Board of Supervisors — 2021-11-02

Good morning. I'll call to order the November 2nd, 2021 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll?

Move approval.

Second. All right. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Madam Clerk are there any announcements or changes to our agenda today?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, I have a couple quick announcements this morning. I would like to remind the public that the Board of Supervisors meetings are being interpreted and broadcast live in Spanish. We are broadcasting our meetings in Spanish both for Cox Cable subscribers in South County as well as Comcast Cable subscribers in North County. Members of the public can now view our meetings in Spanish by turning on the secondary audio programming also known as SAP or SAP under their language settings.

Lastly, I would like to remind the public who are participating in our meeting today of the board's updated methods of public participation. For the Board of Supervisors' methods of public participation and to provide public comment on general public comment or an item on the board's agenda please see page 2 of the agenda. Members of the public can attend meetings in person in both the Santa Barbara Board Hearing Room Chambers as well as the Santa Maria Board Hearing Room Chambers. Please note on October 5th, 2021 an additional county health officer order went into effect requiring indoor mask usage for everyone over two years of age regardless of vaccination status. If you attend the board meeting in person, you will be required to wear a face covering or mask at all times regardless of vaccination status Information regarding how to properly wear a mask has been posted throughout both locations.

As a friendly reminder, masks should cover your nose and mouth. Wear the mask from the bridge of your nose to all the way under your chin. Tighten any loops or ties so the mask is snug. If you do not have a mask that fits properly we can provide you with one. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment virtually may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page 2.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing important information about joining the virtual meeting. Once the chair has announced the item you want to comment on, please join the meeting with the information provided in the registration confirmation email. You will be placed on mute until it is your turn to speak. The clerk will call you by name when removed from mute you will hear a notification that your line has been unmuted if you are using a touchtone phone you may need to press star six to unmute yourself again if you're using a touchtone phone You may need to press star six to unmute yourself.

If you have any questions, please contact the clerk of the board's office at area code 805-568-2240 again that's 805 568 2240. That concludes my announcements for today

Okay, thank you Madam Clerk.

I do Chair Nelson and Board Members. I have five quick announcements this morning. One is about the OEM Hazard Mitigation Plan. The County Office of Emergency Management is seeking public feedback For the county's multi-jurisdictional 2022 Hazard Mitigation Plan. We do this plan every five years to prepare the county for changing and dynamic hazards, identifying vulnerable communities and structures in preparing mitigation plans. Public import is important to us and a second public workshop is hosted virtually at 530 p.m on this Thursday November 4th. The public can learn more at ReadySBC.org under the heading hazard preparedness.

Second announcement is that first five of Santa Barbara announced grant funding first five Santa Barbara's offering grants to community-based Organizations including nonprofits and schools that serve children birth through five their families and those who care for them three categories of funding are available with grants from 1500 to $15,000 an informational session will be held this Thursday at 10 a.m Depending on the grant category applications are due between November 22nd in December 3rd for more information The public can go to the website at firstfivesantabarbaracounty.org Our legislative platform. We'll be bringing the legislative platform to your board next month. The public is invited to learn more about the county's legislative priorities, principles and issues and to view the past legislative priorities comment on the draft 22 legislative platform.

The public is invited to do so and you can go to the County Executive Office webpage on countyofsp.org and open programs. Fourth, the County's Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission is holding a series of public hearings this month and next month before the final maps will be drawn in December. The next meeting is tomorrow November 3rd in Santa Maria and virtually beginning at 6 p.m.

For the agenda, mapping tools and a list of upcoming meetings, the public can go to www.drawsantabarbacounty.org, www.drawsantabarbacounty.org. And finally our community has begun to receive electric service from Central Coast Community Energy or 3CE. Enrolled customers will begin to see Central Coast Community Energy electric generation charges on their November bill. To help understand residential and commercial account billing from PGE in North County The website at 3Cenergy.org has helpful information and videos. Enrollment is open through early December, and customers in PG&E's North County service area began in January 2021. Service for Buelton begins in January 2022. The public may also contact the Community Services Department of the county at countyofsb.org backslash sustainability.

Those are my announcements.

Next item is the approval of the administrative agenda. I understand that we have Item A6 pulled by one of the supervisors, any other items being pulled by the board? Seeing Supervisor Williams.

Are we going to

table? And then I'm going to go ahead and pull A4 and A22 to work on some business with the clerk in public meeting here. And I understand we also have A5 being pulled by the public. Any other items? Okay so seeing none, no other items being pulled. Can I get a motion to approve the balance of the agenda with the exception of A4, 5, 6 and 22?

