know that that that mailbox has now been replaced with two mailboxes.

It was removed apparently Because it was damaged. And so when we heard about that, we have the post office on speed dial. So we called them up and they told us it was damaged and that they were working to replace that just at their earliest convenience. So with this new election model going all vote by mail there's a number of opportunities for people to return their vote-by-mail ballot.

The number one of course is Have your postal workers return it. Now for a number of years, the post office has always recommended that you mail your vote by mail ballot in seven days before the election and so I think that message is still consistent. So what you wanna do is you wanna vote early. Give the post office a chance to get those mail ballots back But additionally, things that we're doing to make it easier for you to return your vote by mail ballot. We have three offices that are open 29 days before the election where you can walk in, you can get a replacement ballot, you can drop off your vote-by-mail ballot at any one of our three offices, Long Polk, Santa Maria or Santa Barbara.

In addition to that, we have purchased 33 or 32 actually, vote by mail drop boxes. And those are going to be spread out across the county for folks to directly deliver their vote-by-mail ballot by dropping it off in one of these county ballot drop boxes and so that will deliver your vote-by mail ballot directly to our County Elections Office and those will be open 29 days before the election So we're gonna try and get all our vote by mail ballots into the mail system sometime the week before October 5th, which is the 29th day before the election. So people can start voting on that 29th day before the election, which is October 5th.

One of the other things that we're doing with this, that was part of the governor's executive order was because we couldn't handle the 80, because our 86 polling places didn't provide enough spacing to provide safe voting. They asked for counties to go to what they call an in-person voting location mechanism and so what we are doing is we're identifying 37 voting locations or 36 voting locations for The four days leading up to and including election day. So Saturday, October 31st Sunday and Monday these 36 in-person voting locations will be open for eight hours. And then on Tuesday they will be open normal hour seven to eight. So we're providing lots of opportunities for people to return their vote by mail ballots and get them in.

Kind of our motto is vote safe and vote early. Please get those ballots in as early as you can, and discussing this with Supervisor Lavagnino he asked so what's one of the biggest challenges to voting by mail? And really one of the biggest challenges is when people do not sign their return envelope or they sign it sloppily and then it doesn't match the signature we have on file And then we have to outreach those voters and get them to correct that, which delays things. So again, vote safe, vote early and please sign your ballot return envelope responsibly.

Thank you, Mr. Holland. I understand that this new approach is going to require additional poll workers and that you are actively recruiting folks for those that role and do you have a phone number that the public could contact or an email address that you could direct them to take advantage of this opportunity for employment?

Yeah 1-800 SBC vote or sbcvote.com

perfect thank you very much

and yes we're gonna need 15 to 20 workers at each one of these in-person voting locations. So if you do the math, that's 500 to 600 poll workers we need to work for four days. So it's gonna be quite the challenge. It's quite different than anything we've done in the past.

Thank you for that.

Supervisor Williams? Well, I definitely always urge people to mail in early. But just in California law, I'm curious what happens to those ballots that have been postmarked by Election Day but come in a day or two afterwards but before certification of the election?

Very good question Supervisor Williams through the chair at the If they are postmarked by election day, we have up to 17 days after an election to receive that. And if it is postmarked on election day, that ballot will be counted.

And is that true in California only and not in other states? So is this a different issue elsewhere?

I believe the 17 days is actually brand new. It used to be postmark plus three but they had just brand new law. It's been allowed 17 days. Other states do this, but I'm not sure what their limit is in terms of how late they can be delivered after election day.

Well again, I think we need to urge people to do it early but and and I know it's a. It's a staffing challenge for you to have so many vote by mail ballots and obviously even more of a staffing challenge when they come in late. But we really appreciate your work to obviously protect the sanctity of our democracy.

Yeah well thank you for that and the other part about voting early is people criticize voting by mail because If you turn in your ballots late, then we have to process those after election. If you get them to us days before the election, we can process those and then they will go into the account on election night. So that's one of the benefits of getting your ballot in early.

Mr. Chair I have

a

question? Yes Supervisor Lavenino.

Thank you. So, Mr. Holland so there's been I think in the last election might have been the first one when I might be wrong but the idea of ballot harvesting I know people have really had some heartburn with There was a possibility that the law might be changed. And for those that don't know what that is, that's where an individual goes and collects other people's ballots. Has the law stayed the same? What are the rules and what should people look out for?

Yeah, the law is still the same so you are allowed to do that. We really don't see much of any of that. What we typically find is that For a given household, if you let's say have four voters there that one person may come in and drop off all four ballots. And previously the law against harvesting was really kind of meaningless because anybody could have just taken creditable voted ballots and just put them in a blue mailbox.

So And again, we're really just not seeing anything beyond really households just delivering ballots from that household.

But they all do have to be signed no matter what that has to have the signature on each one?

Absolutely and it's so easy to do. Just sign that envelope and we'll count that ballot.

All right any other questions?

I have a question

yes Supervisor Adam

Yeah, Mr. Holland, when's the last time we cleaned out the voter rolls?