So moved. Second.

Any further discussion? Seeing none all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. All right so the first item in business is Item A-4 which Madam Clerk will you please read that into record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number four is from the County Executive Office. It is to consider the adoption of the 2022 Board of Supervisors schedule of meeting dates and locations.

Okay, my understanding is there's a couple of tweaks that need to take place still before adoption.

Cheryl?

All right.

Cheryl, you are unmuted on our end. If you can unmute yourself and please provide your comments.

Let's go ahead and

And Charnelson members of the board unfortunately our next speaker bounced off oh and now she is back thank you and we will now go to Maria Kessner.

Ms. Kessler welcome back

Okay, good morning Board of Supervisors. I didn't prepare a statement but we'd like to add to the other speaker, first speaker that is talking about discrimination. My daughter was exempt from mask mandate, was denied entry to the county building where you're sitting in. We were ushered to an outside patio. We were thrown off the MTD bus. I was trying to accommodate for the longest time For my daughter to wear a mask. Her mask becomes wet in no time and constantly dealing with wet masks, I tried it for a year and then if I would bring up that my daughter's actually exempt by county order we were thrown off the MTD bus okay? By all means buy a bus driver who is a minority so this idea that only minorities are always discriminated against is just not true We were thrown off the bus, they made a big stink.

They had the supervisor come in, they were gonna call the police and I got it resolved with the MTD bus and now I enter the bus without a mask. My daughter enters the bus without a mask wearing a mask. And it's not just the bus. It's not just a county building. It is the YMCA wanted to have my daughter wear a mask on the track mill. She has a visual disability six different visual disabilities And everywhere we go, I have to just present a ton of paperwork. Having constant back and forth via email that basically businesses around the country, around the county in our case are violating my daughter's right to not having to wear a mask because she has an exemption And now we just find out that the Santa Barbara Unified School District is firing people for not wanting to vaccinate.

I mean, discrimination is through the roof by the party that's always talking about equity. The black intellectual community calls this vogue racism and we need to start speaking up okay? A lot of us are against discrimination of any kind, either based on race, medical condition or any other condition. And the Democratic Party and its representatives in our government, in our local government are now becoming the driving force between A driving force of discrimination, open discrimination. And there's no scientific justification for this and there is no civil rights justification for this and this has to stop. And I am a liberal, let me just make it very clear, I'm a pro-choice liberal. And this has to stop those of us that are liberals that are against what is going on in this democratic party I am just going to ask for some accountability from the chair.

a forum. Apparently, I mean we just listened to someone threaten a coup over a disagreement of mask policy. He just threatened to arrest the members of the Board of Supervisors and the top level administrators which is just a euphemism for using physical force to get your way in public policy and I'm going to ask that the chair have some accountability for this because I believe this sort of forum has outlived its usefulness.

Though, you know, I guess while it's agendized, I'd love to also hear if there is staff available for how things are going out there.

All right. Well since the question was about the accountability from the chair, I'll just explain myself that the reason why I've continued to ask and To have this item on the administrative agenda is to give an opportunity for the public to speak specifically to this item. While I may disagree with some comments, And I think some of them do border on the level of civility that should accompany this forum.

I am trying to respect the opportunity for public comment. I believe many of these speakers, if we did not have this item would be speaking in general public comment. I would defer to County Council on my ability to limit the comments or to shut down public comment based on the contempt, content and potentially contempt of some of the speakers.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, there are limitations in the Brown Act on public comment, including that it's supposed to be limited to the subject matter at issue as a chair. You do have discretion on length of time and making sure that the public does speak to the topic that is an issue.

Okay, well I just want to express that my preference is somewhat of a wide latitude. There are things that are offensive that were said on many issues and I want to make sure that we avoid the personal attacks. I think we have that actually in our agenda Every week, I think there's a level of frustration that is in the public. And I think having venues such as this is important part of that on both sides it's you know sometimes I've heard over the last couple years that sometimes you know there needs to be some air let out of the balloon if you will and so I think that that's what I'm trying to offer as the chair. I do appreciate your frustrations who rise or Williams with it but That's my preference moving forward is to create an outlet, an opportunity.

Not necessarily a forum. I know that's been asked at many times to have a forum on COVID. I would prefer to be able to make the public comment take place and then for us to move on with the county business at hand. We've got a lot of important things that we're trying to get done here with the five of us as well as with our staff. So I'm just trying to balance all of

Well Mr. Chair, I do want to express empathy for that difficulty of balance and whether to create accountability that applies to everyone or accountability that just applies to ones that infringe upon the basic rules of free speech of this country. The basic rules of free speech in this country is that you cannot make threats of physical harm. You cannot yell fire in a theater, and it is not our job to provide a loudspeaker for people who want to yell fire in a theater.

So I just hope that you will reflect on some form of accountability for people for making physical threats against our staff and against our colleagues.

So to further my hope and attempt to do that, last meeting after the meeting I actually went and met with many of these people and talked to them about what this ability that I thought would be most effective with this board so I am making those attempts in our community to raise the bar if you will in having productive speech It's with that Supervisor Hart.

I appreciate that you're trying and I think you're exactly right. If we didn't have this item, then we would have the same speakers saying the same things on public comment so I don't really see an alternative. I believe Supervisor Williams did ask for a quick update from either Dr. Dovrinoso or Dr. Anzor on how well things are going or not.

Yes, good morning Chair Nelson and members of the board. With regards to case rate we stand at 9 per 100,000 however statewide there are many counties seeing a slight uptick and we are beginning to see that as well. We will be monitoring our case rates As well as our testing positivity, as well as the are effective to ensure to anticipate surges coming around the corner due to winter holidays and increase time spent indoors. With regards to vaccinations for children 5-11, as you are aware that is a The FDA provided the emergency use authorization last week, and we anticipate CDC and the Western states as well as CDPH to give us guidance sometime this week. We are in fast and furious planning still with our health care providers And anticipate that we will, our role in the vaccination of the newly eligibles 5 to 11 will be in conjunction with our school partners and the state.

In particular, in the health equity metric areas I'm not sure if your board has specific questions or updates that you are interested in.

I actually have a couple quick questions and then i'm glad to go to any of my colleagues. How's our hospital capacity?

It is the last time I looked we are still at a critical point with regards to capacity and we are seeing some wiggle room in the ICU. Okay,

and then I guess my other question is as we're looking at case rates is the best way to look at it as the four-day lag When we're on the dashboard, I was curious which numbers to look at moving forward. I know that we're coming very close to reaching some of the CDC numbers for moderate transmission but I'm not sure which number to be looking at on our dashboard.

So both will provide a unique perspective. So the state and CDC use, both use a seven day lag for us as community during the height of our surge We as a community felt that the seven-day lag was too much looking in arrears and not giving us real time perspective. So we moved to four days, four day lag to give us that quicker information or data to guide our policies. So I would say that the seven day is the standard And the four-day gives you a preview.

Great, thank you very much. Other questions from the board? All right, Supervisor Lavagnino.

Not a question as much as I think something to celebrate we are at 79% of eligible Santa Barbara County individuals vaccinated. We're almost at the 80 percent range and uh i know it uh I guess we could say back in the day we were really excited if we could get to 70%. Now we're at 80 And I guess just a question about masks moving forward. What level do we think that, does that eligibility, what metric are we looking at to talk about loosening the mask mandate?

Supervisor loving, you know through the chair we had discussed that being in. Being in the case rate of six per 100,000 for at least two weeks would be a reasonable metric to guide lifting the indoors mask mandate.

And can you explain why that's If hospital well just give us an explanation of why you feel that six per 100,000 is the place to be.

Six per 100,000 is a place to be because it gives us an indication that cases are decreasing the widespread transmission in our community has lessened And this is in particular, important with the winter holidays coming up and the circulating viruses during the winter holidays and the activities tend to be more indoors.

Right? But if the percentage of individuals vaccinated continues to increase doesn't case rate at some point That metric, the importance of that start to lower. I mean we know what we would still have the cases but the reason why we're getting vaccinated is so that the disease won't be as debilitating. So if more of us are vaccinated it seems like that case rate could be higher and would have the same effect.

I'm thinking about your comment

Well, if we could just next meeting if we could talk about that. That would be helpful but it just seems like there's some math that would be out there that if you know, if we continue to climb in vaccinated percentage of population that case rate takes on a less Less of importance I guess but that's that's just out there for thought so if you can address at the next meeting, that'd be great

Yes, and we will certainly come back and provide a detailed explanation about the case rate and the importance of that in our indoor masking mandate. But I noticed that Dr. Ansorg wishes to make comments.