Supervisor Adam through the chair. We are in constant list maintenance of the voter rolls so you might have noticed that you just got a card in the mail. We sent that card out to everybody and all registered voters in the county and if it comes back as undeliverable We moved them to the inactive role. So we are in constant state of list maintenance of our voter registration rolls, daily.

Have you ever audited a set of like a precinct or something and gone out and actually confirmed each person is there?

You mean went out and knocked on their door? We've never done anything like that

Okay. Maybe, maybe that might be a good idea.

Okay. I'll take that into consideration.

All right. If there are any more, are there any more questions for Mr. Holland? I don't see anything. Thank you again for being available and for answering these questions and reassuring our residents that the election is being carefully planned for and that all Contingencies are being considered and you are ready to take their ballots as early as possible, soon as they're available.

And that way folks can be assured that their ballot will be counted prior to election day and readied for publication on election day itself. So thank you very much for- Thank you. Being with us Mr. Holland. Let's see we can hang onto this and vote on it as a group.

Guest Chair Hart and members of the Board, Administrative Item number 20 is from Community Services. It is to consider recommendations regarding the Project Roomkey COVID-19 Homeless Task Force response and requests to ratify execution of a contract with Santa Barbara Hotel Group and a First Amendment of an executed professional services contract with PATH. And we have one request to speak on this item and that is Andy Caldwell.

Chair Hart, members of the board. I'm Andy Caldwell representing COLAB. We have a lot of questions on this particular item. One of the most important items for your board especially with regard to your finances is does this trigger any federal or state laws that once you create a home or a domicile for the homeless that you can never take that away? So for instance in the Lompoc Riverbed one of the problems Lompoc had was clearing out the 100 to 150 people that lived in that river bed some of which lived there 15 years. They had to find an alternative location for them they couldn't quote unquote dump them back onto the streets we would like to know if you do this are you creating a requirement to provide housing for them forever after?

The other question we know that there's people who are out homeless through absolutely no fault of their own lost their job. They had cancer a single mom left with kids as a result of a divorce things like that. How are you price prioritizing who gets these this room or is it people that if they just got a room they're going to be OK and they're gonna get back on their feet How are you prioritizing who gets the rooms and the bottom line. The other question we have is what about the rest of the county Santa Maria and Lompoc have homeless problems.

Is this another issue where the county is going to spend a million dollars on the South County homeless. I'll admit you've probably got more homeless in Santa Barbara than the rest of the county combined but again Where is the North County version of this, especially like I said, Lompoc is continually to struggle with the riverbed because the people are moving back in.

And the other one finally is what are those services and the monitoring that's going to take place? The modern day theory is we throw a house at these people they're going to get better. I'd like to know to what degree as they're going to be drug alcohol and mental health To these people and that they'll be expected to quote unquote apply themselves to end the rest of the cycle of homelessness that's pervasive in their lives.

Thank you

Thank you Mr. Caldwell for those good questions, Mr. Chaptions here to answer. Good

morning Chair Hart and members of the board I'll try to answer as many questions as I can we did look at sites in Lompoc we looked at a number of sites in North County just couldn't find any hotel owners that were willing to lease out space for us for this purpose so it's really really difficult even in South County we barely found this one As a room key site.

So that was one of the issues we had during the covid crisis and this is a crisis. We do have congregate services up there. Good Sam, to provide congregate services to folks up there who are experiencing homelessness. So there are services there and Be Well was providing services. We had a number of services for homeless people both in Roomkey South and in North County.

So we did focus on both Lompoc, Santa Maria, and South County for services. Now we have housed 30 people from the Roomkey South which is tremendous really given the emergency. And we still have some people there I think Mr. Caller is right, there are some who weren't abiding by the rules and we've dealt with those so staff has been dealing with those as well.

I forgot what the other questions were or what would trigger it? I think looking at the health order if they are 65 and older, if they're considered at risk to contract COVID, we move them to the non-congregate setting which is the Roomkey South. So that was the trigger in terms of how we prioritized who got and who didn't. And we did plenty of outreach, a lot of outreach in the homeless community with United Way and some of the other outreach providers to bring people into non-congregate shelter setting.

And Mr. Caldwell's first question was, is there any requirement that is triggered by providing the hotel

rooms? Yes, Chair Hart. We work with County Council when this emergency first hit. We don't think so because it was an emergency in any other setting. It would have been if they were living somewhere for 30 days. I think they have tenancy rights. That wasn't the case in this emergency.

Okay. Thank you for those answers. Are there additional questions from Mr. Chapman? Okay, thank you very much for that. I think we'll go on to item number 23.

Yes, Chair Hart and members of the Board, Administrative Item Number 23 is from County Council. It is to consider recommendations regarding an outside council contract with the Sutton Law Firm, and there's a 4 fifths vote required on this item.

Supervisor Hartman?

Yes, Mr. Chair I need to recuse myself this firm has done some legal work on my behalf and that could give rise to a disqualifying personal financial

Can we get a motion to approve this item?

So moved

motions been made and I'll second it any discussion Roll call vote please

Mr.. Adam

Hi,

mr. Lavagnino All