If I may, I just wanted to compare us with the rest of the counties in California and 95% of the population in California is currently still under an indoor masking mandate. The only county that was able to lift it was Marin County as of last week. They have the lowest case rate in the state and they have by far the highest vaccination rate Now, 79 or almost 80% vaccination rate of the eligible population does not take into account the non-eligible population which is a substantial number of potential susceptible people. So as soon as the CDC gives an okay for children under between 5 and 11 our I would like to start by saying that our eligible population will go up by 10% and therefore the vaccination rate will go down by 10%. So it is probably with regard to how widespread the virus is still in the community, and how much susceptibility there's in the community.

Not the eligible people vaccinated, but the total population. Because if that's 60%, then we have 40% who may still be very susceptible and that is concerning. And the case rate has proven to The easiest indicator behind the case rate, obviously we're looking at hospitalization. We are looking at variants that are circulating and and we're looking at trends and we are calculating on a weekly basis they are effective and Every county in California is doing the same thing, and that is the reasoning behind the indoor masking mandate.

So you are right in that if the higher the vaccination rate is, the more prudent it would be to lift the indoor masking mandate. I agree with that. So I hope that helps explain a little bit more.

It does, I believe and so it's going to serve as heart and then I've got one

follow up on that too is so if we're gonna if we lump in those that are and I understand the thought behind that of folks that aren't eligible to be vaccinated do we ever lump in those that may not have been vaccinated but that have actually had The disease so that they have built up immunities.

We are, but unfortunately we can only use estimates there So everybody who has been vaccinated is documented in, you know electronically. So we have an exact number of people who are vaccinated but we do not have an exact number of persons who recovered from COVID infection so we have to go by estimates there but we do take it into account and In the future, I can foresee that we will have reliable measurements in place that will be more definitive about the immunity of people who had infection and recovery.

Because I'm just me doing my own math in my head. So if we have almost 79% of eligible people vaccinated, which is outstanding and then I don't know what you know if your estimate it how many of the other 20% have actually had it? I'm curious who's so out of that let's say that's another 10%. So out of that remaining 10%, that's where we're getting all of the hospitalizations Is that correct? I mean, I'm just trying to figure out at what point.

The math is a little off because we cannot go with the 79% of the eligible population. We have to go by the population at large, and then we would have 40% unvaccinated. And even if we consider that out of these 40%, maybe 10 or 15% have natural immunity, then we still have a significant amount of persons who are at risk for infection. And that is a pool that is that large, around 100,000 people for sure. And if they are not adhering to public health procedures like we have then the virus, the case rates will just go up.

I thought it might be helpful to look at Marin County's vaccination rates just to compare to our county and it is pretty astonishing. In Marin County of the total population 87% of Marin residents have received one dose, excuse me 87%, 81% have completed the series. But of the eligible population, 98% of the population has received one dose and 94% have completed the series. So there is a very high vaccination rate in Marin. And their case count as Dr. Anzor said I think their blended rate is in that 6 per 100,000 rate.

So we have ways to go.

Supervisor Williams?

Yeah and I'll just say for those who advocated Integrate those that have been already infected in our calculation. I can tell you from my conversations with doctor answer he has been thinking about that the whole time it is just simply that we still need to get higher levels of vaccination to have anything close to real herd immunity, particularly given the fact that some other areas that get colder than Earlier than we do are already experiencing signs of yet another search. So look, I don't think we should always invoke disaster but it does lead us to need to believe that we still need to get higher levels of vaccination in preparation for what may come.

Thank you, Supervisor Williams.

Okay, so I'll play a little bit of devil's advocate here and that

that.

I think you're at the point now where you've vaccinated almost everybody that's going to get vaccinated right? I mean, I don't know how much more outreach. I don t know anybody out there. That's like hey man. I haven't heard of this vaccination We're going to at some point you can only get so many people vaccinated even Marin for where they are. They're not at 100% and you said that their case rate is basically it's sick, so they're barely able to withdraw the mask.

So I guess my question is. If we don't see, I mean if we if we don't get to this 80, I mean 90% that Marin has and even Marin barely qualifies to get off the mask mandate. And now we're gonna add all these kids that we're gonna start counting as eligible, they haven't received the vaccine. I'm just trying to figure out like are we talking another year with masks? Another two years with mask? We have to tell people at some point is this really still an emergency? Are we overloading our hospitals and I understand getting through the winter time your holiday season you're talking about but We got to give people something, a goal of some sort. And I guess to me the goal was at some point it was 70% getting people vaccinated then it was 80% getting people vaccinated.

And I'm just trying to figure out, and I guess now it's six. The case rate is six. That's the goal. I don't know how to talk to people about how we get there. It seems like, I dunno, it's just really difficult at this point because I'm starting to feel the dial down of the emergency but I don' feel a dial-down of how we're dealing with it.

Thank you, Supervisor Labenino. Yeah, I have something to piggyback on that. The marines taking off their mask they're not below 6 there in sixes. That's because they're following the CDC guidelines which means below seven or 50 cases for a week and so You know, for the numbers you look at our four-day lag if we actually have 21 on the next lag will actually be at that number here locally. So I mean it I think you know the disease is getting close to being manageable and I think that's what the idea here is. I think it seems like herd immunity is off the table nobody's necessarily talking about that this is something that can be with us indefinitely And, you know, a lot of our cases are asymptomatic or mild. Our hospitalizations I heard critical but I don't think Every hospital always says it's critical.

Our numbers are significantly lower, we're not overtaxing that. More of their issues is with staffing than with hospital beds so can you maybe for the next meeting outline to us because we need to move on to some other items why our county needs to have a different level than what has been approved by the CDC? I think that's really important so CEO Miyasato.

Chair Nielsen, we were planning to bring this back as another A item. Would you like a discussion item so public health can address those questions or would you like it just to put it in the staff report?

Let's go ahead and probably move it to a departmental item so that we can have the discussion. It sounds like there is enough interest in it that we may need Again, let the air out of the balloon a little bit on some of these issues that are coming to our head.

And again your focus is on different criteria for removing the mask mandate.

Right. Yes.

Thank you.

Ms. Van Molen?

Mr. Chair, thank you. I just wanted to, just looking at provisions of the Brown Act and I wanted to come back to limitations on public comment so as I said before we are required to have public comment on every item and it is limited to items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board The board does have the ability to adopt reasonable regulations, which includes an amount of time.

But this is a piece I really wanted to point out is that the legislative body shall not prohibit public criticism on policies, procedures, programs, services of the agency or the acts or omissions of the legislative body. And when the Attorney General looked at this, balancing the government code provisions in the Brown Act with freedom of speech protections was analyzed as a limited public forum. Which means that public comment may properly be limited to the topics within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body and that you may prohibit members of the public who are speaking on items that are outside of that.

And just to get back to my explanation as I'm giving, I feel like a wide latitude on COVID in exchange for that item coming up again later on in the general public comment. I've asked public commenters to stick to one or the other and that's how I hope to continue to move our meetings forward. All right seeing no additional comments on this or public comment can I get a motion to approve Item A-5

So moved.

Second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously all right next item up is item number A6 Madam Clerk will you please read that in the record it's been pulled by Supervisor Hartman

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number six is from general services and community services. It is to consider recommendations regarding an option to purchase and proceed with the acquisition of the property located at 6549 El Colegio Road for Housing Navigation Services in the operation of an emergency shelter, folio number 003993.

Thank you. Supervisor Hartman?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to call attention to a major accomplishment for our county and community. This purchase had to take place by the end of December. It's happening two months ahead of schedule and so I just want to recognize the efforts of General Services Not only did they do this, but they were able to renovate the building so that people from the Pallett Village could take up residence there. We had an opportunity my staff last week to tour the facility And it's a really wonderfully run facility that's perfect for the purpose and Good Samaritan is doing a tremendous job. We had the good fortune of meeting someone who had lived in the parks, moved to the Pallett And now has a job there and really turned his life around so we're so proud To be part of that.

It really it really works, and it's worth the investment and thank you everyone Who's who's helped make this happen?

Thank You Sure sir Hartman is there any public comment on this item

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no request to speak from the public on this item.

Seeing no further discussion can I get a motion to pass approve Item A-6?

So moved.

Seconded by Supervisor Lavigneaux. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Alright our final item is Item A22.

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number 22 is from the County Executive Office. It is to consider recommendations regarding the appointment of the Director of Behavioral Wellness. Can I just have a quick announcement to make on this item this morning? As required by Government Code Section 54953C3 during Administrative Agenda Item Number 22, the Board is agendized to consider the appointment of the Director of Behavior Wellness with a bi-weekly pay rate of $8,432.64 plus other benefits consistent with those received by other Santa Barbara County Department Heads effective December 13th, 2021. That concludes my announcement on this item.

All right thank you Madam Clerk can I get a motion to approve this item?

So moved. Seconded.

Seconded by Sue Rezlavanino all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. All right, that concludes our administrative agenda. Our next item is our general public comment. Madam Clerk do we have members of the general public available for comment today?

Chair Nelson and members of the board yes we have three requests to speak on general public comment this morning. We're going to begin in person here in Santa Barbara with Caroline Abate to be followed by Ori Biwanag and then we will go to Zoom with Maria Kessner.